The ancient Stoics notoriously argued, with thoroughness and force, that all ordinary “emotions” (passions, mental affections: in Greek, pãyh) are thoroughly bad states of mind, not to be indulged in by anyone, under any circumstances: anger, resentment, gloating; pity, sympathy, grief; delight, glee, pleasure; impassioned love (i.e. ¶rvw), agitated desires of any kind, fear; disappointment, regret, all sorts of sorrow; hatred, contempt, schadenfreude. Early on in the history of Stoicism, however, apparently in order to avoid the objection that human nature (...) itself demands and indeed justifies—under certain circumstances at any rate—emotional attachments to or aversions from, and reactions to, some persons, things, and happenings, they introduced a theory of what came to be called eÈpãyeiai, good and acceptable ways of feeling or being affected. For short I will render these in English by “good feelings.”1 They divided these into three generic kinds, which they dubbed “joy” (xarã), “wish” (boÊlhsiw) and “caution” (eÈlãbeia). They ranged these alongside, and set them in sharp contrast to, three of the four highest genera into which they divided the normal human emotions: “pleasure” (≤donÆ), i.e., being pleased about something,2 “appetitive desire” (§piyuµ€a), and “fear” (fÒbow), respectively. The Stoics maintained that, though ordinary, familiar human emotions such as these last-named ones were always bad, the three sorts of “good feeling,” and their more specific variations (since these three are only the basic genera into which lots of other good ways of feeling will fall), were not merely free from the grounds of criticism on which ordinary emotions were rejected, and so were perfectly acceptable. The fully perfected human being (the “wise person”) would indeed regularly be subject to them. (shrink)
Science, Technology and Production in the Underdeveloped Countries: An Introduction By CharlesCooper* The uncritical notion that it would be easy to orient ...
Cooper, Austin John Henry Newman was born in 1801, converted to the Catholic Church in 1845 and died in 1890. That is, he spent the first half of his life in the Church of England. He was to exercise a profound influence on both Communions in Australia. The young Newman was elected a Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, in April 1822. Despite the declining fortunes of his family, his own career was off to a promising start. Two years (...) later he was ordained Deacon at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford on 13 June 1824. This was a very solemn commitment indeed. He thought he should give himself totally to the service of the Gospel. This attitude prompted him to write to the CMS (the Church Missionary Society) in London seeking information regarding service as a missionary. He followed up his letter with a visit to the CMS London Headquarters on July 3, 1824 - just two weeks after his ordination as deacon. (shrink)
[David Charles] Aristotle, it appears, sometimes identifies well-being (eudaimonia) with one activity (intellectual contemplation), sometimes with several, including ethical virtue. I argue that this appearance is misleading. In the Nicomachean Ethics, intellectual contemplation is the central case of human well-being, but is not identical with it. Ethically virtuous activity is included in human well-being because it is an analogue of intellectual contemplation. This structure allows Aristotle to hold that while ethically virtuous activity is valuable in its own right, the (...) best life available for humans is centred around, but not wholly constituted by, intellectual contemplation. /// [Dominic Scott] In Nicomachean Ethics X 7-8, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of eudaimonia, primary and secondary. The first corresponds to contemplation, the second to activity in accordance with moral virtue and practical reason. My task in this paper is to elucidate this distinction. Like Charles, I interpret it as one between paradigm and derivative cases; unlike him, I explain it in terms of similarity, not analogy. Furthermore, once the underlying nature of the distinction is understood, we can reconcile the claim that paradigm eudaimonia consists just in contemplation with a passage in the first book requiring eudaimonia to involve all intrinsic goods. (shrink)
This book is the first examination in almost a decade of issues in the philosophy of ecology that have been a source of controversy since the existence of ecology as an explicit scientific discipline. The controversies revolve around the idea of a balance of nature, the possibility of general ecological knowledge and the role of model-building in ecology. The Science of the Struggle for Existence is also the first sustained treatment of these issues that incorporates both a comprehensive investigation of (...) the relevant ecological literature and the development of an explicit theoretical framework in the philosophy of science. It addresses issues in the philosophy of ecology that are of particular importance for the deployment of ecology in the solution of environmental problems. It will have a cross-disciplinary appeal and will interest students and professionals in science, the philosophy of science, environmental studies as well as policy-makers. (shrink)
