In the modern world, provincialism in reflective thinking is dangerous, possibly tragic. If philosophy is to fulfill one of its main functions—that of guiding the leaders of mankind toward a better world—its perspective must become worldwide and comprehensive in fact as well as in theory. This, the motivating theme of the Second East-West Philosophers' Conference held at the University of Hawaii in the summer of 1949, is likewise the theme of this volume, the complete report of that Conference. The goal (...) of the eminent philosophers participating was the discovery of avenues of progress toward a synthesis of Oriental and Occidental thought. They attempted to reach tentative conclusions in the fields of methodology, metaphysics, and ethical theory. Conference activities consisted of meetings, lectures, discussions, undergraduate courses, and graduate seminars. As far as possible, the proceedings were limited to the study of East-West philosophy; extensive attention was not given to the strictly religious aspects of any philosophical tradition. Participants in the Conference were convinced that philosophy is now entering upon a new stage of development which will be characterized by trans-cultural cooperation and world perspective. This development can be of tremendous significance in world thought and eventually in the lives and actions of the people of the world. Twenty-three of the formal papers presented at the Conference comprise the substance of this book; a significant proposal for synthesis is stated or implied in almost every one. A comprehensive introduction by the editor, a summary of the results and conclusions of the Conference seminars, a who's who of contributors, and an exhaustive index round out the volume. (shrink)

Brouwer’s intuitionistic program was an intriguing attempt to reform the foundations of mathematics that eventually did not prevail. The current paper offers a new perspective on the scientific community’s lack of reception to Brouwer’s intuitionism by considering it in light of Michael Friedman’s model of parallel transitions in philosophy and science, specifically focusing on Friedman’s story of Einstein’s theory of relativity. Such a juxtaposition raises onto the surface the differences between Brouwer’s and Einstein’s stories and suggests that contrary to Einstein’s (...) story, the philosophical roots of Brouwer’s intuitionism cannot be traced to any previously established philosophical traditions. The paper concludes by showing how the intuitionistic inclinations of Hermann Weyl and Abraham Fraenkel serve as telling cases of how individuals are involved in setting in motion, adopting, and resisting framework transitions during periods of disagreement within a discipline. (shrink)

This article addresses the subject of the ekphrastic description of experiencing music. It shows the main differences between ekphrasis and commonly used analysis in music theory and musicology. In approaching the problem of ekphrasis with what is called pure music, I emphasize its ancient understanding, thus differing from Lydia Goehr (2010) and Siglind Bruhn (2000, 2001, 2019). The ekphrastic analysis of the first movement of Arnold Schoenberg’s Six Little Piano Pieces Op. 19 conducted in this article uses the methodology developed (...) by Gottfried Boehm (2014) and Georges Didi-Huberman (2005, 2015, 2017, 2018) in the discipline of art history. This article aims to delineate a new way of researching the art of music, an essential feature of which is the combination of the traditions of analytic philosophy and phenomenology. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Hippocrates With and Against Philosophy Alexandrian Medicine and the Hellenistic Philosophical Schools The Theoretical Audacity of the Medical Schools Medicine and Skepticism Ethics and Medicine Bibliography.

Metamathematics and the Philosophical Tradition is the first work to explore in such historical depth the relationship between fundamental philosophical quandaries regarding self-reference and meta-mathematical notions of consistency and incompleteness. Using the insights of twentieth-century logicians from Gödel through Hilbert and their successors, this volume revisits the writings of Aristotle, the ancient skeptics, Anselm, and enlightenment and seventeenth and eighteenth century philosophers Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Pascal, Descartes, and Kant to identify ways in which these both encode and (...) evade problems of a priori definition and self-reference. The final chapters critique and extend more recent insights of late 20th-century logicians and quantum physicists, and offer new applications of the completeness theorem as a means of exploring "metatheoretical ascent" and the limitations of scientific certainty. Broadly syncretic in range, Metamathematics and the Philosophical Tradition addresses central and recurring problems within epistemology. The volume’s elegant, condensed writing style renders accessible its wealth of citations and allusions from varied traditions and in several languages. Its arguments will be of special interest to historians and philosophers of science and mathematics, particularly scholars of classical skepticism, the Enlightenment, Kant, ethics, and mathematical logic. (shrink)

Many experimental philosophers are philosophers by training and professional affiliation, but some best work in experimental philosophy has been done by people who do not have advanced degrees in philosophy and do not teach in philosophy departments. This chapter explains that the experimental philosophy is the empirical investigation of philosophical intuitions, the factors that affect them, and the psychological and neurological mechanisms that underlie them. It explores what are philosophical intuitions, and why do experimental philosophers want to study (...) them using the methods of empirical science. The positive program in experimental philosophy shares the goal of the substantial part of traditional philosophy that is concerned with the analysis of important philosophical concepts. The negative program has implications for philosophical projects whose goal is conceptual analysis. There have been a number of responses to the challenge posed by experimental philosophy's negative program. The chapter also focuses on the expertise defense. (shrink)

This article takes as its point of departure the question of how Wilhelm Halbfass, Daya Krishna, and Jitendranath Mohanty have conceptualized tradition in relation to “Indian” philosophy. They have all reacted to, and criticized, homogeneous and static conceptions of Indian philosophies, and by articulating different ways of apprehending tradition they have tried to come to terms with such limiting images. My reading of their texts has been informed by a questioning of how they, in turn, conceptualize tradition. (...) Most of all this is related to the tendency, on the one hand, to stress that tradition is open-ended and dynamic but at the same time to speak of tradition as one singular and universalizable phenomenon .. (shrink)

Heidegger’s philosophy has received radically different readings. These different approaches grow from philosophical differences rooted, at least to some extent, in national philosophical traditions. Although it is not possible any longer to draw strict boundaries between different philosophical traditions by reference to nationality or to language, there certainly are tendencies and points of emphasis that differ depending on the context in which Heidegger is read. There are many different ways of reading Heidegger. I confine myself to two: (...) the orthodox approach and the applicative pragmatist approach. As an example for these approaches I have taken Heidegger’s controversial essay, “The Origin of the Work of Art.”. (shrink)

This text is a fresh approach to the Western traditions of philosophy that includes readings of manageable length for the typical undergraduate student. Its approach encourages critical thinking about philosophical issues by offering appropriate readings and explanations, as well as straightforward demonstrations of the implications of the book's featured arguments and ideas.

