L'histoire de la philosophie a toujours vu en Plotin un metaphysicien. Porphyre ne dit-il pas de son maitre qu'il connaissait parfaitement la geometrie, l'arithmetique, la mecanique, l'optique et la musique, mais qu'il n'etait pas enclin a approfondir davantage ces disciplines? Ce peu de gout pour les mathematiques et la physique n'a pourtant pas empeche Plotin de rediger quelques traites exclusivement connsacres a des questions de physique et de cosmologie, traites qui furent les grands oublies des etudes neioplatoniciennes. Parmi ceux-ci, le (...) traite Sur le ciel est d'une importance capitale aussi bien en raison du sujet qu'il aborde que du debat philosophique qu'il engage avec la tradition. La vision plotinienne du monde et du ciel doit en effet trouver sa place au sein des theories cosmologiques dominantes de son epoque: celles transmises par le Timee de Platon, le De Caelo d'Aristote et la vision stoicienne de l'univers. Il va sans dire que Plotin se veut un exegete des doctrines platoniciennes, mais le present traite montre peut-etre plus que tout autre la difficile cohabitation de l'independance d'esprit et de la fidelite aux textes du maitre. Ce qui se presente comme une exegese du Timee devient en fait une trahison des enseignements qui y sont contenus. Le traite II, 1 [40] fut le theatre d'une rebellion, celle d'un interprete platonicinen qui tente de lire dans le Timee une theorie qui ne s'y trouve pas. (shrink)

2010 Reprint of 1905 edition.This work is the magnum opus of Bucke's career, a project that he researched and wrote over many years. In it, Bucke described his own experience, that of contemporaries, and the experiences and outlook of historical figures including Buddha, Jesus, Paul, Plotinus, Muhammad, Dante, Francis Bacon, and William Blake. Bucke developed a theory involving three stages in the development of consciousness: the simple consciousness of animals; the self-consciousness of the mass of humanity ; and cosmic (...) consciousness - an emerging faculty and the next stage of human development. Among the effects of this progression, he believed he detected a lengthy historical trend in which religious conceptions and theologies had become less and less fearful. A classic work. (shrink)

This work consists in a bibliography of plotinian studies published between 1950-2000. All the major existing bibliographical indexes have been put to contribution to offer a comprehensive list of more than 1500 entries, collected in a single and easy-to-use book.

The Morality of Happiness is a marvelous book, one that I read with excitement and admiration for the author’s command over her subject and the philosophical richness of her ideas. It is an examination of some of the leading themes of ancient ethics: happiness, virtue, nature, and the proper relation between self and others. Annas does not try to present a comprehensive treatment of the whole of classical moral philosophy, since Socrates, Plato, and Plotinus are left aside. It is (...) Aristotle and the Stoics who receive most emphasis, although the Epicureans and the Skeptics also play an important role in her discussion. In spite of these self-imposed limitations, this is a work of extremely wide scope; I don’t know of any other from which a reader can learn so much about ancient moral theory. And it is also an important contribution in its own right to moral philosophy, because it always discusses ancient material with a view to its implications for the ways in which ethics has been transformed in the modern period and is practiced today. Annas is at pains to deny that ancient ethics suffers in comparison with modern moral philosophy; on the contrary, she finds contemporary ethical thought to be barren and out of touch with what people care about. The ancient ethical theories—particularly those of Aristotle and the Stoics—are ones she thinks we can profitably use to remedy this situation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 453 PAUL HENRY (19o6-1984) Paul Henry was a renowned scholar of Plotinus and Neo-Platonism. Born in Louvain, the son of a chemistry professor at the university there, he was sent to school in England during World War I. He then returned to Belgium, and studied philosophy and theology at Louvain, and joined the Society of Jesus. He did further studies in Paris in Middle Eastern culture, (...) and studied Arabic in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. In Rome he did further studies and received an S.T.D. from the Pontifical Gregorian University, as well as a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Gregorian University. He was appointed professor at the Institut Catholique in Paris. He published several fundamental studies on Plotinus and the development of NeoPlatonism in Western thought. He and Hans Rudolf Schwyzer of Zurich collaborated on the critical edition of Plotinus's Enneads,and he and his former student, Pierre Hadot, produced the critical edition of the theological treatises of Marius Victorinus. Paul Henry made his first visit to the United States in 1952 where he was a visiting professor at Fordham. At a meeting of the American Philosophical Association that year he met Richard Popkin. They became close friends. This led to Henry being invited to be a visiting professor at the University of Iowa, to give the Foster lecture on the immortality of the soul at the University of California, Berkeley, and to his later being appointed a regular professor at the University of California, San Diego. He also was a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Duke, Northwestern, the College of New Rochelle and St. John's University in New York. Paul Henry was an important consultant and adviser to the JournaloftheHistoryofPhilosophy in its early years. With his vast erudition, his understanding of the different kinds of scholarship being undertaken in Europe and America, in Catholic and non-Catholic institutions, he was able to assist us in finding the best scholarly articles, the best referees and reviewers of materials in many fields. Paul Henry was a person of immense charm, vivacity and humanity. He was able to break down barriers between people of differing backgrounds, and to form deep, abiding friendships with students and scholars all over the world. He took great interest in a variety of ventures to increase learning and understanding in intellectual history. His concerns ranged from early Christian thought, pagan Neo-Platonism, the fusion of the two in Victorinus and Augustine, up to leading intellectual ideas in modern European thought such as the structuralism of LeviStrauss and the theology of Teilhard de Chardin. He encouraged young and maturing scholars in America and Europe, and tried to bring out the very best of their abilities. He encouraged the understanding of different thought systems, the appreciation of their strengths and weaknesses. And, perhaps as much as any one in the post-second-World-War period, he encouraged frank and open discussions between Catholic and non-Catholic scholars, and thereby built many bridges. Those who knew him have profited immensely from his learning, wisdom and humanity. Those who worked to launch and develop the Journal are especially grateful for his help and support in the early days of this venture. We hope that his scholarship will encourage many others to develop fresh understandings of Neo-Platonism and its importance in the philosophical, theological and scientific world, from ancient times to the present. He will be sorely missed, but he has left a great legacy to those working in the history of philosophy. RICHARD H. POPKIN... (shrink)

