Psychology considered as a natural science began as Aristotelian "physics" or "natural philosophy" of the soul, conceived as an animating power that included vital, sensory, and rational functions. C. Wolff restricted the term " psychology " to sensory, cognitive, and volitional functions and placed the science under metaphysics, coordinate with cosmology. Near the middle of the eighteenth century, Krueger, Godart, and Bonnet proposed approaching the mind with the techniques of the new natural science. At nearly the same (...) time, Scottish thinkers placed psychology within moral philosophy, but distinguished its "physical" laws from properly moral laws. British and French visual theorists developed mathematically precise theories of size and distance perception; they created instruments to test these theories and to measure visual phenomena such as the duration of visual impressions. By the end of the century there was a flourishing discipline of empirical psychology in Germany, with a professorship, textbooks, and journals. The practitioners of empirical psychology at this time typically were dualists who included mental phenomena within nature. Accordingly, psychology as a natural scientific disciplines was not invented in the 18th and 19th centuries, but *remade* from the extant empirical psychology. (shrink)

Psychology has been considered to have an autonomy from the other sciences (especially physical science) in at least two ways: in its subject-matter and in its methods. To say that the subject-matter of psychology is autonomous is to say that psychology deals with entities—properties, relations, states—which are not dealt with or not wholly explicable in terms of physical (or any other) science. Contrasted with this is the idea that psychology employs a characteristic method of explanation, which (...) is not shared by the other sciences. I shall label the two senses of autonomy ‘metaphysical autonomy’ and ‘explanatory autonomy’ The question of whether psychology as a science is autonomous in either sense is one of the philosophical questions surrounding the (somewhat vague) doctrine of ‘naturalism’: questions concerning the extent to which the human mind can be brought under the aegis of natural science. In their contemporary form, these questions had their origin in the ‘new science’ of the 17th century. Early materialists like Hobbes (1651) and La Mettrie (1748) rejected both explanatory and metaphysical autonomy: mind is matter in motion, and the mind can be studied by the mathematical methods of the new science just as any matter can. But while materialism (and therefore the denial of metaphysical autonomy) had to wait until the 19th century before starting to become widely accepted, the denial of explanatory autonomy remained a strong force in empiricist philosophy. Hume described his Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) as an ‘attempt to introduce the experimental method of reasoning into moral subjects’—where ‘moral’ signifies ‘human’. And subsequent criticism of Hume’s views, notably by Kant and Reid, ensured that the question of naturalism—whether there can be a ‘science of man’—was one of the central questions of 19th century philosophy, and a question which hovered over the emergence of psychology as an independent discipline (see Reed 1994). In the 20th century, much of the philosophical discussion of the autonomy of psychology has been inspired by the Logical Positivists’ discussions of the UNITY OF.... (shrink)

In this article I contrast 17th and 18th explanations of hysteria including those of Sydenham and Willis with those given by Plato and pre-modern medicine. I show that beginning in the second decade of the 17th century the locus of the disorder was transferred to the nervous system and it was no longer connected with the womb as in Hippocrates and Galen; hysteria became identified with hypochondria, and was a disease contracted by men as well as women. (...) I discuss the purely mechanical explanation of hysteria given by Robert Boyle who attributed its cause to corporeal ideas as well as overly sensitive disposition of the nervous system. I relate this the mechanical theory of the nervous system prominent in Descartes' writings on physiology. The paper closes with a discussion of the contrast between early modern explanations of hysteria and the nature of man with those of Freud in the early 20th century. (shrink)

British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Volume 19, Issue 4, Page 826-830, July 2011.

Terms for consciousness, used with a cognitive meaning, emerged as count nouns in the 17th century. This transformation repeats an evolution that had taken place in late antiquity, when related vocabulary, used in the sense of conscience, went from being mass nouns designating states to count nouns designating faculties possessed by every individual. The reified concept of consciousness resulted from the rejection of the Scholastic-Aristotelian theory of mind according to which the mind is not a countable thing, but (...) a pure potentiality. This rejection was motivated by an acute sense of the mind’s fallible subjectivity. While conditioned by recent historical events, the 17th century’s pervasive sense of subjectivity also reveals a heavy debt to Hellenistic philosophy, which had been recently rediscovered. But whereas Hellenistic thought, mistrustful of theoria, only reifies conscience, early modern thinking, more mistrustful of praxis and seeking its grounding in theoria, goes a step further and reifies consciousness. Partly modeled on theological ideas, the resulting concept of consciousness is plagued by paradoxes that have becomes notorious for their intractability. But essentially the same model of consciousness underwrites contemporary theory, embroiling contemporary debates in the same controversies that dominated the 17th century. Sidestepping these difficulties by returning to the Scholastic-Aristotelian theory of mind would be a tall order, but it is not impossible. Alfred North Whitehead's theory of consciousness offers an example. His novel theory of time enables Whitehead to rehabilitate the Aristotelian concept of passive mind in a wholly naturalistic way. (shrink)

I argue that the familiar picture of the rise of analytic philosophy through the early work of G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell is incomplete and to some degree erroneous. Archival evidence suggests that a considerable influence on Moore, especially evident in his 1899 paper ‘The nature of judgment,’ comes from the literature in nineteenth-century empirical psychology rather than nineteenth-century neo-Hegelianism, as is widely believed. I argue that the conceptual influences of Moore’s paper are more likely to (...) have had their source in the work of two of Moore’s teachers, G. F. Stout and James Ward. What may be called an anti-psychologism about psychology characterizes the work of these and other psychologists of the period. I argue that the anti-psychologism that is the main aim of Moore’s early theory of judgment is an adaptation of this notion, which is significantly dissimilar from the notion defended by Bradley, traditionally thought to have been a key influence on Moore.Keywords: G. E. Moore; Bertrand Russell; Propositions; Anti-psychologism; Early analytic philosophy; G. F. Stout. (shrink)

This work takes into account three Cartesian manuals diffused in 17th century France ; Jacques Rohault, Traité de physique ; Pierre-Sylvain Régis, Cours entier de philosophie, ou système general selon les principes de M. Descartes contenant la logique, la metaphysique, la physique et la morale ) in order to question if the development of an empirical attitude in the scientific research influenced their approaches to the study of motion. The article intends to deepen the role that these authors (...) give to God in the physical structure of the universe with the purpose of investigating whether their analysis of motion is untainted by the metaphysical component or on what terms it remains linked to it. (shrink)

