This paper concerns the relation of Heidegger’s thought to the traditionally opposed positions of realism and idealism: a dilemma that Heidegger explicitly addresses in Section 43 of Being and Time. Heidegger’s attempt to forge a position ‘between’ realism and idealism has recently been interpreted in a number of ways, depending on whether Heidegger’s affinity with realism or his affinity with idealism is prioritized. My contention is that Heidegger’s realist and idealist dimensions are equally essential to his thought in view of (...) the re-interpretation of subjectivity as ‘ahead of itself,’ which follows from his phenomenological analysis of immediate, everyday experience. (shrink)

This paper concerns the relation of Heidegger’s thought to the traditionally opposed positions of realism and idealism: a dilemma that Heidegger explicitly addresses in Section 43 of Being and Time. Heidegger’s attempt to forge a position ‘between’ realism and idealism has recently been interpreted in a number of ways, depending on whether Heidegger’s affinity with realism or his affinity with idealism is prioritized. My contention is that Heidegger’s realist and idealist dimensions are equally essential to his thought in view of (...) the re-interpretation of subjectivity as ‘ahead of itself,’ which follows from his phenomenological analysis of immediate, everyday experience. (shrink)

They are forged either by the arbitrary acts of a radically free human subject ("decisionism," the position of the early Heidegger) or by the equally arbitrary dispensations of the unrestricted power of Being, which is beyond the capability of reason to comprehend ("quietism," the position of the later Heidegger). Both positions, Heidegger's opponents contend, amount to amoral irrationalism.".

ABSTRACTThroughout his writings, Heidegger's view of animals is ostensibly anthropocentric, defining them as deficient in relation to human beings. His most extensive analysis of animality, found in the 1929–1930 lecture course entitled The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, seems to be a clear example of this anthropocentrism, defining the animal as poor in world in opposition to the human being's world-forming character. Nevertheless, Heidegger is explicitly ambivalent regarding the anthropocentric implications of this conception of animality. This paper examines Heidegger's articulation of (...) the notion of world-poverty as a distinct form of negativity, its implications for the question concerning Heidegger's anthropocentrism, as well as his ambivalence with regard to this question. (shrink)

Heidegger conceives Dasein’s death as a peculiar type of negation, i.e., a negation that is not simple disappearance, and so is, in some sense, survived by Dasein. This paper argues that Heidegger’s technical terminology for this type of negation is the “deficient mode.” The ontological structure of the deficient mode is characterized by Heidegger as a mode of the “nur noch,” which is a way of just being. And to just be, in the sense that deficient modes just are, is (...) grounded in the unique identity conditions characteristic of a being that can exist in deficient modes—its identity is an unnecessary necessity, and so its loss is a possible impossibility. Hence, the connection with Dasein’s death, which Heidegger defines as “the possibility of the absolute impossibility of Dasein.” Death is Dasein in a deficient mode. This interpretation of Heideggerian death is then used to address the debated issue concerning Heidegger’s distinction between death and demise. (shrink)

One prevalent strategy for connecting Heidegger’s thought and his support of Nazism focuses on his notion of resolve. The claim is that it is through resolve that Dasein achieves authenticity, but that Heidegger’s notion of resolve is without determinate content, and thus empty. Since the call to authenticity, it is supposed, is Heidegger’s version of the command to be moral, the indeterminacy of Heideggerian resolve apparently results in an ethicopolitical “decisionism”-an effectively amoral form of judgment that precludes Heideggerian thought from (...) recognizing the evil of National Socialism. In this paper, I argue that the above critique is based on a misinterpretation of Heidegger’s notion of freedom. Specifically, it imputes the “existentialist” conception of freedom as unconstrained arbitrariness to Heideggerian resolve. A proper understanding of Heideggerian freedom, however, reveals that freedom is highly constrained, and that the freedom of resolve is far from an empty notion. (shrink)

One prevalent strategy for connecting Heidegger’s thought and his support of Nazism focuses on his notion of resolve. The claim is that it is through resolve that Dasein achieves authenticity, but that Heidegger’s notion of resolve is without determinate content, and thus empty. Since the call to authenticity, it is supposed, is Heidegger’s version of the command to be moral, the indeterminacy of Heideggerian resolve apparently results in an ethicopolitical “decisionism”-an effectively amoral form of judgment that precludes Heideggerian thought from (...) recognizing the evil of National Socialism. In this paper, I argue that the above critique is based on a misinterpretation of Heidegger’s notion of freedom. Specifically, it imputes the “existentialist” conception of freedom as unconstrained arbitrariness to Heideggerian resolve. A proper understanding of Heideggerian freedom, however, reveals that freedom is highly constrained, and that the freedom of resolve is far from an empty notion. (shrink)

