Gödel has emphasized the important role that his philosophical views had played in his discoveries. Thus, in a letter to Hao Wang of December 7, 1967, explaining why Skolem and others had not obtained the completeness theorem for predicate calculus, Gödel wrote:This blindness of logicians is indeed surprising. But I think the explanation is not hard to find. It lies in a widespread lack, at that time, of the required epistemological attitude toward metamathematics and toward non-finitary reasoning. …I may add (...) that my objectivist conception of mathematics and metamathematics in general, and of transfinite reasoning in particular, was fundamental also to my other work in logic.How indeed could one think of expressing metamathematics in the mathematical systems themselves, if the latter are considered to consist of meaningless symbols which acquire some substitute of meaning only through metamathematics?Or how could one give a consistency proof for the continuum hypothesis by means of my transfinite model Δ if consistency proofs have to be finitary?In a similar vein, Gödel has maintained that the “realist” or “Platonist” position regarding sets and the transfinite with which he is identified was part of his belief system from his student days. This can be seen in Gödel's replies to the detailed questionnaire prepared by Burke Grandjean in 1974. Gödel prepared three tentative mutually consistent replies, but sent none of them. (shrink)

Bhimrao Ambedkar is well-known as the architect of the Indian constitution, the document that created the world's largest democracy when it came into effect in 1950. Ambedkar is also famous, or infamous according to some religious partisans, in the Indian political context for his unflagging and often bombastic advocacy on behalf of India's so-called "untouchables." Being a Mahar, an untouchable caste in the Indian state of Maharashtra, Ambedkar knew of the struggles and the religiously underwritten violence that (...) was foisted upon these swaths of Indian society. His struggles in and against the caste system, and the Hindu religious-philosophical system that frequently enabled it, are well documented by... (shrink)

In this paper, against a new imagination-based account defended by Anna Ichino in some recent works, I defend the intuitive and traditional idea that so-called religious beliefs are indeed those doxastic attitudes that they are traditionally taken to be, i.e., bona fide beliefs. Yet I take that the objects of such beliefs amount to be different from what religious believers consciously take them to be; namely, they are mythological characters, a species of fictional characters – namely, fictional characters not (...) consciously recognized as such – instead of being concrete individuals possibly endowed with supernatural powers. Yet religious believers also unconsciously recognize the fictional nature of religious objects of belief as mythological characters, as their behavior ultimately shows. This account indeed allows me to give a different yet still doxastic explanation of the two main reasons that Ichino advocates in favor of her account; namely, the incompatibility of so-called religious beliefs with other beliefs and their imperviousness to evidence, especially of a negative kind. (shrink)

This article draws on the philosophical work on dialogic rationality offered by Charles Taylor as well as qualitative studies of dialogues between politically opposed college students to argue that these conversations succeed as tools of democracy precisely because they fail as interventions. That is, the democratic strength of such dialogue is the way in which it is unreliable as a means of producing particular outcomes. Students whose political views eventually shifted partly in response to dialogue understood this not as a (...) process of changing their commitments, but rather of finding a better expression for the commitments they already held. But the interviews show, too, just how rare it is for such shifts to occur at all, at least for these students in a period of political polarization and mutual distrust. The interviews suggest as well that the appeal to already shared ground is not the whole story of what prompts people to change their minds in these kinds of conversations. Rather the asking of direct but respectful questions was a crucial ingredient. Finally, dialogue did not independently cause the most profound changes in political views. Instead, it was the direction of students' lives that over time shifted their outlook. Their dialogue experience then gained meaning in retrospect, as the beginning of a process of self-questioning that was brought to fruition only later, as a first time that they had heard alternative possibilities for how value commitments can be expressed through politics. (shrink)

In this essay I will consider two theses that are associated with Frege,and will investigate the extent to which Frege really believed them.Much of what I have to say will come as no surprise to scholars of thehistorical Frege. But Frege is not only a historical figure; he alsooccupies a site on the philosophical landscape that has allowed hisdoctrines to seep into the subconscious water table. And scholars in a widevariety of different scholarly establishments then sip from thesedoctrines. I (...) believe that some Frege-interested philosophers at various ofthese establishments might find my conclusions surprising.Some of these philosophical establishments have arisen from an educationalmilieu in which Frege is associated with some specific doctrine at theexpense of not even being aware of other milieux where other specificdoctrines are given sole prominence. The two theses which I will discussillustrate this point. Each of them is called Frege''s Principle, but byphilosophers from different milieux. By calling them milieux I do not want to convey the idea that they are each located at some specificsocio-politico-geographico-temporal location. Rather, it is a matter oftheir each being located at different places on the intellectuallandscape. For this reason one might (and I sometimes will) call them(interpretative) traditions. (shrink)

What are the philosophical views of contemporary professional philosophers? We surveyed many professional philosophers in order to help determine their views on 30 central philosophical issues. This article documents the results. It also reveals correlations among philosophical views and between these views and factors such as age, gender, and nationality. A factor analysis suggests that an individual's views on these issues factor into a few underlying components that predict much of the variation in those views. The results (...) of a metasurvey also suggest that many of the results of the survey are surprising: philosophers as a whole have quite inaccurate beliefs about the distribution of philosophical views in the profession. (shrink)

When Western philosophy was introduced to Indian academia in the late nineteenth century, there arose for Indian philosophers a two-fold need: the need to preserve the self-identity of Indian philosophy and the need to dialogue with Western philosophy. In their attempt to defend the distinctiveness of Indian philosophy, the philosophers of the first half of the twentieth century affirmed that classical Indian philosophy was essentially spiritual. The philosophers of the second half of (...) the twentieth century, however, did not have a compulsion to defend Indian philosophy in the face of Western philosophy. Many of them critiqued the traditional view about classical Indian philosophy. For them classical Indian philosophy, too, was a rational discourse and it is equally capable to contribute to the enrichment of philosophy. Today the two traditions—Indian and Western—are known to each other fairly well and hence there is little need to pursue comparative philosophy as a distinct discipline in philosophy. Instead, what should be promoted is an open philosophizing—philosophizing that is characterized by our openness to diverse ways of thought. (shrink)

