This essay discusses five main topoi in the Divine Comedy through which teachers might encourage students to explore the question of the Divine Comedy’s treatment of philosophy. These topoi are: (1) The Divine Comedy’s representations in Inferno of noble pagans who are allegorically or historically associated with philosophy or natural reason; (2) its treatment of the relationship between faith and reason and that relationship’s consequences for the text’s understanding of the respective authoritativeness of theology and (...) philosophy; (3) representations in the Divine Comedy that relate to the question of the practical value of philosophical (not to mention theological) speculation; (4) the text’s treatment of the respective merits of practical and contemplative activities; and (5) its implicit defense of philosophy’s authority with respect to ethical and political questions. (shrink)

Over the last three years I have been fortunate to teach an unusual class, one that provides an academic background in ethical and social and political theory using the medium of comedy. I have taught the class at two schools, a private liberal arts college in western Pennsylvania and a public regional state university in southern Georgia. While the schools vary widely in a number of ways, there are characteristics that the students share: the school in Pennsylvania had a (...) large population of students raised in a middle class industrial context, and the school in Georgia had a majority of students from middle-to-lower class agricultural backgrounds. Because of recent collapses in the economy of the tool and dye industry in the Great Lakes region, and the ongoing concerns for development in rural and urban areas of the southeastern United States, both groups of students were in similarly dire economic and working conditions. All faced the distinct possibility that they would not do as well in life as their parents. Most of the students grew up with television and film and had a love of comedy when they arrived at college. -/- Entertainment and mass media contributed to the students' mindset and the lens through which they viewed and interpreted their lived experience. Comedic mass media in the form of television sitcoms and films were common choices for inexpensive entertainment, in their childhood, in their past, in their homes, and now in their college dorms and apartments. In asking students to connect their own history with cultural trends depicted in comedy in film and television, even through the history of television, gave the students a familiar venue to critically consider their own intellectual growth and development and that of American society as a whole. -/- Many of them were familiar with the internet, and enjoyed the internet as a source of information about celebrities as well as the history and episodes of their favorite television shows and films. Students are rediscovering and discovering television programs that their professors may have watched as children, with the availability of a wide range of comedy television programs available on cable, especially TVLand, Comedy Central and Nick-at-Night. -/- In this article I will elaborate on the value of comedy as a teaching tool for philosophers and professors. I will provide a number of examples, showing how comedy can provide fertile examples of ethical theory at work, and I will show how comedy can be used to clarify cultural norms and values. Finally, I will discuss the political activism and student empowerment involved in teaching Philosophy, Comedy and Film in southern Georgia. (shrink)

Dave Chappelle took an extended leave from comedy for moral reasons. I argue that, while he had every right to leave comedy because of his moral concerns, he was not obliged to do so. To make this case, I present Chappelle’s argument that the potential negative consequences of his racial humor obliged him to leave. Next, I argue against Chappelle’s argument about avoidable harms as the harms are not his responsibility, he was not being negligent, and the benefits (...) of his humor outweigh the harms. I also argue in support of the intuition that another’s failure of comprehension or moral character, even if that failure will predictably result in harms to others, should not convert moral acts into immoral ones. (shrink)

The artform of standup comedy can be seen as having much in common with the discipline of philosophy, particularly with the way philosophy is carried out or “performed,” whether professionally or otherwise. There are, for instance, certain basic similarities between how standup comedians and philosophers value ideals of clarity and precision when it comes to the issue of determining what kind of language is best to employ if one seeks to either effectively deliver a funny joke, as (...) in the case of standup comedy, or if one seeks to effectively articulate and present an argument that can later be assessed as sound, as in the case of philosophy. The reason this is of note is because it is rooted in another similarity that serves not only to bring these two activities significantly closer but to isolate standup comedy from most artforms when it comes to how it conceives of matters pertaining to interpretation and purpose. More specifically, this is the fact that standup comedians and philosophers alike hope, and even expect on some level, that, in the best of cases, their respective jokes and reasoned arguments will compel some form of unanimous approval from those who properly understand and engage with their content. When this observation is combined with the additional observation that jokes can also serve as vehicles for imparting wisdom of a genuinely philosophical nature despite the fact that generating laughter rather than seeking truth per se represents standup comedy’s ostensive primary goal, this leads one to wonder how porous the boundaries that otherwise serve to distinguish these two activities might be. In particular, in light of the nature and scope of the many similarities that can be said to exist between them, which I lay out and discuss in the article, it seems that standup comedy could even be reasonably argued to be the artform closest to philosophy. (shrink)

