"An important contribution to contemporary jurisprudential debate and to legal thought more generally, Just Interpretations is far ahead of currently available work."--Peter Goodrich, author of Oedipus Lex "I was struck repeatedly by the clarity of expression throughout the book. Rosenfeld's description and criticism of the recent work of leading thinkers distinguishes his work within the legal theory genre. Furthermore, his own theory is quite original and provocative."--Aviam Soifer, author of Law and the Company We Keep.

This book rounds off the study of St. Augustine's view of the human condition which Fr. O'Connell began in St. Augustine's Early Theory of Man, A.D. 386-391, and continued in St. Augustine's Confessions: The Odyssey of Soul. The central thesis of that first book, and the guiding hypothesis of the second, proposed that Augustine thought of us in "Plotinian" terms, as "fallen souls," and that he interpreted, in all sincerity, the teachings of Scripture as reflecting that same view. (...) O'Connell sees the weightiest objection to his proposal as stemming from what scholars generally agree is Augustine's firm rejection of that view in his later works. The central contention here is that Augustine did indeed reject his earlier theory, but only for a short while. He came to see the text from Romans 9, 11 as apparently compelling that rejection. But then his firm belief that all humans are guilty of original sin would have left him traducianism as his only acceptable way of understanding the origin of sinful human souls. The materialistic cast of traducianism, however, always repelled Augustine. Hence, he struggles to elaborate a fresh interpretation of Romans 9,11, and eventually he finds one that permits him to return to a slightly revised version of his earlier view. That theory, O'Connell argues, is encased in both the De Civitate Dei and the final version of the De Trinitate. This terse summary barely hints at the richness of detail contained here: O'Connell beginswith a minute analysis of the third book of the De Libero Arbitrio, then of the letters and works ostensibly supporting rival chronological patterns which he must overturn in order to make his case. Finally, in the light of his findings, he offers fresh interpretations of Augustine's three mature masterpieces, On Genesis, The Trinity, and City of god. These, along with Fr. O'Connell's contention that Augustine's anti-Pelagian De Peccatorum Meritis et Remissione must have seen publication no earlier than A.D. 416/17, will doubtless fuel scholarly debate for some time to come. Indeed, Pelagianism made the question of the soul's origin so pivotal for Augustine, that few of our current interpretations of Augustine are likely to remain unaffected by the results of O'Connell's searching and provocative study. (shrink)

This article is a discussion of Tadeusz Ślipko’s considerations concerning “the origins of human being” or, in other words, his theory of animation. One of the characteristic features of Ślipko’s Thomistic anthropology is an experimental orientation: i.e. using and referring to the data of the sciences as these relate to material, physical and biological reality. As the starting point of his position he adopts the concept of man: being composed of a material substrate, determined in his human form (...) by the immortal soul as the vital principle of his/her existence. In line with this orientation, Ślipko focuses his investigations around the idea of man conceived “as a personal being and the subject of morality as a whole, constituted in what determines his/her proper humanity.” Therefore, asking about the origins—so to say—the initial moment of human substance, Ślipko examines this issue in the context of philosophical assumptions about God as the Creator of the universe, and about man as a self-aware and self-acting being who is the cause of a series of effects. (shrink)

This article is a discussion of Tadeusz Ślipko’s considerations concerning “the origins of human being” or, in other words, his theory of animation. One of the characteristic features of Ślipko’s Thomistic anthropology is an experimental orientation: i.e. using and referring to the data of the sciences as these relate to material, physical and biological reality. As the starting point of his position he adopts the concept of man: being composed of a material substrate, determined in his human form (...) by the immortal soul as the vital principle of his/her existence. In line with this orientation, Ślipko focuses his investigations around the idea of man conceived “as a personal being and the subject of morality as a whole, constituted in what determines his/her proper humanity.” Therefore, asking about the origins—so to say—the initial moment of human substance, Ślipko examines this issue in the context of philosophical assumptions about God as the Creator of the universe, and about man as a self-aware and self-acting being who is the cause of a series of effects. (shrink)

According to the common wisdom, among both contemporary scholars and classic interpreters, Avicenna is committed to ‘Co-origination’: The human soul is temporally originated with the human body. Against the common wisdom, we will argue that Co-origination is ambiguous and vague and thus its attribution to Avicenna is in need of clarification and precisification. The problem is broken down into two sub-problems: First, the problem of the origination of different souls/powers, namely the vegetative, animal and (...) rational, in humans, and second, the problem of the relationship between these souls/powers. Based on our solutions to these two sub-problems, we will offer our own reading of Co-origination according to which Avicenna is not committed to the view that the human soul is originated with the ‘human body’ in its ordinary sense. (shrink)

This dissertation is a detailed exploration of Augustine's discussion of the origin of the human soul in the De Genesi ad Litteram. The two central problems addressed are: Why does Augustine abruptly and without explanation abandon his two-phase view of creation and reduce his three hypotheses of the soul's origin to two?, and Why, in spite of what seems to be a preponderance of evidence in favor of the traducianist hypothesis, does Augustine resist it? It is argued that the (...) solution to both of these puzzles is to be found in Augustine's unstated yet persistent commitment to an unmediated account of the soul's origin. It is further argued that if one is sufficiently attentive to the details of Augustine's discussion, it can be seen that Augustine in fact mounts a concerted effort to argue in favor of the creationist hypothesis while simultaneously attempting to block the traducianist hypothesis. (shrink)

Onians' remarkable work of scholarship sought to deal with the very roots of European civilization and thought: the fundamental beliefs about life, mind, body, soul, and human destiny that are embodied in the myths and legends of the ancients. The volume is remains a fascinating collection of ideas and explanations of cultures as diverse as the Greeks and the Norse, the Celts and the Jews, and the Chinese and the Romans.

