Why is the human imagination to blame for the worst crimes of the twentieth century? Why is progress a pernicious myth? Why is contemporary atheism just a hangover from Christian faith? John Gray, author of Straw Dogsand Black Mass, is one of the most original and iconoclastic thinkers of our time. In this pugnacious and brilliantly readable collection of essays from across his career, he smashes through humanity's most cherished beliefs to overturn our view of the world, and our (...) place in it. 'If humans are different from other animals it is chiefly in being governed by myths, which are not creations of the will but creatures of the imagination.' 'No traditional myth is as untruthful as the modern myth of progress. All prevailing philosophies embody the fiction that human life can be altered at will. Better aim for the impossible, they say, than submit to fate. Invariably, the result is a cult of human self-assertion that soon ends in farce.'. (shrink)

Nicholas Agar, Jeff McMahan and Allen Buchanan have all expressed concerns about enhancing humans far outside the species-typical range. They argue radically enhanced beings will be entitled to greater and more beneficial treatment through an enhanced moral status, or a stronger claim to basic rights. I challenge these claims by first arguing that emerging technologies will likely give the enhanced direct control over their mental states. The lack of control we currently exhibit over our mental lives greatly contributes to our (...) sense of vulnerability. I then argue moral status should be viewed in terms of vulnerability. The enhanced will slowly gain the ability to command their mental states, reducing their vulnerability. These radically enhanced beings will have greater capacities, and possibly an inner life more valuable than our own. They will also be less vulnerable, and as a result, their moral status will be subordinate to our own. (shrink)

The British bestseller Straw Dogs is an exciting, radical work of philosophy, which sets out to challenge our most cherished assumptions about what it means to be human. From Plato to Christianity, from the Enlightenment to Nietzsche and Marx, the Western tradition has been based on arrogant and erroneous beliefs about human beings and their place in the world. Philosophies such as liberalism and Marxism think of humankind as a species whose destiny is to transcend natural limits and conquer the (...) Earth. John Gray argues that this belief in human difference is a dangerous illusion and explores how the world and human life look once humanism has been finally abandoned. The result is an exhilarating, sometimes disturbing book that leads the reader to question our deepest-held beliefs. Will Self, in the New Statesman , called Straw Dogs his book of the year: “I read it once, I read it twice and took notes . . . I thought it that good.” “Nothing will get you thinking as much as this brilliant book” ( Sunday Telegraph ). (shrink)

"The thought of Immanuel Kant has had incalculable - and, many would say, negative - impact on the modern estimation of religion, religious belief, and religious knowledge. Yet, Davidovich argues in the strikingly original interpretation, the chief lines and import of Kant's work on religion have been crippingly misunderstood." "Davidovich radically refigures Kant scholarship by focusing decisively on his Third Critique, long thought his weakest, where she finds Kant confronting the results of his strong distinction between theoretical and practical reason. (...) There he attempts a comprehensive theory of reflective judgment, in which contemplative thought of a moral designer of the universe is a principle that overcomes the bifurcation of scientific (rational) and moral (practical) activities." "Moreover, this specifically religious consciousness, which harmonizes the lawfulness of nature with the purposiveness of freedom, is further developed, Davidovich maintains, by Rudolf Otto's and Paul Tillich's influential theories of religion. Today it can safeguard the status of religion and a normative science of religion." "Davidovich's work is an outstanding contribution, breaking new ground in both Kantian scholarship and the theory of religion."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

There has recently been a flurry of activity in the philosophy of language on how to best account for the unique features of epithets. One of these features is that epithets can be appropriated (that is, the offense-grounding potential of a term can be removed). We argue that attempts to appropriate an epithet fundamentally involve a violation of language-governing rules. We suggest that the other conditions that make something an attempt at appropriation are the same conditions that characterize acts of (...) civil disobedience. Accounting for attempts at appropriation is thus both a linguistic and socio-political endeavor. We demonstrate how these two facets of attempts at appropriation also help us understand the communicative features of civil disobedience. (shrink)

Does Anne Conway (1631–79) hold that the created world consists of a single underlying substance? Some have argued that she does; others have argued that she is a priority monist and so holds that there are many created substances, but the whole created world is ontologically prior to each particular creature. Against both of these proposals, this article makes the case for a substance pluralist interpretation of Conway: individual creatures are distinct substances, and the whole created world is not ontologically (...) prior to the individual creatures that compose it. The basic argument for such a view draws on Conway's claims about the freedom and moral responsibility of individual creatures. The pluralist reading is straightforwardly compatible with these claims, while the monistic readings are not. (shrink)

