In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Jacob Burckhardt, Religion, and the Historiography of “Crisis” and “Transition”Thomas Albert Howard*A great historical subject, the representation of which should be the high point of a historian’s life, must cohere sympathetically and mysteriously to the author’s innermost being.Jacob Burckhardt 1If you are to venture to interpret the past you can do so only out of the fullest exertion of the vigor of the present: only when you (...) can put forth your... qualities in all their strength will you divine what is worth knowing and preserving in the past.Friedrich Nietzsche 2The renowned nineteenth-century Swiss-German historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818–97) was a masterful historian of crises and transitional periods. Two of his major works, The Age of Constantine the Great (1852) and The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), bear out this claim. In his Constantine Burckhardt deals with the transition from late pagan antiquity to the early Christian Middle Ages, and in his more famous Renaissance he deals with the transition from the late Middle Ages to the beginnings of secular modernity. In the [End Page 149] latter, as is well known, he established one of the most compelling and creative theses in the history of modern historiography, virtually creating the “idea of the Renaissance” that has long influenced both scholarly and popular conceptions of that period. 3What elicited Burckhardt’s interest in crises and transitions in general and in these two periods of crisis and transition in particular? In this article, I shall argue that there is a strong relationship between Burckhardt’s own historical experience in the early and mid-nineteenth century and his choice of subject and mode of analysis in these two monumental works. In theoretical terms one observes a “dialectical” form of objectivity in the execution of Burckhardt’s historiographical tasks: a structural affinity or kinship between subject (Burckhardt, his historical experience) and object (late antiquity, Renaissance) predisposes Burckhardt to his theme/argument and thus provides a key to understanding the genesis and the character of insights that he offers in these two works. 4 To establish this point I shall focus on the category of religion, on Burckhardt’s own experience of questions of religious truth and skepticism in the nineteenth century, and on his treatment of religion in these two works.The Young Jacob Burckhardt and ReligionReligion is a crucial but often neglected aspect of Jacob Burckhardt’s thought. 5 Like a number of nineteenth-century German intellectuals, Burckhardt was a Pfarrersohn, a “pastor’s son.” 6 He grew up in a profoundly conservative Protestant environment in Basel, nicknamed “pious Basel” for its dogged resistance to the “ideas of 1789” and for its earlier heritage of Reformation and pietist religiosity. During Burckhardt’s youth in fact, his father was a children’s minister and head-deacon (Obersthelfer) before becoming in 1838 the city cathedral’s Antistes, the highest and most prestigious ecclesiastical office in Basel. In short, as his biographer Werner Kaegi has noted, Burckhardt’s early [End Page 150] upbringing and education were strongly shaped by the world of his father, a world of “old Protestant piety.” 7Following his father’s example, Burckhardt started out on the clerical track, studying theology at the University of Basel. However, during his Theologie-studium (1837–39) he experienced a profound crisis of faith brought on by an encounter with German historical biblical criticism and liberal theology represented in the person of W. M. L. de Wette (1780–1848). A radical theologian and biblical scholar, de Wette had wound up in Basel in 1822 after being dismissed from the University of Berlin for holding views considered heterodox and politically threatening by the conservative Prussian government. 8 In a letter to his friend Johannes Riggenbach written in August 1838 Burckhardt tells how de Wette’s critical theology had unseated his faith. “In my eyes,” Burckhardt wrote,de Wette’s system grows in stature every day; one simply must follow him, there is no alternative; but every day a part of our traditional church doctrine melts away under his hand. Today, finally, I realized that he regards the birth of Christ simply as a myth... (shrink)

This book offers an interpretation of the rise of secular historical thought in nineteenth-century Europe. Instead of characterizing 'historicism' and 'secularization' as fundamental breaks with Europe's religious heritage, they are presented as complex cultural permutations with much continuity; for inherited theological patterns of interpreting experience determined to a large degree the conditions, possibilities, and limitations of the forms of historical imagination realizable by nineteenth-century secular intellectuals. This point is made by examining the thought of the German theologian W. M. L. (...) de Wette and that of the Swiss-German historian Jacob Burckhardt. Burckhardt's meeting with de Wette and his subsequent decision to study history over theology are interpreted as revealing moments in nineteenth-century intellectual history. By examining their encounter, its larger historical context, and the thought of both men, the book demonstrates the centrality of theological concerns and forms of knowledge in the emergence of modern, secular historical consciousness. (shrink)