Bill Cosby’s immorality has raised intriguing aesthetic and ethical issues. Do the crimes that he has been convicted of lessen the aesthetic value of his stand-up and, even if we can enjoy it, should we? This article first discusses the intimate relationship between the comedian and audience. The art form itself is structurally intimate, and at the same time the comedian claims to express an authentic self on stage. After drawing an analogy between the question of the moral character of (...) comedians and the aesthetic value of their stand-up and the debate over the ethical criticism of art, this article argues that it is reasonable to find a comedian’s performance less funny, because stand-up’s artistic success relies on this intimacy. It contrasts the comedy of Bill Cosby with that of Louis C.K. C.K.’s moral flaws are much more present in his comedy, and it is therefore more difficult to find him funny. Last, it is ethically permissible to enjoy their comedy, if no harm to others results, both because it does not corrupt the audience’s character and because amusement is valuable. (shrink)

The process of bringing an exhausted order to the grave to make space for the life of new societal practice and belief is represented in ancient Greek drama by the death of the gods who ‘’die’’ once in tragedy and once again in comedy. Hegel reads the second and final death of the gods in ancient comedy as enacting a kind of societal action through which a community reclaims its creative agency by destroying the social and political orders (...) that structured a tragic stage of history. Although Hegel highlights this creative action as going beyond aesthetic representation, he sees ancient comedy as achieving a superficial sense of freedom from tragedy, because the community sees itself as separate from its creation, which is destructible. For this reason Hegel moves beyond ancient comedy and locates comic resolution not in the representation of the death of the old gods on the ancient stage, but in the narrative of the death of Christ. This paper explores how Hegel’s reading of the incarnation and crucifixion of Christ mirrors the ancient tragedy and comedy. I argue that comedy, for Hegel, is realized through the story of the crucifixion, in which the comic community identifies with that which must be destroyed for the reconciliation of its society. (shrink)

Our reception of Hegel’s theory of action faces a fundamental difficulty: on the one hand, that theory is quite clearly embedded in a social theory of modern life, but on the other hand most of the features of the society that gave that embedding its specific content have become almost inscrutably strange to us (e.g., the estates and the monarchy). Thus we find ourselves in the awkward position of stressing the theory’s sociality even as we scramble backwards to distance ourselves (...) from the particular social institutions that gave conceptualized form to such sociality in Hegel’s own opinion. My attempt in this article is to make our position less awkward by giving us at least one social-ontological leg to stand on. Specifically, I want to defend a principled and conceptual pluralism as forming the heart of Hegel’s theory of action. If this view can be made out, then we will have a social-ontological structure that might be filled out in different ways in Hegel’s time and our own while simultaneously giving real teeth to the notion that Hegel’s theory of action is essentially social. (shrink)

Law is ‘sovereign’, it has been said. Since the poet Pindar expressed this fulminating thought in the 6th century B.C., the whole western tradition, from Aristotle to Cicero, from Heidegger to Schmitt, hasn’t stopped raising questions about the ambivalent relationship connecting law, strength and violence...

This is a short entry on "Comedy" in Section 3, "Important Features of the Dialogues," in The Bloomsbury Handbook of Plato, edited by Gerald Press and Mateo Duque.

Paradiso 2’s sustained direct address warns readers unprepared for its complexities to “turn back to see your shores again…for perhaps losing me, you would be lost,” but then offers the “other few” who crave “the bread of angels” the promise of a marvel that would rival the deeds of the mythological hero Jason. I will argue that, by appearing to impose this choice on its readers, this direct address in fact activates the craving for the bread of angels (for who, (...) by obeying the interpretive imperative to make such a decision, would not also be one who thereby does choose to pursue the bread that is promised in return for this obedience?). In other words, the very act of interpreting the representation of readers as divided into those who are capable of allegorical interpretation and those who are not constructs and activates the will of a single readership for the Divine Comedy and, consequently, challenges us to provide an articulation of what it means even to read or to misread the Divine Comedy. (shrink)

Who is Pulcinella? What does his laughter have to say about the "end of time" and the end of life of Giandomenico Tiepolo? How can the end of a life make anyone laugh like Carnival’s popular mask does? This article tries to answer such questions. By unfolding the tools that come from the realm of Giorgio Agamben’s philosophy – notably the notion of "recapitulation of time" in its relation to comedy – we will trace a path which links (...) Michail Bachtin’s theories on the carnivalesque culture together with a recognition in the aesthetics of "character". In this encounter, the consistency of Pulcinella-King Carnival’s form of life will appear in the light of an “escape route”: it winks at a kind of general and anonymous beatitude, which pairs with the experience of the destitution of time. (shrink)

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

Between Schelling’s Über Dante in philosophischer Beziehung (1803) and the Dantean drafts of die Weltalter (1811-1815) stand the transitional texts of his middle period, the Philosophie und Religion (1804) and Freiheitsschrift (1809). His short essay on Dante contrasts an ancient conception of the closed cosmos with the modern universe as dynamic and expanding, then claims to extract from the Divine Comedy its eternal, threefold form. This article considers these schemata as they relate to the Philosophie und Religion and the (...) Freiheitsschrift, disclosing an enduring Dantean influence which first predicts, then persists throughout this stage of Schelling’s philosophical development. (shrink)

