Plato’s demiurge makes a series of questionable decisions in creating the world. Most notoriously, he endeavors to replicate, to the extent possible, some of the features that his model possesses just insofar as it is a Form. This has provoked the colorful complaint that the demiurge is as raving mad as a general contractor who constructs a house of vellum to better realize the architect’s vellum plans (Keyt 1971). The present paper considers the sanity of the demiurge’s reasoning in light (...) of Timaeus 32c5-33b1, where he invokes considerations of wholeness, completeness, uniqueness, and eternality in deciding to build the body of the world from all of each of the simple bodies. Since the passage makes no appeal to the demiurge’s intelligible model, one can mine it for indications of the value that the demiurge takes those features to have independent of mimetic goals. I argue that, for Plato, those features are intrinsically good-making and, thus, that it is not only appropriate for them to characterize Forms qua Forms but also that it is appropriate for the demiurge to aim at replicating them, to the extent possible, in his creation. In particular, I argue that the demiurge’s success in instilling a circumscribed version of each feature in his creation helps to qualify it as a genuine being despite the fact that it comes to be. (shrink)

Presburger's essay on the completeness and decidability of arithmetic with integer addition but without multiplication is a milestone in the history of mathematical logic and formal metatheory. The proof is constructive, using Tarski-style quantifier elimination and a four-part recursive comprehension principle for axiomatic consequence characterization. Presburger's proof for the completeness of first order arithmetic with identity and addition but without multiplication, in light of the restrictive formal metatheorems of Gödel, Church, and Rosser, takes the foundations of arithmetic in mathematical logic (...) to the limits of completeness and decidability. (shrink)

The taxonomy proposed by Pessoa et al. should be extended to include “pathological” completion phenomena in patients with unilateral brain damage. Patients with visual field defects (hemianopias) may “complete” whole figures, while patients with parietal lobe damage may “complete” partial figures. We argue that the former may be consistent with the brain “filling-in” information, and the latter may be consistent with the brain ignoring the absence of information.

In the Eudemian Ethics II 1, 1219a34–b8, Aristotle defines happiness as ‘the activity of a complete life in accordance with complete virtue’. Most scholars interpret a complete life as a whole lifetime, which means that happiness involves virtuous activity over an entire life. This article argues against this common reading by using Aristotle’s notion of ‘activity’ (energeia) as a touchstone. It argues that happiness, according to the Eudemian Ethics, must be a complete activity that reaches its end at any (...) and every moment. The upshot of this reading is that life reaches completeness within a lifetime and that death cannot be the requirement for making life complete. (shrink)

This book present a unified semantic theory of expressions involving the notions of part and whole. It develops a theory of part structures which differs from traditional (extensional) mereological theories in that the notion of an integrated whole plays a central role and in that the part structure of an entity is allowed to vary across different situations, perspectives, and dimensions. The book presents a great range of empirical generalizations involving plurals, mass nouns, adnominal and adverbial modifiers such (...) as 'whole', 'together', and 'alone', nominal and adverbial quanitfiers ranging over parts, and expressions of completion such as 'completely' and 'partly'. (shrink)

Current discussion of scientific realism and antirealism often cites Pierre Duhem’s argument for the underdetermination of theory choice by evidence. Participants draw on an account of his underdetermination thesis that is familiar, but incomplete. The purpose of this article is to complete the familiar account. I argue that a closer look at Duhem’s The aim and structure of physical theory suggests that the rationale for his underdetermination thesis comes from his philosophy of scientific language. I explore how an understanding of (...) physical laws as symbolic is meant to support the thesis. In the course of my argument, I point out that Duhemian underdetermination is not meta-practical but grounded in the practice of science, specifically in the scientist’s use of instruments and measurement techniques. Measurement has a significant limitation, according to Duhem: it always involves approximation and a degree of experimental error. Consequently, it cannot overcome the gap between the ordinary, concrete language of observation and the mathematical language of science. Moreover, Duhem argues that the use of instruments in experiment invokes whole groups of theories. I contend that, ultimately, this reliance on auxiliary assumptions—which makes possible the use of instruments—is the foundation of his thesis and that recognizing this completes the familiar account of his underdetermination argument.Author Keywords: Duhem; Suppes; Underdetermination; Measurement; Physical theory. (shrink)

This essay is written at the crossroads of intuitive holism, as typified in Eastern thought, and the discursive reflectiveness more characteristic of the West. The point of departure is the age-old human need to overcome fragmentation and realize wholeness. Three basic tasks are set forth: to provide some new insight into the underlying obstacle to wholeness, to show what would be necessary for surmounting this blockage, and to take a concrete step in that direction. At the outset, the question of (...) paradox is addressed, examined in relation to Zen meditation, the problem of language, and the thinking of Heidegger. Wholeness is to be realized through paradox, and it is shown that a complete realization requires that paradox be embodied. Drawing from the fields of visual geometry and qualitative mathematics, three concrete models of paradox are offered: the Necker cube, the Moebius surface, and the Klein bottle. In attempting to model wholeness, an important limitation is recognized: a model is a symbolic representation that maintains the division between the reality represented and the act of symbolizing that reality. It is demonstrated that while the first two models are subject to this limitation, the Klein bottle, possessing higher dimensionality, can express wholeness more completely, provided that it is approached in a radically nonclassical way. The final question of this essay concerns its own capability as an essay. It is asked whether the present text is restricted to affording a mere abstract reflection on wholeness, or whether wholeness can tangibly be delivered. (shrink)

In this paper, I challenge the standard reading of complete virtue (ἀρετή τελεία) in those disputed passages of Nicomachean Ethics and Eudemian Ethics. I argue that, for Aristotle, complete virtue is neither (i) wisdom nor (ii) a whole set of all virtues. Rather, it is a term used by Aristotle to denote any virtue that is in its complete or perfect form. In light of this reading, I offer a pluralist interpretation of Aristotelian happiness. I argue that for Aristotle, (...) the life-long exercise of a predominant virtue—as long as it is exercised in its complete or perfect form—will suffice for human happiness. The so-called inclusivist and intellectualist notions of Aristotelian happiness, thus understood, are merely two forms (viz. the composite and the non-composite form) of the pluralist notion of Aristotelian happiness. And if I am right, my pluralist interpretation provides an alternative, if not better, solution to the long-standing problem of “dual happiness” in Aristotle. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“The Whole Internal World His Own”: Locke and Metaphor ReconsideredS. H. ClarkWhy need I name thy Boyle, whose pious search, Amid the dark recesses of his works, The great Creator sought? And why thy Locke, Who made the whole internal world his own?Oh decus! Anglicae certe oh lux altera gentis!... Tu caecas rerum causas, fontemque severum Pande, Pater; tibi enim, tibi, veri magne Sacerdos, Corda patent hominum, (...) atque altae penetralia Mentis.Fourfold Annihilation & at the clangor of the Arrows of Intellect The innumerable Chariots of the Almighty appeard in Heaven And Bacon & Newton & Locke, & Milton & Shakespear & Chaucer1Two features of these encomia to John Locke, composed by James Thomson, Thomas Gray, and William Blake, are immediately striking. Firstly, they are delivered by poets in a tradition customarily seen as a reaction to the intellectual climate induced by Locke’s Essay, a book which Blake famously claimed to regard with “Contempt and Abhorrence.” 2 Secondly, the familiar and somewhat hackneyed characterizations of Locke as philosopher of common-sense, [End Page 241] empiricism, and liberal ideology are refreshingly absent. For Gray he is “veri magne Sacerdos,” great priest of truth; Thomson places him in a pantheon including Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser, and Chaucer; and this ranking is explicitly endorsed in Blake’s “Milton & Shakspear & Chaucer.” Comparable praise of Locke’s imaginative power is conspicuously absent from even the most generous tributes of recent commentators. 3Even if Locke’s philosophical contribution to a variety of debates is fully acknowledged, the question remains of why his major work, An Essay concerning Human Understanding, was held in such high popular esteem—veneration is not too strong a word—during the subsequent century. The text itself appears an improbable candidate for such canonization: George Saintsbury accused its prose of being “positively mean in every point of style,” 4 and certainly in comparison with the poised and lucid ironies of Berkeley and Hume, it cannot but appear prolix, diffuse, and repetitive. The chief (and frequently only) merit grudgingly accorded to it is of disarming informality. Rosalie Colie’s emphasis on the “exploitation of the generic and rhetorical possibilities in the essay form itself “ highlights the conscious manipulation of authorial distance through which Locke creates the effect of sprawling inclusiveness and incom-pletion, but at the expense of conceding that “in exchange for the frankness with which the essayist appeared to present his thinking self, he was allowed certain liberties from logical rigour.” 5 Though the suggestion that a major philosophical text seeks to evade “logical rigour” might seem damning enough, there is a still more insidious equation of Locke’s “middle-style,” his desire “to make, what I have to say, as easie and intelligible to all sort of Readers as I can,” with a complicity with the expectations of his audience. 6 Other critics, notably John Richetti, have put a more positive gloss on the “simple and fortuitously concocted circle of friends” to whom the Essay is addressed, but even these accounts have been obliged to stress the representative and consensual nature of Locke’s thought. 7 This view is perhaps most elegantly expressed by Leslie Stephen: “Locke ruled the thought of his own and the coming period [End Page 242] because he interpreted so completely the fundamental beliefs which had been worked out at this time. He ruled, that is, by obeying.” 8William Walker correctly observes that “identifying and interpreting metaphors of mind” in the Essay are “standard practices of mainstream philosophical commentary from Leibniz to Rorty,” but also notes that these analyses are usually concerned with the degree to which Locke’s reliance on figuration was at variance with and compromised his epistemological doctrine. 9 I would argue that the poetic tributes previously quoted offer a more suggestive and adequate guide to the original impact of his work. In order to substantiate this claim, I shall begin by examining Locke’s apparent renunciation of, yet paradoxical dependence upon metaphor; go on to look at the connection of the “Horizon” to the elegiac presentation of memory and the ethic of mental “Labour”; and conclude by analyzing the complex interdependence of candle and sun within the light imagery employed in the... (shrink)

