Il'in's classic work is the most impassioned and cogent work by a Russian jurist on the rule of law. The product of nearly four decades of labor, which could not be published in the former Soviet Union, this revised edition places the work in the context of developments since its first English translation in 2013. The text is accompanied by one of Il'in's early and influential articles on law and power, a bibliography devoted to his life and work, and informed (...) introductory essays about his contribution to the rule of law dialogue, the origins and transformations of the concept of legal consciousness and the fascinating history of his treatise on that subject. x, 403 pp. Ivan Aleksandrovich Il'in (Доктор государственных наук) [1883-1954], sometime professor, Moscow Lomonosov State University, is one of the most widely-read legal philosophers of the twentieth century in post-Soviet Russia. William E. Butler is the John Edward Fowler Distinguished Professor of Law, Penn State Dickinson Law; Emeritus Professor of Comparative Law, University College London; and author of numerous works on post-Soviet legal systems, including Russian Law and Legal Institutions (3d ed.; 2021). Philip T. Grier, who has written extensively on Hegel and Il'in and translated Il'in's principal treatise on Hegelianism, is the Emeritus Thomas Bowman Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Paul Robinson is a professor at the University of Ottawa. (shrink)

This superb collection of writings on buddha nature by the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje (1284-1339) focuses on the transition from ordinary deluded consciousness to enlightened wisdom, the characteristics of buddhahood, and a buddha's enlightened activity. Most of these materials have never been translated comprehensively. The Third Karmapa's unique and well-balanced view synthesizes Yogacara Madhyamaka and the classical teachings on buddha nature. Rangjung Dorje not only shows that these teachings do not contradict each other but also that they supplement each other (...) and share the same essential points in terms of the ultimate nature of mind and all phenomena. His fusion is remarkable because it clearly builds on Indian predecessors and precedes the later often highly charged debates in Tibet about the views of Rangtong ("self-empty") and Shentong ("other-empty"). Although Rangjung Dorje is widely regarded as one of the major proponents of the Tibetan Shentong tradition (some even consider him its founder), this book shows how his views differ from the Shentong tradition as understood by Dolpopa Taranatha and the First Jamgon Kongtrul. The Third Karmapa's view is more accurately described as one in which the two categories of rangtong and shentong are not regarded as mutually exclusive but are combined in a creative synthesis. For those practicing the sutrayana and the vajrayana in the Kagyu tradition, what these texts describe can be transformed into living experience. (shrink)

Recent social policy discourses in Aotearoa New Zealand focus on vulnerable children’s well-being and the detrimental, long-term and costly impacts of child poverty. The discourse pervading much of the policy labels children and young people as ‘vulnerable’ or ‘at risk’ or ‘in crisis’, a view, which we argue, is both disempowering and marginalising. We propose a shift in focus which views children and young people as agentic, capable and competent. Drawing on several small-scale research projects and reports we demonstrate how, (...) when asked, children and young people can participate effectively in discussions about policy matters that concern them. We have much to learn from the insights children share with us when asked, but very often existing structures, at both government and community level, do not include adequate processes to hear their voices, let alone act on what has been communicated. (shrink)

First published in 1958. This volume translates one of the major works of modern Chinese philosophy and in so doing makes a major contribution to the study of comparative philosophy. The volume contains an extensive introduction structured as follows: 1. Biographical Sketch of K'ang Yu-wei 2. Ta T'ung Shu: The Book 3. A General Discussion of the One-World Philosophy of K'ang Yu-wei.

In the contemporary intellectual scene, one prominent question is this, what made science and its success possible? One tempting strategy for dealing with this question as a philosopher of science is to use science (or more broadly, empirical inquiry) and its methods to investigate the nature of science and its success. This strategy is what used to be called naturalism. For a philosopher of science, it amounts to naturalizing her philosophical inquiry for understanding the nature of science and its success. (...) The project of naturalizing philosophy of science has not been without its own problems. Some of the concerns are as follows. Willphilosophy of science maintain its traditional normative character after going through the process of naturalization? If it does, what form(s) will its normative content take? Can that normative content be secured without appealing to methods other than those usually used in empirical inquiries? In this essay, I will call these issues collectively the problem of normativity. First of all, I’ll look into the two most representative attempts to naturalize philosophy of science, namely L. Laudan’s and R. Giere’s attempts, focusing on the views that could be taken as their answers to the questions constituting the problem of normativity. Then I’ll examine these views in the light of some prominent criticisms and potential problems, and argue that some of those views could be defended by developing one or other additional conceptual arsenals but still others need to be curbed down admitting the apparent weaknesses of their supporting arguments. This reevaluative process will give us a better idea about what have been achieved by the attempts to naturalize philosophy of science and what their limitations are. (shrink)

