This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

The algebraic structure of the 8-spinor formalism is discussed, and the general form of the 8-component wave equation, equivalent to the second-order 4-component one, is presented. This allows a canonical formulation that will be the first stage of the future Clebsch parametrization, i.e., a relativistic generalization of the Bohm-Schiller-Tiomno pioneering work on the Pauli equation.

As organizations take on grand challenges in gender equality, anti-racism, LGBTQ+ protections and workplace inclusion, many well-intentioned individuals from dominant groups (e.g., cisgender men, Caucasian, heterosexual) are stepping forward as allies toward underrepresented or marginalized group members (e.g., cisgender women, People of Color, LGBTQ+ identified employees). Past research and guidance assume an inevitable need for external motivation, reflected in the ‘business case’ for diversity and in top-down policies to drive equity and inclusion efforts. This qualitative study explored _internal_ motivations in (...) the form of morally motivated virtues of 25 peer-nominated exemplary allies serving in leadership positions. In-depth life/career story interviews were used to identify the virtues that supported their allyship journeys. Findings demonstrated that they tapped into several virtues that served distinct functions in a 4-stage allyship development process: Stage 1—Energizing psychological investment (compassion, fairness); Stage 2—Thinking through allyship-relevant complexities (intellectual humility, perspective-taking, wisdom); Stage 3—Initiating action (prudence, moral courage, honesty); Stage 4—Committing to allyship (perseverance, patience). We call this the ‘EThIC model of virtue-based allyship development.’ This study has implications for theory and research on a virtue-based approach to diversity, equity and inclusion. (shrink)

Research has indicated that 13% of students in the UK experience a high degree of assessment‐related stress/anxiety, which may have debilitating health, emotional and educational effects. Recent policy initiatives have attempted to encourage a responsibility for promoting well‐being in schools; however, at present there is little known about what, if any, support is provided for students over assessment stress/anxiety. The purpose of this exploratory study was to gather data on the conceptualisation and understanding of assessment stress/anxiety in key stage (...) 4 students, and what current policy and practice are adopted to support students experiencing a high degree of assessment stress/anxiety. Data were collected from semi‐structured interviews conducted with 34 students and nine members of staff from six schools in the north of England and analysed using an abbreviated form of grounded theory according to the principles, as described by Strauss and Corbin. Teachers conceptualised assessment stress/anxiety as resulting from KS4 assessment demands requiring skills and knowledge beyond the current capabilities of students. Support was mostly structured along academic lines, theorised as reducing stress by increasing the students’ ability to cope with assessment demands. Students who experienced a strong degree of manifest anxiety during examinations were moved to alternative venues, but students were not routinely identified in all schools prior to their final GCSE examinations. Staff and students also emphasised the importance of a “good” relationship in receiving both emotional and academic forms of support. These strategies were theorised as “bolt‐on” policies. Schools had few specific strategies for dealing with assessment stress/anxiety directly but used existing policies related to behaviour management and the promotion of achievement. (shrink)

continent. 1.3 (2011): 149-155. The world is teeming. Anything can happen. John Cage, “Silence” 1 Autonomy means that although something is part of something else, or related to it in some way, it has its own “law” or “tendency” (Greek, nomos ). In their book on life sciences, Medawar and Medawar state, “Organs and tissues…are composed of cells which…have a high measure of autonomy.”2 Autonomy also has ethical and political valences. De Grazia writes, “In Kant's enormously influential moral philosophy, autonomy (...) , or freedom from the causal determinism of nature, became prominent in justifying the human use of animals.”3 One of the oldest uses of autonomy in English is a description of the French civil war from the late sixteenth century: “Others of the…rebellion entred in counsell, whether they ought to admit the King vpon reasonable conditions, specially hauing their autonomy.”4 Life, and in particular human life, and in particular human politics, is well served by the usages of autonomy . What about the rest of reality, however? Should it be thought of, if it's even considered real and mind-independent, as pure stuff for the manipulation or decorative tastes of truly autonomous beings? We tend to think of things such as paperweights and iPhones as mere tools of human design and human use. To use them is to cause them to exist as fully and properly as they can. But according to Martin Heidegger, when a tool such as a paperweight is used, it disappears, or withdraws ( Entzug ). We are preoccupied with copying the page that the paperweight is holding down. We are concerned with an essay deadline, and the paperweight simply disappears into this general project. If the paperweight slips, or if the iPhone freezes, we might notice it. All of a sudden it becomes vorhanden (present-at-hand) rather than zuhanden (ready-to-hand).5 Yet Heidegger is unable to draw a meaningful distinction between what happens to a paperweight when it slips from the book I'm copying from and what happens to the paperweight when it presses on the still resilient pages of the thick paperback itself. Further still and related to this point, even when I am using the paperweight as part of some general task, I am not using the entirety of the paperweight as such. My project itself selects a thin slice of paperweight-being for the purposes of holding down a book. Even when it is zuhanden the paperweight is withdrawn. Graham Harman is the architect of this way of thinking.6 Harman discovered a gigantic coral reef of withdrawn entities beneath the Heideggerian submarine of Da-sein, which itself is operating at an ontological depth way below the choppy surface of philosophy, beset by the winds of epistemology, and infested with the sharks of materialism, idealism, empiricism and most of the other isms that have defined what is and what isn't for the last several hundred years. At a moment when the term ontology was left alone like a piece of well chewed old chewing gum that no one wants to have anything to do with, object-oriented ontology (OOO) has put it back on the table. The coral reef isn't going anywhere and once you have discovered it, you can't un-discover it. And it seems to be teeming with strange facts. The first fact is that the entities in the reef—we call them “objects” somewhat provocatively—constitute all there is: from doughnuts to dogfish to the Dog Star to Dobermans to Snoop Dogg. People, plastic clothes pegs, piranhas and particles are all objects. And they are all pretty much the same, at this depth. There is not much of a distinction between life and non-life (as there isn't in contemporary life science). And there is not much of a distinction between intelligence and non-intelligence (as there is in contemporary artificial intelligence theory). A lot of these distinctions are made by humans, for humans (anthropocentrism). And the concept autonomy has come into play in policing such distinctions. In this essay I shall to try to liberate autonomy for the sake of nonhumans. I shall do so by parsing carefully the title, which is taken from Hakim Bey's work The Temporary Autonomous Zone .8 First we shall explore the term autonomous . Then we shall explore what the full meaning of zone is. Finally, we shall investigate what temporary means. Each of these terms is of great value. An object withdraws from access. This means that its very own parts can't access it. Since an object's parts can't fully express the object, the object is not reducible to its parts. OOO is anti-reductionist. But OOO is also anti-holist. An object can't be reduced to its “whole” either, “reduced upwards” as it were. The whole is not greater than the sum of its parts. So we have a strange irreductionist situation in which an object is reducible neither to its parts nor to its whole. A coral reef is made of coral, fish, seaweed, plankton and so on. But one of these things on its own doesn't embody part of a reef. Yet the reef just is an assemblage of these particular parts. You can't find a coral reef in a parking lot. In this way, the vibrant realness of a reef is kept safe both from its parts and from its whole. Moreover, the reef is safe from being mistaken for a parking lot. Objects can't be reduced to tiny Lego bricks such as atoms that can be reused in other things. Nor can be reduced upwards into instantiations of a global process. A coral reef is an expression of the biosphere or of evolution, yes; but so is this sentence, and we ought to be able to distinguish between coral reefs and sentences in English. The preceding facts go under the heading of undermining . Any attempt to undermine an object—in thought, or with a gun, or with heat, or with the ravages of time or global warming—will not get at the withdrawn essence of the object. By essence is meant something very different from essentialism . This is because essentialism depends upon some aspect of an object that OOO holds to be a mere appearance of that object, an appearance-for some object. This reduction to appearance holds even if that object for which the appearance occurs is the object itself! Even a coral reef can't grasp its essential coral reefness. In essentialism, a superficial appearance is taken for the essence of a thing, or of things in general. In thinking essentialism we may be able to discern another way of avoiding OOO. This is what Harman has christened overmining .? The overminer decides that some things are more real than others: say for example human perception. Then the overminer decides that other things are only granted realness status by somehow coming into the purview of the more real entity. When I measure a photon, when I see a coral reef, it becomes what it is. But when I measure a photon, I never measure the actual photon. Indeed, since at the quantum scale to measure means “to hit with a photon or an electron beam” (or whatever), measurement, perception ( aisthesis ), and doing become the same. What I “see” are deflections, tracks in a diffusion cloud chamber or interference patterns. Far from underwriting a world of pure illusion where the mind is king, quantum theory is one of the very first truly rigorous realisms, thinking its objects as irreducibly resistant to full comprehension, by anything.9 So far we have made objects safe from being swallowed up by larger objects and broken down into smaller objects—undermining. And so far we have made objects safe from being mere projections or reflections of some supervenient entity—overmining. That's quite a degree of autonomy. Everything in the coral reef, from the fish to a single coral lifeform to a tiny plankton, is autonomous. But so is the coral reef itself. So are the heads of the coral, a community of tiny polyps. So is each individual head. Each object is like one of Leibniz's monads, in that each one contains a potentially infinite regress of other objects; and around each object, there is a potentially infinite progress of objects, as numerous multiverse theories are now also arguing. But the infinity, the uncountability, is more radical than Leibniz, since there is nothing stopping a group of objects from being an object, just as a coral reef is something like a society of corals. Each object is “a little world made cunningly” (John Donne).10 We are indeed approaching something like the political valance of autonomy . The existence of an object is irreducibly a matter of coexistence. Objects contain other objects, and are contained “in” other objects. Let us, however, explore further the ramifications of the autonomy of objects. We will see that this mereological approach (based on the study of parts) only gets at part of the astonishing autonomy of things. Yet there are some more things to be said about mereology before we move on. Consider the fact that since objects can't be undermined or overmined, it means that there is strictly no bottom object . There is no object to which all other objects can be reduced, so that we can say everything we want to say about them, hypothetically at least, based on the behavior of the bottom object. The idea that we could is roughly E.O Wilson's theory of consilience .11 Likewise, there is no object from which all things can be produced, no top object . Objects are not emanations from some primordial One or from a prime mover. There might be a god, or gods. Suppose there were. In an OOO universe even a god would not know the essential ins and outs of a piece of coral. Unlike even some forms of atheism, the existence of god (or nonexistence) doesn't matter very much for OOO. If you really want to be an atheist, you might consider giving OOO a spin. If there is no top object and no bottom object, neither is there a middle object . That is, there is no such thing as a space, or time, “in” which objects float. There is no environment distinct from objects. There is no Nature (I capitalize the word to reinforce a sense of its deceptive artificiality). There is no world, if by world we mean a kind of “rope” that connects things together.12 All such connections must be emergent properties of objects themselves. And this of course is well in line with post-Einsteinian physics, in which spacetime just is the product of objects, and which may even be an emergent property of a certain scale of object larger than 10?¹?cm).13 Objects don't sit in a box of space or time. It's the other way around: space and time emanate from objects. How does this happen? OOO tries to produce an explanation from objects themselves. Indeed, the ideal situation would be to rely on just one single object. Otherwise we are stuck with a reality in which objects require other entities to function, which would result in some kind of undermining or overmining. We shall see that we have all the fuel we need “inside” one object to have time and space, and even causality. We shall discover that rather than being some kind of machinery or operating system that underlies objects, causality itself is a phenomenon that floats ontologically “in front of” them. In so doing, we will move from the notion of autonomy and begin approaching a full exploration of the notion of zone , which was promised at the outset of this essay. Since an object is withdrawn, even “from itself,” it is a self-contradictory being. It is itself and not-itself, or in a slightly more expanded version, there is a rift between essence and appearance within an object (as well as “between” them). This rift can't be the same as the clichéd split between substance and accidents , which is the default ontology. On this view, things are like somewhat boring cupcakes with somewhat less boring sugar sprinkles on them of different colors and shapes. But on the OOO view, what is called substance is just another limited slice of an object, a way of apprehending something that is ontologically fathoms deeper. What is called substance and what is called accidence are just on the side of what this essay calls appearance. The rift (Greek, chorismos ) between essence and appearance means that an object presents us with something like what in logic is known as the Liar: some version of the sentence “This sentence is false.” The sentence is true, which means that it is a lie, which means that it is false. Or the sentence is false, which means that it is telling the truth, which means that it is true. Now logic since Aristotle has tried desperately to quarantine such beasts in small backwaters and side streets so that they don't act too provocatively.14 But if OOO holds, then at least one very significant thing in the universe is both itself and not-itself: the object. An object is p ? ¬p. To cope with this fact, we shall need some kind of paraconsistent or even fully dialetheic logic, one that is not allergic to dialetheias (double-truthed things). Yet if we accept that objects are dialetheic, p ? ¬p, we can derive all kinds of things easily from objects. Consider the fact of motion. If objects only occupy one location “in” space at any “one” time, then Zeno's paradoxes will apply to trying to think how an object moves. Yet motion seems like a basic, simple fact of our world. Either everything is just an illusion and nothing really moves at all (Parmenides). Or objects are here and not-here “at the same time.”15 This latter possibility provides the basic setup for all the motion we could wish for. Objects are not “in” time and space. Rather, they “time” (a verb) and “space.” They produce time and space. It would be better to think these verbs as intransitive rather than transitive, in the manner of dance or revolt . They emanate from objects, yet they are not the object. “How can we know the dancer from the dance?” (Yeats).16 The point being, that for there to be a question, there must be a distinction—or there must not be (p ? ¬p).17 It becomes impossible to tell: “What constitutes pretense is that, in the end, you don't know whether it's pretense or not.”18 In this notion of the emergence of time and space from an object we can begin to understand the term zone . Zone can mean belt , something that winds around something else. We talk of temperate zones and war zones. A zone is a place where a certain action is taking place: the zone winds around, it radiates heat, bullets fly, armies are defeated. To speak of an autonomous zone is to speak of a place that a certain political act has carved out of some other entity. Cynically, Tibet is called TAR, the Tibetan Autonomous Region, for this very reason. In this phrase, Region tries to emulate zone : it sounds as if the place has its own rules, but of course, it is very much under the control of China. What action is taking place? “[N]ot something that just is what it is, here and now, without mystery, but something like a quest…a tone on its way calling forth echoes and responses…water seeking its liquidity in the sunlight rippling across the cypresses in the back of the garden.”19 If as suggested earlier there is no functional difference between substance and accidence; if there is no difference between perceiving and doing; if there is no real difference between sentience and non-sentience—then causality itself is a strange, ultimately nonlocal aesthetic phenomenon. A phenomenon, moreover, that emanates from objects themselves, wavering in front of them like the astonishingly beautiful real illusion conjured in this quotation of Alphonso Lingis. Lingis's sentence does what it says, casting a compelling, mysterious spell, the spell of causality, like a demonic force field. A real illusion: if we knew it was an illusion, if it were just an illusion, it would cease to waver. It would not be an illusion at all. We would be in the real of noncontradiction. Since it is like an illusion, we can never be sure: “What constitutes pretense…” A zone is what Lingis calls a level . A zone is not entirely a matter of “free will”: this concept has already beaten down most objects into abject submission. Objects are far more threateningly autonomous, and sensually autonomous, than the Kantian version of autonomy cited in the first paragraph of this essay. A zone is not studiously decided upon by an earnest committee before it goes into action. One of its predominant features is that it is already happening . We find ourselves in it, all of a sudden, in the late afternoon as the shadows lengthen around a city square, giving rise to an uncanny sensation of having been here before. Objects emit zones. Wherever I find myself a zone is already happening, an autonomous zone. It is the nonautonomous zones that are impositions on what is already the case. Or rather, these zones are autonomous zones that exclude and police. They are brittle. Every object is autonomous, but some objects try to maintain themselves through rigidity and brittleness, like (and such as) a police state. Paradoxically, the more rigidly one tries to exclude contradiction, the more virulent become the dialetheias that are possible. I can get around “This sentence is false” by imagining that there are metalanguages that explain what counts as a sentence. Then I can decide that this isn't a real sentence. This is basically Alfred Tarski's strategy, since he invented the notion of metalanguage specifically to cope with dialetheias.20 For example we might claim that sentences such as “This sentence is false” are neither true nor false. But then you can imagine a strengthened version of the Liar such as: “This sentence is not true”; or “This sentence is neither true nor false.” And we can go on adding to the strengthened Liar if the counter-attack tries to build immunity by specifying some fourth thing that a sentence can be besides true, false, and neither true nor false: “This sentence is false, or neither true nor false, or the fourth thing.” And so on.21 It seems as if language becomes more brittle the more it tries to police the Liars of this world. Why? I believe that this increasing brittleness is a symptom of a deep fact about reality. What is this deep fact? Simply that there are objects, that these objects are withdrawn, and that they are walking contradictions. This means indeed that (as Lacan put it) “there is no metalanguage,” since a metalanguage would function as a “middle object” that gave coherency and evenness to the others.22 Since there is no metalanguage, there is no rising above the disturbing illusory play of causality. This may even have political implications: no global critique is therefore possible, and attempts to smooth out or totalize are doomed to fail. To think the zone is to think the notion of temporary , which we shall now begin to discuss in greater detail. The zone is not in time: rather it “times.” But because a zone is an emanation of an object, it is based on a wavering fragility, since objects are p ? ¬p. When an object is born, that means that it has broken free of some other object. An object can be born because it and other objects are fragile. If not, no movement would be possible. Objects contain the seeds of their own destruction, a dialetheic sentence that says something like “This sentence cannot be proved.” Kurt Gödel argues that every true system of propositions contains at least one sentence that the system cannot prove. In order to be true, the system must have a minimum incoherence. To be real, it has to be fragile. Imagine a record player. Now imagine a record called I Cannot Be Played on This Record Player . When you play it on this record player, it produces sympathetic vibrations that cause the record player to shudder apart. No matter how many defense mechanisms you build in, there will always be the possibility of at least one record that destroys the record player.23 That is what being physical is. An object is inherently fragile because it is both itself and not-itself. When the rift between appearance and essence collapses, that is called destruction, ending, death. When an object breaks, several new objects are born. An opera singer sings a loud note in tune with the resonant frequency of a wine glass. (See the movie included below.) The singing is a zone, an autonomous level of intensity, opening a rift between appearance and essence. The glass ripples—for a moment it is nakedly a glass and a not-glass—almost as if it were having an orgasm, a little death. It is caught in the rift of the singing. Then its structure can't handle the coherence of the sound waves, and it breaks. It is incoherence and inconsistency that is the mark of existence, not consistency and noncontradiction. When things break or die, they become coherent. Essence disappears into appearance. I become the memories of friends. A glass becomes a dancing wave. Instantly, there are glass fragments, new temporary autonomous zones. The fragments have broken free from the glass. They are no longer its parts, but emanate their own time and space, becoming perhaps accidental weapons as they bury themselves in my flesh. Thus Hakim Bey's instructions on creating temporary autonomous zones oscillate disturbingly between performance art and politics, circus clowning and revolution. To play with the aesthetic is to play with causality, to rip from the sensual ether emanating from things new regions, new zones. Anarchist politics is the creation of fresh objects in a reality without a top or a bottom object, or for that matter a middle object: Everything in nature is perfectly real including consciousness, there's absolutely nothing to worry about. Not only have the chains of the Law been broken, they never existed; demons never guarded the stars, the Empire never got started, Eros never grew a beard. … There is no becoming, no revolution, no struggle, no path; already you're the monarch of your own skin—your inviolable freedom waits to be completed only by the love of other monarchs: a politics of dream, urgent as the blueness of sky.24 Bey imagines that this is because chaos is a primordial “undifferentiated oneness-of-being.” A Parmenides or a Spinoza or a Laruelle would read this a certain way. Individual objects, or decisions to talk about this rather than that, are just maggot-like things crawling around on the surface of the giant cheese of oneness.25 Yet he also describes chaos as “Primordial uncarved block, sole worshipful monster, inert & spontaneous, more ultraviolet than any mythology.” This image is of an inconsistent object, not of an undifferentiated field. An object, indeed, that can be distinguished from other things. If not, then the first part of The Temporary Autonomous Zone , subtitled “The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism,” is a kind of onto-theology. Onto-theology proclaims that some things are more real than others. Bey, however, is writing poetically, and thus ambiguously. We are at liberty to read “undifferentiated oneness-of-being” as something like the irreducibility of a thing to its parts and so forth (undermining and overmining). This certainly seems closer to the language in the following paragraph: “There is no becoming … already you're the monarch of your own skin.”26 On this view, there is no difference between art and politics: “When ugliness, poor design & stupid waste are forced upon you, turn Luddite, throw your shoe in the works, retaliate.” Since Romanticism this has been the war cry of the vanguard artist.27 To say to is to fall prey to the tired axioms of the avant-garde, and we think we know how the game goes. But OOO is not simply a way to advocate “new and improved” versions of this shock-the-bourgeoisie boredom. Bey's text is certainly full enough of that. Rather, since causality as such is aesthetic, and since nonhumans are not that different from humans, the new approach would be to form aesthetic–causal alliances with nonhumans. These alliances would have to resist becoming brittle, whether that brittleness is right wing (authoritarianism) or left wing (the endless maze of critique). No “ism,” especially not the ultimate forms, nihilism and cynicism, is in any sense effective at this point. All forms of brittleness are based on the mistaken assumption that there is a metalanguage and that therefore “Anything you can do, I can do meta.” I will not be listing any approaches here, as Bey does. Such lists and manifestos belong to the vanguardism that no longer works. Why? Not because of some marvelous revolution in human consciousness, but because nonhumans have so successfully impinged upon human social, psychic and aesthetic space. It is the time after the end of the world. That happened in 1945, when a thin layer of radioactive materials was deposited in Earth's crust. Geology now calls it this era the Anthropocene . Ironically, this period, named after humans, is the moment at which even the most thick headed of us make decisive contact with nonhumans, from mercury in our blood to manta rays to magnesium. Richard Dawkins, Pat Robertson and Lady Gaga all have to deal with global warming and mass extinction, somehow. We now live in an Age of Asymmetry marked by a skewed, spiraling relationship between vast knowledge and vast nonhuman things—both become vaster and vaster because of one another and for the same reasons.28 This means that coming up with the perfect attitude or the perfect aesthetic prescription just won't work any more. Even the most hardened anthropocentrist now has to pay through the nose for basic food supplies, and has to use more sunscreen. Whether he knows it or acknowledges it, he is already acting with regard towards nonhumans. There is nothing special to think, no special critique that will get rid of the stains of coexistence. The problem won't fit into the well-established modern boxes, which is why the “mystical,” “spiritual” quality of Bey's prose is welcome. Of course, when I put it this way, you may immediately close off and decide that I am talking about perfect attitudes after all, or something outside of politics, or other ways that the radical left marshals to police its thinking of the nonhuman. Because that is what is really at stake in all this: the nonhuman in its coexistence with the human—bosons, gods, clouds, spirits, lifeforms, experiences, the sunlight rippling across the cypresses. Bey begins to get at this in a Latour litany in the second part of The Temporary Autonomous Zone , “The Assassins”: Pomegranate, mulberry, persimmon, the erotic melancholy of cypresses, membrane-pink shirazi roses, braziers of meccan aloes & benzoin, stiff shafts of ottoman tulips, carpets spread like make-believe gardens on actual lawns—a pavilion set with a mosaic of calligrammes—a willow, a stream with watercress—a fountain crystalled underneath with geometry— the metaphysical scandal of bathing odalisques, of wet brown cupbearers hide-&-seeking in the foliage—“water, greenery, beautiful faces.”29 This will be conveniently dismissed as orientalism. If we're never allowed to escape the crumbling prison of modernity for fear of imperialism there is truly no hope. In a similar way, the fear of anthropocentrism and anthropomorphism is very often staged from a place that just is anthropocentrism .30 Critique turns into ressentiment . An object radiates a zone that is aesthetic and therefore causal. Because objects “time” they are temporary. Not because they exist “in” time that eventually gets the better of them. Their very existence implies the possibility of their non-existence. Since objects are not consistent, they can cease to exist. But nothing, no one, will ever be able to insert a blade between appearance and existence, even thought there is a rift there. Now that's what I call autonomy. NOTES 1. John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1973), 96. 2. P. B. Medawar and J. S. Medawar, The Life Science: Current Ideas in Biology (London: Wildwood House, 1977), 8. 3. David DeGrazia, Animal Rights: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 5. 4. Antony Colynet, A True History of the Civil Warres in France (London, 1591), 480. 5. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time , tr. Joan Stambaugh (Albany, N.Y: State University of New York Press, 1996) 62–71. 6. Graham Harman, Tool-Being: Heidegger and the Metaphysics of Objects (Peru, IL: Open Court, 2002). 7. Hakim Bey, The Temporary Autonomous Zone (Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 1991). 8. Graham Harman, The Quadruple Object (Ripley: Zero Books, 2011), 7–18. 9. This is not the place to get into an argument about quantum theory, but I have argued that quanta also do not endorse a world that I can't speak about because it is only real when measured. This world is that of the reigning Standard Model proposed by Niels Bohr and challenged by De Broglie and Bohm (and now the cosmologist Valentini, among others). See Timothy Morton, “Here Comes Everything: The Promise of Object-Oriented Ontology,” Qui Parle 19.2 (Spring–Summer, 2011), 163–190. 10. John Donne, Holy Sonnets 15, in The Major Works: Including Songs and Sonnets and Sermons , ed. John Carey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). 11. Edward O. Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (New York: Knopf, 1998). 12. Martin Heidegger, What Is a Thing? (Washington: Regnery, 1968), 243. 13. Albert Einstein, Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (London: Penguin, 2006); Petr Horava, “Quantum Gravity at a Lifshitz Point,” arXiv:0901.3775v2 [hep-th]. 14. Graham Priest, In Contradiction (Oxford University Press, 2006), passim: the most notable recent quarantine officers have been Tarski, Russell, and Frege. 15. Priest, In Contradiction , 172–181. 16. William Butler Yeats, “Among School Children,” Collected Poems , ed. Richard J. Finneran (New York: Scribner, 1996). 17. Paul de Man, “Semiology and Rhetoric,” Diacritics 3.3 (Autumn, 1973), 27–33 (30). 18. Jacques Lacan, Le seminaire, Livre III: Les psychoses (Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1981), 48. See Slavoj Zizek, The Parallax View (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2006), 206. 19. Alphonso Lingis, The Imperative (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 29. 20. Priest, In Contradiction , 9–27. 21. See Graham Priest and Francesco Berto, “ Dialetheism ,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. 22. Jacques Lacan, Écrits: A Selection , tr. Alan Sheridan (London: Tavistock, 1977), 311. 23. The analogy can be found at length in Douglas Hofstadter, “Contracrostipunctus,” Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 75–81. 24. Bey, “ Chaos: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism ,” Temporary Autonomous Zone . 25. This is closest to the language of François Laruelle in Philosophies of Difference: A Critical Introduction to Non-Philosophy (New York: Continuum, 2011) 179. 26. Bey, “ Chaos: The Broadsheets of Ontological Anarchism ,” Temporary Autonomous Zone . 27. Peter Bürger, Theory of the Avant Garde (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984). 28. For further discussion see Timothy Morton, “From Modernity to the Anthropocene: Ecology and Art in the Age of Asymmetry,” The International Social Science Journal 209 (forthcoming). 29. Bey, “ The Assassins ,” Temporary Autonomous Zone . 30. Timothy Morton, The Ecological Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010), 75–76. (shrink)