Two Socratic dialogues often considered “comic”—Ion and Hippias Major—have also been contested as to their Platonic authenticity. Plato’s dialogues; while certainly engaging, can also seem grim in their philosophical intensity: At least one author has contended that the dialogue more firmly established as genuinely by Plato, Symposium; has some comic elements: This article goes a step further in suggesting that this dialogue does not merely have comic elements but is in fact a comedy. It draws on several texts in (...) the literature on Greek comedy over the past century and suggests that; although the dialogue sets itself serious philosophical challenges, its structure; style; and method are deeply steeped in comedic modes from around Plato’s day. This is not to presume whether Plato was deliberately writing a comedy. In general, writers are often strongly influenced by literary fashions of the day, so it would not be far stretching the matter to understand the work as comedic. Thereby, the article offers, via textual analysis, an argument for how the dialogue is a comedy along withcounter-arguments against such a notion. In the end, indeed, acknowledging it is a comedy promises to open up new angles on interpreting that dialogue. (shrink)

Ancient Greek comedy takes interesting approaches to mythological narrative. This article analyzes one excerpt and eight fragments of ancient Greek Old, Middle, and New Comedy. It attempts to show a comic rationalizing approach to mythology. Poets analyzed include Aristophanes, Cratinus, Anaxilas, Timocles, Antiphanes, Anaxandrides, Philemon, Athenion, and Comic Papyrus. Comparisons are made to known rationalizing approaches as found in the mythographers Palaephatus and Heraclitus the Paradoxographer. Ancient comedy tends to make jokes about the ludicrous aspects of myth. (...) Early Greek myth rationalization and mythography share a similar approach to comedy in that they attempt to rationalize the improbable parts of myth narrative. (shrink)

This essay delves into Nietzsche’s understanding of the jester in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I argue here that its existence explains the shifting ethos from tragedy to comedy. The jester in the societal context exhibits the figure of fictionalism that redirects reality into a detour of comic interplays. As such, he embodies fictional overcoming from the modern backdrop. I then employ On the Genealogy of Morals to explain further four principles that aid in taking into effect the birth of the (...) jester. Nietzsche’s critique of morality attacks such principles as ressentiment, guilt and bad conscience taken together, free will, and ascetic ideal. Later, I present a way of going into the shadows as a manner of confronting the jester and overcoming it. (shrink)

Philosophers have committed sins while studying science, it is said – philosophy of science focused on physics to the detriment of biology, reconstructed idealizations of scientific episodes rather than attending to historical details, and focused on theories and concepts to the detriment of experiments. Recent generations of philosophers of science have tried to atone for these sins, and by the 1980s the exculpation was in full swing. Marcel Weber’s Philosophy of Experimental Biology is a zenith mea culpa for (...) philosophy of science: it carefully describes several historical examples from twentieth century biology to address both ‘old’ philosophical topics, like reductionism, inference, and realism, and ‘new’ topics, like discovery, models, and norms. Biology, experiments, history – at last, philosophy of science, free of sin. (shrink)

The matter under consideration in this article is the ethnic joke as a primary element of the German TV comedy “Was guckst du?”. The starting point is a short overview of the ethnic joke and the extralingual phenomena that are associated with such jokes, and – above all – pointing at the function of stereotypes as causes for jokes about individual nations. Texts of jokes concerning individual nations were used to illustrate the reviewed problems. The main part of the (...) article is the analysis of the lingual and extralingual aspects in selected texts of scenes from the program “Was guckst du?”. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant famously defined philosophy to be about three questions: “What can I know? What should I do? What can I hope for?” (KrV, B833). I want to suggest that the three questions of our course on the philosophy of computing are: What is computing? What should we do with computing? What could computing do?

Introduces seven women philosophers of art from long nineteenth-century Britain including Anna Barbauld, Joanna Baillie, Harriet Martineau, Anna Jameson, Frances Power Cobbe, Emilia Dilke, and Vernon Lee Traces a logical progression amongst these women's views as they grappled with art's relations to morality and religion Shows that these women were well-known in their time and played important roles in establishing British philosophy of art Expands the rediscovery of women philosophers to a neglected area, philosophy of art.