Although death statutes permitting physicians to declare brain death are relatively uniform throughout the United States, academic debate persists over the equivalency of human death and brain death. Alan Shewmon showed that the formerly accepted integration rationale was conceptually incomplete by showing that brain-dead patients demonstrated a degree of integration. We provide a more complete rationale for the equivalency of human death and brain death by defending a deeper understanding of the organism as a whole and by using a (...) novel strategy with shared objectives to justify death determination criteria. Our OaaW account describes different types of OaaW, defining human death as the loss of status as a human OaaW. We defend human death as similar to nonhuman death in terms of wakefulness, but also distinct in terms of the sui generis properties, particularly conscious awareness. We thereby defend the equivalency of brain death and human death using a resulting neurocentric rationale. (shrink)

We often care not just whether an account of some subject matter is correct, but also whether it is complete—the whole truth, as we might say. This chapter criticizes extant intensional explications of the notion of a whole truth by showing that they yield implausible results in an important range of cases. The difficulty is traced to the inability of an intensional framework to adequately capture constraints of relevance imposed by an intuitive understanding of the whole truth. (...) I go on to develop and defend a novel account of what it is for a truth P to be the whole truth with respect to a subject matter: roughly speaking, it is for every fact pertaining to the subject matter to be relevant to making P true, or equivalently, for P to relevantly entail every truth pertaining to the subject matter. The proposal is formally spelled out within the framework of truthmaker semantics as developed by Kit Fine in a series of recent publications. As part of this, a novel, truthmaker-based semantics for the totality operator ‘...and that’s it’ is sketched and argued to be superior to previous intensional accounts. (shrink)

(Accepted for an edition of Synthese that never saw light of day, and remained on my website. Written 2005.) Noting the status of the Law of Continuity as one of Leibniz’s most cherished axioms, Bertrand Russell charged that his philosophy nevertheless amounted to “a complete denial of the continuous”. Georg Cantor made a similar accusation of inconsistency about Leibniz’s philosophy of the actual infinite. But I argue that neither doctrine is inconsistent when the subtleties of Leibniz’s syncategorematic interpretation are properly (...) taken into account. Leibniz rejects the existence of infinite wholes: an infinite aggregate of actual things forms only a fictitious whole. Analogously, infinitesimals are only fictitious parts, this time of ideal wholes. That is, just as an actual infinity of terms can be understood syncategorematically as more terms than can be assigned a number, without there being any infinite numbers, so too the infinitely small can be given a syncategorematic interpretation by means of the Law of Continuity, without there existing any actual infinitesimals. By examining Leibniz’s justification of infinitesimals in his calculus, I argue that the syncategorematic interpretation is also applicable to series of changes, and thus exonerates Leibniz from Russell’s criticism: on this interpretation all naturally occurring transitions are continuous in that the difference between neighbouring states is smaller than any assignable. This means not that there exists a least difference, but that for any assignable finite difference, there exists a smaller one. Thus there is a true continuous transition, even though the states themselves and all assignable differences between them are actually discrete. (shrink)

The debate about Habermas' use of the system and lifeworld distinction has not focused on the explanation of social pathologies that he offers, but rather only on conceptual problems with the theories that he uses. Twill argue that the explanation offered by his thesis that "systems colonize the lifeworld" fits the main criterion for adequacy for macro-micro explanation: because it establishes macro-micro linkage, it is at least potentially complete. Such an analysis fits the empirical approach to traditional debates between collectivists (...) and individualists among macrosociologists. I shall apply this approach here in three steps. First, I shall use the controversy about functionalist explanation in the social sciences to develop the criterion of completeness for macrosociological explanations (1). Second, I shall generalize the conditions of adequacy for functionalist explanations to macrosociology as a whole and show that Habermas'explanation of the colonization of the lifeworld is at least potentially complete, as an explanation sketch that lacks empirical detail (2). Third, I shall show that this approach also requires that Habermas modify his overly Weberian claims about the effects of bureaucracy, since his stronger notion of reification is based on the incompletness in his explanation of this aspect of the micromacrolinkage (3). Moreover; a more complete account has clearer practical consequences for agency in the form of collective action. (shrink)

In the Transcendental Ideal Kant discusses the principle of complete determination: for every object and every predicate A, the object is either determinately A or not-A. He claims this principle is synthetic, but it appears to follow from the principle of excluded middle, which is analytic. He also makes a puzzling claim in support of its syntheticity: that it represents individual objects as deriving their possibility from the whole of possibility. This raises a puzzle about why Kant regarded it (...) as synthetic, and what his explanatory claim means. I argue that the principle of complete determination does not follow from the principle of excluded middle because the externally negated or ?negative? judgement ?Not (S is P)? does not entail the internally negated or ?infinite? judgement ?S is not-P.? Kant's puzzling explanatory claim means that empirical objects are determined by the content of the totality of experience. This entails that empirical objects are completely determinate if and only if the totality of experience has a completely determinate content. I argue that it is not a priori whether experience has such a completely determinate content and thus not analytic that objects obey the principle of complete determination. (shrink)

This paper identifies a problem that Aristotle revealed and that Heidegger’s own insights, into the diverse forms that the Being of entities takes, exacerbated: the problem is whether there is sense to the idea of ‘Being in general’—‘Being as a whole’—and this is a problem because there not being such sense threatens the very possibility of the discipline of ontology. The paper proposes that Heidegger envisaged the project which a completed Being and Time would have carried out as (...) an attempt to solve this problem. The project considers what the subject who intends ‘Being as a whole’ would have to be like; crucially this requires reflection on what it would be for that subject itself to be a whole; and we find such reflection in Heidegger’s discussion of authenticity. By looking in particular at his notions of ‘guilt’ and ‘Being-towards-death’, and the role that they play in identifying an ‘ecstatic’ form of temporality, we can identify a ‘horizon’ against which the authentic can be seen as ‘being-a-whole’ and as living in the light of an understanding of what might indeed be called ‘Being as a whole’. (shrink)

