The central preoccupation of Peirce and Polanyi was to undertake (in the words of the former) an inquiry into inquiry, one in which the defining features of our heuristic practices stood out in bold relief. But both thinkers were also concerned to bring into sharp focus the deep affinities between our theoretical pursuits and other shared practices. They were in effect sketching a portrait of the responsible inquirer and, by implication, that of the responsible agent more generally. This essay (...) is, in structure, a series of études for how we might reconstruct that portrait, since there is no extended treatment in the writings of either author of these central figures (the agent and, in particular, the responsible inquirer). It is accordingly a preliminary study, though in some particulars a detailed one. Its ultimate aim is to join—and thereby to invite others to join—Peirce and Polanyi as inquirers into the very nature of inquiry itself. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to introduce an approach to clinical practice aiming to resolve the dilemma of choosing between a mechanistic and a phenomenological model. The approach is an extension of Polanyi's epistemology. Michael Polanyi, devised an epistemology of science which overcomes the problem of detachment, inherent in the mechanistic approach, and resolves the problem of subjectivity troubling phenomenologists. His epistemology is known as Personal Knowledge. An extension of this epistemology, a Neo-Polanyian proposal, is offered as a more (...) successful model for clinical practice than previous suggestions addressing the dilemma. (shrink)

Despite Hunsberger’s apology for Newbigen’s use of Polanyi, Newbigen in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society reverses Polanyi’s essential elements of heuristic passion and universal intent. The outcome is a misunderstanding of the common ground and differences between science and theology and a stifling and narrowing theology of cultural plurality. In contrast, Charles McCoy’s federal theology and understanding of Polanyi shows an approach of openness yet grounding in the biblical God present in the believed-in realities of global life.

Despite Hunsberger’s apology for Newbigen’s use of Polanyi, Newbigen in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society reverses Polanyi’s essential elements of heuristic passion and universal intent. The outcome is a misunderstanding of the common ground and differences between science and theology and a stifling and narrowing theology of cultural plurality. In contrast, Charles McCoy’s federal theology and understanding of Polanyi shows an approach of openness yet grounding in the biblical God present in the believed-in realities of global life.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviews PASSION AND PARADOX L G Religious Studies / McMaster U. Hamilton, , Canada   @. Joan Cocks. Passion and Paradox: Intellectuals Confront the National Question. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton U. P., . Pp. . .; pb .. ccording to an ancient legend, four Rabbis ventured into the garden of Aphilosophy. One, it is said, went insane, another became a heretic, a third died and (...) only the fourth emerged unscathed. A modern variation of this story might go like this. Four or perhaps  philosophers entered the jungle of nationalism and for the most part went insane. There were those who embraced nationalism and consequently abandoned the universality of philosophy for the promotion of xenophobia, racism and even Nazism. Others remained internationalist and hence became futile—philosophical Canutes—commanding the raging beasts of nationality to be still. No one struggled harder with nationalism than Bertrand Russell. In , writing as an internationalist, he announced the demise of the principle of nationality only to see nationalisms explode in every region of the world (see his “National Independence and Internationalism”, Papers ). He opposed it relentlessly and without compromise until near the end of his life when he found himself endorsing wars of national liberation. Nationalism is often depicted as a howling beast. It would be better to think of it as an anaconda that wraps itself around everyone who ventures into its domain. Joan Cocks’ Passion and Paradox is an important book on nationalism and the intelligentsia. She traces the intellectual encounter with nationalism of a number of figures—Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Isaiah Berlin and the Scottish nationalist Tom Nairn, among others. All are exiles, most are Jews, and all try to hack their way through a jungle of conundrums of nationalist thought. Her accounts of these thinkers sometimes read like complex legal briefs, but are always illuminating. Though an internationalist, she sees the power of nationalist imperatives. Her approach to the contradictory strains of nationalism and hostility to nationalism echoes that of Hegel. She presents critical but sympathetic accounts of each side of the nationalist problematic and shows how their difficulties might be resolved in a higher synthesis. Alas! her resolution suffers from the unworldliness that she finds in other versions of internationalism. Her argument begins with a personal experience. In the early ’s she joined a group of Arabs and Jews against the Gulf War. In the course of their associ- Reviews  ation she learned that the Jews were all internationalists, while the Arabs were outspoken nationalists. This experience presumably demonstrated that a happy collusion of nationalism and internationalism was possible. But, of course, there was another side: those prosecuting the war she opposed were also nationalists. Her central thesis addresses the tragedy of opposition. It states that nationalism is “dilemmatic”, that is, that “all paths of thought obscured equally telling contrary thoughts; all courses of action were strewn with causes for regret and remorse” (p. ). The horns of the dilemma are the valid claims of the internationalist who sees the underlying self-destructive deep structures of nationalism on one side, and the claims of the national particularistic who is engaged in the compelling theatre of national liberation and the protection of local customs and roots on the other. Her book is an account of how her thinkers are framed by this dilemma, locked in by the imperatives of either side. In the period between the Gulf War and the composition of this book in  Cocks was able to observe what she identifies as the destructive logic of nationalism. The ’s were a period of postmodernist celebration of the local, a sensibility that helped to legitimate nationalism. The explosion of nationalism that followed the breakup of the Communist imperium was a time of liberation of the imprisoned nations—a springtime when it was good to be alive. But as the decade wore on the concealed pit bulls came out—in Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and elsewhere. In Cocks’ view nationalism showed an inner logic, of a sort that Russell called attention to in the early ’s—a logic that led from euphoria to self-destruction (see his Prospects). Her aim is to revive the half-remembered internationalist tradition as formulated by Marx and Luxemburg—but also to show... (shrink)

