The Jeffreys–Lindley paradox exposes a rift between Bayesian and frequentist hypothesis testing that strikes at the heart of statistical inference. Contrary to what most current literature suggests, the paradox was central to the Bayesian testing methodology developed by Sir Harold Jeffreys in the late 1930s. Jeffreys showed that the evidence for a point-null hypothesis $${\mathcal {H}}_0$$ H 0 scales with $$\sqrt{n}$$ n and repeatedly argued that it would, therefore, be mistaken to set a threshold for rejecting $${\mathcal {H}}_0$$ (...) H 0 at a constant multiple of the standard error. Here, we summarize Jeffreys’s early work on the paradox and clarify his reasons for including the $$\sqrt{n}$$ n term. The prior distribution is seen to play a crucial role; by implicitly correcting for selection, small parameter values are identified as relatively surprising under $${\mathcal {H}}_1$$ H 1. We highlight the general nature of the paradox by presenting both a fully frequentist and a fully Bayesian version. We also demonstrate that the paradox does not depend on assigning prior mass to a point hypothesis, as is commonly believed. (shrink)

Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift? Can time have a beginning? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Riddles, paradoxes, conundrums--for millennia the human mind has found such knotty logical problems both perplexing and irresistible. Now Roy Sorensen offers the first narrative history of paradoxes, a fascinating and eye-opening account that extends from the ancient Greeks, through the Middle Ages, the Enlightenment, and into the twentieth century. When Augustine asked what God was doing (...) before He made the world, he was told: "Preparing hell for people who ask questions like that." A Brief History of the Paradox takes a close look at "questions like that" and the philosophers who have asked them, beginning with the folk riddles that inspired Anaximander to erect the first metaphysical system and ending with such thinkers as Lewis Carroll, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and W.V. Quine. Organized chronologically, the book is divided into twenty-four chapters, each of which pairs a philosopher with a major paradox, allowing for extended consideration and putting a human face on the strategies that have been taken toward these puzzles. Readers get to follow the minds of Zeno, Socrates, Aquinas, Ockham, Pascal, Kant, Hegel, and many other major philosophers deep inside the tangles of paradox, looking for, and sometimes finding, a way out. Filled with illuminating anecdotes and vividly written, A Brief History of the Paradox will appeal to anyone who finds trying to answer unanswerable questions a paradoxically pleasant endeavor. (shrink)

"History and the Paradoxes of Metaphysics in" "Dantons Tod" is the first in-depth analysis exploring the dynamic relationship between Hegelian metaphysics and Georg Buchner's literary masterpiece. This study illuminates the fascinating paradoxes emerging from Buchner's portrayal of the collision of historical reality with the monumental concept of freedom developed in the monistic idealism of Hegel. It also brings to light much-neglected interconnections between Buchner's Hegelian reading of Spinoza and his theories on nature and history.".

A Brief History of the Paradox is the first narrative history of paradoxes. Sorenson draws us deep inside the tangles of riddles, paradoxes and conundrums by answering the questions which are seemingly unanswerable. Can God create a stone too heavy for him to lift? Can time have a beginning? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Filled with illuminating anecdotes, A Brief History of the Paradox is vividly written and will appeal to anyone who (...) finds trying to answer unanswerable questions a paradoxically pleasant endeavour. (shrink)

This article documents the history of the Allais paradox, and shows that underneath the many discussions of the various protagonists lay different, irreconcilable epistemological positions. Savage, like his mentor von Neumann and similar to economist Friedman, worked from an epistemology of generalized characterizations. Allais, on the other hand, like economists Samuelson and Baumol, started from an epistemology of exact descriptions in which every axiom was an empirical claim that could be refuted directly by observations. As a result, the (...) two sides failed to find a common ground. Only a few decades later was the now so-called Allais paradox rediscovered as an important precursor when a new behavioural economic subdiscipline started to adopt the epistemology of exact descriptions and its accompanying falsifications of rational choice theory. (shrink)

This paper explores the close connection in early phenomenology between the problem of objectless presentations and the concept of intentional objects. It clarifies how this basic concept of Husserl’s early phenomenology emerged within the horizons of Bolzano’s logical objectivism, Brentano’s descriptive psychology, Frege’s mathematical logicism, Twardowski’s psychological representationalism, and Meinong’s object theory. It shows how in collaboration with these thinkers Husserl argued that a theory of intentionality is incomplete without a concept of the intentional object. It provides a brief (...) class='Hi'>history of the concept of intentional objects in the philosophical logic of the nineteenth century that demonstrates its relevance to the problem of objectless presentations in the early phenomenology of the twentieth century. It suggests that Husserl accepts Bolzano’s objectivism and Frege’s logicism, rejects Brentano’s conception of immanent objects and Twardowski’s notion of representational pictures, and ignores Meinong’s theory of objects. Thus the paper employs the formation of Husserl’s concept of the intentional object to enhance the understanding of the historical and philosophical relationships between early phenomenology and contemporaneous philosophical movements. (shrink)

To reconcile this paradox — that history is impossible but necessary — Peter Charles Hoffer proposes a practical, workable philosophy of history for our ...

