'Reason, Causation and Compatibility with the Phenomena' strives to give answers to the philosophical problem of the interplay between realism, explanation and experience. This book is a compilation of essays that recollect significant conceptions of rival terms such as determinism and freedom, reason and appearance, power and knowledge. This title discusses the progress made in epistemology and natural philosophy, especially the steps that led from the ancient theory of atomism to the modern quantum theory, and from mathematization to analytic philosophy. (...) Moreover, it provides possible gateways from modern deadlocks of theory either through approaches to consciousness or through historical critique of intellectual authorities. This work will be of interest to those either researching or studying in colleges and universities, especially in the departments of philosophy, history of science, philosophy of science, philosophy of physics and quantum mechanics, history of ideas and culture. Greek and Latin Literature students and instructors may also find this book to be both a fascinating and valuable point of reference. (shrink)

Although the Parmenidean poem is in epic meter and teems with vivid imagery, it has been translated into the domain of philosophy since its earliest reception. Within this domain it has traditionally been interpreted as the first "explicit and self-conscious argumentation" of western philosophy. Yet, the poem aims at persuasion and affect rather than logical demonstration.Working primarily with a sense of translation as critical reception, this paper articulates the history of a translational protocol that excises conceptual matter from linguistic form, (...) reducing the semantic range of the Parmenidean poem. Beginning with Zeno and Melissus, a series of translations reduces the Parmenidean poem into a vehicle for a separable and fully translatable doctrine, stabilizing and homogenizing a thinking that otherwise persists as polyvalent and heterogeneous. (shrink)

This essay pursues Gilbert Durand’s plea for a new anthropological spirit that would overcome the bureaucracy-or-madness dichotomy which has since Nietzsche left its imprint upon contemporary thought, forcing it to choose between an “Apollonian” ontology established upon some kind of first principle and a “Dionysian” ontology consisting in the erasure of any founding norm. It does so by reclaiming Dionysus and Apollo’s original twin-ness and dual affirmation in dialogue with contemporary anthropological theory, especially Roy Wagner’s thesis on the interplay of (...) “elicitation” and “containment” in sociocultural life. What would happen then, I ask, if we were to reimagine today’s philosophical game – which after Heidegger Deleuze, and Derrida turns variously and increasingly around subtraction – otherwise: as a chiastic board on which Apollo would cut Dionysus’s continuum, which Dionysus would in turn restore despite Apollo’s cuts, and on which the obliteration of any of the two gods would entail the inevitable dismemberment of the other? Accordingly, I offer a full reassessment of Dionysus’s and Apollo’s complementary roles in ancient-Greek culture in discussion not only with Nietzsche’s Dionysian philosophy but also with Ihab Hassan’s postmodern critique of Orpheus. All of it less with the purpose of putting forward a new metaphysics than with the intent of restating the translucent-ness that keeps together reality and thought against any claim that they are either transparent or opaque to one another. (shrink)

Consider a circle and a pair of its semicircles. Which is prior, the whole or its parts? Are the semicircles dependent abstractions from their whole, or is the circle a derivative construction from its parts? Now in place of the circle consider the entire cosmos (the ultimate concrete whole), and in place of the pair of semicircles consider the myriad particles (the ultimate concrete parts). Which if either is ultimately prior, the one ultimate whole or its many ultimate parts?

The focus of this essay is on Xenophanes’ criticism of anthropomorphic representation of the gods, famously sounding like a declaration of war against a constituent part of the Greek religion, and adopting terms and a tone that are unequalled amongst “pre-Socratic” authors for their directness and explicitness. While the main features of Xenophanes’ polemic are well known thanks to some of the most studied fragments of the pre-Socratic tradition, a different line of enquiry from the usual one is attempted by (...) considering the multi-layered background of the religious beliefs revolving around the idea that the gods have human form as outlined in the tradition of epic poetry or represented in cult statues: in the light of this consideration Xenophanes’ text can take on some new characteristics. In the second part of the article, emphasis is put on the importance of the correlation Xenophanes established between the issue of the appearance of the gods and that of the certainty of knowledge, in terms that have exerted tremendous influence on later thought, most notably on Plato in the Timaeus. (shrink)

