Oxford Scholarly Classics is a new series that makes available again great academic works from the archives of Oxford University Press. Reissued in uniform series design, the reissues will enable libraries, scholars, and students to gain fresh access to some of the finest scholarship of the last century.

Papers from a conference held August 2010.

The Story of Oriental Philosophy by Lily Adams Beck offers insights into such Eastern scriptures as the Tibetan Book of the Dead, the teachings of Zen, and Indian sacred writing. Chapters include: The Aryan People of India and the teachings and lore of notable figures as Buddha, Shankara, Confucius, Lao-Tsu, Mencius and many others. The ancient wisdom of Asia awaits those seeking value in thought and knowledge. L. Adam Beck was one of the more well-known and popular novelists (...) and biographers in the 1920s. Beck's fascination with Asian culture and philosophy influenced her to write not only this book but several ""oriental fantasies"" of her era. (shrink)

Cette serie est destinee a regrouper des etudes thematiques faisant le point sur differents aspects de l'histoire ou de la culture syriaques, celles des communautes chretiennes dont la langue de culture est le syriaque (maronites, syriaques catholiques et orthodoxes, assyro-chaldeens, communautes du Proche-Orient et de l'Inde...). Cible de jugements malveillants pendant un siecle, la philosophie en syriaque a recemment ete l'objet d'un renouveau d'interet qui en a fait l'un des sujets les plus debattus dans les etudes syriaques. Les Syriaques ont (...) ete regardes dans le meilleur des cas comme de simples transmetteurs aux musulmans de la philosophie grecque, incapables d'une pensee philosophique originale. Si leur role crucial de vecteurs culturels n'est pas en question, ce volume se propose pourtant de montrer aussi la specificite des formes que la philosophie grecque a revetues en monde syriaque au long d'un millenaire, du iie au xiiie siecle. Des le debut, la selection des themes et textes philosophiques par les Syriaques temoigne d'une continuite avec les courants contemporains de l'Empire romain et d'une participation active aux debats qui y avaient cours. Un auteur syriaque comme Bardesane pouvait s'inserer avec originalite dans les controverses du monde imperial sur le determinisme et la providence. La traduction de textes grecs d'ethique et l'utilisation de textes de sagesse attribues aux philosophes grecs attestent un interet pour la philosophie comme " exercice spirituel ", partage par les auteurs chretiens de langue grecque et de langue syriaque, qui dans les memes annees s'interrogeaient sur la valeur de la paideia hellenique pour l'education du chretien. On pourrait donc parler pour ces premiers siecles d'une philosophie chretienne greco-syriaque. A partir du vie siecle, surtout par l'intermediaire des miaphysites, la logique aristotelicienne penetre en monde syriaque. La figure cle pour ce passage est Sergius de Res'ayna (m. 536), et encore une fois la continuite avec le monde grec marque cette entreprise : les commentaires aux uvres logiques d'Aristote ecrits par Sergius et ses successeurs, en particulier au monastere de Qennere, reprennent la structure des commentaires grecs produits a Alexandrie dans l'Antiquite tardive. Des le viiie siecle on assiste aussi au developpement de la logique parmi les elites ecclesiastiques syro-orientales. L'essor de la falsafa, la philosophie d'empreinte grecque en monde musulman, produit une rupture de cette continuite greco-syriaque. Les Syriaques, decisifs dans la transmission de la philosophie a l'Islam, ressentent de plus en plus l'influence de la falsafa. A la fin du premier millenaire, des auteurs chretiens de culture syriaque ecrivent des ouvrages philosophiques en arabe et participent a la phase formative de la falsafa ; au debut du deuxieme millenaire paraissent des ouvrages philosophiques qui, ecrits en syriaque, refletent les structures conceptuelles de la falsafa. C'est la naissance d'une philosophie syro-arabe, qui culmine dans l'uvre de Barhebraeus (xiiie siecle). Le volume s'enrichit de deux contributions bibliographiques qui fourniront au lecteur un panorama exhaustif des sources et des etudes qui ont ete consacrees a la philosophie en syriaque. (shrink)

