_Challenges conventional understandings of Heidegger’s account of the body._.

A keen athlete in his late forties, philosophy professor Kevin Aho hadn't given much thought to his own mortality, until he suffered a sudden heart attack that left him fighting for his life. Confronted with death for the first time, he realized that the things he thought gave his life meaning, such as his independence or his ability to plan his own future, were in tatters. Aho turned to those thinkers who have reflected deeply on the meaning of life and (...) the anxiety of living when every heartbeat might be your last: the existentialists. Armed with insights from the likes of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Nietzsche, and de Beauvoir, he found new meaning and comfort in a view of life that strives for authenticity and accepts aging and death as part of what makes life worthwhile. Existentialism asks us to face the frailty of our existence and to live with a sense of urgency and gratitude toward its manifold beauties. It is only then that we can be released from patterns of self-deception and begin to appreciate what truly matters in our fleeting, precious lives. (shrink)

This study examines the Qurʾān’s view towards gender and argues that all three masculine, feminine and egalitarian (gender-inclusive) discourses exist in its text, and that these discourses do not follow a simple and linear model but rather a nonlinear and complex one. It also provides evidence, showing that gender equality in the Qurʾān is achieved in two ways: firstly, through linguistic devices that are devoid of gender distinctions, and secondly, through concurrent use of masculine and feminine gender markers in one (...) context. The masculine discourse is, however, more prominent in the verses of this book and manifests itself to varying degrees in three ways: (1) in some verses, only masculine indicators are used but it can be inferred based on the (Taghlīb) principle that both men and women are the intended addressees; (2) in some verses, rules regarding women are stipulated, whilst men are, in fact, the main addressees and (3) in verses that state rules on reciprocal issues such as divorce and marriage but these rules are addressed to only men. The feminine discourse is also present in the Qurʾān and can be seen in verses that address women. Contribution: Revealing gender discourses in the Qurʾān requires not only a historical but also an integrative and holistic understanding of its text. This study attempts to identify the relation of the Qurʾān to the three gender discourses based on the linguistic elements of the text and their classification. (shrink)

Essential reading for students and researchers of existentialism and phenomenology, and also of interest to those studying ethics, philosophy and gender, philosophy of race, the emotions and philosophical issues in health and illness as well as related disciplines such as Literature, Sociology, and Political Theory.

Frege's docent's dissertation Rechnungsmethoden, die sich auf eine Erweiterung des Grössenbegriffes gründen(1874) contains indications of a bold attempt to extend arithmetic. According to it, arithmetic means the science of magnitude, and magnitude must be understood structurally without intuitive support. The main thing is insight into the formal structure of the operation of ?addition?. It turns out that a general ?magnitude domain? coincides with a (commutative) group. This is an interesting connection with simultaneous developments in abstract algebra. As his main application, (...) Frege studies iterations of functions. He does not yet pose the question of existence proofs. Measurement of magnitudes is also connected to numbers, but the discussion is here ambiguous in a way which calls for the systematic account of numbers in Grundgesetze. (shrink)

A proper understanding of the Sufi doctrine of the unity of existence is essential for following the later developments of Islamic philosophy. The doctrine of the unity of existence is divided into introversive and extroversive aspects, the former dealing with the unity of the soul of the mystic with God, and the latter with the unity of the cosmos with God. Here this latter aspect of the doctrine is explained through a comparison of the views of Ibn ‘Arabi and Meister (...) Eckhart, both of whom are profoundly influenced by Ibn Sina at precisely the same crucial points, although Meister Eckhart makes explicit reference to Ibn Sina, while Ibn ‘Arabi generally avoids naming him. The theory of the extroversive unity of existence consists of four parts, or rather, it is the product of four steps, each of which is logically based on the previous one: (1) God is the only being or the absolute existence. (2) Everything other than God (i. e., human beings and the cosmos) is nothing or nonexistence. (3) The existence of all things is God’s existence (All are He). (4) The cosmos does not have existence but manifests existence. In other words, it is God’s self-disclosure. (shrink)

