This book offers a detailed account of the importance of psychoanalysis in Derrida's thought. Based on close readings of texts from the whole of his career, including less well-known and previously unpublished material, it sheds new light on the crucial role of psychoanalysis in shaping Derrida's response to a number of key questions. These questions range from the psyche's relationship to technology to the role of fiction and metaphor in scientific discourse, from the relationship between memory and the archive to (...) the status of the political in deconstruction. Focusing on Freud but proposing new readings of texts by Lacan, Torok and Abraham, Laplanche and Pontalis, amongst other seminal figures in contemporary French thought, the book argues that Derrida's writings on psychoanalysis can also provide an important bridge between deconstruction and the recent materialist turn in the humanities. Challenging a still prevalent 'textualist' reading of Derrida's work, it explores the ongoing contribution of deconstruction and psychoanalysis to pressing issues in critical thought today, from the localizing models of the neurosciences and the omnipresence of digital technology to the politics of affect in an age of terror. (shrink)

Religion and science dialogues that orbit around rational method, knowledge, and truth are often, though not always, contentious. In this article, I suggest a different cluster of gravitational points around which religion and science dialogues might usefully travel: philosophical anthropology, ethics, and love. I propose seeing morality as a natural outgrowth of the human desire to establish and maintain social bonds so as not to experience the condition of being alone. Humans, of all animals, need to feel loved—defined as a (...) compassionate present-with in dynamic dyadic relation such that one experiences the sense of mattering—but that need has an equally natural tendency to be met by creating biased us-and-them distinctions. A “critical” natural ethics, then, is one in which we become aware of and work to undermine our tendency to reify in-group distinctions between “us” and “them.” Religious communities that work intentionally on this can be seen, to some extent, as laboratories of love—or as sites for co-creating knowledge in perilous times. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION OCKHAM'S LIFE AND THE DATE OF THE TREATISE William Ockham, a highly influential philosopher of the fourteenth century and one of the most ...

Abstract:Although best known to English-speaking readers as the general editor of the Dictionary of Untranslatables, the work of French philologist and philosopher Barbara Cassin is eclectic, encompassing literary studies, ancient philosophy, rhetoric, translation theory, psychoanalysis, politics, and more. From Presocratic philosophy to more recent reflections on Big Tech and democracy, Cassin's work is rooted in "sophistics," an approach that emphasizes the primacy of language in shaping our interactions with the world. Situating this sophistical approach vis-à-vis classical philology (Bollack) and the (...) philosophical tradition (Heidegger, Derrida), this essay explores the contribution of "sophistical reading" to our understanding of philosophical and literary texts. Showing how Cassin uses rhetorical theory to problematize any simple opposition of the latter, the essay concludes with a critical evaluation of Cassin's reading of Helen, Euripides' most sophistical play. (shrink)

This article presents evidence supporting the claim that ethical reasoning is a skill that can be taught and assessed. We propose a working definition of ethical reasoning as 1) the ability to identify, analyze, and weigh moral aspects of a particular situation, and 2) to make decisions that are informed and warranted by the moral investigation. The evidence consists of a description of an ethical reasoning education program—Ethical Reasoning in Action —designed to increase ethical reasoning skills in a variety of (...) situations and areas of life. ERiA is housed at a public, major comprehensive U.S. university—James Madison University—and assessment of the program focuses on interventions delivered prior to and during orientation for incoming first-year students. Findings indicate that the interventions measurably enhance the ability of undergraduate students to reason ethically. ERiA’s competency-targeted program and positive student learning outcomes offers a promising model for higher education ethics programs seeking to connect classroom learning in ethics to decision-making in everyday life. (shrink)

Arthur Norman Prior's early theological writings have been relatively neglected for many years. Moreover, to the extent that they have been discussed at all they have been treated mainly as youthful work quite separate from Prior's later work as a philosopher and logician. However, as interest in Prior's achievements has been growing significantly in recent years it has become more important to investigate the development with his overall work. In fact, Prior's putatively "youthful" theological work overlapped his work as (...) a philosopher and logician for many years, as is richly documented by examples discussed in this paper. A particularly important theme is the problem of predestination. This paper presents comprehensive evidence that this theme, which was Prior's most important single preoccupation as a theological writer, was a most important source of inspiration for his development of tense logic. Via questions regarding divine foreknowledge and human free will, predestination was to motivate Prior as a logician to focus on time and tense. Whilst investigating this development, the paper also traces Prior's parallel development from Calvinist Christian believer to a more agnostic position. (shrink)

Background While it is generally acknowledged that self-prescribing among physicians poses some risk, research finds such behaviour to be common and in certain cases accepted by the medical community. Largely absent from the literature is knowledge about other activities doctors perform for their own medical care or for the informal treatment of family and friends. This study examined the variety, frequency and association of behaviours doctors report providing informally. Informal care included prescriptions, as well as any other type of personal (...) medical treatment (eg, monitoring chronic or serious conditions). Method A survey was sent to 2500 randomly-selected physicians in Colorado, 600 individuals returned questionnaires with usable data. The authors hypothesised: (1) physicians would prescribe the same types of treatment at home as they prescribed professionally; and (2) physicians who informally prescribed addictive medications would be more likely to engage in other types of informal medical care. Results Physicians who wrote prescriptions for antibiotics, psychotropics and opioids at work were more likely to prescribe these medications at home. Those prescribing addictive drugs outside of the office treated more serious illnesses in emergency situations, more chronic conditions and more major medical/surgical conditions informally than did those not routinely prescribing addictive medications. Physicians reported a variety of informal care behaviour and high frequency of informal care to family and friends. Discussion The frequency and variety of informal care reported in this study strongly argues for profession-wide discussion about ethical and guideline considerations for such behaviour. These areas are discussed in the paper. (shrink)

