On 18–19 May 2018, a symposium was held in the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of Ronald W. Hepburn (1927–2008). The speakers at this event discussed Hepburn’s oeuvre from several perspectives. For this book, the collection of the revised versions of their talks has been supplemented by the papers of other scholars who were unable to attend the symposium itself. Thus this volume contains contributions from (...) eighteen notable scholars of different disciplines, ranging from contemporary aesthetics and art theory through to philosophical approaches to religion, education and social anthropology. It also includes a bibliography of Hepburn’s writings. The essays were first published in two special issues of the Journal of Scottish Thought, vols. 10–11 (2018–2019). -/- Ronald William Hepburn was born in Aberdeen on 16 March 1927. He went to Aberdeen Grammar School, then he graduated with an M.A. in Philosophy (1951) and obtained his doctorate from the University of Aberdeen (1955). His tutor at Aberdeen was Donald MacKinnon (1913– 1994), a Scottish philosopher and theologian, the author of A Study in Ethical Theory (1957) and The Problem of Metaphysics (1974). Hepburn taught as Lecturer at the Department of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen (1956–60), and he was also Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy at New York University (1959–60). He returned from the United States as Professor of Philosophy at Nottingham University. In 1964, he was appointed as a Chair in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and between 1965 and 1968 he was also Stanton Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. From 1975 until his retirement in 1996, he held the Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh. He died in Edinburgh on 23 December 2008. His philosophical interests ranged from theology and the philosophy of religion through moral philosophy and the philosophy of education to art theory and aesthetics. Notably, Hepburn is widely regarded as the founder of modern environmental and everyday aesthetics as a result of the influence of papers in the 1960s which pioneered a new approach to the aesthetics of the natural world. (shrink)

Traditionally, analytic philosophers writing on aesthetics have given short shrift to nature. The last thirty years, however, have seen a steady growth of interest in this area. The essays and books now available cover central philosophical issues concerning the nature of the aesthetic and the existence of norms for aesthetic judgement. They also intersect with important issues in environmental philosophy. More recent contributions have opened up new topics, such as the relationship between natural sound and music, the (...) beauty of animals, and the aesthetics of gardens. Using these materials, it is now easy to include a module on the aesthetics of nature as one part of an introductory course on aesthetics, or even to design an entire upper-level undergraduate or graduate seminar around the topic. Author Recommends: Don Mannison, 'Comments Stimulated by Reinhardt's Remarks: A Prolegomenon to a Human Chauvinistic Aesthetic'. Environmental Philosophy. Eds. Don Mannison, Michael McRobbie, and Richard Routley (Canberra: Australian National University, 1980), 212–16. Readers coming fresh to contemporary debates may find the lack of attention to natural beauty in twentieth-century philosophy somewhat puzzling. This paper, which defends the view that nature cannot be aesthetically appreciated as such, presents this attitude in a particularly pure form. Ronald Hepburn, 'Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty'. British Analytical Philosophy. Eds. Bernard Williams and Alan Montefiore (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 285–310. Reprinted in The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Eds. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). This seminal essay marks the beginning of contemporary discussion of the aesthetics of nature. Many of its ideas and themes continue to reverberate in contemporary debates. Allen Carlson, Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture (London: Routledge, 2000). This volume is a collection of Carlson's influential essays on environmental aesthetics. Chapters 4 and 5, 'Appreciation and the Natural Environment' and 'Nature, Aesthetic Judgment, and Objectivity', set the agenda for much subsequent discussion in the aesthetics of nature. Chapter 6, 'Nature and Positive Aesthetics', develops and defends the controversial idea that nature, unlike art, is always aesthetically good. Arnold Berleant, 'The Aesthetics of Art and Nature'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 228–43. Reprinted in The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Eds. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). In this paper, Berleant presents his influential idea of an 'engaged aesthetics' for nature. Yuriko Saito, 'The Aesthetics of Unscenic Nature'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 101–11. This article develops Saito's idea that ethical considerations play a critical role in the aesthetics of nature, and presents a novel argument for Positive Aesthetics for nature. Malcolm Budd, The Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature: Essays on the Aesthetics of Nature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). This book collects Budd's papers on the aesthetics of nature, which contain important criticisms of Carlson's natural environmental model and the notion of Positive Aesthetics for nature. Noël Carroll, 'On Being Moved by Nature: Between Religion and Natural History'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 244–66. Reprinted in The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Eds. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). This paper argues for the importance of aesthetic appreciation that emphasizes emotional responses to nature. A philosophically sophisticated and influential treatment by a leading aesthetician. Ned Hettinger, 'Allen Carlson's Environmental Aesthetics and Protection of the Environment'. Environmental Ethics 27 (2005): 57–76. In this essay, an environmental philosopher gives careful and thorough consideration to the place of aesthetic considerations in environmental protection, focusing on Carlson's work. John Andrew Fisher, 'What the Hills are Alive With: In Defense of the Sounds of Nature'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 167–79. Reprinted in The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Eds. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). Most discussions of nature aesthetics focus on visual experiences; this essay is the first philosophical study of the aesthetics of natural sounds. A nuanced and original paper. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant. 'Introduction: The Aesthetics of Nature'. The Aesthetics of Natural Environments. Eds. Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004), 11–42. A comprehensive review of the literature, this essay contains the best available bibliography on the subject. Online Materials: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/environmental-aesthetics/ Environmental Aesthetics: Allen Carlson's entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://www.aesthetics-online.org/articles/index.php?articles_id=17 Teaching Environmental Aesthetics: Allen Carlson's article on the American Society for Aesthetics Web site. http://www.uqtr.uquebec.ca/AE/Vol_6/ Volume 6 of AE: Canadian Aesthetics Journal /Revue canadienne d'esthetique: Papers by Thomas Heyd and Ira Newman on Allen Carlson's book Aesthetics and the Environment, along with a response from Carlson. http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=400 Paradoxes and Puzzles: Appreciating Gardens and Urban Nature: An essay by Stephanie Ross in the online journal Contemporary Aesthetics. Sample Syllabus for a three-week module in an undergraduate aesthetics course: This three week module can easily be adapted to fit shorter available class time or reduced reading expectations for students. A lighter two-week module, for instance, would drop the Hepburn reading and do either the Carroll essay or the Saito essay, but not both. Note that all readings for this module are reprinted in Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (eds.), The Aesthetics of Natural Environments (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). Week 1: Introduction Reading: Ronald Hepburn, 'Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty'. British Analytical Philosophy. Eds. Bernard Williams and Alan Montefiore (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 285–310. Discussion of Hepburn's essay will allow the instructor to bring out the distinctive issues and themes of the aesthetics of nature. Week 2: Objectivity or Subjectivity? Readings: Allen Carlson, 'Appreciation and the Natural Environment'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 37 (1979): 267–76. Arnold Berleant, 'The Aesthetics of Art and Nature'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 228–43. This section covers two very different approaches to thinking about the aesthetic appreciation of nature. Consideration of these provides an opportunity for students to reflect on nature's relationship to art, and on the character of aesthetic experience itself. Week 3: Pluralistic Approaches Readings: Yuriko Saito, 'Appreciating Nature on its Own Terms'. Environmental Ethics 20 (1998): 135–49. Noël Carroll, 'On Being Moved by Nature: Between Religion and Natural History'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 244–66. This section considers approaches that are motivated by perceived limitations of the two approaches mentioned above. In discussing these, students will focus on the significance, for the aesthetics of nature, of emotion and also of broader ethical considerations. Sample Syllabus for an upper-level undergraduate or graduate seminar: Books on Syllabus: Glenn Parsons, Aesthetics and Nature [AN] (London: Continuum Press, forthcoming November 2008). Allen Carlson, Aesthetics and the Environment: The Appreciation of Nature, Art and Architecture [AE] (London: Routledge, 2000). Allen Carlson and Arnold Berleant (eds.), The Aesthetics of Natural Environments [ANE] (Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2004). Week 1: Introduction Parsons, AN, ch. 1. Allen Carlson, 'Environmental Aesthetics'. The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics. Eds. Berys Gaut and Dominic Lopes (London: Routledge, 2001), 423–36. Don Mannison, 'Comments Stimulated by Reinhardt's Remarks: A Prolegomenon to a Human Chauvinistic Aesthetic'. Environmental Philosophy. Eds. Don Mannison, Michael McRobbie, and Richard Routley (Canberra: Australian National University, 1980), 212–16. Ronald Hepburn, 'Contemporary Aesthetics and the Neglect of Natural Beauty'. British Analytical Philosophy. Eds. Bernard Williams and Alan Montefiore (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1966), 285–310. Reprinted in ANE. Week 2: Imagination Parsons, AN, ch. 2. Thomas Heyd, 'Aesthetic Appreciation and the Many Stories About Nature'. British Journal of Aesthetics 41 (2001): 125–37. Reprinted in ANE. Emily Brady, 'Imagination and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 139–47. Reprinted in ANE. Marcia Eaton, 'Fact and Fiction in the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 149–56. Reprinted in ANE. Week 3: Formalism Parsons, AN, ch. 3. Carlson, 'Formal Qualities and the Natural Environment', AE, ch. 3. Allen Carlson, 'On the Possibility of Quantifying Scenic Beauty'. Landscape Planning 4 (1977): 131–72. Ira Newman, 'Reflections on Allen Carlson's Aesthetics and the Environment'. AE: Canadian Aesthetics Journal /Revue canadienne d'esthetique 6 (2001) http://www.uqtr.uquebec.ca/AE/Vol_6/Carlson/newman.html>. Nick Zangwill, 'Formal Natural Beauty'. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 21 (2001): 209–24. Week 4: Science and Nature Aesthetics Parsons, AN, ch. 4. Aldo Leopold, 'Country'. A Sand County Almanac, with Essays on Conservation from Round River (New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1966), 177–80. Carlson, 'Appreciation and the Natural Environment', AE, ch. 4. Carlson, 'Nature, Aesthetic Judgment, and Objectivity', AE, ch. 5. Glenn Parsons, 'The Aesthetics of Nature'. Philosophy Compass 2 (2007): 358–72. Week 5: Positive Aesthetics Carlson, 'Nature and Positive Aesthetics', AE, ch. 6. Eugene Hargrove, Foundations of Environmental Ethics (Denton, TX: Environmental Ethics Books, 1996), ch. 6. Yuriko Saito, 'The Aesthetics of Unscenic Nature'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 101–11. Malcolm Budd, 'The Aesthetics of Nature'. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 100 (2000): 137–57. Glenn Parsons, 'Nature Appreciation, Science and Positive Aesthetics'. British Journal of Aesthetics 42 (2002): 279–95. Week 6: Animals Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Ed. James T. Boulton (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968 [1757]), Pt. III, sec. VI. Holmes Rolston III, 'Beauty and the Beast: Aesthetic Experience of Wildlife'. Valuing Wildlife: Economic and Social Perspectives. Eds. Daniel J. Decker and Gary R. Goff (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1987), 187–96. Glenn Parsons, 'The Aesthetic Value of Animals'. Environmental Ethics 27 (2007): 151–69. Week 7: Pluralism Parsons, AN, ch. 5. Noël Carroll, 'On Being Moved by Nature: Between Religion and Natural History'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 244–66. Reprinted in ANE. Yuriko Saito, 'Appreciating Nature on its Own Terms'. Environmental Ethics 20 (1998): 135–49. Reprinted in ANE. Ronald Hepburn, 'Nature Humanized: Nature Respected'. Environmental Values 7 (1998): 267–79. Ronald Hepburn, 'Trivial and Serious in Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 65–80. Glenn Parsons and Allen Carlson, 'New Formalism and the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 62 (2004): 363–76. Week 8: Engagement Parsons, AN, ch. 6. Arnold Berleant, 'The Aesthetics of Art and Nature'. Landscape, Natural Beauty and the Arts. Eds. Salim Kemal and Ivan Gaskell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 228–43. Reprinted in ANE. Cheryl Foster, 'The Narrative and the Ambient in Environmental Aesthetics'. Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 56 (1998): 127–37. Reprinted in ANE. Allen Carlson, 'Aesthetics and Engagement'. British Journal of Aesthetics 33 (1993): 220–27. Week 9: The Sublime Immanuel Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgment. Trans. P. Guyer and E. Matthews (Cambridge University Press, 2000 [1790]). Excerpts from sections 23–9. Edmund Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. Ed. James T. Boulton (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1968 [1757]). Excerpts from Pt. II, sections 1–8. Ronald Hepburn, 'The Concept of the Sublime: Has it any Relevance for Philosophy Today?'. Dialectics and Humanism 15 (1988): 137–55. Stan Godlovitch, 'Icebreakers: Environmentalism and Natural Aesthetics'. Journal of Applied Philosophy 11 (1994): 15–30. Reprinted in ANE. Malcolm Budd, 'Delight in the Natural World: Kant on the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature. Part I: The Sublime in Nature'. British Journal of Aesthetics 38 (1998): 233–50. Week 10: Aesthetic Preservation Parsons, AN, ch. 7. Janna Thompson, 'Aesthetics and the Value of Nature'. Environmental Ethics 17 (1995): 291–305. Holmes Rolston III, 'From Beauty to Duty: Aesthetics of Nature and Environmental Ethics'. Environment and the Arts: Perspectives on Environmental Aesthetics. Ed. Arnold Berleant (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002), 127–41. Ned Hettinger, 'Allen Carlson's Environmental Aesthetics and Protection of the Environment'. Environmental Ethics 27 (2005): 57–76. Keekok Lee, 'Beauty for Ever?'. Environmental Values 4 (1995): 213–25. Week 11: Gardens Parsons, AN, ch. 8. Mara Miller, The Garden as an Art (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1993), ch. 1. Mara Miller, 'Gardens as Works of Art: The Problem of Uniqueness'. British Journal of Aesthetics 26 (1986): 252–6. Stephanie Ross, What Gardens Mean (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1998), chs. 1, 7. Tom Leddy, 'Gardens in an Expanded Field'. British Journal of Aesthetics 28 (1988): 327–40. David Cooper, 'In Praise of Gardens'. British Journal of Aesthetics 43 (2003): 101–13. Week 12: Art in Nature Parsons, AN, ch. 9. Carlson, 'Is Environmental Art an Aesthetic Affront to Nature?', AE, ch. 10. Sheila Lintott, 'Ethically Evaluating Land Art: Is It Worth It?'. Ethics, Place & Environment 10 (2007): 263–77. Emily Brady, 'Aesthetic Regard for Nature in Environmental and Land Art'. Ethics, Place & Environment 10 (2007): 287–300. Focus Questions1. Are there any important differences between the aesthetic appreciation of art and the aesthetic appreciation of nature? If so, what are they?2. Is preserving nature for its aesthetic value a coherent idea?3. What is the ugliest natural thing or place you can think of? How might proponents of Positive Aesthetics for nature deal with your example?4. Does the concept of the sublime have any significance for our contemporary experience of nature? If it does, what relation does it bear to our aesthetic appreciation of nature?5. Watch Rivers and Tides (2001), the documentary film about the British environmental artist Andy Goldsworthy. Ethically speaking, how do you think we ought to regard his art-making? (shrink)

