The Theory of Literature in German Romanticism Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, Jean-Luc Nancy. Preface: The. Literary. Absolute. I. "There are classifications that are bad enough as classifications, but that have nonetheless dominated entire ...

This essay is an attempt at opening parallel but contrastive avenues into the respective Christian and Buddhist outlooks with respect to the metaphysical notion of relativity in contradistinction with the concept of the Absolute. The main thesis is that Christianity and Buddhism present us, in their respective normative intellectual economies, with analogous, yet profoundly different ways of envisioning metaphysics from the vantage point of their sui generis soteriology. In other terms, our argument is that Christian and Buddhist metaphysics are essentially (...) informed by the tenets of their spiritual way, whether redemptive or emancipative. Furthermore, these forms of “soteriological metaphysics” could be encapsulated in the twin nutshells of an “absolutization of the relative” on the one hand, and a “relativization of the absolute” on the other hand. The first formula refers, more specifically, to Christian Trinitarian theology, and the second to the Buddhist ontology of emptiness. These two formulas provide a theoretical framework that suggests both the internal coherence of each tradition and the ways in which this coherence is variously understood within the tradition itself. In the soteriological emphasis of these two traditions lies a possible—but not exclusive—way to open a wider space for a hermeneutics of aspects and vantage points, as well as for warding off any overly rigid conceptual crystallizations through a deeper recognition of the interplay between principled intellectual unity and the manifold of human existence. This essay is the second section of the article, and focuses on the Buddhist tradition. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt at opening parallel but contrastive avenues into the respective Christian and Buddhist outlooks with respect to the metaphysical notion of relativity in contradistinction with the concept of the Absolute. The main thesis is that Christianity and Buddhism present us, in their respective normative intellectual economies, with analogous, yet profoundly different ways of envisioning metaphysics from the vantage point of their sui generis soteriology. In other terms, our argument is that Christian and Buddhist metaphysics are essentially (...) informed by the tenets of their spiritual way, whether redemptive or emancipative. Furthermore, these forms of “soteriological metaphysics” could be encapsulated in the twin nutshells of an “absolutization of the relative” on the one hand, and a “relativization of the absolute” on the other hand. The first formula refers, more specifically, to Christian Trinitarian theology, and the second to the Buddhist ontology of emptiness. These two formulas provide a theoretical framework that suggests both the internal coherence of each tradition and the ways in which this coherence is variously understood within the tradition itself. In the soteriological emphasis of these two traditions lies a possible—but not exclusive—way to open a wider space for a hermeneutics of aspects and vantage points, as well as for warding off any overly rigid conceptual crystallizations through a deeper recognition of the interplay between principled intellectual unity and the manifold of human existence. This essay is the first section of the submission, which is focusing on the Christian tradition. (shrink)

Bernard Bosanquet was an idealist with a taste for the rich complexities of ordinary human life, an appreciation for logic and science, and a dedication to experience. He was also fond of Plato, but I think he was a Platonist of a special kind, close to the Cambridge Platonism which Locke mixed with his own empiricism and which figures in the thinking of Isaac Newton. Of the partisans of the Absolute, Bosanquet is certainly the easiest to defend against the anti-metaphysical (...) philosophers of the twentieth century. Among moderate sympathisers with metaphysics one may still find philosophers whose thought resembles his in important respects. Though she was probably not aware of it, elements of his philosophy are very close to certain doctrines recently expounded by Iris Murdoch. And the idealism of Nicholas Rescher is not so distant. (shrink)

This book puts forward a theory of absolutization, bringing together a multi-disciplinary understanding of this central flaw in human judgement, and what we can do about it. This approach, drawing on Buddhist thought and practice, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, embodied meaning and systems theory, offers a rigorous introduction to absolutization as the central problem addressed in Middle Way Philosophy, which is a synthetic approach developed by the author over more than twenty years in a series of books. It challenges disciplinary boundaries (...) as well as offering a substantial framework for practical application. (shrink)