It gives me great pleasure and honor to introduce myself as the incoming Editor-in-Chief of Polis: The Journal for Ancient Greek and Roman Political Thought. For the last decade I have served as an Associate Editor and the Book Review Editor of the journal. I am very excited about charting new paths for the journal, while continuing to publish first-rate scholarship in our area strengths. Although ‘polis’ is a Greek word that identifies a specific Greek historical political institution, in many (...) important ways the culture of Greek political thought interacted with the political culture of Regal, Republican, and Imperial Rome through Greek settlements in the Western Mediterranean, Roman military conquest, and cultural Hellenization. In the last year the editorial staff of Polis decided to expand the domain of our journal to include scholarship on Roman political thought and Greek-language political thought from the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial periods. Although Polis has been publishing reviews of books devoted to these new domains for several issues, it is quite gratifying to publish an entire special issue, edited by Grant Nelsestuen and Associate Editor Daniel Kapust, devoted to Roman political thought. Additional articles on Roman political thought are in the journal’s publication queue and we look forward to becoming an important venue for the publication of original scholarship and book reviews on Roman political thought and its subsequent reception, along with our original remit for Greek political thought and its reception. The editorial staff of Polis has undergone a number of changes in conjunction with my new role. First and foremost, my mentor and predecessor Kyriakos Demetriou has retired from the position of Editor-in-Chief and become a member of our Editorial Board. I have had the privilege of working with Kyriakos for over 15 years, during which time he transformed the newsletter of the Society for Ancient Greek Political Thought into a pre-eminent peer-reviewed academic journal. I may only hope 15 years from now, that Polis has continued to grow as a source for landmark scholarship on Greek and Roman political thought. During the editorial transition, Associate Editors Rosanna Lauriola and Essam Safty have left our editorial staff. We are grateful for their service to the journal and wish them well in their scholarly endeavors. Finally, I am pleased to announce several additions to our editorial staff. Dimitri El Murr, Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the Ecole Normale Supérieure (Université Paris Sciences et Lettres), has joined the journal as an Associate Editor responsible for the refereeing and editing of Francophone submissions to Polis. Demetra Kasimis, Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, has joined as an Associate Editor responsible for the refereeing of submissions on the political aspects of Greek literature (such as epic, tragedy, and comedy). Matthew Simonton, Associate Professor of History at Arizona State University, has joined the journal as an Associate Editor and Book Review Editor. Finally, Dr. Alexandra Wilding has joined our editorial staff as the journal’s copy-editor. Learn from and enjoy the scholarship of our current issue. Submit to Polis your scholarship on ancient Greek and Roman political thought. Be a part of the future of Polis. Thornton Lockwood Editor-in-Chief. (shrink)

The inclusion of De astrologia in the Lucianic corpus has been disputed for centuries since it appears to defend astrological practices that Lucian elsewhere undercuts. This paper argues for Lucian’s authorship by illustrating its masterful subversion of a captatio benevolentiae and subtle rejection of Stoic astrological practices. The narrator begins the text by blaming phony astrologers and their erroneous predictions for inciting others to “denounce the stars and hate astrology” (ἄστρων τε κατηγοροῦσιν καὶ αὐτὴν ἀστρολογίην μισέουσιν, 2). The narrator assures (...) readers that he, the knowledgeable astrologer, will correct for the “stupidity and laziness” (ἀμαθίῃ καὶ ῥαθυμίῃ, ibid.) that bring about false predictions. The narrator’s credibility quickly decays when he attempts to recast Orpheus, Bellerophon, Icarus, Daedalus, and a host of other mythological figures as Greek astrologers. Lucian’s audience would expect such far-fetched interpretations of myth from the stereotypical Stoic philosopher, a character lampooned elsewhere in the Lucianic corpus. (shrink)

This book is a survey of the most important developments in Austrian philosophy in its classical period from the 1870s to the Anschluss in 1938. Thus it is intended as a contribution to the history of philosophy. But I hope that it will be seen also as a contribution to philosophy in its own right as an attempt to philosophize in the spirit of those, above all Roderick Chisholm, Rudolf Haller, Kevin Mulligan and Peter Simons, who have (...) done so much to demonstrate the continued fertility of the ideas and methods of the Austrian philosophers in our own day. For some time now, historians of philosophy have been gradually coming to terms with the idea that post-Kantian philosophy in the German-speaking world ought properly to be divided into two distinct traditions which we might refer to as the German and Austrian traditions, respectively. The main line of the first consists in a list of personages beginning with Kant, Fichte, Hegel and Schelling and ending with Heidegger, Adorno and Bloch. The main line of the second may be picked out similarly by means of a list beginning with Bolzano, Mach and Meinong, and ending with Wittgenstein, Neurath and Popper. As should be clear, it is the Austrian tradition that has contributed most to the contemporary mainstream of philosophical thinking in the Anglo-Saxon world. For while there are of course German thinkers who have made crucial contributions to the development of exact or analytic philosophy, such thinkers were outsiders when seen from the perspective of native German philosophical culture, and in fact a number of them found their philosophical home precisely in Vienna. When, in contrast, we examine the influence of the Austrian line, we encounter a whole series of familiar and unfamiliar links to the characteristic concerns of more recent philosophy of the analytic sort. As Michael Dummett points out in his Origins of Analytic Philosophy, the newly fashionable habit of referring to analytic philosophy as "Anglo-American" is in this light a "grave historical distortion". If, he says, we take into account the historical context in which analytic philosophy developed, then such philosophy "could at least as well be called "Anglo-Austrian" (1988, p. 7). Much valuable scholarly work has been done on the thinking of Husserl and Wittgenstein, Mach and the Vienna Circle. The central axis of Austrian philosophy, however, which as I hope to show in what follows is constituted by the work of Brentano and his school, is still rather poorly understood. Work on Meinong or Twardowski by contemporary philosophers still standardly rests upon simplified and often confused renderings of a few favoured theses taken out of context. Little attention is paid to original sources, and little effort is devoted to establishing what the problems were by which the Austrian philosophers in general were exercised -- in spite of the fact that many of these same problems have once more become important as a result of the contemporary burgeoning of interest on the part of philosophers in problems in the field of cognitive science. (shrink)