In this paper I reconstruct and discuss Antonio Rubio (1546-1615)’s theory of the composition of the continuum, as set out in his Tractatus de compositione continui, a part of his influential commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, published in 1605 but rewritten in 1606. Here I attempt especially to show that Rubio’s is a significant case of Scholastic overlapping between Aristotle’s theory of infinitely divisible parts and indivisibilism or ‘Zenonism’, i.e. the theory that allows for indivisibles, extensionless points, lines, and surfaces, which (...) are supposed to take part in the composition of the continuum. Even if such a syncretic tendency was, in many different ways, already developing in the medieval period and then at the end of the sixteenth century, Rubio’s position is indeed peculiar. He maintains that indivisibles are real and actual, infinite in act, really distinct from each other, and that, although they indwell in substance, indivisibles do not contribute directly to the constitution of the continuum. In this reconstruction, I emphasize notably Rubio’s usage of mereological notions like those of part, whole, completeness and incompleteness. (shrink)

In this paper I reconstruct and discuss Antonio Rubio (1546-1615)’s theory of the composition of the continuum, as set out in his Tractatus de compositione continui, a part of his influential commentary on Aristotle’s Physics, published in 1605 but rewritten in 1606. Here I attempt especially to show that Rubio’s is a significant case of Scholastic overlapping between Aristotle’s theory of infinitely divisible parts and indivisibilism or ‘Zenonism’, i.e. the theory that allows for indivisibles, extensionless points, lines, and surfaces, which (...) are supposed to take part in the composition of the continuum. Even if such a syncretic tendency was, in many different ways, already developing in the medieval period and then at the end of the sixteenth century, Rubio’s position is indeed peculiar. He maintains that indivisibles are real and actual, infinite in act, really distinct from each other, and that, although they indwell in substance, indivisibles do not contribute directly to the constitution of the continuum. In this reconstruction I emphasize notably Rubio’s usage of mereological notions like those of part, whole, completeness and incompleteness. (shrink)

The paper focuses on some puzzles about Carnap's intended epistemological point in the "completion" and "generalization" of the Anschauungsraum in sec. II of Der Raum (leaving aside the technical problems which also arise). Since any global structure at all requires that eidetic intuition be supplemented with freely-chosen postulates and/or intuitively unmotivated generalizations, it is unclear, as several authors have pointed out, how and in what sense "intuitive space" as a whole represents a distinctive, a priori contribution to our knowledge. (...) I suggest a way of approaching this issue based on Carnap's sources -- in particular, Husserl and Driesch, both of whom he repeatedly claims to be following. The idea of a severely finite realm of possible intuition, which both requires and allows supplementation with an infinite conceptual structure, is central to Husserl's thought, and, I argue, it would be natural for Carnap to rely on it in attempting to reconcile Husserlian eidetic intuition with the general theory of relativity. That this larger conceptual structure owes its details to free postulation is, on the other hand, decidedly un-Husserlian. But here, I claim, Carnap takes his cue from Driesch's view, in the first edition of the Ordnungslehre, that natural actuality is the result of a certain demand for order: we demand such order in natural things and reject as non-actual (hallucinatory, dreamed, etc.) whatever nature-like elements of experience fail to fit into it. In conclusion I suggest that more radical versions of this particular constellation of ideas provide the key to understanding much of Carnap's later thought. (shrink)

This paper is the first of a series of three articles that present the syntactic proof of the PA-completeness of the modal system G, by introducing suitable proof-theoretic objects, which also have an independent interest. We start from the syntactic PA-completeness of modal system GL-LIN, previously obtained in [7], [8], and so we assume to be working on modal sequents S which are GL-LIN-theorems. If S is not a G-theorem we define here a notion of syntactic metric d(S, G): we (...) calculate a canonical characteristic fomula H of S (char(S)) so that ⊢G ∼ H → (∼S) and ⊢GL-LIN ∼ H, and the complexity σ of ∼ H gives the distance d(S, G) of S from G. Then, in order to produce the whole completeness proof as an induction on this d(S, G), we introduce the tree-interpretation of a modal sequent Q into PA, that sends the letters of Q into PA-formulas describing the properties of a GL-LIN-proof P of Q: It is also a d(*, G)-metric linked interpretation, since it will be applied to a proof-tree T of ∼ H with H = char(S) and σ(∼ H) = d(S, G). (shrink)

This article presents theory and practical experiences related to classroom pedagogy focusing on spirituality and wholeness - the spiritually whole-system classroom. In it, spiritual principles help create a learning community founded on the experience of wholeness. The spiritually whole-system classroom allows participants the opportunity of "being connected with one's complete self, others, and the entire universe" in order to serve a meaningful, broader purpose. This type of transformation engages heads, hearts, spirits, and hands in the pursuit of a (...) more enlightening experience of human organizing. The article concludes with a critically reflective discussion of spiritual applications to management education and practice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Inspiration/Expiration (Completion)Grégory Chatonsky (bio)This text was co-written with an artificial intelligence (AI). This so-called author wrote a sentence, then the software continued, and so on, each influencing the other, completing each other. Another AI summarized this text in a few keywords that allowed it to automatically generate an image from a stock of 14 million documents. Click for larger view View full resolutionThe organism was still breathing, in the (...) belief that it would survive this other life. It became a larva. It breathed and its form faded; a face appeared that was not its own. His lungs had filled with air of barely breathable density. He was dying. He was dying. He was still dying. The red, pale, hard surfaces of that face turned blue. His inert body became a brownish powder of decaying matter and gave birth to two new organisms.After a minute of silence, the other organism developed. It barely had a face. I watched as this new element emerged from the cranial surface. I looked at a pair of teeth. I thought I saw two sets of tongues, perhaps a beak. I also thought I saw eyes, but it was without eyes. [End Page 153]I started to choke. I felt my body give out on me. I tried to voluntarily get up from my bed. I couldn't. I couldn't and I was exactly aware at that moment of where my body was. I looked at the machine right next to the bed that was breathing for me. I tried to lift it, but I couldn't hold it between my arms. It was too wide and too heavy.My body was shaking with cold, but I didn't feel the cold, I felt the exact opposite. The machine was still working, slowly, now it was useless. I kept it on the bed and kept coughing, I was afraid I would die if I kept doing this... Finally, I got up from the bed. I was ready to die. I was about to take my last breath. I felt this great relief at the idea of disappearing to myself, and also of subsisting in this existence in an insensible form. I was still spitting, and I knew that I was going to die. I was sure that if I continued to cough, I would die again.When he tried to breathe again, the first body closed its jaw with its two legs running outside of me, and he turned on his side to feel the waves invading him and the corals embedding themselves in his organs. The second body continued to fill the mouth of the first machine with air. The second machine exhaled on its own. I can hardly say how long it took for both parties to breathe in again in unison. After that, they got their feet back on the floor and closed their mouths with their tongues, just like in the configuration they were in before.In the room, one of the machines opened and closed to breathe with a slow, muffled sound. It was like a metal accordion that unfolded and seemed to take over the atmosphere of the whole room. I knew that my breathing was following the exact same rhythm. It was a very profound experience in which I felt extreme terror and almost strange excitement all over my body, but I kept my thoughts under control. I remained focused by staring at points of light somewhere behind my skull.The pain of being forced to think is an unhappy pain that is exerted from within, but is felt as from without. I am going to take a last breath. I am going to die. Not now, you are not going to die. Just a moment more. The machine continues to breathe and the pipes vibrate with this breath. I am locked in this hospital room. Nothing changes from one day to the next, the same mechanical breathing. I've probably been poisoned, but without the will to do so. We'll get it over with by ourselves and I'll disappear in a few minutes.I can barely speak... (shrink)