Throughout the ancient society of China, we can find that from Qin and Han Dynasties to Ming and Qing Dynasties, the social nature, political structure and legal system of China did not change endlessly due to the change of dynasties. On the contrary, it was always in a stable state. This has to be attributed to the all-round and deep-seated influence of Confucianism on China society. Confucian culture had an important influence on the development of China's law in the (...) two thousand years after Qin and Han Dynasties. This influence gradually deepened, and eventually became the soul of China's ancient law, which dominated its development value orientation. Under the influence of Confucianism, China's legal culture has its own distinctive spiritual character and institutional characteristics. The theory of "goodness of nature" makes China's legal culture have the characteristics of "morality dominates punishment" and "courtesy for the country"; The thought of "people-oriented" makes China's legal culture have strong humanistic characteristics because of "leniency and caution" and "cherishing people's lives"; The idea of "cheap business" makes China's legal culture show obvious characteristics of public law culture in the field of private law. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Is "Chinese Philosophy" a Proper Name?A Response to Rein RaudCarine DefoortIn the preface to his Outline of the History of Chinese Philosophy, Hu Shi wrote: "Today, the two main branches of philosophy meet and influence each other. Whether or not in fifty years or one hundred a sort of world philosophy will finally arise cannot yet be ascertained."1 Although uncertain, Hu was still hopeful, since he believed that the (...) two major traditions of modern world philosophy, founded in Europe and China, had finally met. That was in 1919. Now, almost a century later, we can respond to Hu's speculation with relative certainty: a world philosophy has not arisen and is not on the rise. In fact, the situation is much worse: Chinese ancient thought is not even considered "philosophy" by most Western specialists in the field.For Feng Youlan, Hu's contemporary, this lack of recognition had become a major frustration by the end of his life. Feng earnestly felt that "parts of classical Chinese philosophy have a contribution to make to the elevating of man's spiritual sphere and in solving universal problems in human life."2 But on the last page of the last volume of his New Edition of the History of Chinese Philosophy, completed a few weeks before his death in November 1990, Feng concluded that Western philosophers had not even begun to consider ancient Chinese thought to be worthy of their attention: "Chinese traditional philosophy has always been regarded as a part of sinological studies and is considered as having no relation to philosophy."3 Feng's sentiment is still widely shared today; for instance, in the Yearbook of Chinese Philosophy for 2001, Zheng Jiadong remarks that "in the West, especially in Europe, the legitimacy of 'Chinese philosophy' has always been questioned; 'Chinese philosophy' [End Page 625] has to a large extent been considered a strange thing of questionable antecedents."4 Others confirm that "Chinese thinking has been all but excluded from the discipline of philosophy in Western seats of learning."5Indeed, various eminent European philosophers, such as Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Heidegger, and, more recently, Jacques Derrida on his visit to Shanghai in 2001,6 have proclaimed that ancient Chinese thought is not really philosophy. Kant, for example, stated that "Philosophy is not to be found in the whole Orient.... Their teacher Confucius teaches in his writings nothing outside a moral doctrine designed for the princes."7 Even sinology scholars sometimes wonder whether ancient Chinese thought ought to be labeled "philosophy."8 But more powerful than such explicit rejections of the legitimacy of "Chinese philosophy," which are nowadays relatively rare, is the dominant and implicit Western (especially European) view, embedded in the organization of academic conferences, journals, university curricula (as Feng Youlan remarked), and bookstores, that ancient China did not have philosophy. The average European bookstore, for instance, does not display the Laozi or Yijing on the "philosophy" shelf, but rather among various types of wisdom or practical knowledge, between Celtic myths, herbal medicine, and the art of astrology. However unobtrusive, this organizational given reveals more clearly and influentially than any contemporary scholar explicitly states, that the name "Chinese philosophy" for the Chinese masters and some Classics is not proper—or, to put it in ancient Chinese terms: this ming 名 is not zheng 正.9The twenty-first century, however, has seen strong indications of change, not in the sense that "Chinese philosophy" is now being generally accepted as one of the two main branches of world philosophy, as Hu Shi had hoped, but in the sense that the debate has been reopened, both in China and in the West. In China, the appropriateness of the label "Chinese philosophy" for ancient Chinese thought was questioned by some leading scholars in the first part of the twentieth century. But in the last decade the matter has been experienced as a crisis and challenge, and has been discussed much more broadly and vividly by Chinese academia: conferences are being dedicated to the question of the "legitimacy of 'Chinese philosophy"' (Zhongguo zhexue hefaxing 中国哲学的合法性), newspapers report on it, and some journals devote whole forums to it.10 About one hundred articles or chapters related... (shrink)

We are going to present a panorama of Byzantine Philosophy. As starting point should be considered the Patristic Thought, which preceded the Byzantine Philosophy and was established in the first centuries A.D. into the Greek-Roman world. It was based on the Old and New Testament, the apostolic teachings, as well as on Judaism and Greek Philosophy. Also, the Ancient Oriental Religions – especially those of the Greek-Roman period, i.e. the Gnosticism- exerted an influence on it. The Patristic Thought (...) and the Ancient Greek Philosophy were the two main pedestals of Byzantine Philosophy. But, we cannot separate completely Patristic thought from the Byzantine Philosophy, first because the Byzantine Philosophy used all the corpus of the preceded texts of the Church Fathers and second because the Patristic Thought was continued to the end of Byzantium in interaction with Byzantine Philosophy. When we use he term Byzantine Philosophy we refer to the ideological currents that flourished from the 9th century till the 15th in the geographical area of the Greek East. Its main task was the quest for truth from the metaphysical point of view. In this era we have not only commentaries and scholastic works, but also an assimilation of the previous philosophical and scientific developments in purpose of an interior evolution. The opposition to, and the use of, the Western scholasticism were also another two special characteristics of Byzantine Thought. The use of the logical works of Aristotle and the metaphysics of Plato made up its main theoretical body, always in relation to the Christian dogmas. The logical, metaphysical, cosmological, ethical, aesthetical and anthropological subjects were closely connected with the fixed Christian view of the World, God and Man. But despite the influence of the Christian religion and the Aristotelic, Platonic, Stoic, Neoplatonic etc. teachings, today we can arrive at the conclusion that from the ninth through the fifteen century a relative autonomy of Philosophy in Byzantium was emerged. Also, the Philosophical thought in Byzantium gave some new solutions to the old problems and dared sometimes to proceed in new rational, mystical or even empirical elaborations of original philosophical questions. (shrink)

This historical survey of Greek literature from 700 BC to 550 AD concentrates on the principal authors and quotes many passages from their work in translation, to allow the reader to form his own impression of its quality, including Homer, Plato, Aristophanes, and Euripides. Attention is drawn both to the elements in Greek literature and attitudes to life which are unfamiliar to us, and to the elements which appeal most powerfully to succeeding generations. Although it is recognized that this appeal (...) lies above all in the most creative and inventive period, an account is given of the eight hundred years which followed, which saw the impact of earlier inspirations. Poetry, tragedy, comedy, history, science, philosophy, and oratory are all examined through the available literature. This new edition has been revised to take account of recent scholarship, such as the influence of oriental traditions of Greek literature, and includes several new translations and a thoroughly updated bibliography. (shrink)

In 1759, at the height of the Seven Years' War, when Great Britain was suffering a series of military reversals, Montagu considered his country's plight in an historical context formed by the study of five ancient republics: Sparta, Athens, Thebes, Carthage, and Rome. Montagu's focus on the ancient republics gives his contribution a distinctive twist to the chorus of voices lamenting Britain's decline, and his analysis exerted influence in three momentous eighteenth-century crises: the Seven Years' War, the American (...) War of Independence, and the French Revolution. This is the first modern edition of Montagu's work. Edward Wortley Montagu (1713 -1776) was the son of a wealthy British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He was a student of oriental languages at the University of Leiden, which apparently proved useful during the peace negotiations at Aix-la-Chapelle which concluded the War of the Austrian Succession in 1748. David Womersley is the Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. He has published widely on English literature from the early sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. He is the editor of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (2012) for Cambridge University Press. (shrink)