We focus on the question of how expertise as conceived by the Stoics interacts with the content of impressions. In Section 1, we situate the evidence concerning expert perception within the Stoic account of cognitive development. In Section 2, we argue that the content of rational impressions, and notably of expert impressions, is not exhausted by the relevant propositions. In Section 3, we argue that expert impressions are a subtype of kataleptic impressions which achieve their level of clarity and distinctness (...) due to the contribution of expertise. In Section 4, we argue that the expertise in living well not only allows the wise person to assent correctly but also affects the content of her impressions. We suggest that these two models – one’s attitude toward an impression being informed by expertise, and one’s impressions being affected by expertise – might characterize distinct stages of cognitive development. Stoic wisdom is not only a matter of the way one assents to one’s impressions but also a matter of the condition of one’s soul and, consequently, of the kinds of impressions one even entertains. Expertise offers a model of how cognitive and discriminatory improvement through practice and effort can transform the non-wise into the wise. A reading on which the content of impressions is not exclusively propositional illuminates a further aspect of this transformation. If the same propositions are accessible through impressions with different non-propositional content, we can account for cases in which the novice and the expert entertain the same proposition. (shrink)

Regarding the relation of Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, scholars have been divided to two opposing groups: unitarists and developmentalists. While developmentalists try to prove that there are some noticeable and even fundamental differences between Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, the unitarists assert that there is no essential difference in there. The main goal of this article is to suggest that some of Plato’s ontological as well as epistemological principles change, both radically and fundamentally, between the early and (...) middle period dialogues. Though this is a kind of strengthening the developmentalistic approach corresponding the relation of the early and middle period dialogues, based on the fact that what is to be proved here is a essential development in Plato’ ontology and his epistemology, by expanding the grounds of development to the ontological and epistemological principles, it hints to a more profound development. The fact that the bipolar and split knowledge and being of the early period dialogues give way to the tripartite and bound knowledge and benig of the middle period dialogues indicates the development of the notions of being and knowledge in Plato’s philosophy before the dialogues of the middle period. -/- Keywords Plato; early dialogues; middle dialogues; being; knowledge; development -/- Introduction The differences between two groups of the early and middle period dialogues have always been a matter of dispute. Whereas the developmentalists like Vlastos, Silverman (2002), Teloh (1981), Dancy (2004) and Rickless (2007) think that from the early to the middle dialogues Plato’s philosophy changes, at least in some essential points, the unitarists like Kahn, Cherniss and Shorey believe that there happens no development and the differences must be taken as natural, ignorable and even pedagogic. In his well-known article, Socrates contra Socrates in PLATO, Vlastos lists ten theses of difference between two groups of dialogues. The first group which includes Plato’s early dialogues he divides to 'elenctic' (Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Protagoras and Republic I) and 'transitional' (Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Lysis, Menexenus and Meno) dialogues. These transitional come after all the elenctic dialogues and before all the dialogues of the second group which compose Plato’s middle period dialogues, including (with Vlastos' chronological order) Cratylus, Phaedo, Symposium, Republic II-X, Phaedrus, Parmenides and Theaetetus (1991, 46-49). Vlastos asserts strictly that his list of differences are 'so diverse in content and method that they contrast as sharply with one another as with any third philosophy you care to mention, beginning with Aristotole’s' (ibid, 46). Vlastos’ list of differences between two Socrateses is considered a view breaking sharply between the early and the middle dialogues. Besides all ten differences between the two Socrateses in Vlastos’ list that can be supportive for our doctrine here, we intend to focus on some ontological as well as epistemological distinctions that have not completely been discussed hitherto. Contrary to the developmentalist theory of Vlastos, unitarian theory of Charles Kahn wishes to eliminate any substantial difference between the early and the middle dialogues. He distinguishes seven 'pre-middle' or 'threshold' dialogues including Laches, Charmides, Euthyphro, Protagoras, Meno, Lysis and Euthydemus from the other Socratic dialogues which he calls 'earliest group' (1996, 41). The threshold dialogues, Kahn thinks, 'embarke upon a sustained project' that is to reach to its climax in the middle period dialogues, namely Phaedo, Symposium and Republic. Believing in that there is no 'fundamental shift'between the early and middle dialogues (ibid, 40), Kahn thinks the Socratic dialogues are just the 'first stage' with a 'deliberate silence' towards the theories of later periods (ibid, 339). One of the reasons of the surprising fact that Plato gives no hint of the metaphysics and epistemology of the Forms in the early dialogues, he thinks, is the pedagogical advantages of aporia. He thinks that Plato 'obscurely', and mostly because of education, hinted to some doctrines and conceptions in his early dialogues and with the aim of clarifying them only in the later ones (ibid, 66). The seven threshold dialogues, Kahn asserts, 'had been designed from the first' to prepare the pupils and readers for the views expounded in the middle period dialogues (ibid, 59-60). To show that the differences of the two Socrateses of the early and middle period dialogue are in their onto-epistemological grounds and thence cannot be explained by a unitaristic view, we try to draw the ontological and epistemological principles of the early dialogues in the first part below in order to show, in the second part, that those principles have been developed in the middle period dialogues. -/- A. The Onto-Epistemologic Principles of the Early Dialogues Socratic dialogues are paradoxical about knowledge because while being knowledge-oriented always searching for knowledge, they deny it and even never discuss it directly. Three elements of Socrates’ way of searching Knowledge throughout the early dialogues, i.e. Socratic 'what is X?' question, his disavowal of knowledge and his elenctic method combined together produce something like a circle which works, more or less, in the same way in these dialogues. Though this circle is an embaressing inquiry always resulting in ignorance instead of knowledge, its motivation is surprisingly Socrates’ passionate enthusiasm for knowledge, an intensive love of wisdom. The starting point of this circle is Socrates’ confession of having no knowledge which might be explicitly asserted or presupposed, maybe because it was one of the famous characteristics of Socrates; a confession always paradoxically accompanied with his intense longing for knowledge (e.g., Gorgias 505e4-5). Every time Socrates encounters with someone who thinks he knows something (οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι) (Apology 21d5) and tries to examine him. This examination seems to be the simplest one asking just what it is that he knows. Socrates’ elenchus, therefore, is always connected with 'what is X?' (τίς ποτέ ἐστιν) question, a question that most of the early dialogues of Plato are concerned with; 'what is courage?' in the Laches, 'what is piety?' in Euthydemus, 'what is temperance?' in Charmides and 'what is beauty?' in Hippias Major. This question we call here 'Socratic question' and probably is the very question the historical Socrates used to employ, is tightly interrelated with both his disavowal and his elenchus. He disclaims knowledge because he cannot find the answer to the question himself and he rejects others’ since they cannot offer the correct answer too. Every interlocutor can claim he knows X, if and only if he can answer the Socratic question. Otherwise, he is more of an ignorant than of a knower of τί ποτέ ἐστι X. Knowing the answer to this question is, thus, knowledge’s criterion for Socrates. Having found out that he cannot answer what it is which he would claim to know, the interlocutor comes to the point Socrates was there at the beginning. The least advantage of this circle is that he becomes as wise as Socrates does about the subject, becoming aware that he does not know it. At the end of the circle they are both still at the beginning, not knowing what X is. So let us first take a glance at these three elements. Socratic disavowal of knowledge is strictly asserted in some passages. At Apology 21b4-5, Socrates says: -/- I do not know of myself being wise at all (οὔτε μέγα οὔτε σμικρὸν σύνοιδα ἐμαυτῷ σοφὸς ὤν) -/- Moreover, at 21d4-6: -/- None of us knows anything worthwhile (καλὸν κἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι) …. I do not know (οἶδα) neither do I think I know. -/- In Charmides Socrates speaks about a fear about his probable mistake of thinking that he knows (εἰδέναι) something when he does not (166d1-2). The somehow generalization of this disavowal can be seen in Gorgias. After calling his disavowal 'an account that is always the same' (509a4-5), Socrates continues (a5-7): -/- I say that I do not know (οἶδα) how these things are, but no one I have ever met, like now, who can say anything else without being absurd. -/- At the end of Hippias Major (304d7-8), Socrates affirms his disavowal of knowledge of 'what is X?' this time about the fine: -/- I do not know (οἶδα) what that is itself (αὐτὸ τοῦτο ὅτι ποτέ ἐστιν). Some other passages, however, made a number of scholars dubious about Socrates’ disavowal. Vlastos mentions Apology 29b6-7 as an evidence : 'that to do wrong and to disobey one’s master, both god and men, I know (οἶδα) to be evil and shameful'. He thinks that if we give this single text 'its full weight' it can suffice to show that Socrates does claim knowledge of a moral truth (1985, 7). Vlastos’ claim is not admittable since it would be too strange, I think, for a man like Socrates to violate his disavowal claim just after emphasizing it. We can see his claim just before the already mentioned passage: -/- And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know. It is perhaps on this point and in this respect, gentlemen, that I differ from the majority of men and if I were to claim that I am wiser than anyone in anything it world be in this, that, as I have no adequate knowledge (οὐκ εἰδὼς ἱκανῶς) of things in the underworld, so I do not think I have (οὐκ εἰδέναι) (Apology 29b1-6) Vlastos tries to solve what he calls the 'paradox' of Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge distinguishing the 'certain' knowledge from 'elenctic' knowledge (1985, 11) and thinking that when Socrates avows knowledge, we must perceive it as an elenctic knowledge, a knowledge its content 'must be propositions he thinks elenctically justifiable' (ibid, 18). Irwin’s solution is the distinction of knowledge and belief. He approves that Socrates does not 'explicitly' make such a distinction, but still thinks that Socrates’ 'test for knowledge would make it reasonable for him to recognize true belief without knowledge, and his own claims are easily understood if they are claims to true belief alone' (1977, 40). While I agree with Vlastos up to a point, I strongly disagree with Irwin about the early dialogues. As I will try to show below, we are not permitted to consider any kind of distinction within knowledge in Socratic dialogues because only one category of knowledge is alluded to there and the distinction of knowledge and belief thoroughly belongs to the second Sorcates. Although no kind of distinction can be admittable here, I think Vlastos’ distinction can be accepted only if we regard it as a distinction between knowledge, which is unique and without any, even incomparable, rival, and a semi-idiomatic and ordinary one that is a necessary requirement for any argument, and thus, unavoidable even for someone who does not claim any kind of knowledge. An apparent evidence of this is Gorgias 505e6-506a4: -/- I go through the discussion as I think it is (ὡς ἄν μοι δοκῇ ἔχειν), if any of you do not agree with admissions I am making to myself, you must object and refute me. For I do not say what I say as I know (οὐδὲ γάρ τοι ἔγωγε εἰδὼς λέγω ἃ λέγω) but as searching jointly with you (ζητῶ κοινῇ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν). -/- The minimal degree of knowledge everyone must have to take part in an argument, conduct it and use the phrase "I know" when it is necessary is what Socrates cannot deny. We can call it elenctic knowledge only if we agree that it is not the kind of knowledge that Socrates has always been searching, the one that can be accepted as the answer of Socratic 'what is X?' question. His disavowal of knowledge is applied only to the knowledge which can truly be the answer of Socratic question and pass the elenctic exam; a knowledge that, I believe, is never claimed by first Socrates. Socrates conducts his method of examining his interlocutors’ knowledge, our second element here, by almost the same method repeated in Socratic dialogues. That whether we are allowed to regard all the examinations of Socrates in the early dialogues as based on the same or not has been a matter of dispute. Vlastos himself (1994, 31) distinguished Euthydemas, Lysis, Menexenns and Hippias Major from the other Socratic dialogues because he thinks Socrates has lost his faith to elenchus in there. Irwin (1977, 38) distinguishes Apology and Crito where Socrates’ own convictions is present. Contrary to some scholars like Benson (2002, 107) who take elenchus in all the Socratic dialogues as a unique method, Michelle Carpenter and Ronald M. Polansky (2002, 89-100) argue pro the variety of methods of elenchus. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith (2002, 145-160) even reject such a thing as Socratic elenchus which can gather all of the Socrates’ various arguments under such a heading. There can be no solution for the problem of elenchus, they think, is due to 'the simple reason that there is no such thing as 'the Socratic elenchos"'(p.147). Though we consider elenchus a somehow determined process and a part of Socratic circle in the early dialogues, all we assume is that whatever differences it might have in different dialogues, it has the same onto-epistemological principles and, thus, we are not going to take it necessarily as a unique method. This method sets out to prove that the interlocutors are as ignorant as Socrates himself is. That whether elenchus is constructive, capable of establishing doctrines as Vlastos (1994) or Brickhouse and Smith (1994, 20-21) believe or not is another issue to which this paper is not to claim anything. What is crucial for our discussion here is that elenchus does not reach to the very knowledge Socrates is looking for. This is strictly against Irwin who thinks that not only elenchus leads to positive results, 'it should even yield knowledge to match Socrates’ conditions'(1977, 68, cf. 48). He does not explain where and how they really yield to that kind of knowledge. He explains his elenctic method in his apology in the court (Apology 21-22), that how he used to examine wise men, politicians, poets and all those who had the highest reputation for their knowledge and every time found that they have no knowledge. If we accept, as I strongly do, that Socrates’ disavowal of his knowledge is not irony, it might seem more reasonable to agree that the process that has that disavowal as its first step cannot be irony as well. The key of the circle which can explain why Socrates disclaims knowledge and how he can reject others’ claim of having any kind of knowledge lies in the third element, Socratic question. In Hippias Major (287c1-2), Socrates asks: 'Is it not by Justice that just people are Just? (ἆρ᾽ οὐ δικαιοσύνῃ δίκαιοί εἰσιν οἱ δίκαιοι). He insists at 294b1 that they were searching for that by which (ᾧ) all beautiful things are beautiful (cf. b4-5, 8). At Euthyphro 6d10-11 it is said that the Socratic question is waiting for 'the form itself (αὐτὸ τὸ εἶδος) by which (ᾧ) all the pious actions are pious; and at 6d11-e1: -/- Through one form (που μιᾷ ἰδέᾳ) impious actions are impious and pious actions pious. -/- Since the X itself is that by which X is X, knowing 'X itself' is the only way of knowing X. It is probably because of this that Socrates makes the distinction between the ousia as a right answer to the question and effect as a wrong one: -/- I am afraid, Euthyphro, that when you were asked what piety is (τὸ ὅσιον ὅτι ποτ᾽ ἐστίν) you did not wish to make clear its nature itself (οὐσίαν … αὐτοῦ) to me, but you said some effect (πάθος) about it. (Euthp. 11a6-9) -/- 1. Knowledge of what X is Now it is time to look for the onto-epistemological principles of Socratic circle and its three elements. It cannot reasonably be expected from the first Socrates to present us explicitly and clearly formulated principles of his onto-epistemology when such explications cannot be found even in the second Socrates who has some obviously positive theoris. Since there must be some principles underlying this first systematic inqury of knowledge, we must seek to them and be satisfied with elicitation of the first Socratas’ principle. What will be drawn out as his principles cannot and must not, thus, be taken as very fix and dogmatic principles. Some very slightest principles and grounds suffice for our purposes here. The first principle that is the prima facie significance of the Socratic question and his implementation of all those elenctic arguments I call the principle of 'Knowledge of What X is' (KWX): -/- KWX To know X, it is required to know what X is. -/- Aristotle (Metaphysics 1078b23-25, 27-29, 987b4-8) takes Plato’s τί ἐστι question as seeking the definition of a thing that is the same as historical Socrates’ search but applying to a different field. That Plato’s 'what is X?' question was a search for definition became the prevailed understanding of this question up to now. I am going neither to discuss the answer of Socratic question nor to challenge taking it as definition. What I am to insist is that knowledge is attached firmly to the answer of the question: Knowledge of X is not anything but the knowledge of what X is. It entails, certainly, the priority of this knowledge to any other kind of knowledge about X but it also has something more fundamental about the relation of knowledge and Socratic question. Socrates’ exclusive focus on the answer of his question can authorize the consideration of such an essential role for KWX in his epistemolgoy. The total rejection of his interlocutors’ knowledge when they are unable to answer the question can be regarded as a strong evidence for it. Socrates’ elenctic method and his rejection of others’ knowledge in the early dialogues, which all end aporetically with no one accepted as knower and nothing as knowledge, prevent us from finding any positive evidence for this. We have to be content, therefore, of negative evidences which, I think, can be found wherever Socrates rejects his interlocutors’ knowledge when they are not able to give an acceptable answer to his 'what is X?' question. 2. Bipolar Epistemology Socrates’ rejection of his interlocutors’ knowledge has another epistemological principle as its basis. Let me call this principle Bipolar Epistemology' (BE): BE There is no third way besides knowledge and Ignorance. -/- BE says that about every object of knowledge there are only two subjective statuses: knowledge and Ignorance. Socrates’ disavowal, however, says nothing but that he is ignorant of knowledge of X because he does not know what X is. This means that BE is presupposed here. Socrates’ elenchus and his rejection of interlocutors’ having any kind of knowledge are the necessary results of the fact that he does not let any third way besides knowledge and ignorance. The first Socrates never let anyone partly know X or have a true opinion about it, as he would not let anyone know anything about X when he did not know what X is. -/- 3. Bipolar Ontology The principle of BE in first Socrates’ epistemology is parallel to another principle in his ontology. Plato’s bipolar distinction between being and not being is as strict and perfect as his distinction between knowledge and ignorance. This principle I shall call the principle of 'Bipolar Ontology' (BO): BO Being is and not being is not. BO is apparently the same with the well-known Parmenidean Principle of being and not being (cf. Diels-Kranz (DK) Fr. 2.2-5). Euthydemus’ statement against the possibility of false knowledge can be good evidence for this principle: -/- The things which are not surely do not exist (τὰ δὲ μὴ ὄντα … ἄλλο τι ἢ οὐκ ἔστιν). (Euthydemus 284b3-4) -/- He continues (b4-5): -/- There is nowhere for not being to be there (οὖν οὐδαμοῦ τά γε μὴ ὄντα ὄντα ἐστίν). -/- That BE does not let true opinion as a third option besides knowledge and ignorance seems to be related to BO’s rejecting a third option besides being and not being, which is itself the basis of the impossibility of false belief. Socrates’ elaborate discussion of the problem of false belief in Theatetus that leads to a more decisive discussion and finally to some solutions in Sophist can make our consideration of BO for the first group of dialogues authentive. -/- 4. &5. Split Knowledge and Split Being The fourth principle I shall call the principle of 'Split Knowledge' (SK): -/- SK Knowledge of X is separated from any other knowledge (of anything else) as if the whole knowledge is split to various parts. -/- This Principle is hinted and criticized as Socrates’ way of treating with knowledge in Hippias Major: -/- But Socrates, you do not contemplate the entireties of things, nor do people you have used to talk with (τὰ μὲν ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων οὐ σκοπεῖς, οὐδ᾽ ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι). (301b2-4) -/- Contrary to Rankin who regards the passage as 'antilogical, almost eristic in tone rather than presenting a serious philosophy of being' (1983, 54), I think it can be taken as serious. Hippias criticizes Sorcates that he does not contemplate (σκοπεῖς) the entireties of things (ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων), a critique which Socrates is not its only subject but all those whom Socrates accustomed to talk with (ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι). This last phrase, I think, extends this critic beyond this dialogue to other Socratic dialogues. Hippias’ use of the perfect tense of the verb ἔθω (to be accustomed) is a good evidence of this extension. We can get, thus, these ἐκεῖνοι as Socrates’ interlocutors in his other dialogues that hints that this criticism has the epistemological groundings of the previous dialogues as its subject. What ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι points to is that Hippias does not have in mind Socrates’ way of treating things only in this dialogue, but he is also criticizing Socrates’ way throughout his dialogues. At 301b4-5, Socrates and his interlocutors’ way of beholding things is described as such: -/- You people knock (κρούετε) at the fine and each of the beings (ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων) by taking each being cut up in pieces (κατατέμνοντες) in words (ἐν τοῖς λόγοις). This leads us to our next principle that is parallel to, and the ontological side of, SK, the principle of 'Split Being'(SB): -/- SB Everything (being) is separated from any other thing as if the whole being is split to many beings. -/- Socrates and his interlocutors and thus, as we saw, the Socratic dialogues are accused to regard everything as it is separated from all other things. This separation is en tois logois that, I think, can reasonably be taken as saying that Socratic dialogues (it refers of course to the dialogues before Hippias Major) cut up all things which have the same name/definition from all other things and try to understand them separately, without considering other things that are not in their logos. They, for example in Hippias Major, are cutting up to kalon and try to understand what it and all others inside this logos are by separating it from all other things. This is directed straightly against Socratic question and the way Socratic dialogues follow to find its answer, every time separating one logos. As Meyer (1995, 85) points out, every question 'presupposes that the X in question in a logos is something' and 'every answer to every question aims at unity' (84). The critique of Hippias Major is, therefore, at the same time a critique of SK and SB. It is also a critique of KWX because it is only based on KWX that Socratic dialogues could search for the answer of 'what is X' question supposing that knowing what X is is enough for the knowledge of X. SK and KWX are absolutely interdependent. What Socrates and all his previous interlocutors have neglected in Socratic dialogues, Hippias says, was 'continuous bodies of being' (διανεκῆ σώματα τῆς οὐσίας) (301b6). Either this theory actually belongs to the historical Hippias as it is being said or not, it is strictly criticizing SB. We have the same phrase with changing sūma to logos some lines later at 301e3-4: διανεκεῖ λόγῳ τῆς οὐσίας. Although this theory that can be observed as both an ontological and an epistemological theory is rejected by Socrates (301cff.), it is still against first Socrates’ onto-epistemological principles and might let us look at what is rejected as Socratic prineple. -/- 6. Knowledge is of Being The sixth principle that I think is presupposed by the first Socrates, is the 'Knowledge of Being' Principle (KB): -/- KB Knowledge is of Being. -/- This principle is obviously the source of the problem of false knowledge, a very important problem throughout Plato’s philosophy. We face this problem maybe for the first time in Euthydemus. In less than 20 Stephanus’ pages, 276-295, we are encountered with different interwoven problems about knowledge , all grounded in the problem of false opinion. Having challenged the obvious possibility of telling lies at 283e, at 284 Euthydemus discusses it saying that the man who speaks is speaking about 'one of those things that are (ἓν μὴν κἀκεῖνό γ᾽ ἐστὶν τῶν ὄντων)' (284a3) and thus speaks what is (λέγων τὸ ὄν) (a5). He must necessarily be saying truth when he is speaking what is because he who speaks what is (τὸ ὄν) and the things that are (τὰ ὄντα) speaks truth (τἀληθῆ λέγει) (a5-6). This is based on Parmenidean principle of the impossibility of being of not being which Euthydemus restates (284b3-4) and we mentioned discussing BO principle above. The things that are not are nowhere (οὐδαμοῦ) and there is no possibility for anyone to do (πράξειεν) anything with them because they must be made as being before anything else can be done, which is impossible (b5-7). The words, then, are of things that exist (εἰσὶν ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὄντων λόγοι) (285e9) and as they are (ὡς ἔστιν) (e10). The result is that no one can speak of things as they are not. It is this impossibility of false speach that is extended to thinking (δοξάζειν) at 286d1 and leads to the impossibility of false opinion (ψευδής … δόξα) (286d4). The general conclusion is asserted at 287a extending this impossibility to actions and making any kind of mistake. Not only knowledge is of being but speech, thought and action are of being simply because of the fact that nothing can be of not being. -/- B. First Socrates’ Principles in the Middle Period Dialogues Out of what were presupposed or criticized mostly in five dialogues, Euthyphro, Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Laches and Charmides, we tried to draw the first Socrates’ principles. Our inquiry here is directed to find out the fate of these principles in the three dialogues of the middle period, Meno, Phaedo and Republic. To do this, first we ought to check the situation of Socratic circle in these dialogues. The Socratic circle that was predominant in the early dialogues, does not look like a circle here anymore though they certainly have some features in common. Meno, Phaedo and Republic II-X are not committed to the principles of the circle and the whole circle in disrupted in them. The difference of the two Socrateses towards acquiring knowledge is obvious. The Socrates of Meno, Phaedo and Republic is evidently more self-confident that he can get to some truths during his arguments as he does. They are in their first appearance, as almost all other dialogues, committed to Socrates’ disavowal. All of them try to keep the shape of the Socratikoi Logoi genre, which is committed to the historical Socrates’ way of discussion; a dramatic personage who is to challenge his interlocutors, ask them and refuse the answers. Nevertheless, the fact is that what we have in common between two groups of dialogues is mostly a dramatic structure. Whereas the first group’s arguments are based on Socrates’ disavowal and lead to no positive results, the second group is decisively going to achieve some positive results. The aim of the first Socrates was to show others that they are ignorant of what they thought they knew. The new Socrates of Meno, on the opposite, makes so much efforts to show that the slave boy has within himself true opinions (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι) about the things that he does not know (οἶδε) (85c6-7). Despite his lack of knowledge, he has true opinions nevertheless. The way from these true opinions to knowledge, as Socrates states, is not so long. These true opinions are now like a dream but 'can become knowledge of the same things not less accurate than anyone’s' (οὐδενὸς ἧττον ἀκριβῶς ἐπιστήσεται περὶ τούτων) (c11-d1), if they be repeated by asking the same questions. The most outstanding text regarding Socrates’ disavowal is Meno 98b where he explicitly claims knowledge: -/- And indeed I also speak as (ὡς) one who does not know (εἰδὼς) but is guessing (εἰκάζων). However, [about the fact] that true opinion and knowledge are different, I do not altogether expect (δοκῶ) myself to be guessing (εἰκάζειν), but if I say about anything that I know (εἰδέναι) -which about few things I say- this is one of the things that I know (οἶδα). (98b1-5) This passage is very significant about Plato’s disavowal of knowledge. There can hardly be found, I think, anywhere else in Plato’s corpus where Socrates speaks about his knowledge of something as such. He says first that he speaks as someone who does not know. This ὡς οὐκ εἰδὼς λέγω comparing with what he used to say in the first group, οὐκ οἶδα, has this added ὡς. Socrates does not claim strongly anymore that he does not know anything but speaks only as someone who does not know. He needs this ὡς not only because he is going to accept that he does know some, though few, things immediately after this sentence, but also because he needs his previous disavowal to be loosened from Meno on. He does not merely say here that he knows something. It is then different from the examples mentioned before which could be taken as idiomatic or at least not emphatic. Socrates’ remarkable emphasis on distinguishing εἰδέναι from εἰκάζειν departs it from all other passages where he says only he knows something. Moreover, he claims definitely that he has knowledge about few (ὀλίγα) things. From the early to the middle dialogues, Socrates’ attitude to knowledge has totally renewed its face. He brings forth a new concept, true opinion, and he does not speak of knowledge as he used to before; the rough, perfect and unachievable knowledge of the first group has turned to something more smooth, realistic and achievable. Comparing with the early dialogues that did not set out from the first to reach positive results, the middle ones are extraordinarily and surprisingly positive and hence destroy the basis of the Socratic circle. The questions and answers are purposely directed to some specific new theories; most of them are not directly related to the topics or the main questions of the dialogues. They are suggested when Socrates draws the attention of the interlocutor away from the main question because of the necessity of another discussion. Even if the main question remains unanswered, we have still many positive theories, prominently of metaphysical type. These theories are so abundant and dominant in these dialogues, especially Phaedo and Republic, that one might think that they may appear to be arbitrarily sandwiched in there. This helps dialogues to keep their original Socratic structure while they are suggesting new theories. Hence, the Socratic question of 'what is X?', though is still used to launch the discussion, is loosened and is forgotten for most part of the dialogues. Meno that has first a differently formulated question, 'can virtue be taught?', leads finally to the Socratic question of 'What is virtue?'