The topic of this dissertation is one that has been in the forefront of contemporary metaphysics in the Anglo-American philosophical tradition, namely, the problem of personal identity through time. Although we generally believe that we remain the same persons throughout our lives, the answers to questions concerning just what it is that remains the same about us prove to be elusive. Contemporary debate on the subject has its roots in the challenges posed by Locke and Hume to theories (...) which assert that persisting and substantial selves, or souls, constitute the ground for personal identity, and their efforts to suggest alternative theories based on such concepts as memory and causality. It is remarkable that a similar debate, aroused by the "non-self" doctrine of the Buddha, occupied a central position in Indian philosophical discourse during the last centuries B.C.E. and the first millennium C.E. While much historical and philological research has been devoted to Buddhist approaches to this problem, the task of interpreting these materials in the light of recent refinements of philosophical method has not yet been undertaken. It is this task to which the present thesis is devoted, drawing on the works of such Buddhist philosophers as Vasubandhu and Santaraksita, and their Brahmanical opponents such as Uddyotakara, as well as recent contributions to the debate on personal identity by Chisholm, Parfit and others. The dissertation is divided into three main sections: Part One, in six chapters, traces out the history of the problem of personal identity in Indian philosophy, and is especially concerned with the role played by refinements of Indian philosophical method in the developments discussed; Part Two presents a selection of the most important Buddhist and Brahmanical contributions to the problem, newly translated from the Sanskrit for the present dissertation; and Part Three includes three supplementary essays on personal identity in the work of Derek Parfit and Steven Colline, Buddhist idealism, and Buddhist hermeneutics. (shrink)

Although I do not have any final thoughts about the present topic, it might still be valuable to identify what questions are bothering many Chinese scholars. During an academic meeting last month Professor Yu Dunkang summarized the embarrassing situation confronting the study of Chinese philosophy today, as follows: "The object remains unclear, and the value is misplaced." The phrase "the object remains unclear" means that scholars are not sure what questions need to be studied in relation to (...) class='Hi'>what is called "Chinese philosophy," while the phrase "the value is misplaced" means that scholars misunderstand the value and the meaning of their own work. To a large extent, this summary is correct; but the question is how this particular situation came into being. (shrink)

On many philosophical accounts, the emotion of anger includes a belief that we have been wrongly injured by someone, deliberately or from a lack of due regard. It includes also the belief that the person who injured us deserves to suffer for what she did. Her suffering would serve as fair payback for the suffering she caused us. In slightly different terms, anger includes a desire to strike back at someone who has injured us because we believe that (...) hurting her will compensate for our hurt. A key ethical question concerning anger is whether indulging a desire for retribution or payback is worthy of us as persons. (shrink)

My exploration of the work of Pamela Sue Anderson focuses on what she calls “a philosophical imaginary” in her article “Towards a New Philosophical Imaginary,” in which she responds to Judith Butler’s theory of relational ontology and vulnerability. Anderson’s project is to recast the term vulnerable, which is often associated with feminine weakness, as a positive energy. Critiquing Western myths that portray women as less empowered than men, as in Mary Midgley’s reference to Minerva and Owl that denigrates women (...) as other, according to the Lacanian imaginary, Anderson strikes at the root of Western patriarchy. In contrast, she adduces Michèle Le Doeuff’s contemporary myth on Dawn, adapted from the Spanish philosopher Zambrano’s figure of Dawn, and offers us a new paradigm where Dawn’s heart expresses a new framework of love that is liberated from sex/gender discrimination. Although Anderson believed in Kantian philosophy, she did not hesitate to question the limitations of it. In this context, I also discuss the modern Indian philosopher Sri Aurobindo’s theory of supramental consciousness, the French philosopher Henri Bergson’s theory of intuition, and the ways in which Anderson’s theory of love is grounded in spiritual transformative practice, following Paul Fiddes. Other attractions of Anderson’s essay are the nuances of postcolonial discourse. I explore ways in which the theory of relational ontology proposed by Judith Butler intersects with the Indian economist and philosopher Amartya Sen’s theory of capability/justice. (shrink)

What did the Romans know about their world? Quite a lot, as Daryn Lehoux makes clear in this fascinating and much-needed contribution to the history and philosophy of ancient science. Lehoux contends that even though many of the Romans’ views about the natural world have no place in modern science—the umbrella-footed monsters and dog-headed people that roamed the earth and the stars that foretold human destinies—their claims turn out not to be so radically different from our own. Lehoux draws (...) upon a wide range of sources from what is unquestionably the most prolific period of ancient science, from the first century BC to the second century AD. He begins with Cicero’s theologico-philosophical trilogy _On the Nature of the Gods_, _On Divination_, and _On Fate_, illustrating how Cicero’s engagement with nature is closely related to his concerns in politics, religion, and law. Lehoux then guides readers through highly technical works by Galen and Ptolemy, as well as the more philosophically oriented physics and cosmologies of Lucretius, Plutarch, and Seneca, all the while exploring the complex interrelationships between the objects of scientific inquiry and the norms, processes, and structures of that inquiry. This includes not only the tools and methods the Romans used to investigate nature, but also the Romans’ cultural, intellectual, political, and religious perspectives. Lehoux concludes by sketching a methodology that uses the historical material he has carefully explained to directly engage the philosophical questions of incommensurability, realism, and relativism. By situating Roman arguments about the natural world in their larger philosophical, political, and rhetorical contexts, _What Did the Romans Know?_ demonstrates that the Romans had sophisticated and novel approaches to nature, approaches that were empirically rigorous, philosophically rich, and epistemologically complex. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.2 (2002) 225-237 [Access article in PDF] Did Bayle Read Saint-Evremond? Thomas M. Lennon Of course Bayle read Saint-Evremond—he quotes him. Moreover, he published one of Saint-Evremond's texts. But there is reading, and then there is reading. There is selective, inattentive perusal of excerpts or even secondary sources, with no attempt to penetrate beyond a superficial understanding; and then there is comprehensive, close (...) scrutiny of the best primary sources, with sensitivity to nuance, and attention to context. In short, there is a difference between skimming and studying. Did Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) skim or study the work of Saint-Evremond (ca.1614-1703)?This article argues that Bayle's first-hand knowledge of Saint-Evremond's work was superficial and dependent on a secondary source that gives that work a less than obvious, and hitherto unappreciated meaning for Bayle. This shift matters because it bears on the question of the status of Bayle's religious faith. With her classic Pierre Bayle (1963-64), Elizabeth Labrousse set aside the traditional view of Bayle as a religious skeptic whose professions of faith cannot be taken at face value. Such had been the view held by many in Bayle's own time, most notably by Pierre Jurieu, and near-universally from the Enlightenment into the twentieth century. Very recently, in a work that is no less impressive than hers on this and other topics in Bayle, Gianluca Mori has defended the traditional view, basing a part of his argument on Bayle's use of Saint-Evremond. 1 Thus the question above. Moreover, the matter of Bayle's religious belief is not a merely biographical one. First, there is the fact of his [End Page 225] influence, especially given his huge readership, although Bayle's influence may well be other than anything he intended. Secondly, in any case, the interpretation of Bayle's work as a whole depends on it, for virtually everything he wrote besides the Dictionnaire has a religious dimension.To appreciate the importance of the question, something must first be said about Charles de Marguetel de St. Denis, sieur de Saint-Evremond. He was known in his time, and still is, as a libertine. It is difficult, however, to define libertinage beyond a combination of hedonistic mores and dubious religious beliefs—Epicureanism in some loose and popular sense. 2 What is more important, in any case, is how Bayle might have thought the term applied to Saint-Evremond; and here it is clear that outright atheism may have been at issue. Bayle reports that it was publicly known that Saint-Evremond "ended his long life, just as he had lived it, en esprit fort." He seems certainly to have died without benefit of religion. When asked on his deathbed whether he wished to be reconciled, says Bayle, he answered yes, "with all my heart. I would like to be reconciled with my appetite. For my stomach is no longer functioning in its usual way." Bayle was often at pains to insist upon the ultimate inaccessibility of others' real beliefs (and of the inappropriateness of attempting to reach them). In this case, however, he was prepared to hold up Saint-Evremond as a counter-example to the widely-held belief that there were no speculative atheists, i.e., people who would sincerely deny the existence of God, but only practical atheists, i.e., people who live as if they did not believe in the existence of God, but who, try as they may, are at least occasionally aware of it. 3This view of Saint-Evremond is important because, when accused of irreligion himself, Bayle cited the libertine's work as indicative of his own beliefs. To understand how Bayle came to be accused, and the significance of this response to it, some of the historical background is first necessary. Bayle's Dictionnaire historique et critique sold better than any text in the eighteenth century, philosophical or otherwise; and it was a best-seller right from the publication of its first edition, in... (shrink)

