Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy has been influenced by Michel Foucault’s thoughts in various aspects. This influence can be seen especially in methodology and political philosophy to a certain extent. Agamben’s political project, Homo Sacer, culminates in the publication of The Use of Bodies, where he proposes ‘form-of-life’ as a way to overcome the contemporary biopolitics. While the concept of form-of-life has often been considered in connection with the issue of sovereignty and law, this article argues that it (...) (and Agamben’s coming politics) can also be understood as a response to Foucault’s biopower. This is possible by considering several conceptual oppositions raised by Agamben against Foucault’s ideas, concepts such as “intimacy”, “community”, and “zoe/bios”. And this is, finally, an effort to re-appropriate human freedom. (shrink)

‘Philosophical dialogue’ indicates both a form of philosophical inquiry and its corresponding literary genre. In its written form, it typically features two or more characters who engage in a discussion concerning morals, knowledge, as well as a variety of topics that can be widely labelled as ‘philosophical’. Our philosophical dialogue takes place in Krakow, Poland. It is a rainy morning and two strangers are waiting at a tram stop. One of them is dressed neatly, and cannot stop fidgeting (...) with his closed umbrella. The other was caught unprepared by the morning downpour and water is dripping from his worn, soaked jacket. (shrink)

Ernst Cassirer occupies a unique space in Twentieth-century philosophy. A great liberal humanist, his multi-faceted work spans the history of philosophy, the philosophy of science, intellectual history, aesthetics, epistemology, the study of language and myth, and more. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is Cassirer's most important work. It was first published in German in 1923, the third and final volume appearing in 1929. In it Cassirer presents a radical new philosophical worldview - at once rich, creative (...) and controversial - of human beings as fundamentally "symbolic animals," placing signs and systems of expression between themselves and the world. This major new translation, the first for over fifty years, brings Cassirer's magnum opus to a new generation of students and scholars. Volume 1: Language is a fascinating examination of arguably the most fundamental of these systems of expression: human language. Cassirer traces the problem of language and expression far back in the history of philosophy, considering the work of the early Greek rationalists. He then examines the later empiricist tradition, up to the romantic tradition in the nineteenth century tackling fundamental questions about representation, signification and expression as well as language and conceptual thought in mathematics and science. Correcting important errors in previous English editions, this translation reflects the contributions of significant advances in Cassirer scholarship over the last twenty to thirty years. Each volume includes a new introduction and translator's notes by S. G. Lofts, a foreword by Peter Gordon, a glossary of key terms, and a thorough index. (shrink)

The development of all-digital technology has made Generation Z have a pattern of thought that tends to be unique and creative in terms of socializing and thinking. This uniqueness tends to be followed by the amount of information on the timeline that can be accessed through any platform. This affects how Generation Z acts in their social and religious lives. The influence of this information can lead to perceptions resulting from their thinking in processing an event. This research aims to (...) find the relationship between the teachings of stoicism and Generation Z’s social and religious life in creating a wiser life and the ability for self-control. Generation Z’s social and religious life cannot be separated from digital advances that can influence their religious mindset. Meanwhile, the philosophy of stoicism is a form of teaching self-control through rational thinking behavior. This research uses qualitative methods with data collection through interviews and observations. In-depth interviews were conducted with Generation Z who have known the concept of stoicism in the age range of 18–23 years old and live in Kudus City. Secondary data was obtained through various journals related to the topic. The results of this study show that in carrying out social and religious life, Generation Z has been able to understand how to act properly without involving emotions and trying to think rationally. Furthermore, Generation Z can accustom themselves to doing spiritual activities in religion both personally and in groups, to provide religious awareness through self-control of the development of negative emotions. This is because there are similar indicators to achieve happiness in religious teachings and philosophy. In religion, the Qur’an is prioritized as the word of God with the main function of showing humans the essence of truth, while philosophy uses rationality as a tool to find truth without being bound by emotional factors. It can be concluded that the Qur’an and the philosophy of stoicism have the same concept related to gratitude and patience. (shrink)

