In this article, I explore the value of philosophy of science for history of science. I start by introducing a distinction between two ways of integrating history and philosophy of science: historical philosophy of science and philosophical history of science. I then offer a critical discussion of Imre Lakatos’s project to bring philosophy of science to bear on historical interpretation. I point out certain flaws in Lakatos’s project, which I consider indicative of what went wrong with PHS (...) in the past. Finally, I put forward my own attempt to bring out the historiographical potential of philosophy of science. Starting from Norwood Russell Hanson’s insight that historical studies of science involve metascientific concepts, I argue that philosophical reflection on those concepts can be historiographically fruitful. I focus on four issues and discuss their significance and utility for historiographical practice. (shrink)

This volume offers a meta-philosophical reflection on feminist philosophies of science. It emphasizes and discusses both the connections and differences between "traditional" philosophies of science and feminist philosophies of science. The collection systematically analyses feminist contributions to the various philosophies of specific sciences. Each chapter is devoted to a specific area of philosophy of science: general philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of climate sciences, philosophy of cognitive sciences and neurosciences, philosophy of economics, philosophy of history and (...) archaeology, philosophy of logic and mathematics, philosophy of medicine, philosophy of psychology, philosophy of physics, and philosophy of social sciences. Since some of these areas have so far rarely been addressed by feminist philosophers, this new collection provides new angels and stimulates the debate on pivotal issues that are part and parcel of both "traditional" philosophies of science and feminist philosophies of science. Using a range of different methodologies and styles, the essays all show great clarity in both arguments and contents. (shrink)

This essay examines the main line of argument of Yirmiyahu Yovel's The Adventures of Immanence. Expressing general agreement with Yovel's central thesis that Spinoza's ?immanent revolution? marked an important tuming?point in the history of modernity and profoundly influenced subsequent thought, I none the less take issue with some of the details of the story. In particular, I question his omission of Lessing, his account of the relationship between Spinoza and Kant, and his treatment of Marx. In a final section (...) I present some objections to Yovel's guiding conception of a philosophy of immanence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Discussions :REFLECTIONS ON THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE Every discipline worthy of a name deserves to be criticized periodically, asked to explain its objects and assess its march. The history of science is no exception. Indeed, criticism at this juncture should be all the more welcomed since the subjcct has now won its place in the curriculum of Anglo-Saxon educational institutions, particularly in the United States (...) where Ph.D. program offerings are multiplying almost faster than students. 1 The pioneering days of the 1930's and 1940's are past--if not totally forgotten--and men of the "second generation" like myself who received their training in the 1950's will gain much from having their methodological presuppositions questioned. Curiously enough, there has been little discussion of this kind in print for the last decade, with the exception of articles published in Poland and Russia, where the discipline is passing through its own pioneering crisis.2 In the West, the older debates stirred up largely by British Marxists are nowadays generally disregarded and have had surprisingly little productive effect upon the field. Within the last few years, the most effective methodological discussions have stemmed from Karl Popper and his generally brilliant lot of disciples. Dr. Joseph Ag~ssi, now Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois and a member of this group, recently wrote a deliberately provocative essay entitled "Towards an historiography of science." a Agassi begins it with the arresting statement that the study of the history of science is "in a lamentable state" and ends with the implicit suggestion that an examination of the historiography of science is one of the most revealing ways to discover the discipline's failings. For Agassi, it is clear that the root of the historian's problems has been a false set of philosophical premises about the nature of science, and of its history as well. He finds that the discipline has suffered from two diseases named "inductive philosophy " and "conventionalist philosophy," for which there is a major new panacea, Popper's "critical philosophy of science." This refreshingly straightforward argument provides the essay with a ready-made structure, at the same time as it infuses it throughout with a polemical tone. Because of this tone and because of the importance of Agassi's message, he deserves to be answered. On one subject, I cannot agree more with Agassi--the need for a critical examination of the hisComell, Harvard, and the University of Wisconsin have a long-standing tradition of graduate study in the history of science. In the last few years, they have been joined by: the Case IImtitute of Technology; Indiana; Johns Hopkins; M.I.T.; Princeton ; the Universities of California (Berkeley and U.C.L.A.), Kansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Washington; and Yale. Profeasor Duane Roller of Oklahoma has prepared a report on the present state of teaching of the history of science in the United States. 2Abstracts of the discussions can be found in the Bulletin signalgtique : Philosophie. Sciences humaines of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. See especially Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki u (1962), special issue; and Organon (1964), no. 1. 8History and Theory. Studies in the philosophy o] history, Beiheft 2 (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1963),117pp. [235] 236 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY toriography of science. On the other hand, his interpretation of the way history of science has and is being written seems more like a misinformed caricature than a sincere effort to understand the past in all its complexity. But let us first examine his discussion of "inductivism," "conventionalism," and "Popperianism." Inductivists or Baconians---he uses the terms interchangeably--write history the way they insist science itself has developed. Just as they assume scientific theories to have emerged from the collection of evidence, they expect that the piling up of historical facts strung along a time-axis adds up to history. As Agassi sagely observes, historians of science, like other induetivists, delude themselves into the belief that such an approach guards them from subjectivity and prejudice. To be sure, philosophers since Kant have known that such naive empiricism is in fact fundamentally misleading, for even the most ardent Baconian has... (shrink)

What is the history of philosophy? What exactly is this the history of and how is that history to be understood in relationship to philosophy itself? Can philosophy's history, on any of a number of diverse descriptions, ever be said in its own right to constitute a unique and genuine source of philosophical wisdom or insight? George Lucas sweeps aside the constraints of traditional methodological and cultural boundaries to reflect broadly on a variety of answers to (...) these questions, as posed by many of the major philosophical figures of the past century. Inviting a re-consideration of the work of scholars as diverse as Alasdair MacIntyre, Leo Strauss, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Richard Rorty, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Bertrand Russell, Arthur Danto, Martha Nussbaum, Paul Ricoeur, Charles Taylor, Keith Lehrer and Jerome Schneewind, Lucas ranges widely over the history of philosophy itself in search of original, probing answers to these profound and perennial issues. (shrink)

In this text, I intend to follow Franklin Leopoldo e Silva’s reflections on the Teaching of Philosophy in Secondary Schools. Along the way, I try to show the central role that Franklin Leopoldo e Silva attributes to the History of Philosophy in order to understand the Teaching of Philosophy, with regard to both the function and the content of this teaching, and how this ensures the fundamental role for the critical power of Philosophy in the formation of high school (...) students. (shrink)

Theories and Narratives will interest all readers for whom the role of history in the understanding of contemporary civilizations is an essential issue.

The issue which I wish to address in this paper is the widespread tendency in Anglophone philosophy to insist on a separation between the history of philosophy and the history of ideas or intellectual history. This separation reflects an anxiety on the part of philosophers lest the special character of philosophy will be dissolved into something else in the hands of historians. And it is borne of a fundamental tension between those who think of philosophy's past as (...) a source of ideas and arguments of interest to the present, and those who hold that the philosophy of the past should be studied on its own terms, in relation to its immediate context, without reference to the present. The challenge, then, is to re-historicise the history of philosophy, and to keep the philosophers onside. (shrink)

The notion that all the world's peoples constitute a "brotherhood of man" is not a given among all human beings--it is rather the product of history. So suggests acclaimed philosopher Alain Finkielkraut in _In the Name of Humanity,_ an unsettling reflection on the twentieth century in its twilight hours in which he asks us to rethink our assumptions about universalism and humanism. While many people look to humanist ideals as a deterrent to nationalist chauvinism, Finkielkraut challenges the abstract (...) idea of universalism by describing the terrible crimes "civilized" Europe has committed in its name. At the same time as it challenges the inhumanity of our century's great universalistic solutions, _In the Name of Humanity_ also confronts the more onerous elements of unreflective nationalism--clearly condemning the dangerous use of claims for ethnic purity. However, the book does not put forth a standard-issue polemic against the multitude of nationalistic currents that continue to plague the international arena. Indeed, even as he deplores the violence that seems to go hand in hand with nationalism, Finkielkraut defends its underlying cause--the need to belong. Eloquently quoting the experiences of refugees from Hitler's Germany, he shows the reader why we must heed the call of this irreducible need. Finkielkraut reminds us that the concept of cultural relativism--indeed, the very idea of tolerating other cultures--is a relatively recent development in Western history. As he looks for answers he interrogates the differences between historical racism and the racism embedded in the philosophies of this century's genocidal movements, showing how modern racist ideologies like National Socialism look not to sin within the self as the stumbling block of human advancement but to a clandestine conspiracy by a particular, identifiable element of human society. What this form of radical racist thought eliminates is the notion of personal responsibility--instead of finding the answers to misfortune within the self, modern racism suggests that evil can be identified in others and summarily eliminated. Lucidly connected to the ideas of past thinkers, from Plato to Levinas to Hannah Arendt, Finkielkraut's latest work is a troubling indictment of our century that refuses to back away from the "messiness" of human life and culture. In his willingness to abjure simple solutions, he offers a glimmer of hope. (shrink)