Many philosophers agree that Hume was not simply objecting to inductive inferences on the grounds of their logical invalidity and that his description of our inductive behaviour was inadequate, but none the less regard his argument against induction as irrefutable. I argue that this constellation of opinions contains a serious tension. In the light of the tension, I re-examine Hume’s actual sceptical argument and show that the argument as it stands is valid but unsound. I argue that it can (...) only be converted into a sound one if our inductive behaviour can be characterized as a process of rule-governed ampliation. Drawing on some Bayesian ideas, I argue that our inductive behaviour probably cannot be characterized in that way, so our immunity from Hume is secure. Finally, I compare my response to Hume’s argument with some other well known responses. (shrink)

Popular Essays in Indian Philosophy, first published in 1952, is an anthology of seventeen philosophical essays by Prof. M. Hiriyanna. These varied essays cover multiple aspects of Indian philosophy-aims, values, ethics, metaphysics, worldview-and gives a panoramic view of the brilliance and sublimity of thought in ancient India as well as the diversity of opinions and the general ecosystem of openness to new ideas. Prof. Hiriyanna shows how the philosophers of India sought constant verification of their theories in (...) practice. They believed that merely knowing something intellectually did not amount to true knowledge; to know was to become, and nothing less would suffice. (shrink)

The paper presents an analysis of the anumāna chapter of Jayarāśi’s Tattvôpaplava-siṁha and the nature of his criticism levelled against the anumāna model. The results of the analysis force us to revise our understanding of Jayarāśi Bhaṭṭa as a sceptic. Instead, he emerges as a highly critical philosopher. In addition, the nature of Jayarāśi’s criticism of the anumāna model allow us to conclude that anumāna should not be equated with inference, but rather is its limited subset, and may at best (...) be rendered as ‘disputational inference’, ‘debational inference’ or even ‘dialogical inference’. Jayarāśi applies a range of logical laws which clearly represent patterns of what can be classified as a priori reasoning and analytical justifications for knowledge, which were traditionally not reckoned sound. Against the backdrop of Jayarāśi’s criticism of anumāna, the paper also attempts to provide an explanation to why Indian philosophy and logic did not develop any concept of proper symbols and variables. (shrink)

Some recent philosophers of science have argued that chemistry in the nineteenth century “largely lacked theoretical foundations, and showed little progress in supplying such foundations” until around 1900, or even later. In particular, nineteenth-century atomic theory, it is said, “played no useful part” in the crowning achievement of nineteenth-century chemistry, the powerful subdiscipline of organic chemistry. This paper offers a contrary view. The idea that chemistry only gained useful theoretical foundations when it began to merge with physics, it will (...) be argued, is based on an implicit conception of scientific theory that is too narrow, and too exclusively oriented to the science of physics. A broader understanding of scientific theory, and one that is more appropriate to the science of chemistry, reveals the essential part that theory played in the development of chemistry in the nineteenth century. It also offers implications for our understanding of the nature of chemical theory today. (shrink)

An empirical study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (King, L. A. and C. K. Nappa: 1998, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75(1), 156-165) concludes that people generally believe meaning and happiness are essential elements of the good life, whereas money is relatively unimportant. Yet, the authors also state that although "we do know what it takes to make a good life...we still behave as if we did not." The authors are suggesting that despite (...) a general belief that money is relatively unimportant in creating happiness, many people continue to focus their behaviors on increasing income and wealth. This is the classic conflict between the folk wisdom that money cannot buy happiness, on the one hand, and a continued focus by many people on achieving material success on the other. The issue is of particular importance to business professionals, not only because profit maximization is the central focus of business, but also because college students often pursue business as a profession for the express purpose of maximizing personal income and wealth. In the business world a focus on personal financial success is the norm. Wealth and income are honored. The purpose of this is to critically analyze psychological studies comparing happiness and financial success. The results are then contrasted with philosophical wisdom and religious writings comparing happiness and money. The intent is to determine whether psychological studies provide incremental insights into the connection between financial success and happiness. (shrink)

The canonical version of the history of twentieth century philosophy of science tells us that Lakatos was Popper’s disciple, but it is rarely mentioned that Popper would have learned anything from Lakatos. The aim of this paper is to examine Lakatos’ influence on Popper’s philosophical system and to argue that Lakatos did have an important, yet somewhat unexpected, impact on Popper’s thinking: he influenced Popper’s evolutionary model for ‘progress’ in science. And Lakatos’ influence sheds new light on why and how (...) Popper continually revised one of the central claims of his philosophy of science: the evolutionary account of scientific theory change. (shrink)

In May 1643 Elisabeth of Bohemia addressed a question to Descartes which inaugurated a six-year Correspondence, until his death. He dedicates his mature metaphysical work to the Princess (Principles of First Philosophy, 1644) and writes Passions of the Soul (1649) as one of the results of the dialogue with the philosopher of Bohemia. The silencing of the last hundred years of historiography on Elisabeth of Bohemia's legacy in this epistolary exchange caused distortions and, in some cases, underpinned the bias as (...) a rule and as the history. One of the consequences of this distortion is the interpretation according to which her first question would consist of a critique of substantial dualism. In this study I suggest an interpretation of the nature of the first question, in order to clarify the philosopher's thinking and her role in dialogue, in a comprehensive way, without subscribing to the literary paradigm of the Cartesian soliloquy, and its bias. (shrink)