This essay is a reflection on Albert Camus’s revival during the COVID-19 pandemic of the early 2020s. The popularity of Camus’s novel, The Plague, is considered alongside his other writing as something that speaks to many throughout their lives. Such appraisal is interspersed with personal reflections on family life during pandemic lockdowns and the ways that Camus’s thought resounds in our everyday selves. Written in two parts at different times – mainly in 2020 and with a 2023 afterthought – (...) the essay critically acknowledges how Camus instructs us to live together with meaning and dignity in an age of catastrophe. (shrink)

In 1979, James S. and Jean M. Goodwin and Albert V. Vogel published the first of what became a series of articles that studied current patterns of placebo use. They surveyed 60 house officers and 37 nurses in a New Mexico teaching hospital. Only five of the 1900 patients hospitalized during the study period had received a placebo. Their subjects underestimated the pain relief provided by placebos and believed that a positive placebo response showed that the pain was psychogenic (...) and not “real.” The few patients who were prescribed placebos tended to be those whom the staff most disliked. A few other studies published during the 1980s showed similar results.Fast forward now to 2010.... (shrink)

Reviews the book, Behavior and mind: The roots of modern psychology by Howard Rachlin . There is an important story about causality in psychology that needs to be told. It is a story which was once well told and widely understood during the Hellenic era, but a number of influential forces in our culture have conspired since then to sweep this story into a dark corner of our intellectual warehouse. In recent centuries, this story has been retrieved from its (...) corner only rarely, and then it has been interpreted in a manner both unnatural to its originators and uncongenial to modern scientists. Authentic reconstructions of this story regarding causes and their effects began to re-emerge in the second half of the twentieth century among biologists and physicists, but it is still rarely heard in psychology. Rachlin's new book, however, tells this story as one of the central themes of the narrative. For this, if for no other reason, this is a book that should be read and carefully considered by all psychologists. The story alluded to is generally called "teleology," and it received its first full treatment by Aristotle in the fourth century before the Christian era. Rachlin delineates these origins, traces them carefully to the present day and develops a persuasive argument for the value and significance of this story for any complete psychological science. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Pierre Duhem's often unrecognized influence on twentieth-century philosophy of science is illustrated by an analysis of his significant if also largely unrecognized influence on Albert Einstein. Einstein's first acquaintance with Duhem's La Théorie physique, son objet et sa structure around 1909 is strongly suggested by his close personal and professional relationship with Duhem's German translator, Friedrich Adler. The central role of a Duhemian holistic, underdeterminationist variety of conventionalism in Einstein's thought is examined at length, with special emphasis on Einstein's (...) deployment of Duhemian arguments in his debates with neo-Kantian interpreters of relativity and in his critique of the empiricist doctrines of theory testing advanced by Schlick, Reichenbach, and Carnap. Most striking is Einstein's 1949 criticism of the verificationist conception of meaning from a holistic point of view, anticipating by two years the rather similar, but more famous criticism advanced independently by Quine in Two Dogmas of Empiricism. (shrink)

What is Albert Einstein’s place in the history of twentieth-century philosophy of science? Were one to consult the histories produced at mid-century from within the Vienna Circle and allied movements (e.g., von Mises 1938, 1939, Kraft 1950, Reichenbach 1951), then one would find, for the most part, two points of emphasis. First, Einstein was rightly remembered as the developer of the special and general theories of relativity, theories which, through their challenge to both scientific and philosophical orthodoxy made vivid (...) the need for a new kind of empiricism (Schlick 1921) whereby one could defend the empirical integrity of the theory of relativity against challenges 1 coming mainly from the defenders of Kant. Second, the special and general theories of relativity were wrongly cited as straightforwardly validating central tenets of the logical empiricist program, such as verificationism, and Einstein was wrongly represented as having, himself, explicitly endorsed those same philosophical principles. As we now know, logical empiricism was not the monolithic philosophical movement it was once taken to have been. Those associated with the movement disagreed deeply about fundamental issues concerning the structure and interpretation of scientific theories, as in the protocol sentence debate, and about the overall aims of the movement, as in the debate between the left and right wings 2 of the Vienna Circle over the role of politics in science and philosophy. Along with such differences went subtle differences in the assessment of Einstein’s legacy to logical empiricism. Philipp Frank–himself a dissenter from central points of right-wing Vienna Circle doctrine–deserves.. (shrink)

