Glenn Alexander Magee's controversial book argues that Hegel was decisively influenced by the Hermetic tradition, a body of thought with roots in Greco-Roman ...

Mysticism and esotericism are two intimately related strands of the Western tradition. Despite their close connections, however, scholars tend to treat them separately. Whereas the study of Western mysticism enjoys a long and established history, Western esotericism is a young field. The Cambridge Handbook of Western Mysticism and Esotericism examines both of these traditions together. The volume demonstrates that the roots of esotericism almost always lead back to mystical traditions, while the work of mystics was bound up with esoteric or (...) occult preoccupations. It also shows why mysticism and esotericism must be examined together if either is to be understood fully. Including contributions by leading scholars, this volume features essays on such topics as alchemy, astrology, magic, Neoplatonism, Kabbalism, Renaissance Hermetism, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, numerology, Christian theosophy, spiritualism, and much more. This handbook serves as both a capstone of contemporary scholarship and a cornerstone of future research. (shrink)

On Thursday and Friday, April 8-9, 1993, the University of Georgia in Athens served as the host for a conference on the topic, “Hegel and Modernity.” The conference was organized by Glenn A. Magee with the help of Richard Dien Winfield and Gregory R. Johnson, and was sponsored by the University of Georgia chapter of Phi Sigma Tau, the Department of Philosophy, and the College of Arts and Sciences.

A contribution to the sixth installment of the Common Knowledge symposium “Apology for Quietism,” this article argues that a strong strain of quietism runs through German intellectual history, from medieval mystics such as Eckhart to the main line of modern philosophers, including Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger. Magee treats each of these in turn, establishing case by case that the relation of the individual to the universal is the central issue of German thought, as it is (...) of quietist thinking generally. The identity of the universal varies; sometimes it is said to be God, sometimes the moral law, and sometimes reason (whether human reason or an objective reason inherent in the nature of the world). The process of grappling with how human beings must orient themselves toward the universal very often issues in conclusions that are quietistic: we are enjoined to acquiesce to the universal, and to accept the world as its manifestation. And such, Magee argues, is the case throughout the mainstream German intellectual tradition. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Architectonic, Truth, and RhetoricGlenn Alexander MageeScientists, we are often told, employ "aesthetic criteria" in their work: a scientific theory must be "simple" and "elegant" if it is to be a good candidate for truth.1 Is this also true of philosophers? Do philosophers rely (implicitly or explicitly) on aesthetic criteria in the development of their ideas, not simply in order to make their ideas accessible or palatable but also as (...) a guide to truth? This question bears on the relationship between art and philosophy, between art and truth, and between beauty and truth. If the answer is yes, then is there a point at which the line between art and philosophy becomes blurred? This is often claimed, though almost always in reference to the way in which philosophers use metaphor and rhetoric to express their ideas. However, I am suggesting in addition that the line may be blurred not just in the expression of their ideas but in the very form or structure they give to their philosophies. This aesthetic moment is not dispensable. On the contrary, philosophers make their thought into an aesthetic object because of a tacit, pre-reflective intuition that the beautiful is the true. In what follows, I will argue for this thesis and explore its implications.I.First of all, the philosophers I have in mind are philosophers in the classic sense: creators of systematic worldviews, those who aim at knowledge of the whole. I have in mind, therefore, thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, [End Page 59] Aquinas, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Schelling, and Hegel, among others. All these thinkers are alike in that they do not approach philosophy piecemeal, as a set of disconnected "problems." Instead, they take the aim of philosophy to be to give a complete account of what is real. In the introduction to The Phenomenology of Spirit, for instance, Hegel writes that philosophy is "actual cognition of what truly is" (1977, 46). This is a definition one can imagine Plato and Aristotle—indeed almost all of the great philosophers—agreeing with. Philosophical knowledge, in this classical understanding, becomes a whole of ideas in which each element depends on every other and nothing of significance is left out. (Perhaps the best example of such a philosophy is, again, Hegel's.) It is only to "systems" of philosophy that our question about aesthetic criteria in philosophy is applicable,2 for it is only when a number of ideas are taken together into an overall structure and given a fundamental unity that a philosophy can become "beautiful" or "ugly."The Greek word sustema literally means "things which stand together or are made to stand together so as to form a whole" or "a whole compounded of several parts" (Klein 1985, 201). The Greeks applied the word to many things but never, it seems, to thought. Then, as Jacob Klein writes, "from about the year 1600 on there is a sudden and most remarkable shift: book after book appears under titles like 'System of Logic,' 'System of Rhetoric,' 'System of Grammar,' 'System of Theology,' 'System of Ethics and Politics,' 'System of Physics,' 'System of Jurisprudence,' 'System of Astronomy,' of Arithmetic, of Geography, of Medicine and even 'System of Systems' " (1985, 201). According to Klein, systematic philosophy is a response to the peculiar anxiety of modernity expressed so well by Yeats: "Things fall apart"—and we need a philosophical system to put them back together again.The idea of a system of philosophy cannot, however, be dismissed merely as a "modern invention," for it is a legitimate extension of the Greek concept of sustema. The Greek philosophers would not have reflected on their activity as "systematic" because they regarded themselves as describing a reality that was itself a sustema. Pressed to explain what philosophers are, Pythagoras, according to legend, compared them to the theoroi or onlookers at the Olympic Games. As Werner Jaeger writes of the legend, "The comparison depends on the ambiguity of the word theorein, which means both watching a spectacle and contemplation and research in the ' theoretical' sense" (1962, 432). Reality is a sustema; the philosopher's account of reality is a reflection of it and thus is itself a sustema... (shrink)