This remarkable work of scholarship sought to deal with the very roots of European civilisation and thought: the fundamental beliefs about life, mind, body, soul and human destiny which were embodied in the myths, legends and customs of the ancients and later emerged, often unrecognized, in literature, philosophy and science. Professor Onians adduces an extraordinary range of comparative evidence, predominantly from Greece and Rome, but also from Norse, Celtic, Jewish, Indian, Chinese and Christian sources. The volume remains a fascinating (...) compendium of ideas, conjectures and explanations which can continue to stimulate and inform the anthropologist, historian of science and philosophy, and classicist. (shrink)

As a continuation of this author’s previous cosmological neuroscience papers on the hypothesized Soul of Multiverse and its possible laws, the present work examined the social aspects of four of these laws. The following key aspects were recognized: (1) Knowing about the cosmic Law of Coexistence in Diversity can let our mind respect not only the endless diversity of human beings but also the cohesive force of space-time in which all are connected. This may help realizing the superiority of (...) cooperation for shared goals over competition for gaining by harming others. (2) Knowing about the cosmic Law of Truth in Complexity can ready our mind to confront the problems of societies with the understanding that these problems are much more complex than generally thought. This may help initiating the needed intellectual renaissance of the 21st century. (3) Knowing about the cosmic Law of Divine - Evil Asymmetry can make our mind appreciate the slight yet sufficient supremacy of divine over evil. This may help restoring faith in the eventual creation of a just society, where social justice is defined as an administrative mechanism providing the right conditions for every human being to accomplish his or her Conscience-led Mission throughout life, while allowing each of these accomplishments to be reciprocated with the gratitude it induced in the involved social systems, small or large, to let equal opportunities in life coexist with due diversity in welcomed, not abused, social recognitions. And (4) knowing about the cosmic Law of Lives to Transcend can empower our mind to build on these advances. This may help moving evolution towards the human species worthy of its origin and destination. (shrink)

This article studies sixteenth-century discussions on the origin of the soul and reappraises a confessional divide that scholarship has identified within these discussions. Historians have claimed that while Catholic and Calvinist authors defended the idea that individual human souls were created by God ex nihilo (creationism), Lutherans argued that human souls were propagated through the seed of the parents, ex traduce (traducianism). This study demonstrates that, while several Lutherans did defend traducianism, this opinion was not required (...) by their faith, and the very fathers of the Lutheran faith, Martin Luther and Philip Melanchthon, refused to express any dogmatic conclusions on the topic. This article shows, then, both that sixteenth-century Lutherans held a number of different opinions on the origin of the soul and how traducianism became linked to – and sometimes part of – Lutheranism through polemical exchanges. (shrink)

A new theory about the origins of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the evolutionary transition to basic consciousness. What marked the evolutionary transition from organisms that lacked consciousness to those with consciousness—to minimal subjective experiencing, or, as Aristotle described it, “the sensitive soul”? In this book, Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka propose a new theory about the origin of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the transition to basic consciousness. Using a (...) methodology similar to that used by scientists when they identified the transition from non-life to life, Ginsburg and Jablonka suggest a set of criteria, identify a marker for the transition to minimal consciousness, and explore the far-reaching biological, psychological, and philosophical implications. After presenting the historical, neurobiological, and philosophical foundations of their analysis, Ginsburg and Jablonka propose that the evolutionary marker of basic or minimal consciousness is a complex form of associative learning, which they term unlimited associative learning (UAL). UAL enables an organism to ascribe motivational value to a novel, compound, non-reflex-inducing stimulus or action, and use it as the basis for future learning. Associative learning, Ginsburg and Jablonka argue, drove the Cambrian explosion and its massive diversification of organisms. Finally, Ginsburg and Jablonka propose symbolic language as a similar type of marker for the evolutionary transition to human rationality—to Aristotle's “rational soul.”. (shrink)

In Timothie Bright and the Origins of Early Modern Shorthand, J. D. Fleming brings together two areas of sixteenth-century intellectual history. One is the period emergence of artificial systems for verbatim shorthand notation-a crucial episode in the history of information. The other is the ancient medical discourse of melancholy humour, or black bile. Timothie Bright (1550-1615), physician and priest, prompts the juxtaposition. For he was the author, not only of the period's original shorthand manual-Characterie (1588)-but also of the first book (...) in English on the dark humour: The Treatise of Melancholy (1586). Bright's account of melancholy involves a cybernetic phenomenology of the human. Essentially, we are psyches (souls or minds). We are sealed off from our bodies, operating them as automata across an interface. Psychological presence, for Bright, is illusion and pathology. Engrossing performances or representations therefore bring great danger, and so does the doctrine of predestination-less for its content than its typical delivery. Painful preaching was indispensable in sixteenth-century English Protestantism. But it falls foul of Bright's proscriptions. This is followed by his publication of the first known system for verbatim shorthand notation since antiquity, its technique heavily inflected toward a vocabulary of the pulpit. The passionate, oral performance of the inspired preacher receives an unprecedented textual preservative-and prophylactic. Bright's technology of information serves his phenomenology of alienation. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the early modern period, the tradition of melancholy, and the history of information-as theory, and technology. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophical and scienti .c discussions of mind developed from a 'proto-concept of mind ',a mythical,tradition- alistic,animistic and quasi-sensory theory about what it means to have a mind. It can be found in many di .erent cultures and has a semantic core corresponding to the folk-phenomenological notion of a 'soul '.It will be argued that this notion originates in accurate and truthful .rst-person reports about the experiential content of a special neurophenomenological state-class called 'out-of-body experiences '.They can be undergone by (...) every human being and seem to possess a culturally invariant cluster of functional and phenomenal core properties similar to the proto-concept of mind. The common causal factor in the emergence and development of the notion of the soul and the proto-concept of mind may consist in a yet to be determined set of properties realized by the human brain, underlying the cluster of phenomenal properties described in the relevant first-person reports. This hypothesis suggests that such a neurofunctional substrate ed human beings at different times, and in widely varying cultural contexts, to postulate the existence of a soul and to begin developing a theory of mind. (shrink)

The human is a microcosm, a child of Natura naturans; and so the human is primordially not only a creature but also a creative being: Homo creans. The predestination of philosophy consists in co-clarifying and co-creating the essence (logos) of being. One of the main purposes of philosophical education is to affirm and develop an original thinking of a personality. -/- .