Volume 4 of’ “The Early Works” series covers the period of Dewey’s last year and one-half at the University of Michigan and his first half-year at the University of Chicago. In addition to sixteen articles the present volume contains Dewey’s reviews of six books and three articles, verbatim reports of three oral statements made by Dewey, and a full-length book, The Study of Ethics. Like its predecessors in this series, this volume presents a “clear text,” free of interpretive (...) or reference material. Apparatus, including references, corrections, and emendations, is confined to appendix material. Fredson Bowers, the Consulting Textual Editor, has provided an essay on the textual principles and procedures, and Wayne A. R. Leys, Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University, has written an Introduction discussing the relationship between Dewey’s writings of this period and his later work. That Dewey’s scholarship and writing was at an especially high level during 1893 and 1894 may be considered an index to the significance of this two-year period. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper offers an account of the early career of Martha Kneale, née Hurst, and of the five papers she published between 1934 and 1950. One on metaphysical and logical necessity, from 1938, is particularly interesting. In it she considers the metaphysics of time and offers an explanation of ‘the necessity of the past’, which has some resemblance to Kripke’s ideas about metaphysical necessities, in that it assigns an important role to experience in how we come to know (...) them. But Kneale’s view is very different from Kripke’s, depending not on doctrines about rigid designation but rather on recognition of the failure of the atomist/empiricist account of ‘simple’ and ‘complex’ concepts. That account cannot deal with such things as the relations of the determinates of a determinable like colour. A plausible corollary of this, which Kneale exploits, is that some of our experience reveals to us that there are phenomena which are intrinsically complex in having multiple distinguishable aspects, but where those aspects are inseparable. Other of the papers show Kneale to have been pursuing interesting lines of thought about McTaggart’s argument against the reality of time and on the mind-body problem. (shrink)

Volume 1 of The Early Works of John Dewey, 1882-1898 is entitled Early Essays and Leibniz's New Essays Concerning the Human Understanding, 1882-1888. Included here are all Dewey's earliest writings, from his first published article through his book on Leibniz. The materials in this volume provide a chronological record of Dewey's early development--beginning with the article he sent to the Journal of Speculative Philosophy in 1881 while he was a high-school teacher in Oil City, Pennsylvania, and (...) closing with his widely-acclaimed work on Leibniz in the Grigg's Series of German Philosophical Classics, written when he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan. During these years be-tween 1882 and 1888, Dewey's life course was established: he decided to follow a career in philosophy, completed doctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University, became an Instructor at the University of Michigan, was promoted to Assistant Professor, and accepted a position as Chairman of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota. With the publication of Psychology, he became well known among scholars in this country; a series of articles in the British journal Mind brought him prominence in British philosophical circles. His articles were abstracted in the Revue philosophique. None of the articles collected in this volume was reprinted during the author's lifetime. For the first time, it is now possible for Dewey scholars to study consecutively in one publication all the essays which originally appeared in many periodicals. (shrink)

This third volume in the definitive edition of Dewey's early work opens with his tribute to George Sylvester Morris, the former teacher who had brought Dewey to the University of Michigan. Morris's death in 1889 left vacant the Department of Philosophy chairmanship and led to Dewey's returning to fill that post after a year's stay at Minnesota. Appearing here, among all his writings from 1889 through 1892, are Dewey's earliest comprehensive statements on logic and his first book on ethics. (...) Dewey's marked copy of the galley-proof for his important article The Present Position of Logical Theory, recently discovered among the papers of the Open Court Publishing Company, is used as the basis for the text, making available for the first time his final changes and corrections. The textual studies that make The Early Works unique among American philosophical editions are reported in detail. One of these, A Note on Applied Psychology, documents the fact that Dewey did not co-author this book frequently attributed to him. Six brief unsigned articles written in 1891 for a University of Michigan student publication, the Inlander, have been identified as Dewey's and are also included in this volume. In both style and content, these articles reflect Dewey's conviction that philosophy should be used as a means of illuminating the contemporary scene; thus they add a new dimension to present knowledge of his early writing. (shrink)