"Joseph Marechal, who became one of the most important figures in the twentieth-century revival of the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas, set for himself an ambitious intellectual project. His goal was to demonstrate that the realist theory of knowledge first enunciated by Aristotle in the ancient world and developed by Aquinas in the thirteenth century is the key to a coherent philosophy of man and being. According to Marechal, once late medieval philosophy moved away from Aquinas's epistemological foundations, no longer (...) could it construct a satisfactory unity of knowledge, man, and being. Thus modern Western philosophers, specifically Descartes, began their quest to elaborate an adequate intellectual account of human experience on the basis of a flawed philosophical legacy."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION I have purposely limited myself to a rather brief statement in this introduction, in order that the summing up be not misrepresented for the ...

Acquaintance with the Absolute is the first collected volume of essays devoted to the thought of Yves r. Simon, a thinker widely regarded as one of the great teachers and philosophers of our time. Each piece in this collection of essays thoughtfully complements the others to offer a qualifiedly panoramic look at the work and thought of philosopher Yves R. Simon. The six essays presented not only treat some major areas of Simon’s thought, pointing out their lucidity and originality, but (...) also his underpinning metaphysics, so central to his thought. Rather than attempt to present all aspects of this patient, careful, and penetrating thinker, these essays select enough to situate Simon’s philosophical excavations – especially his moral, political and action theory – among contemporary Thomistic philosophy. In defending philosophy as a valid way of knowing, Simon gives us an approach we can use to avoid contemporary dilemmas in the philosophy of science. Simon holds that philosophical truths both justify scientific method as a way of knowing the real and provide a basis for distinguishing what is ontologically significant in a scientific theory from what is not. This view allows us to avoid the apparently irrational conclusions of quantum mechanics without reducing scientific theories to being mere projections of our conceptual systems. Though aspects of some of the essays are suited for students of Simon’s thought, the essays as a whole introduce the less familiar reader to this great thinking and, further, invite him or her to pursue Simon’s own texts. The volume is enhanced by the inclusion of a definitive Yves R. Simon bibliography 1923-1996. The annotated bibliography is cross-reference in detail, revealing the astonishing variety of topics Simon treated. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 153 These objections to one side, one must compliment Anglin on the thoroughness with which he pursues his points. He almost always provides several arguments for the same point. So we get eight arguments for libertarianism, five for how natural evil comports with the existence of a benevolent, all-powerful God, and so on. These arguments carefully avoid the repetitiveness one might expect and rather skillfully succeed in (...) revealing a mind concerned with mapping out all the knolls and hollows on the intellectual terrain of the particular issue under consideration. Almost inevitably, any one hook's discussions of such disparate topics will vary in both quality and depth. Some parts of this hook (for example, the chapters on the existence of God and the problem of evil) should he generally accessible to the interested beginner in the philosophy of religion. Chapters 5 and 6 on the goodness of God and the problem of evil are especially well done. Anglin honestly and squarely faces the standard objections and manages to produce as complete and compelling a defense as one is likely to find anywhere in the literature. His use of the Principle of Double Effect to exonerate God from blame for creating creatures who may freely do evil was effective and innovative. Other parts of Free Will and The Christian Faith (say, the chapter defending God's foreknowledge featuring the rather paradoxical concept of "backwards causation " in which future free choices cause past foreknowledge) seem to require and presuppose a more thorough immersion in the recent scholarly literature. Some readers may find the author's use of logical notation to explicate his arguments distracting or alienating, though he takes great pains to explain the symbols he employs in the prose he uses. In addition, he is quite helpful to the reader at the start of each chapter in providing concise previews of the arguments to come. On the whole, this is a hook with occasional flashes of insight and innovation, hut with tangles and tensions in the arguments in other parts. JOSEPH M. INCANDELA Saint Mary's College Notre Dame, Indiana Quest for the Absolute: The Philosophical Vision of Joseph Marechal. By ANTHONY MATTEO. De Kalb, Illinois: Northern Illinois Press, 1992. Pp. xi + 173. $30.00 (cloth). The Belgian Jesuit Joseph Marechal (1373-1944) is little known in North American philosophical circles. Indeed he is simply little known outside the somewhat small circle of scholars interested in the history 154 BOOK REVIEWS of twentieth century Roman Catholic theology. There Marechal's work, in particular his five volume Le Point de Depart de la Metaphysique (PDM) has a special place of honor. One need but think of Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan among his intellectual heirs to recognize the impact of the thinker and of the volumes. The service of Anthony Matteo's Quest for the Absolute (QA) is to provide a clear and concise study of Marechal's thought. It makes a valuable companion to Joseph Donceel's A Marechal Reader (1970). To my knowledge, the only other full-length discussion in English is Otto Muck's The Transcendental Method (1968), a book which is nearly unreadable in its Eng· lish translation if not in its German original. Marechal was a committed and convinced Thomist, but discussing him under the rubric " transcendental method " brings home a critical conjunction between his Thomism and certain strategies more characteristic of Immanuel Kant and his followers. Instead of seeing Kant simply as undermining the objectivity of metaphysics and of natural theology, he came to believe it possible to take the Kantian "turn to the subject" and to show that it had possibilities not dreamed of by Kant himself. One early indication of Marechal's revisionary approach appeared in his notes for a 1914-1915 course on epistemology: "Kant deceives himself in recognizing, in the operations of spirit, only the pure synthesis of an empirical given. The human spirit is at once an empirical faculty and a faculty of the Absolute. This second aspect was only imperfectly grasped by the author of the Critique of Pure Reason." Thus Marechal was already on his way to answering his opening question for volume I of PDM... (shrink)