This essay examines how two seventeenth-century feminists use the language of slavery and servitude to describe and protest the domination of women and girls. From their experiences of being forcibly confined to convents at a young age, Arcangela Tarabotti and Gabrielle Suchon demonstrate how the deprivation of knowledge, the restriction and destruction of social and kinship relations, and the impediments to the exercise their free wills impose upon them forms of slavery. The language of “slavery” and “servitude” plays a (...) distinctive role in their writing, the examination of which locates them in wider traditions of moral and political thought, helps us to understand their complaints, and allows us to appreciate their innovative, feminist adaptations of these discourses. The essay concludes with some reflections on how to think about the use of the idiom of slavery applied to the oppression of white Europeans, which is so common in the early modern period, contemporaneous with the rise of the transatlantic slave trade. (shrink)

In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, a number of ‘liberal Jesuit scholastics’ produced the last great synthesis of Aristotelian psychology with Christian theology. In this magnificently sympathetic reconstruction of their systems of the soul, Dennis Des Chene rescues Toletus, Suarez, and the other ‘schoolmen’ from neglect which resulted from scornful dismissals by Descartes and his fellows. Deliberating bypassing the political and medical contexts of their work, and focusing almost exclusively on Jesuit rather than other, ‘dissident’ Renaissance (...) Aristotelianisms, Des Chene focusses intensely on intellectual history, what he calls at one point ‘the flurry of subtleties’ of these astonishing systematic commentaries on Aristotle. (shrink)

Psychology considered as a natural science began as Aristotelian "physics" or "natural philosophy" of the soul. C. Wolff placed psychology under metaphysics, coordinate with cosmology. Scottish thinkers placed it within moral philosophy, but distinguished its "physical" laws from properly moral laws (for guiding conduct). Several Germans sought to establish an autonomous empirical psychology as a branch of natural science. British and French visual theorists developed mathematically precise theories of size and distance perception; they created instruments to test (...) these theories and to measure visual phenomena such as the duration of visual impressions. These investigators typically were dualists who included mental phenomena within nature. (shrink)

In 1794, Michael Wenzel Voigt, a professor of rhetoric in present-day Czechia, published the first German translation of Aristotle’s De anima. Voigt’s translation was explicitly intended to rescue Aristotle's views on the soul, and the bold strategy he adopts towards this end is to assert a direct connection between Aristotle’s doctrines and Kant’s Critical philosophy. Thus, he contends that Aristotle’s books on the soul can be read as an “appendix” or even as a “propadeutic” to Kant’s Critical works. Despite Voigt’s (...) rather hamfisted attempt to establish this connection, the conjecture at the core of his project—that a number of key Kantian claims about the mind or soul have a largely overlooked Aristotelian provenance—turns out to be correct, or so I argue in this chapter. Even so, we will see that this connection is not direct but is instead mediated by the reception of Aristotle in the late 17th and early 18th century. Moreover, it is not limited to the views Aristotle expresses in his texts on the soul but extends beyond his psychological and even metaphysical works to include views expressed in his logical and ethical thought. (shrink)

The authors argue that the consciousness debate inhabits the same problem space today as it did in the 17th century. They attribute the lack of progress to a mindset still polarized by Descartes’ real distinction between mind and body, resulting in a standoff between humanistic and scientistic approaches. They suggest that consciousness can be adequately studied only by a multiplicity of disciplines so that the paramount problem is how to integrate diverse disciplinary perspectives into a coherent metatheory. Process (...) philosophy is well qualified to attempt such a synthesis. The rationale for the volume is summed up in the book's unifying thesis: normal, focal-attentive consciousness is not the sui generis phenomenon it is usually taken to be, but part of a wider spectrum of experience (including marginal, deviant, and non-human experience) that can only be studied by approaches as diverse as phenomenology, psycho- and neuropathology, biology, and zoology. (shrink)

We intend to demonstrate that human perception is better understood when thought from the perspective of Aristotelian-Thomistic Philosophy. After concluding for its existence, Descartes, in the 17th century, concludes that there are ideas that we all possess, such as the idea of “perfection”. This idea cannot result from experience, and it’s God the source of the idea of perfection in us, and the one who guarantees the existence not only of external reality but also of our own correct (...) reasoning. Very far from the God of Thomas Aquinas who is Alpha and Omega, Descartes' god is a god situated and secondary between the subject and reality which, in turn, is guaranteed by God, in a vicious circle between God and the subject. It’s a subjective or logical God, such as Kant's, but not a real God. Reality is, therefore, subjectively intelligible and truth objectively achieved, and the principle of causality is, in this way, subjectively valid. Reality is intelligible not because it’s provided by intelligible forms — by intelligible (and not only sensitive matter) that we, in fact, perceive — but because it is a reality presented by extension that is nothing more than a reflection of the logical-mathematical universe, thought by Modernity and which, with this thinker, is innate to the subject. This is a pure and finished reason. The extensive reality is purged of subjective elements; it is logical-mathematical (therefore, it is thought). It’s a kind of idealism and not realism and which results in a physicalist and materialist view of reality. Materialism, called physicalism in mainstream culture, consists of the idea that there is a world out there that is not experiential. It is material, but the way the word is used here has a strict conceptual definition. Matter is something that can be specifically described by numbers. It's a world without qualities. The world is purely quantitative and, because we are part of this world, we are also quantitative. The entire world of qualities that, deep down, constitutes our reality, is generated, according to materialism, in a not very well specified way and by a brain inside our head. The world outside has no flavors, colors, smells or sounds. We cannot see it because it has no qualities. The best we can do is imagine it as some kind of set of mathematical equations floating in the void. (shrink)

