The late John Burrow, one of the most stimulating promoters of the distinctively interdisciplinary enterprise that is Intellectual History, was a vital member of what has become known as the ‘Sussex School’. In exploring the resonances of his singular and richly idiosyncratic contribution, this article places his unique historical sensibility within a series of interpretative contexts, demonstrating the vitality of writings that will continue to inspire and inform scholarship in the field for decades to come. ☆ The Sussex Centre for (...) Intellectual History Lecture delivered at the University of Sussex on 21st October, 2010. I am deeply indebted to Noël Sugimura for reading and commenting on an earlier version of the present essay with her customary sense and sensibility. (shrink)

The study of historiography is undergoing a revolution akin to that which took place in the history of political thought in the 1960s, and the work of J.G.A. Pocock is central to both. Pocock's continuing exploration, in Barbarism and Religion (1999-), of the intellectual contexts of Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, is central to this enterprise, and this essay situates the origins of his own work within a pre-‘Cambridge School’ Cambridge and its experience of (...) what might be called the Butterfieldian moment. That was marked by a desire to treat religion seriously as a driving force in history; and the same concern is applied here to further understanding an eighteenth-century controversy in which history and religion were dramatically involved, and which profoundly affected Gibbon's own historical and religious views. The work of Conyers Middleton and John Jortin is critically examined from this perspective. These preludes to Gibbon lead to a series of postludes examining the particular contexts in which Victorian and twentieth-century historians and writers, from Henry Hart Milman to Evelyn Waugh, variously appreciated and interpreted Gibbon. The whole is to be seen as a reflexive engagement with Pocock's vitally illuminating studies in eighteenth-century historiography. ☆ A slightly revised version of a lecture given at the University of Sussex on 22nd May 2008, on the occasion of a colloquium devoted to J.G.A. Pocock's Barbarism and Religion. It had originally acted as a prelude to a lecture by Pocock on the same occasion, subsequently published as ‘Gibbon and the invention of Gibbon: chapters 15 and 16 reconsidered’, History of European Ideas 35 (2009), 209–16. In this sense, therefore, the present essay has become a postlude. I am deeply grateful to Noël Sugimura for generously reading and commenting on the rescoring of a lecture into an essay. (shrink)

This provocative but persuasive book is essentially a radical attack upon the Humean conception of causality and the presentation and defense of a counter-theory, closer to everyday experience and pre-Humean traditional views. As formulated by empiricist philosophers, the Humean approach depends on two basic postulates. The philosophical analysis of any non-empirical concept must be a formal explication; any residue elements have to be accounted for in terms of their psychological origins. The world as experienced can be conceived adequately as a (...) logically independent system of things or flux of events, without the unwarranted assumption that individuals persist diachronically. As the grounds for undermining these assumptions, the authors develop a conception of causes as "powerful particulars," i.e., things which have both a nature and powers. So long as the nature remains unchanged the agent in question will continue to behave in this fashion with a natural necessity, stemming from the individual’s nature and specific powers. The opening chapter discusses the problem of conceptual and natural necessity—as distinct from logical necessity which alone is allowed by the Humean empiricists. Natural necessity is the mark of the relationship between real causes and their respective effects, whereas conceptual necessity characterizes the way our statements about such are themselves related. Later the irreducibility of natural necessity is emphasized and its differences from logical entailment spelled out. Chapter two takes up the subject of the "regularity theory and its allies." Characteristic of such are two claims: the empirical content of a causal-relationship statement is exhausted by the actual or hypothetical regularity between independent entities, and the necessity ordinarily attributed to causal production is an illusion, to be accounted for in various ways. Subsequent chapters are devoted to assaulting the pillars of the Humean notion either directly or indirectly through an illuminating and attractive account of their own theory of nature, causal powers, and natural necessity. The final chapter, entitled "Fields of Potential," indulges in speculation about the nature of ultimate entities on the basis of an extended generalization of the notion of the powerful individual, and concludes with a brief account of the historical antecedents of Faraday’s modern field theory and the metaphysical implications of a generalized field theory.—A.B.W. (shrink)

From what has been argued, it should now be apparent how Heidegger's philosophy of the affect, its ontological disclosures and its relation to authenticity might be enlarged to meet certain marxist challenges. The most valuable instruction to be gained from these citicisms, I think, is that which Lukacs offers in the example of Szilasi's intuition of co-presence. Traditional phenomenology needs to enrich its investigations into the social and historical reality of situation. Kosik's point that Heideggerian authenticity lacks the crucial third (...) step (revolutionary change of society) is also profound but again, not incompatiblein se with Heidegger's concept. Alternatively, one might as easily say that Critical Marxism or any Marxist Humanism can still be enriched by certain Heideggerian insights. (shrink)