With his original reflection—deeply influenced by many important Arabic thinkers—Gundissalinus wanted to renovate the Latin debate concerning crucial aspects of the philosophical tradition. Among the innovative doctrines he elaborated, one appears to be particularly problematic, for it touches a very delicate point of Christian theology: the divine creation of the human soul, and thus, the most intimate bond connecting the human being and his Creator. Notwithstanding the relevance of this point, Gundissalinus ascribed the creation of the human (...) soul to the angels rather than God. He also stated that the angels create the souls from prime matter, and through a kind of causality which cannot be operated by God. What are the sources of this unusual and perilous doctrine? And what are the reasons which led Gundissalinus to hold such a problematic position? This article thoroughly examines the theoretical development and sources of Gundissalinus’s position, focusing on the correlations between this doctrine, the overall cosmological descriptions expounded by Gundissalinus in his original works, and the main sources upon which this unlikely doctrine is grounded: Avicenna and Ibn Gabirol. (shrink)

This article explains and criticizes several of Hume's arguments regarding British economic policy. I focus on Hume's methodology, which is essentially utilitarian but also depends heavily on his philosophical account of human psychology. I claim that the arguments examined prevail over competing 18th century approaches to economic policy. And I explain the relevance of this methodology for present day public policy debates.

We have no grounds for supposing that a foetus has a soul until it is conscious, and no grounds for supposing that it is conscious until there occur in it brain processes similar to those that accompany consciousness in more developed human brains. The higher animals have souls. While scientists may discover vast numbers of correlations between mental events and brain events, it is most improbable that they will be able to explain why there are the correlations that (...) they are, or any correlations at all – that is, why neural systems of a certain complexity give rise to souls. The very success of science in achieving vast integrations of theories in physics and chemistry was achieved by separating off from the physical world colours, tastes etc; but this cannot be done when we are looking for a theory with psychophysical laws. (shrink)

Disregard of primary-process consciousness is endemic in mind science. Most neuroscientists subscribe to ruthless reductionism whereby mental qualities are discarded in preference for neuronal functions. Such ideas often lead to envisioning other animals, and all too often other humans, as unfeeling zombies. Merker correctly highlights how the roots of consciousness exist in ancient neural territories we share, remarkably homologously, with all the other vertebrates. (Published Online May 1 2007).

Kepler is mainly known among historians of science for his astronomical theories and his approaches to problems having to do with philosophy of science and ontology. This paper attempts to contribute to Kepler studies by providing a discussion of a topic not frequently considered, namely Kepler’s theory of the soul, a general theory of knowledge whose central problem is what makes knowledge possible, rather than what makes knowledge true, as happens in the case of Descartes’s and Bacon’s epistemologies. Kepler’s theory (...) consists of four issues: the theory of the different sorts of soul—that is, the human soul, the animal soul, the vegetable soul, and the Earth soul—concerning their faculties, the differences and the resemblances emerging among them, the relation they maintain with their own bodies and the world, and the distinction soul–world. The paper discusses these issues from a historical perspective, that is, it reconstructs the way they appear in three periods of Kepler’s career: the period prior to the publication of the Mysterium cosmographicum, the period from 1596 to 1611, and the period of the Harmonices mundi libri V. Finally, Kepler’s epistemology is briefly contrasted with Descartes’s and Bacon’s in order to suggest that Kepler’s could be seen as a third way to understand the philosophical origins of Modernity.Keywords: Johannes Kepler; René Descartes; Francis Bacon; Anima; Force; Animism. (shrink)

Among the various approaches to the question of the nature of the mind , Augustine’s philosophical arguments for the existence of an incorporeal and spiritual substance in man and against materialism are here thoroughly examined on their merits as a source of insight for contemporary discussion. This book, originally published in 1986, employs Augustine’s method of introspection, and argues that, as a philosopher, Augustine can teach the modern mind how to detect the reality of such a spiritual subject in and (...) through basic human acts and faculties, such as imagination, memory, knowledge, free-will and self-knowledge. It presents a critical dialogue with various materialistic anthropologies directly addressed by Augustine himself, or those which have arisen at later periods, including epiphenomenalism, mind-brain identity theory, Marxism and others. (shrink)

How our beliefs about the soul have developed through the ages, and why an understanding of it still matters today The concept of the soul has been a recurring area of exploration since ancient times. What do we mean when we talk about finding our soul, how do we know we have one, and does it hold any relevance in today’s scientifically and technologically dominated society? From Socrates and Augustine to Darwin and Freud, In Search of the Soul takes readers (...) on a concise, accessible journey into the origins of the soul in Western philosophy and culture, and examines how the idea has developed throughout history to the present. Touching on literature, music, art, and theology, John Cottingham illustrates how, far from being redundant in contemporary times, the soul attunes us to the importance of meaning and value, and experience and growth. A better understanding of the soul might help all of us better understand what it is to be human. Cottingham delves into the evolution of our thoughts about the soul through landmark works—including those of Aristotle, Plato, and Descartes. He considers the nature of consciousness and subjective experience, and discusses the psychoanalytic view that large parts of the human psyche are hidden from direct conscious awareness. He also reflects on the mysterious and universal longing for transcendence that is an indelible part of our human makeup. Looking at the soul’s many dimensions—historical, moral, psychological, and spiritual—Cottingham makes a case for how it exerts a powerful pull on all of us. In Search of the Soul is a testimony to how the soul remains a profoundly significant aspect of human flourishing. (shrink)

