This paper examines the doctrine of existence as a perfection. Examining some of the comments from Leroy Howe, there is an immense amount of confusion with the idea of existence as a perfection. Leaning on some level of the cosmological argument, I believe it is Descartes that brings forth a proper understanding of why existence is a great making property. However, there is a level of irrelevance between the Kantian problem existence as a predicate and the nature of Anselm's (...) argument. (shrink)

There has been little discussion of the compatibility of Theistic Conceptual Realism with the doctrine of divine simplicity. On the one hand, if a plurality of universals is necessary to explain the character of particular things, there is reason to think this commits the proponent of TCR to the existence of a plurality of divine concepts. So the proponent of the DDS has aprima faciereason to reject TCR. On the other hand, many mediaeval philosophers accept both the existence of (...) divine ideas and the DDS. In this article I draw on mediaeval and contemporary accounts of properties and divine simplicity to argue that the two theories are not logically incompatible. (shrink)

According to the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, the distinction between doing and allowing harm is morally significant. Doing harm is harder to justify than merely allowing harm. This paper is the second of a two paper critical overview of the literature on the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing. In this paper, I consider the moral status of the distinction between doing and allowing harm. I look at objections to the doctrine such as James’ Rachels’ Wicked Uncle (...) Case and Jonathan Bennett’s argument that any acceptable analysis of the distinction leaves it implausible that the distinction is morally relevant. I consider putative defences of the Doctrine from Philippa Foot and Warren Quinn. I argue that neither Foot not Quinn provides a satisfactory justification of the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing, but that the idea of self-ownership discussed by Quinn can be developed to provide a justification of the doctrine. (shrink)

Sikhism, a panentheistic religion, originated in the Punjab province of the Indian subcontinent during the 15th century. It is one of the youngest and fifth major world religions. The fundamental beliefs of Sikhism have been enshrined in the sacred scripture, Sri Guru Granth Sahib. These beliefs include faith in and meditation on one universal creator, unity of all humankind, engaging in selfless service, striving for social justice for all, honest livelihood and ethical conduct while living a householder's life. Sikhism has (...) about 28 million adherents worldwide. World peace is an ideal state of freedom, peace, and happiness among and within all nations and people. This idea of a peaceful world, free from violence, provides a basis for peoples and nations to willingly cooperate to prevent warfare. While different cultures, religions, philosophies, and organizations may have different concepts about how such an ideal state might come about, they have in common this ideal of a cessation of all hostility amongst all humanity. World Peace could be established through religious or secular organizations that address human rights, education, or diplomacy to end all forms of fighting. All religions are potential bearers of peace, reconciliation and reflection. This is true for Sikhism as well. As we are aware that peaceful co-existence between individuals, communities and nations is possible provided freedom, justice, human dignity, and equal opportunity to all are guaranteed. Sikhism with its doctrines of sangat (holy company), pangat (equality), wand chhakna (sharing with others), love of nature, sarbat da bhala (universal welfare), seva (selfless service), universal brotherhood, justice, liberty and fraternity, offers a pragmatic approach to achieve our well-cherished goal of world peace. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the Great Ideas are integral to Mortimer J. Adler’s Great Books Movement in much the same way that the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path are integral to Buddhism. Both use ‘Great’ and ‘Noble’ to point toward human excellence. For Adler, the Great Ideas are the metaphysical and moral concepts out of which Western civilization developed. They are the main topics in an ongoing great conversation that shapes Western culture. Precisely because these (...) Great Ideas are great, insofar as they point toward human excellence (virtue), they ought not be considered the exclusive property of the West. Instead, as Adler recognized, they should be utilized in the analysis of other cultural traditions. This chapter uses two of Adler’s Great Ideas, freedom and religion, to analyze Buddhism as it is encountered in the early Indian Buddhist texts. It asserts all human philosophy and culture, including that of Buddhism, is ultimately based in religion, thereby making religion the greatest of Adler’s and the Buddha’s Great philosophical and cultural ideas. (shrink)

Epicurean philosophy, as Epicurus's teachings became known, was used as the basis for how the community lived and worked. At the time, founding a school and teaching a community of students was the main way philosophical ideas were developed and transmitted. Greek philosopher Aristotle (384–322 BCE), for instance, founded a school in Athens called the Lyceum. Epicurus and his disciples believed either there were no gods or, if there were, the gods were so remote from humans that they were (...) not worth worrying about. Similarly, humans would not have to worry about the afterlife. Instead, humans should live by maximizing their pleasure. The highest pleasure was to be found in the absence of pain. Epicurus taught that humans could maximize their pleasure by living simply and enjoying those impulses that are natural to humans. These impulses include the need to eat and the desire for good friends and company. The Principal Doctrines are 40 statements outlining the basis for the beliefs of Epicurus and his followers about how to lead a good life. Epicurus's other philosophical beliefs (such as his belief that existence was composed of indivisible particles called atoms) are expressed in other writings. Almost none of Epicurus's original writings survive to the present day. His works, including the Principal Doctrines, are known to us because of the work of later writers. In the 3rd century CE, Diogenes Laërtius reproduced Epicurus's writings in Lives, Teachings, and Sayings of Famous Philosophers. Produced centuries after Epicurus's death, such collections may not be Epicurus's precise words or formulations. The Principal Doctrines should thus be regarded as the core principles not only of Epicurus but also of his followers, the Epicureans. (shrink)

Are human beings actually free beings? The doctrine of determinism gives a negative response to this question. Determinism therefore claims that humans are not free to act or make choices, since they are always constrained in some way. By so doing, determinism denies human freedom and human moral responsibility. It rejects the idea that humans act freely, or that humans can be regarded as responsible for their actions and inactions. This outright denial of human freedom and human moral responsibility (...) is certainly pregnant with several implications, which this article is aimed at exposing. This article adopts the expository, analytic and critical methods. It begins with a clarification of the concept of determinism and then goes on to discuss five types of determinism, namely: (a) physical, (b) psychological, (c) historical, (d) ethical and (e) theological determinism, respectively. Also, this article discusses two categories of determinism known as soft and hard determinism. Furthermore, this article exposes some implications of determinism for events and humanity. Finally, adopting eclecticism as its theoretical framework, this article proposes that it is best to approach the doctrine of determinism by simply recognising and accepting the fact that there are aspects of humans that are determined, and there are equally aspects of humans that are not determined. By so doing, this article establishes that approaching the doctrine of determinism eclectically is the surest way of accommodating the opposing doctrines of determinism and 'freewillism.’. (shrink)

This book attempts to contribute a historical and interpretive study of Descartes' epistemology. It provides a systematic and exhaustive clarification of the mysterious and puzzling doctrine of "clear and distinct perception" and illuminates the relationships between this doctrine and four other central notions: "truth," "metaphysical doubt," "(metaphysical) certainty," and "knowledge." -/- Roughly speaking, a clear and distinct perception is a pure understanding, an intellectual perception, or a mental intuition in which a purified and attending mind has a simple (...) mental intuition of a simple proposition or a necessary deduction (i.e., a complex mental intuition) from such simple propositions to a complex proposition. A simple proposition can be regarded as a necessary conjunction of simple ideas. Descartes' composition theory of ideas, which supposes that all ideas are composed of simple ideas, provides a crucial basis for clear and distinct perception. -/- Descartes' doctrine of clear and distinct perception is an attempt at mathematizing epistemology and is the main content of his new "method" (for truth and knowledge), which he sought throughout his life. -/- This book attempts to shape a new image of Descartes' epistemology. (shrink)

We develop some of Williamson’s ideas regarding how propositional calculus aids in comprehending Aristotelian logic. Specifically, we enhance the utilisation of truth tables to examine the structure of opposition diagrams. Using ‘conditioned truth tables’, we establish logical dependency relationships between the truth values of different propositions. This approach proves effective in interpreting various texts of the Organon concerning the doctrine of opposition.