The sixteen essays in this volume confront the current debate about the relationship between philosophy and its history. On the one hand intellectual historians commonly accuse philosophers of writing bad - anachronistic - history of philosophy, and on the other, philosophers have accused intellectual historians of writing bad - antiquarian - history of philosophy. The essays here address this controversy and ask what purpose the history of philosophy should serve. Part I contains more purely theoretical and (...) methodological discussion, of such questions as whether there are 'timeless' philosophical problems, whether the issues of one epoch are commensurable with those of another, and what style is appropriate to the historiography of the subject. The essays in Part II consider a number of case-histories. They present important revisionist scholarship and original contributions on topics drawn from ancient, early modern and more recent philosophy. All the essays have been specially commissioned, and the contributors include many of the leading figures in the field. The volume as a whole will be of vital interest to everyone concerned with the study of philosophy and of its history. (shrink)

Dongchundang Songjoongil (1606-1672) was a scholar who represented Gihoyeahak and Sanlim (山林) influencing the society of Chosŏn dynasty since the middle of 17th century. This report focus on its contemporary purport and reconciliation spirit on the Kyoung (敬) of Dongchundang. The Kyoung is the core idea that elucidates Dongchundang's philosophy and its characteristic. Dongchundang tried to continue to live the life of 'according knowledge and action' (知行一致) and dreamed the world of 'harmonization but not same' (和而不同) which indicates the (...) principle of heaven, meaning the harmony never following suit without reflection and a just and great cause, going through with his original idea through the Kyoung. In addition, Dongchundang expanded the Kyoung from personal existential problems to social ethic practical ones in the viewpoint of more reason than vitality, and aimed to build the ethic kingdom that came the harmony andreconciliation of all the communities together, interacting his subjectivity and the universal. The Kyoung and reconciliation spirit of Dongchundang is the orthodoxy of Dohak(道學), and it made him live moral intention and through real life and summarized the manner and spirit pursuing the just and great cause beyond factions. In this sense, Dongchundang's philosophy is the concentration of the Kyoung and philosophical expression of reconciliation spirit. As the peculiarity of Dongchundang's philosophy is based on the Kyoung, it is the everlasting principle of what one should do and practice in human life. (shrink)

Major figures of twentieth-century philosophy were enthralled by the revolution in formal logic, and many of their arguments are based on novel mathematical discoveries. Hilary Putnam claimed that the Löwenheim-Skølem theorem refutes the existence of an objective, observer-independent world; Bas van Fraassen claimed that arguments against empiricism in philosophy of science are ineffective against a semantic approach to scientific theories; W. V. O. Quine claimed that the distinction between analytic and synthetic truths is trivialized by the fact that (...) any theory can be reduced to one in which all truths are analytic. This book dissects these and other arguments through in-depth investigation of the mathematical facts undergirding them. It presents a systematic, mathematically rigorous account of the key notions arising from such debates, including theory, equivalence, translation, reduction, and model. The result is a far-reaching reconceptualization of the role of formal methods in answering philosophical questions. (shrink)

Avicenna : Logic Avicenna is one of the most important philosophers and logicians in the Arabic world. His logical works are presented in several treatises. Some of them are commentaries on Aristotle's Organon, and are presented in al-Shifa al-Mantiq, the logical part of … Continue reading Avicenna : Logic →.

Plotinus, the greatest philosopher of Late Antiquity, discusses at length a first principle of reality - the One - which, he tells us, cannot be expressed in words or grasped in thought. How and why, then, does Plotinus write about it at all? This book explores this act of writing the unwritable. Seeking to explain what seems to be an insoluble paradox in the very practice of late Platonist writing, it examines not only the philosophical concerns involved, but the cultural (...) and rhetorical aspects of the question. The discussion outlines an ancient practice of ‛philosophical silence' which determined the themes and tropes of public secrecy appropriate to Late Platonist philosophy. Through philosophic silence, public secrecy and silence flow into one another, and the unsaid space of the text becomes an initiatory secret. Understanding this mode of discourse allows us to resolve many apparent contradictions in Plotinus' thought. (shrink)

