In The Idea of a Social Science Winch, argues that, sociology is more properly conceived as a branch of philosophy than of empirical science. Winch falls victim here to the Humean assimilation of the empirical to the generalizable. He notes that much of our talk about social practice is in terms of conventions, so that explanations of social action can be given without recourse to statistical or experimental findings. But such talk depends nonetheless on the accuracy and detail with (...) which the situations in which actions occur are? recorded, and this is surely an empirical enterprise. It is the misleading conception of sociology as a discipline, characterized by common procedures, that leads Winch to espouse the assimilation of sociology to conceptual inquiry. We need to see instead that sociology embraces a group of questions and subjects so loosely connected that it would be mistaken to speak of, and idle to project, a procedure common to all of them. (shrink)

In this book, I will discuss three main topics: the roots and aims of scientific knowledge, scientific knowledge in society, and science and values I understand scientific knowledge as being a planned and continuous production of the general and common knowledge of scientific communities. I begin my discussion with a brief analysis of the main differences between sciences, on the one hand, and everyday experience, philosophies, religions, and ideologies, on the other. I define the concept of science as a set (...) of family resemblances (in Wittgenstein's sense). The sciences can be distinguished along three lines, in terms of the difference between empirical and non-empirical sciences, differences in degrees of theoretical and methodological structure among individual sciences and scientific disciplines. Scientific knowledge is based upon some grounds, paradigmatic knowledge bases. Scientific knowledge is founded on a unified paradigmatic knowledge base. The latter includes fundamental theories, basic facts, generally accepted empirical regularities (laws), scientific research methods, scientific explanations, and established relations to other sciences. Scientific knowledge in general is defined well in classical terms by the definition that knowledge is a true and rationally-justified belief. In this connection, scientific truth is relative, depending on the given paradigmatic knowledge base and on the precision and accessibility of the measurements and observations involved. In the book's first part, I consider the production and testing of scientific hypotheses, scientific explanations, the structure of scientific theories, and the problem of scientific realism. I consider explanation an integral part of a wider nexus of heuristic and theoretical activities in science like giving reasons, understanding, clarification, and founding. Continuous production of scientific explanations is a necessary condition for the systematic reproduction of scientific knowledge. Accordingly, it does not suffice to describe them in terms of the logical structure of the arguments on which they are based, but rather, scientific explanations ought to be given complete with an epistemic and pragmatic context of the explanation. I consider especially deductive-nomological, inductive-statistical, dispositional, teleological-functional, and genetic explanations. I emphasize the ever-increasing importance of explanations by analogy and by model. Orthogonal to these distinctions lies the distinction between causal and epistemic explanation. Epistemic explanations relate scientific discoveries to epistemic progress, and causal explanations are these epistemic explanations that relate scientific discoveries to reality too. Causal explanations inform us that certain changes occur in the world as agents of other changes, or rather, that certain changes are real consequences of other changes. Thus, by having explanations of causes, we can intervene in the world to induce by design certain changes in some course of phenomena. I consider scientific theories as logically and epistemically ordered wholeness of scientific knowledge in a realm of research that enables us to construct useful models of reality. After the discussion of different 'statement' views on theories and different interpretations of the theory-experience relation, I introduce the 'model' theoretical (non-statement) views on theories, especially the structural theory of science. The model views on theories transcend the realism-antirealism dualism by introducing models between theory and reality. Therefore, the question of scientific realism is not merely whether and, if so, which element(s), of scientific theories represent reality, but rather which conditions suffice to infer from a theory that one of its models truly expresses reality. In other words, under which conditions do models of a theory represent models of reality? Generally, models are just as much images of reality in a theory as they are images of a theory in reality. The actual problem of scientific realism doesn't originate in the observable-unobservable distinction (even if this distinction is otherwise theoretically loaded), but rather in ontological quandaries, of the sort especially encountered in modern physical theories such as quantum mechanics, relativity theory, and cosmological theories, although they are known to arise in other sciences as well. Scientific theories may be real, even if they describe nothing about the world. However, such theories can be given this status only if their formal, mathematical postulates exhibit some formal homology between reality and mathematical forms. The very fact that it is possible to describe reality with the help of mathematics even in cases, where every (representational, conceptual) language and thought fall short, would indicate that even mathematics itself is, in some sense, a part of reality, although 'outside' of the empirical world. It follows we have to distinguish the non-empirical reality and the empirical world. Formal objectivity and non-arbitrariness of theories do not emerge from either our language or thoughts, or from the world of facts, causes, and effects, but rather from non-empirical reality, which frames the world as some kind of objective transcendental condition for the possibility of the existence of the world, thoughts, and language. In the second part of the book, I consider the incorporation of scientific work and scientific knowledge into modern society and its relations to values and ethics. Production of scientific knowledge goes on as a parallel distributed process of a special kind of social (shared) cognition. The central part of this cognition is the presentation of parts of the world by scientific (theoretical) models which are warranted by the shared and public practice of justification, and in reflective acting in the world as it would. I consider various formal concepts of collective propositional knowledge (distributed, mutual, common knowledge). Scientific knowledge is an achievement to be ascribed to a scientific community or, indirectly, to all those who apply or expand it, rather than to individuals per se. It presents the continuous and partially planned production of non-trivial common knowledge of the research communities in modern societies. However, besides common knowledge, shared dispositional knowledge (knowledge how of scientific teams) and shared knowledge by acquiring (knowledge of fundamental similarities and differences in scientific teams) are parts of the real body of scientific knowledge. Scientific common knowledge implies the projection into idealized universal knowledge of all real or potentially rational and well-informed individuals. The respect of scientific knowledge thus presents the norm of rationality. Science as the intensively shared and socially distributed kind of cognition enters into modern society as a special kind of work (general work), as a productive force (social invention drive), and as a form of capital (human, social, cultural, informational, etc.). However any of these categories can adequately represent the socio-economical role of science in modern societies, and we are still waiting for a more adequate general concept that would theoretically cover the 'scientification' of modern societies. My thesis is that the most important general effect of scientification is (and will be) the growth of social processes that structurally resemble parallel distributed shared social cognition of science, and not so much the rise of the use of scientific knowledge and scientifically based information in all kinds of production. Scientification of modern societies inevitably includes a much stronger need for moral and social responsibility of scientists for their work and its effects in their local society and the global world. This need comes in contradiction with the quite large accepted idea (and even the 'norm') on value-free research. I discuss to some degree different arguments for the absence of non-epistemic values and ethical reasoning from science and find them non-convincing. The sound idea of value-free research lies in the need for the absence of categorical value statements from scientific explanations and theoretical deductions. Values and ethical judgment have, and sometimes they even have to play an important role in another part of research and its application in science or outside it. Not the value-loudness of research is a danger for science but its blind, non-reflective use. It leads to the ideologization and politicization of science. A similar danger lies in the purely value-neutrality of research. It leads to the instrumentalization of science to the technical or bureaucratic means for 'any' aims. (shrink)

Concentrating on the thought of Canada's major scientists, philosophers, and clerics - men such as William Dawson and Daniel Wilson, John Watson and W.D. LeSeur, G.M. Grant and Salem Bland - A Disciplined Intelligence begins by reconstructing the central strands of intellectual and moral orthodoxy prevalent in Anglo-Canadian colleges on the eve of the Darwinian revolution. These include Scottish common sense philosophy and the natural theology of William Paley. The destructive impact of evolutionary ideas on that orthodoxy and the major (...) exponents of the new forms of social evolution - Spencerian and Hegelian alike - are examined in detail. By the twentieth century the centre of Anglo-Canadian thought had been transformed by what had become a new, evolutionary orthodoxy. The legacy of this triumphant intellectual movement, British idealism, was immense. It helped to destroy Protestant denominationalism, provide the philosophical core of the social gospel movement, and constitute a major force behind the creation of the United Church of Canada. Throughout the nineteenth century and continuing into the twentieth, however, the moral imperative in Anglo-Canadian thought remained a constant presence. (shrink)