Is there a notion of contradiction—let us call it, for dramatic effect, “absolute”—making all contradictions, so understood, unacceptable also for dialetheists? It is argued in this paper that there is, and that spelling it out brings some theoretical benefits. First it gives us a foothold on undisputed ground in the methodologically difficult debate on dialetheism. Second, we can use it to express, without begging questions, the disagreement between dialetheists and their rivals on the nature of truth. Third, dialetheism has an (...) operator allowing it, against the opinion of many critics, to rule things out and manifest disagreement: for unlike other proposed exclusion-expressing-devices (for instance, the entailment of triviality), the operator used to formulate the notion of absolute contradiction appears to be immune both from crippling expressive limitations and from revenge paradoxes—pending a rigorous nontriviality proof for a formal dialetheic theory including it. (shrink)

In this paper (a sequel to [4]) I put forward a "local" interpretation of mathematical concepts based on notions derived from category theory. The fundamental idea is to abandon the unique absolute universe of sets central to the orthodox set-theoretic account of the foundations of mathematics, replacing it by a plurality of local mathematical frameworks - elementary toposes - defined in category-theoretic terms.

The publication in 1807 of Georg Wilhelm Frederich Hegel's Phanomenologie des Geistes (translated alternately as "Phenomenology of Mind" or "Phenomenology of Spirit") marked the beginning of the modern era in philosophy. Hegel's remarkable insights formed the basis for what eventually became the Existentialist movement. Yet the Phenomenology remains one of the most difficult and forbidding works in the canon of philosophical literature.

The concept of “conceptual personae” is a contradiction in terms. On one sense of the term, personae are the characters in a work of art, such as a play or a novel. As characters, they are not common terms – King Lear is a particular; he is not a universal, for he cannot be shared in common. However, concepts are quite unlike King Lear. As universals, they are common terms that can be shared in common. “Conceptual personae” renders the particular (...) universal and thereby declares the universal not to be universal. However, I argue that as long as philosophers maintain a traditional attitude toward conceptual truth, philosophers will not be able to successfully think the structure of being without appealing to the mythical imagination, of which conceptual personae form an essential constituent. (shrink)

