본 글은 분석심리학자인 칼 융(Carl Gustav Jung)의 원형의 개념과 진정한 자기(Self)가 되기 위한 개성화 과정을 통한 ‘자기실현’과 철학적 의미를 알아본다. 융의 분석심리학은 인간과 인간의 정신이 세계 안에 포함되어 있는 동시에 외부세계가 어느 정도 우리 정신안에 포함되어 있다는 것을 다루려는 시도에서 발전하였다. 분석심리학은 심혼의 구조와 역동을 포함하고 있으며 이는 의식과 무의식, 즉 존재의 전체를 말한다. 이러한 개념은 융의 기본 사상으로서 우리의 전체로서의 정신은 하나라는 것을 지지해준다.BR 우리는 각자 자신에 대해 잘 안다고 생각한다. 그러나 자아는 오직 의식 안의 내용물만을 알 뿐이며 무의식과 (...) 그 내용에 대해서는 알지 못한다. 이렇듯 자신에 대해 알고 있는 것은 극히 일부에 대한 제한적인 지식일 수밖에 없으며 이조차도 대부분은 사회적 요인들에 의해 좌우된다. 자기 자신에 대해 알고 있다는 지식들은 이론적 가설에 근거하기 때문에 절대적이지 못하다. 각각의 자기란 각각의 그 자신을 말하며 ‘그 사람 전체’를 가리키는 의미에서 진정한 의미의 개성과 같은 말이다.BR 진정한 자기(Self)가 되기 위한 개성화 과정이란 단일적 존재가 된다는 의미로서 ‘본래의 자기로 돌아가는 것’이 되는 것이고 이를 ‘자기실현’이라 한다. 자기가 진정한 자기가 되어야 하는 목적은 뚜렷하다. 왜냐하면 자기 스스로를 자각하게 됨으로써 자기에 대한 이해를 돕고 보다 나은 인생을 살도록 도와주는 역할을 할 것이기 때문이다. 개성화 즉 자기실현은 어떻게 이루어지는가? 이것은 오로지 개개인의 자기인식을 통해서만 가능하며, 다른 말로 자기가 모르는 자기의 내면을 깨달아 가는 무의식의 의식화 작업이라 할 수 있다.BR 이를 위해 원형 개념에서의 자기실현이 무엇인지, 어떠한 역할을 수행하는지 철학적으로 모색하고자 한다. 여기에서 철학적 모색이란 본질적인 부분을 분석하고 종합하는 방식을 말한다. 특히 철학은 당면하는 문제들을 더욱 명료하게 인지하고 실천할 수 있도록 돕기 때문이다. 그러나 현재의 철학은 삶의 방식을 논의하기보다 지식을 위한 학문으로 바뀌어 가는 현실이다. 그럼에도 철학은 인간 정신에 대한 문제와 해결점을 제공하며 실천적관점을 통해 설명함으로써 자기실현을 목표로 하는 방법에 대한 기준을 제시해줄 것이다. (shrink)

This essay argues that religion is a distinctive form of human activity, and offers a philosophical account of what religion fundamentally is (and what it is not), within the context of the Free Exercise Clause. §I promotes religion as an action-theoretic concept. §II presents the claim that atheism can be regarded as a religion: this claim is rejected on the basis that religion cannot be defined as a set of propositional beliefs concerning metaphysics and morality. §III defends a paradigmatic (...) account of religion as a kind of activity ordered to a concept of transcendence or superior nature, and argues that morally excellent human actions can be identified as religious, but only in a secondary or derivative way. §IV contends with the problem of including act-omissions as instantiations of religious exercise, and proposes a solution with reference to recent arguments implicating two-way powers. (shrink)

