Until less than a century ago, the two prevailing views of dreams as well as of souls were that they are inconsequential or of divine origin. In either case it was assumed that they cannot be objects of rational inquiry. Similar views still prevail regarding mystical experiences and mysticism in general. Modern Western opinion, whether friendly or hostile, holds that the mystical falls squarely within the domain of the irrational. Mr. Staal argues that mysticism can be studied rationally, and that (...) without such study no theory of mind is complete. He exposes the grounds for the belief that mysticism cannot be studied, and shows them to be prejudices issuing from a particular historical development. While his contention has unflattering implications for the contemporary study of the humanities in general, it reveals in particular that existing academic approaches to the study of mysticism, even those that appear sound, are in fact inadequate. This conclusion applies to a variety of dogmatic inquiries and, as becomes clear in these pages, to philological, historical, phenomenological, sociological, physiological, and psychological ones as well. The illustrations in _Exploring Mysticism_ are drawn mainly from Indian forms of mysticism such as Yoga, supplemented with Buddhist, Taoist, Muslim and Christian examples. (shrink)

A new axiom is proposed, the Ground Axiom, asserting that the universe is not a nontrivial set forcing extension of any inner model. The Ground Axiom is first-order expressible, and any model of ZFC has a class forcing extension which satisfies it. The Ground Axiom is independent of many well-known set-theoretic assertions including the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis, the assertion V=HOD that every set is ordinal definable, and the existence of measurable and supercompact cardinals. The related Bedrock Axiom, asserting that the (...) universe is a set forcing extension of a model satisfying the Ground Axiom, is also first-order expressible, and its negation is consistent. (shrink)

Nowadays creativity is fashionable. Writers on management and organisation, for example, mention creativity as vital to entrepreneurship.1 They consider it to be as important as land, labour and capital, which form the traditional factors of production.2 And related terms such as ‘genius’ are in use again. An example of this is the widely read book Built to Last.3 Moreover, creativity and rationality are presented as alternatives. To be creative, managers are urged to put rationality aside: ‘being reasonable does not win (...) the day’ they are assured4 and ‘all progress depends on the unreasonable man’.5 This view that rationality and creativity oppose each other is, however, unsatisfactory involving, as it does, a form of epistemological schizophrenia. One excludes the other only if we adopt a simplistic concept of rationality and an esoteric view of creativity. This article, therefore, sets out to clarify the relationship between the concepts of creativity and rationality. Three ideal-type concepts of rationality will be introduced (algorithmic, judgemental, reflective) and their tolerance of novelty discussed. Then two modes of creativity (explorative and transcendentive) are distinguished, followed by a discussion of whether rationality can enhance creativity. I conclude by reviewing some factors involved in creativity, such as tolerance for ambiguity, playfulness and attentiveness, and with a short discussion of the relationship of creativity to power.6. (shrink)

Although Taylor’s scientific management is often severely criticised, his publications are seldom the subject of scrutinised, philosophical, reading. The latter is the aim of the present text. Attention is given to the idea of science, the role of extra-scientific values, the relationship of theory and practice, the societal meaning of management, presenting demarcations, presuppositions and unclarities. The conclusion notes several topics, implied by Taylor’s views and still worth reflecting upon. One example is efficiency as a seemingly context-independent concept.

This collection of articles and review essays, including many hard to find pieces, comprises the most important and fundamental studies of Indian logic and linguistics ever undertaken. Frits Staal is concerned with four basic questions: Are there universals of logic that transcend culture and time? Are there universals of language and linguistics? What is the nature of Indian logic? And what is the nature of Indian linguistics? By addressing these questions, Staal demonstrates that, contrary to the general assumption among (...) Western philosophers, the classical philosophers of India were rationalists, attentive to arguments. They were in this respect unlike contemporary Western thinkers inspired by existentialism or hermeneutics, and like the ancient Chinese, Greeks, and many medieval European schoolmen, only--as Staal says--more so. Universals establishes that Asia's contributions are not only compatible with what has been produced in the West, but a necessary ingredient and an essential component of any future human science. (shrink)

Weights of evidence and logistic regression are two loglinear methods for mineral potential mapping. Both models are limited by their respective basic assumptions in application. Ideally, WofE indicator patterns have the property of conditional independence with respect to the point pattern of mineral deposits to be predicted; in LR, there supposedly are no interactions between the point pattern and two or more of the indicator patterns. If the CI assumption is satisfied, estimated LR coefficients become approximately equal to WofE contrasts (...) and the two methods produce similar results; additionally, bias then is avoided in that the sum of all estimated posterior probabilities becomes approximately equal to the number of observed discrete events. WofE allows construction of input layers that have missing data as a separate category in addition to known presence-absence type input, while logistic regression as such is not capable of handling missing data. As an improved WofE model based on LR, modified weights of evidence inherit the advantages of both LR and WofE, i.e., eliminates bias due to lack of CI and can handle missing data as well. Pixel or unit area input for MWofE consists of positive and negative weights for presence and absence of a pattern plus zeros for missing data. MWofE first is illustrated by application to simple examples. Next, it is applied to a study area with 20 known gold occurrences in southwestern Nova Scotia in relation to four input layers based on geological and lake geochemical data. Assuming that geochemical data were missing for the northern part of the study area, MWofE, like WofE but unlike LR, provides posterior probabilities for the entire area. (shrink)

It might seem as if the Weltbild emanating from Aeschylus's plays in general—and the Oresteia in particular, as that shall be my main focus in what follows—exhibits an almost dreamlike incoherence. Building on the works of James J. Helm, I argue that, contrary to this reading, it is fruitful and plausible to read the trilogy as expounding a coherent moral outlook.