. Phaedo is dedicated to the demonstration of the immortality of soul and the life after death without having a central Socratic question. The case of Republic is more complicated. The first book, on the one hand, has all the criteria of a Socratic circle: its 'what is justice?' question, Socrates’ strong disavowal (e.g. 337d-e), his rejection of all answers and coming back to the first point without finding out any answer. This Book, considered alone, is a perfect Socratic dialogue, as many scholars regard it as early and separated from other books. The books II-X are, on the other hand, far from implementing a Socratic circle. They have still the 'what is justice?' question as their incentive leading question, but they are, in most of the positive doctrines and methods that encompass the main parts, ignoring the question. Even these books that, I believe, are the farthest discussions from the Socratic circle are so cautious not to break the Socratic structure of the dialogue as long as it is possible. What is changed is not the structure of the dialogue but the ontological and epistemological grounds based on which new theories are suggested. -/- 1. Knowledge of the Good We can clearly see in the second group of dialogues that the KWX principle loses the place it had before in our first group. It is not, of course, rejected, but still we cannot say that it has the same situation. KWX that was based on Socratic question, as we discussed before, was the leading principle of the first Socrates’ epistemology and of the highest position. Other epistemological principles, SK directly and BE indirectly, were relying on Socratic question and therefore on KWX. Such a position does not belong to KWX from Meno on. What makes it different in the second Socrates is another principle that is needed it not only as its complementary principle but also as what is more fundamental. Plato, then, does not reject KWX in this period, but, it seems, he transcends to another more basic principle; a principle we shall call the principle of 'Knowledge of the Good' (KG): -/- KG Knowledge of X requires knowledge of the Good. -/- Whereas all the dialogues of our first group are free from any discuscon about KG, it bears a very important role in the second group so as becomes the superior principle of knowledge in Republic. Trying to solve the problem of teachability of virtue, Socrates says that it can be teachable only if it is a kind of knowledge because nothing can be taught to human beings but knowledge (ἐπιστήμην) (Meno 87c2). The dilemma will be, then, whether virtue is knowledge or not (c11-12) and since virtue is good, we can change the question to: whether is there anything good separate from knowledge (εἰ μέν τί ἐστιν ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἄλλο χωριζόμενον ἐπιστήμης) (d4-5). Therefore, the conclusion will be that if there is nothing good which knowledge does not encompass, virtue can be nothing but knowledge (d6-8). What let us discuss KG as an epistemological principle for the second Secrates is the relation he tries to establish between knowledge and the Good which, though is alongside with the mentioned thesis and the idea of virtue as knowledge, goes much deeper inside epistemology asking to regard the Good as the basis of knowledge. The effort of Phaedo cannot succeed in establishing the Good as the criterion of explanation and knowledge since, I think, it needs a far more complicated ontology of Republic where Socrates can finally announce KG. What is said in Republic is totally compatible with Phaedo 99d–e and the metaphor of watching an eclipse of the sun. In spite of the fact that we do not have adequate knowledge of the Idea of the Good, it is necessary for every kind of knowledge: 'If we do not know it, even if we know all other things, it is of no benefit to us without it' (505a6-7). The problem of our not having sufficient knowledge of the Idea of Good is tried to be solved by the same method of Phaedo 99d-e, that is to say, by looking at what is like instead of looking at thing itself (506d8-e4). It is this solution that leads to the comparison of the Good with sun in the allegory of Sun (508b12-13). What the Good is in the intelligible realm corresponds to what the sun is in the visible realm; as sun is not sight, but is its cause and is seen by it (b9-10), the Good is so regarding knowledge. It has, then, the same role for knowledge that the sun has for sight. Socrates draws our attention to the function of sun in our seeing. The eyes can see everything only in the light of the day being unable to see the same things in the gloom of night (508c4-6). Without the sun, our eyes are dimmed and blind as if they do not have clear vision any longer (c6-7). That the Good must have the same role about knowledge based on the analogy means that it must be considered as a required condition of any kind of knowledge: -/- The soul, then, thinks (νόει) in the same way: whenever it focuses on what is shined upon by truth and being, understands (ἐνόησέν), knows (ἔγνω) and apparently possesses understanding (νοῦν ἔχειν). (508d4-6) -/- Socrates does not use agathon in this paragraph and substitutes it with both aletheia and to on. He links them with the Idea of the Good when he is to assert the conclusion of the analogy: -/- That which gives truth to the objects of knowledge and the power of knowing to the knower, you must say, is the Idea of the Good: being the cause of knowledge and truth (αἰτίαν δ᾽ ἐπιστήμης οὖσαν καὶ ἀληθείας) so far as it is known (ὡς γιγνωσκομένης μὲν διανοοῦ). (508e1-4) Knowledge and truth are called goodlike (ἀγαθοειδῆ) since they are not the same as the Good but more honoured (508e6-509a5). KG, which had been implicitly contemplated and searched in Phaedo, is now explicitly being asserted in Republic. As what was quoted clearly proves, this principle is the very one which we can observe as the most fundamental principle of the second Socrates in Republic, corresponding to the role KWX had in the first Socrates. The Form of the Good in Republic, of which Santas speaks as 'the centerpiece of the canonical Platonism of the middle dialogues, the centerpiece of Plato’s metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and …' (1983, 256) much more can be said. Plato’s Cave allegory in Book VIII dedicates a similar role to the Idea of the Good. The Idea of the Good is there as the last thing to be seen in the knowable realm, something so important that its seeing equals to understanding the fact that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful (517b). Producing both light and its source in visible realm, it controls and provides truth and understanding in the intelligible realm (517c). -/- 2. Tripartite Epistemology BE is thoroughy rejected in the second Socrates and substituted by its opposite, the principle of 'Tripartite Epistemolgy' (TE): -/- TE Opinion is an epistemological status between knowledge and ignorance. BE of the first Socrates was denying any third way besides knowledge and ignorance which was the foundation of Socratic circle without which Socrates could not reject his interlocutors’ possessing any kind of knowledge. We cannot say, however, that the first Socrates had a third epistemological status in mind but rejected it. Such a status was unacceptable for him so that one can say that he would reject any kind of such status if suggested. There were only two possibilities about knowledge: either one knows something or he does not know it. TE, thus, was not the first Socrates’ discovery and, I think it is not the second Socrates’discovery. All we can see in our second group of dialouges is that he uses this principle as an already demonstrated one. Having examined the slave boy in Meno for the prupose of showing the working of recollection, it truns out that he has some opinions in him while he still does not know. Without trying to prove it, Socrates takes this as the distinction between knowledge and opinion: -/- So, he who does not know (οὐκ εἰδότι) about what he does not know (περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ) has within himself true opinions (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι) about the same things he did not know (περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε) (85c6-7). -/- The same distinction is set between ὀρθὴν δόξαν and ἐπιστήμην at 97b5-6 ff. (also cf. 97b1-2: ὀρθῶς μὲν δοξάζων … ἐπιστάμενος). He connects then their difference to the myth of Daedalus, the statue that would run away and escape. So are true opinions, not willing to remain long in mind and thus not worthy until one ties them down by αἰτίας λογισμῷ (98a3-4). Socrates says that this tying down is anamnesis. We face, in Phaedo, the same relation is settled between knowledge as the process of being tied down and getting the capability to give an account, on the one hand, and anamnesis, on the other hand. When a man knows, he must be able to give an account of what he knows (Phaedo 76b5-6) and since not all people are able to give such an account, those who recollect, recollect what once they learned (76c4). Although the distinction between knowledge and opinion is not explicitly used in Phaedo, referring to the parallel link between knowledge plus account and anamnesis in Phaedo and Meno, one can say that those who cannot recollect are not able to give account and, thus, are in a state of opinion. What is said at Phaedo 84a, though not yet a definite distinction between knowledge and opinion, makes a distinction between their objects so as we can agree that it is presupposed. The soul of the philosopher, Socrates says, follows reason, stays with it forever and contemplates the divine, which is not the object of opinoin (ἀδόξαστον) (84a8, cf. Meno 98b2-5). The distinction of knowledge and belief in Republic has a significant difference with what we discussed in Meno and Phaedo since the distinction of Meno was based on anamnesis and thus more an epistemological distinction. Even in Phaedo that we do not have any elaborate discussion about the distinction, the only hint to the matter at 76 is bound to the theory of anamnesis. In addition to the relation of the distinction with this theory, there is another evidence that does not permit us to consider the distinction as an ontological distinction. Let’s see Meno 85c6-7: -/- So, he who does not know about what he does not know has within himself true opinions about the same things he did not know (τῷ οὐκ εἰδότι ἄρα περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ ἔνεισιν ἀληθεῖς δόξαι περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε). (85c6-7) -/- This last sentence persists that the objects of knowledge and true opinion are the same. What Socrates is to say here is that whereas he does not know X he has true opinion about the same X. I think Socrates’ sentence that the slave boy οὐκ εἰδότι ἄρα περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ and his restatement of it by saying περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε is because he wants to emphasize that the slave boy who does not know, has true opinion about the same thing. Socrates could say this just with using τούτων and there would be no necessity to bring περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ for οὐκ εἰδότι if he did not want to emphasize. -/- 3. Tripartite Ontology The distinction between knowledge and true opinion in Republic, on other side, has nothing to do with recollection, but is based on an ontological principle, 'Tripartite Ontology' (TO): -/- TO There are things that both are and are not. -/- This principle I confine, among our three dialogues of the second group, to Republic not extended to Meno and Phaedo, is obviously the opposite of BO. Speaking about the lovers of sights and sounds in the fifth book, Socrates distinguishes them from philosophers because their thought is unable to understand the nature of beautiful itself besides beautiful things (476a6-8) and hence they can only have opinions. The philosopher who, on the contrary, believes in beautiful itself and can distinguish it from beautiful things (476c9-d3), has knowledge because he knows, contrasting others who have opinion because they only opine (d5-6). Since those whose knowledge were degraded as opinion will complain about Socrates’ such calling their thought, he provides them the following argument (476e7-477b1): -/- - Does the person who knows, knows (γιγνώσκει) something (τὶ) or nothing (οὐδέν)? - He knows something (τί). - Something that is (ὂν) or is not (οὐκ ὄν)? - Something that is (ὂν) for how could something that is not be known (πῶς γὰρ ἂν μὴ ὄν γέ τι γνωσθείη)? - Then we have an adequate grasp of this: No matter how many ways we examine it, what completely is (παντελῶς ὂν) is completely knowable (παντελῶς γνωστόν) and what is in no way (μὴ ὂν δὲ μηδαμῇ) is in every way unknowable (πάντῃ ἄγνωστον). - A most adequate one. - Good. Now, if anything is such as to be and also not to be (ὡς εἶναί τε καὶ μὴ εἶναι), won’t it be intermediate (μεταξὺ) between what purely is (εἰλικρινῶς ὄντος) and what in no way is (μηδαμῇ ὄντος)? - Yes, it’s intermediate. - Then as knowledge (γνῶσις) is set over what is (τῷ ὄντι), while ignorance (ἀγνωσία) is of necessity set over what is not (μὴ ὄντι) mustn’t we find an intermediate between ignorance (ἀγνοίας) and knowledge (ἐπιστήμης) to be set over the intermediate, if there is such a thing? -/- From the third status of being we must reach to the third status of knowledge. The simple reading of this text can be an existential reading, taking the "is" of the mentioned sentences as existence. The problem is that when it is said that there is something that both is and is not reading "is" existentially, it sounds too bizarre to be acceptable. It cannot easily be understandable to have something as both existent and non-existent at the same time. This problem arose so many debates and led many scholars to reject the existential reading of "is" and suggest some other readings like predicative or veridical readings. I think though Plato’s complicated ontology of Republic cannot be correctly understood by a simple existential reading, this "is" cannot be free from existential sense of being and, thus, cannot be reduced to just a predicative or veridical sense of being. -/- 4. Bound Knowledges In addition to KG, the Good is also the basis of another principle in the second Socrates, namely the principle of 'Bound Knowledge' (BK): -/- BK Knowledge of everything is bound to the knowledge of the Good. -/- We distinguished BK from KG because we want to insist, in BK, on what had not been insisted upon in KG, that is, the binding role that the Good plays in the second Socrates, contrasting the absence of such a role in the first Socrates. Socrates remembers, in Phaedo, his wonderful keen on natural philosophers' wisdom when he was young. The origin of this enthusiasm was Socrates’ hope to know the cause of everything as they used to claim. When he was searching the matters of his interest on their basis, Socrates says, he became convinced he can get no acceptable answer from them and found himself blind even to the things he thought he knew before. One day he hears Anaxagoras’ theory that 'it is Mind that arranges and is the cause of everything (ὡς ἄρα νοῦς ἐστιν ὁ διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος)' (Phd. 97c1-2 cf. DK, Fr.15.8-9, 11-12, 12-14) and thinks that he can finally find what he has always expected, i.e. something which can explain all things. What I intend to show here is that what makes Socrates hopeful is that Anaxagoras’ theory tries 1) to explain all things by one thing and 2) this explanation is understood by Socrates as if it is based on the concept of the Good. That Socrates was searching for one explanation for all things can be proved even from what he has been expecting from natural philosophers. The case is, nonetheless, more clearly asserted when he speaks about Anaxagoras’ theory. In addition to διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος of 97c2 mentioned above, we have τὸ τὸν νοῦν εἶναι πάντων αἴτιον (c3-4) and τόν γε νοῦν κοσμοῦντα πάντα κοσμεῖν (c4-5) all emphasizing on the cause of all things (πάντα) which can clearly prove that one of the reasons which caused Socrates to embrace it delightfully was its claim to provide the cause of all things by one thing. Another reason was that Anaxagoras’ Mind, at least in Socrates’ view, was attempting to explain everything by the concept of the Good. This connection between Mind and Good belongs more to the essential relation they have in Socrates’ thinking than Anaxagoras’ theory because there are almost nothing about such a relation in Anaxagoras. The reason for Socrates’ reading can be that Mind is substantially compatible with Socrates’ idea of the relation between good and knowledge. Both the thesis 'no one does wrong willingly' and the theory of virtue as knowledge we pointed to above are evidences of this essential relation. Nobody who knows that something is bad can choose or do it as bad. The reason, when it is reason, that means when it is as it should be, when it is wise or when it knows, works only based on good-choosing. In this context, when Socrates hears that Mind is considered as the cause of everything, it sounds to him like this: good should be regarded as the basis of the explanation of all things. We see him, thus, passing from the former to the latter without any proof. This is done in the second sentence after introducing Mind: -/- I thought that if this were so, the arranging Mind would arrange all things and put each thing in the way that was Best (ὅπῃ ἂν βέλτιστα ἔχῃ). If one then wished to find the cause of each thing by which it either perishes or exists, one needs to find what is the best way (βέλτιστον αὐτῷ ἐστιν) for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. On these premises then it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is the most excellent (ἄριστον) and best (βέλτιστον). The same man must inevitably also know what is worse (χεῖρον), for that is part of the same knowledge. (97c4-d5) This passage is a good evidence of Socrates’ leap from Anaxagoras’ Mind to his own concept of the Good that can explain why Socrates found Anaxagoras theory after his own heart (97d7). Mind is welcomed because of its capability for explanation on the basis of good to 'explain why it is so of necessity, saying which is better (ἄμεινον), and that it was better (ἄμεινον) to be so' (97e1-3). What Socrates thought he had found in Anaxagoras can indicate what he had been expecting from natural scientists before. Socrates could not be satisfied with their explanations because they were unable to explain how it is the best for everything to be as it is. It can probably be said, then, that it was the lack of the unifying Good in their explanation that had disappointed him. We must insist that we are discussing what Socrates thought that Anaxagoras’ theory of Mind should have been, not about Anaxagoras’ actual way of using Mind. Phaedo 97c-98b, is not about what Socrates found in Anaxagoras but what he thought he could find in it. On the contrary, it should also be noted that it was not this that was dashed at 98b, but Anaxagoras’ actual way of using Mind. It was Anaxagoras’ fault not to find out how to use such an excellent thesis (98b8-c2, cf. 98e-99b). Socrates gives an example to show how not believing in 'good' as the basis of explanation makes people be wanderers between different unreal explanations of a thing. His words δέον συνδεῖν (binding that binds together) as a description for the Good we chose as the name of BK principle: They do not believe that the truly good and binding binds and holds them together (ὡς ἀληθῶς τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ δέον συνδεῖν καὶ συνέχειν οὐδὲν οἴονται). (99c5-6) -/- Having in mind Plato’s well-known analogy of the sun and the Good at Republic 508-509, we can dare to say that his warning of the danger of seeing the truth directly like one watching an eclipse of the sun in Phaedo (99d-e) is more about the difficulty of so-called good-based explanation than its insufficiency, a difficulty which is precisely confirmed in Republic (504e-505a, 506d-e). Moreover, BK is asserted in a more explicit way in the Republic, where the Good is considered not only as a condition for the knowledge of X, as was noted above discussing KG, but also as what binds all the objects of knowledge and also the soul in its knowing them. At Republic VI, 508e1-3, when Socrates says that the Form of the Good 'gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower (τοῦτο τοίνυν τὸ τὴν ἀλήθειαν παρέχον τοῖς γιγνωσκομένοις καὶ τῷ γιγνώσκοντι τὴν δύναμιν ἀποδιδὸν)', he wants to set the Good at the highest point of his epistemological structure by which all the elements of this structure are bound. This binding aspect of the Good is by no means a simple binding of all knowledges or all the objects of knowledge, but the most complicated kind of binding as it is expected from the author of the Republic. The kind of unity the Good gives to the different knowledges of different things is comparable with the unity which each Form gives to its participants in Republic: as all the participants of a Form are united by referring to the ideas, all different kinds of knowledge are united by referring to the Good. If we observe Aristotle's assertion that for Plato and the believers of Forms, the causative relation of the One with the Forms is the same as that of the Forms with particulars (e.g. Metaphysics 988a10-11, 988b4), that is to say the One is the essence (e.g., ibid, 988a10-11: τοῦ τί ἐστὶν, 988b4-6: τὸ τί ἢν εἶναί) of the Forms besides his statement that for them One is the Good (e.g., ibid, 988b11-13) the relation between the Good and unity may become more understandable. Since the quiddity of the Good (τί ποτ᾽ ἐστὶ τἀγαθὸν) is more than discussion (506d8-e2), we cannot await Socrates to tell us how this binding role is played. All we can expect is to hear from him an analogy by which this unifying role is envisaged, the sun. The kind of unity that the Good gives to the knowledge and its objects in the intelligible realm is comparable to the unity that the sun gives to the sight and its objects in the visible realm (508b-c). The allegory of Line (Republic VI, 509d-511), like that of the Sun, tries to bind all various kinds of knowledges. The hierarchical model of the Line which encompasses all kinds of knowledge from imagination to understanding can clearly be considered as Plato’s effort to bind all kinds of knowledges by a certain unhypothetical principle. The method of hypothesis starts, in the first subsection of the intelligible realm, with a hypothesis that is not directed firstly to a principle but a conclusion (510b4-6). It proceeds, in the other subsection, to a 'principle which is not a hypothesis' (b7) and is called the 'unhypothetical principle of all things' (ἀνυποθέτου ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ παντὸς ἀρχὴν) (511b6-7). This παντὸς must refer not only to the objects of the intelligible realm but to the sensible objects as well. Plato does posit, therefore, an epistemological principle for all things, a principle that all things are, epistemologically, bound and, thus, unified by. -/- 5. Bound Beings The ontological aspect of BK we shall call the principle of 'Bound Beings' (BB): -/- BB Being of all things are bound by the Good. -/- We saw in our principle of Split Being (SB) how the first Socrates was criticized because of his approach to split being and separate each thing from other things. The principle of Bound Beings intends to make the things more related, a duty which is done again by the Good. In the allegory of Sun, there are two paragraphs that evidently and deliberately extend the binding role of the Good to the ontological scene: -/- You will say that the sun not only makes the visible things have the ability of being seen but also coming to be, growth and nourishment. (509b2-4) -/- This clearly intends to remind the ontological role the sun plays in bringing to being all the sensible things in order to display how its counterpart has the same role in the intelligible realm (b6-10): -/- Not only the objects of knowledge (γιγνωσκομένοις) owe their being known (γιγνώσκεσθαι) to the Good, but also their existence (τὸ εἶναί) and their being (οὐσίαν) are due to it, though the Good is not being but superior to it in rank and power. That the Good is here represented as responsible for being of things in addition to their being known means, in my opinion, that Plato wants to posit BB in addition to BK. The allegory of Cave at the very beginning of the seventh Book (514aff.) can be taken as another evidence. The role of the Good, one might say, is confined to the intelligible realm because it is asserted that the role the Good plays in this realm is corresponding to that of the sun in the visible realm. The fact that Plato wants to observe the Good also as the ontological cause of the sensible things is obvious from his saying, in the allegory of Cave, that the Form of the Good 'produces light and its source (τὸν τούτου κύριον) [i.e. the sun] in the visible realm' (517c3). We can conclude, then, that the ontological function of the Good is not confined to the intelligible realm in which it is the lord and provides truth and understanding (c3-4) because it is also responsible to produce τὸν κύριον of light. 6. Proportionality of Being and Knowledge Insofaras BE and BO principles of the first Socrates gave way to TE and TO principles of the second Socrates, we cannot expect him to preserve KB in the same way as it was in the first Socrates. The new tripartite ontology and epistemology necessitates some modifications in KB which results in the principle of 'Proportionality of Being and Knowledge' (PBK): -/- PBK To every class of being there is a proportionate category of knowledge. -/- This principle, of course, does not entail the refutation of KB and thus is not kind of rejecting PBK but only a more complicated version of it. Based on PBK, we can still agree that knowledge is of being (KB) but the issue is that since none of the concepts of knowledge and being in the second Socrates are as simple as they were for the first Socrates, we need a more complicated principle for their relation here. Although from Meno 97a where the distinction of knowledge and true opinion is drawn out in the second group of the dialogues, we can expect a new relation, it is articulated in its most complete way in Republic and specifically in the allegory of Line. All the beings are divided there hierarchically to four classes, to each of them belongs a class of knowledge: imagination to images, belief to the sensible things (more correctly: the things of which they[in previous class] were images (ᾧ τοῦτο ἔοικεν)), thought to mathematical objects (?) and understanding to the Forms and the first principle. The degree of clarity that each of the classes of knowledge shares in (σαφηνείας ἡγησάμενος μετέχειν) is proportionate to the degree that its object shares in truth (ἀληθείας μετέχει). (511e2-4) -/- Conclusion From the six onto-epistemilogical principles of the first Socrates, four principles turn to their opposite in the middle period dialogues. While bipolar epistemology and ontology of the early dialogues give place to tripartite epistemology in the middle period dialogues and tripartite ontology in Republic, the split knowledge and being of the first Socrates are inclined to be substituted by bound knowledges and bound beings in the second Socrates and specifically in Republic. Not all our system of principles in this article is necessarily determinative. Either they are rightly formulated or not, our result would not be vulnerable if we accept that 1) making the distinction of knowledge and belief, 2) accepting the being of not being and 3) trying to bind both being and knowledge by the concept of the Good happens only in middle period dialogues, having been absent in the early ones. These are the favourite results all those somehow arbitrary and even oversimplified principles were to illustrate; that there is kind of a development in the epistemological as well as the ontological grounds of Plato’s philosophy. -/- Notes . (shrink)