In this paper, I suggest an outline of a new interpretation of core issues in Spinoza’s metaphysics and philosophy of mind. I argue for three major theses. (1) In the first part of the paper I show that the celebrated Spinozistic doctrine commonly termed “the doctrine of parallelism” is in fact a confusion of two separate and independent doctrines of parallelism. Hence, I argue that our current understanding of Spinoza’s metaphysics and philosophy of mind is fundamentally flawed. (2) (...) The clarification and setting apart of the two doctrines will also put us in a position to present my second major thesis and address one of the more interesting and enduring problems in Spinoza’s metaphysics: how can the attribute of thought be, on the one hand, isomorphic with any other attribute, and yet, on the other hand, be isomorphic with God himself, who has infinitely many attributes? In the second part of the paper, I present Spinoza’s solution to this problem. I argue that the number and order of modes is the same in all attributes. Yet, modes of Thought, unlike modes of any other attribute, have an infinitely-faceted internal structure so that one and the same idea represents infinitely many modes by having infinitely many facets (or aspects). (3) This new understanding of the inner structure of ideas in Spinoza will lead us to my third thesis in which I explain and solve another old riddle in Spinoza’s metaphysics: his insistence on the impossibility of the human mind knowing any of God’s infinite attributes other than Thought and Extension. In the third part, I show some of the major ramifications of my new interpretation and respond to some important objections. In my conclusion I discuss the philosophical importance of my interpretation. I explain why Spinoza could not embrace reductive idealism in spite of the preeminence he grants to the attribute of Thought. I argue that Spinoza is a dualist -- not a mind-body dualist, as he is commonly conceived to be, but rather a dualist of Thought and Being. Finally, I suggest that Spinoza’s position on the mind-body issue breaks with the traditional categories and ways of addressing the subject by suggesting a view which grants clear primacy to Thought without accepting any idealist reduction of bodies to thought. (shrink)

At the heart of Kant’s legal-political philosophy lies a liberal, republican ideal of justice understood in terms of private independence (non-domination) and subjection to public laws securing freedom for all citizens as equals. Given this basic commitment of Kant’s, it is puzzling to many that he does not consider democracy a minimal condition on a legitimate state. In addition, many find Kant ideas of reform or improvement of the historical states we have inherited vague and confusing. The aim of (...) this paper is to untangle both puzzles by exploring Kant’s idea of self-governance. I argue that Kant’s idea of self-governance gives us a very good starting point for thinking about how to leave room for a variety of political systems—different ideals—that have grown out of and responding to different contingent historical and cultural circumstances. It also helps us identify those areas where we want to take extra care to build in safeguards to secure stability and to take sufficiently seriously humankind’s truly nasty sides. (shrink)

There is a significant debate going on long time about the existence of a theory of consciousness in Spinoza’s philosophical system of thought. This article, on the one hand, offers a different reading to alleviate the current debate, and on the other hand, it aims to bring together and analyze the main theses of this debate. In this matter, it is argued that a theory of consciousness can be deduced in Spinoza’s system of thought, and despite all its parallelism, the (...) possibility of conceptual thinking the “mind” independently from the “body” even if not in reality, is examined. In this context, first, the doctrine of “ideas of ideas” is put forward as the metaphysical basis of consciousness. Then, the “degrees of consciousness”, which are formed according to the mind’s ability to reach more “ideas” about the parts that make up the complex structure of the body, and to extract the “ideas of ideas” from these “ideas”, are determined as the epistemological aspect of consciousness. Depending on the degrees of ideas of the body’s affections by the mind and the kinds of knowledge, it is determined how the human mind reaches the consciousness of “self”, “God” and “other things”. The conclusion in the study is that in Spinoza, consciousness is built on “knowledge”; while “ideas” represents knowledge, the “ideas of ideas” represents consciousness. Thus, the unclear boundaries of the distinction between “conscious minds” and “un- conscious minds” and “conscious ideas” and “un-conscious ideas” in the human mind, which are at the center of almost all discussions, are tried to be clarified. In this sense, Spinoza’s theory of consciousness in its most general scope is based on the theory of mind and the theory of knowledge, which is a result of first. In Spinoza’s theory of mind, especially when it comes to the human mind, every change that occurs in the body, corresponds to an idea (parallelism) or is represented as an idea. The ideas that occur in the human mind are just representations of the affections of the body, that is, of the changes that occur in the body according to the effects it receives and influences as a result of the relations established by the body. While the human mind perceives some of these ideas in a “confused”, “fragmentary” or “inadequate” way, it grasps some of them “clearly” or “adequately”. Spinoza puts forward his theories of mind and knowledge on this basis. However, the human mind is not settled with only the ideas of the body’s affection that occur in it, but also constitute secondary ideas about these ideas, regardless of whether they are adequate or inadequate. These secondary ideas express awareness of primary ideas, whether they are adequate or inadequate. In the article, this constitution and awareness, that is, the “ideas of the ideas”, is tried to be revealed in detail as the basic ground or main line of the Spinozist theory of consciousness. Other results or outcomes of the theory of consciousness require first to understand this basic ground. Accordingly, the human body is a very complex structure that has the most parts or components in Nature compared to the others. The human mind, on the other hand, has the capability to reach ideas about each element and its change of the complex structure of the body. However, the content of these ideas is formed according to the degree to which the human mind recognizes its own body. The degree to which the human mind knows its own body also determines the degree of its consciousness. Spinoza states that non-human beings also have a certain “degree of animation”, and while stating that what he says is valid for other beings as well as human beings, he also tries to justify that the human body is superior to other bodies and the human mind to other minds. Spinoza sees the superiority of one body over the other as the ability of one to perform more actions on one’s own, compared to the other. The more parts a body has or the more different kinds of objects it contains, the more it is available to perform actions and influences or receives effects. Because when a body encounters or interacts with other bodies, each of its parts can be affected by this encounter or relationship. Therefore, the more complex the body has, the more ideas the mind can have. This is the reason why the mind of a person is superior to other minds because of whose body is superior to other bodies. Depending on the human mind’s ability to know its own body, there are “unconscious ideas” and “conscious ideas” between the two minds when compared to and between ideas in the same mind, as well as a difference degree in consciousness from a lower level to a higher level. This degree of difference is discussed in the article as the epistemological result or outcome of consciousness. The “self-consciousness” of human, which comes to the fore as a result of considering the metaphysical basis of consciousness and its epistemological result together, constitutes the last subject of the article. Keywords: Philosophy, Spinoza, Mind, Consciousness, Ideas of Ideas, Self- Consciousness, Panpsychism. (shrink)