Kant famously claims that pure reason is subject to a transcendental illusion in which the subjective validity and the regulative use of a principle of reason are conflated with its objective validity and constitutive use. His doctrine of transcendental illusion is puzzling for he insists that this illusion is natural as well as necessary. The two dominant interpretation strategies cannot make sense of this puzzle because they turn out to be either too strong or too weak: they either struggle to (...) account for the legitimate, regulative use of the transcendental principle of reason or fall short of explaining the necessity of the transcendental illusion. In contrast, I shall argue that it is possible to account for the fact that the transcendental illusion is natural and necessary because it has its source in the discursive form of our human understanding, and that this illusion can nevertheless be known to be illusory because our discursive nature can be recognised as a merely particular form of understanding by comparing it with a possible, intuitive form of understanding in an act of critical self-reflection. (shrink)

Kant famously claims that pure reason is subject to a transcendental illusion in which the subjective validity and the regulative use of a principle of reason are conflated with its objective validity and constitutive use. His doctrine of transcendental illusion is puzzling for he insists that this illusion is natural as well as necessary. The two dominant interpretation strategies cannot make sense of this puzzle because they turn out to be either too strong or too weak: they either struggle to (...) account for the legitimate, regulative use of the transcendental principle of reason or fall short of explaining the necessity of the transcendental illusion. In contrast, I shall argue that it is possible to account for the fact that the transcendental illusion is natural and necessary because it has its source in the discursive form of our human understanding, and that this illusion can nevertheless be known to be illusory because our discursive nature can be recognised as a merely particular form of understanding by comparing it with a possible, intuitive form of understanding in an act of critical self-reflection. (shrink)

Ernst Cassirer occupies a unique space in Twentieth-century philosophy. A great liberal humanist, his multi-faceted work spans the history of philosophy, the philosophy of science, intellectual history, aesthetics, epistemology, the study of language and myth, and more. Cassirer's thought also anticipates the renewed interest in the origins of analytic and continental philosophy in the Twentieth Century and the divergent paths taken by the 'logicist' and existential traditions, epitomised by his now legendary debate in 1929 with the (...) philosopher Martin Heidegger, over the question "What is the Human Being?" The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is Cassirer's most important work. It was first published in German in 1923, the third and final volume appearing in 1929. In it Cassirer presents a radical new philosophical worldview - at once rich, creative and controversial - of human beings as fundamentally "symbolic animals," placing signs and systems of expression between themselves and the world. This major new translation of all three volumes, the first for over fifty years, brings Cassirer's magnum opus to a new generation of students and scholars. Taken together, the three volumes of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms are a vital treatise on human beings as symbolic animals and a monumental expression of neo-Kantian thought. Correcting important errors in previous English editions, this translation reflects the contributions of significant advances in Cassirer scholarship over the last twenty to thirty years. Each volume includes a new introduction and translator's notes by S. G. Lofts, a foreword by Peter Gordon, a glossary of key terms, and a thorough index. (shrink)

Ist Leben mehr als eine Leistung „natürlicher Systeme“? Wie unterscheiden sich Lebewesen von Artefakten? Lassen sich Lebewesen genauso herstellen wie Maschinen? Diese Fragen werden mit dem Siegeszug der „converging technologies“ besonders dringlich, denn je mehr Biologie, Ingenieurswissenschaften, Informatik und Physik zusammenfinden, desto weniger scheinen gewohnte Unterscheidungen zu treffen. Doch zeigt eine systematische Rekonstruktion der Lebenswissenschaften in ihrer aktuellen Form als Systembiologie und synthetische Biologie, daß es sich dabei um ein Selbstmissverständnis der Logik wissenschaftlicher Darstellung handelt. Eine alternative Auffassung der (...) begrifflichen Struktur unserer Rede über Lebendiges ist Anliegen dieses Buches. Leben ist danach eine Formbestimmung von Tätigkeitsverhältnissen, die sowohl theoretische wie praktische Begründungen ermöglicht. Die Entfaltung der spezifisch technischen Form dieses Wissens über das Lebendige gestattet es nicht nur, szientistische Verkürzungen zu vermeiden, sondern zudem den methodischen Ort wissenschaftlicher Strukturierungen von Lebendigem auszuzeichnen. Auf dieser Grundlage wird schließlich auch „der Menschen“ durch Lebenswissenschaften darstellbar – und zwar so, wie es der historischen Form des Gegenstandes angemessen ist. (shrink)

