Aristotelian theory of virtue and of happiness assumes a moral psychology in which the parts of the soul, rational and non-rational, can communicate well with each other. But if Aristotle cannot give a robust account of what communicating well consists in, he faces Bernard Williams's charge that his moral psychology collapses into a moralizing psychology, assuming the very categories it seeks to vindicate. This paper examines the problem and proposes a way forward, namely, that Freudian psychoanalysis provides (...) the resources for the development of a satisfying Aristotelian moral psychology. (shrink)

In book 10 of the Republic we find a new argument for the division of the soul. The argument’s structure is similar to the arguments in book 4 but, unlike those arguments, it centres on a purely cognitive conflict: believing and disbelieving the same thing, at the same time. The argument presents two interpretive difficulties. First, it assumes that a conflict between a belief and an appearance—e.g. disbelieving that a stick partially immersed in water is, as it appears, bent—entails (...) a conflict between beliefs. Prima facie, there is only one belief, the belief that contradicts the appearance. Second, it is unclear what parts of the soul Plato intends to divide between: some argue that it is, as in book 4, a partition between a rational and a non-rational part; others argue that it is a new partition between a higher and a lower subdivision of the rational part. This paper offers solutions to both difficulties through an analysis of what Plato means by φαινόμενα, ‘appearances’, and δόξαι, ‘beliefs’. It is argued, first, that the relevant appearances are entirely sensory but nonetheless sufficiently belief-like to (a) warrant being called δόξαι and (b) oppose, by themselves, our beliefs; there is no need for a third mental state, a belief that assents to the appearance. A second claim concerns a central line in the argument, 602e4–6, that has served as the primary evidence that the partition is within the rational part of the soul. Those who wish to avoid this conclusion generally resort to alternative, and less natural, translations of 602e4–6. It is argued that this is unnecessary: once we have correctly understood sensory appearances, we see that the standard translation of 602e4–6 in fact entails a division between a rational and a non-rational part of the soul. (shrink)

Although it is often acknowledged that poetry can only influence the non-rational part of the soul, this is rarely thought to be decisive for Plato’s argument. Poetry, instead, is taken to be psychologically corrupting because it is third removed from reality. By a closer look at Plato’s account of the address of poetry in the Republic, this paper argues that Plato takes poetry to be morally corrupting, not because of bad imitation, but because it represents and strengthens the (...) illusory sentiments of an already corrupted character condition. Looking at the dialogue from this point of view can both help to clarify how the illusions of poetry are morally dangerous, and not just metaphysically wrong, and why Plato puts so much effort into explaining them. (shrink)

This paper explores the moral responsibility a manager has toward a worker. The primary focus is upon those relationships whereworkers have been led to trust their managers. I argue that in such circumstances, models of the employment relationship based on rational self-interest fail to adequately describe the behavior of the actors. Rather, I show through case studies how trust operates in these environments to supercede pure, self-interested behavior. I then explore the moral implications of this finding relative to those (...) managers who lead their workers to trust them. I make the claim that these managers cannot adequately discharge their moral obligations unless they take on positive moral obligations. I cast this responsibility as one of positive care for some portion of worker welfare and briefly discuss what this might mean in practice. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to a conceptual model of cell patterning, based on a generalized notion of the epigenetic code of a cell determining its state. We introduce the concept of signaling depending both upon the spatial distance between cells and the distance between their cell states (s-distance); signaling can repel cells in the space of cell states (s-space) or attract them. The influence of different types of repelling signaling on the evolution of cells is considered. Stabilizing signaling, namely a (...) signaling monotonically decreasing with s-distance, causes the restoring of cell states after perturbations; destabilizing signaling, i.e., the one in which the signaling monotonically increases with s-distance, causes the appearance of pairs of cells with alternating cell states (one close to the state conventionally called “head”, and another close to the “tail” state). Non-monotonic (in s-space) signaling splits the cells into groups. The model shows that different types of signaling may provide different types of cellular patterns. General principles for applying this model to complex cellular structures are discussed. (shrink)