When first published twenty years ago, The Logic of Medicine presented a new way of thinking about clinical medicine as a scholarly discipline as well as a profession. Since then, advances in research and technology have revolutionized both the practice and theory of medicine. In this new, extensively rewritten edition, Dr. Murphy includes changes to show how these different areas of scholarship may affect details of "the logic of medicine" without compromising its fundamental coherence. New to this edition are (...) discussions of the challenge of the flood of new empirical data, new ideas in genetics, molecular biology, homeostasis, pathogenesis, cancer, aging, and Alzheimer's disease. Murphy also comments on such new theoretical topics as dynamic systems, chaos, and fractals and their impact on the burgeoning fields of philosophy and practice of medicine. Written with medical students in mind, the book includes a glossary, many new examples, and problems for solutions with comments on each. An entirely new chapter deals with modeling. Clinicians and researchers will also find the principles thought-provoking and illuminating. (shrink)

euroscience of Rule-Guided Behavior brings together, for the first time, the experiments and theories that have created the new science of rules. Rules are central to human behavior, but until now the field of neuroscience lacked a synthetic approach to understanding them. How are rules learned, retrieved from memory, maintained in consciousness and implemented? How are they used to solve problems and select among actions and activities? How are the various levels of rules represented in the brain, ranging from simple (...) conditional ones if a traffic light turns red, then stop to rules and strategies of such sophistication that they defy description? And how do brain regions interact to produce rule-guided behavior? These are among the most fundamental questions facing neuroscience, but until recently there was relatively little progress in answering them. It was difficult to probe brain mechanisms in humans, and expert opinion held that animals lacked the capacity for such high-level behavior. However, rapid progress in neuroimaging technology has allowed investigators to explore brain mechanisms in humans, while increasingly sophisticated behavioral methods have revealed that animals can and do use high-level rules to control their behavior. The resulting explosion of information has led to a new science of rules, but it has also produced a plethora of overlapping ideas and terminology and a field sorely in need of synthesis. In this book, Silvia Bunge and Jonathan Wallis bring together the worlds leading cognitive and systems neuroscientists to explain the most recent research on rule-guided behavior. Their work covers a wide range of disciplines and methods, including neuropsychology, functional magnetic resonance imaging, neurophysiology, electroencephalography, neuropharmacology, near-infrared spectroscopy, and transcranial magnetic stimulation. This unprecedented synthesis is a must-read for anyone interested in how complex behavior is controlled and organized by the brain. (shrink)

This book provides papers of the conference of leading scientists and philosophers on the notion of progress of knowledge, which is constitutive of our modern selfunderstanding, from the perspective of their disciplines. Summary of contents: 1. GEorg Henrik von Wright, Progress: Fiction and Fact 2. WAlter Burkert, Impact and Limits of the Idea of Progress in Antiquity 3. AListair Crombie, Philosophical Commitments and Scientific Progress 4. SHigeru Nakayama, Chinese "Cyclic" View of History vs Japanese "Progress" 5. JEan Blondel, Political (...) Progress: Illusion or Reality 6. NIcholas Rescher, Progress and the Future 7. RUdolf Flotzinger, Progress and Development in Musical History 8. DAg Pravitz, Progress in Philosophy 9. JOhn D. BArrow, Time in the Universe 10. ANtonio Garcia-Bellido, Progress in Biological Evolution 11. GEreon Wolters, The Idea of Progress in Evolutionary Biology: Philosophical Considerations 12. PHilippe Lazar, The Idea of Progress in Human Health. (shrink)

Although the equally pervasive and abstract concept of space has generated a vast body of disciplines, time, and the related idea of "becoming" (transforming, ...

How far has the Darwinian revolution come? To what extent have evolutionary ideas penetrated into the social sciences and humanities? Are the “science wars” over? Or do whole blocs of disciplines face off over an unbridgeable epistemic gap? To answer questions like these, contributors to top journals in 22 disciplines were surveyed on their beliefs about human nature, culture, and science. More than 600 respondents completed the survey. Scoring patterns divided into two main sets of disciplines. Genetic influences were emphasized (...) in the evolutionary social sciences, evolutionary humanities, psychology, empirical study of the arts, philosophy, economics, and political science. Environmental influences were emphasized in most of the humanities disciplines and in anthropology, sociology, education, and women's or gender studies. Confidence in scientific explanation correlated positively with emphasizing genetic influences on behavior, and negatively with emphasizing environmental influences. Knowing the current actual landscape of belief should help scholars avoid sterile debates and ease the way toward fruitful collaborations with neighboring disciplines. (shrink)

Evidence based medicine has much to offer, but a great deal remains to be done to create a better understanding of what it can and cannot do.The term EBM , as we use it nowadays, was introduced in 1992 by the same group of people who, years before, founded the discipline called “Clinical epidemiology” .1 CE stemmed essentially from the idea of adapting and expanding epidemiological methods to medical and health care decision making; CE was in fact defined (...) as “ the discipline dealing with the study of the occurrence of medical decisions in relation to their determinants”.1CE has been very successful in illustrating new ways of teaching medicine and training health professionals, and has positioned itself around the notion that “critical appraisal skills” are yet another set of essential abilities which—in addition to the interpersonal, diagnostic, and prognostic skills—a good doctor should master. An important by product of CE was documentation which showed that much of the available evidence on diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment of diseases was of poor methodological quality and quite often of dubious transferability to everyday clinical practice.This led to a strong call for improving the scientific basis of clinical practice, which was seen as too often dominated by practices of unproven effectiveness. This was the background for the 1992 Journal of the American Medical Association article that first used the term “evidence based medicine”.2In essence, proponents of EBM said that “all medical action of diagnosis, prognosis, and therapy should rely on solid quantitative evidence based on the best of …. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the target article “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite Radical Constructivism” by Siegfried J. Schmidt. Upshot: In the 1990s the emergence of radical constructivism as a meta-theory inspired many scientific disciplines. Since more or less simple realistic concepts of the media as mirroring the world prevailed, communication science was challenged to re-think the relation of media and reality as well. Recently, criticism of constructivist media theory has grown, while those constructivst approaches have not developed (...) any further. Thus, the commentary examines the potential for Schmidt”s process-oriented constructivism, which is interpreted as part of a non-dualistic paradigm, to revitalize the debate. I will argue that the idea of acting as a perpetual process of positings and presuppositions [Setzungen und Voraussetzungen] can especially be related to current research on media and memory. (shrink)

The predominant scholarly opinion argues that, for the ancients, the idea of history held no meaning because time was regarded as a circular pattern in which events are repeated. Only human thought and art were meaningful. This opinion, however, is based on an a priori definition of history as the whole temporal process. If the term "history" is examined from the standpoint of its use during antiquity, the analyses of the notions of time and history change. Rather than being (...) regarded as circular and repetitious, time had no pattern at all. Though this concept posed some philosophical problems for ancient thinkers, including Aristotle, time was not discussed as a medium of history. The interest in history as an academic discipline and its view as a linear process with an origin and an end independent of human thought occurred only with the gradual and rhetorical transition to Judaeo-Christian belief. (shrink)

The last 14 chapters of book 1 of Aristotle's "Prior Analytics" are concerned with the representation in the formal language of syllogistic of propositions and arguments expressed in more or less everyday Greek. In his commentary on those chapters, Alexander of Aphrodisias explains some of Aristotle's more opaque assertions and discusses post-Aristotelian ideas in semantics and the philosophy of language. In doing so he provides an unusual insight into the way in which these disciplines developed in the Hellenistic era. He (...) also shows a more sophisticated understanding of these fields than Aristotle himself, while remaining a staunch defender of Aristotle's emphasis on meaning as opposed to Stoics concern with verbal formulation. In his commentary on the final chapter of book 1 Alexander offers a thorough discussion of Aristotle's distinction between denying that something is, e.g., white and asserting that it is non-white. (shrink)