Heidegger’s 1927 lecture course, The Basic Problems of Phenomenology, includes an examination of the Kantian conception of being as it appears within the first Critique’s refutation of the ontological proof of God’s existence. There, Heidegger maintains that the Kantian definition of being as position is beset with an ambiguity that Kant could not resolve, as such a resolution would require the repudiation of the traditional ontology of the subject that Kant presupposes. Heidegger then claims that his own ontology of Dasein, (...) articulated in Being and Time, addresses the ambiguity in the Kantian position, and thus in Kantian being, through a phenomenology of the intentio/intentum relation—an analysis in which Heidegger attempts to move beyond the traditional ontology. Heidegger’s assessment of Kant, here, is characteristic of Heideggerian Kant-interpretation. That is, Heidegger typically views Kant as having pushed the traditional ontology to its limits, and then as having retreated from the radical implications of his own thought, due to his allegiance to that ontology. And in the context of his Kant-interpretations, Heidegger characterizes his own philosophical position as resulting from the pursuit of these radical implications of Kantian thought. (shrink)

Volume 18 of Martin Heidegger's collected works presents his important 1924 Marburg lectures which anticipate much of the revolutionary thinking that he subsequently articulated in Being and Time. Here are the seeds of the ideas that would become Heidegger's unique phenomenology. Heidegger interprets Aristotle's Rhetoric and looks closely at the Greek notion of pathos. These lectures offer special insight into the development of his concepts of care and concern, being-at-hand, being-in-the-world, and attunement, which were later elaborated in Being and Time. (...) Available in English for the first time, they make a significant contribution to ancient philosophy, Aristotle studies, Continental philosophy, and phenomenology. (shrink)

In Morality Without Foundations, Mark Timmons argues that moral judgments (e.g. “cruelty is wrong”) have what he calls “evaluative assertoric content,” and so, are true or false. However, I argue that, even if correct, this argument renders moral truth or falsity mysterious.

PROCESS THOUGHT Edited by Nicholas Rescher • Johanna Seibt • Michel Weber Advisory Board Mark Bickhard • Jaime Nubiola • Roberto Poli Volume 14 ...

Both Origen and Basil of Caesarea report that some people saw Ps. 115,2 LXX – “ I said in my alarm, ' Every human being is a liar ' ” -- as an expression of the Liar Paradox and formulated a version of the paradox based upon it. But Ps. 115,2 is actually not susceptible to the Liar paradox, despite Origen and Basil believing it to be so. Not realizing this, both sought to undermine the possibility that Ps. (...) 115,2 did express the Liar paradox by offering a contextual exegesis, in which they argue that the speaker of the verse, David, can be considered a god, not a human being. (shrink)

The economic theory of the consumer, which assumes individual satisfaction as its goal and individual freedom to pursue satisfaction as its sine qua non, has become an important ideological element in political economy. Some have argued that the political dimension of economics has evolved into a kind of “secular theology” that legitimates free market capitalism, which has become a kind of “religion” in the United States [Nelson: 1991, Reaching for Heaven on Earth: The Theological Meaning of Economics. (Rowman & Littlefield (...) Publishers, Inc, Savage, Maryland); 2001, Economics as Religion: From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond (The Pennsylvania State University Press, University Park, Pennsylvania); Thurow: 1983, Dangerous Currents: The State of Economics (Random House, New York); Milbank: 1990, Theology and Social Theory, Beyond Secular Reason (Basil Blackwell, Cambridge, Massachusetts)]. Consumer theory in its ideological form provides an important base for this religion and is no longer merely a positive framework for understanding consumer choice or estimating market demand. The paper explores the view of the human being, the “anthropology,” that is implicit in the economic theory of the consumer and compares its “theological” implications with the corresponding theological anthropologies in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. The paper outlines the assumptions of consumer theory and then focuses on three aspects of the theory from a critical theological perspective: the individual in community, property ownership, and human destiny (or “eschatology” in theological terminology). The principal conclusion is that consumer theory, viewed from this perspective, leads to a reductionist and existentially harmful view of human beings. The maximization of individual satisfaction raises genuine ethical issues when viewed as a political and religious value. The paper argues that the issues could be ameliorated if economists would include more explicit treatment of a social dimension and ethical alternatives in consumer theory and if theologians would give greater attention to economic theory. (shrink)