The ancient Stoics notoriously argued, with thoroughness and force, that all ordinary “emotions” (passions, mental affections: in Greek, pãyh) are thoroughly bad states of mind, not to be indulged in by anyone, under any circumstances: anger, resentment, gloating; pity, sympathy, grief; delight, glee, pleasure; impassioned love (i.e. ¶rvw), agitated desires of any kind, fear; disappointment, regret, all sorts of sorrow; hatred, contempt, schadenfreude. Early on in the history of Stoicism, however, apparently in order to avoid the objection that human nature (...) itself demands and indeed justifies—under certain circumstances at any rate—emotional attachments to or aversions from, and reactions to, some persons, things, and happenings, they introduced a theory of what came to be called eÈpãyeiai, good and acceptable ways of feeling or being affected. For short I will render these in English by “good feelings.”1 They divided these into three generic kinds, which they dubbed “joy” (xarã), “wish” (boÊlhsiw) and “caution” (eÈlãbeia). They ranged these alongside, and set them in sharp contrast to, three of the four highest genera into which they divided the normal human emotions: “pleasure” (≤donÆ), i.e., being pleased about something,2 “appetitive desire” (§piyuµ€a), and “fear” (fÒbow), respectively. The Stoics maintained that, though ordinary, familiar human emotions such as these last-named ones were always bad, the three sorts of “good feeling,” and their more specific variations (since these three are only the basic genera into which lots of other good ways of feeling will fall), were not merely free from the grounds of criticism on which ordinary emotions were rejected, and so were perfectly acceptable. The fully perfected human being (the “wise person”) would indeed regularly be subject to them.3 Their theory of the perfect human life did not, then, they could claim, require any outrageously unnatural demand, presumably unrealizable in any case, for a life completely without all feelings of involvement in the sweep and flow of life.. (shrink)
Preface This volume represents the proceedings of the First Conference on Situation Theory and Its Applications held by CSLI at Asilomar, California, ...
My ultimate purpose here is to examine, discuss, and interpret a difficult excerpt in Stobaeus’ 5th c. AD anthology, alleging to report—uniquely, it appears—a distinction Chrysippus drew between three different applications of the term stoixe›on or element (i.e., physical element).1 Stobaeus lists this passage as giving opinions specifically of Chrysippus “about the elements out of substance” (per‹ t«n §k t∞w oÈs€aw stoixe€vn), though in holding them he says Chrysippus was following Zeno, the leader of his sect. Hermann Diels (1879) identified (...) this selection as an excerpt (his fr. 21) from Arius Didymus’ late first century BC Epitome of Physical Doctrines.2 I print a translation below, with the text in an Appendix, as it is given in von Arnim (1903). The text is not without its problems, and I indicate in footnotes to the text which of the principal editors’ textual interventions I accept and follow in my translation. Whether this text presents a single, continuous excerpt from Arius Didymus, or instead some compilation of Stobaeus (or an earlier anthologist whose work Stobaeus employed) from dispersed passages of.. (shrink)
The Nicomachean Ethics announces itself as a treatise on the highest human good, the “end” (t°low) of human life—eÈdaiµon€a or happiness. In the last chapter of the work (X 9) Aristotle makes it clear that the study of the happy lives of contemplation and political leadership, the virtues, friendship, and pleasure that has by then been carried out in investigating that good—these are the leading themes of the Ethics that he mentions there (1179a33-35)— leaves the treatise’s objectives not yet completely (...) achieved. He began the work by saying (I 1- 2) that the study it contains is intended as a contribution to “political knowledge” (politikØ §pistƵh) or the political capacity or power (dÊnaµiw).1 Its work will not be complete, he now says, until a successful reader (or hearer) has been brought actually to possess that knowledge or power—political knowledge, that is, the fully accomplished capacity for expert political engagement in affairs of state. In effect, the reader of the Nicomachean Ethics needs now to learn, further, the subjects of study to which Aristotle’s own Politics is devoted. Before the aim announced at the beginning of the Ethics can be achieved—that is, before we can fully define and explain in the right sort of way the highest human good, or eÈdaiµon€a (I’ll say more in just a moment about what this right sort of way is)—we need, as he puts it in NE X 9 (1180a32 ff.), to become expert in the establishment of good laws (noµoyetikÆ) and good constitutions (polite›ai, cf. 1181b14, 19, 21). One might find this a surprising claim. As Aristotle himself is in no doubt, eÈdaiµon€a is a feature of the lives of individual persons. On his account it is an activity, or a unified set of ac-. (shrink)
This book brings together the ideas of a number of contemporary modernist and liberal Muslim thinkers, exposing an important intellectual current in Islamic thought which will be new to many Western readers. Responding to the challenges brought by colonialism and modernization, the contributors propose new conceptions and interpretations of Islam consonant with the age. Although their specific concerns and emphases vary, they all reconsider the relation between religion and politics and the incorporation of modern Western ideas.