As the new director of Esprit, Paul Thibaud finds himself in an enviable, yet difficult and complex situation. Nearly half a century's tradition is a mixed blessing. The journal can call on contributors whose horizons extend beyond the tenacles of Paris, to the provinces, Europe and the Third World. Its reputation assures it a farflung readership and influence as well. Tradition can, of course, easily become habit and govern expectations: that is the danger that Jean-Marie Domenach successfully confronted when he (...) took over the directorship from Albert Benuin in 1957; and it is now Thibaud's problem in different social and political conditions. (shrink)

This article explores emotions and their relationship to ‘somatic responses’, i.e., one’s automatic responses to sensations of pain, cold, warmth, sudden intensity. To this end, it undertakes a Husserlian phenomenological analysis of the first-hand experience of eight basic emotions, briefly exploring their essential aspects: their holistic nature, their identifying dynamic transformation of the lived body, their two-layered intentionality, their involuntary initiation and voluntary espousal. The fact that the involuntary tensional shifts initiating emotions are irreplicatable voluntarily, is taken to show that (...) all emotions have an innate core, a conclusion corroborated by their strong similarities to somatic responses in dynamics, hedonic tone, and topology. The fact that emotions may be culturally reworked, is shown to be explicable in terms of their complex nature: their dependence on belief, their voluntary espousal, and their ready social transmittability. Finally, it is argued that emotions may plausibly be deemed the evolutionary descendants of somatic responses. (shrink)

Covers all philosophers appearing in standard textbooks, from Thales to Augustine . A brief introduction to each thinker or school summarizes their major themes.

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether there is a relationship between a person's degree of religiousness and corporate social responsibility orientation. A total of 411 managers and 506 students from seven universities were surveyed. The statistical analysis showed that religiousness does influence students' orientation toward the economic, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities of business. It does not, however, have a significant impact upon the managers' attitudes. When the "low religiousness" students and managers were compared, differences were found with (...) respect to the economic, ethical, and philanthropic components of corporate social responsibility. Similar results were obtained when the "high religiousness" students and managers were compared. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

As Descartes noted, a proper account of the nature of the being one is begins with a basic self present in first-person experience, a self that one cannot cogently doubt being. This paper seeks to uncover such a self, first within consciousness and thinking, then within the lived or first-person felt body. After noting the lack of grounding of Merleau-Ponty’s commonly referenced reflections, it undertakes a phenomenological investigation of the body that finds the basic self to reside in one’s espoused (...) feelings and striving, both bodily in nature. It then examines the relationship of the lived body to the visual body and to the body studied by science. Two issues concerning that relationship are taken up. It is concluded that on the available evidence neither the apparent agency nor the apparent free will of the lived body is illusory. (shrink)

This article examines the various Liar paradoxes and their near kin, Grelling’s paradox and Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem with its self-referential Gödel sentence. It finds the family of paradoxes to be generated by circular definition–whether of statements, predicates, or sentences–a manoeuvre that generates pseudo-statements afflicted with the Liar syndrome: semantic vacuity, semantic incoherence, and predicative catalepsy. Such statements, e.g., the self-referential Liar statement, are meaningless, and hence fail to say anything, a point that invalidates the reasoning on which the various paradoxes (...) rest. The seeming plausibility of the paradoxes is due to the fact that often the sentence used to make the pseudo-statement is ambiguous in that it may also be used to make a genuine statement about the pseudo-statement. Hence, if a formal system is to avoid ambiguity and consequent paradox and contradiction, it must distinguish between the two statements the sentence may be used to make. Gödel’s Theorem presents a further complication in that the self-reference involved is sentential rather than statemental. Nevertheless, on the intended interpretation of the system as a formalization of arithmetic, the self-referential Gödel sentence can only be an ambiguous statement, one that is both a pseudo-statement and its genuine double. Consequently, the conclusions commonly drawn from Gödel’s theorem must be deemed unwarranted. Arithmetic might well be formalized in a proper system that either excludes circular definition or introduces disambiguators. (shrink)

The various roles proposed for emotion, whether psychological such as preparing for action or serving prior concerns, or biological such as protecting and promoting well-being, are easily shown to have an awkward number of exceptions. This paper attempts to explain why. To this end it undertakes a Husserlian phenomenological examination of first-person experience of two types of responses, the various somatic responses elicited by sensations (pain, cold, pleasure, sudden intensity) and the various personal directed emotions (grief, fear, affection, joy). The (...) analysis brings out the overall close structural symmetry between the two types of response and the strong hedonic, dynamic, and topological similarity between particular members from each of the two groups. The findings strongly suggest that emotions evolved from the more rudimentary involuntary somatic responses. The hypothesis finds further support in the fact that it explains both the biological unsoundness and anomalous archaic features that emotions often display. It also explains why emotions have no tidy function. (shrink)