Locke endorses a distinction between passive reflection and voluntary attentive reflection, which he occasionally labels contemplation. Failure to recognize this distinction properly has had an effect on interpretations of Locke’s theory of reflection, and caused puzzlement about the relation between reflection and consciousness. In particular, the function of reflection as a passive internal sense that produces simple ideas of mental operations has been downplayed in favour of the view that reflection in one manner or another involves attention and/or presupposes (...) consciousness of mental operations. This has led a number of scholars to maintain, implicitly or explicitly, that Locke in fact abandons either his doctrine of sensation and reflection as the two exclusive sources of ideas or his doctrine of ideas as the only immediate objects of experience. -/- With the help of a distinction between reflection as a source of ideas and reflection as an operation about ideas I aim to show how Locke can hold to his empiricist maxim about the two sources of ideas and also endorse ideas as the only immediate objects of experience. A proper understanding of Locke’s theory of reflection requires that reflection and consciousness be delineated with respect to one another. I will show how Locke’s notion of consciousness differs from both types of reflection. (shrink)

The paper discusses the problem of the source of the analogies between philosophical outlook of the Sophists and the skeptical tradition of Pyrrho and his successors. Its main objective is to point out that the similarities in standpoints, arguments and methods between these philosophical phenomena result from the transmission of Plato’s Theaetetus. It is argued that main ideas (phenomenalism, subjectivism, relativity and indeterminacy of things, rejection of being and acceptance of becoming and constant flux, antilogical position consisting in opposing (...) two contradictory statements etc.) which in Theaetetus constituted so called “Secret Doctrine” (attributed by Plato to Protagoras and disciples of Heraclitus), after being criticized by Aristotle in his discussion about the principle of contradiction in Metaphysics (books IV and XI), were acknowledged by Pyrrho and, revived by Aenesidemus, can be found incorporated into the skeptical tradition in the works of Sextus Empiricus. -/- . (shrink)

According to authoritative Christian teaching, Jesus Christ is a single person existing in two natures, divinity and humanity. In attempting to understand this claim, the high-scholastic theologians often asked whether there was more than one existence in Christ. John Duns Scotus answers the question with a clear and strongly-formulated yes, and Thomists have sometimes suspected that his answer leads in a heretical direction. But before we can ask whether Scotus‘s answer is acceptable or not, we have to come to a (...) clear understanding of what his answer is. And before we can ask what his answer is, we have to come to a clear understanding of what question or questions he is trying to answer. In this paper I begin by explaining that the question about Christ‘s existence is ambiguous, i.e., that there are actually two questions hidden behind one formulation. Next I look at Scotus‘s writings on the topic in order to determine which question he is really trying to answer, and I argue that he is trying to answer both of them, even though he does not make this clear. Third, I provide an initial look at the answers that he gives. Fourth, I explain why these answers might seem problematic, especially from a Thomistic perspective. Fifth, I explain Scotus‘s answers in more detail and show that they are not problematic in the way that some Thomists have held. Indeed, at least some of Scotus‘s ideas are the very same ideas that Thomas spells out in one of his works. (shrink)

In philosophy of religion the term of Immanence is mostly applied to GOD in contrast to the divine Transcendence. This relation, as we will see here, it is not far from the truth since one cannot be without the other, however they are not to be put in contrast, but in conjunction. The one-sided insistence on the immanence of God, to the exclusion of His transcendence, leads to Pantheism, just as the one-sided insistence upon His transcendence, to the exclusion of (...) His immanence, leads to Deism. These two can be separated, but the consequences are great for human knowledge and society; it is the two taken together that result in, and are necessary to Theism. But from the least complicated idea that even the name of God is a manifestation of His immanence contrasting with Deus absconditus, whose existence and name cannot be known or thought, theology and religion in general need to regard immanence of God as crucial for the acts of worship. What are the philosophical background for Christian theology to imply the immanence characteristic for God’s existence related to His creation? – This is the main question the present work tries to answer as an overview. (shrink)

The mind thoughts of Wang Yangming come from long-term moral and spiritual practices. After the knowledge and action are honed, they fall on the level of conscience. In the early years, Yangming paid close attention to the mind. With the help of the concentrated observation amendments of law in Buddhism, Yangming looked at the ideas that have been developed and not developed from the perspective of the doctrine of the mean. Yangming believes that the essence of the dynamic (...) mind is natural. Therefore, it realizes the subtle purity of the mind from keeping one and settling down and from pure to spontaneous. At the same time, Yangming believes that the depth of Tao has a charm that is different from ordinary consciousness. However, Yangming criticized Buddhism for obtaining the silence of the no mind and the immobile mind through the practice of emptiness. Contrarily, Yangming paid more attention to the experience of "light" in moral practice, which made Confucianism standardize the practice of knowledge and action to the practice of mindfulness and doing instead of being in vain. The paper explored the philosophy of mind of Wang Yangming from three dimensions: one mind, no mind, and Mindfulness. (shrink)

The paper is concerned with the role of the logos in the sophistic thought. The author argues that the importance of logos is a result of the conviction that according to the Sophists human reality is somehow „created” through words in the process of constant communication and interpretation. This idea inspires the Sophists to research on the particular conditions of the process of persuasion and to analyze the factors which determine the persuasive power of speech. This interest in the power (...) of "logos" leads the Sophists such as Protagoras, Gorgias, Antiphon to develop the techniques which aim at increasing the persuasive power of speech by addressing both rational and emotional part of the soul. (shrink)

In an important new Article, titled A Matter of Facts: The Evolution of the Copyright Fact-Exclusion and Its Implications for Disinformation and Democracy, Professor Jessica Silbey argues provocatively that we “‘only” know that facts are excluded from copyright protection because Feist Publications v. Rural Telephone Service “says so.” She argues that both the nature and importance of facts has been underdefined and is in flux, nonetheless tracing it to the foundational cases of United States (U.S.) copyright law, and argues for (...) a stronger exclusion of facts, which are publici juris, and belong in the public domain. This central thesis is most agreeable, as is her analysis of doctrine and legislative history. The Article’s rich study of American pragmatism, legal realism, the Cambridge school of analytic philosophy, and the “new social scientists,” which Professor Silbey uses to support a strong fact-exclusion, is a tour de force. The Article ends with a list of proposals for a strong Feist application to evaluations, catalogs, manuals, and legal documents. It also includes a call not to allow for industrial dilution of copyright’s framework, including the facts and ideas exclusion. Both are laudable and timely in the era of generative artificial intelligence (AI), where proposals to protect non-authorial quasi-expression or to prevent copying of non-expressive subject matter abound. -/- While I agree with a call for a robust public domain and strong fact-exclusion, and devote Part II of this Response to explore further doctrinal grounds for them, in Part III I explore Silbey’s argument that “pragmatist philosophy’s challenge to universal truths combined with legal realist challenges to formalist jurisprudence eventually shape what is (or should be) copyright law’s broad public domain in ‘facts.’” It is not immediately clear if pragmatism and realism are a solid ground for justifying strong legal principles and axioms. Engaging with this provocative argument allows us to uncover what realism means to Professor Silbey and the much more radical consequences of her arguments. Part IV concludes. (shrink)

The article concerns the idea of University in the thought of John Henry Newman In particular the relationship with real assent, notional assent, principles, doctrine.