Nature has been a recurrent theme in arts and philosophy for several decades. Nature is experienced in variety of contexts; artists have been enacting with nature as phenomena, material, space, environment, or simply as a place or an idea. In philosophy this is evidenced by an increasing interest in environmental ethics and aesthetics, as well as in philosophy of biology and metaphysics. In the 1960s, new affinities between art and nature developed and became among the (...) characteristics of contemporary art. Environmental approaches became essential and artists were engaging the public closely with social and physical spaces. Generating processes rather than creating objects, both in nature as well as in the urban landscape, artists reintroduced art into nature and nature into art and opened up new ways of engaging environment, creating non-permanent artworks which produced a new understanding of creativity that following generations are still exploring. The distinction between art and nature became increasingly blurred at the same time as the ancient dichotomy of culture and nature became controversial. With the rise of environmental ethics in the 1970s, philosophers began discussing nature as an independent source of moral values, rather than a mere stage for moral life deriving its value from relations among humans. It has both been suggested that nature might have independent moral value, much like persons are thought to have such value, or that nature can be an active participant in a morally virtuous life. Both aesthetics of nature and environmental ethics have become established fields in contemporary philosophy with their distinct bibliography to draw on. But even if distinct, and properly so, these two new fields might be more closely related than often suggested. The aim of this collection is to bring together different trends in thinking about nature and value that are distinctive of these changing moods in art and philosophy and to juxtapose them with some other ways of thinking about these issues, such as economics and religion. The authors include Holmes Rolston III, Antje von Graevenitz, Roger Pouivet, Eric Palazzo and Emily Brady. The essays and artworks in this volume derive from the conference Nature in the Kingdom of Ends held in Selfoss, Iceland, on June 11th and 12th 2005. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 12.4 (2005) 307-310 [Access article in PDF] Aesthetics, Criticism, and Psychotherapy John Z. Sadler Keywords aesthetics, psychiatry, psychotherapy, Sibley In his wide-ranging survey of how Kantian aesthetic theory is implicated in psychothera-py, John Callender has raised at least a dozen potentially profound and rewarding possibilities in applying aesthetic theory to psychiatry and psychotherapy. Although the idea of marrying aesthetic theory to psychiatry and (...) psychotherapy is not new, Callender's direction of the merger is distinctively novel. The mid-twentieth century had a distinct literature in applying psychoanalytic and psychiatric theory to aesthetic experience, summarized by the sizable bibliography by Norman Kiell, Psychiatry and Psychology in the Visual Arts and Aesthetics: A Bibliography (1965). This line of interdisciplinary work influenced a later generation of art historians and literary theorists in applying (particularly) psychoanalytic theory to interpretation and appreciation of the arts, contributions that are still being developed today, along with the emergence of complementary viewpoints from cognitive neuroscience (Peretz and Zatorre 2003; Rose 2004; Zeki 1999). Callender's project, however, is quite the converse—he wishes to show how philosophical aesthetics can contribute to psychiatry and clinical psychology. Exploring the aesthetics of psychiatry is the innovation.Before focusing my own comments on a few of Callender's points, I wish to call attention to the substantive questions he has directly raised or implied by his discussions. These questions are worthy of further development in this and other journals, and I hope that Callender will succeed in engaging the minds of his readers and inspire them to work in this exciting area in the philosophy of psychiatry. In his elegant review of Kant's key theoretical points of aesthetics, his discussion provokes us to consider the kinds of evaluations that patients make of themselves (moral? aesthetic? others?), as well as the kinds of evaluations clinicians make in their judgments of psychopathology. Evolutionists may wonder about the adaptive significance of aesthetic capacities (e.g., derivatives of grooming? mating displays?). In presenting Kant's notion of "disinterestedness" or contemplative judgment, readers may wonder about overlap with notions of therapist neutrality and unconditional positive regard. Should therapist relationships with patients be dominated by a similar aesthetic sensibility? What does the aesthetic posture have to do with the therapist posture?Importantly, Callender notes the connections and ambiguities between moral values and aesthetic values. This is borne out in his later discussions of clinical case material (considered again below). He focuses primarily on the duplication of aesthetic and moral values in the same terms of praise (honesty, integrity, originality), but there is no question that aesthetic experiences are had by viewers of art exhibiting perverse or depraved [End Page 307] imagery (consider, for instance, Francis Bacon's "3 Screaming Popes" or, even more extremely, the grotesque staged photographs of Joel-Peter Witkin). The implication here is that (as an example) to understand the aesthetics of sadomasochistic art may help us to understand the psychology of sadomasochistic people.By the time he introduces his case material, Callender has raised the issue of intersubjectivity in aesthetic experience, an experience that may be devoid of discursive cognitive content but may be profound with emotional content, thus challenging tenets of cognitive psychology and psychotherapy. His discussion of cases reflecting elements of Kant's components of aesthetic judgment point toward new ways of understanding psychopathology as disturbances in aesthetic self-appraisal.I would like to return to the problem of moral and aesthetic judgments in psychotherapy and in psychopathology. Dr. Callender presents three cases—a woman who has been traumatized by multiple instances of sexual abuse, a young girl with postpartum depression with fears of losing her child because of bad mothering, and a third patient with anorexia nervosa who demonstrates the typically distorted body self-image. I suggest that the aesthetic nature of these patients' self-judgments is not so clear cut as Callender suggests. His sexual abuse case summary certainly suggests a woman consumed by shame. Because shame is a typical "moral emotion," the question is raised of moral badness being involved in her self-concept as well as, or perhaps... (shrink)

Questions about the nature of beauty and the relation between morality and art were among the earliest discussed by ancient philosophers. And today, a host of new issues has been prompted by recent developments in the arts and in philosophy, testifying to a great revival of interest in aesthetics and literary criticism. The nature of representation, the relation between art and truth, and the criteria for interpretation are among the most debated problems in contemporary philosophy. This reference (...) series, centred on analytic philosophy but also covering important aspects of the continental tradition and of non-Western philosophies, is made up of a number of volumes each dealing with a particular subject area. Taken together the series offers a comprehensive survey of philosophy as a whole. The entries in each volume combine summarized information on names, terms and moverments and each essay is also supported by a selective bibliography. Alphabetically arranged, the 130 articles in this volume provide comprehensive coverage of the main topics and writers in this area of aesthetics. The Companion will serve students of philosophy, literary criticism and cultural studies - as well as the general reader - both as a work of reference and, with its many substantial essays, as a guide to the best thinking about the arts in the late twentieth century. (shrink)

