In this paper I have two objectives. First, I attempt to call attention to the incoherence of the widely accepted anti-essentialist interpretation of Wittgenstein’s family resemblance point. Second, I claim that the family resemblance idea is not meant to reject essentialism, but to render this doctrine irrelevant, by dissipating its philosophical force. I argue that the role of the family resemblance point in later Wittgenstein’s views can be better understood in light of the provocative aim of his philosophical method, as (...) stated (for instance) in PI 133: “[t]he philosophical problems” - associated with essentialism in this case, "should completely disappear". (shrink)

This a general account of the school of Mo-tzu, its social basis as a movement of craftsmen, its isolated place in the Chinese tradition, and the nature of its later contributions to logic, ethics, and science. It assesses the relation of Mohist thinking to the structure of the Chinese language, and grapples with the textual dynamics of later Mohist writings, particularly in regard to grammar and style, technical terminology, the use and significance of stock examples, and overall organization. Includes edited (...) and annotated Chinese text with an English translation and commentary, a glossary, and a photographic reproduction of the unemended text from the Taoist Patrology. (shrink)

This book shows that Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later philosophical methods can be fruitfully applied to several problems in contemporary moral philosophy. The author considers Wittgenstein’s ethical views and addresses such topics as meta-ethics, objectivity in ethics and moral perception. Readers will gain an insight into how Wittgenstein thought about philosophical problems and a new way of looking at moral questions. The book consists of three parts. In the first part, Wittgenstein’s later philosophical methods are discussed, including his comparison of philosophical methods (...) to therapies. The book then goes on to explore how these methods give insight into Wittgenstein’s ethical views. Readers will see how these are better understood when read in the light of his later philosophical thought. In the third part, Wittgenstein’s later methods are applied to problems in contemporary moral philosophy, including a look at questions for moral advice. The author reviews and criticizes some of the secondary literature on Wittgenstein’s later philosophical methods and indicates how the topic of the book can be developed in future research. There is something of value for readers of all levels in this insightful and well written volume. It will particularly appeal to scholars and students of Wittgenstein, of philosophy, and of ethics. (shrink)

One of intuitions driving the acceptance of a neat structured tree of life is the assumption that organisms and the lineages they form have somewhat stable spatial and temporal boundaries. The phenomenon of symbiosis shows us that such ‘fixist’ assumptions does not correspond to how the natural world actually works. The implications of lateral gene transfer (LGT) have been discussed elsewhere; I wish to stress a related point. I will focus on lateral function transfer (LFT) and will argue, using examples (...) of what many would call ‘superorganisms’, that the emergence of symbiotic individuals revives the importance of functional and adaptationist thinking in how we conceptualize the lineages of biological individuals. The consequence of the argument is that, if we really want to hold onto tree of life thinking, we had better accept that new saplings appear and disappear all the time. (shrink)

John Dewey's Experience and Nature has been considered the fullest expression of his mature philosophy since its eagerly awaited publication in 1925. Irwin Edman wrote at that time that "with monumental care, detail and completeness, Professor Dewey has in this volume revealed the metaphysical heart that beats its unvarying alert tempo through all his writings, whatever their explicit themes." In his introduction to this volume, Sidney Hook points out that "Dewey's Experience and Nature is both the most suggestive and most (...) difficult of his writings." The meticulously edited text published here as the first volume in the series The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925-1953 spans that entire period in Dewey's thought by including two important and previously unpublished documents from the book's history: Dewey's unfinished new introduction written between 1947 and 1949, edited by the late Joseph Ratner, and Dewey's unedited final draft of that introduction written the year before his death. In the intervening years Dewey realized the impossibility of making his use of the word 'experience' understood. He wrote in his 1951 draft for a new introduction: "Were I to write (or rewrite) Experience and Nature today I would entitle the book Culture and Nature and the treatment of specific subject-matters would be correspondingly modified. I would abandon the term 'experience' because of my growing realization that the historical obstacles which prevented understanding of my use of 'experience' are, for all practical purposes, insurmountable. I would substitute the term 'culture' because with its meanings as now firmly established it can fully and freely carry my philosophy of experience.". (shrink)