This paper briefly summarizes Durkheim’s theory of the dual nature of man suggested earlier in his Elementary Forms of Religious Life. It is characteristic of human beings that two opposite principles confront each other within them: soul and body, concept and sensation, moral activity and sensory appetites. Although this inherent inconsistency of man has been long recognized by philosophical thought, no doctrine explanation to it has been provided to date. While empiricist monism has proved to be unable to explain (...) how concepts emerge from sensations and disinterestedness develops from self-interest, absolute idealism, on the contrary, cannot deduce sensations from concepts. Although theories suggested by Plato and Kant do not bypass the problem of dualism, they only rephrase it and make no progress in solving it. According to Durkheim, dualism of human nature stems from the fact that all religions are founded on dividing all things into the sacred and the profane. This division, in turn, is explained by coexistence of collective and individual origins in the human being. Sacred things arise out of the collective origin that enables individual consciousnesses to fuse into communion. Collective origin does not act with constant strength, but intensifies during the periods of effervescence, when it subdues the individual origin. Since the importance of the social aspect of man increases over time, there is no reason to believe that complete consent between individual and society is possible that would endow man with internal harmony. (shrink)

Among the various approaches to the question of the nature of the mind, Augustine’s philosophical arguments for the existence of an incorporeal and spiritual substance in man and against materialism are here thoroughly examined on their merits as a source of insight for contemporary discussion. This book, originally published in 1986, employs Augustine’s method of introspection, and argues that, as a philosopher, Augustine can teach the modern mind how to detect the reality of such a spiritual subject in and through (...) basic human acts and faculties, such as imagination, memory, knowledge, free-will and self-knowledge. It presents a critical dialogue with various materialistic anthropologies directly addressed by Augustine himself, or those which have arisen at later periods, including epiphenomenalism, mind-brain identity theory, Marxism and others. (shrink)

In the Arena Chapel in Padua, Giotto painted seven allegorical representations of virtues and seven allegorical representations of vices. This article probes the sources for the list of virtues and the list of vices. The ensemble of virtues can be located in St. Thomas Aquinas; the ensemble of the vices, however, is original. The result is a new account of vices that displaces the odler account of the “seven deadly sins.”.

While the concept of the human soul was always central to Christian thought, as to the origin of the soul Christian thinkers felt uneasy and did not hesitate to declare themselves ignorant. For once, Augustine did not point the way and found himself “beset with great trouble and utterly lost for an answer” in view of some of the difficulties that the issue raised. Of course, man's soul was universally believed to be created by God, but the questions “how”, (...) “when” and “where” did not admit of straightforward and unambiguous answers. Very broadly speaking, medieval thinkers could either argue that the soul is transmitted from parents to their children, rather like the conception of a new body out of the parents' “bodies”, or that God creates new souls daily. (shrink)

The paper tries to shed light on the development of the phenomenological thinking of two founding fathers of phenomenology: Brentano and Husserl. Through the criticism of psychologism it approaches the classical modern thesis articulated already by Descartes in his Meditations, namely that our inner being and consciousness are given to us more directly than the being of nature. This psychic/physical dualism as well as holding the psychic independent of its physical environment (i.e. Husserlian preserving a transcendental position), were ever more (...) inconsistent. It was approaching the objectified soul in the same exact way as the nature that paved the way to empirical psychology. Husserl’s aiming at so called “pure psychology”, even though underpinned by the transcendental subjectivity, resulted in the rise of a phenomenological stream, which hoped to justify its claims by recourse to the original encounter of humans with things within the pre-scientific frame of natural world. (shrink)

This article analyses the role that animals play in Della Porta’s method of physiognomics. It claims that Della Porta created his own, original, method by appropriating, and yet selectively adapting Aristotelian and pseudo-Aristotelian sources. This has not been adequately reconstructed before in previous studies on Della Porta. I trace, in two steps, the conceptual trajectory of Della Porta’s physiognomics, from human psychology to animal psychology, and ultimately from psychology to ethics. In the first step, I show how Della Porta (...) substantially adapts the physiognomic principle of the body-soul relationship as found in the pseudo-Aristotelian Physiognomonica. In the second, I demonstrate that the real aim of Della Porta’s physiognomics is a practical one, namely understanding how to live a good life, and I explain why he refers to Aristotle in order to ground this conception. (shrink)

Many translations have been made from the original Sanskrit of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. They have become well loved, well used, and well applied by many in all parts of the world and of all religious beliefs. The Sutras have a power and a timelessness about them which demonstrate the accuracy with which they pinpoint the basic truths of human evolution from subservience to personality clamours to the serene freedom of the soul. Most human problems today originate (...) in selfish desire; the prostitution of the feeling nature to self-centred physical appetites. This is also brought out clearly in the teaching of the Lord Buddha, the treading of the Noble Eight-Fold path providing the only way out of the maze: Right Values; Right Speech; Right Mode of Living; Right Thinking; Right Expression; Right Conduct; Right Effort; Right Rapture or True Happiness. These are attributes of the soul. Patanjali explores exhaustively the means, the techniques and the mental posture which create the connecting thread between the form-centred personality and these stages towards spiritual achievement and soul fusion. The four parts of the book develop: 1. The Problem of Union (51 sutras). 2. sutras). 4. Illumination (34 sutras). Many different training techniques have been available over the centuries, depending on the condition of human consciousness and the phase of spiritual growth to be accomplished. Each Yoga has had its place, fulfilled its function, and become an absorbed part of human experience. In this book the factor of mind in meeting present-day needs is again given prominence as the agent of the soul, and the key to personality release. These Yoga Sutras of Patanjali are based on Raja Yoga, the kingly science of the soul: Through the science of Raja Yoga the mind will be known as the instrument of the soul and the means whereby the brain of the aspirant becomes illuminated and knowledge gained of those matters which concern the realm of the soul. The soul is concerned with the working out of planetary purpose and plan; so again we find that mental training, and the self-achievement of the individual, lead to cooperation and service on a scale far more comprehensive and of far greater evolutionary significance than merely the individual effects on the life of the disciple. venture on the path of union with the soul. When through the removal of hindrances and the purification of the sheaths, the totality of knowledge becomes available, naught further remains for the man to do. (shrink)

