British Philosophy, Misc

Many women wrote philosophy in nineteenth-century Britain, and they wrote across the full range of philosophical topics. Yet these important women thinkers have been left out of the philosophical canon and many of them are barely known today. The aim of this book is to put them back on the map. It introduces twelve women philosophers - Mary Shepherd, Harriet Martineau, Ada Lovelace, George Eliot, Frances Power Cobbe, Helena Blavatsky, Julia Wedgwood, Victoria Welby, Arabella Buckley, Annie Besant, Vernon Lee, and (...) Constance Naden. Alison Stone looks at their views on naturalism, philosophy of mind, evolution, morality and religion, and progress in history. She shows how these women interacted and developed their philosophical views in conversation with one another, not only with their male contemporaries. The rich print and periodical culture of the period enabled these women to publish philosophy in forms accessible to a general readership, despite the restrictions women faced, such as having limited or no access to university education. Stone explains how these women became excluded from the history of philosophy because there was a cultural shift at the end of the nineteenth century towards specialised forms of philosophical writing, which depended on academic credentials that were still largely unavailable to women. (shrink)

This thesis is a sceptical investigation into the notion that the metaphorical wave-particle binary of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse is related to quantum physics. Indeed, the field of literature and science has employed conceptual similarities as the main means of connecting quantum concepts to novels, however, this has led to a host of scholarly difficulties, prompting the need for a re-examination of analogical linkages. Woolf is the model candidate for such a re-examination, given her historical and philosophical proximity with (...) the developments of quantum mechanics. To the Lighthouse, in particular, was written between 1925 and 1927: precisely when quantum physicists were attempting to resolve the wave-particle duality, leading to Niels Bohr's complementarity. This parallel has been noted by researchers as relevant to the novel, as it too displays a general binary that can be read as wave-particle-like, which the author also attempts to resolve along similar philosophical lines. Nevertheless, other than proximity and similarity, there are no reasons to affirm that the science is related to the novel; hence, it is an ideal case study to examine in order to ascertain the value of conceptual similarities in literature and science. To do so, To the Lighthouse's binary and its resolution are interpreted in a thesis-long close reading, in order to compare aspects of it firstly to Woolf's personal thought, and secondly to various non-quantum intellectual contexts that preceded and surrounded her. In doing so, it becomes clear not only that invoking quantum physics serves no clear purpose in better understanding the novel, but also that the notion of resolving wave- particle-like binaries was a widespread philosophical procedure at the turn of the century, decades before Bohr's concept. This negative conclusion interrogates what the scholarly value of interpreting similarities is, though a hypothetical solution can be found in conceptual metaphor theory. (shrink)

This book examines the way in which Robert Boyle seeks to accommodate his complex chemical philosophy within the framework of a mechanistic theory of matter. More specifically, the book proposes that Boyle regards chemical qualities as properties that emerged from the mechanistic structure of chymical atoms. Within Boyle’s chemical ontology, chymical atoms are structured concretions of particles that Boyle regards as chemically elementary entities, that is, as chemical wholes that resist experimental analysis. Although this interpretation of Boyle’s chemical philosophy has (...) already been suggested by other Boyle scholars, the present book provides a sustained philosophical argument to demonstrate that, for Boyle, chemical properties are dispositional, relational, emergent, and supervenient properties. This argument is strengthened by a detailed mereological analysis of Boylean chymical atoms that establishes the kind of theory of wholes and parts that is most consistent with an emergentist conception of chemical properties. The emergentist position that is being attributed to Boyle supports his view that chemical reactions resist direct explanation in terms of the mechanistic properties of fundamental particles, as well as his position regarding the scientific autonomy of chymistry from mechanics and physics. (shrink)

When Bernard Williams died in June 2003, the obituary in The Times said that “he will be remembered as the most brilliant and most important British moral philosopher of his time”. It goes on to make clear that Williams was far from the dry, awkward, detached academic philosopher of caricature. -/- Born in Essex in 1929, Williams had an extraordinary and, in some respects, glamorous life. He not only enjoyed a stellar academic career – holding a series of distinguished posts (...) at Oxford, UCL, Cambridge and Berkeley – but was also a public figure in British political and cultural life. He played, for example, a leading role in several high profile government committees and reports, and served for almost two decades on the board of the English National Opera. He had, moreover, an easy confidence and charm, a lucidity of expression, and a sharp and, at times, acerbic wit (which could alarm both friends and foes alike). -/- Although these achievements and qualities are impressive, what he will be remembered for chiefly is his significant contribution to philosophy, which spanned a wide spectrum of topics. It is in the field of ethics, in particular, that his contributions are of the most lasting importance. And yet there is a real sense in which he remains a rather enigmatic figure – and the interpretation of his work continues to be a matter of considerable debate.... (shrink)

The following article examines the comparison between the human mind and a Commonwealth proposed by Hume in section 1.4.6 of the Treatise of Human Nature. As the members of a given social society do not link their respective interests by causality relations, such a comparison is not to be understood as an illustration of causality relations between perceptions. We would like to prove that such comparison asserts that our belief in personal identity is stemming from the invention of an artificial (...) reality; showing that only the invention of a rule of stability of possession can legitimate the possession of all objects – may they be goods or perceptions – and sets a criterion enabling to differentiate my perceptions from those of my fellows. (shrink)