Adequate response to physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia depends on fundamental philosophical and theological issues, including the character of an appropriate philosophically and theologically anchored anthropology, where the central element of traditional Christian anthropology is that humans are created to worship God. As I will argue, Christian morality and moral epistemology must be nested within and understood through this background Christian anthropology. As a result, I will argue that physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia can only be one-sidedly and inadequately appreciated through rational (...) appeal to central values, such as “human dignity” and “self-determination”, or through “sola scriptura” biblical interpretation, or individual judgments of conscience. Adequately addressing physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia will depend on a more fundamental spiritual-therapeutic approach. This cluster of moral, epistemological, anthropological, and bioethical claims will be explored by drawing on the texts of St. Basil the Great, St. Maximos the Confessor, and St. Isaac the Syrian. Their reflections on medicine, the human good, and its relationship to worship, spiritual therapy, and God will be used as a basis to indicate a broader philosophical perspective, which will be needed to avoid a one-sided, incomplete approach to the challenges of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. Medical morality, I argue, is best understood within categories that transcend the right, the good, the just, and the virtuous; namely, the holy. (shrink)

English summary: French description: Pensees du corps: se peut-il que le corps pense, qu'il ne soit pas un simple objet de reflexion, mais un sujet de pensee a part entiere?La demarche philosophique est ici confrontee a un corpus de pratiques et d'arts gestuels japonais (danse, theatre, arts martiaux). Une serie d'experiences significatives bousculent les idees recues et poussent le penseur a un renouvellement radical de ses methodes et de ses concepts. En resulte une philosophie de terrain, incarnee et immanente, qui (...) met en lumiere la profonde rationalite du corps. Y compris dans ses deploiements qui d'ordinaire resistent a l'analyse: sensation et action.Nul besoin d'avoir recours a un relativisme culturaliste friand d'exotisme, encore moins a un quelconque irrationalisme. Les pensees du corps dessinent un espace de publicite et d'intelligibilite, une forme d'universalite que chacun peut intimement eprouver et affiner. Loin de constituer un dehors, le corps apparait comme le lieu de production d'un savoir et d'une pensee universellement partageables. (shrink)

Mark Jago presents an original philosophical account of meaningful thought: in particular, how it is meaningful to think about things that are impossible. We think about impossible things all the time. We can think about alchemists trying to turn base metal to gold, and about unfortunate mathematicians trying to square the circle. We may ponder whether God exists; and philosophers frequently debate whether properties, numbers, sets, moral and aesthetic qualities, and qualia exist. In many philosophical or mathematical debates, when (...) one side of the argument gets things wrong, it necessarily gets them wrong. As we consider both sides of one of these philosophical arguments, we will at some point think about something that’s impossible. Yet most philosophical accounts of meaning and content hold that we can’t meaningfully think or reason about the impossible. -/- In The Impossible, Jago argues that we often gain new information, new beliefs, and, sometimes, fresh knowledge through logic, mathematics, and philosophy. That is why logic, mathematics, and philosophy are useful. We therefore require accounts of knowledge and belief, of information and content, and of meaning which allow space for the impossible. Jago’s aim in this book is to provide such accounts. He gives a detailed analysis of the concept of hyperintensionality, whereby logically equivalent contents may be distinct, and develops a theory in terms of possible and impossible worlds. Along the way, he provides a theory of what those worlds are and how they feature in our analysis of normative epistemic concepts: knowledge, belief, information, and content. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Discovery of God Generally speaking, this progress is made through some individual pioneer Of truth who gathers into himself the best in what previous generations have handed down to him, and goes on to richer understandings. These adventures occur all through the Bible's reflection Of the soul of man, and we shall pause at but a few of them. It shall be at such times as when to some sensitive spirit new qualities in God became evi dent, (...) as radium to Madame Curie, or to New ton the law Of gravitation. The experiences Of men like Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, St. Paul, are SO akin to discovery that there is no forcing Of language in the use Of the term. Developing their own insight into the Divine, they Opened up the way by which others could follow their example. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

To provlēma tēs philosophias -- Hē pneumatikē physē tou anthrōpou -- Hē paideia, to noēma tēs.

It is time to bring the rich resources of these traditions into the contemporary debate about the nature of self. This volume is the first of its kind.