A great philosopher will change the way you think about your life. For most of human history, religion provided a clear explanation of life and death. But in the late 19th and early 20th centuries new ideas -- from psychiatry to evolution to Communist -- seemed to suggest that our fate was now in our own hands. We would ourselves become God. This is the theme of a remarkable new book by one of the world's greatest lving philosophers. It is (...) a brilliant and frightening look at the problems and opportunities of a world coming to grips with humankind's now solitary, unaided place in the universe. Gray takes two major examples: the belief that the science-backed Communism of the new USSR could reshape the planet, and the belief among a group of Edwardian intellectuals -- popularized through mediums and automatic writing -- that there was a non-religious form of life after death. Gray presents an extraordinary cast of philosophers, journalists, politicians, charlatans and mass murderers, all of whom felt driven by a specifically scientific and modern world view. He raises a host of fascinating questions about what it means to be human. The implications of Gray's book will haunt its readers for the rest of their lives. (shrink)

Traditionally, medicine has been considered a practical art. It seeks the patient’s well-being through technical means and specific skills in healing. On the other hand, healing means are connected to the life sciences, through which knowledge has developed systematically. Due to research and technological development, we can easily reveal the true meaning of medicine as science. Hippocratic practice and Aristotelian ethics have offered us a humanitarian approach, oriented to the sick person, which set the virtuous human character of each person (...) who practices the virtues. The medicine people approached to the medicine preserving an ancient picture of the practice. They have know-how of the practice, recognize the characteristics of each field of art or science appreciating its utility and benefits, but often they don’t know why or where the boundary between the two fields, science and art, falls. They are scientists and artists, too. In this article I intend to fix what science means and what art means, based on Aristotelian arguments, which lead to a perspective of a virtuous professional life. Also, it is relevant to find its common issues. No physicians can successfully practice their profession without respecting the rigor of science and training their creativity. I plead for a moral practice, for the understanding of humanity's state in any medical act. Medicine is the moral community where practice meets science and arts merge both. Medicine is not between practice and science; it is the art itself of medical practice and science. (shrink)

Psychological and philosophical studies have extended J. J. Gibson’s notion of affordances. Affordances are possibilities for bodily action presented to us by the objects of our perception. Recent work has argued that we should extend the actions afforded by perception to mental action. I argue that we can extend the notion of affordance itself. What I call ‘Introspective Affordances’ are possibilities for mental action presented to us by introspectively accessible states. While there are some prima facie worries concerning the non-perceptual (...) nature of introspection, I will argue that our internal mental lives share enough commonalities with experiences in our environment to warrant this extension. I will demonstrate the value of introspective affordances by showing how they allow us to explain an underexplored aspect of thought insertion. (shrink)

Chapter one JS Mill and the future of liberalism If there is a consensus on the value of Mill's political writings, it is that we may turn to them for the ...

