The idea of structural analysis of the Aeneid has been attacked recently by some who believe that too complicated mathematics are involved in line totals involving a golden mean. The object of the present article is to investigate whether simpler numerical effects are discernible in the poem, and whether these effects were deliberately inserted by Virgil. The significant numbers to be examined in this connexion are 3, 7, 12, and 30. The first three of these are among the ritualistic numbers (...) whose use in the Aeneid was discussed by C. P. Clark, while 30 is among other things part of the series 3, 30, 300 which we encounter in Aen. I. 261–96. (shrink)

In this contribution, the author argues that there are in our European tradition two fundamental conceptions of politics since the French Revolution. We can call them the politics as the art of co-existence, and the politics of dénouement. Both conceptions also have a very different stance towards the traditional religions: for the first one mentioned freedom of religion is constitutive, for the second one religion must serve the state or can even be made redundant. Paradigmatic in this respect was the (...) communist treatment of religion as a relic of the past that will disappear when historic reason makes our society transparant . Here politics transforms in a quasi-eschatological political religion. In the twientieth century neo-marxist philosophers say farewell to this kind of politics and begin to rediscover religious inheritances and theological motives. Today two other positions towards religions are noticeable: the utilitaristic reductionist treatment of religion as a need , and ‘Enlightment fundamentalism’ which continues the rationalist communist conception of religion as a relic of the past. The author criticises both tendencies, and defends a ‘politics without dénouement’ which correspondents to a ‘religion without guarantee’. In closing the author argues that the recent populist politics either dream of a new alliance between religion and/or ‘culture’ and the state, or – in a strange inversion of the multicultural ideals of the nineties – promote a purely polemical identity against an ‘alien’ religion, i.c. Islam. Here the author claims that both tendencies fail to recognize the real nature of the new problems. (shrink)

The grammarian Caesellius Vindex, writing under Trajan, criticized Furius Antias for his newly coined verbs lutescere, noctescere, opulescere and vīrescere. Their meanings in classical Latin are classified by Nicolaie as follows: becoming, the intensification of a quality, the acquisition of a quality. Their number increases in post-classical Latin, in which we also find them used causatively as transitive verbs, e.g. innotescere ‘make known’; Gellius' causative use of inolesco is mentioned below. Incohative verbs descend to Romance languages, where forms in -o (...) and in -sco both contribute to some conjugations, e.g. Fr. finir, finissant; It. finire, finisco, and to English. (shrink)

This paper presents a qualitative study investigating the application of physiotherapists’ professional ethics in practice with respect to touch, intimacy, and corporeality during therapy, based on the experiences of elderly patients. As the relationship in a physiotherapy session is multidimensional, the study considered three levels: physical contact, verbal contact, and the conditions in which the therapy took place. The aim of this study was to find out what values are of importance to older people during a physiotherapy session, with emphasis (...) on the categories of touch, corporeality, and intimacy. The studied group consisted of sixteen male and female physiotherapy patients aged between sixty-six and ninety-two years. The study was conducted according to the grounded theory methodology. The research material consisted of transcriptions of free targeted interviews, which were subjected to a process of coding and analysis. As a result of data analyses, three superior categories have been identified—safety, anxiety, interpersonal relationship—and three a priori categories stemming from the characteristic features of the study area—touch, corporeality, and intimacy. The a priori categories did not appear independently in statements made by the respondents, but instead seemed to be components of superior categories. The most important values indicated by the respondents concerned the interpersonal relationship with their physiotherapist and the feeling of safety and care. In terms of touch, corporeality, and intimacy, the respondents indicated, among others, the importance of predictability, a sense of security, privacy, and acceptance of the body. (shrink)