In Plato’s Parmenides 132a-133b, the widely known Third Man Paradox is stated, which has special interest for the history of logical reasoning. It is important for philosophers because it is often thought to be a devastating argument to Plato’s theory of Forms. Some philosophers have even viewed Aristotle’s theory of predication and the categories as inspired by reflection on it [Owen 1966]. For the historians of logic it is attractive, because of the phenomenon of self-reference that involves. Bocheński (...) denies any possibility of correct logical reasoning before Aristotle. In particular, he flatly declares of Plato that “correct logic we find none in his work” [1951, 15]. In this line, many papers have been written that call attention to the violation of a metalogical principle – the type rules – because of the Third Man Paradox. The problem of interpretation of the paradox raised many discussions, since the 50’s, and the literature devoted to this topic is today enormous. Nevertheless, many points in Plato’s reasoning remain obscure. Hitherto, it is commonly believed that the paradox was simply stated by Plato in his "Parmenides", but not actually solved. Even more, it is believed that it is hardly possible for Plato to have suggested a solution, because he confused the categories of substance and attribute. B. Russell has also argued that Plato violates in his arguments the restrictions imposed on language by the theory of logical types. This view is encouraged by the linguistic difficulties, which Plato has faced in his attempt to formulate an ontology of abstract entities, i.e. that in Greek language abstract and concrete terms are formally indistinguishable [Kneales 1984]. In this paper, we analyse the logical structure of the argument in an attempt to give a systematic consistent reconstruction of the text appealing to methods and concepts of modern logic and semantics. Already in 1954 G. Vlastos had noted in his seminal paper “The ‘Third Man’ Argument in the Parmenides” that “if any progress … is to be made at this juncture it must come from some advance in understanding the logical structure of the Argument”. Accordingly, our analysis is primarily focused on the line of logical reasoning, rather than the metaphysical underpinnings and philosophical implications of the paradox for Plato’s theory of Forms. We divide the Platonic text into three parts, presenting apparent thematic coherence: a) Formulation of the Third Man Paradox (132a-132b). The central issue of this part is a step-like generation of Forms that can continue ad infinitum. b) Discussion of the paradoxical situation (132b-c), by passing to the use of terminology echoing Eleatic philosophy. The concept of “thought” and the underlying semantics of Eleatic origin are central in this passage. c) Solution of the paradox (132d-133a). In our view, this part contains not only a resemblance regress, as most interpretators con-sider, but also the solution of the paradox by the introduction of a sound definition of the concept of “similarity”. We should note that the name ‘Third Man Paradox’ never occurs in Plato, who, strictly speaking, formulates a ‘Third Large Paradox’. The name ‘Third Man Paradox’ appears in the works of Aristotle and the commentators of the Peripatetic tradition. Later commentators have identified Aristotle’s Third Man with Plato’s Third Large Argument. In our paper, we also examine other testimonies about the Third Man Paradox found in the works of commentators in order to illuminate the logical structure of the argument. Although the vocabulary used in these versions is different, they do not affect its logical structure, but rather reveal different understandings by the ancient authors. These testimonies are divided into two main categories: those met in Neo-Platonic authors, notably in Proclus’ "Commentary on Plato’s Parmenides", and the versions of the Third Man Paradox found in texts of the Peripatetic tradition (Eudemus, Aristotle, Alexander). From our discussion, it becomes clear that the approaches to the paradox by the various scholars of antiquity are different, depending also on their participation in the one or the other campus of philosophical thought. We show that the Peripatetic authors are aware of the source of the paradox. However, the first scholar of antiquity who explicitly ascribes a solution to Plato seems to be Proclus. (shrink)

The article is an attempt to comprehend the radical changes in the historical self-con­sciousness of the modern era and their impact on modern political practices. The position of the author is that our attitude to the time of history crystallizes deep transformations of the political sphere. It is shown that the historicity regime at the turn of the 20th–21st centuries is characterized by an orientation towards today’s needs and interests (so-called presentism) and at the same time increased attention to (...) the past (“memorial revolution”), which, in the absence of major socio-political projects of the future, plays the role of a consolidating social factor. These changes required, on the one hand, significant efforts by historians to revise the methodological foundations of their science and, on the other hand, philosophical reflection on key historiosophical concepts and mean­ings. The most significant discussions concern, first of all, the concept of the past in its relation to the present, “modernity”. Understanding the ontological and epistemological foundations of these concepts has become today a “bone of contention” in building mod­ern political strategies and practices. The article demonstrates how the past from the con­cept of clear and self-evident, as it appeared within the framework of the historicist con­cepts of the Modern era, has become a philosophical and political problem in our days. There are two approaches to solving this problem. These are, firstly, those philosophers and historians who defend the modernist idea of the past as different in relation to the present, although they significantly modify it with the help of the idea of a “living past”. And secondly, those philosophers who defend the thesis about the “non-past” of the past and the continuation of its existence in the present. It is concluded that, with all the differ­ences, both types of concepts proceed from the concept of “living past”, which implies a non-linear and “multi-layered” understanding of historical time. (shrink)