Levinas’ thought concerning God continues the philosophical discussion – how to speak about the divine within human language. His thought takes into account Heidegger’s Ontology and Rosenzweig’s exploration of revelation and the meaning of Divinity. Levinas sees the meaning of God’s names as an ethical commandment toward the Beyond – toward the other person. By using the Talmudic writings, Levinas describes the custom of Jewish wisdom to talk about God’s names and attributes as referring the subject towards (...) other persons. As this paper suggested, Levinas’ thought reaches its full implications with his treatment towards the importance of writing and erasure of the Divine Names. -/- . (shrink)

During his time at the Institute for Advanced Study, Kurt Gödel became a close friend of Albert Einstein, and in particular studied the theory of relativity. One result of this study was the discovery of the so-called Gödel universe (strictly speaking, it is about a whole class of universes; the singular form stands here as a collective noun.), a model of Einstein’s field equations of general relativity in which no absolute time can be defined. Theoretically, time travel would be possible (...) in such a universe. (shrink)

The article deals with the little-studied but actual problem of loneliness of an outstanding creative personality as a consequence of stereotypical understanding of his works and activity. The cultural and philosophical meaning of Ivan Turgenev’s motif of loneliness is that he was a lone creator, recognized by Russian critics and historians of literature only in the context of the activities of other recognized great writers: Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov. The problem of loneliness is revealed through the paradoxical (...) statement by Turgenev on the question about strange loners and aggressive crowd. The paper presents the loneliness of I.S. Turgenev as a rejection of the understandable and normality among the non-understandable and weirdness. In Russian literatury critical and historico-cultural tradition, during the discussion of Russian classics, the general opinion has been formed: Turgenev is apparently non-Russian author, moreover he is not a classic writer indeed. (shrink)

Interpreting John Paul II's message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the context of the new scientific discoveries concerning the mitochondrial DNA, one can argue that the human species emerged in Africa some 200,000 years ago. The very problem of the emergence of the human soul in the process of biological evolution represents a subject outside the cognitive competence of science. Attempts can be undertaken to explain this issue in the epistemological perspective of philosophy and theology. In traditional versions (...) of evolutionary theism, God* s interaction in nature was interpreted in causal categories when deterministic dependences were stressed in the process of evolutionary growth. In new proposals, God's presence in an evolving nature has been explained in categories of potentialities and propensities built by God into an evolving Nature. Consequently, in this approach God could be conceived not as a Paleyan designer but rather as a composer unfolding the possibilities hidden in His creation. The future of the evolutionary process depends not only on cosmic physical determinants; it depends to a large extent on the quality of cooperation of human actions with the influence of the Divine Creator. Accordingly, the shape of human culture, as well as the state of moral consciousness of Homo sapiens, should be taken into consideration to discuss the future evolution of the human species. /// Interpretando a mensagem do Papa João Paulo II à Academia Pontifícia das Ciências no contexto das novas descobertas científicas referentes ao DNA mitocondrial, o autor do artigo considera ser possível defender que a espécie humana surgiu em África há cerca de 200 000 anos. Mas o problema da emergência da alma humana no contexto do processo da evolução biológica representa um assunto que está fora da competência cognitiva da ciência. Contudo é possível realizar tentativas no sentido de explicar esta questão na perspectiva epistemológica da filosofia e da teologia. Nas versões tradicionais do teísmo evolutivo, a interacção de Deus com a natureza era interpretada segundo categorias causais quando as dependências deterministicas eram sublinhadas no processo do desenvolvimento evolutivo. No contexto de novas propostas interpretativas, a presença de Deus na ordem evolutiva tem sido explicada em termos das potencialidades e das propensidades induzidas por Deus na Natureza em evolução. Consequentemente, segundo esta abordagem Deus poderia ser concebido não como sábio projectista de que fala William Paley, mas antes como um compositor fazendo vir ao de cima as possibilidades escondidas na sua própria criação. O futuro do processo evolutivo depende não apenas das determinantes físicas do cosmos; ele depende em larga medida da qualidade da cooperação das acções humanas com a influência do Criador. Neste sentido, o artigo defende que a forma da cultura humana, bem como o estado da consciência moral do homo sapiens deve ser tido em consideração em ordem a se poder discutir a evolução futura da espécie humana. (shrink)