Piercing incisively and deeply into the nature of the overlapping of the material andmental realms. Aage Petersen uncovers the reciprocal relations between quantum physics and theconcepts of metaphysics and epistemology, assessing the extent to which each has influenced theother. The author is eminently qualified to undertake this important work, which grew out of hisclose contact with Neils Bohr and his Copenhagen school during the years 1952-1962.Although themathematical formalism of quantum physics has long since been established, the question of itsphysical interpretation (...) is not yet closed, and the question of its philosophical interpretationremains in a formative state. The most widely accepted physical interpretation of the quantalformalism emerged from discussions between Bohr and Heisenberg in the winter of 1926-1927. ThisCopenhagen Interpretation centers around the relations of indeterminacy around the relations ofindeterminacy and the concept of complementarity, and was refined but not radically altered in theyears following, especially during the famous debate with Einstein on the completeness possible inthe description of events. The philosophical interpretation has proceeded along two principal lines:Bohr's emphasis on complementarity as a unifying concept, and Heisenberg's exploration of therelationship of quantum physics to the traditional categories of philosophy.To Bohr's mind, thecentral feature of human knowledge is the distinction between subject and object. The indeterminacyof the placing of the partition between instrument and system, which played so large a part inquantal description was, Bohr believed, an expression of the general relation between the knower andthe knowable. He thus sought to find relationships of complementarity in areas beyond quantumphysics.Quantum physics and traditional philosophy certainly relate enough to interact--even thoughthe effects of interaction may produce uncertain results. Heisenberg's view also emphasizes thatscience describes, not nature itself, but the interplay between nature and man, nature as affectedby man's method of questioning, thus denying the school of philosophical thought that began withDescartes' sharp separation of the World and the I.The author's investigation leads him as well tobelieve that complementarity is deeply linked to the basis of philosophy, but that the details ofthe relationship are so obscure that some other feature of quantum physics that makes amore directconnection with philosophy should be sought. He is led to choose the idea of correspondence as suchfeature. This idea played a key role in the development of the matrix version of the formalism andof the Copenhagen interpretation.Mathematically, the idea of correspondence was seen to imply thatquantal formalisms should emerge as generalizations of classical entities, that matrix mechanics wasa generalization of classical Hamiltonian mechanics. It is in this possibility of treating thetraditional categories of philosophy as limits of a more general scheme, or as analogies of a deeperorder, that the fruitfulness of the correspondence idea lies. (shrink)

One of the most interesting aspects of McDowell’s very interesting book is the way in which it locates the problems of late-twentieth-century Anglo-American philosophy within the historical development of the Western philosophical tradition. Beginning with an opposition between Coherentism and the Myth of the Given exemplified in recent work of Donald Davidson’s, McDowell proceeds to frame his discussion in terms of the Kantian distinction between concepts and intuitions, understanding and sensibility, spontaneity and receptivity. McDowell’s basic idea is that (...) we can satisfactorily overcome the opposition between Coherentism and the Myth of the Given only by recognizing, with Kant, that concepts and intuitions, understanding and sensibility, must be integrated together in every cognitive act or process—even in the mere intake of experiential content characteristic of sense perception. There is thus no room, according to McDowell, for either unconceptualized sensory input standing in no rational relation to conceptual thought or purely intellectual thought operating independently of all rational constraint from sense experience. (shrink)

The article deals with the philosophical component of the legacy of theprominent early Middle Ages, the first encyclopedic Isidore of Seville (560-637).By analyzing the works of foreign medical scholars and writings of Isidore, the author spans the evolution of views on the legacy of the Seville Bishop. Particular importance is given to quotations from ancient literature in the writings of Isidore, the transformation of the meaning of the quotation, which was due to a change in the context, and often (...) the very text, the agreement of these quotation among themselves and the general conclusions of the author. The second book Differentials and the three books of Senencius of Isidore are defined as the original “theological works” that corresponded to the cultural and ideological demands of the European society of the early Middle Ages, formed the foundations of European education, the idea of the appointment of the royal (state) power.The presentation of the doctrine and related problems is carried out in the three books of Senentius, which contain a number of thematic and meaningful parallels with the second book Differentials. The genius of Senentius is reinterpreted by Isidore: this is not just a thematic selection of aphoristic statements; quotations from various works and Isidor’s own maxims are designed in a clear structure), which explains a certain position and “policy” of the author, a strictly defined set of interconnected concepts. In the three books of Senentia, dogmatic, ascetic themes, what is called the “political theology” are considered.Thus, the second book “Differentials” and the three books “Sentence”,marked by us as “theological works”, are expected to contain a wealth of material for historical and philosophical analysis and, above all, philosophical concepts perceived by Isidor through the inheritance of the Fathers of the Church. However, if he can be blamed in a certain way in the reception of philosophy, then a large number of quotations from ancient literature is not simply a reference to the works of predecessors. They represent the consistency of Isidor’s thoughts with his predecessors, as well as his own conclusions. Given that the Sevillian Bishop was extremely lucky and virtually all his works were preserved, it is not surprising that they caused such controversy in the scientific community of the Medievists and not only the Medievists. The analysis of works on revealing their philosophical component continues to this day and the “supporters” of Isidore-philosopher are becoming more and more. Evolution in a positive direction in foreign historiography regarding the value of the Isidor Sevillian heritage is the basis of its new research by representatives of all branches of science. (shrink)

