THE mind is the locus of various dispositions, of developed sources and motives of action, which are not mere reflex habits but trained abilities and bents, tendencies, liabilities or inhibitions. Human knowing is more an intending of facts or states of affairs than a relation to them. Knowledge is not a predicamental relation. Consciousness is related to its object not as North Pole to South Pole, nor as container to contained, but as matter to form, and to the physical form (...) of the object of consciousness there corresponds the intentional form of the consciousness itself. To know reality is not to acquire it, grasp it, have it, possess it, contemplate it or dwell in it; it is to be informed by it i.e. intentionally to become it. Knowledge is the form rather than the cause of rational behaviour: technique, method, knack, skill, expertise, know-how, flair, strategic sense, prudence, taste, discretion, caution, judiciousness, decorum, conscientiousness, style, discipline, sagacity, discrimination, wisdom, respect for sense. Such principles operate not by description of nor prescription for, but by incarnation in and information of performance. It is, for instance, man’s respect for sense that is the form of a logically clear expression, and ideas are skills in the use of words. This human capacity and achievement is an intentional becoming, an actuation of the subject, bringing him to act. Yet, properly speaking, it is not action but passion. For knowing is an effect of which reality is the cause, and this causality is not a relation: actio est in passo—not in the agent, nor between the agent and the patient, but in the patient as from the agent, an actuation of the subject in dependence on the object. Of course it may be argued that non datur actio in distans, but far from requiring some intellectual ether, this only means that action and passion are not candidates for the application of spatial or temporal predicates. The known need not be close to the knower. True knowledge is the form of our reason when it is truly about matters of fact. It is not, then, a relation between subject and object, but a knowledge of states of affairs or facts constituted by interrelated objects which, to be known, must comprise some states of affairs of whose constituent objects some, at least, are knowing subjects. Inquiry is related to insight as searching to finding, or as trying to succeeding. Knowing is the second act or actualization of the intellect Thomists regard as second potency, first act, or accidental passive potency. But knowing is not a transitive activity. It is an achievement of intention, not an episode. It is a capacity, disposition, proneness or inclination, in so far as it connotes the abiding possibility of its contents’ polymorphic propositional and non-propositional expression in rational behaviour, which is an effect of knowing as an achievement, though it is also rightly said to be informed by know-how rather than caused by it. The act of self-knowledge consciously intends the self, but the self is intended as known and not as conscious. Thus, though true of consciousness, the distinction between consciously judging and consciously being tickled is not in consciousness but in knowledge of consciousness. Knowledge should be studied not in its products, but in its various expressions, especially in linguistic ones. For words and sentences are the most easily inspected class of things that we think in. (shrink)

THE mind is the locus of various dispositions, of developed sources and motives of action, which are not mere reflex habits but trained abilities and bents, tendencies, liabilities or inhibitions. Human knowing is more an intending of facts or states of affairs than a relation to them. Knowledge is not a predicamental relation. Consciousness is related to its object not as North Pole to South Pole, nor as container to contained, but as matter to form, and to the physical form (...) of the object of consciousness there corresponds the intentional form of the consciousness itself. To know reality is not to acquire it, grasp it, have it, possess it, contemplate it or dwell in it; it is to be informed by it i.e. intentionally to become it. Knowledge is the form rather than the cause of rational behaviour: technique, method, knack, skill, expertise, know-how, flair, strategic sense, prudence, taste, discretion, caution, judiciousness, decorum, conscientiousness, style, discipline, sagacity, discrimination, wisdom, respect for sense. Such principles operate not by description of nor prescription for, but by incarnation in and information of performance. It is, for instance, man’s respect for sense that is the form of a logically clear expression, and ideas are skills in the use of words. This human capacity and achievement is an intentional becoming, an actuation of the subject, bringing him to act. Yet, properly speaking, it is not action but passion. For knowing is an effect of which reality is the cause, and this causality is not a relation: actio est in passo—not in the agent, nor between the agent and the patient, but in the patient as from the agent, an actuation of the subject in dependence on the object. Of course it may be argued that non datur actio in distans, but far from requiring some intellectual ether, this only means that action and passion are not candidates for the application of spatial or temporal predicates. The known need not be close to the knower. True knowledge is the form of our reason when it is truly about matters of fact. It is not, then, a relation between subject and object, but a knowledge of states of affairs or facts constituted by interrelated objects which, to be known, must comprise some states of affairs of whose constituent objects some, at least, are knowing subjects. Inquiry is related to insight as searching to finding, or as trying to succeeding. Knowing is the second act or actualization of the intellect Thomists regard as second potency, first act, or accidental passive potency. But knowing is not a transitive activity. It is an achievement of intention, not an episode. It is a capacity, disposition, proneness or inclination, in so far as it connotes the abiding possibility of its contents’ polymorphic propositional and non-propositional expression in rational behaviour, which is an effect of knowing as an achievement, though it is also rightly said to be informed by know-how rather than caused by it. The act of self-knowledge consciously intends the self, but the self is intended as known and not as conscious. Thus, though true of consciousness, the distinction between consciously judging and consciously being tickled is not in consciousness but in knowledge of consciousness. Knowledge should be studied not in its products, but in its various expressions, especially in linguistic ones. For words and sentences are the most easily inspected class of things that we think in. (shrink)

