In this important new book Nagel, one of the most distinguished philosophers writing in English today, presents a sustained defence of reason against the attacks of subjectivism. He offers systematic rebuttals of relativistic claims with respect to language, logic, science, and ethics.

Bringing together a group of outstanding new essays on Aristotle's De Anima, this book covers topics such as the relation between soul and body, sense-perception, imagination, memory, desire, and thought, which present the philosophical substance of Aristotle's views to the modern reader. The contributors write with philosophical subtlety and wide-ranging scholarship, locating their interpretations firmly within the context of Aristotle's thought as a whole.u.

Volumes I and II provided a completely new translation of the philosophical works of Descartes, based on the best available Latin and French texts. Volume III contains 207 of Descartes' letters, over half of which have previously not been translated into English. It incorporates, in its entirety, Anthony Kenny's celebrated translation of selected philosophical letters, first published in 1970. In conjunction with Volumes I and II it is designed to meet the widespread demand for a comprehensive, authoritative and accurate edition (...) of Descartes' philosophical writings in clear and readable modern English. (shrink)

[David Charles] Aristotle, it appears, sometimes identifies well-being with one activity, sometimes with several, including ethical virtue. I argue that this appearance is misleading. In the Nicomachean Ethics, intellectual contemplation is the central case of human well-being, but is not identical with it. Ethically virtuous activity is included in human well-being because it is an analogue of intellectual contemplation. This structure allows Aristotle to hold that while ethically virtuous activity is valuable in its own right, the best life available for (...) humans is centred around, but not wholly constituted by, intellectual contemplation. /// [Dominic Scott] In Nicomachean Ethics X 7-8, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of eudaimonia, primary and secondary. The first corresponds to contemplation, the second to activity in accordance with moral virtue and practical reason. My task in this paper is to elucidate this distinction. Like Charles, I interpret it as one between paradigm and derivative cases; unlike him, I explain it in terms of similarity, not analogy. Furthermore, once the underlying nature of the distinction is understood, we can reconcile the claim that paradigm eudaimonia consists just in contemplation with a passage in the first book requiring eudaimonia to involve all intrinsic goods. (shrink)

Challenging and rewarding in equal measure, _Phenomenology of Perception_ is Merleau-Ponty's most famous work. Impressive in both scope and imagination, it uses the example of perception to return the _body_ to the forefront of philosophy for the first time since Plato. Drawing on case studies such as brain-damaged patients from the First World War, Merleau-Ponty brilliantly shows how the body plays a crucial role not only in perception but in speech, sexuality and our relation to others. Perhaps above all, Merleau-Ponty's (...) insights about the embodied mind are a bold and refreshing challenge to the new era of virtual reality and artificial intelligence, as scientists and psychologists discover the centrality of the body to mind and intelligence. (shrink)

First published in 1945, Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s monumental _Phénoménologie de la perception _signalled the arrival of a major new philosophical and intellectual voice in post-war Europe. Breaking with the prevailing picture of existentialism and phenomenology at the time, it has become one of the landmark works of twentieth-century thought. This new translation, the first for over fifty years, makes this classic work of philosophy available to a new generation of readers. _Phenomenology of Perception _stands in the great phenomenological tradition of Husserl, (...) Heidegger, and Sartre. Yet Merleau-Ponty’s contribution is decisive, as he brings this tradition and other philosophical predecessors, particularly Descartes and Kant, to confront a neglected dimension of our experience: the lived body and the phenomenal world. Charting a bold course between the reductionism of science on the one hand and "intellectualism" on the other, Merleau-Ponty argues that we should regard the body not as a mere biological or physical unit, but as the body which structures one’s situation and experience within the world. Merleau-Ponty enriches his classic work with engaging studies of famous cases in the history of psychology and neurology as well as phenomena that continue to draw our attention, such as phantom limb syndrome, synaesthesia, and hallucination. This new translation includes many helpful features such as the reintroduction of Merleau-Ponty’s discursive Table of Contents as subtitles into the body of the text, a comprehensive Translator’s Introduction to its main themes, essential notes explaining key terms of translation, an extensive Index, and an important updating of Merleau-Ponty’s references to now available English translations. Also included is a new foreword by Taylor Carman and an introduction to Merleau-Ponty_ _by Claude Lefort. Translated by Donald A. Landes. (shrink)

Three different concepts of matter are identified: matter as what a thing is immediately made of, matter as stuff of a certain kind, and matter in the (dubious) sense of material ‘substratum’. The doctrine of hylomorphism, which regards every individual concrete thing as being ‘combination’ of matter and form, is challenged. Instead it is urged that we do well to identify an individual concrete thing with its own particular ‘substantial form’. The notions of form and matter, far from being correlative, (...) are relatively independent. There is nothing absurd in the notion of form without matter. Matter provides neither a principle of individuation nor a criterion of identity for individual concrete things: their form alone provides both. Finally, a substance ontology which admits also the existence of particular qualities, or tropes, is to be preferred both to a substance ontology which denies the existence of tropes and to a pure trope ontology. (shrink)