Intellectual virtues like open-mindedness, clarity, intellectual honesty and the willingness to participate in rational discussions, are conceived as important aims of education. In this paper an attempt is made to clarify the specific nature of intellectual virtues. Firstly, the intellectual virtues are systematically compared with moral virtues. The upshot is that considering a trait of character to be an intellectual virtue implies assuming that such a trait can be derived from, or is a specification of, (...) the cardinal virtue of concern and respect for truth. Secondly, several (possible) misconceptions of intellectual virtues are avoided by making the required distinctions. For example, it is argued that our concept of an intellectual virtue should not be confused with a normative conception of intellectual virtuousness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The “Wider View”: André Hellegers’s Passionate, Integrating Intellect and the Creation of BioethicsWarren Thomas Reich* (bio)AbstractThis article provides an account of how André Hellegers, founder and first Director of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, laid medicine open to bioethics. Hellegers’s approach to bioethics, as to morality generally and also to medicine and biomedical science, involved taking the “wider view”—a value-filled vision that integrated and gave meaning (...) to what otherwise was disparate, precarious, and conflicting. This article shows how Hellegers’s wider view of bioethics was shaped by events in his own life, his resultant sense of the precariousness of life and health, his commitment to religious inclusiveness, his research in fetal medicine, his clinical experience in obstetrics, his role in the struggle to change the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church on fertility control, and his developing concepts of health and disease. Hellegers was committed to and worked toward bioethics as a self-consciously interdisciplinary field in which the contributing disciplines adapt to each other—rather than sustain themselves as autonomous disciplines—to create a dynamic and complex intellectual, clinical, and social activity.André Hellegers’s personality and life were like that of a meteor: brief appearance on the scene; high-speed, flaming trajectory; quick burn-out; its smallest residue worth examining for ages to come. You had to watch carefully, for otherwise you might miss what he was about—what he was really about. He had an unusually probing and unflagging mind, coupled with the ability to make people think; and in a very real sense, that is what he was always about. André was an extremely effective communicator. He was like Fred Astaire: he had flair and charm, and no matter how crowded the room, you instantly knew when he entered it. Like Astaire, he had a deep intensity and striving for perfection while making his art always look like great fun. He was an engaging [End Page 25] story-teller who also knew how to stun intelligent people with his insightful, often ironic and humorous thinking that got to the bottom of things very quickly, leaving his interlocutors with a huge agenda for further reflection. Yet in spite of all this alluring talent, André never attracted attention to himself in a vain way. Even as raconteur, he was always working, getting people to think and talk.There were three great passions in Hellegers’s life that enabled him to inspire and shape bioethics as he did. He had a passionate intellect that was constantly probing for new clarity at new levels of understanding and values, and he had the ability to infect other people with his intellectual passion. André Hellegers was deeply rooted in a Catholicism scarcely imaginable in the United States—an open, historically-conscious, northern European faith that kept him free of ideology while providing him a foundation on which he built a rich ecumenicity of theological and philosophical bioethics. Finally, and perhaps most decisively for his founding work in bioethics, Hellegers pushed and probed to get a world that was almost totally unaccustomed to communicating over disciplinary lines (incredibly, virtually no interdisciplinary conferences had taken place before his day) to dialogue and collaborate across the barriers of medicine, politics, and religion.IntroductionThe customary way of writing a history of someone’s involvement in the origins of something—say, the origins of a nation or, I suppose, the origins of bioethics—certainly would not customarily start with the foregoing type of vignette. It would have as its purpose to discuss such things as issues, events that raised issues, methods pursued and applied, and outcomes achieved. However, in this modest account of some of the major contributions of the late André E. Hellegers, M.D., to the development of the field of bioethics, I intend to focus on a different level of historical inquiry, one that portrays and explains the person, his world-view, and his motivation, as well as the cultural forces and events that conspired to make Hellegers and the people with whom he came into contact vibrant with a sense of innovative and creative—not to mention urgent—inquiry. I believe that... (shrink)

From Kosovo to Québec, Ireland to East Timor, nationalism has been a recurrent topic of intense debate. It has been condemned as a source of hatred and war, yet embraced for stimulating community feeling and collective freedom. Joan Cocks explores the power, danger, and allure of nationalism by examining its place in the thought of eight politically engaged intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the antagonist of capital, Karl Marx; the critics of imperialism Rosa Luxemburg, Hannah Arendt, and Frantz (...) Fanon; the liberal pluralist Isaiah Berlin; the neonationalist Tom Nairn, and the post-colonial writers, V. S. Naipaul and Edward Said. Cocks not only sheds new light on the complexities of nationalism but also reveals the tensions that have inspired and troubled intellectuals who have sought to lead lives between detached criticism and political passion.In lively, conversational prose, Cocks assesses their treatment of questions such as the mythology of national identity, the right to national self-determination, and the morality of nationalist violence. While ultimately critical of nationalism, she engages sympathetically even with its defenders. By illuminating the links that distinguished minds have drawn between thought and action on nationalism in politics, this stimulating work provides a rich foundation from which we ourselves might think or act more wisely when confronting a phenomenon that, in fundamental and perplexing ways, has shaped our world. (shrink)

This chapter examines the views of seventeenth-century British philosophers on passions and affections. It explains that about 8,000 books published during this period mentioned passion and that it started with Thomas Wright's Passions of the Mind in General. The chapter also explores the intellectual basis of the writers who wrote about passion – which includes Augustinianism, Aristotelianism, stoicism, Epicureanism, and medicine – and furthermore, analyzes the relevant works of Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, Henry More, and Lord Shaftesbury.