This paper argues that the so-called ‘paradox’ of dehumanization is a mirage arising from misplaced abstraction. The alleged ‘paradox’ is taken as a challenge that arises from a skeptical stance. After reviewing the history of that skeptical stance, it is reconstructed as an argument with two premises. With the help of an epistemologically structured but pluralistic frame it is then shown how the two premises of the Skeptic’s argument can both be debunked. As part of that it (...) emerges that there are a couple of ways how dehumanization can be realized, and one such realization can be sufficient for affirming the reality of dehumanization for a specific case. (shrink)

This article explores how Mortimer J. Adler's philosophy of history, as it developed from the 1930s through the 1950s, affected the construction of Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World and the same set's Syntopicon. A thorough examination of Adler's influences (e.g. Arthur O. Lovejoy, Jacques Maritain, and Columbia University faculty) demonstrates that his philosophy of history derived from a coincidental confluence of developments in the fields of literature, history, and philosophy. Adler's processing of these trends (...) reveals both irony and paradox, and also explains some philosophical objections articulated by later foes of the great books idea. (shrink)

In the early modern period, ignorance was commonly perceived as a sin, a flaw, a defect, and even a threat to religion and the social order. Yet praises of ignorance were also expressed in the same context. Reclaiming the long-lasting legacy of medieval doctrines of ignorance and taking a comparative perspective, Sandrine Parageau tells the history of the apparently counter-intuitive moral, cognitive and epistemological virtues attributed to ignorance in the long seventeenth century (1580s-1700) in England and in France. With (...) close textual analysis of hitherto neglected sources and a reassessment of canonical philosophical works by Montaigne, Bacon, Descartes, Locke, and others, Parageau specifically examines the role of ignorance in the production of knowledge, identifying three common virtues of ignorance as a mode of wisdom, a principle of knowledge, and an epistemological instrument, in philosophical and theological works. How could an essentially negative notion be turned into something profitable and even desirable? Taken in the context of Renaissance humanism, the Reformation and the "Scientific Revolution" - which all called for a redefinition and reaffirmation of knowledge - ignorance, Parageau finds, was not dismissed in the early modern quest for renewed ways of thinking and knowing. On the contrary, it was assimilated into the philosophical and scientific discourses of the time. The rehabilitation of ignorance emerged as a paradoxical cornerstone of the nascent modern science. (shrink)

The conventional interpretation of Adam Smith is that he is a prophet of commercialism. The liberal capitalist reading of Smith is consistent with the view that history culminates in commercial society. The first part of the article develops this optimistic interpretation of Smith's view of history. Smith implies that commercial society is the end of history because (1) it supplies the ends of nature that he identifies; (2) it is inevitable; and (3) it is permanent. The second (...) part of the article shows that Smith has some dark moments in his writings where he seems to reject completely such teleological notions. In this more civic humanist mood he confesses that commercial society does not supply the ends of nature, nor is it inevitable, nor is it permanent. Both views exist in Smith and the commentator is forced to choose between passages in Smith's work in order to support a particular interpretation of the former's view of history. (shrink)

In _On Paradox_ literary and legal scholar Elizabeth S. Anker contends that faith in the logic of paradox has been the cornerstone of left intellectualism since the second half of the twentieth century. She attributes the ubiquity of paradox in the humanities to its appeal as an incisive tool for exposing and dismantling hierarchies. Tracing the ascent of paradox in theories of modernity, in rights discourse, in the history of literary criticism and the linguistic turn, and (...) in the transformation of the liberal arts in higher education, Anker suggests that paradox not only generates the very exclusions it critiques but also creates a disempowering haze of indecision. She shows that reasoning through paradox has become deeply problematic: it engrains a startling homogeneity of thought while undercutting the commitment to social justice that remains a guiding imperative of theory. Rather than calling for a wholesale abandonment of such reasoning, Anker argues for an expanded, diversified theory toolkit that can help theorists escape the seductions and traps of paradox. (shrink)

Zeno of Elea's paradoxes of motion are one of the most successful provocations in the history of philosophy. There are exactly four paradoxes, namely, the dichotomy, the arrow, Achilles, and the moving rows. This chapter presents the paradoxes in such a way that their strength, fascination, and profoundness are apparent. After providing some basic information about Zeno, the chapter sketches the research program that is the context of Zeno's paradoxes. It goes back to Parmenides and may be called Parmenideanism. (...) The dichotomy and the Achilles paradox are rather two variants of one thought than two different arguments. The moving rows are complicated and not much can be learned from them. Their presentation in the chapter is restricted to some rough outline after the discussion of reactions to the dichotomy and the Achilles. (shrink)