The paper offers a general critique of physicalism and of one variety of nonphysicalism, arguing that such theses are untenable. By distinguishing between the absolute conception of reality and the causal completeness of physics it shows that the 'explanatory gap' is not merely epistemic but metaphysical. It defends the essential subjectivity and unity of consciousness and its inseparability from a self-conscious autonomous rational and moral being. Casting a favourable light on dualism freed from misconceptions, it suggests that the only plausible (...) way forward in the search for an understanding of both physical and mental reality is a recognition of the mind as a metaphysically distinct entity. (shrink)

Citation: Christofidou, A.. Descartes' Dualism: Correcting Some Misconceptions. Journal of the History of Philosophy 39:2 , 215-238. © Journal of the History of Philosophy. Reprinted with permission of The Johns Hopkins University Press.

There is a way of understanding “the philosophical problem of the self” that makes it unquestionably central to and ineliminable from the entire endeavor of philosophy, ancient as much as modern: if by asking about the self we mean to ask what we really, fundamentally are, then the problem of the self comprehends a great range of problems, and every philosophical position worth the name will include a theory of the self. In analytic philosophy, however, the problem of the self (...) has come to be understood differently: what it refers to in the first instance is the puzzle presented by knowledge claims regarding one’s own psychological states, a problem that is distinguished from, while enjoying some connections with, the problem of the conditions for personal identity and the mind-body problem, and that resolves itself into a set of finer problems concerning the conditions of psychological self-ascription, the reference of the first-person pronoun, the notion of immunity to error through misidentification, and so forth. (shrink)

This essay argues that the Putnam-Nussbaum thesis that modern functionalism is Aristotelian is false. It fails as an interpretation of Aristotle since it fails to notice that Aristotle’s conception of the material or physical side of the soul-body relation is one which no modern functionalist could share. The Putnam-Nussbaum thesis is examined within the context of the theory of perception. This involves the need to understand one of the most mysterious Aristotelian doctrines – the doctrine that in perception, the sense-organ (...) assumes the sensible form of the object perceived without its matter. (shrink)

J. L. Ackrill; VIII*—Aristotle's Definitions of Psuche, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 73, Issue 1, 1 June 1973, Pages 119–134, https://doi.org.

This essay is a response to Myles Burnyeat’s paper that attacks an interpretation of the credibility and acceptability of Aristotle’s views of the body and soul. It begins with a discussion of Aristotle’s motivating problems. An interpretation is defended against Burnyeat, which distinguishes Aristotle from both materialist reductionism, and from the Burnyeat interpretation that perceiving etc. does not require concomitant material change, and that awareness is primitive. Aristotle’s position is then defended as tenable, even in the context of a modern (...) theory of matter. (shrink)

ne of the leading problems for Cartesian dualism is to provide an account of the union of mind and body. This problem is often construed to be one of explaining how thinking things and extended things can causally interact. That is, it needs to be explained how thoughts in the mind can produce motions in the body and how motions in the body can produce sensations, appetites, and emotions in the mind. The conclusion often drawn, as it was by three (...) of Descartes's illustrious successors, Malebranche, Spinoza, and Leibniz, is that mind and body cannot causally interact.' I mention this problem of the interaction between thinking things and extended things only to distinguish it from the problem concerning the union of mind and body which I wish to discuss. Some commentators, such as Daisie Radner, maintain that the.. (shrink)

This essay examines the question: what does the maker mind make, and what is it anyway? It argues that active thinking, thinking as theoria, which the maker mind makes, is a thinking most fully exemplified in the unremittingly active thinking of the divine mind. Thus, the maker mind is not simply an element in Aristotle’s psychological theory, but also an element in this theology.

The overall subject of the essays in _The Body/Body Problem_ is the traditional one of what our ultimate makeup is, as creatures with minds and bodies. The central thesis is that we are beings who represent—and misrepresent—actual and possible worlds. Addressing philosophical questions of mental representation, Danto presents his distinctive approach to some of the most enduring topics in philosophy. He is concerned with the nature of description, the status of the external world, action theory, the philosophy of history, and (...) the philosophical status of psychoanalytic explanation. Representation is a central concept in philosophy, says Danto, with differences among philosophers arising in the ways they account for how representations connect to the world or to the individuals possessing them, and how they connect with one another to form systems of beliefs, feelings, and attitudes. In these essays Danto's own voice, with his arguments and speculations, provides rich philosophical pleasures that will endure, to borrow from Santayana, "under whatever sky." Arthur C. Danto is one of the most original and multitalented philosophers writing today, a thinker whose interests traverse the boundaries of traditional understandings of philosophy. Best known for his contributions to the philosophy of art and aesthetics, Danto is also esteemed for his work in the history of philosophy, the philosophy of history, philosophical psychology, and action theory. These two volumes, each with an introduction by the author, contain essays spanning more than twenty-five years that have been selected to highlight the inseparability of philosophy and art in Danto's work. Together they present the thinking of Arthur C. Danto at his very best. (shrink)