Africa is often considered by the westerners as a continent of emotional and sentimental nature and as a result lacking in the criticality that would make the people philosophical. However, it must be remembered that civilisation has its cradle in Africa, precisely in Egypt. It must also be noted that most of the important figures in the world history as well as the biblical history in one way or the other travelled to Africa, for instance, the Ionian philosophers, Moses, Jesus (...) Christ and a host of others. Hence, they were undoubtedly influenced by the Egyptian thought. The blatant denial and the unbearable unwillingness of the western world to accept this crystalline fact is what spurred the researcher to carry out this study. The writer, therefore primarily employed the reflective and analytical methods to achieve the purpose of the study, that the Greek Philosophy has its origins in Africa. (shrink)

In Speech and Phenomena and other works, Derrida criticizes Husserl’s phenomenology and attempts to pave the way to his deconstructive philosophy. The starting point of his criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology is his assessment of the latter’s phenomenology of language developed in the Logical Investigations. Derrida claims that Husserl’s phenomenology of language in the Logical Investigations and the subsequent works is guided by the premise of the metaphysics of presence. The aim of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, (...) it aims to show that Derrida’s criticism of Husserl’s phenomenology of language is off the mark and, on the other hand, it aims to reveal that the phenomenology of language goes far beyond the scope of the Derridian deconstructive philosophy of language. (shrink)

The history of East Timor has gone through several moments of transformation due to human actions that have the presence of Portuguese, Japanese, Indonesians and different social groups and local kingdoms. With this, one can note the trend of the evolution of thinking, arising from education in philosophy and its contribution to the changes that were seen as necessary, were initial instruments for Timor to become a republic, not explored, but as an autonomous people. Thus, the aim of this (...) article is to present a reflection on the role of philosophy in the history of the Timorese society. Thus, philosophy should not be understood only with a mere sense of individualistic self-construction, or even an incorporation of circumstantial urgencies, but rather with regard to a content that must be taught and learned, given that there are languages and methods and that, with due importance, understanding is built, also developing more doubts and, thus, the philosophical character of national thought. However, it is necessary to recognize the assumption that philosophical themes were established according to universal terms, with Universal approaches and incorporated with the urgencies of each place. Thus, even the themes with a challenging nature, there was still Timorese philosophical expression of clear importance for the development of a national idea, so that philosophy is present and is still discussed in all periods that make up the National History. In that regard, this article will offer in the first part an introduction, second philosophy, third history, fourth nation building, fifth the history of struggle for national liberation and will be end with final consideration. (shrink)

We thank Amy Donahue for her attention to our work, and we thank the editors of Philosophy East and West for an opportunity to reply. We confess that we were not sure whether to reply. On the one hand we believe that her critique is so misguided that it needs no reply; on the other hand, we were worried that others might take our silence as conceding her point. On reflection, we decided that the larger issue she raises is (...) important enough to restate our position on it: cross-cultural philosophy demands respect for our interlocutors; respect demands serious philosophical engagement, not reflexive deference.We agree with Donahue that those who are trained in the current techniques of their discipline but use those.. (shrink)

The liberal-communitarian debates, which became prominent in social and political philosophy during the 1980s, continue to be waged in those disciplines and in politics today with even more fervor, and this time, both the ‘80s and the ‘90s are called forth as bleak and sorry evidence for one side or the other. The current scene is reminiscent of some of the ‘60s ideological disputes, especially the reformist critique of conservatism within liberalism. And that dispute itself is reminiscent of yet (...) another, the one from whence it derived, John Dewey's well-known opposition of new and old individualism. (shrink)

This book explores and articulates the concepts of the continuous and the infinitesimal from two points of view: the philosophical and the mathematical. The first section covers the history of these ideas in philosophy. Chapter one, entitled ‘The continuous and the discrete in Ancient Greece, the Orient and the European Middle Ages,’ reviews the work of Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, and other Ancient Greeks; the elements of early Chinese, Indian and Islamic thought; and early Europeans including Henry of Harclay, Nicholas (...) of Autrecourt, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, Thomas Bradwardine and Nicolas Oreme. The second chapter of the book covers European thinkers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: Galileo, Newton, Leibniz, Descartes, Arnauld, Fermat, and more. Chapter three, 'The age of continuity,’ discusses eighteenth century mathematicians including Euler and Carnot, and philosophers, among them Hume, Kant and Hegel. Examining the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the fourth chapter describes the reduction of the continuous to the discrete, citing the contributions of Bolzano, Cauchy and Reimann. Part one of the book concludes with a chapter on divergent conceptions of the continuum, with the work of nineteenth and early twentieth century philosophers and mathematicians, including Veronese, Poincaré, Brouwer, and Weyl. Part two of this book covers contemporary mathematics, discussing topology and manifolds, categories, and functors, Grothendieck topologies, sheaves, and elementary topoi. Among the theories presented in detail are non-standard analysis, constructive and intuitionist analysis, and smooth infinitesimal analysis/synthetic differential geometry. No other book so thoroughly covers the history and development of the concepts of the continuous and the infinitesimal. (shrink)

