The Greek word afi≈n has a wide-ranging meaning as well as a wideranging history: it is most commonly translated as ‘eternity’ but has as its first meaning ‘life’ or ‘lifetime’; it has its place in Greek literature and philosophy, but also in the Greek Bible, where it represents the Hebrew word ‘olâm. In this article I intend to sketch the history of the meaning and interpretation of aiôn from the word’s first attestation in Homer up until the beginning of the (...) Christian era. The expanded version of this study was defended as a doctoral dissertation, entitled Life Time Entirety: A Study of AIVN in Greek Literature and Philosophy, the Septuagint and Philo, on 7 September 1999 at the University of Amsterdam. (shrink)

Niemand dacht oorspronkelijker, speelser en scherper dan Ludwig Wittgenstein, en hij wist het. Van de kristallijnen helderheid in de 'Tractatus' tot de alledaagse onoverzichtelijkheid van de 'Filosofische onderzoekingen' blijft zijn denken één lange worsteling tegen de betovering van ons intellect door de schier eindeloze variatie van vermommingen waarin taal de gedachte aan het oog onttrekt.0Wittgenstein wist dat hij een bijzonder talent had, en zijn visie op zichzelf is zeker zo boeiend als zijn kijk op de wereld. In zijn brieven en (...) dagboeken treedt een geniale, lastige, komische en ontroerende man naar voren die in leven en in sterven een onuitwisbare indruk maakte op de mensen die hem kenden.0Bert Keizer biedt een heldere en toegankelijke introductie in leven en werk van Wittgenstein. Hij bespreekt diens brieven, dagboeken en belangrijkste werken: de 'Tractatus', de 'Filosofische onderzoekingen' en 'Over zekerheid'. Dat doet hij gedreven en enthousiast, zonder belerend te worden.0. (shrink)

In this paper, we will explain and analyse a phenomenological distinction between two kinds of actions. The distinction we have in mind is the difference between those actions that actors try, or are satisfied, to carry out, in like situations, ‘in the same way’, and all other actions. We call the first kind ‘mimeomorphic actions’ and the second kind ‘polimorphic actions’. We will define these two kinds of actions, and their species, on the basis of their characteristic intentions and experiences, (...) and thus our inquiry falls broadly into the phenomenology of action. The latter has been defined by D. W. Smith as the “description of the experience of acting, or doing something”. (shrink)

A person should establish a connection between both his material and spiritual worlds and maintain this harmony by establishing harmony between these two worlds. In this sense, a person must have a philosophy of spirituality. Because moral values stand like a beacon above the ideas and thoughts that extend from the individual to the society, from the state to history, from economic order to art and religion. The values and norms that people have to obey in the establishment of social (...) relations constitute the moral philosophy of a person in public life. The source that satisfies this need for a modern human model or personality is the history, literature, cultural and religious tradition of the society in which a person lives. As the famous historical scholar Bernard Lewis said: "In human history, political ideologies such as socialism and capitalism have not offered anything to man in the desired form, so the man of the 21st century will look for his happiness in his historical roots". It is for this reason that in the Turkish world in recent times, "the need for our people to turn to the history of philosophical thought in order to review the traditional sources of spirituality with the possibilities of modern times" has been voiced as the main principle. Nurettin Topcu, a philosopher who considers spirituality and morality to be one of the elements of the state, says: “Morality and spirituality take their source from religion. Therefore, morality is the basis and direct essence of the Islamic religion. Those who want to separate morality from religion or religion from morality are those who want to see the inner world of a person separate from himself”. We can easily say that this philosophical approach was accepted by the national leader Heydar Aliyev as the main criterion for the formation of the Azerbaijani people as a nation in the 21st century. He was saying: "We will never depart from our faith and religion and we will build our future using these spiritual resources!" As a leader with one or another slogan, he emphasized that our history of philosophical thought is rich in every platform and that it is easy to achieve and implement it in the context of modern possibilities. The article reflects the philosophy of spirituality in general and the context of Heydar Aliyev. (shrink)

Since it has generally been accepted that to Spinoza attributes are real features of substance, the interpretation of his attribute definition has become a notorious problem. The reason is that interpreters have failed to see that the definition formulates a purely epistemological account of the state of affairs. The article presents and justifies such an interpretation. It will be shown that the definition in spite of its epistemological character implies a real ontological definition, which specifies the critical features of an (...) attribute. As to the reason why Spinoza has stated the definition in an ‘indirect way’, it is shown that it is likely that he has done so in order to have a more efficient, a more unambiguous and a more elegant definition. The relevance of the new interpretation is not only that it provides us with an interpretable, transparent attribute definition, but it also contributes to the establishment of a coherent picture of Spinoza’s metaphysics around this definition. (shrink)