Five aspects of visual change detection are reviewed. The first concerns the concept of change itself, in particular the ways it differs from the related notions of motion and difference. The second involves the various methodological approaches that have been developed to study change detection; it is shown that under a variety of conditions observers are often unable to see large changes directly in their field of view. Next, it is argued that this “change blindness” indicates that focused attention is (...) needed to detect change, and that this can help map out the nature of visual attention. The fourth aspect concerns how these results affect our understanding of visual perception—for example, the implication that a sparse, dynamic representation underlies much of our visual experience. Finally, a brief discussion is presented concerning the limits to our current understanding of change detection. (shrink)

Two fires are kindled at the threshold of the metaphysical era, and both are extinguished, almost simultaneously, as soon as metaphysics exhausts itself in its final Nietzschean inversion. The political reality of the twenty-first century is, as a whole, a comet tail of these ancient blazes that, until recently, seemed to be older than time itself, gave the impression of being eternal, undying, inextinguishable. How to find one's bearings among the cinders and ashes of what the flames consumed? How to (...) make sense—if make sense we must—of the burnt and smoldering remains,…. (shrink)

In the "Doxographi Graeci" the preferred short heading of Aët. 2.31 (Greek text below, p. 28) is 'On Distances', though ps.Plutarch has a long heading. This chapter is about the distances of the sun and moon from each other and from the earth (lemmas 1 to 3, in both ps.Plutarch and Stobaeus), and of the real or apparent shape of the heaven relative to its distance from the earth (lemmas 4 and 5, Stobaeus only). Parallels from Ioann. Lydus and Theodoret (...) for what is in ps.Plutarch are given by Diels in apparatu. To the best of my knowledge it has not been noticed that a version of ps.Plutarch's text is preserved in a scholium on the "Almagest", which constitutes our earliest evidence for the text. The correctness of Diels' reconstruction is questionable. Though certainty, naturally, is beyond our reach it is quite possible that these two sets of lemmas represent two distinct Aëtian (or proto-Aëtian) chapters. These may have been coalesced by Stobaeus (or Aëtius), while ps.Plutarch abridged the second (or the two final lemmas) away. These considerations necessitate an inquiry into the parallels that are available, including material from an introduction to Aratus. The vexing question of short versus long(er) chapter headings is also relevant in this context. Furthermore, the contrasting views regarding cosmic distances are not only a feature of the Placita literature with a distant origin in Aristotle, but also, apparently, of the commentary literature on Plato's "Timaeus". Arguably in a passage in Plutarch's "De facie" these two traditions intersect. Finally, a case can be made out for Eudemus not Theophrastus as an intermediary source of Presocratic astronomical data in the Placita. (shrink)

It is usually said that there is a clear difference between pre-philosophical texts such as Homer’s Iliad and what is provided in the fragments corresponding to first philosophers such as Thales of Miletus. This paper tries to show that this is not undoubtedly so, and it does that by means of the analysis of a fragment of the Iliad in which Hypnos is speaking. In this way, the main argument is that, while the fragment can be interpreted both in a (...) literal and in a metaphorical or poetic sense, in both of those cases it can be thought that it is related to philosophy or rational thinking. If the interpretation is literal, the fragment expresses an idea very akin to an important thesis by Thales of Miletus. On the other hand, if the interpretation is metaphorical or poetic, we have to assume, following several contemporary reasoning theories, that the fragment is essentially based on an evident rational inference. (shrink)