The modern era was dominated by conflicts between claims to certainty about justice and denials that certainty is warranted. The purpose of this book is to develop a postmodern alternative to both philosophies, one which is universal without being absolutist. The approach is _dialectical_ in Plato's sense of that term. Dialectic is both necessary and sufficient for the theoretical and the practical aspects of living. The primary symbol in this book is the Athenian Socrates who spent his days in the (...) Agora and his evenings in the houses of his friends, the active professionals of the world's first democracy. His questions were unabashedly philosophical, concerned with the most urgent matters. What is worth living for? What is worth dying for? Who is best suited to rule in the state? How should young people be educated? The nature of justice is closely connected with other questions of value, so the discussion freely moves from that central focus to related matters with the primary goal of developing a dialectical philosophy that is both applicable to life and open to all. _Universal Justice_ is concerned with _how_ to think about justice rather than _what_ to think about justice. (shrink)

This article is a sequel to ‘The Liar Syndrome’. It answers in detail the various criticisms of the latter expressed by Roy T. Cook in his article, ‘Curing the Liar Syndrome’, appearing in SATS/Nordic Journal of Philosophy, 3 (2): 126-141 (2002).

This article examines the various Liar paradoxes and their near kin, Grelling’s paradox and Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem with its self-referential Gödel sentence. It finds the family of paradoxes to be generated by circular definition–whether of statements, predicates, or sentences–a manoeuvre that generates the fatal disorders of the Liar syndrome: semantic vacuity, semantic incoherence, and predicative catalepsy. Afflicted statements, such as the self-referential Liar statement, fail to be genuine statements. Hence they say nothing, a point that invalidates the reasoning on which (...) the various paradoxes rest. The seeming plausibility of the paradoxes is due to the fact that the same sentence may be used to make both the pseudo-statement and a genuine statement about the pseudo-statement. Hence, if a formal system is to avoid ambiguity and consequent seeming paradox, it requires some sort of disambiguator to distinguish the two statements. Gödel’s Theorem presents a further complication in that the self-reference involved is sentential rather than statemental. Nevertheless, on the intended interpretation of the system as a formalization of arithmetic, the self-referential Gödel sentence can only be an ambiguous statement, one that is both a pseudo-statement and its genuine double. Consequently, the conclusions commonly drawn from Gödel’s theorem must be deemed unwarranted. Arithmetic might well be formalized in a proper system that either excludes circular definition or introduces disambiguators. (shrink)

This essay explores the nature of the most rudimentary form of empathy, interpersonal affective echoing, and attempts to give a cogent assessment of the roles it may play in human interactions. As an investigative background, it briefly sketches phenomenological findings with respect to feelings, to non-linguistic cognition, and to the analogical apperception of others. It then offers a phenomenological account of the basic structures of the experience of echoing another person’s feelings in a face-to-face situation. It also notes how echoing (...) differs from analogical apperception (while presupposing the latter), as well as from having one’s usual feelings and emotions. The relationship of echoing to sharing, caring, and morality is also briefly discussed. (shrink)

This book contains fifteen essays all seeking to regain the original meaning of philosophy as the love of wisdom. _Mythos_ and _Logos_ are two essential aspects of a quest that began with the ancient Greeks. As concepts fundamental to human experience, _Mythos_ and _Logos_ continue to guide the search for truth in the twenty-first century.

Several differences between these two texts are evident even from such brief excerpts. Gardner’s story is told in the first person; the eighth-century tale is narrated in the third person. English itself has changed so much in the past twelve centuries that few readers can understand the original, so it must be translated into modern idiom. John Gardner, who died recently in a motorcycle accident, lived in a society that has little in common with that of the unknown author of (...) Beowulf. Not only is the atomic age filled with terrors undreamed by the Medieval mind, the Weltanschauung of each work is different. Although both draw upon Biblical texts to shape the background, Gardner’s existentialism contrasts sharply with the Christianity implicit in Beowulf. The very idea of presenting the story from the perspective of Grendel shows how fundamentally the two pieces diverge. (shrink)