This article proposes to address the relationship between philosophy and politics through the 5th-4th Century's intellectual debate on ethics and politics in Athens. A debate which takes place in the wake of the rise of a new individuality, marked by the discovery of the tragicity of the soul. What stands out in this debate is the redefinition of a philopolitical stand in all its historical ambiguity and ethical idealism. Aristophanes, Thucydides, Euripides, Gorgias and, obviously, Plato himself are striving (...) to define the possibility of the encounter between philosophy and the city, public and private, justice and interests, individual and community. The Platonic solution for the problem reveals complexity and articulation typical of his thought: the philosopher that shelters himself from the storm behind an academic wall is the same who "in order for himself not to seem nothing but words" sails towards the uncertain Syracusan project. (shrink)

David Hume’s theory of action is well known for several provocative theses, including that passion and reason cannot be opposed over the direction of action. In Hume, Passion, and Action, the author defends an original interpretation of Hume’s views on passion, reason and motivation that is consistent with other theses in Hume’s philosophy, loyal to his texts, and historically situated. This book challenges the now orthodox interpretation of Hume on motivation, presenting an alternative that situates Hume closer (...) to “Humeans” than many recent interpreters have. Part of the strategy is to examine the thinking of the early modern intellectuals to whom Hume responds. Most of these thinkers insisted that passions lead us to pursue harmful objects unless regulated by reason; and most regarded passions as representations of good and evil, which can be false. Understanding Hume’s response to these claims requires appreciating his respective characterizations of reason and passion. The author argues that Hume’s thesis that reason is practically impotent apart from passion is about beliefs generated by reason, rather than about the capacity of reason. Furthermore, the argument makes sense of Hume’s sometimes-ridiculed description of passions as “original existences” having no reference to objects. The author also shows how Hume understood morality as intrinsically motivating, while holding that moral beliefs are not themselves motives, and why he thought of passions as self-regulating, contrary to the admonitions of the rationalists. (shrink)

"The Lazaruses provide a roadmap--clear, concise, and informative--to one of the most difficult and fascinating areas in psychology, the emotions. There is no better book of its kind on the market today. A wise and sensitive book, it is both intellectually honest and fun to read."--James R. Averill, University of Massachusetts.

Much contemporary philosophy of religion suffers from an overly abstract and intellectualized methodology. A more ‘humane’ approach would acknowledge the vital contribution of the emotions and passions to a proper cognitive grasp of the nature of the cosmos and our place within it. The point is illustrated by reference to a number of writers, including Descartes, whose path to knowledge of God, often thought to depend on dispassionate argument alone, in fact relies on a synergy between intellect and emotions.

This book examines how the early Christian elite articulated and cultivated the affective dimensions of compassion in a Roman world that promoted emotional tranquillity as the path to human flourishing. Drawing upon a wide range of early Christians from both east and west, Wessel situates each author in the broader cultural and intellectual context. The reader is introduced to the diverse conditions in which Christians felt and were urged to feel compassion in exemplary ways, and in which warnings were (...) sounded against the possibilities for distortion and exploitation. Wessel argues that the early Christians developed literary methods and rhetorical techniques to bring about appropriate emotional responses to human suffering. Their success in this regard marks the beginning of affective compassion as a Christian virtue. Comparison with early modern and contemporary philosophers and ethicists further demonstrates the intrinsic worth of the early Christian understanding of compassion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:372 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY tranquilly in a world shorn of illusions, avoiding the obvious pitfalls revealed by past human behavior. Bongie's excellent study should help us not only in placing Hume in his century, but in seeing the role of his History as a major part of his philosophical contribution. If, instead of simply seeing Hume as a radical because of his religious views in the context of 18th, (...) 19th, and 20th-century England and America, we can also see him as a conservative for his historical views in the context of 18th-century French events, we may get a richer and more meaningful Hume. We may also see first the revolutionary and then the conservative role that "philosophical history" played in the 18th century, and the tensions that existed between scepticism, Enlightenment, and conservatism in that period. And through this, we may get a clearer understanding of both the role that Hume's sceptical and historical contributions played then, and of the complex legacy that he has bequeathed us today. He was not only the precursor of Bertrand Russell and of modern analytic philosophy. He inspired a variety of conservative and orthodox tendencies in 18th-century France. To understand and appreciate the complete Hume, we need to see the full range of his intellectual achievements both then and now. And this may well help illuminate the roots and the meaning of some of the theories that have run most counter to the liberal and irreligious trends since the Enlightenment. One can hope that Bongie's significant study will be followed by others on the impact of "philosophical history," and of Hume's scepticism on the darker side of our past so that we may more fully appreciate the force and effect of modern scepticism and of the allied historical studies it spawned. Today, as we lose some of the optimism that the Enlightenment heroes bequeathed to us, we may be able to appreciate again some of the doubts and fears of those who struggled against it, and of those who sought solace in Hume's scepticism and in his picture of the human condition. RICHARD H. POPKI~ University oJ California, San Diego Passion and Value in Hume's TrmATxSE. By Piill S. /~rdal. (Edinburgh, at the University Press, 1966. Pp. x + 220. 45/.) This is a meticulous and critical examination of Hume's psychology of the emotional dimension of "human nature." The theme that emerges as central is the contrast between the mental structure of "the understanding" as Locke conceived it and those impressions and expressions in experience that are not perceptions or ideas but affections or passions. Emotions are not "associated" in the way ideas are, according to Locke; they are "communicated" and the ways in which communication among emotions takes place call for a very different type of analysis from the analysis of the understanding./~rdal shows in great detail and with acute observations that Hume is constantly on his guard against the theory of Locke's Essay, and puts his Treatise in the context of "experimental method" applied to the science of the emotions in their impressional and expressional relations. With this as the basic problem of the Treatise, /krdal criticizes those who today are interpreting the Treatise as a theory of evaluative judgment and language, whereas Hume is explicit in making a distinction between the analysis of the "nature and origin" of valuational experience and the logic of judgments of value which he is excluding. I-Iume approaches the passions as powers, and his analysis is closer to the Newtonian method of describing actions and reactions than to Locke's method of compounding simples. The passions are "naturally connected" and do not need to be consciously associated as perceptions do. They are all simple and indefinable, in view of Hume's interest in "moral science", he gives emphasis to the passions of pride, humility, and sympathy. The so-called compound passions or sentiments, such as benevolence, malice, anger together with the discussion of virtues and vices are kept distinct from the "direct" and elementary passions and energies of the mind and organism. Hume was not a hedonist, and he was a utilitarian only BOOK... (shrink)