Culture is the source of fostering the systems of philosophy, the philosophical ideologies/thoughts, and is the condition and material, the origin and condition for development of philosophy. A nation may have no its own system of philosophy, but cannot have no its own culture. Without its own culture, such nation cannot exist. Culture is the necessary conditions, requisites for existence of each nation in both aspects of the material and spiritual life. According to that meaning, culture is also the requisites (...) for the existence and development of the systems of philosophy. Different from the systems of scholarly philosophy in which the thinkers, scientists completely define and create the philosophies, the universals are commonly nameless, appear and exist in the different forms such as: folkverse, folk-speech, in the daily life, in architecture, etc... Cannot determine exactly the time of generating one certain universal, one specific philosophy. But can determine the author and the appearance time of one specific system of philosophy. Such philosophies, abundant and diverse universals have existed for a long time in the life of each national community, however they can exist only side by side, reflect the specific aspects, processes of the social life, but they cannot incorporate into a system of philosophy having an internal structure, a system of reasons/arguments. Their generalization level cannot be high and closely systematical like the systems of scholarly philosophy. The life reality of the nations shows the national cultures cannot be short of philosophies, universals because they are the orientations for their activities, communication and communication. The more and more a culture develops, the bigger and bigger quantity and depth of philosophies get. The farther and farther go towards the modernity, the bigger and bigger quantity, depth and polyhedral diversity of the entire philosophies become. The more and more go backward the ancient past, the smaller and smaller quantity, depth and polyhedral diversity of the entire philosophies become. The most important is that when the system of philosophies increases in both quantity and depth, the other factors in the national culture also develop in both width and depth according to the development orientation of system of philosophies, since how far philosophies develop and expand,they will pave the way, create the direction, form the patterns for actions, communication and activities in order to create new cultural value, new cultural environment, new cultural products. Another aspect in the relationship between culture and philosophy that relates to the philosophies in the national culture is the role of the philosophies for the systems of scholarly philosophy. Only a few nations have the systems of scholarly philosophy. The systems of philosophy are normally at the high argumentative level in comparison with the philosophies in the national culture. The systems of philosophy are also an important component of the national culture. Can say, the doctrines of the scholarly philosophy is the high-leveled crystallization at the high argumentative level presenting the world outlook and the outlook on life of the nation in that era which were refracted through the concrete philosophists’ prism. The philosophies in the national culture are the direct materials for forming the structure for all factors of the systems of scholarly philosophy. On another side, the philosophies can take part more or less by their contents of knowledge, way of thinking, and deduction... into the systems of philosophy in the form of archetype. On the other hand, many philosophies indirectly take part in the doctrines of the scholarly philosophy through influencing the philosophist’s thought, consciousness during the study process, throughthe life experience, through adopting the experiences of the other people, in order to take part into the system of the scholarly philosophy since such system appeared, formed, developed and was expressed to become the systematical argumentation. The national culture is the living environment of the systems of scholarly philosophy, is the place supplying food, drinking water, oxygen and sunlight to those systems of scholarly philosophy. Like fruit trees in the garden being planted in the national culture gardens, the fatter, the richer with appropriate temperature, humidity, light they are, the more they develop with the more fruit. The systems of scholarly philosophy are the products firstly of the national culture that were piled up, distilled and sublimed through talent of the awareness, meditation, skill and spirit combined with the other virtues of the philosophists who have created the systems of scholarly philosophy that were also sprouted, fostered in the national culture. Can say there is no national culture that developed to a certain degree, cannot have the systems of scholarly philosophy. Culture is the spiritual foundation of society, at the same times is the spiritual foundation of philosophy. Culture in the broad sense of the word is the foundation of the existence of the humankind, at the same time is the decisive foundation for the birth, existence, development and perdition of the systems of philosophy.Culture despite the broad sense of the word or the narrow meaning is regularly the motive force of the social development in general in which there is the development of philosophy. A nation without a developed culture cannot have the abundant, diverse philosophies, even cannot have the systems of philosophy. A nation may be enslaved for thousands years, but it has not lost, eliminated its own culture, then that nation can exist as an independent nation. The nations can borrow the systems of philosophy, but cannot borrow the philosophies, moreover cannot borrow the culture in general. That is the relative independence of philosophy with culture and the role of culture for philosophy. (shrink)

The research programme of the philosophy of information (PI) proposed in 2002 made it an independent area or discipline in philosophical research. The scientific concept of ‘information’ is formally accepted in philosophical inquiry. Hence a new and tool-driven philosophical discipline of PI with its interdisciplinary nature has been established. Philosophy of information is an ‘orientative’ rather than ‘cognitive’ philosophy. When PI is under consideration in the history of Western philosophy, it can be regarded as a shift of large tradition. There (...) are three large traditions at large, known as Platonic, Kantian and Leibniz-Russellian. In the discussion of the position of the possible worlds, we have modal Platonism and modal realism, but both of the theories are made in the framework of Western philosophy. In this essay, it is argued that possible worlds could be seen as worlds in information, which is then an interpretation of modal information theory (MIT). Our interpretation is made on the basis of Leibniz’s lifelong connection with China, a fact often overlooked by the Western philosophers. Possible world theory was influenced by the Neo-Confucianism flourishing since the Song Dynasty of China, the foundation of which is Yijing. It could be argued that Leibniz’s possible world theory was formulated in respect to the impact of the thoughts reflected in Yijing, in that one of the prominent features is the model-theoretic construction of theories. There are two approaches to theory construction, i.e., axiom-theoretic and model-theoretic. The origin of the former is from ancient Greece and the latter from ancient China. And they determined the different features of theoretic structures between the oriental and occidental traditions of science and technology. The tendency of the future development of science and technology is changing from the axiom-theoretic to the model-theoretic orientation, at least the two approaches being complementary each other. To some extent, this means the retrospective of tradition in the turning point of history, and some of the China’s cultural traditions might become the starting points in formulating the future Chinese philosophy of science and technology. (shrink)

From famous figures in the history of philosophy to questions in religious theology to the relationship between knowledge and power, The Handy Western Philosophy Answer Book: Ancient Greek to Its Influence on Philosophy Today takes the sometimes esoteric ideas and the jumble of names and makes them easy to understand, enriching readers' lives and answering the question "What do the ancient Greek philosophers have to teach us about contemporary culture?".