Acquaintance with the Absolute is the first collected volume of essays devoted to the thought of Yves r. Simon, a thinker widely regarded as one of the great teachers and philosophers of our time. Each piece in this collection of essays thoughtfully complements the others to offer a qualifiedly panoramic look at the work and thought of philosopher Yves R. Simon. The six essays presented not only treat some major areas of Simon's thought, pointing out their lucidity and originality, but (...) also his underpinning metaphysics, so central to his thought. Rather than attempt to present all aspects of this patient, careful, and penetrating thinker, these essays select enough to situate Simon's philosophical excavations - especially his moral, political and action theory - among contemporary Thomistic philosophy. In defending philosophy as a valid way of knowing, Simon gives us an approach we can use to avoid contemporary dilemmas in the philosophy of science. Simon holds that philosophical truths both justify scientific method as a way of knowing the real and provide a basis for distinguishing what is ontologically significant in a scientific theory from what is not. This view allows us to avoid the apparently irrational conclusions of quantum mechanics without reducing scientific theories to being mere projections of our conceptual systems. Though aspects of some of the essays are suited for students of Simon's thought, the essays as a whole introduce the less familiar reader to this great thinking and, further, invite him or her to pursue Simon's own texts. The volume is enhanced by the inclusion of a definitive Yves R. Simon bibliography 1923-1996. The annotated bibliography is cross-reference in detail, revealing the astonishing variety of topics Simon treated. (shrink)

Heidegger places Wagner’s will to the total work of art at the centre of the long 19th century. Nietzsche’s and Mallarmé’s responses to Wagner reflect all the ambiguities of modernism’s myth of absolute creation: the dreams of a new mythology and a new community are shadowed by the knowledge that the gods are nothing more than our fictions. Nietzsche and Mallarmé continue and critically interrogate the two distinct lineages of the total work of art deriving from German romanticism and the (...) French Revolution respectively, at the same time as they anticipate the contrary constructions of the sacred in society in Le Bon and Durkheim. (shrink)

In this major new work the leading philosopher Slavoj Žižek argues that philosophical materialism has failed to meet the key scientific, theoretical and political challenges of the modern world, from relativity theory and quantum physics to Freudian psychoanalysis and the failure of twentieth-century Communism. To bring materialism up to date, Žižek proposes a new foundation for dialectical materialism. He argues that dialectical materialism is the only true philosophical inheritor of what Hegel designates as the speculative approach of thought - all (...) other forms of materialism fail. In Absolute Recoil, Žižek offers a startling reformulation of the ground and possibilities of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Leonard Swidler, Dupa absolut. Viitorul dialogic al reflectiei religioase Ed. Limes, Cluj, 2003.

Heidegger places Wagner’s will to the total work of art at the centre of the long 19th century. Nietzsche’s and Mallarmé’s responses to Wagner reflect all the ambiguities of modernism’s myth of absolute creation: the dreams of a new mythology and a new community are shadowed by the knowledge that the gods are nothing more than our fictions. Nietzsche and Mallarmé continue and critically interrogate the two distinct lineages of the total work of art deriving from German romanticism and the (...) French Revolution respectively, at the same time as they anticipate the contrary constructions of the sacred in society in Le Bon and Durkheim. (shrink)

Cet article est un nouvel examen des objections soulevées par Leibniz dans la controverse avec Clarke contre la théorie absolutiste de l'espace et du temps. Or la plupart de ces objections sont fondées sur le principe de raison suffisante; mais Leibniz utilise aussi le principe de l'identité des indiscernables, qu'il prétend déduire du principe de raison suffisante . Ce qui m'intéresse c'est que Leibniz présente parfois deux versions de la même objection: l'une reposant uniquement sur le principe de raison suffisante, (...) l'autre uniquement sur le principe de l'identité des indiscernables. Se pose alors la question suivante: Leibniz aurait-il pu soulever toutes les objections qu'il voulait contre la théorie absolutiste, en utilisant seulement le principe de l'identité des indiscernables? Il me semble qu'il aurait certainement pu le faire. Et de plus, je crois que si Leibniz avait suivi cette voie, son raisonnement contre la théorie absolutiste aurait été beaucoup plus convaincant. Ainsi donc, je me propose de mener l'attaque de Leibniz contre la théorie absolutiste, en isolant, reformulant, et exposant systématiquement sept arguments dont il se servait ou dont il aurait pu se servir, qui sont tous fondés sur le principe de l'identité des indiscernables. (shrink)