Meaning in literary texts such as poetry and novel etc., is not determined on the basis of a literal understanding of the words in it, but through a total evaluation of the devices such as metaphors and similes. This paper deals with metaphor to show its significance, to make us aware that metaphoric expressions do give a different kind of knowledge, and to pave the way to disclose a different kind of truth which is perhaps, more valuable than what (...) the literal sense provides. Ordinarily metaphorical use is taken for rhetorical purposes. Literalists of the Western and Indian philosophical traditions believe that it is only the literal or primary meaning that can give us a precise account of language. Metaphors are viewed by them as fuzzy, lies, not corresponding to actual states of affairs, non-propositional in character, not having truth-conditions, and thus not providing us with any knowledge or truth. However, this paper tries to work out the fundamentality of metaphor, how metaphor widens our experience of the world, and how it has the power to take us to an alternative world to introduce with some new truth by exploring certain notions of the Indian aestheticians. (shrink)

What is ‘counterintuitive’? There is general agreement that it refers to a violation of previously held knowledge, but the precise definition seems to vary with every author and study. The aim of this paper is to deconstruct the notion of ‘counterintuitive’ and provide a more philosophically rigorous definition congruent with the history of psychology, recent experimental work in ‘minimally counterintuitive’ concepts, the science vs. religion debate, and the developmental and evolutionary background of human beings. We conclude that previous definitions (...) of counterintuitiveness have been flawed and did not resolve the conflict between a believer’s conception of the supernatural entity (an atypical “real kind”) and the non-believer’s conception (empty name/fictional). Furthermore, too much emphasis has been placed on the universality and (presumed) innateness of intuitive concepts (and hence the criteria for what is counterintuitive)—and far too little attention paid to learning and expertise. We argue that many putatively universal concepts are not innate, but mostly learned and defeasible—part of a religious believer’s repertoire of expert knowledge. Nonetheless, the results from empirical studies about the memorability of counterintuitive concepts have been convincing and it is difficult to improve on existing designs and methodologies. However, future studies in counterintuitive concepts need to embed their work in research about context effects, typicality, the psychology of learning and expertise (for example, the formation of expert templates and range defaults), with more attention to the sources of knowledge (direct and indirect knowledge) and a better idea of what ‘default’ knowledge really is. (shrink)

In a notable article entitled “What is the Theory of Relativity?” written at the request of The Times and published in its November 28, 1919 edition, Albert Einstein famously distinguished “theories of principle” from “constructive theories.” Einstein placed relativity theory among the principle theories. His distinction has recently received increased attention, especially as it relates to scientific explanation. In particular, there has been considerable discussion of how to explain why there obtain the Lorentz transformations as well as of how (...) to account for the Lorentz covariance of the dynamical laws. Some .. (shrink)

Supercommentary on Vātsyāyana's Nyāyabhāṣya, commentary on Nyāyasūtra of Gautama, basic work expounding the Nyaya philosophy.

Premodern Buddhists are sometimes characterized as veritable "mind scientists" whose insights anticipate modern research on the brain and mind. Aiming to complicate this story, Dan Arnold confronts a significant obstacle to popular attempts at harmonizing classical Buddhist and modern scientific thought: since most Indian Buddhists held that the mental continuum is uninterrupted by death, they would have no truck with the idea that everything about the mental can be explained in terms of brain events. Nevertheless, a predominant stream of (...) Indian Buddhist thought, associated with the seventh-century thinker Dharmakirti, turns out to be vulnerable to arguments modern philosophers have leveled against physicalism. By characterizing the philosophical problems commonly faced by Dharmakirti and contemporary philosophers such as Jerry Fodor and Daniel Dennett, Arnold seeks to advance an understanding of both first-millennium Indian arguments and contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind. The issues center on what modern philosophers have called _intentionality_--the fact that the mind can be about other things. Tracing an account of intentionality through Kant, Wilfrid Sellars, and John McDowell, Arnold argues that intentionality cannot, in principle, be explained in causal terms. Elaborating some of Dharmakirti's central commitments, Arnold shows that despite his concern to refute physicalism, Dharmakirti's causal explanations of the mental mean that modern arguments from intentionality cut as much against his project as they do against physicalist philosophies of mind. This is evident in the arguments of some of Dharmakirti's contemporaneous Indian critics, whose critiques exemplify the same logic as modern arguments from intentionality. Elaborating these various strands of thought, Arnold shows that seemingly arcane arguments among first-millennium Indian thinkers can illuminate matters still very much at the heart of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

Despite the substantial and important differences between Achinstein and Laudan, many historians of science would see little distinction between them. Both of these philosophers believe and strongly maintain that argumentation was a central aspect of the historical events involved in the establishment of wave optics. Contemporary historians would prefer to ask whether argumentation did much work at all - whether, that is, anyone ever actually persuaded anyone else to change a belief. I will attempt briefly to show that (...) issues of skilled knowledge, tacit understanding, and novel instrumentation, rather than straightforward assertions based on the overt structure of the contending theories, offer a better way to understand what took place. (shrink)

t has been several years since Kirk Willis’s article appeared in Russell. When I first read it, I thought how could Constance Malleson (“Colette O’Niel”) have believed that Russell had died from pneumonia? Willis takes her at her word. I have finally decided to delve deeper, building on the evidence that Willis presents on the published reports of Russell’s death.

Much linguistic evidence supports the view believing something only requires thinking it likely. I assess and reject a rival view, based on recent work on homogeneity in natural language, according to which belief is a strong, demanding attitude. I discuss the implications of the linguistic considerations about ‘believe’ for our philosophical accounts of belief.

Perhaps one of the most underappreciated philosophical movements is British Idealism. This movement arose during the latter half of the nineteenth century and began to wane after the outbreak of the First World War. British Idealism has produced a number of important figures, such as Bernard Bosanquet, R. G. Collingwood, F. H. Bradley and T. H. Green, as well as other important, but less well known, figures, such as J. S. Mackenzie, John Henry Muirhead and James Seth. It has also (...) given us a number of lasting philosophical ideas. (shrink)

In a lecture given at Stanford some years ago, Stanley Cavell added his name to the list of thinkers who have endeavoured to read Poe philosophically, an impressive list that already included Derri...