This third volume in the definitive edition of Dewey's early work opens with his tribute to George Sylvester Morris, the former teacher who had brought Dewey to the University of Michigan.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Sovereignty of Reason: The Defense of Rationality in the Early English Enlightenment by Frederick C. BeiserJohn W. YoltonFrederick C. Beiser. The Sovereignty of Reason: The Defense of Rationality in the Early English Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Pp. xi + 332. Cloth, $39.50.Beiser characterizes the methodology of his study as historical and philosophical: historical in placing texts in their own context and in uncovering (...) the intentions of their authors; philosophical in reconstructing and appraising arguments (ix). Both methods are necessary for good historical work. The second is often practiced without the first, to the detriment of philosophy and its history. “A philosopher who reconstructs arguments without the aid of history indulges in mere guesswork and anachronism, measuring the standards of philosophical relevance and importance by the concerns of his own age” (x). Equally, understanding the arguments and ideas of, e.g., seventeenth-century writers, “also involves testing their truth: seeing how they cohere with one another, what their consequences are, whether they follow from the evidence adduced for them, and if they reply to the objections made against them” (x). This splendid study of the role of reason in seventeenth-century religion, science, and philosophy is a fine example of careful textual-historical scholarship with rigorous philosophical analysis.The goal of his study is to tell “the story of how rationalism, in the very specific sense of the sovereignty of reason, arose in seventeenth-century England” (5). Starting with an introduction which discusses such topics as “The Paradox of the English Enlightenment,” “Rationalism in the English Church,” “The Enlightenment and the New Sciences,” Beiser proceeds to detailed presentations and discussions of “The Protestant Challenge” (Chap. 1); Richard Hookers’s defense of reason (Chap. 2); the views of the Great Tew Circle, e.g., Falkland, Chillingworth, Hammond, Hales (Chap. 3); the Cambridge Platonists (Chap. 4); the nature of Enthusiasm (Chap. 5); John Toland and Deism (Chap. 6); and ethical rationalism (Chap. 7).Many of the topics covered have been the subjects of other books and articles. What marks Beiser’s account is the freshness of his approach, the many new insights and suggestions about the tensions between the holders of traditional doctrines and newer challenges. Beiser’s writing is clear, and the issues are carefully presented and analyzed. One of the central themes is the mistake of equating “rationalism with the critique or rejection of religion” (15), of identifying enlightenment with secularization (14). The appeals to reason often emerge from within orthodox religion, whose defenders were trying to cope with their own internal tensions. “Once we consider the Cambridge Platonists’ early reaction to predestination, it becomes clear that it was not Hobbes but Calvin who first posed the danger of atheism for them. For it was Calvin’s theology, and not Hobbes’s materialism, that inspired the fear of God that [End Page 138] they regarded as the source of atheism. In the eyes of the Cambridge Platonists, Hobbes’s materialism was only a false remedy for that fear...” (147). A similar point is made later: “the foundations of a rational theology” in Whichcote “did not arise from any need to combat a creeping Hobbesianism. Rather, it grew up from the inner struggles and torments of the Protestant soul” (165).Equally significant is Beiser’s analysis of enthusiasm, the appeals to divine inspiration rather than to reason or evidence: “We should be aware of accepting the contemporary caricature of the enthusiasts, which portrayed them as zealous and ignorant anti–intellectuals with no cogent or coherent philosophical position of their own” (187). His analysis of the enthusiasts stresses the epistemological nature of their position, rather than the usual theological, ethical, or political dimensions (193). He insists that “enthusiasm is essentially a philosophical concept. Historically, it arose as a response to the problem of the sources and criteria of religious knowledge” (187). The search for criteria is a pervasive feature of Beiser’s study: Luther’s and Calvin’s efforts to draw the boundary between faith and reason (24); Richard Hooker’s failure to “provide an epistemological foundation for his theory of natural law” (67); the need for a criterion to distinguish genuine from false revelation... (shrink)

This third volume in the definitive edition of Dewey's early work opens with his tribute to George Sylvester Morris, the former teacher who had brought Dewey to the University of Michigan. Morris's death in 1889 left vacant the Department of Philosophy chairmanship and led to Dewey's returning to fill that post after a year's stay at Minnesota. Appearing here, among all his writings from 1889 through 1892, are Dewey's earliest comprehensive statements on logic and his first book on ethics. (...) Dewey's marked copy of the galley-proof for his important article The Present Position of Logical Theory, recently discovered among the papers of the Open Court Publishing Company, is used as the basis for the text, making available for the first time his final changes and corrections. The textual studies that make The Early Works unique among American philosophical editions are reported in detail. One of these, A Note on Applied Psychology, documents the fact that Dewey did not co-author this book frequently attributed to him. Six brief unsigned articles written in 1891 for a University of Michigan student publication, the Inlander, have been identified as Dewey's and are also included in this volume. In both style and content, these articles reflect Dewey's conviction that philosophy should be used as a means of illuminating the contemporary scene; thus they add a new dimension to present knowledge of his early writing. (shrink)

This third volume in the definitive edition of Dewey's early work opens with his tribute to George Sylvester Morris, the former teacher who had brought Dewey to the University of Michigan. Morris's death in 1889 left vacant the Department of Philosophy chairmanship and led to Dewey's returning to fill that post after a year's stay at Minnesota. Appearing here, among all his writings from 1889 through 1892, are Dewey's earliest comprehensive statements on logic and his first book on ethics. (...) Dewey's marked copy of the galley-proof for his important article The Present Position of Logical Theory, recently discovered among the papers of the Open Court Publishing Company, is used as the basis for the text, making available for the first time his final changes and corrections. The textual studies that make The Early Works unique among American philosophical editions are reported in detail. One of these, A Note on Applied Psychology, documents the fact that Dewey did not co-author this book frequently attributed to him. Six brief unsigned articles written in 1891 for a University of Michigan student publication, the Inlander, have been identified as Dewey's and are also included in this volume. In both style and content, these articles reflect Dewey's conviction that philosophy should be used as a means of illuminating the contemporary scene; thus they add a new dimension to present knowledge of his early writing. (shrink)

