This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Politics of the 350s and 340s The Emergence of the Culture War, or the Man with the Good Memory.

"The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates's ancient words are still true, and the ideas sounded in Plato's Dialogues still form the foundation of a thinking person's education. This superb collection contains excellent contemporary translations selected for their clarity and accessibility to today's reader, as well as an incisive introduction by Erich Segal, which reveals Plato's life and clarifies the philosophical issues examined in each dialogue. The first four dialogues recount the trial execution of Socrates--the extraordinary tragedy that changed (...) Plato's life and so altered the course of Western though. Other dialogues create a rich tableau of intellectual life in Athens in the fourth century B.C., and examine the nature of virtue and love, knowledge and truth, society and the individual. Resounding with the humor and astounding brilliance of Socrates, the immortal iconoclast, these great works remain powerful, probing, and essential. (shrink)

The problem of the nature of values and the relation between values and rationality is one of the defining issues of twentieth-century thought and Max Weber was one of the defining figures in the debate. In this book, Turner and Factor consider the development of the dispute over Max Weber's contribution to this discourse, by showing how Weber's views have been used, revised and adapted in new contexts. The story of the dispute is itself fascinating, for it cuts across (...) the major political and intellectual currents of the twentieth century, from positivism, pragmatism and value-free social science, through the philosophy of Jaspers and Heidegger, to Critical Theory and the revival of Natural Right and Natural Law. As Weber's ideas were imported to Britain and America, they found new formulations and new adherents and critics and became absorbed into different traditions and new issues. This book was first published in 1984. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:246 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY lish a line of succession from Schleiermacher to Stenzel and further on to some of the most recent Platonic scholars in Germany. In this connection the peculiar character of Platon der Erzieher is a side issue. Gaiser seems only moderately interested in paideia and even tries to free Stenzel from the suspicion that he should have considered paideia as the essence (...) of Platonism. Some sentences in Stenzel's book which might suggest such an opinion are said to be "consciously one-sided formulations" (p. viii, note 7). Gaiser's true interest is Plato's ontology. Nothing explains his stand better than his endorsement of H. J. Kr~imer's representative work Arete bei Platon und Aristoteles. Kr~imer, whose major objective is a reconstruction of what he thinks was Plato's esoteric philosophy, has emphatically declared that he arrived at his results by pursuing the method and the factual interests of Stenzel. Gaiser's attempt to locate Stenzel's position must be understood in the light of this and perhaps similar declarations.1 This is not the place to discuss those of Stenzel's theories which are at best touched upon in Platon der Erzieher or even the theories of those who proclaim to be his heirs. There is, however, one point on which I insist. Gaiser tries to link Stenzel with Heidegger and points to the interest which Stenzel took in Heidegger in his later years. Platon der Erzieher appeared in the same year as Sein und Zeit. I believe that the two works belong to entirely different worlds. Whereas Heidegger powerfully broke up new dimensions of thought, the philosopher Stenzel, for better or worse, represents a period which had reached its end when he died in 1934. ERNST MORITZ MANASSE North Carolina College at Durham Anonymous Prolegomena to Platonic Philosophy. Introduction, Text, Translation and Indices by L. G. Westerink. (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Co., 1962. Pp. lii + 69.) L. G. Westerink, whose interest in the Alexandrian commentators on Plato has already borne ample and distinguished fruit in his editions of the Alcibiades commentaries of Olympiodorus and Proclus and of Damascius' lectures on the Philebus, has now further enriched our knowledge of Platonic studies in the sixth century A.D.by publishing a new critical text of a little-known set of introductory lectures to Plato, which originated in the Alexandrian school. The importance of the present work is indicated by the facts that the last critical text of these prolegomena, which forms part of a tenth-century manuscript in the Vienna National Library (Vindob. 1Cf. also Gaiser's new book Platons Ungeschriebene Lehre (Stuttgart, 1963), which appeared after this review was written. BOOK REVIEWS 247 phil. gr. 314), was published over a century ago by K. F. Hermann in his Appendix Platonica, and that the most recent commentary is that of L. Skowronski in a dissertation published in 1884. In other words, nothing substantial had appeared on the Prolegomena after the publication of the Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca, and Westerink's great merit consists in bringing to bear upon the present work the insights gained from a study of these Aristotelian commentaries. For the same professors taught both Plato and Aristotle at Alexandria, and not only did their teaching of one color their views on the other, but they frequently borrowed ideas, quotations, stories, and even phrases from one another. The chief aim of the Introduction (pp. ix-l) is to investigate the authorship of the Prolegomena, which the almost unanimous agreement of scholars since 1675 (the one exception is Beutler in RE s.v. "Olympiodorus") had attributed to Olympiodorus. W. begins by establishing the Alexandrian background of these lectures and by discussing, one by one, the characteristic beliefs of the various members of the school and the way in which these are reflected in introductory lectures to Aristotle. This is followed by a painstaking analysis of the sources of the Prolegomena and finally the conclusion that the present text belongs "in the immediate surroundings of Olympiodorus and Elias" (p. xlix). Discrepancies between the biography of Plato here and in Olympiodorus' commentary on the A lcibiades militate, according to W., against Olympiodorus' authorship, although... (shrink)

In the article, the author presents attempts by Polish Marxist philosophers to enrich Marxism with ethical issues. The initial absence of ethics in Marxism is associated with the ignorance of tradition related to their own formation. In the author’s opinion, only polemics with the competitive Lviv-Warsaw school forced Polish Marxists to take the issue seriously. That is why Polish Marxist ethics in its mature form was only established in the 1960s, and did not enrich Marxism itself, but rather indirectly contributed (...) to the initiation of socio-political transformations in our country. (shrink)