In the first part I focus on the issue of progress, in particular progress in philosophy. Philosophical progress has a special property that it shares with the process of becoming a better person. It is constantly finding yourself “on the way”. This path is not only anchored in the Absolutely Perfect but it conditions and stimulates the reflection towards the truth about the relationship between Him and us. We can assume that the core of this reflection is philosophy. (...) The second part is devoted to the paradoxical nature of the most generally understood memory. I assume that the condition of awareness of a certain content is its outdatedness, that is, its transfer to the sphere of memory. Memory is a constantly updated and constantly re-ordered picture of everything that the subject has ever relegated from being, so that it can be replaced by something else. The foundation of this order is a certain axiology. In the third part I show how the sketched concept of memory is used to describe the mechanism of the evolution of philosophical thought. The “on the way” philosophy would consist of two constantly repeated activities: on reconstructing what is to be denied, and thus on the recognition of the previous philosophical achievements in its totality, and on its negation. This denial would concern the whole of this achievement as an axiologically reconstructed unity. The new system is only realized as a series of consequences of the negation of the current state. The vast majority of philosophical reflection focuses on the constitution of this current state, its supposed unity. In the short part of the fourth, I draw up prospects for further deliberations. (shrink)

The notion that all the world's peoples constitute a "brotherhood of man" is not a given among all human beings -- it is rather the product of history. So suggests acclaimed philosopher Alain Finkielkraut in _In the Name of Humanity,_ an unsettling reflection on the twentieth century in its twilight hours in which he asks us to rethink our assumptions about universalism and humanism. While many people look to humanist ideals as a deterrent to nationalist chauvinism, Finkielkraut challenges (...) the abstract idea of universalism by describing the terrible crimes "civilized" Europe has committed in its name. At the same time as it challenges the inhumanity of our century's great universalistic solutions, _In the Name of Humanity_ also confronts the more onerous elements of unreflective nationalism -- clearly condemning the dangerous use of claims for ethnic purity. However, the book does not put forth a standard-issue polemic against the multitude of nationalistic currents that continue to plague the international arena. Indeed, even as he deplores the violence that seems to go hand in hand with nationalism, Finkielkraut defends its underlying cause -- the need to belong. Eloquently quoting the experiences of refugees from Hitler's Germany, he shows the reader why we must heed the call of this irreducible need. Finkielkraut reminds us that the concept of cultural relativism -- indeed, the very idea of tolerating other cultures -- is a relatively recent development in Western history. As he looks for answers he interrogates the differences between historical racism and the racism embedded in the philosophies of this century's genocidal movements, showing how modern racist ideologies like National Socialism look not to sin within the self as the stumbling block of human advancement but to a clandestine conspiracy by a particular, identifiable element of human society. What this form of radical racist thought eliminates is the notion of personal responsibility -- instead of finding the answers to misfortune within the self, modern racism suggests that evil can be identified in others and summarily eliminated. Lucidly connected to the ideas of past thinkers, from Plato to Levinas to Hannah Arendt, Finkielkraut's latest work is a troubling indictment of our century that refuses to back away from the "messiness" of human life and culture. In his willingness to abjure simple solutions, he offers a glimmer of hope. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Editorial Reflections on Philosophizing in Music EducationEstelle R. Jorgensen and Iris M. YobIn this article, we reflect on issues that go to the heart of teaching and scholarship in the philosophy of music education. After thirty years of editing Philosophy of Music Education Review, it is a good time to take stock of the philosophical work that has been and is being published and of challenges that remain.Over (...) the years, there has been a growing quality of philosophical articles published in the journal, due in significant part to the efforts of reviewers and the willingness of writers to work with their suggestions. Authors regularly express appreciation for the informed, critical, and constructive reviews their work receives. An exemplary body of philosophical scholarship in music education has been published over this time and PMER is regarded as a premier journal internationally devoted exclusively to the philosophy of music education. In thirty volumes of uninterrupted publication, we have sought to be responsive to important issues in music education. Our writers have engaged relevant subjects of interest to our readers, citations of articles remain strong, and articles are included in [End Page 109] university and college course reading lists. PMER is available in print and online via subscription; it has a wide digital exposure in search engines and leading indexes, and our readership continues to grow.Despite this progress, although the number of submissions has increased, their quality has sometimes been uneven. Our pedagogical commitment to foster philosophical writing and the philosophical inexperience of some writers has significantly impacted the work required to bring submissions to publication standard. Submissions sometimes evidence a lack of attention to formulating a tight argument, citing relevant sources, and polishing and editing the manuscript. The published style guidelines are too often ignored, creating a poor first impression with reviewers and editors. Writers are occasionally in a hurry to publish and less willing to entertain multiple revisions of their articles required to produce work of lasting value. The growing number of music education journals that publish philosophical work, while opening more fora, in some cases perversely result in ideologically driven, polemical, and philosophically uninformed articles in the name of philosophy. This is a good moment to reconsider the importance of philosophical fundamentals that should undergird our philosophizing in music education and what these mean for our academic responsibilities. To this end, we suggest several principles that need to be central to our philosophizing in music education. These principles also have broader implications for the expectations of scholarship in music education generally.WRITING PHILOSOPHYLike other subject areas in the academy, philosophy has its own intellectual structure, a canon of significant writings, its own interpretative methods, and its distinctive role and purpose. A philosophical paper in music education reads differently from papers in the history of music education, methods of teaching music, sociology of music education, empirical research in music education, multi-cultural, gender, and ethnic studies, music education curriculum building and policy making, and so on. And yet, the boundaries between these disciplines, which are artificial constructions when human knowledge is considered wholistically anyway, are somewhat porous with concepts and ideas and claims seeming to move easily from one discipline to another.To help distinguish between philosophy and other areas of study and research, it may be helpful to consider philosophy as a second-order activity. That is, first-order activity examines the raw data of research and experience and attempts to make sense of them. Using inference, pattern-seeking, deduction, hypotheses, statistical analysis, and so on, these activities result in claims, interpretations, and theories that give meaning to what we see, hear, and feel. [End Page 110]The second-order activity takes a step away from these first-order activities. It does not concern itself so much with raw data or with creating theories about them, but critically analyzes the claims and inferences that are made in regard to them. Where first-order disciplines analyze inputs from observation and experimentation, second-order disciplines analyze these analyses—that is, they function as meta-analyses. Philosophers do not need laboratories or fieldwork (which makes applications for grants to support philosophical research difficult to secure!). They need libraries... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Tokyo School of Philosophy? A Preliminary ReflectionThomas P. KasulisIntroductionPhilosophical circles worldwide have recognized the so-called Kyoto School for decades. Can we also speak of a modern Tokyo School and, if so, of its distinguishing nature? That question drives most articles in this journal’s special issue. Before beginning my inquiry, however, I have two preliminary questions. First, why is it important to ask whether there is, was, or even ever (...) will be something legitimately considered a Tokyo School? Second, how do the Japanese think in terms of schools, and what words might specifically designate a school of philosophy? I will try to answer these questions, not in an abstract or general way, but one that uses the Japanese cultural context for its point of departure.Japanese Regionalism and Japanese PhilosophyLet us start with the first issue: why ask whether there is a Tokyo School? One possibility, of course, is regional bragging rights between Kansai and Kantō as we find in, for example, sumō rivalries. That may seem like a joke, but we need to go back only a couple of centuries for concrete evidence of just such a competitive spirit. Examine this broadside published in Japan during the height of the Edo period.1 [End Page 5] Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 2.1.Gakusha kakuryoku shōbu tsuki hyōban (学者角力勝負附評判) (Standings Assigned to a Sumō Match of Scholars).As a sumō program, this banzuke divides the philosophical competitors between those from East Japan (Edo, today’s Tokyo) and West Japan (Kyoto-Osaka).2 Along the top are the typical sumō hierarchies of ranks (ōzeki, sekiwake, komusubi, etc.),3 but here they correspond not to wrestlers but philosophers. In this version, for example, Kumazawa Banzan 熊沢蕃山 is the ōzeki and Ogyū Sorai 荻生徂徠 the sekiwake of the East, while the equivalents in the West are Arai Hakuseki 新井白石 and Itō Jinsai 伊藤仁斎.Such artifacts confirm a long history of East–West philosophical rivalries within Japan, but that hardly justifies our quest for a Tokyo School. Still, let us not too quickly dismiss the banzuke as simply an idiosyncratic curiosity; it has something more to teach us. If nothing else, it shows that at least in the Edo period, some intellectuals assumed a correlation between geographical location and philosophical perspective. That brings to light two common [End Page 6] present-day misconceptions, one about Japanese culture and one about philosophy.The first misconception is that Japanese culture is monolithic, or if it is not, that the Japanese like to think of their identity in that way. That mistaken view overlooks a potent force shaping Japanese identity: regionalism. The Japanese delight in celebrating the distinctive foods, crafts, scenery, dialects, festivals, and social customs of the different locales within the country. Even today, weeklong regional themes play out on morning TV shows as they broadcast on site from different locales throughout Japan. Undoubtedly a marketing ploy to encourage tourism, the shows also reinforce the Japanese sense of regional differences within their country. Grocery or department stores join in with weeklong “matsuri” campaigns dedicated to particular Japanese regions, highlighting sales of specialties in foods and crafts. If you go on a trip within Japan, your family and coworkers expect you to bring back omiyage as gifts—souvenirs or edibles distinctive to the place you visited. As a convenience for the harried traveler, train stations sell the omiyage associated with the specific locale.The recognition of regional differences within a single national identity traces back at least to the Nara period when the newly established central government began regularly compiling Fudoki 風土記 for each of the provinces. Those almanacs or gazetteers included details about the local demography, climate, agriculture, topography, dialects, local customs, festivals, folklore, and so forth. The East vs. West, Kantō vs. Kansai, or Tokyo (Edo) vs. Kyoto-Osaka contrast that interests us here became most prominent in the Edo period as Tokyo vied with Kyoto for prominence as the cultural center of Japan.4Centuries before anyone identified a “Kyoto School” of philosophy, the banzuke suggests that at least some intellectuals assumed that philosophizing in Kyoto-Osaka differed in some respects from philosophizing in Edo. This does not imply... (shrink)

