On March 25, 2023, the Faculty of Philosophy at Lomonov Moscow State University hosted the “Moscow Anthropological School: New Ideas in Philosophy” International Scientific Conference. The event was held in honor of Professor Fyodor Ivanovich Girenok’s jubilee. The conference welcomed speakers from Russia, Belarus, France, and the United Kingdom, along with attendees from various universities, cultural, government, and business institutions both within Russia and internationally. The conference delved into the fundamental issues of philosophical anthropology, highlighted contemporary strategies for understanding (...) humanity, explored future development prospects, and showcased the accomplishments of the Moscow School of Anthropology in shaping modern philosophical concepts. Among the anthropological strategies proposed were singular philosophy, event anthropology, synergistic anthropology, Messianic anthropology, the anthropology of silence, the anthropology of the tale, and network-centric anthropocentrism. A central theme that resonated through-out the conference discussions was the relationship between the human and non-human aspects of humanity, and the associated issue of the relationship between consciousness and artificial intelligence. Emphasizing the uniqueness of human existence, conference participants explored phenomena such as morality, action, meaning generation, imagination, inner life, self-action, self-falling, human duality, and non-objectibility. The conference under-scored the distinction between artificial intelligence, defined by an algorithmic function, and human consciousness, characterized as an extension of reality through the establishment of values and goals. The conference also paid special attention to the issue of language, specifically the dichotomy of word and image, sign and silence, and the potential for their synthesis in speech and the symbolization of social practices. (shrink)

G.E. Moore used to answer the question, 'What is philosophy?' by pointing to the books on his shelves & saying, 'Philosophy is what these books are about.' Philosophy of mind is what some of those books are about, & its enquiries frequently move into neighbouring areas, with logic, semantics, neurophysiology, literature, epistemology & metaphysics providing some obvious examples, as the papers in this collection reveal. Contents: The Connection Between Impressions & Ideas. Reid on Testimony & Perception. Searle on Programs (...) & Intentionality. Dennett, Functionalism & Introspection. Functionalism & the Argument from Conceivability. A Materialist's Misgivings about Eliminative Materialism. Sensation, Theory & Meaning. On the Speculative Nature of our Self Conception: A Reply to Some Criticisms. The Inward & the Outward: Fantasy, Reality & Satisfaction. Amnesia & Psychological Continuity. (shrink)

Philosophy of mind is one of the core disciplines in philosophy. The questions that it deals with are profound, vexed and intriguing. This volume of 15 new cutting-edge essays gives young researchers a chance to stir up new ideas. The essays cover a wide range of topics, including the nature of consciousness, cognition, and action. A common theme in the essays is that the future of philosophy of mind lies in judicious use of resources from related fields, including epistemology, (...) metaphysics, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, and cognitive neuroscience. Approaches that the researchers explore in this volume range from the use of armchair conceptual analysis to brain scanning techniques. (shrink)

The new frontiers in the philosophy of intellectual property lie squarely in territories belonging to moral and political philosophy, as well as legal philosophy and philosophy of economics – or so this collection suggests. Those who wish to understand the nature and justification of intellectual property may now find themselves immersed in philosophical debates on the structure and relative merits of consequentialist and deontological moral theories, or disputes about the nature and value of privacy, or the relationship between national and (...) global justice. Conversely, the theoretical and practical problems posed by intellectual property are increasingly relevant to bioethics and philosophy and public policy, as well as to more established areas of moral and political philosophy. Perhaps this is just to say that the philosophy of intellectual property is coming into its own as a distinct field of intellectual endeavour, providing a place where legal theorists and philosophers can have the sorts of discussions - neither reducible to questions about what the law is, nor wholly divorced from contemporary legal problems - which typify debates about freedom of expression, discrimination and human rights. These are all areas in which legal and philosophical ideas influence each other at the level of method as well as of substance. My hope is that this collection of essays will appeal to those who, whatever their professional specialty or training, share an interest in the philosophy of intellectual property, and that it will build upon and advance existing interdisciplinary dialogue and research in this complex, fascinating, and important area. Authors include John Christman, Stephen Munzer, Alex Rosenberg, Geert Demunijck, Laura Biron, James Wilson . (shrink)