‘Water is H2O’ is one of the most frequently cited sentences in analytic philosophy, thanks to the seminal work of Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam in the 1970s on the semantics of natural kind terms. Both of these philosophers owe an intellectual debt to the empiricist metaphysics of John Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding, while disagreeing profoundly with Locke about the reality of natural kinds. Locke employs an intriguing example involving water to support his view that kinds (or ‘species’), such (...) as water and gold, are the workmanship of the human mind. This is the point of his story about a winter visitor to England from Jamaica, who is astonished to find that the water in his basin has turned solid overnight, and proceeds to call it ‘hardened water’. Locke criticizes this judgement, maintaining that it is more consonant with common sense to regard water and ice as different kinds of substance. Putnam, by implication, disagrees. Deploying his imaginary example of Twin Earth—a distant planet where a watery-looking substance, XYZ, rather than H2O, fills the oceans and rivers—he maintains that common sense supports the judgement that XYZ and H2O, despite their superficial similarity, are not the same kind of substance, precisely because their molecular compositions are different. Here it will be argued that both views are mistaken, but that, in this dispute, Locke has more right on his side than his modern opponents do. (shrink)

This article investigates Michael Slote’s call for rebalancing Western moral philosophy by using Chinese philosophy, especially Confucianism, as a form of moral sentimentalism. I agree with the need for a correction of the over reliance on reason in Western moral philosophy, but I reject the rational/sentimental dichotomy and focus on the importance of the will. I make use of the important contribution made by Daoism and the conduct concept of wu-wei 無為. I explain the use of wu-wei in Daoist texts (...) as a nominative to denote a type of conduct, as a verb in moral imperatives, and as an aspiration for human moral behavior. I consider how appropriating this concept into Western moral thought offers significant solutions to three seemingly intractable problems: weakness of will, universalization of moral duties, and the conception of life as plagued by moral dilemmas. I conclude that wu-wei is not the result of some experience of alternative consciousness. It is an alternative consciousness that is shown in behavior, but not able to be said in language. (shrink)

Summary As opposed to the traditional view of the prodigium as a part of a divination that augurs divine wrath, in this article we regard episodes of prodigies as ancient societies’ expression of their connection with their gods. Prodigious episodes are the evidence of divine presence or absence within a community.

This article develops how wider understandings of time may help inform managers’ communication decisions. Using Peter F. Drucker as an initial touchstone—but going much deeper—the article employs an applied liberal arts methodology to establish a time-minded attitude toward communication. Applying perspectives from both classical philosophy (specifically Plato and Aristotle) as well as twentieth century rhetoricians (specifically Richard Weaver, James Kinneavy, and Walter Beale), this article celebrates both physical and metaphysical structures of reality. To this end, it proposes a theoretical equation (...) to help calibrate communication management under a more holistic banner. The equation acknowledges the typical appropriateness of occasion-directed communication (kairos); however, it also distinctively acknowledges the grand fabric of temporal reality (chronos). The output of this equation can be understood as the “chronos principle.” The article concludes that a more complete understanding of time-mindedness can elevate empathy, foster respect, and assist social relationality within any given organization’s communication culture. (shrink)

Literary pneuma is a foundational idea in Chinese literary thought and the theory of literary pneuma one of the major aesthetic theories in Chinese literature and art. Since its first appearance, however, this aesthetic has remained an elusive concept despite its central importance. This article adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examine major statements of wenqi in Chinese thought in relation to similar ideas in modern philosophy, aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and literary criticism. It attempts to understand its rationale, locate its conceptual groundings, (...) and reconceptualize it into an aesthetic theory for our time. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary article argues that ancient Greek and Roman representations of Okeanos, Tartaros, and the underworld demonstrate an observational awareness of the hollow underground spaces that characterize the geomorphology of karst terrains in the Mediterranean world. We review the scientific facts that underlie Greek and Roman accounts of karstic terrain in observation-based discourse and in myths, and we demonstrate that the Greek words barathron, limnē, koilos, and dinē are used with precision in observational accounts of karst terrain. Ancient accounts of (...) the dynamic limnē and barathrum systems characteristic of much karst terrain offer a complex matrix of observation-based and belief-based discourse: at the edge of the barathrum, the imaginative or spiritual realm of the underworld has a material plausibility and the closely observed material world has a plausible potential to connect to a world we cannot see. (shrink)