Sensorimotor Theory is the claim that it is our practical know-how of the relations between our environments and us that gives our environmental interactions their experiential qualities. Yet why should such interactions involve or be accompanied by experience? This is the ‘absolute’ gap question. Some proponents of SMT answer this question by arguing that our interactions with an environment involve experience when we cognitively access those interactions. In this paper, I aim to persuade proponents of SMT to accept the following (...) three claims. First, that appeals to cognitive access fail to answer the absolute gap question. Second, that SMT can be read in a way that rejects the gap question. Third, that if proponents of SMT are prepared to read SMT in a way that rejects the absolute gap question, then they can also reject the claim that cognitive access is needed to explain experience. (shrink)

This article evaluates Emmanuel Levinas's novel "ethical metaphysics" of interpersonal relations from a religious perspective. Levinas presents a unique version of agape ethics that can be evaluated in terms of a number of the dilemmas that have traditionally attended Christian discussions of neighbor-love. Because Levinas's analysis makes our responsibility for other persons depend on their eschatological significance, it has the same problems that hamper all theories of neighbor-love that lack a sufficient role for reciprocity.

ABSTRACT We argue that Roberts’s argument for the thesis that absolute velocity is not measurable in a Newtonian world is unsound, because it depends on an analysis of measurement that is not extensionally adequate. We propose an alternative analysis of measurement, one that is extensionally adequate and entails that absolute velocity is measured in at least one Newtonian world. If our analysis is correct, then this Newtonian world is a counterexample to the widely endorsed thesis that if a property varies (...) under the symmetries of a theory then, according to that theory, the property could not be measured. Thus, our paper shows that the debate over the measurability of symmetry-variant properties is more unsettled than previously supposed. (shrink)

ABSTRACT We argue that Roberts’s argument for the thesis that absolute velocity is not measurable in a Newtonian world is unsound, because it depends on an analysis of measurement that is not extensionally adequate. We propose an alternative analysis of measurement, one that is extensionally adequate and entails that absolute velocity is measured in at least one Newtonian world. If our analysis is correct, then this Newtonian world is a counterexample to the widely endorsed thesis that if a property varies (...) under the symmetries of a theory then, according to that theory, the property could not be measured. Thus, our paper shows that the debate over the measurability of symmetry-variant properties is more unsettled than previously supposed. (shrink)

Kennedy (Linguist Philos 30:1–45, 2007) forcefully proposes what is now a widely assumed semantics for absolute gradable adjectives. On this semantics, maximum standard adjectives like “straight” and “dry” ascribe a maximal degree of the underlying quantity. Meanwhile, minimum standard adjectives like “bent” and “wet” merely ascribe a non-zero, non-minimal degree of the underlying quantity. This theory clashes with the ordinary intuition that sentences like “The stick is straight” are frequently true while sentences like “The stick is bent” are frequently informative, (...) and fans of the indicated theory of absolute gradable adjectives appeal to loose talk in response. One goal of this paper is to show that all extant theories of loose talk are inconsistent with this response strategy. Another goal is to offer a revised version of Hoek’s (Philos Rev 127:151–196, 2018, in: Proceedings of the 22nd Amsterdam Colloquium, 2019) recent theory of loose talk that accommodates absolute gradable adjectives after all, while being defensible against a range of important concerns. (shrink)

This article considers whether any interpretation of the idea of equal claims to the natural world can resolve the Canyon Dilemma (i.e. can justify protecting the Grand Canyon but not a small canyon from mining by a poor generation). It first considers and ultimately rejects the idea of subjecting natural resource rights to an intergenerational equal division. It then demonstrates that a pluralist theory of environmental justice committed to both respect for the separateness of persons and to the collective good (...) can justify a type of intergenerational non-absolute equal division of natural resource rights that can navigate the Canyon Dilemma. (shrink)

In this article we investigate similarities between the role that ineffability of Absolute Infinity plays in class theory and in theology.