Attention has turned from Hobbes the systematic thinker to his inconsistencies, as the essays in the Hobbes symposium published in the recent volume of Political Theory suggest. Deborah Baumgold, in “The Difficulties of Hobbes Interpretation,” shifted the focus to “the history of the book,” and Hobbes’s method of serial composition and peripatetic insertion, as a major source of his inconsistency. Accepting Baumgold’s method, the author argues that the manner of composition does not necessarily determine content and that fundamental paradoxes (...) in Hobbes’s work have a different provenance, for which there are also contextual answers. Hobbes was a courtier’s client, but one committed early to a materialist ontology and epistemology, and these commitments shackled him in treating the immediate political questions with which he was required to deal, leading to systemic paradoxes in his treatment of natural law, liberty, authorization, and consent. (shrink)

There is a paradox, or self-defeating supposition in the core of constructionism, for it would appear that any attempt to resolve a dispute in historical interpretation within a convention of self-contained criteria of confirmation by appealing to justificatory criteria outside the convention -to wit, the theory of constructionism -is self-defeating. Through the theoretical consideration of historians isolated in a vat, following Hilary Putnam's metaphor, it becomes clear that the vat language of the historians does not have the possibility of (...) referring, intrinsically or extrinsically, to anything external. The implications of the vat metaphor for an understanding of historical inquiry are: 1) we need to recognize and insist upon different levels of abstraction both in historical writing and in the justification of its claims; 2) applied to history, the set paradox reveals the need to recognize that at the most abstract level of consideration we encounter inescapable incoherence; and 3) we need to recognize that in some important sense reference must be completed in the world, regardless of the problems in characterizing this sense philosophically. (shrink)

Paradox of the Evil and "Family Ressemblances". The paper tackles the problem of Matter and evil in Plotinus. monistic metaphysics, especially in theperspective of the following aparent inconsistency: if there is no other principle but the Good, then the Good creates the Matter which is the absolute evil. Itfollows that the Good is bad, according to a certain axiom of Proclus, which states that the creator is to a higher degree all what the creature is. The authorshows that, despite (...) what Proclus and then many modern critics believed, Plotinus is consistent within his system. He relies on the axiom that the creature is not all what the creator is, i.e. that the creator also gives what he has not. Therefore, the One gives the Intellect multiplicity and thought which He is deprived of and also gives the Matter the evil which He is also deprived of. The paper also shows that Plotinus developed a logic of ontological procession which is not Aristotelian. This logic does not work by formind classes, but chains of partially intransitive ressemblances. So, the Intellect ressembles the One (the Good), the Soul ressembles the Intellect and the Matter ressembles the Soul; yet the Matter resembles the One no more. Yet, the unity of the world is assured, because of the continuity of the chain. The extreme terms are contrary, though not in the Aristotelian sense of sharing in the same genus. A certain similarty with Wittgenstein's logic of "family resemblances" is striking, which means that not only Wittgenstein, but Plotinus also went beyond the Platonic-Aristotelian Vulgata, even while he was sticking to its linguage. (shrink)

G. E. Moore observed that to assert, 'I went to the pictures last Tuesday but I don't believe that I did' would be 'absurd'. Over half a century later, such sayings continue to perplex philosophers. In the definitive treatment of the famous paradox, Green and Williams explain its history and relevance and present new essays by leading thinkers in the area.