This article analyses the aesthetics of silent political resistance by focusing on refugees’ silent political action. The starting point for the analysis is Jacques Rancière’s philosophy and his theorisation of the aesthetics of politics. The article enquires into the aesthetic meaning of silent refugee activism and interprets how refugees’ silent acts of resistance can constitute aesthetically effective resistance to what can be called the ‘speech system’ of statist, representative democracy. The article analyses silence as a political tactic and interprets the (...) emancipatory meaning of silent politics for refugees. It argues that refugees’ silent acts of political resistance can powerfully affect aesthetic, political subversion in prevailing legal-political contexts. (shrink)

This chapter deals with medieval logic from the time when it first had full resources for systematic creative contributions onward. It focuses on the era when the ancient heritage was available and medieval logic was able to add something substantial to it, even to surpass it in some respects. The chapter explains that characterization such as this cannot be adequately expressed with years or by conventional period denominations; however, it is hoped that the grounds for drawing boundaries will become clearer (...) during the course of the story. (shrink)

Background Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, different countries sought to manufacture and supply effective vaccines to control the disease and prevent and protect public health in society. The implementation of vaccination has created many ethical dilemmas for humans, which must be recognized and resolved. Therefore, the present study was conducted to analyze the ethical considerations in vaccination against COVID-19 from the perspective of service providers. Methods The present qualitative research was conducted in 2022 in the north of Iran. (...) The participants included 23 health workers with at least five years of work experience and members of the COVID-19 vaccination team. The data were initially collected through systematic semi-structured interviews, then snowball sampling and finally continued until data saturation. The next steps were transcription of interviews, identification of meaning units, coding, categorization based on similarity and symmetry, extraction of themes and the analysis of themes through content analysis. Results The analysis of participants’ experiences led to the extraction of five main categories of themes and fifteen sub-categories of the ethical considerations of COVID-19 vaccination. Safe and standard vaccine production, vaccine supply, fairness, respect for autonomy, and accountability were the main categories. The subcategories included compliance with scientific and ethical procedures, effectiveness and profitability of vaccine, absence of severe adverse effects, allocation of resources for vaccine supply, vaccine availability, diversity and comprehensiveness of alternative vaccines, vaccination prioritization, prioritization of the vulnerable populations of society, autonomy of patient (equal rights), autonomy of community, autonomy of service providers, reporting correct information, reporting vaccine side effects, public trust and acceptance. Conclusion The health system managers should be adequately prepared to solve the ethical problems posed by COVID-19 vaccination. Therefore, it is recommended to avoid haste in vaccination and pay more attention to vaccination safety standards, provide sufficient resources for a comprehensive vaccine supply, pay close attention to collective interests versus individual interests, and meet community needs. (shrink)

Written in a jargon-free way, Body Matters provides a clear and accessible phenomenological critique of core assumptions in mainstream biomedicine and explores ways in which health and illness are experienced and interpreted differently in various socio-historical situations. By drawing on the disciplines of literature, cultural anthropology, sociology, medical history, and philosophy, the authors attempt to dismantle common presuppositions we have about human afflictions and examine how the methods of phenomenology open up new ways to interpret the body and to re-envision (...) therapy. (shrink)

This book offers cutting edge research on the modifications and disruptions of bodily experience in the context of anxiety, depression, trauma, chronic illness, pain, and aging. It presents original contributions in applied phenomenology, biomedical ethics, and the use of medical technologies.