Feminist work in the history of philosophy has come of age as an innovative field in the history of philosophy. This volume marks that accomplishment with original essays by leading feminist scholars who ask basic questions: What is distinctive of feminist work in the history of philosophy? Is there a method that is distinctive of feminist historical work? How can women philosophers be meaningfully included in the history of the discipline? Who counts as a philosopher? This (...) collection is a unique collaboration among philosophers from North America and the Nordic Countries, including papers written from both analytic and continental philosophical perspectives and discussing both ancient and modern philosophers. Feminist Reflections on the History of Philosophy will be of interest to historians of philosophy, feminist theorists, women's studies faculty and students, and humanists interested in canon formation and transformation. (shrink)

A large body of work in science education indicates that evolution is one of the least understood and accepted scientific theories. Although scholarship from the history and philosophy of science (HPS) has shed light on many conceptual and pedagogical issues in evolution education, HPS-informed studies of evolution education are also characterized by conceptual weaknesses. In this chapter, we critically review such studies and find that some work lacks historically accurate characterizations of student ideas (preconceptions and misconceptions). In addition, (...) although several studies in the science education literature have drawn parallels between students’ conceptual change patterns and those from the history of science (HOS), we identify several issues that complicate the characterization of student ideas as “Lamarckian” or “Darwinian.” Finally, a review of the topic of explanation illustrates how the plurality of approaches employed in evolutionary biology is not reflected in evolution education scholarship or practice. This finding is particularly concerning given the recent shift in emphasis in science education standards to teaching content through practice-based tasks (e.g., explanation and argumentation). Overall, this chapter demonstrates that while HPS is of central importance to a deep understanding of evolution education, too often its contributions are poorly realized. (shrink)

We are happy to feature four invited submissions by Lisa Guenther, Kym Maclaren, Bonnie Mann, and Gayle Salamon, all of whom respond to the questions motivating our inaugural issue. Both Salamon and Maclaren offer a response to the question “What is critical phenomenology?” by exploring the productive relationship between critical theory and phenomenology. Salamon does this by tracing the history of the term critical phenomenology. Maclaren further explores the productive relationship between critical theory and phenomenology en route to her (...) analysis of intimacy. Focusing on the phenomena of shame and long-term solitary confinement, Mann and Guenther take up that question by performing the work of critical phenomenology. Mann also offers suggestions regarding critical or, as she calls it, feminist phenomenology’s relation to the tradition—both of classical phenomenology and feminist philosophy. Guenther shows how the work of critical phenomenology is already at play in the practices of resistance among prisoners in the Security Housing Unit of Pelican Bay State Prison in California. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reflection and the Stability of Belief: Essays on Descartes, Hume, and Reid by Louis E. LoebKevin MeekerLouis E. Loeb. Reflection and the Stability of Belief: Essays on Descartes, Hume, and Reid. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xvii + 369. ISBN: 978-0-19-536876-5, Cloth, $99.00. ISBN 978-0-19-536875-8, Paper, $45.00.This book is (almost entirely) a collection of previously published essays by Louis Loeb. The first three essays (...) focus primarily on advancing the general interpretive claim that Descartes’s main epistemological goal is achieving unshakable beliefs. While essays 5–10 address many topics in Humean interpretation, they all contribute in various ways to supporting Loeb’s claim that Hume’s primary epistemological goal is achieving stable beliefs. Essay 12 compares the naturalisms of Hume and Reid. All of the collected essays are excellent.Such excellence is not surprising, for Loeb is an influential interpreter of early modern philosophy, justly renowned for the ingenuity of his readings. Spanning the last three decades, these essays display many fine qualities that have helped make Loeb such a prominent historian. Here I will briefly mention three of these qualities. First, Loeb has remarkable command of the primary historical texts and the secondary literature. This mastery is perhaps best seen in his “What is Worth Preserving in the Kemp Smith Interpretation of Hume?” (essay 9). In addition to providing a detailed exposition of a wide range of texts from Hume and Norman Kemp Smith, Loeb also makes adroit comments about the literature discussing the secondary literature when he addresses the “Canonical Understanding” of Kemp Smith (246–47). Second, Loeb effortlessly integrates historical and contemporary concerns. His “Hume’s Agent-Centered Sentimentalism” (essay 8), for instance, has [End Page 257] an interesting discussion of how Hume’s moral theory might aid contemporary utilitarians (238–44). Moreover, essays 5 (“Integrating Hume’s Accounts of Belief and Justification”) and 10 (“Psychology, Epistemology, and Skepticism in Hume’s Argument about Induction”) fruitfully discuss Hume’s epistemology in light of issues important to the contemporary distinction between internalism and externalism. Third, Loeb’s intuitive knack for isolating important connections amongst various texts and figures allows him to tell a concise story about the evolution of certain philosophical ideas that panoramically covers large portions of the history of philosophy. His “Locke and British Empiricism” (essay 11), which connects epistemological themes in Locke with Descartes, Hume, Berkeley, Malebranche, and Reid, among others, is one example. (Because this essay is, as of this writing, still forthcoming, it is the only essay that is not previously published.) Finally, all three of these qualities are prominently on display in “Sextus, Descartes, Hume, and Peirce” (essay 4), which interestingly uses contemporary views about belief (especially as developed by David Velleman) to understand Descartes and Hume “against the backdrop of Sextus and Peirce” (107). To my mind this essay is the best in the book.There are at least two main advantages of collecting these excellent essays into a book. First, the collection allows Loeb to systematically emphasize the similarities between different early modern thinkers in a way that typically strengthens the cumulative case he makes for his readings of these philosophers. Second, the volume permits us to catch a rare glimpse of how an interpreter’s views can change over time. Considering the cumulative effect of the arguments as well as the changes in Loeb’s views also provides us with a great opportunity to reflect critically on many important issues in a fruitful way. The rest of this review will focus on such critical reflections.Let us start with Descartes, as Loeb does. In his introduction to the essays, Loeb helpfully contextualizes his discussions of Descartes. He points out that his paper “Was Descartes Sincere in His Appeal to the Light of Nature?” (not included here) maintains that the arguments Descartes presents are so poor that they “suggest” that “Descartes was insincere in offering his proofs of the existence of God and in appealing to Divine veracity to validate clear and distinct perception” (9; cf. 35). Of course others have likewise contended that Descartes was a dissimulator. But in the first four chapters... (shrink)

This paper sets out an agenda for the study of the history of analytic and post-analytic political philosophy. It builds on a growing literature on the history of analytic philosophy to make three main suggestions. First, analytic philosophy arose as part of a wider shift from the developmental historicism of the nineteenth century to more modernist modes of knowledge. Second, analytic philosophy included a wide range of approaches to moral and political issues, many of which reflected distinctive (...) concepts of analysis, logic, and science. Third, analytic philosophy only became widespread when the work of Quine and Wittgenstein moved it in a more post-analytic direction. Crucially, the move toward post-analytic philosophy inspired people to rediscover and reinvent other traditions, including liberal humanism, democratic republicanism, virtue ethics, and historicism. The resulting history provides a fluid and diverse understanding of arguably the most powerful philosophical movement of the twentieth century. (shrink)

G H Bantock; The Parochialism of the Present: some reflections on the history of educational theory, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 13, Issue 1, 30.