Predictive medicine presents opportunities to consider later life under conditions of illness, such as dementia. This paper examines how family caregivers (N = 27) assess the opportunity of prediction and early diagnosis of dementia for oneself based on their particular experience. Furthermore, it compares their attitudes with laypersons’ attitudes (N = 43) towards genetic testing of APOE. By this, we elaborate how much personal experience impacts anticipation and affects, but also moral attitudes towards predictive medicine. Differences in our settings do (...) not allow for direct comparison, so our analysis focuses on multiple similarities in the assessments of predictive (non-genetic vs. genetic) testing. Groups’ reasoning showed also differences influenced mainly by personal experience. Family caregivers addressed more responsibility towards family and had more hopes into medical treatments. To cope with the disease, they expressed expectations to start with medicine and care decisions as early as possible. Laypersons, however, stressed self-determination more and expressed worries about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry by referring to unnecessary medication and, implicitly, the medicalization of aging. (shrink)

An opinionated survey of the main topics in later Wittgenstein's philosophy of mathematics.

In his remarks from later period, Ludwig Wittgenstein is frequently concerned with so-called external roots of our logical operations. He asks questions like: ‘How is anything like logical necessity possible?‘; ‚How is possible anything like following a logical rule under normal circumstances?‘; ‚Where is the compelling force of a logical proof coming from?‘; etc. In the philosophical community, it is generally accepted that the later Wittgenstein’s remarks deal with these questions, but the philosophical motivation behind these remarks is still not (...) clear. Instead, there is a growing disagreement among various interpretations over these remarks. The present consideration is built upon the belief that Wittgenstein’s remarks try to communicate a new sense to us. I argue that, contrary to the generally accepted view, there is a new and positive sense in these remarks. My aim in this paper is to clarify the philosophical motivation behind them. (shrink)

This article presents an edited version of lectures given by Paul Ricœur at Johns Hopkins University in April 1966. Ricœur offers a comparative analysis of Wittgenstein’s and Husserl’s late works, taking the problem of language as the common ground of investigation for these two central figures of phenomenology and analytic philosophy. Ricœur develops his study in two parts. The first part considers Husserl’s approach to language after the Logical Investigations and concentrates on Formal and Transcendental Logic ; leaving a transcendental (...) reflection on language behind it re-examines a phenomenological conception, according to which the sphere of logic is not separable from that of experience. The main focus of the second part is Wittgenstein’s later philosophy as it moved on from the conception of an isomorphic relation between language and the world, as set out in the picture theory in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus , to the more pragmatic notion of a language-game in the Philosophical Investigations . In order to get beyond the irrevocable differences between the two philosophies and the unresolved theoretical issues on both sides, Ricœur suggests turning to a semiological paradigm based on the Saussurean distinction between “language” and “speaking.” Keywords: Analytic Philosophy, Husserl, Phenomenology, Semiology, Wittgenstein. Résumé Cet article est une version éditée de conférences données par Paul Ricœur à la Johns Hopkins University en avril 1966. Ricœur propose une analyse comparée des dernières œuvres de Wittgenstein et Husserl, avec le problème du langage comme sol commun d’investigations pour ces deux figures centrales de la phénoménologie et la philosophie analytique. Cette analyse de Ricœur se joue à travers deux parties. La première partie revient sur l'approche du langage chez Husserl depuis Recherches logiques avec une attention particulière aux développements de Logique formelle et logique transcendantale ; dans le cadre d’une réflexion transcendantale sur le langage il revient sur une conception phénoménologique selon laquelle, le domaine du logique n’est pas séparable de celui de l'expérience. La deuxième partie se concentre principalement sur la dernière philosophie de Wittgenstein alors qu’il s'est départi de l’idée d’une relation isomorphique entre le langage et le monde telle que posée par la théorie du tableau dans le Tractatus logico-philosophicus , pour s’engager vers la notion plus pragmatique de jeu de langage dans les Investigations philosophiques . Afin de surmonter les différences irrémédiables entre les deux philosophies et, dans une certaine mesure, certains des problèmes théoriques non résolus depuis les deux bords, Ricœur fait finalement référence à un paradigme sémiologique et à la distinction saussurienne entre “langue” et “parole.” Mots-clés: Husserl, phénoménologie, sémiologie, philosophie analytique, Wittgenstein. (shrink)