Recent clinical trials show that psychedelics such as LSD and psilocybin can be given safely in controlled conditions, and can cause lasting psychological benefits with one or two administrations. Supervised psychedelic sessions can reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and addiction, and improve well-being in healthy volunteers, for months or even years. But these benefits seem to be mediated by "mystical" experiences of cosmic consciousness, which prompts a philosophical concern: do psychedelics cause psychological benefits by inducing false or implausible beliefs about (...) the metaphysical nature of reality? This book is the first scholarly monograph in English devoted to the philosophical analysis of psychedelic drugs. Its central focus is the apparent conflict between the growing use of psychedelics in psychiatry and the philosophical worldview of naturalism. Within the book, Letheby integrates empirical evidence and philosophical considerations in the service of a simple conclusion: this "Comforting Delusion Objection" to psychedelic therapy fails. While exotic metaphysical ideas do sometimes come up, they are not, on closer inspection, the central driver of change in psychedelic therapy. Psychedelics lead to lasting benefits by altering the sense of self, and changing how people relate to their own minds and lives-not by changing their beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality. The upshot is that a traditional conception of psychedelics as agents of insight and spirituality can be reconciled with naturalism (the philosophical position that the natural world is all there is). Controlled psychedelic use can lead to genuine forms of knowledge gain and spiritual growth-even if no Cosmic Consciousness or transcendent divine Reality exists. Philosophy of Psychedelics is an indispensable guide to the literature for researchers already engaged in the field of psychedelic psychiatry, and for researchers-especially philosophers-who want to become acquainted with this increasingly topical field. (shrink)

critical analysis of moral status of human beings. Argues that humans have special moral status simply by being members of our species.

The guiding thread of the paper is the diagnosis that the advanced division of cognitive labor (that is, intellectual specialization) engenders a set of perennial, political and epistemic challenges (Millgram 2015) that, simultaneously, also generate opportunities for philosophy. In this paper, I re-characterize the nature of synthetic philosophy as a means to advance and institutionalize philosophy. For my definition of synthetic philosophy see section 2. In section 1, I treat Plato’s Republic as offering two models to (...) represent philosophy's relationship to the other sciences within the advanced division of labor. I highlight that for Plato intellectual specialization is central not just to economic, but also to political life. And, yet, that the very dispersion of scientific expertise, and its esoteric nature, also generates non-trivial challenges to the recognition and political utilization of knowledge. From Plato we can infer that in imperfect circumstances, philosophy’s self-constitution is, in part, a response to these challenges in political epistemology. However, how philosophy is institutionalized differs through time. In section 2, I re-introduce my conceptualization of synthetic philosophy and restate it. This makes visible that synthetic philosophy is already widely practiced in the profession as philosophy of the special sciences, PPE, formal modelling, public philosophy, etc. I use recent work by Dorst (2023) to illustrate synthetic philosophy and to identify some of the processes that give rise to the need for it. In sections 2-3, I contrast my account with the evolving ways that Philip Kitcher has conceptualized synthetic philosophy in order to make more precise the version promoted here. I do so not just because Kitcher and I use the same term, ‘synthetic philosophy,’ but because the temptations inherent in Kitcher’s approach should be resisted. -/- . (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Introduction: Two Semantic Projects History The Uses of Semantics Conclusions.

Teaching a compulsory, large-scale Philosophy of Economics (PoE) course to economics students presents distinct challenges. Instructors face a heterogeneous student body with varying levels of interest in the topics, diverse occupational goals and a limited philosophical background. Unlike elective courses, for which students self-select based on interest, a compulsory course entails motivating disengaged students and managing their expectations. We put forward the case for a student-oriented approach to teaching PoE, emphasising four key strategies: recognising students’ limited philosophical knowledge, demonstrating (...) the relevance of PoE to their professional and personal lives, using real-world problems to engage them and avoiding the oversimplification of topics. We argue that PoE instruction should account for the distinct characteristics of economics students, moving beyond a supply-driven approach. Our suggestions aim to enhance student engagement and provide practical guidance for instructors navigating the challenges of teaching PoE at scale. (shrink)

There are many branches of philosophy called “the philosophy of X,” where X = disciplines ranging from history to physics. The philosophy of artificial intelligence has a long history, and there are many courses and texts with that title. Surprisingly, the philosophy of computer science is not nearly as well-developed. This article proposes topics that might constitute the philosophy of computer science and describes a course covering those topics, along with suggested readings and assignments.

