A selection of Aristotle's most important philosophical works in English translation with an introduction and comments by Renford Bambrough with emphasis on metaphysical questions and a new afterword by Susanne Bobzien that focuses on how to study Aristotle and on Aristotle on determinism and freedom.
Plato's Meno and Phaedo are two of the most important works of ancient western philosophy and continue to be studied around the world. The Meno is a seminal work of epistemology. The Phaedo is a key source for Platonic metaphysics and for Plato's conception of the human soul. Together they illustrate the birth of Platonic philosophy from Plato's reflections on Socrates' life and doctrines. This edition offers new and accessible translations of both works, together with a thorough introduction that explains (...) the arguments of the two dialogues and their place in Plato's thought. (shrink)
As there is a condition of mind which is characterized by invincible ignorance, so there is another which may be said to be possessed of invincible knowledge; and it would be paradoxical in me to deny to such a mental state the highest quality of religious faith,—I mean certitude . ‘She's an artist. She keeps saying the same thing without repeating herself. In being initiated into our life as human beings we are subject to causal influences; guiding, teaching, restraint, compulsion, (...) incentives, rewards, warnings, penalties. Until such influences have achieved their most important work we do not share the human understanding within which there can be ratiocination, evidence, argument. So there is and must be a causal story of how we come to acquire a human understanding; a causal story for the species as a whole and a causal story for each of us; and there is not and could not be any acceptable account, either for the species or for the individual, of how we reasoned or argued our way into our initial and fundamental understanding. I say the same thing without repeating myself if I call such knowledge and understanding invincible . It is not possible to Overthrow it by reasoning any more than it is possible to establish it by reasoning. (shrink)
When Mr. Apollinax visited the United States, his laughter tinkled among the teacups. When Professor Ryle published Plato's Progress , his paradoxes clattered through the china shops.
Gasking, D. A. T. The philosophy of John Wisdom.--Thomson, J. J. Moore's technique revisited.--Yalden-Thomson, D. C. The Virginia lectures.--Dilman, I. Paradoxes and discoveries.--Ayers, M. R. Reason and psycholinguistics.--Roberts, G. W. Incorrigibility, behaviourism and predictionism.--Hinton, J. M. "This is visual sensation."--Gunderson, K. The texture of mentality.--Newell, R. W. John Wisdom and the problem of other minds.--Lyon, A. The relevance of Wisdom's work for the philosophy of science.--Morris, H. Shared guilt.--Bambrough, R. Literature and philosophy.--Chronological list of published writings of John Wisdom, 1928-1972 (...) (p. [293]-300). (shrink)
‘Where two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic’ This sentence from Wittgenstein's On Certainty is the source of my title. A passage in George Orwell's Shooting an Elephant might have prompted the same choice: ‘The Catholic and the Communist are alike in assuming that an opponent cannot be both honest and intelligent. Each of them tacitly claims that “the truth” has already been revealed, and (...) that the heretic, if he is not simply a fool, is secretly aware of “the truth” and merely resists it out of selfish motives’. (shrink)
In the Michaelmas Term 1968 I gave a course of lectures on the Philosophical Investigations . Until then nobody had lectured at Cambridge specifically on that book, though it had been in print for fifteen years and must by that time have been lectured on in nearly every other philosophy department in the English-speaking world. One reason why we were so slow is suggested by a remark that John Wisdom made after hearing Max Black give a lecture on the Tractatus (...) in the early fifties. As we came out of the lecture room he said to me ‘That was a strange experience. I have a clear memory of all that from my early years in Cambridge. And yet in some ways it was like hearing a lecture on Spinoza.’. (shrink)
In his speech of welcome to the members of the Classical Joint Meeting at Cambridge in August, 1958, the Master of Peterhouse praised classical scholars for the detachment and pertinacity with which they continue their pursuits while the world is on the edge of the abyss. The remark might be taken to have one more edge than the abyss. At a time when it can no longer be assumed that a knowledge of the Greek and Latin classics is part of (...) the learning of any man who has any learning at all, there are two opposite temptations which beset those whose profession is the study and teaching of the ancient classics. The first is the sentimentality which goes on singing dithyrambs to the Glory that was Greece and the Grandeur that was Rome, on the assumption that the relevance of ancient texts to modern perplexities is too nearly self-evident to need explaining. (shrink)
There was a most ingenious Architect who had contrived a new Method building Houses, by beginning at the Roof, and working downwards to the Foundation; which he justified to me by the like Practice of those two prudent Insects the Bee and the Spider.