Aesthetics and arts are strongly linked across East Asia (China, Japan and Korea) and (through pottery and gardens) throughout Southeast Asia as well. This paper outlines eight aesthetic issues pertaining across arts in East Asia, appropriate for K-12: 1) the intimate interrelations among arts (gardens, painting, poetry, calligraphy, music, tea ceremony); 2) nature and the seasons (architecture, poetry, gardens, food); 4) collaboration (poetry, gardens, festivals, and tea ceremony); 5) self-cultivation; 6) symbolism versus allusion; 7) the importance of active (...) imagination in viewing East Asian arts; 8) relations of arts to philosophy. It then explores five areas of East Asian arts and aesthetics that are easy to teach even young students, have interest for high-school and college students (on the introductory or advanced level), and pave the way for the individual student's personal development throughout her life as an adult: 1) Writing Systems, Calligraphy and Painting; 2) Poetry and Painting; 3) Gardens; 4) Aesthetics of Pottery; 5) Tea ceremony. This is followed by brief discussion of 1) special categories of Japanese aesthetics (wabi and sabi, the aesthetics of loneliness and simplicity/impoverishment; kasuri, the embellishment of everyday objects; and aware, recognition of the poignance and brevity of life), 2) gender issues, 3) Zen aesthetics. The final section discusses five issues specifically related to teaching in districts where teaching about either Asia or arts/aesthetics might be in need of justification: 1) the conceptual, intellectual, emotional and artistic advantages for students in learning this material (developing the imagination, analytical skills, and concentration); 2) gender issues (including homosexuality and feminist aesthetics); 3) Asian religion in the classroom; 4) financing (inexpensive aesthetics projects); 5) Asian aesthetics for minority students. The bibliography includes books and articles for teachers and for students (at different levels), videos/ DVDs, and websites, including some guiding you to sites for field trips. (shrink)

The list which follows is intended as a comprehensive bibliographical survey of the wider Gestalt tradition from Graz and Berlin to Padua, Frankfurt and New York. It presents diagrammatically the main influence and teacher-pupil relationships also groupings into schools. It includes the classical texts of the Gestalt psychological tradition, together with the more important translations and reprints thereof. Special attention is paid to works on the following topics: - the concept of Prägnanz or `good form' and related treatments of aesthetic (...) phenomena and of pattern recognition - cognitive processes and problem-solving - criticisms of Gestalt theoru - phenomenal causation - figure-ground relations , phenomenaI boundaries, subjective contours - phenomenal motion - perceptual constancies - philosophical inquiries into the nature of `configuration'. `relation', `structure', etc . , and writing on psychological holism (but only insofar as they relate directly to the literature of Gestalt psychology proper). (shrink)

Why do physicians who've taken the Hippocratic Oath willingly cut into seemingly healthy patients? How do you measure the success of surgery aimed at making someone happier by altering his or her body? Sander L. Gilman explores such questions in Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul, a cultural history of the connections between beauty of body and happiness of mind. Following these themes through an impressive range of historical moments and players, Gilman traces how aesthetic alterations of the body have (...) been used to "cure" dissatisfied states of mind. In his exploration of the striking parallels between the development of cosmetic surgery and the field of psychiatry, Gilman entertains an array of philosophical and psychological questions that underlie the more practical decisions rountinely made by doctors and potential patients considering these types of surgery. While surveying and incorporating the relevant theories of Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Karl Menninger, Paul Schilder, contemporary feminist critics, and others, Gilman considers the highly unstable nature of cultural notions of health, happiness, and beauty. He reveals how ideas of race and gender structured early understandings of aesthetic surgery in discussions of both the "abnormality" of the Jewish nose and the historical requirement that healthy and virtuous females look "normal," thereby enabling them to achieve invisibility. Reflecting upon historically widespread prejudices, Gilman describes the persecutions, harrassment, attacks, and even murders that continue to result from bodily difference and he encourages readers to question the cultural assumptions that underlie the increasing acceptability of this surgical form of psychotherapy. Synthesizing a vast body of related literature and containing a comprehensive bibliography, Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul will appeal to a broad audience, including those interested in the histories of medicine and psychiatry, and in philosophy, cultural studies, Jewish cultural studies, and race and ethnicity. (shrink)

This is the second edition of a very imaginative collection of readings in aesthetics from Plato to the present. In this second edition, seven selections have been deleted and fifteen new selections have been added to greatly enhance its usefulness to beginning students in aesthetics. Additional readings on artistic creation and drama have been provided and a number of illustrations of works by Raphael, Giotto, Matisse, Dürer, Brancusi, Henry Moore, et al. have been included this time to illustrate (...) relevant textual materials. As in the first edition, the author's primary intention is to establish the field of aesthetics as having the same integrity and adventuresomeness as other areas of philosophical inquiry and debate. With this goal in view, he has organized the readings around "certain sets of basic problems that still seem worth debating and attempting to solve." Each section is centered around specific problems and issues in aesthetics, beginning with the broadest question, "What is Art?," and moving on to such issues as the nature of the various art forms, the nature of tragedy, the problem of response to art and, finally, the nature and goal of art criticism. Various readers and teachers in aesthetics no doubt, will find fault with or gaps in his selections of readings. But laying aside such parochial matters as ideology and personal taste, this volume puts in the hands of the student of aesthetics a compendium of essays on the major issues and areas of concern in aesthetics which can easily be supplemented by use of a xerox machine. The editor has included such scholarly aids as a brief introduction to each section, interpretative and cross-referential footnotes and a minimal bibliography.--J. B. L. (shrink)

This is an historically oriented textbook including selected writings from such varied thinkers as Plato, Kant, Hegel, Taine, Croce, Fry, Camus, etc. Richter presents an introduction designed to acquaint the student with the diversity of perspectives and problems that will be encountered in the course of the text. Aesthetics is here construed as a broader field in the 20th century than in the past. It is no longer to be defined as the philosophy of the beautiful or of art; (...) it is in fact no longer limited to philosophic concerns but encompasses "all studies of the arts and related types of experience from a philosophic, scientific, or other theoretical standpoint, including those of psychology, sociology, anthropology, cultural history, art criticism, and education." The branching out of aesthetic concerns and methods is developed historically through the selections presented. Plato's discussions of aesthetics are seen to be subordinated to his political philosophy and doctrine of Ideas. Although they present a more complete aesthetic doctrine, the views of Schopenhauer and Hegel are also seen to be determined by their metaphysical systems. The romantic emphasis on the role of the artist by Tolstoy and Veron is represented, as well as the influence of positivism in the experimental approach of Taine. Each selection includes an introduction and discussion of the text along with study questions and suggested bibliography. The student is thus presented with most of the major theories of art, with art as imitation, as communication, as intuition, as experience, as rebellion; mimetic, empirical, and formalistic views on the nature of art are also confronted. Such discussions provide the basis for a recognition of interesting contrasts in views on aesthetic problems.—E. M. (shrink)

This book tackles how and why 'landscape' (farms, gardens, countryside) set the scene in the first centuries BCE and CE for Romans keen to talk up and about (but also to scrutinize and understand) what it meant to be a citizen. It investigates what 'landscape' means now and reflects upon how contemporary approaches to 'landscape' can enrich our understanding of ancient experience of the interface between natural and artificial space. It encourages examination of 'landscape' from a range of angles, suggesting (...) alternative ways of thinking about what landscape represents. These methodological approaches (presented initially via a set of key terms and definitions and then deployed thematically across four chapters), combined with a detailed interdisciplinary bibliography and a series of case studies of literary texts and material sites, enable readers to use this survey as a starting point for developing their own in-depth study. (shrink)

This is an 18,500 word bibliography of philosophical scholarship on Beauty which was published online in the Oxford Bibliographies Online. The entry includes an Introduction of 800 words, 21 x 400-word sub-themes and 168 annotated references. INTRODUCTION Philosophical interest in beauty began with the earliest recorded philosophers. Beauty was deemed to be an essential ingredient in a good life and so what it was, where it was to be found and how it was to be included in a life (...) were prime considerations. The way beauty has been conceived has been influenced by an author’s other philosophical commitments, metaphysical, epistemological and ethical and such commitments reflect the historical and cultural position of the author. For example, beauty is a manifestation of the divine on earth to which we respond with love and adoration; beauty is a harmony of the soul which we achieve through cultivating feeling in a rational and tempered way; beauty is an idea raised in us by certain objective features of the world; beauty is a sentiment which can nonetheless be cultivated to be appropriate to its object; beauty is the object of a judgment by which we exercise the social, comparative and inter-subjective elements of cognition and so on. Such views on beauty not only reveal underlying philosophical commitments but also reflect positive contributions to understanding the nature of value and the relation of mind and world. One way to distinguish between beauty theories is according to the conception of the human being that they assume or imply, for example, where they fall on the continuum from determinism to free will, ungrounded notions of compatibilism notwithstanding. For example, theories at the latter end might carve out a sense of genuine innovation and creativity in human endeavours while at the other end of the spectrum authors may conceive of beauty as an environmental trigger for consumption, procreation or preservation in the interests of the individual. Treating beauty experiences as in some respect intentional, characterises beauty theory prior to the twentieth century and since, mainly in historically inspired writing on beauty. On the other hand, treating beauty as affect or sensation has always had its representatives and is most visible today in evolutionary inspired accounts of beauty (though not all evolutionary accounts fit this classification). Beauty theory falls under some combination of metaphysics, epistemology, meta-ethics, aesthetics and psychology. While in the twentieth century beauty was more likely to be conceived as an evaluative concept for art, recent philosophical interest in beauty can again be seen to exercise arguments pertaining to metaphysics, epistemology, meta-ethics, philosophy of meaning and language in addition to philosophy of art and environmental aesthetics. (shrink)

'beauty has purport and significance only for human beings, for beings at once animal and rational' In the Critique of Judgement Kant offers a penetrating analysis of our experience of the beautiful and the sublime, discussing the objectivity of taste, aesthetic disinterestedness, the relation of art and nature, the role of imagination, genius and originality, the limits of representation and the connection between morality and the aesthetic. He also investigates the validity of our judgements concerning the apparent purposiveness of (...) nature with respect to the highest interests of reason and enlightenment. The work profoundly influenced the artists and writers of the classical and romantic period and the philosophy of Hegel and Schelling. It has remained a central point of reference from Schopenhauer and Nietzsche through to phenomenology, hermeneutics, the Frankfurt School, analytical aesthetics and contemporary critical theory. J. C. Meredith's classic translation has been revised in accordance with standard modern renderings and provided with a bilingual glossary. This edition also includes the important 'First Introduction' that Kant originally composed for the work. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

In his Discourses, Rousseau argues that inequalities of rank, wealth, and power are the inevitable result of the civilizing process. If inequality is intolerable - and Rousseau shows with unparalledled eloquence how it robs us not only of our material but also of our psychological independence - then how can we recover the peaceful self-sufficiency of life in the state of nature? We cannot return to a simpler time, but measuring the costs of progress may help us to imagine (...) alternatives to the corruption and oppressive conformity of modern society. Rousseau's sweeping account of humanity's social and political development epitomizes the innovative boldness of the Englightment, and it is one of the most provocative and influential works of the eighteenth century. This new translation includes all Rousseau's own notes, and Patrick Coleman's introduction builds on recent key scholarship, considering particularly the relationship between political and aesthetic thought. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