"New Essays in Chinese Philosophy" explores various facets of Chinese thought which have received dynamic and creative scholarly attention in the recent past. It argues that Chinese culture is not -logic-less-. The Confucian perception of moral sense and of reason can be revitalized to meet current challenges. The book displays the religiosity of Confucian philosophy and explains why contemporary Confucianists may become Christians, and vice versa. It also illuminates the Taoist and Buddhist concepts of the universe by comparing Chinese and (...) Western metaphysics, and expounds how the ideas of yin, yang and harmony in Chinese tradition are consistent with recent advances in science.". (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: 1 A Plea for a New History of Philosophy in India -- 2 Towards a Field Theory of Indian Philosophy: -- Suggestions for a New Way of Looking at Indian Philosophy -- II -- 3 Indian Philosophy in the First Millennium A.D.: -- Fact and Fiction -- 4 Where are the Vedas in the First Millennium AD.? -- 5 Vedinta in the First Millennium A.D.: The Case Study -- of a Retrospective Illusion Imposed by th Historiography (...) -- of Indian Philosophy -- III -- 6 Prltftyasamutpada-Does it Say Anything New? -- 7 ilow Anekantika is Anekanta? Some Reflections on the -- Jain Theory of Anekfntavada -- IV -- 8 MTmamsa before JaiminT: Some Problems in the -- Interpretation of Rule in the Indian Tradition -- 9 The MTmamsaka versus Yajfiika: Some Further Problem in -- the Interpretation of Sruti in the Indian Tradition -- 10 Syena yaga: The Achilles Heel of Sruti in Indian Tradition -- 11 Is the Doctrine of Arthavada Compatible with the -- Idea of Srut? -- V -- 12 The Myth of the Prasthana TrayF -- 13 Is "Tattvam asi" The Same Type of Identity Statement as -- "The Morning Star is the Evening Star"? -- 14 Can the Analysis of Adhyasa ever Lead to an -- Advaitic Conclusion? -- 15 Was Acarya Samkara Responsible for the Disappearance -- of Buddhist Philosophy from India? -- VI -- 16 Is Nyaya Realist or Idealist? -- 17 Can Navya Nyaya Analysis Make a Distinction -- between Sense and Reference? -- VII -- 18 Did the GopTs Really Love Krsna?: Some Reflections -- on Bhakti as a Purusartha in the Indian Tradition -- 19 The Vamasrama Syndrome of Indian Sociology -- 20 'Shock-proof, 'Evidence-proof, 'Argument-proof -- World of Sampradayika Scholarship of Indian Philosophy -- 21 Nyaya; Realist or Idealist: Is the Debate Ended, the -- Argument Completed? -- Appendix. (shrink)

The pluralist sheds the more traditional ideas of truth and ontology. This is dangerous, because it threatens instability of the theory. To lend stability to his philosophy, the pluralist trades truth and ontology for rigour and other ‘fixtures’. Fixtures are the steady goal posts. They are the parts of a theory that stay fixed across a pair of theories, and allow us to make translations and comparisons. They can ultimately be moved, but we tend to keep them fixed temporarily. (...) Apart from considering rigour of proof as a fixture, I discuss fixed models, invariant notions and fixed information about objects across theories. There are other fixtures, but it is enough to start with these. (shrink)

This book explores the idea of a childlike education and offers critical tools to question traditional forms of education, and alternative ways to understand and practice the relationship between education and childhood. Engaging with the work of Michel Foucault, Jacques Rancière, Giorgio Agamben and Simón Rodríguez, it contributes to the development of a philosophical framework for the pedagogical idea at the core of the book, that of a childlike education.Divided into two parts, the book introduces innovative ideas through philosophical (...) argument and discussion, challenging existing understandings of what it means to teach or to form a child, and putting into question the idea of education as a process of formation. The first part of the book consists of a dialogue with a number of interlocutors in order to develop an original conception of education. The second part presents the idea of a childlike education, beginning with a discussion of the relationships between childhood and philosophy, and followed by a critique of the place of philosophical experience in a childhood of education. Instead of asking how philosophy might educate childhood, this book raises the question of how childhood might educate philosophy. It will be of key value to researchers, educators and postgraduate students in the fields of education and the human sciences. (shrink)

ANGLO-AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE has tended to define itself squarely against the kinds of so-called metaphysical approaches that have characterized so-called continental philosophy in the line of descent from Husserl. Indeed, Husserl’s project of phenomenological enquiry was the target of criticism by Frege—and later by Gilbert Ryle—which pretty much set the agenda for subsequent debate. That project seemed to them some form of argument that reveals his basically psychologistic approach, one that purported to address issues of truth, validity, rational warrant, (...) and so forth, but which fell far short of the logical rigor attained by thinkers in the analytic tradition. Thus Husserl might claim—like Descartes and Kant before him—to be raising questions about the a priori forms of human knowledge and experience, forms that were given or necessarily presupposed in every possible act of cognition. Moreover, he might claim to have advanced beyond Kant in distinguishing more clearly between formal and transcendental logic, or judgments whose necessity follows from the ground rules of this or that logically binding system of thought, and judgments that result from a rigorous reflection on the genesis and structure of human understanding in general. However these claims counted for little with Husserl’s critics in the other, that is, post-Fregean analytical camp. What they chiefly objected to in Husserl’s project was the approach via thoughts and ideas in the mind of some perceiving or reasoning subject, even though Husserl was very often at pains to reject any merely empirical or psychologistic construal of his claims. To their way of thinking, all this talk about transcendental truth- and validity-conditions was just another variant of the bad old Cartesian-Kantian retreat to consciousness as the last court of appeal in epistemological matters. Only by rejecting that entire line of thought—that is to say, by adopting a strictly analytical or logico-semantic approach—could philosophy at last break free of its attachment to naive, subject-centered, or metaphysical notions of meaning and truth. (shrink)

This volume describes features of biological autonomy and integrates them into the recent discussion of factors in evolution. In recent years ideas about major transitions in evolution are undergoing a revolutionary change. They include questions about the origin of evolutionary innovation, their genetic and epigenetic background, the role of the phenotype, and of changes in ontogenetic pathways. In the present book, it is argued that it is likewise necessary to question the properties of these innovations and what was qualitatively (...) generated during the macroevolutionary transitions. The author states that a recurring central aspect of macroevolutionary innovations is an increase in individual organismal autonomy whereby it is emancipated from the environment with changes in its capacity for flexibility, self-regulation and self-control of behavior. The first chapters define the concept of autonomy and examine its history and its epistemological context. Later chapters demonstrate how changes in autonomy took place during the major evolutionary transitions and investigate the generation of organs and physiological systems. They synthesize material from various disciplines including zoology, comparative physiology, morphology, molecular biology, neurobiology and ethology. It is argued that the concept is also relevant for understanding the relation of the biological evolution of man to his cultural abilities. Finally the relation of autonomy to adaptation, niche construction, phenotypic plasticity and other factors and patterns in evolution is discussed. The text has a clear perspective from the context of systems biology, arguing that the generation of biological autonomy must be interpreted within an integrative systems approach. (shrink)