The writings of the later Mohists are generally taken to contain several updates to the consequentialist ethical view held by the Mohist school. In this paper, I defend one interpretation of those updates and how they may have served, within the Mohists’ argumentative context, to make their views more defensible. I argue that we should reject A.C. Graham’s prominent interpretation, on which the later Mohists’ argumentative strategy is to develop a conception of the a priori and to ground their ethical (...) view in a form of a priori rationalism. I contend, instead, that the strength of the later Mohists’ ethical view comes largely from their adoption of a subjective criterion for identifying what counts as a benefit within their consequentialist view. I show how the adoption of this subjective criterion fits within a larger trend in later Mohist thought of coming to terms with the diversity of people’s evaluative standpoints, and further show how it equips the later Mohists with worthwhile responses to their philosophical rivals. (shrink)

Historians of medieval philosophy have always paid attention to the topic of intentionality. This is not surprising. For medieval authors, the analysis of the metaphysics and the mechanisms of human cognition became over time one of the most important instruments for approaching a bundle of basic philosophical and theological questions, such as the nature of universals, the mind-world relation, the explanation of divine knowledge, and the like. For this and other reasons, theories of cognition have been a crucial theme for (...) historians of medieval philosophy and a privileged subject in the literature. The present volume presents a collection of articles devotes to later medieval perspectives on intentionality. Chronologically speaking, they cover the period from Thomas Aquinas to John Buridan. The reason is easy to explain: in this period, historians of medieval philosophy encounter accounts of intentionality of such a structure and sophistication that they can be compared, in a philosophically suitable way, with modern and contemporary explanations of the intentionality of mind. (shrink)

Rutherford and Lindell (2011) review an extensive literature on lateralization of emotion. As they note, an important issue surrounding this question is the nature of emotion, which bears on what, precisely, is lateralized. The present comments are intended to broaden the context of the review, by considering lateralization from the standpoint of a bivariate model of evaluative processes and a neuroevolutionary perspective.

This paper shows that Wittgenstein's later explorations of the meaning of expressive moral judgements reach far deeper than has so far been noticed. It is argued that an adequate description of the meaning of expressive moral judgements requires engaging in a grammatical investigation that focuses on three interwoven components within specific language-games. First, the ethical reactions expressed by moral words and the additional purpose they may fulfil. Second, the features of the actions which are bound up with moral words and (...) are constitutive of our moral evaluations. And, finally, the forms of life in which expressive moral judgements and moral language-games are embedded. (shrink)

This volume presents critical writings on the work of the later mercantilists. Sir Josiah Child was elected a governor of the East India Company in 1681. His reputation as an economist rests on his book 'A New Discourse of Trade' published in 1693. His work stimulated a wide range of discussion of such topics as interest rates, population, wage policy, poor relief and colonization. Despite many liberal elements in his thinking, he was a typical Mercantilist in his preference for administrative (...) solutions to economic problems. John Locke, best known for his work on political philosophy, made a major contribution to the debate on the rate of interest in his essay 'Some Considerations of the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money' (1692). The central theme of that pamphlet was that the rate of interest, being the price for the hire of money, is determined by the demand for and supply of money, which Parliament is powerless to affect. Locke's other major contribution to economic thought was the so called labour theory of private property contained in the 'Two Treaties on Government' (1690), a classic in the history of political philosophy. (shrink)

This article is a study of the Later Mohists' 'Lesser Selection (Xiaoqu)', which, more than any other early Chinese text, seems to engage in the study of logic. I focus on a procedure that the Mohists called mou . Arguments by mou are grounded in linguistic parallelism, implying perhaps that the Mohists were on the way to a formal analysis of argumentation. However, their main aim was to head off arguments by mou that targeted their own doctrines, and if their (...) argument succeeds then it entails that linguistic parallelism can never ground a cogent argument. In a way, this committed them to the view that formal logic cannot work, but the fact that they did not pursue this line of investigation was by no means inevitable. One consequence of this study is that the Later Mohists conducted their logical work by studying the behaviour of terms and verb phrases, and did not identify the sentence as a significant linguistic unit. This tends to confirm Chad Hansen's generalisation that early Chinese philosophers did not posit sentences or other sentence-like entities such as propositions, beliefs, or laws. Focusing on subsentential expressions did not stop the Mohists from addressing genuinely logical issues, but it may help explain the fact that they never developed a conception of logical structure. This study includes the complete Chinese text of the 'Lesser Selection' and a translation in English. (shrink)