The renowned Christian theologian Bernard Lonergan was also a professor, teaching courses on theological method at universities in Canada, the United States, and Italy. This volume records his lectures and teaching materials, thus preserving and elucidating his intellectual development between the publication of Insight in 1957 and Method in Theology in 1972. The present volume contains a record of the lectures delivered in 1962, 1964, and 1968. This is the most 'interactive' volume yet published in the Collected Works series. (...) The audio recordings of the 1962 and 1968 lectures are now available on the website www.bernardlonergan.com, as are PDF files of original papers from his 1964 institute at Georgetown. These lectures help to elucidate the development of Lonergan's ideas on such key notions as horizon, conversion, and meaning, as well as his evolving opinion on how best to divide theology into fields of specialization. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Sovereignty of Reason: The Defense of Rationality in the Early English Enlightenment by Frederick C. BeiserJohn W. YoltonFrederick C. Beiser. The Sovereignty of Reason: The Defense of Rationality in the Early English Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996. Pp. xi + 332. Cloth, $39.50.Beiser characterizes the methodology of his study as historical and philosophical: historical in placing texts in their own context and in uncovering (...) the intentions of their authors; philosophical in reconstructing and appraising arguments (ix). Both methods are necessary for good historical work. The second is often practiced without the first, to the detriment of philosophy and its history. “A philosopher who reconstructs arguments without the aid of history indulges in mere guesswork and anachronism, measuring the standards of philosophical relevance and importance by the concerns of his own age” (x). Equally, understanding the arguments and ideas of, e.g., seventeenth-century writers, “also involves testing their truth: seeing how they cohere with one another, what their consequences are, whether they follow from the evidence adduced for them, and if they reply to the objections made against them” (x). This splendid study of the role of reason in seventeenth-century religion, science, and philosophy is a fine example of careful textual-historical scholarship with rigorous philosophical analysis.The goal of his study is to tell “the story of how rationalism, in the very specific sense of the sovereignty of reason, arose in seventeenth-century England” (5). Starting with an introduction which discusses such topics as “The Paradox of the English Enlightenment,” “Rationalism in the English Church,” “The Enlightenment and the New Sciences,” Beiser proceeds to detailed presentations and discussions of “The Protestant Challenge” (Chap. 1); Richard Hookers’s defense of reason (Chap. 2); the views of the Great Tew Circle, e.g., Falkland, Chillingworth, Hammond, Hales (Chap. 3); the Cambridge Platonists (Chap. 4); the nature of Enthusiasm (Chap. 5); John Toland and Deism (Chap. 6); and ethical rationalism (Chap. 7).Many of the topics covered have been the subjects of other books and articles. What marks Beiser’s account is the freshness of his approach, the many new insights and suggestions about the tensions between the holders of traditional doctrines and newer challenges. Beiser’s writing is clear, and the issues are carefully presented and analyzed. One of the central themes is the mistake of equating “rationalism with the critique or rejection of religion” (15), of identifying enlightenment with secularization (14). The appeals to reason often emerge from within orthodox religion, whose defenders were trying to cope with their own internal tensions. “Once we consider the Cambridge Platonists’ early reaction to predestination, it becomes clear that it was not Hobbes but Calvin who first posed the danger of atheism for them. For it was Calvin’s theology, and not Hobbes’s materialism, that inspired the fear of God that [End Page 138] they regarded as the source of atheism. In the eyes of the Cambridge Platonists, Hobbes’s materialism was only a false remedy for that fear...” (147). A similar point is made later: “the foundations of a rational theology” in Whichcote “did not arise from any need to combat a creeping Hobbesianism. Rather, it grew up from the inner struggles and torments of the Protestant soul” (165).Equally significant is Beiser’s analysis of enthusiasm, the appeals to divine inspiration rather than to reason or evidence: “We should be aware of accepting the contemporary caricature of the enthusiasts, which portrayed them as zealous and ignorant anti–intellectuals with no cogent or coherent philosophical position of their own” (187). His analysis of the enthusiasts stresses the epistemological nature of their position, rather than the usual theological, ethical, or political dimensions (193). He insists that “enthusiasm is essentially a philosophical concept. Historically, it arose as a response to the problem of the sources and criteria of religious knowledge” (187). The search for criteria is a pervasive feature of Beiser’s study: Luther’s and Calvin’s efforts to draw the boundary between faith and reason (24); Richard Hooker’s failure to “provide an epistemological foundation for his theory of natural law” (67); the need for a criterion to distinguish genuine from false revelation... (shrink)

The renowned Christian theologian Bernard Lonergan was also a professor, teaching courses on theological method at universities in Canada, the United States, and Italy. This volume records his lectures and teaching materials, thus preserving and elucidating his intellectual development between the publication of Insight in 1957 and Method in Theology in 1972. The present volume contains a record of the lectures delivered in 1962 (Regis College, Toronto), 1964 (Georgetown University), and 1968 (Boston College). This is the most 'interactive' volume yet (...) published in the Collected Works series. The audio recordings of the 1962 and 1968 lectures are now available on the website www.bernardlonergan.com, as are PDF files of original papers from his 1964 institute at Georgetown. These lectures help to elucidate the development of Lonergan's ideas on such key notions as horizon, conversion, and meaning, as well as his evolving opinion on how best to divide theology into fields of specialization. (shrink)

Alain Badiou’s elaboration of a subject faithful to an event is commonly known today in the academic world and beyond. However, his first systematic account of the subject was already published in 1982 and did not mention the ‘event’ at all. Therefore, this article aims at tracing back both the structural and the historical conditions that directed Badiou’s elaboration of the subject in the early work up until the publication of L’Être et l’Événément in 1988. On the one hand, (...) it investigates to what extent the Badiouan subject can be considered an exceptional product of the formalist project of the Cahiers pour l’Analyse as instigated by psychoanalytical discourse and a certain Marxist discourse insofar as both were centered upon a theory of the subject. On the other hand, this article examines the radical political implications of this subject insofar as Badiou has directed his philosophical aims towards the political field as a direct consequence of the events of May ’68. (shrink)