A growing body of empirical research examines the effects of the so-called “social determinants of health” on health and health inequalities. Several high-profile publications have issued policy recommendations to reduce health inequalities based on a specific interpretation of this empirical research as well as a set of normative assumptions. This article questions the framework defined by these assumptions by focusing on two issues: first, the normative judgments about the fairness of particular health inequalities; and second, the policy recommendations issued on (...) this basis. We argue that the normative underpinnings of the approach are insufficiently supported and that the policy recommendations do not necessarily follow from the arguments provided. Furthermore, while many of the policies recommended—such as improving people's living conditions and reducing inequalities in wealth and power—are justified in their own right, the way these recommendations are tied to health is problematic. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Cocceius and the Jewish CommentatorsAdina M. YoffieThe case of Johannes Cocceius defies the commonplace that Leiden University (and perhaps post-Reformation, confessionalized Europe in general) turned away from humanist scholarship in the first quarter of the seventeenth century. In 1650 Cocceius (1603-69), a Bremen-born Oriental philology professor at Franeker, joined the Leiden theological faculty and wrote a treatise, Protheoria de ratione interpretandi sive introductio in philologiam sacram (De ratione). He (...) praised such rabbinic exegetes as Rashi (1040-1105) and David Kimchi (ca. 1160-ca. 1235) in humanist terms for their erudition. At the same time the "new" Cartesian philosophy was taking hold in the arts faculty, and mathematics instruction was encroaching on scholastic formal logic.1 Leiden would become famous for Cartesianism, mathematics, and "Calvinist Copernicanism" in the second half of the seventeenth century, but Cocceius still worked in the tradition of advanced humanist scholarship that had made the institution famous in the sixteenth century.2Leiden's earlier reputation was due in large part to the biblical humanist work of such Renaissance polymaths as Joseph Justus Scaliger (1540-1609) and Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), but by Cocceius's time Leiden theologians were subject to greater Church and State control. As Jonathan Israel and Edwin Rabbie have shown, in response to the controversy that surrounded Jacobus Arminius and his stand on predestination, the Synod of Dordrecht (Dort) drafted an anti-Arminian statement in 1619; any professor who did not sign was subject [End Page 383] to exile from the republic in addition to dismissal from his post.3 Innovative theology, exegesis, and philology suffered as professors, fearing State and Church reprisals, turned to "dogmatic humanism." As Henk Jan de Jonge has explained, this meant that "almost all the theologians of seventeenth-century Leiden who concerned themselves with the explanation of the New Testament placed exegesis at the service of dogmatic objectives."4 Unlike his fellow Leiden theologians, Cocceius pursued biblical humanism and Christian Hebraism through the study of Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic-and he did so in a unique way. He was not the first to use Jewish commentaries and even Jewish post-biblical literature for the purpose of reconstructing the original Hebrew Bible, but he was innovative in praising rabbinic scholars as fellow humanists and in incorporating their scholarship into his Christological exegesis and philosophy. He did so, furthermore, not as an independent scholar or pastor or even as a professor of Hebrew; but as the holder of a university chair in theology at a confessionalized university in a century hostile to his brand of late humanism.Although he came to Leiden as a theologian, Cocceius had impressive training as an Orientalist. He had studied with the famous scholar Sixtinus Amama (1593-1629) and polished his Hebrew and Aramaic by working with a Jewish tutor from Hamburg.5 While still a student at Franeker, Cocceius wrote a translation and commentary of the Talmudic tractate Sanhedrin. A few years later he began composing commentaries on the Pentateuch, and, by the time he arrived at Leiden, he had completed one lecture, series of lectures, or piece of writing on every book of the Old Testament. These commentaries were based not only on Cocceius's extensive knowledge of Oriental languages but also on his readings of medieval Jewish commentators. These were the same commentators that Cocceius would later praise in chapter eight of the De ratione.These humanist achievements were much at variance with Cocceius's public persona as perhaps the most prominent Dutch Calvinist theologian of the seventeenth century. For approximately 100 years after his death in 1669 a faction of Leiden theologians calling themselves "Cocceians" battled the "Voetians," followers of Gisbertus Voetius, for the soul of the Dutch Church.6 At Leiden he lectured on the Pauline Epistles, a typical subject for a seventeenth-century Calvinist theologian, and he worked on his famous theological tract, the salvation-historical Summa doctrinae de foedere et testamento Dei (1648). Neither the De ratione nor his voluminous biblical commentary (except [End Page 384] for a short treatise on the last six chapters of Deuteronomy) was published in Cocceius's lifetime. His son Johann Heinrich released these and his father's... (shrink)

Assume this hypothetical situation: an American pharmaceutical company, Maxwell Fisch Pharmaceuticals, Inc., wishes to perform clinical trials involving a new antipsychotic medication, Klezac. Klezac is in its third phase of the clinical stage of the drug research process. Once the testing is complete, Maxwell plans to submit a New Drug Application, the official request to begin marketing Klezac, to the Food and Drug Administration. The new drug is expected to receive FDA approval in 2 or more years. The company decides (...) to shift its research and development activities to Z, a small, developing country. In doing so, Maxwell is following the course taken by numerous other drug companies who wish to take advantage of faster governmental approval in foreign sites and ensuing cheaper research costs. (shrink)

