Results for 'Nicholas of Cusa'

964 found
Order:
  1. Nicholas of Cusa’s De pace fidei and the meta-exclusivism of religious pluralism.Scott F. Aikin & Jason Aleksander - 2013 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 74 (2):219-235.
    In response to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Nicholas of Cusa wrote De pace fidei defending a commitment to religious tolerance on the basis of the notion that all diverse rites are but manifestations of one true religion. Drawing on a discussion of why Nicholas of Cusa is unable to square the two objectives of arguing for pluralistic tolerance and explaining the contents of the one true faith, we outline why theological pluralism is compromised by (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  2. Nicholas of Cusa.Jason Aleksander - 2016 - Oxford Bibliographies in Medieval Studies.
    Given the significance of Nicholas of Cusa’s ecclesiastical career, it is no surprise that a good deal of academic attention on Nicholas has focused on his role in the history of the church. Nevertheless, it would also be fair to say that a good deal of the attention that is focused on the life and thought of Nicholas of Cusa is the legacy of prior generations of scholars who saw in his theoretical work an opportunity (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  3. Nicholas of Cusa in Ages of Transition: Essays in Honor of Gerald Christianson.Thomas Izbicki, Jason Aleksander & Donald Duclow (eds.) - 2018 - Leiden: E. J. Brill.
    Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) was active during the Renaissance, developing adventurous ideas even while serving as a churchman. The religious issues with which he engaged – spiritual, apocalyptic and institutional – were to play out in the Reformation. These essays reflect the interests of Cusanus but also those of Gerald Christianson, who has studied church history, the Renaissance and the Reformation. The book places Nicholas into his times but also looks at his later reception. The first part (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  4. (1 other version)Faith as Poeisis in Nicholas of Cusa's Pursuit of Wisdom.Jason Aleksander - 2018 - In Thomas Izbicki, Jason Aleksander & Donald Duclow (eds.), Nicholas of Cusa in Ages of Transition: Essays in Honor of Gerald Christianson. Leiden: E. J. Brill. pp. 197-218.
    This article discusses how Nicholas of Cusa’s speculative philosophy harbors an ecumenical spirit that is deeply entwined and in tension with his commitment to incarnational mystical theology. On the basis of my discussion of this tension, I intend to show that Nicholas understands “faith” as a poietic activity whose legitimacy is rooted less in the independent veracity of the beliefs in question than in the potential of particular religious conventions to aid intellectual processes of self-interpretation. In undertaking (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  5. Time, History, and Providence in the Philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa.Jason Aleksander - 2014 - Mirabilia 19 (2).
    Although Nicholas of Cusa occasionally discussed how the universe must be understood as the unfolding of the absolutely infinite in time, he left open questions about any distinction between natural time and historical time, how either notion of time might depend upon the nature of divine providence, and how his understanding of divine providence relates to other traditional philosophical views. From texts in which Cusanus discussed these questions, this paper will attempt to make explicit how Cusanus understood divine (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  6. 'But Following the Literal Sense, the Jews Refuse to Understand': Hermeneutic Conflicts in the Nicholas of Cusa's De Pace Fidei.Jason Aleksander - 2014 - American Cusanus Society Newsletter 31:13-19.
    In the midst of the De pace fidei’s imagined heavenly conference on the theme of the possibility of religious harmony, Nicholas of Cusa has Saint Peter acknowledge to the Persian interlocutor that it will be difficult to bring Jews to the acceptance of Christ’s divine nature because they refuse to accept the implicit meaning of their own history of revelation. What is peculiar about this line in the dialogue is not merely that it flies in the face of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  7. The Problem of Temporality in the Literary Framework of Nicholas of Cusa’s De pace fidei.Jason Aleksander - 2014 - Symposion: Theoretical and Applied Inquiries in Philosophy and Social Sciences 1 (2):135-145.
    This paper explores Nicholas of Cusa’s framing of the De pace fidei as a dialogue taking place incaelo rationis. On the one hand, this framing allows Nicholas of Cusa to argue that all religious rites presuppose the truth of a single, unified faith and so temporally manifest divine logos in a way accommodated to the historically unique conventions of different political communities. On the other hand, at the end of the De pace fidei, the interlocutors in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  8. The Second-Person Perspective in the Preface of Nicholas of Cusa’s De Visione Dei.Andrea Hollingsworth - 2013 - European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 5 (4):145--166.