Avery’s et al. ’s 1944 paper provides the first direct evidence of DNA having gene-like properties and marks the beginning of a new phase in early molecular genetics (with a strong focus on chemistry and DNA). The study of its reception shows that on the whole, Avery’s results were immediately appreciated and motivated new research on transformation, the chemical nature of DNA’s biological specificity and bacteria genetics. It shows, too, that initial problems of transferring transformation to other systems and (...) prominent criticism of its results nurtured skepticism. Avery’s experiment was downplayed and neglected particularly by many of those scientists who worked in the new fields of biochemical and biophysical genetics, genetic phage, and TMV research. This was not due to the fact that the implications of the paper could not be connected to generally accepted knowledge. Contrary to a widespread belief, the assumed uniformity of DNA as opposed to proteins was not used as an argument against the validity of Avery’s et al.’s finding. The indifference rather reflected, among other things, the disciplinary gap between the chemically oriented microbiologists and the old and new geneticists who remained committed to genetic and physical methods (in particular x-ray studies) and clung to the assumption that proteins were the sole carriers of biological specificity. The responses to Avery’s et al.’s paper show how different research interests in the areas between microbiology, genetics, and biochemistry interacted with the prejudices, dogmas, individual farsightedness or short-sightedness, and scientific authority during a pivotal period of early molecular biology. (shrink)

When discussing Wilfrid Sellars’s philosophy, very little work has been done to offer a developmental account of his systematic views. More often than not, Sellars’s complex views are presented in a systematic and holistic fashion that ignores any periodization of his work. I argue that there is a metaphilosophical shift in Sellars’s early philosophy that results in substantive changes to his conception of language, linguistic rules, and normativity. Specifically, I claim that Sellars’s shift from a formalist metaphilosophy to one (...) more closely aligned with psychology allows for the construction of a normative conception of language. My central claim is that without his abandonment of earlier metaphilosophical commitments, Sellars could not hold what I call an external conception of normativity. It is this move away from a formalist notion of philosophy that allows Sellars to construct a normative picture of language. I conclude that because this substantive shift in philosophical commitments results from changes in Sellars’s metaphilosophical views, there is insight to be found in a meticulous periodization of his work. (shrink)

In the past 250 years, David Hume probably had a greater impact on the field of philosophy of religion than any other single philosopher. He relentlessly attacked the standard proofs for God's existence, traditional notions of God's nature and divine governance, the connection between morality and religion, and the rationality of belief in miracles. He also advanced radical theories of the origin of religious ideas, grounding such notions in human psychology rather than in divine reality. In the last decade of (...) his life Hume wrote 'I cou'd cover the Floor of a large Room with Books and Pamphlets wrote against me'. Indeed, most of these targeted his writings on religion. This, the third part of the Early Responses to Hume series, and perhaps the most eagerly awaited, collects responses to Hume's writings on religion published during his life, namely, 'Of Miracles', 'Of a Particular Providence and a Future State', The Natural History of Religion , and the posthumously published works Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion , 'Of Suicide' and 'Of the Immortality of the Soul'. The set covers a wide range of the replies Hume's writings provoked, including contributions by Philip Skelton, William Adams, Thomas Rutherforth, William Warburton, Anthony Ellys, John Douglas, John Leland, Thomas Stona, Voltaire, George Campbell, Herman Andrew Pistorius, Duncan Shaw, William Samuel Powell, Thomas Hayter, Joseph Milner, William Paley, Charles Moore, Richard Joseph Sulivan, John Hey, Samuel Vince, Lord Brougham and Thomas De Quincey. (shrink)

Through reading the early work of Walter Benjamin—up to and including the Trauerspiel, author Monad Rrenban elicits a cohesive conception of the wild, inforgettable form, philosophy, as inherent in everything. This book, distinct in its analysis and depth of analysis, elaborates the wild, unforgettable form—philosophy in relation to language, the discipline and the practice of philosophy, criticism, and the politics of death.

Ian Hacking has defined himself as a philosopher in the analytic tradition. However, he has also recognized the profound influence that Michel Foucault had on much of his work. In this article I analyse the specific imprint of certain works by Foucault—in particular Les mots et les choses—in two of Hacking’s early works: Why Does Language Matter to Philosophy? and The Emergence of Probability. I propose that these texts not only share a debt of Foucauldian thought, but (...) also are part of what I believe is Hacking’s central project: the analysis of the historical and situated conditions of possibility for the emergence of concepts and of objects, inspired also by the French philosopher’s thought. (shrink)

Through reading the early work of Walter Benjamin—up to and including the Trauerspiel, author Monad Rrenban elicits a cohesive conception of the wild, inforgettable form, philosophy, as inherent in everything. This book, distinct in its analysis and depth of analysis, elaborates the wild, unforgettable form—philosophy in relation to language, the discipline and the practice of philosophy, criticism, and the politics of death.

Both Alexius Meinong and Edmund Husserl wrote about relations in their early works, in periods in which they were still influenced by Franz Brentano. However, besides the split between Brentano and Meinong, the latter also accused Husserl of plagiarism with respect to the theory of relations. Examining Meinong’s and Husserl’s early works and the Brentanist framework they were written in, we will try to assess their similarities and differences. As they shared other sources besides Brentano, we (...) will consider very carefully whether we should speak at all of influence or plagiarism. Despite Meinong’s accusations it seems that both he and Husserl took over some elements from Brentano and, partially through him, from John Stuart Mill, who appears to be the most probable source on relations. (shrink)

This paper consists in a comparative study of the notions of negative fact in the early works of Russell and Wittgenstein. How to account for our ability to think both that it is false that what is not the case is the case and incorrect to think that it is true that what is not the case is the case? Are the truth and the correctness of such thoughts and of their expressions meant to be insured by the (...) existence of negative facts? Or do we need to think of negative facts differently? In his early works, Russell argues not only that negative facts exist, but also that the philosophical problem they suffice to solve is real. While in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein dissolves the philosophical problem by letting the superfluity and misleadingness of the affirmation of the existence of negative facts be seen as such. (shrink)