In a wise and forceful reaction against his training in analytic philosophy, Vaught fervently seeks a genuinely human wholeness in life. But while this wholeness at once involves and integrates our origins, our goals, our existential contingency, our social roles, and our orientation in the cosmos and with respect to God, still: "Wholeness is not to be equated with completeness, and fragmentation is not a problem that can be dealt with at the exclusively reflective level". Such a Kierkegaardian denial of (...) the efficacy of speculation in what is essentially a religious facet of the individual naturally brings Vaught into conflict with Hegel, and Vaught does not evade this challenge. The consideration of Hegel is the last of the four "images" which constitute the book, the first three being Melville's Moby Dick, the Bible's Hebrew patriarchs, and Plato's Euthyphro. Each "image" is designed to occupy a middle ground between systematic philosophy and direct experience--and indeed to be just a "story"--so that the "storyteller" Vaught may present each as a "version," rather than as an abstract or a part, of the whole. (shrink)

The reintroduction of Aristotle's Analytics to the Latin West—in particular, the reintroduction of the Posterior Analytics—forever altered the course of medieval epistemological discussions. Although the Analytics fell decidedly from grace in later centuries, the sophisticated account of human cognition developed in the Posterior Analytics appealed so strongly to thirteenth-century European scholars that it became one of the two central theories of knowledge advocated in the later Middle Ages. Robert Grosseteste's 'Commentarius in Posteriorum Analyticorum Libro', written in the 1220s, is most (...) likely the first complete Latin commentary on the Posterior Analytics. As the thirteenth century wore on, Aristotle’s account of human cognition was generally set in opposition to the Augustinian-influenced theory of divine illumination that was de rigueur in the early thirteenth century. Although common consensus holds that this pattern of opposition was set already in Grosseteste’s CPA, I argue that the story of the Posterior Analytics’s early reception is, in fact, quite different. In particular, I maintain that, rather than seeing himself as forced to choose between his earlier theory of divine illumination and the “new” Aristotelian epistemology, Grosseteste is perfectly content to blend and bring together the diverse elements of these systems and to present a consciously synthetic rather than adversarial picture of these differing accounts of human cognition. (shrink)

With the advent of powerful parallel computers, efforts have commenced to simulate complete mammalian brains. However, so far none of these efforts has produced outcomes close to explaining even the behavioral complexities of animals. In this article, we suggest four challenges that ground this shortcoming. First, we discuss the connection between hypothesis testing and simulations. Typically, efforts to simulate complete mammalian brains lack a clear hypothesis. Second, we treat complications related to a lack of parameter constraints for large-scale simulations. To (...) demonstrate the severity of this issue, we review work on two small-scale neural systems, the crustacean stomatogastric ganglion and the Caenorhabditis elegans nervous system. Both of these small nervous systems are very thoroughly, but not completely understood, mainly due to issues with variable and plastic parameters. Third, we discuss the hierarchical structure of neural systems as a principled obstacle to whole-brain simulations. Different organizational levels imply qualitative differences not only in structure, but in choice and appropriateness of investigative technique and perspective. The challenge of reconciling different levels also undergirds the challenge of simulating and hypothesis testing, as modeling a system is not the same thing as simulating it. Fourth, we point out that animal brains are information processing systems tailored very specifically for the ecological niches the respective animals live in. (shrink)

This new English translation of St. Thomas Aquinas's Treatise on Law, found in Questions 90-108 of the First Part of the Second Part of the Summa Theologiae, is the only free-standing English translation of the entire Treatise, which includes both a general account of law (Questions 90-92) and also specific treatments of what St. Thomas identifies as the five kinds of law: the eternal law (Question 93), the natural law (Question 94), human law (Questions 95-97), the Old Law (Questions 98-105), (...) and the New Law (Questions 106-108). According to St. Thomas, law, far from supplanting virtue as a basic principle of action, serves as an independent principle of action that complements virtue and is itself capable of being factored into practical deliberation. The reason is that all of God's precepts, prohibitions, and punishments are aimed at promoting the good of the whole universe and, more particularly, the good for human beings, both individually and within the various forms of social life. Because of this, law serves as both a restraint on bad actions and a spur to good action, i.e., a restraint on actions that take us away from virtue and genuine human flourishing and a spur to actions that promote virtue and flourishing. There are many benefits of having the whole treatise rather than just the first few questions, as has been the standard practice in previous editions of the Treatise on Law. To mention just a few of these benefits, the question on the moral precepts of the Old Law (question 100) helps to illuminate in many different ways the earlier questions on natural law and human law (questions 94-97). Again, the questions on the ceremonial and judicial precepts of the Old Law (questions 101-105) demon-strate in depth the symbiotic relationship that St. Thomas takes to obtain between the Old Testament and the New Testament. The questions on the New Law provide an introduction to the Christian way of life that will be described in incomparable detail in the Second Part of the Second Part, the bulk of which is structured around the treatment of the three theological virtues and the four cardinal virtues. Book jacket. (shrink)

Russian philosopher Pyotr Chaadaev (1794–1856) declared Russia to be a non-place in both space and time, a singular nothingness without history, topos, or footing, without relation or attachment to the world-historical tradition culminating in Christian-European modernity. This paper recovers Chaadaev’s conception of nothingness as that which, unbound by tradition, constitutes a total, even revolutionary ungrounding of the world-whole. Working with and through Chaadaev’s key writings, we trace his articulation of immanent nothingness or the void of the Real as completely (...) emptying out the mechanisms of history and tradition, thereby putting also into question the basic conceptual machinery of modernity. Chaadaev’s position appears, as a result, not only as a neglected genealogical element to contemporary critiques of modernity and its logic of reproduction through tradition and futurity but also as a contribution to the ongoing critical rethinking of this logic in contemporary theory. (shrink)

boundaries. It is impossible to do good science without having an appreciation for the problems and concepts in the other levels of abstraction (at least in the direction from biology towards physics), but there are whole sets of tools, methods of analysis, theories and explanations within each discipline which do not cross those boundaries.

The article treats as significant the formal coincidence between Kant’s presentation of the science of metaphysics in the “Architectonic of Pure Reason” chapter of the first Critique and Alexander Baumgarten’s presentation of the same in the Metaphysica. From his comments on Baumgarten in the metaphysics lectures, the article shows that for Kant metaphysics in its traditional form lacked completeness and systematic order. Kant fits completeness into his architectonic plan of a scientific metaphysics by converting Baumgartian ontology into an “analytic of (...) the understanding”; Kant achieves the systematicity by modeling a rational “idea of the form of the whole” after Baumgarten’s tree-like ordering of the special sciences of metaphysics. Thus, Kant realizes the completeness and systematicity in a theoretical presentation of the science of metaphysics that he finds lacking in Baumgarten precisely by borrowing from the latter his scheme for metaphysics. (shrink)

F. A. Hayek is uniquely responsible for his fellow economists grasping the importance of the decentralization of knowledge: as Hayek shows in his pathbreaking “The Use of Knowledge in Society,” knowledge nowhere exists as a coherent whole and to pretend otherwise is a most serious error. Hayek also shares responsibility for the popularity of a strong form of the methodological individualist research program which asserts that since collectives as such have no impact on the choices of individuals, investigators ought (...) to purge any reliance on collectives from our analysis. (shrink)

Diotima criticizes, but does not refute, Aristophanes’ thesis that love is desire for completeness. Her argument incorporates that thesis within a more complextheory: eros is desire for the permanent possession of the good, and hence also desire for immortality. Aristophanes cannot account for the aspirations entailed in the desire for fame or in the desire for knowledge. Such aspirations can be understood only with reference to the good. However, the paper shows how time plays a fundamental role in the original (...) pursuit of wholeness at the center of Aristophanes’ myth of the two halves. Diotima appropriates his thesis when she describes the urge to leave behind something similar to what one has been. The desire for immortality is nothing but a desire for completeness pursued by mortal nature against the never-ending destruction of time. (shrink)

