In 1949, the Department of Philosophy at the University of Manchester organized a symposium “Mind and Machine” with Michael Polanyi, the mathematicians Alan Turing and Max Newman, the neurologists Geoff rey Jeff erson and J. Z. Young, and others as participants. Th is event is known among Turing scholars, because it laid the seed for Turing’s famous paper on “Computing Machinery and Intelligence”, but it is scarcely documented. Here, the transcript of this event, together with Polanyi’s original statement and his (...) notes taken at a lecture by Jeff erson, are edited and commented for the fi rst time. Th e originals are in the Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago. Th e introduction highlights elements of the debate that included neurophysiology, mathematics, the mind-body-machine problem, and consciousness and shows that Turing’s approach, as documented here, does not lend itself to reductionism. (shrink)

Péter Pázmány taught philosophy at the Jesuit university of Graz, end of 16th century. This analyzes his interpretation of Aristotelian psychology.

Scientific and political developments of the early twentieth century led Michael Polanyi to study the role of the scientist in research and the interaction between the individual scholar and the surrounding conditions in community and society. In his concept of “personal knowledge” he gave the theory and history of science an anthropological turn. In many instances of the history of sciences, research is driven by a commitment to beliefs and values. Society plays the role of authority and communicative backdrop that (...) presupposes individual liberty. As a system of beliefs science is rooted in community and also in history. However, as soon as fellow humans become the objects of research, their appeal transcends the researcher. Consequently, the history of human endeavor reveals a “firmament” of standards and obligations which represent an ontological reality, for which Polanyi invokes Teilhard de Chardin’s notion of noosphere. (shrink)

On the 27th of October, 1949, the Department of Philosophy at the University of Manchester organized a symposium "Mind and Machine", as Michael Polanyi noted in his Personal Knowledge (1974, p. 261). This event is known, especially among scholars of Alan Turing, but it is scarcely documented. Wolfe Mays (2000) reported about the debate, which he personally had attended, and paraphrased a mimeographed document that is preserved at the Manchester University archive. He forwarded a copy to Andrew Hodges and B. (...) Jack Copeland, who in then published it on their respective websites. The basis of this interpretation here is the copy preserved in the Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago, Special Collections, Polanyi Collection (abbreviated RPC, box 22, folder 19). The same collection holds the mimeographed statement that Polanyi prepared for this symposium: "Can the mind be represented by a machine?" This text has not been studied by Polanyi scholars. (shrink)

Contents: Preface; From faith to reason for fideism: Raymond Lull, Raimundus Sabundus and Michel de Montaigne; Nicholas of Cusa and Pythagorean theology; Giordano Bruno's philosophy of religion; Coluccio Salutati: hermeneutics of humanity; Humanism applied to language, logic and religion: Lorenzo Valla; Georgios Gemistos Plethon: from paganism to Christianity and back; Marsilio Ficino's philosophical theology; Giovanni Pico against popular Platonism; Tommaso Campanella: God makes sense in the world; Francisco Suárez – scholastic and Platonic ideas of God; Epilogue: conflicting truth claims; Bibliography; (...) Index. (shrink)

The era of the Baroque witnessed a fierce debate over the interpretation of some experiments about the vacuum. It was riddled with fear of annihilation. My focus will not lie on the development of...

L’élaboration d’une théorie de l’objet sert de guide à la doctrine de la science en général, et à l’élaboration formelle du statut de la métaphysique en particulier. L’étude de Paul Richard Blum porte sur l’objet de la métaphysique selon Bartholomaeus Mastrius : l’auteur y dégage les principales positions de Mastrius, débouchant, à la suite de son modèle scotiste, sur une ontologie formelle totalement détachée de la physique, à la différence de la tradition thomiste.The elaboration of the theory of object directs (...) the theory of science in general, and specifically the formal elaboration of the status of metaphysics. Paul Richard Blum’s study deals with the object of metaphysics according to Bartholomaeus Mastrius : the author outlines Mastrius’ principal positions. His metaphysics leads, according to its Scotistic model, to a purely formal ontology, completely severed from physics, contrasting with the Thomistic tradition. (shrink)

The history of philosophy has to understand the problems to which past theories are intended as answers, rather than taking the latter as sets of doctrines, which may be correct or mistaken. Examples from the Renaissance are Nicholas of Cusa, Marsilio Ficino, Bernardino Telesio, Girolamo Cardano, and Benedictus Pererius: they show that Renaissance thinkers sought for principles of nature in terms of active powers. Whoever denies the validity of such ideas has the burden of proof that alternative theories solve the (...) same problems. (shrink)

The relationship between body and mind was traditionally discussed in terms of immortality of the intellect, because immateriality was one necessary condition for the mind to be immortal. This appeared to be an issue of metaphysics and religion. But to the medieval and Renaissance thinkers, the essence of mind is thinking activity and hence an epistemological feature. Starting with John Searle’s worries about the existence of consciousness, I try to show some parallels with the Aristotelian Pietro Pomponazzi (1462–1525), and eventually (...) show the Neoplatonic approach in Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499). The guiding question is: how can one philosophically address the problem of cognition in terms of corporeality and incorporeality? Searle maintains there is mind, although essentially related to a biological basis, and he is comparable to the Renaissance thinkers for his taking the interaction of the mental and the corporeal seriously. (shrink)

Wonder, miracle, occult science, poetry, and the epistemological implications in Renaissance authors: Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico, Pietro Pomponazzi, Agrippa of Nettesheim, Giordano Bruno, Francesco Patrizi, Tommaso Campanella, Francisco Suárez.

Vorbemerkung „Nichts unter der Sonne ist neu," war Giordano Brunos Leitspruch. Dennoch ist es angebracht, ihn als einen Denker vorzustellen, der eine eigene ...