I show that Wittgenstein's critique of G.H. Hardy's mathematical realism naturally extends to Paul Benacerraf's influential paper, ‘Mathematical Truth’. Wittgenstein accuses Hardy of hastily analogizing mathematical and empirical propositions, thus leading to a picture of mathematical reality that is somehow akin to empirical reality despite the many puzzles this creates. Since Benacerraf relies on that very same analogy to raise problems about mathematical ‘truth’ and the alleged ‘reality’ to which it corresponds, his major argument falls prey to the same critique. (...) The problematic pictures of mathematical reality suggested by Hardy and Benacerraf can be avoided, according to Wittgenstein, by disrupting the analogy that gives rise to them. I show why Tarskian updates to our conception of ‘truth’ discussed by Benacerraf do not answer Wittgenstein's concerns. That is, because they merely presuppose what Wittgenstein puts into question, namely, the essential uniformity of ‘truth’ and ‘proposition’ in ordinary discourse. (shrink)

Tzelgov and colleagues [Tzelgov, J., Meyer, J., and Henik, A. . Automatic and intentional processing of numerical information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 18, 166–179.], offered the existence of the laterality effect as a post-hoc explanation for their results. According to this effect, numbers are classified automatically as small/large versus a standard point under autonomous processing of numerical information. However, the genuinity of the laterality effect was never examined, or was confounded with the numerical distance effect. In (...) the current study, I controlled the numerical distance effect and observed that the laterality effect does exist, and affects the processing of automatic numerical information. The current results suggest that the laterality effect should be taken into account when using paradigms that require automatic numerical processing such as Stroop-like or priming tasks. (shrink)

This paper portrays the later Wittgenstein’s conception of contradictions and his therapeutic approach to them. I will focus on and give relevance to the Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics, plus the Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. First, I will explain why Wittgenstein’s attitude towards contradictions is rooted in: a rejection of the debate about realism and anti-realism in mathematics; and Wittgenstein’s endorsement of logical pluralism. Then, I will explain Wittgenstein’s therapeutic approach towards contradictions, and why it means that (...) a contradiction is not a problem for logic and mathematics. Rather, contradictions are problematic when we do not know what to infer from them. Once a meaning is established through a new rule of inference, the contradiction becomes a usable expression like many others in our inferential apparatus. Thus, the apparent problem is dissolved. Finally, I will take three examples of dissolved contradictions from Wittgenstein to clarify further his notion. I will conclude considering why his position on contradictions led him to clash with Alan Turing, and whether the latter was convinced by the Wittgensteinian proposal. (shrink)

This ninth volume in The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925—1953, brings together sixty items from 1933 and 1934, including Dewey’s Terry Lec­tures at Yale University, published as _A Common Faith._ In his introduction, Milton R. Konvitz concludes that _A_ _Common Faith _remains a provocative book, an intellectual ‘teaser,’ an essay at religious philoso­phy which no philosopher can wholly bypass.” Dewey concentrated much of his writing in 1933 and 1934 on issues arising from the economic crises of the Great Depression. (...) In the early 1930s Com­munist activity in the New York Teachers Union in­creased. _The Report of the Special Grievance Committee of the Teachers Union _is published in this volume, as is Dewey’s impromptu address, “On the Grievance Committee’s Report,” made when he presented that report. Rounding out the volume are eighteen arti­cles from the _People’s Lobby Bulletin._. (shrink)