    In De visione Dei’s preface, a multidimensional, embodied experience of the second-person perspective becomes the medium by which Nicholas of Cusa’s audience, the benedictine brothers of Tegernsee, receive answers to questions regarding whether and in what sense mystical theology’s divine term is an object of contemplation, and whether union with God is a matter of knowledge or love. The experience of joint attention that is described in this text is enigmatic, dynamic, integrative, and transformative. As such, it instantiates (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  9. The Future of Cusanus Research and the Modern Legacy of Renaissance Philosophy and Theology.Jason Aleksander - 2008 - American Cusanus Society Newsletter 25 (1):45-48.
    With respect to the issue of the future of Cusanus research, the paper seeks to motivate questions about the degree to which dominant concerns of modern philosophy exhibit an often unacknowledged relationship to those of Renaissance philosophy and theology. Although the author has no wish to “modernize” Nicholas of Cusa, he contends that Cusanus research may be uniquely capable of providing insights into the question of the extent to which dominant habits of modern philosophy are significantly constituted by (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  10. Mystical Theology and Platonism in the Time of Cusanus.Jason Aleksander, Michael E. Moore, Sean Hannan & Joshua Hollmann (eds.) - 2023 - Leiden: Brill.
    Mystical Theology and Platonism in the Time of Cusanus engages with the history of mystical theology and Neoplatonic philosophy through the lens of the 15th century philosopher and theologian, Nicholas of Cusa. The volume comprises nineteen essays that break down the barriers between medieval and Renaissance studies, reinterpreting Cusanus’ place in the history of thought by exploring the archive that informed his thinking, while also interrogating his works by exploring them from the standpoint of their later reception by (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  11. Skrytość Boga i pobożna dekonstrukcja - czyli jak (nie) czytać Mikołaja z Kuzy.Piotr Sikora - 2019 - Diametros 59:61-72.
    In my paper I present a critique of Dorota Brylla’s interpretation of the dialogue by Nicholas of Cusa - De Deo abscondito, and a critique of her stance on apophatic theology. I consider Brylla’s position an exemplification of a more widespread philosophical point of view in terms of both the interpretation of Nicholas thought and the apophatic tradition as such. I also present an alternative reading of both his dialogue and apophatic theology. Finally, I point out some (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  12. Deux écrits inédits de Jean Schlitpacher et l’influence de Gerson : le De ascensionibus cordis et le De felicitate beatorum.Andrea Fiamma - 2024 - Noctua 11 (1):75-155.
    John Schlitpacher (†1482), who was prior of Melk in the 15th century, encouraged both the circulation of manuscripts at his Abbey and their transcription, even in abbreviated form to the benefit of the Abbey School students. This article looks at the sources and diffusion of texts to and from Melk Abbey in that period, examining the case of a codex purchased by Nicholas of Cusa, registered in his Library as no. 58, and subsequently loaned to the monks in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  13.  47
    Cusanus’ta İkinci Tanrı Olarak İnsan ve Ölçme Edimi / Man as the Second God and the Act of Measurement in Cusanus.Berk Özcangiller - 2023 - Eskiyeni 48:53-78.
    Nicolaus Cusanus, considered one of the most important German thinkers by many historians of philosophy, has yet to receive the recognition he deserves in the phil-osophical circles in Turkey. However, the philosophical writings of Cusanus contain the seeds of the thoughts of many modern philosophers such as Descartes, Berkeley, Leibniz, Kant, and Hegel. For this reason, studies on Cusanus are an essen-tial stopping point in the history of philosophy, especially for the Renaissance period and the transition to modern philosophy. Despite (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  14. Actio und Passio in der Renaissance. Das Weibliche und das Männliche bei Agrippa, Postel und Bovelles.Tamara Albertini - 2000 - Freiburger Zeitschrift für Philosophie Und Theologie 47 (1/2):126-149.