Kierkegaard's religious discourses - his writings which have explicitly dealt with religion - have historically been given scant attention by philosophers. They have generally been considered to be of less philosophical interest than his 'proper' philosophy. Errant Affirmations radically questions this claim and considers Kierkegaard's religious writings as absolutely central to his philosophical vision. Through close and clear readings of Kierkegaard's work, David Kangas argues that contemporary philosophical themes - gift, temporality, language, death, nothingness, economy and selfhood- (...) are not only evident in the 'religious' works but explored with real depth and fascination. Above all, the book argues that Kierkegaard's positive account of the human condition, his "ontology," fully emerges only in these discourses. It shows how these discourses are organized around an "errant" kind of affirmation-namely, an affirmation of existence that is without conditions. Such affirmation involves the intensification of life around "today" and coincides with a joy that has no particular cause. It is an affirmation capable of affirming life even amidst its finitude and suffering. Errant Affirmations is a fresh interpretation of Kierkegaard's understudied works that not only opens up a new reading of Kierkegaard but elucidates his 'religious' texts and places them organically within his philosophy as a whole. (shrink)

The main goal of this work is to argue that reincarnation can no longer be an answer to existential anguish, as described by philosophers such as Heidegger and Sartre, because rebirth was the answer for people who were immerse in a religious or even a metaphysical outlook of life, while modern human condition emerges precisely when those forms of certainty begin to fade away. Nevertheless, we will show that the idea of reincarnation can still be a valuable tool for understanding (...) certain features of western philosophy, such as the thermodynamic model of thought. (shrink)

이 글은 세계화 시대 상호문화적 대화가 어떤 의미를 갖고 있으며 어떻게 가능한가라는 문제를 사회철학적 관점에서 논의한다. 상호문화적 대화의 철학은 각 문화의 원칙적 동등성의 인정, 즉 상호문화성에서 출발한다. 이에 따르면 어느 문화에나 철학은 존재하며 각 문화의 조건을 반영한다. 따라서 하나의 철학이 독점적 우위를 차지할 수 없기 때문에 상호문화적 대화의 철학이 출발하는 지점은 잠정적일 수밖에 없다.BR 이 글은 포넷-베탕쿠어의 논의에서 출발한다. 쿠바출신으로 독일에서 활동하는 그의 학문적 이력 자체가 상호문화적이며, 무엇보다 그의 논의는 사회 현실에 대한 비판의식이 주도한다는 점에서 좋은 삶과 정의의 관점에서 사회발전을 (...) 논의하는 사회철학적 의미를 갖는다. 이 글은 그의 역동적이고 비판적인 문화이해에 주목한다. 그에 따르면 문화에는 두 가지 변증법이 작동한다. 즉 전승된 문화 속에서 반성적 실천을 하는 문화적 존재로서 인간의 조건, 그리고 억압과 자유의 긴장으로서 문화란 두 가지 문화이해방식은 각각 담론윤리와 해방윤리에 바탕을 두고 있다. 이 글은 이 두 가지 이해방식이 어떻게 상호 교차하는지를 살펴봄으로써 상호문화적 대화의 사회철학적 의미를 고찰하고자 한다. (shrink)

Ray Boisvert has started with his book an ambitious project to rethink the most important disciplines of philosophy from the stomach not from the mind. The stomach comprises an intrinsic connection with nature, people, and everything else that contributes to feeling well. The book presents a sometimes joyous and mostly very serious celebration of what eating can bring us in doing philosophy. The blurb text on the back cover claims: ‘Building on the original meaning of philosophy as love of (...) wisdom, it explains how the search for wisdom can best succeed by addressing not just the mind, but the entire human being. Eating, an activity that integrates physiological, social, religious, cultural, ethical, and aesthetic dimensions, offers an opportunity to re-think fundamental questions. The result: surprising and novel ways to approach art, religion, knowledge, ethics, and even democracy.’ Well, let’s see what it is all about with these claims.A start is made in the first chapter with a glan .. (shrink)