A new theory about the origins of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the evolutionary transition to basic consciousness. What marked the evolutionary transition from organisms that lacked consciousness to those with consciousness—to minimal subjective experiencing, or, as Aristotle described it, “the sensitive soul”? In this book, Simona Ginsburg and Eva Jablonka propose a new theory about the origin of consciousness that finds learning to be the driving force in the transition to basic consciousness. Using (...) a methodology similar to that used by scientists when they identified the transition from non-life to life, Ginsburg and Jablonka suggest a set of criteria, identify a marker for the transition to minimal consciousness, and explore the far-reaching biological, psychological, and philosophical implications. After presenting the historical, neurobiological, and philosophical foundations of their analysis, Ginsburg and Jablonka propose that the evolutionary marker of basic or minimal consciousness is a complex form of associative learning, which they term unlimited associative learning (UAL). UAL enables an organism to ascribe motivational value to a novel, compound, non-reflex-inducing stimulus or action, and use it as the basis for future learning. Associative learning, Ginsburg and Jablonka argue, drove the Cambrian explosion and its massive diversification of organisms. Finally, Ginsburg and Jablonka propose symbolic language as a similar type of marker for the evolutionary transition to human rationality—to Aristotle's “rational soul.”. (shrink)

This paper considers the place of the capacity for sense perception in Plato's tripartite soul. It argues, against a common recent interpretation, that despite being a capacity of the soul's appetitive part, sense perception is not independent of the soul's rational capacities. On the contrary, the soul's ability to recognize the content that it receives through sense perception depends upon the objects and the activity of its rational capacities. Defending a position of this sort (...) requires one to suppose that despite its partition, the soul, for Plato, is, with respect to the activities of its various parts, substantially unitary. There are however passages in Plato that suggest that the capacities of the non-rational soul parts, in general, and sense perception, in particular, enjoy a certain degree of autonomy and independence from reason such that they, without the input of reason, can form beliefs about, and act on the basis of, their content. These passages have been read as belying this supposition. In this paper, however, I argue that these passages are perfectly consistent with the idea that the content of the non-rational capacities of the soul depends, for its intelligibility, on the soul's rational capacities. (shrink)

The purpose of the paper is to study the interrelatedness of rationality, virtue, and practical wisdom in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics by offering a critical interpretation of the bipartition of the soul presented in Chap. 13 of the first book. Aristotle relies on the partition of the soul into a rational and a non-rational part when he distinguishes between ethical and intellectual virtues. The paper will question the adequacy of these divisions and show that Aristotle himself casts (...) doubt on them while leaving open the possibility of understanding the soul in an alternative way which will prove to fit better with his own exposition of deliberate choice and the integration of virtuous action and practical wisdom. (shrink)

This paper articulates and defends a novel view of the strict distinction that Aristotle makes between human and non-human mental life. We examine two crucially relevant but overlooked arguments that turn on the human capacity for reasoning and inference (syl/logismos) to reconstruct his view of what makes some cognitive processes rational and how they differ from non-rational counterparts. A creature is rational just in case its occurrent cognitive states exhibit a sequential coherence wherein prior cognitive activity constrains (...) subsequent activity for the sake of attaining truth. Processes are rational, then, in virtue of how constituent states relate to each other, not whether any given state involves some peculiar content or grasps some distinct object. This study aids, but does not exhaust, a systematic examination of the rational soul in Aristotle’s writing, based on (a) the human/animal comparisons through which he often elucidates rational cognitive capacities and (b) the distinctions that he draws between elements of rational cognition and non-rational counterparts in terms of what minimally suffices to distinguish between them. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a surge of interest among Plato scholars in the tripartition of the soul in the Republic. Particular attention has been devoted to the nature of the soul-parts, and whether or not each part is agent-like. A key element in this debate has been the question whether or not the non-rational parts have access to significant cognitive and conceptual resources. That this is the case, and that appetite cannot be entirely unreasoning, is (...) the widely accepted view, shared by Annas, Bobonich, Cooper, and Irwin among others. A number of scholars – most notably Lorenz and Stalley – have recently criticized this reading of Plato’s tripartition, and argued that the text does not in fact support such a reading. I believe that the weight of evidence remains in favour of the mainstream view, despite the interesting objections raised by the critics. I argue that these critics fail to appreciate the variety of ways in which the non-rational parts employ cognitive and conceptual resources. I also explain that their alternative interpretations of the relevant passages are unconvincing. (shrink)