In this paper, we criticize what we dub the “pruning view” of self-constitution, championed widely by philosophers, mainly though not exclusively in the Kantian tradition, and instead defend an alternative view inspired by psychoanalysis. We argue that normative assessment comes much too early on the pruning view, so early that it interferes with achieving deeper self-understanding that can produce lasting change. On the proposal we advocate, self-constitution must begin with a non-moralizing attempt to truly understand why one has undesirable and (...) unwanted propensities. We call this the “understanding first” principle. Only after deeper self-understanding has been achieved are attempts to liberate oneself from unwanted elements likely to succeed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Could Understanding Harm?Iskra Fileva, PhD (bio) and Linda A.W. Brakel, MD (bio)We would like to thank the editors for organizing this symposium and our commentators—Marga Reimer and James Phillips—for the thought-provoking feedback. Although we had thought about the ideas we discuss from many different angles, our commentators raised several interesting issues we had not considered. We are grateful for the opportunity to continue the conversation.Reply to ReimerAs Professor Reimer (...) notes, we advocate an approach to self-constitution that we dub “understanding first.” On this approach, non-moral and non-normative understanding of the origin of maladaptive traits must precede moral evaluation and attempts to free oneself—or as we say “prune”—undesirable traits. Professor Reimer presents several interesting cases meant both to extend and test the limits of our proposal. We appreciate this approach and respond to each case in turn.Genes and AlcoholismSuppose Alejandro, an adult raised by adoptive parents, struggles with alcohol addiction. He learns that his biological parents died of alcoholic liver disease and comes to believe that his alcohol problem is caused by a genetic propensity toward alcohol abuse. One can ask: “Does an understanding first approach have the potential to undermine the sense of agency that is necessary for the effective treatment of maladaptive traits?”Answer: It can be explained to Alejandro that genetic proclivities are just that—proclivities—that can be overridden. In fact, behavior can alter our very genes—although not at the sequence level— changes known as “epigenetic.” And the liver disease of the biological parents can serve as a cautionary tale. If even in light of these considerations, Alejandro’s tendency to see genetic propensities as deterministic persists, it is worth asking why. There is no evidence that “genes are destiny,” so the disposition to see them that way must have a psychological explanation. What is the explanation? A self-destructive desire? Fear of freedom? This exploration can itself be empowering. [End Page 211]Adaptive ForgettingSuppose Beata, who has an eating disorder, was molested by her own father when she was a child. Subsequently, her father shot himself and now she has no recollection of the molestation. However, Beata’s eating disorder is largely a result of those experiences. It is quite possible that if Beata were to recall being molested, that would do more harm than good. In this connection, one can ask together with Reimer: “Does an understanding first approach have the potential to undermine an adaptive ‘forgetting’ of root causes of maladaptive traits?”Answer: Here, understanding the history, instead of forgetting it, might allow Beata to gain insight into and empathize with possible motives that may have led to becoming obese. For example, she might have the phantasy that if she had been obese and unattractive, she could have prevented the molestation—hence, become that way now to prevent it from happening again, and more wishfully reverse it. (In unconscious goings-on time is thought to be in the “unexamined present” (Brakel 2009, p. 63; 2015, p. 131; 2022, p. 4; 2023, p. 404.) One benefit of this is that in gaining this type of recognition, Beata might find it easier to change her behavior that she otherwise would not have; it was never her responsibility to prevent her own molestation, and there is no reason whatsoever for her to now make herself unattractive to her deceased father, and very little reason to remain obese in an attempt to deter current day men.Ego-Syntonic Maladaptive TraitsClaire is a concert pianist and alcoholic. Importantly, Claire does not see her own desire for alcohol as destructive but rather, as something constitutive of her own identity. “I wouldn’t be myself without alcohol,” she says. Reimer asks whether our approach would “work for cases where the agent sees a maladaptive trait as constitutive of their identity?”Answer: Although no approach can guarantee success, our claim is that our approach has a better chance than the main alternative known as the pruning view. Since Claire, by stipulation, is not inclined to see her own drinking as a problem, a... (shrink)

This book is concerned with the history of metaphysics since Descartes. Taking as its definition of metaphysics 'the most general attempt to make sense of things', it charts the evolution of this enterprise through various competing conceptions of its possibility, scope, and limits. The book is divided into three parts, dealing respectively with the early modern period, the late modern period in the analytic tradition, and the late modern period in non-analytic traditions. In its unusually wide range, A. W. Moore's (...) study refutes the tired old cliché that there is some unbridgeable gulf between analytic philosophy and philosophy of other kinds. It also advances its own distinctive and compelling conception of what metaphysics is and why it matters. Moore explores how metaphysics can help us to cope with continually changing demands on our humanity by making sense of things in ways that are radically new. (shrink)

A. W. Moore argues in this bold and unusual book that it is possible to think about the world from no point of view. His argument involves discussion of a very wide range of fundamental philosophical issues, including the nature of persons, the subject-matter of mathematics, realism and anti-realism, value, the inexpressible, and God. The result is a powerful critique of our own finitude. 'imaginative, original, and ambitious' Robert Brandom, Times Literary Supplement.

This essay constitutes an attempt to probe the very idea of a saying/showing distinction of the kind that Wittgenstein advances in the Tractatus—to say what such a distinction consists in, to say what philosophical work it has to do, and to say how we might be justified in drawing such a distinction. Towards the end of the essay the discussion is related to Wittgenstein’s later work. It is argued that we can profitably see this work in such a way that (...) a saying/showing distinction arises there too. In particular, in the final sub-section of the essay, it is suggested that we can see in Wittgenstein’s later work an inducement to say what we are shown. (shrink)

A.W. Moore presents eighteen of his philosophical essays, written since 1986, on representing how things are. He sketches out the nature, scope, and limits of representation through language, and pays particular attention to linguistic representation, states of knowledge, the character of what is represented, and objective facts or truths.