The idea that democracy is under threat, after being largely dormant for at least 40 years, is looming increasingly large in public discourse. Complex systems theory offers a range of powerful new tools to analyse the stability of social institutions in general, and democracy in particular. What makes a democracy stable? And which processes potentially lead to instability of a democratic system? This paper offers a complex systems perspective on this question, informed by areas of the mathematical, natural, and (...) social sciences. We explain the meaning of the term 'stability' in different disciplines and discuss how laws, rules, and regulations, but also norms, conventions, and expectations are decisive for the stability of a social institution such as democracy. (shrink)

Argues that a pluralistic understanding of truth can foster productive conversations about common concerns involving religion, science, ethics, politics, economics, and ecology without falling into relativism. In this book, Donald A. Crosby defends the idea that all claims to truth are at best partial. Recognizing this, he argues, is a necessary safeguard against arrogance, close-mindedness, and potentially violent reactions to differences of outlook and practice. Crosby demonstrates how “partial truths” are inevitably at work in conversations and debates about religion, (...) science, morality, economics, ecology, and social and political progress. He then focuses on the concept in the discipline of philosophy, looking at a number of distinctions that are taken to be strictly binary—those between fact and value, continuity and novelty, rationalism and empiricism, mind and body, and good and evil—and demonstrates how in all of these cases, each on its own can offer only an incomplete picture. Partial Truths and Our Common Future invites ongoing dialogue with others for the sake of mutual enlargements of understanding rather than mere civility, and provides incentive for continuing open-minded and shared inquiries into the important issues of life. “This is a transdisciplinary philosophical work that moves with grace across traditions, time periods, and thinkers. It is a master class in the existential and public relevance of philosophy and a rare example of a book that is both timely and timeless.” — Michael S. Hogue, author of The Promise of Religious Naturalism. (shrink)

In over 200 separately-authored entries, this reference surveys both the historical and contemporary relations between religion and society. A selection of the world's leading scholars from varying disciplines and denominations cover all aspects of philosophy, theology, ethics, politics, economics and government, providing a brief definition of each term, a description of the principal ideas behind it, its history, development and contemporary relevance, and a detailed bibliography giving the major sources in the field. The Dictionary is prefaced by an introduction outlining (...) the scope and diversity of coverage. * Synthesizes theology, social thought, social philosophy and ethics * Prestigious editors and an international team of Consulting Editors * Selected entries include: AIDS, Domestic Violence, Madness, Prophecy, Terrorism, Women's Ordination, Fundamentalist Liberation Theology, Surrogacy. (shrink)

The new disciplines of experimental psychology and physical chemistry which emerged in late-nineteenth-century Germany were transmitted rapidly to North America, where they flourished. At the time, American higher education was growing fast and undergoing important organizational changes. It was then especially receptive to such European ideas as these new growth points in German science. However, although there were important similarities in the transmission of the two sciences, experimental psychology was changed far more than physical chemistry by the transfer. Physical chemistry (...) was able to fit into a flourishing pattern of German-inspired chemistry in higher education. Psychology was more dependent on its intellectual and social context, and the American context was quite different from that of Germany. (shrink)

The disciplinary differentiation of sciences attracted Leibniz’s attention for a long period of time. From nowadays prospects it looks very well grounded as soon as in Leibniz’s manuscripts a modern scholar finds clue ideas of any research field which would tempt him to consider Leibniz as one of the founders of this particular discipline. We argue that this is possible only in retrospection and would significantly distort the essence of Leibniz’s epistemology. Our approach implies, in contrary, the investigation of (...) the Leibniz doctrine of signs on the background of the related philosophical problem, that of expression. The choice of semiotics is justified by the fact that it took a central place in his theoretical constructions, both those of natural sciences and of philosophy. In Leibniz system of knowledge the concept of notes (notae) and sings (signa) served a theoretical foundation of his most important and long-life aspiration to build up practical science of universal characteristics (characteristica universalis). In his eyes this practical science was the science of sciences (Scientia scientiarum), and we can consider it as the matrix for all possible scientific knowledge. (shrink)

The article discusses the problems of constructing a scientific picture of the world in a technogenic civilization at the stage of its globalization. The interdependence of science, technology and society generates a number of issues of a socio-humanitarian and, in particular, ideological nature. Interdisciplinary forms of organization of sciences contribute to the development of borderline methodologies. These methodologies integrate the achievements and problems of specific disciplines into a certain overall picture. The ambitions of this worldview include space, planetary nature with (...) all geo – shells, as well as the biosphere, technosphere, sociosphere, anthroposphere. In the course of communicative interactions, scientists have developed methodological principles for constructing a picture of the world. These principles claim to be universal: integrity, consistency, coherence, structurality, evolution/involution, complexity, self-organization, human dimension. However, epistemic and communicative difficulties accompany the construction of a general scientific picture of the world. There are methodological, experimental, linguistic, cognitive barriers between disciplines. Also, the unevenness of their development is strong. Competition between disciplines and reductionist programs are often caused by social reasons – politicization, ideologization and commercialization of big science. Philosophy seeks to connect the idea of a scientific picture of the world with a change in self-consciousness and a person’s place in the world. The prospect of intellectual synthesis fluctuates between the transdisciplinary form of organization of collective scientific thinking and the ideological imperialism of individual philosophical and scientific programs. (shrink)

This is a review of the book: Sheehan H. Marxism and the Philosophy of Science. A Critical History. The First Hundred Years. (L.: Verso, 2017. XII. 450 p.). The keynote of the book serves the conviction that Marxism is a sort of “super-theory” that can explain not only any social and political life, but also profound philosophy of science, including natural science. Science is presented in the book as a form of social practice. The main idea of the Marxist (...) philosophy of science is the status of the theory of dialectical materialism. The author shows that Marxist ideas could be considered as the origins of many disciplines: the sociology of science, the history of science, the history of technology; they had a noticeable effect on non-Marxist thought as well. However, Stalinism and Lysenkoism significantly decelerated the development of the Marxist philosophy of science. (shrink)

Phenomenon of transdisciplinarity was put into the fore of analysis rather recently. In the article an attempt is made to find out whether it is possible to attribute this phenomenon not only to a science of the 21st century, or we have here the case where some scientific realities come to the attention of researchers with certain delay and has its value for the culture in general? It is possible to judge even the emergence of a kind of cognitive revolution (...) affecting both science culture. We need to find out what is meant by a transdisciplinarity, and how it differs from the inter- or multiransdisciplinarity. In the study the method of historical reconstruction, combining elements of presentism and antiqurism, was implemented. This method allows us to interpret historical events in the context of a specific level of knowledge, and at the same time to evaluate them in terms of modern ideas related to transdisciplinarity, inter- and multidisciplinarity. System-structural method, focused on an integrated analysis of the dynamics of development of cognitive processes in culture was implied as well, and the method of comparative analysis, which is aimed at comparing different but conceptually similar processes in various areas of conceptual art practice. It is in the framework of paradigm adopted a tacit agreement among scientists about the validity and effectiveness of research methods and techniques of inquiry. Within the paradigm, which presupposes certain fundamental principles, goals, and certain values shared by the scientific community, the novel sprouts of radical ideas once emerge. The scientific revolution here means a radical revision of the admissibility of accepted and proven methods, goals and values that are common to the members of the scientific community. Typically, new theories and concepts proposed and already mastered new scientific community, which is gradually replacing its representatives on the key command altitudes. The kernel of scientific community in fact is a style of thinking that is emerged in the context of a particular discipline, and then experience expansion in the form of discursive practices at a wide space of science and culture due to the novel cognitive schemes open the way to synthesize various research domains into a certain integrity. There is no question of the scientific revolution in the sense of Kuhn, since any significant goals and values of the scientific communities are not affected. Nevertheless, in some sense cognitive revolution taking place, the revolution of transdisciplinary type. The adoption of a new style of scientific thinking often gives rise to new types of objects and directions of cognitive activity, a new type of explanation that require new types of research proposals and cultural activities. Thus, the main idea of this article is that along with the Kuhn type scientific revolutions, transdisciplinary type scientific revolutions are conceivable, and even transdisciplinary cognitive types. This revolutions manifests in a change in style of reasoning, and it results in the expansion of this style to wide space of science and culture through the cognitive schemes and techniques, which enables to synthesize research and art activity in some integrity. Adoption of a new way of reasoning and the transition to new discursive practices generates new types of research facilities, new mechanisms of explanation, new cultural blueprints and instruments. Cognitive activity, based on a new style of thinking, involves multidisciplinarity, formation of new scientific and cultural institutions, and, therefore, causes a noticeable social change. Based on an analysis of interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary processes in modern science and culture the authors claim that it is namely transdisciplinarity would determine the face of science and culture in the medium term, and will form the basis for the convergence of science, technology, art, and consciousness studies in general. (shrink)

