Julius Tomin; V*—Aristophanes: A Lasting Source of Reference, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 88, Issue 1, 1 June 1988, Pages 83–96, https://doi.

Julius Tomin; V*—Aristophanes: A Lasting Source of Reference, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 88, Issue 1, 1 June 1988, Pages 83–96, https://doi.

In Plato's Theaetetus Socrates is portrayed as a midwife of the intellect. The comparison of Socratic questioning to midwifery had until recently been commonly attributed to Socrates himself. In 1977 M. F. Burnyeat published Socratic Midwifery, Platonic Inspiration, which transformed the way in which the dialogue has since been perceived. The author maintains that the midwife comparison is in no sense to be attributed to the historical Socrates.

In Plato's Theaetetus Socrates is portrayed as a midwife of the intellect. The comparison of Socratic questioning to midwifery had until recently been commonly attributed to Socrates himself. In 1977 M. F. Burnyeat published Socratic Midwifery, Platonic Inspiration, which transformed the way in which the dialogue has since been perceived. The author maintains that the midwife comparison is in no sense to be attributed to the historical Socrates.

In the Phaedrus scientific psychology is an integral part of Plato's outline of scientific rhetoric. An accomplished rhetorician must know all types of human souls , he must know what kind of soul is affected by what kind of speech, and he must be able to apply this theoretical knowledge in front of an audience, so as to achieve the intended persuasion with unfailing certainty. This knowledge is an essential qualification of a philosopher; it enables him to choose a soul (...) of the right type and plant in it words of wisdom. His words, that is the authentic logos, acquire new life in the soul of the recipient, who in his turn sows their progeny in other suitable souls . In the dialogue, Socrates implants the words of wisdom in the soul of Phaedrus, and wishes that Phaedrus may similarly influence Lysias . Socrates’ work on Phaedrus permeates the whole dialogue, giving it its dramatic unity, and yet interpreters disagree on it. The late dating of the dialogue, which has been accepted as axiomatic throughout this century, stands in the way of seeing it clearly. Phaedrus in the Protagoras and in the Symposium does not appear like a man who would appropriate the exalted ideal raised before him in the Phaedrus. The majority of modern interpreters therefore cannot see Phaedrus’ conversion to philosophy in the Phaedrus as anything but ironic. I shall argue that Plato in the dialogue does enact his Phaedran ideal of the authentic communication of philosophy, and that this precludes the ironical reading of the dialogue. (shrink)

In the Phaedrus scientific psychology is an integral part of Plato's outline of scientific rhetoric. An accomplished rhetorician must know all types of human souls, he must know what kind of soul is affected by what kind of speech, and he must be able to apply this theoretical knowledge in front of an audience, so as to achieve the intended persuasion with unfailing certainty. This knowledge is an essential qualification of a philosopher; it enables him to choose a soul of (...) the right type and plant in it words of wisdom. His words, that is the authentic logos, acquire new life in the soul of the recipient, who in his turn sows their progeny in other suitable souls. In the dialogue, Socrates implants the words of wisdom in the soul of Phaedrus, and wishes that Phaedrus may similarly influence Lysias. Socrates’ work on Phaedrus permeates the whole dialogue, giving it its dramatic unity, and yet interpreters disagree on it. The late dating of the dialogue, which has been accepted as axiomatic throughout this century, stands in the way of seeing it clearly. Phaedrus in the Protagoras and in the Symposium does not appear like a man who would appropriate the exalted ideal raised before him in the Phaedrus. The majority of modern interpreters therefore cannot see Phaedrus’ conversion to philosophy in the Phaedrus as anything but ironic. I shall argue that Plato in the dialogue does enact his Phaedran ideal of the authentic communication of philosophy, and that this precludes the ironical reading of the dialogue. (shrink)

Julius Tomin has recently questioned the new orthodoxy, stemming from Burnyeat's impressive article, that Socratic midwifery is not genuinely Socratic. I understand that many will feel the need to question Burnyeat's position, but I am unhappy that Aristophanes' comedy has once again been thought to give support to the view that Socrates had been known as an intellectual midwife. Thus my response will concentrate on our understanding of Clouds, and in particular on the key passage at 135ff.

