Online research in philosophy

Objects of representation: Kant's Copernican revolution re-interpreted -- Synthetic unities of experience -- Three ways in which space and time might be said to be transcendentally ideal -- The given, the unconditioned, the transcendental object, and the reality of the past -- A theory of everything?: Kant speaks to Stephen Hawking -- Opinion, belief or faith, and knowledge -- Freedom of judgment in Descartes, Spinoza, Hume and Kant -- Six levels of mentality -- A Kantian defense of freewill.

Over three previous editions, Ten Theories of Human Nature has been a remarkably popular introduction to some of the most influential developments in Western and Eastern thought. This thoroughly revised fourth edition features substantial new chapters on Aristotle and on evolutionary theories of human nature; the latter centers on Edward O. Wilson but also outlines the ideas of Emile Durkheim, B. F. Skinner, Nikolaas Tinbergen, Konrad Lorenz, Noam Chomsky, and recent evolutionary psychology. This edition also includes a rewritten introduction that (...) invites readers (even if inclined toward fundamentalism, or to cultural relativism) to careful, critical thought about human nature; a useful new section that summarizes the history of ideas from the Stoics to the Enlightenment; and a new conclusion that suggests a way to synthesize the various theories. Lucid and accessible, Ten Theories of Human Nature, 4/e, compresses into a small space the essence of such ancient traditions as Confucianism, Hinduism, and the Old and New Testaments as well as the theories of Plato, Immanuel Kant, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Jean-Paul Sartre. The authors juxtapose the ideas of these and other thinkers and traditions in a way that helps readers understand how humanity has struggled to comprehend its nature. To encourage readers to think critically for themselves and to underscore the similarities and differences between the many theories, the book examines each one on four points--the nature of the universe, the nature of humanity, the diagnosis of the ills of humanity, and the proposed cure for these problems. Ideal for introductory courses in human nature, philosophy, religious studies, and intellectual history, Ten Theories of Human Nature, 4/e, will engage and motivate students and other readers to consider how we can understand and improve both ourselves and human society. (shrink)

The ability to think of something not presently perceived, but spatio-temporally real. (2) The ability to think of whatever one acknowledges as possible in the spatio-temporal world. (3) The liability to think of something that the subject believes to be real, but which is not. (4) The ability to think of things that one conceives of as fictional. (5) The ability to entertain mental images. (6) The ability to think of anything at all. (7) The non-rational operations of the mind, (...) that is, those explicable in terms of causes rather than reasons. (8) The ability to form perceptual beliefs about public objects in space and time. (9) The ability to sensuously appreciate works of art or objects of natural beauty without classifying them under concepts or thinking of them as useful. (10) The ability to create works of art that encourage such sensuous appreciation. (11) The ability to appreciate things that are expressive or revelatory of the meaning of human life. (12) The ability to create works of art that express something deep about the meaning of life. (shrink)

Examination of recent debates about belief shows the need to distinguish: (a) non-linguistic informational states in animal perception; (b) the uncritical use of language, e.g. by children; (c) adult humans' reasoned judgments. If we also distinguish between mind-directed and object-directed mental states, we have: Perceptual 'beliefs' of animals and infants about their material environment. 'Beliefs' of animals and infants about the mental states of others. Linguistically-expressible beliefs about the world, resulting from e.g. the uncritical tendency to believe what we are (...) told. Uncritically-formed beliefs about the mental states. Beliefs about the material world arrived at by the weighing of evidence. Beliefs about mental states formed by critical assessment. (shrink)

Inspired by Kant, Merleau-Ponty and Sellars, I illustrate and identify certain kinds of unity which are typical (if not universal) features of our conscious experience, and argue that Kant was right to claim that such unities are produced by unconscious processes of synthesis: A perceptual experience of succession is not reducible to a succession of perceptual experiences. The experience of perceiving one object as having several features is not reducible to a conjunction of perceptual experiences of those features. A cross-modal (...) perceptual experience is not reducible to a conjunction of single-modality perceptual experiences. Incoming perceptual information is synthesized into a single scene-a representation of the world as perceived from a spatio-temporal point of view. Any two of the simultaneous features of the experience of a subject S can be thought of together by S. Many of the experiences of a subject S can be thought of by S at a later time as part of his or her history of experience. These can be summarized in the general principle: An experience of a complex is not a complex of experiences. This is consistent with Sellars' principle that: A sense-impression of a complex is a complex of impressions because the latter applies at the sub-personal, unconceptualized level, and the former at the conscious level of conceptualized experiences. (shrink)

The second edition of this exceptional anthology provides an introduction to a wide variety of views on human nature. Drawing from diverse cultures over three millennia, Leslie Stevenson has chosen selections ranging from ancient religious texts to contemporary theories based on evolutionary science. An ideal companion to the editor's recent book, Ten Theories of Human Nature, 3/e (OUP, 1998), this interdisciplinary reader can also be used independently. The Study of Human Nature, 2/e offers substantial selections illustrating the ten perspectives discussed (...) in Ten Theories of Human Nature, 3/e--The Bible, Hinduism, Confucianism, Plato, Kant, Marx, Freud, Sartre, B.F. Skinner's behaviorism, and Konrad Lorenz's ethological diagnosis of human aggression. The Islamic tradition is represented by a selection from the 20th-century Iranian philosopher Ayatullah Murtaza Mutahhari. The 17th- and 18th-century philosophers Descartes, Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau, and Kant are also represented. Selections from Rousseau, J.S. Mill, and Nancy Holmstrom discuss alleged differences between women and men, and a paper by Henry Bracken deals with racial issues. Examples from E.O. Wilson's sociobiology and his critics are also included, together with material from Chomsky and from recent evolutionary psychology. This new edition includes more substantial selections from the Hindu, Confucian, and Christian traditions and provides more accessible extracts from Marx, Sartre, and Lorenz. An excellent reader for introductory courses in philosophy, religious studies, human nature, and intellectual history, The Study of Human Nature, 2/e, is also an essential resource for anyone interested in ancient, modern, and contemporary perspectives on human nature. (shrink)

Drawing on philosophy, psychology, sociology, politics, biology, and theology, Stevenson introduces readers to the endlessly fascinating subject of human nature. He outlines background theories of the universe, basic approaches to human nature, diagnoses of what is wrong with humankind and prescriptions for putting it right while offering clear, critical analyses of the ideas of Plato, Christianity, Karl Marx, Freud, Sartre, Skinner, and Lorenz. Including completely revised and updated bibliographies, the second edition also provides a new interdisciplinary final chapter suggesting areas (...) of further inquiry. (shrink)

This book is not aimed at exhuming Kant, but resurrecting him. It is inspired by the Critique of Pure Reason , yet is not about it: perhaps over-ambitiously, it tries to delineate not Kant's metaphysics of experience but the truth of the matter. The author shows rather than says where he agrees and disagrees with the first Critique , in so far as he understood that profound but obscure, over-systematic yet carelessly written, inspiring and infuriating, magnificent but flawed masterpiece. The (...) book attempts a highly systematic presentation, in which the very form of the work reflects the content of the arguments. Kant is often derided for the extent to which he allows his penchant for architectonic structure to distort his insights, but it is argued that he had the right instinct in assuming that there must be some systematic way in which the necessary conditions for experience fit together. The contemporary trend in analytical philosophy seems to be towards ever more specialized, jargon-infested work, and there is a need to draw things together into a wider view that can be more generally appreciated. (shrink)