Arthur Rimbaud, a prominent figure in the late 19th-century literary scene, is often celebrated for his groundbreaking contributions to modernist poetry. His work, characterized by its experimental form and vivid imagery, embodies many of the philosophical tenets of modernism. This essay explores how the philosophy of modernism manifests in Rimbaud's poetry, focusing on themes of rebellion against tradition, fragmentation, subjectivity, symbolism, and alienation. -/- 1. Rebellion against Tradition -/- One of the hallmark features of modernist poetry is its defiance (...) of traditional forms and conventions. Rimbaud was a pioneer in this regard, rejecting the rigid structures of classical poetry in favor of free verse and unconventional rhythms. In works such as "A Season in Hell" ("Une Saison en Enfer"), Rimbaud employs a prose-poetic style that eschews the constraints of meter and rhyme, allowing for a more fluid and dynamic expression of thought. This rebellion against tradition reflects a broader modernist impulse to break free from the past and explore new artistic possibilities. -/- Fragmentation and Juxtaposition -/- Modernist poets often use fragmentation and juxtaposition to create complex layers of meaning and challenge readers' perceptions. Rimbaud's poetry is replete with abrupt shifts in imagery and tone, resulting in a disjointed yet evocative narrative. In "The Drunken Boat" ("Le Bateau Ivre"), for example, Rimbaud presents a series of vivid, seemingly unrelated images that collectively convey a sense of disorientation and liberation. This technique mirrors the fragmented nature of modern existence, as well as the modernist desire to capture the multiplicity of human experience. -/- 2. Subjectivity and Inner Experience -/- A key aspect of modernist philosophy is its emphasis on subjectivity and the inner workings of the mind. Rimbaud's poetry delves deeply into the realm of personal experience, exploring themes of identity, perception, and self-discovery. His work often blurs the line between reality and imagination, reflecting the modernist interest in the unconscious and the fluidity of human consciousness. In "A Season in Hell," Rimbaud's introspective journey becomes a vehicle for examining the complexities of the self and the elusive nature of truth. -/- Exploration of Identity and Self-Discovery -/- Rimbaud's poetry is marked by a profound introspection and a quest for self-discovery. In works such as "A Season in Hell" ("Une Saison en Enfer"), Rimbaud embarks on a journey of inner exploration, grappling with questions of identity and the nature of existence. The poem is a confessional and autobiographical narrative that delves into the poet's inner turmoil and existential angst. Through vivid and often surreal imagery, Rimbaud articulates the fragmented and fluid nature of the self, reflecting the modernist emphasis on the subjective experience of the individual. The theme of self-discovery is also evident in Rimbaud's famous assertion, "I is another" ("Je est un autre"), which encapsulates his belief in the multiplicity and fluidity of identity. This notion challenges the conventional understanding of a stable and coherent self, suggesting instead that identity is constantly shifting and evolving. Rimbaud's exploration of identity resonates with the modernist preoccupation with the inner life of the individual and the complexities of human consciousness. -/- Perception and the Unconscious Mind -/- Rimbaud's poetry often blurs the line between reality and imagination, reflecting his interest in the workings of the unconscious mind. His use of rich and evocative imagery invites readers to engage with his work on a deeply emotional and intuitive level. In "Illuminations," Rimbaud's prose poems are filled with dreamlike visions and hallucinatory landscapes that evoke the fluid and elusive nature of perception. The modernist fascination with the unconscious is evident in Rimbaud's exploration of altered states of consciousness. His poetry frequently delves into themes of intoxication, madness, and visionary experience, suggesting a desire to transcend the limitations of ordinary perception and access deeper layers of the mind. This exploration of the unconscious reflects the modernist belief in the power of art to reveal hidden truths and to illuminate the mysteries of the human psyche. -/- 3. Symbolism and Imagery -/- Rimbaud's use of rich, often surreal symbolism and imagery is a defining feature of his modernist sensibility. His poems are filled with metaphors and symbols that invite multiple interpretations and resonate on an emotional level. The imagery in "The Drunken Boat" is particularly striking, as Rimbaud conjures a kaleidoscopic vision of the natural world that transcends ordinary perception. This reliance on symbolism reflects the modernist belief in the power of art to evoke profound, often ineffable experiences. -/- Innovative Use of Imagery -/- Rimbaud's poetry is renowned for its striking and unconventional imagery, which often challenges readers to see the world in new and unexpected ways. In "The Drunken Boat" ("Le Bateau Ivre"), Rimbaud presents a series of vivid and hallucinatory images that evoke the disorienting experience of a boat adrift on the sea. The poem's imagery is rich and evocative, capturing the tumultuous and ever-changing nature of the protagonist's journey. For example, Rimbaud writes: > "I have seen the low-hanging sun spotted with mystic horrors, > Lighting up long violet coagulations > Like performers in very ancient dramas! > Waves rolling back the horizons and breaking forth in light." Through this kaleidoscopic vision, Rimbaud creates a sense of both wonder and disorientation, reflecting the fluid and unstable nature of reality. The imagery in "The Drunken Boat" serves to transport readers into a world of heightened perception, where ordinary experiences are transformed into extraordinary and often surreal visions. -/- Symbolism and Emotional Resonance -/- Rimbaud's use of symbolism is central to his poetic vision, allowing him to convey deep emotional and psychological truths through metaphor and allegory. In "A Season in Hell" ("Une Saison en Enfer"), Rimbaud employs a range of symbols to explore themes of suffering, redemption, and self-discovery. The poem's title itself is symbolic, suggesting a period of intense inner turmoil and transformation. -/- Throughout "A Season in Hell," Rimbaud uses symbolic imagery to represent his emotional state and spiritual journey. For example, the recurring motif of fire serves as a symbol of both destruction and purification. Rimbaud writes: > "I firmly intend to possess the truth and to behold the justice of victory! That will, is a ray of light! – Pride is the flame that devours me." Here, fire symbolizes the intense passion and inner conflict that drive the poet's quest for truth and self-understanding. The symbolic imagery in Rimbaud's poetry resonates on an emotional level, inviting readers to connect with the poet's inner experience and to reflect on their own journey of self-discovery. -/- . (shrink)

