Dreyfus examines the central ideas of Dharmakīrti, one of the most important Indian Buddhist philosophers, and their reception among Tibetan thinkers. During the golden age of ancient Indian civilization, Dharmakīrti articulated and defended Buddhist philosophical principles. He did so more systematically than anyone before his time (the seventh century CE) and was followed by a rich tradition of profound thinkers in India and Tibet. This work presents a detailed picture of this Buddhist tradition and its relevance to the history (...) of human ideas. Its perspective is mostly philosophical, but it also uses historical considerations as they relate to the evolution of ideas. (shrink)

The doctrine of the two truths - a conventional truth and an ultimate truth - is central to Buddhist metaphysics and epistemology. The two truths (or two realities), the distinction between them, and the relation between them is understood variously in different Buddhist schools; it is of special importance to the Madhyamaka school. One theory is articulated with particular force by Nagarjuna (2nd ct CE) who famously claims that the two truths are identical to one another and yet distinct. One (...) of the most influential interpretations of Nagarjuna's difficult doctrine derives from the commentary of Candrakirti (6th ct CE). In view of its special soteriological role, much attention has been devoted to explaining the nature of the ultimate truth; less, however, has been paid to understanding the nature of conventional truth, which is often described as "deceptive," "illusion," or "truth for fools." But because of the close relation between the two truths in Madhyamaka, conventional truth also demands analysis. Moonshadows, the product of years of collaboration by ten cowherds engaged in Philosophy and Buddhist Studies, provides this analysis. The book asks, "what is true about conventional truth?" and "what are the implications of an understanding of conventional truth for our lives?" Moonshadows begins with a philosophical exploration of classical Indian and Tibetan texts articulating Candrakati's view, and uses this textual exploration as a basis for a more systematic philosophical consideration of the issues raised by his account. (shrink)

This essay critiques the standard characterization of mindfulness as present-centred non-judgmental awareness, arguing that this account misses some of the central features of mindfulness as described by classical Buddhist accounts, which present mindfulness as being relevant to the past as well as to the present. I show that for these sources the central feature of mindfulness is not its present focus but its capacity to hold its object and thus allow for sustained attention, regardless of whether the object is present (...) or not. I further show that for these sources mindfulness can be explicitly evaluative, thus demonstrating the degree to which classical Buddhist accounts differ from the modern description of mindfulness as non-judgmental. I conclude that although this modern description may be useful as an operational definition intended for practical instruction, it does not provide an adequate basis for a theoretical analysis of mindfulness, for it fails to emphasize its retentive nature to privilege its alleged nonconceptuality. (shrink)

This paper examines the work of Nāgārjuna as interpreted by later Madhyamaka tradition, including the Tibetan Buddhist Tsongkhapa (1357–1419). It situates Madhyamaka skepticism in the context of Buddhist philosophy, Indian philosophy more generally, and Western equivalents. Find it broadly akin to Pyrrhonism, it argues that Madhyamaka skepticism still differs from its Greek equivalents in fundamental methodologies. Focusing on key hermeneutical principles like the two truths and those motivating the Svātantrika/Prāsaṅgika schism (i.e., whether followers of Nāgārjuna should offer positive arguments or (...) should proceed on a purely “negative” basis), it argues that the Svātantrika commitment to mere conventional practice is robust and allows for a skepticism consistent with the scientific practices we must take seriously in the modern world. These findings are put forth as an illustration of what the Western tradition might gain by better understanding of non-Western philosophy. (shrink)

One of the persistent debates that has animated thinkers concerns the nature of consciousness. Is it merely an epiphenomenon that can be reduced to matter or does it belong to a different ontological domain? In recent times, this question has been reformulated as the hard problem of how material brain states can give rise to the mental states that we seem to experience. One of the answers to the hard problem has been to deflate the question and simply deny that (...) there is a problem. This chapter argues that this approach often associated with Dennett and embraced by Siderits is problematic within the framework of Buddhist philosophy given the latter’s strong insistence on observing how things appear to the mind. This essay further argues that Buddhism offers resources to deal with the hard problem through the Madhyamaka philosophy, which argues that it does not make sense to think how things are and that we should be content to deal with how things appear. In this perspective, the task of explaining consciousness is neither to eliminate appearances à la Dennett nor to discover what the mind really is in itself, but to learn how to correlate better the various appearances though which the mental is given (the first and third person perspectives). In this way, the hard problem ceases to be a mystery and becomes an object of scientific inquiry that relies on the ever tighter observation of the neuro-phenomenological correlation between first and third person perspectives. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the mode of operation and aim of debates in the Tibetan Buddhist traditions. I contrast the probative form of argument that was privileged by the Indian tradition to the more agonic practice favored by Tibetan scholastics. I also examine the rules that preside over this dialectical practice, which is seen by the Tibetan tradition as essential to a proper scholastic education. I argue, however, that the practice of debates cannot be reduced to this dialectical model, (...) for it has an important performative aspect not easily encompassed by the rules. I examine this aspect of Tibetan debates, focusing particularly on the role of humor. I conclude with a few remarks on the type of rationality entailed by the importance of humor and of other rhetorical elements involved in Tibetan debates. (shrink)