The paper handles a possibility to use the term “national philosophical tradition” in comparative philosophy as a branch of knowledge, which provides for methodological tools in an intercultural dialogue. It defines the concept of “national philosophical tradition”, principles and ways of its research. The basis of studies is a comparison between the Russian and Spanish philosophical cultures. Inherent common features of both traditions are an epistemological status of philosophy in culture, prevalence of an intuitive insight (...) in the essence of the matter, a tendency to a synthesis between life and reason, confirmation of a fundamental cognation of literature and philosophy. An understanding of a boundary character of their culture has given rise to a messianic predestination of both nations and caused a keen interest in creation of an original national philosophy. So much in common have these two extremes of the European civilization, their main difference lies in the personalism of the Spanish philosophy and the cosmologism of the Russian one. This distinction can to a great extent be explainedby a different type of a religious background and mentality. It is these differences in national philosophical traditions that feed the world philosophy. It is on the basis of these national philosophical traditions that achievements of other philosophical cultures are introduced and assimilated in a new context. That is the reason why this concept may serve as a basis of comparison between different philosophical system. (shrink)

In the Islamic philosophical tradition, it seems that the image of woman has not been studied very much and the role of woman has hardly ever mentioned. First, we will briefly explain why we chose the concept of imagination. Afterward, from which sources the Islamic philosophical tradition has formed its concepts, and as a result, we would try to talk about where it established philosophy, whether it was theoretical or practical. Finally, we want to finish the (...) subject by giving examples from the fact of women in Islamic philosophical tradition. (shrink)

A special issue of The Philosophical Forum , one of the most prestigious philosophy journals, is now available to a wider readership through its publication in book form. The volume includes twelve essays in three sections-- Philosophical Traditions; the African-American Tradition; and Racism, Identity, and Social Life. Contributors are: K. Anthony Appiah, Kwasi Wiredu, Lucius Outlaw, Leonard Harris, Bernard Boxill, Frank M. Kirkland, Tommy L. Lott, Adrian M.S. Piper, Laurence Thomas, Michele M. Moody-Adams, Anita L. Allen, and (...) Howard McGary. The introduction is by John P. Pittman. (shrink)

A special issue of _The Philosophical Forum_, one of the most prestigious philosophy journals, is now available to a wider readership through its publication in book form. The volume includes twelve essays in three sections-- Philosophical Traditions; the African-American Tradition; and Racism, Identity, and Social Life. Contributors are: K. Anthony Appiah, Kwasi Wiredu, Lucius Outlaw, Leonard Harris, Bernard Boxill, Frank M. Kirkland, Tommy L. Lott, Adrian M.S. Piper, Laurence Thomas, Michele M. Moody-Adams, Anita L. Allen, and Howard (...) McGary. The introduction is by John P. Pittman. (shrink)

Piercing incisively and deeply into the nature of the overlapping of the material andmental realms. Aage Petersen uncovers the reciprocal relations between quantum physics and theconcepts of metaphysics and epistemology, assessing the extent to which each has influenced theother. The author is eminently qualified to undertake this important work, which grew out of hisclose contact with Neils Bohr and his Copenhagen school during the years 1952-1962.Although themathematical formalism of quantum physics has long since been established, the question of itsphysical interpretation (...) is not yet closed, and the question of its philosophical interpretationremains in a formative state. The most widely accepted physical interpretation of the quantalformalism emerged from discussions between Bohr and Heisenberg in the winter of 1926-1927. ThisCopenhagen Interpretation centers around the relations of indeterminacy around the relations ofindeterminacy and the concept of complementarity, and was refined but not radically altered in theyears following, especially during the famous debate with Einstein on the completeness possible inthe description of events. The philosophical interpretation has proceeded along two principal lines:Bohr's emphasis on complementarity as a unifying concept, and Heisenberg's exploration of therelationship of quantum physics to the traditional categories of philosophy.To Bohr's mind, thecentral feature of human knowledge is the distinction between subject and object. The indeterminacyof the placing of the partition between instrument and system, which played so large a part inquantal description was, Bohr believed, an expression of the general relation between the knower andthe knowable. He thus sought to find relationships of complementarity in areas beyond quantumphysics.Quantum physics and traditional philosophy certainly relate enough to interact--even thoughthe effects of interaction may produce uncertain results. Heisenberg's view also emphasizes thatscience describes, not nature itself, but the interplay between nature and man, nature as affectedby man's method of questioning, thus denying the school of philosophical thought that began withDescartes' sharp separation of the World and the I.The author's investigation leads him as well tobelieve that complementarity is deeply linked to the basis of philosophy, but that the details ofthe relationship are so obscure that some other feature of quantum physics that makes amore directconnection with philosophy should be sought. He is led to choose the idea of correspondence as suchfeature. This idea played a key role in the development of the matrix version of the formalism andof the Copenhagen interpretation.Mathematically, the idea of correspondence was seen to imply thatquantal formalisms should emerge as generalizations of classical entities, that matrix mechanics wasa generalization of classical Hamiltonian mechanics. It is in this possibility of treating thetraditional categories of philosophy as limits of a more general scheme, or as analogies of a deeperorder, that the fruitfulness of the correspondence idea lies. (shrink)

Many philosophers agree that in our relations with philosophical tradition we face a hermeneutic problem. This problem is how to achieve an adequate understanding of the representatives of this tradition. It is believed that we need to establish a dialogue with figures from the past, rather than attribute our own thoughts and ideas to them. However, few dare to offer a reliable way to achieve this. At the same time, there are those who believe that the hermeneutic (...) problem points to a fundamentally problematic relationship with our history. In this case, we are talking not only about a separate prob­lem requiring its solution, but about a certain attitude as well. Within this attitude, we are focused not so much on an adequate interpretation of the philosophical tradition as on its overcoming. However, the nature of these problematic relations with tradition can be de­scribed differently. For example, one can consider their dependence on tradition as an ob­stacle to understanding oneself and one’s relations with the world. Conversely, one can consider it a condition for such understanding. It is the latter view that John McDowell adheres to. Without denying the obvious fact that there must be a certain distance be­tween different historical contexts, he nevertheless shows that there is no unbridgeable gap in philosophy between its present and past. The article provides an overview of how McDowell, relying on Wilfrid Sellars’s idea of the logical space of reasons and Hans-Georg Gadamer’s idea of fusion of horizons, solves this problem. In addition, the article shows why McDowell himself can be considered a representative of modernism in phi­losophy. (shrink)

A brief history of philosophy in western civilization, written primarily for the undergraduate. Not as systematic or as well-documented as Windelband's history, nor as polemic as Russell's, this work is explicitly designed to make philosophical ideas and traditions come alive for the student. Short and somewhat facile chapters on positivism and existentialism bring the volume up to date, but its chief merit lies in its easy digestibility.--D. B.