Although this essay focuses on the ideas of one individual—the American philosopher of education, John Dewey—its purpose is to raise questions about those ideas rather than their author. Dewey is famous for inventing some familiar ideas: that educational reform is at the heart of creating a democratic society, that the classroom is as important to democracy as the polling booth, that the central aim of education is to foster the individuality of the child and that teachers must teach children how (...) to think for themselves rather than pass on cut and dried knowledge. These ideas have been resisted by philosophers who have thought that the aim of education is to teach children some defined and circumscribed skills, or to transmit to them as much factual information as they can usefully be given during their school years. They have also been resisted by thinkers who have wanted to limit the scope of education, to say that schools exist to serve limited, non-political purposes, and that ‘schooling’ properly ends at sixteen, eighteen, or twentyone when it sends adequately educated students out into the world to earn a living, raise a family, and do their wider social and political duty. (shrink)

According to the Hindu tradition, the origin of the various philosophical ideas that were developed in the philosophical systems lies in the Vedas, a body of texts that seem to have been composed around two thousand years Before the Common Era (BCE). While the Vedas contain a myriad of different themes, ranging from hymns for deities and rules of fire sacrifices to music and magic, there is no doubt that one finds in them an exemplary spirit of inquiry into “the (...) one being” (ekam sat) that underlies the diversity of empirical phenomena, and into the origin of all things. (“Was there being or non‐being at the beginning?”) One finds also predelineations of such concepts of ṛta (truth or moral order), karma and the afterlife, and the three qualities (or guṇas: sattva, rajas, and tamas) constituting nature (prakṛti). It is in the Upaniṣads (a group of texts composed after the Vedas and ranging from 1000 bce to the time of Gautama, the Buddha), that the thinking, while still retaining its poetic flavor, develops a more strictly philosophical character. While still concerned with many different themes belonging to cosmology (“How did the one being become many?”) and psychology (“What does the empirical person consist of?”), the Upaniṣads contain attempts to reinterpret, in symbolic terms, the elaborate Vedic sacrifices, and to defend, in many different ways, one central philosophical thesis – that is, the identity of Brahman (the highest and the greatest, the source of all things) and ātman (the self within each person). With this last identification, a giant step was taken by the authors of the Upaniṣads, a step that was decisive for the development of Indian philosophy. The Vedas had already decided, famously in the Nāsadiya Sukata, that at the beginning of things there must have been being and not non‐being (for something cannot come out of nothing); now this primeval being was said to be the same as the spirit within. The highest wisdom was intuitively realizing this identity of subject and object (tat tvarn asi). How to know it was the issue. Suggestions ranged from contemplative meditation to austere self‐mortification. The idea of yoga and a picture of the yogin make their appearance – possibly having a different origin – and blend with the central thesis of the Upaniṣads. If the reality underlying outer appearance is the universal spirit within, is then the world merely phenomenal appearance (like the magician's creation, māyā), or is the brahman‐ātman to be construed as the indwelling spirit of all things? These become the leading disputational questions amongst the commentators on the Upaniṣads, and amongst the various schools of the Vedānta philosophy. (shrink)

ABSTRACTI believe that Jonardon Ganeri, in his essay ‘Mental Time Travel and Attention’ together with his book The Self, develops a plausible and attractive account of the self as a mere ‘sense of ownership’ that accompanies our experiences or a ‘discrete cognitive system whose function is to implicate the self in the content of memory,’ but which needn't refer to anything. Objections that might be raised from a Strawsonian perspective are not, I believe, decisive. Nevertheless, even though Ganeri (...) makes ingenious use of Indian sources in working out this proposal, he chooses not to discuss what I take to be the most intriguing idea of Indian philosophers about the self. Philosophers from various Indian traditions argue that the ‘self’ as ordinarily experienced, that is, the finite ‘living’ self consisting of the body and cognitive and emotional faculties, is not what one really is. Rather, there is a reality beyond this self, which emerges when one steps away from or ‘abandons’ it. I suggest that an experience of this higher or ‘true’ Self or reality that lies beyond the self could still be accommodated within a naturalistic framework. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Hume Actually Said About Miracles Robert J. Fogelin Two things are commonly said about Hume's treatment ofmiracles in the first part of Section X of the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: I.Hume did not put forward an a priori argument intended to show that miracles are not possible. II.Hume did put forward an a priori argument intended to show that testimony, however strong, could never make it reasonable (...) to believe that a miracle had occurred. In a recent article in this journal, Dorothy Coleman calls this the "traditional interpretation," and, since this characterization strikes me as correct, I shall call it that too. Antony Flew stands virtually alone in challenging the traditional interpretation, arguing, in particular, that Hume did not even attempt to provide an a priori argument showing that testimony can never establish the existence of a miracle. On FIeW1S reading, Hume's argument was intended to do no more than place a "check" on arguments put forward to establish the existence of miracles on the basis oftestimony. Along with others, however, Flew accepts the first partofthe traditional interpretation, namely, that whatever Hume was up to, he was certainly not trying to produce a proof showing that miracles cannot exist. He endorses the first part of the traditional interpretation in these words: What [Hume] is trying to demonstrate a priori in Part I is: not that, as amatter offact, miracles do nothappen; but that, from the very nature of the concept — 'from the very nature of the fact' — there must be a conflict of evidence required to show that they do. In opposition to these united voices, I will argue that this consensus on the first part of the traditional interpretation is unfounded, for there are clear texts — at the very heart ofHume's discussion — that go dead against it. Volume XVI Number 1 81 ROBERT J. FOGELIN Two passages, which occur in the same paragraph, are particularly relevant to this discussion: Passage I. A miracle is a violation of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable experience has established these laws, the proofagainst a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. (E 114, emphasis added) Passage II. There must...bea uniform experience against every miraculous event, otherwise the event would not merit that appellation. And as a uniform experience amounts to a proof, there is here a direct andfullproof, from the nature ofthe fact, against the existence ofany miracle; nor can such aproofbe destroyed, or the miracle rendered credible, but by an opposite proof, which is superior. (E 115, emphasis added in final clause) The clause nor such a proof be destroyed, or miracle rendered credible in Passage II is crucial for our purposes, for it simultaneously expresses two claims which, for clarity's sake, I will state separately. First, when Hume speaks??such a proof, he is referring to the direct and full proof, from the nature ofthe fact, against the existence ofany miracle mentioned in the first part of the same sentence. Thus, one thing that Hume is saying is this: Ci: Nor can such a proof(against the existence ofany miracle) be destroyed, but by an opposite proof which is superior. He is also making the following claim: C2: Nor can such a miracle be rendered credible, but by an opposite proof which is superior. Having sorted things out, it is now possible — using only direct quotations from the immediate text — to show that, contrary to the traditional interpretation, Hume does present an a priori argument against the existence ofmiracles. Argument One 1. there is here a direct and full proof, from the nature ofthe fact, against the existence ofany miracle; nor can such a proof be destroyed... but by an opposite proof, which is superior. (E 115, from Passage II) 82Hume Studies WHAT HUME ACTUALLY SAID ABOUT MIRACLES 2.the proofagainst a miracle, from the very nature ofthe fact, is as entire as any argument from experience can possibly be imagined. (E 114, emphasis added, from Passage I) Therefore: 3.there is... a direct andfullproof, from the nature ofthe fact, against the existence ofany miracle... (shrink)

