Mr. Harrison's critique of my article in JRS 63 is conducted with characteristic learning and subtlety. He has pointed out much that I ought to have observed. But I remain altogether unconvinced: Harrison objects to my preferring a close local sense for his , hinc , repetit and revehis because in comparison with the distance from Troy, even the 100-odd miles from Cortona to the scene of action—let alone the 50-odd miles from Tarquinii—count as ‘loca’.

In a recent article JRS , 68 f. Nicholas Horsfall sought to demonstrate that Corythus, which Virgil makes the original home of Dardanus , should be identified with Tarquinii, some 50 miles north-west of Rome, on the coast of Etruria, rather than with Cortona, roughly twice as far away, to the north, and inland. In doing so he expressed surprise that the Virgilian evidence should have been completely ignored by previous writers on the subject : and, using the Aeneid (...) as the main source on which his own argument was based, he supported his conclusion with a careful examination of several other aspects of the problem. (shrink)

In a recent article JRS, 68 f. Nicholas Horsfall sought to demonstrate that Corythus, which Virgil makes the original home of Dardanus, should be identified with Tarquinii, some 50 miles north-west of Rome, on the coast of Etruria, rather than with Cortona, roughly twice as far away, to the north, and inland. In doing so he expressed surprise that the Virgilian evidence should have been completely ignored by previous writers on the subject : and, using the Aeneid as the (...) main source on which his own argument was based, he supported his conclusion with a careful examination of several other aspects of the problem. (shrink)

In mainstream analytic epistemology, Reformed theology has made its presence prominently felt in Reformed epistemology, the view of religious belief according to which religious beliefs can be properly basic and warranted when formed by the proper functioning of the sensus divinitatis, an inborn capacity or faculty for belief in God that can be prompted to generate certain religious beliefs when presented with things (e.g., certain majestic aspects of creation). A major competitor to Reformed epistemology is Wittgensteinian quasi-fideism, a position drawn (...) from the epistemology of Wittgenstein’s On Certainty, according to which some foundational religious commitments are not properly basic beliefs but some kind of apodictic, unshakeable certainties that form part of the structure of one’s rationality and worldview. I argue that the Reformed tradition has contained elements of quasi-fideism at least as far back as Calvin’s account of faith from the Institutes of the Christian Religion, book 3, chapter 2. (shrink)

How can we think about things in the outside world? There is still no widely accepted theory of how mental representations get their meaning. In light of pioneering research, Nicholas Shea develops a naturalistic account of the nature of mental representation with a firm focus on the subpersonal representations that pervade the cognitive sciences.

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

A clearly written, authoritative introduction to Taylor's work.

The existence of evil is compatible with the existence of God, most theists would claim, because evil either results from the activities of free agents, or it contributes in some way toward their moral development. According to the ‘free-will defence’, evil and suffering are necessary consequences of free-will. Proponents of the ‘soul-making argument’—a theodicy with a different emphasis—argue that a universe which is imperfect will nurture a whole range of virtues in a way impossible either in a perfect world, or (...) in a totally evil one. The pain of animals is widely thought to constitute a major difficulty for both of these accounts, for if we ask whether the only evils present in the world result directly from the free actions of created agents, or contribute in some way to ‘soul-making’ of such agents, we are bound to admit that, on the face of it, much animal pain does not. (shrink)

This is a book about the meanings of words and how they can combine to form larger meaningful units, as well as how they can fail to combine when the ...

Eastern Philosophy: The Basics is an essential introduction to major Indian and Chinese philosophies, both past and present. Exploring familiar metaphysical and ethical questions from the perspectives of different Eastern philosophies, including Confucianism, Daoism, and strands of Buddhism and Hinduism, this book covers key figures, issues, methods and concepts. Questions discussed include: What is the ‘self’? Is human nature inherently good or bad? How is the mind related to the world? How can you live an authentic life? What is the (...) fundamental nature of reality? Throughout the book the relationships between Eastern Philosophy, Western Philosophy and the questions reflective people ask within the contemporary world are brought to the fore. With timelines highlighting key figures and their contributions, a list of useful websites and further reading suggestions for each topic, this engaging overview of fundamental ideas in Eastern Philosophy is valuable reading for all students of philosophy and religion, especially those seeking to understand Eastern perspectives. (shrink)