In this text I suggest the possibility of the strategic-philosophical closeness between Husserl and Kracauer,by closely reading Husserl’s Third Logical Investigation and Kracauer’s essay «The Mass Ornament». Although the both thinkers come from the traditionally different and often mutually opposing philosophical schools, neither of them simply dismisses or crosses out the position they criticize. To the contrary, I propose that both thinkers exaggerate the seeming self-evidentiality of the phenomenon they analyze. In the Third Logical Investigation Husserl rearticulates the whole-part (...) relation as it is conceived within the formal ontology and psychologistic logic. The connection between parts is available to us only as the relational tension, which is «accumulated» in the mutuality between the irreparably self-enclosed parts. Fusion is therefore a modification in the unfolding of the relation between parts, where every «term in relation» conditions another one through its own positional completion, while being conditioned by another term. The phenomenological analysis, which is conducted through the intensification of the fixity of the above-mentioned poles, is «measured» by the inability of these poles to be self-evidentially isolated and subsequently reconciled. In the second part of my essay I pay attention to Kracauer’s suggestion that the vitality of the mass ornament is reflected in the contextual insignificance of its parts. Kracauer addresses the problem of mass depersonalization through the close and sarcastic inspection of the role of abstract rationality in the capitalist mode of production. This close inspection adopts the strategy of exaggeration, where the critical distance must not be considered beyond its ability to disclose the selfobscuring apparatus of the mass performances and spectacles. This disclosure, as Kracuaer suggests,must therapeutically lead through the center of the mass ornament, and not away from it. (shrink)

In this text I suggest the possibility of the strategic-philosophical closeness between Husserl and Kracauer,by closely reading Husserl’s Third Logical Investigation and Kracauer’s essay «The Mass Ornament».Although the both thinkers come from the traditionally different and often mutually opposing philosophical schools, neither of them simply dismisses or crosses out the position they criticize. To the contrary, I propose that both thinkers exaggerate the seeming self-evidentiality of the phenomenon they analyze. In the Third Logical Investigation Husserl rearticulates the whole-part relation (...) as it is conceived within the formal ontology and psychologistic logic. The connection between parts is available to us only as the relational tension, which is «accumulated» in the mutuality between the irreparably self-enclosed parts. Fusion is therefore a modification in the unfolding of the relation between parts, where every «term in relation» conditions another one through its own positional completion, while being conditioned by another term. The phenomenological analysis, which is conducted through the intensification of the fixity of the above-mentioned poles, is «measured» by the inability of these poles to be self-evidentially isolated and subsequently reconciled. In the second part of my essay I pay attention to Kracauer’s suggestion that the vitality of the mass ornament is reflected in the contextual insignificance of its parts. Kracauer addresses the problem of mass depersonalization through the close and sarcastic inspection of the role of abstract rationality in the capitalist mode of production. This close inspection adopts the strategy of exaggeration, where the critical distance must not be considered beyond its ability to disclose the selfobscuring apparatus of the mass performances and spectacles. This disclosure, as Kracauer suggests,must therapeutically lead through the center of the mass ornament, and not away from it. (shrink)

Diotima criticizes, but does not refute, Aristophanes’ thesis that love is desire for completeness. Her argument incorporates that thesis within a more complextheory: eros is desire for the permanent possession of the good, and hence also desire for immortality. Aristophanes cannot account for the aspirations entailed in the desire for fame or in the desire for knowledge. Such aspirations can be understood only with reference to the good. However, the paper shows how time plays a fundamental role in the original (...) pursuit of wholeness at the center of Aristophanes’ myth of the two halves. Diotima appropriates his thesis when she describes the urge to leave behind something similar to what one has been. The desire for immortality is nothing but a desire for completeness pursued by mortal nature against the never-ending destruction of time. (shrink)

Reading Vaught’s book is rather like being captivated on a train with a detective novel left by a previous passenger: one reads along with delight, juggling clues and suspicions, only to find that the last forty-seven pages are missing. The four chapters cover Moby Dick; Old Testament patriarchs from Abraham to Moses; Plato’s Euthyphro; critique of Hegel’s attempts to accommodate Wholeness under a Complete System, transcending openness and pictorial language. The first three chapters offer much delightful and evocative reading. But (...) the book’s most crucial terms—fragmentation, wholeness, completeness, and directionality—are initially unclear and not duly demystified by the end. The effect is occasionally reminiscent of some easier passages in Joyce’s Ulysses, where the reader or rider jogs happily along, only to be thrown by a word from a seemingly private language. (shrink)

In the last decade it has become en vogue for cognitive comparative psychologists to study animal behavior in an ‘integrated’ fashion to account for both the ‘innate’ and the ‘acquired’. We will argue that these studies, instead of really integrating the concepts of ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’, rather cement this old dichotomy. They combine empty nativist interpretation of behavior systems with blatantly environmentalist explanations of learning. We identify the main culprit as the failure to take development seriously. While in some areas (...) of biology interest in the relationship between behavior and development has surged through topics such as extragenetic inheritance, niche construction, and phenotypic plasticity, this has gone almost completely unnoticed in the study of animal behavior in comparative psychology, and is frequently ignored in ethology too. The main aims of this paper are to clarify the relationship between the concepts of learning, experience, and development, and to investigate whether and how all three concepts can be usefully deployed in the study of animal behavior. This will require the full integration of the psychological study of behavior into biology, and of the idea of learning into a wider concept of experience. We lay out how, in a systems view of development, learning may just appear as one among many processes in which experience influences behavior. This new synthesis should help to overcome the age-old dualism between innate and acquired. It thereby opens up the possibility of developing scientifically more fruitful distinctions. (shrink)

The discovery of the importance of mereology follows and does not precede the formalisation of the theory. In particular, it was only after the construction of an axiomatic theory of the part-whole relation by the Polish logician Stanisław Leśniewski that any attempt was made to reinterpret some periods in the history of philosophy in the light of the theory of parts and wholes. Secondly, the push for formalisation - and the individuation of mereology as a specific theoretical field - (...) arise from several particular theories, first from biology and then from psychology. Mereological considerations were explicitly developed within the school of Brentano, by Brentano himself- starting from the problem of the unity of consciousness - and by his students, particularly Stumpl, Twardowski and the Gestaltists. The most complete result of this tradition is undoubtedly the third of Husserl's Logical Investigations, called "the single most important contribution to realist (Aristotelian) ontology in the modern period". (shrink)

From the author: This dissertation undertakes a critical examination of one central problem in Hegelian philosophy: viz., whether the final realization of “absolute knowledge” is logically consistent with significant epistemic progress in the system’s continuing development. Serious consideration of the concept of systematic completeness, as interpreted on Hegel’s terms, uncovers the existence of a profound paradox. On the one hand, if the Truth is the Whole, then the truth of any finite part or aspect of that Whole depends (...) upon its place within the system as a totality. In order to grasp the part and comprehend it correctly, one must already have a systematically ordered knowledge of the universe in its entirety. Yet the methodological open-endedness of dialectical thinking precludes the acceptance of any particular theoretical formulation as final or complete in itself. Hegel interprets the history of philosophy as a progression of successive formulations of the Truth, each of which improves on its predecessors by reconciling their internal contradictions, but no one of which is adequate in itself. Hence, no theoretical world view, including Hegel’s own, can rest content within its limits, for the inevitable advance of thought must in the end throw it down. (shrink)

The article treats as significant the formal coincidence between Kant’s presentation of the science of metaphysics in the “Architectonic of Pure Reason” chapter of the first Critique and Alexander Baumgarten’s presentation of the same in the Metaphysica. From his comments on Baumgarten in the metaphysics lectures, the article shows that for Kant metaphysics in its traditional form lacked completeness and systematic order. Kant fits completeness into his architectonic plan of a scientific metaphysics by Converting Baumgartian ontology into an “analytic of (...) the understanding”; Kant achieves the systematicity by modeling a rational “idea of the form of the whole” after Baumgarten’s tree-like ordering of the special sciences of metaphysics. Thus, Kant realizes the completeness and systematicity in a theoretical presentation of the science of metaphysics that he finds lacking in Baumgarten precisely by borrowing from the latter his scheme for metaphysics. (shrink)