Phaedo of Elis was well-known as a writer of Socratic dialogues, and it seems inconceivable that Plato could have been innocent of intertextuality when, excusing himself on the grounds of illness, he made him the narrator of one of his own: the "Phaedo". In fact the psychological model outlined by Socrates in this dialogue converges with the evidence we have (especially from fragments of the Zopyrus) for Phaedo's own beliefs about the soul. Specifically, Phaedo seems to have thought that (...) non-rational desires were ineliminable epiphenomena of the body, that reason was something distinct, and that the purpose of philosophy was its 'cure' and 'purification'. If Plato's intention with the "Phaedo" is to assert the separability and immortality of reason (whatever one might think about desire and pleasure), then Phaedo provides a useful standpoint for him. In particular, Phaedo has arguments that are useful against the 'harmony-theorists' (and are the more useful rhetorically speaking since it is only over the independence of reason that Phaedo disagrees with them). At the same time as allying himself with Phaedo, however, Plato is able to improve on him by adding to the demonstration that reason is independent a proof that it is actually immortal. (shrink)

This paper outlines the Epicurean conception of rationality and then tries to assess the merits of the notorious contention of the Epicurean philosophers that it is irrationalto fear death. At the outset, I talk about the nature of harmful emotions or passions, of which the fear of death is an outstanding example: their dependence on one‘s disposition, their cognitive and non-cognitive components, the ways in which these elements may be related to each other, and the healthy counterparts of the passions, (...) namely the ‚bites‘. Next, I distinguish different kinds of fears involving the thought of death and I examine the Epicurean arguments against each one of them: fears about the state of being dead, others about dying prematurely, yet others concerning the dying process and especially the moment when the soul leaves the body and, finally,the fear that we must die sometime. Much of the discussion focuses on the writings of Philodemus . Philodemus offers the most sustained discussion of the fear of premature death and of the fear of dying that survive in the Epicurean literature. In addition, in the peroration of his treatise On Death, he gives a brilliant example of how we can reconcile ourselves with the fact that we shall die sometime and accept our own mortality. My provisional conclusion is that although the Epicurean philosophers often succeed in appeasing our fears about death, for the most part they fail to prove that these fears are irrational. (shrink)

Abstract In Eudemian Ethics 8.2, Aristotle posits god as the starting-point of non-rational desire (particularly for the naturally fortunate), thought, and deliberation. The questions that dominate the literature are: To what does `god' refer? Is it some divine-like entity in the soul that produces thoughts and desires or is it Aristotle's prime mover? And how does god operate as the starting-point of these activities? By providing a careful reconstruction of the context in which god is evoked, I argue (...) against the popular deflationary reading of `god', showing why Aristotle's prime mover must be the end of these natural activities, and how it serves as a final cause for the rational and desirative parts of the soul. I contend that EE 8.2 provides evidence against the traditional notion that god operates as a final cause by drawing natural potentialities to their completion, and suggests instead that it serves as a final cause by entering into the explanation of natures and natural activities as their ultimate end. (shrink)