In this essay, I review the relationship between Charles Darwin's methodology and the philosophy of science of Sir John F. W. Herschel. Darwin's exposure to Herschel's philosophy was, I argue, significant. Further, when we construct an appropriate reading of Herschel's philosophy of science (a surprisingly difficult feat), we can see that Darwin's three-part argument in the Origin is crafted in order to strictly adhere to Herschel's methodological guidelines.
Over a long career of teaching and writing in the area of moral theology Charles E. Curran has experienced large areas of agreement with John Paul II on issues of social justice even while in other areas of personal and sexual issues the two are in serious disagreement. This phenomenon of agreement/disagreement has suggested to Curran that the pope is guilty of using a double methodology in his moral theological writing. Curran's book, The Moral Theology of Pope (...) class='Hi'>John Paul II, seeks to uncover and substantiate the root of their agreements and disagreements. This article seeks to evaluate Curran's theory. This analysis is done in two parts: first, an examination of the evidence that Curran presents to support his charge against the pope, and second, an examination of the alternative possibility that it is Curran who has the double methodology rather than the pope. (shrink)
The mathematician John Pell was a member of that golden generation of scientists Boyle, Wren, Hooke, and others which came together in the early Royal Society. Although he left a huge body of manuscript materials, he has remained an extraordinarily neglected figure, whose papers have never been properly explored. This book, the first ever full-length study of Pell, presents an in-depth account of his life and mathematical thinking, based on a detailed study of his manuscripts. It not only restores (...) to his proper place in history a figure who was one of the leading mathematicians of his day; it also brings to life a strange, appealing, but awkward character, whose failure to publish his discoveries was caused by powerful scruples. In addition, this book shows that the range of Pell's interests extended far beyond mathematics. He was a key member of the circle of the 'intelligencer' Samuel Hartlib; he prepared translations of works by Descartes and Comenius; in the 1650s he served as Cromwell's envoy to Switzerland; and in the last part of his life he was an active member of the Royal Society, interested in the whole range of its activities. The study of Pell's life and thought thus illuminates many different aspects of 17th-century intellectual life. The book is in three parts. The first is a detailed biography of Pell; the second is an extended essay on his mathematical work; the third is a richly annotated edition of his correspondence with Sir Charles Cavendish. This correspondence, which has often been cited by scholars but has never been published in full, is concerned not only with mathematics but also with optics, philosophy, and many other subjects; conducted mainly while Pell was in the Netherlands and Cavendish was also on the Continent, it is an unusually fascinating example of the correspondence that flourished in the 17th-century 'Republic of letters'. This book will be an essential resource not only for historians of mathematics, science, and philosophy, but also for intellectual and cultural historians of early modern Europe. (shrink)
Although John Dewey has had the most profound effect on education, less is known about the philosophy of education of the original founder of pragmatism, Charles Peirce. Using Peirce's theory of formal rhetoric, I try to show that Peirce's philosophy of education, when fully understood, is aligned with Dewey's pedagogy of experiential learning, and can provide a justification for the promotion of active learning in the classroom. Peirce's rhetoric, as one part of his logical or semiotic theory, argues (...) that reasoning alone is not sufficient to gain knowledge, but that it must be embedded within a community of inquiry, of a certain sort. Applying this to the classroom, I argue that we, as teachers, should endeavor to create the features of a proper community of inquiry in the classroom, one that emphasizes engagement of the students in doing research rather than passively receiving information about its results. (shrink)
This book has two basic aims: to provide a clear and comprehensive account of the most prominent moral philosophies of ancient Greece and Rome, and to explain how for their adherents, these philosophies both motivated and constituted distinctive ways of life. Cooper succeeds admirably in achieving the first aim: he gives clear and concise accounts of the moral philosophies of Socrates, Aristotle, the Stoics, the Epicureans, the Pyrrhonists, and the Platonists. Each chapter explores not only the basic theories of (...) the school in question, but also some lingering questions readers may have about those theories’ implications. Cooper aims for his book to be both accessible to readers with little formal .. (shrink)