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Shape of Ancient ThoughtWill S. RasmussenThe Shape of Ancient Thought. By Thomas McEvilley. New York: Allworth Press, 2002. Pp. xxxvi + 732. $35.00.The Shape of Ancient Thought, Thomas McEvilley's magnum opus of over thirty years' preparation, draws together an encyclopedic array of texts and archaeological evidence from Greece and India, which he employs in clearly written arguments toward an answer to a volatile question: (...) just how indebted to each other are India and Greece for their philosophical ideas and techniques? The subject is volatile in that it often arouses the rancor of challenged claims to intellectual property or cultural superiority, and the author shows admirable sensitivity by arguing to his conclusions in a way that explicitly eschews the lesser motives of rivalry and self-aggrandizement; instead he promotes the appreciation of a passion and genius for philosophy that is shared equally in the East and the West. McEvilley has collected for his purposes a treasury of key passages from Greek and Indian philosophy, and this review will seek to give some idea of the vast scope of his work and to assess its contribution to our understanding of philosophy.In his Foreword McEvilley says that his book will challenge a dichotomy, which prevails in Western thinking, that divides the ancient world of thought into Greek and non-Greek. Greek thought is characterized as that which is rational, and non Greek thought as that which is irrational, antirational, or at least nonrational. He faults E. R. Dodds' The Greek and the Irrational for supporting this dichotomy, by which Orphism and even certain elements of Plato become assigned, solely by virtue of their nonrational character, to Oriental provenance. He condemns as "deeply and glaringly false" W.K.C. Guthrie's History of Greek Philosophy for disparaging the comparison of Indian and Greek philosophy on the grounds that their motives, methods, and background of thought are so utterly different. In such a spirit he undertakes to prove by argumentation and a "sea of evidence" the invalidity of so brusque a dismissal of Indian philosophy.The rest of the Foreword explores how the post-Enlightenment "Oriental Renaissance," that is, the discovery by nineteenth-century Europe of India as "the primal [End Page 182] font of wisdom," aroused troubling questions about racial and cultural superiority. McEvilley traces claims and counterclaims made by philologists, historians, philosophers, and art historians who asserted the hierarchical status of India relative to classical Greece as the source of Western culture. He shows how attitudes toward colonialism in India from the eighteenth century up to the present day have further fueled the politicization of scholarship about India. The scope of this controversy ranges from the view that in the second millennium B.C.E. white invaders called Aryans brought into India both Sanskrit and all that is of any cultural value there, to the view that the hypothesis of an Aryan invasion is a racist myth, that there was virtually no foreign intervention in Indian history, and that India was the origin of all the world's civilizations. He commends the attempts since World War II to approach afresh the question of intercultural influence between East and West, including the founding of Philosophy East and West in 1951, and he declares his own view, which forms the main thesis of the book, namely that there were "significant intrusions first from India to Greece in the pre-Socratic period, and then from Greece back to India in the Hellenistic period" (p. xxxi).In chapter 1 McEvilley presents archaeological evidence from as early as the middle of the third millennium B.C.E. of trade between the Near East and India, and between the Near East and Greece. He argues for "full East-West transport of goods" through the intermediary of the Near East around 1500 to 1300 B.C.E. (p. 4). He argues that by the seventh century B.C.E. the activity of Phoenician merchants and the Persian conquests eastward and westward facilitated the transmission of ideas between the Near East and Greece via the "diffusion channels" of merchants, artisans, mercenaries, philosophers, physicians, and seers. He argues for similar diffusion channels between the... (shrink)

Did Chinese mysticism vanish after its first appearance in ancient Taoist philosophy, to surface only after a thousand years had passed, when the Chinese had adapted Buddhism to their own culture? This first integrated survey of the mystical dimension of Taoism disputes the commonly accepted idea of such a hiatus. Covering the period from the Daode jing to the end of the Tang, Livia Kohn reveals an often misunderstood Chinese mystical tradition that continued through the ages. Influenced by but (...) ultimately independent of Buddhism, it took forms more various than the quietistic withdrawal of Laozi or the sudden enlightenment of the Chan Buddhists. On the basis of a new theoretical evaluation of mysticism, this study analyzes the relationship between philosophical and religious Taoism and between Buddhism and the native Chinese tradition. Kohn shows how the quietistic and socially oriented Daode jing was combined with the ecstatic and individualistic mysticism of the Zhuangzi, with immortality beliefs and practices, and with Buddhist insight meditation, mind analysis, and doctrines of karma and retribution. She goes on to demonstrate that Chinese mysticism, a complex synthesis by the late Six Dynasties, reached its zenith in the Tang, laying the foundations for later developments in the Song traditions of Inner Alchemy, Chan Buddhism, and Neo-Confucianism. (shrink)