Educational Research is commonly regarded as a rational pursuit aimed at the production of objective knowledge. Researchers are expected to avoid value bias by detaching themselves from the normative conceptions of education that shape practice in schools and classrooms, and by casting themselves in the role of the impartial spectator. It is assumed that, as a rational pursuit, educational research is not directly concerned with changing practice but simply with discovering facts about it.This paper claims that it is possible to (...) construct a view of educational research as a form of rational and disciplined inquiry that does not depend on any underpinning spectator theory of knowledge. Nor, the paper claims, does it imply any underpinning foundational principles of rational action and choice. Rather it implies a form of disciplined conversation in which reasons for action are scrutinised, critiqued and modified without resort to foundational principles of rationality. Drawing particularly on the work of John Dewey, Richard Rorty and Amartya Sen, the paper casts educational research as a practical science—a form of action research—that is underpinned by a democratic conception of rationality. In doing so, it contrasts educational research, shaped by a pragmatic theory of knowledge, with research on education that is shaped by a spectator theory. (shrink)

The most important work by one of America's greatest twentieth-century philosophers, Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind is both the epitome of Wilfrid Sellars' entire philosophical system and a key document in the history of philosophy. First published in essay form in 1956, it helped bring about a sea change in analytic philosophy. It broke the link, which had bound Russell and Ayer to Locke and Hume--the doctrine of "knowledge by acquaintance." Sellars' attack on the Myth (...) of the Given in Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind was a decisive move in turning analytic philosophy away from the foundationalist motives of the logical empiricists and raised doubts about the very idea of "epistemology." With an introduction by Richard Rorty to situate the work within the history of recent philosophy, and with a study guide by Robert Brandom, this publication of Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind makes a difficult but indisputably significant figure in the development of analytic philosophy clear and comprehensible to anyone who would understand that philosophy or its history. (shrink)

I offer a meta-level analysis of realist arguments for the reliability of ampliative reasoning about the unobservable. We can distinguish form-driven and content-driven arguments for realism: form-driven arguments appeal to the form of inductive inferences, whilst content-driven arguments appeal to their specific content. After regimenting the realism debate in these terms, I will argue that the content-driven arguments are preferable. Along the way I will discuss how my analysis relates to John Norton’s recent, more general thesis that (...) the grounds for licit induction are always material. (shrink)

Benardete presents a version of Zeno's dichotomy in which an infinite sequence of gods each intends to raise a barrier iff a traveller reaches the position where they intend to raise their barrier. In this paper, I demonstrate the abstract form of the Benardete Dichotomy. I show that the diagnosis based on that form can do philosophical work not done by earlier papers rejecting Priest's version of the Benardete Dichotomy, and that the diagnosis extends to a paradox not (...) normally classified as a dichotomy. I show how the form is exploited to generate paradox. Introduction The form of the Benardete dichotomy 2.1 The unsatisfiable pair diagnosis Applying the unsatisfiable pair diagnosis 3.1 Perez Laraudogoitia 3.2 Hawthorne 3.3 Angel 3.4 Yablo and Sorensen Exploiting the form. (shrink)

In the late 1960s Matthew Lipman and his colleagues at IAPC developed an educational philosophy he called Philosophy for Children. At the heart of Philosophy for Children is the community of Inquiry, with its emphasis on classroom dialogue, in the form of collaborative philosophical inquiry. In this paper we explore the development of educational practice that has grown out of Philosophy for Children in the context of Australia. -/- Australia adapted Lipman’s ideas on the educational (...) value of practicing philosophy with children in order to advance children’s social and intellectual capacities and dispositions. This has subsequently led to its development by both scholars and practitioners in directions that may or may not have been what Lipman had initially intended and to discussions on the nature and educational value of varied approaches that have been implemented in the classroom. To understand fully the effects of these changes requires an understanding of the towering influences that Peirce and especially Dewey were to Lipman. Whilst Lipman developed his own educational philosophy, he freely acknowledged that philosophy for children owes a debt to Peirce for the concept of the community of inquiry and to Dewey for his guidelines on education. -/- We will explore various ways in which the practice of philosophy for children has been implemented and analyse its expansion. This will achieve a better understanding of the possible future directions for classroom practice and research. (shrink)