Galileo’s telescopic lunar observations, announced in Siderius Nuncius (1610), were a triumph of observational skill and ingenuity. Yet, unlike the Medicean stars, Galileo’s lunar “discoveries” were not especially novel. Indeed, Plutarch had noted the moon’s uneven surface in classical times, and many other renaissance observers had also turned their gaze moonward, even (in Harriot’s case) aided by telescopes of their own. Moreover, what Galileo and his contemporaries saw was colored by the assumptions they already had. Copernicans assumed the moon (...) was a terrestrial satellite, thus Galileo saw its mountains and Kepler “saw” the dwellings of its inhabitants. Aristotelians assumed the moon was a perfect sphere, so they saw differences in density and rarity in the lunar body. Theory corrected the results of observation, so Galileo’s lunar observations, like those that had come before, proved nothing. Yet this failure contained the germ of Galileo’s success, since the Siderius Nuncius gave observation a rhetorical force it did not have before. Observers on all sides set out to see for themselves what Galileo reported. Hence, all parties now had to answer to what they saw, whatever they believed. Thus, the Siderius Nuncius ultimately changed the grounds upon which natural philosophical argument and debate was carried out. In this new empirical arena, the Galilean science would eventually prevail. (shrink)

The German humanist Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522) defended the value of Jewish scholarship and literature when it was unwise and unpopular to do so. As G. Lloyd Jones points out, "A marked mistrust of the Jews had developed among Christian scholars during the later Middle Ages. It was claimed that the rabbis had purposely falsified the text of the Old Testament and given erroneous explanations of passages which were capable of a christological interpretation." Christian scholars most certainly did not advocate learning (...) the Hebrew language. Reuchlin was exceptional in pursuing and promoting Hebrew studies, believing that a working knowledge of that language was essential for a true appreciation of the Bible and rabbinic literature. Refusing to join Christian contemporaries who wished to destroy the Kabbalah and the Talmud, he spoke out against ignorance. Christians could have a useful dialogue with Jews if they gained a thorough knowledge of the writings of Jewish exegetes and philosophers. Toward that end he proposed university endowments that aroused the fury of opponents and led to the famous "battle of the books." Reuchlin's keen interest in Jewish mysticism resulted in the publication of De arte cabalistica in 1517. The first part of this dialogue reflects on messianism, the second part on the relation of the Pythagorean system to the Kabbalah, and tdhe third on the "practical Kabbalah." According to Jones, "Reuchlin demonstrates how Christians can make profitable use of Jewish mystical writings, and therefore shares with the reader his understanding of the art of the Kabbalah." That art will reach more readers in this modern English-language translation by Martin and Sarah Goodman.In addition to an introduction by G. Lloyd Jones, this edition of On the Art of the Kabbalah features a new introduction by Moshe Idel, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the author of many books, including Kabbalah: New Perspectives. (shrink)

Did the world change on September 11, 2001? For those who live outside of New York or Washington, life's familiar pace persists and families and jobs resume their routines. Yet everything seems different because of the dramatic disturbance in our sense of what our world means and how we exist within it. In A Delicate Balance , philosopher Trudy Govier writes that it is because our feelings and attitudes have altered so fundamentally that our world has changed. Govier believes (...) that there are ethical challenges we cannot ignore. From Plato and Aristotle on courage to Kant on revenge, to 20th Century philosopher John Rawls’s views on justice, Govier mines the world of philosophy to reflect on terrorism. Govier argues that moral complexities such as victimhood, evil, power and revenge, if properly understood, can provide a basis for hope– not despair. Govier walks the reader through this shift, challenging us to construct a new sense of the world and our place within it. (shrink)

How did the Bhagavadgãtà first become an object of German philosophical and philological inquiry? How were its foundational concepts initially interpreted within German intellectual circles, and what does this episode in the history of cross-cultural encounter teach us about the status of comparative philosophy today? This book addresses these questions through a careful study of the figures who read, translated and interpreted the Bhagavadgãtà around the turn of the nineteenth century in Germany: J.G. Herder, F. Majer, F. Schlegel, A.W. (...) Schlegel, W. von Humboldt, and G.W.F. Hegel. Methodologically, the study attends to the intellectual contexts and prejudices that framed the early reception of the text. But it also delves deeper by investigating the way these frameworks inflected the construction of the Bhagavadgãtà and its foundational concepts through the scholarly acts of excerpting, anthologization, and translation. Overall, the project contributes to the pluralization of Western philosophy and its history while simultaneously arguing for a continued critical alertness in cross-cultural comparison of philosophical and religious worldviews. (shrink)

Embryo rescue cases and minimal miscarriage prevention research have been interpreted as showing that even pro‐lifers are not really committed to the unborn having the same moral status as the born. I will suggest instead that judgments about embryo rescues are often distorted by triage considerations that reveal nothing about differences in moral status between those saved and those not. I will present metaphysical and ethical considerations – none assuming a difference in moral status – why preventing millions of miscarriages (...) does not warrant the massive redistribution of research funds that would occur to prevent the deaths of equal numbers of humans already born. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Is Literature? What Is Art?Integrating Essence and HistoryJerry Farber (bio)I. Aesthetic ExperienceThere remains a widespread belief among literature professors that literature doesn't exist; that is, that it has no stable, transhistorical identity. The very term "literature," we are reminded, shifts its meaning from one century to another. And even if someone should insist that, when they talk about literature, they're not talking about writings in general (...) or a familiarity with books or whatever else the term "literature" may have signified in the past, but only about those texts that one might consider aesthetic, what has this person gained? Not much—since a literature professor who, in recent decades, has turned for answers to the philosophical study of aesthetics will have been likely to confront either a Wittgensteinian dismantling of "art" or, more commonly these days, an institutional theory that defines "art" not on the basis of any properties that it might possess or of any function that it might serve, but solely on the basis of its relation to a cultural institution that, in return, is identified in relation to "art." One might be forgiven for concluding that to follow this quest for essence from "literature" to "aesthetic" or "art" is to go from one sinking ship to another.So literature—as Terry Eagleton, for example, has continued to insist through two editions of his widely read Literary Theory: An Introduction1 —doesn't exist. Which makes it awkward to be a literature professor and helps to explain why so many of us have tried to reinvent ourselves as professors of something else. But this is by no means a mere problem of academic nomenclature, since more than a few of us continue to believe on some level (a level obviously below the graduate level) that there is something there all the same, something that is more stable and less culturally contingent than our theories tell us it is. We just don't know how to legitimize that belief. This dilemma tends to be reflected one way or another in [End Page 1] our teaching. We may repress any essentialist qualms and seek a lofty theoretical consistency as cultural historians for whom aesthetics is merely one more thing to situate—and we pass this disbelief in literature on to our students. Or we may learn to live with cognitive dissonance and pass that on to our students. Literature is hardly alone among the arts in its identity problem, but it does seem to have a more advanced case.Someone came for a job interview on my campus a few years ago, fresh out of a fairly prestigious doctoral program. He made his presentation and then mentioned during the question period afterward that, in his classes, he did make an effort not to ignore a text's aesthetic qualities. He stopped, looked around apprehensively, and said, "I know the term's problematic, of course...""So how do you resolve that?" I asked.He shrugged. "I don't know really."Nonetheless, just as there has been a "return of the aesthetic" in broader terms, books and articles have been appearing from the mid-90s on, arguing for or heralding a reemergence of the aesthetic in literary study.2 Certainly this makes sense, if only as a way of trying to shore up our precarious position in the academy, since, as has been repeatedly observed, literary study, in the absence of any delimiting aesthetic criterion, simply dissolves into other disciplines. And if literature doesn't exist, why spend money on literature professors? Why not hire real historians, sociologists, philosophers, psychologists, etc., to do those more respectable and definable things we keep claiming we do? But still, practical motives aside, what is to be the theoretical basis for any return to literary aesthetics? Can this merely be a matter of fashion? Will "the return of the repressed" do as a justification?The time has come, I think, not to revert to a simple, blind faith in "literature" and "art," but to find a way of reconciling our stubborn essentialist belief, on one hand, and our constructionist perspective, on the other—a way of understanding and teaching literature... (shrink)