Cette édition numérique a été réalisée à partir d'un support physique, parfois ancien, conservé au sein du dépôt légal de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, conformément à la loi n° 2012-287 du 1er mars 2012 relative à l'exploitation des Livres indisponibles du XXe siècle. Pages de début Chapitre premier - La leçon des masques Première partie - L'imitation et son modèle introuvable Chapitre II - L'art comme illusionnisme Chapitre III - L'art selon Diderot : idéal de la vérité ou vérité (...) de l'idéal? Chapitre IV - La nature comme dictionnaire de l'art Chapitre V - L'art comme réformation de la nature Chapitre VI - La peinture hollandaise selon Hegel : le réalisme dans l'art comme déréalisation de la nature Chapitre VII - La nature comme effet de style Deuxième partie - Le monde de l'art 1 - L'art et la nature2 - L'expérience esthétique Bibliographie Index Pages de fin. (shrink)

Empirische Wissenschaft und Philosophie, von T. Litt.--Die Erscheinung der lebendigen Gestalten im Lichtfelde, von A. Portmann.--Der Geschmack, von F. J. J. Buytendijk.--Natur und Humanität des Menschen, von K. Löwith.--Die Vernunft und die Mächte des Irrationalen, von O. F. Bollnow.--Existenz und System bei Sören Kierkegaard, von W. Schulz.--Kants Zum ewigen Frieden, von K. Jaspers.--Geschichte und teleologisches System bei Karl Marx, von R. E. Schulz.--Staat und Gewissen im Zeitalter des Säkularismus, von H. Barth.--Über den Konservativismus als historische Kategorie, ein Versuch, von J. (...) Romein.--Soziologie und empirische Forschung, von T. W. Adorno.--Zum Begriff des Menschen heute, von M. Horkheimer.--Die Natur der ästhetischen Wirkung, von J. König.--Bemerkungen zu Theorien des Stils, von B. Snell.--Objektivität, Subjektivität und Erzählkunst: zur Romantheorie Friedrich Spielhagens, von W. Hellmann.--Bibliographie Helmuth Plessner, zusammengestellt von L. Stern (p.[398]-403). (shrink)

The latest volume in the Cambridge Histories of Philosophy series, The Cambridge History of Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century brings together twenty-nine leading experts in the field and covers the years 1790-1870. Their twenty-seven chapters provide a comprehensive survey of the period, organizing the material topically. After a brief editor's introduction, it begins with three chapters surveying the background of nineteenth century philosophy: followed by two on logic and mathematics, two on nature and natural science, five on mind and (...) language, including psychology, the human sciences and aesthetics, four on ethics, three on religion, seven on society, including chapters on the French Revolution, the decline of natural right, political economy, and social discontent, and three on history, dealing with historical method, speculative theories of history and the history of philosophy. The essays are framed by an editor's introduction and a bibliography. (shrink)

'Yes, what is Dionysian? - This book provides an answer - "a man who knows" speaks in it, the initiate and disciple of his god.' The Birth of Tragedy is a book about the origins of Greek tragedy and its relevance to the German culture of its time. For Nietzsche, Greek tragedy is the expression of a culture which has achieved a delicate but powerful balance between Dionysian insight into the chaos and suffering which underlies all existence and the discipline (...) and clarity of rational Apollonian form. In order to promote a return to these values, Nietzsche undertakes a critique of the complacent rationalism of late nineteenth-century German culture and makes an impassioned plea for the regenerative potential of the music of Wagner. In its wide-ranging discussion of the nature of art, science and religion, Nietzsche's argument raises important questions about the problematic nature of cultural origins which are still of concern today. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

This collection of essays by philosophers and educationalists of international reputation, all published here for the first time, celebrates Paul Hirst's professional career. The introductory essay by Robin Barrow and Patricia White outlines Paul Hirst's career and maps the shifts in his thought about education, showing how his views on teacher education, the curriculum and educational aims are interrelated. Contributions from leading names in British and American philosophy of education cover themes ranging from the nature of good teaching to (...) Wittgensteinian aesthetics. The collection concludes with a paper in which Paul Hirst sets out his latest views on the nature of education and its aims. The book also includes a complete bibliography of works by Hirst and a substantial set of references to his writing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:New Insights on Young PopperJohn R. WetterstenSeven essays that Popper wrote from 1925 to 1932–33 show Popper's transition from a fresh student of pedagogy into a serious philosopher of science ten years later. His first essay was published in 1925, and in 1934–35 he presented a revolutionary philosophy. These essays led first to Die beiden Grundprobleme der Erkenntnistheorie (written between 1930 and 1933 but first published in 1979) and (...) culminated in Logik der Forschung.1. Students as IndividualsIn his first published essay Popper argued that each student should be treated as an individual as much as possible.1 It is evident that Popper held this attitude throughout his life, but this essay plays no interesting role in his intellectual development.2. HeimatIn his second essay Popper developed an idea that was important not only for his pedagogy, but also for his psychology and his theory of the open society: because humans tend quite naturally to be dogmatic, they have to learn to overcome dogmatism in order to be rational.2 Following a perspective [End Page 603] heavily indebted to Eduard Burger,3 Karl Bühler,4 and Charlotte Bühler,5 Popper proposed that all aspects of learning begin with the beliefs and attitudes that one learns at "home." Teachers, Popper says, should not ignore the cultural background of their students. This background derives from their home, from their parents or village, and so forth. Teachers should accept the students' dogmatic acceptance of the views and attitudes of home as a necessary, even useful stage in any child's development. The teacher's central task is to help children move away from this dogmatic stage to broader perspectives. How to do this well, he says, poses a, if not the, central pedagogical problem. He discusses the movement from home to aesthetics, to art, to ethics, to law, to the theory of knowledge and science, and to culture. In each case he finds something in the heritage of home that each child possesses, which may be used as a starting point to expand the child's horizons.The problem of how teachers can sympathetically help children move away from the views of their home to broader perspectives is severe, Popper thought, due to the innate need of children to think dogmatically. When children learn the culture of their home they are given certainties that they cling to. As individuals mature, dogmatic thinking has to be overcome: a crucial task for teachers is to help children to set aside their innate dogmatic attitude to engage in critical thinking.At this time Popper was groping for a good philosophical approach. He said that the concept of "Heimat" had to be analyzed because, even though it was at the center of pedagogical concerns, it was a confused concept. This analytical method was quickly abandoned. It is only a historical curiosity that shows how far he had to go in order to develop a new philosophical method. Yet his use of it did bring him to adopt, or he used it to defend, views that he held throughout his life.3. Gewohnheit und Gesetzerlebnis in der ErziehungIn the same year (1927), in Gewohnheit und Gesetzerlebnis in der Erziehung, Popper turned to the task of providing a psychological explanation of the child's need for dogmatism. This third essay was submitted to the Pedagogic Institute, but only became available after Popper's death. Popper was ambivalent about it. When I visited him at his home in Penn in 1973 or 1974, I asked him for a copy. It was then listed in his bibliography, but there were no copies at the University of Vienna. His wife began to say she knew where it was, but he interrupted her before her sentence was completed. But he did not throw it away. The reason for his reluctance to show scholars his essay is [End Page 604] now clear: the essay endorses a philosophy of science—Hans Vaihinger's—with a strong inductivist component, even though its methodology is deductivist. He tried to apply this method in his own psychological investigation of dogmatism in children.Dogmatism was, he thought, a psychological... (shrink)

The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy examines Hegel within his broader historical and philosophical contexts. Covering all major aspects of Hegel's philosophy, the volume provides an introduction to his logic, epistemology, philosophy of mind, social and political philosophy, philosophy of nature and aesthetics. It includes essays by an internationally recognised team of Hegel scholars. The volume begins with Terry Pinkard's article on Hegel's life, a conspectus of his biography on Hegel. It also explores some topics much (...) neglected in Hegel scholarship: such as Hegel's hermeneutics and relationship to mysticism. Aimed at students and scholars of Hegel, this volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in nineteenth-century philosophy. The bibliography includes the most important English-language literature on Hegel written in the last fifteen years. (shrink)