This research looks at the various interpretations of "Mind" found in the Astika Darshanas, which cover the six main schools of Indian philosophy. At the same time, it looks into the profound East Asian Buddhist doctrine of One Mind as presented by Wonhyo, a great Korean Buddhist monk. This study seeks to identify the interesting similarities and differences that lie at the nexus of various philosophical domains by travelling through the complex landscape of different intellectual traditions. By using a (...) comparative approach, it aims to clarify the connections and distinguishing characteristics that form the conception of 'Mind' in both Korean Buddhist philosophy and the six schools of Indian philosophy, thereby advancing our understanding of the various philosophical currents that have influenced the intellectual fabric of these traditions. Focusing on the transmission and assimilation of Indian philosophical ideas into Buddhist philosophies, the research explores how these concepts were adapted and evolved as Buddhism spread across East Asian cultures. This research seeks to bridge these dissimilar contexts in order to reveal the interconnections of Indian and Korean philosophical traditions, contributing to a better understanding of the universal threads that connect these landscapes and highlighting the enduring resonance of fundamental concepts in the pursuit of enlightenment. (shrink)

Theorists such as Stuart Hall have problematised the idea that identity is something that remains essentially the same across time. Since doctrine has been cast as that which safeguards Christian identity, this provokes the question: what role can doctrine play if this is the case? Critiquing George Lindbeck's The Nature of Doctrine in light of Kathryn Tanner's work on rules suggests that doctrine cannot regulate, constitute or generate the necessary conditions for Christian identity. Doctrine can, (...) however, still play a role in generating Christian meaning without regulating identity by determining how concepts are formed in Christian community. (shrink)

This chapter explores some key issues within Descartes’s theory of cognition. The starting-point is a recent interpretation, according to which Descartes is part of a tradition of theorizing about human cognition, beginning from the idea that we are in principle capable of articulating or grasping the basic order of reality. Earlier readings often take Descartes to question whether we have any cognitive access to reality at all. On the new reading, Descartes instead defends a robust conception of our cognitive relation (...) to reality—our cognition needs to be “determined by reality,” as John Carriero puts it. One important element of Carriero’s interpretation is that Descartes’s notion of idea is to be understood along the lines of the Aristotelian doctrine of formal identity between cognizer and cognized. Here it is argued that retaining the latter doctrine faces some difficulties, given the novel conception of the structure of reality defended by Descartes. This chapter proposes that he needs an alternative account of what it is for a cognizer to be determined by reality. Attending to some important differences between the innate idea of extension and that of God, the chapter concludes that Descartes may not have a fully worked-out account of his own. Considering some of the problems inherent in his views can, however, shed light on the, from our contemporary perspective, peculiar role both Spinoza and Leibniz give to God in accounting for cognition. (shrink)

In Leibniz’s New Essays stands out, within many important topics, his doctrine of innate ideas, which supposes the division between sense knowledge and innate knowledge and implies the distinction between truths of reason and truths of fact. That doctrine is particularly relevant for Leibniz’s philosophy, but implicitly entails the epistemological difference between belief, on one hand, and certainty, on the other. In this paper I outline, according to my interpretation, how Leibniz explains that humans can have certainty (...) about innate ideas. This topic is important because if Leibniz demonstrates the possibility of having certainty of those ideas, then, it is feasible to believe in its existence. However, if his explanation is unsatisfactory his metaphysical doctrine would be seriously weakened and, at the same time, both skepticism and Locke’s empiricist doctrine would be reinforced. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to add to the debate on the normative status and legitimacy of indoctrination in education by drawing on the political philosophy of Benedict Spinoza (1632–1677). More specifically, I will argue that Spinoza’s relational approach to knowledge formation and autonomy, in light of his understanding of the natural limitations of human cognition, provides us with valuable hints for staking out a more productive path ahead for the debate on indoctrination. This article combines an investigation into (...) the early modern history of political ideas with a philosophical inquiry into a persistent conceptual problem residing at the heart of education. As such, the aim of the article is ultimately to offer an account of indoctrination less fraught with the dangers of epistemological and political idealism that often haunt rival conceptions. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the relationship between Kant and the traditional view of dignity. I argue that some amendments to Sensen’s description of the traditional paradigm enable us to see more clearly both where Kant adheres to the latter and where his view is original. First, a consideration of Pufendorf’s use of dignity suggests (1) that, contrary to Sensen’s reconstruction, the traditional paradigm does not entail a connection between dignity and duties to oneself, and (2) that Pufendorf’s understanding of dignity (...) as a kind of esteem, as opposed to price, provides a crucial mediation between the traditional view and Kant’s view. Finally, I argue that the traditional understanding of dignity also includes a subordinate justificatory element that helps to explain Kant’s use of dignity in the Doctrine of Virtue. (shrink)

One of the more notorious passages in Kant occurs in the Doctrine of Right where he claims that ‘bloodguilt’ will cling to members of a dissolving society if they fail to execute the last murderer (MM, 6: 333). Although this is the most famous, bloodguilt appears in three other passages in Kant’s writings. These have received little attention in Kant scholarship. In this article, I examine these other passages and argue that bloodguilt functions as a symbol for the demandingness (...) of justice. I then offer a sympathetic interpretation of the passage from the Doctrine of Right. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.3 (2000) 453-471 [Access article in PDF] Liberty, Authority, and Trust in Burke's Idea of Empire Richard Bourke When Edmund Burke first embarked upon a parliamentary career, British political life was in the process of adapting to a series of critical reorientations in both the dynamics of party affiliation and the direction of imperial policy. During the period of the Seven Years' (...) War, a reconstituted militia became a focus for patriotic enthusiasm, uniting national sentiment against France and effectively eradicating the remnants of Jacobite rhetoric and aspiration. Traditional opposition between Tory and Whig became irrelevant, while Court and Country jointly came to the support of the Pitt-Newcastle ministry. However, in due course the Old Corps disintegrated as George III succeeded to the throne with the promise of an end to factional strife and the beginning of a patriotic alliance in government. But while competing ideologies and interests on the domestic political scene were undergoing comprehensive realignment, the pursuit of a blue-water policy in tandem with strategic continental campaigns brought Britain's struggle against France into North America, the Caribbean, and India. Trade continued to expand into Asia and West Africa, but the principles of commercial advantage were continually brought into open conflict with the exigencies of war. The division of power in Europe became embroiled in a substantial redivision of empire, and by 1763 British territorial expansion had reached its zenith.When Burke was appointed private secretary to the Marquis of Rockingham, with the national debt standing at an all time high and the demands of imperial defense unlikely to diminish, the politics of empire called for urgent attention from all sections of the political establishment. In particular the Rockinghamites, adopting a posture of aloofness from venality and petty interest, were obliged to advance policies for imperial government on the solid basis of political principle. 1 Coming into parliament as a member for Wendover in the wake of [End Page 453] Grenville's Stamp Act, at a time when the East India Company was assuming control of the revenue in Bengal, Burke set about formulating a doctrine of imperial sovereignty which would be serviceable to the party either in power or in opposition and which would be adequate to the complex reality of detached and extensive empire. The immediate reception of that inquiry, both in Britain and on the Continent, into the fraught world of post-Revolutionary political debate has had the long-term effect of distorting the order of emphasis in terms of which his career as a whole ought properly to be understood.The vigorous elaboration, in opposition to the Jacobin experiment in France, of the conditions under which moderate government could be exercised within the context of an absolute sovereignty was expressed in terms which had originally been invoked as part of a sustained attempt to reconcile civility with empire. As we shall see, that attempt involved a process of delicate coordination by means of which the interests of freedom would be brought into harmony with the demands of public power. In that sense the effort to make liberty and authority mutually responsible can be said to constitute the core ambition of Burke's political rhetoric. In this context responsibility defines the optimally beneficial relation between government and people on the one hand and national sovereignty and the extended empire on the other. This article outlines the practical and theoretical exploration of those relations within the frame of Burke's intervention in the world of eighteenth-century political discourse.Burke was of course well placed in 1765 to evolve a theory of imperial government that was at once ideologically compelling and politically viable. In his capacity as secretary to William Gerard Hamilton in the early 1760s he had already examined the corruption of legitimate empire as represented by the introduction of penal legislation into Ireland after 1694. The Tracts Relating to Popery Laws set out to convict the Irish Parliament in Dublin of flagrant misrule. A subordinate legislature within the empire is charged with having employed... (shrink)