Some natural philosophers in the 17th century believed that they could control their own innards, specifically the animal spirits coursing incessantly through brain and nerves, in order to discipline or harness passion, cognition and action under rational guidance. This chapter addresses the mechanisms thought necessary after Eden for controlling the physiology of passion. The tragedy of human embedding in the body, with its cognitive and moral limitations, was paired with a sense of our confinement in sequential time. I (...) use two strands of 17th-century natural philosophy to exemplify forms of the perceived connection between physiology, memory, and the passions. I deal at length with Cartesian mechanism, and more briefly with Restoration natural philosophy in England. These are fruitful historical domains for connecting cognition and culture, since relations of domination, disruption, or accommodation between present and past are in play for both selves and societies. Despite the difficulty of integrating affect with cognition in theories of brain and mind, the capacity to treat passion and memory together is crucial for future cognitive science to address issues which outsiders care about. (shrink)

This paper examines recent feminist work on Spinoza and identifies the elements of Spinoza’s philosophy that have been seen as promising for feminist naturalism. I argue that the elements of Spinoza’s work that feminist theorists have found so promising are precisely those concepts he derives from Hobbes. I argue that the misunderstanding of Hobbes as architect of the egoist model of human nature has effaced his contribution to Spinoza’s more praised conception of the human individual. Despite misconceptions, I argue that (...) the model of human nature, the view on human emotions and the conception of individual power that Hobbes created and Spinoza developed is an uncommonly useful one for feminist political theory. Through reexamining Hobbes’ model of human nature and the emotions I will argue that Hobbes’ theory of the internal weighing of emotions provides an important mechanism for understanding how the individuals’ affects can be reformed. I will show how we can use this naturalistic model of the human individual to answer contemporary theoretical and practical questions of how to empower women and how to effectively identify, challenge and change social categories, norms and institutions which are disempowering. In particular, I will argue that feminist projects of empowerment need a way to measure empowerment and a way to understand how to understand the power of harmful norms and customs. Understanding the way certain norms and practices disempower women while forming their affects and self‐conceptions provides the first step to reform of these practices. Spinoza and Hobbes provide us with a further tool to reform, and that is their understanding of the role of emotions in human action and power, and the need to reform and reorganize the emotions of individuals in order to escape harmful patterns of behavior. (shrink)

During the eighteenth century, German philosophers wrote on a broad range of topics in moral philosophy: from meta-ethical issues such as the nature of obligation, to elaborate systems of normative ethics (often in the form of a doctrine of duties to self, others, and God), to topics in applied ethics such as the permissibility of the death penalty and censorship. Moral philosophy was also intimately related to the modern natural law tradition at the time, as well as to discussions (...) taking place in theology and psychology, to name only a few other disciplines. As a result, it is often hard to isolate eighteenth-century German moral philosophy without addressing a whole host of other philosophical subjects. There are nonetheless certain central topics that were discussed by nearly every major figure of the period and which therefore serve as a window into how German philosophers approached moral philosophy during the eighteenth century. In this chapter I illustrate that one such topic is the principle of morality; namely what philosophers took to be the supreme norm at the foundation of judging actions to be morally good or evil. As we will see, although several figures approached this principle in a broadly similar way by identifying “perfection” as the central concept at work, they differ considerably with respect to important details. Furthermore, certain common threads reveal themselves: philosophers differ not only with respect to the content of the principle, but also with respect to the way in which it can be derived, how particular duties can in turn be derived from the supreme principle, and how the principle can be formulated. I begin by outlining Christian Wolff’s influential principle of perfection (Section 1), followed by a consideration of Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s subtle revision of this principle (Section 2) and Christian August Crusius’s theological alternative (Section 3). I then briefly consider the impact that the reception of eighteenth-century British philosophy had on German moral philosophy during the second half of the eighteenth century (Section 4), before considering Moses Mendelssohn’s and Immanuel Kant’s answers to the 1763 Prize Essay Question (Section 5) and Johann August Eberhard’s unique mixture of rationalism and empiricism from the early 1780s (Section 6). I conclude (Section 7) with a brief discussion of Kant’s approach to the principle of morality and the principle of happiness proposed against it by his early empiricist critics. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche’s criticism towards the substance-concept „I“ plays an important role in his late thought, and can be properly understood by making reference to the 19th century debate on the scientific psychology. Friedrich Lange and Ernst Mach gave an important contribution to that debate. Both of them developed the ideas of Gustav Fechner, and thought about a „psychology without soul“, i.e. an investigation that gives up with the old metaphysics of substance in dealing with the mind-body problem. (...) In this paper I shall deal with both Lange and Mach (whose writings has been read by Nietzsche), in order to shed some light on Nietzsche’s rejection of the „I“ in philosophy. (shrink)

Graham Priest claims that Asian philosophy is going to constitute one of the most important aspects in 21st-century philosophical research. Assuming that this statement is true, it leads to a methodological question whether the dominant comparative and contrastive approaches will be supplanted by a more unifying methodology that works across different philosophical traditions. In this article, I concentrate on the use of empirical evidence from nonphilosophical disciplines, which enjoys popularity among many Western philosophers, and examine the application of this (...) approach to early Chinese philosophy. I specifically focus on Confucian ethics and the study of altruism in experimental psychology. (shrink)

The dissertation traces the development of what I call “the problem of partiality” through the work of certain key figures in the British Moralist tradition: John Locke, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, Anthony Ashley Cooper (the Third Earl of Shaftesbury), Francis Hutcheson, John Gay, David Hume, Joseph Butler, and Adam Smith. On the one hand, we are committed to impartiality as a constitutive norm of moral judgment and conduct. On the other hand, we are committed to the idea that it is permissible, (...) or even obligatory, to expend disproportionate resources promoting the good of our loved ones over the good of strangers. However, these two commitments conflict with one another. This problem challenges us to provide an account of the scope and limits of reasonable partiality that does justice to both commitments. I argue that confronting this tension is a central project of early modern ethics. I offer a rereading of the British Moralist tradition, centered on debates about partiality, and thereby shift discussion of the tradition away from concerns about meta-ethics and moral epistemology, to issues of practical ethics. The topic of partiality remains central in contemporary ethics, as is evident in ongoing debates about the place of empathy in moral judgment, and the role of love in shaping our moral commitments. Though the aim of the dissertation is not to settle questions about the scope and limits of reasonable partiality, the focus here remains fixed on how the concept of partiality was problematized in our ethical thought, and how it informs our discussions in normative ethics and moral psychology. Alongside building a bridge between early modern scholarship and recent work in ethics, the dissertation casts light on two understudied figures in the British Moralist tradition – Cockburn and Gay – who contributed greatly to debates about partiality. By examining their contributions, I reconsider their place in the history of modern ethics and therefore provide a more contextualized account of philosophical thought in the period. (shrink)

A History of Intelligence and “Intellectual Disability” examines how the concepts of intellectual ability and disability became part of psychology, medicine and biology. Focusing on the period between the Protestant Reform and 1700, this book shows that in many cases it has been accepted without scientific and psychological foundations that intelligence and disability describe natural or trans-historical realities.