The purpose of the Cambridge Edition of the Works of Schopenhauer is to offer translations of the best modern German editions of Schopenhauer's work in a uniform format for Schopenhauer scholars, together with philosophical introductions and full editorial apparatus. The World as Will and Representation contains Schopenhauer's entire philosophy, ranging through epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, aesthetics and philosophy of art, to ethics, the meaning of life and the philosophy of religion. This second volume was added to (...) the work in 1844, and revised in 1859. Its chapters are officially 'supplements' to the first volume, but are indispensable for a proper appreciation of Schopenhauer's thought. Here we have his most mature reflections on many topics, including sex, death, conscious and unconscious desires, and the doctrines of salvation and liberation in Christian and Indian thought. Schopenhauer clarifies the nature of his metaphysics of the will, and synthesizes insights from a broad range of literary, scientific and scholarly sources. This new translation reflects the eloquence and power of Schopenhauer's prose, and renders philosophical terms accurately and consistently. It offers an introduction, glossary of names, bibliography, and succinct editorial notes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Mind of Charles Hartshorne: A Critical Examination by Donald Wayne Viney and George W. ShieldsLeon NiemoczynskiThe Mind of Charles Hartshorne: A Critical Examination. Donald Wayne Viney and George W. Shields. Anoka, MN: Process Century Press, 2020. 584 pp. $40.00 cloth.Over the past decade process philosophy has undergone a significant renaissance most notably due to the towering presence of the thought of Alfred North Whitehead in that tradition. (...) Charles Hartshorne by manner of contrast has not had such a towering presence. Part of the reason this is the case is due to a paucity of introductory literature on the thought of Charles Hartshorne—literature that might contribute to a “starter kit” so to speak in mastering Hartshorne’s massive oeuvre. The Mind of Charles Hartshorne: A Critical Examination by Donald Wayne Viney and George W. Shields, both former students of Hartshorne and experts in process philosophy themselves, have authored a welcome contribution to an introductory literature that will most certainly elevate awareness of Hartshorne’s importance to its rightful place alongside that of Whitehead. The book is successful in its aims of “giving a reasonably comprehensive account of Hartshorne’s philosophy with an eye of presenting his best arguments...” (the “correcting what we see as misunderstandings of his views appearing in the critical literature” part may have been best left out) and “updating Hartshorne scholarship” (viii). There are ten chapters in total, appendix essays, the aforementioned bibliography, endnotes, and name and subject indexes.The Preface situates the mind of Charles Hartshorne as spanning the twentieth century and engaging metaphysics even when it was unfashionable to do so. Hartshorne thought about a wide-ranging and diverse range of subjects in both philosophy and science, aesthetics, metaphysics, applied philosophy, and theology. He never questioned modern science or evolution and believed that while metaphysics and empirical science have different methods each ensures its own way to objectivity. One learns that Hartshorne’s process metaphysics is also called “neo-classical” philosophy or speculative philosophy. His thought “gave full weight to the dynamic, relational, processive temporal and creative, affective dimensions of the universe” (vi). Hartshorne was known as much for his “panentheism,” or view that God transcends nature but also may be found immanently within it, as he was for his critique of traditional or scholastic classical theology—especially in his logic of theism where he recreates a modal version of the ontological argument. [End Page 94]Chapter 1, “The Career and Personality of Charles Hartshorne,” discusses just that. What seemed most important to me was the discussion of Hartshorne’s formative background of reading novels and poetry by Emerson, Melville, or Camus as a way of intensely living, his studying under William Ernest Hocking, and his Sheldon Traveling Fellowship where he studied for a time with Husserl and read and reviewed Heidegger. Probably the most important biographical details are that Hartshorne was given the assignment of editing the Peirce papers along with Paul Weiss as a Research Fellow while at Harvard University and he also met and graded for Whitehead, who along with C.S. Peirce, would become the twin pillars of all his thinking as a “Peircean and Whiteheadian” (11). From Peirce, we learn that Hartshorne took “possibility is best conceived of as a continuum with no least member” and from Whitehead, “actuality is discrete and discontinuous (atomistic), composed of momentary flashes of experiences” (11). For Hartshorne process and relativity are metaphysically basic.Chapter 2 begins with Hartshorne’s idea that, “Nature comes to us as constituted by feelings, not as constituted by lifeless, insentient matter” (28). Reality has an affective tone in which there is a layered complexity of feeling and social relation. In other words, contra Locke or Hume, feeling is objectively part of an objective affective continuum and is not nominalistically “painted on bare sense impressions” (46). Such might be described as a doctrine of “panexperientialism”— “the view that the basic constituents of reality are flashes of experience” (46). Experience and feeling stretch in their continuity to meet the bounds of nature. Chapter two continues with a wonderful discussion of Hartshorne’s aesthetics: “beauty is the mean between extremes” (48).Chapter 3 provides a... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME'S THEORY OF IMAGINATION* Historians of philosophy seem increasingly to agree with the view that David Hume is the greatest philosopher ever to have written in English. This high esteem of the Scottish empiricist, however, is a phenomenon of the last decades. As late as 1925 Charles W. Hendel could write "that Hume is no longer a living figure." And Stuart Hampshire reports that in the Oxford of the (...) Thirties the results of Humean philosophizing were regarded as "extravagances of 2 scepticism which no one could seriously accept." A cursory glance at the Hume bibliography edited by Roland Hall demonstrates that it has become standard practice in the English-speaking world to seek an understanding of Hume's arguments when analysing philosophical problems. Critical literature nevertheless continues to neglect the majority of his arguments. It is sufficient, I think, to mention Hume's remarks on space and time, his theory of emotions, his inquiries into the problem of justice, his economic writings and those on the psychology of roliqion. Dut 3 even in the frequently quoted passages of the Treatise Hume's central notion is not, in my opinion, at the heart of the analysis. Here I refer to Hume's remarks on the phenomenon of imagination (fancy). Although he mentions this curious faculty of our cognition on almost every page, there are only a few sporadic attempts at an interpretation of this "supreme Humean faculty." This may be due to the fact that until quite recently the 'problem of imagination' has hardly even belonged to the marginal topics of modern philosophy. This paper therefore attempts to demonstrate not only that Hume dealt with the phenomenon of imagination, but also that an analysis of this concept is of paramount significance for the understanding of his entire philosophy. In the first three sections three different faculties or functions of the imagination will be distinguished. Not only the artist's - 91 92. works, but also the insights of the scientist and the illusions of metaphysicians are, according to Hume, decisively based on this very cognitive faculty. Section 4 contains a brief discussion of the sceptical arguments of the Treatise, particularly of the Humean analysis of causation. Their impact on Hume's reflections on the problem of imagination is the topic of Section 5. I hope to prove that in the Enquiry Hume interprets these sceptical arguments differently than in the Treatise. While in his early work he feels himself exposed to Pyrrhonian doubts, he assumes the position of an 'academic sceptic' in the Enquiry. The concluding section eventually tries to determine which motives may have been decisive for Hume's change of opinion. I shall defend the thesis that in his late work Hume developed an 'ethics of belief on the basis of natural beliefs, in which the artistic capacity of the imagination assumes a decisive role in justifying philosophical and scientific propositions. 1. The Metaphysical Faculty of the Imagination In the Introduction to the Treatise Hume describes his endeavour as developing a propaedeutic basic science which should provide a better understanding of all products of the human mind (science, mathematics, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, politics). In the Abstract he calls his early work "a system of the sciences" (?7). Besides this empirical interest Hume saw the importance of justifying the choice of method, i.e. to extoll the experimental procedure as the only rational one. Metaphysical approaches are interpreted as products of a blind imagination. Beginning with the Introduction to the Treatise it has been a constant motive of Hume's philosophy to constrain metaphysics in order to make way for science. In the sections Of the effects of other relations and other habite (T106-117), Of unphilosophiaal probability 93. (T143-155), Of scepticism with regard to the senses (T187218 ), Of the antient philosophy (T219-225) Hume specifies those beliefs which, in his opinion, are based on figments of our imagination. He "had ^en that all the errors of philosophy arose from the fact that imagination determined men much more than they recognized - there could be no secure truth for him, then, until he had explored this aspect of the nature of man." He compares imagination to a ship which, having... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.3 (2002) 539-545 [Access article in PDF] Lewis White Beck on Reasons and Causes Paul Guyer Essays by Lewis White Beck: Five Decades as a Philosopher. Edited by Predag Cicovacki. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 1998. Pp. xxxii, 244. This volume reissues twelve previously uncollected pieces by the late Lewis White Beck (1913-1997) and also includes a reminiscence by a former colleague, an (...) introduction by the editor, and a bibliography of Beck's work. Beck was of course the most distinguished American Kant scholar of his time, who made enduring contributions to scholarship with his translations of Kant's writings in moral philosophy, originally published in Critique of Practical Reason and Other Writings in Moral Philosophy (Chicago, 1949); his trenchant articles on the analytic-synthetic distinction from the early 1950s, collected in his Studies in the Philosophy of Kant (Indianapolis, 1965); his unsurpassed A Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason (Chicago, 1960); his monumental Early German Philosophy: Kant and His Predecessors (Cambridge, Mass., 1969); his various articles on Kant's treatment of causation, collected in Essays on Kant and Hume (New Haven, 1978); and in his independent philosophical work, The Actor and the Spectator (New Haven, 1975). The present volume, edited by a student from Beck's last years at the University of Rochester, where he spent most of his career, includes articles on a variety of subjects published between 1939 and 1984, and it might seem to be little more than an act of piety toward a now departed but still revered teacher. But a core group of these articles are intimately connected with Beck's central scholarly and philosophical concerns and are well worth republication and renewed study.The articles included in the volume are three early pieces on several central issues in the philosophical debates of the time, "The Synoptic Method" (1939), "The Formal Properties of Ethical Wholes" (1941), and "The Principle of Parsimony in Empirical Science" (1943); an early piece on aesthetics, "Judgments [End Page 539] of Meaning in Art" (1944); two pieces on the tensions between causal explanations and rational evaluations of human behavior, "Psychology and the Norms of Knowledge" (1954) and "Conscious and Unconscious Motives" (1966); Beck's 1971 Presidential Address to the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association, a skeptical discussion of "Extraterrestrial Intelligent Life"; an overview of philosophies of time, "World Enough, and Time" (1979); a piece on styles of philosophical writing called "Philosophy As Literature" (1980); and then three pieces on Kant, published after the second of Beck's two earlier anthologies of his articles on Kant: "Kant on the Uniformity of Nature" (1981), "Five Concepts of Freedom in Kant" (1987), and "What Have We Learned from Kant?" (1984). With the last paper, the editor departs from the strictly chronological order he has previously employed, presumably in order to end the volume on a suitably general and retrospective note.I will focus my comments on the two systematic papers on psychological explanation and rational evaluation as well as on the first two Kant papers, all of which touch upon the issues that were central to Beck in his philosophically most important works, the 1960 Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical Reason and the 1975 The Actor and the Spectator, and which point toward what was Beck's leading idea in both his philosophical and interpretative work: it concerns the idea that the causal explanation of human behavior as a subset of natural events and the rational explanation and justification of human actions are two entirely separate perspectives on the same subject-matter that can be rendered compatible only by the thought that each, causal explanation of behavior on the one hand and rational assessment of actions on the other, is only a regulative ideal for our conduct of inquiry and thus that neither represents a metaphysically privileged point of view. This was an approach that Beck claimed to have been foreshadowed in Kant's resolution of the "Antinomy of Teleological Judgment" in his last great critique, the Critique of the Power... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 295-313 [Access article in PDF] The Ecology of Victorian Fiction Joseph Carroll I In the past ten years or so, ecological literary criticism--that is, criticism concentrating on the relationship between literature and the natural environment--has become one of the fastest-growing areas in literary study. Ecocritics now have their own professional association, their own academic journal, and an impressive bibliography of scholarly studies. Ecocritical (...) scholars divide their attention between "nature writing" and ecological themes within all literature. In other words, some scholars write on Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, and Annie Dillard; others write on topics such as the representation of nature in romantic poetry, the American West as a symbol, metaphors of landscape, or Dante's Inferno as a polluted ecosystem. Ecocritics have a distinct subject matter, and they share in a certain broad set of attitudes, values, and public policy concerns, but they do not yet have a firmly established framework of commonly accepted theoretical principles. In the absence of any overarching theory, ecocritics have usually sought to incorporate their ecological subject matter within other, already established theoretical schools: feminism, Bakhtin's dialogism, Lacanian psychoanalysis, or English romantic and American transcendentalist, idealist philosophy. Most commonly, ecocritics have affiliated themselves with the standard contemporary blend of Foucauldian ideological criticism--a blend that is vaguely Marxist and Freudian, generally radical, and strongly tinctured with deconstructive irrationalism and textualism. 1Given its specialized themes and topics and its ready affiliation with the standard theoretical blend, ecocriticism might seem little more than a special topic area within the general field of contemporary [End Page 295] literary study. But ecocritics do not see their approach that way. They share in a feeling of being at the forefront of critical response to an urgent practical problem of world-historical magnitude: the prospect of irreversible environmental devastation. They thus have a strong sense of a political mission, and they often feel that the urgency of their environmental concerns should sanction realigning the canon to give much greater prominence to nature writers and to the study of ecological themes. In their view, the natural world claims a special status as the ultimate ground and frame of all existence. It is an object of peculiar veneration and of primary experiential importance.The special conceptual status of ecology as a theme and a topic necessarily raises a question about its theoretical import. If the subject of ecocriticism is the relation of literature and the natural world, and if this relation is more important and more elemental than any other concern, does it not follow that ecocriticism should identify itself as a matrix for all literary study? To put the question operationally, in what way could ecology, as a subject matter and a concept, generate a theory of literature? Since the relation between organisms and natural environments is a necessary precondition of all experience, one could reasonably argue that the special topic of ecocriticism is more elemental than the topics of feminism, Marxism, or any other form of political criticism, and that the basic physical conditions of organic life take conceptual precedence over semiotics and theories of "culture" and "discourse."I shall argue that ecology cannot by itself generate a theory of literature or serve as the basis for a theory of literature, but I shall also argue that responsiveness to the sense of place is an elemental component of the evolved human psyche and that it thus can and should be integrated into a Darwinian literary theory. E. O. Wilson's notion of "biophilia" provides a Darwinian alternative to the ecological transcendentalism of "deep ecology," and the evolutionary epistemology of Konrad Lorenz provides a Darwinian rationale for locating the human psyche within its physical world. In constructing a bridge between the evolutionary epistemology of Lorenz and the idea of place within verbal narrative, I shall make use of a new branch of Darwinian aesthetics, Joseph Anderson's "ecological" version of "cognitive film theory."In order to illustrate the ways in which setting can be integrated into a Darwinian literary criticism, in the latter part of the essay... (shrink)