David Hume is an ardent supporter of the practice of religions toleration. For Hume, toleration forms part of the background that makes progress in philosophy possible, and it accounts for the superiority of philosophical thought in England in the eighteenth century. As he puts it in the introduction to the Treatise: “the improvements in reason and philosophy can only be owing to a land of toleration and of liberty” (T Intro.7; SBN xvii).1 Similarly, the narrator of part 11 of the (...) First Enquiry comments: -/- Our conversation began with my admiring the singular good fortune of philosophy, which, as it requires entire liberty above all other privileges, and chiefly flourishes from the free opposition of sentiments and argu­ mentation, received its first birth in an age and country of freedom and toleration. (EHU 11.2; SBN 132) -/- The toleration to which Hume refers is broader than religious toleration, but in the context of the eighteenth century, religious toleration is clearly the paradigm case. Indeed, religious toleration represents one of the key accomplishments of the culminating event of Hume’s History of England: the Glorious Revolution of 1688. -/- Yet even though religious toleration forms the background of philosophy in general—or perhaps just because it does so—Hume offers precious few arguments for it, and they are, for the most part, given implicitly rather than as formal argu­ ments. Nevertheless, we can distinguish three different, though interrelated, lines of support for toleration in Hume’s thought: (i) an argument based on a general skepticism; (ii) an argument based on a contempt for organized religion; and (iii) a pragmatic argument based on the need for peace and orderly government. From our point of view, what is striking about all of these argument is how un-Lockean they are: Hume does not rely on the idea of a fundamental conceptual separation of church and state, nor on a natural right to freedom of conscience that character­izes writers working in the Lockean tradition. However, of the arguments he gives, only the last, I will argue, has any hope to provide a useful case for toleration. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 343-346 [Access article in PDF] The Paradox Topos Lisa Gorton As William Egginton points out, 1 when Dante and Beatrice step outside the cosmos, they step into another set of concentric spheres. 2 These surround our (supposedly) geocentric cosmos, and yet they center upon God. The image affronts our logic of space. If these concentric spheres encompass us, how (...) can they center upon something somewhere else? The notion seems to turn space inside-out. But Dante's spatial paradox is not in truth a paradox of space. Instead, it is a spiritual paradox, set in terms of space. When Dante and Beatrice step outside the cosmos, they step outside space into an old philosophical topos, a spatial image of God. For that reason, Dante's image is not really akin to the spatial paradoxes of modern astrophysics, although Egginton's comparison of the two does provoke some fascinating comments upon medieval concepts of space. Egginton assesses Dante's paradox in light of medieval debates about space, place, and God. However, he overlooks the most important source for Dante's paradox--the symbolic geometry of Neoplatonic philosophy. 3Neoplatonic philosophers use spatial forms to imagine spiritual relationships. They develop a symbolic geometry, a spatial language of thought, which borrows nothing from physical space but its shapes: the center, the circle, and concentric spheres. Neoplatonists use this symbolic geometry because it offers a spatial way to imagine the relationship between a cause and its effect, without importing time differences into that relationship. In this way they seek to avoid the problems of time and causality, which the creation-myth in Timaeus introduced into Plato's philosophy: how and when could a timeless being make time? 4 [End Page 343]Plotinus, the first Neoplatonist, uses symbolic geometry to design an "Intellectual Cosmos," which he treats as quite distinct from our physical cosmos. 5 He imagines the source of life as a center: The Highest cannot be divided and allotted... thus a centre is an independent unity; everything within the circle has its own term in the centre, and to the centre the radii each bring their own. (Enneads, V. 1. 11). The "Highest" exists as the center of this "Intellectual Cosmos." Plotinus treats a center's geometric qualities as metaphysical attributes. Like an undimensioned central point, the "Highest" does not exist in space or time, and yet space and time radiate from it as a circumference radiates from its center.The bare symbolic space of Plotinus's "Intellectual Cosmos" has emotional connotations. Plotinus holds that "the center of a circle is distinctively a point of rest" (Enneads II. 2. 1). Lesser beings must turn sequentially through all the angles their center holds altogether at once: There is, we may put it, something that is centre; about it, a circle of light shed from it; round centre and first circle alike, another circle, light from light; outside that again, not another circle of light but one which, lacking light of its own, must borrow. (Enneads, IV. 3. 17) In Plotinus's "Intellectual Cosmos" life emanates from the center in concentric spheres. 6Dante and Beatrice step into such an "Intellectual Cosmos" when they step outside the physical world. They step into a spatial image that stands outside time and space, at the spiritual center of the poem, when they step into spheres that center upon a light too bright to look upon. Dante wonders where that center could be, and Beatrice responds to his silent question: "The nature of the universe, which holds the center still and moves all else around it, begins here as if from its turning point" (XXVII, 106-9). Egginton comments, "Dante's description of this absolute center as the origin of all movement and force in the universe" is "an 'eerie' likeness of what he [the modern astrophysicist, Robert Osserman] terms the retro-verse." More relevantly, it also refers to the "Intellectual Cosmos" of Neoplatonic philosophy, where the "Highest" is a center of rest, the starting point of light, movement, and life. [End Page 344]Plotinus... (shrink)

First published in 1953, Tragedy and the Paradox of the Fortunate Fall argues that our response to tragedy is made up of a series of responses: the impact of experience which produces the archetypes of belief; the formation of the archetype of rebirth; the crystallization of the archetype of rebirth in the myth and ritual of the ancient Near East; the transformation of myth and ritual in the religions of the ancient world, including Christianity; the formalization of the archetype (...) of rebirth into the concept of felix culpa, the paradox of the fortunate fall and finally the secular utilization of the paradox of the fortunate fall as the substance out of which tragedy is made. This book will be of interest to students of literature, philosophy and history. (shrink)