English summary: Questions about the origins and reality of good and evil and about their mutual relationship play a central part in the history of philosophy and religion from their very beginning. Giving answers to these questions had a decisive influence on how the world and its civilization(s) as well as human beings and their ethics were perceived in their relations to higher beings (god or gods). The contributions within this conference volume illustrate which concepts regarding these questions were developed (...) in ancient civilizations around the Mediterranean, from the early literatures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, Iran and Greece to biblical, Qumranic and ancient Christian texts as well as the writings of the Manichaeans and the Quran. Thus this volume gives a representative overview of the responses of the ancient world to one of the fundamental questions of mankind. German description: Die Frage nach Herkunft und Wirklichkeit des Guten und des Bosen sowie nach ihrem Verhaltnis zueinander hat in der Philosophie- und Religionsgeschichte von Anfang an eine zentrale Rolle gespielt. Ihre Beantwortung hatte entscheidenden Einfluss darauf, wie man Welt und Kultur, Mensch und Ethik in der Beziehung zu Gott bzw. den Gottern wahrnahm. Die Beitrage des Konferenzbandes stellen dar, welche Auffassungen hierzu in Altertum und Antike entwickelt wurden. Dabei reicht der Bogen von den fruhen Literaturen aus Agypten und Mesopotamien, Iran und Griechenland uber biblische, qumranische und antik-christliche Texte bis zu dem Werk Manis und dem Koran. So vermittelt der Band einen reprasentativen Eindruck von den Antworten der alten Welt auf eine Lebensfrage der Menschheit. Mit Beitragen von: Wilhelm Blumer, Devorah Dimant, Jan Dochhorn, Therese Fuhrer, Philip Kreyenbroek, Catherine Mittermeyer, Angelika Neuwirth, Bernd Schipper, Konrad Schmid, Markus Stein, Martin Tamcke, Ulrich Volp. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine: The Ideas, Intellectual Context, and Influence of Petrus Severinus (1540–1602)Dane T. DanielJole Shackelford. A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine: The Ideas, Intellectual Context, and Influence of Petrus Severinus (1540–1602). Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2004. Pp. 519. Cloth, $83.00.The Paracelsian and Danish royal physician Petrus Severinus complained, "If we can make more potent [drugs], extracted from metals and minerals,... I ask, what age (...) except this one will oppose our efforts?" (115). Indeed, early modern attempts to prepare and prescribe drugs forged in the alchemical laboratory often faced vehement opposition by the university-trained physicians who were weaned on the humoral theory and herbal materia medica of Galen. The orthodox Galenists disdained not only the "chemical poisons" of the Paracelsians, but also their theoretical speculations. After all, the Paracelsians dismissed the belief that disease was the result of humoral imbalances, and promoted both the analogy of microcosm (the human) and macrocosm (the natural world, including the stars), and the idea that diseases were essences or actual beings.Severinus was prescient in his prediction that chemical medicine would become popular, but—as Jole Shackelford notes in the introduction to his A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine—the concepts of Paracelsus and his followers continue to remain peripheral to the grand narratives of early modern intellectual history. This remains the case despite the illuminating studies of such scholars as the late-Enlightenment medical historian Kurt Polycarp Sprengel, Walter Pagel, and Allen Debus. Thus, Shackelford sheds much needed light on this significant strand of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century science and medicine. Via text-oriented study, particularly of Severinus's Idea medicinæ philosophicæ (Ideal of Philosophical Medicine), Shackelford provides a long-awaited and meticulous biographical account of Severinus and explains with refreshing clarity the sources and speculative theory behind his brand of chemical medicine. Like such recent scholars as Michael Walton and Charles Gunnoe, Shackelford presents Paracelsianism as an ideology, duly noting that the ideas of Severinus, reflecting the reception of Paracelsus in general, were frequently accepted or rejected on religious grounds.To begin, Shackelford establishes Severinus's importance, noting that the medical author and Wittenberg professor Daniel Sennert wrote in 1619 that most iatrochemists followed in the steps of Severinus, who had molded Paracelsus's ideas into a coherent philosophy. Shackelford then traces the story of how Severinus—after studying at such universities as Padua and Paris—joined his friend Pratensis (a recognized Paracelsian) and Tycho [End Page 488] Brahe in bringing an increasingly eclectic Denmark up to continental cultural and intellectual standards. Unfortunately, Severinus's appointment as physician to the king distracted him from completing most of his research projects, but he had already left for posterity his Idea medicinæ, published in 1571.As Shackelford writes, the Idea medicinæ promoted Severinus's belief that Paracelsian medicine was not only an alternative to humoral medicine, but also promised to cope better with "new" fevers. Also, Severinus invested Paracelsianism with authority by emphasizing its ancient forebears and by arguing that Paracelsus was the latest in the line of prisca theologia—one of the few to "ascend to the inner chambers of the Mosaic mysteries" (57). In his amalgamation of Neoplatonism, the Hippocratic tradition, and Paracelsus, Severinus's featured doctrine was efficient causation, or "semina theory." Unlike Robert Boyle's inertial, material corpuscles and their active principles, Severinus's semina were "intrinsically formal and immaterial, and were logically and ontologically prior to matter" (17). The characteristics of these "loci," which accounted for all change in the subvisible world, could be observed through chemical analysis, and they were uniquely attractive to Christians, who were drawn to Severinus's Paracelsian interpretation of Genesis and his idea that when the predestinations contained in the semina are completed, the world will reach its end.Shackelford engages the reader with such fascinating topics as why Tycho—who was not just an astronomer, but also a student of alchemy—departed Denmark, and how Paracelsians were involved in the effort to improve the Danish Bible by "cleansing" it of non-Lutheran elements. Very welcome too is Shackelford's discussion of the neglected topic of Paracelsian therapeutics, especially his evaluation of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Justice and the General Will:Affirming Rousseau's Ancient OrientationDavid Lay WilliamsThere is much confusion about how to characterize the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His thought has at various times been related to such dissimilar thinkers as Plato and Hobbes. From Plato he is said to have acquired his affinities for community and civic virtue. And one does not have to look too hard to find his praise for the (...) great sage of the Academy: "Plato only purified the heart of man."1 He was often eager to affiliate his ideas with those of antiquity. He yearned for modern society to rekindle the flames of a once-great civilization. "[W]hat keeps us [the moderns] from being men like them [the ancients]? Our prejudices, our base philosophy, and the passions of petty self-interest, concentrated together with egoism in all hearts by inept institutions in which genius never had any share."2 Despite his obvious admiration for the perceived greater ideas of the past, however, Rousseau also expressed some skepticism. James Miller has suggested that he held Plato's theory of the Forms to be unsustainable.3 Allan Bloom has likewise argued that Rousseau's "teaching is not... a revival of those of Plato.... If he admires the practice of antiquity, he does not accept the theory."4This has led many to argue that Rousseau is best understood as student of Thomas Hobbes. Roger D. Masters, for example, has suggested that "Rousseau's principles of political right can... be best described as a reformulation [End Page 383] of Hobbes' conception of the social contract."5 Arthur Melzer also argues, "The purpose of the doctrine Rousseau elaborates in the Social Contract is essentially the same [as Hobbes']."6 This view is argued on the grounds that the General Will is a positive or arbitrary standard, functioning as the primary principle of Rousseau's constructive political program. Yet the vision of Rousseau as a Hobbesian or modernist also merits skepticism. While he employs a social contract, as does Hobbes, he explicitly rejects traditional forms of positivism. "What is good and conformable to order is so by the nature of things and independently of human conventions."7 Whatever one might say about such passages, it at least raises the possibility that Rousseau is no modernist in the Straussian sense of defining Justice as human agreement.Much of what contributes to the conflicting interpretations of Rousseau can be attributed to different understandings of the relative priority and relationship of two central concepts in his writings. One of these is the well-discussed notion of the General Will. The dominant fashion is to read the General Will as a conventional substitute for natural law or transcendent Ideas. According to this reading, the General Will is grounded on nothing more than consent and functions as the first principle of all legitimate political societies. The other term central to Rousseau's program is the far less discussed but equally important concept of Justice. Little has been written on his understanding of Justice and, for that matter, he himself rarely discussed it explicitly. But it, too, could also be considered a primary principle. While it would be foolish to dismiss the importance of the General Will to Rousseau, it would be equally problematic to explore it independently of his Idea of Justice. The question in understanding his work is which of these two principles—the General Will or Justice—is primary or fundamental. If it is the General Will, a case can be made that the Straussians are right, and Rousseau is a positivist. If Justice is prior, on the other hand, then there is reason to believe that he was something much different.I argue that the positivist reading of Rousseau is flawed. Indeed, my thesis is that he is among the greatest and most thorough Platonists of the modern era.8 His rejection of Hobbes is not merely rhetorical. In fact, it represents the [End Page 384] true impetus of his social contract. This contract is designed explicitly to counter Hobbesian positivism. In the same way that Plato responds to Protagoras' positivism with his theory of the Forms, Rousseau responds to Hobbes... (shrink)