This essay explores the unique temporal experience in anxiety. Drawing on first-person accounts as well as examples from literature, I attempt to show how anxiety not only disrupts our physiological and cognitive timing but also disturbs the embodied rhythms of everyday social life. The primary goal, however, is to articulate the extent to which human existence itself is a temporally structured event and to identity the ways that anxiety disrupts this structure. Using Martin Heidegger’s account of human existence as a (...) point of departure, I show how the mood of anxiety has the power to alter our self-interpretations by closing down or constricting our experience of the future. I argue that a constricted future impedes our ability ‘to be’ because it closes off the range of projective meanings that we would ordinarily draw on to create or fashion our identities. (shrink)

This paper offers a phenomenological analysis of Heidegger’s account of “the uncanny” as it relates to the coronavirus pandemic. It explores how the pandemic has disrupted Dasein’s sense of “homelike” familiarity and how this disruption has undermined our ability to be, that is, to understand or make sense of things. By examining our experience of temporality, lived-space, and intersubjectivity, the paper illuminates different ways in which the pandemic has left us confused and anxious about our self-interpretations and future projects. The (...) paper concludes by showing how the uncanny is not simply something we feel in times of crisis; it is, for Heidegger, who we are. This means the secure feeling of familiarity that we embodied prior to the pandemic was an illusion all along, that we are not and never have been at-home in the world. (shrink)

This paper integrates personal narratives with the methods of phenomenology in order to draw some general conclusions about ‘what it means’ and ‘what it feels like’ to be depressed. The analysis has three parts. First, it explores the ways in which depression disrupts everyday experiences of spatial orientation and motility. This disruption makes it difficult for the person to move and perform basic functional tasks, resulting in a collapse or contraction of the life-world. Second, it illustrates how depression creates a (...) situational atmosphere of emotional indifference that reduces the person’s ability to qualitatively distinguish what matters in his or her life because nothing stands out as significant or important anymore. In this regard, depression is distinct from other feelings because it is not directed towards particular objects or situations but to the world as a whole. Finally, the paper examines how depression diminishes the possibility for ‘self-creation’ or ‘self-making’. Restricted by the illness, depression becomes something of a destiny, preventing the person from being open and free to access a range of alternative self-interpretations, identities, and possible ways of being-in-the-world. (shrink)

This paper approaches the much-debated issue of corporate citizenship (CC). Many models depict the development process of CC, and yet attempts to find one extensive definition remain in progress. We argue that more than one type of citizenship may be needed to fully describe the concept. So far, social factors have dominated the definitions of CC, but citizenship functions can also be found in other areas. In fact, for maximum benefit, the type of citizenship should be tied to the sector (...) and business field of the corporation in question. Using data drawn from three internationally operating corporations headquartered in Finland, we introduce three different types of CC that are in line with their core business ideas: cultural citizenship, environmental citizenship and technological citizenship. These new types of citizenships can help in grasping the complexity of business responsibility and ethics, and offer tools for gaining competitive advantage by differentiation. (shrink)

This essay explores the unique temporal experience in anxiety. Drawing on first-person accounts as well as examples from literature, I attempt to show how anxiety not only disrupts our physiological and cognitive timing but also disturbs the embodied rhythms of everyday social life. The primary goal, however, is to articulate the extent to which human existence itself is a temporally structured event and to identity the ways that anxiety disrupts this structure. Using Martin Heidegger’s account of human existence as a (...) point of departure, I show how the mood of anxiety has the power to alter our self-interpretations by closing down or constricting our experience of the future. I argue that a constricted future impedes our ability ‘to be’ because it closes off the range of projective meanings that we would ordinarily draw on to create or fashion our identities. (shrink)

Provides an accessible and scholarly introduction to the core ideas of the existentialist tradition. Kevin Aho draws on a wide range of existentialist thinkers in chapters centering on the key themes of freedom, being-in-the-world, alienation, nihilism, anxiety and authenticity. He also addresses important but often overlooked issues in the canon of existentialism, with discussions devoted to the role of embodiment, the movement's contribution to ethics, politics, and environmental and comparative philosophies, as well as its influence on contemporary psychiatry and psychotherapy. (...) The enduring relevance of existentialism is shown by applying existentialist ideas to contemporary philosophical discussions of interest to a wide audience. The book covers secular thinkers such as Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Nietzsche, Sartre, Camus, and Beauvoir as well as religious authors, such as Buber, Dostoevsky, Marcel, and Kierkegaard"--Back cover. (shrink)