A. W. Price explores the varying ways in which context is relevant to our reasoning about what to do.

What can--and what can't--philosophy do? What are its ethical risks--and its possible rewards? How does it differ from science? In Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, Bernard Williams addresses these questions and presents a striking vision of philosophy as fundamentally different from science in its aims and methods even though there is still in philosophy "something that counts as getting it right." Written with his distinctive combination of rigor, imagination, depth, and humanism, the book amply demonstrates why Williams was one of (...) the greatest philosophers of the twentieth century. Spanning his career from his first publication to one of his last lectures, the book's previously unpublished or uncollected essays address metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, as well as the scope and limits of philosophy itself. The essays are unified by Williams's constant concern that philosophy maintain contact with the human problems that animate it in the first place. As the book's editor, A. W. Moore, writes in his introduction, the title essay is "a kind of manifesto for Williams's conception of his own life's work." It is where he most directly asks "what philosophy can and cannot contribute to the project of making sense of things"--answering that what philosophy can best help make sense of is "being human." Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline is one of three posthumous books by Williams to be published by Princeton University Press. In the Beginning Was the Deed: Realism and Moralism in Political Argument was published in the fall of 2005. The Sense of the Past: Essays in the History of Philosophy is being published shortly after the present volume. (shrink)

As earthquakes expose geological faults, so mental conflict reveals tendencies to rupture within the mind. Dissension is rife not only between people but also within them, for each of us is subject to a contrariety of desires, beliefs, motivations, aspirations. What image are we to form of ourselves that might best enable us to accept the reality of discord, or achieve the ideal of harmony? Greek philosophers offer us a variety of pictures and structures intended to capture the actual and (...) the possible either within a reason that fails to be resolute, or within a split soul that houses a play of forces. Reflection upon them alerts us to the elusiveness at once of mental reality, and of the understanding by which we hope to capture and transform it. Studying in turn the treatments of _Mental Conflict_ in Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, A.W. Price demonstrates how the arguments of the Greeks are still relevant to philosophical discussion today. (shrink)

"A consistently clear, comprehensive and accessible introduction which carefully sifts Foucault's work for both its strengths and weaknesses. McHoul and Grace show an intimate familiarity with Foucault's writings and a lively, but critical engagement with the relevance of his work. A model primer." -Tony Bennett, author of Outside Literature In such seminal works as Madness and Civilization, Discipline and Punish , and The History of Sexuality , the late philosopher Michel Foucault explored what our politics, our sexuality, our societal conventions, (...) and our changing notions of truth told us about ourselves. In the process, Foucault garnered a reputation as one of the pre-eminent philosophers of the latter half of the twentieth century and has served as a primary influence on successive generations of philosophers and cultural critics. With A Foucault Primer , Alec McHoul and Wendy Grace bring Foucault's work into focus for the uninitiated. Written in crisp and concise prose, A Foucault Primer explicates three central concepts of Foucauldian theory-discourse, power, and the subject-and suggests that Foucault's work has much yet to contribute to contemporary debate. (shrink)

A. W. Moore; II*—A Problem for Intuitionism: The Apparent Possibility of Performing Infinitely Many Tasks in a Finite Time, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Soci.

A.W. Price explores the views of Plato and Aristotle on how virtue of character and practical reasoning enable agents to achieve eudaimonia--the state of living or acting well. He provides a full philosophical analysis and argues that the perennial question of action within human life is central to the reflections of these ancient philosophers.

The paper builds on the postulate of “myths we live by,” which shape our imaginative life (and hence our social expectations), but which are also open to reflective study and reinvention. It applies this principle, in particular, to the concepts of love and vulnerability. We are accustomed to think of the condition of vulnerability in an objectifying and distancing way, as something that affects the bearers of specific (disadvantaged) social identities. Against this picture, which can serve as a pretext for (...) paternalist and controlling attitudes to the groups in question – notably to women – Anderson urges us to reimagine our vulnerability as a condition not merely of exposure to violence but of openness to mutual affection, love, and friendship. Hegel’s celebrated image of the owl of Minerva, which takes wing only with the coming of dusk, suggests an association of (philosophical) wisdom with negativity – with the experience of death or loss. Anderson, by contrast, proposes an alternative and more hopeful image of the dawn of enlightenment, in the guise of new ethical dispositions shaped by an emancipatory (and so, no longer an oppressive or sexist) conception of our capacity for love. Her main interlocutors or influences in this piece are Judith Butler (who contributes the idea of a “relational ontology”), Michèle Le Doeuff, and Mary Midgley. (shrink)

Rudolf Carnap is widely regarded as one of the most important philosophers of the twentieth century. Born in Germany and later a US citizen, he was a founder of the philosophical movement known as Logical Empiricism. He was strongly influenced by a number of different philosophical traditions, and also by the German Youth Movement, the First World War, and radical socialism. This book places his central ideas in a broad cultural, political and intellectual context, showing how he synthesised many different (...) currents of thought to achieve a philosophical perspective that remains strikingly relevant in the twenty-first century. Its rich account of a philosopher's response to his times will appeal to all who are interested in the development of philosophy in the twentieth century. (shrink)