This volume consists of papers given to the Royal Institute of Philos ophy Conference on 'Philosophy and the Visual Arts: Seeing and Abstracting' given at the University of Bristol in September 1985. The contributors here come about equally from the disciplines of Philosophy and Art History and for that reason the Conference was hosted jointly by the Bristol University Departments of Philosophy and History of Art. Other conferences sponsored by the Royal Institute of Philosophy have been concerned with links between (...) Philosophy and related disciplines, but here, with the generous support of South West Arts and with the enthusiastic co-operation of the staff of the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol we were able to attempt even more in the way of bridge building; not only were we able to hold some of our meetings in as possible to the general the Gallery, thus making them as accessible public, but we were also privileged in having our discussions supported by two exhibitions of contemporary painting that together presented contrasting aspects of the abstracting enterprise. One, featuring works by Ian McKeever, and drawings and painting by Frank Auerbach, some of which are discussed and illustrated in the present volume, was about the painterly exploration of 'abstracting from' images in nature and in painting itself. The other, curated by Waldemar Januszczak, while showing some figurative works, was concerned with the 'pure' power of colour perceived 'abstractly, in its own right. (shrink)

This volume is about abstract objects and the ways we refer to them in natural language. Asher develops a semantical and metaphysical analysis of these entities in two stages. The first reflects the rich ontology of abstract objects necessitated by the forms of language in which we think and speak. A second level of analysis maps the ontology of natural language metaphysics onto a sparser domain--a more systematic realm of abstract objects that are fully analyzed. This second level reflects the (...) commitments of real metaphysics. The models for these commitments assign truth conditions to natural language discourse. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

In this entertaining and provocative introduction, Royle offers lucid explanations of various key ideas, including deconstruction, undecidability, iterability, differance, aporia, the pharmakon, the supplement, a new enlightenment, and the democracy to come. He also gives attention, however, to a range of less obvious key ideas of Derrida, such as earthquakes, animals and animality, ghosts, monstrosity, the poematic, drugs, gifts, secrets, war, and mourning. Derrida is seen as an extraordinarily inventive thinker, as well as a brilliantly imaginative and often very funny (...) writer. Other critical introductions tend to highlight the specifically philosophical nature and genealogy of his work. Royle's book proceeds in a new and different way, in particular by focusing on the crucial but strange place of literature in Derrida's writings. He thus provides an appreciation and understanding based on detailed reference to Derrida's texts, interwoven with close readings of such writers as Shakespeare, Coleridge, P.B. Shelley, Poe, Emily Brontë, Franz Kafka and Elizabeth Bowen. In doing so, he explores Derrida's consistent view that deconstruction is "a coming-to-terms with literature". He emphasizes the ways in which "literature", for Derrida, is indissociably bound up with other concerns, such as philosophy and psychoanalysis, politics and ethics, responsibility and justice, law and democracy. (shrink)

Pantheistic Idealism explores the philosophical belief that all reality is a manifestation of the divine. Harrison Delivan Barrett delves into the nature of God, the universe, and the self from a pantheistic idealist perspective. The book is a thought-provoking read and provides an important contribution to religious philosophy. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Identifying arguments -- Formal analysis of arguments -- Presenting your case -- Attacking an argument -- Defending your case -- Cause-and-effect reasoning.

This volume sets out to reverse the neglect.

The authors explore the history of experiments in economics, provide examples of different types of experiments and show that the growing use of experimental methods is transforming economics into an empirical science.

Proposals to make us smarter than the greatest geniuses or to add thousands of years to our life spans seem fit only for the spam folder or trash can. And yet this is what contemporary advocates of radical enhancement offer in all seriousness. They present a variety of technologies and therapies that will expand our capacities far beyond what is currently possible for human beings. In _Humanity's End,_ Nicholas Agar argues against radical enhancement, describing its destructive consequences. Agar examines (...) the proposals of four prominent radical enhancers: Ray Kurzweil, who argues that technology will enable our escape from human biology; Aubrey de Grey, who calls for anti-aging therapies that will achieve "longevity escape velocity"; Nick Bostrom, who defends the morality and rationality of enhancement; and James Hughes, who envisions a harmonious democracy of the enhanced and the unenhanced. Agar argues that the outcomes of radical enhancement could be darker than the rosy futures described by these thinkers. The most dramatic means of enhancing our cognitive powers could in fact kill us; the radical extension of our life span could eliminate experiences of great value from our lives; and a situation in which some humans are radically enhanced and others are not could lead to tyranny of posthumans over humans. (shrink)

