H. S. Harris’s Hegel’s Ladder opens up the epic universe of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit by constructing a text that is epic in its dimensions and self-conscious design. It aims at truth. In the first instance, this means adequacy with respect to the Phenomenology ’s epic account of humanity’s movement toward self-certain truth. In the second instance, it means correspondence to the epic design of the Phenomenology. For Harris, it is self-evident that the Phenomenology belongs to the genre of epic, (...) since it repeats in a philosophical idiom the form and content of classical Western epics. That Harris accepts, even celebrates the secondariness of his text, vis-à-vis Hegel’s best-known text, does nothing to diminish its intellectual and narrative power. Indeed, with respect to the latter, I want to claim that Hegel’s Ladder rises to the level of a powerful, original epic precisely in its ascesis. Like all powerful texts, Hegel’s Ladder intimidates. Before interpretation so exhaustive, before discernment so perspicacious, any Hegel commentator will fear that whatever he or she has to say will be parochial, redundant, opaque, and intellectually impoverished. (shrink)

Small numbers are spontaneously associated with left space and larger numbers with right space (the SNARC effect), for example when classifying numbers by parity. This effect is often attributed to reading habits but a causal link has so far never been documented. We report that bilingual Russian-Hebrew readers show a SNARC effect after reading Cyrillic script (from left-to-right) that is significantly reduced after reading Hebrew script (from right-to-left). In contrast, they have similar SNARC effects after listening to texts in either (...) language. These results support the view that spatially directional scanning habits contribute to the spatial association of numbers but also emphasize its flexibility. (shrink)

Stephen RAPP has embarked on a very ambitious project – to investigate Georgian cultural contacts with the Byzantine and Iranian worlds through Georgian historial writing from its beginnings to medieval times. This involves nothing less than a presentation in English of all the relevant texts, save where a recent translation has already made them accessible, a survey of modern scholarship in Georgian as well as western languages, and a critical assessment of the dates of composition of the various works, their (...) motivation and reception. The volume under review is the first of a planned trilogy. Based on research dating back over a decade, it concentrates on those texts in the Georgian “Chronicles” which predate the political unification of the country. The second volume will tackle the literary dimension of Georgia's conversion to Christianity, the invention of a native script, and the beginnings of ecclesiastical literature; while the third volume will study the reorientation of the Georgian élite from their original Iranian background towards the Byzantine world as this is reflected in local historiography. All in all, this massive undertaking will update, expand and carry forward the work of Cyril TOUMANOFF reflected in his Studies in Christian Caucasian History, which was published exactly forty years before R.'s first volume appeared. (shrink)

Introduction -- Wittgenstein's early conception of value -- An outline of tractarian ontology -- Value, the self, and the mystical -- The lecture on ethics -- Language-games, the private language argument and aspect psychology -- Language-games -- The private language argument -- Aspect psychology -- The soul and attitudes towards the living -- Wittgenstein's general conception of the soul -- Ilham Dilman on the soul and seeing-as -- Religious contexts -- J.B. Watson and the denial of the soul -- Attitudes (...) towards other minds and forms of life -- The soul and the face -- Aspect blindness and dawning -- Particularism, rule-following, and evaluations -- David McNaughton on the property of humanity and particularism -- John McDowell on rule-following and values -- Peter Winch on moral particularism -- The meaning and value of the religious point of view -- Wittgenstein on Frazer's golden bough -- Truth in religion -- Wittgenstein on art : reactions and causes -- Aesthetics, causes, and natural history -- A contemporary evolutionary account of aesthetic value -- Neuro-scientific accounts -- Aesthetic realism and the definition of art -- Aesthetic historicism and relativism -- Institutional and historical theories of art -- Forms of life, moral truth, and justification -- Cora Diamond on forms on seeing-as theory and imagination -- Paul Johnston on moral justification and truth -- D.Z. Phillips and H.O. Mounce on the justification of morality -- Doubt and certainty : framework beliefs and core values -- An overview of certainty -- Avrum Stroll, Anthony O'Hear , and Cyril Barrett on certainty and value -- Cultural relativism and institutional embodiment -- Peter Winch on cultural relativism -- Sabina Lovibond on moral facts and institutional embodiment -- Cyril Barrett on cultural relativism -- Conclusion: How to do things with Wittgenstein. (shrink)

The first edition of The Mismeasure of Man appeared in 1981 and was quickly praised in the popular press as a definitive refutation of 100 years of scientific work on race, brain-size and intelligence. It sold 125,000 copies, was translated into 10 languages, and became required reading for undergraduate and even graduate classes in anthropology, psychology, and sociology. The second edition is not truly revised, but rather only expanded, as the author claims the book needed no updating as any new (...) research would only be plagued with the same philosophical errors revealed in the first edition. Thus it continues a political polemic, whose author engages in character assassination of long deceased scientists whose work he misrepresents despite published refutations, while studiously witholding from his readers fifteen years of new research that contradicts every major scientific argument he puts forth. Specific attention in this review are given to the following topics: the relationship between brain size and IQ, the importance of the scientific contributions of Sir Francis Galton, S. G. Morton, H. H. Goddard, and Sir Cyril Burt, the role of early IQ testers in determining U.S. immigration policy, The Bell Curve controversy and the reality of g, race /sex/social class differences in brain size and IQ, Cesare Lombroso and the genetic basis of criminal behavior, between-group heritabilities, inter-racial adoption studies, and IQ why evolutionary theory predicts group differences, and the extent to which Gould's political ideology has affected his scientific work. (shrink)

In several works on modality, G. H. von Wright presents tree structures to explain possible worlds. Worlds that might have developed from an earlier world are possible relative to it. Actually possible worlds are possible relative to the world as it actually was at some point. Many logically consistent worlds are not actually possible. Transitions from node to node in a tree structure are probabilistic. Probabilities are often more useful than similarities between worlds in treating counterfactual conditionals.