About this book: -/- This book delves into the compatibility of Islam with liberal values, engaging in a comparative analysis of Islamic moral language and John Rawls's liberal democratic ideas. Rawls, a prominent modern liberal political philosopher, posits that diverse moral and religious doctrines in a pluralistic society should align with the principles of a liberal democratic political culture. The author shares Rawls's assumptions and maps out a spectrum of Islamic orthodoxy positions to assess the plausibility of reconciling Islamic (...) doctrines with a liberal political order. While acknowledging that such compatibility is not the mainstream outlook, the book argues that it's feasible through reasonable interpretations of Islamic sources. -/- The central question addressed is the realism of observant Muslims endorsing a liberal democratic state from within their doctrinal tradition. By examining a range of Islamic orthodoxy positions, the book demonstrates that Muslims can theoretically find Islamic reasons, rooted in acceptable interpretations of divine sources, to justify their commitment to a liberal state. Furthermore, it provides moral reasons and strategies for the liberal state to address incompatible Islamic doctrines, ensuring Muslims can maintain religious practices without an Islamic political authority. This theoretical framework offers insights for future empirical and theoretical studies on Muslims navigating pluralistic liberal societies, making it a vital contribution to the discourse on Islam and liberalism. (shrink)

Part One of Montesquieu's Idea of Justice comprises a survey of the currency in philosophical, ethical and aesthetic debate during the second half of the 17th century of the terms rapport and convenance, which are central to the enigmatic definition given to justice by Mon tesquieu in Lettres Persanes LXXXllI. In this survey, attention is concen trated on the way in which the connotations of these terms fluctuate with the divergent development of the methodological and speculative outgrowths of Cartesian ism (...) into two schools of thought, materialist and idealist, often widely at variance in their views of the nature and orga nization of the universe. In Part Two, Montesquieu's definition of justice is set against this background, whose doctrinal conflicts, because of the characteristic as sociations of its key terms, it may be taken to reflect, just as it may be held to epitomize, by virtue of its elaboration in the opening chapter of De l' Esprit des Lois and its close terminological affinities with the defini tion of law there given, an undoubtedly related conflict between the implications of causal determinism and the aspirations of idealist meta physics surviving at the heart of Montesquieu's outlook, and, remaining unresolved, often said to impair the coherence if not the validity of his theory of society. (shrink)

Berkeley's doctrine of archetypes explains how God perceives and can have the same ideas as finite minds. His appeal of Christian neo-Platonism opens up a way to understand how the relation of mind, ideas, and their union is modeled on the Cappadocian church fathers' account of the persons of the trinity. This way of understanding Berkeley indicates why he, in contrast to Descartes or Locke, thinks that mind (spiritual substance) and ideas (the object of mind) cannot (...) exist or be thought of apart from one another. It also hints at why Gregory of Nyssa's immaterialism sounds so much like Berkeley's. (shrink)