The subject of this paper is Alexandre Kojève’s relationship to Russian Religious Philosophy, which is characterized by a paradoxical contrast between Kojève’s openly critical judgment of it, on the one hand, and the hidden, implicit influence of this philosophical tradition on his own atheistic philosophizing on the other. The hidden influence of Russian Religious Philosophy, Kojève’s engagement with the philosophical ideas of Vladimir Solovyov and Fyodor Dostoevsky, will be shown by two case studies. The first case is about Kojève’s “reshaping” (...) and reevaluation of Solovyov’s principle of evil. The second case is about Kojève’s defense of Dostoevsky’s Man-God ideologues against their creator by critically rethinking Man-Godhood. The connection between these two cases is the question, if Kojève, while opposing Solovyov’s difference of Man-God and God-Man with something third, has actually moved beyond the Man-God ideology, or did he develop his own Man-God ideology. The essay concludes, with the assertion that Kojève remains with a revised Man-Godhood. This defense-revision is an important philosophical contribution to the polemics with Russian Religious Philosophy, but it is, at the same time, intimately connected with Kojève’s ideological agenda. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Paradox of Kandinsky's Abstract RepresentationKenneth BerryThere is a paradox in the relationship between Kandinsky's use of the terms, "abstract" and "concrete," which is presented in the expression, "Kandinsky's abstract representation." Thisexpression, while being apparently contradictory, may point to a feature underpinning Kandinsky's art, which is pivotal to a proper experience of his work, just as, in Christopher Middleton's view, a poetic language may be pivotal to (...) the formation of cultures.1 Art and cultural artifacts are vital to aesthetic experience and aesthetic education, and both the language of art and other languages are instrumental to this end. However, how may Kandinsky's mature abstraction, being in essence objectless, have any claim to representation, and consequently the higher cultural goals of aesthetic expression and the aesthetic enrichment of society?According to Thomas M. Messer, the position of centrality that Kandinsky has assumed in our understanding of modern art is largely due to his having brought to bear on his art, an instinctive awareness of what constituted the central aesthetic issues of his era.2 Kandinsky's writings in Concerning the Spiritual in Art elaborate on his aesthetic theories, and, in particular, [End Page 99] present the view that paintings should be looked at as a graphic representation of a mood rather than as a representation of objects. Messer observes that, for Kandinsky, abstraction, defined as a mode of painting extending beyond the depiction of recognizable objects, having gradually stripped itself of mimetic vestiges, thus becomes paramount. Michael Carter has similarly pointed out that with the pure forms of absolute abstraction, the non-objective colors and shapes of Kandinsky's paintings were regarded as distillations of the aesthetic properties of the artistic sign3 — separable from any referential aspect of art.4 This aesthetic aspect of Kandinsky's work, which became known as nonfigurative, nonobjective, or nonrepresentational,goes along with the cultural — and, as sculptor Anish Kapoor has remarked, "in the deepest, deepest depths of human history the cultural has always been a motivator of people," and has the power to transform society through finding visual equivalents for an emotional language.5Much has been written about Kandinsky's use of color, but perhaps the primary innovation that he made, as in the case of Barnett Newman, was in the field of drawing. Kandinsky was influenced by Gauguin's idea that drawing was an abstraction from memory after nature, just as Gauguin had been affected by the simplified contours and flattened forms of Puvis de Chavannes. Drawing did not come so easily to Kandinsky as color — he had to work harder at drawing, but in his early improvisations, forms and their outlines as graphic symbols came welling up from the unconscious, and eidetic motifs only had to be copied — almost as the art of calligraphy. Kandinsky's "organic" drawing developed as an urge to nonnaturalistic impulses, and during the period of Point and Line to Plane became almost a grammar of form, saved from mere pedantry by the living forces or visual tensions that made various kinds of line operate not just as contours but as dynamic or restful elements within themselves. In 1913, Kandinsky wrote in his "Reminiscences" that, "painting is a thundering collision of different worlds, intended to create a new world in, and from, their struggles with one another, a new world which is the work of art."6 It is clear from this that the Modernist work of art was intended to be a "new world" operating according to its own universal aesthetic laws.Kandinsky is not just a painter; he is also a visual poet. Poetry, according to Tony Curtis, involves the expression of the intensification of experience — the elevation of banal facts of life into something beyond the merely prosaic — something unique and perceptively heightened.7 It involves both imagination and poetic license to explore both ambiguity and paradox. As Scottish poet Norman MacCaig observed, poetry renders the ordinary extraordinary, seeing the unfamiliar in the familiar.8 Creative analogical thinking such as evinced in Kandinsky's art, often involves breaking free of a clichéd representation.Malcolm Budd has remarked that, in its most exclusive sense, a work... (shrink)