The great chain of being is an ontological conception in which all beings, from inanimate things to God, are ranked on a scale according to their perfectness. This hierarchical scheme, though widely known in the history of ideas, was systematically addressed by Arthur Lovejoy in 1936. The great chain of being as formulated by Lovejoy is composed of three main principles, whose roots can be found in Plato and Aristotle’s philosophies. These principles are “the principle of plenitude”, “the principle of (...) gradation” and “the principle of continuity.” The first principle, the principle of plenitude, was pointed out in Plato’s philosophy and the latter two, the principle of gradation and the principle of continuity, were addressed in Aristotle’s philosophy. According to Lovejoy, these three principles were systematically addressed in Plotinus’s philosophy and became an essential part of Neo-Platonic cosmology. Platon explains the abundance of beings with reference to the absolute goodness of the God in his famous book Timaios. Accordingly, God has absolute goodness and this attribution has given rise to an abundance of beings as goodness requires the existence of things. The other two principles, the principle of gradation and the principle of continuity, were forwarded by Aristotle and through his works affected Western thought. While the principle of gradation refers to the ranking of beings in a chain based on the criteria of their perfection, the principle of continuity is the natural consequence of that ranking in that all beings share at least a minimum level of similarity. Plotinus synthesized and systematized those three principles as an expression of ranked beings specific to emanation theory and added three hypostasis -One, Nous, and Soul- in addition to the natural world addressed in Aristotle’s works. Therefore, we see that beings were ranked from inanimate things to God in Plotinus’s works. This concept of hierarchical order of beings, the great chain of being, affected many cultures and philosophical ideas from Classical Islamic philosophy to the Western tradition. In this article, we confine our subject to only Western thought, including Medieval Christian theology and philosophy, the Renaissance period, and the Age of Enlightenment as well as a peculiar implication and interpretation of the great chain of being specific to modern times. In every period we will deal with just one thinker and their ideas to demonstrate the effect of the great chain of being on those thinkers’ philosophies and systems. In this context, we examined how Thomas Aquinas used the great chain of being to justify some theological and philosophical matters and tried to show how he utilized the principle of continuity effectively to explain the relationship between matter and soul. Marcilio Ficino, a Neo-Platonist philosopher of the Renaissance period, also used the great chain of being to explain the hierarchical order of beings and their ontological relationship to the perfect being, which is God, placing them in a rising line according to their closeness to God. On the other hand, when we come to the Age of Enlightenment we see that the great chain of being continues to be apparent in some philosophical works. One example is John Locke’s famous book An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. Here Locke tries to make sense of the existence of many species of spirits with reference to the great chain of being, especially by using the principle of continuity. This attempt of justification shows us that the great chain of being, as an old philosophical and ontological concept, was still used even in the Enlightenment. Finally, it would be beneficial to address how the chain of being in question was presented and understood in modern times. Unlike the justification of some philosophical or theological subjects, in modern times the hierarchical structure of the great chain of being has been anachronistically read into the theory of evolution with reference to some medieval Muslim philosophers’ works. This approach, however, springs from the figural similarities between the great chain of being and the theory of evolution, although the contents of both theories are completely different. It would be accepted easily that similarities in figure do not necessitate similarities in content. In short, the great chain of being has been very effectively used in the history of philosophy to justify different subjects in different areas such as philosophy and theology. In this article, we address the usages of the chain in question and trace its effects specific to the Western tradition from the ancient period to modern times. (shrink)

Wilhelm Stekel was an Austrian physician and psychologist and one of Freud’s earliest followers. This title, originally published in 1921, was the author’s favourite of his own work. In the preface he says: ‘It was written in the beautiful years in which the first rays of analytic psychognosis penetrated the darkness of the human soul.’ Covering a variety of topics he takes a psychoanalytic look into _The Depths of the Soul_.

Wilhelm Stekel was an Austrian physician and psychologist and one of Freud’s earliest followers. This title, originally published in 1921, was the author’s favourite of his own work. In the preface he says: ‘It was written in the beautiful years in which the first rays of analytic psychognosis penetrated the darkness of the human soul.’ Covering a variety of topics he takes a psychoanalytic look into _The Depths of the Soul_.

Plato's entire fictive world is permeated with philosophical concern for Eros, well beyond the so-called erotic dialogues. Several metaphysical, epistemological and cosmological conversations - Timaeus, Cratylus, Parmenides, Theaetetus and Phaedo - demonstrate that Eros lies at the root of the human condition and that properly guided Eros is the essence of a life well lived. This book presents a holistic vision of Eros, beginning with the presence of Eros at the origin of the cosmos and the human soul, (...) surveying four types of human self-cultivation aimed at good guidance of Eros and concluding with human death as a return to our origins. The book challenges conventional wisdom regarding the 'erotic dialogues' and demonstrates that Plato's world is erotic from beginning to end: the human soul is primordially erotic and the well-cultivated erotic soul can best remember and return to its origins, its lifelong erotic desire. (shrink)

In this original and provocative account of the evolutionary origins of human communication, Michael Tomasello connects the fundamentally cooperative structure of human communication (initially discovered by Paul Grice) to the especially ...

Abstract. The modern concept of the inner self containing a private inner world has ancient philosophical and religious roots. These begin with Plato's intelligible world of ideas. In Plotinus, the intelligible world becomes the inner world of the divine Mind and its ideas, which the soul sees by turning “into the inside.” Augustine made the inner world into something merely human, not a world of divine ideas, so that the soul seeking for God must turn in, then up: entering (...) into itself and then looking above itself at the intelligible light of God. In modernity, “ideas” become the immediate object of every act of mental perception, the essential inner objects of the mind's eye. Locke makes the inner space inescapably private, excluding the divine inner light. Postmodern attempts to reconceive the relation of mind and world, rejecting the modern conception of a private inner self, will need to deal with lingering Platonist intuitions about the immediacy of the mind's vision. (shrink)