This book is an anthology with the following themes. Non-European Tradition: Bussanich interprets main themes of Hindu ethics, including its roots in ritual sacrifice, its relationship to religious duty, society, individual human well-being, and psychic liberation. To best assess the truth of Hindu ethics, he argues for dialogue with premodern Western thought. Pfister takes up the question of human nature as a case study in Chinese ethics. Is our nature inherently good (as Mengzi argued) or bad (Xunzi’s view)? Pfister ob- (...) serves their underlying agreement, that human beings are capable of becoming good, and makes precise the disagreement: whether we achieve goodness by cultivating autonomous feelings or by accepting external precepts. There are political consequences: whether government should aim to respect and em- power individual choices or to be a controlling authority. Early Greek Thinking: Collobert examines the bases of Homeric ethics in fame, prudence, and shame, and how these guide the deliberations of heroes. She observes how, by depending upon the poet’s words, the hero gains a quasi- immortality, although in truth there is no consolation for each person’s inevi- table death. Plato: Santas examines Socratic Method and ethics in Republic 1. There Socrates examines definitions of justice and tests them by comparison to the arts and sciences. Santas shows the similarities of Socrates’ method to John Rawls’ method of considered judgments in reflective equilibrium. McPherran interprets Plato’s religious dimension as like that of his teacher Socrates. McPherran shows how Plato appropriates, reshapes, and extends the religious conventions of his own time in the service of establishing the new enterprise of philosophy. Ac- cording to Taylor, Socrates believes that humans in general have the task of helping the gods by making their own souls as good as possible, and Socrates’ unique ability to cross-examine imposes on him the special task of helping others to become as good as possible. This conception of Socrates’ mission is Plato’s own, consisting in an extension of the traditional conception of piety as helping the gods. Brickhouse and Smith propose a new understanding of Socratic moral psychology—one that retains the standard view of Socrates as an intellectualist, but also recognizes roles in human agency for appetites and passions. They compare and contrast the Socratic view to the picture of moral psychology we get in other dialogues of Plato. Hardy also proposes a new, non-reductive understanding of Socratic eudaimonism—he argues that Socrates invokes a very rich and complex notion of the “Knowledge of the Good and Bad”, which is associated with the motivating forces of the virtues. Rudebusch defends Socrates’ argument that knowledge can never be impotent in the face of psychic passions. He considers the standard objections: that knowledge cannot weigh incom- mensurable human values, and that brute desire, all by itself, is capable of moving the soul to action. Aristotle: Anagnostopoulos interprets Aristotle on the nature and acquisition of virtue. Though virtue of character, aiming at human happiness, requires a complex awareness of multiple dimensions of one’s experience, it is not properly a cognitive capacity. Thus it requires habituation, not education, according to Aristotle, in order to align the unruly elements of the soul with reason’s knowledge of what promotes happiness. Shields explains Aristotle’s doctrine that goodness is meant in many ways as the doctrine that there are different analyses of goodness for different types of circumstance, just as for being. He finds Aristotle to argue for this conclusion, against Plato’s doctrine of the unity of the Good, by applying the tests for homonymy and as an immediate cons- equence of the doctrine of categories. Shields evaluates the issue as unresolved at present. Russell discusses Aristotle’s account of practical deliberation and its virtue, intelligence (phronesis). He relates the account to contemporary philo- sophical controversies surrounding Aristotle’s view that intelligence is neces- sary for moral virtue, including the objections that in some cases it is unnecessary or even impedes human goodness. Frede examines the advantages and disadvantages of Aristotle’s virtue ethics. She explains the general Greek con- ceptions of happiness and virtue, Aristotle’s conception of phronesis and compares the Aristotle’s ethics with modern accounts. Liske discusses the question of whether the Aristotelian account of virtue entails an ethical-psy- chological determinism. He argues that Aristotle’s understanding of hexis allows for free action and ethical responsibility : By making decisions for good actions we are able to stabilize our character (hexis). Hellenistic and Roman: Annas defends an account of stoic ethics, according to which the three parts of Stoicism—logic, physics, and ethics—are integrated as the parts of an egg, not as the parts of a building. Since by this analogy no one part is a foundation for the rest, pedagogical decisions may govern the choice of numerous, equally valid, presentations of Stoic ethics. Piering interprets the Cynic way of life as a distinctive philosophy. In their ethics, Cynics value neither pleasure nor tradition but personal liberty, which they achieve by self-suffi- ciency and display in speech that is frank to the point of insult. Plotinus and Neoplatonism: Gerson outlines the place of ordinary civic virtue as well as philosophically contemplative excellence in Neoplatonism. In doing so he attempts to show how one and the same good can be both action-guiding in human life and be the absolute simple One that grounds the explanation of everything in the universe. Delcomminette follows Plotinus’s path to the Good as the foundation of free will, first in the freedom of Intellect and then in the “more than freedom” of the One. Plotinus postulates these divinities as not outside but within each self, saving him from the contradiction of an external foundation for a truly free will. General Topics: Halbig discusses the thesis on the unity of virtues. He dis- tinguishes the thesis of the identity of virtues and the thesis of a reciprocity of virtues and argues that the various virtues form a unity (in terms of reciprocity) since virtues cannot bring about any bad action. Detel examines Plato’s and Aristotle’s conceptions of normativity : Plato and Aristotle (i) entertained hybrid theories of normativity by distinguishing functional, semantic and ethical normativity, (ii) located the ultimate source of normativity in standards of a good life, and thus (iii) took semantic normativity to be a derived form of normativity. Detel argues that hybrid theories of normativity are—from a mo- dern point of view—still promising. Ho ̈ffe defends the Ancient conception of an art of living against Modern objections. Whereas many Modern philosophers think that we have to replace Ancient eudaimonism by the idea of moral obligation (Pflicht), Ho ̈ffe argues that Eudaimonism and autonomy-based ethics can be reconciled and integrated into a comprehensive and promising theory of a good life, if we enrich the idea of autonomy by the central elements of Ancient eudaimonism. Some common themes: The topics in Chinese and Hindu ethics are perhaps more familiar to modern western sensibilities than Homeric and even Socratic. Anagnostopoulos, Brickhouse and Smith, Frede, Liske, Rudebusch, and Russell all consider in contrasting ways the role of moral character, apart from intellect, in ethics. Brickhouse / Smith, Hardy, and Rudebusch discuss the Socratic con- ception of moral knowledge. Brickhouse / Smith and Hardy retain the standard view of the so called Socratic Intellectualism. Shields and Gerson both consider the question whether there is a single genus of goodness, or if the term is a homonym. Bussanich, McPherran, Taylor, and Delcomminette all consider the relation between religion and ethics. Pfister, Piering, Delcomminette, and Liske all consider what sort of freedom is appropriate to human well-being. Halbig, Detel, and Ho ̈ffe propose interpretations of main themes of Ancient ethics. (shrink)

Guided to the notion of the eternal return by the philosophical intuitions of the Greek antiquity, Nietzsche turned to the physical sciences of his day in order to further his inquiry. This extensive intellectual engagement represented a genuine attempt to investigate the possible continuity of meaning between the mythical tradition, on the one hand, and the rational-empirical (i.e. scientific), on the other. In particular, Nietzsche was intrigued by the manner in which the relationship between myth and science played out in (...) the wide-ranging debates on the eternal recurrence and entropy. Obscuring the view, however, lay the debris of metaphysical imports into the discourse of secular modern science. In the course of his ambitious undertaking to disentangle physics from metaphysics, Nietzsche discerned a possibility for synthesising the scientific explanation for his ‘fundamental conception’ (EH: Z, §1) with the mythical wisdom of the ages. His inferences proved nothing short of explosive. The doctrine of the eternal return of the same, instead of the docile cosmic torpor, urged the radical revaluation of all values. The measure of the eternal return’s power was to dissolve its impersonation – the Übermensch – into a form of well-being. Nietzsche was convinced that his ‘mightiest idea’ (NF-1881:11[148]) illuminated the path we must follow lest we wish to incur the full force of the ‘frightening wisdom of Silenus’ (BT: §4). (shrink)

Scholars have widely assumed that the aspects of Kant’s virtue theory that nod to ancient ethics must be cashed out with reference to Aristotle. Interpreters then worry that Kant's conception of virtue as a “moral strength of will” (Doctrine of Virtue, 6:405) must be tantamount to Aristotle’s notion of “continence” (enkrateia) — the state of a person who knows the good, and acts accordingly, but must overcome strong countervailing impulses in order to do so. The result plays into caricatures (...) of Kantian ethics as valorising a joyless standard of duty, which these Aristotelian-oriented commentators (rightly) wish to resist. However, the worry is misplaced. I show that Kant is not thinking about Aristotle here, but is instead engaged with a specifically Stoic approach to ethics as a dimension of natural teleology. I draw on this context to show that Kant’s virtue-as-strength idea is not marred in the ways it appears to be when read through an Aristotelian lens. (shrink)

Protection of emergent works is impossible. Without an author, there is no expression of ideas which can be original, and thus no copyrightable work. Indeed, the whole system of copyright law, its conceptual building blocks of idea-expression dichotomy, originality, authorship, and the concept of a protectable work operate in the notation of human creativity. Emergent works fall outside of copyright’s positive ontology, being akin to ideas, facts, or subject-matter predicated by technical considerations, rather than authorial creativity. In other (...) words, they do not exist as things in law and thus cannot as such be owned. Rather, like any idea, they can be transformed through creative expression of an author–– possibly becoming works, but also not being authorless or emergent anymore. This is argued as a matter of the U.S. and EU legal doctrines, the international framework, and copyright theory. (shrink)

In this chapter, I investigate a problem for Kant’s claim that metaphysics can reach the status of science. The problem arises when one considers Kant’s account of the “architectonic unity” of metaphysics in the Architectonic of Pure Reason. Attaining architectonic unity is a condition for becoming a science for any body of cognitions that purports to be such. This is achieved when the cognitions belonging to a science are systematically organized according to the “idea of reason” which lies at the (...) basis of that science. However, Kant suggests that nobody can ever legitimately claim to have matched the idea of the philosopher, where this appears to imply that nobody can justifiably claim that she has fully grasped the idea of metaphysics. This generates a problem. I suggest that when Kant claims that the idea of the philosopher must remain an ideal or an archetype, he has a particular conception of philosophy in mind, that is, philosophy as a doctrine of wisdom. According to this understanding, philosophy must provide an example of how one can become virtuous. However, this is only a partial solution to our problem, for reasons that will be illustrated. (shrink)