Gommatsara Jiva Kanda Is Based On The Discourses Of Shri Vardhaman, The 24Th Jain Tirthankara. The Treatise Is Compilation Of The Answers Given By The Author Shri Nemi Chandra Siddhanta Chakravarti, To The Questions Put To Him By Raja Chamunda Raya, Asking Him To Enumerate The Sub-Classes Of Bodymaking Karma, And To Explain Their Existence, Bondage Non-Bondage And Cessation Of Bondage, With Regard To The Spiritual Stages Of Souls In Various Conditions Of The Life From The Line Completely Undevelopable Vegetable (...) Bodied Soul, To The Fully Deveoped Rational Five Sensed Beings. (shrink)

Can the persistence of a human being's soul at death and prior to the bodily resurrection be sufficient to guarantee that the resurrected human being is numerically identical to the human being who died? According to Thomas Aquinas, it can. Yet, given that Aquinas holds that the human being is identical to the composite of soul and body and ceases to exist at death, it's difficult to see how he can maintain this view. In this paper, I address (...) Aquinas's response to this objection . After making a crucial clarification concerning the nature of the non-repeatability principle on which the objection relies, I argue that the contemporary notion of immanent causal relations provides us with a way of understanding Aquinas's defence that renders it both highly interesting and philosophically plausible. (shrink)

Buridan holds that the proper subject of psychology (i.e., the science undertaken in Aristotle’s De Anima) is the soul, its powers, and characteristic functions. But, on his view, the science of psychology should not be understood as including the body nor even the soul-body composite as its proper subject. Rather its subject is just “the soul in itself and its powers and functions insofar as they stand on the side of the soul". Buridan takes it as (...) obvious that, even thus narrowly construed, such a science is possible. To the extent that this science includes the human or intellective soul, however, Buridan’s claim regarding its possibility is far from obvious. After all, like most of his contemporaries, Buridan takes the human soul to be immaterial. Thus, he readily admits that “the intellect cannot be sensed” and its operations are likewise inaccessible to the senses. Yet, on Buridan's broadly empiricist theory of knowledge, all (human) knowledge, including knowledge of the intellect or intellective soul, takes its start in the senses. How, then, is a science of the human soul possible? What is the nature or source of our knowledge of the intellect? In this paper, I reconstruct Buridan's answer to these questions. -/- My discussion divides roughly into two parts. In the first, I set out the main elements of Buridan’s account of how we come to cognize the intellect, focusing on what he says about the genesis of our concept of the intellect. I then consider his account of our cognition of our own intellective states. As the discussion in part one make clear, Buridan holds that our concepts of intellect and of intellective states are both derived (inferentially) from subjective “experience” of our own states and rational activities. In part two, therefore, I try to elucidate Buridan’s notion of experience. Ultimately, I argue that it is a non-conceptual, non-discursive mode of self-awareness. I suggest, moreover, that it might best be understood in terms of our own notion of phenomenal consciousness. On the interpretation I advance, then, it turns out that, for Buridan, our concept of the intellect itself and, hence, the science of (human) psychology in general, is ultimately grounded in phenomenal experience of our own intellective states. (shrink)

This paper criticizes two closely connected rationalist views about human agency. The first of these views, rationalism about agential control, claims that the capacities for agential control in normal adult human beings are rational capacities. The second view, rationalism about action, claims that the capacities for agential control in virtue of which the things we do count as our actions are rational capacities. The arguments of the paper focus on aspects of technical skills that control integral details of (...) skillful action, like the details of a baseball player’s pitching technique. I argue that these aspects of technical skills are largely non-rational capacities, but are nonetheless capacities for agential control, and can help make the things we do count as actions. While rational capacities do have a central role in human agency, their importance should not lead us to neglect the significant constitutive role of non-rational capacities in our agency. (shrink)

