In this chapter I argue that writers on metaphor have misunderstood Aristotle on metaphor. Aristotle is not an elitist about metaphor and does not consider metaphors to be merely ornamental. Rather, Aristotle believes that metaphors are ubiquitous and believes that people can express themselves in a clearer and more attractive way through the use of metaphors and that people learn and understand things better through metaphor. He also distinguishes between the use of metaphor and the coinage of metaphor, and (...) believes that the ability to coin marvelous new metaphors is a form of literary genius, and he provided an entirely natural origin of metaphor coinage. (shrink)

Ontologies are some of the most central constructs in today's large plethora of knowledge technologies, namely in the context of the semantic web. As their coinage indicates, they are direct heirs to the ontological investigations in the long Western philosophical tradition, but it is not easy to make bridges between them. Contemporary ontological commitments often take causality as a central aspect for the ur-segregation of entities, especially in scientific upper ontologies; theories of causality and philosophical ontological investigations often go (...) hand-in-hand, and were essentially inseparable in medieval thought. This constitutes the foundation for a bridge, and this article analyzes the causality-based ontology of the late medieval philosopher Dietrich of Freiberg from the viewpoint of today's upper-ontology engineering. In this bridging attempt, it offers a translation into English of the first part of Dietrich's De origine (abbreviated title) that is a compromise between traditional scholarly translations of medieval Latin philosophical texts and contemporary ontology. (shrink)

This chapter introduces topical issues in the ethical debate on speciesism. It does so against a background of the history of the debate and with an emphasis on concerns that arise at the intersection of speciesism and science. The term speciesism was coined in the 1970s by Richard Rider and popularized by Peter Singer, who defined speciesism as “a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of (...) other species.” Critiques of speciesism are undergirded by the principle that comparable interests should be given equal consideration, regardless of species-membership. To what extent the interests of humans and non-humans are comparable, however, has been a matter of contention and is partly beholden to empirical findings. Diverging opinions on this matter have given rise to a variety of more and less species-egalitarian views, often paired with rivalling accounts of “moral status”. A minority of ethicists have explicitly defended speciesism or some version thereof, including Bernard Williams and, more recently, Shelly Kagan. Apart from the back-and-forths between critics and defenders, the speciesism debate has transformed over the last decade, in three respects. First, discourse on animal ethics has witnessed a “political turn”, moving away from analyses of moral status and towards discussions of human-animal relations in interspecies societies. Secondly, apart from anthropocentric speciesism, i.e., privileging humans over non-humans, there has been an increasing interest in non-anthropocentric speciesism, i.e., privileging some non-human species over others. Thirdly, speciesism has been endorsed as a prominent topic in the new, activist-leaning research field of Critical Animal Studies, and has recently garnered substantial attention from psychologists. As these disciplinary changes and conceptual refinements suggest, half a century after its coinage, speciesism continues to be an important scholarly and ethical concept whose history is still in the making. (shrink)

Despite the central presence of materialism in the history of philosophy, there is no universal consensus on the meaning of the word “matter” nor of the doctrine of philosophical materialism. Dictionaries of philosophy often identify this philosophy with its most reductionist and even eliminative versions, in line with Robert Boyle’s seventeenth century coinage of the term. But when we take the concept back in time to Greek philosophers and forward onto our own times, we recognize more inclusive forms of (...) materialism as well as complex interplays with non-materialist thought about the place of matter in reality, including Christian philosophy and German idealism. We define philosophical materialism in its most general way both positively (the identification of reality with matter understood as changeability and plurality) and negatively (the negation of disembodied living beings and hypostatized ideas). This inclusive approach to philosophical materialism offers a new light to illuminate a critical history of the concept of matter and materialism from Ancient Greece to the present that is also attentive to scientific developments. By following the most important connections and discontinuities among theoretical frameworks on the idea of matter, we present a general thread that offers a rich and plural, but highly cohesive, field of investigation. Finally, we propose building on rich non-reductionist materialist philosophies, such as Mario Bunge’s systemic materialism and Gustavo Bueno’s discontinuous materialism, to elaborate powerful theoretical alternatives to both physicalism and spiritualism. (shrink)