Sorely needed by scholars of nineteenth-century philosophy is a researdh bibliography on Francis Herbert Bradley (1846-1924). The existent bibliographic tools presently available on Bradley are very incomplete, inaccurate, and outdated, making them valueless for serious philosophical research on this very important contemporary philosopher. Every major book, review, doctoral dissertation, article, and note is cited exactly and completely. Approximately a thousand different citations are given indicating the tremendous influence Bradley's thought had on subsequent thinkers and movements. It is no minor thinker (...) who could influence deeply a Russell, James, or Whitehead. Like Plotinus before'him, Bradley's place in philosophy has not been fully appreciated because of the artificial divisions of philosophy proposed by its historians. In any event, this bibliography is offered to scholars whose interests are English Idealism in general and Bradley's philosophic contributions in particular. (shrink)

Al-Farabi and His School examines one of the most exciting and dynamic periods in the development of medieval Islam: the period which ran from the late ninth century to the early eleventh century AD. This age is examined through the thought of five of its principal thinkers and named after the first and greatest of these as the "Age of Farabism." Ian Richard Netton demonstrates that the great Islamic philosopher al-Farabi (870-950), called "the Second Master" after Aristotle, produced a (...) recognizable school of thought. This school of thought, which Netton refers to as the "School of al-Farabi," was influenced by the thought of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus. Yet, it was much more than a mere clone of Greek thought. The originality and independence of thought expressed by such adherents as Yahya b. Adi, Abu Sulayman al-Sijistani, al-Amiri and Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi is described, appreciated, and critically assessed in this volume, with an emphasis given to the fundamentals of epistemology. Al-Farabi and His School is unique in its examination of the intellectual continuity that was maintained in an age of flux, and its particular emphasis on the ethical dimensions of knowledge. (shrink)