About HumeDavid Hume is one of the greatest of philosophers. Today he probably ranks highest of all British philosophers in terms of influence and philosophical standing. His philosophical work ranges across morals, the mind, metaphysics, epistemology, and aesthetics; he had broad interests not only in philosophy as it is now conceived but in history, politics, economics, religion, and the arts. He was a master of English prose. The Clarendon Hume Edition General Editors: Professor T. L. Beauchamp, Georgetown University, USA, (...) Professor D. F. Norton, McGill University, Canada, and Professor M. A. Stewart, University of Lancaster, EnglandThe Clarendon Hume will include all of his works except his History of England and minor historical writings; it will be the only thorough critical edition, and will provide a far more extensive scholarly treatment than any previous editions. This edition offers authoritative annotation, bibliographical information, and indexes, and draws upon the major advances in textual scholarship that have been made since the publication of earlier editions--advances both in the understanding of editorial principle and practice and in knowledge of the history of Hume's own texts. The Edition will comprise: Volumes 1 and 2: A Treatise of Human Nature, edited by D. F. Norton Volume 3: An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, edited by T. L. Beauchamp Volume 4: An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, edited by T. L. Beauchamp Volume 5: The Natural History of Religion and the Dissertation on the PassionsVolumes 6 and 7: EssaysVolume 8: Dialogues concerning Natural Religion and other posthumous publications, edited by M. A. Stewart About this workAn Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals was Hume's third great philosophical work, first published in 1751. Hume's aim in this elegant and lucid work was to present in an accessible way his theory of the foundation of morality in human nature, which had developed significantly since he first addressed the subject in the Treatise of Human Nature. He discusses moral psychology; freedom, necessity, and causation; practical reasoning; justice; virtues and other moral qualities. He considered this Enquiry to be 'of all my writings, historical, philosophical, or literary, incomparably the best'. About this volumeThe authoritative version of the text, based upon the 1772 edition that was seen through the press by Hume himself, is presented here accurately and clearly. The editor's introduction sets the work in its historical context; the annotation and glossary provide information about Hume's sources, allusions, citations, and meanings, to help readers towards a full understanding of the text. A biographical appendix identifies the many people mentioned by Hume in the Enquiry. Bibliographies list the works cited by Hume and a selection of the secondary literature. Hume's original index is reproduced, together with a new general index by the editor. (shrink)

This thoughtful abridgment makes an ideal introduction to Kant's _Critique of Pure Reason_. Key selections include: the Preface in B, the Introduction, the Transcendental Aesthetic, the Second Analogy, the Refutation of Idealism, the first three Antinomies, the Transcendental Deduction in B, and the Canon of Pure Reason. A brief introduction provides biographical information, descriptions of the nature of Kant's project and of how each major section of the Critique contributes to that project. A select bibliography and index are (...) also included. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Worth of Persons by James FranklinLouis GroarkeFRANKLIN, James. The Worth of Persons, New York: Encounter Books, 2022. 272 pp. Cloth, $30.99In The Worth of Persons, James Franklin, the well-known Aristotelian mathematician, sets out to provide an account of the very first principles of ethics and morality. Franklin argues that morality begins with an acknowledgment of the intrinsic worth of human persons, understood as beings possessing “dignity” or (...) “absolute inner worth.” As it turns out, we recognize naturally, without epistemic complication, that human beings have innate moral value.Although Franklin does not use the term “personalism” and does not discuss that specific philosophical tradition, he traces his own account to a familiar source: Kant’s personhood formulation of the categorical imperative. He has, however, little use for Kant’s rigid absolutism and prefers something much closer to a natural law formulation of ethical obligation, in large part because it allows for casuistry, a negotiation of the messy circumstances of everyday life that confront us with moral dilemmas and competing duties requiring some kind of moral calculation.But Franklin’s book is not so much about normative ethics. It is an exercise in metaethics, an attempt to make sense of morality as a root cause of value in the world. Franklin wants to secure an epistemological basis from which we can “deduce” moral principles. He is particularly impressed with contemporary discussion of “supervenience” or “metaphysical grounding” as a bridge over the alleged is–ought gap that has preoccupied analytic philosophers following in the footsteps of David Hume [End Page 349], G. E. Moore, and J. L. Mackie. Franklin shows, very effectively, that similar “gaps” can be found in logic, mathematics, linguistics, computer science, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and so forth. As examples of supervenience, he mentions the way necessary mathematical concepts supervene on the physical, the way the meanings of words are added to spoken or written symbols, the way logical inference arises from premises and conclusion in an argument, the way social organization emerges from a collection of individuals, and the way the identity of a statue of Hercules arises from its disposition of physical parts. The point is that an empiricist fundamentalism that reduces reality to perceptible facts without any higher (or “emergent”) identities provides an overly narrow account of the metaphysical content of human experience.If ethical value supervenes on some nonethical base, it does not follow that moral judgments and obligations are a human fabrication without any grounding in the world. If we can intellectually access the moral worth of human beings the way, for example, we intellectually access necessary mathematical concepts, we can deduce moral obligations from the worth of persons in a way that preserves the epistemic status of morality against noncognitive challenges. Once we recognize that individual humans have worth (because of the potentialities inherent in their natures), we can, for example, infer moral axioms such as “human beings must be respected” and, further, infer that murder is morally wrong because it involves the wanton destruction of human beings. Franklin does not focus on the normative content of specific actions, duties, obligations, or virtues. His basic point is that moral knowledge is possible once we rationally access (through understanding) the first principle of morality: that human beings are (to use Kantian terminology) ends in themselves, beings that rational agents will value as loci of dignity and moral value.This is a thorough treatment. Franklin is moderate, cautious, careful, diligent; he adds together technical points in present-day academic discussion to produce a well-rounded worldview. He writes in an accessible manner, with good examples and flashes of wit throughout, referring to a wide range of issues and authors: Pseudo-Dionysius, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Husserl, Moore, Wolterstorff, Mackie, Oderberg, MacIntyre, Midgley, Finnis, Korsgaard, Dworkin, Baier, Williams, Singer, Murdoch, and so on.The book includes eight chapters that discuss contrary positions, ethical concepts, supervenience, moral personhood, aesthetic worth, the value of animals and ecosystems, moral epistemology, and metaphysical systems compatible with a realist view of morality. There is a useful index, a modest bibliography, and a full section of notes, which contains many further references.The treatment seems a... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reading BiographyMichael Benton (bio)Biographer, Biography, and the ReaderBiography is a hybrid. It is history crossed with narrative. The biographer has to present the available facts of the life yet shape their arbitrariness, untidiness, and incompleteness into an engaging whole. The readerly appeal lies in the prospect both of gaining documentary information, scrupulously researched and plausibly interpreted, and of experiencing the aesthetic pleasure of reading a well-made work of art (...) with a continuous life story and a satisfying closure. "In the family of literature," one of its most respected practitioners asserts, "biography seems to be the product of a strange coupling between old-fashioned history and the traditional novel."1 The invitation of biography is thus a dualistic one; the aesthetic experience it offers stems from the twofoldness of its nature and from the stance that this imposes upon the reader. Literary biographies of poets and novelists offer a particularly fruitful area of study since their subjects have a special concern for aesthetic experience and the biographers' main interest lies in the relationship between the life and the works. Though much of what follows has a wider application, the focus of this article is on biographies of writers. By triangulating the roles of the biographer, the biographee within the biographical text, and the reader we can conceptualize the elements that make up the invitation of the genre.First, the biographer. Richard Holmes characterizes the process he experiences with two keywords: it is a "pursuit" and it is a "haunting." They are two sides of the same phenomenon. The pursuit is a "tracking of the physical trail of someone's path through the past, a following of footsteps," an effort "to write about the pursuit of that fleeting figure in such a way as to bring it alive in the present."2 The haunting occurs when this revivification succeeds and the biographee is brought imaginatively alive. Then the biographer turns from pursuer to pursued. While the subject does not take [End Page 77] him over, as it might in some Gothic fantasy, it does exercise the power of the past upon the present and haunt the biographer's imagination. Holmes goes on to explain the two main elements as "closely entwined strands":The first is the gathering of factual materials, the assembling in chronological order of a man's "journey" through the world—the actions, the words, the recorded thoughts, the places and faces through which he moved: the "life and letters." The second is the creation of a fictional or imaginary relationship between the biographer and his subject; not merely a "point of view" or an "interpretation," but a continuous living dialogue between the two... It is fictional, imaginary, because of course the subject cannot really, literally, talk back; but the biographer must come to act and think of his subject as if he can.3Not every biographer would necessarily subscribe to this particular description, but there is ample evidence in the recent spate of books about the genre4 that the biographer's capacity for imaginative empathy is continuously interacting with the verifiable historical data. The present operates upon the past in other ways, too. Earlier biographers who are more or less contemporary with their subjects (for example, Boswell, Forster, Mrs. Gaskell)5 stand in different relationships with them and the available data about them compared with present-day biographers who may inherit a whole bibliography of "lives" laid down in stratified layers on top of the life they are trying to recover. The modern reader, like the modern biographer, has to be a literary archaeologist. Dickens's "lives," for example, are constructed on a bedrock of his friend Forster's biography and on the novelist's own writings, neither of which subsequent biographers can afford to ignore. Later "lives" also have to be sifted through: our inherited Dickens is compounded from a series of accounts from, among a host of others, the Victorian memoirs of his daughter6 and his reading manager,7 via Edwardian enthusiasts8 and 1930s revelations about Dickens's private life,9 to those of modern academics and writers in our own time.10 In such cases, bringing the subject... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:UntitledDale JacquetteI recently acquired the unpublished manuscripts of an obscureearly twentieth-century philosopher. Among the papers is included a detailed account of the semantics of untitled artworks and literary productions. I am convinced of the truth of this important aesthetic theory, and I wish to serve as editor to help see the work to publication. Unfortunately, the manuscript is untitled, which poses an interesting difficulty.The principles of the theory are (...) these:1. A title is an important part of any text or artwork.2. Every text and artwork must be titled for publication.3. ”Untitled” (and the equivalent) is a (convention-governed) title.4. When an author or artist titles a work “Untitled,” the decision may be (inclusively) made for these three reasons, and accordingly have (inclusively) these three implicit meanings or interpretations:a. The author or artist is unable to assign a more satisfactory content-descriptive or connotative title, and so by default, when nothing better offers, decides to title the work “Untitled.”b. The author or artist wishes for reasons of prestige to have the work included in the category of untitled productions (works left untitled often by famous authors or artists).c. The author or artist chooses the title “Untitled” as a purely arbitrary label for the work, in that the name is not supposed [End Page 102] to express any particular content-descriptive or connotative meaning, or intent to include the project in the established category of untitled works.5. When an author or artist leaves an untitled work to posterity, it is an editorial-curatorial offense according to condition (1) to impose a content-descriptive or connotative title on the work in order to satisfy condition (2) for purposes of publication.The author emphasizes the significance of titles as an integral part of any text or artwork. Titles do not merely name and identify a piece for purposes of reference, but are often as valuable as any component of the body of a production. Some works cannot be understood without their titles, while for others, especially in modern art and literature, the title may actually be the main point, to which the attached body of work is secondary and accidental.Although every text and artwork according to proposition (2) must be titled for public presentation, the theory maintains that it is the greatest presumption for an editor, literary executor, art dealer, museum curator, or the like to impose an unauthorized title on an untitled production, at the risk of contradicting, distorting, or misrepresenting an artist’s or author’s original ideas. The only proper, semantically neutral, procedure for publishing an artist’s untitled production is to title it “Untitled” (or the equivalent). The theory gains strength from the fact that it reasonably explains this frequently followed editorial-curatorial practice. It incorporates a normative judgment about the correct policy for managing certain literary and other art productions, based on a sensitive appreciation of the semantic role of titles in the holistic meaning of a text or artwork.Here is my problem. The theory seems correct to me; I accept the author’s injunction against the imputation of substantive titles on untitled works, and I want to act in accordance with it. Proposition (2) requires that I give the work a title if it is to be published. The manuscript cannot appear indecently with a blank cover page, and it cannot be cataloged, reviewed, or entered into bibliographies as a null entry. But if I title the work “Untitled,” as proposition (3) permits, I violate the injunction not to impose a content-descriptive or connotative title on the work for purposes of publication. This is unavoidable in the nature of this special case, simply because the manuscript happens to be about that which is untitled. The same is true if I try to title the piece “‘Untitled’” or “[No Title]” or “The Semantics of Untitled Productions.” These are also unauthorized descriptive editorial [End Page 103] impositions. If the theory is true, the manuscript cannot be legitimately titled, even as an untitled work. Oddly, what may well be the most correct theory of untitled productions forbids all and only the titling of untitled manuscripts... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:192. THE HUME LITERATURE FOR 1983 The Hume literature from 1925 to 1976 has been thoroughly covered in my book Fifty Years of Hume Scholarship: A Bibliographical Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 1978; £9.50), which also lists the main earlier writings on Hume. Publications of the years 1977 to 1982 were listed in Hume Studies in previous Novembers. What follows here will bring the record up to the end of (...) 1983. Readers are invited to inform me of any omissions, and to send me offprints of their own articles and reviews. The intention is to maintain a complete bibliographical record of critical work on Hume, by the regular publication in Hume Studies of an annual bibliography, with addenda consisting of items omitted through ignorance in previous years. References to recently-appearing reviews (of books from earlier lists) are given at the end. The following abbreviations of journal titles are used here: APQ American Philosohical Quarterly JHI Journal of the History of Ideas JHP Journal of the History of Philosophy JP Journal of Philosophy PAS Proceedings of the Arisotelian Society PB Philosophical Books PQ Philosophical Quarterly PR Philosophical Review RIP Revue Internationale de Philosophie RM Review of Metaphysics TLS Times Literary Supplement Other abbreviations should be obvious enough, and mainly follow the British standard (no. 4148). 193, ARNOLD, N. S. 'Hume's Skepticism about Inductive Inference', JHP 21, 31-55. BARKER, S. 'Hume on the Logic of Design', Hume Studies 9, 1-18. [19-24] BERMAN, D. 'David Hume and the Suppression of Atheism', JHP 21, 375-87. BOX, M.? Gloss on Goldsmith's Remark on Hume', Notes & Queries 30, 59-60. BRETT, N. 'Hume's Debt to Kant', Hume Studies 9, 5973. BROUGHTON, J. 'Hume's Skepticism about Causal Inference', Pacific phil. Q. 64, 3-18. CALVERT, B. 'Another Problem about Part IX of Hume's Dialogues', Int. J. Phil. Relig. 14, 65-70. COLWELL, G.G. 'Miracles and History', Sophia 22, 9-14. DARWALL, S. L. Impartial Reason, ch. 5 ('Hume's Internalism1 ). Ithaca, N. Y. DEL VECCHIO, M. 'Un Impotesi di Lettura Esegetlica del "Dubbio Scettico" Humeano', Riv. crit. Stor. FiI. 38, 457-64. FOGELIN, R. J. 'The Tendency of Hume's Skepticism', in M. Burnyeat, The Skeptical Tradition, 397-412. Berkeley, CaI. GASKIN, J. CA. 'Hume's Attenuated Deism', Arch. Gesch. Phil. 65, 160-73. GEMES, K.? Refutation of Inductive Scepticism', Australas. J. Phil. 61, 434-8. GUTTENPLAN, S. 'Hume and Contemporary Ethical Naturalism', Midwest Stud. Phil. 8, 309-20. HARRIS, H. S. 'Hume and Barker on the Logic of Design', Hume Studies 9, 19-24. HARTSHORNE, C 'Hume's Metaphysics and its Influence', in C Hartshorne, Insights and Oversights of Great Thinkers, 136-50. HIRSCH, E. 'Hume's Distinction between Genuine and Fictitious Identity', Midwest Stud. Phil. 8, 321-38. 194, IMMERWAHR, J. 'David Hume, Sexism, and Sociobiology ', Sth. J. Phil. 21, 359-70. KIVY, P. 'Hume's Neighbour's Wife: An Essay on the Evolution of Hume's Aesthetics', Br. J. Aesth. 23, 195-208. KUEHN, M. 'Kant's Conception of "Hume's Problem"', JHP 21, 175-93. KUEHN, M. 'Hume's Antinomies', Hume Studies 9, 25-45. McCRACKEN, CJ. Malebranche and British Philosophy, ch. 7. Oxford. McLYNN, F.J. 'Jacobitism and David Hume: The Ideological Backlash Foiled', Hume Studies 9, 171-99. MALHERBE, M. 'La notion de circonstance dans la philosophie de Hume', Hume Studies 9, 130-49. NATHAN, G. J.? Humean Pattern of Justification', Hume Studies 9, 150-70. NIELSEN, K. 'Hobbesist and Humean Alternatives to a Religious Morality', Int. J. Phil. Relig. 14, 33-47. PENELHUM, T. 'Natural Belief and Religious Belief in Hume's Philosophy', P£ 33, 166-81. [182-6] PONKO, T. A. 'Artificial Virtue, Self-interest, and Acquired Social Concern', Hume Studies 9, 4658. ROD, W. 'The Rationalist Theory of Double Causality as an Object of Hume's Criticism', Erkenntnis 19, 315-29. ROHATYN, D. 'Hume's Dialectical Conceits: The Case of Dialogue XII', Phil. & phenomenol. Res. 43, 519-32. RUSSELL, P. 'On the Naturalism of Hume's "Reconciling Project"', Mind 92, 593-600. SCARRE, G. 'What was Hume's worry about Personal Identity?', Analysis 43, 217-21. SCARRE, G. 'Was Mill Really Concerned with Hume's Problem of... (shrink)