Gavin Rae analyses the history of Western conceptions of evil, showing it to be remarkably complex, differentiated and contested. He traces the problem of evil from early and Medieval Christian philosophy to modern philosophy, German Idealism, post-structuralism and contemporary analytic philosophy and secularisation.

This volume of essays offers direct comparisons of historic Western and Buddhist perspectives on ethics and metaphysics, tracing parallels and contrasts all the way from Plato to the Stoics, Spinoza to Hume, and Schopenhauer through to contemporary ethicists such as Arne Naess, Charles Taylor and Derek Parfit. It compares and contrasts each Western philosopher with a particular strand in the Buddhist tradition, in some chapters represented by individual writers such as Nagarjuna, Vasubandhu, Santideva or Tsong Khapa. It does so (...) in light of both analytic concerns and themes from the existentialist and phenomenological traditions, and often in an ecumenical spirit that bridges both analytic and continentalist approaches. Some of the deepest questions in ethics, dealing with the scope of agency, value-laden notions of personhood and the nature of value in general, are intertwined with questions in metaphysics. One set of questions addresses how varying conceptions of selfhood relate to moral values ; another set of questions addresses how a conception of oneself or one’s selves should or should not affect how one thinks of happiness, or eudaimonia, or – in classical Indian terms – artha, sukha or nirvana. Western philosophy has featured discussion of both, but some would argue that certain traditions of Asian philosophy have offered a more sustained and even treatment of both sets of questions. The Buddhist tradition in particular has not only featured much discussion on both fronts, but has attracted many contemporary philosophers to its distinctive spectrum of approaches, and to what is – from many ‘Western’ points of view – a seemingly subversive analysis of ego, selfhood and personhood, whether in metaphysical, phenomenological or other incarnations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 422-423 [Access article in PDF] Robin Small, editor. A Hundred Years of Phenomenology: Perspectives on a Philosophical Tradition. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001. Pp. xxix + 191. Cloth, $79.95.The stated aim of this collection of thirteen essays (mostly new—four are reprints) by philosophers resident in Australia is to offer selective perspectives on the phenomenological tradition, correcting misunderstandings and highlighting (...) aspects overlooked in standard commentaries. Presumably, it also wants to exhibit contemporary Australian writing in the phenomenological tradition, and situate phenomenological claims in terms graspable by analytic philosophers.Robin Small's introduction, taking Husserl's conception of eidetic intuition as fundamental, sketches the rise of phenomenology. The collection is then divided into three parts. Part One ("Approaching the Sources") focuses on the sources of phenomenology (Husserl and Heidegger) and opens with a thoughtful essay by Max Deutscher, reprinted from the Canadian Journal of Philosophy (1980), which is replied to by Maurita Harney. Three further, not particularly distinguished, essays deal with the issues of realism, relativism, [End Page 422] and the relation between Ryle and Husserl. Part Two ("Following the Tradition") deals with new themes arising in Heidegger, Sartre, and Derrida, while Part Three ("Making Connections") explores the relation between phenomenology and other disciplines, chiefly sociology, anthropology, and literature. A final essay by Jocelyn Dunphy Bloomfield examines the relevance of phenomenology in the Australian context.The collection is interesting but uneven. Some of the essays are out of date: Small's essay on Ryle and Husserl originally appeared in 1981 and Purushottama Bilimoria's paper, "Heidegger and the Japanese Connection," first published in the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology (1991), is in need of updating given the upsurge of interest in Husserl in Asia in recent years. Deutscher's "Husserl's Transcendental Subjectivity" is helpful in that it introduces Husserl's transcendental idealism through unusually prosaic analogies. He suggests that the transcendental attitude can be grasped in familiar experiences such as "keeping silence" during an awkward or embarrassing moment or adopting a detached or removed stance. An actor on stage can express anger without being angry. The transcendental attitude is such a detached spectator attitude; it is the capacity we have to judge and appraise ourselves (8). Moreover, it is in this attitude that we come to recognize our commitments to others. Deutscher resists the temptation to separate radically the ordinary living in the world from the detached contemplation of it. There never can be total but only intermittent detachment from the life-world; nevertheless the transcendental epoché is important in that it allows us the chance to gain self-awareness about our situation, about our "forms of life." While Deutscher does a terrific job demystifying one of Husserl's central and much misunderstood concepts, he is at risk of oversimplifying and worse of psychologizing Husserl's insights.Richard Campbell's essay on Heidegger's conception of truth as aletheia is also particularly noteworthy in that it is a philosophically sophisticated attempt to cut through Heidegger's somewhat inflated jargon and expresses his central intuitions about truth. Campbell goes to some trouble to elucidate and disambiguate what Heidegger is saying. Furthermore, he believes Heidegger is wrong in his interpretation of Plato; Plato is doing precisely the opposite of what Heidegger says he is doing. Deutscher's essay on Sartre, informed by an analytic rigor and sensitivity to ambiguity, gives a very clear account and partial defence of the relations between positional consciousness of the object and non-positional self-consciounsess. He is critical of Sartre's sweeping concept of the "in itself" and points out that in reality there are many diverse "in-itselves" with different real properties. Crittenden, too, has an interesting essay on Sartre's conception of "the look." Sartre understands the other as the one who looks at (and thereby seeks to objectify me) whereas for de Beauvoir, the other (in the particular case: woman) is the looked at and objectified. The article on sociology and phenomenology attempts to show the relation between their methods... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 422-423 [Access article in PDF] Robin Small, editor. A Hundred Years of Phenomenology: Perspectives on a Philosophical Tradition. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2001. Pp. xxix + 191. Cloth, $79.95.The stated aim of this collection of thirteen essays (mostly new—four are reprints) by philosophers resident in Australia is to offer selective perspectives on the phenomenological tradition, correcting misunderstandings and highlighting (...) aspects overlooked in standard commentaries. Presumably, it also wants to exhibit contemporary Australian writing in the phenomenological tradition, and situate phenomenological claims in terms graspable by analytic philosophers.Robin Small's introduction, taking Husserl's conception of eidetic intuition as fundamental, sketches the rise of phenomenology. The collection is then divided into three parts. Part One ("Approaching the Sources") focuses on the sources of phenomenology (Husserl and Heidegger) and opens with a thoughtful essay by Max Deutscher, reprinted from the Canadian Journal of Philosophy (1980), which is replied to by Maurita Harney. Three further, not particularly distinguished, essays deal with the issues of realism, relativism, [End Page 422] and the relation between Ryle and Husserl. Part Two ("Following the Tradition") deals with new themes arising in Heidegger, Sartre, and Derrida, while Part Three ("Making Connections") explores the relation between phenomenology and other disciplines, chiefly sociology, anthropology, and literature. A final essay by Jocelyn Dunphy Bloomfield examines the relevance of phenomenology in the Australian context.The collection is interesting but uneven. Some of the essays are out of date: Small's essay on Ryle and Husserl originally appeared in 1981 and Purushottama Bilimoria's paper, "Heidegger and the Japanese Connection," first published in the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology (1991), is in need of updating given the upsurge of interest in Husserl in Asia in recent years. Deutscher's "Husserl's Transcendental Subjectivity" is helpful in that it introduces Husserl's transcendental idealism through unusually prosaic analogies. He suggests that the transcendental attitude can be grasped in familiar experiences such as "keeping silence" during an awkward or embarrassing moment or adopting a detached or removed stance. An actor on stage can express anger without being angry. The transcendental attitude is such a detached spectator attitude; it is the capacity we have to judge and appraise ourselves (8). Moreover, it is in this attitude that we come to recognize our commitments to others. Deutscher resists the temptation to separate radically the ordinary living in the world from the detached contemplation of it. There never can be total but only intermittent detachment from the life-world; nevertheless the transcendental epoché is important in that it allows us the chance to gain self-awareness about our situation, about our "forms of life." While Deutscher does a terrific job demystifying one of Husserl's central and much misunderstood concepts, he is at risk of oversimplifying and worse of psychologizing Husserl's insights.Richard Campbell's essay on Heidegger's conception of truth as aletheia is also particularly noteworthy in that it is a philosophically sophisticated attempt to cut through Heidegger's somewhat inflated jargon and expresses his central intuitions about truth. Campbell goes to some trouble to elucidate and disambiguate what Heidegger is saying. Furthermore, he believes Heidegger is wrong in his interpretation of Plato; Plato is doing precisely the opposite of what Heidegger says he is doing. Deutscher's essay on Sartre, informed by an analytic rigor and sensitivity to ambiguity, gives a very clear account and partial defence of the relations between positional consciousness of the object and non-positional self-consciounsess. He is critical of Sartre's sweeping concept of the "in itself" and points out that in reality there are many diverse "in-itselves" with different real properties. Crittenden, too, has an interesting essay on Sartre's conception of "the look." Sartre understands the other as the one who looks at (and thereby seeks to objectify me) whereas for de Beauvoir, the other (in the particular case: woman) is the looked at and objectified. The article on sociology and phenomenology attempts to show the relation between their methods... (shrink)