This volume is the product of an important recent conference, convened by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, focusing on the intellectual legacy of the Tibetan philosopher, yogi, and saint Tsongkhapa (1357-1419). Entitled "Jé Tsongkhapa: Life, Thought, and Legacy," the conference commemorated the sixth hundredth anniversary of Tsongkhapa's passing and was held on December 21-23, 2019, at Ganden Monastery in Mundgod, India. Part 1 concerns Madhyamaka, a natural reflection of the very important and well-known contributions Tsongkhapa made to the study of (...) Indian philosophical thought. The first essay, Guy Newland's "Start Making Sense: Finding Tsongkhapa's Middle Way," provides a straightforward and clear introduction to Tsongkhapa's interpretation of Madhyamaka philosophy, showing how Tsongkhapa played an essential role in clarifying Candrakīrti's contributions to Madhyamaka thought. The second essay, "Celebrating Jé Tsongkhapa: The Twofold Object of the Identity View" by Dr. Dechen Rochard explores Tsongkhapa's understanding of Candrakīrti's negation of individual identity. The essay neatly demonstrates the centrality of the practitioner's view of self to the path to spiritual awakening. In the third chapter, "Thinking Beyond Thought: Tsongkhapa and Mipham on the Conceptualized Ultimate," Jay L. Garfield explores Tsongkhapa's views on the nature of ultimate reality, specifically Tsongkhapa's argument that this entails a movement from inferential to direct awareness of emptiness. The essay explores the need for accurate philosophical analysis in the context of meditation practice so as to directly realize the truths about the nature of self and reality that are the objects of the practice. It thus nicely points to the integration of Buddhist theory and practice. The second section of this volume is dedicated to Tsongkhapa's writings on the tantras. In the first chapter in this section, "Tsongkhapa's Masterful Exegesis of Cakrasaṃvara Tantra," I elucidate Tsongkhapa's approach to the study of tantric literature with a focus on his commentary on the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra. Chapter 6 is Gavin Kilty's contribution, "A Lamp to Illuminate the Five Stages: Tsongkhapa's Reformatory Work on Guhyasamāja Tantra." Kilty first surveys the Guhyasamāja tradition and its transmission to Tibet and the two main Indian exegetical traditions, the Ārya and J.ānapāda schools. Outlining Tsongkhapa's approach to the Guhyasamāja Tantra, he then focuses on how the tradition conceptualizes the generation-stage and completion-stage practices. Chapter 7, "The Shadow of Heshang: Tsongkhapa on Chan, Dzokchen, and Mahāmudrā" by Roger R. Jackson. Jackson explores the claim that Tsongkhapa received and secretly transmitted esoteric instructions on advanced meditation practices to realize the nature of mind and awakening. The volume concludes with a section entitled "Moving Minds," which explores Tsongkhapa's legacy and impact both in Tibet and beyond. It opens with "Jé Tsongkhapa's Contribution to Buddhist Hermeneutics" by Geshé Ngawang Samten. Buddhist hermeneutics, as understood here, is a response to the challenge posed by scriptures that appear to contradict one another. Chapter 9, "Tsongkhapa's Hermeneutics and the Perfection of Wisdom," contributed by Gareth Sparham, takes a more focused look at the interpretation of the Perfection of Wisdom literature in both India and Tibet. The tenth chapter is "Jé Tsongkhapa's Teachings and Translations in Mongolian" by Bataa Mishig-Ish, who surveys the dissemination of Tsongkhapa's oeuvre to Mongolia. The final chapter is BhikṣuṇīThubten Chodron's "Learning, Living, and Teaching Bodhicitta: Jé Tsongkhapa's Contribution to Spreading Compassion in the World." Venerable Chodron argues that Tsongkhapa's approach to teaching compassion is particularly suited for the modern, Western context. While this volume does not come close to exhausting the limits of what might be said concerning the impact of Tsongkhapa's work in Tibet and beyond, it does reunite contributions to this study that briefly converged in Preface xi Mundgod, India, just before the global pandemic ushered in a new awareness of our profound human interdependence. Hopefully these essays will advance the appreciation of Tsongkhapa's intellectual legacy in the wider English-speaking world, where he remains a little understood figure of Asian religious history, unlike in the Tibetan-speaking world, where his impact is justly celebrated. (shrink)

Anne Conway rejects the view that creatures are essentially members of any natural kind more specific than the kind 'creature'. That is, she rejects essentialism about species membership. This chapter provides an analysis of one of Anne Conway's arguments against such essentialism, which (as I argue) is drawn from metaethical rather than metaphysical premises. In her view, if a creature's species or kind were inscribed in its essence, that essence would constitute a limit on the creature's potential to participate in (...) the divine good. It is this consideration that ultimately leads her to reject essentialism about species membership. The chapter concludes with an examination of some of the metaethical consequences of Conway's view as well as a lesson it can teach us about ideal adviser accounts of the good. (shrink)

