‘The work of the philosopher consists in assembling reminders for particular purposes.’ Among the many purposes for which Wittgenstein assembled reminders, the deeper understanding of the religious life would have to qualify as one. Though on first reading this would hardly seem obvious, I hope to make this abundantly clear through an examination of his later literature. There are two ways in which he sheds light on religious issues: first , by the personal passion of his own life and the (...) forthright display of intellectual integrity expected of any professional thinker toward any discipline , and, second , by making his philosophical investigations descriptive. Any analysis of religious issues or the understanding of the religious life should involve the high degree of personal integrity and the rigorously descriptive method which Wittgenstein makes apparent throughout his writing. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The riddle Frazer confronts us with in The Golden Bough is posed in the form of a question. ‘Why is this happening?’ - this life and death of the King of the Wood at Nemi? In the related context of his accounts of the fire-festivals in Europe, Frazer refines the question in a more dramatic form: ‘What is the meaning of such sacrifices? Why were men and animals burnt to death at these festivals?’ Frazer recognizes something serious in all this. (...) The practice of human sacrifice is puzzling; it does leave us disquieted! But Frazer's search for what he calls ‘a fairly probable explanation’ of the motives which gave rise to the priesthood of Nemi and its embodiment of the practice of human sacrifice, Wittgenstein in his ‘Remarks on Frazer's Golden Bough’ feels, does not help us to understand a practice like the burning of a man! With all the additional data, numerous theories, and the historical tracing of origins we are no closer to resolving the perplexities of the riddle than the riddle itself presents to us daily. (shrink)

Richard H. Bell analyzes the social and political thought of Simone Weil, paying particular attention to Weil's concept of justice as compassion. Bell describes the ways in which Weil's concept of justice stands in contrast with liberal 'rights-based' views of justice, and focuses upon central aspects of her thought, including 'attention,' human suffering and 'affliction,' and the importance of 'a spiritual way of life' in reshaping the individual's role in civic life.

P. O. Bodunrin, in his 1981 essay, asks: ‘Is there an African Philosophy, and if there is, what is it?’ This question has occupied centre stage among younger African intellectuals for about a decade now. The most articulate among these intellectuals, who are themselves philosophers, are Bodunrin , Kwasi Wiredu , H. Odera Oruka , Marcien Towa and Eboussi Boulaga , and Paulin Hountondji . These philosophers among others are in dialogue with one another and currently are seen to be (...) the principal architects of a new orientation in African thought. (shrink)

This issue of Philosophical Papers assembles eight essays that are part of the larger conversation on African philosophy and the analytic tradition. Several leading philosophers have contributed to this issue with provocative remarks, beginning with a three-way debate on the nature of philosophy itself as understood and practiced in the African context. It continues with essays on consensual democracy, authoritarianism, race and cultural identity, the cosmopolitan ideal, and belief and witchcraft.

Wittgenstein, in his characteristic way of indirectly bringing us to see an important feature in human life, said: ‘… art shows us the miracles of nature… We say: “Just look at it opening out!” This essay discusses how works of art ‘blossom’ and thus elicit an imaginative human response. Its various parts focus on the connected theme that some sensible component is essential to the production and comprehension of art. Each part, however, investigates a different aspect of the theme and (...) could stand on its own. What will be argued about this aesthetic factor in art will also be shown to cast light on our understanding of certain narrative texts and ceremonial acts of religion. (shrink)

i. In the Philosophical Investigations , Ludwig Wittgenstein yoked together these remarks: Essence is expressed by grammar. Grammar tells what kind of object anything is.

Rethinking Justice lifts up and restores an idea of justice found in classical writers as well as more recent thinkers. Justice deals with righting wrongs and restoring peace to individuals and communities. We have lost sight of this and must return to it in mind and practice.

As the editor of this volume writes in his introduction: 'Simone Weil's philosophy is one that interrogates and contemplates our culture; it makes us aware of our lack of attention to words and empty ideologies, to human suffering, to the indignity of work, to our excessive use of power, to religious dogmatisms. Rather than set out a system of ideas, Simone Weil uses her philosophical reflections to show how to think about work and oppression, freedom and the good, necessity and (...) power, love and justice - even how to think about, or not think about, God. In this way we are asked to examine the human condition and learn to discern a way through it.' This is one of the very few books available in English to present a comprehensive interpretation of the philosophy of Simone Weil and how her thought can cast light on issues of contemporary importance such as work, justice, the law, war and peace, and issues of more general moral and theological concern. (shrink)

Aristotle on the Athenian Constitution, translated, with introduction and notes, by F. G. Kenyon. London. Bell. 4s. 6d. Aristotle on the Constitution of Athens, translated by E. Poste. London. Macmillan. 3s. 6d. Aristoteles Schriftvom Staatswesen der Athener, verdeutscht von Georg Kaibel und Adolf Kiessling. Strassburg. 2 Mk. Aristotele la Costituzione degli Ateniesi Testo Greco, versione Italiana, introduzione e note per cura di C. Ferrini. Milano.