Examining select high points in the speculative tradition from Plato and Aristotle through the Middle Ages and German tradition to Dewey and Heidegger, _Placing Aesthetics_ seeks to locate the aesthetic concern within the larger framework of each thinker's philosophy. In Professor Robert Wood's study, aesthetics is not peripheral but rather central to the speculative tradition and to human existence as such. In Dewey's terms, aesthetics is “experience in its integrity.” Its personal ground is in “the heart,” which (...) is the dispositional ground formed by genetic, cultural, and personal historical factors by which we are spontaneously moved and, in turn, are inclined to move, both practically and theoretically, in certain directions. Prepared for use by the student as well as the philosopher, _Placing Aesthetics_ aims to recover the fullness of humanness within a sense of the fullness of encompassing Being. It attempts to overcome the splitting of thought, even in philosophy, into exclusive specializations and the fracturing of life itself into theoretical, practical, and emotive dimensions. (shrink)

Even though the Pan Africanist Congress was formed in 1959 after departing from the African National Congress at a point marking out the irreconcilability of the Azanian ‘faith’ with the other interpretations of the struggle within the ‘broad church’ of the Congress Movement, it was only six years later, in 1965, that it modified its name to the PAC of Azania. The name Azania is supposed to have been suggested by Nkrumah at the All-African Peoples’ Conference in 1958 attended by (...) the Africanists even before the inauguration of the PAC (Diaz 2009: 239; Hilton 1993: 5). The Azanian tendency in ‘South African’ history can arguably be said to have existed from the earliest times of resistance by the indigenous people against the unjust wars of colonisation (see Dladla 2020: 71–108). (shrink)

This dissertation is an ontological investigation of value. The thesis is this: Value is a moment founded on a real entity and, in this sense, value is real. I argue that this thesis is true for all objects in the domain of value by looking at three distinct categories of value: economic value, aesthetic value, and moral value. And I demonstrate by means of advancing definitions, and the necessary and sufficient conditions for each of these three categories of value, that (...) this thesis is the essential glue that holds all values in the realm of social reality as part of the genus value. There are two restrictions to this thesis. One restriction is that the real existence of value is possible only if there is a relation of correspondence between a value judgment and its referent. A false value judgment, then, fails to correspond to its intentional target so there is no possible value. The other restriction is that the value entities are either concrete objects that have at least temporally come into being, or actual states of affairs with a spatial and temporal location. Both of these restrictions combined imply that no future states of affairs, or objects which either have not or cannot come into being, can be objects of value. This dissertation draws from sources in the Central European philosophical tradition. (shrink)