There has recently been emphasis put on providing two-factor accounts of monothematic delusions. Such accounts would explain (1) whether a delusional hypothesis (e.g. someone else is inserting thoughts into my mind) can be understood as a prima facie reasonable response to an experience and (2) why such a delusional hypothesis is believed and maintained given its implausibility and evidence against it. I argue that if we are to avoid obfuscating the cognitive mechanisms involved in monothematic delusion formation we should split (...) the first factor (1 above) into two factors: how abnormal experience can give rise to a delusional ‘proto-hypothesis’ and how a ‘proto-hypothesis’ in consort with normal experiences and background information, can be developed into a delusional hypothesis. In particular I will argue that a schizophrenic is faced with the unusual requirement of having to identify an introspectively accessible thought as one's own, and that this requirement of identification is the central experiential abnormality of thought insertion, auditory verbal hallucination, and alien control (i.e. passivity symptoms). Additionally, I will consider non-experiential factors which are required for the formation of a delusional hypothesis. (shrink)

On some theories of rights, such as the Choice theory, only agents can have moral rights. The realm of right-holders thus excludes several potential candidates, among which are young children, mentally incapacitated persons, and groups since these are thought to lack the required degree of agency. This paper argues that groups can be right-holders. The argument comes in three steps: first, it is argued that full-blown or autonomous agency is not required for the possession of Choice theory rights, second, that (...) groups can be seen as agents, albeit in a limited sense, and third, that groups can make irreducibly collective choices in spite of their limited agency. The upshot of this argument is that groups can have rights, provided that they are organized around a coherent decision-making procedure; furthermore, this account can be employed to argue that other creatures of limited agency are possible right-holders. (shrink)

A recurring concern about luck egalitarianism is that its implementation would make some individuals, in particular those who lack marketable talents, experience shame. This, the objection goes, undermines individuals’ self-respect, which, in turn, may also lead to unequal respect between individuals. Loss of (self-)respect is a concern for any egalitarian, including distributive egalitarians, inasmuch as it is non-compensable. This paper responds to this concern by clarifying the relationship between shame and (self-)respect. We argue, first, a luck egalitarian society and ethos (...) would be radically different from the current one and incompatible with shame over lack of talent, and, second, that while shame may still occur in a less than ideal luck egalitarian society, this kind of shame does not undermine egalitarian commitments. (shrink)

The theme of this year’s Spindel Conference was Social Ontologies of Race. This editorial introduction serves as both a general introduction to the topic of racial ontology and an introduction to this volume’s contributions. I will first explain some central ideas for discussions of ontology in general. I will then make some basic taxonomic distinctions common to discussions of racial ontology and suggest some clarifications. I will then go on to discuss the five contributions to this volume.

Thought experiments have played a central role in philosophical methodology, largely as a means of elucidating the nature of our concepts and the implications of our theories.1 Particular attention is given to widely shared “folk” intuitions – the basic untutored intuitions that the layperson has about philosophical questions.2 The folk intuition is meant to underlie our core metaphysical concepts, and philosophical analysis is meant to explicate or sometimes refine these naïve concepts. Consistency with the deliverances of folk intuitions is a (...) sign that the philosopher is making contact with his object of interest. In order to explore folk concepts, people are often asked to provide their intuitions about a state of affairs in some alternate universe or possible world, one that differs in particular, precise ways from the way things are in the actual world. Here we provide evidence that people’s intuitions about moral responsibility sometimes diverge across worlds even when the facts about these worlds are the same. Which world one considers actual affects at least some philosophical judgments, suggesting that it is not just possible worlds to which our intuitions are tied. We will present several possible explanations for the asymmetry we have identified, and we’ll consider some implications for philosophical intuition. (shrink)

I argue that standard explanations of Du Bois' theory of race inappropriately characterize his view as attempting to provide descriptive criteria for races. Such an interpretation makes it both susceptible to Appiah's circularity objection and alienates it from Du Bois' central project of solidarity—which is the central point of “Conservation.” I propose that we should understand his theory as providing a normative account of race: an attempt to characterize what some races should be in terms of what other races are. (...) In providing such an account I will also show how my interpretation of Du Bois' criteria avoids the circularity objection by making the criteria central to the project of solidarity. Thus, this interpretation avoids what I take to be the two main problems with standard descriptive explanations of Du Bois' criteria. (shrink)

Biography of the French philosopher, Christian mystic, and social activist Simone Weil (1909-1943). Unrevised and unpublished proofs.

ics. Each of these can be pursued independently to a large extent, but perhaps most intriguing is to contem- plate how progress in each will affect the other. The past several months have seen heightened interest <blockquote> _<b>The Ethics of Neuroscience</b>_ </blockquote> in the intersection of ethics and neuroscience. In the The ethics of neuroscience can be roughly subdivided popular press, the topic grabbed headlines in a May.