    English translation of paper title: Action and Passion in the Renaissance. The Womanly and the Manly in Agrippa, Postel, and Bovelles. This paper uses the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa and the Querelle des Femmes as historic backgrounds for how Agrippa of Nettesheim, Guillaum Postel, and Charles de Bovelles reconcile the notions of "male" and "female" in their respective philosophies.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  15. La antropología del De opificio hominis de Gregorio de Nisa en la obra de Nicolás de Cusa.Francisco Bastitta-Harriet - 2015 - In Claudia D'Amico & Jorge Machetta (eds.), La cuestión del hombre en Nicolás de Cusa: fuentes, originalidad y diálogo con la modernidad. Biblos. pp. 43-55.
    Gregory of Nyssa’s treatise 'De opificio hominis' was one of the only Greek anthropological texts translated into latin during the early Middle Ages, by Dionysius Exiguus between the late 5th and early 6th centuries and by John Scotus Eriugena in the 9th century. Nicholas of Cusa certainly became acquainted with this work indirectly through the extensive citations in Eriugena’s 'Periphyseon' and through their partial reproduction in the 'Clavis physicae' of Honorius Augustodunensis. Our paper will analyse these and other (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  16. Advent of Auto-Affection: Givenness & Reception in Jean-Luc Marion.Virgil W. Brower - 2019 - Acta Universitas Carolinae Theologica 9 (1):31-44.
    Marion obliquely suggests that we return to religion when we think through and struggle with those topics that philosophy excludes or subjugates. This paper investigates a selection of such subjugated motifs. Marion’s recent claim (perhaps even ‘principle’): “auto-affection alone makes possible hetero-affection,” will be examined through piecemeal influences made upon its development through Marion’s return to religious thinking beyond the delimited jurisdiction of philosophy. Although still proper to the philosophies of Descartes, Kant, and Husserl, Marion finds new insights by tracing (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  17. Varieties of Spiritual Sense: Cusanus and John Smith.Derek Michaud - 2019 - In Torrance Kirby, Joshua Hollmann & Eric Parker (eds.), Nicholas of Cusa in Early Modern Thought. pp. 285-306.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  18. Absolute Infinity, Knowledge, and Divinity in the Thought of Cusanus and Cantor (ABSTRACT ONLY).Anne Newstead - 2024 - In Mirosław Szatkowski (ed.), Ontology of Divinity. Boston: De Gruyter. pp. 561-580.
    Renaissance philosopher, mathematician, and theologian Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) said that there is no proportion between the finite mind and the infinite. He is fond of saying reason cannot fully comprehend the infinite. That our best hope for attaining a vision and understanding of infinite things is by mathematics and by the use of contemplating symbols, which help us grasp "the absolute infinite". By the late 19th century, there is a decisive intervention in mathematics and its philosophy: the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  19. Eriugena and alKindi, 9th Century Protagonists of pro-Scientific Cultural Change.Alfred Gierer - 1999 - Abridged English translation of: Acta Historica Leopoldina 29.
    Ancient Greek philosophers were the first to postulate the possibility of explaining nature in theoretical terms and to initiate attempts at this. With the rise of monotheistic religions of revelation claiming supremacy over human reason and envisaging a new world to come, studies of the natural order of the transient world were widely considered undesirable. Later, in the Middle Ages, the desire for human understanding of nature in terms of reason was revived. This article is concerned with the fundamental reversal (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  20. The Oxford Handbook of Dionysius the Areopagite.Georgios Steiris, Pallis Dimitrios & Mark Edwards (eds.) - 2022 - Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
    This Handbook contains forty essays by an international team of experts on the antecedents, the content, and the reception of the Dionysian corpus, a body of writings falsely ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, a convert of St Paul, but actually written about 500 AD. The first section contains discussions of the genesis of the corpus, its Christian antecedents, and its Neoplatonic influences. In the second section, studies on the Syriac reception, the relation of the Syriac to the original Greek, and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  21. "Infinity, Knowledge, and Divinity in the Thought of Cusanus and Cantor" (Manuscript draft of first page of forthcoming book chapter ).Anne Newstead (ed.) - forthcoming - Berlin: De Gruyter.
    Renaissance philosopher, mathematician, and theologian Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464) said that there is no proportion between the finite mind and the infinite. He is fond of saying reason cannot fully comprehend the infinite. That our best hope for attaining a vision and understanding of infinite things is by mathematics and by the use of contemplating symbols, which help us grasp "the absolute infinite". By the late 19th century, there is a decisive intervention in mathematics and its philosophy: the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  22. Парадоксальная Христология «Об ученом незнании» Николая Кузанского.Michael Rauschenbach & Майкл Раушенбах - 2015 - Verbum 17:67-83.