Mainstream cognitive neuroscience typically ignores the role of quantum physical effects in the neural processes underlying cogni¬tion and consciousness. However, many unsolved problems remain, suggesting the need to consider new approaches. We propose that quantum theory, especially through an ontological interpretation due to Bohm and Hiley, provides a fruitful framework for addressing the neural correlates of cognition and consciousness. In particular, the ontological interpretation suggests that a novel type of 'active information', connected with a novel type of 'quantum potential energy', (...) plays a key role in quantum physical processes. After introducing the ontological interpretation we illustrate its value for cognitive neuroscience by discussing it in the light of a proposal by Beck and Eccles about how quantum tunneling could play a role in controlling the frequency of synaptic exocytosis. In this proposal, quantum tunneling would enable the 'self' to control its brain without violating the energy conservation law. We argue that the ontological interpretation provides a sharper picture of what actually could be taking place in quantum tunneling in general and in synaptic exocytosis in particular. Based on the notions of active information and quantum potential energy, we propose a coherent way of understanding how mental processes (understood as involving non-classical physical processes) can act on traditional, classically describable neural processes without violating the energy conservation law. (shrink)

Nondescriptivist views in many areas of philosophy have long been associated with the commitment that in contrast to other domains of discourse, there are no propositions in their particular domain. For example, the ‘no truth conditions’ theory of conditionals1 is understood as the view that conditionals don’t express propositions, noncognitivist expressivism in metaethics is understood as advocating the view that there are not really moral propositions,2 and expressivism about epistemic modals is thought of as the view that there is no (...) such thing as the proposition that Jack might be at home, over and above the proposition that Jack is at home.3 Of course, it is nearly always acknowledged that advocates of a nondescriptivist theory need not deny that there are conditional, moral, or modal propositions ‘at the end of the day’ – for if they also endorse a deflationary reading of talk about propositions, as famously advocated by Simon Blackburn, then they can employ such deflationary talk just as much as the rest of us. They just don’t appeal to propositions to do any of the work in their theories. Rather, they ‘earn the right’ to talk about propositions.4 It is the aim of this paper to upset this way of thinking about the proper attitude of nondescriptivists toward propositions, and to advocate a more constructive and in some ways more radical alternative on behalf of the nondescriptivist. I will begin by introducing and developing a set of problems that are faced by any nondescriptivist theory which tries to do without propositions. All of these problems are easily solved by any view which postulates propositions across the board, but none of them are solved by merely deflationary talk about propositions – their most promising solutions require propositions to do real theoretical work, and therefore the problems themselves remind us of and illustrate some of the important reasons why it is worth positing propositions in the first place.. (shrink)

This book represents part of an ongoing effort to understand the rules, practices, agencies and agents which shape and change the social construction of pedagogic discourse. It draws together and re-examines the findings of the author's earlier work.

David Bohm is one of the foremost scientific thinkers of today and one of the most distinguished scientists of his generation. His challenge to the conventional understanding of quantum theory has led scientists to reexamine what it is they are going and his ideas have been an inspiration across a wide range of disciplines. _Quantum Implications_ is a collection of original contributions by many of the world' s leading scholars and is dedicated to David Bohm, his work and the issues (...) raised by his ideas. The contributors range across physics, philosophy, biology, art, psychology, and include some of the most distinguished scientists of the day. There is an excellent introduction by the editors, putting Bohm's work in context and setting right some of the misconceptions that have persisted about the work of David Bohm. (shrink)

Gaining information can be modelled as a narrowing of epistemic space . Intuitively, becoming informed that such-and-such is the case rules out certain scenarios or would-be possibilities. Chalmers’s account of epistemic space treats it as a space of a priori possibility and so has trouble in dealing with the information which we intuitively feel can be gained from logical inference. I propose a more inclusive notion of epistemic space, based on Priest’s notion of open worlds yet which contains only those (...) epistemic scenarios which are not obviously impossible. Whether something is obvious is not always a determinate matter and so the resulting picture is of an epistemic space with fuzzy boundaries. (shrink)

b /b b i Quantum Implications /i /b is dedicated to David Bohm, his work, and the issues raised by his ideas.

I discuss three ways of responding to the logical omniscience problems faced by traditional ‘possible worlds’ epistemic logics. Two of these responses were put forward by Hintikka and the third by Cresswell; all three have been influential in the literature on epistemic logic. I show that both of Hintikka's responses fail and present some problems for Cresswell’s. Although Cresswell's approach can be amended to avoid certain unpalatable consequences, the resulting formal framework collapses to a sentential model of knowledge, which defenders (...) of the ‘possible worlds’ approach are frequently critical of. (shrink)

Theodore the Studite resolved the logical problem posed by the second Iconoclasm in an explicitly paraconsistent way, when he applied to Jesus the definition of the human hypostasis while stating that there is no human hypostasis in Jesus. Methodologically he was following, albeit without knowing, Eulogius of Alexandria. He, in turn, was apparently followed by Photius, but in a confused manner.