Maria Rosa Antognazza's work has issued a historical challenge to the thesis that the analysis of knowledge (as justified true belief) attacked by epistemologists from Gettier onwards was indeed the standard view traditionally upheld from Plato onwards. This challenge led to an ongoing reappraisal of the historical significance of intuitive knowledge, in which the knower is intimately connected to what is known. Such traditional accounts of intuition, and their accompanying claims to epistemological primacy, constituted the precise target of Moritz Schlick's (...) critique. Schlick engages with this topic throughout his oeuvre, from some of his early epistemological writings, to his anti-metaphysical stance as a leading Logical Empiricist. Schlick crucially distinguishes knowledge from mere acquaintance, denying that the latter has epistemic status. He therefore argues that the very notion of ‘intuitive knowledge’ is a contradictio in adjecto. (shrink)

The similarities between William James’ Stream of Consciousness and Henri Bergson’s La durée réelle have often been noted. Both emphasize the fundamentally temporal nature of our conscious experience and its constant flow. However, in this article, I argue that despite surface similarities between the OP theories, they are fundamentally different. The ultimate reason for the differences between the theories is that James believed that we should reject psychological explanations that depend on synthesis within the mental sphere. This is because such (...) explanations are incompatible with empiricism. Instead, we should look to the physiological mechanisms underpinning mental states. In contrast, Bergson was an adamant defender of a form of mental processing which he called qualitative synthesis. Duration itself, for Bergson, is a form of qualitative synthesis. However, in 1906, less than five years before James died, Bergson convinced him to change his mind. This results in a huge shift in James’ thought. Unless we understand how far apart James and Bergson were prior to this shift, we will not have a proper picture of the full influence of Bergson on James’ thought, nor of the major changes to James’ philosophy that occurred near the end of his life. (shrink)

This article explores the relationship between Gilles Deleuze's philosophical endeavours and Marxism, with a particular focus on his unfinished work, Grandeur de Marx. Despite the collapse of Soviet socialism, Deleuze acknowledged that his philosophical pursuits were profoundly intertwined with Marxist thought. His insistence on this connection was not a mere expression of regret or an apology for his political leanings. In the 1990s, as neoliberal globalisation spread beyond the United States and Europe, Marxism persisted as a rallying cry for resistance. (...) The ascendancy of global capitalism was not a consequence of Marxism's failure; rather, it was a manifestation of what Marx had presciently predicted in his works. Thus, Deleuze's unfinished project on Marx can be viewed as a response to anti-Marxist reactionism from a distinct vantage point. While several interpretations of Deleuze's unwritten Marx exist, the argument in this essay is that Deleuze attempted to recreate the conditions for Marx's critical analysis by employing communism as an event. (shrink)

Deleuze and Guattari’s manner of distinguishing science from philosophy in their last collaboration What is Philosophy? seems to imply a hierarchy, according to which philosophy is more adequate to the reality of virtual events than science is. This suggests, in turn, that philosophy has a better claim than science to truth. This paper clarifies Deleuze‘s views about truth throughout his career. Deleuze equivocates over the term, using it in an “originary” and a “derived” sense, probably under the influence of Henri (...) Bergson, who does similarly. Moreover, William James and pragmatism were to Bergson what the early analytic philosophers Frege and Russell are to Deleuze: excessively scientistic foils whose confusions about truth arise as a result of failing to distinguish science from philosophy. By situating Deleuze’s conception of truth in relation to the early Heidegger’s, which it to some extent resembles, the paper concludes by suggesting that, surprisingly, neither kind of truth Deleuze licenses applies to science, while both apply to philosophy. Science is indifferent to truth in the way that some of Deleuze‘s readers have incorrectly wanted to say that he thinks philosophy is. (shrink)