John Dewey’s _Experience and Nature _has been considered the fullest expression of his mature philosophy since its eagerly awaited publication in 1925._ _Irwin Edman wrote at that time that “with monumental care, detail and completeness, Professor Dewey has in this volume revealed the metaphysical heart that beats its unvarying alert tempo through all his writings, whatever their explicit themes.” In his introduction to this volume, Sidney Hook points out that “Dewey’s _Experience and Nature _is both the most suggestive and most (...) difficult of his writings.” The meticulously edited text published here as the first vol­ume in the series The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925–1953_ _spans that entire period in Dewey’s thought by including two important and previously unpublished documents from the book’s history: Dewey’s unfinished new introduction written between 1947_ _and 1949,_ _edited by the late Joseph Ratner, and Dewey’s unedited final draft of that introduction written the year before his death. In the intervening years Dewey realized the impossibility of making his use of the word “experience” understood. He wrote in his 1951_ _draft for a new introduction: “Were I to write _Experience and Nature _today I would entitle the book _Culture and Nature _and the treatment of specific subject-matters would be correspondingly modified. I would abandon the term ‘experience’ because of my growing realiza­tion that the historical obstacles which prevented understand­ing of my use of ‘experience’ are, for all practical purposes, insurmountable. I would substitute the term ‘culture’ because with its meanings as now firmly established it can fully and freely carry my philosophy of experience.”. (shrink)

This is the final textual volume in The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882–1953, published in 3 series comprising 37 volumes: _The Early Works, 1882–1898 _; _The Middle Works, 1899–1924 _; _The Later Works, 1925–1953 _. Volume 17 contains Dewey’s writings discovered after publication of the appropriate volume of The Collected Works and spans most of Dewey’s publishing life. There are 83 items in this volume, 24 of which have not been previously published. Among works highlighted in this volume are (...) 10 “Educational Lectures before Brigham Young Academy,” early essays “War’s Social Results” and “The Problem of Secondary Education after the War,” and the previously unpublished “The Russian School System.”. (shrink)

John Dewey’s _Experience and Nature _has been considered the fullest expression of his mature philosophy since its eagerly awaited publication in 1925._ _Irwin Edman wrote at that time that “with monumental care, detail and completeness, Professor Dewey has in this volume revealed the metaphysical heart that beats its unvarying alert tempo through all his writings, whatever their explicit themes.” In his introduction to this volume, Sidney Hook points out that “Dewey’s _Experience and Nature _is both the most suggestive and most (...) difficult of his writings.” The meticulously edited text published here as the first vol­ume in the series The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925–1953_ _spans that entire period in Dewey’s thought by including two important and previously unpublished documents from the book’s history: Dewey’s unfinished new introduction written between 1947_ _and 1949,_ _edited by the late Joseph Ratner, and Dewey’s unedited final draft of that introduction written the year before his death. In the intervening years Dewey realized the impossibility of making his use of the word “experience” understood. He wrote in his 1951_ _draft for a new introduction: “Were I to write _Experience and Nature _today I would entitle the book _Culture and Nature _and the treatment of specific subject-matters would be correspondingly modified. I would abandon the term ‘experience’ because of my growing realiza­tion that the historical obstacles which prevented understand­ing of my use of ‘experience’ are, for all practical purposes, insurmountable. I would substitute the term ‘culture’ because with its meanings as now firmly established it can fully and freely carry my philosophy of experience.”. (shrink)

This volume provides an authoritative edition of Dewey’s _The Quest for Cer­tainty: A Study of the Relation Between Knowledge and Action. _The book is made up of the Gifford Lectures deliv­ered April–May 1929 at the University of Edinburgh. Writing to Sidney Hook, Dewey described this work as “a criti­cism of philosophy as attempting to at­tain theoretical certainty.” In the _Philo­sophical Review _Max C. Otto later elaborated: “Mr. Dewey wanted, so far as lay in his power, to crumble into dust, once (...) and for all, ‘the chief fortress of the classic philosophical tradition.”. (shrink)

This volume provides an authoritative edition of Dewey’s _The Quest for Cer­tainty: A Study of the Relation Between Knowledge and Action. _The book is made up of the Gifford Lectures deliv­ered April–May 1929 at the University of Edinburgh. Writing to Sidney Hook, Dewey described this work as “a criti­cism of philosophy as attempting to at­tain theoretical certainty.” In the _Philo­sophical Review _Max C. Otto later elaborated: “Mr. Dewey wanted, so far as lay in his power, to crumble into dust, once (...) and for all, ‘the chief fortress of the classic philosophical tradition.”. (shrink)