This article analyses the conflicting professional ethical demands imposed on judges to, on the one hand, faithfully apply the existing law of the land and, on the other hand, do justice in the face of urgent global challenges such as ensuring an equal access to life-saving medicines. After establishing the precise nature of the professional ethical duties of judges (as opposed to those of lawyers) and noting the tensions they face when the duty of applying the law prevents them from (...) complying with the duty of delivering material justice in the domain of access to medicines, the article then analyses the way this issue plays out in Latin America, a región where judicially-mandated access to medicines has been common. The article concludes by arguing that the Latin American experience suggests that judges around the world should take seriously the need to find a balance between their duty of deference towards public health authorities in this domain (when this is mandated by legislation), and the duty to do justice to individuals who cannot afford live-saving medicines. (shrink)

Any interpretation of Hegel which stresses both his deep dependence on and radical revision of Kant must account for the nature of the difference between what Hegel calls a merely finite idealism and a so-called ’Absolute Idealism’. Such a clarification in turn depends on understanding Hegel’s claim to have preserved the distinguishability of intuition and concept, but to have insisted on their inseparability, or, to have defended their ’organic’ rather than ’mechanical’ relation. This is the main issue in this chapter, (...) which invokes John McDowell’s notion of ’the unboundedness of the conceptual’ to clarify the issue, as well as noting a number of similar claims in Wittgenstein. The implications of Hegel’s view for the issues of metaphysics generally is explored. (shrink)

This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!

Rights-oriented libertarian theory asserts the existence of robust individual rights - including robust rights of property. If these property rights are absolute, then it seems that all taxation is theft. However, it also seems that, if an individual is (faultlessly) in dire straits, it is permissible for him to seize or trespass in order to escape from those straits. It does seem that in this sense property rights are non-absolute. This essay examines what contribution this non-absoluteness of rights makes to (...) the justification of taxation for the sake of rescuing individuals from their dire straits. The essay investigates how dire an individual's circumstances have to be for him to have a dispensation from the normal obligation to respect property. It distinguishes among different dispensations that individuals in dire enough circumstances may have. And it emphasizes how precarious is the path from the premise that sometimes individuals possess one or another of these dispensations to the conclusion that taxation to rescue people from dire straits is justified. Footnotesa I thank Ellen Paul, the other contributors to this volume, and Mary Sirridge for their helpful comments. (shrink)

The title of this book refers to a particular construction of the world that brooks no uncertainty: 'things are the way I believe them to be'.

Provides a systematic overview of the topic of self in classical German philosophy, focusing on the period around 1800 and covering Kant, Fichte, Holderlin, Novalis, Schelling, Schleiermacher, and Hegel.

Determinism from the 1st and 3rd person perspective as well as the universal point of reference aee dealt with. This is to show the absence of free will in the last perspective and the illusion of it when seen from the first two perspectives. ‘Free’ choice is dealt with as well as the absence of free will and the consequences of determinism for law and court judgements are explored. So, what if any, is the place and the role of God (...) in all this? Did s/he create determinism and the potential for or any semblance of choice and free will? Or is the existence of God.. (shrink)

It is a common wisdom that whereas consequence or entailment is a semantic concept, provability is a syntactic concept. However, what exactly does this mean? What is provability? In the traditional, intuitive sense, to prove something is to demonstrate its truth, and indeed the Latin word for proof is demonstratio. Hence in this sense, we cannot prove something unless it is true. Now in the course of his well known proof of the incompleteness of arithmetic, Gödel showed that provability within (...) the axiomatic system of Peano arithmetic (PA) can be reconstructed as a number-theoretic predicate Pr and he showed that within the system there exists a statement G so that.. (shrink)

In Absolute Music: The History of an Idea, author Mark Evan Bonds examines how writers have struggled to isolate the essence of music in ways that account for its profound effects on the human spirit. By carefully tracing the evolution of absolute music from Ancient Greece through the Middle Ages to twentieth-century America, Bonds provides the first comprehensive history of this pivotal concept, and provokes new thoughts on the essence of music and how this essence explains music's effect. A long (...) awaited book from one of the most respected senior scholars in the field. (shrink)