The author of this study in intellectual history, an economist, tries to analyze the arguments presented in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in favor of a commercially oriented society. But he makes it clear at the end of this book, that his study has uncovered a new reason for the emergence of capitalism. This reason is different from the Weberian argument, which it complements. Weber had presented a psychological thesis, i.e., the search for a criterion for individual salvation led (...) to the "Protestant" work-ethic. Hirschman studies a sociological problem. He shows that men in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were desperately looking for a new model to organize society in order to end the ruinous wars of that time. Thus when the Weberian man appeared on the scene, society was ready to see in him the carrier of the new order. Society was ready to be dominated by commerce and not the chivalric passions and the wars it had led to. (shrink)

According to my interpretation, based on the entirety of Michael Polanyi's epistemological works, his theory of tacit knowing is conceived of as three models tied together by the central feature of Intellectual Passions as integrator. The models are progressively refined forms of his first conception of tacit knowing: ‘we know more than we can tell’. The three models are: the Gestalt-Perception Model based on the gestalt notion of part-whole relations, the Action-Guiding Model incorporating the phenomenological-existential notion of intentional action, (...) and the Semiotic Model, an abstract conception of action directed to meaning showing that tacit knowing has a ‘from-to structure’. In the Semiotic Model integration is named by the logical term ‘inference’. Polanyi's conception of reality and his theory of truth are introduced linked to the models, to show why his epistemology is not subjectivist and his theory of truth is not relativist. (shrink)

Scientific discovery is an important moment in scientific pursuit, but only a few philosophers of science appreciate this moment as a logical issue. Starting from his understanding that all thought contains components of which we are subsidiarily aware in focal content of thinking, Michael Polanyi puts out his thesis that scientific discovery cannot be justified by a series of strictly explicit operations but by merely invoking deeper forms of commitment in sighting the problem and the vision of reality. This article (...) will delve into Polanyi’s notion of scientific discovery in three sections: the first section is dealing with Polanyi’s concept of heuristic philosophy which tones that discovery of problem is the primary requisite of a good scientist to vision reality, the second discusses the role of intellectual passions in scientific justification, and the third focuses on the ontological implication of scientific discovery that it guides us to comprehension of something real both tangible and intangible. The article concludes that since scientific discovery involves the creative and imaginative appeal to reality, its rationality must be counted on by its logical structure and personal experiences in scientific community. (shrink)

There are several great biographies of Wollstonecraft out there and a growing number of books discussing her works. Sylvana Tomaselli’s book is neither and both: as an intellectual biography, it dr...

Rousseau exerts himself to prove that all was right originally: a crowd of authors that all is now right: and I, that all will be right.—Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1...

The Russian philosopher and cultural theorist Mikhail Bakhtin has traditionally been seen as the leading figure in the group of intellectuals known as the Bakhtin Circle. The writings of other members of the Circle are considered much less important than his work, while Bakhtin's achievement has been exaggerated in proportion to the downgrading of the thinkers with whom he associated in the 1920s. This volume, which includes new translations and studies of the work of the most important members of the (...) Circle, sets out to correct the distortions in the established representations of its activity. The original contributions to literary and linguistic theory made by Valentin Voloshinov and Pavel Medvedev (but frequently credited to Bakhtin) are assessed, and the distinctiveness of their approaches is highlighted. (shrink)

Descartes developed an elaborate theory of animal physiology that he used to explain functionally organized, situationally adapted behavior in both human and nonhuman animals. Although he restricted true mentality to the human soul, I argue that he developed a purely mechanistic (or material) ‘psychology’ of sensory, motor, and low-level cognitive functions. In effect, he sought to mechanize the offices of the Aristotelian sensitive soul. He described the basic mechanisms in the Treatise on man, which he summarized in the Discourse. However, (...) the Passions of the soul contains his most ambitious claims for purely material brain processes. These claims arise in abstract discussions of the functions of the passions and in illustrations of those functions. Accordingly, after providing an intellectual context for Descartes’s theory of the passions, especially by comparison with that of Tho- mas Aquinas, I examine its ‘machine psychology’, including the role of habituation and association. I contend that Descartes put forth what may reasonably be called a ‘psychology’ of the unensouled animal body and, correspondingly, of the human body when the soul does not intervene. He thus conceptually distinguished a mechanistically explicable sensory and motor psychology, common to nonhuman and human animals, from true mentality involving higher cognition and volition and requiring (in his view) an immaterial mind. (shrink)