Skeptical of the arguments put forth in Robert Duncan's long-awaited, post-humously published The H. D. Book, this review essay questions the elevation of Pre-Raphaelite, Aestheticist, and Decadent poetry that forms the basis of Duncan's revisionist canon—a revision in which Wallace Stevens and T. S. Eliot are dismissed as “merely rational,” while H. D. and Duncan himself are elevated to the uppermost ranks, just beneath Ezra Pound. The essay focuses on the peculiarity of “Wardour Street” diction returning to poetry in the (...) postmodern era (especially in the verse of Gjertrud Schnackenberg) and connects this development to the nostalgia evidenced in Duncan's occultism. Placing the New Critics with the poets Karl Shapiro and Richard Wilbur, Duncan dismisses them all as “academics” and “descendants of those ministers of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, holding out against the magic of poetry as once they held out against the magic-religion of witch cults.” Emphasizing that it is the witch cults with which Duncan evidently sides, the essay concludes that Duncan's reranking of poets is no more reliable than his attitude toward rationality. (shrink)

This book gives a descriptive analysis of specific Madhyamika texts. It compares the ideology of Kumarajiva (a translator of the four Madhyamika treatises 400 A.D.) with the ideologies of the three Chinese contemporaries - HuiYuan, Seng-Jui and Seng-Chao. It envisages an intercultural transmission of religious and philosophical ideas from India to China.

For much of the twentieth century, Confucianism was condemned by Westerners and East Asians alike as antithetical to modernity. Internationally renowned philosophers, historians, and social scientists argue otherwise in Confucian Political Ethics. They show how classical Confucian theory--with its emphasis on family ties, self-improvement, education, and the social good--is highly relevant to the most pressing dilemmas confronting us today. Drawing upon in-depth, cross-cultural dialogues, the contributors delve into the relationship of Confucian political ethics to contemporary social issues, exploring Confucian perspectives (...) on civil society, government, territorial boundaries and boundaries of the human body and body politic, and ethical pluralism. They examine how Confucianism, often dismissed as backwardly patriarchal, can in fact find common ground with a range of contemporary feminist values and need not hinder gender equality. And they show how Confucian theories about war and peace were formulated in a context not so different from today's international system, and how they can help us achieve a more peaceful global community. This thought-provoking volume affirms the enduring relevance of Confucian moral and political thinking, and will stimulate important debate among policymakers, researchers, and students of politics, philosophy, applied ethics, and East Asian studies. The contributors are Daniel A. Bell, Joseph Chan, Sin Yee Chan, Chenyang Li, Richard Madsen, Ni Lexiong, Peter Nosco, Michael Nylan, Henry Rosemont, Jr., and Lee H. Yearley. (shrink)

This is the third edition of a classic book first published in 1960, which has sold thousands of copies in two paperback edition and has been translated into several foreign languages. Popkin's work ha generated innumerable citations, and remains a valuable stimulus to current historical research. In this updated version, he has revised and expanded throughout, and has added three new chapters, one on Savonarola, one on Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, and one on Pascal. This authoritative treatment of the (...) theme of scepticism and its historical impact will appeal to scholars and students of early modern history now as much as ever. (shrink)

Public and professional debates have come to rely heavily on a special type of reasoning: the argument-from-ignorance, in which conclusions depend on the _lack_ of compelling information. "I win my argument," says the skillful advocate, "unless you can prove that I am wrong." This extraordinary gambit has been largely ignored in modern rhetorical and philosophical studies. Yet its broad force can be demonstrated by analogy with the modern legal system, where courts have long manipulated burdens of proof with skill and (...) subtlety. This legal, philosophical, and rhetorical study by Richard H. Gaskins provides the first systematic treatment of arguments-from-ignorance across a wide range of modern discourse—from constitutional law, scientific inquiry, and moral philosophy to organizational behavior, computer operation, and personal interaction. Gaskins reviews the historic shifts in constitutional proof burdens that have shaped public debate on fundamental rights and, by analogy, on the fundamental status of intellectual and cultural authority. He shows how similar shifts have dominated polemical battles between scientific and ethical modes of authority, affecting both academic and popular discussion. Finally, he discovers the philosophical roots of default reasoning strategies in the arguments of Kant and nineteenth-century Kantian schools. Concluding that shifting proof burdens are inescapable in a world of scientific and moral uncertainty, Gaskins emphasizes the common strategic ground shared by dogmatic and skeptical reasoning. Using Hegelian strategies, he describes a more pluralistic temper that can move critical thinking beyond polemics and strengthen our capacities for common discourse. (shrink)

Many existing biomedical vocabulary standards rest on incomplete, inconsistent or confused accounts of basic terms pertaining to diseases, diagnoses, and clinical phenotypes. Here we outline what we believe to be a logically and biologically coherent framework for the representation of such entities and of the relations between them. We defend a view of disease as involving in every case some physical basis within the organism that bears a disposition toward the execution of pathological processes. We present our view in the (...) form of a list of terms and definitions designed to provide a consistent starting point for the representation of both disease and diagnosis in information systems in the future. (shrink)

A comprehensive exploration of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism. This work is a comprehensive study of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism. Mystics claim to experience reality in a way not available in normal life, a claim which makes this phenomenon interesting from a philosophical perspective. Richard H. Jones’s inquiry focuses on the skeleton of beliefs and values of mysticism: knowledge claims made about the nature of reality and of human beings; value claims about what is significant and (...) what is ethical; and mystical goals and ways of life. Jones engages language, epistemology, metaphysics, science, and the philosophy of mind. Methodological issues in the study of mysticism are also addressed. Examples of mystical experience are drawn chiefly from Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, but also from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Daoism. “This is a significant extension of the seminal work by Walter Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy. That work has stimulated much literature, all of which Jones manages to review here. He critically extends Stace’s universal core and embeds it in a sophisticated discussion of the extent, range, and metaphysical implications of mysticism.” — Ralph W. Hood, Jr., coauthor of The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. (shrink)