Julius Tomin has recently questioned the new orthodoxy, stemming from Burnyeat's impressive article, that Socratic midwifery is not genuinely Socratic. I understand that many will feel the need to question Burnyeat's position, but I am unhappy that Aristophanes' comedy has once again been thought to give support to the view that Socrates had been known as an intellectual midwife. Thus my response will concentrate on our understanding of Clouds, and in particular on the key passage at 135ff.

In Materie und Gedächtnis (1896), seinem zweiten Hauptwerk, erörtert der französische Philosoph und Nobelpreisträger Henri Bergson (1859-1941) das Zusammenwirken von Körper und Geist in der freien Handlung. Auf höchstem gedanklichen Niveau, aber in bestechend einfacher Sprache geschrieben, zählt es zu den herausragenden Grundwerken der Gegenwartsphilosophie. Bergson bleibt nicht akademisch, sondern löst das Problem des Leib-Seele-Dualismus anschaulich und verständlich.

The Making of Modern Law: Foreign, Comparative and International Law, 1600-1926, brings together foreign, comparative, and international titles in a single resource. Its International Law component features works of some of the great legal theorists, including Gentili, Grotius, Selden, Zouche, Pufendorf, Bijnkershoek, Wolff, Vattel, Martens, Mackintosh, Wheaton, among others. The materials in this archive are drawn from three world-class American law libraries: the Yale Law Library, the George Washington University Law Library, and the Columbia Law Library.Now for the first time, (...) these high-quality digital scans of original works are available via print-on-demand, making them readily accessible to libraries, students, independent scholars, and readers of all ages.+++++++++++++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: +++++++++++++++Yale Law LibraryLP3Y044500019260101The Making of Modern Law: Foreign, Comparative, and International Law, 1600-1926At head of title: Friedrich Julius Stahl.Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1926xxxvi, 222 p. 21 cmGermany. (shrink)

Recent years have seen a surge in philosophical work on the rationality of grief. Much of this research is premised on the idea that people tend to grieve much less than would be appropriate or, as it is often called, fitting. My goal in this paper is diagnostic, that is, to articulate two never properly distinguished, and indeed often conflated, arguments in favour of the purported discrepancy between experienced and fitting grief: a metaphysical and a psychological argument. According to the (...) former, grief is rationalized entirely by facts about the past. And because the past is unchangeable, grief can be said to remain forever fitting. According to the latter argument, humans’ emotional resilience causes grief to diminish at a faster rate than would be fitting. Which of these problems we end up facing depends on relatively subtle variations in the characterization of the losses that render grief appropriate. (shrink)

Die wirtschaftliche und soziale Bedeutung der Juden im Mittelalter.--John Spencer's Erklärung der biblischen Gesetze in ihrer Beziehung zu Maimonides.--Max Webers Soziologie des antiken Judentums.--Zu Gabirols allegorischer Deutung der Erzählung vom Paradies.--Das Problem der Willensfreiheit bei Ḥasdai Crescas und den islamschen Aristotelikern.--Religion und Wissenschaft im mittelalterlichen und im modernen Denken.--Zur Kritik der Offenbarungsreligion in der islamischen und jüdischen Philosophie.--[Le-ḥeḳer ha-meḳorot shel Sefer ha-ʻiḳarim].--Die Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Judentums.--Die religiösen Motive in der Philosophie des Maimonides.--Das Problem der Kontingenz in der Philosophie (...) des Maimonides.--Die Normierung des Glaubensinhalts im Judentum.--Hermann Cohens Ethik. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of philosophers and cognitive scientists have advocated for an ‘interactive turn’ in the methodology of social-cognition research: to become more ecologically valid, we must design experiments that are interactive, rather than merely observational. While the practical aim of improving ecological validity in the study of social cognition is laudable, we think that the notion of ‘interaction’ is not suitable for this task: as it is currently deployed in the social cognition literature, this notion leads to (...) serious conceptual and methodological confusion. In this paper, we tackle this confusion on three fronts: 1) we revise the ‘interactionist’ definition of interaction; 2) we demonstrate a number of potential methodological confounds that arise in interactive experimental designs; and 3) we show that ersatz interactivity works just as well as the real thing. We conclude that the notion of ‘interaction’, as it is currently being deployed in this literature, obscures an accurate understanding of human social cognition. (shrink)