This chapter examines Indian views of the mind and consciousness, with particular focus on the Indian Buddhist tradition. To contextualize Buddhist views of the mind, we first provide a brief presentation of some of the most important Hindu views, particularly those of the S¯am . khya school. Whereas..

Hubert L. Dreyfus's engagement with other thinkers has always been driven by his desire to understand certain basic questions about ourselves and our world. The philosophers on whom his teaching and research have focused are those whose work seems to him to make a difference to the world. The essays in this volume reflect this desire to "make a difference"—not just in the world of academic philosophy, but in the broader world. Dreyfus has helped to create a culture (...) of reflection—of questioning the deep premises that inform and shape work in artificial intelligence and cognitive science. He has also been the primary introducer and interpreter of Martin Heidegger's work to the world of information technology. The essays in this volume represent the fruitful application of deep philosophical analysis to the concerns of our modern technological world. The sections are Coping and Intentionality; Computers and Cognitive Science; and "Applied Heidegger." In addition to cognitive science and artificial intelligence, topics include everyday skills, religion, business practices, and medical care. The book concludes with Dreyfus's responses to the essays. Contributors Daniel Andler, Patricia Benner, Albert Borgmann, Harry Collins, George Downing, Fernando Flores, Sean Kelly, Joseph Rouse, Theodore R. Schatzki, John Searle, Robert C. Solomon, Charles Spinosa, David Stern, Charles Taylor, Terry Winograd, Mark Wrathall. (shrink)

Hubert L. Dreyfus's engagement with other thinkers has always been driven by his desire to understand certain basic questions about ourselves and our world. The philosophers on whom his teaching and research have focused are those whose work seems to him to make a difference to the world. The essays in this volume reflect this desire to "make a difference"--not just in the world of academic philosophy, but in the broader world.Dreyfus has helped to create a culture of (...) reflection--of questioning the deep premises that inform and shape work in artificial intelligence and cognitive science. He has also been the primary introducer and interpreter of Martin Heidegger's work to the world of information technology. The essays in this volume represent the fruitful application of deep philosophical analysis to the concerns of our modern technological world.The sections are Coping and Intentionality; Computers and Cognitive Science; and "Applied Heidegger." In addition to cognitive science and artificial intelligence, topics include everyday skills, religion, business practices, and medical care. The book concludes with Dreyfus's responses to the essays.Contributors : Daniel Andler, Patricia Benner, Albert Borgmann, Harry Collins, George Downing, Fernando Flores, Sean Kelly, Joseph Rouse, Theodore R. Schatzki, John Searle, Robert C. Solomon, Charles Spinosa, David Stern, Charles Taylor, Terry Winograd, Mark Wrathall. (shrink)

TRANSLATORS PREFACE THE PRESENT TRANSLATION OF GEORG SIMMEL'S Schopen- hauer und Nietzsche: Ein Vortragszyklus (1907), ...

Against Davidsonian (or deflationary) realism, it is argued that it is coherent to believe that science can in principle give us access to the functional components of the universe as they are in themselves in distinction from how they appear to us on the basis of our quotidian concerns or sensory capacities. The first section presents the deflationary realist's argument against independence. The second section then shows that, although Heidegger pioneered the deflationary realist account of the everyday, he sought to (...) establish a robust realist account of science. Next, the third section develops two different sides of Heidegger's thinking. Resources developed by Thomas Kuhn are drawn on to work out Heidegger's account of plural worlds. This argument shows that it makes sense to talk about things-in-themselves independent of our practices, but falls short of the robust realist claim that we can have access to things as they are in themselves independent of our practices. So, secondly, Saul Kripke's account of rigid designation is drawn on to work out Heidegger's account of formal designation. On the basis of a Heideggerian elaboration of rigid designation, it is argued that we do indeed have practices for achieving access to things independent of all our practices. But this second argument leaves us unable to reject metaphysical nominalism. So, thirdly, it is proposed that the currently most persuasive philosophical argument for nominalism depends on a logico-mathematical space of possibilities. But the proto-theoretical space opened by the pre-scientific access practices has features that provide reasons for believing that the independent stuff to which we have access has a determinate structure and specific causal powers. (shrink)

The description for this book, Desert, will be forthcoming.