Philosophy is the soul of art, and art is great because of philosophy. All kinds of philosophical thoughts seep into artists' minds like water flooding the beach, affecting their world outlook and outlook on life, and providing theoretical guidance for their artistic creation from aesthetic thoughts to creative methods. Beethoven used musical language to express the deepest worries in the hearts of the advanced people of his time. This paper attempts to explore the internal development law of art philosophy from (...) the perspectives of the orientation of art philosophy, the aesthetic construction of "meaningful form" and "poetic dwelling" of art philosophy, the thinking of the final conclusion of art philosophy, the development destination of art philosophy, and the integration and development. In the long history of art development, the form and function of art are constantly changing. Philosophy provides a continuous source of creative ideas for art and works of art often show profound philosophical views. Kant's lofty aesthetic concept affects the infinite emotional capacity in Beethoven's music. However, the expression of the ubiquitous contradictions and conflicts in Beethoven's music is also deeply influenced by Kant's view of nature. In Beethoven's view, the development of the universe is similar to a person's mental journey, and its essence is also a large symphony or sonata. (shrink)

Stolen Legacy by George G.M. James refutes the Euro-centric myth that the origin of Western philosophy is Greek. First published in 1954, this book was seminal in leading to a radical reappraisal of a philosophical system long thought to be of European origin. It is an essential work in the syllabus for the study of Western philosophy.

The formation and development of any architectural form and system has its own historical and cultural background. The ancient Chinese architectural system has a long history and characteristics inseparable from the historical development of Chinese traditional philosophy. Chinese philosophy, as a theory of human self-consciousness, does not give knowledge, but mainly gives ideas and ways of thinking for the needs of human self-development; At the same time, ancient Chinese architecture became a physical object reflecting the idea of traditional (...) Chinese philosophy. Therefore, in order to explore ancient Chinese architecture, it is necessary to analyze and study it from the point of view of traditional Chinese philosophy. Like Confucius' thoughts on etiquette, the idea of the "doctrine of the middle" and the concept of hierarchical division; These ideas had a profound influence on ancient Chinese architecture, including urban planning, traditional dwellings, the environment, Lao Tzu's desire for harmony and unity between man and nature, worship of the gods, etc., as well as the theory that emerged later "Feng Shui", etc. temple space and garden architecture in the south of the Yangtze River. This article is devoted to the analysis of the influence of Confucianism and Taoism on the general principle of designing spaces of ancient Chinese architecture. The article selects some typical examples of ancient Chinese architecture for analysis. The following principles are manifested in the design of spaces of Chinese architecture under the influence of Confucianism and Taoism: moderation of living space; the principle of symmetry, balance and coordination; architectural hierarchy formed on the basis of the needs of "rituals"; integration of architecture and the environment; design of spaces according to "Feng Shui". (shrink)

Shows how Deleuze’s engagement with Stoicism produced many of his most singular and powerful ideas -/- Reveals a lasting influence on Gilles Deleuze by mapping his provocative reading of ancient Stoicism Unearths new possibilities for bridging contemporary philosophy and classics by engaging a vital yet recently rising area of scholarship: continental philosophy’s relationship to ancient philosophy Introduces the untranslated Stoic scholarship published by pre- and post-Deleuzian French philosophers of antiquity to the English-reading world -/- Deleuze dramatises the story (...) of ancient philosophy as a rivalry of four types of thinkers: the subverting pre-Socratics, the ascending Plato, the interiorising Aristotle and the perverting Stoics. Deleuze assigns the Stoics a privileged place because they introduced a new orientation for thinking and living that turns the whole story of philosophy inside out. -/- Ryan J. Johnson reveals Deleuze’s provocative reading of ancient Stoicism produced many of his most singular and powerful ideas. For Deleuze, the Stoics were innovators of an entire system of philosophy which they structured like an egg. Johnson structures his book in this way: Part I looks at physics (the yolk), Part II is logic (the shell) and Part III covers ethics (the albumen). Including previously untranslated French Stoic scholarship, Johnson unearths new possibilities for bridging contemporary and ancient philosophy. (shrink)