    This paper argues for incoherence in Nicholas of Cusa’s account of the hypostatic union in Christ, in light of his elevation of human nature to (nearly) divine status. It claims that this elevation destabilizes the individual’s place in the cosmos, and that Cusa extends ignorance too far. By seeking to avoid one paradox—the epistemological paradox of knowing objects whose being is derived from a fundamentally unknowable God—he creates another, elevating human nature beyond reasonable limits and destroying any (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  23. This Year's Nobel Prize (2022) in Physics for Entanglement and Quantum Information: the New Revolution in Quantum Mechanics and Science.Vasil Penchev - 2023 - Philosophy of Science eJournal (Elsevier: SSRN) 18 (33):1-68.
    The paper discusses this year’s Nobel Prize in physics for experiments of entanglement “establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science” in a much wider, including philosophical context legitimizing by the authority of the Nobel Prize a new scientific area out of “classical” quantum mechanics relevant to Pauli’s “particle” paradigm of energy conservation and thus to the Standard model obeying it. One justifies the eventual future theory of quantum gravitation as belonging to the newly established quantum information (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  24. Nicola Cusano da Colonia a Roma (1425-1450). Università, politica e umanesimo nel giovane Cusano.Andrea Fiamma - 2019 - Münster, Germania: Aschendorff Verlag.
    Il volume ripercorre lo sviluppo del pensiero del giovane Nicola Cusano dalla frequentazione del maestro albertista Eimerico da Campo presso l’Università di Colonia (1425) e dal confronto con le posizioni filosofiche dei domenicani dello Studium coloniense, fino agli anni della maturità a Roma (1450). Il saggio illustra il contesto storico-culturale della genesi del De docta ignorantia, testo che suggella la presa di distanza di Cusano dal proprio passato universitario ma anche, al contempo, la sua insoddisfazione nei confronti dell’umanesimo diffuso in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  25. Cusano e la tolleranza religiosa. La fortuna del "De Pace Fidei".Davide Monaco - 2013 - Isonomia: Online Philosophical Journal of the University of Urbino:1-15.
    The article tries to reconstruct the Wirkungsgeschichte of the De pace fidei and it focuses on some fundamental moments of its fate. Nicholas of Cusa was one of the first not just to recognize other religions' value, but also to individuate a source of richness in religious pluralism. His work had fortune since the years after its draft, the 1453, known and quoted by Eimerico da Campo, Giovanni of Segovia, Juan de Torquemada and Pope Pius II. The debate, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  26. Eriugena, al-Kindi, Nikolaus von Kues - Protagonisten einer wissenschaftsfreundlichen Wende im philosophischen und theologischen Denken.Alfred Gierer - 1999 - Halle (Saale): Acta Historica Leopoldina 29.
    Ancient Greek philosophers were the first to postulate the possibility of explaining nature in theoretical terms and to initiate attempts at this. With the rise of monotheistic religions of revelation claiming supremacy over human reason and envisaging a new world to come, studies of the natural order of the transient world were widely considered undesirable. Later, in the Middle Ages, the desire for human understanding of nature in terms of reason was revived. This article is concerned with the fundamental reversal (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  27. Brief Account of How Nicholas Maxwell Came to Argue for the Urgent Need for a Revolution in Universities.Nicholas Maxwell - manuscript
    We need urgently to bring about a revolution in universities around the world, wherever possible, so that they take their fundamental task to be, not to acquire and apply knowledge, but rather to help humanity learn how to resolve conflicts and problems of living in increasingly cooperatively rational ways, so that we may make progress towards a good, genuinely civilized, wise world. The pursuit of knowledge would be a vital but subsidiary task. I have argued for the urgent need for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  28. (1 other version)The Non‐Identity of Appearances and Things in Themselves.Nicholas Stang - 2013 - Noûs 47 (4):106-136.