My theme is tragical–historical–philosophical. Though the chief characters are Aristotle and Agamemnon, there are strong supporting roles for Heraclitus and Professor Sir Denys Page, and you will also hear the voices of Aeschylus, Spinoza, J. A. Froude and Professor A. W. H. Adkins. Heraclitus speaks first: ‘ dis es ton auton potamon ’, he says, ‘ ouk an embaiês .’.
If he had not been discouraged by the opposition of the farmers, Mein Herr could surely have done better still. He could have made his map into a relief map, with mountains and valleys represented on the scale of one foot to the foot; he could have represented every blade of grass and every pool of water, every pillar box and every fence, every mouse and every man, by a full-scale model in the appropriate and authentic materials. And all the (...) models could have been working models, programmed to represent exactly every waterfall and every thunderstorm, every birth, marriage anddeath, every renaissance and every reformation. If he had done all this the country would not simply do nearly as well, but just as well as the map. He could throw the country away, and still have the country. He could throw the map away, and still have all that he needed, unless for some reason he wanted to have two copies of his map. (shrink)
My theme is tragical–historical–philosophical. Though the chief characters are Aristotle and Agamemnon, there are strong supporting roles for Heraclitus and Professor Sir Denys Page, and you will also hear the voices of Aeschylus, Spinoza, J. A. Froude and Professor A. W. H. Adkins. Heraclitus speaks first: ‘ dis es ton auton potamon ’, he says, ‘ ouk an embaiês.’.
I am grateful for the honour that is done to me by the invitation to give the first H. B. Acton Lecture. We are all grateful for an occasion to honour Professor Acton. It is disappointing, however understandable, and fitting to his modesty, that he has not felt able to be here to receive our gratitude.
What is the difference between reason and faith? The question is framed in what I would call ‘the treacherous singular’. The structure of the question implies a particular form of answer and makes other assumptions about notions that occur in the same region of our network of thoughts and understandings. If I were happy to play this game I might reply in kind by offering a simple formula purporting to sum up my own answers to the cluster of questions that (...) are implicit in the simple form given above. The form makes the question and the answer appear more straightforward than they are. Perhaps I might answer in the questioner's style by stating the conclusions of my paper in these words: A simple idea is at the heart of my paper, but one that is hard to absorb and to live by in one' s wider thoughts about reason and faith. The simple idea is that faith is itself a mode of reason. This means that there cannot be a sharp distinction between reason and faith, whether or not one tries to express such a distinction in the treacherous singular, or perhaps in the impoverished plural, a mode of expression in which a few separate but simple factors are identified as what faith is or what reason is. (shrink)
What is the difference between reason and faith? The question is framed in what I would call ‘the treacherous singular’. The structure of the question implies a particular form of answer and makes other assumptions about notions that occur in the same region of our network of thoughts and understandings. If I were happy to play this game I might reply in kind by offering a simple formula purporting to sum up my own answers to the cluster of questions that (...) are implicit in the simple form given above. The form makes the question and the answer appear more straightforward than they are. Perhaps I might answer in the questioner's style by stating the conclusions of my paper in these words: A simple idea is at the heart of my paper, but one that is hard to absorb and to live by in one' s wider thoughts about reason and faith. The simple idea is that faith is itself a mode of reason. This means that there cannot be a sharp distinction between reason and faith, whether or not one tries to express such a distinction in the treacherous singular, or perhaps in the impoverished plural, a mode of expression in which a few separate but simple factors are identified as what faith is or what reason is. (shrink)