Lecture 1. Hinduism in the world and the world of Hinduism -- Lecture 2. The early cultures of India -- Lecture 3. The world of the Veda -- Lecture 4. From the Vedic tradition to classical Hinduism -- Lecture 5. Caste -- Lecture 6. Men, women, and the stages of life -- Lecture 7. The way of action -- Lecture 8. The way of wisdom -- Lecture 9. Seeing God -- Lecture 10. The way of devotion -- Lecture 11. (...) The goddess and her devotees -- Lecture 12. Hinduism in the modern period. (shrink)

In this meta-philosophical study I commence with an investigation of Wisdom. I then continue with an exploration of the institutionalization of the subject and the professionalization of those involved in it. This I contrast with original and creative philosophizing. In then sows that philosophizing resembles and attempts to do theorizing. The 9 questions, etc of the Socratic Method and details of the Philosophical Toolkit occur throughout different stages of theorizing as one level and one dimension of it. Linked books (...) are FREE for download. -/- 1 Seeking, development and realization of wisdom 4 2 Institutionalization, Professionalization of ‘philosophy’ 5 3 Original and Creative Thinking Philosophizing 37 4 Philosophizing resembles Theorizing 38 (i) Socratic Method 41 (ii) Philosophical Toolkit 145 -/- . (shrink)