This paper studies the concept of form of life as central to ordinary language philosophy : philosophy of our language as spoken ; pronounced by a human voice within a form of life. Such an approach to Wittgenstein’s later philosophy shifts the question of the common use of language – central to Wittgenstein’s Investigations – to the definition of the subject as voice, and to the reinvention of subjectivity in language. The voice is both a (...) subjective and common expression: it is what makes it possible for my individual voice, or claim, to become shared and for our forms of life to be intertwined with a lifeform. (shrink)

During his career, Ronald Dworkin wrote extensively on an impressive range of issues in moral, political, and legal philosophy, but, like many of his contemporaries, international law remained a topic of relative neglect. His most sustained work on international law is a posthumously published article, “A New Philosophy for International Law” (2013), which displays some familiar aspects of his views in general jurisprudence, in addition to some novel (though perhaps surprising) arguments as well. This paper argues that the (...) moralized account of international law we might have expected is conspicuously missing from this posthumous article; with Dworkin advancing an argument based on a form of political realism instead. (shrink)

Drawing on resources from both the Analytical and Continental traditions, Form and World argues that a comprehension of Kant's aesthetics is necessary for grasping the scope and force of his epistemology. Fiona Hughes draws on phenomenological and aesthetic resources to bring out the continuing relevance of Kant's project. One of the difficulties faced in reading the Critique of Pure Reason is finding a way of reading the text as one continuous discussion. This book offers a reading at each stage (...) of Kant's epistemological argument, showing how various elements of Kant's argument, often thought of as extraneous or indefensible, can be integrated. This incisive study, arguing for the centrality of aesthetics in philosophy, and within experience in general, challenges a blind spot in the Anglo-American tradition of philosophy and will contribute to a growing interest in the general significance of aesthetic culture. (shrink)

I offer a meta-level analysis of realist arguments for the reliability of ampliative reasoning about the unobservable. We can distinguish form-driven and content-driven arguments for realism: form-driven arguments appeal to the form of inductive inferences, whilst content-driven arguments appeal to their specific content. After regimenting the realism debate in these terms, I will argue that the content-driven arguments are preferable. Along the way I will discuss how my analysis relates to John Norton’s recent, more general thesis that (...) the grounds for licit induction are always material. (shrink)

The philosophy for children curriculum was specially written by Matthew Lipman and colleagues for the teaching of philosophy by non-philosophically educated teachers from foundation phase to further education colleges. In this article I argue that such a curriculum is neither a necessary, not a sufficient condition for the teaching of philosophical thinking. The philosophical knowledge and pedagogical tact of the teacher remains salient, in that the open-ended and unpredictable nature of philosophical enquiry demands of teachers to think in (...) the moment and draw on their own knowledge and experience of academic philosophy. Providing specialist training or induction in the P4C curriculum cannot and should not replace undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in academic philosophy at universities. However, although for academic philosophers the use of the P4C curriculum could be beneficial, I will argue that its use poses the risk of wanting to form children into the ideal ‘abnormal’ child, the thinking child—the adult philosopher’s child positioned as such by the Lipman novels. The notion of narrativity is central in my argument. With the help of two picturebooks—The Three Pigs by David Weisner and Voices in the Park by Anthony Browne—I illustrate my claim that philosophy as ‘side-shadowing’ or meta-thinking can only be generated in the space ‘in between’ text, child and educator, thereby foregrounding a ‘pedagogy of exposure’ rather than ‘teacher proof’ texts. (shrink)

"Psychiatry and Philosophy of Science" explores conceptual issues in psychiatry from the perspective of analytic philosophy of science. Through an examination of those features of psychiatry that distinguish it from other sciences - for example, its contested subject matter, its particular modes of explanation, its multiple different theoretical frameworks, and its research links with big business - Rachel Cooper explores some of the many conceptual, metaphysical and epistemological issues that arise in psychiatry. She shows how these pose interesting (...) challenges for the philosopher of science while also showing how ideas from the philosophy of science can help to solve conceptual problems within psychiatry. Cooper's discussion ranges over such topics as the nature of mental illnesses, the treatment decisions and diagnostic categories of psychiatry, the case-history as a form of explanation, how psychiatry might be value-laden, the claim that psychiatry is a multi-paradigm science, the distortion of psychiatric research by pharmaceutical industries, as well as engaging with the fundamental question whether the mind is reducible to something at the physical level. "Psychiatry and Philosophy of Science" demonstrates that cross-disciplinary contact between philosophy of science and psychiatry can be immensely productive for both subjects and it will be required reading for mental health professionals and philosophers alike. (shrink)