This paper develops Bernard Williams’s suggestion that for philosophy to ignore its history is for it to assume that its history is vindicatory. The paper aims to offer a fruitful line of inquiry into the question whether philosophy has a vindicatory history by providing a map of possible answers to it. It first distinguishes three types of history: the history of discovery, the history of progress, and the history of change. It then suggests that much of philosophy (...) lacks a vindicatory history, for reasons that reflect philosophy’s character as a humanistic discipline. On this basis, the paper reconstructs Williams’s conception of what it means for philosophy to engage with its own history. The paper concludes that it is a mistake to think that a vindicatory history is what we would really like to have, and that in fact, the resulting picture gives philosophy several reasons to engage with its own history. (shrink)

The encounter of the medieval Muslims with Greek philosophy undeniably shaped the course of their philosophical and theological thought. This encounter led to the complex and contentious issue of ‘philosophy versus theology’. Medieval Muslim thinkers needed to develop a response to the issue of philosophy versus theology. The present article will first highlight the response of the Islamic theologians to their encounter with Greek philosophy in the form of three major trends in medieval Islamic theology: (1) (...) strong opposition to the application of reason and rationalist approach to Islamic doctrines, and strict adherence to the actual text of the Qur’an and the Hadith, (2) the adoption of Greek philosophy, and the application of reason and rationalist approach to explain and defend Islamic religion and (3) acknowledging the significance of reason in exploring the matters related to the natural world but, at the same time, stressing the subordination of reason to revelation. This article will discuss Atharism, Muʿtazilism and Ashʿarism as the representatives of the first, second and third trends, respectively. The response of the medieval Islamic theologians to the issue of philosophy versus theology serves as a context in which medieval Muslim philosophers carried out their philosophy–theology debate. The article will proceed to show that some medieval Muslim philosophers, such as Abu Bakr Al-Razi, subordinated religion or revelation to philosophy or reason. Other medieval Muslim philosophers, such as Al-Ghazali, subordinated philosophy to theology. The third group of medieval Islamic philosophers represented by Alfarabi argued for the reconciliation and harmonious co-existence of philosophy and religion. Contribution: This article highlights the response of medieval Islamic theologians and philosophers to the issue of philosophy versus theology that was caused by their encounter with Greek philosophy. (shrink)

Évoquer Dante Alighieri (v. 1265-67 – 1321), c’est avant tout penser au poète de la Divine Comédie, mais c’est souvent oublier qu’il fut aussi un philosophe médiéval. C’est ce que fait (re)découvrir Ruedi Imbach dans son opuscule paru chez Vrin en 2023. Il y regroupe quatre articles afin de démontrer que Dante se considérait lui-même comme un philosophe, et que l’histoire de la philosophie peut à bon droit s’en souvenir ainsi. Il ne s’agit pas là d’une simple querelle de titre, (...) puisque ce double regard, à la fois philosophique sur son œuvre poétique et critique sur son œuvre philosophique1, permet de découvrir une pensée plus méconnue de cette période, surtout dominée par les universitaires parisiens. Nonobstant sa forme de compilation, l’ouvrage s’articule autour des grands axes présentés dès les premières pages : l’analyse touche à la conception du langage chez Dante, à sa philosophie politique et au dialogue qu’il entretient avec la tradition philosophique. À travers chaque sujet, Imbach soutient que le fil conducteur de la pensée de Dante est l’élévation, à rebours de ses contemporains, de l’éthique au-dessus de la métaphysique. (shrink)