Objects generate time; time does not generate or change objects. That is the central thesis of this book by the philosopher Graham Harman and the archaeologist Christopher Witmore, who defend radical positions in their respective fields. Against a current and pervasive conviction that reality consists of an unceasing flux-a view associated in philosophy with New Materialism-object-oriented ontology asserts that objects of all varieties are the bedrock of reality from which time emerges. And against the narrative convictions of time as the (...) course of historical events, the objects and encounters associated with archaeology push back against the very temporal delimitations which defined the field and its objects ever since its professionalization in the nineteenth century. In a study ranging from the ruins of ancient Corinth, Mycenae, and Troy to debates over time from Aristotle and al-Ash'ari through Henri Bergson and Alfred North Whitehead, the authors draw on alternative conceptions of time as retroactive, percolating, topological, cyclical, and generational, as consisting of countercurrents or of a surface tension between objects and their own qualities. Objects Untimely invites us to reconsider the modern notion of objects as inert matter serving as a receptacle for human categories"-. (shrink)

This book brings together twenty articles giving a comprehensive view of the work of the Aristotelian commentators.... The importance of the commentators is partly that they represent the thought and classroom teaching of the Aristotelian and Neoplatonist schools and partly that they provide a panorama of a thousand years of anicient Greek philosophy, revealing many original quotations from lost works. Even more significant is the profound influence... that they exert on later philosophy, Islamic and Western. Not only did they preserve (...) anti-Aristotelian marterial which helped inspire Medieval and Renaissance science, but they presented Aristotle in a form that made him acceptable to the Christian Church. It is not Aristotle, but Aristotle transformed and embedded in the philosophy of the commentators, that so often lies behind the views of later thinkers. --From book jacket. (shrink)

Ancient philosophers from an otherwise diverse range of traditions were connected by their shared use of aporia - translated as puzzlement rooted in conflicts of reasons - as a core tool in philosophical enquiry. The essays in this volume provide the first comprehensive study of aporetic methodology among numerous major figures and influential schools, including the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Academic sceptics, Pyrrhonian sceptics, Plotinus and Damascius. They explore the differences and similarities in these philosophers' approaches (...) to the source, structure, and aim of aporia, their views on its function and value, and ideas about the proper means of generating such a state among thinkers who were often otherwise opposed in their overall philosophical orientation. Discussing issues of method, dialectic, and knowledge, the volume will appeal to those interested in ancient philosophy and in philosophical enquiry more generally. (shrink)

Since it implies a reduction in the quality and the quantity of the natural resources, environmental degradation is a present day problem that requires immediate solutions. This situation is driving firms to undertake an environmental transformation process with the purpose of reducing the negative externalities that come from their economic activities. Within this context, environmental marketing is an emerging business philosophy by which organizations can address sustainability issues. Moreover, environmental marketing and orientation are seen as valuable strategies to improve a (...) firm's competitiveness. However, the literature that has analyzed the link between environmental strategies and firms' results has been inconclusive and contradictory. In this study, we propose and test a model that analyses how the implementation of ecological issues within a firm's marketing strategy and orientation influences organizational results. Data were obtained through a survey sent to Spanish manufacturing firms. The results show that environmental marketing positively affects firms' operational and commercial performance and this improvement will influence their economic results. Moreover, environmental marketing is revealed as an excellent strategy to obtain competitive advantages in costs and in product differentiation. Thus, this study agrees with the researchers who affirm that environmental strategies positively affect firm's competitiveness while reducing environmental impact. (shrink)

US conservatives have repeatedly turned to classical Greece for inspiration and rhetorical power. In the 1950s they used Plato to defend moral absolutism; in the 1960s it was Aristotle as a means to develop a uniquely conservative social science; and then Thucydides helped to justify a more assertive foreign policy in the 1990s. By tracing this phenomenon and analysing these, and various other, examples of selectivity, subversion and adaptation within their broader social and political contexts, John Bloxham here employs classical (...) thought as a prism through which to explore competing strands in American conservatism. From the early years of the Cold War to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Bloxham illuminates the depth of conservatives' engagement with Greece, the singular flexibility of Greek ideas and the varied and diverse ways that Greek thought has reinforced and invigorated conservatism. This innovative work of reception studies offers a richer understanding of the American Right and is important reading for classicists, modern US historians and political scientists alike. (shrink)

"Hegel's debts to ancient philosophy are widely acknowledged by scholars, and by the philosopher himself. Roughly half of his Lectures on the History of Philosophy is devoted to ancient philosophy, and throughout his work Hegel frequently frames his positions in relation to the thinkers and movements of antiquity. This volume presents original essays from leading scholars dealing with Hegel's debts to ancient thinkers, as well as his own, often problematic readings of ancient philosophy. While around half (...) of the chapters discuss Hegel's treatment of Aristotle--a topic that has long been at the forefront of scholarship--the other half explore his relationship to such ancient figures as Xenophanes, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Sextus Empiricus, and the Stoics. The essays challenge a number of longstanding scholarly assumptions regarding, for example, Hegel's denigration of the "mythical," his developmentalist approach to ancient thought, his conception of the state in relation to the Greek polis, his "hermeneutic" of the Platonic dialogues, and his use of Aristotelian concepts in arguments concerning the psyche, the body, and their unity and distinction.?"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