Augustyn Jakubisiak (1884-1945), Polish priest, philosopher and theologian, undertook polemics with Jan Łukasiewicz, whom he knew personally. A dispute concerning the so-called logistics (mathematical logic) and its relationship with philosophy developed between the two. The most important arguments were laid out, primarily in the following works: in the case of Jakubisiak, in the book From Scope to Content and in the case of Łukasiewicz, in the texts Logistics and Philosophy and In the Defense of Logistics. Jakubisiak criticized logistics (...) for its anti-metaphysical, anti-theological and anti-religious attitude, which was based on neo-positivist philosophy, and led, in consequence to atheism. He also claimed that one should focus on what is concrete, avoiding idealization and abstraction (meaning the content of concepts, not their scope). Łukasiewicz defended logistics claiming that it possesses its own methods based on intellect, and is also an area of independent knowledge (but not completely detached) from philosophy, due to the fact it can consider the most important philosophical problems such as finiteness and infinity. This dispute, as the researchers identified, basically concerned the reduction of philosophy to the study of language (analytic philosophy) and initiated one of the most important discussions concerning the relationship between philosophy and logic. This debate was crucial because it also concerned questions related to fundamental metaphysical issues (naturalism – supranaturalism, rationalism – irrationalism) and epistemological issues (realism – idealism, boundaries and structure of cognition). (shrink)

Philosophy and Neuroscience: A Ruthlessly Reductive Account is the first book-length treatment of philosophical issues and implications in current cellular and molecular neuroscience. John Bickle articulates a philosophical justification for investigating "lower level" neuroscientific research and describes a set of experimental details that have recently yielded the reduction of memory consolidation to the molecular mechanisms of long-term potentiation (LTP). These empirical details suggest answers to recent philosophical disputes over the nature and possibility of psycho-neural scientific reduction, including (...) the multiple realization challenge, mental causation, and relations across explanatory levels. Bickle concludes by examining recent work in cellular neuroscience pertaining to features of conscious experience, including the cellular basis of working memory, the effects of explicit selective attention on single-cell activity in visual cortex, and sensory experiences induced by cortical microstimulation. (shrink)

Biologists Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould have recently extended their decades-old disagreements about evolution to the issue of the nature and reality of evolutionary progress. According to Gould, 'progress' is a noxious notion that deserves to be expunged from evolutionary biology. In Dawkins' view, on the other hand, progress is one of the most important, pervasive and inevitable aspects of evolution. Simple appeals to 'the evidence' are clearly insufficient to resolve this disagreement, since it is precisely the interpretation of (...) the evidence that is in dispute. Scientific controversies in general, and the Dawkins/Gould dispute over evolutionary progress in particular, are worth examining in some detail because doing so sheds light on the interconnected roles of methodological and contextual factors in the formation, articulation and defense of scientific claims. My aim in this paper is to clarify the structure of the Dawkins/Gould dispute by analyzing it in terms of a tri-level model of scientific controversies, involving 'top-level' substantive disagreements, 'middle-level' methodological differences, and 'bottom-level' differences in historical and social factors. This simple three-tiered model is sufficiently abstract to have more general applicability to other scientific controversies. (shrink)

One of the central debates in legal philosophy is the debate over legal positivism. Roughly, positivists say that law is ultimately grounded in social facts alone, whereas antipositivists say it is ultimately grounded in both social facts and moral facts. In this paper, I argue that philosophers involved in the dispute over legal positivism sometimes employ distinct concepts when they use the term “law” and pick out different things in the world using these concepts. Because of this, (...) what positivists say might well then be true of one thing (e.g., law1) but false of another (e.g., law2). Accepting this thesis does not mean that the philosophers engaged in this dispute are “talking past each other” or engaged in a “merely verbal dispute” that lacks substance. I argue that participants in this dispute are sometimes arguing about what they should mean by the word “law” in the context at hand. This involves putting forward competing proposals about which concept the word “law” should be used to express. This is an issue in what I call “conceptual ethics.” This argument in conceptual ethics can be well worth having, given the connotations that the term “law” plays in many contexts, ranging from legal argument to political philosophy to social-scientific inquiry. Sometimes, I claim, philosophers (and ordinary speakers) engage in such argument tacitly by competing “metalinguistic” usages of the term “law”—usages of the term that express a view (in this case, a normative view) about the meaning of the word itself. In such cases, speakers on different sides of the positivism debate might in fact both speak truly, in terms of the literal (semantic) content of what they both say. Nonetheless, they may disagree in virtue of views in conceptual ethics about “law” that they express through the nonliteral content of what they say. These views in conceptual ethics often reflect further disagreements about issues that are not ultimately about words or concepts. These include foundational ones in ethics and politics about how we should live and what kind of institutions should govern our lives. My metalinguistic account of the dispute over legal positivism better equips us to identify what such issues are and to engage them more fruitfully. (shrink)

The Kashmir issue, a principal reason for rivalry between India and Pakistan, has become the atomic flashpoint and a constant threat to the security of South Asia. The aim of this paper is to highlight the root causes of Kashmir disputes and the major events that contributed towards the Indo-Pak rivalry with respect to Kashmir. The paper highlights present political conditions in the Indian-held Kashmir also shows the role of India, Pakistan, and the United Nations in Kashmir Dispute. In (...) the end, a conclusion is presented for the devalued relations of India and Pakistan in the setting of Kashmir and its effects are analyzed. (shrink)

This paper analyses the international media coverage of the dispute surrounding the pardons the Polish President granted in 2015 to two politicians, arrested almost a decade later. However political this case has become, it is underlain by a specific interpretive problem concerning the presidential pardon power under the Constitution, particularly whether it can be exercised before a final conviction (the so-called ‘individual abolition’). This question has long been controversial in scholarship and, in recent years, has been addressed by top Polish (...) courts, passing conflicting rulings. Attempting to probe into the intersection of journalism, politics, law and linguistics, this paper evaluates the issue’s portrayal in 37 articles published on major news websites around the time of the arrest. It is argued that when reporting local legal news, international media engage in a dual translation, rendering legal communications in one language into media communications in another. While ‘lossless’ transfer cannot be expected, this research shows that certain limits should not be crossed to maintain journalistic standards. In particular, most articles entirely omit the scholarship and rulings confirming the validity of the pardons. Consequently, readers are not given an opportunity to become aware of all relevant facts and perhaps seek further information. On the positive side, it has been found that simple and accessible language does not necessarily mean material distortions in the coverage of legal issues. The research thus suggests that reporting domestic legal news for international audiences requires understanding the source context, conscious language use and a reliable selection of information. (shrink)