“Esotericism” refers, more or less, to what used to be called “the occult.” It comprises such matters as astrology, alchemy, kabbalism, magic, and theosophy—to name just a few. In other words, it refers to just about everything that came to be marginalized in the modern period as “superstition” and “pseudo-science,” and anathematized by scientists and philosophers. In recent decades, there has been an explosion of scholarly interest in esotericism, partly because of research revealing that many “canonical” scientists and philosophers of (...) the past were strongly interested in these “irrational” currents. The philosophers include Leibniz, Kant, Hegel, Schelling, and Schopenhauer; the scientists include Newton. Such .. (shrink)

"Hegel's debts to ancient philosophy are widely acknowledged by scholars, and by the philosopher himself. Roughly half of his Lectures on the History of Philosophy is devoted to ancient philosophy, and throughout his work Hegel frequently frames his positions in relation to the thinkers and movements of antiquity. This volume presents original essays from leading scholars dealing with Hegel's debts to ancient thinkers, as well as his own, often problematic readings of ancient philosophy. While around half of the chapters discuss (...) Hegel's treatment of Aristotle--a topic that has long been at the forefront of scholarship--the other half explore his relationship to such ancient figures as Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Sextus Empiricus, and the Stoics. The essays challenge a number of longstanding scholarly assumptions regarding, for example, Hegel's denigration of the "mythical," his developmentalist approach to ancient thought, his conception of the state in relation to the Greek polis, his "hermeneutic" of the Platonic dialogues, and his use of Aristotelian concepts in arguments concerning the psyche, the body, and their unity and distinction.?"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

_Dreams of a Spirit-Seer_, Immanuel Kant's book on Emanuel Swedenborg, has mystified readers since its publication in 1766 during Swedenborg's lifetime. The unusual style and content of _Dreams_ have given rise to two opposing interpretations. Most Kant scholars regard the work as a skeptical attack on Swedenborg's mysticism. Other critics, however, believe that Kant regarded Swedenborg as a serious philosopher and visionary, and that _Dreams_ both reveals Kant's profound debt to Swedenborg and coneals that debt behind the mask of irony. (...) In addition, Dr. Gregory R. Johnson provides selections from other Kantian writings that mention Swedenborg and also contemporary reviews of _Dreams_, showing that Kant himself was ambivalent about Swedenborg's claims and that readers of his day questioned his position. With its extensive notes, this work is an invaluable resource for students of Kant and of Swedenborg. (shrink)