This paper aims at giving a brief historical survey of the growth and development of the meaning attributed by the ancient Indians to the term maya. In studying this term we must not lose sight of the fact that it is very often used in various texts without any bearing upon the great problem of the,reality' of the phenomenal world as compared with brahman. In a large number of texts originating in pre-or non-Vedantic circles the word occurs in a great (...) variety of connotations : « power, wisdom, subtle device », and, especially, « incomprehensible power enabling its possessor to create something » ascribed to mighty beings. In the Vedic period there is no basis for any conception of the unreality of the phenomenal world in the use of the term. It does not mean « chimera, illusion, fascination, delusion, fata morgana, etc. ». It refers to a reality of an artificial or misleading character, to phenomena produced by a special ability or imagination ; it can often be translated by a locution beginning with pseudo —, or by the Engl. craft in one of its connotations. It can also mean « fraud, deception ». Philosophers often referred to these common meanings of the word in discussing the,relation' of brahman and the phenomena which essentially are brahman. Svet. Up. 4, 9 and 10 nature is called maya : in this upanûad the germs from which the various views or doctrines of the generations to come were to develop had already reached the first stage of growth without differentiating in any considerable degree. Here maya does not express the unreality of the world, but the impossibility of man's understanding its character and the power of its creator. Nor does the Bhagavadgita question the reality of the world either. Deussen and other scholars were wrong in following Sahara's school of thought which interpreted these texts from its own particular point of view. In the history of Indian thought Buddhism is of outstanding importance. According to the ancient Buddhists the world and the individuals are real, but unstable, of a comparatively insignificant,metaphysical dignity'. The Madhyamika's and Nagarjima's relativistic school prepare the way for the idealistic Vijnanavadins who, founding their ontology on the psychology of yoga, hold the view that only vijnana « mere consciousness » exists. Any pretended,reality' outside this reality is to be regarded as dependent on a wrong interpretation of our inner experiences. The,causally dependent aspect', a determined,form of reality' reflects the,absolute aspect'; the lower constructed aspect' or,wrong ideation', the sphere of the concrete phenomena, however, is to be compared to a snake the presence of which we incorrectly assume when, at dusk, we find a cable.In this connection the term maya is also used : a rope may appear in the shape of a snake, or a maya in the shape of a man and other objects which do not really exist in themselves. This maya is void, non-substantial; in the same way the, wrong or constructive ideation' which appears in the, aspect of subject and object' is called non-substantial. In the process by which the reality of consciousness is transformed into the aspect of wrong ideation maya plays an important rôle : it is the power or factor producing the differentiation of the homogeneous consciousness which results in the pseudo-existence of the phenomenal world. Gaudapada, the earliest exponent of the view of pure non-duality writing at a time when the influence of these idealistic Buddhists was predominant, availed himself of the results of their speculative endeavour. On the other hand he made sure of the sanction of the traditional brahminical circles by expounding his views in the form of an expatiation on the Mandukya. Upanmd. The universum, he holds, is like a dream, like a maya ; « it is not actually so ». All phenomenal beings are dreamlike projections of the Divine Self, which is by its very maya able to make itself assume this projected form. But in his book maya also serves to indicate that any relation at all between the world and the Ultimate cannot be rationally sustained, for this,relation' is inexplicable. Maya, inherent to brahman is the condition underlying the,Origin', the pseudo-existence of this world ; but our lack of understanding is also maya. Our empirical knowledge, which makes us believe that things come into being is would-be knowledge. Maya is the hypothesis needed to express in a formula that the diversity of the phenomenal world is neither identical with atman-brahman nor existing by itself. Sawkara likewise regards the world as,pseudo' ; but in contradistinction to Gaudapada who focusses attention on the maya formula and the character of the phenomena, he emphasizes the sole reality of brahman, avoiding any suggestion as to the world's being void, non-being or unsubstantial. This formulation holds good from the higher point of view, viz. that of the supreme reality, into which empirical knowledge cannot penetrate. For practical purposes the world may be considered as really existing. The ignorance which conceals our true character from us and makes us perceive a world which from the standpoint of the Supreme does not exist is maya. Maya hides the reality and projects a pseudo-reality. It is undefinable and inexplicable ; it is neither being nor non-being. Maya is the postulate needed to account for the phenomenon called universe, for the existence of the diversity, though it is only the One which exists. Finally the maya theories of Saktas and Visnuite schools are briefly discussed. According to the former mayasakti is the power of the Supreme to veil itself without ceasing to be what it is ; they emphasize the point of view that « this all is brahman », accusing Sankara of admitting a principle beside brahman. Ramanuja who basing himself on the conviction that Brahman in the first place is God, defends the thesis that the world and the souls are real, and attacks Sankara's maya theory ; according to this great exponent of Visnuite thought maya symbolizes the wonderful and miraculous in God's creation and creative power. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume on Tranquillizing the Passions John Immerwahr Borrowingafragmentfrom thelyric poetArchilochus, Sir IsaiahBerlin once divided thinkers into two categories: foxes, who know many things; and hedgehogs, who know only one, "one big thing."1 Although Berlin does not include Hume in either list, it is tempting to put him with the foxes. Indeed, Hume's corpus is brilliantly eclectic, ranging with equal facility over an impressive array of seemingly diverse subjects such (...) as epistemology, ethics, political science, religion, psychology, history, criticism, economics, and demography. Many of Hume's admirers have not even attempted to find a unity here, and Hume's less generous critics have attributed this diversity to an incessant hunger for "literary fame" which supposedly led Hume from topic to topic, always searching for popular acclaim and recognition.2 The dazzling diversity of Hume's thinking has obscured some important underlying themes; Hume is more of a hedgehog than he initially appears. At the centre of many of Hume's discussions is a recurring conviction about the nature of human well-being and the means to obtain it. This insistence—which can be found in each stage ofHume's career and in writings on virtually every topic—provides one way of finding an overarching unity to his thought and invites us to rethink some ofthe conventional wisdom about Hume. In this essay I argue that many of Hume's investigations are informed by his early distinction between calm and violent passions. Wherever we turn we find Hume insisting that people arehappiest and governments are most stable when emotional calmness prevails. Hume alsohas astrategy, which Icall "moderation through opposition," which is designedto"tranquillize and soften"the passions.3 This strategy also becomes a stylistic principle which informs Hume's own writing, especially his popular works. This essay begins with a brief discussion of the calm/violent distinction itself. I then sketch out the role ofcalm passions in Hume's treatment of rationality, happiness, morality, politics and religion. Next I turn from Hume's diagnosis to his proposed cure, and discuss the strategy that Hume presents for enhancing the calm passions; indeed, Hume's writing style itselfis often designed to implement this strategy. I then discuss the context of Hume's insight, arguing that while it grows out of a cosmopolitan continental paradigm of using Volume XVIII Number 2 293 JOHN IMMERWAHR passions to oppose passions, Hume's own use ofit is tailored to rather specific features of the political and intellectual life of eighteenth centuryEdinburgh. The essay concludesby discussingthe implications of these findings for reading ofHume's works. Passions: Calm and Violent One characteristic feature of the thinkers of the "Scottish Enlightenment" was a desire tofound moral concepts in a scientific and empirical understanding ofhuman nature, rather than upon abstract conceptions of virtue and justice.4 These thinkers were particularly interestedin non-cognitivistelements ofhuman nature, such as"taste," "sentiment" and the "passions,"5 and they were also interested in discriminatingamongthe feelings and passions to discover those which were most beneficial to the individual or society. One Scottish philosopher who was particularly influential upon Hume in this connection was Francis Hutcheson. In discussing the passions, Hutcheson distinguished between what he called the "calm desire of good" and the "particular passions towards objects immediately presented to the senses." Hutcheson noted that these calm desires were frequently powerful enough to conquer particular passions such as "lust or revenge."6 The calm passions are thus very important to our understanding ofhuman motivation. As in so many other things, Hume also appears to be influenced by Hutcheson on the existence and importance of "calm passions." Early in Treatise 2, Hume expands on Hutcheson's idea that our experience ofan emotion or passion can be described as either "calm" or "violent"7 (also "soft" or "tender," "rough" or "fierce").8 The main difference between calmness and violence has to do with the intensity with which a passion is experienced. When we experience violent passions we feel an "uneasiness" (T 418) and sometimes "disorders and agitations" (E 17).9 Other passions are "calm" in that they cause "no disorder in the soul" and "little emotion in the mind" (T 417).10 Hume's main point is that... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Meditations on the Letter A:The Hand as Nexus Between Music and LanguageEleanor V. StubleyThe image is that of a little girl. She stands alone, center-stage, her lips moving quietly as she rehearses the letters of the alphabet so that her forthcoming performance will be fresh and perfect. Her name is called. She takes a deep breath and begins, haltingly, doh,... doh, ray,... doh, ray, me,.... Her tongue catches (...) at the beginning of each sound as if it were a new found delight, but it is the sequence, the linear progression that is the focus of her concentration. And slowly, her recitation begins to take on its own rhythmic fluidity, each sound's name becoming stronger and more confident than the one before. Then just as quickly as it began, it is over, and she stands tall in the glory of the final doh's resonance, proud in her belief that having mastered the letters of the alphabet, she has at long last discovered the key to unlocking music's deepest and darkest mysteries.The alphabet—I begin its story with the hand behind the hieroglyphic markings of our ancient ancestors, the hand that discovered in the tracings of its own aimless movements across the sand a capacity to replicate the arc of the moon, the flowering branches of a shrub. It was a hand pre-occupied with the visual, its scratchings serving to extend the communicative power of its own reach by calling forth the image of a thing not immediately present. Meaning, as such, was typically a matter of a one-to-one correspondence inferred on the basis of shape and form, with concepts such as speed and light portrayed by animals and natural objects that one would associate with each (for instance, a running cougar, a stylized sun). But as language and the art of storytelling evolved, the emergence of concepts lacking precise visual associations required the development of a variety of phonetic strategies that, often working through pictographic puns (that is, belief, bee+leaf), used the visual to invoke the sound of the human voice.1 The effect, David Abrams suggests, was that of magic, the word having seemingly been "drawn" from the silence of thin air.2 And, like all tricks, the hand disappeared behind the magic. Where initially voice and hand had worked as extensions of one another, the voice serving to bring people together,3 the hand pointing to that which was voiced, the word as name now sounded alone.The story continues with the artistry of the storyteller. It was the artistry of a rhapsodist, one who used the voice to spin a tale of a "remembered present" from [End Page 42] the remnants of the hand's scratchings that had withstood the ravages of time.4 I say "remembered present" because the voice was valued for its expressive qualities and worked in and through a battery of memorized melodic embellishments that allowed it to stitch one image to the next on the basis of the storyteller's own experience and knowledge.5 It was a voice, consequently, that worked in the moment, a voice that drew energy and inspiration not only from the hand's scratchings but also from those that had gathered to listen. The first alphabets did little to change the dynamics of the event, they being nothing more than crudely assembled compilations of idiosyncratic phonograms (that is, z = buzzing bee) designed to define the possibilities of language as a vocabulary of names.6 Etched into bark, tree, stone, and parchment, however, they came to have a longevity that allowed the sounding codes they represented to be carried "word of mouth" from place to place. Where the spoken word had once been both fleeting and fluid, gone before it was fully sounded, it now had a repeatability that served to fix both its spellings and its meanings. And it was not long before the spinning of a tale had become a matter of second sight, the work of an extraordinary memory able to "recall" that which the storyteller had not been present to hear.7The gift worked through a self-conscious awareness of oneself as... (shrink)

Sophists’ apologia. -/- Sophists were the first paid teachers ever. These ancient Greek enlighteners taught wisdom. Protagoras, Antiphon, Prodicus, Hippias, Lykophron are most famous ones. Sophists views and concerns made a unified encyclopedic system aimed at teaching common wisdom, virtue, management and public speaking. Of the contemporary “enlighters”, Deil Carnegy’s educational work seems to be the most similar to sophism. Sophists were the first intellectuals – their trade was to sell knowledge. They introduced a new type of teacher-student (...) relationship – the mutually beneficial communication on equal terms. They taught pupils how to think independently and how to persuade others, which was inseparably connected with the rise of democracy in the most advanced Greek polices. Sophists were the first to proclaim that all people are naturally equal. They put forward the idea of natural rights and social contract, working out the fundamentals of the present-day law. In addition, they developed the basics of philology, psychology, logic, and gave a scientific explanation to the origins of religions. They embodied definite positive ideals of their epoch. Sophistry flourished in the second half of the Vth through he first third of the IVth centuries B. C. The period coincides with the heyday of the entire Greek history – the so called Greek Miracle epoch. Sophists expressed some present-day concepts of Ancient Greek ideology and mentality, characteristic of its Golden Age times. The Ancient Athens of the times of Periclus were similar to the Florence of Renaissance as to the type of social structure. That is why (?) the art of eloquence (public speaking) was highly respected in Florence. The two cities had a lot of features of the present-day capitalist society, which was due to their role as the main centres of industry of their “worlds-economies”. During the subsequent Hellenic period, the Old Order was restored, based on the feudal rent recipients’ rule. The degradation of society resulted in the decline of sophistry. Sophistry represents the highest point in the evolution of Greek philosophy. It is also the most prominent school as to the novelty of its ideas. That was owing to the common propensity for innovation typical of Periclus’ Golden Age, which in its turn resulted from the establishment of the individualistic and rationalistic thinking similar to present-day mentality. Among other aspects, close attention was paid to ethnic issues; some humanistic ideas such as Master and Servant ethics and Enlightment as the primary condition of man’s freedom, received scientific grounding. The genre of philosophical dialogue was developed, as well as the rationalistic scientific gnoceology, aimed at consistently opposing any religion. Dialectics, the most outstanding achievement of the Antiquity, was also worked out by the sophists. Zeno of Helleas was one of the sophists. Democrites’ ideas were, too, quite close to dialectics. Socrates’ contemporaries regarded him ironically, as shown, for example, in the Aristophanes’ comedy “Clouds”. Nevertheless, this scholar can still be referred to as a sophist, although of somewhat weird personality. Socrates’ popularity, which came later, should be attributed to the fact that he was the first philosopher ever to have been sentenced and executed by law, rather than to any valuable scientific contributions. Sophistry as such, rather than Socrates, marks the line between pre-Socratic and post- Socratic schools. Plato, with the exception of his latest works, is considered to belong to the same philosophical school. Specifically, there are valid reasons to believe that he was paid fees by his disciples. In Plato’s Dialogues, all points of view will be proven and then disproved, so that an integral philosophical system is hard to observe. Plato’s “Idealism” is but one of the many possible theories. His ideal philosophy is a high-minded argument of wise men. As late as towards the end of his life, Plato betrayed the ideals of sophistry, turning into the world’s first proponent of totalitarianism. Sophistry is Greek classical literature. Later on, philosophy, as well as the entire Greek civilization, started to fall into decline. Over 500 subsequent years, Hellenistic-Roman scholars never came up with anything novel. The entire process of antique philosophical evolution can be subdivided into the following six stages: Phoenician (IX–VIIth centuries B. C.), archaic (VIth – the first half of IVth century B. C., classic (the epoch of sophistry: the second half of the Vth through the first decades of the IIIrd centuries B. C.), late antique (middle of the IIIrd – first decades of the VI th centuries B.C.) The fact that early in the VIth century B. C. sophistry was rejected in Athens, has a lot to do with the consequences of their defeat in Peloponnesian war, a social catastrophe. Ever since, the prevalent part of the criticism of sophistry is a criticism of sophists’ immoral ways of life and personalities, rather than the essentials of their philosophy. For instance, Aristotle’s criticism primarily concerns their pragmatism and tendency to make a profit out of teaching. However, Aristotle himself taught his disciples along similar lines, showing them how to “be able to prove both opposites”. It was Aristotle who summed up sophists’ century-long elaborations. The traditional modern interpretation of sophists as shown in Plato’s dialogues appears to be groundless. The truth of the matter is that Plato regards sophists as more serious philosophers than Socrates was. It becomes especially clear in the dialogue titled “Protagoras”, which shows the latter as gaining an undoubted victory over Socrates. Generally speaking, Plato’s works never regard sophists as weak or worthless opponents. A common opinion as to the essence of sophists’, in particular, Protagoras’s philosophy, has hitherto not been worked out. Many researchers renounce the very existence of any specific philosophical position in sophistry. The term “relativism” itself now has a bad name. However, it should be borne in mind that Protagoras doctrine emerged as a result of an attempt to get out of the ontological dead-end to which the entire Greek natural philosophy had come. To this purpose, he employed Anaxagoras’s idea about everything comprising everything, whereupon he built his physical-ontological theory, and Zeno of Helleas’s concept that all objects are such and different at the same time in the same respect. According to Protagoras’s philosophy, every object does not only seem, but is different from every other object, including human beings. Therefore, every person is his or her own measure of all other entities. The objective reality is the Ego’s relations with the outer world. Every object’s essence is defined through its interaction with ourselves. Nothing remains stagnant – every existence already contains non-existence, and vice-versa. However, the relativity of being is not to be regarded as absolute. That means, that relatively stable and therefore relatively cognizable entities do exist, among them the words we say. Doubt is not considered absolute by relativists either, which differentiates them from skeptics and agnostics. They dare to believe. Uncertainty is Godly – here, Protagoras becomes very close to the concept of apathetic theology. Gorgius shared Protagoras’s views and tried to prove them applying the same method as Zeno applied when upholding Parmenidis’s philosophy. He argued that if one accepts the opposite point of view and agrees that nothing can exist and not exist at the same time, one is bound to come to an the absurd conclusion that nothing is cognizable and nothing exists. To prove that there is a universal contradiction within the Existence itself, Protagoras and his followers in their turn put forward a number of special logical arguments, called rules of contraries, or sophisms. The most well-known of them is the Euathle’s sophism, which proves that an object can be such and different at the same time in the same respect. Generally speaking, all relationships of any entity are extraneous. The idea that all entities, including concepts, exist and do not exist at the same time, was also accepted by Plato. It should be stressed, that Plato’s philosophy as a whole is relativists’ greatest achievement. In his dispute against relativism, Aristotle put forward the main concepts of his ontology: the existence falls into the existence in possibility and the existence in reality, or substance and accidence – the ever changing “sublunary” world and the stable world of divine heavenly bodies. This division made his system self-contradictory to the point of absurd. Aristotle quite realized, that the direct disproof of relativism is hardly possible, which fact makes his criticism a mere tautology. It is very indicative in this respect that materialists, idealists and even skeptical agnostics applied the same arguments do disprove relativism. That demonstrates that the inner contradiction between any forms of “absolutism” and relativism is the most fundamental philosophical problem. Relativist ideas were repeatedly renewed throughout history, provided the social conditions were favourable. In variations, the concepts were advanced by Tzuan Tsi and ancient Chinese sophists, apostle Paul, Nicolas of Cusa, Galileo, Rene Descartes, G. Berkley, D. Hume, Ch. S. Pierce, E. Mach, A. Bogdanov, F. de Saussure, N. Bore, P. Feuerabend, U. Quain and others. However, no consistent relativist ontological system was developed after Protagoras. Meanwhile, a valid relativist theory could provide a clue to a fuller and more adequate general physical concept of the world, and to a deeper understanding of quantum mechanics. -/- Relativism as an ontological system of beliefs. -/- The relativist principle of relativity of all that exists is fundamental for the entire system of philosophy. Absolutely everything exists, but, at the same time, no existence is absolute. Anything is possible, but those entities only exist for us with which we interact this way or another, i. e., reality is interaction, “I interact – hence, I exist”. However, an overly close relationship between entities leads to non-existence – in other words, there is a certain existential optimum. For all of us, information, or perceptible heterogeneities, is real. Each of us is the center of a definite system of interactions with the world. If God is an endless Possibility, then the World is but the man’s dialogue with God. However, the ties that bind us with the world are of some definite kind, which predetermines our reality. The principle of relativity constrains itself, as any relativity is relative. On the one hand, that calls forth the Evil – caused by our own weakness. On the other hand, it makes our world relatively stable and cognizable. Generally speaking, the world is what we are. Everybody has an own Universe, but since people are fairly similar, our universes can be regarded as one Universe with common laws and regulations. It is possible for us to change the degree of objects’ existence in relation to ourselves and one another. It is equally important, though, to remain ourselves (keep following our “warrior’s path”). Since everything exists and no existence is absolute, the process of cognition should involve a criticism of everything but never a complete rebuttal of anything. The criterion of verity for any theory then is in its capacity to build itself upon a bigger number of diverse statements than in any other theory. Theoretically, all philosophies should ideally be complementary. The question of what in fact happened is meaningless unless we specify the “we”, the “where” and the “when”. The past can only exist as part of the present. When we change, our past undergoes corresponding qualitative objective changes, all of which are irreversible. The contemporary physics regards all objects of the Universe as existing for one another, which results in absurd conclusions. In fact, only what we interact with, exists. The so called “speed of light in vacuum” c is the maximum speed of direct interaction and direct exchange of signals. Specifically, at the oncoming speed c with a significant blue parallax the gamma-quantum is unable to interact with the matter. When this speed is reached, the gravitational mass of objects in relation to one another becomes equal to zero (imaginary), whereas their inertial mass equals infinity. Further acceleration will bring us into an entirely different Universe. That means that the Universe is an open system, which fact destroys all present-day cosmological models. Anything is possible in this world. Our reality is magic. Every bit of space contains a potentially limitless number of bits of other, however virtual, universes, as well as an infinite number of particles, which are still virtual for us (as postulated by quantum mechanics). In other words, there exists an infinity of different realities. With all the above in mind, the different levels of entities’ existence, in particular, of Life and Reason, should be taken into consideration. For example, to which extent a live system exists in relation to the inanimate forms of being is very indefinite, as what life is has to be determined by living creatures. An even greater compass of levels of existence can be brought about through interaction – that is the core idea of Godel’s theorem. As a result, the range of forms of existence tends towards infinity – the evolution of matter through super-intelligence will bring us up to God’s heights. A more generalized mathematical model of the physical world, including a universal operator of the co-existence of objects, can be developed based on the above considerations. The bonds between objects become weaker owing to 1) a high speed, 2) acceleration, 3) rotation, 4) strong gravity, 5) strong fields of other kinds, 6) the difference of levels of existence , 7) phase shifts. Yet, there always is an existential optimum. Such mathematical model is to operate certain non-transitive algebras. Relativist ontology assumes that the notion of “temperature” is relative, thus making it possible to ignore the Second Law of Thermodynamics. In its turn, that will allow for phase shifts. A perpetual motion machine of the second type will become a reality. Rotation could presumably be used to increase inertial and decrease gravitational mass, slowing down the time. An experimental research could shed light on the mentioned effects. (shrink)