The paper enters contemporary discourse concerning the examination of history of Russian philosophy, which initiates a new reading of the Russian thinkers’ works. These contemporary examinations problematize the phenomenon of so called intellectual doubles as well. The contribution proceeds from the definition of these issues which was published in journal Problems of Philosophy by M. A. Maslin in 2013. In this work, Maslin mentions A. I. Herzen among the examples of intellectual doubles phenomenon, who is one of the (...) founders of the Russian Narodism. Following from this basis, the contribution shifts an attention toward issues of intellectual doubles in the context of the Russian Narodism. The work represents an endeavour to deepen the existing problematization of this phenomenon on the basis of examination the N. K. Mikhailovsky’s creative legacy. There can be found two faces in works of this Narodnik thinker. The first one can be figuratively designed as a Petersburgian and the second one as a Yaltian. These designations are borrowed from the notes of Sergey Elpatevsky, who had been Mikhailovsky’s friend. The two faces express the specificity of the problem of doubleness in Mikhailovsky and his qualitative shift in relation to contemporary examinations of the reflected phenomenon. (shrink)

Robert Wilson’s The Eugenic Mind Project is a major achievement of engaged scholarship and socially relevant philosophy and history of science. It exemplifies the virtues of interdisciplinarity. As principal investigator of the Living Archives on Eugenics in Western Canada project, while employed in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alberta, Wilson encountered a proverbial big ball of mud with questions and issues that involved local individuals living through a painful set of memories and implicated his institutional (...) home in outstanding moral obligations. It is engaged scholarship because it required building relationships with affected persons and taking responsibility for his institution’s legacy, as well as transforming Wilson’s own outlook along the way. It is socially relevant philosophy and history of science because it brings to light issues that remain salient today, especially how eugenic themes are ubiquitous in societal discourse and evinced in everyday decisions. It is interdisciplinary because to accomplish this type of analysis requires intellectual gymnastics that range over diverse domains of research: from standpoint theory and disability studies to oral history and governmental policy; from the evolutionary biology of prosociality and variation to conceptual questions about the categorization of human traits and types. (shrink)

This collective article discusses the philosophy of modern higher education in Iran, which in this case, optimistically, its history dates back to the founding of Dār al-fonūn —if we consider Dār al-fonūn as a university. Otherwise, its origin can be traced back to the University of Tehran. Central to this article is the emphasis on the lack of philosophy of higher education in Iran. Therefore, most of the criticisms in front of us are related to the internal inconsistency in (...) the Iranian higher education system due to the lack of a national-indigenized-official philosophy of higher education in Iran. Furthermore, The Islamic Revolution of 1979 brought about fundamental changes in higher education. Accordingly, several controversial issues including the rapid growth of higher education, the Islamization of universities, cultural narratives in higher education, the increase in students, especially women and the low-income class of the country were also explored. Therefore, in this collection, the political, economic, social, cultural, moral, technological and historical dimensions of Iranian higher education were examined. (shrink)

Maurice Blondel's articles from 1906 on the origin of philosophy opens with the idea of whether philosophy is be spontaneous or whether it requires specific training. Behind this question lies the more fundamental issue of the relative balance of science and life and where philosophy finds its more natural home.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MACINTYRE'S POSTMODERN THOMISM: REFLECTIONS ON THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY THOMAS s. HIBBS Boston College Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts IN A RECENT issue of The Thomist, J. A. DiNoia, O.P., argues that certain themes in post-modern thought provide an occasion for the recovery of neglected features of the Catholic tradition.1 DiNoia focuses on three motifs : first, a " broader conception of rationality," with an emphasis on the " (...) role of tradition and authority," second, attention to the " role of texts and narrative in shaping thought and culture," and, third, the " importance of community in fostering personal identity." These themes have been prominent in the writings of Alasdair Macintyre. In his latest publication, Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry, he brings the Augustinian-Thomistic tradition into conversation with its principal rivals, encyclopaedia and genealogy.2 The dialogical character of the work, the text of his Gifford Lectures, affords Macintyre the opportunity to sharpen and develop his views of rationality, of the connection between particularism and universalism, and of the Christian contribution to moral inquiry. What emerges from the series of dialectical encounters is a constructive, postmodern Thomism, one which is not susceptible to the genealogical critique of encyclopaedia and which circumvents the self-destructive tendencies of genealogy. 1 " American Catholic Theology at Century's End: Postconciliar, Postmodern, and Post-Thomistic," The Thomist 54 (1990), pp. 499-518. 2 The seminal text for each of the three rival versions was published in the 1860's: for encyclopaedia, The Ninth Edition of Encyclopaedia Brittanica, for genealogy, Nietzsche's Genealogy of Morals, and for tradition or Thomism, Aeterni Patris. 277 278 THOMAS S. HIBBS According to Macintyre, the terms of the debate over rationality between genealogy and encyclopedia have obscured apprehension of the Thomistic alternative. As they see it, " Either reason is thus impersonal, universal, and disinterested or it is the unwitting representative of particular interests, masking their drive to power by its false pretensions to neutrality and disinterestedness." But the mutually exclusive way of putting the question conceals a third possibility, the possibility that reason can only move towards being genuinely universal and impersonal insofar as it is neither neutral nor disinterested, that membership in a particular type of moral community, one from which fundamental dissent has to be excluded, is a condition for genuinely rational inquiry.3 The passage introduces the salient features of Macintyre's view of the relationship between particularism and universalism.4 Macintyre develops his view not only in confrontation with genealogy and encyclopaedia, but also out of the Thomistic tradition. In a chapter entitled, "Too Many Thomisms? ", Macintyre describes the history of the revival of Thomism after Aeterni Patris.5 Macintyre criticizes early neo-Thomism for reading Aquinas as a systematic thinker, whose project was fundamentally epistemological. By beginning with ·epistemology, neoThomism distorted Aquinas's texts, cast the terms of the debate between Aquinas and modernity in the distinctively modern language of epistemic justification, and predictably reenacted the futile history of modern philosophy.6 Macintyre observes that there are simply "too many ways to begin." But even early on a Three Rival Versions of Moral Enquiry (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1990), pp. 59-60. Henceforth referred to as TRV. 4 Many critics have misunderstood Maclntyre's insistence on the particularist means to universality. For a careful and sympathetic discussion of this question, see John Doody, " Macintyre and Habermas on Practical Reason,'' American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, LXV (1991), pp. 143-58. s TRV, pp. 58-81. 6 See the quite different understanding of this history in Gerald McCool's From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolution of Thomism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989) and "Why St. Thomas Stays Alive,'' International Philosophical Quarterly 30 (1990), pp. 275-288. THREE RIVAL VERSIONS OF MORAL ENQUIRY 279 there was an acknowledgement by Kleutgen, among others, of the disparity between pre- and post-Cartesian philosophy. Still, early neo-Thomism failed to see that the break came not with Descartes but with Scotus. Hence, the decidedly unThomistic influence of Scotus upon Suarez-whose authority was crucial in the rehabilitation of Aquinas-was unconsciously incorporated into neo-Thomism.7 The result of early neo-Thomism was an unhappy assimilation... (shrink)