For scholars of American philosophy, this anthology of essays on S. C. Pepper's works on metaphysics, aesthetics, and value theory is especially a welcome one. Also included is a reprint of a little known but valuable essay by Pepper entitled "Metaphor in Philosophy," which originally appeared in volume 3 of Phillip S. Wiener's Dictionary of the History of Ideas. In this essay, Pepper discusses his root metaphor theory in relation to Bacon and Kant, and some contemporary uses of the notion (...) of paradigm, e.g., Wittgenstein and Kuhn. Lewis E. Hahn's "The Stephen C. Pepper Papers, 1903-1972" gives an informative account of six book-length unpublished manuscripts in the Pepper Archives at the Southern Illinois University. The rest of the essays concentrate on the various aspects of Pepper's works. A few deal with aesthetic theory and its application to critical practice. Of philosophical interests are papers by Elmer H. Duncan, David B. Richardson, Robert J. Yanal, Robert L. Armstrong, and Brian Caraher, and a short essay by Charles Hartshorne and a response by Joseph H. Monast. Duncan gives a just but critical account of the neglect of Pepper's Sources of Value, and a highly appreciative appraisal of Pepper's World Hypotheses. Caraher's careful essay on the conflicting root metaphors in Frege's theory of meaning offers interesting application of Pepper's conception of formism and contextualism to problems in Frege's philosophy. A variety of problems such as the root metaphor theory, descriptive definition and aesthetic experience are discussed. Efron's long introductory essay entitled "Pepper's Continuing Value" serves its purpose well in terms of indicating Pepper's influence in non-philosophical disciplines and the problems that arise in Pepper's value theory. What is missed is a sustained critical examination of Pepper's root metaphor theory, characterization of the various world hypotheses including Pepper's own selectivism, and its relation to ethical theory. The anthology however is useful in indicating the scope of Pepper's influence and the need to examine his contributions with reference to contemporary philosophical problems.--A.S.C. (shrink)

Despite broad influence on the history of philosophy, Stoicism has lain long dormant as a practical philosophy. Of late, however, some have sought to modernize Stoicism for the contemporary world.1 It has found success in the military, as Stockdale and Sherman report. While the promise of tranquility through reason and self-discipline presents an appealing vision in emotional times, some tenets of Stoicism cannot gain purchase among society at large: predetermination, absolute morality at all times, and the idea of (...) a non-relational conception of virtue sound dated to a modern audience, particularly Americans. (shrink)

Psychology was born and evolved over the course of centuries in the bosom of philosophy, from which it separated to become an experimental science. However, not many are familiar with the period in the middle of our century when psychology and philosophy were united, a period that to a large extent defined the philosophical-methodological distinctiveness of our psychological science in comparison with world psychology. Today this uniqueness is ascribed exclusively to the influence of Marxism and, because of the current revisions (...) of Marxism, a number of psychologists are proposing that the philosophical-methodological foundations of our psychology be discarded and that the discipline be returned to the stream of pure scientism. However, it is worth noting that Russian culture has always had a distinctive orientation in its philosophy and worldview. Hence the influence of Marxism on the development of psychology had historical presuppositions of its own and cannot be reduced to purely ideological factors. The way it produces ideas and hypotheses, the way its scientists think, as well as the formulation of psychological knowledge make our psychology a philosophical discipline. (shrink)

The emergence of Bildwissenschaft as a new interdisciplinary formation that is intended to encompass all images calls for an analysis of the grounds on which the claim to universality can be upheld. I argue that whereas the lifting of scope restrictions imposes only a weak universality requirement, the identification of features that belong to the entire class of entities that are categorized as images imposes a strong universality requirement. Reflection on this issue brings into focus the distinctive character of Bildwissenschaft (...) and the features that distinguish it not only from other related disciplines such as art history and visual studies, but also from recent work in the philosophy of the image. (shrink)

Since its origins as a distinct philosophical discipline during the first quarter of the present century, philosophy of science has been largely a matter of logical analysis. Only in relatively recent times have the historically minded philosophers attacked the logical empiricist account of the scientific enterprise. Among the pioneers of this revolution, however, Kuhn, along with Popper and Feyerabend, have also challenged the idea that a linear growth in scientific knowledge is either possible or desirable. Though partial to (...) the historical approach, Wallace will not accept this negativistic thesis. On the other hand, his conviction that most scientists are realists at heart makes him reject the positivistic account of science proposed by Duhem, Mach and the Vienna Circle. Science, he claims, aims at discovering the truth about the world. It is not content simply to describe how things are, but wants to know why. Now it is in their search for causes that scientists reveal their realistic convictions. And it is because science throughout its long history has made causal explanations the paradigm of scientific knowledge that its growth is not the haphazard or irrational sort of thing that Kuhn envisions. In this first of a proposed two-volume work, Wallace traces the origins of this paradigm to Aristotle’s Posterior Analytics. Part I, ‘Medieval Science', sketches the influence of this work on medieval scientists at the universities of Oxford, Paris and Padua from the 13th to the 16th centuries. Part II, entitled ‘Early Classical Science', shows how the earlier paradigm continues to influence such men as Gilbert, Kepler, Galileo, Harvey and Newton. Both historians and philosophers can profit from this original and controversial study. Even those who would not accept the author’s thesis that "the reconstruction of contemporary philosophy of science necessitates a return to some of the values of medieval and early classical science" will be grateful for the great amount of factual information and wealth of primary source material the book provides. We look forward to the publication of the companion volume on "Classical and Contemporary Science."—A. B. W. (shrink)

The figure of Martin Buber emerges very clearly from this little book as that of a modern Hebrew prophet in revolt “against the complacent satisfaction of the sciences, against the triumph of relativism in the social, scientific and humanistic disciplines”, turning for inspiration to the mediaeval mystics of the West and to Hasidism, and preaching a way of life rather than a systematic body of doctrine. As such, he is more a philosophical anthropologist than a philosopher; he is preoccupied with (...) the central problem of the redemption of creation and of man, in relation to God Who is present and reveals Himself in them. His key-concept seems to be that of “meeting,” the intimate encounter, implying love, understanding and surrender, in which creation and man are not just used, treated as object, but reached in their intimate being as subject by subject. Fully to adopt such an attitude implies an inner conversion, but not a withdrawal, in any mystic isolation, from life; it leads to sanctifying self and creation through communion and community in the stream of life, and allows God to enter the world as an active force and, in Buber’s language, to fulfil Himself in otherness. Not that God needs man, but rather that He desires that redemption be achieved with man’s co-operation. In describing the dialogue between God and man, Buber makes use of some Christian teaching, but he remains essentially a Hebrew prophet bearing witness to the mystery of the Holy, striving to further that human community in which the Holy may be realized, and God made once more efficaciously present to the world. One could hardly ask for a clearer portrait of Buber, nor a more succinct presentation of his leading ideas, than those given us by Mr. Cohen; and the reader who wishes to know more about this remarkable man, whom Reinhold Niebuhr has called “perhaps the greatest living Jewish philosopher,” will be helped by the biographical notes and selected bibliography at the end of the book. (shrink)