In the late 1720s, Daniel Turner and James Blondel engaged in a pamphlet dispute over the power of the maternal imagination. Turner accepted the long-standing belief that a pregnant woman's imagination could be transferred to her unborn child, imprinting the foetus with various marks and deformities. Blondel sought to refute this view on rational and anatomical grounds. Two issues repeatedly received these authors' attention: the identity of imagination, and its power in pregnant women; and the process of generation and (...) foetal development. In their discussions of these issues, differences between the authors' acceptance of general medical theories and philosophies became apparent. Blondel invoked Newtonian matter theory, experimental philosophy, and iatro-mechanism, while Turner adhered more to the authority of the Ancients and advocated a more direct role for the Creator as an alternative to mechanism in explaining natural phenomena. Additionally, the authors held differing views of what they regarded as experience. The widespread contemporary interest in their dispute suggests that Turner and Blondel raised the phenomenon of the maternal imagination from an issue of folk belief to a concern of eighteenth-century medicine. (shrink)

Based on a reading of Basil’s Ad Adulescentes and the epistles, it is clear that Basil finds moral value in Homer and Hesiod. The trickier issue is to what extent Basil uses Homer and Hesiod in his homilies. It seems that Basil does not abandon his respect for the utility of Hellenic paideia for the Christian in his homilies. Rather, he must approach Homer and Hesiod more gingerly because he fears that his uncultivated audience will have difficulty with reading (...) texts allegorically; at the literal level, Homer and Hesiod can potentially corrupt the unsophisticated listener. What we have in the homilies are less explicit references to Homer and Hesiod—they are the source of literary flourish, the origins of which probably went over the heads of Basil’s audience. As seen above, Basil also uses the poets—when read at the literary level—as counter-examples to Christian conduct. Basil in no way, then ‘lies’ or ‘changes his view’ on Greek paideia, as is oftentimes argued by scholars, but, rather, he adjusts his use of paideia depending on what his audience can handle at any given time. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I here read the Iranian film Hit the Road through the eyes of the French philosopher Alain Badiou. In doing so, I hope to illuminate the triadic link between cinema, philosophy and paideia (ethical-political education). To explore, I adopt a philosophical methodology with the double ambition to reveal the latent pedagogies of the film and to acquire insights on the distinctiveness of a Badiouan conception of cinema. My questions are to what degree and in what ways cinematic (...) experience can be said to promote ethical-political formation. I start by portraying Badiou’s cinematic philosophy. Next, I expose how Hit the Road confronts us with a hidden real. Third, I close the paper by considering Badiou’s idea of cinema as an influential form of ethical-political education. (shrink)

Various debates in bioethics have been focused on whether non-persons, such as marginal humans or non-human animals, deserve respectful treatment. It has been argued that, where we cannot agree on whether these individuals have moral status, we might agree that they have symbolic value and ascribe to them moral value in virtue of their symbolic significance. In the paper I resist the suggestion that symbolic value is relevant to ethical disputes in which the respect for individuals with no intrinsic (...) moral value is in conflict with the interests of individuals with intrinsic moral value. I then turn to moral status and discuss the suitability of personhood as a criterion. There some desiderata for a criterion for moral status: it should be applicable on the basis of our current scientific knowledge; it should have a solid ethical justification; and it should be in line with some of our moral intuitions and social practices. Although it highlights an important connection between the possession of some psychological properties and eligibility for moral status, the criterion of personhood does not meet the desiderata above. I suggest that all intentional systems should be credited with moral status in virtue of having preferences and interests that are relevant to their well-being. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to provide a philosophical conceptual framework to understand the theoretical roots and political implications of the interpretations of Plato’s work in Jaeger’s Third Humanism and Krieck’s völkisch-racist pedagogy and anthropology. This article will seek to characterize, as figures of localitas, their conceptions of the individual, community, corporeality, identity, and the State that both authors developed departing from Platonic political philosophy. My main hypothesis is that Jaeger’s and Krieck’s interpretations of Platonic paideía (...) shared several core-elements based on a modern conception of State sovereignty and human will, whose fundamental ground is the subjectivist-technical metaphysics. The “production” of a human type (spiritual and/or racial) and a unitary State political community appears in both authors mediated by a theory of political education, that I define as «State typohumanism», that sought its sustenance in Plato’s political philosophy, mainly by means of a distorted understanding of the notions of týpos and ē̂thos, and that, I argue, played a key role in the intellectual legitimization of völkisch-racism. This would be broadly translated into a programmatic and literal understanding of the Platonic Republic which assumes that the inherent function of any State is to produce subjectivities based on national identities grounded on homogeneous characteristics. In these varied characterizations similar appropriations of humanitas have been expressed both in Jaeger and in Krieck. (shrink)

To explore the development of contemporary Chinese philosophy, fundamentally, is to explore the development of Marxist philosophy in contemporary China. The disputes over philosophical views in Chinese academic circles during the first half of the twentieth century have been focused on understanding Marxist philosophy from such aspects as "what kind of philosophy Chinese society needs," "the relation of philosophy to science," and "philosophy as an idea to reflect on one's life." These explorations (...) have provided us a significant ideological insight into the development of Marxist philosophy and contemporary Chinese philosophy; that is, in contemporary China, Marxist philosophy, as a doctrine of the liberation and all-round development of human beings, exists not only as a kind of"doctrine" or "academy" but also as a kind of widely accepted "xueyuan (academic cultivations)" among people. (shrink)

Words and meanings are important categories in the history of Chinese philosophy. The so-called disputes over words and meanings explored the relationship between language and thinking. Generally speaking, these disputes originated in pre-Qin philosophy, flourished during the Wei and Jin dynasties, and declined in the Ming and Qing dynasties, leaving valuable data for philosophical investigations in the history of Chinese philosophy.