Book Reviews in this article Baptism and Resurrection: Studies in Pauline Theology against its Graeco‐Roman Background. By A.J.M. Wedderburn. Meaning and Truth in 2 Corinthians. By Frances Young and David Ford. Jesus and God in Paul's Eschatology. By L. Joseph Kreitzer. The Acts of the Apostles : By Hans Conzelmann. The Genesis of Christology: Foundations for a Theology of the New Testament. By Petr Pokorny. The Incarnation of God: An Introduction to Hegel's Theological Thought as Prolegomena to a Future Christology. (...) By Hans Küng, translated by J.R. Stephenson. The Incarnation: Collected Essays in Christology. By Brian Hebblethwaite. Models for God: Theology for an Ecological, Nuclear Age. By Sallie McFague. Pp. xv, 224, London, SCM Press, 1987, £8.50 Symbol and Sacrament: A Contemporary Sacramental Theology. By Michael G. Lawler. The Sacrifice We Offer: The Tridentine Dogma and its Reinterpretation. By David N. Power. New Eucharistic Prayers: An Ecumenical Study of their Development and Structure. Edited by Frank C. Senn. To Join Together: The Rite of Marriage. By Kenneth W. Stevenson. Company of Voices: Daily Prayer and the People of God. By George Guiver. The Long‐Legged Fly. By Don Cupitt. Approaches to Auschwitz. By Richard L. Rubenstein and John K. Roth. Natural Law and Justice. By Lloyd L. Weinreb. Christian Morality: The Word Becomes Flesh. By Josef Fuchs S.J., translated by Brian McNeil. Medicine in Contemporary Society: King's College Studies 1986–87. Edited by Peter Byrne. Military Ethics: Guidelines for Peace and War. By N. Fotion and G. Elfstrom. Choice: The Essential Element in Human Action. By Alan Donagan. Persons and Personality: A Contemporary Inquiry. Edited by Arthur Peacocke and Grant Gillet. The Rationality of Emotion. By Ronald de Sousa. The Psychology of Personality: An Epistemological Inquiry. By James T. Lamiell. Aesthetics: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Art. By Anne Sheppard. The Ascetic Element in Culture and Criticism. By Geoffrey Gait Harpham. Electric Language: A Philosophical Study of Word Processing. By Michael Heim. Education and Philosophical Anthropology: Toward a New View of Man for the Humanities and English. By David Holbrook. Evolution and the Humanities. By David Holbrook. Further Studies in Philosophical Anthropology. By David Holbrook. Women in Western Political Philosophy. Edited by Ellen Kennedy and Susan Mendus. The Light of the Soul: Theories of Ideas in Leibniz, Malebranche and Descartes. By Nicholas Jolley. Arnauld and the Cartesian Philosophy of Ideas. By Stephen M. Nadler. Later Medieval Philosophy : An Introduction. By John Marenbon. Either/Or. By Søren Kierkegaard, translated by Howard and Edna Hong, Princeton University Press, 1987: Vol. One, Wittgenstein. By A.C. Grayling. Questions on Wittgenstein. By Rudolf Haller. The False Prison: A Study of the Development of Wittgenstein's Philosophy. By David Pears, Oxford, Clarendon Press. Vol. One, The Later Wittgenstein: The Emergence of a New Philosophical Method. By S. Stephen Hilmy. Knowledge of God: Calvin, Einstein and Polanyi. By Iain Paul. Conceptual Change and Religious Practice with Special Reference to Jews in Britain and Israel. By Janice Williams. The World's Religions. Edited by Stewart Sutherland, Leslie Houlden, Peter Clarke and Friedhelm Hardy. Religions in Conversation: Christian Identity and Religious Pluralism. By Michael Barnes. Theravāda Buddhism, A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modem Colombo. By Richard Gombrich. Mahāyāna Buddhism, The Doctrinal Foundations. By Paul Williams. Hinduism in Great Britain: The Perpetuation of Religion in an Alien Cultural Milieu. Edited by Richard Burghart. The Way of the Black Messiah. By Theo Witvliet. The Meaning of Religious Conversion in Africa. By Cyril C. Okorocha. Common Ground: Christianity, African Religion and Philosophy. By Emmanuel K. Twesigye. Islamic Spirituality I: Foundations. Edited by Seyyed Hossein Nasr. The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth. By Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor. Judaism and Christianity in the Age of Constantine. By J. Neusner. Language and the Worship of the Church. Edited by David Jasper and R.C.D. Jasper. The Urban Character of Christian Worship: The Origins, Development and Meaning of Stational Liturgy. By John E. Baldovin. Leontii Presbyteri Constantinopolitani Homiliae. Edited by Cornells Datema and Pauline Allen. Law, Sex and Christian Society in Medieval Europe. By James A. Brundage. Melchior Hoffman: Social Unrest and Apocalyptic Visions in the Age of Reformation. By Klaus D Alonso de Zorita: RoyalJudge and Christian Humanist, 1512–1585. By Ralph H. Vigil. Pedro Moya de Contreras: Catholic Reform and Royal Power in New Spain, 1571–1591. By Stafford Poole. Archbishop William Laud. By Charles Carlton. The Social History of Religion in Scotland since 1730. By Callum G. Brown. Pastors and Pluralism in Württemberg, 1918–1933. By David J. Diephouse. The Churches and the Third Reich, Vol. One: Preliminary History and the Time of Illusions, 1918–1934. By Klaus Scholder. Reforming Fundamentalism. Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism. By George M. Marsden. The Hellenistic Philosophers Vol. II: Greek and Latin Texts with Notes and Bibliography. By A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley. Prayers of the Eucharist: Early and Reformed. Edited by R.C.D. Jasper and G. J. Cuming. The Way of Paradox: Spiritual Life as Taught by Meister Eckhart. By Cyprian Smith. Meister Eckhart: The Man from whom God Hid Nothing. Edited by Ursula Fleming. The Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola: A New Translation. Translated by Elisabeth Meier Tetlow. Courtfield and the Vaughans: An English Catholic Inheritance. By Mary Vaughan. Trinity College, Washington D.C.: The First Eighty Years, 1897–1977. By Columba Mullaly. John Henry Newman on the Idea of Church. By Edward Jeremy Miller. 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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 127 Chernyshevskii: The Man and the Journalist. By William F. Woehrlin. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1971. Pp. 404. $12.50) Professor Woehrlin's book on Nicholas Chernyshevskii is the first full, rich, and precise treatment of that crucially important Russian intellectual in English. The narrative moves, in ten chapters, from "Boyhood in Saratov," "University Years," "The Teacher," and "The Journalist" to a consideration of its protagonist's concern with (...) "Philosophy," "Aesthetics and Literary Criticism," "Economics and Social Theory," and "Politics and the Theory of Revolution." It closes with chapters on "The Revolutionary Movement" and on "Prison and Exile." The volume contains also a bibliography, notes unfortunately relegated to the back, an index, and two photographs of Chcrnyshevskii. The book is on the whole attractively presented, although there are some misprints in the text and several misspelled names in the index. Fairness, judiciousness, care, and common sense characterize Professor Woehrlin's work. Consistently sympathetic and understanding in regard to his subject, he is nevertheless poles apart from the hackneyed hagiography of Soviet specialists. "Were Chernyshevskii's philosophical writings to be judged from the point of view of technical philosophy alone, there would be little to recommend them" (p. 140). Entirely derivative in his philosophy, the Russian radical combined Feuerbach's rejection of God and of German idealism with "the older position of materialistic monism, buttressed by the scientific popularizers of his own day" (p. 141). It was especially this latter orientation, peculiarly congenial to him, that he proceeded to preach with absolute conviction. Chernyshevskii's importance resided in the facts that on the basis of his world view he affirmed the need of revolution in Russia and that his message had a profound impact on the emerging Russian radicalism. Yet the author indicates, in a characteristicaily scrupulous and balanced examination of the sources, that Chernyshevskii as publicist also tried to influence the government in the direction of more far-reaching peasant reform and that there is no conclusive evidence that he himself took part in revolutionary activities. There is distinctly more to praise than to criticize in Professor Woehrlin's book, but the reader does wish at times that the author would develop his analysis. As man, Chernyshevskii stands clearly and sympathetically delineated; yet the author does little to resolve psychological contradictions or offer insights. In terms of ideas, Professor Woehrlin suggests that What Is To Be Done? could be approached as a parody (pp. 314 ft.). But surely more than a suggestion is needed to establish that point. And if not a parody, then what was the real nature of that strange novel and what did it mean to its author? It is when dealing with the obsessive, utopian side of Chernyshevskii that Professor Woehrlin often finds himself ill at ease. But, while one is always entitled to ask for more, one must also be grateful for what is given. Professor Woehrlin has written a very useful book and the best introduction to Chernyshevskii in any language. NICHOLAS V. RIASANOVSKY University of California, Berkeley... (shrink)