Die Hauptrichtung der französischen Soziologie ist heute noch die Durkheimsche Schule, die C. Bouglé in seinem Buch „Bilan de la Sociologie française contemporaine“ in den Vordergrund stellt. Diese Schule hat weniger im Sinne einer Einzelwissenschaft gewirkt als durch den Einfluss, den sie auf fast alle sozialen Wissenschaften ausgeübt hat. Deswegen sind die verschiedenen Kapitel des Bougléschen Buches den besonderen Disziplinen : Psychologie, Ethnographie, Geschichte, Jura, Nationalökonomie gewidmet, um die Wechselwirkung zwischen ihnen und der Soziologie, die Verbreitung der soziologischen Methode, des (...) soziologischen Gesichtspunkts zu würdigen. Anschliessend an Bouglé versucht Koyré diese Würdigung zusammenzufassen und kritisch zu beleuchten. Trotz ihrer verschiedenen theoretischen Einstellung kommen diese Disziplinen praktisch zu einer fruchtbaren Zusammenarbeit. Schliesslich macht Koyré zwei wichtige Bemerkungen : 1. über die Tendenz der soziologischen Moral, für welche die soziale Kohärenz der höchste Wert wäre, und 2. über die Wiederentdeckung einer besonderen Schicht der Wirklichkeit durch Dürkheim, nämlich die Kollektivvorstellung, die wie der „objektive Geist“ jedem Individuum innerlich und zugleich äusserlich und für alle verpflichtend ist.The dominant tendency in French sociology is still represented by the school of Durkheim, which receives prominent treatment by C. Bouglé in his book,,, Bilan de la Sociologie française contemporaine“. This school has penetrated nearly all the different social sciences and its influence has not been confined to the boundaries of a separate discipline. The different chapters of Bouglé's book, therefore, deal with psychology, anthropology, history, law, and political economy, in order to analyze the interaction between these separate disciplines and the sociological method.The author attempts to develop further the viewpoint advanced by Bouglé and to throw critical light upon it. He makes his observations along two main lines of thought, namely : first, that the focal conception which represents the supreme value for any sociology and its scientific unity is the conception of social coherence ; and second, that there is a particular area of reality rediscovered by Durkheim, namely the collective idea which, like the „objective mind“, represents for each and every individual a bond internal as well as external. (shrink)

Spatial Representation presents original, specially written essays by leading psychologists and philosophers on a fascinating set of topics at the intersection of these two disciplines. They address such questions as these: Do the extraordinary navigational abilities of birds mean that these birds have the same kind of grip on the idea of a spatial world as we do? Is there a difference between the way sighted and blind subjects represent the world 'out there'? Does the study of brain-injured subjects, (...) such as 'blind seers', tell us anything about the working of normal spatial consciousness? -/- The essays are arranged into five sections, each of which reflects a central area of research into spatial cognition, and opens with a short introduction by the editors, designed to facilitate cross-disciplinary reading. The volume as a whole offers a rich and compelling expression of the view that to advance our understanding of the way we represent the external world it is necessary to draw on both philosophical and psychological approaches. (shrink)

Since the nineteenth century, the debate around the process of professionalization of higher education has been characterized by two extreme positions. For some critics the process carries the risks of instrumentalizing knowledge and of leading the university to succumb under the demands of the market or the state; for other theorists it represents a concrete opportunity for the university to open up to the real needs of society and for reorienting theoretical and fragmented disciplines towards the resolution of concrete and (...) challenging problems. This article pursues three objectives. Firstly, we show that the debate is usefully informed not only by ideas of what a university is, but also by ideas of a profession. We suggest that both ideas help to overcome the conflict between the two afore-mentioned antagonist perspectives. Secondly, we demonstrate that a certain understanding of a profession can prevent the risk of viewing knowledge exclusively as scientific expertise and reducing training to the acquisition of technical skills. The position on professions adopted here is inspired by the Scottish philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre, whose work is instructive in understanding professions as “rational practical activities”, embedded in a social context with their own internal goods. Our third objective, therefore, is to argue, with MacIntyre, that the presence of professions within the university opens up the opportunity to rescue forms of rationality that are oriented towards action and, by implication, promotes spaces of training that are resistant to exclusively corporate or governmental interests and criteria of mere effectiveness. (shrink)

Problem: The paper’s main focus is on the question of whether Mitterer’s non-dualising philosophy is able to show a way out of the antagonistic opposition of fact and fiction, realism and constructivism. In addition, since Mitterer’s philosophy has hardly been discussed so far in historiography and theory of history, I also examine the question of whether his approach can provide new theoretical insights in these disciplines. Method: I follow a close reading of Mitterer’s texts and relate them to the propositions (...) of a variety of publications from the field of theory of history. Results: Mitterer’s arguments show, on the one hand, how to expel the idea of creation from our historical thinking as there is no authenticity waiting behind our world of descriptions. On the other hand, they make clear that historiography no longer has to decide between realism and relativism. Rather, it is a relationist approach that shows a way to research the many entanglements and complexities between past realities and their descriptions. A different way to write history becomes visible: a history of realities. Implications: The discussion of Mitterer’s non-dualism not only shows how historical research might benefit from this philosophy (in leaving behind some dualistic foundations of the discipline or the search for historical origins) but also how non-dualism might profit from the insights of history (with regard to power, processuality, and temporality. (shrink)

Interpretation is an institutional activity and that may be the most significant fact about it; we are, indeed, a profession, and as such we train students to think about literature in certain ways. Membership in the community is determined by how well one masters the rules of the game. These inescapable facts may be the source of our greatest problems—or their hidden solution. Stanley Fish champions the latter alternative, arguing, in his most recent book, that “the interpretive community” is the (...) ultimate principle of authority in criticism and is capable of resolving all the problems of interpretation.1 If we want to know what reading is, how texts achieve determinate meaning, what constitutes validity in interpretation, or how to resolve the “conflict of interpretations,” we must, Fish argues, focus on the community itself, for it is here alone that these matters are determined.Though he has had more than his share of professional attention, having developed this argument makes Fish’s work worthy of further consideration. He quite simply presents the best picture we are likely to get of the “mind” of the profession, and, in treating him at length here, I am primarily concerned with his representative status. His great achievement is to have articulated the assumptions and beliefs underlying the practices that are favored in our profession: the tacit theoretical position composed of ideas and commonplaces that are so deeply held and constantly in use that they “prestructure” both our dealings with literature and our debates over those dealings. While remaining for the most part “unconscious,” these ideas nevertheless function as self-evident and unassailable truths. If we are to move, as I think we must, toward experiencing a crisis in our discipline, we first have to know where we are. And for that, Fish is invaluable because he has set out to become the official spokesman and efender of the profession. Walter A. Davis, associate professor of English at the Ohio State University, is the author of The Act of Interpretation: A Critique of Literary Reason. The present essay is from a recently completed work on contemporary criticism. He is currently writing a book on modern American drama. (shrink)

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology, yet only recently have the two disciplines developed greater interaction. Recent experiments in psychology that test the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning have found a great deal of variation, across individuals and (...) cultures, in categorization behaviour. Meanwhile, philosophers of language and mind have investigated the semantic properties of concepts, and how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. A key motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared across individuals and cultures. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. -/- This volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers to advance the interdisciplinary debate on the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, the relationship between concepts and linguistic meaning and communication, the challenges conceptual variation poses to communication, and the social and political effects of conceptual change. (shrink)