In this article we examine the significance of the history of philosophy in raciovitalismo of Ortega y Gasset. The philosopher does not believe that no one thinks philosophically address both current problems and past tense systems, hence the history of philosophy is a discipline of philosophy. For him, no other science in the story acquires a meaning of its development as large as in philosophy. The article also shows how, for him, creating philosophical binds to cultural moment in which (...) it was produced, indicating the importance of believing in the background of thought and shows how the thinker distinguishes the great periods of philosophy. (shrink)

This essay deploys the existence of epistemic vices in the trajectory of Western philosophy to map the erasures and complicities that accompanied the emergence of contemporary African philosophy (CAP1). It argues that the complicity of CAP1 in the hyperspecialization and academic self‐absorption that marked the professionalization of Western philosophy, makes it difficult to attend to the conditions for its own possibility. CAP1 arguably needs to make a critical turn into critical African philosophy (CAP2), understood as a metatheoretical and metaphilosophical framework (...) for an internal transformation that is emancipatory. CAP2 is envisioned, first, as a critique of postcoloniality that rehumanizes the autonomous African subject; and, second, as an ethicopolitical project that explores the cracks between philosophy as theoretical practice and philosophy as praxis in opening up the spaces for postcolonial emancipation. The essay identifies three conditions that instigate the emancipatory possibility of philosophizing on the continent: the spatial/platial, demosophic, and political. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty’s writings on the philosophy of painting, though widely influential and much discussed, remain enigmatic. In this paper I compare his views on painting with those of his older contemporary, Jacques Maritain, who also holds that painting can give us a non-conceptual insight into deep truths about things that are inaccessible to discursive thought. I argue that some ideas that are obscure and undeveloped in Merleau-Ponty are developed more clearly and fully in Maritain. Even where there are significant differences between (...) them, these are not as great as it might at first seem. This comparison can help us to see the ways in which both philosophers’ theories of art are important for understanding their philosophies as a whole. Furthermore, the views they hold in common can continue to suggest a plausible and fruitful way to think about art today. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty’s writings on the philosophy of painting, though widely influential and much discussed, remain enigmatic. In this paper I compare his views on painting with those of his older contemporary, Jacques Maritain, who also holds that painting can give us a non-conceptual insight into deep truths about things that are inaccessible to discursive thought. I argue that some ideas that are obscure and undeveloped in Merleau-Ponty are developed more clearly and fully in Maritain. Even where there are significant differences between (...) them, these are not as great as it might at first seem. This comparison can help us to see the ways in which both philosophers’ theories of art are important for understanding their philosophies as a whole. Furthermore, the views they hold in common can continue to suggest a plausible and fruitful way to think about art today. (shrink)

This article argues the following points. (1) It is necessary to affirm that all of humanity has always sought to address certain `core universal problems' that are present in all cultures. (2) The rational responses to these `core problems' first acquire the shape of mythical narratives. (3) The formulation of categorical philosophical discourses is a subsequent development in human rationality, which does not, however, negate all mythical narratives. These discourses arose in all the great urban neolithic cultures (even if (...) only in initial form). (4) Modern European philosophy confused its economic, political and cultural domination, and the resulting crises in other philosophical traditions, with a Eurocentric universality claim, which must be questioned. (5) In any case there are formal universal aspects in which all regional philosophies can coincide, and which respond to the `core problems' at an abstract level. (6) All of this impels entry into a new age of inter-philosophical dialogue, respectful of differences and open to learning from the useful discoveries of other traditions. (7) A new philosophical project must be developed that is capable of going beyond Eurocentric philosophical modernity, by shaping a global trans - modern pluriverse, drawing upon the `discarded' (by modernity) own resources of peripheral, subaltern, postcolonial philosophies. Key Words: Al-Jabri • dialogue • Eurocentric • Fornet-Betancourt • Hountondji • inter-philosophical • myth • narrative • rationality • Ricoeur • transmodern. (shrink)

Christopher Hookway has been influential in promoting engagement with pragmatist and naturalist perspectives from classical and contemporary American philosophy. This book reflects on Hookway's work on the American philosophical tradition and its significance for contemporary discussions of the understanding of mind, meaning, knowledge, and value. Hookway's original and extensive studies of Charles S. Peirce have made him among the most admired and frequently referenced of Peirce's interpreters. His work on classical American pragmatism has explored the philosophies of William (...) James, John Dewey and Josiah Royce, and examined the influence of pragmatist ideas outside of the United States. Additionally, Hookway has participated in a number of celebrated exchanges with some of the most high-profile figures of twentieth- and twenty-first century philosophy, including Karl-Otto Apel, Philip Pettit, Hilary Putnam, and W.V.O. Quine, through which his treatments of a large range of topics in epistemology and the philosophies of mind and language have been developed and promoted. The chapters in this book-which include contributions from several of Hookway's former students and colleagues-include studies of Hookway's engagement with the works of Peirce, James, and Dewey, his contributions to virtue epistemology, and his discussions of hope and pragmatist metaphysics. Pragmatic Reason will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on American philosophy, the history of analytic philosophy, and epistemology. (shrink)

Despite the pervasive feeling that much of the culture of Western democracies has increasingly become inauthentic or phoney, contemporary cultural critics and observers have paid little attention to the traditional philosophical criticism of inauthentic c.