Because the paperback edition of Dewey’s early works places within easy reach those writings in which he was coming to terms with the foundational issues of his philosophical methodology, it should stimulate the much needed examination of the underpinnings of the later, more popular expressions of his thought. Dewey’s basic ideas grew and changed form many times over his long career, yet there are unifying themes and standpoints which are more rigorously expressed in the early works, (...) and without an understanding of which the reader of later Dewian [[sic]] epistemology is likely to be either hopelessly lost or think himself to be floating on a sea of ungrounded opinion. Two connecting themes which span the breadth of his writing career are worthy of special comment: the first since it helps to locate the center and tie together the periphery of Dewey’s many faceted work, and the second because it is a lingering and unexpressed presupposition of his later metaphysical work. (shrink)

The article analyses mystical teaching of Hasidism in the early works of Martin Buber (before publication of “I and Thou” in 1923) in the context of the concept of Orientalism by E. Said. Analysis is based on the M. Buber’s appeal to Hasidic sources in the 1900s-1910s (in particular, in his first two collections, “Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav” and “The Legend of Baal Shem”). Two factors allow examining Hasidism in the early Buber’s writings in the context of (...) Orientalism: a growing interest in the Orient in the circles of European Jewish intellectuals during late 19th cent, as well as the negative stereotype of traditional East European Jew (Ostjuden, “an Eastern Jews”) present in the modernized Jewish society. The article demonstrates that this stereotype is closely related to the criticism of Hasidism by representatives of the Jewish Enlightenment (Haskalah). In particular, the accusations of traditional Eastern European Jews of inclination to vanity and prejudice, as well as of subjugation to the infinite power of the miracle workers (tzadikim), clearly have a source in maskilic criticism of Hasidism. The Buber’s turn towards Hasidism took place in mid-1900s. It was connected with Buber’s interest in Oriental mysticism, and with his social activities as “cultural Zionist”. Overcoming the “Ostjude” stereotype turned out to be an essential part of Buber’s cultural program. Buber reconstructs Jewish mysticism as an integral phenomenon, the subject of academic study. According to Buber, the most striking manifestation of this phenomenon is the Eastern-Euro pean mystical movement of Hasidism. It is from Ostjuden that the source of Hasidic wisdom is linked, which in the essays of the cycle of “Judaism” is a true “light from the East.”. (shrink)

Freud was interested in the problem of memory from the time of his very early works. The processes taking place in memory, imaging, remembering and forgetting images focused his attention and were one of the pillars of shaping his conception of the unconscious and mind as “the storehouse of total memory,” which in one of his works he compared to “the Eternal City of Rome”, which accumulate images-memories gathered throughout life. Shifts, changes, deformations, strong emotional components determine (...) the specificity of many processes of remembering and forgetting, a specific “coding” of information in the form of visual, acoustic and other images. Nowadays, there are indications of Freud’s views in various dimensions of scientific research on memory and the consciousness of the importance of these approaches in our culture and its discovery of the role of autobiographical memory. (shrink)

The paper analyzes, from a perspective which is itself existential-ontological, the way in which in an early text of Martin Heidegger, Phänomenologische Interpretationen zu Aristoteles (Anzeige der hermeneutischen Situation) [1922] – which had already outlined some determinative elements of the ideas expounded in Being and Time –, the meditation on the always living and current conditions and hermeneutical situation of philosophizing expanded in fact into an inquiry about the origins, grounds, essence and sense of philosophy as such. Meditation in (...) and through which philosophy identifies itself and is founded on the one hand exactly as a mode of existence of the mortal “human Dasein” (menschliches Dasein), that is a factic mode of existence of this, philosophy, on the other hand, itself originates from and in man’s factic life exactly with the aim of being the modality through which this being – namely ourselves – returns towards the problematization of his existential possibilities even by taking upon himself the burden and “weight” of radical interrogation. Which therefore goes and must go itself and resolutely – because if this entirely “without God” and consequently a-theist – to the historical and ontological roots of a present con-temporarized (mitzeitigt) both with the past and the future existential horizons of the assumed factic possibilities. (shrink)

According to the editors, Alfred Tarski: Early work in Poland – Geometry and Teaching has three main goals. First, to publish translations so that all of Alfred Tarski's work will be accessi...

The price of Bitcoin is once more soaring. From early October 2020 to early January 2021, the price of a single Bitcoin token went from roughly $10,000 to nearly $65,000, reinspiring the hopes of the crypto-faithful in the inevitability of a future beyond centralized banking and leaving the rest to dread the jargon of computational libertarianism. The speculative betting driving this recent price action, however, belies a more rudimentary and overlooked shift in the digital economy signaled by cryptocurrencies (...) and Bitcoin in particular. Unlike an earlier industrial logic that sought to reduce heat loss and improve efficiency to maximize surplus value, Bitcoin’s proof-of-work system shifts the basis of value production from efficiency to inefficiency. Moreover, it does so by using a cryptographic algorithm whose purpose is to destroy the meaning of its inputs. Through an exploration of Bitcoin’s proof-of-work technics and its inversion of traditional models of value extraction, the text argues that Bitcoin reveals a profound transformation in the nature of surplus represented by computational capitalism. (shrink)