In this issue we include contributions from the individuals presiding at the panel All in a Jurnal's Work: A BABEL Wayzgoose, convened at the second Biennial Meeting of the BABEL Working Group. Sadly, the contributions of Daniel Remein, chief rogue at the Organism for Poetic Research as well as editor at Whiskey & Fox , were not able to appear in this version of the proceedings. -/- From the program : 2ND BIENNUAL MEETING OF THE BABEL WORKING GROUP CONFERENCE “CRUISING (...) IN THE RUINS: THE QUESTION OF DISCIPLINARITY IN THE POST/MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY” SEPTEMBER 21ST, 2012: SESSION 13 MCLEOD C.322, CURRY STUDENT CENTER NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY, BOSTON, MA. -/- Traditionally, a wayzgoose was a celebration at the end of a printer’s year, a night off in the late fall before the work began of printing by candlelight. According to the OED, the Master Printer would make for the journeymen “a good Feast, and not only entertains them at his own House, but besides, gives them Money to spend at the Ale-house or Tavern at Night.” Following in this line, continent. proposes in its publication(s) a night out and a good Feast, away from the noxious fumes of the Academy and into a night of revelry which begins, but does not end, at the alehouse or Tavern. continent. proposes that the thinking of the Academy be freed to be thought elsewhere, in the alleys and doorways of the village and cities, encountered not in the strictly defined spaces of the classroom and blackboard (now white) but anticipated and found where thinking occurs. Historically, academic journals have served a different purpose than the Academy itself. Journals (from the Anglo-Fr. jurnal , "a day," from O.Fr. jornel , "day, time; day's work," hence the journalist as writer of the news of the day ) have served as privileged sites for the articulation and concretization of specific modes of knowledge and control (insemination of those ideas has been formalized in the classroom, in seminar). In contrast, the academic journal is post-partum and has been an old-boys club, an insider trading network in which truths are (re)circulated against themselves, forming a Maginot Line against whatever is new, or the distinctly challenging. All in a Jurnal’s Work will discuss (in part) the ramifications of cheap start-up publications that are challenging the traditional ensconced-in-ivory academic journals and their supporting infrastructures. The panel will be seeking a questioning (as a challenging) towards the discipline of knowledge production/fabrication (of truth[s]) and the event of the Academy (and its publications) as it has evolved and continues to (d)evolve. Issues to be discussed will revolve around the power of academic publishing and its origins, hierarchical versus horizontal academic modules (is there a place for the General Assembly in academia?) and the evolving idea of the Multiversity as a site(s) of a (BABELing) multivocality in the wake of the University of Disaster. (shrink)

Since literary historian Robert Bone published his seminal essay ‘Richard Wright and the Chicago Renaissance’ in 1986, scholars have created new cartographies of previously unexplored terrain in American cultural history. The earliest studies focused on literature, but more recently attention has turned to other disciplines, including visual arts. Recent publication of The Muse in Bronzeville: African American Creative Expression in Chicago, 1932–1950 (2011) by Robert Bone and Richard A. Courage promises to decisively broaden scholarly understandings of the scope and significance (...) of Chicago-centred cultural production during the Great Depression and post-war years. Of particular relevance to contemporary studies of new media art is the manner in which then-emergent ideas and practices – centring on racialized subject matter, elite and mass audiences, traditional and new mediums of expression, private vs public sponsorship, and passive vs active reception of art objects – converged to create new paradigms and possibilities for visual artists to reshape consciousness in a period of institutional collapse and change. Chicago’s New Negro artists of the 1930s and 1940s, like their counterparts in 1920s Harlem, sought to reframe perceptions of African American life, to re-present the black subject as something other than an object of contempt or amusement beneath the privileged gaze of the white viewer. Just as these artists sought to revise perceptions of racial reality, examination of the wide range of actual images they created and the mediums and styles they explored revises reductive notions about creative expression in this period, which often portray a mere subordination of art to propaganda and an embrace of representational aesthetics and simplistic narratives in a fruitless detour in the evolution from modernism to postmodernism. On the contrary, Andrew Hemingway notes the range of stylistic experiment and characterizes so-called ‘social art’ as ‘a hybrid and unstable mode [which] had to carry the imperative to be an art equal in formal achievement to both the great art of the past and the modern tradition … [and] to suggest a political orientation without becoming overt revolutionary propaganda’ (2002).New media theorist Oliver Grau observes thatIn many quarters, virtual reality is viewed as a totally new phenomenon… but it did not make its first appearance with the technical invention of computer-aided virtual realities. On the contrary, virtual reality forms part of the core of the relationship of humans to images… grounded in art traditions that have receivedscant attention up to now.(2004)In the midst of another period of change, of transformed and transforming ideas and practices in the arts, we have much to learn from the attempts of Chicago’s New (Media) Negro artists to create ‘art for the people’, to immerse broad audiences in such accessible media as mural painting, photography and graphic arts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Against Method in Science and Religion: Recent Debates on Rationality and Theology by Josh ReevesWhitney A. BaumanAgainst Method in Science and Religion: Recent Debates on Rationality and Theology. Josh Reeves. London, UK: Routledge, 2019. 154 pp. $170.00 hard-cover; $54.95 paperback; $39.71 eBook.Josh Reeves has written a very accessible and well-argued book for those interested in the field known as “science and religion.” It is a timely book that (...) I would use in conversation with other works that are questioning the continued validity and usefulness of modern Western university disciplines. In a world that is marked by globalization and climate change, and one in which many histories, religions, cultures, and possible futures come into contact with and change one another, perhaps we need to rethink what we mean by both “science” and “religion.”The general argument of the book is that Western scholars of science and religion have, until very recently paid more attention to the philosophy of science rather than the history of science. As such, these scholars have participated in a form of “methodological fetishism” (9) and have leaned too heavily on the idea that the sciences participate in some sort of unified program. In particular, Reeves deals with three figures within theology and science (I think it is important to distinguish theology from religion more clearly than the author does), whose research programs seek to place the claims of theology on some type of equal footing with the claims of science.Nancey Murphy, for instance, applies Imre Lakatos’s idea of core and auxiliary hypotheses to theology (40). Murphy’s project is trying to show how theology can be scientific by using this methodology (49). Though recognizing that knowledge in both theology and science change over time, it is most often auxiliary hypotheses rather than the core hypotheses that need to be altered. In this way, scientific and theological programs can remain in continuity over time, rather than experiencing disjointed paradigm shifts.Alister McGrath opts, instead, for a type of “critical realism” (56). There is a real world pushing back against human ideas and concepts and science can give us valid information about that world, but we must critically analyze the data since no data is raw (59). Against some post-modern claims, McGrath still argues that ontology determines epistemology (61). Reeves argues that McGrath fails to analyze older, discarded theories in his reading of the development of various scientific discoveries, thereby paving over the historical knowledge from the sciences that we would now see as outdated. This serves [End Page 96] to support an illusion that there is some sort of “global realism” that connects all sciences in a common ground and narrative (68).Finally, J. Wentzel van Huyssteen starts from the idea that there is no global common ground and sets out to offer a post-foundational theology based upon post-foundational philosophies of science and epistemology (78). For van Huyssteen, rationality is intersubjective, embodied and emerges from eco-social contexts, and thus, he highlights the serious problem of projecting a unified, global rationality as a unified basis for the sciences (82). Instead, he constructs a trans-local rationality that takes into account the multiple perspectives making up what we think of as a unified understanding of reason (84). Reeves argues that while this may be a step along the way to a method for “theology and science,” it does not offer us a way to navigate differences between conflicting knowledge claims (93). I would suggest that this is precisely the point of a post-foundational project: there is no overarching value but rather common grounds must be gained through dialogues, conversations, and translations.After engaging with these three philosophical theologians, Reeves proceeds to the second part of the book, in which he more directly criticizes distinct concepts of “religion” and “science” historically. For instance, he describes the tendency of early historians of science and those in the field of “science and religion” to erase the religiosity of early figures such as Isaac Newton and Francis Bacon (107). These figures mixed theological ideas with what we might call magical ideas in order to further develop natural... (shrink)