This passage has occasioned, if not proelia, at least divergent interpretations, not to mention instances of tergiversation. In 1910 Cyril Bailey modelled his first rendering of the lines closely on that of H. A. J. Munro: ‘But unless the breast is cleared, what battles and dangers must enter into us in our own despite’; ‘but unless the heart is cleansed, what battles and dangers must then find their way into us in our own despite’. But a reprint of Bailey's (...) translation in 1921 produced the following change: ‘…what battles and perils must we then enter into despite our will’. What changed Bailey's mind? The explanation appeared years later in Bailey's great edition and commentary of 1947. In his note on the passage , he cites objections to Munro's interpretation that had been raised by C. N. Cole and W. R. Hardie. In this paper I will examine these objections and present my own interpretation of the passage, which amounts to a qualified vindication of Munro. (shrink)

William Beveridge was a key figure in the modernization of British economic and social policy who published widely on unemployment and social security. Among his most notable works and reprinted in this set are, _Full Employment in a Free Society _, and _Pillars of Security_. Beveridge’s Report on social insurance was published in 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, (...) retired or widowed. Beveridge included as one of three fundamental assumptions the fact that there would be a National Health Service of some sort. Beveridge's arguments were widely accepted. He argued that welfare institutions would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions onto the public account but also by producing healthier, wealthier and more productive workers. Beveridge saw full employment as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 report. As well as making available some of Beveridge’s key, and in some case, lesser known works, this set includes as its final volume an indispensable overview of Beveridge and his prolific work. (shrink)

El editor reúne a distintos miembros de la Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association para escribir sobre conceptos, tales como la moralidad, la educación moral, la ética, los medios de comunicación, la muerte o el futuro. Algunos de estos autores son: Cyril Bibby, Raymond Firth, Margaret Knight, Lord Francis Williams, Antony Flew, Peter Henderson, James Hemming, Morris Ginsberg, Lord Ritchie-Calder, Lord Boyd Orr, Kathleen Nott, Brigid Brophy, Cristopher Longuet-Higgins, Kingsley Martin, P. Sargant Florence, Theodore Besterman, F.A.E. Crew, H.J. (...) Eysenck o Sir Karl Popper. (shrink)

Zettel, an en face bilingual edition, collects fragments from Wittgenstein's work between 1929 and 1948 on issues of the mind, mathematics, and language.

What were the historical and cultural processes by which Cyril of Alexandria was elevated to canonical status while his opponent, Nestorius, bishop of Constantinople, was made into a heretic? In contrast to previous scholarship, Susan Wessel concludes that Cyril's success in being elevated to orthodox status was not simply a political accomplishment based on political alliances he had fashioned as opportunity arose. Nor was it a dogmatic victory, based on the clarity and orthodoxy of Cyril's doctrinal claims. (...) Instead, it was his strategy in identifying himself with the orthodoxy of the former bishop of Alexandria, Athanasius, in his victory over Arianism, in borrowing Athanasius' interpretive methods, and in skilfully using the tropes and figures of the second sophistic that made Cyril a saint in the Greek and Coptic Orthodox Churches. (shrink)

To talk of a logic of mysticism may sound distinctly odd. If anything, mysticism is alogical; it would be uncharitable if not false, on mature consideration, to call it illogical—though many, without due deliberation, might be tempted to use that term. Wittgenstein comes close to calling it illogical. In his lecture on ethics he draws attention to the logical oddity of statements of absolute value. But he does not accuse the mystics or prophets or religious teachers of contradicting themselves or (...) of invalid reasoning. What he accuses them of may be something worse, namely, talking nonsense, of not giving sense to the words they use or the expressions they utter. Russell and Ayer come to much the same conclusion but by a different route. (shrink)

Some years ago I came across the following question thrown out almost casually in the course of discussion: How many of us, it was asked, want to call a ‘bad work of art’ a ‘work of art’? The question was clearly rhetorical; the author quite obviously did not consider that anyone in his right mind would suggest that a bad work of art was a work of art. This struck me as rather odd. Surely there can be good and bad (...) works of art, just as there can be good and bad apples or good and bad men. An apple does not cease to be an apple just because it is bad, unless perhaps it has become thoroughly rotten; but the gardener who says ‘The Coxes are bad this year’ does not mean that they have grown rotten on the trees, much less that they are not apples at all. Moreover, if so-called bad works of art are not works of art, what are they? You may not think highly of the works in the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition but they are not totally dissimilar to some works in Bond Street next door which are highly regarded. (shrink)

It is over forty years since Merleau-Ponty published his first major work, Le structure de comportement and a quarter of a century since he died. He belongs, therefore, with Sartre and Marcel, to the first post-War generation of French philosophers. Like his friend Sartre's, his philosophy may be regarded as dated, passé, of no interest or relevance to truly contemporary thought. In philosophical terms forty years are nothing; in terms of trends, fashions and novelties they are an eternity. But perhaps (...) the work of Merleau-Ponty has not dated because it was never in vogue. He did not write plays and novels, or take part in political demonstrations, though he was involved in politics, or win a Nobel prize and refuse to receive it. He was very much a philosopher's philosopher, eminent in his field, well known in academic circles in France but hardly a household name. In this country he is hardly known even in philosophical circles, except by name. More is the pity, since his philosophical approach and manner of philosophizing have much in common with certain modes of British philosophizing, as I hope to show. (shrink)