Racial animosities are being mobilized today by right-wing voices in the US media. Resurgent racism requires intelligent analysis and societal intervention. This essay discusses how the classic, five-volume series Studies in Prejudice, undertaken by Max Horkheimer and others in the Frankfurt School, including Herbert Marcuse, furnishes a critical foundation. The mobilization of bias with regard to historical anti-Semitic abuses was seen to depend in definite ways upon an authoritarian type of personality structure. Herbert Marcuse strengthened the analysis by emphasizing that (...) prejudice formation must be understood as well within concrete socioeconomic conflicts and the requirements of repressive political forces. (shrink)

Thirty-four contributors address a variety of topics, from ancestral worship to transsexual masquerades, from metrical verse in the psalms to temples, poetic expression and linguistic performances. They bespeak the unique characteristics of Staal and his ability to break down barriers between academic disciplines. With contributors from around the world, this is a tribute to the forty years of scholarly work Frits Staal has invested in the foundation of a genuinely human science.

In his posthumously published Living Up to Death Paul Ricoeur left an impressive testimony on what it means to live at a high old age with death approaching. In this article I present him as a teacher who reminds us of valuable lessons taught by patients in palliative care and their caretakers who accompany them on their way to death, and also as a guide in our search for a modern ars moriendi, after—what many at least experience as—the breakdown of (...) traditional religious belief in a personal afterlife. These lessons can be summarized in the following theses. ‘Living up to death, one cannot experience one’s own death. Therefore, never consider someone dying as moribund’. ‘Though everybody is alone in dying, nobody should die alone.’ ‘The preparation for death is an affirmation of life’. ‘Life experienced as a gift can be given up’. The plausibility of the last thesis, however, may go beyond the confines of austere philosophical thinking. (shrink)

A timely addition to Henry Giroux's Critical Interventions series, Ecology and Revolution is grounded in the Frankfurt School critical theory of Herbert Marcuse. Its task is to understand the economic architecture of wealth extraction that undergirds today's intensifying inequalities of class, race, and gender, within a revolutionary ecological frame. Relying on newly discovered texts from the Frankfurt Marcuse Archive, this book builds theory and practice for an alternate world system. Ecology and radical political economy, as critical forms of systems analysis, (...) show that an alternative world system is essential - both possible and feasible - despite political forces against it. Our rights to a commonwealth economy, politics, and culture reside in our commonworks as we express ourselves as artisans of the common good. It is in this context, that Charles Reitz develops a GreenCommonWealth Counter-Offensive, a strategy for revolutionary ecological liberation with core features of racial equality, women's equality, liberation of labor, restoration of nature, leisure, abundance, and peace. (shrink)

I argue that given a plausible reading of John Williams’s Stoner (2012 [1965]) the novel throws light on the demands and costs of pursuing a strategy for self-realisation along Platonic lines which seeks unification through the adoption of a single exclusive end in a manner that emulates the Socratic maieutic teacher. The novel does not explicitly argue either for or against such a strategy but rather vividly depicts its difficulties, appeal, and limitations, thus leaving the ultimate evaluation up to the (...) reader. (shrink)

Polemisch essay tegen de strekking van het werk "Over zin en onzin in filosofie, religie en wetenschap" door Frits Staal.

This paper by Axel Honeth, translated by Charles Reitz, presents the distinctive qualities of Herbert Marcuse’s approach to critical theorizing. Marcuse’s early life in the German capital city of Berlin had lasting and contrasting impacts upon his political perspective and social activism when compared to the more provincial Frankfurt experiences of Horkheimer and Adorno. Marcuse was also more upbeat, resistant to defeatism, and conventionally thorough—in other words, less fragmentary or experimental—in his academic writing. I also offer a detailed description of (...) the deep intellectual affinities linking the work of Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse into a distinguished “school” of critical social thought. (shrink)

We present a class forcing notion, uniformly definable for ordinals η, which forces the ground model to be the ηth inner mantle of the extension, in which the sequence of inner mantles has length at least η. This answers a conjecture of Fuchs, Hamkins, and Reitz [1] in the positive. We also show that forces the ground model to be the ηth iterated of the extension, where the sequence of iterated s has length at least η. We conclude by showing (...) that the lengths of the sequences of inner mantles and of iterated s can be separated to be any two ordinals you please. (shrink)

We examine the reverse mathematical strength of a variation of Hindman’s Theorem (HT) constructed by essentially combining HT with the Thin Set Theorem to obtain a principle that we call thin-HT. This principle states that every coloring c:N→N has an infinite set S⊆N whose finite sums are thin for c, meaning that there is an i with c(s)≠i for all nonempty sums s of finitely many distinct elements of S. We show that there is a computable instance of thin-HT such (...) that every solution computes ∅′, as is the case with HT, as shown by Blass, Hirst, and Simpson (1987). In analyzing this proof, we deduce that thin-HT implies ACA0 over RCA0+IΣ20. On the other hand, using Rumyantsev and Shen’s computable version of the Lovász Local Lemma, we show that there is a computable instance of the restriction of thin-HT to sums of exactly 2 elements such that any solution has diagonally noncomputable degree relative to ∅′. Hence there is a computable instance of this restriction of thin-HT with no Σ20 solution. (shrink)

Illustrates how Marcuse's theory sheds new light on current debates in both education and society involving issues of multiculturalism, postmodernism, civic education, the "culture wars," critical thinking, and critical literacy.

In this historical contextualization of Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man, I present critical arguments that Marcuse deploys in the US context—especially in light of the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War. I argue that Marcuse’s critical perspective worked to deprovincialize Anglo-American philosophy and to demythologize the extravagantly glorified and sanitized “American Pageant” view of the world that prevailed in the United States at the time and Marcuse’s critical pedagogy thus led to a revitalization and recovery of philosophy in the United (...) States after World War II. (shrink)