In this provocative book, philosopher Nicholas Agar defends the idea that parents should be allowed to enhance their children’s characteristics. Gets away from fears of a Huxleyan ‘Brave New World’ or a return to the fascist eugenics of the past Written from a philosophically and scientifically informed point of view Considers real contemporary cases of parents choosing what kind of child to have Uses ‘moral images’ as a way to get readers with no background in philosophy to think about (...) moral dilemmas Provides an authoritative account of the science involved, making the book suitable for readers with no knowledge of genetics Creates a moral framework for assessing all new technologies. (shrink)

Steven Harrison's books have inspired many to examine their ideas about life and about spirituality in particular, and to come to a more direct perception of ...

In this provocative book, philosopher Nicholas Agar defends the idea that parents should be allowed to enhance their children’s characteristics. Gets away from fears of a Huxleyan ‘Brave New World’ or a return to the fascist eugenics of the past Written from a philosophically and scientifically informed point of view Considers real contemporary cases of parents choosing what kind of child to have Uses ‘moral images’ as a way to get readers with no background in philosophy to think about (...) moral dilemmas Provides an authoritative account of the science involved, making the book suitable for readers with no knowledge of genetics Creates a moral framework for assessing all new technologies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.2 (2002) 239-259 [Access article in PDF] Original Sin and the Problem of Knowledge in Early Modern Europe Peter Harrison It is not the philosophy received from Adam that teaches these things; it is that received from the serpent; for since Original Sin, the mind of man is quite pagan. It is this philosophy that, together with the errors of the senses, (...) made men adore the sun, and that today is still the universal cause of the disorder of men's minds and the corruption of men's hearts. Nicolas Malebranche 1In his Éloge du Pere Malebranche, delivered to the Parisian Academy of Sciences on 22 April 1716, Bernard Fontenelle recounted the story of Nicolas Malebranche's somewhat controversial conversion to Cartesianism. When friends and colleagues had taken him to task over his new-found commitment to the doctrines of Descartes, Malebranche responded with this question: "Did Adam have the perfect science?" It was agreed that this was the common view. Malebranche responded that he, too, aspired to the perfect science, and that his quest for this knowledge could not be satisfied by following the historical or critical pursuits of his colleagues, but by adopting the procedures set out by Descartes. 2 For Malebranche, the Cartesian method offered a means of overcoming the limitations of the fallen intellectual faculties of Adam's seventeenth-century descendents, and thus of restoring the fabled encyclopedic knowledge of the first man. [End Page 239]Aspirations to recover the science of Adam provided a common motivation for a number of early-modern philosophical projects. Earlier in the seventeenth century Francis Bacon had famously observed in his Novum Organum (1620) that the human dominion over nature which Adam had lost at the Fall could be restored in some measure by the sciences: "For man by the fall fell at the same time from this state of innocency and from his dominion over creation." The moral losses of the human race were to be restored in some measure by "religion and faith"; Adam's lost knowledge, and the dominion which it made possible, by "arts and sciences." 3 Bacon's vision of a reconstructed knowledge of nature during the period which he regarded (somewhat prematurely) as "the last times" clearly played an important role in legitimizing the goals and methods of the new natural philosophy. Indeed the program of the Royal Society of London from its inception in 1660 explicitly relied upon a Baconian rhetoric of the restoration of that human knowledge and dominion over nature which Adam had once enjoyed.While historians such as Charles Webster have alluded to the ways in which the myth of an original perfect philosophy motivated projects for the advancement of learning in a rather general way, little attention has been paid to the manner in which early-modern views of the nature of the original fall from knowledge directly informed the methods of the new sciences, determined the scope of their enquiry, and provided ammunition for use against traditional learning. 4 Moreover, most commentators, following Webster's lead, have restricted their attention to Francis Bacon, and to the Baconian aspirations of subsequent reformers of knowledge in seventeenth-century England. In this paper I shall suggest that the biblical narrative of the Fall played a far more direct role in the development of early modern knowledge—both in England and on the Continent—than has often been assumed, and that competing strategies for the advancement of knowledge in the seventeenth century were closely related to different assessments of the Fall and of its impact upon the human mind. While confirmation of this claim would require a more comprehensive study than space here permits, this paper will set out a number of preliminary considerations which establish the plausibility of such a thesis, showing how the biblical narrative of the Fall directly informed the epistemological projects of the seventeenth century, and prompted various rationalist and empiricist solutions. [End Page 240] The Mind of Adam There was an almost universal consensus in the sixteenth... (shrink)