As an important corollary of this interpretation of absolute knowledge, the dissertation concludes with the suggestion that Hegelian philosophy need not be regarded merely as an interesting curiosity in the history of ideas, but rather that it can serve as a vital and potentially rewarding source of fresh theoretical insights. ;Instead, the concrete completeness of speculative philosophy can only consist in the activity of a dynamical, ceaselessly self-examining and self-regulating intellectual community. In one sense, of course, no finite system can (...) ever be complete, insofar as it will inevitably be guilty of errors and misconceptions. Yet at the same time, the infinite System is perfect and complete, insofar as it contains within itself the means whereby its own unavoidable flaws will be discovered, corrected, and "forgiven"--i.e. aufgehoben into vanishing moments of a universal totality. ;In opposition to most traditional interpretations of Hegel, the position is maintained that Hegel himself deliberately faced this problem, and that a true understanding of his proposed solution requires a radical Aufhebung of the concept of cognition as such. Relying primarily on the penultimate chapters of the Phenomenology of Spirit, the dissertation argues that absolute knowledge can neither be a finalized system of fully explicit content, nor an endless movement toward such an ideal state. ;This dissertation undertakes a critical examination of one central problem in Hegelian philosophy: viz., whether the final realization of "absolute knowledge" is logically consistent with significant epistemic progress in the system's continuing development. Serious consideration of the concept of systematic completeness, as interpreted on Hegel's terms, uncovers the existence of a profound paradox. On the one hand, if the Truth is the Whole, then the truth of any finite part or aspect of that Whole depends upon its place within the system as a totality. In order to grasp the part and comprehend it correctly, one must already have a systematically ordered knowledge of the universe in its entirety. Yet the methodological open-endedness of dialectical thinking precludes the acceptance of any particular theoretical formulation as final or complete in itself. Hegel interprets the history of philosophy as a progression of successive formulations of the Truth, each of which improves on its predecessors by reconciling their internal contradictions, but no one of which is adequate in itself. Hence, no theoretical world view, including Hegel's own, can rest content within its limits, for the inevitable advance of thought must in the end throw it down. (shrink)

: This essay is a collection of my experiences of and reflections on being pregnant and choosing to place the child for open adoption. The piece was started late in the term of my pregnancy and completed about a week before the birth.

Aggregation shows that virtue-relevant behavior is indeed highly predictable, and that individual differences in global virtues do indeed exist. Aggregation is a key response to the situationist argument against the existence of broad virtues. However, a concern with aggregation is that, because it is an average, the specifics of what are included in that average matter. In particular, if heinous actions could be included in the average, then aggregates cannot provide enough confidence that the holders of high aggregates have not (...) conducted heinous actions and thus cannot provide enough confidence that such people qualify as virtuous. Doris has challenged aggregation with this concern, and no one has responded substantively to this challenge. If Doris’ challenge is in fact correct, then the situationist argument against the existence of broad virtues stands. In the article, we present a full response to this concern. We argue that aggregation does not in fact allow heinous exceptions, because aggregates do indeed predict extreme single behaviors very well. In fact, aggregates do allow confidence that holders of high aggregates do not commit heinous actions. Thus, Doris’ rejection of the aggregation solution does not defeat aggregation, aggregation continues to stand in the defense of global virtues, and the situationist argument does not threaten the existence and predictive power of global virtues. Models of traits that rely on aggregates, such as Whole Trait Theory, may provide useful post-situationist models of virtues. (shrink)

Luke Demaitre's Leprosy in Premodern Medicine: A Malady of the Whole Body is a highly interesting study of the medical history of leprosy and the medical and social perceptions on leprosy that have been around for centuries. Remarkably, it is likely that leprosy will disappear from the face of the Earth in our generation, thanks to the development of a curative treatment and its increasing availability (although the battle has not yet been won completely). Demaitre's book is a very (...) good read not only for its information about leprosy but also for all interested in or affected by the social phenomenon of stigma. In illnesses such as leprosy, HIV/AIDS, epilepsy, and mental disorders such as schizophrenia, the stigma attached to the condition may be worse than the condition itself. (shrink)

A provocative examination of how the great religious traditions can remain relevant in modern times by incorporating scientific truths learned about human nature over the last century A single purpose lies at the heart of all the great religious traditions: awakening to the astonishing reality of the true nature of ourselves and the universe. At the same time, through centuries of cultural accretion and focus on myth and ritual as ends in themselves, this core insight has become obscured. Here, Ken (...) Wilber provides a path for re-envisioning a religion of the future that acknowledges the evolution of humanity in every realm while remaining faithful to that original spiritual vision. For the traditions to attract modern men and women, Wilber asserts, they must incorporate the extraordinary number of scientific truths learned about human nature in just the past hundred years—for example, about the mind and brain, emotions, and the growth of consciousness—that the ancients were simply unaware of and thus were unable to include in their meditative systems. Taking Buddhism as an example, Wilber demonstrates how his comprehensive Integral Approach—which is already being applied to several world religions by some of their adherents—can avert a “cultural disaster of unparalleled proportions”: the utter neglect of the glorious upper reaches of human potential by the materialistic postmodern worldview. Moreover, he shows how we can apply this approach to our own spiritual practice. This, his most sweeping work since Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, is a thrilling call for wholeness, inclusiveness, and unity in the religions of tomorrow. (shrink)

When in May 1930, the Council of Trinity College, Cambridge, had to decide whether to renew Wittgenstein's research grant, it turned to Bertrand Russell for an assessment of the work Wittgenstein had been doing over the past year. His verdict: "The theories contained in this new work . . . are novel, very original and indubitably important. Whether they are true, I do not know. As a logician who likes simplicity, I should like to think that they are not, but (...) from what I have read of them I am quite sure that he ought to have an opportunity to work them out, since, when completed, they may easily prove to constitute a whole new philosophy." "[ Philosophical Remarks ] contains the seeds of Wittgenstein's later philosophy of mind and of mathematics. Principally, he here discusses the role of indispensable in language, criticizing Russell's The Analysis of Mind . He modifies the Tractatus 's picture theory of meaning by stressing that the connection between the proposition and reality is not found in the picture itself. He analyzes generality in and out of mathematics, and the notions of proof and experiment. He formulates a pain/private-language argument and discusses both behaviorism and the verifiability principle. The work is difficult but important, and it belongs in every philosophy collection."--Robert Hoffman, Philosophy "Any serious student of Wittgenstein's work will want to study his Philosophical Remarks as a transitional book between his two great masterpieces. The Remarks is thus indispensible for anyone who seeks a complete understanding of Wittgenstein's philosophy."--Leonard Linsky, American Philosophical Association. (shrink)

This volume is the first ever English translation of Kant's last major work, the so-called Opus Postumum, a work Kant himself described as his 'chef d'oeuvre' and as the keystone of his entire philosophical system. It occupied him for more than the last decade of his life. Begun with the intention of providing a 'transition from the metaphysical foundations of natural science to physics,' Kant's reflections take him far beyond the problem he initially set out to solve. In fact, he (...) reassesses a whole series of fundamental topics of transcendental philosophy: the thing in itself, the nature of space and time, the concept of the self and its agency, the idea of God, and the unity of theoretical and practical reason. Though never completed, the text reaches a logical albeit not fully developed, conclusion. (shrink)

In this article I argue that the Early German Romantics understand the absolute, or being, to be an infinite whole encompassing all the things of the world and all their causal relations. The Romantics argue that we strive endlessly to know this whole but only acquire an expanding, increasingly systematic body of knowledge about finite things, a system of knowledge which can never be completed. We strive to know the whole, the Romantics claim, because we have (...) an original feeling of it that motivates our striving. I then examine two different Romantic accounts of this feeling. The first, given by Novalis, is that feeling gives us a kind of access to the absolute which logically precedes any conceptualisation. I argue that this account is problematic and that a second account, offered by Friedrich Schlegel, is preferable. On this account, we feel the absolute in that we intuit it aesthetically in certain natural phenomena. This form of intuition is partly cognitive and partly non-cognitive, and therefore it motivates us to strive to convert our intuition into full knowledge. (shrink)