'Those most capable of being moved by passion are those capable of tasting the most sweetness in this life.'Descartes is most often thought of as introducing a total separation of mind and body. But he also acknowledged the intimate union between them, and in his later writings he concentrated on understanding this aspect of human nature. The Passions of the Soul is his greatest contribution to this debate. It contains a profound discussion of the workings of the emotions and (...) of their place in human life - a subject that increasingly engages the interest of philosophers and intellectual and cultural historians. It also sets out a view of ethics that has been seen as a radical reorientation of moral philosophy.This volume also includes both sides of the correspondence with Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia, one of Descartes's keenest disciples and shrewdest critics, which played a crucial role in the genesis of The Passions, as well as the first part of The Principles of Philosophy, which sets out the key positions of Descartes's philosophical system.ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hazel E. Barnes FLAUBERT AND SARTRE ON MADNESS IN KING LEAR T'oward the end of the second volume of The Family Idiot (L'Idiot de la famille), in a section called "Exercises and Reading," Sartre discusses Flaubert's reading of Shakespeare.1 In the context Sartre describes how Flaubert spent his time during one of the rare periods when he was not even attempting to write anything; more than two years elapsed (...) between the completion of the first Sentimental Education in January 1845 and die beginning of his collaboration widi Maxime Du Camp on La Bretagne. Along with doing desultory background reading for "an oriental tale," and analyzing the plays ofVoltaire, Flaubert claimed to be studying the Greek and Roman authors and a selected few of the later "great immortals." Sartre shows that Flaubert's way of reading them was entirely different from the critical analysis which he directed on the work of his contemporaries. Essentially it was a series of"rereadings," and its purpose was not to gain knowledge or even a fuller understanding of the text. In a letter to Mlle de Chantepie, Flaubert counsels her to take one of the great writers and "study him in depth," reading from beginning to end and then starting over again: "But do not read, as children read, to amuse yourself, nor as the ambitious read, to instruct yourself. No, read so as to live. Create in your soul an intellectual atmosphere which will be compounded from the emanation of all the great minds."2 How can Flaubert both counsel his correspondent to study in depdi and not to seek instruction? The kind ofstudy he has in mind, Sartre claims, is comparable to the way in which an amateur pianist might "study" Chopin, where die aim is not to understand analytically but to perfect a particular interpretation and to evoke a certain aesdietic reaction. Flaubert resists instruction because new knowledge risks forcing change. What he wants is 211 2 1 2 Philosophy and Literature to rediscover the same eternal truths and emotions.3 It is also to find inspiration for his own dreams, an oneiric reading. In this connection Sartre makes two important points. First, in striving to cultivate for the soul "an intellectual atmosphere... compounded from the emanation of all the great minds," the artist is adding so many strings to his lyre — the laugh of Rabelais, the cosmic passions of Shakespeare, the skepticism of Montaigne. This is whyJules at the end of die first Sentimental Education plans to study die great writers, beginning with Homer — not to learn dieir technique but to enlarge the artist's sensibility. Sartre's second point is made apropos of Flaubert's rereading of Shakespeare. Flaubert fluctuates between two responses. Sometimes he is depressed at the thought of his own lack of genius in comparison with Shakespeare. "That good man will drive me mad.... All odiers seem to me children beside him."* At odier times he experiences what Sartre calls a "glorifying identification." It is as though in imagination he becomes Shakespeare. In part this is because, as he writes in this same letter, we artists "breathe in our existence by means of die sentence." Sartre notes that for Flaubert the existence in question is a literary reality, not that of die everyday world; we may breathe it in either dirough writing or through reading. At this particular moment in his life, Sartre argues, Flaubert's program of study was in bad faith. He allowed die imaginary identification to suffice. Sartre goes so far as to say, "He reads in order not to write; in diis masturbatory substitute for the act, he makes himself an aumor all at once, under anodier name, in order not to work at becoming the writer of genius he wants to be." This comment makes sense if we recall Flaubert's situation in 1845-47. After the nervous crisis at Pont-L'Evêque he knew that either he would be a writer or he would remain a feeble invalid, an object of pity, the "family idiot." "There he is, dien, paralyzed by two opposing forces: hope and die fear of being disappointed " (p. 2021). No wonder he... (shrink)

There are several great biographies of Wollstonecraft out there and a growing number of books discussing her works. Sylvana Tomaselli’s book is neither and both: as an intellectual biography, it dr...

Two intellectual vices seem to always tempt us: arrogance and diffidence. Regarding the former, the world is permeated by dogmatism and table-thumping close-mindedness. From politics, to religion, to simple matters of taste, zealots and ideologues all too often define our disagreements, often making debate and dialogue completely intractable. But to the other extreme, given a world with so much pluralism and heated disagreement, intellectual apathy and a prevailing agnosticism can be simply all too alluring. So the need for (...) intellectual humility, open-mindedness, and a careful, humble commitment to the truth are apparent. In this book, Dr Church and Dr Samuelson explicate a robust and vibrant account of the philosophy and science of this most valuable virtue, and they highlight how it can be best applied and personally developed. (shrink)

A survey of theories on the passions and action in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain and western Europe reveals that few, if any, of the major writers held the view that reason in any of its functions executes action without a passion. Even rationalists, like Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth and English clergyman Samuel Clarke, recognized the necessity of passion to action. On the other hand, many of these intellectuals also agreed with French philosophers Jean-François Senault, René Descartes, and Nicolas (...) Malebranche that, for passions to be useful or to become virtues, they must be governed by reason. Without the moderation of reason, passions will be unruly, distort our notions of good, and disrupt our rational volitions. In response to these popular early modern perspectives, Enlightenment thinker David Hume offered a now-famous argument that reason without passion cannot motivate, drawing the further conclusion that reason cannot govern the passions, either. Given that no one in Hume’s era seemed to defend the claim that reason alone can motivate action, what was Hume’s intention? (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the literature on cognitive heuristics and biases in light of virtue epistemology, specifically highlighting the two major positions—agent-reliabilism and agent-responsibilism —as they apply to dual systems theories of cognition and the role of motivation in biases. We investigate under which conditions heuristics and biases might be characterized as vicious and conclude that a certain kind of intellectual arrogance can be attributed to an inappropriate reliance on Type 1, or the improper function of Type 2, (...) cognitive processes. By the same token, the proper intervention of Type 2 processes results in the virtuous functioning of our cognitive systems. Moreover, the role of motivation in attenuating cognitive biases and the cultivation of certain epistemic habits points to the tenets of agent-responsibilism.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Striving To Do Good:Well-Springs, Realities, and Paradoxes of Medical Humanitarian WorkRenée C. FoxThe voices that speak from the pages of these testimonial narratives are those of physicians who are engaged in medical humanitarian work. The preponderance of them are based in U.S. academic medical centers where they have clinical, teaching, and research responsibilities from which they regularly "commute" to care for patients in what the euphemistic language of (...) "global health" terms "resource-limited," rather than "poor" countries." This "hybrid life," as one of the physicians (Robert Riviello) refers to it, has transported them periodically to numerous African societies (to Algeria, Ethiopia, Gabon, Morocco, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda), to Haiti, to India and Nepal, and to Guatemala and Mexico. Three of the "stories" are written by physicians at work in the countries where they were born (Prasanta Tripathy in Eastern India, Sridevi Seetharam and colleagues in Southern India, and Paul Pierre, in Haiti).Only one group of physician-coauthors (Maricruz Merino, Jonathan Iralu, and Sonya Shin) write about their experiences in practicing medicine among poor and socially disadvantaged patients on the American mainland—in the setting of the Navajo Indian reservation in Gallup, New Mexico.All these physicians describe their involvement in humanitarian medicine as emanating from their commitment to "social justice," to "saving lives," and to "caring for the poor"; to their universalistic convictions about "human solidarity," and the non- otherness of others; to their indignation about the inequities and injustices of the world, particularly with regard to access to health care (in the words of Jeffrey Deal, "[They] deserve better. They all do"); and to their "passionate" desire, not just their "sense of duty," to help rectify these wrongs (Richard Keiden). I was struck by the fact that none of them uses the word "suffering" to describe the plight of the persons whom they feel they have been called to medically assist.Three of the physicians express the wellsprings of their motivation in religious terms. Richard Keiden refers to a "guiding principle of Judaism" on which his medical humanitarian work has been founded—"tzedakah"—which "translates as charity but actually means righteousness," is based on a "concept of social justice," and is "an obligation, not a choice." Robert Riveillo says that at the time of his graduation from high school he envisioned his "life's work as a long-term missionary surgeon"; he invokes "loving mercy," as well as justice, "in this work of solidarity" that he has undertaken; and he poignantly admits that "most days I still long to pack my things, my family, and our efforts and move to Africa for a life of direct service." What Jeffrey Deal writes is the most explicitly and ardently religious of all. He identifies his work as a physician in Sudan with Jesus's "desire for us to care [End Page 115] for the poor and downtrodden in His stead." He is haunted by his "failure" to deliver alive a "partially born" baby girl who for him incarnated "the least of the least" of whom Jesus "spoke passionately." And in touching "ever so briefly... [that] one, tiny being [he] encountered... [on ] that hot morning in Sudan," he attests, he "touched Jesus."Jeffrey Deal is not the only one who was so stricken by the death of a baby or a child. For a number of these physicians (Sadath Sayeed, Maneesh Batra, and for Sridevi Seetharam, Lisa Adams and their colleagues), it was a tragedy that they found hard to bear with "detached enlightenment" (Sayeed), or to accept. The most demonstrably heartbroken and morally outraged among them is Sadath Sayeed, who "wept uncontrollably" over the death of a baby boy, born "at home" in Haiti, "probably in one of the hundreds of make-shift tent cities." The baby was not breathing continuously, and was "handed" to him to care for. At the close of the "story " about this experience that he recounts, Sayeed lashes out with fury and angst at those who were likely to ask him, "How was it in Haiti?" Do you want to hear "my real answer?" he replies:... [L]et me summarize my last patient for you: Good luck Dad... (shrink)

