Wittgenstein's Copernican Revolution explores the relation between language and reality without embracing Linguistic Realism and without courting any form of Linguistic Idealism either. It argues that this is precisely what Wittgenstein does. This book also examines some well known contemporary philosophers who have been concerned with this same question.
The debate between free will and its opposing doctrine, determinism, is one of the key issues in philosophy. Ilham Dilman brings together all the dimensions of the problem of free will with examples from literature, ethics and psychoanalysis, and draws out valuable insights from both sides of the freedom-determinism divide. The book provides a comprehensive introduction to this highly important question and examines the contributions made by sixteen of the most outstanding thinkers from the time of early Greece to modern (...) times: Homer, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Schopenhauer, Freud, Sartre, Weil, Wittgenstein, Moore. (shrink)
What is the place of human free will in our lives if all our actions are the result of some other cause? Does our processing unconscious beliefs or desires make us less free? Is our free will necessarily restricted if we do not choose our own beliefs? The debate between free will and its opposing doctrine, determinism, is one of the key issues in philosophy. _Free Will: An historical and philosophical introduction_ provides a comprehensive introduction to this highly important question (...) and examines the contributions made by sixteen of the most outstanding thinkers from the time of early Greece to the twentieth century: *Homer *Sophocles *Platto *Aristotle *St Augustine *St Thomas Aquinas *Descaartes *Spinoza *Hume *Kant *Schopehauer *Freud *Sartre *Weil *Wittgenstein *Moore Ilham Dilman brings together all the dimensions of the problem of free will with examples from literature, ethics and psychoanalysis. Drawing out valuable insights from both sides of the free will-determinism divide, and he provides an accessible and highly readable introduction to this perennial problem. (shrink)
Writing clearly and avoiding jargon, Dilman investigates Wittgenstein's understanding of the relation between language and reality - i.e. between "the realities" we refer to, speak about and try to understand. Dilman discusses this topic in depth and at the same time covers a broad ground. He appreciates the following different aspects: philosophical skepticism about the existence of the various categories of things and our knowledge of them, about the reality of the logic of the language we speak and of the (...) forms of our reasoning, philosophy's contribution to our understanding of the world and of ourselves, and the contributions of the arts to such an understanding. (shrink)
If there is an inherent connection between love and generosity, between love and creativeness, as this book argues there is, then how can love itself be selfish, destructive and tyrannical? Concerned with questions about love in its different forms, this book seeks and discusses the views of writers--Plato, Proust, Sartre, Freud, D. H. Lawrence, Erich Fromm, C. S. Lewis, Kierkegaard, Simone Weil and Kahlil Gibran--who have suggested distinctive solutions to the problems which love poses in the face of its obstacles. (...) The enquiry which the book undertakes emcompasses both the conceptual and existential experience of love. (shrink)
This article is concerned to say something about what the study of logic meant to wittgenstein. It is concerned to bring out why the kind of questions wittgenstein raised about logic and mathematics cannot be pursued in a purely formal and abstract manner-As russell pursued them to a very large extent. It tries to understand the prominence wittgenstein gave to a study of these questions in his philosophical investigations and to appreciate the sense in which he regarded a study of (...) logic to be fundamental in philosophy. Part I is largely about the sense in which russell's study of logic is philosophical in character though it differs very considerably, In both style and conception, From wittgenstein's study of it. Part ii is concerned to indicate wittgenstein's dissatisfaction with russell's view that mathematics are indistinguishable from logic and to say something about why he thought that russell's formal proof, Even if valid, Did not establish the philosophical thesis for which he argued. Part iii is concerned to indicate wittgenstein's dissatisfaction with russell's approach to the contradictions in the foundations of mathematics and to say something about his very different treatment of this question. (shrink)
