Leslie Armour argues for the rules of a dialectical logic which can account for the metaphysical problems of stability and change. He proposes a specific/general exclusion reference, a variation of the polar opposites contrast, which will make possible a rigorous development of the core structural concepts necessary for systematic explanation. His initial move is significantly different from Hegel’s being-nothing-becoming triad. The opposite of "pure being," Armour contends, is "pure disjunction." "Being" unifies, "disjunction" makes distinctions possible. Seven more categories are developed, (...) each at lower levels of abstraction, to introduce actual specificity and change. Armour’s main contention is that Hegel erred in introducing concrete "becoming" at a high level of logical abstraction. The ordering of his concepts is straightforward. "Pure being" contrasted with "pure disjunction" necessitates "determinate being." "Systematic unity" unifies the opposing elements in and. "Pure process" establishes the possibility of ongoing experience. Particularity is accounted for by the concepts of "determinate process" instantiated in the contrast of "ideal" and "objective universality" realized in the "dialectical individual." The final concept maintains the tension between structure and actualization without resulting in mere vacillation. This is done by arguing that self-identity is not a matter of bodily and dispositional consistency, but, rather, the pursuit of reasonableness. Armour contends that we identify people by the coherence of their actions which is understood in the context of an overall structure, such as the one he proposes. Some will be bothered by Armour’s admission that the development of the concepts of specificity cannot exemplify the necessity of the more general initial dialectical concepts. Others will be attracted to the degree of freedom for the subject in his concept of individuality which is supported by a clear systematic account.—P. G. W. S. (shrink)

Originally conceived as a forty-page conclusion to Hacker’s twenty years of work on the monumental four-volume Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, this book “rapidly assumed a life of its own”. A major contribution to the history of analytic philosophy, this substantial volume delivers even more than the title promises. The eight chapters are best approached as a six-chapter book, itself some 220 pages long, on Wittgenstein’s contribution to twentieth-century philosophy, followed by a two-chapter, 120-page epilogue about how and why (...) his influence has waned. The first six chapters provide an encyclopedic summary of the fruits of Hacker’s research on Wittgenstein’s writing, an immensely learned account of British philosophy from the turn of the century to the 1970s, and a detailed account of Wittgenstein’s reception by Oxford, Cambridge, and the Vienna Circle. The book’s closing chapters, “Post-positivism in the United States and Quine’s Apostasy” and “The Decline of Analytic Philosophy,” polemically argue that Quine’s philosophy, and the post-Quinean naturalism prevalent in Anglo-American philosophy today, amount to such a decisive break with the analytic tradition, as Hacker conceives of it, that they should not be counted as “analytic.”. (shrink)

Cicero's philosophical works are now exciting renewed interest, in part because he provides vital evidence of the views of the Greek philosophers of the Hellenistic age, and partly because of the light he casts on the intellectual life of first century Rome. This edition uses the 1997 Clarendon text by the acclaimed translator P.G. Walsh.

‘Menander has set up a confrontation between this law [the law about epikleroi] and love… He wants the audience to regard the law as stupid and wrong… Surely one of Menander's purposes in writing this play was to make the Athenians consider seriously whether the law ought to be changed.’ Thus Professor D. M. MacDowell in the concluding paragraph of his article ‘Love versus the Law: an Essay on Menander's Aspis’. A similar view was already implicit in E. Karabelias' treatment (...) of the play as indicative of the general attitude to this law in Athens in Menander's day: ‘A n'en point douter, l'épiclérat est ressenti, á l'epoque de Ménandre, comme une anomalie intolérable pour les mceurs de la societe athénienne à la fin du ive s.av.n.è L'épiclérat est odieux et ridicule… L'hostilité envers l'épiclérat est done un signe des temps’. And Professor E. G. Turner has written: ‘it is hard to imagine that the institution of the epiclerate emerged in good standing from this derisory treatment’. (shrink)