Both ways of looking at the history of logic as well as some of the issues that plague contemporary disputes over the nature of logic are illustrated in three recent books. Henry Veatch's Intentional Logic turns to a medieval Aristotelian philosophy as providing the framework for an adequate account of logical subject matter. Ernest Moody's Truth and Consequence in Mediaeval Logic borrows from the technical apparatus of present-day logicians in an endeavor to reassess what was once dismissed (...) as fourteenth century logic-chopping. Benson Mates' Stoic Logic is a similar study in the logic of an earlier period. (shrink)

The discussion between Ernan McMullin and Alvin Plantinga concerning evolution and religion, which first appeared in Christian Scholar’s Review in September 1991, is an enlightening airing of many of the issues that arise with regard to this complex, controversial topic. Overall, Plantinga favors a confrontational view of the relationship between religion and evolution, while McMullin favors a dialogue model. The two thinkers disagree about the evidence for evolution, about what Plantinga calls “theistic science,” about methodological naturalism, and about biblical interpretation. (...) McMullin accepts a mainstream view in several important respects, holding that: (i) evolution is true; (ii) Genesis is not to be read literally; (iii) science should be separated from theology; (iv) we should accept “methodological naturalism”; and (v) we should reject “creation science.” Plantinga disagrees with all of these claims. This article explores the differences between the two thinkers by means of an exposition of the main points, and offers a few important critical observations on key questions. (shrink)

One way to challenge the substantiveness of a particular philosophical issue is to argue that those who debate the issue are engaged in a merely verbal dispute. For example, it has been maintained that the apparent disagreement over the mind/brain identity thesis is a merely verbal dispute, and thus that there is no substantive question of whether or not mental properties are identical to neurological properties. The goal of this paper is to help clarify the relationship between mere verbalness (...) and substantiveness. I first argue that we should see mere verbalness as a certain kind of discourse defect that arises when the parties differ as to what each takes to be the immediate question under discussion. I then argue that mere verbalness, so understood, does not imply that the question either party is attempting to address is a non-substantive one. Even if it turns out that the parties to the mind/brain dispute are addressing subtly different questions, these might both be substantive questions to which their respective metaphysical views provide substantive answers. One reason it is tempting to reach deflationary conclusions from the charge of mere verbalness is that we fail to distinguish it from the claim that a sentence under dispute is, in a certain sense, indisputable. Another reason is that we fail to distinguish mere verbalness from a certain sort of indeterminacy. While indisputability and indeterminacy plausibly capture forms of nonsubstantiveness, I argue that mere verbalness is insufficient to establish either indisputability or indeterminacy. (shrink)

The 1940s and 1950s were marked by intense debates over the origin of drug resistance in microbes. Bacteriologists had traditionally invoked the notions of ‘training’ and ‘adaptation’ to account for the ability of microbes to acquire new traits. As the field of bacterial genetics emerged, however, its participants rejected ‘Lamarckian’ views of microbial heredity, and offered statistical evidence that drug resistance resulted from the selection of random resistant mutants. Antibiotic resistance became a key issue among those disputing physiological vs. (...) genetic explanations of variation in bacteria. Postwar developments connected with the Lysenko affair gave this debate a new political valence.Proponents of the neo-Darwinian synthesis weighed in with support for the genetic theory. However, certain features of drug resistance seemed inexplicable by mutation and selection, particularly the phenomenon of ‘multiple resistance’—the emergence of resistance in a single strain against several unrelated antibiotics. In the late 1950s, Tsutomu Watanabe and his collaborators solved this puzzle by determining that resistance could be conferred by cytoplasmic resistance factors rather than chromosomal mutation. These R factors could carry resistance to many antibiotics and seemed able to promote their own dissemination in bacterial populations. In the end, the vindication of the genetic view of drug resistance was accompanied by a recasting of the ‘gene’ to include extrachromosomal hereditary units carried on viruses and plasmids. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Proclus: Neo-Platonic Philosophy and Science by Lucas SiorvanesP.A. MeijerLucas Siorvanes. Proclus: Neo-Platonic Philosophy and Science. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. Pp. xv+ 340. Cloth, $35.00.This book will be welcomed by scholars of Proclus and by readers unfamiliar with Proclus alike. There are not many introductory books on Proclus. And Siorvanes presents in an interesting way the latest developments in scholarship. [End Page 160]Siorvanes (...) gives an account of Proclus’s life and times, his position in the Athenian Neoplatonic school, and his influence and offers a panoramic view of Proclus’s philosophy in the chapters: “General Metaphysics,” “Knowledge and the levels of Being,” “Physics and Metaphysics,” and “Stars and Planets.” He presents not only Proclus’s views on physics and astronomy, but also his poetics (189).Siorvanes deals competently with Proclus’s metaphysics, analyzing it in its own right and as the indispensable background of his scientific views. His summaries are on the whole adequate and instructive. But a scheme or outline of levels of the multi-layered Proclean system of Gods (Henads), such as that offered by H. D. Saffrey and L. G. Westerink in Proclus, Théologie Platonicienne (Paris 1968) for example, would have facilitated understanding.In an impressive description of Proclus’s historical influence, Siorvanes establishes connections between Proclus’s ideas and modern views in metaphysics, mathematics, physics, logic and astronomy. Yet a warning would be appropriate in this context. There is, for instance, the strikingly modern Proclean theory that planets have satellites. Perhaps Siorvanes is too much enamoured with these modern Proclean theories. Though he recognizes that the theory about the satellites is really a consequence of Proclus’s metaphysics (268–271), he fails to emphasize that Proclus’s modern-seeming theories are no less speculative than other ancient theories. Neither Proclus’s metaphysics nor his mathematics can replace evidence as used in modern science. Thus, the rather triumphal tones Sioravanes sounds in this regard are somewhat out of place. The incidental similarities in theoretical structures and patterns that emerge in the course of history are interesting to note, but we should beware of becoming too enthusiastic about their significance. The so-called indirect influence may be due precisely to the structure of problems and the (limited) range of possible solutions.I would raise some objections to Siorvanes’s manner of translating and interpreting the Greek word for “to be” (einai) or “Being” (on). As is often done, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, Siorvanes alternatively uses “being,” “existence” and “reality,” without being aware of the fact that in ancient philosophy the Greek words “on/ousia” (“Being”) generally do not admit of the translation “existence.” Such translations are anachronistic and wrong. “Reality” is entirely inappropriate as a translation. As an essentially medieval expression, the word “reality” (realitas) as such is nowhere to be found in antiquity. When Proclus presents his multilevel system of Being, there are no degrees of reality in the sense that one transcendent level is more real than another. There are only degrees of Being. The problematic nature of the issue stands out even more when one speaks about not being. “Being” interpreted as “reality” suggests that what is not being, has no reality. But that is not what Proclus meant to say. The translation “existence” is bound to bring about similar misunderstandings. The notion “existence” is seldom in the focus of the interest when an ancient philosopher uses “einai.” Thus, an innocent reader of Siorvanes’s book may despair when he encounters “real existence” as a translation for “ousia” (124). Do the levels of being other than the one called “ousia” exist or do they not exist? If they do not, Proclus’s entire philosophy would be incoherent, and our world would not even exist or possess “reality.” But this is not what Proclus or Siorvanes mean. To avoid misunderstandings, we should use only “Being” (and “to be”) as translations. [End Page 161]There are also problems with some aspects of Siorvanes’s description of participation. In picturing the connection of the entity that is participated (methekton), what is given to the participant (metechomenon) and the participant (metechon), the terms “predication” and... (shrink)