THE MEANING of a word is in the letters not like fruit in a dish but more like one’s reflection in a mirror. Just as a man sees himself by looking in the mirror rather than at it, so he enjoys insight into possible routes by inspecting the map instead of just glancing at it, and he understands meaning in signs and images. In our experience of living there is the problem of bringing order out of chaos, of taking the (...) ‘1’ out of the world to transform it into a meaningful word. Art is the communication of society, and social dealienation depends on our creating and sustaining symbols of integration great enough to overcome the disintegrative forces of fear and weakness. Hence, man’s quest for the real meaning of words. (shrink)

Common sense assures me I am free and responsible for my actions, but on the other hand it is admitted that my way of acting is determined by temperament, heredity and environmental conditioning. Is man an autonomous centre of consciousness expressing himself in feeling-revealing behaviour, or is ‘man’ a short-hand expression for a bundle of heterogeneous phenomena? Ryle believes that the conceptual geography of ‘I’, ‘you’ and ‘he’ is not yet satisfactorily established. But in his view such mental perplexities are (...) growing pains that merely indicate one is in a healthy state. We are familiar with the concrete, but unsure about the abstract, and it is very rare that we are fully aware of all the logical powers of the expressions that we use. (shrink)

Common sense assures me I am free and responsible for my actions, but on the other hand it is admitted that my way of acting is determined by temperament, heredity and environmental conditioning. Is man an autonomous centre of consciousness expressing himself in feeling-revealing behaviour, or is ‘man’ a short-hand expression for a bundle of heterogeneous phenomena? Ryle believes that the conceptual geography of ‘I’, ‘you’ and ‘he’ is not yet satisfactorily established. But in his view such mental perplexities are (...) growing pains that merely indicate one is in a healthy state. We are familiar with the concrete, but unsure about the abstract, and it is very rare that we are fully aware of all the logical powers of the expressions that we use. (shrink)

Schopenhauer repeatedly claims that suicide is both foolish and futile. But while many commentators have expressed sympathy for his charge of foolishness, most regard his charge of futility as indefensible even within his own system. In this paper, I offer a defense of Schopenhauer’s futility charge, based on metaphysical and psychological considerations. On the metaphysical front, Schopenhauer’s view implies that psychological connections extend beyond death. Drawing on Parfit’s discussion of personal identity, I argue that those connections have personal significance, such (...) that suicide does not allow one, as Hamlet hopes, simply “not to be.” On the psychological front, I argue that a distinction between agents’ intentions and underlying desires makes room for Schopenhauer to claim that paradigmatic suicidal agents ultimately desire the opposite of what suicide accomplishes. I conclude by showing how the resulting account of futility can buttress the charge of foolishness as well. My interpretation still leaves Schopenhauer vulnerable to certain objections, but shows that his account is significantly more defensible than previous commentators have realized. (shrink)