This article reviews the influence of Stoic thought on the development of Spinoza's and Nietzsche's ethics and suggests that although both philosophers follow the Stoics in conceiving of ethics as a therapeutic enterprise that aims at human freedom and flourishing, they part company with Stoicism in refusing to identify flourishing with freedom from the passions. In making this claim, I take issue with the standard view of Spinoza's ethics, according to which the passions figure exclusively as a source of unhappiness (...) and bondage from which we must be liberated. I argue that, in fact, Spinoza anticipates Nietzsche and breaks with the Stoics in offering a more positive assessment of the role of passion in a flourishing life. The reading pursued here takes Spinoza's divergence from the Stoic account of the passions to be a consequence of his insistence on the immanence of human being in nature. I outline Spinoza's and Nietzsche's conception of immanence and suggest that it entails a common understanding of our nature as dynamic power or desire, which is simultaneously expressed as a capacity to act and be acted on, to affect and to be affected. The recognition of the complex relationship between passive and active power requires a revaluation of our vulnerability and openness to what can affect us and leads each philosopher to a consideration of the ways in which the passions might be made to support our striving to increase our power and to realize an essentially limited freedom and precarious flourishing. Copyright. (shrink)

An apathetic life is not the sort of life that most of us would want for ourselves or believe that we have a duty to strive for. And yet Kant argues that we have a duty of apathy, a duty to strive to be without affects (Affecten) and passions (Leidenschaften). But is Kant’s claim that there is a duty of apathy really as problematic as it sounds? In arguing that it is not, this paper investigates in detail in Kant’s accounts (...) of affects and passions and defends Kant’s argument that we have a duty of apathy. This investigation reveals Kant’s nuanced view on the role that sensible motivating states play in moral agency and the development of a virtuous character. (shrink)

Medieval philosophers clearly recognized that emotions are not simply "raw feelings" but complex mental states that include cognitive components. They analyzed these components both on the sensory and on the intellectual level, paying particular attention to the different types of cognition that are involved. This paper focuses on William Ockham and Adam Wodeham, two fourteenth-century authors who presented a detailed account of "sensory passions" and "volitional passions". It intends to show that these two philosophers provided both a structural and (...) a functional analysis of emotions, i.e., they explained the various elements constituting emotions and delineated the causal relations between these elements. Ockham as well as Wodeham emphasized that "sensory passions" are not only based upon cognitions but include a cognitive component and are therefore intentional. In addition, they pointed out that "volitional passions" are based upon a conceptualization and an evaluation of given objects. This cognitivist approach to emotions enabled them to explain the complex phenomenon of emotional conflict, a phenomenon that has its origin in the co-presence of various emotions that involve conflicting evaluations. (shrink)