Samuel Alexander was a central figure of the new wave of realism that swept across the English-speaking world in the early twentieth century. His Space, Time, and Deity (1920a, 1920b) was taken to be the official statement of realism as a metaphysical system. But many historians of philosophy are quick to point out the idealist streak in Alexander’s thought. After all, as a student he was trained at Oxford in the late 1870s and early 1880s as British Idealism (...) was beginning to flourish. This naturally had some effect on his philosophical outlook and it is said that his early work is overtly idealist. In this paper I examine his neglected and understudied reactions to British Idealism in the 1880s. I argue that Alexander was not an idealist during this period and should not be considered as part of the British Idealist tradition, philosophically speaking. (shrink)

Dede Korkut Stories are a national cultural heritage that narrates about events and challenges of Oghuz Turks in 10th-11th centuries. This period of time is important, as it was the times when Turks became Muslims. In this work, heroism, customs, habits and traditions, socio-cultural and moral life of the Turks before and after becoming Muslims are analysed. One of the topics addressed in this work is religious beliefs and worships of the Turks after became Muslims. In this context, the belief (...) in Allah appears to be the most emphasized type of belief in the stories. The theme of fate, which is included in the subjects of Tawḥīd (oneness of Allāh) is another theme mentioned in the stories. The stories also includes some expressions regarding particularly the Prophet Muḥammad as well as some other prophets. Jibrīl and ʿAzrāʾīl angels are also mentioned. As for the Divine Books, only the Qur’ān is namely addressed and other divine books are not mentioned. The beliefs regarding afterlife, such as death, resurrection, heaven, hell, pool of al-Kawthar (abundance) are also referred to in the stories. The Book of Dede Korkut is not a didactic work written to teach Islam. On the contrary, in the stories, Islam is discussed as an element of the spirit/essence of individual and society. The aim of this study is to investigate the representations of the beliefs of tawḥīd, prophecy and hereafter of the Turks, especially the Oghuz Turks with reference to narrations in Dede Korkut stories. It aims to discuss them in the context of six pillars of faith and evaluate from the Islamic belief point of view.Summary: The Book of Dede Korkut consists of twelve epic stories created within the oral tradition of Turkish Folk Literature. It is said that the origins of these stories, which are one of the oldest works of Turkish Folk Literature, went as far as 7th century. It is generally accepted that the Book of Dede Korkut, which narrates about Oghuz Turks who lived in 10th-11th centuries was transferred to writing after 15th century. There is no information found about writer/s of the Book. Dede Korkut, who considered being the narrator of the stories, is in fact a character in the stories. Dede Korkut plays qobuz, reads poetry, names children, mediates in marital affairs, resolves disputes, and leads religious rituals in the stories. Therefore, he stands out as a saint figure and considered to be wise man of the Oghuz Turks in almost every story, especially regarding social events. In this work, there are many expressions about heroism, customs, habits and traditions, socio-cultural and moral experiences of the Turks before and after becoming Muslims. The stories bear many traces from the earlier Turkish beliefs. However, these are not the issues of this study. The dates of the emergence of the stories, 10th and 11th centuries, coincides with the times when the Turks became Muslim. This situation makes the stories more important as they include rich narratives about the fundamental beliefs of Islam. Especially the belief in Allāh, which is one of the six pillars of faith, appears to be the most emphasized in the stories. In these stories, Turkish and Persian names of Allāh as well as His Arabic names and attributes are mentioned directly or indirectly.The belief in predestination and casualty related with Allāh's eternal knowledge and determination is another faith object that takes place in the stories. The issues regarding the predestination discussed in the stories as follows: the deeds occur with the wish of Allāh; Allāh decides whether the child male or female; Allāh predestines human lifetime, livelihood, time of death and calamities.There are also narrations about the belief in the prophets in the stories. Particularly the Prophet Muhammad's prophecy is prioritised. Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses are the other prophets mentioned in the stories. The successive authority of Adam and His story with Iblīs; the wife and donkey of Noah, not burning of Abraham when he was thrown into the fire, the speaking of Allāh with Moses and the staff of Moses are some of the expressions related with prophecy in the stories. Nimrod against Abraham and Pharaoh against Moses are described as negative personalities in the stories. In the stories, the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) is handled in a position that intercession is demanded from Him. Greetings and prayers are read for Him. His intercession is sought for forgiveness of sins and acceptance of prayers. He is exalted with some attributions, such as the holly Prophet Peace be upon Him, friend of Allāh, the leader of religion and the headman of religion. When the Prophet Muhammad is mentioned, it is felt that there is a high respect and an enthusiastic love. When he is addressed, the expressions indicating respect and affection, such as "His name is magnificent Muhammad" and "His name is magnificent Muhammad Mustafa" are used in the stories.In the stories, only the Qur’ān is mentioned among the divine books, none of the Torah, the Zabūr and the Injīl is mentioned. It is referred that the Qur’ān descended from the heavens and it is the word of Allāh and His knowledge, and it was copied (collected) by Uthman. It is described as "Magnificent Qur’ān".It is seen in the stories that there is also a place for the belief in angels and only two of the four great angels are mentioned. One of them is ʿAzrāʾīl, the death angel. It is one of the main heroes in the story of Deli Dumrul. ʿAzrāʾīl is described as an angel from the sky, who has red-winged, who takes the souls of living beings by the command of Allāh and kill them. It is also narrated that ʿAzrāʾīl takes the form of human and pigeon, and the struggle of ʿAzrāʾīl with Deli Dumrul. The other great angel mentioned in the stories is Jibrīl. In the story of Emre, the Son of Begil, it is described as an angel fulfilling the commandments of Allāh. Apart from these, there is no information about other angels and their characteristics, such as not being gendered, not to sin, and being created from light. Within the scope of invisible beings, the Devil is also narrated in the stories as it did not prostrate itself to Adam, and therefore it was repelled and cursed.The principle of the belief in Hereafter, which is one of the pillars of faith, is also dealt with in the stories. The ending, death, resurrection, reckoning, Heaven, Hell, seeing Allāh's face in Heaven, drinking water from the pool of al-Kawthar are some of the topics addressed in relation to this principle. While talking about Heaven in the stories, the words "Uçmak" (flight) in Turkish and "Behesht" (paradise) in Persian are mentioned in addition to Arabic "Jannah" (heaven).The Book of Dede Korkut is not a religious book written to teach the ʿaqāʾid (beliefs) of Islam or its practices. On the contrary, it is a work that narrates about people’s lives and social experiences. There is neither any specific verse from the Qur’ān nor sayings or the deeds of the Prophet (ḥadīth) included in the stories. However, the contents of many issues stated in the Qur’ān and ḥadīth are expressed in the stories. For instance, the statements from the surah (chapter) al-Ikhlāṣ (sincerity), such as al-Aḥad (the one), Allāh begets not, nor was He begotten, and not being any equivalent to Him are mentioned in the stories. Likewise, not burning of the Prophet Abraham when thrown into the fire, speaking of Allāh with Moses and giving the stuff to him as a miracle are also stated in the Qur’ān. As for the pool of al-Kawthar, the believers’ seeing Allāh in Heaven, ineffectiveness of the deeds without saying in the name of Allah are mentioned in ḥadīths. However, some information that is not rooted in the Qur’ān and ḥadīths, such as the stinging of Nimrod's arrow is also encountered in the stories. Based on the narrations in the stories, it seems possible to draw the conclusion that the Oghuz Turks mentioned in the Book of Dede Korkut adopted Ahl al-Sunnah (people of Sunnah) interpretation of Islam. However, it should be reminded that this implication will lose its meaning if it is proved that the original versions of the stories were redesigned according to the interpretation of Ahl al-Sunnah in the process of transferring them into writing. (shrink)