Heeft een miljonair recht op zijn rijkdom? Moeten we zelfs een moordenaar vergeven? En kan een mens ooit zijn lot veranderen? Het hangt allemaal af van ons antwoord op een fundamentele vraag: hebben we een vrije wil? 0Filosofen twijfelen al eeuwen over het antwoord hierop, en sinds decennia roepen biologen en neurologen dat de vrije wil niet bestaat. Ieder jaar stapelt het bewijs tegen de vrije wil zich verder op: we zijn een product van onze genen, van onze geschiedenis en (...) van onze omstandigheden.0Toch laat de vrije wil ons niet los. Deze mythe heeft meer invloed dan ooit? in ons strafrecht, onze economie en onze zoektocht naar geluk. 0Jurriën Hamer denkt verder waar anderen terugdeinzen en stelt de rol van de vrije wil ter discussie. 'Waarom schurken pech hebben en helden geluk' is een confronterend debuut met radicale implicaties voor onze manier van leven - van onze politiek tot onze meest intieme relaties. (shrink)

Taking organs from dead people seems, prima facie, to raise fewer ethical complications than taking organs from other sources. There are, however, serious ethical problems in taking organs from the dead unless there is premortem evidence that this is what the deceased would have wanted, or at least, not have objected to. In this paper we will look at a “strong” opting out policy as proposed by John Harris. We will argue that people can be harmed after their death and (...) that the posthumous removal of organs against their expressed wishes is one form that such harm might take. We also argue that Harris’s claim that we show “equality of concern” between the donor and recipient requires too much. (shrink)

Kierkegaard is often praised for his poetic writing style. Throughout his works, especially his pseudonymous ones, he often breaks from philosophical prose and instead uses extended metaphors, fairy tales, parables, and allegories. This book, which is the first that directly addresses Kierkegaard's parables, argues that they help the reader undergo transformative change. It asks why Kierkegaard uses parables in a broad sense, how they function as a form of indirect communication, why Kierkegaard must remain secretive about the purpose of the (...) parables, and how this secrecy plays an important role in Kierkegaard's authorship. (shrink)

Kant makes a striking reference to Spinoza in the 1788 Critique of Practical Reason. This chapter begins by investigating whether Kant directly concerned himself with Spinoza, focusing on Omri Boehm's recent affirmative argument. Kant thinks the objective principle yields radical metaphysical conclusions only in conjunction with further claims about specific conditioning relations. Kant's privileging of Spinozism among realist views seems generally detached from Spinoza's actual thought. The chapter deals with points of convergence or near‐convergence between Kant and Spinoza. It identifies (...) two philosophically interesting points on which Spinoza's and Kant's views come surprisingly close: their arguments for the limitations of our sensory knowledge and their arguments for the timelessness of the mind. Spinoza's official argument for the timelessness of the mind appeals to his doctrines of the body's eternal essence, the parallel between bodies and ideas, and the identity of the human mind with God's idea of the human body. (shrink)

Colin McGinn presents his latest work on consciousness in ten interlinked papers, four of them previously unpublished. He extends and deepens his controversial solution to the mind-body problem, defending the view that consciousness is both ontologically unproblematic and epistemologically impenetrable. He also investigates the basis of our knowledge that there is a mind-body problem, and the bearing of this on attempted solutions. McGinn goes on to discuss the status of first-person authority, the possibility of atomism with respect to consciousness, (...) extreme dualism, and the role of non-existent objects in constituting intentionality. He argues that traditional claims about our knowledge of our own mind and of the external world can be inverted; that atomism about the conscious mind might turn out to be true; that dualism is more credible the more extreme it is; and that all intentionality involves non-existent objects. These are all surprising positions, but he contends that what the philosophy of mind needs now is 'methodological radicalism' - a willingness to consider new and seemingly extravagant ideas. (shrink)

Presents a self-contained introduction to logic suitable for majors and nonmajors, and can be covered entirely in a one-semester course. Natural deduction systems of sentential logic and of first-order logic, truth tables, and the basic ideas of model theory are presented without superfluous discussion.

Nicolas Malebranche (1638-1715) holds that the senses, imagination, and passions aim at survival and the satisfaction of the body’s needs, rather than truth or the good of the mind. Each of these faculties makes a distinctive and, indeed, an indispensable contribution to the preservation of life. Commentators have largely focused on how the senses keep us alive. By comparison, the imagination and passions have been neglected. In this paper, I reconstruct Malebranche’s account of how the imagination contributes to the preservation (...) of the body by compensating for the limitations of the senses. First, the imagination represents non-actual states of affairs, such as probable or possible future states. Second, the imagination forges new and often helpful associations based on past experiences. Third, the imagination (mis)represents that objects will cause pleasure and pain, thereby imbuing them with emotional significance they would otherwise lack. Together, these features flesh out Malebranche’s view that the imagination is necessary for the preservation of life. (shrink)