HOME . ABOUT US . CONTACT US HELP . PUBLISH WITH US . LIBRARIANS Search in or Explore Browse Publications A-Z Browse Subjects A-Z Advanced Search University of Cambridge SIGN IN Register | Why Register? | Sign Out | Got a Voucher? prev abstract next Two Approaches to Reading the Historical Descartes A Devout Catholic? Knowledge of The Mental Thought and Language Descartes as A Natural Philosopher Substance Dualism Notes Two Approaches to Reading the Historical Descartes Author: Desmond M. Clarke (...) DOI: 10.1080/09608780902986680 Publication Frequency: 5 issues per year Published in: British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 17, Issue 3 June 2009 , pages 601 - 616 John Cottingham: Cartesian Reflections: Essays on Descartes's Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008) 40.00 (hb.). ISBN 978-0-19-922697-9 John Cottingham, in a new collection of essays, asks the question: 'what exactly did Descartes himself chiefly take himself to be doing?' (254). 1 While the question is relatively clear, and while it acknowledges implicitly that Descartes was probably doing a range of different things, the answer that is apparently proposed here emerges only on reading the whole collection. Cottingham distinguishes in Chapter 1 - which is a new, synoptic overview of what is discussed in the other chapters, all of which were previously published - between two approaches to reading Descartes. One is to see him as 'a dummy on which to drape various suspect doctrines (such as “Cartesian dualism”)' (3), which contemporary analytic philosophers have shown to be radically mistaken. Another approach is adopted by historians of ideas 'who make it their life's work to pay meticulous scholarly attention to the philosophical works of past ages' (3). Cottingham does not explicitly criticize either of these approaches, but he hints at situating his own as some kind of Aristotelian middle course between the two. Since the two reference points are dangerously close to straw men or what Cottingham calls 'extreme positions', the proposed middle way may simply combine elements of two approaches, each of which is entirely legitimate. I return to this question at the conclusion. In fact, many of these essays were intended to show (rightly!) that Descartes never held the philosophical positions that are often attributed to him. The interpretation of Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II, provides a good example of how mistaken one can be: The Cogito ergo sum radically changed the way of doing philosophy … After Descartes, philosophy became a science of pure thought: all that is being- the created world, and even the Creator, is situated within the ambit of the Cogito, as contents of human consciousness. Philosophy is concerned with beings as contained in consciousness, and not as existing independently of it. (257) The only way to address such a caricature is to refer back to what Descartes actually wrote. Cottingham does precisely that, often quoting the original Latin or French texts. However, having shown successfully, by a close reading of the texts, that Descartes did not hold many of the views that are attributed to him, it still remains to say what Descartes did hold or teach about various philosophical problems that retain their perennial interest for us. This is how the question arises, intermittently, about what Descartes thought he was 'chiefly' doing, or what was his primary objective, in the course of an intellectual career that spanned three decades. However, the apparently legitimate desire to bring Descartes' intellectual endeavours into sharp focus may be frustrated by the evidence. His life and work manifestly lack the coherence or unity of purpose that one finds, for example, among many of his French or Dutch contemporaries. It is comparatively easy to 'read' the life of Gisbertus Voetius as that of an unwavering Calvinist theologian, to see Antoine Arnauld as a staunch and consistent theological defender of Port Royal, and even to interpret the obviously fragmentary contents of Pascal's unpublished notebooks (subsequently, the Penses) as an extended search for authentic religious faith, in opposition to what he perceived as the corruption of ecclesial structures. In contrast, Descartes' life reveals features that are difficult to integrate into a coherent pattern. He lived and published during a critical juncture in the Scientific Revolution of the seventeenth century. Although baptized into the Catholic Church soon after his birth in the Loire district of France, he chose to live most of his life in the aggressively Calvinist United Provinces, in which other religious practices were officially (though often ineffectively) banned. Descartes may have adopted the motto from Ovid, at least early in his career: 'bene vixit qui bene latuit' (he lives well who conceals himself well), and he seems genuinely to have wished to avoid theological controversies. However, he engaged in very public controversies with so many of his contemporaries - including Hobbes, Gassendi, the French Jesuits (collectively) and Father Dinet (in particular), Voetius and the University of Utrecht, Regius, Fermat, Roberval, Revius and other theologians at Leiden - that one might conclude that his claimed preference for a quiet life was a disingenuous mask. 2 Descartes published four books during his lifetime, and wrote at least one other that he had intended to publish. The latter was his first major composition, Le Monde, which he suppressed when he heard about Galileo's condemnation by Rome in 1633. This was followed, in 1637, by Descartes' first book (also written in French), which he tried to publish anonymously by withholding his name from the title page: the Discours de la methode pour bien conduire sa raison, & chercher la verit dans les sciences. Plus la dioptrique, les meteors, et la geometrie, qui sont des essais de cete methode. Four years later Descartes published the first edition (in Latin) of Meditationes de prima philosophia, in quibus Dei existentia et animae immortalitas demonstrator, which also included six sets of objections and replies. The Principia philosophiae appeared (in Latin) in Amsterdam in 1644, and was followed five years later by Les Passions de l'Ame (in French). 3 In parallel with these publications, Descartes carried on a very extensive correspondence over a thirty-year period (in both Latin and French), and preserved copies or drafts of his letters with a view to future publication. Given the range and variety of his interests, and the sheer volume of writings, published or otherwise, that have survived from his pen, one may be tempted to engage in a comparative evaluation, as Cottingham does, by selecting one of Descartes' books as his primary contribution to philosophy. Cottingham claims that the Meditations was Descartes''masterpiece' (44), 'the definitive statement of Descartes's philosophy' (45) and the 'definitive statement of his metaphysics' (68). He also describes the Meditations more narrowly as 'his metaphysical masterpiece' (259, 303) and, more broadly, as 'his philosophical masterpiece' (289), and he lists it with the Discours as one of Descartes' two 'masterworks' (280). The Principia offers some competition in this comparative judgement when it is described as 'the canonical presentation of his metaphysical views' (114), while 'the construction of a moral system … was the crowning aim of his philosophy' (231). Having pitched repeatedly for the Meditations as Descartes' primary text, Cottingham claims that its author was 'a devout Catholic' (215), that he was 'a devoutly religious philosopher' (256), and that he could not free himself 'from the influence of the long years of theological study he had dutifully completed at La Flche' (62). Accordingly, the Meditations should be read as 'in essence a work of theodicy' (220); 'what has pride of place in the construction of his philosophical system is … an appeal to God … the nature and existence of the Deity is something that lies at the very heart of his entire philosophical system' (255). Without quite saying so, there are hints here that Descartes was a devout Christian whose primary intellectual contribution was to write a work of metaphysics, in which God is central and in the course of which the author alternates between proving God's existence and contemplating God - the latter a seventeenth-century version of Bonaventure's Journey of the Soul to God. 'Descartes's attraction to a contemplative mode of philosophizing' (305) is reflected, in the Meditations, in 'the language of the soul's coming to rest in adoring contemplation of the light' (306). Cottingham also accepts the overwhelming evidence from Descartes' correspondence that he 'devoted most of his career not to metaphysics but to science' (108), although he quibbles elsewhere with those who adopt the shorthand term 'science' to describe part of what was called 'natural philosophy' in the seventeenth century (282). He also refers to the '(notoriously lame) argument for the essential incorporeality of the thinking self' in one of Descartes' masterworks (60), and he describes the 'strange, seemingly isolated world of his metaphysical meditations' (139), with its 'creaking ontology' (147), when read in isolation from the rest of his work as a natural philosopher. How should we read him, then, in the twenty-first century? A Devout Catholic? That Descartes was a devout Catholic is possible, unlikely and undecidable. He seems not to have studied theology at all while at school at La Flche, although he completed the pre-theology college cycle in the company of Jesuit students who then continued their studies in theology. Descartes consistently attempted to avoid public entanglement with religious and theological controversies, and said so frequently. 4 Given the alignments that prevailed at the time, both in France. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reflection and the Stability of Belief: Essays on Descartes, Hume, and Reid by Louis E. LoebKevin MeekerLouis E. Loeb. Reflection and the Stability of Belief: Essays on Descartes, Hume, and Reid. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010. Pp. xvii + 369. ISBN: 978-0-19-536876-5, Cloth, $99.00. ISBN 978-0-19-536875-8, Paper, $45.00.This book is (almost entirely) a collection of previously published essays by Louis Loeb. The first three essays (...) focus primarily on advancing the general interpretive claim that Descartes’s main epistemological goal is achieving unshakable beliefs. While essays 5–10 address many topics in Humean interpretation, they all contribute in various ways to supporting Loeb’s claim that Hume’s primary epistemological goal is achieving stable beliefs. Essay 12 compares the naturalisms of Hume and Reid. All of the collected essays are excellent.Such excellence is not surprising, for Loeb is an influential interpreter of early modern philosophy, justly renowned for the ingenuity of his readings. Spanning the last three decades, these essays display many fine qualities that have helped make Loeb such a prominent historian. Here I will briefly mention three of these qualities. First, Loeb has remarkable command of the primary historical texts and the secondary literature. This mastery is perhaps best seen in his “What is Worth Preserving in the Kemp Smith Interpretation of Hume?” (essay 9). In addition to providing a detailed exposition of a wide range of texts from Hume and Norman Kemp Smith, Loeb also makes adroit comments about the literature discussing the secondary literature when he addresses the “Canonical Understanding” of Kemp Smith (246–47). Second, Loeb effortlessly integrates historical and contemporary concerns. His “Hume’s Agent-Centered Sentimentalism” (essay 8), for instance, has [End Page 257] an interesting discussion of how Hume’s moral theory might aid contemporary utilitarians (238–44). Moreover, essays 5 (“Integrating Hume’s Accounts of Belief and Justification”) and 10 (“Psychology, Epistemology, and Skepticism in Hume’s Argument about Induction”) fruitfully discuss Hume’s epistemology in light of issues important to the contemporary distinction between internalism and externalism. Third, Loeb’s intuitive knack for isolating important connections amongst various texts and figures allows him to tell a concise story about the evolution of certain philosophical ideas that panoramically covers large portions of the history of philosophy. His “Locke and British Empiricism” (essay 11), which connects epistemological themes in Locke with Descartes, Hume, Berkeley, Malebranche, and Reid, among others, is one example. (Because this essay is, as of this writing, still forthcoming, it is the only essay that is not previously published.) Finally, all three of these qualities are prominently on display in “Sextus, Descartes, Hume, and Peirce” (essay 4), which interestingly uses contemporary views about belief (especially as developed by David Velleman) to understand Descartes and Hume “against the backdrop of Sextus and Peirce” (107). To my mind this essay is the best in the book.There are at least two main advantages of collecting these excellent essays into a book. First, the collection allows Loeb to systematically emphasize the similarities between different early modern thinkers in a way that typically strengthens the cumulative case he makes for his readings of these philosophers. Second, the volume permits us to catch a rare glimpse of how an interpreter’s views can change over time. Considering the cumulative effect of the arguments as well as the changes in Loeb’s views also provides us with a great opportunity to reflect critically on many important issues in a fruitful way. The rest of this review will focus on such critical reflections.Let us start with Descartes, as Loeb does. In his introduction to the essays, Loeb helpfully contextualizes his discussions of Descartes. He points out that his paper “Was Descartes Sincere in His Appeal to the Light of Nature?” (not included here) maintains that the arguments Descartes presents are so poor that they “suggest” that “Descartes was insincere in offering his proofs of the existence of God and in appealing to Divine veracity to validate clear and distinct perception” (9; cf. 35). Of course others have likewise contended that Descartes was a dissimulator. But in the first four chapters... (shrink)