When empirical psychology mostly focuses on physiological processes and external behavior that have their own concepts, the meaning of psychological concepts becomes obscure. If there are only physical processes and external behavior, then why are psychological concepts needed in the empirical sciences? Since the late 19th century, empirical psychologists and cognitive scientists have argued that introspective information about normal psychological processes is not reliable. Furthermore, many philosophers consider that the physicalist theory of mind is true, which would imply (...) that psychological concepts are only words without explanatory power. However, without introspection, we would not be able to form concepts about other minds and psychological phenomena and understand the psychological states of other people or animals. The meaning of a psychological concept is neither its use for external behavior nor language use in context. (shrink)

17th-century Iberian and Italian scholastics had a concept of a truthmaker [verificativum] similar to that found in contemporary metaphysical debates. I argue that the 17th-century notion of a truthmaker can be illuminated by a prevalent 17th-century theory of truth according to which the truth of a proposition is the mereological sum of that proposition and its intentional object. I explain this theory of truth and then spell out the account of truthmaking it entails.

Bevor ich das Buch kommentiere, möchte ich Kommentare zu Wittgenstein und Searle und der logischen Struktur der Rationalität abgeben. Die Essays hier sind meistens bereits während des letzten Jahrzehnts veröffentlicht (obwohl einige aktualisiert wurden), zusammen mit einem unveröffentlichten Artikel, und nichts hier wird für diejenigen, die mit seiner Arbeit mithalten können, nicht überraschen. Wie W gilt er als der beste Standup-Philosoph seiner Zeit und sein schriftliches Werk ist solide als Fels und bahnbrechender durchweg. SeinVersäumnis, das spätere W so ernst zu (...) nehmen, führt jedoch zu einigen Fehlern und Verwirrungen. Nur ein paar Beispiele: Auf S. 7 stellt er zweimal fest, dass unsere Gewissheit über grundlegende Tatsachen auf das überwältigende Gewicht der Vernunft zurückzuführen ist, das unsere Behauptungen stützt, aber W hat in "On Certainty" definitiv gezeigt, dass es keine Möglichkeit gibt, an der wirklichen axiomamatischen Struktur unserer System-1-Wahrnehmungen, Erinnerungen und Gedanken zu zweifeln, da sie selbst die Grundlage für das Urteil ist und nicht selbst beurteilt werden kann. Im ersten Satz auf P8 sagt er uns, dass Sicherheit revisierbar ist, aber diese Art von "Sicherheit", die wir Sicherheit2 nennen könnten, ist das Ergebnis der Erweiterung unserer axiomamatischen und nicht revisierbaren Gewissheit (Sicherheit1) durch Erfahrung und ist völlig anders, wie sie propositional (wahr oder falsch) ist. Dies ist natürlich ein klassisches Beispiel für den "Kampf gegen die Verhexung unserer Intelligenz durch Sprache", den W. immer wieder demonstrierte. Ein Wort - zwei (oder viele) unterschiedliche Verwendungen. Sein letztes Kapitel "Die Einheit des Vorschlags" (bisher unveröffentlicht) würde auch sehr davon profitieren, W es "On Certainty" oder DMS es two books on OC (siehe meine Rezensionen) zu lesen, da sie den Unterschied zwischen wahren Sätzen, die S1 beschreiben, und wahren oder falschen Sätzen, die S2 beschreiben, deutlich machen. Dies erscheint mir als eine weit überlegene Herangehensweise an Ses Nehmen S1 Wahrnehmungen als propositional, da sie erst T oder F werden, nachdem man beginnt, über sie in S2 nachzudenken. Sein Standpunkt, dass Die Sätze Aussagen von tatsächlicher oder potenzieller Wahrheit und Falschheit, von Vergangenheit und Zukunft und Fantasie erlauben und damit einen enormen Fortschritt gegenüber der vor- oder protolinguistischen Gesellschaft ermöglichen, ist überzeugend. Er sagt: "Ein Satz ist alles, was eine Bedingung der Zufriedenheit bestimmen kann... und eine Bedingung der Zufriedenheit... ist, dass dies der Fall ist und so ist." Oder, das muss man hinzufügen, das könnte oder könnte sein oder sein könnte. Insgesamt ist PNC eine gute Zusammenfassung der vielen wesentlichen Fortschritte gegenüber Wittgenstein, die sich aus S' halbes Jahrhundert Arbeit ergeben, aber meiner Meinung nach ist W immer noch unerreicht, wenn man begreift, was er sagt. Im, Idealfall sollten sie zusammen gelesen werden: Searle für die klare kohärente Prosa und Verallgemeinerungen, illustriert mit W es perspicacious Beispiele und brillanten Aphorismen. Wenn ich viel jünger wäre, würde ich ein Buch schreiben, das genau das tut. Wer aus der modernen zweisystems-Sichteinen umfassenden, aktuellen Rahmen für menschliches Verhalten wünscht, kann mein Buch "The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' 2nd ed (2019) konsultieren. Die jenigen,die sich für mehr meiner Schriften interessieren, können 'Talking Monkeys--Philosophie, Psychologie, Wissenschaft, Religion und Politik auf einem verdammten Planeten --Artikel und Rezensionen 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) und Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) und andere sehen. (shrink)