David Rosenthal and Josh Weisberg have recently provided a counter argument to Ned Block’s argument that a Higher Order Thought theory of consciousness cannot accommodate the existence of hallucinatory conscious states . Their counter argument invokes the idea of mental appearances: a non-existent intentional object which is to aid in an account of subjective conscious awareness. I argue that if mental appearances are to do the work they are supposed to, we cannot draw a mental appearance/reality distinction. I provide an (...) alternative story that a HOT theorist can invoke to account for cases of conscious misrepresentation. Such a story will require denying the existence of hallucinatory conscious states while still accounting for conscious misrepresentation. This is a cost I believe the HOT theorist should be willing to pay. (shrink)

This paper argues that a putative conflict between negative rights and positive rights is not a genuine conflict. The thought that they might conflict presupposes, I argue, that the two rights are valid. This is the first assumption of my argument. The second is that general rights impose duties on everyone, not just the party who faces a conflict of correlative duties. These two assumptions yield the conclusion that positive rights impose enforceable duties on the holder of the negative right; (...) no right is thus infringed if this duty is enforced so no conflict occurs. If this is correct, it means that we can include welfare or socio-economic rights in a set of general rights without generating conflicts with negative rights to non-interference; this might clear some space for arguments that favour egalitarian redistribution although it does not show that general positive rights do exist. (shrink)

Mobile health tools are often said to empower users by providing them with the information they need to exercise control over their health. We aim to bring clarity to this claim, and in doing so explore the relationship between empowerment and autonomy. We have identified three distinct models embedded in the empowerment rhetoric: empowerment as information, empowerment as control, and empowerment as values. Each distinct model of empowerment gives rise to an associated problem. These problems, the Problem of Interpretation, the (...) Value Alignment Problem, and the Priority Problem, show that mobile health tools in their current form are either insufficient for empowerment or are self‐defeating. These digital health technologies encourage users to adopt an individualized conception of autonomy, one that may weaken the doctor–patient relationship and undermine practices in shared decision making, and ultimately may not deliver on improving the health outcomes for those that need it the most. (shrink)

The importance of the Tree of Life when looked at from its negative side will give the reader new perspective of the spiritual path. Ignorance of universal law can mean that when you think you are doing "good", you may actually be doing "evil". Consciousness is the key. This is an important book for students on any path.

Metaethical questions are typically held to be a priori , and therefore impervious to empirical evidence. Here I examine the metaethical claim that motive-internalism about belief , the position that moral beliefs are intrinsically motivating, is true. I argue that belief-internalists are faced with a dilemma. Either their formulation of internalism is so weak that it fails to be philosophically interesting, or it is a substantive claim but can be shown to be empirically false. I then provide evidence for the (...) falsity of substantive belief-internalism. I describe a group of brain-damaged patients who sustain impairment in their moral sensibility: although they have normal moral beliefs and make moral judgments, they are not inclined to act in accordance with those beliefs and judgments. Thus, I argue that they are walking counterexamples to the substantive internalist claim. In addition to constraining our conception of moral reasoning, this argument stands as an example of how empirical evidence can be relevantly brought to bear on a philosophical question typically viewed to be a priori. (shrink)

The first part of this paper surveys the current literature in the history of nineteenth-century mathematics in order to show that the question “Did the increasing abstraction of mathematics lead to a sense of anxiety?” is a new and valid question. I argue that the mathematics of the nineteenth century is marked by a growing appreciation of error leading to a note of anxiety, hesitant at first but persistent by 1900. This mounting disquiet about so many aspects of mathematics after (...) 1850 is seldom discussed. The second part explores the issue of anxiety in mathematical life through an interesting account of an address made by a mathematician in 1911, Oscar Perron. The third and final part ventures some conclusions about the value of anxiety as a question for historians of mathematics to pursue. (shrink)