Paul Richard Blum Et nuper Plethon – Ficino's Praise of Georgios Gemistos ABSTRACT Most authors who refer to Marsilio Ficino's famous Prooemium to his translation of Plotinus, addressed to Lorenzo de'Medici, discuss the alleged foundation of the Platonic Academy in Florence, but rarely continue reading down the same page, where – for a second time – Georgios Gemistos Plethon is mentioned. The passage contains more than one surprising claim: 1. Pletho is a reliable interpreter of Aristotle. 2. Pletho (...) and Pico are the most recent Aristotelians, more precisely, they are the latest candle bearers of true Aristotelian tradition. 3. Pletho, alongside with the other authors mentioned, is religiously orthodox. In this paper I show that these statements are contrafactual, and discuss the reasons for Ficino's attempt at making Plethon and Pico his allies. Ficino suggests that Pico and Pletho are representatives of such "philosophic religion" that eventually might convert the Aristotelians to the same piety that unites Pico, Plethon, and the Platonizing interpreters of Aristotle. Pletho's agenda was to restore ancient pagan wisdom in order not to supplant Christianity. Ficino's device to counter corrupt Aristetelianism is to create a counter-tradition, that parallels Platonism, namely the pious reading of Aristotle. He employed the figure of young Pico as having urged him to translate Plotinus. Pico serves as a step stone between the Council of Florence, when in 1439 Cosimo encountered Pletho, and the new translation of Plotinus. The divine inspiration, instilled by Pletho and forwarded from Cosimo via Pico to Ficino christianizes the project, which would sound dubitable, if related only to Pletho. Thus Pico was to help saving Ficino's reputation as a religious philosopher. For this purpose, Ficino had to parallel Pletho with the unsuspected Pico, to the effect that Pletho becomes so to say christened. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Lost Italian Renaissance: Humanists, Historians, and Latin’s LegacyPaul Richard BlumChristopher S. Celenza. The Lost Italian Renaissance: Humanists, Historians, and Latin’s Legacy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Pp. xx + 210. Cloth, $45.00This is a programmatic book about why and how philosophy should care about Renaissance texts. Celenza starts with an assessment of the neglect of the wealth of Latin Renaissance [End Page 485] sources (...) by nineteenth-century historiography, followed by portraits of two prototypal twentieth-century historians and their philosophical approach. He proposes a method of study for Renaissance thinkers and exemplifies it with two key figures and with the concept of honor. A survey of the field of study and an appendix concerning Renaissance research in the US conclude the book."The Renaissance" as a field of research between the Middle Ages and what is now cowardly called "Early Modern" became legitimate through the awakening of national consciousness in the nineteenth century. Consequently, the emphasis lay on vernacular language works in Italy and elsewhere. Latin Renaissance literature never was worthy of Grossforschung, i.e., of national projects like the academy enterprises concerning world history or classical studies, even though classical philology originated in the humanists' emulation of the ancients. This however would be absorbed by the nineteenth-century idea of national character (12).Italian Hegelianism of the nineteenth and early-twentieth century included Renaissance philosophy in the evolution of national spirit, and the late Eugenio Garin as its pupil spent his scholarly life portraying with astounding precision and detail Italian Humanism and Renaissance as a dialectic and rational development. Equally diligent was the German born Paul Oskar Kristeller, clinging, however, to a very different understanding of philosophy, which Celenza describes as rationalist in the Kantian and metaphysical in the Platonico-Aristotelian tradition (41). Here the author underestimates the influence of Heidegger on Kristeller: his dissertation was clearly an interpretation of Plotinus in the light of existentialism, which still transpires in his famous Ficino book and many later philosophical statements. The problem with both approaches, that of Garin and that of Kristeller, is that those philosophers who ignore history (deliberately or incidentally) and those who lost an understanding of metaphysics do not know how to read Renaissance thinkers.'Microhistory' is the formula Celenza proposes: Richard Rorty's abolishing the notion of 'representing' reality in favor of evocation and conversation—both for the interpretation of the past and the past itself—and Pierre Bourdieux's notions of 'field' and 'relational thinking' open the possibility of locating past thinkers in their community and, consequently, the meaning of their philosophical endeavor. What Celenza exercised with Garin and Kristeller applies also to Renaissance authors. Under the heading 'Orthodoxy,' Celenza shows that it is unfortunate to censure Lorenzo Valla (+ 1457) or Marsilio Ficino (+ 1499) as being unorthodox or as precursors to the Reformation, because this perspective misses the point of their lives' work—namely, to find out what makes Christian beliefs and their sources Christian. Valla's discoveries in Greek and Latin philology and Ficino's experiments with magic are part of their scrutiny of orthopraxy (my term), the right way of Christian life, and are embedded in their conversations with friend and foe, who in some cases still await discovery. The far-reaching message of these two samples is: reading their work and studying their conversations is the way to study philosophy in the fifteenth century.The same is proven by engaging in social concepts such as 'honor.' Starting with a surprising appreciation of gender studies, Celenza suggests taking a look at intellectual masculinity among courtiers and writers. Then it turns out that Machiavelli bequeathed to modernity—perhaps as a caricature—the structure of struggle for power, ideas, and provision in which humanists were engaged, being the first large generation of intellectuals outside the safe haven of cathedrals and convents."What is really there?" is the concluding question. A new canon, the prelude to early modern sociology of scholarship, and models of—presently highly acclaimed—contextualization of intellectual productivity. Returning to the Latinity of Renaissance sources Celenza shows that even the emergence of vernacular literature, which bewitched nationalist historiography, was by itself a fruit... (shrink)

Environmental ethicists have frequently criticized ancient Greek philosophy as anti-environmental for a view of philosophy that is counterproductive to environmental ethics and a view of the world that puts nature at the disposal of people. This provocative collection of original essays reexamines the views of nature and ecology found in the thought of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and Plotinus. Recognizing that these thinkers were not confronted with the environmental degradation that threatens contemporary philosophers, the contributors to this book find (...) that the Greeks nevertheless provide an excellent foundation for a sound theory of environmentalism. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