In the past decade, experimental philosophy---the attempt at making progress on philosophical problems using empirical methods---has thrived in a wide range of domains. However, only in recent years has aesthetics succeeded in drawing the attention of experimental philosophers. The present paper constitutes the first survey of these works and of the nascent field of 'experimental philosophy of aesthetics'. We present both recent experimental works by philosophers on topics such as the ontology of aesthetics, aesthetic epistemology, aesthetic concepts, and (...) imagination, as well as research from other disciplines that not only are relevant to philosophy of aesthetics but also open new avenues of research for experimental philosophy of aesthetics. Overall, we conclude that the birth of an experimental philosophy of aesthetics is good news not only for aesthetics but also for experimental philosophy itself, as it contributes to broaden the scope of experimental philosophy. (shrink)

What is a game? What are we doing when we play a game? What is the value of playing games? Several different philosophical subdisciplines have attempted to answer these questions using very distinctive frameworks. Some have approached games as something like a text, deploying theoretical frameworks from the study of narrative, fiction, and rhetoric to interrogate games for their representational content. Others have approached games as artworks and asked questions about the authorship of games, about the ontology of the work (...) and its performance. Yet others, from the philosophy of sport, have focused on normative issues of fairness, rule application, and competition. The primary purpose of this article is to provide an overview of several different philosophical approaches to games and, hopefully, demonstrate the relevance and value of the different approaches to each other. Early academic attempts to cope with games tried to treat games as a subtype of narrative and to interpret games exactly as one might interpret a static, linear narrative. A faction of game studies, self-described as “ludologists,” argued that games were a substantially novel form and could not be treated with traditional tools for narrative analysis. In traditional narrative, an audience is told and interprets the story, where in a game, the player enacts and creates the story. Since that early debate, theorists have attempted to offer more nuanced accounts of how games might achieve similar ends to more traditional texts. For example, games might be seen as a novel type of fiction, which uses interactive techniques to achieve immersion in a fictional world. Alternately, games might be seen as a new way to represent causal systems, and so a new way to criticize social and political entities. Work from contemporary analytic philosophy of art has, on the other hand, asked questions whether games could be artworks and, if so, what kind. Much of this debate has concerned the precise nature of the artwork, and the relationship between the artist and the audience. Some have claimed that the audience is a cocreator of the artwork, and so games are a uniquely unfinished and cooperative art form. Others have claimed that, instead, the audience does not help create the artwork; rather, interacting with the artwork is how an audience member appreciates the artist's finished production. Other streams of work have focused less on the game as a text or work, and more on game play as a kind of activity. One common view is that game play occurs in a “magic circle.” Inside the magic circle, players take on new roles, follow different rules, and actions have different meanings. Actions inside the magic circle do not have their usual consequences for the rest of life. Enemies of the magic circle view have claimed that the view ignores the deep integration of game life from ordinary life and point to gambling, gold farming, and the status effects of sports. Philosophers of sport, on the other hand, have approached games with an entirely different framework. This has lead into investigations about the normative nature of games—what guides the applications of rules and how those rules might be applied, interpreted, or even changed. Furthermore, they have investigated games as social practices and as forms of life. (shrink)

This paper defends the usefulness of the concept of philosophical progress and the common assumption that philosophy and science aim to make the same, or a comparable, kind of progress. It does so by responding to Yafeng Shan's (2022) arguments that the wealth of research on scientific progress is not applicable or useful to philosophy, and that philosophy doesn't need a concept of progress at all. It is ultimately argued that while Shan's arguments are not successful, they (...) reveal the way forward in developing accounts of philosophical progress. (shrink)

This is the editorial introduction to the special edition of Cosmos & History on the future of philosophy.

This paper presents the main topics, arguments, and positions in the philosophy of AI at present (excluding ethics). Apart from the basic concepts of intelligence and computation, the main topics of ar-tificial cognition are perception, action, meaning, rational choice, free will, consciousness, and normativity. Through a better understanding of these topics, the philosophy of AI contributes to our understand-ing of the nature, prospects, and value of AI. Furthermore, these topics can be understood more deeply through the discussion of (...) AI; so we suggest that “AI Philosophy” provides a new method for philosophy. (shrink)

In this essay I explore the notion of philosophy as a way of life as a recovery pathway for individuals in addiction recovery. My hypothesis is that philosophy as a way of life can be a compelling, and legitimate recovery pathway for individuals in addiction recovery, as one of many recovery pathways. I will focus on logic-based therapy applied in the context of addiction recovery. The aim of presenting a case study is to show how a client receiving (...) LBT is provided with techniques and a worldview that can contribute to a philosophically oriented recovery program. In the case study the client was advised to apply the moral philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche as an uplifting philosophical framework to counteract his unproductive worldview and fallacious thinking. Considering that there is an ostensibly low efficacy rate for the treatment of addiction, articulating the value of philosophy as a way of life as a recovery pathway provides a conceptual and methodological framework for the development of novel philosophically-based addiction treatment and recovery-oriented programs—thus expanding the treatment and recovery options available for those seeking recovery from addiction. (shrink)