L’analyse du pouvoir que propose Merleau-Ponty dans sa confrontation avec le Marxisme et le bolchévisme tente de penser ce paradoxe : le phénomène du pouvoir contient deux sous-phénomènes: premièrement, le pouvoir d’une entité politique (Prince, Etat, Parti etc.) est reconnu s’il est perçu comme donné (moment de reconnaissance) ; deuxièmement, le pouvoir de cette entité dépend de ladite reconnaissance (moment d’institution). Le premier moment constate le donné alors que l’autre le conteste. L’article se propose de comprendre, premièrement, dans quelle mesure (...) le pouvoir doit être compris comme l’union de la reconnaissance et de l’institution, et deuxièmement, dans quelle mesure cette unité doit être comprise comme une matrice productrice d’histoire. La première question sera résolue par appel à la notion de foi perceptive, qui est la version ontologique d’une telle unité ; et la seconde par appel à la notion politique de représentation héritée de Machiavel et développée dans les analyses critiques du thème de la représentation du prolétariat par le Parti. Le résultat est une reconfiguration des relations entre discours de vérité (dans ce cas, l’ontologie) et action politique ; une reconfiguration de la notion de pouvoir, et une hypothèse pour rendre compte de l’unité des travaux « théoriques » et « politiques » de Merleau-Ponty.The analysis of power that Merleau-Ponty proposes in his confrontation with Marxism and Bolshevism tries to think through the following paradox. The phenomenon of power is composed of two sub-phenomena. Firstly, the power of a political entity (Prince, State, Party, etc.) is recognized if it is perceived as given (moment of recognition). Secondly, the power of that entity depends on the said recognition (moment of institution). The first moment notices the given, while the other contests it. This article aims to elucidate, firstly, to what extent power must be understood as the union of recognition and institution, and secondly, to what extent that unity must be understood as a matrix productive of history. The first question will be resolved by appealing to the notion of the perceptual faith, which is the ontological version of such a unity; and the second, by appealing to the political notion of representation inherited from Machiavelli and developed in the critical analyses of the theme of the representation of the proletariat by the Party. The result is a reconfiguration of the relations between discourses of truth (in this case, ontology) and political action. It is a reconfiguration of the notion of power and a hypothesis that wants to account for the unity of Merleau-Ponty’s “theoretical” and “political” efforts.L’analisi del potere che Merleau-Ponty propone attraverso il confronto tra marxismo e bolscevismo tenta di pensare questo paradosso: il fenomeno del potere contiene due sotto-fenomeni: in primo luogo, il potere di un’entità politica (il Principe, lo Stato, il Partito, ecc.) è riconosciuto se è percepito come dato (momento di riconoscimento); in secondo luogo, il potere di questa entità dipende dal suddetto riconoscimento (momento di istituzione). Il primo momento constata ciò che è dato, mentre l’altro lo contesta. L’articolo si propone di comprendere, in primis, in quale misura il potere deve essere inteso come unione del riconoscimento e dell’istituzione, e in seconda battuta, in quale misura quest’unità deve essere compresa come una matrice produttrice di storia. La prima questione sarà risolta tramite il riferimento alla nozione politica di rappresentazione ereditata da Machiavelli e sviluppata nelle analisi critiche del tema della rappresentazione del proletariato attraverso il Partito. Il risultato è una riconfigurazione delle relazioni tra discorso di verità (in questo caso, l’ontologia) e azione politica; una riconfigurazione della nozione di potere, e un’ipotesi che renda conto dell’unità dei lavori “teorici” e “politici” di Merleau-Ponty. (shrink)

In today's societies relationships between near relatives and friends appear to be somewhat paradoxical. Some accounts present them as the social ideal, exalting the solidarity and altruism represented by proximal relationships. By contrast, others point to the social dangers in such relationships when they are conducted in the public sphere. In order to grasp the coexistence of these opposite views, this article attempts to place proximal relationships in the explanatory context of a gift economy, a concept with a long (...) class='Hi'>history in anthropology and which has lately been the focus of interest of a significant group of social thinkers. (shrink)

A democrat who finds himself in the minority on some political issue is compelled to judge that the policy favored by the majority ought to be implemented even though he believes that same policy ought not to be implemented because it does not represent the best social policy. I argue that this paradox does not reduce to a mere conflict of prima facie judgments (Rawls); that to view the paradox as a conflict of desires rather than of principles (...) (Barry) makes it impossible for the democrat to decide what policy is best; that the paradox does not rest on the mistaken assumption that the policy favored by the majority is the best (Haksar) and that it is only by understanding the seemingly incompatible judgments in a way that allows them both to be true that the paradox can be resolved. (shrink)

In their work The German Ideology the founders of Marxism assert that the prerequisite of post-capitalist (defined by them as communist) society is the universal development of human abilities and all social relations. But then on the same page, contrary to this statement, it is alleged that the abolition of private property is not only highly topical but it is also an imperative history-making task. In Manifesto of the Communist Party Marx and Engels explain that economic crises recurrently shaking (...) the capitalist society expose an apparent contradiction between the productive forces and the capitalist relations of production - therefore, these relations must be eliminated for the preservation of society. Nonetheless, the same treatise affirms that the bourgeoisie cannot exist without revolutionizing not only the productive forces but also the relations of production. But in this case it stands to reason to recognize that there is no conflict between the productive forces and the production relations, and, therefore, there is no crisis of the capitalist system, either. Paradoxes in the communist theory of Marxism stem not merely from erroneous conceptions but reveal the fact that Marxism as an ideology comes into conflict with its scientific social theory. Hence, these paradoxes disclose relative independence of the social theory of Marxism from its ideological postulates. (shrink)