In the contemporary philosophy, there is indeed lots of talk about meaning – not to mention humanities and social sciences. However, philosophers views on what meaning vary greatly. American philosopher William Lycan (Lycan 1984, p. 272) has prosed that part of this disagreement derives from the wide acceptance of what he calls “the Double Indexical Theory of Meaning”. He suggests it has the virtue of explaining why most disputes over the nature of meaning have seemed so intractable. (...) Here it is. (shrink)

The paper aims to address the following two questions: what kind of discourse is that which attempt to found or defend the autonomy or the boundaries of a discipline? Why do such discourses tend to turn into normative, dogmatic-excommunicating discourses between disciplines, schools or scholars? I will argue that an adequate answer may be found if we conceive disciplines as dogmatics, where such discourses often take the form of a discourse on the foundation of a discipline, a foundation in the (...) name of which the scholar speaks and with which he/she entertains an identity relationship. To this purpose I will re-examine the methodological discourses of (and debates between) Pareto, Croce and Einaudi on the demarcation issue between philosophy, economics and value-judgments as highly instructive to understand such issues. (shrink)

One of the unresolved issues in Aristotle’s hylomorphism is the part-whole puzzle. Some scholars suppose that in Metaphysics Z 17, 1041b11-33 he endorses non-mereological hylomorphism. This kind of interpretation, however, has been challenged by K. Koslicki who argues that if the evidence in Metaphysics Z 17 is combined with some related textual and conceptual considerations, then a convincing case can be made for a mereological construal of Aristotelian hylomorphism. This paper does four things. First, it scrutinizes these opposing approaches to (...) Aristotle’s theory. Second, it suggests that to adjudicate the dispute at hand one ought to determine how Aristotle deals with what has come to be known as ‘Ackrill’s problem’. It is proposed that if we consider Aristotle’s theory in light of some distinctions drawn in contemporary discussions of hylomorphism, then it transpires that he does have a solution to Ackrill’s problem. Third, it is shown that his solution to this problem suggests a particular way of settling the debate over the part-whole puzzle. And finally, it is argued that the suggested reconstruction of Aristotelian hylomorphism is consistent with the textual evidence in Metaphysics Z 17 and its associated texts. (shrink)

One view of philosophy that is sometimes expressed, especially by scientists, is that while philosophers are good at asking questions, they are poor at producing convincing answers. And the perceived divide between philosophical and scientific methods is often pointed to as the major culprit behind this lack of progress. Looking back at the history of philosophy, however, we find that this methodological divide is a relatively recent invention. Further, it is one that has been challenged over the (...) past decade by the modern incarnation of experimental philosophy. How might the reincorporation of empirical methods into philosophy aid the process of making philosophical progress? Building off of the work of Sytsma, we argue that one way it does so is by offering a means of resolving some disputes that arise in philosophy. We illustrate how philosophical disputes may sometimes be resolved empirically by looking at the recent experimental literature on intuitions about reference. (shrink)

One view of philosophy that is sometimes expressed, especially by scientists, is that while philosophers are good at asking questions, they are poor at producing convincing answers. And the perceived divide between philosophical and scientific methods is often pointed to as the major culprit behind this lack of progress. Looking back at the history of philosophy, however, we find that this methodological divide is a relatively recent invention. Further, it is one that has been challenged over the (...) past decade by the modern incarnation of experimental philosophy. How might the reincorporation of empirical methods into philosophy aid the process of making philosophical progress? Building off of the work of Sytsma (2010), we argue that one way it does so is by offering a means of resolving some disputes that arise in philosophy. We illustrate how philosophical disputes may sometimes be resolved empirically by looking at the recent experimental literature on intuitions about reference. (shrink)

In late antiquity Plato's philosophy became a battlefield between the competing discourses and rival intellectual paradigms represented by Hellenism and Christianity. Focusing on Theodoret of Cyrrhus' Graecarum Affectionum Curatio, Dr Siniossoglou examines the philosophical, rhetorical and political dimensions of the Neoplatonic-Christian conflict of interpretations over Plato. He shows that the apologist's aim was to procure a radical shift in Hellenic intellectual identity through the appropriation of Platonic concepts and terminology. The apologetical strategies of appropriation are confronted with (...) the perspective of the intended audience, the Hellenic elite, by means of comparative discourse analysis. The outcome is a reconstruction of a vital trial of strength between Neoplatonic hermeneutics and the Christian rhetorical mode of rewriting Plato. The volume concludes that the fundamental Hellenic-Christian opposition outweighed any linguistic merging that might have occurred between the two systems, and that this opposition outlived the dominance of Christianity in late antique society and politics. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 11, Issue 1, pp 3 - 25 In several iterations of the Gnostic ontogenetic myth, we find variations on an intriguing notion: namely, that the first rupture in the otherwise eternal and continuous procession of ‘aeons’ in the divine ‘pleroma’ is caused by a _cognitive overreach and failure_. As much as it might contain a distant echo of certain myths concerning hubris in the classical tradition or in biblical literature, this general schema of _cognitive overreach—cognitive failure—fall_ has (...) no obvious parallel in Greek philosophy prior to Plotinus, in some of whose more pessimistic accounts of hypostatic procession we find a similar schema, in which the generation of each ontological stratum occurs as the result of a cognitive failure on the superjacent level. If Plotinus borrowed this schema from the Gnostics, one might ask how the latter came up with it in the first place. In response, this paper makes the following three points. [1] Gnostic thinkers ultimately derived this schema from a particular juxtaposition of two profoundly aporetic Platonic passages referring to the travails of the individual soul, one certainly genuine, the other quite possibly spurious. [2] The Platonizing Sethian Gnostics closest to Plotinus also employed this latter source text to justify their conception of the _individual_ soul, whose vicissitudes were understood to parallel those of Sophia. [3] This hypothesis is confirmed by evidence of tacit anti-Gnostic argumentation alluding to the _2nd Letter_ throughout Plotinus’ oeuvre. (shrink)