The proof theory of many-valued systems has not been investigated to an extent comparable to the work done on axiomatizatbility of many-valued logics. Proof theory requires appropriate formalisms, such as sequent calculus, natural deduction, and tableaux for classical (and intuitionistic) logic. One particular method for systematically obtaining calculi for all finite-valued logics was invented independently by several researchers, with slight variations in design and presentation. The main aim of this report is to develop the proof theory of finite-valued first order (...) logics in a general way, and to present some of the more important results in this area. In Systems covered are the resolution calculus, sequent calculus, tableaux, and natural deduction. This report is actually a template, from which all results can be specialized to particular logics. (shrink)

Logic has pride of place in mathematics and its 20th century offshoot, computer science. Modern symbolic logic was developed, in part, as a way to provide a formal framework for mathematics: Frege, Peano, Whitehead and Russell, as well as Hilbert developed systems of logic to formalize mathematics. These systems were meant to serve either as themselves foundational, or at least as formal analogs of mathematical reasoning amenable to mathematical study, e.g., in Hilbert’s consistency program. Similar efforts continue, but have been (...) expanded by the development of sophisticated methods to study the properties of such systems using proof and model theory. In parallel with this evolution of logical formalisms as tools for articulating mathematical theories (broadly speaking), much progress has been made in the quest for a mechanization of logical inference and the investigation of its theoretical limits, culminating recently in the development of new foundational frameworks for mathematics with sophisticated computer-assisted proof systems. In addition, logical formalisms developed by logicians in mathematical and philosophical contexts have proved immensely useful in describing theories and systems of interest to computer scientists, and to some degree, vice versa. Three examples of the influence of logic in computer science are automated reasoning, computer verification, and type systems for programming languages. (shrink)

This study reconstructs the relationship between philosophy and politics in the way in which Heidegger's failure as a politician influenced the redevelopment of philosophy in the 1930s. The author also explains how Heidegger's failure influenced the content and direction of his later work.

Studies the politics of Heidegger in terms of "thrownness" or "existential contingency". Attempts to think through Heidegger's philosophy in a manner that parallels his own dialogue with other key western thinkers.

Despite their differences in origin, the three influential schools of twentieth-century continental cultural criticism--the Frankfurt School, existentialism, and poststructuralism--have long been treated as an ensemble and with critical hesitancy. Examining these schools as responses to the apparent collapse of Western civilization in the twentieth-century and as formidable intellectual challenges to the cultural legacies of the Enlightenment, this book provides a productive base for criticism and broadens our understanding of their histories and reception.

Having visited Ireland regularly during the 1930s, Ludwig Wittgenstein resigned his Cambridge philosophy professorship in 1947 and moved there, living in a fishing village on the Atlantic coast and hotels in Dublin and the Wicklow Mountains. Although Wittgenstein spent some time out of the country, Ireland was effectively his base for three very productive years during which he worked on what would become one of his key books, the posthumously published Philosophical Investigations. Wittgenstein in Ireland represents the first sustained account (...) of Wittgenstein's time in Ireland, placing it in its historical context. Wall pays a good deal of attention to the representation of the Irish landscape in which the Austrian philosopher found himself able to work; a large part of his writings were produced in the bleak landscapes of Ireland and Norway. (shrink)

Methods available for the axiomatization of arbitrary finite-valued logics can be applied to obtain sound and complete intelim rules for all truth-functional connectives of classical logic including the Sheffer stroke and Peirce’s arrow. The restriction to a single conclusion in standard systems of natural deduction requires the introduction of additional rules to make the resulting systems complete; these rules are nevertheless still simple and correspond straightforwardly to the classical absurdity rule. Omitting these rules results in systems for intuitionistic versions of (...) the connectives in question. (shrink)

Textbook on Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and computability theory, based on the Open Logic Project. Covers recursive function theory, arithmetization of syntax, the first and second incompleteness theorem, models of arithmetic, second-order logic, and the lambda calculus.

This classic, provocative introduction to classical metaphysical questions focuses on appreciating the problems, rather than attempting to proffer answers.

Drawing on case studies from around the world - including Iran, Guatemala, USA and Mexico - this collection documents how transnational human rights discourses and legal institutions are materialised, imposed, resisted and transformed in a variety of contexts.

Written by a former student of Heidegger, this book examines the relationship between the philosophy and the politics of a celebrated teacher and the allure that Nazism held out for scholars committed to revolutionary nihilism.

In this study, Worsley argues that it is rational to believe in a loving God in the face of evil. Beginning with a critique of Alvin Plantinga, he shows that human freedom is highly complex, and so depends upon complex structures in nature. These are both necessary for freedom but also sufficient for natural evil. He offers close analysis of the evolution of the human brain. The book develops a parallel argument that human evil stems from the evolution of personality.

. History of the concept of economic efficiency . INTRODUCTION James Buchanan won the Nobel Prize by proving that the process by which elected officials ...

This book is the complete story of the creation of the universe, as it was understood by the ancient Egyptians. It is a collection of harmonic and radical 'Black Thoughts' and the pursuit of equality for all of this planet's inhabitants"--P. vii.