This book is a series of essays by distinguished scholars concerned with the improvement of primary, secondary, and tertiary studies, most especially in arts but also in mathematics and science. It is concerned with past ideas about education in Australia, most particularly with the traditions that have yielded an education that has proven most beneficial to Australia in terms of comparison with other countries; and it advocates and emphasises how this tradition can be maintained and improved in specific ways. Essays (...) focus on primary and secondary education in music, and art, mathematics, history and the classics, on the improvement of memory and vocabulary, but more particularly on university education, discussing the purpose of education, learning in general, the use of the seminar, the necessity of freedom of debate, the inadequacies and contradictions of French and Anglo-post modernism, the teaching of history, of philosophy, and its branch aesthetics, mathematics, equality in education, teaching at university and funding of the whole enterprise. The authors are all well known in their disciplines and some are experts, internationally recognised in their fields. This book features essays by: David Daintree, Karl Schmude, Simon Haines, Kevin Donnelly, Matthew Lesh, Chris Berg & Bella d'Abrera, David Furse-Roberts, Greg Melleuish, Steven Schwartz, Blaise Joseph, James Franklin, Christopher Allen, Richard Gill, Jeremy Bell, Barry Spurr, David Brooks, Natalie Kennedy, Sarah Williams, Sarah Lawrence, Ivan Francis Head. (shrink)

The main strength of this book is the international exchange of ideas that will not only highlight many of these crucial bioethical issues but will strengthen the discipline of bioethics both nationally and globally. A critical exchange of ideas allows everyone to learn and benefit from the insights gained through others experiences. Analyzing and understanding real medical-ethical issues and cases and how they are resolved is the basis of education in bioethics for those who will have to make these (...) decisions in the future. The more we examine, analyze, and debate these bioethical issues and cases, the more knowledge will be gained and hopefully, we will all gain more practical wisdom. (shrink)

The humanities create communities of meaning and the means to unify knowledge. Poets and novelists offer new insights into our shared mind. History provides our continuity. Philosophy struggles to unite our scientific knowledge with our understanding of values. Each discipline creates its own perspective and they often turn inward, creating new divisions. Yet a global view of the humanities is our hope of finding the means to live together in peace. But the argument in this article suggests that a (...) philosophical understanding of the basic concepts with which we order our claims about the world can provide a successful response. (shrink)

University philosophy 1 consists of the philosophical doctrines that were developed and taught at universities and some other secular institutions of higher education. The term "university philosophy" is conventional to some extent: it does not denote a type of philosophical theory but all the philosophical doctrines that were officially recognized or "sanctioned" by the relevant authorities . Academy philosophy, that is, the philosophy taught at theological academies, had a more determinate character because without exception it had to agree with Christian (...) doctrine and could not contradict it under any circumstances. University philosophy could have the most diverse foundations, but this did not exempt its programs and courses from government control. What is characteristic of university philosophy is the fact that it is professional philosophy; that is, a philosophy developed and taught by specialists in philosophy or professional philosophers. There were always university professors or lecturers in other disciplines who in their lectures and scholarly works touched on philosophical problems. But because these faculty members did not belong to the "corporation" of university philosophers, their philosophical ideas can hardly count as university philosophy, although these ideas sometimes had an important influence on the philosophical views of students and colleagues. (shrink)

If patriotism can thus be seen as an incentive or as an instigation even in such a recondite science as epistemology, how much more readily can it be seen to perform such functions in other studies more immediately or inextricably bound up with communal human life? I pass over instances that occur to me—for instance, the Victorian Jesuit, Father Hopkins, declaring that every good poem written by an Englishman was a blow struck for England--and profit instead, if I may, by (...) the presence among us of Edward Said. I do not know, and it is none of my business to know, what passport Said presents at the international frontier. But it is surely common knowledge among us that he has deep and feelingful and intimate allegiances to the state of Lebanon. Who of us has failed to connect this with his books Orientalism and The Question of Palestine? The point is that, having made this connection, none of us thinks the worse of Said. On the contrary, we recognize that he has a special stake in such topics and therefore speaks on them with a special authority. Unless I am mistaken, that stake and that authority are, in a perhaps extended sense, patriotic. And whatever our speculative objections to the idea and the principle of patriotism, in practice we recognize it and we honour it.What I am questioning, it will now be plain, is the principle of "disinterest." "The disinterested pursuit of knowledge"—it is what in our distinct disciplines all of us have paid lip-service to, and perhaps more than lip-service. But when we come right down to it, is it what we believe? The honest patriot declares an interest; and if we are wise, we take note of the declaration, making allowances and reserving doubts accordingly. But what are we to make of the scholar who declares no interest, who claims implicitly to be truly disinterested. Can we believe him? And if we cannot, what guidance do we have as to what reservations to make, what doubts to entertain? I am of one mind with my Marxist colleagues who, from a political position very far from mine, warn us to be especially suspicious of the scholar who claims to have no axe to grind. We, all of us, have axes to grind; the crucial distinction is between those who know this about themselves and those who don't.Let me make myself clear. When I urge that the terms "patriotism" and "patriotic" be reinstated in our discourse, and particularly in those forms of our discourse that may be called "interpretation," I do not imply that patriotism is a nobler, a more elevated instigation than sundry others, mostly ideological, of which we are more aware. The point is precisely that of these others we are aware because we share a vocabulary which acknowledges them, whereas "patriotic" has been banished from our vocabulary, and so the reality which the word represents is left out of our calculations. Let me admit for the sake of argument what I do not in fact believe-- that patriotism is a concept and a sentiment so besmirched by the unholy uses made of it that, if mankind is to survive, patriotism will have to be eradicated. Even if that were the case, it remains true that patriotic interest and incitement are very far from having been eradicated from the world that we in fact inhabit, and try to interpret, here and now; and if we try to work within a vocabulary that pretends otherwise, we condemn ourselves to producing interpretations that are drastically partial and perhaps disastrously misleading. The point is not whether patriotism is a good thing or a bad thing but simply that it is; it exists, as powerful factor which we all in our hearts acknowledge even as our vocabulary refuses to. And when we speak in this context of "the world," we certainly include in that world ourselves, who offer to interpret it. Every one of our interpretations is coloured by the fact that we, the several interpreters, are British or American, French or Italian or Russian or whatever. If we think otherwise, we deceive ourselves; and yet where, in any of our currently acceptable vocabularies, determined as all of them are by the glib rationalism of the Enlightenment, do we find that momentous fact about ourselves acknowledged? Where is it acknowledged, for instance, in the vocabulary of feminism that "woman," as conceived by an American writing about Italians, cannot help but be significantly different from "woman" as conceived by an Italian looking at Americans? Or again, an Italian woman may well, we must suppose, be an Italian patriot; but where, in the current vocabulary of feminists, is that dimension of her "woman-ness" allowed for? Let it be acknowledged only so as to be deplored; but let it in any event be acknowledged. At the moment, it isn't.Donald A. Davie, the distinguished poet, is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities at Vanderbilt University and honorary fellow of Saint Catharine's College, Cambridge and of Trinity College, Dublin. He has edited The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse, and his Collected Poems 1950-1970 appeared in 1972. His latest publications are Dissentient Voice and These the Companions; Recollections. (shrink)