continent. 2.2 (2012): 155–158 Michel Serres. Biogea . Trans. Randolph Burks. Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing. 2012. 200 pp. | ISBN 9781937561086 | $22.95 Conveying to potential readers the significance of a book puts me at risk of glad handing. It’s not in my interest to laud the undeserving, especially on the pages of this journal. This is not a sales pitch, but rather an affirmation of a necessary work on very troubled terms: human, earth, nature, and the problematic world we made. (...) It is this world that aspirates the silence (so to speak), and therefore the subject which, along with the development of the “made world” exports the excess augmentation of the cosmically missing, this silence of the natural, et cetera. Had we learned from Locke that lesson of “labor,” to consume what we need… but perhaps we need more than what matters? Serres’ Biogea has several functions on this manner, if it is indeed a book to be consumed. First, readers searching for novelistic entertainment have a place to dwell. Biogea deserves a place in your back pocket; biographical generosity and poetic fluidity should satisfy most textual fetishes. For lay philosophers who want to refresh their acumen, Biogea deserves a place on the book shelf, one already reads a sorely needed postmodern tune-up here. Serres’ style is clearly French; he leaves few cheese crumbs on his words, rather preciseness and breathing in the work give way to a sweeping manner that breaks the narrative line of sight. A circular narrative and anachronistic fragmentation of terms allows an abyssal atmosphere to swell, if only to pump into the book the externality of its broader text. Biogea aspires to a higher standard and the book, at times, is thinking this negentropic problem too. Univocal, the publisher, has crafted a book appropriate for the hands to hold and the translations are an achievement of an otherwise difficult writer to translate. Terms are the conditions of a broader text. It is important to note that Serres’ content is as much a thinking of terminal ports. There is a regard for the transportation technology of the written word. For me, this is the mark of genius, a craftiness that tells of a book device that I may trust. Serres is an accomplished thinker and a necessary voice to check the putative trendiness of anti-postmodernist and market-driven theory of endless cultural liquidation. Offering interventions on subjectivity as an open system we are given a chance to affirm the human, not merely to discard it, but to engage its poetic image emotion, the calibratory silent sense of the analogic world; the terms on which we base our efforts. 1 The human is the center of its own negation, constantly mediating it. Something deeper at stake appears in the work then, and it is quite obvious from the onset. Certainly, a book is an intensification of possible text and those who brought this actual book into existence have captured a rarity in regards to the subject matter and artistic accomplishment. I mentioned terms as conditions, so let us understand Biogea as bio-yea, a yes to bios . An affirmation of living and accepting presence for all of its defiance of images, words, and things temporal. Therefore Serres’ existence and its existants plays parts; out of linearity and still like a porous bone pumping blood it manufactures into the fleshy life it becomes. Starting from a man named silence chaos emerges, or the man “Old Taciturn” takes up a journey anticipating a great flood. In other words, a development akin to the one in Genesis. In dealing with this ancestral occupation, fusing Genesis with contemporary philosophical terms, Serres initiates this anachronistic fragmentation under the forming subjectivity of his own autobiography. This mutation in the open system is precisely one of Serres’ terms. There an abyss is at work, stated, but also measured by heels on the ground—the abyss dispatching earthen tensions, that which plays our tunes, that which we abide by and recognize in volcanoes, rivers, oceans, earthquakes and weaponry in the battles of the world. Set in later stages of the book, such tensions are harnessed through scientific principles in an attempt to unify the terms of natural force if only to terminate the world. Thus the elevation of the earth into the world is clearly set forth. Here already, and few pages in, a resonance is set forth under appellations such as the river Garonne, a subjectivity as much as it is inhuman, the river is the inhuman that makes us human. I get the sense that Serres is taking up a challenge issued by Wallace Stevens; namely, that the great poems of heaven and hell have been written, but that only the poem of the earth has resisted composition. 2 On this level we cannot avoid the killing factor of silence, given that our cognition blocks its pure, radical obliteration. Thus a silence of attunement to the earth is in a novel dialectic of the rithmic and rhythm. A technological world, a triumph of termination is set forth. If a text imposes its will given the reader who authorizes it, it is made to convey or convect a presupposition to a reader or its inhabitant(s). Text is therefore both, in-content, contenting, contentedness, and in reading it, a way to navigate self-destruction (dis-content). Here then would one note that the “inhuman” reveals itself, “an aperiodic rhythm of lovers and beloved…the sea as our friend…but as our enemy…maternal vivifying sea.” The sea is an open book, or vaginal birth canal, where the engagement of text comes forth: “…woman sea, open vulva.” One sees like the sea, but only after it, when the uninhabitable truth of inhabiting it switches the polarity of the sailors soul: “I was seeing like the sea” (9-11). In other words, we are invited to embrace the nonsense of the visible. At this point I am taken to Jean-François Lyotard’s work The Inhuman , specifically the first entry on negentropy that would be congruent with Serres’ thematic. 3 The human being exports, deports, or transplants its relation through text, through the system— and this is its sense or relation to silence, to music. Unaware of Serres’ proximity to this work, the concept of gender interrelation as regards a solar catastrophe runs clear. It would be, on this basis, that Serres references his peers, the other texts that, as mentioned above, are discarded in philosophy today. For students of philosophy what we have here is perhaps a gift, a needed project. If silence and death are at work, there is a political valence to deal with, and here, much like the domain of the text and the dominion of the reader, we confront the world of natural, fluid violence. The anti-postmodernist critique is in part based on a weak idea that the loss of ideology, of a world vision, motivates the “correlationist” project. 4 Serres seems to offer another way to view this when he notes that whereas persons “sometimes kill,” it is clearly “the collective” that “always kills” (17). What is the collective today, if not an organizing function we never see yet acts in its favor in the name of truth? One feels a sense of enigma here, if only to link to what Stevens remarked of communism as a “grubby faith,” providing this applies for capitalism as well, namely any ideology of progress overly interested in absolutes. Here we get the sense that the inhuman, silence, this type of killing, always killing, could not be matched by human-made, political dynamos. Or that if it comes to an equilibrium, a catastrophe is never too far from us to read with our heels. We are left to note that the forces of nature presuppose and permeate political systems, the more these systems obtain force, the more the system takes upon itself the proper name of nature that motivates its dissemination, albeit falsely. This note, that in an age of ecocide and technological captivity (sustainability and transparency) political regimes won’t grow our soul-learning ears any larger than our tongues, stands clear to us. The promise of technological desubjectification is here pushed aside. Regarding politics, Serres illustrates this fact: Where did this corpse come from? Who was it? Who killed it? I don’t know. I won’t try to find out. I refuse to get vengeance for it. And I only see Garonne. For our victims, today, are the rivers, too. Their waters have irrigated my life, enchanted my thought, invigorated my body; I’ve known them to be threatening, untamable, as dangerous as the sea when it rages. Yes, murderous. They decided to control their courses; dams, sometimes senseless, destroying sites and valleys, reduced entire populations to servile displacements; programs for the irrigation of thirsty farmland, often beneficial of course, completed their drying up.(22) Serres enters into his idea concerning the captivity of language from the natural into a world system: For thousands of years, we have been licking things with our tongues, covering and daubing them so as to appropriate things for ourselves. If language boils down to a convention, this convention took place between the speakers without consulting the thing named, become as a result the property of those who covered it in this way with their drawn or voiced productions. Malfeasance analyzes these acts of appropriation. Thus every inert object, every living thing as well, sleeps under the covers of signs, a little in the way that, today, a thousand posters shouting messages and ugly riots of color drown, with their filthy flood, the landscapes, or better, exclude them from perception because the meaning, almost nil, of this false language and these base images forms an irresistible source of attraction to our neurons and eyes. This appropriation covers the world’s beauty with ugliness. (38-39) Technological concealment coming to bear, we begin to get a sense of another commentary on the condition of sensing, driving home the necessity of a text dealing with such subject matter to be what its terms insist. Thus toward new openings: The new opening. As low beneath our feet as you like, the Biogea opens us to another space, high enough for us to be able to acquire a wisdom there, that of redeveloping this same place differently from our fathers, this place that’s still politically cut up by old hatreds, beneath the flood of tears and blood that we call history. Without this soft place, spiritually very old, but newly conceived in this way, without the juridical construction of a common good, opposed to our filthy ownership, I don’t see how our planet, hard, will survive. Hardness that depends on a softness, material belonging that depends on this temporary rented location (51). Serres enters into a summit on the content and the structure of his work. Archimedes is brought in with the concept of three volcanoes. Meaning fire, but as well earth, water, air. For it was Archimedes’ war machines that sought to lift the earth, thus bringing in the question of principles of science: “can a principle be invented while controlling its consequences?” (66-7). May the earth be put in a sentence, terminated by terminology, appellations, gone wild? By means of these element-dominating laws, this old physicist began to tear nature away from the ancient myths; by a strange return, today we’re plunging our successes back into the anxieties and terrors from which that ancient physics was born. Yes, our new history of science and technology is plunging, today, as though in a loop, into the fundamental human myths from which Empedocles’ first laws came. A major progression and a regression on the nether side of the origins. Consequently, the contemporary time requires that we try to return to that unity in which the principles of hate and love are at the same time human, living, inert and global. We will never attain a deontology of our knowledge and actions without thinking the subjective, the objective, the collective, and the cognitive all together simultaneously. Here, hate and love are the result of these four components.(71) Working then on the concept of fire-starting mirrors to the atomic annihilation of the Second War, Serres works into the subjectivity in question on the matter of rhythm—say rithmic— precisely at that point: Knowledge is changing today. The all-political is dying; the monarchy of the sciences said to be hard is coming to a close. The science of the things of the world will have to communicate just as much as the things of the world do, which do it much better than humans do, who don’t always want to do it. Let’s celebrate two changes this morning. The first one strikes a new blow to our narcissism. No, knowledge and the world don’t resemble our analytical enjoyments of refined cutting up, of endless debates and of exclusions full of hate. They, on the contrary, form a bloc and a sum, alliance and alloys. Uniting the fields of knowledge among themselves the way the things are connected among themselves, the second newness puts into place sets united by interlacing, webs and simplexes that combine with the things of the world, themselves combined, the combined knowledge that understands them.(130-1) Biogea closes on its opening flood thematic, approaching the initial telos of Genesis. Here the trees are brought into a position with atmosphere, the opaque abyssal reservoir, the tomb of the sun, sea in the polarity of the earthen heaven and hell. The poem of the earth then is silent but deadly, indeed, as funny as that phrase is, mainly a tomb gas. The meaning of the living and the non-meaning of things converge in the muteness of the world; this meaning and non-meaning plunge there and come out, the ultimate eddy. Mundus patet: through a fissure, through an opening, a fault, a cleft come noises, calls as small as these apertures. I’m listening, attentive, I’m translating, I’m advancing in the scaled-down meaning and science. Mundus patet: should the world open greatly, it will launch me into its silence. The totality remains silent. Knowledge expanded in elation. White origin of meaning, fountain of joy. (198) Final Remarks One test of a review is the long term trajectory the referee thinks the book will have. I see Serres’ text lending greatly into the vision of Biogea . In fact, in the vision of the novel inquiries of Stephen Jay Gould’s work there is something to be thought on the level of the individual and the species; namely, that humanity and its uniqueness is in its deferral, its thinking and naming, a thinking surrounded by silence that filters into everything, that pulls us through the world, the kinetic pulse we recognize, and all of that we cleave away in the base philosophical maxim of difference itself. Unique individuals are spatial creatures: we dwell, and we ought to get good at it. Yet this is an imaginative space that, if you are crazy enough to believe it, de-term-ine the conditions of its own terms. That is why we are not merely creating spaces on the acceleration of time, or so this ignoramus thinks, to accidentally transcend. Imagination already has this insatiable silence that we drink up and fail to manifest. Space is timeless. The imagination itself, shared by humans for themselves, their objects, and the species as a whole, is a non-defined space of relation; a whole human trajectory as part of nature, and part of worlds that are the other side of thinking nature, the consequence of it, at least our attempt to do so. Our survival is based on our deliberation, our caution, our natural deconstructive sense toward this silence that is already part of the song, sung, singing of this century without end. Good books will let us inhabit this space and recognize a form of life. Serres’ text moves toward dwelling, as noted, in masterful and accessible ways. The pitched battles are the falling replays of anemic and dead politics. As soon as we realize there is humanity, we may be able to enjoy the end of it, our inhuman capability of listening to silence. NOTES 1. See Michel Serres. The Parasite . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2007. 2. Wallace Stevens, “Imagination as Value” [ca. 1945], in Collected Poetry and Prose . New York: The Library of America. 1997. 724-39. 3. Jean-François Lyotard. The Inhuman: Reflections on Time . Trans. Geoffrey Bennington & Rachel Bowlby. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1992. 4. See the introduction: Quentin Melliassoux. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency . Trans. Ray Brassier. New York: Continuum. 2008. EDITOR'S NOTE: This review was updated on August 8, 2012. Substantial edits include block quotes from the book under review as well as the inclusion of comments from the author. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.2 (2001) 335-346 [Access article in PDF] Aesthetic Incunabula Ellen Dissanayake Incunabula n. pl. (f. L swaddling clothes, cradle): Early stages of development of a thing.Over the past thirty years, developmental psychologists have discovered remarkable cognitive abilities in young infants. Before these investigations, common pediatric wisdom accepted that apart from a few innate "reflexes"--for crying, suckling, clinging, startling--babies were pretty much tabulae rasae for their (...) elders to inscribe as they (and their cultures) decreed. Today, however, it is well established that newborns come into the world with decided preferences and motivations, so that one can speak intelligently of "neonatal" (or even "fetal") psychology. 1The demonstrable existence of inherent psychological capacities in newborns and infants has important implications for twenty-first-century literary theory, which--also over the past thirty years--has operated under the theoretical assumption that all knowledge and experience are mediated by culture and that there is therefore no "natural" psychological or emotional experience. Yet if, as infant psychology confirms, babies in every culture show the same or similar cognitive abilities and preferences and the same or similar motivations and emotional responses, it is necessary to modify the dogmatic assertion that all experience, including literary response, is socially constructed. Rather, adult psychology and experience grow from and build upon inborn motives and preferences. Literary theorists can no longer ignore contemporary knowledge in psychobiology, ethology, and evolutionary psychology that directly pertains to conceptualizing their subject.The innate capacities of newborns predispose them specifically for social and emotional interaction with others, not simply for soliciting [End Page 335] their physical care. For example, newborns prefer human faces to any other sight (high-contrast colors, cartoon characters, cute stuffed animals) and human voices to any other sound (soft music, tinkling bells, The Chipmunks). 2 They can imitate face, mouth, and hand movements and respond appropriately to another person's emotional expressions of sadness, fear, and surprise. 3 At birth, infants can estimate and anticipate intervals of time and temporal sequences and remember these temporal patterns, categorizing them both in time and space and in terms of affect and arousal. 4 By six weeks of age, these perceptual and cognitive abilities of normal infants permit them to engage with adult partners in complex communicative interchanges--the playful behavior that is commonly or colloquially called "babytalk."Babytalk is not the trival or inane pastime that it might superficially seem but, rather, a cradle in which nascent psychosocial capacities can emerge and be developed. Interestingly for literary theory, babytalk achieves these effects through fundamentally aesthetic means. Adult-infant engagements are noteworthy for their use of stylization (formalization or simplification), repetition, exaggeration, and elaboration in visual, vocal, and gestural modalities. I call these "aesthetic incunabula"--that is, sources (or early developmental stages) of the operations used by artists in all media to attract attention and to provoke and manipulate emotional response. The existence of sensitivities to such features in the first months of life suggests that humans are born with natural (innate, universal) predispositions for aesthetic engagement from which cultures and individuals can go on to create their myriad elaborated forms of artistic expression.Although babytalk varies in minor details among individuals and cultures, it can be described in all instances as a multimedia performance. That is, it contains not only "talk" (or the characteristic high-pitched, undulant, breathy, patterned, repetitive vocalizations with pauses called "motherese," "parentese," or "infant-directed speech"). Along with the utterances are peculiarly stereotyped, repetitive, and exaggerated facial expressions (such as widened eyes, uplifted eyebrows, sustained open mouth, and smiles), head movements (e.g., distinct bobs backwards, slow rhythmic nods, movement toward and away from the baby), and gestures (such as touching, stroking, and rhythmic pats) to which infants respond with their own vocal sounds and face and body movements and, in many societies, sustained mutual gaze.Babytalk is not only a performance, but a duet that incorporates both synchrony of behavior and alternation (or turn-taking)--activities that [End Page 336] are made possible by the infant's remarkable inborn sensitivity to temporal sequence and pattern. Microanalyses of videotaped interactions (at 24... (shrink)