"Embracing the One" (baoyi 抱—) and "holding to the One" (zhiyi 孰—) are phrases that appear in different versions of the Daodejing. This essay argues that, in a specific philosophical context, these two phrases represent competing philosophical attitudes that stem from opposing cosmological visions. The recently unearthed "Great One Produces the Waters" (Taiyishengshui ) assists in the reconstruction of this philosophical context, as does a re-reading of the "One" in the famous generative sequence of chapter 42 of the Daodejing. Ultimately, (...) it is argued, the phrase "embracing the One" represents an attitude that is quintessential "Daoist" in nature, while "holding to the One" signifies the adoption of the Daodejing by competing philosophical interests. (shrink)

In this paper, I will examine the possibility of first philosophy from a phenomenological point of view. I will do this by assessing Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s conception of first philosophy. In Sect. 1, I will delineate Husserl’s conception of first philosophy. In Sect. 2, I will introduce Levinas’s conception of ethics as first philosophy and sketch out his criticism of Husserl’s conception of first philosophy. In Sect. 3, I will assess Levinas’s criticism of Husserl’s (...) conception and show that from a phenomenological point of view, it is possible to develop first philosophy only in a relative sense and not in an absolute sense. The possibility of first philosophy in a relative sense implies that both Husserl’s and Levinas’s conceptions of first philosophy have some limitations and should be revised, since in a certain way, they are each conceived from an absolute point of view. In Sect. 4, I will show that the conception of first philosophy in a relative sense is a phenomenological one and sketch out some basic features of first philosophy in a relative sense. (shrink)

In this manuscript, the author demonstrates how a new idea of the future came into being in eighteenth-century France with the development of modern biological, economic, and social engineering. With the emergence of these practices, the future transformed from something that was largely believed to be predetermined and beyond significant human intervention into something that could be significantly affected through actions in the present. Focusing on the second-half of the century, The author argues that specific mechanisms for constructing the future (...) first arose through the development of practices and instruments aimed at countering degeneration. In their attempts to regenerate a healthy natural state, Enlightenment philosophes created the means to exceed previously recognized limits and create a future that was not merely a recuperation of the past, but was fundamentally different from it. The new active orientation to the future that emerged from these practices was not something that was explicitly articulated during the Enlightenment. Instead this practical orientation must be seen as an implicit understanding of historical temporality. Historical actors often had a tacit knowledge of time--one that they worked with--without necessarily being fully aware of it or articulating it explicitly in their writing. The full articulation of the new idea of the future did not occur until the French Revolution, but the practical understanding of it that developed during the Enlightenment played an important role in making possible the French revolutionaries' unprecedented attempts to remake the world completely anew. (shrink)

In this work, I attempt to develop what I call a co-evolutionary model of scientific change, which I expect to afford a more balanced view on both the continuous and discontinuous aspects of scientific change. Supposing that scientific goals, methods and theories constitute the main components of scientific inquiry, I focus on the relationships among these components and their changing patterns. First of all, I identify explanatory power and empirical adequacy as primary goals of science and explore the possibility of (...) evaluating scientific goals. Then I try to bring out the major features of how the main components of science are related to each other. One major feature is that they mutually constrain each other, and as such each main component operates as a selective force on the other components. Another major feature is that the main components of science induce changes reciprocally, but with certain intervals. Other important features are the modes and tempos of changes in the main components of scientific inquiry. All these features together, I conclude, suggest that scientific change is evolutionary, as well as co-evolutionary. Finally I argue that this co-evolutionary model of scientific change does not yield to what I call the problems of circularity and scientific progress. (shrink)