African philosophy remains bedeviled by relics of Hegel’s racist chants against the rationality of Africans, and this situation deserves revisitation and reevaluation for reconstructive purposes. In this paper, I implicate Hegel’s concatenations as necessitating the reactive fervour within which a significant portion of the themes, thesis, and content of African philosophy is locked. This influence, which partially eclipses African philosophy, I term historical denialism. In an attempt to repudiate Hegel’s constructs, some philosophers in Africa seem ideologically contrived into developing or (...) discovering an authentic philosophy for Africans, and in the process, advocate cultural essentialism as determinants of philosophy—at least logically. Averring that philosophy is not the sole representation of thought, I proceed by exploring other trajectories which could have informed a non-reactive African philosophy, while logically linking Hegel’s denialism to subtle silencing of his idealism within philosophical discourses in Africa. This subtle silencing, which shortchanges pedagogy of philosophy on the continent, forms the other half of the eclipse in philosophy in Africa. I conclude the discussion by asserting that while it may be imperative to exorcise Hegelian ghost in African philosophy, to use Olufemi Taiwo’s coinage, essentialising African philosophy would either further enmesh the field in a reactive predisposition, or limit its reflective and multifarious possibilities. (shrink)

What role do images play in philosophical persuasion? With the advent of bio-art in the 1990s, a new vista opened up for this age-old puzzle: the possibility of creating images through bioengineering of living matter. Here, I test the critical intentions of bio-artists by setting up a comparison between, on the one hand, bio-art, and on the other, bioethics, a philosophical discipline, which developed at around the same time as this new artform. I argue there is an aspect of ethics--'the (...) difficulty of reality' in Cora Diamond's coinage--which analytic bioethics obscures, and which art can help us come to terms with. I develop my argument by comparing the work of artists Eduardo Kac, Stelarc and Maja Smrekar, with utilitarian bioethics by philosophers like Julian Savulescu. Philosophical concepts of the living presence, the viral image and the pensive image are revisited through this inquiry. (shrink)

To commemorate the tragic event of Super Typhoon Yolanda (International Name: Haiyan) last 2013, local leaders of the province of Leyte, Philippines, are speculating on establishing a Haiyan Museum in 2023, a decade later. With connotations of ‘dark tourism’, one way to look at the speculative decade-inspired establishment is through Amy Sodaro’s ‘memorial museums’ with the purpose of ‘education-based memorialization.’ Juxtaposing this with Paul Morrow’s philosophical perception of objects in memorial museums as possible provocateurs of repulsive feelings, there is a (...) lingering suspicion of whether exhibits in the museum can really flesh out educational, therapeutic reflections or healing. Then, the crucial question to be addressed is: will this Haiyan Museum house feelings of healing, 10 years later, or trauma? To answer this question, I take insights from survivor-curators or the museum curators of Region VIII, Philippines, who experienced the Haiyan tragedy at, or proximate to, the landfall and aftermath first-hand. The notion of a ‘survivor-curator’ is a vital coinage that would represent a close perception of the museum and its museum objects. The responses are then thematised into a more coherent discussion to see how museums can be spaces of healing in their communal aspect and future museum projects. (shrink)

For more than a decade, an aura of discontentment has challenged existing models and theories that have established the structures in various fields of human endeavours such as philosophy, architecture, political science, media, literature, arts and the humanities in general. For instance, the architectural design of what was hitherto referred to as modern building has at least a sitting room (parlour), a kitchen, a bathroom and a toilet as well as two or more number of bedrooms depending on the size (...) of the family, including the master's bedroom. This design was a view that transcended from the old traditional caves and all manner of living spaces that were devised by the early man. The modern concept arose out of man's need to assume a better living status based on his new initiatives. In the field of media and communication, the period of technological evolvement and development that brought about the coinage of descriptive terms such as 'electronic age' and now 'computer age', was preceded by a 'stone age' where the means of communication was prototypical of that archaic society. Though nothing has changed tremendously in interpersonal communication, there are modern means of interpersonal communication made possible by the advent of the telephone. Prior to the advent of this modern technology, interpersonal communication was only made possible in a face-to-face situation or mere errand. Mass Communication in early traditional societies was done with the use of smoke or town-criers who were employed to go round the communities with their gongs to make announcements. This means of communication hardly made it possible for ideas or information to be shared among people who resided in different parts of the world, unlike today. (shrink)

William Gibson, now the author of Pattern Recognition, has certainly more often illustrated that other coinage, ‘cyberspace’, and its inner network of global communication and information, than the object world of late commodification through which the latest novel carefully gropes its way. To be sure, Sterling celebrated the hackers, the heroic pirates of cyberspace, but without Gibson’s tragic intensity—portraying them as the oddballs and marginals of the new frontiers to come. The rush and exhilaration of his books, rather alien (...) to the cooler Gibson, has always seemed to me to derive as much from global entrepreneurship, and the excitement of the money to be made, as from paranoia. (shrink)