In Being and Time, Martin Heidegger introduces a unique interpretation of death as a kind of world-collapse or breakdown of meaning that strips away our ability to understand and make sense of who we are. This is an ‘ontological death’ in the sense that we cannot be anything because the intelligible world that we draw on to fashion our identities and sustain our sense of self has lost all significance. On this account, death is not only an event that we (...) can physiologically live through; it can happen numerous times throughout the finite span of our lives. This paper draws on Arthur Frank’s (At the will of the body: reflections on illness. Houghton, Boston, 1991) narrative of critical illness to concretize the experience of ‘ontological death’ and illuminate the unique challenges it poses for health care professionals. I turn to Heidegger’s conception of ‘resoluteness’ (Entschlossenheit) to address these challenges, arguing for the need of health care professionals to help establish a discursive context whereby the critically ill can begin to meaningfully express and interpret their experience of self-loss in a way that acknowledges the structural vulnerability of their own identities and is flexible enough to let go of those that have lost their significance or viability. (shrink)

In this paper, I draw on Heidegger’s phenomenology of “moods” (_Stimmungen_) to interpret loneliness as a diffused and atmospheric feeling-state that often undergirds the lives of older adults, shaping the ways in which they are attuned to and make sense of the world. I focus specifically on residents in long-term care facilities to show how the social isolation and lockdown measures of the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically intensified the mood. The aim is to shed light on how profound and totalizing the (...) experience has been for residents. Making use of Heidegger’s account of the affective “collapse” or “breakdown” (_Zusammenbruch_) of meaning, I argue that when older adults are functionally locked in their rooms for months at a time and cut off from the orienting routines and rhythms of the relational world, the result is a crumbling of the fundamental meaning-structures that constitute subjectivity. The global sense of abandonment and disconnection strips away the possibility for self-understanding, and residents are often left confused and abandoned to an existence that has been drained of meaning and significance. (shrink)

This paper approaches the much-debated issue of corporate citizenship (CC). Many models depict the development process of CC, and yet attempts to find one extensive definition remain in progress. We argue that more than one type of citizenship may be needed to fully describe the concept. So far, social factors have dominated the definitions of CC, but citizenship functions can also be found in other areas. In fact, for maximum benefit, the type of citizenship should be tied to the sector (...) and business field of the corporation in question. Using data drawn from three internationally operating corporations headquartered in Finland, we introduce three different types of CC that are in line with their core business ideas: cultural citizenship, environmental citizenship and technological citizenship. These new types of citizenships can help in grasping the complexity of business responsibility and ethics, and offer tools for gaining competitive advantage by differentiation. (shrink)

Dostoevsky's disturbing and groundbreaking novella appears in this new annotated edition with an Introduction by Charles Guignon and Kevin Aho. An analogue of Guignon's widely praised Introduction to his 1993 edition of "The Grand Inquisitor," the editors' Introduction places the underground man in the context of European modernity, analyzes his inner dynamics in the light of the history of Russian cultural and intellectual life, and suggests compelling reasons for our own strange affinity for this nameless man who boldly declares, "I (...) was rude and took pleasure in being so.”. (shrink)

This contribution anchors the topic of transformative education in the discussion of human renewal. It posits that transformative education can only be perceived as an endeavour that encompasses the whole human being and the potential of humans to change and to adopt different perspectives on seeing and being in the world. The motif of the new human being (homo novus), as per the argument presented, can serve to develop a meaningful conceptual and praxis-related framework for education. Especially when considered against (...) the background of the debate on education serving the establishment of communities of belonging across cultures, in which ethics and values can be lived and probed. (shrink)