Philosophy as a way of life (PWOL) places investigations of value, meaning, and the good life at the center of philosophical investigation, especially of one’s own life. This essay argues that PWOL is compatible with general introductory philosophy courses, further arguing that PWOL‐based general introductions have several philosophical and pedagogical benefits. These include the ease with which high‐impact practices, situated skill development, and students’ ability to “think like a disciplinarian” may be incorporated into such courses, relative to more (...) traditional introductory courses, as well as the demonstration of philosophy’s value to students by explicitly tying philosophical investigation to students’ own lives. (shrink)

Presocratic philosophy, for all its diverse features, is united by the quest to understand the origin and nature of the world. The approach of the Pythagoreans to this quest is governed by their belief, probably based on studies of the numerical relations in musical harmony, that number or numerical structure plays a key role for explaining the world-order, the cosmos. It remains questionable to what extent the Pythagoreans, by positing number as an all-powerful explanatory concept, broke free from Presocratic (...) ideas that certain stuffs or material elements sufficed to account for the source and constitution of the world, but apparently number found such a universal application with them that Aristotle could summarize the Pythagorean position as ‘numbers…are the whole universe’. Historians of Greek philosophy have generally accepted Aristotle's assessment. Of late, however, certain scholars have argued that the Pythagorean number doctrine is Aristotelian interpretation, unjustly foisted upon the Pythagoreans. Enlisted in support of their arguments are the fragments of Philolaus of Croton. Here we have the foremost representative of fifth-century Pythagoreanism, who states as his basic principles, not numbers exactly, but ‘limiters’ and ‘unlimiteds’, and who, it is argued, regards number solely as an epistemological aid for understanding the structure of reality. So Philolaus is called upon as a witness against Aristotle. The rationale goes something like this: Aristotle most likely had written sources for his knowledge of Pythagorean teachings; the only texts we know of with any certainty are Philolaus' book and the writings of Archytas; since Aristotle treats Archytas separately, he is mainly relying on Philolaus; because Philolaus does not expressly state that things are numbers, Aristotle's interpretation is wrong. (shrink)

If the world were wholly just, the following inductive definition would exhaustively cover the subject of justice in holdings.1. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to that holding.2. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in transfer, from someone else entitled to the holding, is entitled to the holding.3. No one is entitled to a holding except by applications of i and 2.The complete (...) principle of distributive justice would say simply that a distribution is just if everyone is entitled to the holdings they possess under the distribution. (shrink)

One of the great achievements of Pierre Hadot has been to chart how philosophy's self‐conception has shifted over time, first as the culture of the classical world gave way to that of medieval Christianity, and then again through the long and gradual emergence of the modern age. Hadot himself suggests that the crucial shift came in the middle ages, as a result of the growing dominance of Christianity. The chapter argues that philosophy in both its classical and medieval (...) incarnations has consistently involved systematic logical inquiry of an abstract. Descartes’ philosophy is Janus‐faced, affording us frequent glances back to the tradition he grew out of, but also allowing glimpses forward to the modern age that his ideas helped to launch. (shrink)

The problem of the one and the many is central to ancient Greek philosophy, but surprisingly little attention has been paid to Aristotle's treatment of it in the Metaphysics. The Central Books of the Metaphysics are widely recognised as the most difficult portion of a most difficult work. This title aims to examine the Central Books.

Supervenience is one of the 'hot discoveries' of analytic philosophy, and this collection of essays on the topic represents an examination of it and its application to major areas of philosophy. The interest in supervenience has much to do with the flexibility of the concept. To say that x supervenes on y indicates a degree of dependence without committing one to the view that x can be reduced to y. Thus supervenience is a relationship that has the potential (...) of replacing the traditional notion of dependence, while performing at least part of the function reductive relationships were supposed to fulfil. Moreover, since it is a topic-neutral concept, supervenience has a wide range of applicability. (shrink)