Both for Kant and for Nietzsche, aesthetics must not be considered as a systematic science based merely on logical premises but rather as a set of intuitively attained artistic ideas that constitute or reconstitute the sensible perceptions and supersensible representations into a new whole. Kantian and Nietzschean aesthetics are both aiming to see beyond the forms of objects to provide explanations for the nobility and sublimity of human art and life. We can safely say that Kant and Nietzsche used (...) the dualities of the beautiful/sublime and Apollonian/Dionysian to advocate their general philosophical worldview, and that the initial formation (in Observations and The Birth of Tragedy) and final dissolution (in the Critique of Judgment and Zarathustra and other later works) of these dualities are determined by the gradually established telos of their philosophical endeavor. Therefore, by observing the evolution of these so-called dualities, Kaplama gathers important clues as to how Kant’s and Nietzsche’s aesthetics transformed into different ways to affirm human art and life. On the one hand, Kaplama argues, the Dionysian came to be the heart and soul of Nietzschean aesthetics and ethics, and the Apollonian (or the formal drive of individuation) was reduced into a mere aesthetic criterion. On the other, Kant treats the sublime (which is originally an idea-producing feeling and/or judgment) as a mere appendix to his Critique of Judgment and aesthetic theory teleologically reducing it into its possible moral consequences. This is why Schopenhauer calls the sublime “by far the most excellent thing in the Critique of Judgment” which touches on the real problem of aesthetics very closely but does not provide a real solution for it. Kant’s forced teleological move is to make his theory of aesthetic judgment stand as a ‘reaffirmation’ of the earlier ethical justification he believed to have accomplished in the first two Critiques and the Groundwork where he defends an affirmation of human life through a teleological morality centered on the principle of free-will. In contrast, Nietzsche’s aesthetics (particularly the Dionysian) guides his ethics and metaphysics again through defining an ideal human nature without which ethos would be static and meaningless, lacking the ability to move and change and represent the tragic pathos of human life. (shrink)

This is the first of four online Companions to Velmans, M. (ed.) (2018) Consciousness (Critical Concepts in Psychology), a 4-volume collection of Major Works on Consciousness commissioned by Routledge, London. Each of the Companions presents a pre-publication version of the introduction to one of the Volumes and, for Volume 1, it also sets the stage for the entire, printed collection. As the collection forms part of a Critical Concepts in Psychology series, this selection of major works focuses mainly on works (...) that have a direct psychological relevance. From the mid 19th Century onwards, psychology began to separate itself from philosophy, and the development of psychological thought about consciousness links intimately to the development of psychology itself. In order to trace this development, the four volumes of this collection follow a rough, historical sequence. Volume 1 deals with The Origins of Psychology and the Study of Consciousness. Volumes 2 and 3 deal with contemporary Cognitive and Neuropsychological Approaches to the Study of Consciousness. And Volume 4 focuses mainly on New Directions: Psychogenesis, Transformations of Consciousness and Non-reductive, Integrative Theories, which deal with issues likely to expand current, mainstream thought in potentially novel, and, sometimes, challenging directions. -/- The printed, 4-Volume collection presents 89 major readings (or salient extracts from major readings) drawn from the entire field of Consciousness Studies, along with these introductions and an extensive index. It also introduces 5 additional readings that were selected for inclusion, but could not be reprinted for the reason that reprint permissions were prohibitively expensive. Although these online Companions cannot substitute for the 2000 page hard copy, they do provide a wealth of additional resources in the form of online links to supplementary readings (marked in pink) and to the readings themselves (marked in blue). In many cases the online sources are freely available or available through institutional subscriptions. Links are also provided for some of the readings that require access to complex colour plates, thereby making the four Companions complementary to the collection itself. -/- This Companion to Volume 1 focuses on the selection criteria for the collection, the problems presented by consciousness and how to organize these into groups, the ancient history of thought about consciousness, mind and soul, the emergence of psychology as the empirical study of consciousness and mind, the emergence of behaviorism, cognitive psychology and the re-emergence of the study of mind, initial ideas about the role of consciousness in human information processing, the strengths of functionalist accounts of mind, the weaknesses of functionalist accounts of consciousness, competing psychological theories about the nature and function of consciousness, interdisciplinary influences, and the formation of Consciousness Studies. (shrink)

This study is an examination of the manner in which intelligence mediates desire. Its central claims are that all desire is necessarily determined as such by the capacity of intelligence and that the specific quality of desire as animal or human is therefore conditioned by the specific power of intelligence possessed by the desiring creature. In looking at human desire, it is further argued that the presence of rational intelligence introduces instability in the natural soul that in turn (...) conditions its desire as potentially unreasonable and reasonable. Developing this argument first in light of Aristotle's moral psychology, attention is then turned to Hegel's philosophical psychology, as found in his Philosophy of Mind, and to his account of desire, as it is found in his Phenomenology of Spirit. By examining sections of these works, it is shown that Hegel revives significant aspects of this classical account of moral psychology and desire, which have for the most part been neglected in modern philosophical psychology. It is also suggested, however, the Hegel introduces significant variations to this classical view in his appropriation of it that have rendered him vulnerable to much of the post-modern criticism that he has received. (shrink)

"Originally published in 2015 by Allen Lane, an imprint of Penguin Books, Great Britain"--Title page verso.

This paper investigates Mencius’s notion of sympathy from the perspective of evolutionary biology. First, I point out that Mencius and evolutionary biologists concur that humans are endowed with a unique ability to sympathize with others beyond kin and friends. Subsequently, I offer an analytic account from an evolutionary perspective on how this ability emerged and developed as an innate human quality—especially referencing recent theories that state that cooperation is a crucial factor that helped foster such a quality. Further, this (...) paper addresses in-group/out-group distinction in terms of the scope of sympathy. In particular, I respond to Donald Munro’s thesis that this distinction serves as a critical boundary for the workings of sympathy. Finally, I show that Mencius’s (and other Confucian thinkers’) thoughts on sympathy are not only compatible with modern evolutionary discourses but also contribute to the psychological mechanisms that may have enabled humans to regard others with sympathetic concern. Thus, this essay sheds light on the mechanisms of sympathy that Mencius and other Confucian thinkers illustrated as identifying oneself or one’s kin with others. I then surmise that such mechanisms most likely emerged as a fundamental psychological principle for humans initially reaching out to others. (shrink)