In this Chapter, Maria Kronfeldner discusses whether psychological essentialism is a necessary part of dehumanization. This involves different elements of essentialism, and a narrow and a broad way of conceptualizing psychological essentialism, the first akin to natural kind thinking, the second based on entitativity. She first presents authors that have connected essentialism with dehumanization. She then introduces the error theory of psychological essentialism regarding the category of the human, and distinguishes different elements of psychological essentialism. On that basis, Kronfeldner connects (...) historical, socio-psychological, and philosophical insights in order to show that although essentialism can act as a catalyst for dehumanization, it is not necessary for it. Examples relate to dehumanization in the context of colonialism and evolutionary thinking, to the history of dehumanizing women from Aristotle to 19th-century craniology, and to contemporary self-dehumanization and ‘lesser mind’ attribution. (shrink)

The framework of the modern Western analysis of culture, in terms of the socio-historical situation of the subject and the reciprocal influence of one on the other, has its roots in nineteenth century discussions. This paper will examine two traditions: the hermeneutic approach of Wilhelm Dilthey, and the Völkerpsychologie of Moses Lazarus and Chajim Steinthal. The account will focus on two elements. First, Lazarus and Steinthal attempted to motivate an account based on collective structures, or forms, of rationality made (...) manifest by a people or Volk; the paper will explore their account of how collective structures can be employed in sociohistorical analysis. Second, Dilthey rejected Lazarus’s and Steinthal’s argument that it was possible to identify the norms of action governing social phenomena. Dilthey rejected any account of psychology that took it to be law-governed, even retrospectively, because he argued that the ‘nexus of life’ that is the ultimate basis of the human sciences cannot be reduced to any law-governed or explanatory relationship between the self, society, and nature. However, there is a deep tension in Dilthey’s position here, which is evident in the development of his work over time. The account below will explore this tension and its significance for the understanding of the subject and the role of psychology in the human sciences. (shrink)

이 책에 댓글을 달기 전에, 나는 비트겐슈타인과 Searle과 합리성의 논리적 구조에 대한 의견을 제공합니다. 여기에 에세이는 대부분 이미 지난 10 년 동안 출판 (일부는 업데이트되었지만), 하나의 게시되지 않은 항목과 함께, 여기에 아무것도 그의 작품을 유지 한 사람들에게 놀라움으로 올 것이다. W와 마찬가지로 그는 동시대의 최고의 스탠드업 철학자로 여겨지며, 그의 저술작품은 전체적으로 바위와 획기적인 작품으로 견고합니다. 그러나,, 그의 실패는 충분히 심각하게 나중에 W를 가지고 몇 가지 실수와 혼란에 이르게. 단지 몇 가지 예 : p7에 그는 기본 사실에 대한 우리의 확실성은 우리의 (...) 주장을 지원하는 이유의 압도적 인 무게때문이라고 두 번 지적하지만, W는 '확실성에'에서 결정적으로 우리의 시스템 1 인식의 진정한 유일한 축 세포 구조를 의심 할 가능성이 없다는 것을 보여 주었다, 기억과 생각, 그것은 그 자체가 판단의 기초이기 때문에. p8의 첫 번째 문장에서 그는 확실성이 개정 될 수 있다고 우리에게 말하지만, 우리가 확실성2라고 부를 수있는 이런 종류의 '확실성'은 경험을 통해 우리의 공리및 비회복확실성 (확실성1)을 확장한 결과이며 명제 (참 또는 거짓)와 는 완전히 다릅니다. 이것은 물론 W가 거듭 시연한 "언어에 의한 우리의 지능의 요정에 맞서 싸우는 전투"의 전형적인 예입니다. 하나의 단어- 두 (또는 많은) 별개의 용도. 그의 마지막 장 "발의안의 통일"(이전에 출판되지 않은)은 또한 W의 "확실성에"또는 OC에 DMS의 두 권의 책을 읽는 것이 크게 도움이 될 것입니다 (내 리뷰 참조) 그들은 S1을 설명하는 진정한 유일한 문장과 S2를 설명하는 진실 또는 거짓 제안의 차이를 명확히로. 이것은 S2에서 그들에 대해 생각하기 시작한 후에 만 T 또는 F가되기 때문에 S1 인식을 제안으로 취하는 S의 훨씬 우수한 접근 법으로 나를 공격합니다. 그러나, 제안은 실제 또는 잠재적 진실과 거짓, 과거와 미래와 환상의 진술을 허용하고, 따라서 사전 또는 프로토티즘 사회에 큰 진보를 제공하는 그의 지적은, cogent (중요한) . 그는 "제안은 만족의 조건을 결정할 수있는 모든 것입니다 ... 그리고 만족의 조건 ... 그런 경우입니다." 또는, 하나 추가 해야, 그 수 있습니다 또는 경우 로 상상 될 수 있습니다. 전반적으로, PNC는 S의 작품의 반세기에서 발생하는 비트 겐슈타인을 통해 많은 실질적인 발전의 좋은 요약이지만, 내 보기에, W는 여전히 당신이 그가 무슨 말을 하는지 파악하면 타의 추종을 불허한다. 이상적으로, 그들은 함께 읽어야한다 : 명확한 일관된 산문과 일반화에 대한 Searle, W의 perspicacious (매우 명확한) 예와 화려한 격언으로 설명. 제가 훨씬 어렸을 때, 저는 그 일을 하는 책을 쓰곤 했습니다. 현대 의 두 systems (시스템) 보기에서인간의 행동에 대한 포괄적 인 최신 프레임 워크를 원하는 사람들은 내 책을 참조 할 수 있습니다'철학의 논리적 구조, 심리학, 민d와 루드비히 비트겐슈타인과 존 Searle의언어' 2nd ed (2019). 내 글의 더 많은 관심있는 사람들은 '이야기 원숭이를 볼 수 있습니다-철학, 심리학, 과학, 종교와 운명 행성에 정치 - 기사 및 리뷰 2006-2019 3 rd 에드 (2019) 및 21st 세기 4번째 에드 (2019) 및 기타에서 자살 유토피아 망상. (shrink)