Human beings pass through a series of life stages since birth. These stages beginning at the infancy even in the mother’s womb are accompanied with a period extending to the senescence and the last stages of the life. Creation of human beings and various stages of the life are mentioned in the Qurʾān. Besides, it is referred to the senescence. In addition to the expressions sheikh, shayb, ʽajūz and kibar indicating to the senescence, ardhal al-ʿumur is also pointed out in (...) the Qurʾān in this regard. This article aims to identify in which context and meaning the wording regarding ardhal al-ʿumur and senescence are used in the Qurʾān and to reveal the relation between these terms. Since, the term ardhal al-ʿumur and senile dementia are directly correlated in the commentaries usually and the interpretations build the perception that these two expressions are almost synonyms. Are ardhal al-ʿumur and dementia closely associated with each other? Are the other terms in the Qurʾān indicating to the senescence correlated with the dementia? Our study aims to explain the expression ardhal al-ʿumur in the Qurʾān in this regard. Furthermore, the other terms regarding the senescence expressed in the Qurʾān are reviewed in this respect. SUMMARY The Qurʾān tells the creation of human beings and refers to the various stages of their lives as well. The explanations beginning with the creation state the prenatal period, infancy and childhood, adolescence and adulthood of human beings. The Qurʾān refers to the senescence as well, the last stage of the life. In this regard, ardhal al-ʿumur, sheikh, shayb, ʽajūz and kibar are the terms in the Qurʾān associated with the senescence. Especially nowadays, the senescence is a considerable focus of the science, besides being mentioned in the Qurʾān. This article discusses the subject scientifically as well. The senescence is defined with various aspects since it expresses a period having physical, psychological and social dimensions. Furthermore, certain classifications regarding the senescence are made and physiological changes associated with the chronological age are more emphasized. It has been indicated that the senescence is divided into two: biological and chronological aging. According to this chronological aging is the same for everyone while biological aging varies from individual to individual. The senescence is acknowledged as the last development stage of the human life in terms of social sciences and considered as an on-going universal process between birth and death. Therefore, the senescence is interpreted relatively while the aging is interpreted universally. So, everyone gets old; however, the senescence means a life period varying from individual to individual. The senescence affects the individual both health-wise and psychologically, sociologically and economically. In other words; the senescence, a tough period, is a phenomenon which deeply affects the human beings and all their characteristics making them exist. The senescence is addressed in the Qurʾān with various expressions. Ardhal al-ʿumur, foremost among these, is mentioned twice in the Qurʾān (al-Nakhl 16/70, al-Ḥac 22/5). The exegetes generally consider ardhal al-ʿumur as the physiological exhaustion of an individual due to aging and as the period when dementia is experienced. The characteristics of the stage called as ardhal al-ʿumur in the Qurʾān are explained with the following statement: turning into a person who does not know anything from the person who used to know many things. Just because of this sentence, ardhal al-ʿumur is construed with dementia. Are arzali’l-ʽumur and dementia directly interrelated? This article also reviews the other terms stated in the Qurʾān regarding the senescence from this aspect. Sheikh, another expression stated in the Qurʾān regarding the senescence, is mentioned four times (Hūd 11/72, Yūsuf 12/78, al-Qaṣaṣ 28/23, al-Muʼmin 40/67) and it is described with the word kabīr in two of them. The lexical meaning of sheikh is an old person in terms of age and appearance. Moreover, sheikh is used as an adjective to describe the individuals who have wisdom in customs. So, the word sheikh both means an individual who is well on in life and is the expression of supremacy in terms of knowledge and experience. Shayb, another expression stated in the Qurʾān regarding the senescence, is mentioned three times (Maryam 19/4, al-Rūm 30/54, al-Muzzammil 73/17) and means hair greying and describes a physiological change in the senescence. ʽAjūz stated in the Qurʾān for the senescence is mentioned in four different chapters (Hūd 11/72, al-Shuʽarā’ 26/171, al-Ṣāffāt 37/135, al-Dhāriyāt 51/29) and expresses incapacity of performing many actions. ʽAjūz is another expression in the Qurʾān meaning elderliness. The senescence is implied with this expression too; however, the dementia is not mentioned. Kibar, the last wording associated with the senescence, is mentioned in six verses (al-Baqara 2/266; Āl-i-ʽImrān 3/40, Ibrāhim 14/39, al-Hicr 15/54, al-Isrā 17/23, Maryam 19/8). The word kibar means the senescence and physical power loss; nevertheless, is not interpreted as dementia. To our knowledge, the explanations regarding the senescence and dementia in most of the commentaries cannot be corresponded in the Qurʾān as if they are synonyms. This perception can be generated due to the statements pointing out the dementia in the lexical meaning of ardhal al-ʿumur. It is understood in the light of the data acquired by today’s science that the dementia is not a natural result of the senescence but rather one of its risks, which is already proved by the fact that the science discusses the dementia separately from normal aging process. Therefore, there is not a general picture of dementia including all elders. Thus, it is possible to define ardhal al-ʿumur as a later part of life which includes some elders and affects them physiologically, psychologically, sociologically, etc., in addition, they lose their mental faculties in that period. Each expression regarding the senescence in the Qurʾān reveals the picture of the senescence pursuant to the integrity of the Qurʾān. The senescence in the Qurʾān is an ineluctable reality. The fact that this period is clearly expressed in the verses aims that this reality can be perceived by human beings and they can be prepared for this period. Some problems that elders experience are also mentioned in the Qurʾān. When the other terms in the Qurʾān associated with the senescence apart from ardhal al-ʿumur are reviewed, it is seen that the aforementioned problems that may be observed at later ages are hair greying, bone diseases, incapability and weakness in doing some actions. Today, there are various disciplines concerning the elders and the information obtained from these disciplines shows that these problems are a lot more than the ones mentioned in the Qurʾān. However, it is not expected that the Qurʾān discusses the facts as a science book since it is a holy book. When ardhal al-ʿumur is evaluated in the light of scientific data, it appears as a sickness period when some elders experience mental problems such as dementia/blackout. On the one hand, there will be elders who experience these problems; on the other hand, there will be some who do not. All expressions regarding the senescence in the Qurʾān do not lead to the fact that the aging leads to the dementia directly. Ardhal al-ʿumur within the integrity of the Qurʾān expresses that senile dementia affects some individuals while it has not any impact on the others. Therefore, ardhal al-ʿumur is one of the life stages affecting not every elder but some of them. The fact that different terms are stated in the Qurʾān regarding the elders points out various aspects of the aging process creating different effects. The second important reason why the aging is mentioned in the Qurʾān is to emphasize the value of the elders and the respect that should be showed to them. Besides, it is also underlined in the Qurʾān that the elders are so precious that they cannot be left alone socially and psychologically. Furthermore, the elders are the individuals worthy of love and being valued. Thus, it is suggested in the Qurʾān to love, respect and honour the elders and to live with them regardless of whether they will experience ardhal al-ʿumur or not. Therefore, the human beings are reminded to look after the elders, esteem them materially and morally, as they deserve, and to act considering the characteristics of this period. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Four Philosophical Models of the Relation Between Theory and PracticeEstelle R. JorgensenSince music education straddles theory and practice, my purpose is to sketch the strengths and weaknesses of four philosophical models of the relationship between theory and practice. I demonstrate that none of them suffices when taken alone; each has something to offer and its own detractions. And I conclude with four suggested ways in which the analysis can (...) be helpful to music teachers and those interested in their work.Clarifying what is meant by theory and practice raises a nest of conceptual problems. Concerning theory, it may be tempting to equate the terms "theory" and "philosophy." Among their shared properties, these terms deal with conceptual and abstract entities that, from the Enlightenment at least, have been held to be distinct from the phenomenal world. They also clarify ideas and distinguish one concept from another. Among their different purposes, the object of philosophy is the asking of questions in a search for wisdom or truth whereas theory is formulated for explanatory purposes, especially within the frame of scientific propositions that can be refuted through empirical observations. The tests of philosophy are, therefore, those of symbolic logic evidenced in principles such as [End Page 21] internal consistency, correspondence with evidence (deductive, inductive, or analogical), and coherence within a unity or whole. Although logical criteria may also be important in formulating and testing theory,1 it is tested and refuted primarily through means of qualitative descriptions and quantitative assessments of observable phenomena.Regarding practice, one is also confronted with an ambiguous construct that may be interpreted descriptively (what is done in the phenomenal world or taken to be the general state of affairs) or normatively (what is desirable or ideal). There is also the distinction between the practice of a seasoned performer and practice in the sense of striving towards the mastery of a competent and expert practice. In this regard, Vernon Howard distinguishes between "practice" (or the skills exemplified by proficient or expert performers) and "practise (or acquiring the level of mastery of proficient or expert performance)."2 For him, the ambiguous and paradoxical nature of artistic practice highlights the complexity of degrees of attaining mastery of skills or exemplary practice and the diverse array of skills ranging from habit to critical thinking involved in the practice of any art. Although each practice is distinguished by its own belief systems, rituals, expectations, and commonsense, boundaries between differing practices are sometimes "soft" or fuzzy, as one seeps into another.3 Consequently, it is often difficult to distinguish one from another at the margins where one practice becomes another.DichotomyThe notion of theory and practice as independent or a dichotomous relationship between the phenomenal world on the one hand and the mind and spirit on the other has its roots in the ancient world. For Plato, the world of "appearances," referring to the phenomenal world understood by imagination (eikasia) and belief (pistis), should be distinguished from the higher, abstract "intelligible world" grasped through thinking (dianoia), knowledge (episteme), and intelligence (noesis).4 René Descartes' later bifurcation of the inner and outer worlds and inversion of Platonic values and understandings resulted in the ascendancy of careful and deliberate observation of the phenomenal world over philosophical reflection.5 His ideas helped to set the stage for the Enlightenment and the Industrial, Scientific, and Information Revolutions. Empiricism, science, and technology gradually displaced philosophy as primary ways of knowing the phenomenal world and understanding the nature of mind, human cognition, feeling, and being. Making hard-boundaried distinctions between within and without one's self, the phenomenal world and the world of spiritual things, and theory and practice were important insights. These distinctions provided for limits on the sorts of ways in which truth could be known. Reasoned deliberation [End Page 22] and imaginative thought have particular usefulness in the world of theory while sensory perception and careful observation are especially useful in the phenomenal world of practice. So while the scholar might speculate about phenomena, observational tools are also useful in coming to know and understand them. Reason and observation each have particular strengths, and it ought not be assumed that philosophy or scientific observation... (shrink)

The symbolism introduced earlier provides a convenient vehicle for examining the status and consistency of Aristotle's three diverse justifications and for explaining how he means to avoid Protagorean relativism without embracing Platonic absolutism. When the variables ‘ x ’ and ‘ y ’ are allowed to range over the groups of free men in a given polis as well as over individual free men, the formula for the Aristotelian conception of justice expresses the major premiss of Aristotle's three justifications: (1) (...) (∀ x )(∀ y ) (P(x)·W(x)/P(y)·W(y)=V(T(x))/V(T(y)))Democracy is justified by adding a minor premiss to the effect that as a group the many ( m ) are superior (>) in virtue and wealth to the few best men ( f ): 85 (2 d ) (P(m) · W(m)) > (P(f) · W(f)) (3 d ) V(T(m))>V(T(f))Absolute kingship is justified when a godlike man ( g ) appears in a polis who is incommensurably superior (≫) in virtue and wealth to all the remaining free men ( r ): (2 k ) (P(g) · W(g)) ≫ (P(r) · W(r)) (3 k ) V(T(g)) ≫ V(T(r))True aristocracy requires a more complex justification, which was symbolized in Section 4. These justifications are compatible with each other since they apply to different situations. The polises where democracy and true aristocracy are justified contain no godlike men, and the polis in which democracy is justified differs from that in which true aristocracy is justified in containing a large group of free men who individually have little virtue ( Pol. III.11.1281b23-25, 1282a25-26). Each of the justifications is a valid deductive argument. Aristotle affirms the major premiss they share on the basis of a twofold appeal to nature. The principle of distributive justice, the concept as distinguished from the various conceptions of distributive justice, is itself according to nature ( Pol. VII.3.1325b7-10) and so too is one particular standard of worth, the standard of the best polis. Consequently, the question of the status of these three justifications, whether they are purely hypothetical or not, is a question about the minor premiss or premisses of each. In the case of the democratic premiss Aristotle's answer is straightforward: it is sometimes but not always true ( Pol. III.11.1281bl5-21). Hence the justification of democracy is not purely hypothetical. Nor is the justification of absolute kingship. The man who is “like a god among men” ( Pol. III.13.1284a10-11) would be a man of heroic virtue (see VII.14.1332bl6-27); and such a man, Aristotle says, is “rare” ( σπávιoη ) (not nonexistent) ( E.N. VII.1.1145a27-28). The minor premisses of the aristocratic argument describe a situation where all of the free men in a given polis have sufficient wealth for the exercise of the moral and intellectual virtues and where all of the older free men of the polis are men of practical wisdom. In the Politics Aristotle makes only the modest claim that such a situation is possible: It is not possible for the best constitution to come into being without appropriate equipment [that is, the appropriate quality and quantity of territory and of citizens and noncitizens]. Hence one must presuppose many things as one would wish them to be, though none of them must be impossible ( Pol. VII.4.1325b37-38; see also II.6.1265al7-18). But Aristotle appears to subscribe to the principle that every possibility is realized at some moment of time ( Top. 11.11.115bl7-18, Met. Θ.4.1047b3-6, N.2.1088b23-25). This principle together with the claim that the situation described is possible entails that the situation sometimes occurs. Thus even Aristotle's justification of true aristocracy is not purely hypothetical. The final question is Aristotle's way of avoiding Protagorean relativism without embracing Platonic absolutism. The relativist, along with everyone else ( E.N. V.3.1131a13-14, Pol. III.12.1282bl8), can accept the principle of distributive justice: Q(x)/Q(y) = V(T(x))/V(T(y)) And he can concede that particular instances of this principle, particular conceptions of justice, accurately describe the modes of distributing political authority that appear just to particular polises and to particular philosophers. What he denies is that there is any basis for ranking these various conceptions of justice or for singling one out as the best (Plato, Theaet. 172A-B). Aristotle, following in Plato's track ( Laws X.888D7-890D8), maintains against the relativist that nature provides such a basis. But he departs from Plato in his conception of nature. For Plato “the just by nature” ( τó ρυσει δίκ↑oν }) ( Rep. VI.501B2) is the Form of justice, an incorporeal entity ( Phdo. 65D4-5, Soph. 246B8) that exists beyond time and space ( Tim. 37C6-38C3, 51E6-52B2), whereas for Aristotle the sensible world is the realm of nature ( Met. A.1.1069a30-b2). Thus in appealing to nature Aristotle does not appeal to a transcendent standard. Nor does he appeal to his main criterion of the natural, namely, happening always or for the most part. Aristotle's theory of justice is anchored to nature by means of the polis described in Politics VII and VIII, and he regards this polis as natural because it fosters the true end of human life and because its social and political structure reflects the natural hierarchy of human beings and the natural stages of life. Thus the nature that Aristotle's theory of justice is ultimately founded on is human nature. (shrink)

Such love, though it expends itself in generosity and thoughtfulness, though it give birth to visions and to great poetry, remains among the sharpest expressions of self-interest. Not until it has passed through a long servitude, through its own self-hatred, through mockery, through great doubts, can it take its place among the loyalties.most readers will be at least generally familiar with the details of Hegel’s so-called struggle for recognition, his account of the emergence of communal life in chapter 4 of (...) the Phenomenology of Spirit. “Consciousness,” the argument’s protagonist, at a certain stage interprets its desire for wisdom as a desire for the regard of another; it first tries to secure it by forcing the.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Four Philosophical Models of the Relation Between Theory and PracticeEstelle R. JorgensenSince music education straddles theory and practice, my purpose is to sketch the strengths and weaknesses of four philosophical models of the relationship between theory and practice. I demonstrate that none of them suffices when taken alone; each has something to offer and its own detractions. And I conclude with four suggested ways in which the analysis can (...) be helpful to music teachers and those interested in their work.Clarifying what is meant by theory and practice raises a nest of conceptual problems. Concerning theory, it may be tempting to equate the terms "theory" and "philosophy." Among their shared properties, these terms deal with conceptual and abstract entities that, from the Enlightenment at least, have been held to be distinct from the phenomenal world. They also clarify ideas and distinguish one concept from another. Among their different purposes, the object of philosophy is the asking of questions in a search for wisdom or truth whereas theory is formulated for explanatory purposes, especially within the frame of scientific propositions that can be refuted through empirical observations. The tests of philosophy are, therefore, those of symbolic logic evidenced in principles such as [End Page 21] internal consistency, correspondence with evidence (deductive, inductive, or analogical), and coherence within a unity or whole. Although logical criteria may also be important in formulating and testing theory,1 it is tested and refuted primarily through means of qualitative descriptions and quantitative assessments of observable phenomena.Regarding practice, one is also confronted with an ambiguous construct that may be interpreted descriptively (what is done in the phenomenal world or taken to be the general state of affairs) or normatively (what is desirable or ideal). There is also the distinction between the practice of a seasoned performer and practice in the sense of striving towards the mastery of a competent and expert practice. In this regard, Vernon Howard distinguishes between "practice" (or the skills exemplified by proficient or expert performers) and "practise (or acquiring the level of mastery of proficient or expert performance)."2 For him, the ambiguous and paradoxical nature of artistic practice highlights the complexity of degrees of attaining mastery of skills or exemplary practice and the diverse array of skills ranging from habit to critical thinking involved in the practice of any art. Although each practice is distinguished by its own belief systems, rituals, expectations, and commonsense, boundaries between differing practices are sometimes "soft" or fuzzy, as one seeps into another.3 Consequently, it is often difficult to distinguish one from another at the margins where one practice becomes another.DichotomyThe notion of theory and practice as independent or a dichotomous relationship between the phenomenal world on the one hand and the mind and spirit on the other has its roots in the ancient world. For Plato, the world of "appearances," referring to the phenomenal world understood by imagination (eikasia) and belief (pistis), should be distinguished from the higher, abstract "intelligible world" grasped through thinking (dianoia), knowledge (episteme), and intelligence (noesis).4 René Descartes' later bifurcation of the inner and outer worlds and inversion of Platonic values and understandings resulted in the ascendancy of careful and deliberate observation of the phenomenal world over philosophical reflection.5 His ideas helped to set the stage for the Enlightenment and the Industrial, Scientific, and Information Revolutions. Empiricism, science, and technology gradually displaced philosophy as primary ways of knowing the phenomenal world and understanding the nature of mind, human cognition, feeling, and being. Making hard-boundaried distinctions between within and without one's self, the phenomenal world and the world of spiritual things, and theory and practice were important insights. These distinctions provided for limits on the sorts of ways in which truth could be known. Reasoned deliberation [End Page 22] and imaginative thought have particular usefulness in the world of theory while sensory perception and careful observation are especially useful in the phenomenal world of practice. So while the scholar might speculate about phenomena, observational tools are also useful in coming to know and understand them. Reason and observation each have particular strengths, and it ought not be assumed that philosophy or scientific observation... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Deep TherapyDiskin ClayThe Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics, by Martha Nussbaum; xiv & 558 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994; $29.95For three decades now interest in Hellenistic philosophy has been gaining among philosophers both in England—and its philosophical colony the United States—and in Europe. The principal documents of the Hellenistic schools have now been made available in both scrupulously edited Greek and Latin texts and (...) fine English translations by A. A. Long and David Sedley in their The Hellenistic Philosophers (1987). Conditions are right for the latest assimilation of this philosophical culture, whose conventional dates are those of the Hellenistic age—from the death of Alexander of Macedon in 323 B.C. to the suicide of the last of his successors, Cleopatra VII of Egypt in 31 B.C., but which in fact extends through the second century A.D. In the fracturing of the autonomous Greek city state and the new empires and cosmopolitanism that grew up in its place, in the turning inward of ethical thought and the simultaneous turning outward of science, the Hellenistic age holds up a mirror to our own. Especially congenial to philosophers in this country and in England is the radical skepticism that reaches from Socrates in the fifth century to Sextus Empiricus in the second century A.D.Martha Nussbaum’s The Therapy of Desire is very much a book for this age. Her topic is the “compassionate medical philosophy” of three of [End Page 501] the Hellenistic schools, the Epicurean, the Skeptic, and the Stoic. In focusing sharply on therapy, she leaves to the side—and on the outside—the connections that made Epicurean and Stoic philosophy systematic. But her awareness of the psychiatric possibilities of modern philosophy and what Michel Foucault called a technique de soi provide the contemporary context for the project of this book, at a stage when Freudian psychology is preparing to make its exit at the end of its century. Medicine is the only science that enters this book’s field of vision. Its thirteen studies (some already familiar) concentrate on the practical and therapeutic aims of Hellenistic philosophy and what the author terms the therapy of the passions, particularly the passions of erotic love, anger, and aggression, and fear of the gods. In The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy (1986), Nussbaum took the side of Aristotle against Plato. Here she takes the part of the Epicurean, Skeptic, and Stoic against the ethical theory of Aristotle, who is impressed to illustrate the practical turn in ethics which Nussbaum explores in Therapy. Plato is glimpsed on the horizon of this book “standing on the rim of the heavens” (p. 23). What links the intellectual program of both Fragility and Therapy is Nussbaum’s keen and sympathetic attention to poetry as a vehicle for philosophy or as a provocation to philosophical engagement. Four of the chapters of this study are devoted to poetry: three to Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura; one to Seneca’s Medea.The ethical project illustrated throughout these studies is formulated by Democritus, who first enunciated the claim: “medicine heals the sickness of bodies; but wisdom rids the soul of its sufferings” (DK 68B31). Each of the Hellenistic schools Nussbaum studies repeated this claim. Unexplored is the medical end of the analogy and the degree to which this much invoked analogy (whose terms are fused in our word psychiatry) conforms to actual medical practice, with its pathology, consultation, diagnosis, and treatment (therapeia). Nor is not clear from the Greek record that desires as opposed to the individual who harbors these desires are regarded as the object of therapy. The Hellenistic philosophers were clearly concerned with “extirpating” desires and disruptive passions, but the object of therapy was usually not desire but the individual who is disturbed by desire (as Philodemus, On Plain Speaking 84.11 Olivieri makes plain). But occasionally by extension the passions are described as the objects of therapy (as they are in Diogenes of Oenoanda, fr. 4.II.3 Smith).No one who has read Fragility will be taken aback by Nussbaum’s [End Page 502] invention of a... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Renewing Moral Theology: Christian Ethics as Action, Character, and Grace by Daniel A. WestbergHoward HarrisRenewing Moral Theology: Christian Ethics as Action, Character, and Grace Daniel A. Westberg DOWNERS GROVE, IL: IVP ACADEMIC, 2015. 281 PP. $25.00Renewing Moral Theology by Daniel Westberg has two professed purposes—to be a moral theology text for seminary use and to be a book with wider public appeal. Short chapters, real-life examples, simple reading (...) lists, and unobtrusive footnotes make it accessible to that wider public. Yet the rigor and careful argument will satisfy the need in many introductory classrooms for a moral theology text that is cognizant of Aquinas, Vatican II reforms, and Anglican scholarship.Westberg sees the 1960s as a disruptive time for ethical thought in the Anglican tradition, with the "shifting and seductive winds" of situation ethics gaining sufficient sway to sweep away the prevailing systematic approach to moral theology (9). He seeks to follow an Anglican path of mutual enrichment, blending Evangelical emphases and Catholic moral philosophy. Virtue ethics, with its roots in Aristotle and Aquinas and its more recent renaissance, is at the core of the book. Part 1 deals with moral reasoning and action, while part 2 discusses the seven principal virtues: wisdom in action, justice, fortitude, self-control, faith, hope, and love.The initial focus is on practical reasoning, action, and character, acknowledging that many daily questions have a moral component yet do not require casuistry and law for resolution. Westberg puts forward a four-stage model of practical reason involving intention, deliberation, decision, and execution, sourced from Aquinas (reminiscent of James Rest's Four Component Model). The model is used to show that both intellect and will must be engaged and that the process can be iterative. The importance of the Holy Spirit in the forming of character and in the infusion of the theological virtues is made clear in Westberg's elucidation of the sequence through practical reasoning to action. Christian ethics is different, and Christians need "a new way of explaining Christian discipleship" (18).Part 2 begins with a useful introductory chapter about the development of virtues, with a focus on Christ and a caution against vagueness, against reducing morality to an undefined love that is of little relevance in either deliberation or action. In the discussion of individual virtues, Westberg brings together traditional scholarship, including Aquinas, Augustine, Aristotle, and Barth, with contemporary work from theology, philosophy, and psychology including Hauerwas, O'Donovan, and Veritatis splendor. Westberg questions the idea, grounded in Aristotle, that excellence in a virtue lies in a mean between extremes, wondering [End Page 203] aloud if Aristotle went too far in this (152). The treatment of love includes an examination of the nature of agape in which Westberg sets out to show that this Christian love ought not be seen as self-sacrificing but as mutual and nurturing. The Gospel basis is apparent here as the argument is grounded on "God is love" (1 John 4:16); on examples of Jesus showing preferential love for the disciples and Lazarus, Martha, and Mary; and on "a mutuality of love in the Godhead," before noting parallels to Aristotle's notions of friendship (238–40).Throughout the book difficult questions are not shunned, with diversion avoided by pointing to alternative sources of more detailed analysis; animal ethics, loving one's enemies, and whether non-Christians can be "good" are dealt with in this way, while the implications of biblical teaching on sin receives a longer treatment. Renewing Moral Theology puts Christ at the center of a discussion of how to live well. It is accessible to the Christian who has an interest in moral questions while being sufficiently tightly argued for the introductory classroom at which it is also aimed.Howard HarrisUniversity of South AustraliaCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume’s Dialogues and Paradise LostPeter DendleDiscussions of the background of Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779) tend to focus more on scientific, philosophical, and theological sources than on literary ones, which is only natural given that the work is a philosophical dialogue. Yet the epistolary-dialogue form, a departure from Hume’s usual expository philosophical style, encourages exploring the Dialogues as a work of literature independently of its contribution to the (...) history of philosophy. 1 Newton, Clarke, and the French skeptics are crucial background figures in understanding the importance of Hume’s criticism of natural theology, and the influence of classical writers such as Cicero and Lucretius is equally obvious; but it is not sufficiently appreciated that more recent literary figures such as Milton, Dryden, and Pope also inform the Dialogues. Their influence is not as great as that of those others named, perhaps, but it represents a significant substratum, illuminating in many ways Hume’s conceptualization of the cosmological and philosophical principles to which he responds. The Restoration and Augustan poets, essayists, and even novelists contribute images evoked and examples raised by the disputants in Hume’s dialogue, and an understanding of how these images are used in the Dialogues contributes toward a broader understanding of the conceptual foundations of Hume’s philosophy in relation to the intellectual mainstream of the Enlightenment in general.Among the various works Hume quotes in the Dialogues, including those of Dryden, Lord Bacon, and Lucretius, Paradise Lost provides the longest quotation and is the only source quoted more than once. In the opening pages of the Dialogues (D 134) Philo quotes five lines from Book 2 of Paradise Lost (PL, 565–69), in which the fallen angels, emerging from their great pandemonic council, [End Page 257] take to philosophical speculation. 2 He cites the passage out of context, to demonstrate that skepticism, if forced, is not meaningless and that “Vain Wisdom all and false Philosophy” may yet “charm Pain” and “arm the obdurate breast / With stubborn Patience.” Thus Philo defends against Cleanthes’ charge that skepticism amounts to empty raillery and can have no practical consequences in one’s behavior. The image of the demonic council, confounded in meandering speculation, is an appropriate lead-in for the work as a whole: like the characters in the Dialogues, Milton’s devils “reasoned high.... And found no end, in wandering mazes lost” (PL, 2.558–61).The second of the three quotations from Paradise Lost occurs a third of the way through the Dialogues, when Philo notes in Part V, “The two great sexes of male and female, says MILTON, animate the world” (D, 168; PL, 8.151). Here the innocent adage of Edenic proliferation becomes twisted into an impertinent analogy concerning the sexuality of deities: “Why must this circumstance [sexual reproduction], so universal, so essential, be excluded from those numerous and limited Deities?” (D, 168). 3 It is among the insolent analogies that Philo claims must follow from Cleanthes’ principles. In Part X (D, 195–96) Demea offers a third quotation from Paradise Lost, the longest in the Dialogues, in his attempt to portray the misery of the human condition in this world. The nine lines from Book 11 of Paradise Lost he cites express the wretchedness of the human condition rather morbidly. 4 Thus, the three quotations from Paradise Lost are either distorted for an insalutary effect or are unwholesome to begin with, and they loosely mark the beginning, middle, and latter part of the Dialogues (just as they are taken from the beginning, middle, and latter part of Paradise Lost).The world of Paradise Lost is very much one of counsel and debate, discourse and dialogue: the heavenly and hellish councils of books 2 and 3 give way to the more pastoral conversations within the garden, where Adam and Eve struggle to understand their condition, Raphael and Michael offer wisdom, and Satan tempts. Although the backdrop is the entire cosmos rather than Cleanthes’ library, Milton’s epic no less than Hume’s Dialogues progresses through its stages by the primary vehicle of dialogue rather than action. Paradise Lost affirms the very role of dialectical (as opposed to intuitive) reasoning... (shrink)