Filosofisia tutkielmia sisältää Leibnizin tärkeimmät metafyysiset teokset ja lisäksi varsin laajan valikoiman lyhyitä kirjoituksia monilta hänen filosofiansa aloilta: logiikkaa, tieto-oppia, etiikkaa, oikeusfilosofiaa, fysiikkaa, matematiikkaa ja eri uskontokuntien uskontunnustusten yhteensovittamisesta. Tutkielman lisäksi mukana on osia kirjeenvaihdosta Antoine Arnauld’n kanssa ja koko kuuluisa kirjeenvaihto Samuel Clarken kanssa. Teos sisältää myös johdannon sekä selitysosan, jotka avaavat nykylukijalle tämän monipuolisen filosofian ajattelua. A collection of Leibniz writings translated to Finnish with introduction and notes.

The dominance of the medical-model in American psychiatry over the last 30 years has resulted in the subsequent decline of the “talking cure”. In this paper, we identify a number of problems associated with medicalized psychiatry, focusing primarily on how it conceptualizes the self as a de-contextualized set of symptoms. Drawing on the tradition of hermeneutic phenomenology, we argue that medicalized psychiatry invariably overlooks the fact that our identities, and the meanings and values that matter to us, are created and (...) constituted by our dialogical relations with others. While acknowledging the importance of medical and pharmaceutical interventions, we suggest that it is only by means of the dialogical interplay of the talking cure that the client can both recognize unhealthy and self-defeating ways of being and be opened up to the possibility of new meanings and self-interpretations. (shrink)

Heidegger’s failure to discuss ‘the body’ in Being and Time has generated a cottage industry of criticism. In his recently translated Zollikon Seminars, Heidegger provides a response to the critics by offering a thematic account of the body that is strikingly similar to Merleau-Ponty’s account in Phenomenology of Perception. In this article, I draw on the parallels between these two texts in order to see how Heidegger’s neglect of the body affects his early project of fundamental ontology and to determine (...) whether or not an account of the body is necessary to complete the project. I defend Heidegger by suggesting that any analysis of the body is ‘ontic’ or regional and is made possible only on the basis of Dasein, understood as a public ‘clearing’ or ‘there’ of intelligibility that determines in advance the way things emerge-into-presence as the kinds of things that they are. Heidegger’s core concern in Being and Time is to unearth the essential, ‘ontological-existential’, structures of Dasein that make it possible for us to begin regional investigations into the problem of the body in the first place. (shrink)

This chapter explores logical semantics, that is, the structural meaning of logical expressions like connectives, quantifiers, and modalities. It focuses on truth-theoretical semantics for formalized languages, a tradition emerging from Carnap's and Tarski's work in the first half of the last century that specifies the meaning of these expressions in terms of the truth-conditions of the sentences in which they occur. It considers Tarski-style definitions of the semantics of a given language in a stronger metalanguage, Tarski's impossibility results, and attempts (...) to overcome them in the post-Tarskian tradition. (shrink)

The rise of medically unexplained conditions like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome in the United States looks remarkably similar to the explosion of neurasthenia diagnoses in the late nineteenth century. In this paper, I argue the historical connection between neurasthenia and today’s medically unexplained conditions hinges largely on the uncritical acceptance of naturalism in medicine. I show how this cultural acceptance shapes the way in which we interpret and make sense of nervous distress while, at the same time, neglecting the (...) unique social and historical forces that continue to produce it. I draw on the methods of hermeneutic philosophy to expose the limits of naturalism and forward an account of health and illness that acknowledges the extent to which we are always embedded in contexts of meaning that determine how we experience and understand our suffering. (shrink)

This book explores new phenomenological research on the structural disruptions of spatiality, temporality, and understanding in the context of anxiety and depressive disorders. It offers critiques of mainstream psychopathology, taking a transdisciplinary approach to the relationship between mental illness and self-constitution.