According to the doctrine of the guise of the good, all that is desired is seen by the subject as good to some extent. As a claim about action, the idea is that intentional action, or acting for a reason, is action that is seen as good by the agent. I explore the thesis' main attractions: it provides an account of intentional behavior as something that makes sense to the agent, it paves the way for various views in meta-ethics (...) and normative ethics, and it offers a unified account of practical and theoretical reason. In response to common objections, I examine points of current debate: what is it for something to appear as good? Is value or normative reasons the basic concept at work? How to explain akrasia, perversity in action, and expressive action? I conclude with an overview of alternatives to the guise of the good. (shrink)

Spinoza's philosophy of mind is thought to lack a serious account of consciousness. In this essay I argue that Spinoza's doctrine of ideas of ideas has been wrongly construed, and that once righted it provides the foundation for an account. I then draw out the finer details of Spinoza's account of consciousness, doing my best to defend its plausibility along the way. My view is in response to a proposal by Edwin Curley and the serious objection leveled (...) against it by Margaret Wilson and Jonathan Bennett. (shrink)

For most interpreters of the philosopher from Rotterdam, his political doctrine is solely a consequence of his religious and moral doctrines, and so an image of Bayle as a political philosopher is not usually presented. To my mind, however, only by analyzing his political doctrine can the extent of his religious proposal be understood. In this article, I intend to show that both the Baylean criticism of popular sovereignty and his rejection of the right of resistance are analyses (...) that are indissociable from the Baylean doctrine of tolerance. The protection of individual freedom of conscience and the defense of a multi-confessional state model, tolerant regarding religious minorities, can only be articulated as historical reality if they rest on the political doctrine of indivisible sovereignty and on the strictest separation between political obedience and religious membership. (shrink)

This paper explores Berkeley's denial of matter in the light of criticisms voiced by Charles S. Peirce, who wrote two extensive review essays, one in 1871 and one in 1901, on the Fraser editions of Berkeley's Works. Elaborating upon Peirce's criticisms and utilizing Peirce's semiotics and pragmatism (two doctrines for which Peirce gives partial credit to Berkeley), it is shown that Berkeley's argument against matter is inconclusive, that the hypothesis of matter can be made to fit within Berkeley's thought, and (...) that doing so need not undermine the latter's esse is percipi doctrine. (shrink)

Although St. Albert the Great is known for his assimilation of Aristotle’s thought, he holds Plato in high regard. Yet Aristotle largely guides Albert’s understanding of Plato and Aristotelian criticism against him is repeated along Albert’s work. The objections raised in the first book of the Metaphysics are especially recurrent. Therefore to study Albert’s commentary on such objections in some detail, as we do in these pages, has considerable interest. Criticism against Plato focuses on his conception of the universal and (...) the separation of ideas. Moreover, Albert assimilates several platonic doctrines because, like many other Christian authors, he sees in the Timaeus a metaphysical approach, which is susceptible to be combined with his faith. Albert also believes to find a substantial agreement between the views of Plato and Aristotle at various points, including the question of form, despite differences in their expositions. (shrink)

Abstract This paper explores Reiner Schürmann’s account of perigrinal ontology from the perspective of Meister Eckhart. What is so extraordinary about his work is its retrieval of nuances in Plato’s philosophy of mind. Professor Schürmann’s approach to Philosophy focused on a philosopher’s philosophy of mind. For example, his course titles, such as Augustine’s Philosophy, were listed and taught in Augustine’s Philosophy of Mind. The advantage of his approach can best be seen in his study of the Medieval Philosopher Meister Eckhart. (...) In this work, Professor Schürmann totalizes the relationship between the will and the intellect and unites the different categories of Platonic philosophy under the concept of perigrinal ontology. Instead of treating epistemology or aesthetics in isolation, they are examined as they relate to ontology. In Plato’s epistemology, the highest form of knowing is different; at its highest point, knowledge is a seeing. Meister Eckhart and the other Neoplatonic philosophers continued the argument that Plato initiated. This is not an instance of Gnosticism in that the successors of Plato in the Christian tradition are not introducing new material but are extending Plato’s philosophy. At the center of the controversies about Meister Eckhart’s alleged departure from Christian doctrine is the oneness with God. Here, Professor Schürmann acts like a good editor. He painstakingly draws out pertinent distinctions to demonstrate Meister Eckhart’s adherence to tradition. It is interesting in this light to consider what Saint Thomas Aquinas has said on some of these same issues. One can see, too, that Meister Eckhart is a good deal closer to Saint Thomas than is generally thought. Saint Thomas's writings are full of references to Neoplatonic philosophers, but he also actively engages with their ideas. Though exploring this is beyond this paper's scope, Saint Thomas’s commentary of the Christian Neoplatonist Pseudo Dionysius primarily supports this point. We also need to recall that the period in which all this unfolded was a period in history marked by the democratization of religion. More importantly, Meister Eckhart’s time was informed by the democratization of theology. Meister Eckhart’s writings and personal commitment to that project are noteworthy in this context. His decision to teach women in religious orders advanced theology, a historical breakthrough. There are some notable debates that Professor Schürmann addressed in this work. Perhaps chief among these is the overly close connection between the writings of Meister Eckhart and that of the late Heidegger. It had been suggested that Martin Heidegger’s interest in Zen Buddhism was thought to include that of Meister Eckhart. Waiting upon Being and detachment or releasement were similar in these three schools of thought. Professor Schürmann viewed this as a form of syncretism, the mashing up of ideas that seem similar but have important distinctions. For Professor Schürmann, the absolute absence of the faculty of the will in Meister Eckhart’s work distinguished him from these other philosophies. It is striking that Professor Schürmann repeatedly cites texts where Meister Eckhart sees the highest form of knowledge as purely a feature of the intellect. He even goes so far as to note that the will is almost absent from Meister Eckhart’s philosophy of mind. -/- . (shrink)

Husserl presents a scheme of his philosophy of physics in paragraphs 40 to 52 of treatise Ideas1, relying on the foundations of the idea of transcendental phenomenology. The main pillar of his theory is the discussion of the nature and existence of unobservable and theoretical entities in mathematical physics. He expands his opinion while rejecting and violating two theories of primary-secondary qualities and critical realism and tries to propose an alternative model. In this article, I will first reread the clear (...) and explicit aspect of Husserl's theory about unobservable entities by referring to the text of Ideas1, then by proposing an epistemological framework based on transcendental phenomenology, I will try to complete and reconstruct the ambiguous and controversial aspects of Husserl's theory. In this regard, I will argue that theoretical entities in physics have a "Universal" status, and therefore the discussion of what they are should be done using the doctrine of categorial intuition. In the following, while paying attention to the two ways of realizing universals in Husserl's view (Platonic and Kantian) and emphasizing the role of a ‘primary imaginary given’ in the constitution of universals, I will consider theoretical entities as universals in the Kantian sense and I will give evaluate the advantages and limitations of this interpretation. (shrink)

