This is a study of the nature of time. In it, redeploying an argument first presented by McTaggart, the author argues that although time itself is real, tense is not. He accounts for the appearance of the reality of tense - our sense of the passage of time, and the fact that our experience occurs in the present - by showing how time is indispensable as a condition of action. Time itself is further analysed, and Dr Mellor gives answers to (...) most of the metaphysical questions it provokes, concerning the relation of time to space, the dissection of time, and its relation to change and causation. (shrink)

Man (Islam); Islamic philosophy; Islamic ethics.

Dans ce volume considérable, on été réunies les contributions d'un Congrès international tenu à Louvain en 1998 pour marquer l'achèvement de la première édition de la Théologie Platonicienne de Proclus. Ces contributions, toutes rigoureusement centrées sur la Théol. Plat. concernent (1) les principes et les sources de la Théol. plat. (2) Les méthodes théologiques de Proclus (3) La postérité de la Théol. plat. dans le monde grec, païen comme chrétien, et dans le monde islamique. Des indices très détaillés permettent de (...) retrouver tous les passages cités et commentés dans ce volume. (shrink)

Collected sayings of Muslim Caliphs and saints.

The problem which I propose to consider is not whether the distinctions past, present, future, characterize the form of time in such a way that whatever may be true concerning the reality of one of these characteristics must be equally true of the others, but the more particular question of the kind of existence which belongs to the content of the past, or its constituents as events.

This paper is a reply to a recent Metaphysica paper advocating an ‘unrestricted actualism’ which lets the actual world include unrealised possible outcomes of propensities. I argue that the actual world can accommodate propensity theories of chance without including unrealised possibilities.

First published in 1962, Freedom and History expresses a deep concern about freedom and the way it is imperilled by misunderstandings. Professor Lewis examines works of T.H. Green and compares Green with Locke and Rousseau.

In the period between Constantine's reunification of the Empire in 324 and the deposition of Romulus Augustulus in 476 M. Valerius Probus enjoyed a large reputation as master of all areas of the ars grammatica. The commentary on Terence attributed to Donatus and the commentary of Servius on Virgil cite him more often than they do any other ancient authority. His fame persisted through the Dark Ages. Eugenius of Toledo set him with Varius and Tucca against Aristarchus, the greatest of (...) the Alexandrian students of Homer. Modern writers on the history of Roman scholarship have estimated in widely different ways his quality as a textual critic, the level of his reputation during the century after his death and the influence which his activities had on the transmission of the Latin classics. That he ‘annotated’ at least some of these in the manner of an Aristarchus is not in dispute, but everything about the nature of his ‘annotation’ is. This paper will treat afresh a famous statement about Probus in Suetonius' De grammaticis, two lists of notae associated with Probus’ name in a late eighth-century manuscript from Monte Cassino, cod. Paris, Bibl. Nat. lat. 7530, two references to such notae which have been detected in Virgilian scholia and a number of statements in these scholia which appear to give Probus’ reasons for affixing notae. The results of my study are largely negative but may help to control general discussion of the history of a number of Latin texts. (shrink)

First published in 1959, Our Experience of God examines the relationship between philosophy and religion. The author argues that, we cannot construct a religion for ourselves out of merely philosophical elements, and that the attempt to provide some philosophical or similar substitute for religion, as it normally presents itself, is misconceived. It brings themes like religion and belief; belief and mystery; religion and transcendence; history and dogma; material factors in religion; symbolism and tradition; art and religion; religion and morality; and (...) encounter and immediacy, to show that the place of philosophy in religion is not to provide proofs for beliefs but to make more explicit for us what is the nature and status of the beliefs we do hold and commend to others. This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of religion, philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

1. Introduction. Logique.--2. Cosmologie.

The two other commentators, being, like Professor Laudan, scholars, have commented on the whole of his book. As a mere philosopher, I may perhaps be forgiven if I get little further than the first chapter of Progress and Its Problems.We know that the practice of science increases our knowledge and understanding of things and events, and consequently our capacity to predict and control them. That is why the practice of science interests philosophers who are concerned to say how such knowledge (...) and understanding, such capacity for prediction and control, can be acquired. It challenges them to show why scientific practice should deliver these cognitive goods. Some who decline the challenge, or fail to meet it, may deny that it does deliver the goods; but their conscious practice, of preferring aircraft to broomsticks for flight and telephones to telepathy for communication, belies the sincerity of their denials. (shrink)

This paper attacks two contrary views. One denies that nature has joints, taking the properties we call natural to be merely artefacts of our theories. The other accepts real natural properties but takes their naturalness to come by degrees. I argue that both are wrong: natural properties are real, and their naturalness no more comes by degrees than does the naturalness of the things that havethem.

On the propagation and preaching in Islam against evil deeds and on the process of accountability in Islam.

As Anthony Tol explains in his general introduction to (his translation of) Vollenhoven's 1926 inaugural address, the Reformed epistemology that Vollenhoven espouses here is essentially three-layered. Most basic is the intuition - the starting point of all knowing. It starts with discerning. Then there is knowledge. At this point language, communication, and judgments are relevant. The third layer is thought. Thought may disclose and renew or criticize and correct against the background of what we know. Thought is also central to (...) concept formation. The factor that runs through these three layers is truth, taken realistically. It has its seat in the intuition of discerning. It is central to knowledge, for the essence of knowledge is said to be "possessing truth." And in connection with thought, or more particularly in concept formation, the latter is described as "truth grasped in a form." Apart from advocating his own understanding of epistemology in this inaugural address, Vollenhoven takes issue with how epistemology is generally understood. The critique is cast in a historical overview. (shrink)

Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm, -1641--Criticism and interpretation. ; Islamic philosophy.

al-juzʼ al-awwal. rubʻ al-ʻibādāt wa-rubʻ al-ʻādāt wa-yashtamil ʻalá al-manhaj, al-ʻaqāʼid, al-ʻibādāt, al-muʻāmālāt, al-ādāb-- al-juzʼ al-thānī.