Before commenting on the book, I offer comments on Wittgenstein and Searle and the logical structure of rationality. The essays here are mostly already published during the last decade (though some have been updated), along with one unpublished item, and nothing here will come as a surprise to those who have kept up with his work. Like W, he is regarded as the best standup philosopher of his time and his written work is solid as a rock and groundbreaking throughout. (...) However his failure to take the later W seriously enough leads to some mistakes and confusions. Just a few examples: on p7 he twice notes that our certainty about basic facts is due to the overwhelming weight of reason supporting our claims, but W showed definitively in ‘On Certainty’ that there is no possibility of doubting the true-only axiomatic structure of our System 1 perceptions, memories and thoughts, since it is itself the basis for judgment and cannot itself be judged. In the first sentence on p8 he tells us that certainty is revisable, but this kind of ‘certainty’, which we might call Certainty2, is the result of extending our axiomatic and nonrevisable certainty (Certainty1) via experience and is utterly different as it is propositional (true or false). This is of course a classic example of the “battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by language” which W demonstrated over and over again. One word- two (or many) distinct uses. -/- His last chapter “The Unity of the Proposition” (previously unpublished) would also benefit greatly from reading W’s “On Certainty” or DMS’s two books on OC (see my reviews) as they make clear the difference between true only sentences describing S1 and true or false propositions describing S2. This strikes me as a far superior approach to S’s taking S1 perceptions as propositional since they only become T or F after one begins thinking about them in S2. However, his point that propositions permit statements of actual or potential truth and falsity, of past and future and fantasy, and thus provide a huge advance over pre or protolinguistic society, is cogent. As he states it “A proposition is anything at all that can determine a condition of satisfaction…and a condition of satisfaction… is that such and such is the case.” Or, one needs to add, that might be or might have been or might be imagined to be the case. -/- Overall, PNC is a good summary of the many substantial advances over Wittgenstein resulting from S’s half century of work, but in my view, W still is unequaled once you grasp what he is saying. Ideally they should be read together: Searle for the clear coherent prose and generalizations, illustrated with W’s perspicacious examples and brilliant aphorisms. If I were much younger I would write a book doing exactly that. -/- Those wishing a comprehensive up to date account of Wittgenstein, Searle and their analysis of behavior from the modern two systems view may consult my article The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language as Revealed in Wittgenstein and Searle (2016). Those interested in all my writings in their most recent versions may download from this site my e-book ‘Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization Michael Starks (2016)- Articles and Reviews 2006-2016’ by Michael Starks First Ed. 662p (2016). -/- All of my papers and books have now been published in revised versions both in ebooks and in printed books. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0711R5LGX . (shrink)

本にコメントする前に、私はヴィトゲンシュタインとサールと合理性の論理的構造に関するコメントを提供します。ここでのエッセイは、主に過去10年間にすでに出版されています(いくつかは更新されましたが)、1つ の未発表のアイテムと一緒に、ここで何も彼の仕事に追いついてきた人には驚きではありません。Wと同様に、彼は彼の時代の最高のスタンドアップ哲学者とみなされ、彼の書かれた作品は岩と画期的な全体として固体です 。しかし、後のWを真剣に受け止めなかったことは、いくつかの間違いや混乱につながります。ほんの一例:p7では、基本的な事実に関する私たちの確実性は、私たちの主張を支持する理性の圧倒的な重みによるものだと 2回指摘していますが、Wは「確実に」で、システム1の認識、記憶、思考の真の唯一の公理構造を疑う可能性はないと明確に示しました。p8の最初の文では、彼は確実性が改訂可能であることを教えてくれますが、私た ちが確実性2と呼ぶかもしれないこの種の「確実性」は、経験を通じて公理的で修正不可能な確実性(確実性)を拡張した結果であり、提案(真または偽)として全く異なります。これはもちろん、Wが何度も何度も実証し た「言語による私たちの知性の妖艶との戦い」の典型的な例です。1 つの単語 - 2 つ (または多くの) 異なる使用。 彼の最後の章「命題の統一」(以前は未発表)はまた、S1を記述する真の唯一の文章とS2を記述する真または偽の命題の違いを明確にするので、Wの「確実性について」またはDMSのOCに関する2冊の本(私のレビ ューを参照)を読むことからも大きな利益を得るでしょう。これは、S2で彼らについて考え始めた後にのみTまたはFになるので、S1の認識を命題として受け取ることに対するはるかに優れたアプローチとして私を襲い ます。しかし、命題は、過去と未来とファンタジーの実際または潜在的な真実と虚偽の記述を許可し、したがって、前言語学的または原語社会に対する大きな進歩を提供するという彼の指摘は、誠実です。彼が言うように、 「命題は満足の条件を決定することができるものです。満足の条件.それはそうであるということです。あるいは、追加する必要があります。 全体として、PNCはSの半世紀の仕事に起因するヴィトゲンシュタインに対する多くの実質的な進歩の良い要約ですが、私の見解では、Wは彼が言っていることを理解すると、まだ不平等です。理想的には、彼らは一緒に 読む必要があります:明確な一貫した散文と一般化のためのサールは、Wの厄介な例と華麗な格言で示されています。もし私がずっと若かったら、まさにそれをやっている本を書くだろう。 現代の2つのシス・エムスの見解から人間の行動のための包括的な最新の枠組みを望む人は、私の著書「ルートヴィヒ・ヴィトゲンシュタインとジョン・サールの第2回(2019)における哲学、心理学、ミンと言語の論 理的構造」を参照することができます。私の著作の多くにご興味がある人は、運命の惑星における「話す猿--哲学、心理学、科学、宗教、政治―記事とレビュー2006-2019 第3回(2019)」と21世紀4日(2019年)の自殺ユートピア妄想st Century 4th ed (2019)などを見ることができます。 .