The ‘extended mind’ thesis asserts that cognitive processes are not bound by the skull or even skin of biological individuals, but actively incorporate environmental structures such as symbols, tools, artifacts, media, cultural practices, norms, groups, or institutions. By distributing cognition across space, time, and people in canny ways, we circumvent or overcome the biological limitations of our brains. Human beings are creative, albeit opportunistic experts in cognitive ‘self-transcendence.’ This entry surveys discussions of EM in philosophy of mind and cognitive science (...) which point to this overarching theme. (shrink)

What drives much of the current philosophical interest in the idea of group cognition is its appeal to the manifestation of psychological properties—understood broadly to include states, processes, and dispositions—that are in some important yet elusive sense emergent with respect to the minds of individual group members. Our goal in this paper is to address a set of related, conditional questions: If human mentality is real yet emergent in a modest metaphysical sense only, then: (i) What would it mean for (...) a group to have emergent cognitive states? (ii) Is this even a metaphysically coherent view? (iii) Relative to which notion of emergence do we have reason to believe that certain groups in fact have emergent cognitive states? We shall argue that evidence from a wide variety of social science domains makes it plausible that there are group cognitive states and processes no less metaphysically emergent than human cognitive (and other special science) states and processes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:278 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY What a revolution the past century has made in both the general idea of morality andin the practical attitudes of "moral sense"l The political and moral earthquakes that have cracked the solid ground of Wayland's "moral law" and "didactic" complacency have blown us all into a space whose air may be purer but whose endless visibility into the dark void is less assuring. HERBERT W. (...) SCHNEIDER Claremont, California Le Pluralisme Dramatique de Georges Sorel. By Georges Goriely. (Paris: Marcel Rivi~re et Cie, 1962. 244 pp. Price not given.) Professor Georges Goriely of the Free University of Brussels has made one more valiant attempt to rescue Sorel the thinker from the reputation fastened upon him by the title of his Rdflexions sur la Violence in 1906. For most readers he has been the author of that one book, which is seldom read in the light of his other works. It is significant that Goriely reaches it only upon his page 199, barely twenty pages before his study terminates. Also worthy of note is the fact that of the over one hundred critical books and articles about Sorel which are listed in his bibliography, only two are in English: Richard Humphrey's Georges Sorel: Prophet Without Honor (1954) and James M. Meisel's The Genesis of Georges Sorel (1951). In European discussions Sorel frequently shares the company of such names as Croce, Bergson, and Nietzsche. But in the Anglo-Saxon world he has had in general a bad press, or none at all. A far-from-systematic philosopher, his writings, most of them originally articles composed in the heat of European controversies, have seemed remote from transatIantic concerns. He has been reputed "the father of syndicalism" in a country where the adjective most often applied to syndicalism is "criminal." When Mussolini proclaimed at one time that the R~flexions was his favorite bedside book, Sorel seemed to add the paternity of Fascism to his list. All that was needed to complete his damnation by labels was the dread word "anti-intellectual," and that has been freely applied to him. Nevertheless, Professor Goriely finds it possible to take Sorel's ideas seriously, quite apart from the political misuses which have been made of them. He sees that Sorel was primarily a pragmatic moralist immersed in his times and intent upon finding some way to bring about a European ricorso, a rejuvenation of classic republican ethics. At the turn of the century he saw only mediocrity and decadence: democracy had become demagogy, and industrial capitalism a mess of corruption. Sorel's great search was for a moral lever, for something dynamic, some source of energy in men which could be tapped in order to restore virtue and dignity and morale in the common man. Being imbued with historical relativism, and played upon by vigorous and contradictory influences (Vico, Marx, Bergson, Nietzsche, P~guy), Sorel steadily revised his views. It is that fact which gives his contradiction-filled philosophy the character of a "dramatic pluralism." Of one thing, however, Sorel was always convinced: intellect alone could not re-invigorate European ethics. The feelings must be stirred by something which, as early as 1894, he called a "myth." He had no use for rationally planned utopias operated by savants in the manner of Saint-Simon or Comte (whom he constantly attacked). He groped for a moving, even an "infinite" goal to be generated from history by the creative activity of men, such as the famous "general strike." A Norman like Alexis de Tocqueville, his roots were in a mixed liberal-republican aristocracy on the classic model, calling for large numbers of "social heroes" adapted to the industrial age. This r corps has nothing in common with the BOOK REVIEWS 279 shirted gangsters of the totalitarian regimes. Only gradually did Sorel come to seek his paragons of virtue among the proletariat, partly because of his disillusionment with Jean Jaur~s over the Dreyfus case. Sorel had been one of the first to champion Dreyfus, but felt that demagogues had transformed the latter's cause into a new dogmatism and a new establishment. Sorel was genuinely concerned about some of the... (shrink)