Introducing the sixth and final installment of the Common Knowledge symposium “Apology for Quietism,” Allen looks at the symposium retrospectively and concludes that it has mainly concerned “sage knowledge,” defined as foresight into the development of situations. The sagacious knower sees the disposition of things in an early, incipient form and knows how to intervene with nearly effortless and undetectable (quiet) effectiveness. Whatever the circumstance, the sage handles it with finesse, never doing too much but also never leaving anything undone (...) that must be accomplished. Quiet, when it is knowingly and effectively quiet (not pusillanimous or poor in spirit), is about what not to do, how not to approach a problem, what not to decide, what is not known, what will not work. Allen explains these principles in terms of traditional Chinese thought, Daoist and Confucian: wei we wei, or “doing-not-doing,” means effective inaction. What makes such wisdom possible is not mystical insight, he argues, but discipline in a certain kind of art. The sage has no need of reasons (let alone doctrines), only effectiveness; and he does not need truth or justice, only subtlety. The detachment of a quietist has little, if anything, to do with transcending perspectives. Detachment is good as a means to flexibility, and instead of transcending perspectives, a sage is skilled in the quiet art of never getting stuck in one. To be effectively quiet is not so much to be silent as to be inaudible, invisible; the sage “vanishes into things.”. (shrink)

Beginning with the death of Socrates in 399 BC, and following the strand of philosophical inquiry through the centuries to recent figures such as Bertrand Russell and Wittgenstein, Bryan Magee's conversations with fifteen contemporary writers and philosophers provide an accessible and exciting account of Western philosophy and its greatest thinkers. With contributions from A. J. Ayer, Bernard Williams, Martha Nussbaum, Peter Singer, and John Searle, the book is not only an introduction to the philosophers of the past, but gives (...) an invaluable insight into the view and personalities of some of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Modern scientific and medical advances bring new complexity and urgency to ethical issues in health care and biomedical research. This book applies the American philosophical theory of pragmatism to such bioethics. Critics of pragmatism argue that it lacks a universal moral foundation. Yet it is this very lack of a metaphysical dividing line between facts and values that makes pragmatism such a rigorous and appropriate method for solving problems in bioethics. For pragmatism, ethics is a way of satisfying the complex (...) demands of multiple individuals and groups in a contingent and changing world. Pragmatism also demands careful attention to the ways in which scientific advances change our values and ethics.The essays in this book present different approaches to pragmatism and different ways of applying pragmatism to scientific and medical matters. They use pragmatism to guide thinking about such timely topics as stem cell research, human cloning, genetic testing, human enhancement, and care for the poor and aging. This new edition contains three new chapters, on difficulties with applying pragmatism to law and bioethics, on helping people to die, and on embryonic stem cell research. (shrink)

In any field it is common practice for an editor who is sent a book for review to put it into the hands of a reviewer who has published a book on the same subject. The reasons are self—vident: not only does the reviewer have specialist knowledge, he is known by the journal's readers to have it, and is likely therefore to be accepted by them as an authority. However, there are arguments against the practice which, though less often considered, (...) deserve to carry the day more often than they do. The mere fact that the new author has written his bookat all means or ought to mean, that he thinks existing books on the subject leave something to be desiredhypenif he has nothing new to say he should have kept silent. But this in turn means that his book is in conflict with or goes beyond, what his reviewer has published on the same subject, and in that sense contains implicit criticism of the reviewer's work. It is this fact that creates the problem. For if the reviewer lets such elements in the book pass he will appear to readers who know his own work to be either conceding arguments or condoning what he ought to regard as error, while if he praises them he may appear to be recanting his own positions. In the circumstances what he tends to do is come down heavily on those aspects of the book that differ from his own, and criticize them. Thus it comes about that the sub-text of many a hostile review is less an impartial assessment of the author's work than an oblique defence of the reviewer's. To say this is not to impute bad motives to the reviewer: on the contrary, my point is that it is in the logic of the situation. (shrink)