[David Charles] Aristotle, it appears, sometimes identifies well-being with one activity, sometimes with several, including ethical virtue. I argue that this appearance is misleading. In the Nicomachean Ethics, intellectual contemplation is the central case of human well-being, but is not identical with it. Ethically virtuous activity is included in human well-being because it is an analogue of intellectual contemplation. This structure allows Aristotle to hold that while ethically virtuous activity is valuable in its own right, the best life available for (...) humans is centred around, but not wholly constituted by, intellectual contemplation. /// [Dominic Scott] In Nicomachean Ethics X 7-8, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of eudaimonia, primary and secondary. The first corresponds to contemplation, the second to activity in accordance with moral virtue and practical reason. My task in this paper is to elucidate this distinction. Like Charles, I interpret it as one between paradigm and derivative cases; unlike him, I explain it in terms of similarity, not analogy. Furthermore, once the underlying nature of the distinction is understood, we can reconcile the claim that paradigm eudaimonia consists just in contemplation with a passage in the first book requiring eudaimonia to involve all intrinsic goods. (shrink)

It is accepted that first-person thoughts are immune to error through misidentification. I argue that there is also immunity to error through misascription, failure to recognise which has resulted in mistaken claims that first-person thoughts involving the self-ascription of bodily states are, at best, circumstantially immune to error through misidentification relative to.

Like all of Nagel's work, this is a book with a message: an apparently clear, simple message, forcefully presented and repeated. The message is that there is a limit to the extent to which we can "get outside" fundamental forms of thought, including logical, mathematical, scientific, and ethical thought. "Getting outside" means taking up a biological or psychological or sociological or economic or political view of ourselves as thinkers. It also inclines many people to talk of the contingency or subjectivity (...) or arbitrariness or "relativity" of our thoughts. Nagel believes that the standpoint is impossible, and the relativism it is apt to engender is self-refuting: "we cannot criticize some of our own claims of reason without employing reason at some point to formulate and support those criticisms". The general message is that first-order thoughts, the elementary certainties of mathematics, logic, science, and ethics, "dominate" any attempt to displace them. The book ends with the peroration: "Even if we distance ourselves from some of our thoughts and impulses, and regard them from outside, the process of trying to place ourselves in the world leads eventually to thoughts that we cannot think of as merely `ours'. If we think at all, we must think of ourselves, individually and collectively, as submitting to the order of reasons rather than creating it.". (shrink)

Freedom is the least discussed thesis of Descartes' works. Two major issues are: (i) the Fourth Meditation is seen as an unfounded theodicy, an interlude, an interruption to the analytic order; (ii)some passages in Descartes' other works are seen as inconsistent with the Fourth Meditation. First, I argue that Descartes' treatment is philosophical, that freedom underlies his entire philosophical project, defending the indispensability of the Fourth to his metaphysics.I demonstrate that Descartes' conception of freedom differs from the mainstream conceptions, in (...) particular it admits of degrees of higher or lower quality or worth. The latter is connected with indifference, error and sin. The former with spontaneity, truth and goodness. I argue that autonomy and spontaneity are a sine qua non of freedom of highest grade. Secondly, I offer a solution to two problematic passages: Principles I 37, and the notorious letter to Mesland, drawing on Descartes' conception of freedom as the greatest good, on the internal relation between reason and freedom, and demonstrating that there is no inconsistency. Descartes' treatment and indispensability of freedom gives his conception a certain sublimity, and his conception of man a certain serenity: an autonomous rational human being irreducibly and substantially real. (shrink)

Naturalism about the mind is often taken to be equivalent to some form of physicalism: the existence of mental properties must be shown not to compromise the autonomy of the physical realm. It is argued that this leads to a choice between reductionism, eliminativism, epiphenomenalism or interactionism. The central aim of the paper is to outline an Aristotelian alternative to the physicalist conception of natural bodies. It is argued that the distinction between form and matter, and an ontology which treats (...) individual natural bodies as real, unified things, rather than as complexes, enables us to achieve the non-reductionist, non-epiphenomenalist and non-interactionist position which eludes the post-Cartesian. (shrink)

In 55 B.C. Pompey staged a combat between humans and elephants; the elephants were slaughtered en masse. Moved by their piteous trumpetings, the audience protested—feeling, says Cicero, that there was a certain community, between elephants and themselves. As Sorabji notes, this recognition of belonging is inconsistent with the Stoic thesis that our moral affiliations embrace only the human kind. Cicero as letter-writer allows himself a qualm that his philosophical stance refuses.

Naturalism about the mind is often taken to be equivalent to some form of physicalism: the existence of mental properties must be shown not to compromise the autonomy of the physical realm. It is argued that this leads to a choice between reductionism, eliminativism, epiphenomenalism or interactionism. The central aim of the paper is to outline an Aristotelian alternative to the physicalist conception of natural bodies. It is argued that the distinction between form and matter, and an ontology which treats (...) individual natural bodies as real, unified things, rather than as complexes, enables us to achieve the non-reductionist, non-epiphenomenalist and non-interactionist position which eludes the post-Cartesian. (shrink)