This book takes a fresh and interdisciplinary approach to the concept of subsidiarity. While subsidiarity is commonly understood as an organizational principle that assigns competences to the appropriate level within an organization, its application extends beyond politics. This innovative book offers a comprehensive analysis that includes religious and secular perspectives, exploring the relevance of subsidiarity to society, business, law and politics. By bridging the gap between theology, philosophy, political science, law, and history, this volume fills a significant gap in (...) the literature. It reexamines the ideological foundations of subsidiarity within the Catholic social tradition, investigates its practical implications, and questions how it can address the challenges faced by contemporary business environments, particularly issues of social inequity. With a normative and conceptual approach, the book critically reflects on the links between subsidiarity and themes such as responsible business practices, ecological concerns, individual autonomy, and the common good. By exploring the potential of subsidiarity to overcome dichotomies and promote a middle ground between government-based solutions and individual freedom, the volume offers valuable insights and practical solutions. This volume stands out as the first major study dedicated to subsidiarity in society, business, law and politics. Through its multidisciplinary lens, it sheds light on unexplored connections and highlights the role of subsidiarity in fostering ethical and socially responsible behavior. It is an essential resource for researchers, PhD and graduate students, as well as professionals in theology, philosophy, political sciences, law, and history who seek a comprehensive understanding of subsidiarity and its implications for contemporary issues. (shrink)

This book offers to the international reader a collection of original articles of some of the most skillful historians and philosophers of biology currently working in Latin American universities. During the last decades, increasing attention has been paid in Latin America to the history and philosophy of biology, but since many local authors prefer to write in Spanish or in Portuguese, their ideas have barely crossed the boundaries of the continent. This volume aims to remedy this state of things, (...) providing a good sample of this production to the English speaking readers, bringing together contributions from researchers working in Brazilian, Argentinean, Chilean, Colombian and Mexican universities. The stress on the regional provenance of the authors is not intended to suggest the existence of something like a Latin American history and philosophy of biology, supposedly endowed with distinctive features. On the contrary, the editors firmly believe that advances in this field can be achieved only by stimulating the integration in the international debate. Based on this assumption, the book focuses on two topics, life and evolution, and presents a selection of contributions addressing issues such as the history of the concept of life, the philosophical reflection on life manipulation and life extension, the structure and development of evolutionary theory as well as human evolution. Life and Evolution – Latin American Essays on the History and Philosophy of Biology will provide the international reader with a rather complete picture of the ongoing research in the history and philosophy of biology in Latin America, offering a snapshot of this dynamic community. It will also contribute to contextualize and develop the debate concerning life and evolution, and the relation between the two phenomena. (shrink)

Epidemiological studies of chronic diseases began around the mid-20th century. Contrary to the infectious disease epidemiology which had prevailed at the beginning of the 20th century and which had focused on single agents causing individual diseases, the chronic disease epidemiology which emerged at the end of Word War II was a much more complex enterprise that investigated a multiplicity of risk factors for each disease. Involved in the development of chronic disease epidemi-ology were therefore fundamental discussions on the notion of (...) causality, especially the question when causal inferences could be justified. In this paper, I shall analyze the implicit normativity of these de-bates. First, I shall give a brief overview of the historical background on which chronic disease epi-demiology emerged and describe how the pioneer studies on smoking and lung cancer became icon of the major challenge that the emerging chronic disease epidemiology was facing: the impossibility of proving that statistical associations reflected causal relations. Next, I shall describe how the develop-ment from the monocausal enterprise of infectious disease epidemiology to the multicausal enterprise of chronic disease epidemiology gave rise to intense discussions of the possible criteria by which to establish causal relationships between a given factor and a particular disease. I shall show how the necessary and sufficient conditions expressed in the so-called Henle-Koch criteria that had proved useful for the 19th century investigations of infectious diseases remained an ideal, although clearly an unobtainable one. Thus, I shall show how 20th century chronic disease epidemiologists on the one hand were searching for a new set of general principles which would provide a logical framework for their investigations, but on the other hand admitted that they would have to accept something more "pragmatic". I shall analyze the various positions in this debate, arguing that the implacability of the debate was due to unrecognized normative issues. I shall argue that many insisted on a distinction between science and application that was untenable, but that due to this distinction the values in-volved in deciding whether or not to act on the basis of a hypothesis were rarely explicitly discussed and the decision therefore continued to appear as a matter of taste rather than the result of a cogent normative analysis. (shrink)

This history of Western philosophy is based upon two convictions: one is that this must be a subjective enterprise; the other is that its guiding aim should be to interpret the great diversity found among past philosophers as an understandable, connected, and progressive order. The author relates these philosophies to each other to discern a path through 2500 years of reflective thought as pointing toward a justifiable present position. Contents: Early Greek Philosophy; Plato; Aristotle; A Transition: The Stoics and (...) Skeptics; The Emergence of Faith; Saint Augustine; Saint Thomas Aquinas; Faith and the Re-Emergence of Reason; Descartes; Leibniz and Spinoza; The British Empiricists; Kant and Schopenhauer; Vico; Hegel; Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind; After Hegel; A Summary Conclusion and a Look Beyond; Index. (shrink)

The present paper discusses selected issues of evaluation in the teaching of philosophy. It deals with the issue under consideration on a general level since we do not differentiate between high school and college study performance assessment. Critical reflection focuses on the proper mode of evaluation in teaching the history of philosophy as and in the disciplines of systematic philosophy. In doing so, the close interrelation between the history of philosophy and its disciplines is considered. Three (...) basic evaluative approaches are distinguished. These vary depending on whether the assessment is of the history of philosophy, logic, or other philosophical disciplines. The question of whether a philosopher or a philosophy teacher not directly involved in discussing philosophical issues is better as an evaluator is also investigated. Furthermore, the paper also articulates the reasons for preferring the first option. (shrink)

How did the relations between philosophy and science evolve during the 17th and the 18th century? This book analyzes this issue by considering the history of Cartesianism in Dutch universities, as well as its legacy in the 18th century. It takes into account the ways in which the disciplines of logic and metaphysics became functional to the justification and reflection on the conceptual premises and the methods of natural philosophy, changing their traditional roles as art of reasoning and (...) as science of being. This transformation took place as a result of two factors. First, logic and metaphysics were used to grant the status of indubitable knowledge of natural philosophy. Second, the debates internal to Cartesianism, as well as the emergence of alternative philosophical world-views progressively deprived such disciplines of their foundational function, and they started to become forms of reflection over given scientific practices, either Cartesian, experimental, or Newtonian. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:History of Philosophy and the Reflective Society by Riccardo PozzoRobert R. ClewisPOZZO, Riccardo. History of Philosophy and the Reflective Society. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2021. vi + 231 pp. Cloth, $94.99In a forward-looking proposal, Pozzo lays out his vision for a multidisciplinary history of philosophy "from a global perspective." This book is "a long position paper, an extended essay dedicated to twenty-first century policies of (...) philosophical research from a global perspective." The chosen format is a Denkschrift, that is, a memorandum in the sense of a document that experts lay out for their government to ponder. Perhaps, Pozzo suggests, the history of philosophy could even have an impact on economic authorities and policymakers. Indeed, the work seems driven by the laudable aim of promoting access and equality around the world. The author reveals a just concern for migrants in particular, since they bring [End Page 156] with them their intellectual traditions and philosophical texts, which can be translated and thereby foster intercultural dialogue.The book consists of an introduction (chapter 1) followed by nine chapters. It has a thirty-page references list as well as subject and name indexes. In part one, Pozzo argues for the need for new narratives in the history of philosophy (chapter 2), in order to establish its role in addressing migration (chapter 3). The second part concerns reflective society (chapter 4). It considers societal readiness (chapter 5) and cultural innovation (chapter 6). Part three explores the paradigm shift from a close reading of texts to a "distant" reading of corpora (chapter 7), a shift Pozzo endorses. It examines implications for the translation of languages (chapter 8) and the translation of studies (knowledge) and competencies (chapter 9). Chapter 10 concludes by briefly reflecting on the notions of the "fluidity" of peoples and their ideas, biodiversity (and food), and spiritual humanism based on dignity.Scholars in the history of philosophy "should be open to the idea of a pluriversum of a history of facts and places, whereby history of philosophy finds its grounding in spatial heterogeneity." Nowadays, when people migrate and transfer competencies at increasing velocity, the "history of philosophy can be usefully reinvented on the basis of its consideration of intercultural dialogue." Pozzo considers the World Digital Library to be "one of the most exciting examples of corpora that talk to each other"—an idea he uses not merely metaphorically. By "corpora" is meant not just the sum of separate books, but XML-accessible complete collections of traditions of texts, with corresponding dictionaries, thesauri, and reference works, which make it possible to analyze a number of original texts as well as transliterations into other alphabets or hanzi characters. The result would be a "data-driven" history of philosophy.Given that history of philosophy is a product of culture, it is influenced by migrating peoples, who bring philosophical ideas and religious traditions with them. Research on migration thus ought to also consider translations of texts and competencies from one to another context, be it linguistic, economic, political, or cultural. The humanities, and a reflective society more generally, might provide a partial basis for intercultural dialogue. The history of philosophy might even thereby improve the quality of life of citizens.Pozzo rightly emphasizes that we need multilingual philosophers and historians of philosophy. History of philosophy ought to also be based on robust lexical and historical considerations, and historians of philosophy should be trained in a number of the world's languages as well as face the challenge of dealing with multilingualism and with validating translations. Pozzo's proposed methodology, informed by computational techniques, relies on tools such as vocabularies, ontologies, concordances, frequencies, or the analysis of texts and corpora, which integrates quantitative and formal methods into the portfolio of the methods of history of philosophy and intellectual history. Since Pozzo has published [End Page 157] widely on Kant, it is fitting that he explores Kant on migration as well as the editorial contexts and translation projects concerning the philosopher's writings.As for aesthetics, Pozzo notes that the history of philosophy can reflect on migrants' cultural and artistic creations. Historians of philosophy should thus start observing and interpreting phenomena created by... (shrink)