Presocratic philosophy, for all its diverse features, is united by the quest to understand the origin and nature of the world. The approach of the Pythagoreans to this quest is governed by their belief, probably based on studies of the numerical relations in musical harmony, that number or numerical structure plays a key role for explaining the world-order, the cosmos. It remains questionable to what extent the Pythagoreans, by positing number as an all-powerful explanatory concept, broke free from Presocratic (...) ideas that certain stuffs or material elements sufficed to account for the source and constitution of the world, but apparently number found such a universal application with them that Aristotle could summarize the Pythagorean position as ‘numbers…are the whole universe’ . Historians of Greek philosophy have generally accepted Aristotle's assessment. Of late, however, certain scholars have argued that the Pythagorean number doctrine is Aristotelian interpretation, unjustly foisted upon the Pythagoreans. Enlisted in support of their arguments are the fragments of Philolaus of Croton. Here we have the foremost representative of fifth-century Pythagoreanism, who states as his basic principles, not numbers exactly, but ‘limiters’ and ‘unlimiteds’, and who, it is argued, regards number solely as an epistemological aid for understanding the structure of reality. So Philolaus is called upon as a witness against Aristotle. The rationale goes something like this: Aristotle most likely had written sources for his knowledge of Pythagorean teachings; the only texts we know of with any certainty are Philolaus' book and the writings of Archytas; since Aristotle treats Archytas separately, he is mainly relying on Philolaus; because Philolaus does not expressly state that things are numbers, Aristotle's interpretation is wrong. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl published in his lifetime only works which represent a compilation of individual phenomenological analyses or which have the character of an introduction to his phenomenology. It always made him uneasy that he did not publish any systematic work in phenomenology. In his later years, from the beginning of the 1920s, he tried several times to write such a work, but in vain. The masterplan for this work, which his assistant Eugen Fink sketched out in 1930/31 is preserved. According (...) to this plan, the Phänomenologie der Instinkte has attracted very little attention in Husserl studies until now, takes a central and fundamental position in the whole system of his mature transcendental phenomenology. In this book, Nam-In Lee reconstructs the Phänomenologie der Instinkte on the basis of the already published works and, above all, of the unpublished manuscripts of Husserl. Moreover, he draws out the consequences which the Phänomenologie der Instinkte bears for the whole system of phenomenology. Transcendental phenomenology, in its form of a genetic phenomenology of which the Phänomenologie der Instinkte is the concluding part, can, according to him, no longer be considered as one-sided philosophy of consciousness in the traditional sense, as it has often been thought of hitherto. Thus, the author presents a new face of phenomenology; one which has scarcely been noticed in the field of Husserl studies until now. (shrink)

If the world were wholly just, the following inductive definition would exhaustively cover the subject of justice in holdings.1. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in acquisition is entitled to that holding.2. A person who acquires a holding in accordance with the principle of justice in transfer, from someone else entitled to the holding, is entitled to the holding.3. No one is entitled to a holding except by applications of i and 2.The complete (...) principle of distributive justice would say simply that a distribution is just if everyone is entitled to the holdings they possess under the distribution. (shrink)

At present, the debate on global justice, a debate which is at the core of global ethics, is largely being conducted by European and American scholars from different disciplines without taking into account views and concepts from other regions of the world, particularly, from the Global South. The lack of a truly intercultural, interreligious, and international exchange of ideas provokes doubts whether the concepts of global justice introduced so far are able to transcend regional and cultural horizons. The article introduces (...) concepts of justice from African scholars, whose voices have remained marginal until now, like the Kenyan philosopher Henry Odera Oruka, the Ethiopian philosopher Teodros Kiros, and the debate on ubuntu, one of the most controversial concepts in southern Africa today. These concepts focus on issues that are seldom considered in the debate on global justice, such as the importance of bodily needs as a prerequisite for human beings to act as moral beings and the importance of human rel.. (shrink)

"From all things One and from One all things," wrote the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus. You might read this as a platitude, or as a pleasant spiritual or philosophical idea. You probably wouldn't read it as a more-or-less accurate scientific statement about the nature of the universe. Particle physicist Heinrich Päs, however, does. In The One, Päs makes the surprising and compelling case for monism-the philosophical idea that one single, all-encompassing thing underlies everything we experience-rehabilitating the idea's reputation and reclaiming (...) it for science. At first glance, the idea that "all is one" seems patently absurd. But Päs reveals that monism follows logically from certain principles of quantum mechanics once they are applied to the entire universe. He shows how monism is not only a feasible theory from a scientific perspective but a potentially powerful solution to the stagnation of thought in contemporary physics, arguing that if physics is ever to progress, physicists must learn to embrace insights from outside the narrow silo of experimental knowledge. Along the way, Päs traces monism's often-buried 3000-year history, passing through the lives of a diverse array of great thinkers, including Plato, Galileo, Spinoza, and Goethe, and the churchmen, philosophers, and physicists who fought against monism as well. The result is an epic and expansive journey through thousands of years of human thought and into the nature of reality itself. Equal parts physics, philosophy, and history of ideas, The One is of the rare sort of book that can both the first-time reader with its marvels and revolutionize the worldview of even the most experienced physics buff. (shrink)