Throughout the history of Western philosophy there has been a remarkable consensus that the unique and distinctive feature of human nature lies in the human capacity to think — that is, to think rationally. Being rational is conceived of as being an essential property of human beings. The Amsterdam philosopher Otto Dirk Duintjer2 has made an impressive attempt to analyze this dominant intellectual tradition for the purpose of furnishing hints for an alternative conception of what goes into the essence (...) of being human. This alternative is presented not as another, more promising route within, but as a way out of our Western intellectual cul-de-sac, as Duintjer sees it. In this essay I first want to give a brief exposition of Duintjer’s analysis of our philosophical tradition because, I think, it is worth our serious consideration. Secondly, I will review his alternative for the traditional conception of what it means to be a human being. And thirdly I will discuss the viability of his alternative by comparing it with Dooyeweerd’s transcendental philosophy. (shrink)

This article proposes that the study of non-Western philosophical traditions ought to include a critical awareness of the experience, impact, and legacy of colonialism. In this regard, Latin American philosophy offers us a key concept—the coloniality of power. It will be shown that coloniality enriches and complicates our understanding of both the history of Western and non-Western philosophies. More specifically, coloniality helps to clarify and answer the following questions: First, how was it that the discipline of philosophy came to (...) be centrally understood as Western? And second, to what degree did the modern distinction between West and non-West affect our understanding and the formation of non-Western thought? Ultimately, the methodological upshot of coloniality for the study of non-Western philosophical traditions is that it focuses our attention on the epistemic violence that was part and parcel of colonialism and therefore it frames the study of non-Western philosophical thought within the practi.. (shrink)

This paper is centred around a debate taking place among environmental scientists. One camp argues that proof of a causal connection between a chemical and a biological anomaly must be demonstrated in the laboratory. The other contends that actual damage is underestimated in the lab, and that it is therefore necessary to conduct supplemental ecoepidemiological research in order to determine the full impact of toxic chemicals. Members of the former contingent – claiming to be defending scientific rigour – sometimes accuse (...) their peers of practising an inferior science. This paper argues that this contention is supported by a philosophical tradition tending to favour abstract and formal analysis over the close examination of material detail. To the extent that this preference has been adopted by the media, industry, policy analysts, and regulatory bodies, more is at stake than an intellectual squabble. The paper provides a brief overview of the history of the formalist tendency in philosophy, followed by an illustration of the ways in which advocates of a strict laboratory methodology implicitly rely on this foundation. The work and ideas of contemporary ecoepidemiologists are then compared to this imposing edifice of traditional science. (shrink)

The author discusses Roberto Esposito's "Pensiero vivente. Origine e attualità della filosofia italiana" , where a rethinking of the Italian philosophical tradition is proposed in the light of recent currents in biopolitics, a rethinking centered on the resistance opposed by «life» to the repeated attempts to rationalize and historicize it . The author believes that it would be wrong to consider that interpretation - al- though founded and charming - as the sole or dominant as compared to at (...) least two other possible connotations of Italian thought: the constant search for the relationship between history and philosophy and its civil-ethical dimension. (shrink)

“Knowledge” in Islam, Muslim culture and philosophy is considered as the key to understanding Muslim civilization, the formation of which took place in interaction with the cultures of peoples of the eastern and western parts of the former Roman Empire. The Byzantine theology and philosophy were of great importance for the points of contact and mutual enrichment of Muslim and Christian cultures in the Middle Ages, influencing the formation of Christian orthodox doctrine and the worldview of the ethnically diverse peoples (...) of the Byzantine oikumene. The phenomenon of “knowledge” in Muslim culture is presented in the article in connection with some contexts of Byzantine culture. “Knowledge”, as well as the categorical space of Muslim culture as a whole, on the one hand, allows us to understand the spirit of Islam as a phenomenon of religion, culture and civilization, and on the other hand, to determine the role and significance of this space in the formation and development of the main directions of Arab-Muslim philosophy formed in the “golden era” of Islam. The article considers the spiritual attitude to the “search for knowledge” in Islam: in the Koran and the Sunnah. Particular attention is paid to the concept of “knowledge” in the Arab-Muslim culture, while it is noted that written culture, book knowledge and education in general were the property of not only a narrow circle of rulers and religious figures in the Arab Caliphate. Within the framework of the categorical space of the Arab Muslim culture and philosophy, it should be borne in mind that the categories of “knowledge” (‘ilm) and “action” ('amal) constitute an inseparable unity within the framework of the Arab Muslim spiritual tradition in the context of the relationship between “theoretical” and “practical” mind. The role of “knowledge” and “action” within the framework of the Arab Muslim philosophical tradition is considered on the example of the teachings of al-Ghazali, who had a huge impact on the development of philosophy both in the Arab East and the European West. Being a key figure in the spiritual history of Islam and Muslim civilization, al-Ghazali considered knowledge not just as a value, but also as a virtue. An ardent champion of the role of reason, he connected theoretical reason with the understanding of spiritual realities that give us various systems of knowledge called sciences. The area of competence of practical reason, which should be based on the theoretical, al-Ghazali associated with human behavior. Practical reason directs human actions based on the will, based on and guided by a moral ideal. Al-Ghazali’s teachings are considered in notions and terms formed and developed in the Middle Ages within the Arab-Muslim culture and reflecting some meanings of such historical type of philosophical culture as the Greek-Byzantine classical Patristics. Al-Ghazali and the Byzantine Church Fathers shared a philosophical and theological understanding of man in his relation to the Creator and the phenomenon of “knowledge”. (shrink)

Russia of the 1990s, in spite of its thousand-year traditions, is in some respects a new country in an unfamiliar and strange world: a country confronting a complex of hitherto unencountered macro-economic, technological, and ecological circumstances; a country compelled, in fact, to renounce its past global imperial ambitions, which in previous periods were defended in terms of the exclusive truth of the "autocratic-Orthodox" or "Marxist-Leninist" doctrine.