The Trika school, which is popularly known as Pratyabhijñā-darśana or Kashmir Śaivism is an absolutist and theistic school of Śaivism in the 9th Century. For the Trika school, the self is synonymous with pure consciousness, equated with Śiva. The path elaborated by the school is from self-ignorance to the realisation of pure consciousness. The Trika philosophy strives to answer two fundamental and interrelated questions. Firstly, understanding oneself as a reduced form of Śiva? Secondly, how does an individual attain (...) “Śivatva”? In this study, we explicate answers to these queries by resorting to the metaphysics of the Trika school along with interpretative textual analysis and present a model proposed by Bhoja Raja based on the three guṇas. This model attributed to Sāṅkhya philosophy and puruṣārtha could help to place the metaphysics of upāya in Trika philosophy in the context of the question of attaining “Śivatva”. (shrink)

This paper claims that there is no such thing as the correct answer to the question of what is logical form: two significantly different notions of logical form are needed to fulfil two major theoretical roles that pertain respectively to logic and semantics. The first part of the paper outlines the thesis that a unique notion of logical form fulfils both roles, and argues that the alleged best candidate for making it true is unsuited for one of (...) the two roles. The second part spells out a considerably different notion which is free from that problem, although it does not fit the other role. As it will be suggested, each of the two notions suits at most one role, so the uniqueness thesis is ungrounded. (shrink)

Despite the important role of faith in a religious way of life, there is no consensus on how this notion is to be understood. It is nevertheless widely believed that faith is a multifaceted concept possessing affective, evaluative, practical, and cognitive aspects. My goal in this paper is to provide an account of the nature of propositional faith (in religious contexts) that is flexible enough to encompass different strengths or grades of faith. To do so, I focus on Howard-Snyder’s account (...) of faith as a complex propositional attitude that seems to incorporate a number of plausible features of faith. It is argued, however, that, despite providing individual rational for each such feature, this account fails to provide a deep enough explanation of why those features are entailed by the nature of faith. To rectify this problem, I appeal to the phenomenology of acquiring faith to suggest an account of propositional faith in terms of the intention to form (theistic) beliefs. It is claimed that such a view can not only provide a unitary account of the different strengths of faith but also that it can explain why faith has the characteristics it is said to have. (shrink)

Philosophers since the ancient Greeks have investigated the nature of different kinds of inference. Although deductive inference in the form of Aristotelian syllogisms and Fregean formal logic has predominated, much attention has also been paid to induction, inference where the conclusion does not follow necessarily from the premises.

This article argues for an interpretation of Aristotle’s biological account of familial resemblance that allows us to read Aristotle’s embryology as employing the same concept of “form” as he employs in his Metaphysics. The dominant view for the last several decades has been that in order to account for the phenomenon of inherited characteristics, Aristotle’s biology must appeal to a “sub-specific” form, one that includes all of the traits that parents pass on to their offspring. That view, however, (...) is not only inconsistent with Aristotle’s essentialist metaphysics, but it also renders the embryological theory internally inconsistent. The interpretation I offer avoids both inconsistencies, and better coheres with what he actually says in Generation of Animals. (shrink)

Philosophers today have largely given up on the project of categorizing being. Aristotle’s ten categories now strike us as quaint, and no attempt to improve on that effort meets with much interest. Still, no one supposes that reality is smoothly distributed over space. The world at large comes in chunks, and there remains a widespread intuition, even among philosophers, that some of these chunks have a special sort of unity and persistence. These, we tend to suppose, are most truly agents (...) and subjects, and are what exist in the most proper sense of the term. We believe, in other words, in substances. (shrink)