According to the standard view, a belief is based on a reason and doxastically justified—i.e., permissibly held—only if a causal relation obtains between a reason and the belief. In this paper, I argue that a belief can be doxastically justified by a reason’s mere disposition to sustain it. Such a disposition, however, wouldn’t establish a causal connection unless it were manifested. My argument is that, in the cases I have in mind, the manifestation of this disposition would add no positive (...) epistemic feature to the belief: a belief that is justified after the manifestation of a reason’s causal powers must have already been justified before their manifestation. As a result, those who adhere to the standard causal view of the basing relation face a hard choice: they should either abandon the enormously popular view that doxastic justification has a basing requirement or modify their view of the basing relation. (shrink)

There is no large number of very small bads that is worse than a small number of very large bads – or so, some maintain, it seems plausible to say. In this article, I criticize and reject two recently proposed vindications of the above intuition put forth by Dale Dorsey and Alex Voorhoeve. Dorsey advocates for a threshold marked by the interference with a person's global life projects: any bad that interferes with the satisfaction of a life project is worse (...) than any number of bads that don't interfere with such a life project. Such thresholds, I argue, are broadly implausible. Voorhoeve gives a contractualist account for the irrelevance of minor bads. His account, I argue, does not, among other things, provide the right kind of reason in defence of the above intuition. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that joint action permits a certain degree of luck. The cases I have in mind exhibit the following structure: each participant believes that the intended ends of each robustly support the joint action. This belief turns out to be false. Due to lucky circumstances, the discordance in intention never becomes common knowledge. However, common knowledge of the relevant intentions would have undermined the joint action altogether. The analysis of such cases shows the extent to which (...) common knowledge of the participants’ intentions can be harmful to joint action. This extends a recent line of research that has questioned the necessity of common knowledge in joint action. (shrink)

Liebe Grete Herrmann, besten Dank für Ihren Brief vom 19.5! Auch ich freue mich, Sie auf dem Pariser Kongreß zu sehen; wahrscheinlich werde ich auch an der vorangehenden Positivistentagung teilnehmen, also schon am 29.7. in Paris sein. Es interessiert mich, diese antimetaphysischen Metaphysiker einmal aus der Nähe zu beobachten. Ich werde sehen, es so einzurichten, daß ich eventuell auch nach dem Hauptkongreß noch einige Tage in Paris sein kann, um die von Ihnen angeregten Diskussionen mitzuführen. Jedenfalls hoffe ich auf einige (...) gründliche Gespräche mit Ihnen. (shrink)

This paper suggests, against a comparative horizon and in broadly philosophical context, a fresh approach to the study of Hinduism. After indicating how religion in general and ‘Hinduism’ in particular are plural phenomena both internally and externally, the paper goes on to define a distinguishing property of Hinduness in terms of an approach that is based on a re-centring system of equilibrating and interactive polarities called ‘polycentrism’. This is described further as a calculated paradoxicality, which is articulated in the light (...) of possible objections. (shrink)

Salience reasoning, many have argued, can help solve coordination problems, but only if such reasoning is supplemented by higher-order predictions, e.g. beliefs about what others believe yet others will choose. In this paper, I will argue that this line of reasoning is self-undermining. Higher-order behavioral predictions defeat salience-based behavioral predictions. To anchor my argument in the philosophical literature, I will develop it in response and opposition to the popular Lewisian model of salience reasoning in coordination games. This model imports the (...) problematic higher-order beliefs by way of a ‘symmetric reasoning’ constraint. In the second part of this paper, I will argue that a player may employ salience reasoning only if she suspends judgment about what others believe yet others will do. (shrink)