Grand debates over reduction and emergence are playing out across the sciences, but these debates have reached a stalemate, with both sides declaring victory on empirical grounds. In this book, Carl Gillett provides new theoretical frameworks with which to understand these debates, illuminating both the novel positions of scientific reductionists and emergentists and the recent empirical advances that drive these new views. Gillett also highlights the flaws in existing philosophical frameworks and reorients the discussion to reflect the new scientific (...) advances and issues, including the nature of 'parts' and 'wholes', the character of aggregation, and thus the continuity of nature itself. Most importantly, Gillett shows how disputes about concrete scientific cases are empirically resolvable and hence how we can break the scientific stalemate. Including a detailed glossary of key terms, this volume will be valuable for researchers and advanced students of the philosophy of science and metaphysics, and scientific researchers working in the area. (shrink)

For two millennia philosophy has restlessly stalked a fundamental problem the answer to the question "what is art, really?" Aesthetic discourse, focused on the Platonic Matrix of truth and beauty, arthood and object, imitation and representation, form and idea, has not delivered on its promise, leaving us in bewilderment over principles that are either ignored or contradicted by the arts themselves. In this searching critique, some astonishing faux pas are brought to light. Notably that aesthetics makes do (...) without a knower, the heuristics of art, and the dynamics of self-exploration that are central to the aesthetic experience. What this book seeks to accomplish is a thorough reformulation of the terms of reference, based on the actual "form of life" that is art. This amounts to a framework for a wholly new philosophy of art. It demonstrates that art is quintessentially involved in the meaning of life, and through its heuristic dimension serves our impulse for self-knowledge and an understanding of the human condition. The book is in the first instance a philosophical treatise and therefore suitable for academic study in all grades, though perhaps with greatest benefit at post-graduate level. But it has been written in an approachable style to encourage a wider audience to engage with its tenets: accordingly it seeks also to address art aficionados, whether professional or dilettante, as well as general readers with an interest in these ever perplexing and profoundly intriguing issues of our human estate. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:113 HUME ON LIBERTY, NECESSITY AND VERBAL DISPUTES Although Hume's discussion "Of Liberty and Necessity" in Section VIII of the first Enquiry has become a paradigm of compatibilism with respect to the issue of free will and determinism, it is not without its perplexing features. For instance, it is far from clear how Hume's arguments and illustrations help to establish his claim that "The same motives always produce (...) the same actions: The same events follow from the same causes." Nor is it obvious that Humean liberty is reconcilable with Humean causation or constant conjunction, or that the latter takes the sting out of determinism and makes the case for compatibilism more plausible. In this paper I want to examine a further, perhaps related, perplexing feature of Hume's discussion, namely, his contention that the dispute concerning liberty and necessity has been a merely verbal one. Although perhaps portions of the dispute may turn "merely upon words" as Hume contends, still it seems extreme to claim that the "whole controversy" is of this nature. I shall begin by examining the notion of a merely verbal dispute as it is discussed by Hume in other parts of his philosophy, and shall isolate three conditions for such a dispute. I shall then show why the dispute over liberty and necessity as presented in the Enquiry fails to meet these conditions. I want to suggest that there is a tension between Hume's psychological account of particular mistaken beliefs or natural illusions and his views about particular verbal disputes involving these beliefs. Even if this tension can be eased or eliminated, it will not make the dispute about liberty and necessity verbal. 114 Before we can hope to assess Hume's claim that the dispute about liberty and necessity is a merely verbal one, we must be clear on what hé understands by such a dispute. Fortunately, the notion is discussed in each of his four most important philosophical works — the Treatise, the two Enquiries and the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. Perhaps the most detailed discussion is found in the Appendix to the second Enquiry, where Hume examines an apparent disagreement discovered in a comparison of various natural languages over the question of whether particular personal qualities are virtues or rather talents (and the corresponding question of whether other qualities are vices or rather defects). In contending that the disagreement is merely verbal, Hume has two important things to say. First, he notes that "I do not find that in the English, or any other modern tongue, the boundaries are exactly fixed between virtues and talents, vices and defects, or that a precise definition can be given of the one as contradistinguished from the other." (E 313) Secondly, he states, "...it is no wonder that languages should not be very precise in marking the boundaries between virtues and talents, vices and defects; since there is so little distinction made in our internal estimation of them." (E 314) Hume goes on to point out that the sentiments which arise from the contemplation of qualities that are designated virtues are similar to those which arise from the contemplation of qualities which in some languages are designated talents. (E 316) 115 The preceding comments suggest an account of the nature of verbal disputes along the following lines. In a verbal dispute there is an underlying agreement about specific impressions, perceptions or experiences of objects. Thus, in the case of the dispute about whether specific qualities are talents or virtues, this would include the fact that the qualities elicit a similar feeling of approval for Hume whether they are designated in one way or the other. Moreover, Hume's comment about the lack of a clear distinction between "virtue" and "talent" implies that the terms express or refer to ideas that are compatible, that is, both of which can apply to a given object. Hence, there can be instances of qualities which fall under both designations. Given the underlying "factual" agreement between the parties to the dispute and given the compatibility of ideas, it would seem that for Hume in a verbal dispute there is no real disagreement between them and neither party is mistaken. Consequently... (shrink)

Over the last few years there has been a resurgent interest in various scientific disciplines in Popper’s arguments. To gain a greater appreciation of Popper’s scientific arguments, they need to be viewed in relation to his broader philosophy and where this stands within the history of ideas. This book aims to take seriously those aspects of Popper’s writings that have received less attention and wherein he advanced metaphysical, speculative, mystical-poetic, aesthetic and Platonic arguments. Such arguments are crucial (...) for an appreciation of his scientific and political writings. I argue that Popper, much like Wittgenstein previously has been misconstrued as an Anglo-analytic philosopher. This book provides an interpretation of Popper’s mature philosophy within his Central-European intellectual context. The aim of which is to open up a fruitful line of investigation into Popper’s thought that I hope would continue over the coming years. Alexander Naraniecki has spent time at the Popper Archives at the University of Klagenfurt in Austria whilst researching for this book. He has also been a visiting scholar at Duke University and has completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at Deakin University in Melbourne. Dr Naraniecki also publishes on issues relating to multiculturalism, globalization, cosmopolitanism as well as inter-cultural relations and dialogue. He has published on Popper in various leading journals such as Philosophy, Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, and The European Legacy. He is currently building his research on Popper in a broader direction by exploring issues related to creativity and problem solving for critical thinking. (shrink)