continent. 2.2 (2012): 152–154 Levi R. Bryant. The Democracy of Objects . Ann Arbor, MI: Open Humanities Press. 2011. 316 pp. | ISBN 9781607852049. | $23.99 For two decades post-anarchism has adopted an epistemological point of departure for its critique of the representative ontologies of classical anarchism. This critique focused on the classical anarchist conceptualization of power as a unitary phenomenon that operated unidirectionally to repress an otherwise creative and benign human essence. Andrew Koch may have inaugurated this trend in (...) 1993 when he wrote his influential paper entitled “Post-structuralism and the Epistemological Basis of Anarchism.” Koch’s paper certainly laid some of the important groundwork for post-anarchism’s continual subsumption of ontology beneath the a priori of an epistemological orientation, and his work continues to be cited as an early and important venture into post-anarchist philosophy. The problem is that Koch could not conceive of an anti-essentialist and autonomous ontological system, one not subject to regulation or representation by the human mind. Consequently, he was forced to assert a subjectivist claims-making ego as the foundation of a post-structuralist anarchist politics. Saul Newman was indebted to this heritage insofar as he also posited the ego (extrapolated from the writings of Max Stirner) and the subject (extrapolated from Jacques Lacan’s oeuvre ) as the paradoxical ‘outside’ to power and representation. Todd May fell into a similar trap in his book The Political Philosophy of Post-structuralist Anarchism when he wrote that “[m]etaphysics [...] partakes of the normativity inhabiting the epistemology that provides its foundations.” 1 Whereas Newman’s approach did not necessarily foreclose the possibility of metaphysics—at least to the extent that he began with the subject of the Lacanian tradition (wherein the subject is believed to be radically split between thinking and being)—May completely foreclosed the possibility of any escape from the reign of the epistemological. There laid the impasse of yesterday’s post-anarchism. This impasse at the heart of the project of post-anarchism has forced Koch, Newman, May, and many others, to come to similar conclusions about the place of ontology in post-anarchist scholarship. The post-anarchists have all formulated a response strikingly similar to Koch’s argument that any representative ontology ought to be dismantled and dethroned in favour of “a conceptualization of knowledge that is contingent on a plurality of internally consistent episteme .” 2 By dismissing all ontologies as suspiciously representative and as incessantly harbouring a dangerous form of essentialism, post-anarchists have overlooked the privilege that they have placed on the human subject, language, and discourse, at the expense of the democracy that the human subject shares with other animals, objects, and beings in the world. This epistemological characterization of post-anarchism has held sway for far too long. It is not by chance that post-anarchism, as a concept, was first formulated by Hakim Bey as an “ontological anarchism,” 3 and subsequently repressed by the canon of post-anarchist authors. Perhaps Bey’s ontological anarchism also lacked the ‘rigour’ required of today’s scholarly audience and for these two reasons (at least) he has received very little credit for his inaugurating efforts into post-anarchism. In any case, I want to challenge this reluctance and revive the roots of post-anarchism. Levi Bryant gives us a reason to believe that we can achieve the promise of Bey’s ontological anarchism without sacrificing the scholarly standard of rigour. Levi Bryant’s newest open-access book, The Democracy of Objects , is a tour de force . His book challenges post-anarchists to take their radical critique of representation a step further by questioning the “hegemony that epistemology currently enjoys in philosophy.” Bryant maintains that post-structuralism, and radical anti-humanisms, only appear to reject the subject as the locus of political agency. Their rejection is actually more of a disavowal, a replacement of the human subject with the equally human order of language or discourse. What post-structuralism attempts to elucidate is the manner in which the subject is colonized by the Other of language, discourse and social relations. What here appears as a movement away from the determining subject of humanism and existentialism is only replaced with the determining apparatuses of structures as they are conceived by astute analysts of political culture. Post-structuralism thus re-enters the anthropocentric discourse to the extent that the cultural analyst believes himself capable of conceiving the determinative structures of society. In contradistinction to the claims of post-structuralism and post-anarchism, the role of the ontologist is not to suture the gap between epistemology and the real but to de-suture it, as Bryant puts it: “[o]ntology does not tell us what objects exist, but that objects exist, that they are generative mechanisms.” Above all else, the role of ontology, for post-anarchists, ought to be a real de-centering of the subject in relation to other objects in the non-human world such that the subject becomes conceived as one object among others within a living democracy of equality. This inevitably leads to the conclusion that objects exist whether or not the subject or analyst is there to represent them: they represent themselves and are autonomous from our dictation, just as each object finds its autonomy in relation to other objects. Ontology must now be distinguished from representation. We must shift the terms of the debate and interrogate the hegemony that epistemology has been afforded within post-anarchist philosophy. At least two possibilities are now permitted. On the one hand, one could intervene into the reigning mode of philosophy, namely epistemology, by latching onto concepts from meta-ethical philosophy. Meta-ethics allows one to easily separate the ontological from the epistemological and to answer very particular questions about each in order to formulate an overarching meta-ethical position. 4 Post-anarchism is particularly adept at this task because of its resounding ability to frame itself as an ethical political philosophy in relation to the strategic political philosophy of classical Marxism. On the other hand, Bryant argues that “[p]erhaps the best way to defeat [the privilege currently held by epistemology] is to shift the terms of debate.” Shifting the terms of debate is also something that post-anarchists have been very good at doing. Thus, instead of asking the question ‘how do representative ontological systems harbour concealed epistemological orientations toward the political?’ one might ask ‘ do epistemological orientations toward the political always harbour representative and subject-centred ontological systems?” The genius of Bryant’s book rests in its ability to convincingly argue for the radical autonomy of being and of objects. This claim speaks to some of the most compelling theories of the political in anarchist and marxist political philosophy (for instance, hegemony, representation, democracy, and so on) and it re-stages the political drama of our times across a much wider terrain. The fallacy of strategic political philosophy in the Marxist tradition, as Todd May quite correctly points out, is that it remains committed to a concept of power that is unitary in its analysis, unidirectional in its influence, and utterly repressive in its effect. Similarly, Bryant’s ontology allows one to argue that there is a fallacy that occurs “whenever one type of entity is treated as the ground or explains all other entities.” Whereas May’s post-structuralist anarchism moved away from the fallacy of the unitary analysis of power, whereby subjects are constituted by the influence of a single site of power, it nonetheless remained committed to a tactical political philosophy which is monarchical in the final analysis . It remains monarchical to the extent that the human world, the world of epistemology, is treated as the yardstick of democracy. Bryant’s argument is quite instructive: “[w]hat we thus get is not a democracy of objects or actants where all objects are on equal ontological footing [...] but instead a monarchy of the human in relation to all other beings.” The real fallacy is thus not against strategic political philosophy but philosophy itself and the way it has played out over so many centuries. “The epistemic fallacy,” writes Bryant, “consists in the thesis that proper ontological questions can be fully transposed into epistemological questions.” The point that Bryant is making relates to the way ontology is today always reduced to an epistemology and thereby loses its significance as a philosophical question. This book should be applauded for its novelty and its thesis ought to be taken seriously by post-anarchists today. Because of this book, and the attendant post-continental movement that is being called ‘speculative realism,’ we can now distinguish three stages in the life of post-anarchism. First, we can deduce what Süreyya Evren has described as its ‘introductory period.’ The introductory period of post-anarchism is defined by its inability to side-step the ontological problem in the literature of classical anarchism. During this period, post-anarchism needed to distinguish itself from classical anarchism while nonetheless remaining committed to its ethical project. The second period overcomes the problem of the separation of post-anarchism from classical anarchism by re-reading the classical tradition as essentially post-anarchistic. Some of the critiques of post-anarchism—especially that from Cohn & Wilbur 5 —are included into this period insofar as post-anarchism, for them, was always already anarchism. Whereas the first and second phases have included only explicitly anarchist literature under their rubric of worthwhile investigation, in the third period this no longer holds true. To be certain, the second period permitted the incorporation of post-structuralist literature into post-anarchist discussions (but always with a certain amount of reservation). This third period, the one that is to come—the one that is already here if only we would heed its call—will not take such care with attempts at identification or canonization. Indeed, post-anarchism is already here, like a seed beneath the snow, waiting to be discovered. Levi Bryant teaches us that the third period is already here: and yet where is it? NOTES 1) Todd May. The Political Philosophy of Post-Structuralist Anarchism . University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. 1997. 2. 2) Andrew Koch. “Post-structuralism and the Epistemological Basis of Anarchism” [1993] in Post-Anarchism: A Reader . Eds. Duane Rousselle & Sureyyya Evren. London: Pluto Press. 2011. pp. 23-40. 3) Bey, Hakim. “ Post-Anarchism Anarchy .” 1987. 4) I have attempted to do this in my paper on Bataille’s post-anarchism; see Duane Rousselle. “Georges Bataille’s Post-anarchism.” Journal of Political Ideologies . 17(3): in press. 5) Jesse Cohn & Shawn Wilbur. “ What’s Wrong with Post-anarchism? ” 2010. (shrink)