The present essay takes up matters discussed by Robert Pasnau in his response to our previous criticism of his account of Aquinas's view of when a foetus acquires a human soul. We are mainly concerned with metaphysical and biological issues and argue that the kind of organization required for ensoulment is that sufficient for the full development of a human being, and that this is present from conception. We contend that in his criticisms of our account Pasnau fails clearly (...) to distinguish first, between a passive potentiality and an active capacity; second, between having a power intrinsically and being an instrumental agent of that which has it intrinsically; third, between per accidens and per se causal series; and fourth, between sense cognition and conceptual thought. We conclude that philosophy and embryology support the position that human beings exist from the point of conception. (shrink)

The present essay takes up matters discussed by Robert Pasnau in his response (published in the same issue of Philosophy) to our previous criticism of his account of Aquinas's view of when a foetus acquires a human soul. We are mainly concerned with metaphysical and biological issues and argue that the kind of organization required for ensoulment is that sufficient for the full development of a human being, and that this is present from conception. We contend that in his (...) criticisms of our account Pasnau fails clearly to distinguish first, between a passive potentiality and an active capacity; second, between having a power intrinsically and being an instrumental agent of that which has it intrinsically; third, between per accidens and per se causal series; and fourth, between sense cognition and conceptual thought. We conclude that philosophy and embryology support the position that human beings exist from the point of conception. (shrink)

Recently there has been a surge of interest in the intersection between epistemology and action theory, especially in principles linking rationality in thought and rationality in action. Recently there has also been a surge of interest in the epistemic significance of perceived peer disagreement: what, epistemically speaking, is the rational response in light of disagreement with someone whom one regards as an epistemic peer? The objective of this paper is to explore these two issues—separately, but also in connection with (...) one another. I turn first to the idea that the normative standing of our actions depends on the normative standing of our beliefs. I endorse this idea. More precisely, I endorse a principle according to which sufficiently high credence in success conditions for a given goal-directed action is a necessary condition on rational execution of that action. I then turn to the debate concerning the epistemic significance of perceived peer disagreement. The basic issue is whether such disagreement is always epistemically significant in the sense of serving as a defeater of the initial credences of the disagreeing parties. Conformists argue that this is so while non-conformists deny it. I present a new argument against a brand of non-conformism that I call “strong non-conformism”. The key premise is the principle that sufficiently high credence in success conditions for a given goal-directed action is a necessary condition on rational execution of that action. I argue that, given this principle, strong non-conformism fails to yield the verdict that the epistemic requirement on rational action is violated in a case where, intuitively, it is violated. This is because strong non-conformism has it that disagreement with a perceived peer does not act as a defeater in the relevant case. Conformism fares better. (shrink)

This paper examines Jason Stanley’s account of propaganda. I begin with an overview and some questions about the structure of that account. I then argue for two main conclusions. First, I argue that Stanley’s account over-generalizes, by counting mere incompetent argumentation as propaganda. But this problem can be avoided, by emphasizing the role of emotions in effective propaganda more than Stanley does. In addition, I argue that more propaganda is democratically acceptable than Stanley allows. Focusing especially on sexual assault prevention (...) campaigns, I show that propaganda can be acceptable even when it represents some in our communities as worthy of contempt. (shrink)

This study of the interaction of the Aristotelian and Augustinian views of the soul traces the disarray of Latin concepts by 1240, the solutions of Bonaventure ...

The bulk of the account of perception that Aristotle offers in De Anima focuses on analyzing the operation of the five senses and the reception of their respective objects. On Aristotle’s own terms, this analysis is an incomplete account of perception, for it does not explain how perception operates in the life of an animal, with the aim of supporting a certain kind of life. This paper aims to supplement the account of the five senses by considering perception in the (...) context of human life. I argue that human perception, i.e., rational perception, differs from non-rational perception insofar as the latter is perspectival—that is, the non-rational animal perceives objects only in light of its needs and desires—whereas the former is non-perspectival—that is, a person perceives objects as independent of and exceeding her desires. (shrink)