This is a revised and enlarged version of Bryan Magee's widely praised study of Schopenhauer, the most comprehensive book on this great philosopher. It contains a brief biography of Schopenhauer, a systematic exposition of his thought, and a critical discussion of the problems to which it gives rise and of its influence on a wide range of thinkers and artists. For this new edition Magee has added three new chapters and made many minor revisions and corrections throughout. This (...) new edition will consolidate the book's standing as the definitive study of Schopenhauer. (shrink)

Amid the ongoing debate over the proper interpretation of Aristotle's theory of sense perception in the "De Anima," Steven Everson has recently presented a well-documented and ambitious treatment of the issue, arguing in favor of Richard Sorabji's controversial position that sense organs literally take on the qualities of their proper objects. Against the interpretation of M. F. Burnyeat, Everson and others make a compelling case the Aristotelian account of sensation requires some physical process to occur in sense organs. A detailed (...) examination of the interpretation by Everson and Sorabji of Aristotle's theory, however, shows that their reading cannot be the correct one, since it involves many textual and philosophical difficulties. Their interpretation, for instance, would require abandoning Aristotle's requirement that only a transparent substance is suitable matter for an eye. Likewise, their understanding of the Aristotle's doctrine of sensation as the reception of form without matter in "DA 2.12" cannot be reconciled with other texts of his from "On Generation and Corruption." An analysis of these texts, as well as "DA 2.7" and "De Sensu 6" on the roles of light and the transparent medium in vision, show that, for Aristotle, the physical processes which sense organs undergo are not standard qualitative changes (i.e. alterations), but activities or the actualizations of potencies in the material constituents of living animal bodies. (shrink)

Degrees of belief; Dempster's rule of combination; Simple and separable support functions; The weights of evidence; Compatible frames of discernment; Support functions; The discernment of evidence; Quasi support functions; Consonance; Statistical evidence; The dual nature of probable reasoning.

Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic prompted people and institutions to turn to online virtual environments for a wide variety of social gatherings. In this perspectives article, we draw upon our previous work and interviews with Ghanaian Christian leaders to consider implications of this shift. Specifically, we propose that the shift from physical to virtual interactions mimics and amplifies the neoliberal individualist experience of abstraction from place associated with Eurocentric modernity. On the positive side, the shift from physical to virtual environments (...) liberates people to selectively pursue the most fulfilling interactions, free from constraints of physical distance. On the negative side, the move from physical to virtual space necessitates a shift from material care and tangible engagement with the local community to the psychologization of care and pursuit of emotional intimacy in relations of one’s choosing—a dynamic that further marginalizes people who are already on the margins. The disruptions of the pandemic provide an opportunity to re-set social relations, to design ways of being that better promote sustainable collective well-being rather than fleeting personal fulfillment. (shrink)

When we are fatigued, we feel that our performance is worse than when we are fresh. Yet, for over 100 years, researchers have been unable to identify an objective, behavioral measure that covaries with the subjective experience of fatigue. Previous work suggests that the metrics of signal detection theory —response bias and perceptual certainty —may change as a function of fatigue, but no work has yet been done to examine whether these metrics covary with fatigue. Here, we investigated cognitive fatigue (...) using SDT. We induced fatigue through repetitive performance of the n-back working memory task, while functional magnetic resonance imaging data was acquired. We also assessed cognitive fatigue at intervals throughout. This enabled us to assess not only whether criterion and d’ covary with cognitive fatigue but also whether similar patterns of brain activation underlie cognitive fatigue and SDT measures. Our results show that both criterion and d’ were correlated with changes in cognitive fatigue: as fatigue increased, subjects became more conservative in their response bias and their perceptual certainty declined. Furthermore, activation in the striatum of the basal ganglia was also related to cognitive fatigue, criterion, and d’. These results suggest that SDT measures represent an objective measure of cognitive fatigue. Additionally, the overlap and difference in the fMRI results between cognitive fatigue and SDT measures indicate that these measures are related while also separate. In sum, we show the relevance of SDT measures in the understanding of fatigue, thus providing researchers with a new set of tools with which to better understand the nature and consequences of cognitive fatigue. (shrink)