In this bold and innovative new work, A.W. Moore poses the question of whether it is possible for ethical thinking to be grounded in pure reason. In order to understand and answer this question, he takes a refreshing and challenging look at Kant’s moral and religious philosophy. Identifying three Kantian Themes – morality, freedom and religion – and presenting variations on each of these themes in turn, Moore concedes that there are difficulties with the Kantian view that morality can be (...) governed by ‘pure’ reason. He does however defend a closely related view involving a notion of reason as socially and culturally conditioned. In the course of doing this, Moore considers in detail, ideas at the heart of Kant’s thought, such as the categorical imperative, free will, evil, hope, eternal life and God. He also makes creative use of the ideas in contemporary philosophy, both within the analytic tradition and outside it, such as ‘thick’ ethical concepts, forms of life and ‘becoming those that we are’. Throughout the book, a guiding precept is that to be rational is to make sense, and that nothing is of greater value to use than making sense. (shrink)

This book explores for the first time an idea common to both Plato and Aristotle: although people are separate, their lives need not be; one person's life may overflow into another's, so that helping someone else is a way of serving oneself. Price considers how this idea unites the philosophers' treatments of love and friendship (which are otherwise very different), and demonstrates that this view of love and friendship, applied not only to personal relationships, but also to the household and (...) even the city-state, promises to resolve the old dichotomy between egoism and altruism. (shrink)

How do artifacts get their functions? It is typically thought that an artifact’s function depends on its maker’s intentions. This chapter argues that this common understanding is fatally flawed. Nor can artifact function be understood in terms of current uses or capacities. Instead, it proposes that we understand artifact function on the etiological model that Ruth Millikan and others have proposed for the biological realm. This model offers a robustly normative conception of function, but it does so naturalistically by employing (...) our best scientific theories, in particular natural selection. To help make this case, it proposes “living artifacts” (organisms designed for human purposes through artificial selection) as a bridge between the artifactual and the biological realms. (shrink)

As earthquakes expose geological faults, so mental conflict reveals tendencies to rupture within the mind. Dissension is rife not only between people but also within them, for each of us is subject to a contrariety of desires, beliefs, motivations, aspirations. What image are we to form of ourselves that might best enable us to accept the reality of discord, or achieve the ideal of harmony? Greek philosophers offer us a variety of pictures and structures intended to capture the actual and (...) the possible either within a reason that fails to be resolute, or within a split soul that houses a play of forces. Reflection upon them alerts us to the elusiveness at once of mental reality, and of the understanding by which we hope to capture and transform it. Studying in turn the treatments of _Mental Conflict_ in Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoics, A.W. Price demonstrates how the arguments of the Greeks are still relevant to philosophical discussion today. (shrink)

How, if at all, are we to distinguish between the works that we call ‘art’ and those that we call ‘pornography’? This question gets a grip because from classical Greek vases and the frescoes of Pompeii to Renaissance mythological painting and sculpture to Modernist prints, the European artistic tradition is chock-full of art that looks a lot like pornography. In this paper I propose a way of thinking about the distinction that is grounded in art historical considerations regarding the function (...) of erotic images in 16 th -century Italy. This exploration suggests that the root of the erotic art/pornography distinction was—at least in this context—class: in particular, the need for a special category of unsanctioned illicit images arose at the very time when print culture was beginning to threaten elite privilege. What made an erotic representation exceed the boundaries of acceptability, I suggest, was not its extreme libidinosity but, rather, its widespread availability and, thereby, its threat to one of the mechanisms of sustaining class privilege. (shrink)

[A. W. Moore] Criteria of ineffability are presented which, it is claimed, preclude the possibility of truths that are ineffable, but not the possibility of other things that are ineffable—not even the possibility of other things that are non-trivially ineffable. Specifically, they do not preclude the possibility of states of understanding that are ineffable. This, it is argued, allows for a reappraisal of the dispute between those who adopt a traditional reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and those who adopt the new (...) reading recently championed by Cora Diamond, James Conant, and others. By maintaining that what the nonsense in the Tractatus is supposed to convey is ineffable understanding, rather than ineffable truth, we can do considerable justice to each of these readings. We can also do considerable justice to the Tractatus. /// [Peter Sullivan] Moore proposes to cut between 'traditional' and 'new' approaches to the Tractatus, suggesting that Wittgenstein's intention is to convey, through the knowing use of nonsense, ineffable understanding. I argue, first, that there is indeed room for a proposal of Moore's general kind. Secondly, though, I question whether Moore's actual proposal is not more in tune with Wittgenstein's later thought than with the attitude of the Tractatus. (shrink)