In her article, “Melancholia, temporal disruption, and the torment of being both unable to live and unable to die,” Emily Hughes offers a provocative and powerful analysis of an experiential aspect of depression that is often overlooked in the psychiatric literature. Drawing on Heidegger’s account of ontological death, what he calls “dying” in Being and Time, Hughes illuminates how episodes of major depression can disrupt the synchronous unity of time that structures our experience and gives meaning to our lives. When (...) this happens, the sufferer enters a paradoxical liminal space, one in which we live through our own death, where death is understood ontologically as an inability-to-be. For Heidegger, “to... (shrink)

In his Contributions to Philosophy, Martin Heidegger introduces "acceleration" as one of the three symptoms--along with "calculation" and the "outbreak of massiveness"--of our technological way of "being-in-the-world." In this article, I unpack the relationship between these symptoms and draw a twofold conclusion. First, interpreting acceleration in terms of time pathologies, I suggest the self is becoming increasingly fragmented and emotionally overwhelmed from chronic sensory arousal and time pressure. This experience makes it difficult for us to qualitatively distinguish what matters to (...) us in our everyday lives, resulting in a pervasive cultural mood of indifference, what Heidegger calls "profound boredom." Second, by drawing on Heidegger's hermeneutic method, I argue that the practice of mainstream psychology, by adopting the reductive methodology of the empirical sciences, largely ignores our accelerated socio-historical situation, resulting in therapeutic models that have a tendency to construct and perpetuate the very pathologies the psychologist is seeking to treat. (shrink)

This chapter begins with a discussion of Kant's theory of judgment-forms. It argues that it is not true in Kant's logic that assertoric or apodeictic judgments imply problematic ones, in the manner in which necessity and truth imply possibility in even the weakest systems of modern modal logic. The chapter then discusses theories of judgment-form after Kant, the theory of quantification, Frege's Begriffsschrift, C. I. Lewis and the beginnings of modern modal logic, the proof-theoretic approach to modal logic, possible world (...) semantics, correspondence theory, and modality and quantification. (shrink)

By focusing on the unique velocity and over-stimulation of metropolitan life, Georg Simmel pioneered an interpretation of cultural boredom that has had a significant impact on contemporary social theory by viewing it through the modern experience of time-pressure and social acceleration. This paper explores Simmel's account of boredom by showing how--in the frenzy of modern life--it has become increasingly difficult to qualitatively distinguish which choices and commitments actually matter to us. Furthermore, this emotional indifference invariably pushes us towards more excessive (...) and risky behavior, towards, what I call, "extreme aesthesia." Insofar as novel experiences quickly become routine in the technological age, it appears that only extreme sensations and experiences can break the spell of boredom, allowing us to momentarily feel strongly for something. (shrink)

Heidegger's Being and Time is often interpreted as an important contribution to the canon of Existentialist philosophy. This popular interpretation is due largely to the theme of "authenticity" that is carefully developed in Division II. Here, Heidegger explains how we, as human beings, can temporarily sever ourselves from our bondage to a "fallen" public world by owning up to the anxious awareness of our inevitable death. It is in resolutely facing death that we can become individuals for the first time (...) and see through the illusions of stability and comfort that our roles in public life offer us. As "beings-towards-death" we can soberly come to grips with our finitude and bring this awareness back into our everyday lives, realizing and accepting that there is no security or permanence to our existence.But this existentialist interpretation fails to acknowledge the fundamental role that historicity plays in Heidegger's conception of authenticity. The experience of anxiety that can motivate us to authenticity and resoluteness is only initially an individuating experience. Our historicity determines the structure of our existence in such a way that the authentic human being is never an isolated individual . Human beings can never rebel against or overcome their own socio-cultural and historical world because they are always already interwoven to a specific historical situation. In this paper I will attempt to explain the relevance of historicist authenticity as a critical response to the common, existentialist interpretation. I will focus on the crucial role that one's historical background, in the sense of community and heritage, has on Heidegger's interpretation of authenticity. (shrink)