Dans la première préface à sa thèse Folie et déraison, Foucault remercie trois hommes qu’il considérait comme ses maîtres et qui ont considérablement influencé son travail. Ainsi, dans sa conférence inaugurale au Collège de France en décembre 1970, ces mêmes noms sont invoqués par Foucault : Georges Canguilhem, Georges Dumézil et Jean Hyppolite. Le rapport de ces trois figures, considérées individuellement, à Foucault a été sujet de discussions plus ou moins détaillées. Cet article explore les affinités intellectuelles et les tensions (...) entre ces trois intellectuels. Canguilhem et Hyppolite avaient été contemporains à l’École Normale Supérieure dans les années 1920, et, des années après, collègues à l’Université de Strasbourg. Notamment, en 1965, ils participent à l’entretien télévisé médié par Alain Badiou et Dina Dreyfus. Même si Dumézil et Hyppolite avaient été collègues au Collège de France, ils n’ont pas discuté les travails l’un de l’autre. Dumézil, il semble, n’a pas discuté le travail de Canguilhem ; ce dernier, en revanche, a considéré soit l’œuvre de Dumézil que celle d’Hyppolite. Cet article analyse le compte rendu de Les mots et les choses par Canguilhem, où il signale l’importance de Dumézil pour le livre de Foucault ; et un rapport d’un séminaire très peu connu, qui a eu lieu dans l’automne 1970, dont Foucault discute les travaux de Dumézil et Canguilhem répondit. L’article donc considère la lecture d’Hyppolite par Canguilhem dans son texte « Hegel en France », et dans les hommages qu’il a écrit à son ami et collègue, après la mort d’Hyppolite en 1968. Une analyse de la lecture de Canguilhem de ses deux contemporains nous aide à mieux situer Canguilhem dans le contexte des débats intellectuels de la première moitié du XX e siècle. (shrink)

Benjamin Franklin famously wrote that “the good [that] men do separately is small compared with what they may do collectively” (Isaacson 2004). The ability to join with others in groups to accomplish goals collectively that would hopelessly overwhelm the time, energy, and resources of individuals is indeed one of the greatest assets of our species. In the history of humankind, groups have been among the greatest workers, builders, producers, protectors, entertainers, explorers, discoverers, planners, problem-solvers, and decision-makers. During the late 19th (...) and early 20th century, many social scientists employed the notorious “group mind” idiom to express the sensible idea that groups can function as the seats of cognition, intelligence, and agency in their own right (Allport 1968; Wilson 2004). In their quest to stress (rightly) that group phenomena are something “over and above” the sum of individual contributions, a fondness for vitalist metaphors led them to believe (wrongly) that genuine group cognition must be the result of tapping into individualistically inaccessible, “holistic” forces. Today, inspired in part by historically unparalleled forms of mass collaboration enabled by the internet, it has once again become popular to speak of collective intelligence, group agency, or even the emergence of a “global brain” (cf. the wiki-edited MIT Handbook of Collective Intelligence). -/- In this chapter, I review some contemporary developments of the idea of group cognition, defined broadly as the collaborative performance of cognitive tasks such as remembering, problem-solving, decision-making, or verbal creativity for the purpose of producing a group-level outcome. My discussion serves a two-fold purpose. First, by discussing how the idea of group cognition can be operationalized, I seek to show that we can retain some central theoretical insights of the “group mind” thesis without succumbing to its eccentric metaphysical overtones. Second, by providing a useful array of generalizable taxonomic resources, I hope to foster greater degrees of mutual awareness among insufficiently integrated areas of research on group performance. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Georges Sorel's Study on Vico is a revelatory document of the depths and stakes of French social thought at the end of the 19th century. What brought Sorel to the 18th century Neapolitan theorist of history? Acute awareness of the limitations of Marxist thought in his day, a profound concern with the material underpinnings of language, law, and culture, and the imperative to understand the possibilities of revolutionary change. We find here a different Sorel, one who speaks in surprising ways (...) to the 21st century. The translation is accompanied by an introduction and by a set of notes which situate the text both in Sorel's overall intellectual trajectory and in the fin de siècle debates from which it emerged. (shrink)