Concerned for the dwindling fortunes of social development and seemingly declining interest in cultural affairs in Khana Local Gov eminent Area (KIIALGA) of Rivers State, this study set out to examine the place of proverbs, an important ingredient of oramedia (a coinage for traditional communication) in the service of humanity, with a focus on KIIALGA To accomplish this objective, this survey research drew a sample of subjects from the Khana population. The data generated by a 21 -item structured questionnaire (...) \\ ere analyzed using frequency distribution tables, percentages and mean scores(WMS) landings showed that the people of Khana are aware of the functionality of existing proverbs and also happily use them; that of these proverbs that have wide applicability across communities in Khana area, and the people know the ones most commonly used in Ihc LGA. It was also found that proverbs are used to publicize development messages; lo crack jokes that evoke health-enhancing laughter; to enliven messages during discourses on communal development; and to teach moral lessons. The study concluded that there are well-known proverbs in Khana that can be used to enrich messages and used to publicize events and disseminate development messages. It was then recommended, among other things, that for peace and sustainable development to be the lot of the people, proverbs should be used to spice messages that can bring about educational advancement, sports development, good health, cultural re-awakening, and security. (shrink)

This book presents a new account of Thales based on the idea that Acheloios, a deity equated with water in the ancient Greek world and found in Miletos during Thales’ life, was the most important cultic deity influencing the thinker, profoundly shaping his philosophical worldview. In doing so, it also weighs in on the metaphysical and epistemological dichotomy that seemingly underlies all academia—the antithesis of the methodological postulate of Marxian dialectical materialism vis-à-vis the Platonic idea of fundamentally real transcendental forms. (...) Unbeknownst to many scholars, there are various Neo-Marxian thinkers that position the origin of coinage as the pivotal technological development giving rise to impersonal “metaphysical cosmology,” suggesting that the value of money was more-or-less projected back onto the cosmos in the form of “ideal substances.” While the arguments are incredibly sophisticated and persuasive, their conclusions (either stated or implied) are rather difficult to swallow: the self is merely an illusion, abstract ideas of an ultimate source of value, like God or the Good, are totally delusional (as is the soul, and presumably any notion of inherent human dignity), and essentially everything is reducible to mankind’s enslavement to commodities and the notion of our own objectified labor, which is the true source of all value according to Marx. Not only is this an alarming belief that many scholars (consciously or unconsciously) have adopted, since essentially any action could be “justified,” it is also demonstrably false, since it rests on a misunderstanding of Thales and misconception of philosophy as such. -/- My work rectifies that misunderstanding. In an important sense, it is an attempt at redefining philosophy as a “love of wisdom,” which I argue was accurate even in the Presocratic setting, and it uses the influence of Acheloios on Thales to do so. Throughout its pages I explore the etymology and historical uses of the word ὔδωρ, examine the archaeological context of 7th to 6th century Miletos, consider various aquatic myths Thales encountered, and highlight a hitherto overlooked tradition stemming from Thales and influencing such thinkers as Pythagoras, Empedokles, and Hippo, which culminates in a completely new reading of Plato’s Phaedrus, a dialogue in which Plato responds to the exact type of thinking employed by the Neo-Marxians. It is there that we find Socrates and Phaedrus surrounded by the iconography of Acheloios and the nymphs, all while they lie reclined like river gods (the sinews of Acheloios) on the banks of the Ilisos. And it is in that dialogue that Plato defines philosophy as a love of wisdom—the beholding of a multiplicity of hermeneutical frameworks—and alludes to the fact that it began with the sacrifice of Acheloios, the initial philosophical maneuver which he attributes to Thales. The book ends with a threefold rejoinder to the Neo-Marxian school, corresponding to the λόγος, μῦθος, and ἔργον of Acheloios. It turns out that, (1) the λόγος of Acheloios contained the ideal preconditions conducive to an abstraction to a more refined philosophical worldview in which divine water operated as the One among the Many; (2) the μῦθος of Acheloios actually encouraged the application of the notion of sacrifice to Acheloios himself (thus revealing his essence as divine water); and, (3), the ἔργον of Acheloios, in which he kneels in assent to sacrifice, is found on a coin that was probably designed by Thales. In the final analysis, I suggest that the tradition of Acheloios is reflective of a greater philosophical truth, and that by following Thales’ lead, we transcend the Marxian hermeneutic of doubt and reorient ourselves toward the οὐσια ὄντως οὖσα. (shrink)