What is the future of Philosophy of education? Or as many of scholars and thinkers in this final ‘future-focused’ collective piece from the philosophy of education in a new key Series put it, what are the futures—plural and multiple—of the intersections of ‘philosophy’ and ‘education?’ What is ‘Philosophy’; and what is ‘Education’, and what role may ‘enquiry’ play? Is the future of education and philosophy embracing—or at least taking seriously—and thinking with Indigenous ethicoontoepistemologies? And, perhaps most importantly, what is that (...) ‘Future’? These debates have been located in the work of diverse scholars: from the West, from Global South, from indigenous thinkers. In this collective piece, we purposefully juxtapose diverse takes on the future of these intersections. We have given up the urge to organise, place together, separate with subheadings or connect the paragraphs that follow. Instead, we let these philosophers of education and thinkers who use philosophical texts and ideas to sit together in one long read as potentially ‘strange and unusual bedfellows’. This text urges us to understand how these scholars and thinkers perceive our educational philosophical futures, and how the work and thinking they have done on thinking about what the future of that new key in philosophy of education may look like is embedded in a much deeper and richer literature, and personal experience. (shrink)

This paper recommends that chemistry educators shift to a different ‘idea of nature’, an alternative ‘worldview.’ Much of contemporary science and technology deals in one way or another with dynamic coherences that display novel and important properties. The notion of how the world works that such studies and practices generate (and require) is quite different from the earlier concepts that are now integrated into science education. Eventual success in meeting contemporary technological and social challenges requires general diffusion of an overall (...) outlook that focuses on creative generation of novel and useful coherences, replacing a worldview that concentrates on analysis of pre-existing items to minimum constituents. Such a shift in emphasis would amount to general adoption of a new basic model of how nature functions. Chemistry educators can and should provide leadership for this urgently-needed development. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to reveal philosophical ideas in the mythology and folklore of the indigenous peoples of North America. An important question: "Can we assume that the spiritual culture of the American Indians contained philosophical knowledge?" remains relevant today. For example, European philosophy is defined by appeals to philosophers of the past, their texts. The philosophical tradition is characterized by rational argumentation and formulation of philosophical questions that differ from the questions of ordinary language. However, the (...) problem lies in the term "philosophy", which belongs to the so-called "philosophical untranslatability" and has many definitions. The question of whether philosophy is exclusively a phenomenon of European culture is still controversial. In the article, the concept of philosophy is used in a broad sense, which allows the analysis of the intellectual heritage of the culture of the indigenous people of North America for philosophical ideas. Theoretical basis of the study consists of primary sources, which are limited due to the "documentary horizon". It contains myths about the Twins, ritual rhetoric, examples of dream interpretation practices and the practical wisdom of tribal chiefs. The Chronicle of "Vallamolum", or "the Red List", testifies to the special idea of the Indians about history and their own historicity. Analysis of cosmogonical and cosmological ideas reveals the special features of the anthropological ideas of the North American Indians. Combined with the philosophical ideas of the Puritan philosophy of the settlers of New England, this analysis allows us to explore in more detail the processes of acculturation. The study uses critical literature from scholars and leading researchers of the wisdom and philosophy of Native Americans, such as Michael Yellow Bird, J. Baird Callicott, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dennis H. McPherson, Lewis Henri Morgan, Thomas M. Norton-Smith, J. Douglas Rabb, Paul Radin, Jon Ewbank Manchip White. The views of early American philosophers: R. Williams, W. Penn, R. W. Emerson, on the problem of the relationship between the culture of settlers and the indigenous people of North America are noteworthy. Originality lies in the application of historical and philosophical methodology, identifying the features of philosophizing in the spiritual culture and worldview of the indigenous people of North America. Conclusions. In the conclusions, the obtained results complement the history of the origin and development of philosophical thought of the early American philosophy. (shrink)

Against recent criticisms of idealism coming from the camp of the so-called New Realists, this volume shows that there is (and always has been) more to idealism than mind-centered ontology. The chapters by a group of both leading and up-and-coming scholars show that idealism can be approached from a plethora of angles, both contemporary and historically inspired, and that this broader view is precisely what may save its reputation in the 21st century.