This little book contains lectures given by Vlastos in the summer of 1972 in the Danz Lectures series of the University of Washington. His theme relates to that often rather paternalistic exercise of plotting out the extent to which Science was Revealed to the Greeks. In his view, "it was not given to them... to grasp the essential genius of the scientific method." However, they did discover "the conception of the cosmos that is presupposed by the idea of natural science (...) and by its practice". This discovery, an intellectual "revolution," was of the view, upheld by the Presocratic physiologoi, that the world is characterized by "unbreachable regularities" which make the world a "cosmos," which "constitute the order of nature and, if known, would yield the ultimate explanation of every natural phenomenon". This was revolutionary since it rejected the traditional belief in an unlimited area of possible divine supernatural intervention in the world, a belief which made perception of the universe a perception of an "irrational universe". Thus, "for the first time in history", man achieved, with Presocratic physiologia, "a perception of a rational universe". In the remaining two chapters of the book, Vlastos examines Plato, represented as a "fierce opponent" of the revolution who appropriated the newly discovered cosmos, refashioning it "on the pattern of his own idealistic and theistic metaphysics". This interpretation of Plato is developed mainly through a study of the Timaeus and especially of the "Theory of Celestial Motions" and of the "Theory of the Structure of Matter". Plato appears as opposed to the "impiety" of the physiologoi, proposing himself in the Timaeus a transcendent god as his primary cosmological principle. At the same time, the Timaeus reflects, as Vlastos shows in a brief survey of earlier and contemporary Greek astronomy, an awareness of the "empirical facts" established by the astronomers and Plato’s desire to reconcile these facts with his metaphysical, theological, a priori convictions. This reconciliation involved postulating a system of celestial circular motions, a theory whose "scientific value" Vlastos does not doubt, despite its dependence on a "metaphysical scheme". Vlastos concludes that although Plato fully acknowledged a supernatural power in the universe, he guaranteed the regularities of nature against divine intervention. There is an unfailing natural law. However, its ground for Plato is not natural but supernatural. In examining the "Theory of the Structure of Matter", Vlastos again finds that Plato’s world-order resembles very much that of the physiologoi and, like theirs, is "safe from supernatural interference". The "elementarism" of the Timaeus is shown to be indebted to the Atomists, but also to innovate by opening the way to the intertransformability of elementary corpuscules. What "scientific value" does this theory of the transformation of elements have? It is neither entailed nor contradicted by observation. Vlastos suggests rather that its grounds are "aesthetic". At any rate, Vlastos concludes that although Plato opposed the physiologoi in reintroducing supernatural agency, he annexed their conception of cosmos. In his "perversely original way," he thus "sustained the faith that our world is cosmos. He gave rational men a pious faith to live by in two millennia all through which science was more prophecy than reality". Some of Vlastos’ more extensive footnotes are collected in an Appendix, which is followed by a Bibliography and Indices. (shrink)

Rosensohn’s interpretation rejects the thesis that Peirce had several systems, perhaps as many as four, each of which is responsive to his new discoveries in logic. Against this view Rosensohn traces the development of Peirce’s system as a coherent phenomenological search, shaped by his "lifelong interest in logic, the sciences, ethics, aesthetics and metaphysics", and culminating in his phaneroscopy, the description of the phaneron. Rosensohn’s text consists of two parts. Part I, "The Elements of Phenomenology," consists of three chapters, (...) two of which are devoted to a close investigation of Peirce’s 1967 "A New List of Categories." Part II consists of two long chapters, "Phenomenology and Nature " and "Phaneroscopy: The Description of the Phaneron." The book concludes with a critique of Peirce’s fundamental categories—Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness—as these bear on his own phenomenological project. From the standpoint of Peirce’s phenomenology, "whatever is present to the mind has Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness", but on the ontological level the cosmos’ evolution is viewed by him as linear. In addition to the usual bibliography and index, Rosensohn provides a helpful appendix of six key quotations in which Peirce explains phenomenology and phaneroscopy. This volume is vastly more substantial than its limited number of pages might suggest. The publisher crowds the pages with smallish print, generally exceeding 500 words per page. Rosensohn’s text itself is lucid, beautifully written, and skillfully argued. It represents at once an important contribution to Peirce scholarship and to the phenomenological literature.—B.M. (shrink)

Bruening describes his book as "an attempt to capture the spirit of the man—not his works and his life considered in isolation from each other, but the person himself as one single human being." For the most part, however, life and works are separately presented, most of the biographical data being concentrated in the first chapter. Thereafter the works are treated one by one, in largely chronological order: "Notes on Logic" ; "Notes Dictated to Moore" ; Notebooks ; Prototractatus ; (...) Tractatus ; "Lecture on Ethics" ; Blue Book ; Brown Book ; Philosophical Investigations ; Philosophische Bemerkungen ; Philosophical Grammar ; Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics ; Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief ; Zettel ; On Certainty. Bruening does not explain his principles of selection. The direction of his interests is suggested by the ten pages on Lectures and Conversations, not written by Wittgenstein, as compared to the mere half page devoted to On Certainty, or by the four pages on a popular lecture on ethics as compared to the single page on Philosophische Bemerkungen. Longer treatments follow the course of the work being glossed and sample its topics, save in the case of the Investigations, where remarks are grouped under these five headings: "Reflections on the Tractatus," "Language Games and Forms of Life," "The Mind-Body Problem and Private Language," "The Nature of Philosophy," and "Seeing and Seeing As." Doubtless beginning readers such as Bruening usually has in view would have found more profit and interest in the coherent development of such themes than in running comments on work after work, especially if they had been shown inside Wittgenstein’s problems and been made to sense the struggle. This seldom happens, however, and the inaccuracies are numerous and sometimes serious. A select bibliography is appended.—G.L.H. (shrink)