This article examines the emphasis on facts and data in public discourse, and the belief that they provide a certainty necessary for public judgment and collective action. The heart of this belief is what I call the “myth of the Absolute,” which is the belief that by basing our judgment and actions on an Absolute we can avoid errors and mistakes. Myths of the Absolute can help us deal with wicked problems such as climate change, but they also have a (...) downside. This article explores the experience behind these myths, to better understand how they describe and mediate our experiences of uncertainty, then relates these myths to debates about climate change. I conclude by describing how to engage these myths in a way that promotes better public discourse—and thus better public judgment and collective action—by telling these stories in such a way that we poke and prod wherever the story is not. (shrink)

Erwin Schrödinger holds a prominent place in the history of science primarily due to his crucial role in the development of quantum physics. What is perhaps lesser known are his insights into subject-object duality, consciousness and mind. He documented himself that these were influenced by the Upanishads, a collection of ancient Hindu spiritual texts. Central to his thoughts in this area is that Mind is only One and there is no separation between subject and object. This chapter aims to bridge (...) Schrödinger’s view on One Mind with the teachings of Dōgen, a twelfth century Zen master. This bridge is formed by addressing the question of how time relates to One Mind, and subject-object duality. Schrödinger describes the experience of One Mind to be like a timeless now, whereas subject-object duality involves a linear continuum of time. We show how these differing positions are unified in the notion of ‘absolute present’, which was put forward in the philosophy of Nishida Kitarō (1871–1945). In addition, we argue that it is in this notion of absolute present that the views of Schrödinger, Dōgen and Nishida meet. (shrink)

Libertarians often rely on arguments that subordinate the principle of liberty to the value of its economic consequences. This invites the question of what a pure libertarian theory of justice—one that takes liberty as its overriding concern—would look like. Grotius's political theory provides a template for such a libertarianism, but it also entails uncomfortable commitments that can be avoided only by compromising the principle of liberty. According to Grotius, each person should be free to decide how to act as long (...) as her actions do not violate the equal liberty of others. According to this principle, however, people are free to enter any contract and alienate any rights, permitting even contracts of slavery or the alienation of rights of bodily integrity. Libertarians can escape this commitment to absolute freedom of contract only by adopting ad-hoc amendments to the principle of liberty. (shrink)

It has sometimes been held that instrumental music on its own, without text or program, is a kind of ‘pure’ or ‘absolute’ music, having no significant truck with extra-musical reality. While bird calls and canon shots might get countenanced, nothing in the vein of a philosophical worldview, a rich narrative, or a socio-political subtext is going to make the formalist’s strict cut. There has been considerable discussion in the analytic aesthetics of music about these issues and about closely-related ones concerning (...) musical expression and representation. But the discussion has focused almost exclusively on music’s *capacities* as a medium, or on our perceptual or imaginative capacities as listeners, in an effort to see how all of this might transpire. But as I will be arguing in this paper, this sort of approach, despite all its illuminating work, does not directly address one of the most important questions on the table between the partisans on different sides of the ‘pure’ music debate. And this question is the fundamentally normative one concerning *how this allegedly ‘pure’ instrumental music is to be appropriately appreciated.* When we appreciate this sort of instrumental music in content-involving ways, where our thoughts go beyond its basic and fairly uncontroversial expressive or representational features, is our mode of musical appreciation thereby deficient, or somehow ‘in the wrong,’ aesthetically-speaking? I argue that it needn’t be, and I further argue to the surprising conclusion that the answer to this normative question doesn’t crucially turn on whether music *possesses* the relevant content. Once we get this normative question in view, we should recognize a broader range of appropriate ways to engage with instrumental music, beyond the restrictive ideal of ‘pure’ listening that has thus far been championed by musical formalists. Then, in the final part of the paper, I shift gears to consider whether the sort of extra-musical content at issue is really as far-fetched as opponents can make it seem. I argue that it isn’t, and that this can be seen by looking to comparable sorts of content in the paradigmatically representational arts. (shrink)