Davidson’s 1965 paper, “Theories of Meaning and Learnable Languages”, has invariably been interpreted, by others and by myself, as arguing that natural languages must have a compositional semantics, or at least a systematic semantics, that can be finitely specified. However, in his reply to me in the Żegleń volume, Davidson denies that compositionality is in any need of an argument. How does this add up? In this paper I consider Davidson’s first three meaning theoretic papers from this perspective. I conclude (...) that Davidson was right in his reply to me that he never took compositionality, or systematic semantics, to be in need of justification. What Davidson had been concerned with, clearly in the 1965 paper and in “Truth and Meaning” from 1967, and to some extent in his Carnap critique from 1963, is that we need a general theory of natural language meaning, that such a theory should not be in conflict with the learnability of a language, and that such a theory bring out should how knowledge of a finite number of features of a language suffices for the understanding of all the sentences of that language. (shrink)

Clarifying the effects of biliteracy on cognitive development is important to understanding the role of cognitive development in L2 learning. A substantial body of research has shed light on the cognitive factors contributing to biliteracy development. Yet, not much is known about the effect of the degree of exposure to biliteracy on cognitive functions. To fill this research void, we measured three categories of biliteracy skills jointly and investigated the effects of biliteracy skill performance in these three categories on cognitive (...) skills in Chinese L1 children who were exposed to English as L2 beginning at age 3 or in grade 3. In this cross-sectional study, 10 parallel Chinese and English language, reading, and cognitive–linguistic measures were administered to emerging Chinese–English bilingual children in grade 3 and grade 6. The results revealed that early exposure to Chinese–English biliteracy enhanced cognitive skills but with a cost of a slight delay in performance on Chinese L1 language skills in grade 3. Importantly, the present findings suggest that, in addition to universal and developmental processes, the cumulative effect of early and sustained bi-scriptal exposure enhances working memory and attention in school children. (shrink)

My chief purpose, in the remaining part of this paper, is to study LAVOISIER'S work upon the Nature of Water in itself and in its bearing on opinion in the eighteenth century: to show how it arose, how it was carried on, how it was published and how it was received.

The two brothers Julius and Adolf Hurwitz were born in the middle of the nineteenth century in a small town near Hanover (not far from Göttingen). Already during their schooldays, the two of them became acquainted with mathematical problems and both started to study mathematics, but while the younger brother Adolf turned out to be extremely successful in his research, the elder brother and his work seem to be almost forgotten. This paper examines the lives and works of the (...) two brothers with particular emphasis on the contributions of Julius Hurwitz, and the subsequent reception of their research. It deals with the development of an arithmetical theory for complex continued fractions by Julius and Adolf Hurwitz around 1890 and its rediscovery in the twentieth century. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to the study of the emotions in Edith Stein’s early work On the Problem of Empathy. After presenting her work embedded in the tradition of the early phenomenology of the emotions, I shall elaborate the four dimensions of the emotional experience according to this authoress, the link between emotions and values and the phenomenon of the living body. I argue that Stein’s account on empathy remains incomplete as long as we ignore the complex phenomenology (...) of emotions underlying her work. (shrink)

Developmental perspectives on prejudice provide a fundamental and important key to the puzzle for determining how to address prejudice. Research with historically disadvantaged and advantaged groups in childhood and adolescence reveals the complexity of social cognitive and moral judgments about prejudice, discrimination, bias, and exclusion. Children are aware of status and hierarchies, and often reject the status quo. Intervention, to be effective, must happen early in development, before prejudice and stereotypes are deeply entrenched.