The anthropology of consciousness is a field of enormous and demanding scope. In this article, there is no attempt to address all of the current trends in thinking and research; rather, the aim was to draw a line through the field that extends from the 19th century and European philosophies to some contemporary expressions of those philosophies in social science research. In particular, taking the original project of Edmund Husserl, an approach to the phenomenological investigation of the nature of consciousness (...) and, in addition, states of consciousness is proposed in the form of “existential grammars.” The treatment is propaedeutic: The ideas presented here are part of an on-going, long-term project tied to cross-cultural and experimental research on consciousness. However, the short-term outcomes are promising in elucidating the foundational questions not only about consciousness but also about specific areas of interest such as healing and the nature of scientific investigation itself. One important direction in this work is to illuminate, where possible, the pre-reflective rationalities of human experience, of consciousness itself, in such a way that we might generate codes of consciousness ultimately not as the equivalent of genetic models, but as descriptors of the core matrix of consciousness out of which alterations of consciousness might be better understood. (shrink)

There is a small but growing community of researchers spanning a spectrum of disciplines which are united in rejecting the still dominant computationalist paradigm in favor of the enactive approach. The framework of this approach is centered on a core set of ideas, such as autonomy, sense-making, emergence, embodiment, and experience. These concepts are finding novel applications in a diverse range of areas. One hot topic has been the establishment of an enactive approach to social interaction. The main purpose of (...) this paper is to serve as an advanced entry point into these recent developments. It accomplishes this task in a twofold manner: it provides a succinct synthesis of the most important core ideas and arguments in the theoretical framework of the enactive approach, and it uses this synthesis to refine the current enactive approach to social interaction. A new operational definition of social interaction is proposed which not only emphasizes the cognitive agency of the individuals and the irreducibility of the interaction process itself, but also the need for jointly co-regulated action. It is suggested that this revised conception of `socio-cognitive interaction' may provide the necessary middle ground from which to understand the confluence of biological and cultural values in personal action. (shrink)

James Collins has turned his talent for painstaking and definitive scholarship to the philosophy of religion, and nobody with an interest in this particular area of philosophy, or in the general development of modern philosophy in the hands of Hume, Kant, and Hegel, can afford to miss consulting this book. The philosophy of religion, as distinct from the older style natural theology, theodicy, and straight theological treatments of religion, is a discipline whose need was first felt when the scientific (...) picture of the universe began to declare its independence from, and possible ascendency over, the theistically ordered anthropological and cosmological harmony of the universe. As Collins details in a balanced manner, it was Hume who first formulated a program to meet this need. He did it in such a way, however, that he made religion a legitimate object of, but wholly external and even inimical in content to, philosophy, particularly epistemology and ethics. Building upon Hume, Kant defined the epistemological issue more precisely—"I have denied knowledge to save belief"—and reinterpreted the relation between morality and religion as one of complementarity rather than contradictoriness. It remained for Hegel to internalize the relation between the content of religion and the content of philosophy and thus to reduce the former to an anticipation of the latter. Collins' exposition is interpenetrated by a critical concern supplied by the dialectical development of the idea of the philosophy of religion from Hume through Kant to Hegel, and by his own proposal for integrating the genuine and irreducible insights of each of these three classical philosophies within a realistic philosophy of religion that remains basically theistic. The book is an expanded form of Collins' St. Thomas More Lectures at Yale University; it would be an impressive addition to any series of lectures.—E. A. R. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to give a complete scientific notion of generation, and its implications for virtually all historical and philosophical disciplines. Generation, as a biological notion, is as old as mankind, but as a scientific notion, it is as recent as in the nineteenth century. The authors of that century, however, who have something to say about the matter—and Marias studies all of them—are incomplete, superficial, and even mistaken. The philosopher who developed a complete and definitive theory (...) of generations was José Ortega y Gasset, who derives it from his philosophy of radical reality or human life considered both individually and collectively. Briefly and very incompletely, a generation can be defined as constituted by those who are not only contemporary but also coetaneous, i.e., who have the same beliefs, problems and ideas and consequently contribute to the formation of the world in an equal or similar fashion; a generation lasts fifteen years, and in a given period of time there coexist three generations, the young, the mature, and the old. A chapter follows about the vicissitudes of the generations theme in our century, and again, in spite of Ortega’s comprehensive analysis, the authors who deal with the theme are found wanting. Finally the problems involved in the theory of generations, particularly the question concerning the empirical existence of generations and the way of determining their succession, are discussed and an attempt is made to solve them. Prescinding from whether Marias’ treatment of the concept of generations could well inaugurate a new movement in contemporary philosophy, his work will serve as a useful corrective to the many superficial treatments of the ‘generation gap’ that have been published.—F. A. (shrink)

_Sigmund Freud and His Impact on the Modern World_, volume 29 of The Annual of Psychoanalysis, is a comprehensive reassessment of the influence of Sigmund Freud. Intended as an unofficial companion volume to the Library of Congress's exhibit, "Sigmund Freud: Conflict and Culture," it ponders Freud's influence in the context of contemporary scientific, psychotherapeutic, and academic landscapes. Beginning with James Anderson's biographical remarks, which are geared specifically to the objects on display in the Library of Congress exhibit, and Roy Grinker (...) Jr.'s more personal view of Freud, the volume branches out in various directions in an effort to comprehend the multidimensional and multidisciplinary richness of Freud's contribution. In section II, we find authoritative summaries of Freud's scientific contributions, of his continuing impact as a thinker, of his notion of symbolization in the context of recent neuroscientific findings, and of his status as a "cultural subversive". In section III, contributors hone in on more specific aspects of Freud's legacy, such as an experimental method to review how Freud's idea of childhood sexuality has fared and a look at the women who became analysts in the United States. In the concluding section of the volume, contributors turn to Freud's influence in various humanistic disciplines: literature, drama, religious studies, the human sciences, the visual arts, and cinema. With this scholarly yet highly accessible compilation, the Chicago Institute provides another service to its own community and to the wider reading public. Sure to enhance the experience of all those attending "Sigmund Freud: Conflict and Culture," _Sigmund Freud and His Impact on the Modern World_ will appeal to anyone desirous of an up-to-date overview of the man whose work shaped the psychological sensibility of the century just past and promises to reverberate throughout the century just born. (shrink)

This study takes its shape around two fundamentally opposed ways of understanding the discipline of history. The one regards historical inquiry as capable of discovering "what really happened" in the human past and considers historical truth to be a matter of the correspondence between historical accounts and the past as it actually was. The other regards historical inquiry as actually constructing the human past by its methods of interpreting evidence and considers historical truth to be a matter of the (...) internal coherence of historical accounts and their compatibility with the evidence upon which they are based. My thesis is that neither the "Discovery Theory" nor the "Construction Theory" offers a satisfactory analysis of history. I offer an alternate theory which regards the concepts of correspondence and coherence as complementary and mutually necessary to such an analysis. ;The primary material of this study is to be found in two recent books, Jack Meiland's Scepticism and Historical Knowledge and Leon Goldstein's Historical Knowing , which attempt systematically to defend a Construction Theory of history. These two defenses are particularly interesting because they are grounded in very different epistemological orientations. Meiland approaches the subject from a logical positivist point of view; Goldstein takes a perspective an idealist or phenomenologist would appreciate. ;I begin in Chapter 1 with a brief historical sketch of the way the Construction Theory has evolved out of criticisms of the Discovery Theory. In Chapter 2 I argue against Meiland's claim that there cannot be present evidence of past events. Here I consider the nature and the role of general correlation principles in history. In Chapter 3 I argue against Meiland's use of the positivist Verifiability Criterion to prove that historical statements are meaningless. My claim is that historical statements are indirectly verifiable in principle. In Chapter 4 I develop Goldstein's theory of historical verification and support his view that the concept of coherence plays the major role in this process. In Chapter 5 I argue against Goldstein's theory of historical reference and develop the claim that verified historical statements must be regarded as referring to the past. In Chapter 6 I return to Meland in order to consider the relevance of the concept of correspondence to the analysis of historical reference. ;In Chapter 7 I attempt to define the middle ground between the two theories by developing the idea of historical truth. I argue that the concept of coherence is an indispensable part of the analysis of historical verification, that the concept of correspondence is indispensable to the understanding of historical reference, and that both are involved in the notion of historical meaningfulness. (shrink)