What is the rational foundation for the doctrine of universal human rights? Some philosophers, such as Alan Gewirth, argue that it may be discovered simply by reflection on certain essential features of the human constitution. However this approach has significant problems, achieving its ends by smuggling certain tacit premises into the argument. A better approach is one that appeals to the communal practices and traditions within which doctrines of human rights have evolved historically. It is here that Alasdair MacIntyre's (...) work becomes relevant, because it maintains that traditions have a rationality of their own, and that all rationality is in some sense traditional. That MacIntyre himself has used these ideas to dismiss the doctrine of universal human rights only shows the extent to which MacIntyre (like many others) has misunderstood the true character of that doctrine. (shrink)

When I read this paragraph about her book: -/- In Form, Matter, Substance, Kathrin Koslicki develops a contemporary defence of the Aristotelian doctrine of hylomorphism. According to this approach, objects are compounds of matter (hule) and form (morphe or eidos) and a living organism is not exhausted by the body, cells, organs, tissue, and the like that compose it. Koslicki argues that a hylomorphic analysis of concrete particular objects is well equipped to compete with alternative approaches when measured against (...) a wide range of criteria of success. However, a plausible application of the doctrine of hylomorphism to the special case of concrete particular objects hinges on how hylomorphists conceive of the matter composing a concrete particular object, its form, and the hylomorphic relations which hold between a matter-form compound, its matter and its form. Koslicki offers detailed answers to the questions surrounding this approach to the metaphysics of concrete particular objects. As a result, matter-form compounds emerge as occupying the privileged ontological status traditionally associated with substances, despite their metaphysical complexity, due to their high degree of unity. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Double Effect [DDE] states roughly that it is harder to justify causing or allowing harm as a means to an end than it is to justify conduct that results in harm as a side effect. This chapter argues that a theory of deontological constraints on harming needs something like the DDE in order to avoid the charge that it reflects a narcissistic obsession with the cleanliness of our own hands. Unfortunately, the DDE is often interpreted as (...) maintaining that we must avoid acting with certain intentions, which, this chapter contends, embodies an equally narcissistic obsession with the purity of our own hearts. The chapter argues that the DDE is better interpreted as a denial of the Machiavellian idea that beneficial ends justify harmful means. On this view, the objective fact that our conduct will secure benefits for some individuals at the expense of other individuals weakens the extent to which those benefits count as reasons to engage in that conduct. The chapter argues that this version of the DDE provides a plausible, non-narcissistic foundation for deontological constraints. (shrink)

The article deals with the philosophical problem of the objectivity of knowledge in relation to the ideas and postulates advanced by feminist critics from the 1960s on. To this end, I take the historical perspective into account and present successively selected threads of feminist criticism of the traditional theory of knowledge, followed by selected positive aspects of feminist epistemology. First of all, I discuss feminist criticism of the androcentric research model, which is based on the doctrine of the (...) disembodied, detached objectivity of the subject and object of research as well as of knowledge itself. Next, I present selected feminist approaches to knowledge which constitute cognitively valuable proposals for the transformation of the traditional theory of knowledge through the application in philosophical reflection and research of the feminist research perspective. (shrink)

‘It is of the very nature of consciousness to be intentional’ said Jean-Paul Sartre, ‘and a consciousness that ceases to be a consciousness of something would ipso facto cease to exist’.1 Sartre here endorses the central doctrine of Husserl’s phenomenology, itself inspired by a famous idea of Brentano’s: that intentionality, the mind’s ‘direction upon its objects’, is what is distinctive of mental phenomena. Brentano’s originality does not lie in pointing out the existence of intentionality, or in inventing the terminology, (...) which derives from scholastic discussions of concepts or intentiones.2 Rather, his originality consists in his claim that the concept of intentionality marks out the subject matter of psychology: the mental. His view was that intentionality ‘is characteristic exclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phenomenon manifests anything like it’.3 This is Brentano’s thesis that intentionality is the mark of the mental. Despite the centrality of the concept of intentionality in contemporary philosophy of mind, and despite the customary homage paid to Brentano as the one who revived the terminology and placed the concept at the centre of philosophy, Brentano’s thesis is widely rejected by contemporary philosophers of mind. What is more, its rejection is not something which is thought to require substantial philosophical argument. Rather, the falsity of the thesis is taken as a starting-point in many contemporary discussions of intentionality, something so obvious that it only needs to be stated to be recognised as true. Consider, for instance, these remarks from the opening pages of Searle’s Intentionality: Some, not all, mental states and events have Intentionality. Beliefs, fears, hopes and desires are Intentional; but there are forms of nervousness, elation and undirected anxiety that are not Intentional.... My beliefs and desires must always be about something. But my nervousness and undirected anxiety need not in that way be about anything.4 Searle takes this as obvious, so obvious that it is not in need of further argument or elucidation. (shrink)

Husserl (a mathematician by education) remained a few famous and notable philosophical “slogans” along with his innovative doctrine of phenomenology directed to transcend “reality” in a more general essence underlying both “body” and “mind” (after Descartes) and called sometimes “ontology” (terminologically following his notorious assistant Heidegger). Then, Husserl’s tradition can be tracked as an idea for philosophy to be reinterpreted in a way to be both generalized and mathenatizable in the final analysis. The paper offers a pattern borrowed from (...) the theory of information and quantum information (therefore relating philosophy to both mathematics and physics) to formalize logically a few key concepts of Husserl’s phenomenology such as “epoché” “eidetic, phenomenological, and transcendental reductions” as well as the identification of “phenomenological, transcendental, and psychological reductions” in a way allowing for that identification to be continued to “eidetic reduction” (and thus to mathematics). The approach is tested by an independent and earlier idea of Husserl, “logical arithmetic” (parallelly implemented in mathematics by Whitehead and Russell’s Principia) as what “Hilbert arithmetic” generalizing Peano arithmetics is interpreted. A basic conclusion states for the unification of philosophy, mathematics, and physics in their foundations and fundamentals to be the Husserl tradition both tracked to its origin (in the being itself after Heidegger or after Husserl’s “zu Sache selbst”) and embodied in the development of human cognition in the third millennium. (shrink)

Some key political challenges today, e.g. climate change, are future oriented. The intergenerational setting differs in some notable ways from the intragenerational one, creating obstacles to theorizing about intergenerational justice. One concern is that as the circumstances of justice do not pertain intergenerationally, intergenerational justice is not meaningful. In this paper, I scrutinize this worry by analysing the presentations of the doctrine of the circumstances of justice by David Hume and John Rawls. I argue that we should accept the (...) upshot of their idea, that justice is context sensitive, even if this at first sight seems to invalidate intergenerational justice. On the basis of moral constructivism, I subsequently provide a fresh reading of the doctrine according to which it conveys the idea that justice is the solution to a practical problem. However, as the problem background is evolving, we need to properly characterize the relevant practical problem in order to make ethical theorizing relevant. Contrary to what has been claimed, the circumstances of justice do not then clash with intergenerational justice, but are the necessary presuppositions for its advancement. (shrink)