The article is based on the concepts of epistemic virtues and epistemic vices and explores A. Einstein’s contribution to the creation of fundamental physical theories, namely the special theory of relativity and general theory of relativity, as well as to the development of a unified field theory on the basis of the geometric field program, which never led to success. Among the main epistemic virtues that led Einstein to success in the construction of the special theory of relativity are the (...) following: a unique physical intuition based on the method of thought experiment and the need for an experimental justification of space-time concepts; striving for simplicity and elegance of theory; scientific courage, rebelliousness, signifying the readiness to engage in confrontation with scientific conventional dogmas and authorities. In the creation of general theory of relativity, another intellectual virtue was added to these virtues: the belief in the heuristic power of the mathematical aspect of physics. At the same time, he had to overcome his initial underestimation of the H. Minkowski’s four-dimensional concept of space and time, which has manifested in a distinctive flexibility of thinking typical for Einstein in his early years. The creative role of Einstein’s mistakes on the way to general relativity was emphasized. These mistakes were mostly related to the difficulties of harmonizing the mathematical and physical aspects of theory, less so to epistemic vices. The ambivalence of the concept of epistemic virtues, which can be transformed into epistemic vices, is noted. This transformation happened in the second half of Einstein’s life, when he for more than thirty years unsuccessfully tried to build a unified geometric field theory and to find an alternative to quantum mechanics with their probabilistic and Copenhagen interpretation In this case, we can talk about the following epistemic vices: the revaluation of mathematical aspect and underestimation of experimentally – empirical aspect of the theory; adopting the concepts general relativity is based on (continualism, classical causality, geometric nature of fundamental interactions) as fundamental; unprecedented persistence in defending the GFP (geometrical field program), despite its failures, and a certain loss of the flexibility of thinking. A cosmological history that is associated both with the application of GTR (general theory of relativity) to the structure of the Universe, and with the missed possibility of discovering the theory of the expanding Universe is intermediate in relation to Einstein’s epistemic virtues and vices. This opportunity was realized by A.A. Friedmann, who defeated Einstein in the dispute about if the Universe was stationary or nonstationary. In this dispute some of Einstein’s vices were revealed, which Friedman did not have. The connection between epistemic virtues and the methodological principles of physics and also with the “fallibilist” concept of scientific knowledge development has been noted. (shrink)

Neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalists argue that moral norms are natural norms that apply to human beings. A central issue for neo-Aristotelians is to determine what belongs to the good human life; the question is complicated, since we take up a diversity of different lives, many of which seem good, and it seems unclear what the human species-characteristic life really is. The Aristotelian tradition gives some guidance on this question, however, because it describes us as rational animals with intellectual and appetitive (...) powers; the perfection of those powers is what makes us good qua human. This is especially well spelled out in Thomas Aquinas; he takes moral virtues of courage and temperance to be perfections of our sense appetites, a power of going for things presented as good through our senses. These virtues thereby shape our passions, specifically the passions of fear, daring and concupiscent love, which are a result of the sense appetites pursuing what appears as good. This view provides a framework for virtue, which can then be taken as the perfections of distinct powers shared by all human beings, though actualized in a variety of ways. In this article, I will focus on the passion of fear, which I here describe, following Aquinas, as a movement of sense appetite away from evils that are difficult or impossible to avoid. My focus will be on showing that this passion is necessary, irreplaceable by our cognitive powers, and that the underlying sensitive appetites that produce fear must be perfected for any human being to count as good. (shrink)

Chapter 20 of book II of John Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, titled ‘Of Modes of Pleasure and Pain’ is the most extensive discussion of emotions available in Locke’s corpus. Likewise, Nouveaux essais sur l’entedement humain, II, xx, together with the following chapter xxi remains the chief source of Leibniz’s views of emotions. They offer a very interesting and captivating discussion of moral philosophy and good life. The chapter provides also a great platform to study Leibniz’s argumentative techniques and (...) the differences between the philosophers in general. Locke strives to explain the emotions with a single, unifying notion of uneasiness while Leibniz’s view of the mind is much more complex and he finds more unique ways of explaining different emotions. My paper focuses on Leibniz’s critique of Lockean uneasiness as an explanans for emotions. He views uneasiness as a unavoidable part of all our mental states and therefore it is not sufficient to explain passions or moral wrong-doing of men. I will discuss such passions as love, joy, sorrow, hope, fear, despair, anger, envy and shame and consider Locke’s possible response to Leibniz’s critique. (shrink)

Kierkegaard’s texts suggest countervailing construals of the respective roles of divine and human agency in an individual’s pursuit of blessedness. Kierkegaard paradoxically suggests that the individual must depend entirely on grace for the birth and development of faith, and at the same time actively cultivate faithful dispositions and passions. But Kierkegaard did not espouse Calvinistic divine determinism, or Pelagian autonomous human agency, or the Arminian cooperation of the two. For Kierkegaard, the ostensible paradox of grace and free will is not (...) a cognitive conundrum but is rather a challenge to integrate faith as a gift and faith as a task. (shrink)

This paper is a critical examination of Lonergan’s notion of moral conversion. Conversion in general is described as a mode of self-transcendence and distinguished from development. Then moral conversion is contrasted with the two other basic forms of conversion, intellectual and religious. Next, I propose that there are two distinct moments of moral conversion: a negative moment of rational compunction, which is more Kantian in nature, and a positive moment of passionate transcendence, which is consonant with Scheler’s value ethics. (...) I draw on philosophical accounts of the initial awakening of moral consciousness, and argue that it is possible to make this first movement yet fail to make the second movement. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.1 (2001) 169-171 [Access article in PDF] Book Review The Passion for Happiness: Samuel Johnson and David Hume The Passion for Happiness: Samuel Johnson and David Hume, by Adam Potkay; 241 pp. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000, $42.50. This book is a sustained attack on the widespread impression that Samuel Johnson and David Hume were antithetical characters, a notion largely nourished by that memorable (...) moment when Boswell brings up Hume "and other skeptical innovators" and Johnson replies, as we all remember, "Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to error. Truth, sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they have gone to milk the bull." Professor Potkay feels that this image has radically distorted our perception of the truth.A large part of the problem, as Potkay sees it, is that the Johnson of the biography is not the same as the Johnson seen in his writings. Boswell, he claims, "superbly fashioned a Johnson after his own heart" (p. 29). Biography is beset with the misapprehensions we all have of another individual, but personal writing is equally subject to rhetorical posturing, selective memory, and other histrionics of the ego.Potkay makes a strong and interesting case for the proposition that Johnson and Hume were in accord as to their ideas of happiness. "Johnson and Hume set forth largely compatible visions of human happiness that, while rooted in Cicero, draw as well on modern authors..." (p. 5). In this view, happiness is intrinsically social, the inverse of Sartre's L'enfer, c'est les autres. We are estimable in our own eyes only if we are so in the eyes of others. The astronomer in Rasselas finally surmounts his delusion that he controls the weather only by leaving his solitude for the society of others. Hume declared that perfect solitude is the greatest punishment that we can suffer (p. 60). Hume and Johnson both agree that cities afford the greatest happiness through a multiplicity of agreeable consciousness--London for Johnson and Paris for Hume.Potkay argues that the chief ethic in the writings of both Hume and Johnson [End Page 169] "is the eclectic, Ciceronian brand of Stoicism Hume delineates in 'the Stoic', a sociable Stoicism whose end is 'the moderating of our passions, the enlightening of our reason'" (p. 77). The path to happiness lies in cultivating reason and moderating passion. However, unlike ethicists that downgrade the passions, Hume and Johnson see the passions as necessary and good. As against the whole duty of man, they think that pride is good, unless it causes pain to others. This is fresh news for those of us who have squirmed in Sunday school classes when pride was severely denounced and humility recommended--squirmed in spite of our reverence for Milton. Johnson and Hume viewed pride and the pleasure derived from praise as inspiring progress in trades, professions, arts, and science. It excites ingenuity. This is what we didn't dare say in Sunday school.Potkay searches indefatigably for parallels between the two men. We are told that they both rejected the hard determinism that some thinkers derived from Newtonian physics. In the midst of all this we have another discussion of tragedy, pity and fear, etc., the sort of thing that requires the reckless exuberance of youth in order to relish. Are we expected to feel astonished that here too we find them in accord? The parallels between the two men are pushed to the point that a reader might begin to suspect that there is a hidden half of the text that is being withheld, perhaps countervailing evidence. We begin to feel that lurking suspicion evoked by someone too zealously dedicated to a thesis.By the middle of the book, a reader is likely to be convinced that far from going forth to milk the bull, Hume was almost an intellectual twin of Johnson. At the same time, though, sepia thoughts begin to seep into the mind. We notice that these parallel thoughts... (shrink)