In this paper I outline a role for mechanistic conceptions of organisms in ancient Greek natural philosophy, especially the study of organisms. By ‘mechanistic conceptions’ I mean the use of ideas and techniques drawn from the field of mechanics to investigate the natural world. ‘Mechanistic conceptions’ of organisms in ancient Greek philosophy, then, are those that draw on the ancient understanding of the field called ‘mechanics’ — hê mêchanikê technê—to investigate living things, rather than those bearing some perceived similarity to (...) modern notions of ‘the mechanical.’ I have argued elsewhere that evidence of mechanistic conceptions of the natural world can be found, not only among seventeenth and eighteenth century ‘mechanical philosophers,’ but also—albeit in vestigial form — in some ancient Greek texts. Unfortunately, these reports are slight, often by detractors of this approach, and offer only clues as to the motivational context for employing these mechanical conceptions. Here, my purpose is to suggest what role they might have played in the history of natural philosophy. (shrink)

In the analysis of Anaxagoras’ physics in view of the relation between his teachings on multitude and heterogeneity, two central questions emerge: 1) How can the structure of the universe considered purely mereo-topologically help us explain that at the first cosmic stage no qualitative difference is manifest in spite of the fact that the entire qualitative heterogeneity is supposedly already present there? 2) How can heterogeneity become manifest at the second stage, resulting from the noûs intervention, if according to fragment (...) B 6 such a possibility requires the existence of “the smallest”, while according to the general principle stated in fragment B 3 there is not “the smallest” but always only “a smaller”? This paper showcases the perplexity of these two questions but deals only with the former. The answer follows from Anaxagoras’ being a thoroughgoing infinitist in the way in which no Greek physicist was: the principle of space isotropy operative in geometry is extended to physics as well. So any two parts of the original mixture are similar to each other not only in view of the smaller-larger relation but also because each contains everything that the other one contains. This in effect means that at the stage of maximal possible heterogeneity each part of any part contains infinitely many heterogeneous parts of any kind whatsoever. So, neither can there be homogeneous parts in view of any qualitative property, nor can there be predominance in quantity of parts of any kind that would make some property manifest. (shrink)

A paradox, it is claimed, is a radical form of contradiction, one that produces gaps in meaning. In order to approach this idea, two senses of “separation” are distinguished: separation by something and separation by nothing. The latter does not refer to nothing in an ordinary sense, however, since in that sense what’s intended is actually less than nothing. Numerous ordinary nothings in philosophy as well as in other fields are surveyed so as to clarify the contrast. Then follows the (...) suggestion that philosophies which one would expect to have room for paradoxes actually tend either to exclude them altogether, or to dull them. There is a clear alternative, however, one that fully recognizes paradoxes and yet also strives to overcome them. (shrink)

Heraklit bød mennesket at søge sig selv, lytte til et flammende logos, der fordrer tanken selv at blive til ild. Jeg vil i nedenstående nuancere forståelsen af centrale begreber i Heraklits tænkning, såsom phusis, ethos og daimon, for derved at påpege et eudaimonisk potentiale, der ikke søger transcendens, men derimod immanens. Det vil jeg gøre ved at kvalificere en læsning af de processuelle og dynamiske aspekter af phusis og hvorledes disse også er knyttet til fødsel og død, hvilket leder frem (...) til en forståelse af legement, livet og buen, som værende konstitueret af en immanent strid, hvor fødsels og død er parret som hinandens raffinement. Dette anvendes til at nuancere forståelsen af ethos og daimon, karakter og skæbne, hvilket skitserer en daimonologi, der fordrer, den der søger sig selv, at blive flammende1. (shrink)