Many scholars have argued that history embodies a different form of explanation than natural science. This paper provides an analysis of narrative conceived as the form of explanation appropriate to history. In narratives, actions, beliefs, and pro-attitudes are joined to one another by means of conditional and volitional connections. Conditional connections exist when beliefs and pro-attitudes pick up themes contained in one another, where the nature of such themes can be analysed by reference to the non-necessary and non-arbitrary (...) nature of conditionality. Volitional connections exist when agents command themselves to do something, having decided to do it because of a pro-attitude they hold. The paper uses examples to indicate how conditional and volitional connections can explain large-scale change as well as individual actions. (shrink)

Although topics in social and political philosophy might not be the first to associate with Mamardašvili, it is argued in this paper that key concepts in his thought, viz. the concepts of form, thought, and culture come together, in the 1980s in particular, in a notion of civil society that goes deeper than that of many of his contemporaries. The relevance of his philosophy at this point is intensified by the specific nature of Soviet philosophical culture, but, (...) it is argued, extends well beyond that, fully justifying his honorary title of “Georgian Socrates”. (shrink)

Philosophy’s place, at the intersection of the scientific and humanities disciplines, makes it an interesting test case for the role of English and other languages and cultures in our contemporary knowledge economy. The humanities’ attention to the richness of the world’s languages and cultures is in tension with the science’s essentially cosmopolitan project. This tension is perhaps especially evident in ‘analytic’ or ‘Anglo-American’ philosophy. Despite complementarity in earlier stages of the discipline, the humanities and scientific tendencies are now (...) clashing with undesirable results. This is in an important part due to analytic philosophy’s underexamined focus on a single vehicular language. One symptom of this malaise is that the voices of non-native-speaking philosophers are significantly less heard than those of native speakers. Especially problematic is, I argue, the current emphasis given to aesthetic considerations, and in particular linguistic form or style, as a sign of scientific rigour in the analysis of philosophical problems. I discuss this emphasis critically, arguing that it is not justifiable, in part because it deprives contemporary analytic philosophy of a wider variety of philosophical perspectives arising from different languages and cultures. I conclude by briefly presenting a recent attempt to make contemporary philosophy more linguistically inclusive. (shrink)

Philosophy at KUL seems to be omnipresent, for - similarly as at the medieval university - it fulfilled and still fulfils the propaedeutic functions. Students from all the faculties must gain philosophical culture much more thoroughly than at other Polish universities. Thereby we refer to the ancient ideal of philosophy as an alma mater of all other scientific disciplines, and express the fact that the university cares that the students of all the departments could better perceive the specific (...) character of their own discipline against a historical and methodological background. Now the most important thing is that at KUL one sees in philosophy an inspiring, ordering and integrating foundation of an outlook shaped by young people. They take up various studies and at the same time undertake the most beautiful effort to form themselves. In like manner, „unfortunately", the students of all the faculties from the very beginning had to and have to take an exam in the basic philosophical issues, including especially history of philosophy and ethics, and also the disciplines developing formal skills, like logic or methodology. (shrink)

A comprehensive analysis of the theories of property developed by four key figures in classical German philosophy that explores such central questions as the nature of property, what specific forms of property are justifiable and whether property rights ought to be respected or limited in the name of freedom.

Hylomorphists claim that substances—human beings, oak trees, chemical compounds—are compounds of matter and form. If a house is a substance, then its matter would be some bricks and timbers and its form the structure those bricks and timbers take on. While hylomorphism is traditionally presented as a theory of change, it only treats the coming-to-be and passing-away of matter-form compounds. But many hylomorphists understand forms to be entities in their own right, as parts or constituents of substances. (...) So, a neglected question arises: how, when, and from where do forms come to be? I take up the view of one prominent and representative hylomorphist, Kathrin Koslicki, and argue that she cannot answer these questions satisfactorily. I close with a proposal for an account of the generation of forms based on machinery many hylomorphists already accept, namely, causal powers, that points to a deflationary metaphysics of form. (shrink)

Far from overthrowing or stepping outside that tradition, Wittgenstein builds on it, draws from it, and contributes brilliantly to the fruition of certain elements in it. In This Complicated Form of Life, Garver analyzes from several angles Wittgenstein's relationship to Kant, and to what Finch has called Wittgenstein's completion of Kant's revolt against the Cartesian hegemony of epistemology in philosophy.