This ninth volume in The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925—1953, brings together sixty items from 1933 and 1934, including Dewey’s Terry Lec­tures at Yale University, published as _A Common Faith._ In his introduction, Milton R. Konvitz concludes that _A_ _Common Faith _remains a provocative book, an intellectual ‘teaser,’ an essay at religious philoso­phy which no philosopher can wholly bypass.” Dewey concentrated much of his writing in 1933 and 1934 on issues arising from the economic crises of the Great Depression. (...) In the early 1930s Com­munist activity in the New York Teachers Union in­creased. _The Report of the Special Grievance Committee of the Teachers Union _is published in this volume, as is Dewey’s impromptu address, “On the Grievance Committee’s Report,” made when he presented that report. Rounding out the volume are eighteen arti­cles from the _People’s Lobby Bulletin._. (shrink)

This is the final textual volume in The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882⿿1953, published in 3 series comprising 37 volumes: The Early Works, 1882⿿1898 ; The Middle Works, 1899⿿1924 ; The Later Works, 1925⿿1953. Volume 17 contains Dewey⿿s writings discovered after publication of the appropriate volume of The Collected Works and spans most of Dewey⿿s publishing life. There are 83 items in this volume, 24 of which have not been previously published. Among works highlighted in this volume are 10 (...) ⿿Educational Lectures before Brigham Young Academy,⿿ early essays ⿿War⿿s Social Results⿿ and ⿿The Problem of Secondary Education after the War,⿿ and the previously unpublished ⿿The Russian School System.⿿. (shrink)

John Dewey’s _Experience and Nature _has been considered the fullest expression of his mature philosophy since its eagerly awaited publication in 1925._ _Irwin Edman wrote at that time that “with monumental care, detail and completeness, Professor Dewey has in this volume revealed the metaphysical heart that beats its unvarying alert tempo through all his writings, whatever their explicit themes.” In his introduction to this volume, Sidney Hook points out that “Dewey’s _Experience and Nature _is both the most suggestive and most (...) difficult of his writings.” The meticulously edited text published here as the first vol­ume in the series The Later Works of John Dewey, 1925–1953_ _spans that entire period in Dewey’s thought by including two important and previously unpublished documents from the book’s history: Dewey’s unfinished new introduction written between 1947_ _and 1949,_ _edited by the late Joseph Ratner, and Dewey’s unedited final draft of that introduction written the year before his death. In the intervening years Dewey realized the impossibility of making his use of the word “experience” understood. He wrote in his 1951_ _draft for a new introduction: “Were I to write _Experience and Nature _today I would entitle the book _Culture and Nature _and the treatment of specific subject-matters would be correspondingly modified. I would abandon the term ‘experience’ because of my growing realiza­tion that the historical obstacles which prevented understand­ing of my use of ‘experience’ are, for all practical purposes, insurmountable. I would substitute the term ‘culture’ because with its meanings as now firmly established it can fully and freely carry my philosophy of experience.”. (shrink)

This is the final textual volume in The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882–1953, published in 3 series comprising 37 volumes: _The Early Works, 1882–1898 _; _The Middle Works, 1899–1924 _; _The Later Works, 1925–1953 _. Volume 17 contains Dewey’s writings discovered after publication of the appropriate volume of The Collected Works and spans most of Dewey’s publishing life. There are 83 items in this volume, 24 of which have not been previously published. Among works highlighted in this volume are (...) 10 “Educational Lectures before Brigham Young Academy,” early essays “War’s Social Results” and “The Problem of Secondary Education after the War,” and the previously unpublished “The Russian School System.”. (shrink)

Why does Foucault's work continue to be of central importance in current debates in sociology, political science and philosophy? Why do we still read him as a guide to contemporary social and cultural life? Foucault's work presents a provocative challenge to orthodox, habitual forms of belief and practice. The Later Foucault, with an impressive interdisciplinary focus, argues that one of the keys to understanding Foucault is his political thought. It is this which he expressed clearly in his last writings and (...) which pulled together his earlier interests in power, agency and subjectivity. In this volume a distinguished array of Foucauldian scholars and commentators on politics explore the significance of these l. (shrink)