None of Peirce's most recent interpreters fall clearly into only one of these classes. All are expositors, critics, and innovators. Yet their emphases differ, and the classification serves to highlight them. W. B. Gallie, for instance, is mainly interested in introducing the general reader to the broadest line of Peirce's thought on pragmatism. He does this appreciatively, with skillful fluency. Yet he also advances a critical thesis about the meanings Peirce gave to "pragmatism," and he tests the compatibility of Peirce's (...) metaphysical and logical writings with suggestive results. Manley Thompson's book has, on the other hand, a more formal cast throughout. It is "offered as an essential propaedeutic to the determination of Peirce's place in the history of ideas". With closest care it traces the development of Peirce's pragmatic philosophy, setting out an ordered, definitive statement of what Peirce said, driving finally to a brief evaluation of the whole philosophy in which the pragmatic maxim is a principle. Lastly, the Studies in the Philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce contains essays of all three emphases: there are biographical, historical, and elucidating essays; there are critical ones that quibble to distraction and critical ones that excite to construction; and finally, there are a few that go through Peirce to continue inquiry on topics in ethics, logic, and metaphysics. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The main purpose of this research is to comprehend the philosophical principles in the spread and legitimation of the Self-made-man idea in the worldview transformations of the 17th century. _Theoretical basis._ Historical and comparative methods became fundamental ones for the research. The research is based on the creative heritage of R. Descartes, T. Hobbes, J. Locke, as well as the works of modern researchers. _Originality._ The analysis shows that the Self-made-man idea, which originated in the ancient world and gradually (...) spreads in the Christian Middle Ages, gained a powerful impetus in the philosophical and moral-legal metamorphoses of the 17th century. These metamorphoses theoretically substantiated and radically accelerated the transition from mystical to rational, from theocentric to the anthropocentric worldview, and, as a result, to the recognition of the intellectual autonomy of the individuals and the freedom of their own will, the emergence of the construct of natural human rights, the requirements of religious tolerance and freedom of conscience, ultimately, to the principle of reliance on one’s own strength and the individual’s personal responsibility for one’s own destiny. Exactly these ideas in interaction with the ideas of Puritanism became the theoretical basis for the formation of B. Franklin’s views and the corresponding cultural code. _Conclusions._ The philosophy of the 17th century, having laid the principles of a new – subject-centric – metaphysics, as well as the philosophical and legal foundations of liberal ideology, provided philosophical and moral-legal legitimation to the sporadic attempts of man to break out of the triple circle of fatalism, paternalism, and conformity to a rationally founded and the ever-growing orientation of the individual towards active self-determination and self-realization, self-reliance and personal responsibility for their own destiny as key principles of the Self-made-man concept. (shrink)

A response to complex problems spanning disciplinary boundaries, Worlds of ScienceCraft offers bold new ways of conceptualizing ideas of science, sociology, and philosophy. Beginning with the historical foundations of civilization and progress, assumptions about the categories we use to talk about minds, identities, and bodies are challenged through case studies from mathematics, social cognition, and medical ethics.

The purpose of this article is to offer a specific perspective on Puritan philosophy. Most of the early American philosophy of the Puritans dealt with theological issues, the main topics of philosophical speculation were the ideas of God, salvation, freedom, and others. However, there were some ideas, the presence of which is an important factor, which until now has been little taken into account. This factor is the genuine interest of the Puritans in the natural sciences. Both in (...) England and in America, there were favorable conditions for the new natural philosophy proclaimed by Francis Bacon, this natural philosophy offered a new type of thought. The English philosopher struggled with obstacles in the way of research, one of which was infallible authority, for example, the authority of Aristotle. One of the most curious facts about the colonial life of American settlers is the construction of Harvard College, which from the first days, preserved and increased knowledge. Among the sciences taught was astronomy, which indicates the interest of the Puritans in the study of space. The most important change in the scientific worldview of the times of the first colonies in North America was the adoption of the heliocentric system of Nicolaus Copernicus to replace the geocentric system of Ptolemy, which had existed for many centuries. Among the first books printed in the colonies were mainly religious texts, but there were also scientific ones, for example, astronomical almanacs and catalogs appeared. The information in these books helped in observing the heavenly bodies, for which the first optical instruments, telescopes, were used. Several decades after the first settlers in Plymouth, the first telescope appeared in America thanks to John Winthrop Jr. Taken together, these facts show that in addition to religious reflections, American Puritan thinkers were also interested in cosmological problems. (shrink)

The good (Aristotle) -- Dignity (Kant) -- The promise (Nietzsche) -- The self (Kierkegaard) -- Truth (Arendt) -- Responsibility (Løgstrup) -- Love (Murdoch) -- Forgiveness (Derrida) -- Freedom (Camus) -- Death (Montaigne).

In his extraphysical speculations around the mid 20th century, the physicist Wolfgang Pauli proposed, together with the psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, a kind of 'dual-aspect monism' as a framework for conceiving of the mind-matter problem. It is discussed how this framework can be related to more recent developments in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of mind.

This book features new perspectives on the ethics and politics of free speech. Contributors draw on insights from philosophy, psychology, political theory, journalism, literature, and history to respond to pressing problems involving free speech in liberal societies. Recent years have seen an explosion of academic interest in free speech. However, most recent work has focused on constitutional protections for free speech and on issues related to academic freedom and campus politics. The chapters in this volume set their sights more broadly (...) on the non-state problems that we collectively face in attempting to realize a healthy environment for free discourse. The volume's contributors share the assumption that threats to free speech do not come exclusively from state sources or bad actors, but from ordinary strategic situations in which all may be acting in good faith. Contributors take seriously the idea that our current cultural moment provides plenty of reason to be concerned about our intellectual climate and offer new insights for how to make things better. New Directions in the Ethics and Politics of Speech will be of interest to researchers and students working in ethics, political philosophy, social theory, and law. (shrink)

With a few exceptions, the relation of modern science to medieval natural philosophy is a question that has been largely shunned in the Neothomistic era, in favor of a preoccupation with establishing a “realist metaphysics” that has no need for science in the modern sense nor, for that matter, any need for natural philosophy either. Fr. Ashley’s work confronts this narrow preoccupation head-on, arguing that, in the view of St. Thomas himself, there can be no human wisdom which leaves aside (...) scientific development. Ashley even goes so far as to point the way tothe possible development of philosophy beyond the terms of the realist / idealist framework in which Neothomism had its say. (shrink)