이 연구는 비코(Giambattista Vico)와 노발리스(Novalis)의 저작 속에서 시적 사유가 철학에서 가지는 의미를 고찰하였다. 시적 사유는 철학적 사유의 원천적 특성을 지시하는 용어이다. 그들에게 시적 지혜 또는 질적 사유로 명명된 시적 사유는 객관주의의 양적 사유에 빠져서 창백해진 철학에 생기를 되살리는 계기를 제공한다. 시적 사유는 감각, 지성과 의지가 하나로 통합된 감정을 표현하는 형태이다. 객관주의는 감각과 지성을 분리하면서 감정을 사유에서 배제하여 생동성을 상실하게 만든다. 시적 사유의 감정은 개별 주관이 아니라 공동체의 공감으로 승화된 것이다. 이 감정은 철학이 신비와 경이로 부르는 초월적인 정신의 현전이며 초감각적인 현상을 (...) 해명하려는 토대이다. 철학은 공감적 세계가 존재한다는 경이에서 출발하며, 개별적인 감각에 내재하는 공감적 세계를 관조하는 보편적 사유가 된다. 공감적 세계는 초감각적인 현상으로서 정신이 대면해야 할 지평이다. 객관주의가 공감적 세계의 경이감을 배제하며 철학의 생동적 사유를 말살하였다. 철학은 시적 사유에서 잃어버린 경이를 발견한다. (shrink)

First published in 1975 and still without equal, The Human Experience of Time provides a thorough review of the concept of time in the Western philosophic tradition. Encompassing a wide range of writings, from the Book of Genesis and the classical thinkers to the work of such twentieth-century philosophers as Collingwood and McKeon, all with introductory essays by the editor, this classic anthology offers a synoptic view of the changing philosophic notions of time.

Updated, expanded, and with a new introduction by the editor, this volume is not only a historical overview but also a dialectical analysis displaying the ...

The Meaning of Life and the Great Philosophers reveals how great philosophers of the past sought to answer the question of the meaning of life. This edited collection includes thirty-five chapters which each focus on a major figure, from Confucius to Rorty, and that imaginatively engage with the topic from their perspective. This volume also contains a Postscript on the historical origins and original significance of the phrase 'the meaning of life'.

Contre Rousseau, Yves Simon a exposé les raisons essentielles pour l'autorité. L'obéissance, à la loi que l'autorité définit ne consiste pas simplement à s'obéir à soi. Ce n'est pas non plus un acte irrationnel. St. Thomas a montré qu'en plus de la loi éternelle et naturelle, nous avons besoin de loi humaine positive. La loi humaine est elle-même oeuvre de prudence et de commandement. Dans la tradition chrétienne, l'obéissance est une vertu. Elle est mystérieuse en ce qu'elle indique une forme (...) plus haute de rationalité et de sagesse. Celui qui obéit la loi peut comprendre à la fois sa nécessité et le fait qu'elle présente au moins une alternative valable en vue du bien commun. (shrink)

1988, as the TV cycle ‘Decalogue’ was finished by Krzysztof Kieslowski, one of the most intriguing appearances throughout its episodes was the character of the silent witness, a young man played by Arthur Barciś. He is the first character who appears at the beginning of Decalogue I and therefore of the whole series and who returns in eight from the ten films of the cycle in very different hypostases: as nomadic camper, surveyor, nurse, bus driver, or rowboat driver, traveler on (...) foot or by bike etc. The film critics were intrigued by this character and interpreted him in different ways, especially in key either religious or ethical. They all and Kieslowski himself agreed that the silent witness is a strange and symbolic appearance that comes out from the frames of everyday life. It is as if a curtain would break or be torn and from beyond it something foreign and strange would appear, difficult to integrate into our categories, but which is surprisingly so eloquent for us. The phenomenology, that Kieslowski describes, is broken in this manner, but, paradoxically, also consolidated by this presence, that gives it meaning and content. (shrink)