Прежде чем комментировать книгу, я предлагаю комментарии по Витгенштейну и Сирл и логическая структура рациональности. Эссе здесь в основном уже опубликованы в течение последнего десятилетия (хотя некоторые из них были обновлены), наряду с одним неопубликованным пунктом, и ничего здесь не будет сюрпризом для тех, кто не отставал от его работы. Как W, он сосчитан как самый лучший философ standup его времени и его написанная работа тверда как утес и новаторская повсеместно. Тем неменее, его неспособность принять более поздний W достаточно серьезно (...) приводит к некоторым ошибкам и путаницы. Всего несколько примеров: на p7 он дважды отмечает, что наша уверенность в основных фактах объясняется подавляющим весом разума, поддерживающего наши претензии, но W показал окончательно в "На определенности", что нет никакой возможности сомневаться в истинной только аксиоматической структуры нашей системы 1 восприятия, воспоминания и мысли, так как она сама является основой для суждения и не может сама судить. В первом предложении на p8 он говорит нам, что определенность является пересмотренным, но такого рода "определенность", которую мы могли бы назвать Определенность2, является результатом расширения нашей аксиоматической и невозметичной определенности (Certainty1) через опыт и совершенно разные, как это предложение (истинное или ложное). Это, конечно, классический пример "борьбы с заколдованием нашего интеллекта языком", который W демонстрировал снова и снова. Одно слово - два (или много) различных применений. Его последняя глава "Единство предложения" (ранее неопубликованные) также выиграют большую пользу от чтения W в "О определенности" или DMS две книги по OC (см. мои отзывы), как они ясно разница между истинными только предложения, описывающие S1 и истинные или ложные предложения, описывающие S2. Это кажется мне гораздо превосходным подходом к S принимая S1 восприятия как пропозиционный, поскольку они только стать T или F после того, как один начинает думать о них в S2. Тем не менее, его точка, что предложения позволяют заявления фактической или потенциальной правды и лжи, прошлого и будущего и фантазии, и, таким образом, обеспечить огромный прогресс над до или протолингвистического общества, является убедительным. Как он заявляет, что "предложение что-нибудь на всех, что может определить состояние удовлетворения ... и состояние удовлетворения... является то, что такие и такие дело ". Или, нужно добавить, что может быть или, возможно, были или могут быть себе, чтобы быть так. В целом, PNC является хорошим резюме многих существенных достижений по Витгенштейн в результате S полвека работы, но, на мой взгляд, W по-прежнему не имеет равных, как только вы поймете, что он говорит. Видеале, они должны быть прочитаны вместе: Сирл для четкой последовательной прозы и обобщения, иллюстрированные проницательными примерами И блестящими афоризмами. Если бы я был намного моложе, я бы написал книгу делать именно это. Те, кто желает всеобъемлющего до современных рамок для человеческого поведения из современных двух systEms зрения могут проконсультироваться с моей книгой"Логическая структура философии, психологии, Минd иязык в Людвиг Витгенштейн и Джон Сирл" второй ред (2019). Те, кто заинтересован в более моих сочинений могут увидеть "Говоря обезьян - Философия, психология, наука, религия и политика на обреченной планете - Статьи и обзоры 2006-2019 3-й ed (2019) и suicidal утопических заблуждений в 21-мst веке 4-й ed (2019) th и другие. (shrink)

Since its origins in the mid-Twentieth Century, Cognitive Science has almost exclusively operated within the philosophical frames provided by Cartesian Representationalism. In recent years, alternative, phenomenological and pragmatist, frames have served as a resource for the emergence of non-representational approaches to mind and cognition. These have been gathered under the label ‘4E cognition’, indicating their Embodied, Extended, Enacted and Embedded nature. This chapter examines one version of 4E cognition, which builds upon Ecological Psychology, and argues that it fails (...) to pass the Evaluation Test: it cannot account for the central role of normativity and evaluation in our responsiveness to loci of significance in the lifeworld, while failing to provide an argument for the exclusion of evaluative and normative aspects. (shrink)

The first group of articles attempt to give some insight into how we behave that is reasonably free of theoretical delusions. In the next three groups I comment on three of the principal delusions preventing a sustainable world— technology, religion and politics (cooperative groups). People believe that society can be saved by them, so I provide some suggestions in the rest of the book as to why this is unlikely via short articles and reviews of recent books by well-known writers. (...) -/- America and the world are in the process of collapse from excessive population growth, most of it for the last century and now all of it due to 3rd world people. Consumption of resources and the addition of 4 billion more ca. 2100 will collapse industrial civilization and bring about starvation, disease, violence and war on a staggering scale. Billions will die and nuclear war is all but certain. In America this is being hugely accelerated by massive immigration and immigrant reproduction, combined with abuses made possible by democracy. Depraved human nature inexorably turns the dream of democracy and diversity into a nightmare of crime and poverty. The root cause of collapse is the inability of our innate psychology to adapt to the modern world, which leads people to treat unrelated persons as though they had common interests. This, plus ignorance of basic biology and psychology, leads to the social engineering delusions of the partially educated who control democratic societies. Few understand that if you help one person you harm someone else—there is no free lunch and every single item anyone consumes destroys the earth beyond repair. Consequently social policies everywhere are unsustainable and one by one all societies without stringent controls on selfishness will collapse into anarchy or dictatorship. Without dramatic and immediate changes, there is no hope for preventing the collapse of America, or any country that follows a democratic system. Hence my concluding essay “Suicide by Democracy”. (shrink)