This book will examine paradoxes in diverse areas of thought: philosophy, mathematics, physics, economics, political science, psychology, computer science, logic, statistics, linguistics, law, etc. Though the treatment of each paradox is rigorous, the book will be written accessibly with a lighthearted and humorous tone so as to keep the reader engaged. Each chapter will focus on a single paradox, structured roughly like so: 1. A question is asked in the context of a story. As an answer, the paradox is presented (...) (which often results in an aha moment). The historical background of the paradox is recounted. 2. The dénouement explains how the paradox is resolved or why there is no resolution. 3. The chapter ends with further remarks, usually contemporary real-world examples or applications of said paradox. Some examples of the paradoxes covered are the Axiom of Choice (Mathematics), Monty Hall Problem (Statistics), Morgenbesser's Paradox (Linguistics), Tea Leaves Paradox (Physics), The Ultimatum Game (Economics), and The Chicken or Egg Question (Evolution). (shrink)

Unveils the profound influence of medieval Islamic philosophy on the thought of Leo Strauss.

This paper concerns Carnap’s early contributions to formal semantics in his work on general axiomatics between 1928 and 1936. Its main focus is on whether he held a variable domain conception of models. I argue that interpreting Carnap’s account in terms of a fixed domain approach fails to describe his premodern understanding of formal models. By drawing attention to the second part of Carnap’s unpublished manuscript Untersuchungen zur allgemeinen Axiomatik, an alternative interpretation of the notions ‘model’, ‘model extension’ and ‘submodel’ (...) in his theory of axiomatics is presented. Specifically, it is shown that Carnap’s early model theory is based on a convention to simulate domain variation that is not identical but logically comparable to the modern account. (shrink)

Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit is one of the most influential texts in the history of modern philosophy. In it, Hegel proposed an arresting and novel picture of the relation of mind to world and of people to each other. Like Kant before him, Hegel offered up a systematic account of the nature of knowledge, the influence of society and history on claims to knowledge, and the social character of human agency itself. A bold new understanding of what, after Hegel, (...) came to be called 'subjectivity' arose from this work, and it was instrumental in the formation of later philosophies, such as existentialism, Marxism, and American pragmatism, each of which reacted to Hegel's radical claims in different ways. This edition offers a new translation, an introduction, and glossaries to assist readers' understanding of this central text, and will be essential for scholars and students of Hegel. (shrink)

Reflections by leading Latin American and African American philosophers on their identity within the field of philosophy.

How do we evaluate the power and utility of language when it has been made to articulate falsehoods in certain totalitarian regimes or has been charged with vulgarity and imprecision in a mass-consumer democracy? How will language react to the increasingly urgent claims of more exact speech such as mathematics and symbolic notation? These are some of the questions Steiner addresses in this elegantly written book, first published in 1967 to international acclaim.

In the light of two unpublished letters from Carnap to Kuhn, this essay examines the relationship between Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and Carnap's philosophical views. Contrary to the common wisdom that Kuhn's book refuted logical empiricism, it argues that Carnap's views of revolutionary scientific change are rather similar to those detailed by Kuhn. This serves both to explain Carnap's appreciation of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions and to suggest that logical empiricism, insofar as that program rested on Carnap's (...) shoulders, was not substantially upstaged by Kuhn's book. (shrink)

Critical thinking and arguments -- What makes a good argument? -- Premises and conclusions -- Language -- Propositional arguments -- Categorical arguments -- Analogical arguments -- Statistical arguments -- Causal arguments -- Moral arguments -- Answers to selected exercises -- Reference guide.

A Critique of Artificial Reason Hubert L. Dreyfus . HUBERT L. DREYFUS What Computers Still Can't Do Thi s One XZKQ-GSY-8KDG What. WHAT COMPUTERS STILL CAN'T DO Front Cover.