The problem of universals versus particulars is central to the paradox of historical knowledge. History interpreted in terms of a closed set of universals denies qualitative change; history interpreted in terms of unique events allows no support for generalizations. Three approaches to this problem are: rationalist, intuitive, and philosophic history. Rationalist and intuitive history are unsatisfactory. Rationalist history is deterministic, reducing experiences to strictly defined universals. Intuitive history, stressing the particular, is subjective. To (...) overcome this dilemma, philosophic history would have to develop a notion of universals stable enough to sustain order and flexible enough to allow for real change. Such a notion can be found in the manner in which entities are created through metaphoric conflation. (shrink)

Central to Kierkegaard’s account of religious existence is his critique of speculative reason. This critique begins with the distinction between subjective and objective reflection. Its most radical aspects appear in Kierkegaard’s discussions of the paradox. In spite of Kierkegaard’s frequent comments on this notion, it is not readily understood. I want to argue against a common reading of this notion and propose an alternative reading. This alternative reading allows for a conceptually quite plausible account of the manner in which (...) the paradox presents reason with a boundary, in virtue of its relation to objective reflection and to subjective reflection as well. Because of this boundary, reason points beyond its own achievements to a domain of contemplation and appropriation. This is a domain that reason itself identifies in connection with the paradox. It both surpasses rational achievements and integrates them into itself. (shrink)

Central to Kierkegaard’s account of religious existence is his critique of speculative reason. This critique begins with the distinction between subjective and objective reflection. Its most radical aspects appear in Kierkegaard’s discussions of the paradox. In spite of Kierkegaard’s frequent comments on this notion, it is not readily understood. I want to argue against a common reading of this notion and propose an alternative reading. This alternative reading allows for a conceptually quite plausible account of the manner in which (...) the paradox presents reason with a boundary, in virtue of its relation to objective reflection and to subjective reflection as well. Because of this boundary, reason points beyond its own achievements to a domain of contemplation and appropriation. This is a domain that reason itself identifies in connection with the paradox. It both surpasses rational achievements and integrates them into itself. (shrink)

Central to Kierkegaard’s account of religious existence is his critique of speculative reason. This critique begins with the distinction between subjective and objective reflection. Its most radical aspects appear in Kierkegaard’s discussions of the paradox. In spite of Kierkegaard’s frequent comments on this notion, it is not readily understood. I want to argue against a common reading of this notion and propose an alternative reading. This alternative reading allows for a conceptually quite plausible account of the manner in which (...) the paradox presents reason with a boundary, in virtue of its relation to objective reflection and to subjective reflection as well. Because of this boundary, reason points beyond its own achievements to a domain of contemplation and appropriation. This is a domain that reason itself identifies in connection with the paradox. It both surpasses rational achievements and integrates them into itself. (shrink)

In 1905, Richard discovered his paradox of definability, and in a letter written that year he presented both the paradox and a solution to it.Soon afterwards, Poincaré endorsed a variant of Richard?s solution.In this paper, I critically examine Richard?s and Poincaré?s ways out.I draw on an objection of Peano?s, and argue that their stated solutions do not work.But I also claim that their writings suggest another way out, different from their stated solutions, and different from the orthodox Tarskian (...) approach.I argue that this second solution does not prevent the return of the paradox. (shrink)

Paradox of the Evil and "Family Ressemblances". The paper tackles the problem of Matter and evil in Plotinus. monistic metaphysics, especially in theperspective of the following aparent inconsistency: if there is no other principle but the Good, then the Good creates the Matter which is the absolute evil. Itfollows that the Good is bad, according to a certain axiom of Proclus, which states that the creator is to a higher degree all what the creature is. The authorshows that, despite (...) what Proclus and then many modern critics believed, Plotinus is consistent within his system. He relies on the axiom that the creature is not all what the creator is, i.e. that the creator also gives what he has not. Therefore, the One gives the Intellect multiplicity and thought which He is deprived of and also gives the Matter the evil which He is also deprived of. The paper also shows that Plotinus developed a logic of ontological procession which is not Aristotelian. This logic does not work by formind classes, but chains of partially intransitive ressemblances. So, the Intellect ressembles the One (the Good), the Soul ressembles the Intellect and the Matter ressembles the Soul; yet the Matter resembles the One no more. Yet, the unity of the world is assured, because of the continuity of the chain. The extreme terms are contrary, though not in the Aristotelian sense of sharing in the same genus. A certain similarty with Wittgenstein's logic of "family resemblances" is striking, which means that not only Wittgenstein, but Plotinus also went beyond the Platonic-Aristotelian Vulgata, even while he was sticking to its linguage. (shrink)