Proposals to make us smarter than the greatest geniuses or to add thousands of years to our life spans seem fit only for the spam folder or trash can. And yet this is what contemporary advocates of radical enhancement offer in all seriousness. They present a variety of technologies and therapies that will expand our capacities far beyond what is currently possible for human beings. In _Humanity's End,_ Nicholas Agar argues against radical enhancement, describing its destructive consequences. Agar examines (...) the proposals of four prominent radical enhancers: Ray Kurzweil, who argues that technology will enable our escape from human biology; Aubrey de Grey, who calls for anti-aging therapies that will achieve "longevity escape velocity"; Nick Bostrom, who defends the morality and rationality of enhancement; and James Hughes, who envisions a harmonious democracy of the enhanced and the unenhanced. Agar argues that the outcomes of radical enhancement could be darker than the rosy futures described by these thinkers. The most dramatic means of enhancing our cognitive powers could in fact kill us; the radical extension of our life span could eliminate experiences of great value from our lives; and a situation in which some humans are radically enhanced and others are not could lead to tyranny of posthumans over humans. (shrink)

During 2007/2008 Nicholas Rescher continued his longstanding practice of writing occasional studies on philosophical topics, both for formal presentation and for informal discussion with colleagues. While his forays of this kind have usually been issued in journal publications, this has not been so in the present case so that the studies offered here encompass substantially new material. Notwithstanding their thematic variation, these exemplify a problem-oriented method in the treatment of philosophical issues that is characteristic of Rescher's philosophical modus operandi (...) and inherent in its endeavors to treat classical issues from novel points of view. For Rescher usually more concerned with what should be said about a philosophical question than with what X, Y, and Z have said about it, and he inclined to address issues of the latter sort primarily as a means for addressing the former."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

In Republican Guard , Nicholas Xenos describes the Straussian network and its nature, focusing upon delineating what in Leo Strauss’ writings has influenced and can tell us about the ‘character of American power today and the rhetoric through which it is enhanced and sustained.’ In the end he argues and demonstrates that Strauss’ political theory provides the means by which an imperial project can be camouflaged under the cloak of an appeal to liberal democracy. This book will be of (...) interest to students and scholars of politics and international relations. (shrink)

Nicholas Agar offers a more nuanced view of the transformative potential of genetic and cybernetic technologies, making a case for moderate human enhancement—improvements to attributes and abilities that do not significantly exceed what ...

This paper examines the impact of neoreactionary thinking – that of Curtis Yarvin, Nick Land, Peter Thiel and Patri Friedman in particular – on contemporary political debates manifest in ‘architectures of exit’. We specifically focus on Urbit, as an NRx digital architecture that captures how post-neoliberal politics imagines notions of freedom and sovereignty through a micro-fracturing of nation-states into ‘gov-corps’. We trace the development of NRx philosophy – and situate this within contemporary political and technological change to theorize the significance (...) of exit manifest within the notion of ‘dynamic geographies’. While technological programmes such as Urbit may never ultimately succeed, we argue that these, and other speculative investments such as ‘seasteading’, reflect broader post-neoliberal NRx imaginaries that were, perhaps, prefigured a quarter of a century ago in The Sovereign Individual. (shrink)

Time and Fantasy in Narratives of Jihad: The Case of the Islami Jamiat-I-Tuleba in Karachi This article proposes an analytical framework for thinking about violence in the Islami Jamiat-i-Tuleba (IJT), the student organization of Jamaat e Islami (JI), Pakistan's longstanding Islamist party. It prioritises the intersection of the psychic and the social, and the role of politics, history and biography in mediating the modalities, narration and praxis of violence in the city of Karachi. The dominant explanations tend to emphasise political (...) instrumentalism, and structural and ideological factors, and to "Islamicise" the violence, collapsing Islamic rhetoric into an extemporization of conditions, ignoring the deep affective appeal of violence to individuals, and leaving unelaborated the role of intersecting national, local and individual contexts and temporalities in structuring political subjectivity and violent action. (shrink)