Meaning, Understanding, and Practice is a selection of the most notable essays of leading contemporary philosopher Barry Stroud on a set of topics central to analytic philosophy. In this collection, Stroud offers penetrating studies of meaning, understanding, necessity, and the intentionality of thought. Throughout he asks how much can be expected from a philosophical account of one's understanding of the meaning of something, and questions whether such an account can succeed without implying that the person understands (...) many other things as well. Most of the essays work with ideas derived from Wittgenstein, and five of the essays focus specifically on Wittgenstein's philosophy. Stroud's helpful introduction draws out the recurring themes he pursues and explains how his ideas and aims have developed over the years. (shrink)

An e-book devoted to 13 critical discussions of Thaddeus Metz's book "Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study", with a lengthy reply from the author. -/- Preface Masahiro Morioka i -/- Précis of Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study Thaddeus Metz ii-vi -/- Source and Bearer: Metz on the Pure Part-Life View of Meaning Hasko von Kriegstein 1-18 -/- Fundamentality and Extradimensional Final Value David Matheson 19-32 -/- Meaningful and More Meaningful: A Modest Measure Peter Baumann 33-49 -/- (...) Is Meaning in Life Comparable?: From the Viewpoint of ‘The Heart of Meaning in Life’ Masahiro Morioka 50-65 -/- Agreement and Sympathy: On Metz’s Meaning in Life Sho Yamaguchi 66-89 -/- Metz’s Quest for the Holy Grail James Tartaglia 90-111 -/- Meaning without Ego Christopher Ketcham 112-133 -/- Death and the Meaning of Life: A Critical Study of Metz’s Meaning in Life Fumitake Yoshizawa 134-149 -/- Metz’ Incoherence Objection: Some Epistemological Considerations Nicholas Waghorn 150-168 -/- Meaning in Consequences Mark Wells 169-179 -/- Defending the Purpose Theory of Meaning in Life Jason Poettcker 180-207 -/- Review of Thaddeus Metz’s Meaning in Life Minao Kukita 208-214 -/- A Psychological Model to Determine Meaning in Life and Meaning of Life Yu Urata 215-227 -/- Assessing Lives, Giving Supernaturalism Its Due, and Capturing Naturalism: Reply to 13 Critics of Meaning in Life Thaddeus Metz 228-278 . (shrink)

Philosophers have not taken the evolution of human beings seriously enough. If they did, argues Peter Munz, many long-standing philosophical problems would be resolved. One of the philosophical consequences of biology is that all the knowledge produced in evolution is a priori established hypothetically by chance mutation and selective retention rather than by observation and intelligent induction. For organisms as embodied theories, selection is natural. For theories as disembodied organisms, it is artificial. Following Karl Popper, the growth of (...) knowledge is seen to be continuous from "the amoeba to Einstein." Philosophical Darwinism brings perspective to contemporary debates. It has far-reaching implications for cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and questions attempts from the field of biology to reduce mental events to neural processes. Most importantly, it provides a rational postmodern alternative to what the author views as the unreasonable postmodern theories of Kuhn, Lyotard, and Rorty. (shrink)

The profound changes in personality, mood, and other features of the self that neural interventions can induce can be disconcerting to patients, their families, and caregivers. In the neuroethical debate, these concerns are often addressed in the context of possible threats to the narrative self. In this paper, I argue that it is necessary to consider a dimension of impacts on the narrative self which has so far been neglected: neural interventions can lead to a loss of meaning of (...) actions, feelings, beliefs, and other intentional elements of our self-narratives. To uphold the coherence of the self-narrative, the changes induced by neural interventions need to be accounted for through explanations in intentional or biochemical terms. However, only an explanation including intentional states delivers the content to directly ascribe personal meaning, i.e., subjective value to events. Neural interventions can deprive events of meaning because they may favor a predominantly biochemical account. A loss of meaning is not inherently negative but it can be problematic, particularly if events are affected one was not prepared or willing to have stripped of meaning. The paper further examines what it is about neural interventions that impacts meaning by analyzing different methods. To which degree the pull towards a biochemical view occurs depends on the characteristics of the neural intervention. By comparing Deep Brain Stimulation, Prozac, Ritalin, psychedelics, and psychotherapy, the paper identifies some main factors: the rate of change, the transparency of the causal chain, the involvement of the patient, and the presence of an acute phenomenological experience. (shrink)