This paper attempts to reconcile, what appear to be, two conflicting accounts of authenticity in Heidegger’s thought. Authenticity in Being and Time is commonly interpreted in ‘existentialist’ terms as willful commitment and resoluteness in the face of one’s own death but, by the late 1930’s, is reintroduced in terms of Gelassenheit, as a non-willful openness that “lets beings be.” By employing Heidegger’s conception of authentic historicality , understood as the retrieval of Dasein’s past, and drawing on his writings on Hölderlin (...) in the 1930’s and 1940’s, I suggest that the ancient interpretation of leisure and festivity may play an important role in unifying these conflicting accounts. Genuine leisure, interpreted as a form of play , frees us from inauthentic busy-ness and gives us an opening to face the abyssal nature of our own being and the mystery that “beings are” in the first place. To this end, leisure re-connects us with wonder as the original temperament of Western thought. In leisurely wonder, the authentic self does not seek purposive mastery and control over beings but calmly accepts the unsettledness of being and is, as a result, allowed into the original openness or space of play of time that lets beings emerge-into-presence on their own terms. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Concordance to Descartes’ “Meditationes de Prima Philosophia.” by Katsuzo Murakami, Meguru Sasaki, Tetsuichi NishimuraTuomo Aho and Mikko YrjönsuuriKatsuzo Murakami, Meguru Sasaki, and Tetsuichi Nishimura. Concordance to Descartes’ “Meditationes de Prima Philosophia.” Hildesheim: Olms-Weidmann, 1995. Pp. v + 355. Cloth, DM 198.00.This is a product from the Descartes database of Tokyo University scholars. It gives an account of the occurrences and contexts of words in the Meditationes (the main (...) text only), aiming at a complete survey of vocabulary. The work keeps strictly to the form of a lexical concordance; in addition to the word lists, there is only a brief instruction. (A bibliographical note about editions might be useful.) Technical realization is excellent. But concordances like this are big and expensive books; could they possibly be published more easily in electronic format?Most words of Descartes’s text are included in the main concordance. There they are listed following the alphabetic order of standard dictionaries, and in each entry the total amount of occurrences of the word is announced. Then every occurrence is quoted in its context (one line = approximately two in the Adam-Tannery standard edition). Quotes within each entry are arranged and their places identified by digits showing the page and line in AT edition.Some function words and most indeclinables are placed in an index which gives only the numbers and locations of their occurrences. In most cases this is certainly reasonable, but some choices are problematic. For example, why have the 638 + 36 occurrences of qui in its two senses (‘who’, ‘what’; ‘how’, ‘whereby’) been printed with full contexts, while the philosophically interesting adverb plane (‘plainly’, 55 times) is to be found merely in the index?Concordances are uncommon for modern philosophy, but they are familiar and valuable tools in work with ancient texts. Obviously they function in linguistic research, and even the present Descartes book has largely the same goal: to serve the study of neo-Latin language. Undoubtedly, a rigorous case study like this is important for such [End Page 135] investigations. (There remains, however, a difficulty, as the editors point out, because the AT text differs from original editions, mainly in matters of orthography and punctuation.) But also a completely nonlinguistic philosopher can benefit from this material. It is useful to see all occurrences of a word together and at once; many careless generalizations could be avoided by checking from a concordance.One can make amusing observations at random. Thus some terms have remarkably low frequencies (notitia, qualitas occur 4 times; materia 3 times; absolutus, principium 2 times; abstractus, definire, dispositio, species 1 time; intentio, possibile not at all). On the other hand, there is an overwhelming concentration on the semantic family round cogitare, cognoscere, comprehendere, concipere, percipere. Descartes has some idiosyncratic favorites, like advertere/animadvertere. One also notices his strong liking for words of seeing and light (15 arguments from lumen naturale!). It hardly is a surprise that his most cherished favorite is ego (492 times).Tuomo Aho and Mikko Yrjönsuuri University of HelsinkiCopyright © 1998 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc... (shrink)