This book brings together classic and recent papers in the philosophical and linguistic analysis of fuzzy grammar, gradience in meaning, word classes, and syntax. Issues such as how many grains make a heap, when a puddle becomes a pond, and so forth, have occupied thinkers since Aristotle and over the last two decades been the subject of increasing interest among linguists as well as in fields such as artificial intelligence and computational linguistics. The work is designed to be of use (...) to students in all these fields. It has a substantial introduction, is divided into thematic parts, contains annotated sections of further reading, and is fully indexed. (shrink)

One way to enhance rule compliance is to provide people with arguments explaining why the desired behavior is important. We argue that there might be another, potentially more effective way to enhance rule compliance: ask people to generate arguments in favor of the rule themselves, which can trigger a process of self-persuasion. We compared the effects of providing arguments, asking respondents to generate arguments themselves, and a combination of both approaches on rule compliance and the perceived importance of the rule. (...) A field experiment revealed that rule compliance was higher in all experimental conditions compared to a control condition, with the highest level of rule compliance in the conditions that either presented the arguments or asked people to generate arguments themselves. Yet the rule was only evaluated as more important compared to the control condition, when people generated arguments themselves. This study suggests that rule compliance and perceived importance of this rule can be enhanced by easy low-cost interventions. (shrink)

The Christian church had its early development in the Hellenistic, Greco-Roman world and for that reason it can certainly be stated that the church was “Hellenized”. But how should we define this Hellenization? And what should be our judgement of it? The collection of essays entitled Hellenization revisited centers on an important theme.

The Christian church had its early development in the Hellenistic, Greco-Roman world and for that reason it can certainly be stated that the church was “Hellenized”. But how should we define this Hellenization? And what should be our judgement of it? The collection of essays entitled Hellenization revisited centers on an important theme.

This article explores a new reading of an important section of Part II of Spinoza’s Ethics. It recognizes that Spinoza actually differentiates between the human mind conceived from the viewpoint of its cause and the human mind conceived from the viewpoint of its nature. It shows, most importantly, that Spinoza assigns different objects to those ‘minds’. Consequently they represent different knowledge of the body. It will appear that the human mind in respect of its cause represents non-conscious knowledge of the (...) human body and that the human mind in respect of its nature represents conscious knowledge of the human body. It will be shown that knowledge of the inner processes of the human body and of the body per se belongs to the domain of non-conscious knowledge. The same conclusion will be obtained in an analysis that starts from the distinction between the formal and the objective being of the human mind. (shrink)

The book argues that mainstream economists, who base their analyses only on the economic motivation of people, fail to explain and understand real-life economic phenomena. The economic crisis, which began in 2008, illustrates the relevance of psychic and social motivations, especially when combined with each other. This book discusses orthodox and heterodox economics, and offers the reader ample material on philosophy of science, psychology and sociology. A multidisciplinary economic perspective is constructed in which economics, psychology, and sociology are integrated, and (...) this multidisciplinary approach offers an understanding of real-life problems. Moreover, it offers researchers a rich source for further analysis. (shrink)

The important conclusion of this article is that essences of singular things are not eternal in the sense of being distinctive eternal modes, as is generally held by Spinoza scholars. Both the essence and the existence of singular things are eternal in the sense that they are comprehended in God’s eternal nature, that is to say, in the sense that they follow necessarily from that nature. The second conclusion is that the essence and the existence of things are inseparable. There (...) are no essences of things when things do not exist. Another conclusion regards the meaning of ”formal essence’. It is argued that the formal essence of a thing is the essence of a thing that formally follows from an attribute. It is not in any sense opposite to the actual essence of a thing. The formal essence is simply the actual essence of a thing that formally follows from an attribute. (shrink)

Abstract: This article invalidates a central objection that has been brought up against Spinoza’s idea of idea doctrine as a theory of consciousness. Key point in the argument is that the perfection of ideas of ideas is as variable as the perfection of ideas and corresponds to the perfection of the associated bodies. This allows ideas of ideas to account for various degrees of consciousness. In its application to human beings the theory covers important aspects of consciousness: to know that (...) one knows a thing, to know what one knows and to know that is our mind that knows the thing. The doctrine is a theory of the self-reflectivity of ideas that explains the immediate awareness of thoughts. The author argues that the idea of idea doctrine is the make-up of a comprehensive theory of consciousness throughout nature. Keywords:. (shrink)