Alain Badiou’s 1983–1984 lecture series on “the One” is the earliest of his seminars that he has chosen to publish. It focuses on the philosophical concept of oneness in the works of Descartes, Plato, and Kant—a crucial foil for his signature metaphysical concept, the multiple. Badiou declares that there is no “One”: there is no fundamental unit of being; being is inherently multiple. What is novel in Badiou’s view of multiplicity is his reliance on mathematics, and set theory in particular. (...) A set is a collection of things—yet, as he observes, it often is taken to “count as one” operationally for the purposes of mathematical transformations. In this seminar, distinguishing between “the One” and “counting as one” emerges as essential to Badiou’s ontological project. His analysis of reflections on oneness in Descartes, Plato, and Kant prefigures core arguments of his defining work, Being and Event. Showcasing the seeds of Badiou’s key ideas and later thought, The One features singular readings, breathtaking theorizations, and frequently astonishing offhand remarks. (shrink)

Despite how he begins, suggesting that it is somehow a problem for me that I think "there is such a thing as philosophy, which could then be useful for psychopathology," ultimately it is clear that the possibility of philosophy is not the issue for Ghaemi. Rather, his issue is with academic philosophy of psychiatry, as he sees it, and with my failure to ask what underlying assumptions typically operate in it.I do not dispute that someone like Jaspers (...) would want to ask such a question, nor do I dispute that it is, in general, a perfectly good question. But Ghaemi thinks that my paper is missing out on something by not posing it. The reason he thinks this is because he thinks my paper is an instance of a pattern in the discipline against which he evidently has an axe to grind. In particular, he thinks philosophy in general should be more attendant to the ways in which Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) categories are (problematically) socially constructed. The fact that philosophers have failed to critically point this out allegedly shows philosophy of psychiatry's— and my—unexamined sympathy with the postmodern tendencies—understood as tendencies toward "relativism about truth" and "skepticism about science"—of psychiatry itself. This is odd for a number of reasons, especially in the present context. Firstly, I am not presently in a position to exhaustively defend all of philosophy of psychiatry on the charge of 'postmodernism,' or on the charge of failure to critically engage with the DSM, but it is worth simply stating that I find these to be rather patently unsubstantiated charges. Prominent works that falsify the latter and easily come to mind are by Tsou (2011), Cooper (2004, 2007), Horwitz and Wakefield (2007), Murphy (2006), Poland and von Eckhardt (2013), and Lalumera (2016). Of these, only Lalumera is interested in defending a DSM-style descriptivism (which perhaps Ghaemi would call a kind of "social constructionism"), but even she limits her defense of DSM categories to their role as reference-fixing representations. It is also true that Tsou's paper is an argument that the practical considerations which go into shaping the DSM categories sometimes represent values that permissibly operate in psychiatry. Perhaps this could be construed as a kind of social constructionism as well, and presumably Ghaemi would disagree with it, but no one here is guilty of a failure to engage critically with the DSM and its history. Further, whichever position is taken by these theorists on whether the DSM does, or even one day could, cut nature at its joints, or whether some of the values that shape its construction do so permissibly or impermissibly, one's acceptance or rejection of relativism about truth is an entirely logically independent matter. (shrink)

Originally published by the Center for Hellenic Studies, this book investigates the extent to which the Presocratics were hamstrung by their lack of detailed conceptual framework in the case of the words "one" and "many." This investigation is based on Aristotle's analyses.

Leon Craig begins his study of the Republic by wondering whether his study is "truly novel". By the end of his study, Craig assures us that his interpretation of the Republic "is a novel one". The interpretive method by which he arrives at this novel interpretation is, however, he admits, not so novel. This method--drawn from the work of Leo Strauss--takes into special account the dramatic form of the Platonic dialogue, the requirements of esoteric writing, and "the law of logographic (...) necessity". However, it is clear from even a cursory reading of Craig's book that the way in which he applies, and even understands, this method is more "idiosyncratic" than he acknowledges. (shrink)