The manner in which individuals hold various nonevidentiary beliefs is critical to making any evaluative claim regarding an individual's autonomy. In this essay, I argue that one may be both justified in holding nonrational beliefs of a nonevidentiary sort while also being capable of leading an autonomous life. I defend the idea that moral instruction, including that which concerns explicitly religious content, may justifiably constitute a set of commitments upon which rationality and autonomy are dependent. I situate this discussion against (...) the backdrop of a minimalist notion of autonomy. I then consider the case for nonrational beliefs, examining the difference between those whose content is objectionable on evidentiary grounds and those that are immune to verification. Next, I consider the indoctrination/moral instruction distinction through examining the various ways in which indoctrination is defined. I also consider the role that value coherence plays in shaping our identities, paying particular attention to fundamental commitments as defined by our respective families, cultures, and communities. Finally, I argue that individual psychology is central to our ability to assess the outcome of an upbringing purported to be indoctrinatory, and I emphasize the important role that experience and agency play in enabling us to evaluate our beliefs. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 9, Issue 2, pp 177 - 204 This article presents a synoptic account of the faculties of rational soul in the philosophy of Proclus and an interpretation of the unity which this soul constitutes despite the plurality of its faculties and objects of its attentions. It seeks to demonstrate that Proclus, through his conceptual construction of a rational soul grounded in an objective and cosmic framework, accounts for at least some of the (...) subjective aspects of selfhood which many contemporary philosophical theories take to be necessary for a concept of self, but that he does so on his own terms. This means, among other things, that Proclus posits each rational soul as a subjective entity with its own perspective on the world, but a perspective which is always grounded, more or less, in an objective knowledge of the world which belongs to it essentially and eternally. Despite grounding the subjective in the objective, Proclus is able to account for the individuality and uniqueness of souls within the limits of his objective framework. (shrink)

An attempt to show that Plato has a unified approach to the rationality of belief and the rationality of desire, and that his defense of that approach is a powerful one.

In the history of aesthetics, few concepts have been as powerful and as elusive as the idea of the sublime, the "enthusiastic terror" that can possess us when we behold a mountain or a miracle. In his new book, James Kirwan traces the history of the sublime from its emergence in the eighteenth century to its resurgence in contemporary aesthetics. Sublimity addresses the nature of the sublime experience itself, and the function that experience has played, and continues to play, within (...) aesthetic discourse. The book both updates and revises existing treatments of the sublime in the eighteenth century, examines its neglected role in the nineteenth century aesthetics, and analyzes the significance of the modifications the concept has undergone in order to serve the interests of contemporary aesthetics. The book thus offers the most comprehensive coverage of the history of the sublime available. With its appeal for readers in aesthetics, art history, religion, and literary theory, Sublimity will beof wide use to students and scholars. (shrink)

The human enhancement debate has over the last few decades been concerned with ethical issues in methods for improving the physical, cognitive, or emotive states of individual people, and of the human species as a whole. Arguments in favour of enhancement defend it as a paradigm of rationality, presenting it as a clear-eyed, logical defence of what we stand to gain from transcending the typical limits of our species. If these arguments are correct, it appears that adults should in principle (...) be able to make rational and informed decisions about enhancing themselves. In this paper, however, we suggest that a rational and informed choice to enhance oneself may in some cases be impossible. Drawing on L. A. Paul’s work on ‘transformative experience’, we argue that some enhancements—such as certain moral or cognitive modifications—may give rise to unbridgeable epistemic gaps in key domains. Importantly, such gaps could prove to be not merely contingently unbridgeable due to a lack of information at a given moment, but radically unbridgeable, making someone in a non-enhanced state inherently unable to conceive of what it would be like to be enhanced in a particular way. Where this experience is key to understanding what values are being pursued by the enhancement itself, it may prove impossible for a person to be sufficiently informed, and to make a rational decision about whether or not to enhance herself. This poses a challenge for human enhancement proponents in general, and for transhumanists in particular. (shrink)