What does ordinary language philosophy contribute to the solution of the problems it diagnoses as violations of linguistic use? One of its biggest challenges has been to account for the epistemic asymmetry of mental states experienced by the subject of those states and the application of psychological properties to others. The epistemology of other minds appears far from resolved with reference to how sensation words are used in everyday language. In this paper, I revisit the Wittgensteinian arguments and show how (...) they engage the ordinary language method (in the modified form of grammatical investigation) to ‘dissolve’ the problem. Several important results are generated by way of this reconstruction. An expressive view of the vocabulary of sensation is defended which facilitates a discussion of sensation discourse emphasising the normative grammatical conditions for the communication of psychological states. This motivates a reassessment of criterial justification for the ascription of psychological concepts in the third person. In the final sections, I mobilise a normative approach to expose the moral relevance of the epistemology of other minds. Even if it is conceded that belief in other minds lacks warrant from an epistemological standpoint, this does not justify adopting the skeptical attitude from an ethical standpoint. In light of this, a normative justification for the a priori belief that others are subjects of consciousness is defended. (shrink)

It will be shown in this article that an ontological approach for some problems related to the interpretation of Quantum Mechanics could emerge from a re-evaluation of the main paradox of early Greek thought: the paradox of Being and non-Being, and the solutions presented to it by Plato and Aristotle. More well known are the derivative paradoxes of Zeno: the paradox of motion and the paradox of the One and the Many. They stem from what was perceived by classical philosophy (...) to be the fundamental enigma for thinking about the world: the seemingly contradictory results that followed from the co-incidence of being and non-being in the world of change and motion as we experience it, and the experience of absolute existence here and now. The most clear expression of both stances can be found, again following classical thought, in the thinking of Heraclitus of Ephesus and Parmenides of Elea. The problem put forward by these paradoxes reduces for both Plato and Aristotle to the possibility of the existence of stable objects as a necessary condition for knowledge. Hence the primarily ontological nature of the solutions they proposed: Plato's Theory of Forms and Aristotle's metaphysics and logic. Plato's and Aristotle's systems are argued here to do on the ontological level essentially the same: to introduce stability in the world by introducing the notion of a separable, stable object, for which a principle of contradiction is valid: an object cannot be and not-be at the same place at the same time. So it becomes possible to forbid contradiction on an epistemological level, and thus to guarantee the certainty of knowledge that seemed to be threatened before. After leaving Aristotelian metaphysics, early modern science had to cope with these problems: it did so by introducing "space" as the seat of stability, and "time" as the theater of motion. But the ontological structure present in this solution remained the same. Therefore the fundamental notion `separable system', related to the notions observation and measurement, themselves related to the modern concepts of space and time, appears to be intrinsically problematic, because it is inextricably connected to classical logic on the ontological level. We see therefore the problems dealt with by quantum logic not as merely formal, and the problem of `non-locality' as related to it, indicating the need to re-think the notions `system', `entity', as well as the implications of the operation `measurement', which is seen here as an application of classical logic on the material world. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss the use made by Aristotle of the term “element” when dealing with the atomist theory of Leucippus and Democritus. My goal is to verify which aspects of the atomist theory play the role of elements according to the definitions of Aristotle, who seems to have certain expectations regarding what can be designated as elements in the strict sense. One of them is the possibility of reciprocal transformation, the so-called “generation of elements”, which is the chemical (...) aspect at the level of the simple bodies that makes change possible at the level of sense-perceived bodies. Furthermore, I evaluate whether it is possible to find and whether it is adequate to speak of the presence of the four elements – fire, air, water and earth – in the atomist doctrine. (shrink)

From Antiquity to the 19th century it was very common to explain natural phenomena (especially biological ones) through final causes. This paper analyses one of the periods of development of this concept, in Antiquity, with special emphasis upon the contributions of Socrates and Plato. They introduced the idea of an intelligent and beneficial god, who plans the structure of the universe and of all beings in the best possible way. This concept was strongly influential in later periods. RESUMO: Da Antiguidade (...) até o século XIX foi muito comum procurar-se entender os fenômenos naturais (especialmente os biológicos) através de causas finais. Este artigo analisa um dos períodos de formação dessas concepções, na Antiguidade, dando especial atenção às contribuições de Sócrates e Platão. Estes introduzem a ideia de uma divindade inteligente e bondosa, que planeja a estrutura do universo e de todos os seres da melhor forma possível. Essa concepção teve grande influência, no período posterior. (shrink)