Today, early in the twenty-first century, all that is changed. Individuals may strive for stability, societies may create the illusion of permanence, the quest for certainty may continue unabated, yet the fact remains that society is an ever-changing phenomenon, growing, decaying, renewing and accommodating itself to changing conditions and suffering vast modifications in the course of time. Our understanding of it will not be complete unless we take into consideration this changeable nature of society, study how differences emerge and discover (...) the direction of change. Social theory has at least become a deliberated object of contempt in academic quarters, while standing as an icon for a host of seriously interesting intellectual labours by the younger citizens of those quarters. The business of social theory might, therefore, be said to be thinking ideas about social things that have not previously been thought. Social theory, thereby, would be the work of thinking the Unthinkable. Gone are the days when the theoretical underpinnings of sociological research could be neatly confined to the conceptual terrain of, say, structural-functionalism, symbolic interactionism, or ethnomethodology. Today, theoretical innovation in sociology results from a cross-referencing of disciplinary perspectives, a cross-referencing that scoops up and reconfigures many of the new social theories-poststructuralism, postmodernism, post-feminism, postcolonialism, psychoanalysis, and deconstruction. To advocates of the interdisciplinary turn in sociology, these new social theories are primarily valuable because they disrupt traditional disciplinary boundaries. The new theories, it is said, inflame a novel arrangement with current social processes and promote an intellectual process of expansion and transformation. When social theorists today reflect on the changing relations between the individual and society, they generally do so in ways that are intensely shaped by methodological concerns that underscore actor and/or system-based models of analysis. New Directions in Social Theory: Race, Gender and the Canon sociological concerns, from the investigation of power and status processes, to social movements and revolutions, to organisational and institutional structures, to world system analysis. It outlines current developments in thinking in the field of Social Impact Assessment (SIA). This book will be an invaluable introduction for graduate students, academics, consultants and practitioners concerned with social studies. (shrink)

These are exciting times for philosophy and psychiatry. After drifting apart for most of this century, the two disciplines, if not yet fully reconciled, are suddenly at least on speaking terms. With hindsight we may wonder why they should have ignored each other for so long. As Anthony Quinton pointed out in a lecture to the Royal Institute of Philosophy a few years ago, it is remarkable that philosophers, in a sense the experts on rationality, should have had so little (...) to say about the phenomena of irrationality. There have been partial exceptions, of course. Descartes and Kant both touched on madness; and there were, notably, important philosophical influences on the development of modern psychiatry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet even John Locke, who was a doctor as well as philosopher, confined himself to a fair-l y superficial distinction between what we should now call mental illness and mental defect—those with, in Locke's view, respectively too many ideas and too few. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Objective Reality of Ideas in Descartes, Caterus, and Su irez NORMAN j. WELLS IT HAS LONG BEEN ACKNOWLEDGEDthat Francisco Sufirez's distinction between a formal and an objective concept exercised some influence upon Descartes's teaching on 'idea'.' It would appear, however, that not enough attention has been given to that distinction of Sufirez (and especially to another to be mentioned shordy) to aid in dispelling what I take to (...) be a widespread confusion and misunderstanding with regard to 'idea' in Descartes, especially with respect to 'idea' taken 'objectively'. Much, if not all, of the confusion in question has to do with Descartes's admittedly equivocal use of the term 'idea'. For he had allowed that 'idea' could be taken 'materially' (materialiter), on the one hand, for the knowing activity of the intellect. On the other hand, it could be taken 'objectively' (objective) for the thing (res) represented by that knowing activity.' At this point, the contemporary reader can only be brought up short, See E. Gilson, Index scolastico-cart~sien (New York: Burt Franklin Reprint, 1912), 48-49; Discours de la m~thode: Texte et commentazre (Paris: J. Vrin, 1947), 321; G. Rodis-Lewisin her edition of Meditationes de Prima PhRosoph.m (Paris: J. Vrin, 1953), 41 n. 1; L'oeuure de Descartes (Paris: J. Vrin, 1971), 53~ n. 8; J. Collins, Modern European Philosophy (Milwaukee: Bruce, 1954), 165;T.J. Cronin, S.J., Objecttve Being m Descartes and SuArez (Rome: Gregorian University Press, 1966); "Objective Reality of Ideas in Human Thought: Descartes and Su~rez," Wisdom in Depth: Essays in Honor of Henri Renard, SJ., eds. V. F. Daues, S.J., M. R. Holloway, S.J., L. Sweeney, S.J. (Milwaukee : Bruce, 1966), 68-79; L. Gilen, S.J., "Uber die Beziehungen Descartes zur zeitgenossischen Scholastik," Scholastik 32 (1957): 41-66; R. Dalbiez, "Les sources scolastiques de la th~orie cart6sienne de l'&re objectif," Revue d'histoire de la philosophic 3 (1929): 464-72;J. Owens, C.S.S.R., in The Cambridge HtstoU of Later Medu,val Philosophy, eds. N. Kretzmann, A. Kenny, J. Pinborg (Cambridge University Press, 1982), 459; G. Nuchelmans,Judgment and Propositwnfrom Descartesto Kant (Amsterdam: North Holland Publishing Co., 1983), 36-54. " Oeuvres de Descartes, ed. C. Adam et P. Tannery, 11 vols. (Paris: J. Vrin, 1897-19o9; hereafter cited according to volume, page and line), Praefatio ad Lectorem, 7: 8. 19-251 "Sed respondeo hic subesse aequivocationem in voce ideae: sumi enim potest vel materialiter, pro operatione intellectus, quo sensu me perfectior dici nequit, vel objective, pro re per istam operationem repraesentata, quae res, etsi non supponatur extra intellectum existere, potest tamen me esse perfectior ratione suae essentiae." It is clear that two realities are to be causally accounted for. The [33] 34 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 28"1 JANUARY 1990 conditioned as we are by an appreciation of 'objectivity' altogether extramental! It makes for a considerable wrench of perspective to do justice to Descartes's acknowledged doctrine of intramental objectivity and an intramental 'thing represented' (resrepraesentata). 'Idea', then, in traditional Cartesian fashion, designates the act of representing as well as the 'thing represented '. S Yet, for all this, and despite repeated expressions of the same doctrine, there is a persistent tendency in the history of Cartesianism and its scholarship to interpret 'idea' taken 'objectively' as in some way representative. Contrary to what I take to be Descartes's constant position, such a rendering unwittingly transfers that function which is proper to the cognitive activity, mind is the efficient cause of its cognitive activity. With respect to ideas taken 'objectively', such as the ideas of God and the triangle on the levels of metaphysical and mathematical intelligibility, an efficient cause, extrinsic to the mind, is certainly at issue. For here we are in the presence of what is independent of the mind, however intramental it may be. On the triangle, see Medit. 5; 7: 64. ]4s7 : "...est tamen profecto determinata quaedam ejus natura, sire essentia, sive forma, immutabUis et aeterna, quae a me non efficta est, nec a mente mea dependet." For the idea of God, see Medit. 5; 7: 68. l o-12: "Nam sane multis modis inteUigo illam [ideam... (shrink)

