For the sake of clarity and brevity, this chapter uses binary language as regards gender. Chrisjen Avasarala's team is shoving her back into the modern equivalent of the role Aristotle established for women. Aristotle tried to explain why women could not be good politicians. Women were in a subservient position because, at least according to Aristotle, they were, rare to medium. Men were well done, which meant that the “courage of men lies in commanding, a woman's lies in obeying.” Surely (...) the women of the Romantic Era, immortalized so strikingly in paintings such as Frederic Leighton's Flaming June, Edmund Blair Leighton's The Accolade, and Sir John Everett Millais’ Ophelia. At a couple of points, Romantic‐Era philosophy intersects with Avasarala's treatment in The Expanse. (shrink)

Plato had a great deal to say about the nature and function of the soul, much of it inspired by Socrates’ death by hemlock. According to Plato, the body and soul are two separate entities. The soul, Aristotle hypothesized, is a sort of non‐corporeal nervous system that directs sensory perception, movement, and thought, a great blob of form that animates a matter, entirely useless without a vessel to fill. In direct opposition to Plato and Socrates, Aristotle believed the physical and (...) metaphysical comprised an integrated system, and, therefore, the soul could not exist separate from a body. Medieval theologian, and later saint, Thomas Aquinas, really, really tried to tint the stained‐glass windows rose by combining the Platonic and Aristotelian philosophies on the nature of our spiritual guts. Thomas leaned much more heavily on Aristotle than he did on Plato when formulating his own theory of post‐demise, body–soul logistics. (shrink)

On the theory of meaning and reference (semantics) as interpretated by W.V. Quine; a study.

The plan for this volume emerged during the international Leipzig conference commemorating the centenary of the death of Gustav Fechner.