    According to the ‘One Object’ reading of Kant's transcendental idealism, the distinction between the appearance and the thing in itself is not a distinction between two objects, but between two ways of considering one and the same object. On the ‘Metaphysical’ version of the One Object reading, it is a distinction between two kinds of properties possessed by one and the same object. Consequently, the Metaphysical One Object view holds that a given appearance, an empirical object, is numerically identical to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   20 citations  
  29. Who’s Afraid of Double Affection?Nicholas Stang - 2015 - Philosophers' Imprint 15.
    There is substantial textual evidence that Kant held the doctrine of double affection: subjects are causally affected both by things in themselves and by appearances. However, Kant commentators have been loath to attribute this view to him, for the doctrine of double affection is widely thought to face insuperable problems. I begin by explaining what I take to be the most serious problem faced by the doctrine of double affection: appearances cannot cause the very experience in virtue of which they (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  30. A Defence of Manipulationist Noncausal Explanation: The Case for Intervention Liberalism.Nicholas Emmerson - 2023 - Erkenntnis 88 (8):3179-3201.
    Recent years have seen growing interest in modifying interventionist accounts of causal explanation in order to characterise noncausal explanation. However, one surprising element of such accounts is that they have typically jettisoned the core feature of interventionism: interventions. Indeed, the prevailing opinion within the philosophy of science literature suggests that interventions exclusively demarcate causal relationships. This position is so prevalent that, until now, no one has even thought to name it. We call it “intervention puritanism” (I-puritanism, for short). In this (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  31. Towards a Phenomenology of Repression: A Husserlian Reply to the Freudian Challenge.Nicholas Smith - 2010 - Stockholm University Press.
    This is the first book-length philosophical study of Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology and Freud’s theory of the unconscious. The book investigates the possibility for Husserl’s transcendental phenomenology to clarify Freud’s concept of the unconscious with a focus on the theory of repression as its centre. Repression is the unconscious activity of pushing something away from consciousness, while making sure that it remains active as something foreign within us. How this is possible is the main problem addressed in the work. Unlike previous (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  32. The Comprehensibility of the Universe: A New Conception of Science.Nicholas Maxwell - 1998 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    The Comprehensibility of the Universe puts forward a radically new conception of science. According to the orthodox conception, scientific theories are accepted and rejected impartially with respect to evidence, no permanent assumption being made about the world independently of the evidence. Nicholas Maxwell argues that this orthodox view is untenable. He urges that in its place a new orthodoxy is needed, which sees science as making a hierarchy of metaphysical assumptions about the comprehensibility and knowability of the universe, these (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   33 citations  
  33. Great expectations—ethics, avian flu and the value of progress.Nicholas G. Evans - 2013 - Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (4):209-213.
    A recent controversy over the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity's recommendation to censor two publications on genetically modified H5N1 avian influenza has generated concern over the threat to scientific freedom such censorship presents. In this paper, I argue that in the case of these studies, appeals to scientific freedom are not sufficient to motivate a rejection of censorship. I then use this conclusion to draw broader concerns about the ethics of dual-use research.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  34. Constructivism and the normativity of practical reason.Nicholas Southwood - 2018 - In Karen Jones & François Schroeter (eds.), The Many Moral Rationalisms. New York: Oxford Univerisity Press.
    Constructivists hold that truths about practical reasons are to be explained in terms of truths about the correct exercise of practical reason (rather than vice versa). But what is the normative status of the correctness-defining standards of practical reason? The problem is that constructivism appears to presuppose the truth of two theses that seem hard to reconcile. First, for constructivism to be remotely plausible, the relevant standards must be genuinely (and not merely formally or minimally) normative. Second, to avoid circularity, (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  35. Meta-Incommensurability between Theories of Meaning: Chemical Evidence.Nicholas W. Best - 2015 - Perspectives on Science 23 (3):361-378.
    Attempting to compare scientific theories requires a philosophical model of meaning. Yet different scientific theories have at times—particularly in early chemistry—pre-supposed disparate theories of meaning. When two theories of meaning are incommensurable, we must say that the scientific theories that rely upon them are meta-incommensurable. Meta- incommensurability is a more profound sceptical threat to science since, unlike first-order incommensurability, it implies complete incomparability.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  36. Defending the Doctrine of the Mean Against Counterexamples: A General Strategy.Nicholas Colgrove - 2024 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (Online First):1-24.
    Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean states that each moral virtue stands opposed to two types of vice: one of excess and one of deficiency, respectively. Critics claim that some virtues—like honesty, fair-mindedness, and patience—are counterexamples to Aristotle’s doctrine. Here, I develop a generalizable strategy to defend the doctrine of the mean against such counterexamples. I argue that not only is the doctrine of the mean defensible, but taking it seriously also allows us to gain substantial insight into particular virtues. Failure (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  37. Still waiting for a plausible Humean theory of reasons.Nicholas Shackel - 2014 - Philosophical Studies 167 (3):607-633.
    In his important recent book Schroeder proposes a Humean theory of reasons that he calls hypotheticalism. His rigourous account of the weight of reasons is crucial to his theory, both as an element of the theory and constituting his defence to powerful standard objections to Humean theories of reasons. In this paper I examine that rigourous account and show it to face problems of vacuity and consonance. There are technical resources that may be brought to bear on the problem of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   6 citations  
  38. How can life of value best flourish in the real world?Nicholas Maxwell - 2009 - In Leemon McHenry (ed.), Science and the Pursuit of Wisdom: Studies in the Philosophy of Nicholas Maxwell. Frankfurt, Germany: Ontos Verlag.
    The Urgent Need for an Intellectual Revolution For much of my working life (from 1972 onwards) I have argued, in and out of print, that we need to bring about a revolution in the aims and methods of science – and of academic inquiry more generally. Instead of giving priority to the search for knowledge, academia needs to devote itself to seeking and promoting wisdom by rational means, wisdom being the capacity to realize what is of value in life, for (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   5 citations  
  39. Quantum propensiton theory: A testable resolution of the wave/particle dilemma.Nicholas Maxwell - 1988 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 39 (1):1-50.
    In this paper I put forward a new micro realistic, fundamentally probabilistic, propensiton version of quantum theory. According to this theory, the entities of the quantum domain - electrons, photons, atoms - are neither particles nor fields, but a new kind of fundamentally probabilistic entity, the propensiton - entities which interact with one another probabilistically. This version of quantum theory leaves the Schroedinger equation unchanged, but reinterprets it to specify how propensitons evolve when no probabilistic transitions occur. Probabilisitic transitions occur (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   35 citations  
  40. The function of morality.Nicholas Smyth - 2017 - Philosophical Studies 174 (5):1127-1144.
    What is the function of morality? On this question, something approaching a consensus has recently emerged. Impressed by developments in evolutionary theory, many philosophers now tell us that the function of morality is to reduce social tensions, and to thereby enable a society to efficiently promote the well-being of its members. In this paper, I subject this consensus to rigorous scrutiny, arguing that the functional hypothesis in question is not well supported. In particular, I attack the supposed evidential relation between (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   19 citations  
  41. The Ethical Function of the Gorgias' Concluding Myth.Nicholas R. Baima - 2024 - In J. Clerk Shaw (ed.), Plato's Gorgias: a critical guide. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
    The Gorgias ends with Socrates telling an eschatological myth that he insists is a rational account and no mere tale. Using this story, Socrates reasserts the central lessons of the previous discussion. However, it isn’t clear how this story can persuade any of the characters in the dialogue. Those (such as Socrates) who already believe the underlying philosophical lessons don’t appear to require the myth, and those (such as Callicles) who reject these teachings are unlikely to be moved by this (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  42. Miscarriage Is Not a Cause of Death: A Response to Berg’s “Abortion and Miscarriage”.Nicholas Colgrove - 2021 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 46 (4):394-413.
    Some opponents of abortion claim that fetuses are persons from the moment of conception. Following Berg (2017), let us call these individuals “Personhood-At-Conception” (or PAC), opponents of abortion. Berg argues that if fetuses are persons from the moment of conception, then miscarriage kills far more people than abortion. As such, PAC opponents of abortion face the following dilemma: They must “immediately” and “substantially” shift their attention, resources, etc., toward preventing miscarriage or they must admit that they do not actually believe (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   11 citations  