Syncretism is a challenge to modern philosophy, but it was the main characteristic of Giordano Bruno’s thought. This has been made clear by Frances A. Yates, who in interpreting Bruno and Renaissance Hermeticism was not afraid of connecting theories and cultural expressions which on the surface are alien to philosophy. In doing so Yates was congenial to her object of study, as syncretism of theory was no mere side effect of Hermeticism, but had a philosophical aim. This aim can be (...) identified as the desire to connect the world and its general principle, as well as the powers of the human mind, into a philosophical narrative which strives at unifying oppositions and contradictions. (shrink)

Western Creed, Western Identity: such was the title of a volume of collected essays by Jude P. Dougherty published in 2000; most of these essays are now made available in this German translation. Since the author is well known to the readership of the Review of Metaphysics, which he has served as editor for thirty years, his thought need not to be introduced by way of a book review; rather, it will be of interest to emphasize the timeliness of these (...) studies for the German audience. (shrink)

Paul Richard Blum Et nuper Plethon – Ficino's Praise of Georgios Gemistos ABSTRACT Most authors who refer to Marsilio Ficino's famous Prooemium to his translation of Plotinus, addressed to Lorenzo de'Medici, discuss the alleged foundation of the Platonic Academy in Florence, but rarely continue reading down the same page, where – for a second time – Georgios Gemistos Plethon is mentioned. The passage contains more than one surprising claim: 1. Pletho is a reliable interpreter of Aristotle. 2. Pletho and Pico (...) are the most recent Aristotelians, more precisely, they are the latest candle bearers of true Aristotelian tradition. 3. Pletho, alongside with the other authors mentioned, is religiously orthodox. In this paper I show that these statements are contrafactual, and discuss the reasons for Ficino's attempt at making Plethon and Pico his allies. Ficino suggests that Pico and Pletho are representatives of such "philosophic religion" that eventually might convert the Aristotelians to the same piety that unites Pico, Plethon, and the Platonizing interpreters of Aristotle. Pletho's agenda was to restore ancient pagan wisdom in order not to supplant Christianity. Ficino's device to counter corrupt Aristetelianism is to create a counter-tradition, that parallels Platonism, namely the pious reading of Aristotle. He employed the figure of young Pico as having urged him to translate Plotinus. Pico serves as a step stone between the Council of Florence, when in 1439 Cosimo encountered Pletho, and the new translation of Plotinus. The divine inspiration, instilled by Pletho and forwarded from Cosimo via Pico to Ficino christianizes the project, which would sound dubitable, if related only to Pletho. Thus Pico was to help saving Ficino's reputation as a religious philosopher. For this purpose, Ficino had to parallel Pletho with the unsuspected Pico, to the effect that Pletho becomes so to say christened. (shrink)

Benedictus Pererius as a 16th-century Jesuit integrated Platonic and Neo-Platonic sources in his philosophical and theological works as long as they were compatible with Catholic theology. His commentary on Genesis and his theological disputations on St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans gave occasions to calibrate philosophy against theology. Pererius judges that pagan thinkers may be laudable for acknowledging the existence of God but cautions Christian readers as to the orthodoxy of such findings. Against the Protestant literalist interpretation of the Bible (...) at the expense of philosophical theory of nature Pererius dealt with the questions of immortality and of the pagan notions of divinity and examined the role of philosophical heroes like Socrates and Hermes. Thus he welcomed philosophy as a potential source of religious thinking. (shrink)

Syncretism is a challenge to modern philosophy, but it was the main characteristic of Giordano Bruno’s thought. This has been made clear by Frances A. Yates, who in interpreting Bruno and Renaissance Hermeticism was not afraid of connecting theories and cultural expressions which on the surface are alien to philosophy. In doing so Yates was congenial to her object of study, as syncretism of theory was no mere side effect of Hermeticism, but had a philosophical aim. This aim can be (...) identified as the desire to connect the world and its general principle, as well as the powers of the human mind, into a philosophical narrative which strives at unifying oppositions and contradictions. (shrink)

Natural sciences and natural philosophy of the Jesuits are based on theology. At least the concept of God is an integral part of their theoretical structure. Examples are taken from Rudjer Boskovic, Honoré Fabri and Nicolaus Cabeus. In fact, the Jesuits, e.g. Theophil Raynaud, dealt with natural theology as the spiritual foundation of knowledge independent of revelation. But natural theology, as in Raimundus Sabundus, has an anthropocentric and hence moral dimension: it links knowledge with religion. ‘Ignatius of Loyola influenced decisively (...) the Jesuits’ concept of science and its relationship to religion through his Spiritual Exercises in which meditation and religious practice are developed into a technique and a scientific approach to faith. (shrink)

To explain the interaction of stillness and motion of thought, Nicholas Cusanus formulated his renowned comparison with a cosmographer, which through five gateways, corresponding to the five senses, receives information about the world in the form of messages. What follows therefrom is not directly an analysis of the world but of the Creator, whom the philosopher mirrors in himself as a creator of scientific symbols.Cusanus was repeatedly suspected of Pantheism. What is crucial, however, for the critique of reasonning is the (...) parallelism, that God's omnipresence in his creation corresponds to a universal capacity of the human mind to perceive everything by means of a hypothetical otherness . Therefrom proceeds the general projection that everything can be seen in mathematical terms. Mathematical calculating, working with figures, reducing to units, leads Cusanus to God's creative power as much as to the functioning of the intellect.However, his renowned mental experiments on the minimum and maximum were purely in pursuit of the goal of describing the fluid frontiers of defined thought. This is also true of his cosmology. Cusanus argued mathematically in order to prove the non-mathematical and the non-realistic. (shrink)