Later Medieval Philosophy (1150-1350) provides an introduction to philosophy in the Latin West between 1150 and 1350. Part I describes the medieval thinker's intellectual and historical context, by examining the structure of courses in the medieval universities, the methods of teaching, the forms of written work, and the translation and availability of ancient Greek, Arab, and Jewish philosophical texts. Part II examines the nature of intellectual knowledge by explaining the arguments given by Aristotle, his antique commentators, and the Arab philosophers, (...) Avicenna and Averroes. (shrink)

Most modern readers of the Stoics think first of later authors such as Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius. Existing works like Long and Sedley's The Hellenistic Philosophers concentrate on the Stoics of the early school. This book focusses on the more influential later school, including key figures like Panaetius and Posidonius, and provides well-chosen selections from the full range of Stoic thinkers. It emphasizes their important work in logic, physics and cosmology as well as in ethics. Fresh translations and incisive (...) commentary present a picture of Stoic thought informed by up-to-date historical research and philosophical analysis. The book will be essential for scholars and students of ancient philosophy and of Hellenistic and Roman culture. (shrink)

The object of this essay is to discuss Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks inPhilosophical Investigationsand elsewhere in the posthumously published writings concerning the role of therapy in relation to philosophy. Wittgenstein's reflections seem to suggest that there is a kind of philosophy or mode of investigation targeting the philosophical grammar of language uses that gratuitously give rise to philosophical problems, and produce in many thinkers philosophical anxieties for which the proper therapy is intended to offer relief. Two possible objectives of later Wittgensteinian (...) therapy are proposed, for subjectivepsychologicalversus objectivesemanticsymptoms of ailments that a therapy might address for the sake of relieving philosophical anxieties. The psychological in its most plausible form is rejected, leaving only the semantic. Semantic therapy in the sense defined and developed is more general and long-lasting, and more in the spirit of Wittgenstein's project on a variety of levels. A semantic approach treats language rather than the thinking, language-using subject as the patient needing therapy, and directs its attention to the treatment of problems in language and the conceptual framework a language game use expresses in its philosophical grammar, rather than to soothing unhappy or socially ill-adjusted individual psychologies. (shrink)

This book begins with standard ontological topics--such as the nature of existence--and of metaphysics generally, such as the status of universals, form, and accidents. What is the proper subject matter of metaphysical speculation? Are essence and existence really distinct in bodies? Does the body lose its unifying form at death? Can an accident of a substance exist in separation from that substance? Are universals real, and, if so, are they anything more than general concepts? Among the figures it examines are (...) Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Walter Chatton, John Buridan, Dietrich of Freiburg, Robert Holcot, Walter Burley, and the 11th-century Islamic philosopher Ibn-Sina. There is also an emphasis on metaphysics broadly conceived. Thus, additional discussions of connected topics in medieval logic, epistemology, and language provide a fuller account of the range of ideas included in the later medieval worldview. (shrink)

Marx: Later Political Writings brings together new translations of Marx's most important texts in political philosophy written after 1848. Marx challenged poitical theory to its very fundamentals, as his works do not follow traditional models for exploring politics theoretically. In his introduction, Terrell Carver situates Marx in a politics of democratic constitutionalism and revolutionary communism. The works are presented here complete, according to the first editions or the earliest manuscript state, and include the Manifesto of the Communist Party, the Preface (...) of 1859 to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, The Civil War in France, and the little-known Notes on Adolph Wagner. More than most political theorists, Marx made contemporary politics the focus for his theoretical work. He created a distinctive kind of political theory, and this volume makes it accessible today. (shrink)

Schelling is best known in the Anglo-American philosophical community for work he did in his twenties, between 1797 and 1803. During this time, he appropriated Fichte’s standpoint of transcendental idealism and developed some of its implications for the philosophies of nature, history, and art. Schelling did not claim at this stage to be formulating an original standpoint of his own, but simply to be extending the Fichtean principles in new directions. In this endeavor he was quite successful, and for a (...) brief period he was lionized as philosophy’s youngest and brightest hope. He has been recognized since then as an important pioneer in the post-Kantian German idealist movement. (shrink)