Religion and the Rebel, Colin Wilson's second volume from his internationally acclaimed Outsider Cycle, is a casebook about and for rebels. With inspirational wisdom and engaging clarity, Wilson shows us that the purpose of religion, of our personal relationship with the sacred and the all-pervading mystery of existence, is to expand our consciousness and intensify our sense of life. Wilson heroically claims that the power to create meaning resides in our mental and spiritual discipline. Examining the lives and works (...) of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Rilke, Shaw, Pascal, Swedenborg, Rimbaud and Scott Fitzgerald, among others, Wilson explores the main existential questions and shows how these remarkable writers, scientists, philosophers and poets faced their need for transcendence. Like many of us, they were driven by a need to become more than men. Religion and the Rebel is an outstanding and enjoyable book that combines philosophical analysis, historical interest, and religious insight. (shrink)

Since the 1980s, there has been a steady growth of interest in the psychological mechanisms that regulate normal emotional experience. In this same period, cognitive-experimental researchers have sought to delineate the information processing biases that characterize emotional disorders. Exciting potential synergies exist between these two areas of investigation. In this article, we consider ways in which reciprocal benefits could be gained by the constructive transfer of theoretical ideas and methodological approaches between emotion regulation researchers and cognitive-experimental investigators. We also discuss (...) how recent innovations within each field can profitably impact upon progress within the other. It is concluded that the overlap in conceptual constructs, and the convergence of complementary investigative techniques, between these two research domains, provide opportunities for creative synthesis that could significantly enrich understanding of normal and abnormal emotion across future years. (shrink)

How to imagine the imagination is a topic that draws philosophers the way flowers draw honeybees. From Plato and Aristotle to Wittgenstein and Sartre, philosophers have talked and written about this most elusive of topics--that is, until contemporary analytic philosophy of mind developed. Perhaps it is the vast range of the topic that has scared off our contemporaries, ranging as it does from mental images to daydreams. The guiding thread of this book is the distinction Colin McGinn draws between (...) perception and imagination. Clearly, seeing an object is similar in certain respects to forming a mental image of it, but it is also different. McGinn shows what the differences are, arguing that imagination is a sui generis mental faculty. He goes on to discuss the nature of dreaming and madness, contending that these are primarily imaginative phenomena. In the second half of the book McGinn focuses on what he calls cognitive (as opposed to sensory) imagination, and investigates the role of imagination in logical reasoning, belief formation, the understanding of negation and possibility, and the comprehension of meaning. His overall claim is that imagination pervades our mental life, obeys its own distinctive principles, and merits much more attention. (shrink)

Ubuntu as a living spirit of liberation -- Ubuntu for warriors : introduction -- Ubuntu for King Shaka and warriors -- Ubuntu for Nelson Mandela and war -- Ubuntu for Archbishop Tutu and Just War -- Ubuntu for Winnie Madikizela-Mandela and honour -- Ubuntu for Kenneth Kaunda, pacifism and war -- Ubuntu for Steve Biko and the envisioned warrior.

Recent advances in genetic research pose many complex problems for moral and political philosophers. On the one hand, these advances promise great things. Genetic enhancement techniques might allow us to prevent or cure a variety of debilitating diseases. But on the other hand, talk about intervening in people's genetic make-up conjures up memories of the sinister episodes of past eugenic movements. Such movements violated the most basic principles of justice. How can society capitalize on the benefits of genetic intervention and (...) yet avoid the injustices of past eugenic movements? What basic moral principles should guide public policy and individual choice concerning the use of genetic interventions? These important questions are tackled by Allen Buchanan, Dan Brock, Norman Daniels, and Daniel Wikler inFrom Chance to Choice: Genetics and Justice. This book brings together the thoughts of leading scholars in the field and is likely to set the agenda for serious debate on this topic. (shrink)

The concept of opposites is a crucial one at the early elementary level. Learning opposites opens up a reader’s vocabulary and ability to communicate. This colorful volume is a helpful aid for teaching and reviewing opposites, displaying opposite pairs visually next to the accompanying accessible text. Readers are encouraged to identify opposites in their own world, reinforcing these essential ideas in their daily lives.