When surveying the scholarly literature over Wittgensteinian fideism, it is easy to get the sense that the principal interlocutors, Kai Nielsen and D.Z. Phillips, talk past one another, but finding the right words for appraising the distance between the two voices is difficult. In this paper, I seek to appreciate this intellectual distance through an exploration of the varying philosophical aims of Nielsen and Phillips, of the different intellectual imperatives that guide their respective conceptions of philosophical practice. In so (...) doing, I seek to show how a contemplative mode in philosophy may be used to appraise a philosophical dispute and the terms of disagreement. In this case, a contemplative approach to understanding the dispute would frame Nielsen’s and Phillips’ contributions against the backdrop of the ends they conceive philosophy to have. (shrink)

This book offers new insights into the workings of the human soul and the philosophical conception of the mind in Ancient Greece. It collects essays that deal with different but interconnected aspects of that unified picture of our mental life shared by all Ancient philosophers who thought of the soul as an immaterial substance. The papers present theoretical discussions on moral and psychological issues ranging from Socrates to Aristotle, and beyond, in connection with modern psychology. Coverage includes moral learning and (...) the fruitfulness of punishment, human motivation, emotions as psychic phenomena, and more. Some of these topics directly stemmed from the Socratic dialectical experience and its tragic outcome, whereas others found their way through a complex history of refinements, disputes, and internal critique. The contributors present the gradual unfolding of these central themes through a close inspection of the relevant Ancient texts. They deliver a wide-ranging survey of some central and mutually related topics. In the process, readers will learn new approaches to Platonic and Aristotelian psychology and action theory. This book will appeal to graduate students and researchers in Ancient philosophy. Any scholar with a general interest in the history of ideas will also find it a valuable resource. (shrink)

Governing bodies in golf, in particular the R&A and USGA, are proposing to introduce an elite golf ball for their tournaments (the Open and the US Open) in 2026 (see https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/gol...

The debate over whether human motivations are fundamentally selfinterested or benevolent consumed Shaftesbury, Mandeville, and Hutcheson, but Hume – though explicitly indebted to all three – almost entirely ignores this issue. I argue that his relative silence reveals an overlooked intellectual debt to Bishop Butler that informs two distinguishing features of Hume’s view: first, it allows him to appropriate compelling empirical observations that Mandeville makes about virtue and moral approval; second, it provides a way of articulating a fundamental criticism (...) of Shaftesbury and Hutcheson on the issue of virtuous motivation. From this position, Hume is able to reframe the question of virtue according to the approbation of the spectator, rather than the internal aims of the agent. (shrink)

Dr. Zaslavsky’s Platonic Myth and Platonic Writing: A Philosophico-Literary Exploration addresses the thorny issue of precisely what is meant by mythos (myth) in the Platonic corpus of dialogues. Dr. Zaslavsky rejects the common notion that what makes a myth in Plato a myth (as opposed to a speech or logos) is its truth value. Therefore, after an analysis of why Plato wrote as he did and a cataloguing and examination of every occurence of mythos and its derivatives (...) in the Platonic corpus, he articulates the new linguistic and philosophical principle that a myth is a genetic or causal synagogic/synoptic account, in contradistinction to logos as a descriptive or calssificatory diairetic account. He tests this definition successfully through an examination of all those accounts in Plato that are explicitly designated as myths. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Disputing the Unity of the World: The Importance of Res and the Influence of Averroes in Giles of Rome’s Critique of Thomas Aquinas concerning the Unity of the WorldG. J. Mcaleer1. introductiongiles of rome (1243–1316) earned, after a decidedly difficult start, the most complete honors open to an academic religious in the Middle Ages. Joining the Hermits of St. Augustine at age 14, he became the first regent master (...) of his order at the University of Paris (1285–1291); his works were made compulsory in the education of students entering the Hermits in 1287; finally, in 1292 he became the general of the order itself.1 Giles is significant, as Mandonnet puts it, because he “est incontestablement au premier rang des théologiens de la fin du XIIIe siècle.”2 But this is not all. Giles is also important to the period because his writings were censured by the same commission that composed the famous Parisian condemnation of 1277. As a result of this [End Page 29] censure, Giles had to leave Paris, returning only in 1285.3 Perhaps of even greater significance is the fact that his teacher was Thomas Aquinas: Giles studied with Thomas at Paris during the years 1269–1272.4 It has been acknowledged for a long time now that Giles did not slavishly follow his teacher but wrought his own subtle and wide-ranging philosophical synthesis out of the various grand traditions of medieval thought.5 As the critical editions of Giles’s works appear (an enormous task currently moving forward under the guidance of F. Del Punta and G. Fioravanti) it will become clearer on how many issues Giles saw fit to criticize the positions of Thomas. It is one of these issues, Giles’s dispute with Thomas over the unity of the matter of the universe, that I wish to elaborate and analyze in this essay.6The thirteenth century is surely one of the greatest for philosophical innovation. Thinkers of the stature of Albert the Great, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and Giles of Rome engaged great metaphysical themes ranging from the unity of being and creation to the composition of material substances. These speculations were prompted by their efforts to systematize the vast theological heritage of Christian thought and their encounter with the rich and varied traditions of Greek, Islamic, and Jewish thought newly entering the Latin West in translation. Questions involving matter were especially common amongst these speculations, carrying special significance in that they redounded upon conceptions of human nature and thus upon the Incarnation and Resurrection. Moreover, disputes about matter demanded arduous thought on the interrelations of the fundamental metaphysical notions of the period: act and potency; substance and accident; generation and corruption; essence and existence; principle and thing; and so on. The productivity of these thinkers, and the range and complexity of the [End Page 30] questions they treated, was stunning, and ultimately led to a massive condemnation of 219 philosophical and theological propositions at the University of Paris in 1277. The Bishop of Paris, Stephen Tempier, with the aid of a theological commission that included Henry of Ghent, hoped to efface certain errors contained in these speculations. A large number of the condemned propositions were associated with Siger of Brabant and other so-called “Radical Aristotelians.” However, theses found in the works of Aquinas were included, and, as already mentioned, Tempier soon turned his attention to Giles of Rome.7A dominant issue throughout the condemnations and the works of the period, especially in questions concerning matter, is that of unicity and plurality. This is true of perhaps the two most famous debates: whether human nature is a composition of one or many forms and whether the intellect is one for all human persons. The latter is probably the most studied of all the disputes of that time and the controversy most often associated with Averroes. The question of whether there is one matter in the universe or two is very much connected with the plurality of forms debate. Regarding this debate, thinkers wanted to know not only the number of forms in material composites but also what material... (shrink)