In its original form Dirac's equations have been expressed by use of the γ-matrices γμ, μ=0, 1, 2, 3. They are elements of the matrix algebra M 4 (ℂ). As emphasized by Hestenes several times, the γ-matrices are merely a (faithful) matrix representation of an orthonormal basis of the orthogonal spaceℝ 1,3, generating the real Clifford algebra Cl 1,3 . This orthonormal basis is also denoted by γμ, μ=0, 1, 2, 3. The use of the matrix algebra M 4 (ℂ) (...) to represent Cl 1,3 has some unsatisfactory aspects. The γ-matrices contain imaginary numbers as entries whereas Cl 1,3 is real. Moreover, as a matrix algebra Cl 1,3 is M 2 (ℍ) but only a part of M 4 (ℂ). For that reason we investigate in this paper several forms of Dirac's equations in terms of M 2 (ℍ) instead of M 4 (ℂ). In Section1 we survey Dirac's equations describing the interaction of matter with electromagnetic, electroweak, and strong fields. Section2 deals with electromagnetic/weak interactions employing M 2 (ℍ). Finally, in Section3 we deal with Dirac's equations for strong interactions between quarks. In contrast to su(2) ⊕ u(1), the Lie algebra su(3) is not isomorphic to any subalgebra of Cl 1,3 . Therefore we do not give a description of strong interactions by use of M 2 (ℍ). Instead of such an approach we describe these interactions using the space of quadruples of bivector fields in Cl 1,3 . The thus obtained description has remarkable formal resemblance to the original Dirac equations using wave functions with values in the linear spaceℂ 4. (shrink)

Writing of Terence's Andria in 1952, Duckworth said: ‘In the Andria the second love affair is unusual; Charinus’ love for a respectable girl whose virtue is still intact has been considered an anticipation of a more modern attitude towards love and sex. More frequently in Plautus and Terence the heroine, if of respectable parentage, has been violated before the opening of the drama , or she is a foreigner, a courtesan, or a slave girl' , p. 158). Perhaps in 1993 (...) it does not seem quite so ‘modern’ that Charinus is not only in love with a respectable virgin but wishes to marry her. (shrink)

‘Menander has set up a confrontation between this law [the law about epikleroi] and love… He wants the audience to regard the law as stupid and wrong… Surely one of Menander's purposes in writing this play was to make the Athenians consider seriously whether the law ought to be changed.’ Thus Professor D. M. MacDowell in the concluding paragraph of his article ‘Love versus the Law: an Essay on Menander's Aspis’. A similar view was already implicit in E. Karabelias' treatment (...) of the play as indicative of the general attitude to this law in Athens in Menander's day: ‘A n'en point douter, l'épiclérat est ressenti, á l'epoque de Ménandre, comme une anomalie intolérable pour les mceurs de la societe athénienne à la fin du ive s.av.n.è L'épiclérat est odieux et ridicule… L'hostilité envers l'épiclérat est done un signe des temps’. And Professor E. G. Turner has written: ‘it is hard to imagine that the institution of the epiclerate emerged in good standing from this derisory treatment’. (shrink)

The following note is based upon a re-examination of the binding, the quire signatures, and the enumeration of the plays of Euripides in L first made at Florence in 1948 and checked in 1952. Its purpose is to suggest that conjectures are still current about L and the exemplar from which it was copied, which cannot be regarded as sufficiently supported by good evidence to justify their retention; and to attempt some further clarification of L's relationship with the MS. Palatinus (...) 287. (shrink)

as Denniston pointed out in his note on the passage, ‘is difficult’. Various suggestions have been made to explain it, from Kvicala's emendation on the analogy of Medea 923, to Parmentier's note, ‘la joue blanche ou claire, c'est-à-dire en sa fleur de jeunesse’; but none is altogether convincing or satisfactory. May one, then, advance the idea of retaining as the Oxford recension does, not on the ground of faute de mieux, but for the sake of the very striking image it (...) contains? How to Cite This Article. (shrink)

Irrationality remains a central issue in the philosophy of psychoanalysis. While some approaches in the philosophy of mind have argued that irrationality demands no special account, one of the central conceptual planks of psychoanalytic theory is the notion that irrational motivations have their origin in the dynamic unconscious. This article reviews recent attempts to account for the phenomenon of motivated irrationality, and argues that the problem of self-understanding will remain central to the philosophy of mind so long as we accept (...) the notion of rational agency. Any account of the mind which ignores or denies the appeal of first-person mental phenomena risks rendering itself unintelligible as a convincing account of the conscious subject. (shrink)