Philosophy and the scientific revolution / Daniel Garber -- Old history and introductory teaching in early modern philosophy : a response to Daniel Garber / Lisa Downing -- Meaning and metaphysics / Susan Neiman -- Evil and wonder in early modern philosophy : a response to Susan Neiman / Mark Larrimore -- The forgetting of gender / Nancy Tuana -- The forgetting of gender and the new histories of philosophy : a response to Nancy Tuana / Eileen O’Neill -- The (...) idea of early modern philosophy / Knud Haakonssen -- Response to Knud Haakonssen / Jeffrey Edwards -- Arguments over obligation : teaching time and place in moral philosophy / Ian Hunter -- Response to Ian Hunter / T.J. Hochstrasser -- Teaching the history of moral philosophy / J.B. Schneewind -- Historicism, moral judgment, and the good life : a response to J.B. Schneewind / Jennifer A. Herdt -- Integrating history of philosophy with history of science after Kant / Michael Friedman -- Response to Michael Friedman / Juliet Floyd -- Thought versus history : reflections on a French problem / Denis Kambouchner -- Response to Denis Kambouchner / Bé́atrice Longuenesse -- Teaching the history of philosophy in 19th-century Germany / Ulrich Johannes Schneider -- Response to Ulrich Johannes Schneider / Karl Ameriks -- Comment : philosophy in practice / Lorraine Daston -- A note from inside the teapot / Anthony Grafton -- Philosophy, history of philosophy, and L’histoire de l’esprit humain : a historiographical question and problem for philosophers / Jonathan Israel -- History and/or philosophy / Donald R. Kelly -- Historians look at the new histories of philosophy : roundtable discussion. (shrink)

In his foreword, Brand Blanshard provides the suitable justification for publishing yet one more book on Berkeley: Berkeley is "curiously modern," and philosophically acute. Twelve competent essays, contributed by as many scholars, testify to the accuracy of Blanshard's judgment. These twelve scholars, all of whom rely on the Luce-Jessop definitive edition, touch upon the major issues of Berkeley's philosophy: perception, substance, spirit, and God. Differences in interpretation are everywhere evident, but Berkeley is nowhere given facile treatment or quick dismissal. Of (...) the many good essays, Ian T. Ramsey's on "Berkeley and the Possibility of an Empirical Metaphysics" deserves close attention. Ramsey argues that Berkeley's doctrine of will, soul, mind, etc., should be viewed as forms of personal activity and not on the analogy of Locke's ideas. T. E. Jessop contributes a useful bibliography as well as an essay on "Berkeley as Religious Apologist." The only, very minor, flaw in this distinguished volume is that the editor's own essay, the twelfth, "Berkeley and his Modern Critics" might have been better placed immediately following the foreward.--D. J. M. B. (shrink)

Cutting God in Half argues that, in order to tackle climate change, world poverty, extinction of species and our other global problems rather better than we are doing at present we need to bring about a revolution in science, and in academia more generally. We need to put our problems of living – personal, social, global – at the heart of the academic enterprise. How our human world, imbued with meaning and value, can exist and best flourish embedded in the (...) physical universe is, the book argues, our basic problem. It is our fundamental philosophical problem, our fundamental problem of knowledge and understanding, and our fundamental practical problem of living. It is this problem that we fail, at present, to recognize as fundamental – to our cost. It can be understood to arise as a result of cutting God in half – severing the God of Cosmic Power from the God of Value. The first is Einstein’s God, the underlying unity in the physical universe that determines how events occur. The second is what is of most value associated with human life – and sentient life more generally. Having cut God in half in this way, the problem then becomes to see how the two halves can be put together again. This book tackles outstanding aspects of this problem, and in doing so throws out original ideas about science, education, religion, evolutionary theory, free will, quantum theory, and how we should go about tackling our impending global crises. It transpires that bringing our basic problem into sharp focus has revolutionary implications. It becomes clear how and why many aspects of our social and cultural world urgently need to be transformed. Cutting God in Half is written in a lively, accessible style, and ought to be essential reading for anyone concerned about ultimate questions – the nature of the universe, the meaning of life, the future of humanity. (shrink)