The ) account of seven stages of learning is considered in the context of the Dreyfus (1980s) account of five stages of skill development. The two new stages, Mastery and Practical Wisdom, make more explicit certain themes implicit in the five‐stage account. In this way ) encourages a more reflexive approach.The themes now more explicit are, in part, derived from Aristotle on phronesis, but are also influenced by Heidegger and Foucault on cultural dimensions of meaning and value. The (...) paper considers whether Dreyfus’ revised account tends towards a relativism of different worlds of meaning, disclosed through personal commitment. A more reflexive account of phronesis, it is suggested, needs to clarify the potentiality of phronesis for co‐ordination as it promotes patterns of unity in difference and difference in unity. (shrink)

Morbidity of birth asphyxia has been estimated to be 42 million disability-adjusted life years. The study sought to assess the impact of the use and completion of partograph during labour on reducing birth asphyxia at the St Anthony’s Hospital, Dzodze, in the Volta Region of Ghana. A retrospective study design using a quantitative approach was adopted for the study. A simple random sampling technique was used to select a total of 200 folders of labouring women who were admitted and delivered (...) at St Anthony’s Hospital, Dzodze, between 1st May 2015 and 30th April 2016. A structured checklist, which was developed by using labour and foetal monitoring parameters based on the standards of the World Health Organization partograph usage, was used to review all the 200 existing maternal records. The findings revealed that partographs were used by midwives at St Anthony’s Hospital with the majority of the maternal folders fully completed. The use and completion of partograph were found to be associated with less non-asphyxiated birth outcomes. Labours which were monitored with partograph were 4.29 times less likely to result in birth asphyxia [AOR 4.29 ], and those that were monitored with a completed partograph were 5.3 times less likely to result in birth asphyxia [AOR 5.31 ]. Midwives used partographs during labour at St Anthony’s Hospital. The use and completion of partograph were significantly associated with a reduced incidence of birth asphyxia at the hospital. Birth asphyxia could be reduced if partographs are used and completed by midwives during labour in all cases. (shrink)

The Dreyfus account of seven stages of learning is considered in the context of the Dreyfus account of five stages of skill development. The two new stages, Mastery and Practical Wisdom, make more explicit certain themes implicit in the five‐stage account. In this way Dreyfus encourages a more reflexive approach. The themes now more explicit are, in part, derived from Aristotle on phronesis, but are also influenced by Heidegger and Foucault on cultural dimensions of meaning and value. The (...) paper considers whether Dreyfus’ revised account tends towards a relativism of different worlds of meaning, disclosed through personal commitment. A more reflexive account of phronesis, it is suggested, needs to clarify the potentiality of phronesis for co‐ordination as it promotes patterns of unity in difference and difference in unity. (shrink)

Aware of the party strife that plagued the church at Corinth, Paul addresses it briefly and then begins a discourse on wisdom that seems unrelated to the problem of parties—but perhaps not so unrelated after all.

I found that some statements in Sect. 7 of my paper are restricted to special configurations. Here I present the general case.

It was shown in the early seventies that, in Local Quantum Theory (that is the most general formulation of Quantum Field Theory, if we leave out only the unknown scenario of Quantum Gravity) the notion of Statistics can be grounded solely on the local observable quantities (without assuming neither the commutation relations nor even the existence of unobservable charged field operators); one finds that only the well known (para)statistics of Bose/Fermi type are allowed by the key principle of local commutativity (...) of observables. In this frame it was possible to formulate and prove the Spin and Statistics Theorem purely on the basis of First Principles.In a subsequent stage it has been possible to prove the existence of a unique, canonical algebra of local field operators obeying ordinary Bose/Fermi commutation relations at spacelike separations.In this general guise the Spin–Statistics Theorem applies to Theories (on the four dimensional Minkowski space) where only massive particles with finite mass degeneracy can occur. Here we describe the underlying simple basic ideas, and briefly mention the subsequent generalisations; eventually we comment on the possible validity of the Spin–Statistics Theorem in presence of massless particles, or of violations of locality as expected in Quantum Gravity. (shrink)

By making use of the method of moments we study some aspects of the statistical behavior of the nonrelativistic harmonic oscillator according to stochastic electrodynamics. We show that the random rotations induced on the particle by the zero-point field account for the magnitude of the spin of the electron, the result differing from the correct one(3/4)h 2 by a factor of2. Assuming that the measurement of a spin projection may be effectively taken into account by considering the action of only (...) the subensemble of the field with the corresponding circular polarization, the calculated value of the spin projection comes out to be the correct one within a factor of order unity. The radiative corrections give rise to both the Lamb shift and the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron, the latter being evaluated to within a factor of2. The magnetic and gyromagnetic properties of the electron come out to be in agreement with quantum mechanics. Interference effects are shown to occur when evaluating the average value of the square of the angular momentum. (shrink)

The study examined the level of moral reasoning of first-year university students in Papua New Guinea; 583 students participated by answering one of the exercises or dilemmas formulated by Kohlberg. The analysis of data primarily focused on what the general level of moral reasoning of the students might be and whether there were differences in their levels of moral reasoning on the basis of gender, culture and religious affiliation. The study showed that around 50 per cent of both male and (...) female students came within the first level, but in the second stage of moral reasoning. Around 25 per cent of both genders came under the stage 4, that is, the law and order stage. A t-test comparison revealed no significant difference between the genders in their moral reasoning. The ‘faculty’ that the students belonged to is the only variable that indicated a statistically significant effect F = 2.159, p = 0.030, est η2 = 0.014923 on the level of moral reasoning. All other variables such as age, religion and the province that the students came from did not show a significant effect. Two new dimensions, ‘reference to God’ and the ‘need for negotiation’, in moral reasoning emerged from the study. (shrink)

Practical wisdom (hereafter simply “wisdom”) is the intellectual virtue that enables a person to make reliably good decisions about how, all-things-considered, to live and conduct herself. Because wisdom is such an important and high-level achievement, we should wonder: what is the nature of wisdom? What kinds of skills, habits and capacities does it involve? Can real people actually develop it? If so, how? I argue that we can answer these questions by modeling wisdom on expert (...) decision-making skill in complex areas like firefighting. I develop this expert skill model of wisdom using philosophical argument informed by relevant empirical research. I begin in Chapter 1 by examining the historical roots of analogies between wisdom and practical skills in order to motivate the expert skill model. In Chapter 2, I provide the core argument for the expert skill model. I then use the remaining chapters to pull out the implications of the expert skill model. In Chapter 3, I show that the expert skill model yields practical guidance about how to develop wisdom. In Chapter 4, I address the objection, due to Daniel Jacobson, that wisdom is not a skill that humans could actually develop, since skill development requires a kind of feedback in practice that is not available for all-things-considered decisions about how to live. Finally, in Chapter 5, I apply the expert skill model to the question, much discussed by virtue ethicists, of whether a wise person deliberates using a comprehensive and systematic conception of the good life. (shrink)

Human excellences such as intelligence, morality, and consciousness are investigated by philosophers as well as artificial intelligence researchers. One excellence that has not been widely discussed by AI researchers is practical wisdom, the highest human excellence, or the highest, seventh, stage in Dreyfus’s model of skill acquisition. In this paper, I explain why artificial wisdom matters and how artificial wisdom is possible (in principle and in practice) by responding to two philosophical challenges to building artificial (...) class='Hi'>wisdom systems. The result is a conceptual framework that guides future research on creating artificial wisdom. (shrink)

In letter 37 to Johannes Bouwmeester, Spinoza identifies a historiola mentis à la Bacon as an important tool for distinguishing more easily between adequate and inadequate ideas. This paper contends that Spinoza's advice is to take into account Baconian-style ‘Civil History’ as providing instructive material for contemplating the variety, complexity, and persistency of human passionate behaviour. Specifically, it argues that Baconian civil history forms an integral part of Spinoza's reflections on provisional morality. Although for Spinoza, philosophical beatitude ultimately demands understanding (...) affects through their first causes – the intuitive perception of things sub specie aeternitatis – in the realm of everyday Spinoza allows for a different, more pragmatic approach to morality. This paper argues at this stage that a philosophical understanding of the mind and its affections is not needed. Spinoza, following Bacon, holds that conduct of practical affairs is particularly improved when those so engage.. (shrink)

This article examines a proverbial saying "Wisdom is a tree of life" (Prov. 3:18) through the lens of conceptual metaphor. Such a metaphor works by mapping two conceptual domains. The direction goes from the SOURCE domain (an ancient myth of a miraculous tree that whets human’s appetite for eternal youth) to the TARGET domain (a concept of wisdom in life). Conceptual metaphor helps us to understand that the tree metaphor in Prov. 3:18 instills in the readers’ mind a (...) kind of reward powerful enough to motivate them to pursue wisdomand to persevere in that quest. The boon will arouse their desire so that they will do anything. This article also suggests that the tree metaphor in Proverbs receives its fuller sense through Prov. 11:30; 13:12; 15:4. Conceptual metaphor, thus, enables the reader to notice a holistic presentation of the book of Proverbs, which has been all too often considered as a compilation of various self-contained sayings. Abstrak Artikel ini menganalisis ungkapan "Hikmat adalah pohon kehidupan" (Ams. 3:18) dengan perspektif metafora konseptual. Metafora konseptual adalah sebuah pendekatan linguistik yang menitikberatkan pemetaan relasi yang terjadi antara dua domain yang berbeda. Pada ayat tersebut, akan dicermati arah pergerakan dari domain SUMBER (yakni, sebuah mitos kuno tentang pohon mujarab yang berkhasiat menghidupkan) menuju domain TARGET (yakni, konsep kebijaksanaan dalam hidup). Tidak seperti metafora stilistika yang berfokus pada aspek keindahan bahasa metaforis itu sendiri, metafora konseptual lebih berfokus pada proses pemahaman kognitif yang ada dalam benak si pembaca. Melalui kajian konseptual ini, akan ditunjukkan bagaimana metafora pohon kehidupan (Ams. 3:18) beserta aspek mitologisnya menstimulasi imajinasi para pembaca tentang adanya ganjaran yang amat menggiurkan ketika seseorang mengejar hikmat. Ia akan tergerak untuk melakukan segala daya upaya dalam meraih hikmat demi memperoleh ganjaran tersebut. Artikel ini juga bertujuan menunjukkan bahwa ketiga pemunculan lain dari metafora pohon ini (pada Ams. 11:30; 13:12; 15:4) rupanya berperan menyajikan gambaran yang lebih utuh mengenai pohon mujarab ini. Apabila dilihat lebih luas lagi, keempat ayat secara bersama-sama mengikat seluruh isi kitab Amsal. Metafora konseptual tentang pohon kehidupan ini menawarkan sebuah gagasan holistik terhadap pembacaan kitab Amsal. Kata-kata Kunci: metafora stilistika, metafora konseptual, hikmat, pohon kehidupan, ganjaran. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Practical Wisdom and Moral Imagination in Sense and SensibilityKaren StohrThere is no single virtue more important to Aristotle's ethical theory than the intellectual virtue of phronesis, or practical wisdom. Yet for all its importance, it is not easy to make sense of this virtue, either in Aristotle's own writings or in virtue ethics more generally. Insofar as Aristotle defines it, he does so opaquely, saying it is (...) "a state grasping the truth, involving reason, concerned with action about things that are good or bad for a human being." 1Practical wisdom is a form of knowledge aimed fundamentally at acting well. It requires both a general understanding of what is worthwhile in human life and the ability to act in ways that reflect that understanding. 2 My goal in this paper is to explore the latter aspect of practical wisdom in its application to ordinary social behavior. The circumstances that will interest me here are often thought to be the domain of manners or decorum, rather than morals proper. Although no one who takes Hume seriously can deny the moral significance of manners, the relationship between one's inner state of character and how that character is expressed in seemingly mundane behavior has received insufficient attention from moral philosophers. 3 In such a task, there can be few better places to begin than with Jane Austen, whose novels reveal the intricacies of ordinary moral behavior with extraordinary acumen.I shall use Austen's Sense and Sensibility to examine the skill associated with knowing how to behave rightly in the sense we associate with propriety or decorum. This skill is essential to pleasant social life, and hence, on the Aristotelian view, to human flourishing. Yet it is often lacking, even among those who have sound moral principles and good hearts. Well-meaning people frequently say or do what is inappropriate. [End Page 378] Consider, for instance, how common it is for kindly disposed people to say to bereaved friends things like, "it's all for the best" or "be thankful for your other healthy children" or "you're young, you'll marry again." The intricacies of offering sympathy are hard to get right, and otherwise good people can unwittingly leave behind disasters in their wakes.The skill of acting well in complex social situations has interesting links to the capacity for moral imagination. Engaging in imaginative identification with others is essential to empathy. 4 Without suggesting that empathy is at the root of all fluid social interactions, I shall argue that certain characteristic failures to act well in that sphere are imaginative failures. In other words, insofar as the exercise of practical wisdom is present in the realm of manners, it requires moral imagination.Failures of moral imagination, however, can take different forms and have different social effects. I shall use two of Austen's characters in Sense and Sensibility—Marianne Dashwood and Mrs. Jennings—to illustrate different ways in which inadequate imaginative capacity can impede the exercise of practical wisdom. The contrast I shall draw is with Elinor Dashwood, to whom I ascribe practical wisdom in full. 5 This contrast is especially interesting because it is not always very sharp: all three characters have fundamentally good moral principles and warm hearts. Yet unlike Elinor, Mrs. Jennings and Marianne routinely fail to act well, and in characteristic ways. Despite the differences in their characters, they have in common an inability to use moral imagination appropriately. The moral errors of Marianne and Mrs. Jennings occur in relatively insignificant circumstances, but the errors themselves point to something deeper about how the virtue of practical wisdom functions in ordinary moral practice.In exploring the link between moral imagination and moral practice, it will help to remember Aristotle's emphasis on the reciprocity between practical wisdom and the moral virtues. Aristotle held that that practical wisdom is necessary for the exercise of the moral virtues and that conversely, the moral virtues are necessary for the exercise of practical wisdom. 6 The justification for the first of these two claims is clearest in the context of Aristotle's doctrine of the mean. Since what counts as a virtuous action depends on features... (shrink)