Enriched by the methods and insights of social history, the history of mentalites, linguistics, anthropology, literary theory, and art history, intellectual and cultural history are experiencing a renewed vitality. The far-ranging essays in this volume, by an internationally distinguished group of scholars, represent a generous sampling of these new studies.".

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Persons and Passions: Essays in Honor of Annette BaierLorenzo GrecoJoyce Jenkins, Jennifer Whiting, and Christopher Williams, eds. Persons and Passions: Essays in Honor of Annette Baier. Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. Pp. 368. ISBN 0-268-03263-7, Cloth, $53.00.Annette Baier stands out as a figure of prime importance on the contemporary philosophical horizon. This volume finally brings the proper recognition she deserves, presenting a rich collection (...) of essays in her honor. Persons and Passions proves to be extremely interesting both for the discussion of Baier’s own philosophical reflection and as an example of how Baier represents an unparalleled source of inspiration for anyone concerned with the philosophers who have been at the forefront of her interests. Although Baier’s preference is surely for David Hume, her intellectual curiosity and scholarly mastery cover a wider area spanning from Descartes to Kant.This is well represented by the structure of Persons and Passions: the volume is composed of sixteen essays which broadly fall into three groups, respectively concerned with the philosophy of Hume, Descartes or Kant. Lisa Shapiro, William Beardsley, Amy Morgan Schmitter, and Cecilia Wee are all concerned with the philosophy of Descartes, in particular as it is presented in the Meditations on First Philosophy. A major segment of the volume is devoted to examining diverse tenets of Hume’s thought, with essays by Saul Traiger, Lilli Alanen, Donald Ainslie, Janet Broughton, Alasdair MacIntyre, David Gauthier, and Robert Shaver. Then, in their papers, Sergio Tenenbaum and Michele Moody-Adams defend a Kantian explanation of the notions of friendship and cruelty. Finally, Karen Jones and Jennifer Whiting close the book by exploring the specular notions of trust and distrust. Baier’s lessons have been carefully absorbed by all contributors. A detailed analysis of the essays would take more space than a review allows, so I will concentrate only on those concerned with Hume, and try to single out from them the trace of Baier’s teaching.The notions of person and passion (as Christopher Williams explains in his useful introduction) are central to Baier’s general approach to philosophy, and they play an important part in the section of the book dedicated to Hume. Traiger looks into the relation between reason and the passions starting from the example of the man hanging over a precipice in an iron cage Hume introduces in A Treatise of Human Nature 1.3.13, and investigates how other philosophers before Hume had explained the reason-passions relation by means of the same argument. Traiger’s conclusion is that whereas for Montaigne, Pascal and Malebranche the precipice phenomenon proves that our passions will always overwhelm our best reasoning (in turn, demonstrating the separation of mind and body), for Descartes and Hume [End Page 229] it is not so. But whereas in Descartes this is because of the power reason possesses as a separate and independent faculty to silence the passions, in Hume the instance of the fear we feel before a precipice is a clear illustration of the interdependence of reason, passion, and imagination, which occupy “a shared arena, where regularities can be investigated and appropriate conclusions drawn” (114).Many of the essays echo one of the main features of Baier’s interpretation of Hume, namely the necessity of defining a peculiar kind of naturalism which has to be conceived within the frame of the reflective practices in which human beings are engaged as social animals. Alanen offers an analysis of the structure of the passions in Hume, starting from a consideration of the various ways the notion of reflection can help clarify the nature of passions and their intentionality. She defends a form of “natural intentionality” (133), according to which passions are intentional acts with bodily expressions which do not need to presuppose conceptually articulated propositions or judgments. In doing this Alanen discusses the role played by emotional exchange among human beings in the constitution of a unified notion of the self. A similar topic is at the center of Ainslie’s essay, which presents a thorough exploration of the principle of sympathy and of the role the self occupies within its mechanism. Ainslie... (shrink)

Annette Baier stands out as a figure of prime importance on the contemporary philosophical horizon. This volume finally brings the proper recognition she deserves, presenting a rich collection of essays in her honor. Persons and Passions proves to be extremely interesting both for the discussion of Baier’s own philosophical reflection and as an example of how Baier represents an unparalleled source of inspiration for anyone concerned with the philosophers who have been at the forefront of her interests. Although Baier’s preference (...) is surely for David Hume, her intellectual curiosity and scholarly mastery cover a wider area spanning from Descartes to Kant. (shrink)