• Examines the Oldawan, the Ancient Soul of Africa, and its correlation with what modern psychologists have defined as the collective unconscious • Draws on archaeology, DNA research, history, and depth psychology to reveal how the biological and spiritual roots of religion and science came out of Africa • Explores the reflections of our African unconscious in the present confrontation in the Americas, in the work of the Founding Fathers, and in modern psychospirituality The fossil record confirms that humanity originated (...) in Africa. Yet somehow we have overlooked that Africa is also at the root of all that makes us human--our spirituality, civilization, arts, sciences, philosophy, and our conscious and unconscious minds. In this African-revisioned look at the unfolding of human history and culture, Edward Bruce Bynum reveals how our collective unconscious is African. Drawing on archaeology, DNA research, history, depth psychology, and the biological and spiritual roots of religion and science, he demonstrates how all modern human beings, regardless of ethnic or racial categorizations, share a common deeper identity, both psychically and genetically, connected with a primordial African unconscious. Exploring the beginning of early religions, spirituality, and mysticism in Africa, along with philosophy, art, and science, the author looks at the Egyptian Nubian role in the rise of civilization and the emergence of Kemetic Egypt, revealing how and why ancient Egypt was separated from the rest of Africa in the Western mind--despite it being the most sophisticated expression of the Mother Continent. He examines the Oldawan, the Ancient Soul, and its correlation with what modern psychologists have defined as the collective unconscious. Revealing the spiritual and psychological ramifications of our shared African ancestry, the author examines its reflections in the present confrontation in the Americas, in the work of the Founding Fathers, and in modern Black spirituality, which arose from African diaspora religion and philosophy. By recognizing our shared African unconscious, the matrix that forms the deepest luminous core of human identity, we can learn to see and feel that the differences between one person and another are merely superficial and ultimately there is no real separation between the material and the spiritual. (shrink)

The target paper (building on Ginsburg and Jablonka in JTB 381:55–60, 2015, The evolution of the sensitive soul: Learning and the origins of consciousness, MIT Press, USA, 2019) makes a significant and novel claim: that positive cases of non-human consciousness can be identified via the capacity of unlimited associative learning (UAL). In turn, this claim is generated by a novel methodology, which is that of identifying an evolutionary ‘transition marker’, which is claimed to have theoretical and empirical advantages over (...) other approaches. In this commentary I argue that UAL does not function as a successful transition marker (as defined by the authors), and has internal problems of its own. However, I conclude that it is still a very productive anchor for new research on the evolution of consciousness. (shrink)

Ambitious and elegant, this book builds a bridge between evolutionary theory and cultural psychology. Michael Tomasello is one of the very few people to have done systematic research on the cognitive capacities of both nonhuman primates and human children. The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition identifies what the differences are, and suggests where they might have come from. -/- Tomasello argues that the roots of the human capacity for symbol-based culture, and the kind of psychological development that (...) takes place within it, are based in a cluster of uniquely human cognitive capacities that emerge early in human ontogeny. These include capacities for sharing attention with other persons; for understanding that others have intentions of their own; and for imitating, not just what someone else does, but what someone else has intended to do. In his discussions of language, symbolic representation, and cognitive development, Tomasello describes with authority and ingenuity the "ratchet effect" of these capacities working over evolutionary and historical time to create the kind of cultural artifacts and settings within which each new generation of children develops. He also proposes a novel hypothesis, based on processes of social cognition and cultural evolution, about what makes the cognitive representations of humans different from those of other primates. -/- Lucid, erudite, and passionate, The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition will be essential reading for developmental psychology, animal behavior, and cultural psychology. (from the HUP website). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plotinus and the Augustine on the Mid-Rank of the Soul: Navigating Two Worlds by Joseph TorchiaThomas ClemmonsTORCHIA, Joseph. Plotinus and the Augustine on the Mid-Rank of the Soul: Navigating Two Worlds. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2023. vii + 237 pp. Cloth, $105.00For nearly four decades, Joseph Torchia, O.P., has written extensively on Augustine and Plotinus. He has produced numerous scholarly articles on both Augustine and Plotinus, as well (...) as monographs on Augustine’s understanding of creatio ex nihilo and tolma in Plotinus. This volume on the mid-rank of the soul in Plotinus and Augustine is the fruit of this life-long study.The major premise of Torchia’s study is the profound relation, even continuity, between Hellenistic philosophy, especially Neoplatonism, and early Christian thought. The Hellenistic view of an ordered universe, which extends from the material and physical to the spiritual and noetic, [End Page 730] places the human in a middle place. This view is exposited most clearly by Plotinus and shared, though with qualifications, by early Christians, especially St. Augustine. Torchia asserts that we are able to see this shared legacy and continuity between philosophers such as Plotinus and Augustine in “their respective anthropological and psychological theories.”The book is divided into halves; the first on Plotinus and the second on Augustine. Torchia’s discussion of Plotinus’s philosophy narrows and deepens through five chapters, from a general outline of the Alexandrian’s system to a heightened focus on the journey of the soul, as imaged through the figure of Odysseus. Torchia rightly notes the inconsistent depiction of the descent of soul(s), especially of individual souls as both in a sense “fallen” and “sent.” This tension is in part resolved through Plotinus’s emphasis on the middle place of the soul and the harmony of all the parts within the unity of the whole.The chapters on Plotinus are excellent. Torchia shows how Plotinus integrates concepts from Aristotle, especially his De anima, and qualifies the spiritualized philosophy of Plato. What we get, then, is Plotinus as a highly original philosopher, whose insights deserve closer examination. For example, Torchia glosses the Plotinian dictum, “we are soul,” to examine what is meant by “we” and “soul.” Far from leading to a dismissive view of the body and individuality (as is often stated about Plotinus), Torchia emphasizes that the middle state of the soul is the condition of soul. The lower soul, or the composite (per Torchia), cannot be simply lopped off. To do so, the unity of soul would be destroyed. Torchia thus presents a Plotinus profoundly concerned with humanity in its entirety—our affections, body, thoughts, and individuality. This is why Plotinus and Torchia land on the image of Odysseus as the journeyman to depict human existence.In the final five chapters, the book turns exclusively to Augustine. Torchia outlines the profound difference between Augustine and Plotinus as regards the ontological distinction between God as creator and the human. Because of this distinction, Torchia observes that the mid-rank of the soul takes on a more profound “existential significance.” This existential significance is witnessed in Augustine’s emphasis on free will and the “weight of love,” which, according to Torchia, shows affinities with Plotinus but also departs from the determinism and necessity of the descent of soul(s) in the Alexandrian’s system.The final chapter of the book examines Augustine’s understanding of the two cities, of God and of man. Torchia asserts that the middle-rank of the soul provides the philosophical undercurrent to Augustine’s conception of the City of God. The City of God is not exclusively a spiritual reality. Rather, much as with the middle-rank of the soul, the City of God is both “here” and “there.” The permixta of the Church as an intermediate state is “analogous to the mid-rank status of the rational soul.” For Augustine, both the individual and the Church journey, like Plotinus’s Odysseus, on the stormy seas. [End Page 731]In this book, Torchia has provided a thorough and insightful reading of Plotinus. He highlights the inherent rational optimism of Plotinus as well as the goodness... (shrink)