The three essays reprinted in this book were first published in 1963 as individual chapters of a psychiatric treatise entitled Psychiatrie der Gegen wart (Psychiatry of the Present Day). The editors, W. H. GRUHLE (Bonn), R. JUNG (Freiburg/Br. ), W. MAYER-GROSS (Birmingham, England), M. MUL LER (Bern, Switzerland), had not planned an encyclopedic presentation; they did not intend to present a "handbook" which would be as complete as possible in details and bibliographic reference. Their intention was to "raze the walls" (...) separating Continental and Anglo-Saxon psychiatries and to offer a synopsis of developments in psychiatry during the last decades on an international basis. The editors requested, therefore, cooperation of scholars from many foreign countries, large and small, on both sides of the Atlantic. A section entitled "Borderlands of Psychiatry", in which MARGARET MEAD (New York) discusses the relation of "Psychiatry and Ethnology", HANS HEIMAN (Bern), the relation of "Religion und Psychiatrie", and ROBERT VOLMER (Paris), "Art et Psychiatrie", is a good illustration of the trilingual character of the whole work. Two of the editors, GRUHLE and MAYER-GROSS, died before the publi cation had been completed. In a kind of posthumous eulogy, Professor JUNG and Professor MULLER praised the initiative and accomplishments of MAYER-GROSS, "who during the last five years of his life had given a great deal of his time to this work. He had set his mind on a synthesis of German and Anglo-Saxon psychiatry. (shrink)