Did George Eliot’s work as translator of the critical writings on religion of Ludwig Feuerbach and Benedict Spinoza influence her work as a novelist? Did she hold a comprehensive philosophy of religion? Through an examination of her non-fictional and fictional writings this chapter argues that we should take seriously Eliot’s claim that her novels are ‘experiments in life’. Building on the critiques of religion offered by Spinoza and Feuerbach, Eliot’s novels address the philosophical question: is morality possible in a godless (...) world? The capacities necessary to a moral life are imagination, sympathy, and reflection. Her fiction contributes to the reformation of moral consciousness by experimenting with the interplay between these capacities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Philosophy Can't Say About Literature:Stanley Cavell and EndgameBenjamin H. OgdenIn "Ending the Waiting Game," the philosopher of ordinary language Stanley Cavell attempts to say what Samuel Beckett's Endgame means by explaining what the characters in the play mean by what they say. Cavell attempts to do the very thing that the work says cannot be done, or mocks as foolish and misguided, or resists (...) giving clues to how it could ever be done: he tries to say just "how Beckett's objects mean at all, the original source of their conviction."1 This is not simply a reading tactic that Cavell thinks is well-suited to the difficult task of making sense of a difficult play. It is a demonstration of the theory of language (ordinary language philosophy) that Cavell defends and applies in his collection of essays Must We Mean What We Say?, of which "Ending the Waiting Game" is a chapter. Cavell's literary criticism is in the service of his philosophy. His work of criticism is in search of something that it must find (that is, something that it claims to have found even when it may not have); what it must find is a work of literature that demonstrates the utility and validity of ordinary language philosophy.If we are to take issue with Cavell for too strenuously transposing philosophy onto literature, then we must also know something of the philosophy he draws upon. Ordinary language philosophy traces its origins to Wittgenstein, and was popularized by J. L. Austin and Gilbert Ryle at Oxford in the 1940's. It is a branch of analytic philosophy that foregoes any attempt to create an "ideal philosophical language" of the sort Wittgenstein developed in his early Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Instead of seeing the abstractions and ambiguities of ordinary usage as something to be supplanted by a more logically rigorous system, ordinary language philosophers argue that debates over the meaning [End Page 126] of abstract terms come about precisely because words are removed from their ordinary context. For Cavell, the whole idea of an "ideal language" is absurd because, as anyone who has ever tried to learn a foreign language knows, every language has its own unique set of usages and idioms and unspoken rules. In order to speak a language properly, then, one cannot just know the dictionary or formal definitions of words (its "ideal" generative grammar), but must understand the "natural environment" in which phrases and words are logical or appropriate. Often these contexts (which determine the rules for "what we should say when" [p. 20]) invest words with meanings that you won't find in any dictionary, and cannot be catalogued in a grammatical or syntactical system.So, if one asks, "Did you dress that way voluntarily?" (p. 9), the word "voluntarily" takes on a meaning that is not included among its dictionary definitions (according to Cavell). Clearly, in asking whether you dress voluntarily one is not asking whether you have free-will to dress as you please, but is calling attention to the funny way you dress. In this case, successful communication is only possible if the one who is being questioned understands from context and the ordinary use of language precisely what is being asked. If he answers, "Of course I dressed voluntarily, I believe in free will," he will have misspoken, been incorrect. Clearly, he doesn't understand what the question must mean because the statement "MUST MEAN that my clothes are peculiar" (p. 9). For it to mean anything else would be a mistake and a misuse of language by the speaker, or a misunderstanding of language by the listener. To learn a language (which for Cavell means to become like a native speaker) is to learn the nature of the contingency between the explicit meaning of an expression and the occasion on which an expression is appropriate, and to be aware of what you must mean when you speak (what you cannot help but mean or imply by the language you use).What this means is that for Cavell reading literature becomes a process of readers "naturalizing ourselves to a new form of life, a new... (shrink)