It is an assumed view in Chinese philosophy that the grammatical differences between English or Indo-European languages and classical Chinese explain some of the differences between the Western and Chinese philosophical discourses. Although some philosophers have expressed doubts about the general link between classical Chinese philosophy and syntactic form of classical Chinese, I discuss a specific hypothesis, i.e., the mass-noun hypothesis, in this essay. The mass-noun hypothesis assumes that a linguistic distinction such as between the singular terms and the (...) predicates is sufficient to justify or necessarily leads to a specific ontological distinction such as the distinction between the particular and the universal. I argue that one cannot read off semantic properties simply from syntactic ones and hence the syntactic differences do not automatically translate into the semantic differences between languages, that the syntactic features of Chinese nouns do not have explanatory significance in explaining why the particular-universal problem does not arise in the classical period of Chinese philosophy, and that the part-whole ontology allegedly informed by the mass-noun-like semantics does not provide a natural or intuitive picture of the language-world relation. (shrink)

Christopher Hookway has been influential in promoting engagement with pragmatist and naturalist perspectives from classical and contemporary American philosophy. This book reflects on Hookway’s work on the American philosophical tradition and its significance for contemporary discussions of the understanding of mind, meaning, knowledge, and value. -/- Hookway’s original and extensive studies of Charles S. Peirce have made him among the most admired and frequently referenced of Peirce’s interpreters. His work on classical American pragmatism has explored the philosophies of (...) William James, John Dewey, and Josiah Royce, and examined the influence of pragmatist ideas outside of the United States. Additionally, Hookway has participated in a number of celebrated exchanges with some of the most high-profile figures of twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophy, including Karl-Otto Apel, Philip Pettit, Hilary Putnam, and W.V.O. Quine, through which his treatments of a large range of topics in epistemology and the philosophies of mind and language have been developed and promoted. The chapters in this book—which include contributions from several of Hookway’s former students and colleagues—include studies of Hookway’s engagement with the works of Peirce, James, and Dewey, his contributions to virtue epistemology, and his discussions of hope and pragmatist metaphysics. -/- Pragmatic Reason will be of interest to researchers and advanced students working on American philosophy, the history of analytic philosophy, and epistemology. (shrink)

This paper undertakes a philosophical investigation of the implications of the traditional Yoruba understanding of education for the contemporary African quest for development. The paper argues that the Yoruba conception of education is marked bythe underlying philosophical principles of functionalism, moralism and progressivism. These principles, the paper contends, are of great relevance to the quest of contemporary African societies for education that will serve as a catalyst for development.

This article discusses the contemporary history of South African social science in relation to the Azanian Philosophical Tradition. It is addressed directly to white scholars, urging introspection with regard to the ethical question of epistemic justice in relation to the evolution of the social sciences in conqueror South Africa. I consider the establishment of the professional social sciences at South African universities in the early twentieth century as a central part of the epistemic project of conqueror South Africa. (...) In contrast, the Azanian Philosophical Tradition is rooted in African philosophy and articulated in resistance against the injustice of conquest and colonialism in southern Africa since the seventeenth century. It understands conquest as the fundamental historical antagonism shaping the philosophical, political, and material problem of ‘South Africa’. The tradition is silenced by and exceeds the political and epistemic strictures of the settler colonial nation state and social science. (shrink)

This article examines the role of scepticism in the Islamic philosophical tradition. It begins with a treatment of the origins and purpose of these discussions in classical kalām (c. 800–1100 CE). Then it moves on to the more mature discussions treating five forms of scepticism in the post‐classical period (c.1200–1800 CE), with the aim of demonstrating how they construed scepticism, the arguments for and against it, and what purposes scepticism played in their system. Three of these types of (...) scepticism are unrestricted, meaning that their denial of knowledge is universal. The other two types are restricted to a denial of inferential knowledge, either entirely, or in certain subjects such as metaphysics and natural philosophy. The discussion will focus on two of the most widely studied works of kalām: Saʿd al‐Din al‐Taftāzānī's Sharḥ al‐ʿAqāʾid al‐Nasafiyya and Jalāl al‐Dīn al‐Dawānī's Sharḥ al‐ʿAqāʾid al‐ʿAḍudiyya, including some of their super‐commentaries. (shrink)

How does a school of thought, in the area of philosophy, or indeed of religion, from roots that may be initially open-ended and largely informal, come to take on the features that later mark it out as distinctive, and even exclusive? That is the theme which is explored in this book in respect of the philosophical movement known as Platonism, stemming as it does from the essentially open-ended and informal atmosphere of Plato's Academy. John Dillon focuses on a number (...) of key issues, such as monism versus dualism, the metaphysical underpinnings of ethical theory, the theory of Forms, and the reaction to the Sceptical 'deviation' represented by the so-called 'New Academy'. The book is written in the lively and accessible style of the lecture series in Beijing from which it originates. (shrink)

Responding to Jan Masschelein's discussion of critical distance and the trivialisation of critique in his ‘How to Conceive of Critical Educational Theory Today?’, I draw attention to the antinomic character of immanence and transcendence—that is, to the way that it entails both non-circumventible necessity and omnipresent risks. I argue that the discourse of critical thinking in education is exemplary of the tensions generated by such consolidated meanings. Through this prism, I aim to offer a nuanced account of ways in which (...) the trivialisation of critique nurtures narcissistic and conformist tendencies that do not leave unaffected any critical philosophical line of thought. To illustrate my critique of contemporary critical education of all persuasions, I deal with an ethics of reading and writing. I suggest that, rather than encouraging cynicism and an abdication of responsibility, this antinomic character of critique should discourage any complacent and one-sided reliance on one's own tradition. (shrink)

Responding to Jan Masschelein’s discussion of critical distance and the trivialisation of critique in his ‘How to Conceive of Critical Educational Theory Today?’, I draw attention to the antinomic character of immanence and transcendence—that is, to the way that it entails both non-circumventible necessity and omnipresent risks. I argue that the discourse of critical thinking in education is exemplary of the tensions generated by such consolidated meanings. Through this prism, I aim to offer a nuanced account of ways in which (...) the trivialisation of critique nurtures narcissistic and conformist tendencies that do not leave unaffected any critical philosophical line of thought. To illustrate my critique of contemporary critical education of all persuasions, I deal with an ethics of reading and writing. I suggest that, rather than encouraging cynicism and an abdication of responsibility, this antinomic character of critique should discourage any complacent and one-sided reliance on one’s own tradition. (shrink)