  43. Bertrand’s Paradox and the Principle of Indifference.Nicholas Shackel - 2007 - Philosophy of Science 74 (2):150-175.
    The principle of indifference is supposed to suffice for the rational assignation of probabilities to possibilities. Bertrand advances a probability problem, now known as his paradox, to which the principle is supposed to apply; yet, just because the problem is ill‐posed in a technical sense, applying it leads to a contradiction. Examining an ambiguity in the notion of an ill‐posed problem shows that there are precisely two strategies for resolving the paradox: the distinction strategy and the well‐posing strategy. The main (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   33 citations  
  44. Seeing Through the 'Veil of Perception'.Nicholas Silins - 2011 - Mind 120 (478):329-367.
    Suppose our visual experiences immediately justify some of our beliefs about the external world — that is, justify them in a way that does not rely on our having independent reason to hold any background belief. A key question now arises: Which of our beliefs about the external world can be immediately justified by experiences? I address this question in epistemology by doing some philosophy of mind. In particular, I evaluate the following proposal: if your experience e immediately justifies you (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   30 citations  
  45. Public Attitudes Toward Cognitive Enhancement.Nicholas Fitz, Roland Nadler, Praveena Manogaran, Eugene Chong & Peter Reiner - 2013 - Neuroethics 7 (2):173-188.
    Vigorous debate over the moral propriety of cognitive enhancement exists, but the views of the public have been largely absent from the discussion. To address this gap in our knowledge, four experiments were carried out with contrastive vignettes in order to obtain quantitative data on public attitudes towards cognitive enhancement. The data collected suggest that the public is sensitive to and capable of understanding the four cardinal concerns identified by neuroethicists, and tend to cautiously accept cognitive enhancement even as they (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   46 citations  
  46. The Scandal of the Irrationality of Academia.Nicholas Maxwell - 2019 - Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education 1 (1):105-128..
    Academic inquiry, in devoting itself primarily to the pursuit of knowledge, is profoundly and damagingly irrational, in a wholesale, structural fashion, when judged from the standpoint of helping to promote human welfare. Judged from this standpoint, academic inquiry devoted to the pursuit of knowledge violates three of the four most elementary rules of rational problem-solving conceivable. Above all, it fails to give intellectual priority to the tasks of (1) articulating problems of living, including global problems, and (2) proposing and critically (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  47. Instead of Particles and Fields: A Micro Realistic Quantum "Smearon" Theory.Nicholas Maxwell - 1982 - Foundatioins of Physics 12 (6):607-631.
    A fully micro realistic, propensity version of quantum theory is proposed, according to which fundamental physical entities - neither particles nor fields - have physical characteristics which determine probabilistically how they interact with one another . The version of quantum "smearon" theory proposed here does not modify the equations of orthodox quantum theory: rather, it gives a radically new interpretation to these equations. It is argued that there are strong general reasons for preferring quantum "smearon" theory to orthodox quantum theory; (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   26 citations  
  48. Fighting Pleasure: Plato and the Expansive View of Courage.Nicholas R. Baima - 2019 - Journal of Value Inquiry 53 (2):255-273.
    In both the Laches (191d-e) and the Laws (1.633c-d, 1.634a-b, and 1. 635d), Plato has his protagonist defend the claim that courage (andreia) is not simply a matter of resisting pain and fear but about overcoming pleasure and desire as well. In this paper, I argue that Plato took the expansive view of courage seriously and that there are several reasons why we should too.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  49. The rationality of scientific discovery part I: The traditional rationality problem.Nicholas Maxwell - 1974 - Philosophy of Science 41 (2):123-153.
    The basic task of the essay is to exhibit science as a rational enterprise. I argue that in order to do this we need to change quite fundamentally our whole conception of science. Today it is rather generally taken for granted that a precondition for science to be rational is that in science we do not make substantial assumptions about the world, or about the phenomena we are investigating, which are held permanently immune from empirical appraisal. According to this standard (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   31 citations  
  50. Methodological problems of neuroscience.Nicholas Maxwell - 1985 - In David Rose & Vernon G. Dobson (eds.), Models of the Visual Cortex. New York: Wiley.
    In this paper I argue that neuroscience has been harmed by the widespread adoption of seriously inadequate methodologies or philosophies of science - most notably inductivism and falsificationism. I argue that neuroscience, in seeking to understand the human brain and mind, needs to follow in the footsteps of evolution.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   24 citations  
1 — 50 / 964