Independent on Sunday October 2nd One of the country's lead­ing philosophical counsellers, and chairman of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP), Tim LeBon, said it typically took around six 50 ­minute sessions for a client to move from confusion to resolution. Mr LeBon, who has 'published a book on the subject, Wise Therapy, said philoso­phy was perfectly suited to this type of therapy, dealing as it does with timeless human issues such as love, purpose, happiness and emo­tional challenges. `Wise (...) Therapy, is part of a series aimed at promoting an integrative attitude as its ethos. Among all the many perspectives of psychotherapists and counselors, philosophy needs to take its place and needs to find its voice. Tim LeBon has provided an effective means by which counselors can bring philosophy into their work with clients' - APPA journal `Tim Le Bon's Wise Therapy is a comprehensible and well argued book dealing with the practical therapeutic applications of philosophical research that may well be of interest to philosophers but -- as the author himself intends -- will be of most obvious benefit to therapists and counselors, both by informing their dialogue with clients in new ways and by helping them become more informed about ways to resolve the ethical dilemmas arising within the context of their own work' - Metapsychology `A fascinating workshop for therapists and clients, backed up a thorough degree if philosophical acuity' - Journal of the Society for Existential Analysis `I strongly recommend the book for philosophers as well as practitioners, teachers, students and supervisors in counselling and psychotherapy' - Self and Society `Provides some additional and valuable arrows for the therapist's quiver' - Irvin Yalom, author of Love's Executioner `Like Aristotle, Tim LeBon examines what is said and extracts what is best from it…. There are many fascinating exercises designed to bring out and enlighten the client's values, conception of the good life, well-being, happiness, pleasure, and the proper place of reason in life…. Wise Therapy is well written and engaging. The case histories are illuminating examples of therapeutic techniques at work, the thought experiments are well designed, and the philosophical position adapted from the internal debates of the philosophers is level headed…. I recommend it highly to philosophers with an interest in counselling, and psychological counsellors with an interest in philosophy' - Jeff Mason, The Philosophers' Magazine `Tim LeBon has… authored a text which should become a staple on the philosophical counsellor's bookshelf…. Wise Therapy is a concise, well-written book…. His ability to relate philosophical concepts to counselling concerns is admirable and attests to the skill and knowledge he possesses as a working counsellor. But, by far the most important part of Tim LeBon's book to PC is the last chapter, "The Counsellor's Philosophical Toolbox"' - Craig Munns in The Examined Life ` Tim LeBon has done a good job of offering practical approaches to some of the most important and vexing issues that arise in counselling…. Tim LeBon's book contains helpful suggestions, practical information, and useful examples, and would make a good addition to the library of any counsellors willing to allow philosophy to turn mere client sessions into wise therapy' - Peter Raabe, Practical Philosophy Wise Therapy is an original and practical guide to how philosophy can benefit counselling and psychotherapy. Tim LeBon argues that therapy, informed by philosophy, can help clients make better decision and achieve emotional wisdom. He uses philosophical approaches to explore issues of right and wrong, the emotions and reasons, well-being and the meaning of life, and develops a 'counsellor's toolbox' of techniques that can help practitioners apply the wisdom of philosophy to good therapeutic practice. For counsellors who may find philosophical approaches to therapy useful, this work addresses key philosophical topics - the emotions, free will, the meaning of life and ethics. It is jargon-free where possible and assumes no previous philosophical training. From The Independent, 16th November 2004 Plato is my agony aunt It was the end of a love affair that broke her heart. Could the wisdom of the great philosophers show her how to be happy again? Claire Smith tries a novel form of therapy "The unexamined life is not worth living," Socrates said. Nor is the life you're left with after your boyfriend has left you for another woman - at least, that's how it felt in October last year when mine broke rank and went off with an art student from Cleveland, Ohio. We were over there for the opening of his new art exhibition. He'd flown over four days before me and had met her at a party. Supposedly, they "connected". The five months that followed were a roller-coaster of confusion, vitriol and despair. I knew there'd been problems in our relationship. We saw the world very differently; he delighted in the charm of the ordinary, I wanted maximum divinity. He walked; I galloped. He drank tea; I loathed the stuff. But, along the banks of the Thames, we'd made a promise to always stick together. Our love was something unique: "transcendental", I called it. And besides, we recycled. Surely a commitment to save the world would save our relationship? Alas, no. So there I was, a woman scorned. Hell truly hath no greater fury. And what made it worse was that I still believed in our transcendental love. If I wanted to change the way I was feeling, I needed to alter the way I was thinking. But how? A few bottles of wine and a sharp blow to the head might have done the trick. Fortunately, there's an older, more trusted way of turning your head on its head that counsellors are starting to use: philosophy. The idea of employing Plato as an agony aunt was begun in 1981 by the German philosopher Gerd Achenbach. Although philosophy spends a lot of its time asking real-life questions that affect real-life people - What is happiness? And is it always wrong to lie? - most of the debate goes on in ivory towers. What Achenbach and subsequent philosophers including Tim LeBon, the chairman of the UK's Society for Philosophy in Practice, wanted to do was "give practical application" to this gigantic library of great thoughts. So how does it work? Like most types of therapy, you sign up for a set of sessions. "Two would give you a new perspective on one issue; six would help you to make a major life-decision, like a career change; with 12 you can start to rethink your entire life philosophy," explains LeBon. Each session lasts 50 minutes and costs £50 - and, no, you don't have to have any previous knowledge of philosophy. "If you think of Friends, it would suit Ross and Chandler more than Joey," LeBon says. "It's for anyone who wants to make their emotions more intelligent. Or for those who have tried other kinds of therapy, and want something more cerebral." The first session begins with the patient venting off about whatever's troubling them. The rant over, the counsellor then picks out some key concepts that are crucial to the problem - in the case of heartbreak, it is love and happiness that come hurtling to the fore - and then gets the patient to define what they mean. So, what is love? What is happiness? To kick-start the patient's thinking, LeBon describes what a great philosopher had to say about it. In my case, he tells me what Plato wrote about love in his Symposium: that to stop man fighting the gods, Zeus decided to cut each human in two, so they would lose their strength. "This, then, is the source of our desire to love each other," Plato said. "Each of us is a 'matching half' of a human whole, because each was sliced like a flatfish, two out of one, and each of us is always seeking the half that matches him." This method of probing what we might think are "obvious" ideas, such as love and happiness, was devised by Socrates in the squares of Athens. "The only I thing I know is that I know nothing at all," he boasted. What Socrates showed was that although many of the thinkers of his time thought they knew what justice, happiness and goodness meant, their understanding was tied in to their personal agenda and world view, and, what's more, when pushed, their ideas often contradicted themselves. A bit like me on love. Whereas part of my understanding of love was something that gave life meaning, made it worth living and bound us together, I also believed that true love was "transcendental": that it was out of this world, and it didn't matter if the two people who loved each other couldn't get along in the day-to-day. Love was bigger than the mundane. But when it came to the next stage of the therapy, critical thinking - "to check out whether your assumptions stand up to examination" - I walked head first into a contradiction. If I think love's purpose is to make life worth living, but then say it's irrelevant to daily life, surely my two ideas of love are not compatible? As the cogs in my brain start to creak into motion, I feel myself taking a step back from my predicament: thinking about how I've been thinking. This idea I had of transcendental love might have started off as a romantic dream. But when the relationship stopped working, and I found myself feeling trapped and frustrated, I used it to justify the mechanics of a relationship that just didn't work in the daily grind. I used it to lie to myself. In the final stage, LeBon gets me to start thinking about how to go forward. "You can't change what has happened," he says. "You can't change that he's left you, or how you behaved in the relationship. So, as the Stoics did, let's work on controlling the controllables: the things that you can change." To work out what can be changed, he gets me to try out a thought experiment, a method often used in philosophy to imagine other worlds where people can have different codes of behaviour. Thought experiments shatter your preconceived ideas of how the world should be and let your imagination run wild to how the world could be. "I find Viktor Frankl very useful here, the Austrian psychiatrist and concentration-camp survivor who actually believed that everything in life happens for a purpose," LeBon says. "Suppose this break-up did happen for a reason that will work to your benefit," he suggests. "What might that be? The answer might be that you can now focus on something important that was denied in the relationship. Or - the Hollywood version - so you'll meet someone who is really right for you." Temporarily freed of any sense of responsibility for the relationship that was, and its sorry demise, the list came fast. I could now travel more; he didn't like me travelling on my own, but too often he didn't want to go anywhere, preferring to stay in his studio and make art. I'd love to meet someone with a similar sense of adventure to mine. For the first time in two years, I was being honest with myself about what I really wanted - listening to those voices that we all have inside our heads, and too often try to muzzle. So did philosophy save me? Well, I'm now dating a travel writer I have to run to keep up with. I still haven't got over the fact that my replacement came from Cleveland, Ohio. But I guess I never will. Tim LeBon can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] A FEW WORDS FROM THE WISE Compiled by Ed Caesar · "At the touch of love, everyone becomes a poet" - Plato · "There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness" - Friedrich Nietzsche · "That man shall live as his own master and in happiness who can say each day 'I have lived'" - Horace · "The good of man is the active exercise of his soul's faculties in conformity with excellence or virtue... Moreover this activity must occupy a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make spring, nor does one fine day; and similarly one day or a brief period of happiness does not make a man supremely blessed and happy" - Aristotle · "There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than friendship" - Thomas Aquinas · "Whatever you do... love those who love you" - Voltaire · "Happiness is not an ideal of reason but of imagination" - Immanuel Kant · "Happiness is a state of which you are unconscious. The moment you are aware that you are happy, you cease to be happy" - Jiddu Krishnamurti · "Love is an ideal thing. Marriage is a real thing" - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe I shrink, therefore I am Therapy has many answers, but some questions require the help of a philosopher, says Clint Witchalls Sunday November 21, 2004 The Observer Danny had worked in the City of London for 10 years. As a research analyst, stockbroker and fund manager, he'd made a lot of valuable contacts, earnt a lot of cash, and learnt some important business skills. However, as he approached his mid-thirties, he no longer felt good about himself or what he did for a living, and he found his colleagues cold and unfriendly. A chronic illness made him realise his mortality, and he began to reassess his priorities. Danny had been struggling with his career conundrum for nearly five years when he met David Arnaud, a philosophical counsellor. After a few soul-searching sessions, Danny arrived at a decision. Today, he teaches economics to sixth-formers, and he loves it. 'It's a much better lifestyle,' he says. Many people are turning to philosophical counsellors to get answers to questions such as: 'How do I make sense of myself?' 'What is important to me?' 'Where am I going?' These are perhaps not the sort of questions that require psychiatric intervention, but Arnaud, who recently completed the first empirical study of philosophical counselling in the UK, has found that within just five sessions the majority of clients, with important decisions to make, tend to move from a state of concern and confusion to a resolution. Modern philosophical counselling can be traced back to 1981, when the philosopher Gerd Achenbach opened the first practice near Cologne. Achenbach referred to the new discipline as 'therapy for the sane.' Today, there are hundreds of philosophical counsellors around the world, with the movement particularly strong in the US, Britain and the Netherlands. 'The dilemmas people face aren't always primarily psychological,' says Alex Howard, a philosophical counsellor from Newcastle. 'If people face problems that are social or economic, it doesn't make sense to define their problems in purely psychological terms.' Tim LeBon, a founder member of the Society for Philosophy in Practice (SPP) and author of Wise Therapy, adds: 'We are faced with far more life choices than our grandparents, yet have far fewer resources to deal with them. Our grandparents may have gone to a priest or to other family members for advice; most people don't trust these solutions any more and so want to make their own well-informed, well thought-out choices. Philosophical counselling can help these people - people in mid-life crises who are wondering how to make the most of the rest of their life. People who want to take stock of their values.' Where stressed executives might once have been prescribed a course of tranquillisers or antidepressants, they can now get a dose of Bertrand Russell instead: 'Success is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it.' While some philosophical counsellors do recommend books for their clients to read, most sessions are about helping the client identify faulty thoughts. For example, a briefing in Aristotelian logic might show a client why their beliefs are erroneous. The person might infer that they're a screw-up because they've screwed up. The counsellor could point out that they're making an error called 'fallacy of composition' - that is, what's true of the part isn't necessarily true of the whole. In philosophical counselling, problems aren't pathologised as they are by the psychiatric profession, and the dialogue between client and counsellor is more like a meeting of equals, compared to many therapies where the client is treated like a patient and seen as someone who is, in some way, inadequate. 'Anybody can benefit from philosophical counselling,' says Howard. 'But it does require someone who is willing to take stock.' Lou Marinoff, author of international bestseller Plato Not Prozac! has done much to promote philosophical counselling. 'Some people who have stabilised their neurochemistry and validated their emotions now wish to examine or re-examine the criteria of their beliefs, the principles of their conduct, or the meaning of their lives,' he says. 'With whom shall they do this? Psychologists and psychiatrists can shed light on such issues - as can rabbis, priests, imams and gurus. Philosophers are now rejoining the ranks of helpers.' LeBon believes certain therapies (such as cognitive behavioural therapy) don't go far enough in helping their clients. 'For instance, if you are anxious about your relationship, a cognitive therapist would try to dispute your catastrophising and jump to conclusions to make you feel less anxious,' says LeBon. 'A philosophical counsellor would do this, but would also look for existential meaning in your anxiety - perhaps you really don't want to be in the relationship and that is what your anxiety is telling you.' LeBon also gives short shrift to psychoanalysts. 'There's very little evidence for the Freudian unconscious, and it's time to move on to more intellectually satisfying and helpful therapies,' he says. However, Alain de Botton, the man who popularised philosophy as self-help, isn't ready to bury psychologists and their ilk just yet. 'The truth is that psychoanalysis grew out of philosophy - it's not some completely new idea, and in fact, done properly, psychoanalysis is philosophical anyway. It may even be dangerous to the mental health of some people to suggest a philosopher rather than a properly trained analyst. The knowledge of analysts when it comes to many emotional problems is now much greater than that of most philosophers.' Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004. (shrink)