The influence of East on West - of Eastern ideas on Western thought - has become an increasingly vexed issue in recent times. Opinion is divided between two main schools: those who believe that Oriental ideas have exercised a considerable influence on Western thought, and those who, for a variety of reasons, believe that such influence has remained negligible.In this Reader A. L. Macfie suggests that the reality lies somewhere between these two extremes, and that the interest taken by (...) Western thinkers in Eastern thought in the modern period has moved from one of passing interest, through serious attention, to some level of assimilation and acceptance.Eastern Influences on Western Philosophy explores the extent of Oriental influence on European thought, primarily in the period of the Enlightenment and the nineteenth-century period of doubt and scepticism that followed it. As such it is the first Reader to bring together in one place a series of specific historical and textual studies of Oriental influence upon European thinkers. Starting with Malebranche and ending with Heidegger, other Western thinkers considered include Leibniz, Voltaire, Hume, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Emerson, Thoreau, Nietzsche, Jung and Buber.To accompany the readings the editor's introduction explores the idea of influence in the context of the chosen readings, and at the same time raises the question of how far Edwards Said's thesis regarding Orientalism actually applies to Western thought.Key Features:* Reflects increasing interest in relationship between Eastern and Western Philosophy* Covers major European figures from the 18th and 19th centuries and the way Eastern thought influenced them* Substantial editorial introduction places readings in context and explores the influence of the East on the West* Previous work by editor praised for its accessibility. (shrink)

Ancient philosophers from an otherwise diverse range of traditions were connected by their shared use of aporia - translated as puzzlement rooted in conflicts of reasons - as a core tool in philosophical enquiry. The essays in this volume provide the first comprehensive study of aporetic methodology among numerous major figures and influential schools, including the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, Plutarch, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Academic sceptics, Pyrrhonian sceptics, Plotinus and Damascius. They explore the differences and similarities in these philosophers' approaches (...) to the source, structure, and aim of aporia, their views on its function and value, and ideas about the proper means of generating such a state among thinkers who were often otherwise opposed in their overall philosophical orientation. Discussing issues of method, dialectic, and knowledge, the volume will appeal to those interested in ancient philosophy and in philosophical enquiry more generally. (shrink)

This paper examines the effects of moral philosophy and ethnocentrism on quality of life orientation in international marketing. It also provides a cross-cultural comparison of ethical values between Koreans and Americans. International quality-of-life (IQOL) orientation refers to marketers' disposition to make decisions to enhance the well-being of consumers in foreign markets while preserving the well-being of other stakeholders. It is hypothesized that marketers' moral philosophy and ethnocentrism influence the development of marketers' IQOL. Specifically, the higher the IQOL orientation of international (...) managers, the higher their moral idealism, the higher their moral relativism, and the lower their ethnocentrism. Also, it is hypothesized that American managers are likely to score higher on moral relativism but lower on moral idealism compared to their Korean counterparts. Also, Korean managers are expected to be more ethnocentric than American managers. Data were collected from business professionals who enrolled in professional MBA courses both from the U.S. and Korea. The results provided support for the hypothesized relationships. Managerial implications of these relationships are discussed. (shrink)

At a time when professional art criticism is on the wane, the ancient quarrel between art and philosophy demands fresh answers. Professional art criticism provided a basis upon which to distinguish apt experiences of art from the idiosyncratic. However, currently the kind of narratives from which critics once drew are underplayed or discarded in contemporary exhibition design where the visual arts are concerned. This leaves open the possibility that art operates either as mere stimulant to private reverie or, in (...) the more contentful cases, as propaganda. The ancient quarrel between art and philosophy is that art influences surreptitiously while philosophy presents reasons that invite rational scrutiny. As such, in contrast to philosophy, art would undermine our agency. In July 2017, a group of philosophers gathered at the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW), in Sydney, Australia, in the presence of two AGNSW curators to explore the basis of their own experiences of selected artworks. Here, those commentaries are reproduced. Each reveal that objective grounds for an experience of art can be based in the community from which one draws one’s terms of reference. In our commentaries we see the expertise of the respective philosophical communities but other communities of culture or expertise might serve the same purpose and hence resolve the ancient quarrel. Before hearing these commentaries, I explain what is at stake when the ancient quarrel between art and philosophy is understood in contemporary terms. This Issue of the Curator also includes an article on the community-based art criticism that emerges from these commentaries followed by an exhibition review which reveals the incorrigible impulse (also demonstrated in the commentaries) to find the basis for the most apt experience of an artwork. A response by the AGNSW curators completes this issue. (shrink)

Method in Ancient Philosophy brings together fifteen new, specially written essays by leading scholars on a broad subject of central importance. The ancient Greeks recognized that different forms of human activity are guided by different methods of reasoning; examination of how they reasoned, and how they thought about their own reasoning, helps us to see how they came to hold the views they did, and how our own methods of enquiry have developed under their influence. Contributors include Terence (...) Irwin, Patricia Curd, Ian Mueller, Robert Bolton, A.A. Long, Gail Fine, Constance C. Meinwald, Lesley Brown, Gisela Striker, C.D.C. Reeve, Charlotte Witt, Richard Kraut, Sarah Broadie, James Allen, and G.E.R. Lloyd. (shrink)

This paper examines the effects of moral philosophy and ethnocentrism on quality of life orientation in international marketing. It also provides a cross-cultural comparison of ethical values between Koreans and Americans. International quality-of-life (IQOL) orientation refers to marketers' disposition to make decisions to enhance the well-being of consumers in foreign markets while preserving the well-being of other stakeholders. It is hypothesized that marketers' moral philosophy and ethnocentrism influence the development of marketers' IQOL. Specifically, the higher the IQOL orientation of international (...) managers, the higher their moral idealism, the higher their moral relativism, and the lower their ethnocentrism. Also, it is hypothesized that American managers are likely to score higher on moral relativism but lower on moral idealism compared to their Korean counterparts. Also, Korean managers are expected to be more ethnocentric than American managers. Data were collected from business professionals who enrolled in professional MBA courses both from the U.S. and Korea. The results provided support for the hypothesized relationships. Managerial implications of these relationships are discussed. (shrink)

This is the first book to analyze systematically crucial aspects of ancient Greek philosophy in their original context of mystery, religion, and magic. The author brings to light recently uncovered evidence about ancient Pythagoreanism and its influence on Plato, and reconstructs the fascinating esoteric transmission of Pythagorean ideas from the Greek West down to the alchemists and magicians of Egypt, and from there into the world of Islam.

This book explores the pervasiveness of poetry's impact on philosophy and, conversely, how philosophy has sometimes resisted or denied poetry's influence.