The use of placebo as a control condition in clinical trials of major depressive disorder and anxiety disorders continues to be an area of ethical concern. Typically, opponents of placebo controls argue that they violate the beneficent-based, “best proven diagnostic and therapeutic method” that the original Helsinki Declaration of 1964 famously asserted participants are owed. A more consequentialist, oppositional argument is that participants receiving placebo might suffer enormously by being deprived of their usual medication(s). Nevertheless, recent findings of potential for (...) suicidality in young people treated with antidepressants, along with meta-analyses suggesting that antidepressants add no significant clinical benefit over placebos, warrant a re-evaluation of the arguments against placebo. Furthermore, the nature of placebo treatment in short-term clinical trials is often not well understood, and lack of understanding can foster opposition to it. This paper will show how scientific justifications for placebo use are morally relevant. The fundamental ethical importance of placebo controls is discussed in relation to several aspects of clinical trials, including detection of adverse events, accurate assessment of clinical benefit, advancing understanding of the heterogeneity of depression and anxiety disorders and respecting informed consent requirements. Prohibiting the use of placebo controls is morally concerning in that such prohibitions allow for the possibility of serious adverse public health consequences. Moral worries that research participants receiving placebo are being unduly jeopardised will be shown to be exaggerated, especially in relation to the net benefits for end-users to be gained from the quality of data resulting from using placebo controls. (shrink)

In September of 1965 G. H. von Wright discovered in Vienna a hitherto unknown notebook written in pencil by Wittgenstein. The first part contains an early, but essentially complete version of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Since it contains the dedication to David H. Pinsent who died May 8, 1918, von Wright dates its composition just before the final composition of the Tractatus in the summer of 1918. This is confirmed by the remaining portion of the manuscript which contains additions and further (...) elucidations to the Prototractatus plus a Preface, all of which are found, virtually unchanged, in the final version of the Tractatus. This edition contains a quite readable facsimile of the entire manuscript, an edition of the text of the Prototractatus that indicates its differences from the final text and a translation en regard by D. F. Pears and B. F. McGuinness. A lengthy introduction by von Wright on the publication history of the Tractatus and a concluding set of Tables indicating parallel passages between the Tractatus and Prototractatus as well as those portions of each work which have nothing corresponding in the other, complete the volume. In view of the fact that Wittgenstein on his last visit to Vienna before his death ordered that the several notebooks which still existed from the time of germination of the Tractatus be destroyed, one might ask just what contribution this expensive edition of the Prototractatus may be expected to make to our understanding of Wittgenstein's thought. Unlike the 1914-1916 Notebooks, which by some happy accident escaped the destruct order, the Prototractatus does not seem to differ in any significant substantive way from the final printed version. This is to be expected if von Wright's dating of the work is correct. Hence, while the historian of literature may be delighted with the present text, the student of philosophy may find it disappointing. What does make the present volume of value, however, is von Wright's historical introduction with its reproduction of many of Wittgenstein's letters to various prospective publishers. Of especial interest in this connection is Wittgenstein's illuminating comment to Ludwig von Ficker of Innsbruck, editor of Der Brenner, that "the book's point is an ethical one. I once meant to include in the preface a sentence which is not in fact there now but which... will perhaps be a key to the work for you. What I meant to write, then, was this: My work consists of two parts; the one presented here plus all that I have not written. And it is precisely this second part that is the important one. My book draws limits to the sphere of the ethical from the inside as it were, and I am convinced that this is the ONLY rigorous way of drawing those limits. I believe that where many others today are just gassing, I have managed in my book to put everything firmly into place by being silent about it. And for that reason, unless I am very much mistaken, the book will say a great deal that you yourself want to say. Only perhaps you won't see that it is said in the book." This would seem to confirm Anscombe's interpretation of Tractatus 6.52 rather than Ayer's and that of the Vienna Circle.--A. B. W. (shrink)

Two international congresses within the last five years attest to the current interest in the philosophical and theological thought of John Duns Scotus. Among Scotus' shorter works is the De Primo Principio which is a compendium of his basic metaphysics and natural theology. It has appeared in several modern editions, two with English translations, the latest of which was reviewed in this journal. Prentice's careful and detailed study makes an excellent introduction and commentary on this important but difficult treatise of (...) medieval scholasticism. It is clearly written and while following the general development of the text, it includes helpful cross references to Scotus' other works as well as well as to contemporary literature on controversial points of interpretation. The seventh chapter, devoted to showing something of the human spirit in which the tract was composed, is especially rich in illuminating insights. Medieval scholars will be grateful for this companion volume to the De Primo Principio.--A. B. W. (shrink)

