William Abraham studied Philosophy at the University of Ghana, and even more Philosophy at Oxford University. Thereafter, he gained permission to take part in the competitive examination and interview for a fellowship at All Souls' College. The examination was once described, with some exaggeration, as 'the hardest exam in the world!' It included a three-hour essay. Following his success in becoming the first African fellow of All Souls, his interest in African politics quickly developed into a Pan-African perspective. The Mind (...) of Africa, written while he was still at All Souls, was a fruit of that enlarged perspective. After several years as a Fellow, he had occasion to visit Ghana in 1962. There Kwame Nkrumah, then President of Ghana, successfully persuaded him to return to Ghana to teach at the University of Ghana, Legon and he subsequently resigned from All Souls. In 1968, he went to the United States as a visiting professor. This was followed by invitations to teach at various academic institutions there, including Berkeley and Stanford. He subsequently settled in California, where he continued to teach and research philosophy in the University of California at Santa Cruz until his retirement. The Mind of Africa appeared at a time when a number of African countries were obtaining, or fighting for, their political freedom from their colonial rulers and becoming independent nations and expecting to build new societies in accordance with their own visions and conceptions, though not necessarily jettisoning all the features of their colonial heritage. Building new societies requires appropriate ideologies and philosophies fashioned within the crucible of their cultural and historical experiences. Thus, the relation between ideology and society is taken up at the very outset of the book... The Mind of Africa is important for Africa's future and identity. (shrink)

THE PROBLEM OF THE INTERPRETATION OF HAMANN Johann Georg Hamann is an intriguing but poorly known figure in the contemporary intellectual world. Yet this is the man whom Kierkegaard saluted as "Emperor!", whose writings were to have been arranged for publication by none other than Goethe himself, and whom Dilthey numbered among the primordial figures in the rise of modern historical consciousness. There are reasons for the persistence of this general ignorance. Hamann is deep. And, in addition, there is his (...) forbidding style. The readers of Kierkegaard and Dilthey, two other giants who them selves achieved late recognition, have not had to face this kind of imposing obstacle. Not only does Hamann expect his readers to handle themselves in deep water, but to intuit their way between his ideas which bob up like islands with no visible connection between them. Like Kierkegaard too, Hamann has had his troubles with the public. He himself referred to the hope that he would be understood by a "better posterity". In fact only the last few years have seen the printing of some of his more controversial writings, in particular his theories on the nature of human sexuality. (shrink)

The subject of these lines may be found in Caes. B.C. I. 54, from which they are in part derived, though probably at second hand. The reference is to Caesar's tactics after the floods in the plain around Ilerda. He built a number of coracles after the British fashion, and had them conveyed to a point on the right bank of the Sicoris, twenty-two miles from his camp. In these boats he sent a number of men across the river, who (...) fortified some rising ground. Then he sent a legion across and started the building of a bridge from both sides at once: hue legionem postea traiecit atque ex utraque parte pontem institutum biduo perfecit. (shrink)

The passage is thought to refer to the efforts of the Macedonians to honour the memory of their dead king. Who are meant by reges is not at all clear, and summa nituntur opum ui, as we may infer from other passages where the same or a similar expression is used, can hardly refer to anything but the labour of the hands. Probably we ought to read regis, i.e. Philippi. The lines will then refer to the work of the people.

The first part of the book addresses the epistemological concerns, focusing on arguments for and against the claim that theism is rationally justifiable. These include discussion of cosmological arguments, the ontological argument, the argument from design, and the moral argument for God's existence. Metaphysical questions about God's nature, in particular God's knowledge and power, and the nature of religious experience constitute the second part of the book. Epistemological and metaphysical questions are shown to be related since, if the concept of (...) a God perfect in wisdom, power, and goodness is incoherent, it cannot be reasonable to believe that God exists. Throughout his discussion Wood draws on the most recent writings in the field as well as classic arguments and offers readers a clear, balanced, and incisive analysis of the core philosophical arguments for the existence of God. The book equips readers with the necessary understanding of issues in natural theology that will enable them to tackle more specialized and complex questions in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

A complete set of mutually unbiased bases for a Hilbert space of dimension N is analogous in some respects to a certain finite geometric structure, namely, an affine plane. Another kind of quantum measurement, known as a symmetric informationally complete positive-operator-valued measure, is, remarkably, also analogous to an affine plane, but with the roles of points and lines interchanged. In this paper I present these analogies and ask whether they shed any light on the existence or non-existence of such symmetric (...) quantum measurements for a general quantum system with a finite-dimensional state space. (shrink)

The subject which has been chosen for me is sufficiently comprehensive. Several years ago I wrote the last of a series of essays in a book called Science, Religion, and Reality , in which, as requested, I tried to sum up the contributions of the other writers, with reflections of my own. I have also given a short statement of my opinions in the first volume of that interesting book, Contemporary British Philosophy . Lastly, I have tried, in a book (...) published in the autumn of 1933, to consider the religious and philosophical implications of recent scientific theories and discoveries, and particularly of the conviction held by our leading astronomers and mathematicians that the Second Law of Thermodynamics is unassailable, so that the ultimate extinction of the universe as we know it is certain. I showed that the acceptance of this verdict raises important questions for the philosopher and theologian. (shrink)

This expository essay relies on the views of scholars writing about Atlas Shrugged to make a case that it is a highly integrated work of imaginative literature. The article focuses on the ways in which integration is manifested in Atlas Shrugged. Part 1 examines the philosophical structure of the novel. Part 2 addresses literary structure. This is followed by a discussion of Rand's techniques of characterization. An analysis of the speeches and the theme of mind-body integration concludes the discussion.

Les débats actuels au sujet de la « voie chinoise » sont intimement liés à deux questions primordiales. Premièrement, quelle espèce de modernisation cette « voie chinoise » représente-t-elle? Et deuxièmement, quel rapport entretient-elle avec la sinisation du marxisme? Cet article vise à répondre à ces enjeux à partir d’une double perspective, celle du récit historique et celle de la philosophie de l’histoire. Cet article soutient que la modernisation à la chinoise est née des conditions historiques particulières du xx e (...) siècle et que la sinisation du marxisme, en tant que méthodologie, s’est montrée capable de cerner la nature et la signification de ces conditions. Au xxi e siècle, la « voie chinoise » représente un projet socialiste en renouvellement continu. Apportant un début de réponse à la crise mondiale du post-néolibéralisme, elle en quête des possibilités d’une nouvelle forme de civilisation. (shrink)