JOHN WISDOM AND THE BREADTH OF PHILOSOPHY hham Dhman 1. THE ESSAYS IN THIS VOLUME The essays following the two pieces by John Wisdom have all been written by philosophers who are former students or friends of Wisdom or who have a high regard for his work. Their contributions were all written with him in mind and to be discussed at a conference honouring his work. This conference was held in August 1983 at Trinity College, Cambridge, of which Wisdom has (...) been a fellow since 1935. Wisdom is a master of discursive reasoning and one of his distinctive contributions in philosophy has been to examine its various forms and their interconnections, particularly the form it takes in philosophical inquiry and the way it advances our understanding there. His concern to bring out the links between all that is abstract in such reasoning and the concrete and particular is well known and represented in many of the essays in this volume. But Wisdom has also a deep appreciation of the kind of understanding that is advanced non-discursively. As he puts it in the first piece in this volume: However skilled a good critic 'I am sure that much of what makes "Hamlet" "Hamlet" will run between his fingers'. He has himself advanced our understanding on many questions in philosophy in this way, not simply by what he has said, but also by what he has suggested 'between the lines'. (shrink)
It is sometimes said that a human being has a soul, whereas animals and lifeless things do not. The distinction made is of significance probably for most religions. Although it sets man apart and places him in a unique category, it should not be taken to imply that there is no difference between what is alive and has sentience, apart from man, and what is lifeless and unconscious. This was Descartes' error. For he ran together several distinctions and equated the (...) soul with consciousness. (shrink)
Fulke Greville speaks of the will as inevitably divided between reason and passion. Shakespeare takes such a division seriously but, through Hamlet, he recognizes the possibility of reason and passion being united in a man's will and purpose.
People sometimes ask whether their lives are meaningful or not, whether or not their lives add up to anything. Sometimes they also ask whether life as such is meaningful or not. These are not unconnected questions. Still they are not questions which everyone asks himself. Nor do we always readily recognise what one who asks these questions wants to know. There are some people who will not even find such questions sensible. Some will regard them not as questions but simply (...) as symptoms of something having gone wrong somewhere. Thus in the Diary of the Student Kostya Ryabtsev we find the following words. (shrink)
Wisdom holds that the reference in many religious beliefs to what lies beyond the world and "transcends" the senses is misleading. religious beliefs speak and can only speak about the world we know by means of the senses. to embrace much of what christians believe means for a person to change in himself and come into contact with something "within" him. i argue, first, that there is a sense of transcendence which is immune from wisdom's criticism and, secondly, that while (...) wisdom is right in his emphasis on the "inner life" he confuses the spiritual with the psychological. (shrink)
The way an individual's psychology is intertwined with their morality is the subject of this fascinating book from the pen of the late Ilham Dilman. Dilman convincingly argues that evil, though it cannot be reduced to psychological terms is explicable in terms of an individual person's psychology. Goodness, by contrast, comes from the person and not their psychology. Philosophers the world over will want to read this book and see how Dilman skilfully defends his arguments.
The way an individual's psychology is intertwined with their morality is the subject of this fascinating book from the pen of the late Ilham Dilman. Dilman convincingly argues that evil, though it cannot be reduced to psychological terms is explicable in terms of an individual person's psychology. Goodness, by contrast, comes from the person and not their psychology. Philosophers the world over will want to read this book and see how Dilman skilfully defends his arguments.
John Wisdom studied ‘moral sciences’ in Cambridge under G. E. Moore and C. D. Broad. His first post as a teacher of philosophy was at St Andrew's University under F. G. Stout. His early books Interpretation and Analysis and Problems of Mind and Matter and a series of articles on ‘Logical Constructions’ in Mind 1931-33, later published as a book, belong to this time.
There is a difficulty about past emotions, motives, etc., especially if they are in the distant past and I have forgotten what I then felt like, or if I was not aware of my feelings at the time. In the case of physical objects or events in the past I need not be the only witness; but in the case of past mental phenomena the corroboration of the supporting evidence is characteristically different. No doubt, here too we can have the (...) evidence of diaries and of other people's testimony; but the subject's report today plays a peculiar role, this peculiarity varying according to the case in question. E.g., I remember now that I was in love with Mary in my youth. I can see now, for the first time, that as a baby I felt envious of my mother for what she could give. The difficulty in grasping properly the detail that is brought together in talking about other people's past unconscious phantasies, the difficulty in grasping how we distinguish between the case of a person finally assenting to such an interpretation because he has genuinely remembered and that of a person who assents under suggestion, have led some people to say that in these cases we only seem to remember, and what we experience belongs solely to the present. (shrink)