This book covers the basic guidelines of Vittorio Benussi’s research during the period at Graz and at Padua. It does so in the light of a thorough study of his Nachlass. The book re-evaluates Benussi’s work as a historical piece, and shows how his work is still relevant today, especially in the areas of cognitive psychology and cognitive science. The volume deals with this original and ingenious - though largely ignored - scholar and discusses his work as a leading experimental (...) psychologist. Benussi’s contributions as discussed in this book were particularly relevant in the fields of visual and tactile perception, time perception, forensic psychology, hypnosis and suggestion, unconscious, and emotions. His classical papers are impressive in their originality, energy, range of approaches, experimental skill, the wealth of findings, and the quality of theoretical discussions. This book demonstrates that Benussi was ahead of his time and that his themes, experiments and research programmes are highly relevant to contemporary cognitive psychology. (shrink)

In an effort to ease the task of developing new ideas, whether in research, development or some other endeavor, it is generally accepted to resort to a method of problem solving. Although the use of such a method may, in many cases, be done without the realization of the individual, it does not detract from the fact that such methods play a part in our mental processes and research techniques. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss the (...) methods and to arbitrarily classify them so that they can be consciously applied. Inasmuch as all methods must to some extent ultimately define the problem, the division presented here is obviously arbitrary, based on the degree of specificity with which the problem must be defined. (shrink)

Recent decades have seen a fertile period of theorizing within mainstream epistemology which has had a dramatic impact on how epistemology is done. Investigations into contextualist and pragmatic dimensions of knowledge suggest radically new ways of meeting skeptical challenges and of understanding the relation between the epistemological and practical environment. New insights from social epistemology and formal epistemology about defeat, testimony, a priority, probability, and the nature of evidence all have a potentially revolutionary effect on how we understand our epistemological (...) place in the world. Religion is the place where such rethinking can potentially have its deepest impact and importance. Yet there has been surprisingly little infiltration of these new ideas into philosophy of religion and the epistemology of religious belief. -/- Knowledge, Belief, and God incorporates these myriad new developments in mainstream epistemology, and extends these developments to questions and arguments in religious epistemology. The investigations proposed in this volume offer substantial new life, breadth, and sophistication to issues in the philosophy of religion and analytic theology. They pose original questions and shed new light on long-standing issues in religious epistemology; and these developments will in turn generate contributions to epistemology itself, since religious belief provides a vital testing ground for recent epistemological ideas. (shrink)

The exploration of chemical periodicity over the past 250 years led to the development of the Periodic System of Elements and demonstrates the value of vague ideas that ignored early scientific anomalies and instead allowed for extended periods of normal science where new methodologies and concepts are developed. The basic chemical element provides this exploration with direction and explanation and has shown to be a central and historically adaptable concept for a theory of matter far from the reductionist frontier. (...) This is explored in the histories of Prout’s hypothesis, Döbereiner Triads, element inversions necessary when ordering chemical elements by atomic weights, and van den Broeck’s ad-hoc proposal to switch to nuclear charges instead. The development of more accurate methods to determine atomic weights, Rayleigh and Ramsey’s gas separation and analytical techniques, Moseley’s X-ray spectroscopy to identify chemical elements, and more recent accelerator-based cold fusion methods to create new elements at the end of the Periodic Table point to the importance of methodological development complementing conceptual advances. I propose to frame the crossover from physics to chemistry not as a loss of accuracy and precision but as an increased application of vague concepts such as similarity which permit classification. This approach provides epistemic flexibility to adapt to scientific anomalies and the continued growth of chemical compound space and rejects the Procrustean philosophy of reductionist physics. Furthermore, it establishes chemistry with its explanatory and operational autonomy epitomized by the periodic system of elements as a gateway to other experimental sciences. (shrink)

Reviews the book, Critical issues in psychotherapy: Translating new ideas into practice edited by Brent D. Slife, Richard N. Williams, and Sally H. Barlow . Bridging the often enormous gap between theory and practice in psychotherapy, this volume seeks to examine a variety of models of psychotherapy in the light of recent advances in theoretical psychology, philosophy of science, and critical thinking. The book is organized around numerous issues of fundamental importance to contemporary psychotherapy, including chapters addressing the problems (...) of empirically validated therapies, individualism, spirituality, multiculturalism, biological reductionism, managed care, freewill/determinism, eclecticism, feminism, and diagnostics. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

The state of the art of contemporary philosophy and psychiatry is reviewed. Section 1 describes the new field as an international open society of ideas. Section 2 introduces values-based practice. Although originally a philosophy-into-practice initiative, values-based practice is now developing more strongly in areas of bodily medicine such as surgery. An example from surgery illustrates how values-based practice has been implemented as a partner to evidence-based practice in supporting shared clinical decision-making as the basis of best practice in contemporary (...) person-centered clinical care. Section 3 explores the difficulties presented by implementing values-based practice in mental health as illustrated by a case example of anorexia. This shows that these difficulties derive from the particularly intense challenges of values pluralism presented by anorexia. The resources of phenomenology provide the basis for an effective response to these challenges. Section 4 generalizes the argument of Section 3 showing that an effective response to the wider range of challenges of values pluralism arising across the board in mental health is available from the resources of the international open society of ideas of contemporary philosophy and psychiatry. The article concludes with a promissory note on values and a cautionary note on science. (shrink)