Damaris Masham’s letters to John Locke can be fruitfully read as a form of philosophical autobiography. By reading them in this way, neglected aspects of Masham’s philosophy of sociability and the self’s relationship to the world can be brought to light. My first section introduces Masham and the letters, suggesting that generic interpretation has been an obstacle to their reception. Second, I argue that they are autobiographical. Third, I argue that they can be considered as philosophical autobiography. To (...) demonstrate this, I contrast Masham’s published stance on sociability with the stance on the topic that is revealed through the autobiographical reflections in the Locke correspondence.This... (shrink)

The best definition of philosophy, in my opinion, was given by Wilfrid Sellars fifty years ago: ‘The aim of philosophy, abstractly formulated, is to understand how things in the broadest possible sense of the term hang together in the broadest possible sense of the term’. This definition does not get us very far; and nor should we expect it to (after all, as Nietzsche said, only that which has no history can be defined). But it does give us (...) something to get started on. One important element in the definition, for example, is the emphasis on the ‘breadth’ of philosophy. Another is the idea of ‘hanging together’. Yet another, which I want to focus on here, is that philosophy is a form of understanding. Philosophy is a cognitive, rather than an aesthetic or a practical endeavour, aiming at an improvement in our cognitive position rather than at edification or political activism. Certainly philosophy has resulted in edification and political activism, and no doubt it will do in the future too. But this is not its aim. (shrink)

The twentieth century has witnessed an unprecedented 'crisis in the foundations of mathematics', featuring a world-famous paradox (Russell's Paradox), a challenge to 'classical' mathematics from a world-famous mathematician (the 'mathematical intuitionism' of Brouwer), a new foundational school (Hilbert's Formalism), and the profound incompleteness results of Kurt Gödel. In the same period, the cross-fertilization of mathematics and philosophy resulted in a new sort of 'mathematical philosophy', associated most notably (but in different ways) with Bertrand Russell, W. V. Quine, and (...) Gödel himself, and which remains at the focus of Anglo-Saxon philosophical discussion. The present collection brings together in a convenient form the seminal articles in the philosophy of mathematics by these and other major thinkers. It is a substantially revised version of the edition first published in 1964 and includes a revised bibliography. The volume will be welcomed as a major work of reference at this level in the field. (shrink)

The present collection brings together in a convenient form the seminal articles in the philosophy of mathematics by these and other major thinkers.

This article is a cry for help. It is a search for some possible view of legal philosophy that does not render it either intrinsically useless or useless in its current form. In this article I focus on two methodological hallmarks of contemporary anglophone legal philosophy. The first is the Archimedean way in which the legal theorist places a critical distance between him- or herself and the subject matter of the philosophical inquiry. The second is the introverted (...) way in which the accuracy of any given legal theory is confined to the theorist’s own puzzles, concerns, controversies, and preoccupations. Whilst I consider those who have turned against these methodological commitments and called for an anti-Archimedean or extroverted approach to legal theory, I explain how those who accept both commitments adopt a very modest view of the helpfulness of legal philosophy. I then consider whether, contrary to the modest view, if we accept both commitments, then whatever is true in legal philosophy will always be trivially true, irrelevant, or inconsequential, for any non-philosophical practice or non-philosophical inquiry about the law. The value of this article, I hope, lies in its refutation. (shrink)

What challenges does the political participation of children pose to the Philosophy of Childhood? What challenges does the Philosophy of Childhood pose to children's political participation? This text is inspired by the idea that “research is not about enumerating situations, but making researchers lose their sleep”. It is divided into two distinct parts. In the first, we introduce the theoretical framework that orients our research group and our work with children in the philosophical research community. We posit a (...) link between listening to children's voices, the conditions of listening, and the location of their political participation in public space. The second part is comprised of a creative illustrated narrative in the form of a dialogue. From the coast of what could be called the territory of political participation, two characters - Sentinel and Walker - discuss the waves of children that crash onto the territory. To what extent does creating space and time for listening to children open polyphonic movements and enable the construction of new forms of polis: poly(s)phonies? In what ways does the Philosophy of Childhood challenge itself in the creation of poly(s)phonies where the participation of children sets the tone? In what ways does the Philosophy of Childhood in turn challenge us to create poly(s)phonies? (shrink)