Responsible conduct of research and ethical publishing practices are debatable issues in the higher education literature. The literature suggests that ‘authorship disputes’ are associated with multi-author paper publication and linked to ethical publishing practices. A few research studies argue authorship matters of a multi-author paper publication, but do not explain how to arrange author list meaningfully in a multi-author paper. How is a principal author of a multi-author paper to be decided? The literature also does not clarify whether language (...) editor could claim authorship for a research paper publication? The paper adopts qualitative methodology that subsumes descriptive, evaluative, and interpretative approaches to answer these questions. While answering these questions, the paper critically examines ‘authorship disputes’ and ‘types of authorship’ relating to research paper publication practices. At the end, the paper proposes a framework that would help to resolve authorship disputes over multi-author paper publication. (shrink)

Many philosophers regard the persistence of philosophical disputes as symptomatic of overly ambitious, ill-founded intellectual projects. There are indeed strong reasons to believe that persistent disputes in philosophy (and more generally in the discourse at large) are pointless. We call this the pessimistic view of the nature of philosophical disputes. In order to respond to the pessimistic view, we articulate the supporting reasons and provide a precise formulation in terms of the idea that the best explanation (...) of persistent disputes entails that they are pointless. We then show how to answer the pessimistic argument. Taking a well-known mathematical controversy as our paradigm example, we argue that some persistent disputes reflect substantive disagreements at the “meta-analytic” level, i.e., disagreements about the best way, among quite different candidates, to understand the topic at issue, and the best associated cluster of analytic truths one should accept concerning it. Moreover, our concrete example shows that such meta-analytic disagreements can in principle be settled and yield a genuine theoretical (as opposed to merely pragmatic) breakthrough. We conclude optimistically that persistent disputes can be an important means of fostering epistemic progress. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200–600 AD: A Sourcebook. Vol. I, Psychology (with Ethics and Religion)James WilberdingRichard Sorabji. The Philosophy of the Commentators, 200–600 AD: A Sourcebook. Vol. I, Psychology (with Ethics and Religion). Pp. xv + 430. Vol. II, Physics. Pp. xix + 401. Vol. III, Logic and Metaphysics Pp. xvii + 394. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 2005. Paper, $39.50, each volume.Interest in (...) the Greek commentators continues to grow, thanks in large part to Richard Sorabji, who has done more than anyone else to reestablish them as at once faithful and original philosophers who remain relevant even to modern students of philosophy. The Sourcebook makes the commentators still more accessible by providing an introductory tool for the systematic exploration of their thought.Each volume contains a 30-page introduction consisting of roughly six sections: an explanation of the aims of the Sourcebook (1–5), a brief introduction to the commentators (5–12), a survey of issues relating to Neoplatonism (12–14) and the compatibility of Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy (14–19), a section entitled "The commentators and Christianity" (19–25), which is largely devoted to offering renewed support for Sorabji's suggestion from Aristotle Transformed (Cornell 1990) regarding the content of Ammonius's concession to the Christian patriarch in the 490s, and, finally, a short, volume-specific section designed to survey some of the innovations and disagreements in the respective subjects (25–28/29/30). Each volume is divided into between 18 and 28 topics, which are subdivided into as many as 26 subtopics (on average 5–6), and these subtopics are often further divided into as many as 8 subsections (on average roughly 4 subsections for every 10 subtopics). Nearly all subtopics and subsections contain introductions (typically one or two paragraphs, occasionally longer) as well as some interspersed annotations that together serve two functions: they review some of the relevant background passages—mostly from Plato and Aristotle, but also from the Presocratic and Hellenistic schools—and they introduce and summarize the passages contained in the Sourcebook by surveying some of the issues raised by the passages that follow. Both the introductions and the annotations are kept brief, since Sorabji's aim is to explain the relevant concepts "only so far as necessary for a first understanding" (4). The passages themselves are mostly drawn from surviving Greek as well as Latin texts of the commentators—a group that features Plotinus, Porphyry, and Proclus (see 4)—but also includes a handful of passages preserved only in Hebrew and Arabic. For example, included in the subtopic devoted to the status of nature (Physics 1[b]) is an English translation of a passage from Themistius preserved only in Averroes' Metaphysics. Over one hundred scholars contributed translations, though Sorabji emphasizes that in the interests of greater harmony he reworked them so that "the final versions are rather based on the work of the translators" (xvii). Often, Sorabji also refers to additional passages containing like-minded or opposing views not included in the Sourcebook, as well as cross-references to other passages in the Sourcebook. In most cases he provides a helpful selection of secondary literature on the subject. [End Page 470]There are some striking differences between the Sourcebook and two comparable introductory collections, Long and Sedley (LS), and Kirk, Raven, and Schofield (KRS), which might offer the clearest picture of the nature and objectives of the Sourcebook. The foremost of these is the very task of introducing periods in which the amount of surviving material is so different. Whereas of Hellenistic and especially of Pre-Socratic philosophy we have in large part only fragments, of the commentators we possess thousands of pages of Greek text. This means that the Sourcebook is the result of a long process of selection and systematization that ultimately captures only a fraction of the available material. Far from being a shortcoming, this belongs to the very nature of framing an introduction to such an extensive body of literature and would become problematic only if Sorabji wished to establish a canon of the philosophically significant texts of the period. He explicitly rejects such an aim, however (5). The Sourcebook also... (shrink)