From the antiquity to nowadays the connection between philosophy and medicine is of substantive importance. One of the outstanding figures for medicine as Hippocrates of Kos, named “the father of medicine”, built the fundamental principals of medicine as rational endeavour. The other important figure in late antiquity – Claudius Galenus or Galen of Pergamon –made an important thesis that a good doctor is a philosopher too (work That the Best Physician is also a Philosopher). This work analyses the questions concerning (...) contemporary relationships between philosophy and medicine today. One of the central topics is focused on contemporary criteria for medical theory, research and practice. In the beginning of the 90s, the so-called Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) formulated specific methodological features that medicine has to aspire to. Today, every field of medicine is based on the principles formulated by EBM. This gives grounds for a number of authors to talk about a "new paradigm" in medical science and practice and to base this idea on the EBM movement. The present paper will analyse the discussion of whether EBM is a paradigm according to Kuhn’s idea of a “paradigm shift”, and will critically analyse scientific change situation in the context of modern medicine (scientific and social aspects). (shrink)

Focusing on the seminal works of two early thirteenth-century philosophers, Steven P. Marrone shows how the idea of science" and the desire to be "scientific" first penetrated the scholarly discourse of the medieval West. Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. (...) The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

There has always been much controversy surrounding property rights in legal and political philosophy. Thinkers such as Plato, Locke, Kant, Hegel and Marx have all offered different views on the idea of property. This collection of essays, written by some of the most eminent scholars in the field, examines the most central issues of property theory from a variety of perspectives. The essays discuss whether property may be dissipated or used imprudently with impunity, and analyse how a person's property should (...) be distributed after death. They survey the economic landscape of intellectual property and show that Locke's celebrated justification for private property falters when it comes to copyrights and patents. They also demonstrate how important it is that institutions of property be carefully justified. The variety and originality of these essays are evidence that the theory of property is one of the most exciting areas of intellectual inquiry in the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

Almost all the original philosophers, from Socrates to the verificationists of the present day, have tried to provide some universally applicable method of eliminating confusion and error from our discourse: this provision of a method of ‘correcting the understanding’ is at least one, and perhaps the principal, of the continuous threads which can be traced in Western philosophy. There was the Socratic method, which requires us to look for real definitions of our fundamental abstract terms: the Cartesian methods of rejecting (...) as possible candidates for knowledge any propositions which do not consist of clear and distinct ideas: the Humean or Empiricist method of dismissing as nonsense any non-tautologous statement which cannot be justified as referring to the order of our sensations: Kant's transcendental method of critical philosophy, whichit would certainly be imprudent to characterize in a phrase, but which was equally intended to be a safe protection against empty metaphysics and meaningless questions: lastly, the verification principle, which provides a general method of determining which of our statements conform to some scientific standard of intelligibility, and which are to classed as tautologies or as playing with words. New movements in philosophy have in general been new methods of correcting the understanding, methods which are further generalized and applied in the interval before another great philosopher appears with another general method of showing that all previous metaphysics is nonsense. (shrink)

This essay presents arguments for the claim that in the best of all possible worlds (Leibniz) there are sources of unpredictability and creativity for us humans, even given a pancomputational stance. A suggested answer to Chaitin’s questions: “Where do new mathematical and biological ideas come from? How do they emerge?” is that they come from the world and emerge from basic physical (computational) laws. For humans as a tiny subset of the universe, a part of the new ideas (...) comes as the result of the re-configuration and reshaping of already existing elements and another part comes from the outside as a consequence of openness and interactivity of the system. For the universe at large it is randomness that is the source of unpredictability on the fundamental level. In order to be able to completely predict the Universe-computer we would need the Universe-computer itself to compute its next state; as Chaitin already demonstrated there are incompressible truths which means truths that cannot be computed by any other computer but the universe itself. (shrink)

With a new foreword by Jonathan Lear 'Remarkably lively and enjoyable…It is a very rich book, containing excellent descriptions of a variety of moral theories, and innumerable and often witty observations on topics encountered on the way.' -_ Times Literary Supplement_ Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Drawing on the (...) ideas of the Greek philosophers, Williams reorients ethics away from a preoccupation with universal moral theories towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in contemporary philosophy and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. This edition also includes a commentary on the text by A.W.Moore. At the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was hailed by the Times as 'the outstanding moral philosopher of his age.' He taught at the Universities of Cambridge, Berkeley and Oxford and is the author of many influential books, including _Morality; Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry_ and _Truth and Truthfulness_. (shrink)

With a new foreword by Jonathan Lear 'Remarkably lively and enjoyable…It is a very rich book, containing excellent descriptions of a variety of moral theories, and innumerable and often witty observations on topics encountered on the way.' -_ Times Literary Supplement_ Bernard Williams was one of the greatest philosophers of his generation. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is not only widely acknowledged to be his most important book, but also hailed a contemporary classic of moral philosophy. Drawing on the (...) ideas of the Greek philosophers, Williams reorients ethics away from a preoccupation with universal moral theories towards ‘truth, truthfulness and the meaning of an individual life’. He explores and reflects upon the most difficult problems in contemporary philosophy and identifies new ideas about central issues such as relativism, objectivity and the possibility of ethical knowledge. This edition also includes a commentary on the text by A.W.Moore. At the time of his death in 2003, Bernard Williams was hailed by the Times as 'the outstanding moral philosopher of his age.' He taught at the Universities of Cambridge, Berkeley and Oxford and is the author of many influential books, including _Morality; Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry_ and _Truth and Truthfulness_. (shrink)