The international debate on the animal machine was initiated by the preface that the Dutch philosopher and later professor of medicine Florentius Schuyl in 1662 added to his Latin translation of Descartes’ Treatise on Man. Schuyl defended the animal machine in reaction to the vehement attacks, mostly in the vernacular, against the philosophy of Descartes in the Dutch Republic in the 1650s, wherein the theory of the animal machine had become one of the flashpoints. These polemics were part of a (...) power struggle, not a quest for philosophical truth. Schuyl focused on the points that had appeared as controversial in these debates: biblical exegesis, arguments from common sense, and to some extent physiology, but ignored wider philosophical questions. Questions about the soul and human uniqueness came to the fore only when his work was picked up in a new context, the international republic of letters. Schuyl's preface is therefore an interesting example of knowledge taking shape by circulation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Philosophical Perspectives on Galen of Pergamum. Four Case-Studies on Human Nature and the Relation between Body and Soul by Robert VinkesteijnJulien DevinantVINKESTEIJN, Robert. Philosophical Perspectives on Galen of Pergamum. Four Case-Studies on Human Nature and the Relation between Body and Soul. Leiden: Brill, 2022. viii + 357 pp. Cloth, $155.00Vinkesteijn's book, stemming from his 2020 dissertation at Utrecht University, explores Galen's views on (human) nature (...) and the soul. Opting to sidestep the debate on the unity of Galen's thought, he offers a series of close readings of some of Galen's most philosophical writings, radiating from the short treatise The Capacities of the Soul Follow the Mixtures of the Body (QAM), which encapsulates the questions he investigates throughout the book. Although many of the texts and themes examined have been extensively discussed in previous scholarship, its strength lies in its steadfast and coherent defense of a long-favored interpretation of Galen as "somatizing the soul."Case Study 1 revisits QAM, which has sparked considerable debate in Galenic studies. It defends the idea, recently criticized, that despite Galen's agnostic statements about the substance of the soul elsewhere, he supports here the physicalist and more speculative thesis that the whole soul is indeed identical to the specific mixture of elemental qualities in the homoeomerous parts of the main psychic organs. Vinkesteijn maintains that this thesis aligns with Galen's general physiology, and that Galen's analysis of the soul as a formal aspect in a hylomorphic whole represents not an exegetical stance on Aristotelian positions but his own viewpoint, applicable to both the nonrational and rational parts. The study then rightly emphasizes Galen's conviction that our actions and affections can and should be modified by habituation. It argues that there is no basis for assuming that the identity thesis leads to a radically deterministic ethic. Indeed, it showcases the possibility of a second formation of our bodily mixture, with Galen attributing to the rational part of the soul a godlike potential for change and improvement of the soul's virtues—although it concedes the unlikelihood of such personal enhancement, as it hinges on rare natural predispositions.Case Study 2 focuses on Galen's definition of nature and his elemental theory; it focuses on the first book of Galen's Commentary on Hippocrates's On the Nature of Man (HNH) and examines the notable absence of the soul as an explanatory factor in an account of human nature. It argues that Galen articulates a concept of nature as a primary hylomorphic substance, shared by all beings subject to generation and decay and determining their secondary properties. The study then [End Page 557] examines Galen's use of his allegedly Hippocratic/Platonic method of division to dissect nature into its constantly interacting elemental powers of heating, cooling, moistening, and drying. Vinkesteijn then underscores the complexities in delineating mixtures from nature as an intelligent creator, challenging the dichotomy between a transcendent and an immanent formation of natural beings and pinpointing the difficulty in differentiating between the causality of nature and that of the soul in humans.Case Study 3 explores Galen's engagement with Plato's Timaeus, focusing on the soul–body relationship. It drives home the argument of the first study and aims to show how the fragments of Galen's lost Commentary on the Timaeus offer a somatizing interpretation of the soul. Extensively drawing on the disputed but recently reassessed Larrain fragments, it convincingly argues that they align with passages from Galen's attested works. Vinkesteijn highlights Galen's creative reading of the Timaeus, tailored to mirror his own doctrines. Beyond incorporating Aristotelian notions into his analysis, Galen is depicted as ingeniously reinterpreting the Platonic soul–body distinction. Notably, Vinkesteijn shows how Galen takes the river metaphor literally, as an indication of moisture abundance, and applies it beyond its original context of generation. This approach enables Galen to reinterpret Plato's ideas through the prism of elemental qualities and emphasize the association of the soul with lightlike or dry and hot substances, bridging the gap between the Platonic concept of the soul and Galen's physiological understanding of human nature.Case... (shrink)