In the _Phaedrus_, Plato provides an intriguing dramatic detail immediately before Socrates's first speech. "I shall veil myself to speak," Socrates declares, "so that I may run through the speech as quickly as possible and may not be at a complete loss from a sense of shame as I look towards you." In this essay, I argue that Socrates's veiling illustrates how authors of dialogic literature about philosophical topics subtly use dramatic and literary details to suggest preferred philosophical (...) takeaways. (shrink)

Philosophers have not taken the evolution of human beings seriously enough. If they did, argues Peter Munz, many long standing philosophical problems would be resolved. One of philosophical concequences of biology is that all the knowledge produced in evolution is a priori, i.e., established hypothetically by chance mutation and selective retention, not by observation and intelligent induction. For organisms as embodied theories, selection is natural and for theories as disembodied organisms, it is artificial. Following Popper, the growth of (...) knowledge is seen to be continuous from the amoeba to Einstein'. Philosophical Darwinism throws a whole new light on many contemporary debates. It has damaging implications for cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and questions attempts from within biology to reduce mental events to neural processes. More importantly, it provides a rational postmodern alternative to what the author argues are the unreasonable postmodern fashions of Kuhn, Lyotard and Rorty. (shrink)

Philosophers have not taken the evolution of human beings seriously enough. If they did, argues Peter Munz, many long standing philosophical problems would be resolved. One of philosophical concequences of biology is that all the knowledge produced in evolution is a priori, i.e., established hypothetically by chance mutation and selective retention, not by observation and intelligent induction. For organisms as embodied theories, selection is natural and for theories as disembodied organisms, it is artificial. Following Popper, the growth of (...) knowledge is seen to be continuous from the amoeba to Einstein'. Philosophical Darwinism throws a whole new light on many contemporary debates. It has damaging implications for cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and questions attempts from within biology to reduce mental events to neural processes. More importantly, it provides a rational postmodern alternative to what the author argues are the unreasonable postmodern fashions of Kuhn, Lyotard and Rorty. (shrink)

Mind, Meaning, and Reality contains fifteen philosophical papers by D. H. Mellor. The first Part is about how the ways we are disposed to act fix both what we believe and what we use language to mean. Part II is about what there is: the reality of dispositions; what makes beliefs and sentences true; why there is only one universe; and how social groups, and other things composed of parts, are related to the people and other things that (...) constitute them. Part III is about time, and includes discussions of twentieth century developments in the philosophy of time; why Kant was right about tense, even though he was wrong about time; why forward time travel is trivial and backward time travel impossible; and what gives time its direction. (shrink)

The attempt to define meaning arouses numerous questions, such as whether life can be meaningful without actions devoted to a central purpose or whether the latter guarantee a meaningful life. Communities of inquiry are relevant in this context because they create relationships within and between people and the environment. The more they address relations—social, cognitive, emotional, etc.—that tie-in with the children’s world even if not in a concrete fashion, the more they enable young people to search for and find (...) meaning. Examining the way in which philosophical communities of inquiry serve as a dialogical space that enables a search for meaning on the personal and collective plane, this article seeks to expand the discussion of how/whether finding meaning on a private or communal level can promote recognition of the existential uniqueness of each individual and the development of a sense of responsibility for him or her. Grounded in the writings of Matthew Lipman, it links his ideas about finding meaning in philosophical communities of inquiry with those of Jean-Paul Sartre, Viktor Frankl, and Emmanuel Levinas, in particular with regard to the association between meaning and responsibility. (shrink)