Fake news is a worrying phenomenon which is growing increasingly widespread, partly because of the ease with which it is disseminated online. Combating the spread of fake news requires a clear understanding of the nature of fake news. However, the use of the term in everyday language is heterogenous and has no fixed meaning. Despite increasing philosophical attention to the topic, there is no consensus on the correct definition of “fake news” within philosophy either. This paper aims to bring clarity (...) to the philosophical debate of fake news in two ways: Firstly, by providing an overview of existing philosophical definitions and secondly, by developing a new account of fake news. This paper will identify where there is agreement within the philosophical debate of definitions of “fake news” and isolate four key questions on which there is genuine disagreement. These concern the intentionality underlying fake news, its truth value, the question of whether fake news needs to reach a minimum audience, and the question of whether an account of fake news needs to be dynamic. By answering these four questions, I provide a novel account of defining “fake news”. This new definition hinges upon the fact that fake news has the function of being deliberately misleading about its own status as news. (shrink)

An account of the conflict between our positive and negative emotional relationships to the Earth and how they will be resolved for the Symbiocene, the next period in the history of the Earth.

In this paper, I reinterpret the conflict between rewilders and those who want to preserve traditional agricultural landscapes. By showing that underlying both positions is a common outlook in which nature preservation can be described as a primarily interpretative act geared towards the preservation of meaning by establishing a successful contact with external reality, I hope to refocus the debate away from the current stalemate. Too often, the debate ends in a dispute about what counts as 'real nature'. By interpreting (...) nature preservation - whether it is directed at rewilding or at preserving old agricultural landscapes - as an act that is a response to nature's meanings, we will refocus attention on the real issue underlying preservation: articulating the ways nature is meaningful to us. (shrink)

In this inspirational book Bryan Magee tells the story of his discovery of philosophy, and in doing so introduces the subject to his reader. Experiences of everyday life provide discussion of philosophers and explain why certain philosophical questions persistently exercise our minds. With great fluency Magee untangles philosophy, making it seem part of everyone's life. Intensely personal and brimming with infectious enthusiasm, this is a wonderful introduction to philosophy by one of the most elegant and accessible writers on (...) the subject. (shrink)

I offer a new metacognitive account of the feeling of agency over bodily actions. On this model the feeling of agency is the metacognitive monitoring of two cues: i) smoothness of action: done via monitoring the output of the comparison between actual and predicted sensory consequences of action and ii) action outcome: done via monitoring the outcome of action and its success relative to a prior intention. Previous research has shown that the comparator model offers a powerful explanation of the (...) feeling of agency. However, within the literature there is a growing sense of unease with the model; a consensus seems to be building that the model is not up to the task of explaining all of the new discoveries made regarding the feeling of agency since its inception. Most problematically there are paradigms which deeply challenge the comparator model by suggesting that a weak feeling of agency can be elicited even when no motor prediction is formed. The new account offered here inherits the explanatory power of the comparator model whilst avoiding this problem. (shrink)

This article examines the argument that biodiversity is crucial for well-functioning ecosystems and that such ecosystems provide important goods and services to our human societies, in short the ecosystem services argument (ESA). While the ESA can be a powerful argument for nature preservation, we argue that its dominant functionalist interpretation is confronted with three significant problems. First, the ESA seems unable to preserve the nature it claims to preserve. Second, the ESA cannot explain why those caring about nature want to (...) preserve it. Third, the ESA might undermine its own goal because it potentially decreases environmental motivations. (shrink)