In this book Lewis presents the substance of the first series of Gifford Lectures he gave during the period 1966-1968. In sharp contrast to the prevailing views in Anglo-American philosophical circles, this gifted and prolific writer gives a brilliant and persuasive defense of body-mind dualism. In the first three chapters devoted to Ryle, this clever critic makes the creator of the "category-mistake" look like a paradigm of how to fall into it, particularly in his demythologizing of Descartes, in exorcising the (...) "Ghost-in-the-machine," or in searching vainly for volition as an antecedent act rather than an integral component of every concrete purposeful act. Subsequent chapters treat of Hampshire's "New Materialism," Passmore's "Humpty-Dumpty Argument," Malcolm's "Dreaming," Strawson's refutation of the "no-ownership theory," and so on, Each subsequent opponent such as Hirt, Feigl, Smart, etc. come closer in their monism to fingering the "elusive mind," but fail in the last analysis by confusing circumstantial evidence of its presence with what it is in itself, and thus allow it to dissolve, as it were, into something else. Sydney Shoemaker, in Lewis opinion, comes closest to trapping it when he ties it in with the mind's most personal possessions, its memories, yet even he does not go quite far enough. Finally, in chapter nine. Lewis clarifies the logical character of this "elusive self," which, though never found in a pure state, apart from conscious experience, is recognized both as other than any given experience it may be involved in at the moment, and as being one and the same, not in kind, but individually, in each conscious act. Though each of us directly experiences his own "self," and only his own self, it becomes elusive only when we try to say what its otherness and distinctive character consists in; for all descriptions of it, either in terms of its most intimate experiences such as its memories, or its relationship to present or past events, such as its dispositions, its feelings, its knowledge, or volitions, are all couched in general or universal terms, whereas it is uniquely individual. Hence any attempt to say what it is, to define or describe it, will inevitably confuse it in varying degrees with something other than itself. This explains the apparent success of language philosophers in eliminating it by reductive analysis to something familiar and other that can be described. Subsequent chapters are devoted to explaining how we know "other minds," and how far this conception of the elusive mind is compatible or incompatible with that of other philosophers such as Buber, Bradley, Green, Bosanquet, or the "mystics." A final chapter entitled "The Elusive Self and Morals and Religion" gives a preview of what will be dealt with in a sequel to this work, provisionally entitled "The Elusive Self and God." If it lives up to the present volume, it will indeed be something to look forward to.--A. B. W. (shrink)

Among the quantificational notions neglected by classical logic are "many," "few," and "nearly all." Despite the apparent vagueness associated with these terms in ordinary discourse, in specific contexts we can and do draw strict inferences from statements in which they occur. In this pioneering work, Altham has attempted to uncover something of the formal logic that justifies such inferences. He begins by showing the mutual interdefinability of the three terms. If negation and any one of them are taken as primitive, (...) the other two are definable in terms of these. Selecting as his basic semantic notion the idea of a manifold or many-membered-set, he shows it is only necessary to fix upon a number n, greater than one, to represent the least number of elements to constitute a specific manifold and then one can construct a natural deductive system which uses the standard predicate logic. He develops at great length a weak system that yields principles of inference which are valid in every non-empty domain and in which the classical predicate logic appears as a limiting case. One point that emerges is that the three plurality operators may all be exhibited as involving a double quantification not characteristic of "some," "none," or "all." Next, two stronger systems are developed more briefly which are valid only in many-membered domains. The strongest can represent the largest set of informal arguments and seems to be the most natural of the three. Nevertheless, since these three systems admittedly do not give an exhaustive account of the use of these quantifiers in informal discourse, Altham explains three further systems which correspond more closely to the natural language use of these terms. Finally an appendix indicates what modifications would be required for an intuitionistic logic like Heyting's or the minimal logic of Kolmogorov-Johansson. The text is clearly written and requires no greater logical sophistication to understand than would be needed to follow Lemmon's Beginning Logic or Mates' Elementary Logic.--A. B. W. (shrink)