For parents wanting their children to get a head start in reading, it can be a challenge to find something that will maintain their attention. Now, learning to read can become a fun and enter- taining thing to do with the help of an extraordinary cat. Join Cleo-cat-tra as she brings reading to life in the charming picture book Rhymes and Times with Cleo-cat-tra by Lucy T. Geringer and illustrated by Bernardita Cox Kollock. Rhymes and Times of Cleo-cat-tra is a (...) picture book about a special cat named Cleo-cat-tra. She is not an ordinary cat, as she cleverly rhymes about animals, people, and things she encounters inside and outside her house. The rhymes are silly which make learning a fun and creative pro- cess for kids and for parents to share. This delightful story makes use of colorful illustrations to heighten a child's imagination. Its simple text and brief sentences make reading easy for the early reader. It is also a great book for children who are learning English and can be enjoyed both at home and in school through lively interactive discussions between students and teachers. It is a book for all ages. (shrink)

African Philosophical Perspectives on the Meaning of Life The question of life’s meaning is a perennial one. It can be claimed that all other questions, whether philosophical, scientific, or religious, are attempts to offer some glimpse into the meaning—in this sense, purpose—of human existence. In philosophical circles, the question of life’s meaning has been given … Continue reading African Philosophical Perspectives on the Meaning of Life →.

Is there such a thing as philosophical nonsense? For the best part of a century now philosophers have been accusing each other of talking nonsense. This practice presupposes that people can be wrong in thinking they mean anything by what they say, that there can be an illusion of meaning. But the assumption that illusions of meaning are possible has not, the author believes, been seriously examined; nor has the problem of how such illusions could be diagnosed (...) been satisfactorily answered. This book extends the work of a number of recent writers on Wittgenstein who have advocated an 'austere' view of nonsense, but in a more sceptical direction than they have taken. It argues that nonsensicalism is radically misguided and should be abandoned. The possibility that illusions of meaning occur outside philosophy - in dreams, in certain hoaxes, in madness or under the influence of drugs - is also examined. IAN DEARDEN read philosophy at Downing College, Cambridge, and Bedford College, London. He taught philosophy at Bedford College, the City University, the Polytechnic of North London and the University of Essex, and also for the London University Department of Extra-Mural Studies. (shrink)

Hans Jonas’ “philosophical biology,” although developed several decades ago, is still fundamental to the contemporary reflection upon the meaning of life in a systems thinking perspective. Jonas, in fact, closely examines the reasons of modern science, and especially of Wiener’s Cybernetics and Bertalanffy’s General System Theory, and at the same time points out their basic limits, such as their having a reductionistic attitude to knowledge and ontology. In particular, the philosopher highlights the problematic consequences of scientific reductionism for (...) human nature. As the final result of an overall process of naturalization, the essence of the human being is reduced to its quantitative features only, while the “meaning” of life as such becomes no different from the “fact” of its material consistency. However, the problem is that by such a process, the human being is deprived of his specificity. (shrink)

What is the relation between later Wittgenstein’s method of dissolving philosophical problems by reminding us of how we would actually use words, and his famous statement that “meaning is use ” in Investigations §43? The idea is widespread among readers of Wittgenstein that a close relation obtains between the two. This paper addresses a specific type of answer to this question: answers which have drawn on remarks of Wittgenstein’s where he explicitly establishes a connection between this method and (...) certain misconceptions about meaning – remarks such as Investigations §117. The paper will discuss answers which have advanced the following claim: Since it is places such as §43 which play a main role in debunking misconceptions of this kind, Wittgenstein’s statement that “meaning is use” must be taken as directly related to the method of asking for the use of words. Drawing on so-called “therapeutic” readings of Wittgenstein, what I intend to show is that this seemingly straightforward answer fails to fully accommodate the fact that §43 is itself a reminder of how we would actually use a word. The paper sets out to show how truly acknowledging this forces us to rethink the relation between “meaning is use” and this method of Wittgenstein’s. (shrink)