A soaring intellectual narrative starring the radical, brilliant, and provocative philosophers Simone de Beauvoir, Hannah Arendt, Simone Weil, and Ayn Rand by the critically acclaimed author of Time of the Magicians, Wolfram Eilenberger The period from 1933 to 1943 was one of the darkest and most chaotic in human history, as the Second World War unfolded with unthinkable cruelty. It was also a crucial decade in the dramatic, intersecting lives of some of history's greatest philosophers. In particular, four women whose (...) parallel ideas would come to dominate the twentieth century-at once in necessary dialogue and striking contrast with one another. Simone de Beauvoir, already in a deep emotional and intellectual partnership with Jean-Paul Sartre, was laying the foundations for nothing less than the future of feminism. Born Alissa Rosenbaum in St. Petersburg before emigrating to the US in 1926, Ayn Rand was honing one of the most politically influential voices of the 20th century. Her novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged would reach the hearts and minds millions of Americans in the decades to come, becoming canonical libertarian texts, which continue to echo today among Silicon Valley's tech elite. Hannah Arendt was developing some of today's most important leftwing ideas, culminating with the publication of The Origins of Totalitarianism and her arrival as a peerless intellectual celebrity. Perhaps the greatest thinker of all was a classmate of de Beauvoir: Simone Weil, who turned away from fame to devote herself entirely to refugee aid and the resistance movement during the war. Ultimately, in 1943, she would starve to death in England, a martyr and true saint in the eyes of many. Few authors can synthesize gripping storytelling with sophisticated philosophy like Wolfram Eilenberger. The Visionaries tells the story of four singular philosophers-indomitable women who were refugees and resistance fighters-each putting forward a vision of a truly free and open society at a time of authoritarianism and war. (shrink)

From its beginnings religious philosophy confronted the challenge to reconcile Divine or natural determinism with man's moral freedom. In ancient Jewish thought, this gave rise to statistical ideas. In some Rabbinic texts, necessity is seen as inhering in collectives rather than in individuals. This is a statistical conception. Some miracles too were understood as highly improbable events, and remarkable phenomena were distinguished from usual ones. Medieval thinkers amplified and developed these ideas. Providential as well as natural determinism were explained (...) as operating in large numbers of individual acts of free will, an idea later taken up by Kant. (shrink)

The book provides a rich understanding of the role that family has in one's psychological development with respect not only to other people, but also to the ...

The use of philosophy in educational programmes and practices under such names as philosophy for children, philosophy with children, or the community of philosophical enquiry, has become well established in many countries around the world. The main attraction of the educational use of philosophy seems to lie in the claim that it can help children and young people to develop skills for thinking critically, reflectively and reasonably. By locating the acquisition of such skills within communities of (...) enquiry, the further claim is that engagement with philosophy can foster the development of moral reflection and sensitivity and of social and democratic skills more generally. Claims like these provide a set of arguments for the inclusion of philosophy in the school curriculum that goes well beyond philosophy as just another curricular subject or body of knowledge. The aim of this article is to raise some questions about the conception of education that appears to inform the discussion about the educational use of philosophy. My ambition is to suggest an additional rather than an alternative view about the educational use of philosophy in the hope that this may act as a reminder of a different way in which one can engage with philosophy in educational settings which, in turn, might also act as a reminder of how philosophy might engage with us. The philosophical distinction in which my argument is phrased is that between humanism and post-humanism and the guiding educational concept is that of exposure. (shrink)

Introduction to Marsilio Ficino's Philosophy (English translation): Intellectual Development: The Discovery of a Philosophical Gift. The Organic Worldview: Man as "Intellectual Hero." Psychology: The Soul as "the Midpoint of Everything." Epistemology: The Mind as "Infinite Power." Metaphysics: The Mind-Soul as "Intellect and Will." Aesthetics: The Soul as "Artist." Reception and Updated Bibliography (selection).

Today's social and political climate often pits conservative or traditional Christianity against "progressive" Christianity. But what is progressive Christianity? What is a progressive Christian? What is a progressive church? Christianity in Blue answers these questions by drawing from biblical scholarship, Christian history, theology, popular culture, philosophy, and cultural anthropology. Kaden shows how socially liberal values and progressive attitudes can be the fruits of taking seriously both the Bible and Christian tradition. But rather than treating these sources as static authorities (...) and the final word on every subject, Kaden argues that they are places to start one's exploration of how to be a Christian in the world. Being a progressive Christian is an ethical exhortation to "uplift human personality," as Martin Luther King Jr. once said. This exhortation structures how progressive Christians receive, interpret, and apply the Bible and Christian tradition to daily life. A robust tradition provides an anchor to avoid the illiberal trends in contemporary society, and a commitment to uplifting human personality provides a check against dehumanizing uses of Scripture and tradition. Christianity in Blue will help both progressive and conservative Christians better understand the importance of the Bible, theology, history, and philosophy for building a loving church for everyone. (shrink)