I offer a major reassessment of Foucault’s philosophico-historical account of the basic problems of modernity. I revise our understanding of Foucault by countering the influential misinterpretations proffered by his European interlocutors such as Habermas and Derrida. Central to Foucault’s account of modernity was his work on two crucial concept pairs: freedom/power and reason/madness. I argue against the view of Habermas and Derrida that Foucault understood modern power and reason as straightforwardly opposed to modern freedom and madness. I show that Foucault (...) held a much more complex view of these pairs, a view encapsulated in his term ‘reciprocal incompatibility’. By revising our interpretation of Foucault’s work on modernity in this way, we open the way to much more effective deployments of his critical apparatus. (shrink)

In this chapter, I taxonomize early modern modes of relating self-interest and the common good. I discuss Protestant natural law theory, republicanism, utilitarianism, and—my main focus—Scottish social thought from Adam Smith and others. My aim is twofold. First, historically, I lay out the conceptual field for the early modern relation of self-interest and the common good while giving special attention to Scottish innovations. Second, from a philosophical point of view, I argue that the Scottish theory of the common good offers (...) some of the best conceptual resources for considering the relation of individual and community in present-day large, industrial nation-states and empires. More specifically, I claim that the Scots develop a concept of the common good that is (1) more social and economic than its alternatives, (2) more systemic and less dependent on the psychology and intentions of individuals, and (3) less tied to thick notions of community (including the state) and more amenable to empire. I conclude by bringing out the significance of these claims for our thinking about self-interest, the common good, and community. (shrink)

Colin Starnes radical interpretation of the long-recognized affinity of Thomas More’s Utopia and Plato’s Republic confirms the intrinsic links between the two works. Through commentary on More’s own introduction to Book I, the author shows the Republic is everywhere present as the model of the “best commonwealth,” which More must first discredit as the root cause of the dreadful evils in the collapsing political situation of sixteenth-century Europe. Starnes demonstrates how More, once having shorn the Republic of what was (...) applicable to a society that had for a thousand years accepted and been moved by the Christian revelation, then “Christianized” it to arrive at one of the earliest and most coherent accounts of the ideal modern state: the description of Utopia in Book II. Knowing this radically new view of a long-recognized position may be questioned, the author has included a criticism and appreciation of the other major lines of interpretation concerning More’s Utopia. (shrink)

Blending existential and occult thought, a highly acclaimed philosopher explains how we can find profound meaning and joy by inducing states of extreme awareness and emotion Throughout history there have been references and examples in literature, art and philosophy of an increased awareness of life while under the influence of extreme emotions. These have become known as Peak Experiences. Soon after Colin Wilson became aware of this phenomenon in the 1960s, he wondered about its history and how its power (...) could be harnessed, and began a forty-year investigation. In Super Consciousness, we see how such luminaries as Yeats, Blake, Sartre, Nietzsche, and Robert Graves were affected by Peak Experiences, and how it has long been noted that we are least insightful when we are at our lowest ebb. By looking in detail through the different areas where this phenomenon has occurred—and by offering anecdotes and examples of how many people in history (as well as himself) were affected—Wilson reveals a pattern of insight with emotions. He ends the book with an instructional section on achieving power consciousness for yourself. (shrink)

Practical quantum computing devices and their applications to AI in particular are presently mostly speculative. Nevertheless, questions about whether this future technology, if achieved, presents any special ethical issues are beginning to take shape. As with any novel technology, one can be reasonably confident that the challenges presented by "quantum AI" will be a mixture of something new and something old. Other commentators (Sevilla & Moreno 2019), have emphasized continuity, arguing that quantum computing does not substantially affect approaches to value (...) alignment methods for AI, although they allow that further questions arise concerning governance and verification of quantum AI applications. In this brief paper, we turn our attention to the problem of identifying as-yet-unknown discontinuities that might result from quantum AI applications. Wise development, introduction, and use of any new technology depends on successfully anticipating new modes of failure for that technology. This requires rigorous efforts to break systems in protected sandboxes, and it must be conducted at all stages of technology design, development, and deployment. Such testing must also be informed by technical expertise but cannot be left solely to experts in the technology because of the history of failures to predict how non-experts will use or adapt to new technologies. This interplay between experts and non-experts may be particularly acute for quantum AI because quantum mechanics is notoriously difficult to understand. (As Richard Feynman quipped, "Anyone who claims to understand quantum mechanics is either lying or crazy.") We will discuss the extent to which the difficulties in understanding the physics underlying quantum computing challenges attempts to anticipate new failure modes that might be introduced in AI applications intended for unsupervised operation in the public sphere. (shrink)

How to develop the personal and professional skills and behaviours you need to be the best early career teacher you can be.