In recent years it has become popular to model putative refutations of skepticism on Kant's answer to Hume, that is, on transcendental arguments purporting to show that the skeptical theses presupposes essential features of the very conceptual scheme they call into question. In his book, Oneself as Another, Paul Ricoeur makes the claim that transcendental considerations of the sort invalidate Edmund Husserl's foundationalist epistemological enterprise, that of uncovering the genesis of primitive concepts of oneself, world, and others in a primordial (...) solipsistic stage from which all trace of others is excluded. According to Ricoeur the concept of others must be presupposed throughout. This paper examines the experiential evidence for four of the transcendental arguments endorsed by Ricoeur, each treating one of four key concepts--the concept of oneself as subject, that of one's flesh, that of one's body, and that of other selves. It finds that in each case Ricoeur’s argument fails, and that in each case Husserl is right to claim that a rudimentary nonlinguistic concept may arise within the confines of first-person perceptual experience. The paper then briefly examines the source of Ricoeur's erroneous evaluation. (shrink)

Roughly characterized, solipsism is the skeptical thesis that there is no reason to think that anything exists other than oneself and one’s present experience. Since its inception in the reflections of Descartes, the thesis has taken three broad and sometimes overlapping forms: Internal World Solipsism that arises from an account of perception in terms of representations of an external world; Observed World Solipsism that arises from doubts as to the existence of what is not actually present sensuously in experience; Unreal (...) World Solipsism that arises from doubts as to the reality of the perceived world. This book attempts to give a rationally warranted refutation of all three forms. Over time, a vast number of putative rebuttals of solipsism have been proposed. The first half of the book clears the terrain for more productive investigation by showing in detail how each of these various responses fails. Among the simpler of such responses is the claim to have knowledge and certainty about everyday matters (Moore, Austin, Quinton, Pollock). Another is to appeal to pragmatic considerations dictated by the fact of one’s living in the world (Wittgenstein, Rescher, Ayer, Will, Strawson). Yet another is to undermine the skeptical thesis by applying it to itself (Plato, Hume, Russell, Johnson). All of these simpler approaches are found to be inadequate or irrelevant (Chapters 2 and 3). Other responses are more complex in that they presuppose certain basic positions with regard to the nature of cognition, meaning, language, or thought. Consequently, showing how they fail often involves showing the falsity of their underlying views. One such approach maintains that any empirical enquiry presupposes the existence of material objects (Neurath, Wittgenstein, Sellars, Quine, Gurwitsch, Williams, Rorty, BonJour), and that consequently solipsism is a problem peculiar to a mistaken foundationalist epistemology that purports to derive all warranted belief about the world from sensuous data. However, on examination, the various lines of reasoning advanced are found to be fallacious (Chapter 4). A closely-related approach is to claim that any empirical enquiry presupposes background truths, and that consequently solipsism is parasitic in the sense that it is based on truths that it purports to deny (Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Sellars, Quine). Such a self-contradictory situation is shown to obtain for only one form of solipsism, representational solipsism with its classical external world problem dating back to Descartes (Chapter 5). Another approach is to appeal to linguistic considerations in order to level charges of meaninglessness against solipsism (Wittgenstein, Austin, Ryle, Putnam, Clarke, Stroud). However, the charges are easily shown to be unwarranted (Chapter 6), a conclusion subsequently corroborated by a briefly sketched first-person account of meaning (Chapter 7). A further approach is to claim that all philosophical thinking must involve linguistic concepts, that language is intersubjective and tied to objects, and hence that solipsism is conceptually parasitic, and hence calls into question a conceptual scheme that it presupposes (Kant, Strawson, Wittgenstein, Sellars, Quine, Rorty). However, it may be shown that language is not incorrigibly wedded to objects, and in revised form it may be used to state solipsistic theses (Chapter 8). This conclusion is further supported by a refutation of various arguments against the possibility of private language (Wittgenstein, Sellars, Goodman, Rorty, Gadamer), as well as by the empirical evidence of everyday thinking that commonly takes place without reliance on the structures of public language (Chapter 9). The final chapters are more directly constructive. Following foundationalist procedure, a survey is undertaken of the sensuous data of first-person experience in its various modalities and their interrelationships (Chapter 10). An account is given of the bodily nature of the experiencing subject or self that feels, that wills, and that thinks, as well as of the spontaneity of the self or its capacity for free choice (Chapter 11). Rational warrant is then provided for thinking that items randomly perceived through a subject’s spontaneity or free will, continue to exist when unperceived, thus refuting forms of Observed World Solipsism that deny the existence of unperceived objects (Chapter 12). Finally, it is argued with regard to Unreal World Solipsism that while the scenarios it proposes cannot be dismissed as impossible, the absence of any supporting evidence whatever in their favor makes the espousal of any of them both arbitrary and an irrational leap (Chapter 13). (shrink)