Martin Bunzl’s book was published in Routledge’s Philosophical Issues in Science series. It concerns the twin issues of objectivity and realism in the writing of history.

The paper determines the status of the “Oral History of Philosophy” within the history of philosophy as a discipline. The author formulates his theses as answers to the fundamental questions Serhii Yosypenko asked in 2019. The latter subjected the first attempts to comprehend the then-new concept of “Oral History of Philosophy” to fruitful criticism. It is in response to his criticisms that the former gives now his answers which can be summarized in six points: (1) Oral (...) class='Hi'>History of Philosophy is fundamentally different from Oral History and is not limited to the application of the interview method; (2) it is a set of dialogical methods of producing new information in the field of the history of philosophy, that is, a new methodology that can be used in any historical-philosophical research; (3) the main difference is the orientation of the Oral History of Philosophy not to personal testimony, but to joint reflection; (4) this focus on reflection determines all the methods of Oral History of Philosophy; (5) the name “Oral History of Philosophy” is due to the specifics of the situation that gave rise to this methodology rather than a conscious conceptual reflection; (6) this methodology can be given a more exact name: “Dialogical forms of historical-philosophical reflection”, while the name “Oral history of philosophy” can be used for those dialogical forms that rely on oral speech. (shrink)

In any culture, and ultimately, philosophy, and in any kind of philosophy, metaphysics seems to always be hotly discussed subjects. Because philosophy itself is an argumentative knowledge, the most in line with human needs, and in the vast field of philosophy, metaphysics is fundamental to explore the ultimate question of the root or principle. In this reflection, only briefly on three issues: One, what is metaphysics? II, the core concept of metaphysics - there are problems with the nothingness. (...) Parameters, and why many people hate, exclusion metaphysics? In the history of Western philosophy, the metaphysics and ontology have its heyday, there is a period of decline, there has long been discredited and tried to set the kill time. But certainly metaphysics of academics, whether you deny it, both can not remain outside of metaphysics and metaphysics. As "yes" that is "yes", there can not always say "no" or "no." Its reasoning to that, if the world held a referendum in the world, I believe most people would agree: "There is is." This can be said: "People" as a spiritual animal, although his feet standing on the earth in a physical, his mental activity so that he can not admit the existence of the metaphysical. No cultures can dispense with philosophies, while metaphysics seems to be the most controversial subject in any philosophy. Since philosophy is a study not only scrutinous but also the most appropriate to human needs, among the different areas of philosophy, metaphysics is the one that explores the ultimate root or principle of the essential questions. In this article, the writer only discusses three questions succinctly: first, what metaphysics is; second, the central idea of ​​metaphysics - being and nothingness; third, why many people dislike and repel metaphysics . Throughout the development of western philosophy, both metaphysics and ontology have their ups and downs, being chronically besmeared and oppressed. Either for or against metaphysics, we can't discuss metaphysics from the outside, which is just as clear as "being" can be addressed neither as "nonexistence" nor "nothingness" but "being." If we hold a global plebiscite, it is believed most people would agree that "being is being." Therefore we can say: "Man" as a spiritual creature, while his feet stand on the physical ground, his mental activities make him have to recognize his metaphysical being. (shrink)

The 2014 Umbrella Movement was one of the most significant social and political events in recent Hong Kong history. This paper offers some initial reflections on the connections between the movement and broader issues related to civic education, critical thinking, and theories of education. First, it is suggested that the movement closely resembles a form of civic education known as ‘action civics,’ offering an alternative pedagogy that might encourage more authentic civic participation. Second, the movement raises questions about (...) how the teaching of critical thinking can be made more practically relevant to modern citizenship. Third, the deep political polarization associated with the movement indicates that civic education and critical thinking training need to pay attention to cognitive biases that affect political ideology. Finally, the Umbrella Movement reflects the failure of democratization in Hong Kong and coincides with increasing political pressures on the local education system. We discuss how political reality connects to issues about democratic education, critical pedagogy, and the idea of political neutrality in education. (shrink)

Although the relationship between theology and philosophy is a perennial issue in the history of thought, recent debates surrounding the so‐called theological turn of continental phenomenology have created a new space in which it can be explored from a fresh perspective. In this vein, I propose three theses concerning the relationship between theology and philosophy of religion, with particular focus on the phenomenon of divine revelation. First, a philosophy of religion that ignores theology's claim about divine self‐revelation will remain (...) incomplete and unsatisfactory, at least from the perspective of a Christian theology which begins with the faith in God's self‐revelation in one particular human person. Second, a theology that does not acknowledge the possibility of philosophical reflections on the human aspect of divine revelation will not be able to escape blind dogmatism, but rather will isolate itself from the academic community. Third, and finally, despite the concerns of both parties, a dialogue between theology and philosophy centred on the phenomena of revelation can develop into mutually critical and mutually constructive interactions. (shrink)

Constantin Noica is widely believed to be one of the most original and prominent Romanian thinker of the last fifty years. In 1998, a year after his death, his book De dignitete Europae appeared in German translation. In it Noica tackles the classical philosophy of culture as morphology in Frobensius and Spengler, suggesting an interpretation of European historical cultural epochs from the viewpoint of linguistic-morphological forms: the Middle Ages correspond to the noun, the Renaissance to the adjective, Reformation, Counter-Reformation and (...) Classicism to the adverb, followed by the Pronoun, and the present age to numerals and conjunctions. To what extent can we today, twenty years later, at the time when Romania is entering the European Union, still advocate such philosophical Eurocentrism? (shrink)

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. ;This work pursues certain themes in the rise and development of analytic philosophy, focussing in particular on the relationship between Aristotelian and Fregean logic, and the emergence and evolution of interest in questions of meaning, with reference to Frege and Wittgenstein. ;In the introductory chapter I consider the general relationship between analytic philosophy and the history of philosophy, suggesting the need for a closer examination of the 'paradigm (...) shift' from syllogistic theory to modern logic. In Part One I undertake this examination, with a chapter outlining the development, nature and purpose of Aristotle's logical theory, followed by a chapter describing Frege's achievement in the Begriffsschrift. My central concern here is with the emergence of a conception of sense--as grounded in the notion of logical equivalence. Aristotle, I argue, had no such conception; and it only emerged as Frege was led to reflect on the differences between his own logical system and traditional logic. ;In Part Two I consider the tightening of the 'bonds of sense' which Frege created, looking first at Frege's logicist project and then at Wittgenstein's Tractatus . I describe the epistemological motivation of Frege's work and the way that this led him to distinguish between Sinn and Bedeutung, and I argue that there is a fundamental tension in his mature thought between a semantic and an epistemic conception of sense. This tension was ironed out, however, in the early work of Wittgenstein, who rigorously thought through the implications of the semantic conception. I trace the evolution of his early ideas, in the framework provided by Frege and Russell, and explain how his saying/showing distinction shaped both his account of logic and his picture theory of language. ;In Part Three I discuss Wittgenstein's later philosophy, showing how it developed in response to problems he later perceived in both his own earlier work and the writings of Frege. I describe the shift from simples to samples, and explain his conception of meaning as use and his remarks on rule-following . In the final chapter, I consider the implications of our discussion of sense for the issues as to the nature of logic and the role of philosophical analysis. (shrink)