Richard Rorty's pragmatism is a distinctively doubled philosophy formed at the twain of a rigorous antifoun‐dational philosophical perspective and a committed postmetaphysical cultural criticism. Rorty instead rigorously held to the line that no particular politics follows from anti‐foundational philosophy. Rorty's arguments against representationalism, foundationalism, and metaphysics‐first philosophy in Mirror are complex and not always easy to navigate without careful guidance. The risk of the approach in Mirror is that it could implicate Rorty in a foundationalist critique of foundationalism, or a (...) metaphysical critique of metaphysics. For ironism is the studied denial not of metaphysics itself, but only of strong forms of pro‐metaphysical argument. Rorty uses liberalism to avoid the metaphysical forbidding of metaphysics – substituting for it instead a liberal, perhaps even a critical, limiting of metaphysics. The most important insight of Contingency boils down to this: liberalism and ironism together give us something to strive for that the metaphysician would otherwise take as settled. (shrink)

Emmy Noether’s many articles around the time that Felix Klein and David Hilbert were arranging her invitation to Göttingen include a short but brilliant note on invariants of finite groups highlighting her creativity and perspicacity in algebra. Contrary to the idea that Noether abandoned Paul Gordan’s style of mathematics for Hilbert’s, this note shows her combining them in a way she continued throughout her mature abstract algebra.

Pithy, direct, and bold: essays that propose new ways to think about old problems, spanning a range of philosophical topics. In Philosophical Provocations, Colin McGinn offers a series of short, sharp essays that take on philosophical problems ranging from the concept of mind to paradox, altruism, and the relation between God and the Devil. Avoiding the usual scholarly apparatus and embracing a blunt pithiness, McGinn aims to achieve as much as possible in as short a space as possible while (...) covering as many topics as possible. Much academic philosophical writing today is long, leaden, citation heavy, dense with qualifications, and painful to read. The essays in Philosophical Provocations are short, direct, and engaging, often challenging philosophical orthodoxy as they consider issues in mind, language, knowledge, metaphysics, biology, ethics, and religion. McGinn is looking for new ways to think about old problems. Thus he writes, about consciousness, “I think we have been all wrong,” and goes on to suggest that both consciousness and the unconscious are mysteries. Summing up his proposal on altruism, he remarks, “My suggestion can now be stated, somewhat brutally, as follows: human altruism is the result of parasitic manipulation.” He takes a moment to reflect: “I really don't know why it is good to be alive, though I am convinced that the standard suggestions don't work.” McGinn gets straight to the point and states his position with maximum clarity. These essays offer provocative invitations to think again. (shrink)

Many beginning students in philosophy of language find themselves grappling with dense and difficult texts not easily understood by someone new to the field. This book offers an introduction to philosophy of language by explaining ten classic, often anthologized, texts. Accessible and thorough, written with a unique combination of informality and careful formulation, the book addresses sense and reference, proper names, definite descriptions, indexicals, the definition of truth, truth and meaning, and the nature of speaker meaning, as addressed by Frege, (...) Kripke, Russell, Donnellan, Kaplan, Evans, Putnam, Tarski, Davidson, and Grice. The explanations aim to be as simple as possible without sacrificing accuracy; critical assessments are included with the exposition in order to stimulate further thought and discussion. Philosophy of Language will be an essential resource for undergraduates in a typical philosophy of language course or for graduate students with no background in the field. It can be used in conjunction with an anthology of classic texts, sparing the instructor much arduous exegesis. ContentsFrege on Sense and Reference • Kripke on Names • Russell on Definite Descriptions • Donnellan's Distinction • Kaplan on Demonstratives • Evans on Understanding Demonstratives • Putnam on Semantic Externalism • Tarski's Theory of Truth • Davidson's Semantics for Natural Language • Grice's Theory of Speaker Meaning. (shrink)