That "The Classics of Western Spirituality" should regard the man Dante hailed as "beyond the human in contemplation," and St. Bonaventure believed to be the medieval rival of the greatest patristic contemplative worthy of a special volume is not surprising. Richard of St. Victor’s masterful analysis of the ascent of the mind to God in contemplative prayer and meditation, emphasizing the individual’s relationship to other individuals as the paradigm of how the Three Divine Persons are related in their inner life (...) of love, is at the same time of psychological interest for anyone attempting to identify and classify the various mystical states medieval philosophers felt were necessary to characterize their spiritual growth. Since the bulk of the present translation is devoted to Richard’s two major attempts to systematize the discipline needed to attain contemplation, known more generally as Benjamin Minor and Benjamin Major, one might wonder why the work is being reviewed in the present journal. But while the major interest of this volume will undoubtedly be for those interested in ascetic theology, for the influence of Richard on subsequent writers from St. Bonaventure to St. Teresa of Avila is profound, nevertheless the relatively short third portion of the work is of sufficient philosophical importance to merit at least a brief note, namely bk. 3 of The Trinity. One would hardly expect a work of this sort to come from the pen of a mystic, for what Richard sets out to do is nothing short of a purely rational or metaphysical analysis of the "Athanasian Creed," which was recited almost daily by the Canons of the Abbey of St. Victor during the twelfth century. Because the inner nature and life of the Trinity, unlike creation or the salvation history of God’s intervention in the affairs of man, is a necessary consequence of what medieval thinkers believed God to be, rather than what he chose to do, Richard was convinced that with sufficient ingenuity one could theorize fruitfully as to why God must possess the various attributes we believe him to have and which are set forth in the aforesaid "creed," which stresses both the unity of God, the divine nature and all the divine attributes, while continually reminding its confessor of the trinity of "persons." In the Anselmian tradition of "faith seeking understanding" Richard seeks "necessary reasons" why God should not only be one but three. Most medieval thinkers have considered the trinitarian character of the divine nature to be the most profound of all the mysteries of the Christian faith. While reason may at best refute objections to a trinity of persons in one divine nature, it can hardly be expected to provide positive support for the doctrine. Richard, on the contrary, believed that St. Anselm had found the key to the "divine processions" in the fact that God is perfect love, with all that this implies. It is obvious the experience of "love" as an interpersonal sharing of the deepest kind, something St. Paul enjoined upon the Christians of the "Church of Corinth," is a far cry from what Sartre seemed to have reached in writing L'etre et néant or what that term connotes to our age, but it is not unknown to contemporary psychologists. Duns Scotus described the "perfect lover" in a Richardian sense as "Perfecte diligens vult dilectum condiligi!" It is especially in bk. 3 of The Trinity that Richard argues that a personal nature that is "summum bonum" must contain more than one person, and need contain no more than three. For the philosopher of religion interested in Richard’s metaphysical analysis of the Godhead, it would be profitable to preface the reading of Zinn’s fine translation of bk. 3 with the selections from bk. 1.—A.B.W. (shrink)

This monumental work by a perceptive medieval scholar is undoubtedly the most comprehensive work in any modern language of the overall system of Ockham. Its three parts deal respectively with the cognitive order, the theological order, and the created order. Leff credits the more than 30 years of research by such Ockham scholars as Hochstetter, Vignaux, Moody, Baudry, Boehner, etc., with correcting his own earlier misconception—shared by so many historians of philosophy and theology—of Ockham as the one who destroyed scholasticism (...) and upset the fine balance of faith and reason by his ruthless logic, religious insensitivity, and skepticism. Such misconceptions stem from viewing Ockham either through the eyes of his predecessors, such as Aquinas or Scotus, or in the light of "the Ockhamism" of those who claimed to be his followers. In the present book, the author eschews this type of "historical approach." As he puts it, "I have sought to see his thought as a whole, in its own terms, not in pedigrees or... subsequent effects." Although much of Ockham’s writing still await critical editing, Leff sees a remarkable unity in all his works. "They are shaped by the same principles which recur throughout Ockham’s writings.... Whatever the modifications still to come as his works are properly edited, it is inconceivable that they will alter the configuration of Ockham’s thought. It is founded upon the discrepancy between the conceptual and the ontological expressed in the contrast between the individual nature of all being and the universal nature of our concepts. Instead of assuming or attempting to establish a direct rapport between them, Ockham was the first thinker systematically to explore their difference whilst accepting their interdependence." It is precisely because of this interdependence that Ockham was a "conceptualistic realist," to use Boehner’s description. Ockham was "safeguarding concepts from the status of merely mental constructs." He did not deny them epistemological validity as the nominalists did. On the other hand the varying degrees of "realism"—other than conceptualistic—"allowed no means of distinguishing logically between the mental and the real.... The distinction between concepts and what they represented then vanishes, and with it the power of differentiating true from false propositions." Ockham was genuinely concerned with meaning and evidence, the two key words that Leff believes best characterize his outlook. Leff’s professed aim is to show that "Ockham was not a logician devaluing theology or metaphysics; he was no less a philosopher and theologian than his predecessors. He accepted the same framework of knowledge and belief. The difference was that he was concerned with their meaning and evidence to the exclusion of treating their concepts as metaphysical bricks from which to build systems." Howsoever much Leff may have succeeded in achieving this goal or how many of his interpretations of specific topics may need some modification, the fact that he has followed Ockham’s thinking and argument step by step—often in what seems to be little more than an English paraphrase of the Latin text—makes his own detailed analysis a useful instrument for anyone seriously interested in Ockham’s thought.—A.B.W. (shrink)