The study of the cultural activity of the Spiritual missions of the Russian Orthodox Church in various regions of Russia is one of the urgent tasks in the context of the problematic field of the theory of regionalism, cultural studies and socio-philosophical knowledge. Russian settlements on the territory of the Yenisei River basin and the entry of ethnic groups and territories of Yakutia and Buryatia into the Russian Empire has become one of the most important stages of the integration of (...) the ethnic groups of Siberia into a single statehood. The Irkutsk Spiritual Mission received a more perfect organization, institutionalized by increasing the number of missionary camps, which for successful Christian activities carried out among pagans allowed the formation of school educational institutions for the education and upbringing of a new Buryat generation of children in the doctrinal Orthodox canons, and Russian cultural traditions. In this regard, one of the key tasks of the missionaries was to establish a rational view of further life in new Christian-type formations, which was realized in socio-cultural activities: providing medical care to sick representatives of other ethnic groups, a friendly attitude to people of a different faith and a sincere desire to guide them on the path of righteousness, etc. It should be noted that the largest share of foreigners in this territory belonged to Buddhists, which was reflected in the influence of lamas on doctrinal issues, including economic ones. Since Buddhism in the Russian Empire belonged to the section of tolerant religions, direct (administrative) pressure on it was impossible. There remained funds of an exclusively spiritual nature, to which Orthodox missionary work was directed. Today in the Russian Federation, Buddhism, as well as Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as some other faiths belong to the category of traditional religions, which organizationally operate within the framework of the modern Russian Constitution. (shrink)

The 2014 Umbrella Movement was one of the most significant social and political events in recent Hong Kong history. This paper offers some initial reflections on the connections between the movement and broader issues related to civic education, critical thinking, and theories of education. First, it is suggested that the movement closely resembles a form of civic education known as ‘action civics,’ offering an alternative pedagogy that might encourage more authentic civic participation. Second, the movement raises questions about (...) how the teaching of critical thinking can be made more practically relevant to modern citizenship. Third, the deep political polarization associated with the movement indicates that civic education and critical thinking training need to pay attention to cognitive biases that affect political ideology. Finally, the Umbrella Movement reflects the failure of democratization in Hong Kong and coincides with increasing political pressures on the local education system. We discuss how political reality connects to issues about democratic education, critical pedagogy, and the idea of political neutrality in education. (shrink)

When Western science was introduced to modern China, more translated words were used to express fundamental concepts and terms than borrowed words. The process of academic translation, commensuration, and communication between Western and Chinese philosophy is a process of comparative philosophical research. Nowadays, however, it seems that Chinese philosophy is evaluated by a Western Hegelian criterion. This leads to the debate over whether or not China has philosophy. But it is meaningless to argue about whether or not China has the (...) name of philosophy. The key issue is whether or not China has the actuality of philosophy. Looking at the history of Western philosophy, it seems that the Hegelian definition of philosophy was the only one that existed in Europe. However, during the last 200 years after Hegel that the two main philosophical trends of positivism (scientism) and irrationalism developed from anti-Hegelianism or “Spurning Metaphysics.” As metaphysics is being reconstructed, the ghost of Hegel has reappeared. It is clear that in the future, philosophy will evolve from the development of human metaphysics or cultural philosophy. It is a process of the “negation of negation”: from traditional metaphysics to the spurning of metaphysics, and then to human metaphysics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Butler on Subjectivity and Authorship: Reflections on Doing Philosophy in the First PersonAsher WaldenWhat drew me to theology a number of years ago was that it was the most personal kind of philosophy, to the extent that it deals with the most important issues of one’s own “personal” life. It used the tools of the philosophical tradition to address questions that the philosophers—especially those in the University of (...) Chicago’s analytically oriented environment—seemed not to want to ask; at least, not when I was an undergraduate there some years ago. My engagement with philosophy has always been about personal questions, and in the past I tended to eschew the political realm as being at best external to the more essential business of philosophy. But the questions I have been asking lately are rather different from the ones that concerned me back when I was still in Chicago. Largely due to the birth of my son two years ago, questions that before were only secondhand—questions about education, democracy, and debt—are now very personal and very, very important to me. I am perhaps a latecomer to the position that, as the saying goes, “The personal is the political.” But being a convert, like the earliest Christian Apologists, may afford me an opportunity and motivation to argue the position all the more earnestly.The way I have sought to incorporate these different questions and perspectives in my theologizing has primarily been through engagement with the Confucian philosophical tradition. The Confucian tradition is, in large measure, a series of reflections on the individual’s utter embeddedness in familial, sociopolitical, environmental, and sacred structures and forces. The tradition has its own resources for expressing and navigating this embeddedness, but what has become interesting to me is that the requisite resources are being developed independently, and perhaps more forcefully, within the realm of postmodern and postcolonial theory. Indeed, these newer articulations may [End Page 55] well be vital for present-day Confucian thinkers to consider in reformulating and re-presenting their own commitments and traditions in the current era.The questions posed to and for the current paper are, first, how does the religiously committed philosopher (or theologian, in a loose sense of the term) consciously incorporate political and economic considerations into her theological research and discursive product; and second, to what extent and in what ways is it necessary for her also to include and address her own personal life/history into the same. Naturally, these are questions which religious thinkers will ask and answer anew for themselves, and repeatedly. My own engagement with Judith Butler in the current paper will merely provide, I hope, one possible model for such an account of how the personal and the political may function in theological discourse. Generally, the model given here suggests that such considerations are not external add-ons to the more essential “hard-core” theologizing of the doctrines of God and Christology. It is not a matter of (first) theory and (then) application. Rather, theological discourse is one place where ethical subjectivity is attained, if provisionally, through conscientious and critical engagement with both one’s religious tradition and the sociopolitical-economic structures in which those traditions are practiced, and where one’s own place within those structures is both questioned and created.In her recent work Giving an Account of Oneself, Judith Butler continues her project of deconstructing the metaphysics of the substantive self, begun in her deservedly noted early work, Gender Trouble. In particular, she argues that the subject comes into being through processes and in contexts that, while not completely determinative of one’s subjectivity, do limit one’s ability to give a complete account of oneself, one’s actions and motivations. She asks the important question of whether this opacity of the conditions of one’s coming into being limits the possibility of taking responsibility, or being held responsible, for one’s actions. She ultimately finds, with Foucault, that selfhood is itself an ethical process, one occasioned and in large part constituted by the call, and subsequent attempt, to give an account.The question which drives Butler’s essay is, generally, if the subject comes... (shrink)

This volume is a collection of original essays focusing on a wide range of topics in the History and Philosophy of Science. It is a festschrift for Peter Machamer, which includes contributions from scholars who, at one time or another, were his students. The essays bring together analyses of issues and debates spanning from early modern science and philosophy through the 21st century. Machamer’s influence is reflected in the volume’s broad range of topics. These include: underdetermination, scientific practice, (...) scientific models, mechanistic explanation in contemporary and historical science, values in science, the relationship between philosophy and psychology, experimentation, supervenience and reductionism. (shrink)

William Tait's standing in the philosophy of mathematics hardly needs to be argued for; for this reason the appearance of this collection is especially welcome. As noted in his Preface, the essays in this book ‘span the years 1981–2002’. The years given are evidently those of publication. One essay was not previously published in its present form, but it is a reworking of papers published during that period. The Introduction, one appendix, and some notes are new. Many of the essays (...) will be familiar to the readers of this journal; indeed two first appeared here.It should be no surprise to those who know Tait's work that this is a very rich collection, with contributions on a wide variety of issues, both systematic and historical. That poses a problem for a reviewer, because a serious discussion of even all the major issues would be beyond the scope of a review.Before the essays in this collection, Tait's publications were almost all in mathematical logic, especially proof theory. He was a leading actor in the work on the revised Hilbert program stimulated after the war by Georg Kreisel, Kurt Schütte, and Gaisi Takeuti. Tait thus has an experience in mathematical research that is rare among those whose careers have been institutionally in philosophy. In the 1970s Tait became disillusioned with the proof-theoretic program on which he had worked. However, he draws on that background in several of these essays, and he has continued to work on mathematical questions. In particular, the set-theoretic project reflected in essay 6 is as much mathematical as philosophical.It is not easy to characterize Tait's philosophical viewpoint briefly. Both the title of the book and some of its content mark him as a rationalist. His hero in the earlier history …. (shrink)

In this chapter I investigate the prospects of integrated history and philosophy of science, by examining how philosophical issues raised by “hidden entities”, entities that are not accessible to unmediated observation, can enrich the historical investigation of their careers. Conversely, I suggest that the history of those entities has important lessons to teach to the philosophy of science. Hidden entities have played a crucial role in the development of the natural sciences. Despite their centrality to past scientific (...) practice, however, several of them (e.g., phlogiston, caloric, and the ether) turned out to be fictitious. For this reason, they have figured prominently in recent debates on scientific realism. The issues I explore in this paper are entangled with those debates. I argue that our understanding of hidden entities and their role in experimental practice can be enhanced by adopting an integrated historical-cum-philosophical approach. On the one hand, philosophical reflection on the reality of those entities has a lot to gain by examining historically how they were ntroduced and investigated. On the other hand, the historical reconstruction of the careers of those entities may profit from philosophical reflection on their existence. (shrink)