This collection of articles was written over the last 10 years and the most important and longest within the last year. Also I have edited them to bring them up to date (2016). The copyright page has the date of this first edition and new editions will be noted there as I edit old articles or add new ones. All the articles are about human behavior (as are all articles by anyone about anything), and so about the limitations of having (...) a recent monkey ancestry (8 million years or much less depending on viewpoint) and manifest words and deeds within the framework of our innate psychology as presented in the table of intentionality. As famous evolutionist Richard Leakey says, it is critical to keep in mind not that we evolved from apes, but that in every important way, we are apes. If everyone was given a real understanding of this (i.e., human ecology and psychology) in school, maybe civilization would have a chance. -/- In my view these articles and reviews have many novel and highly useful elements, in that they use my own version of the recently (ca. 1980’s) developed dual systems view of our brain and behavior to lay out a logical system of rationality (personality, psychology, mind, language, behavior, thought, reasoning, reality etc.) that is sorely lacking in the behavioral sciences (psychology, philosophy, literature, politics, anthropology, history, economics, sociology etc.). The philosophy centers around the two writers I have found the most important, Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle, whose ideas I combine and extend within the dual system (two systems of thought) framework that has proven so useful in recent thinking and reasoning research. As I note, there is in my view essentially complete overlap between philosophy, in the strict sense of the enduring questions that concern the academic discipline, and the descriptive psychology of higher order thought (behavior). Once one has grasped Wittgenstein’s insight that there is only the issue of how the language game is to be played, one determines the Conditions of Satisfaction (what makes a statement true or satisfied etc.) and that is the end of the discussion. -/- Now that I think I understand how the games work I have mostly lost interest in philosophy, which of course is how Wittgenstein said it should be. But since they are the result of our innate psychology, or as Wittgenstein put, it due to the lack of perspicuity of language, the problems run throughout all human discourse, so there is endless need for philosophical analysis, not only in the ‘human sciences’ of philosophy, sociology, anthropology, political science, psychology, history, literature, religion, etc., but in the ‘hard sciences’ of physics, mathematics, and biology. It is universal to mix the language game questions with the real scientific ones as to what the empirical facts are. Scientism is ever present and the master has laid it before us long ago, i.e., Wittgenstein (hereafter W) beginning principally with the Blue and Brown Books in the early 1930’s. -/- "Philosophers constantly see the method of science before their eyes and are irresistibly tempted to ask and answer questions in the way science does. This tendency is the real source of metaphysics and leads the philosopher into complete darkness." (BBB p18) -/- Nevertheless, a real understanding of Wittgenstein’s work, and hence of how our psychology functions, is only beginning to spread in the second decade of the 21st century, due especially to P.M.S. Hacker (hereafter H) and Daniele Moyal-Sharrock (hereafter DMS),but also to many others, some of the more prominent of whom I mention in the articles. -/- When I read ‘On Certainty’ a few years ago I characterized it in an Amazon review as the Foundation Stone of Philosophy and Psychology and the most basic document for understanding behavior, and about the same time DMS was writing articles noting that it had solved the millennia old epistemological problem of how we can know anything for certain. I realized that W was the first one to grasp what is now characterized as the two systems or dual systems of thought, and I generated a dual systems (S1 and S2) terminology which I found to be very powerful in describing behavior. I took the small table that John Searle (hereafter S) had been using, expanded it greatly, and found later that it integrated perfectly with the framework being used by various current workers in thinking and reasoning research. -/- Since they were published individually, I have tried to make the book reviews and articles stand by themselves, insofar as possible, and this accounts for the repetition of various sections, notably the table and its explanation. I start with a short article that presents the table of intentionality and briefly describes its terminology and background. Next, is by far the longest article, which attempts a survey of the work of W and S as it relates to the table and so to an understanding or description (not explanation as W insisted) of behavior. -/- The key to everything about us is biology, and it is obliviousness to it that leads millions of smart educated people like Obama, Chomsky, Clinton and the Pope to espouse suicidal utopian ideals that inexorably lead straight to Hell On Earth. As W noted, it is what is always before our eyes that is the hardest to see. We live in the world of conscious deliberative linguistic System 2, but it is unconscious, automatic reflexive System 1 that rules. This is Searle’s The Phenomenological Illusion (TPI), Pinker’s Blank Slate and Tooby and Cosmides Standard Social Science Model. Democracy and equality are wonderful ideals, but without strict controls, selfishness and stupidity gain the upper hand and soon destroy any nation and any world that adopts them. The monkey mind steeply discounts the future, and so we sell our children’s heritage for temporary comforts. -/- The astute may wonder why we cannot see System 1 at work, but it is clearly counterproductive for an animal to be thinking about or second guessing every action, and in any case there is no time for the slow, massively integrated System 2 to be involved in the constant stream of split second ‘decisions’ we must make. As W noted, our ‘thoughts’ (T1 or the thoughts of System 1) must lead directly to actions. It is my contention that the table of intentionality (rationality, mind, thought, language, personality etc.) that features prominently here describes more or less accurately, or at least serves an heuristic for how we think and behave, and so it encompasses not merely philosophy and psychology but everything else (history, literature, mathematics, politics etc.). Note especially that intentionality and rationality as I (along with Searle, Wittgenstein and others) view it,includes both conscious deliberative System 2 and unconscious automated System 1 actions or reflexes. -/- Thus all the articles, like all behavior, are intimately connected if one knows how to look at them. As I note, The Phenomenological Illusion (oblivion to our automated System 1) is universal and extends not merely throughout philosophy but throughout life. I am sure that Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg and the Pope would be incredulous if told that they suffer from the same problem as Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger, but it’s clearly true. While the phenomenologists only wasted a lot of people’s time, they are wasting the earth. -/- My writings are available in updated versions as paperbacks and Kindles on Amazon. -/- Talking Monkeys: Philosophy, Psychology, Science, Religion and Politics on a Doomed Planet - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) ASIN B071HVC7YP. -/- The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle--Articles and Reviews 2006-2016 (2017) ASIN B071P1RP1B. -/- Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st century: Philosophy, Human Nature and the Collapse of Civilization - Articles and Reviews 2006-2017 (2017) 2nd printing with corrections (Feb 2018) ASIN B0711R5LGX -/- Suicide by Democracy: an Obituary for America and the World (2018) ASIN B07CQVWV9C . (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of Franz Brentano’s thesis that psychology employs a distinctive method, which sets it apart from physiology. The aim of the paper is two-fold: First, I situate Brentano’s thesis (and the broader metaphysical system that underwrites it) within the context of specific debates about the nature and status of psychology, arguing that we regard him as engaging in a form of boundary work. Second, I explore the relevance of Brentano’s considerations to more recent debates (...) about autonomy on the one hand and theoretical and/or methodological integration on the other. I argue that Brentano puts his finger on the idea that an integrated research process presupposes the existence of distinct methods and approaches, and that he highlights the philosophical challenge of accounting for such distinct methods. I suggest that Brentano’s ideas offer unconventional perspectives on current debates, in particular regarding first-person methods and the investigative process in cognitive science. (shrink)

How does Locke contribute to the development of 18th-century projects for a science of the mind, even though he seems to reject or at least bracket off such an idea himself? Contrary to later understandings of empiricism, Locke goes out of his way to state that his project to investigate and articulate the ‘logic of ideas’ is not a scientific project: “I shall not at present meddle with the Physical consideration of the Mind” (Essay, I.i.2). Locke further specifies that (...) this means his analysis of mental processes will not engage with knowledge of the brain (e.g. in terms of corpuscles and animal spirits), even though he had been the student of Thomas Willis. Now, Kant seemed to make an elementary mistake, given such a clear statement on Locke’s part, when he claimed that Locke’s project was a “physiology of the understanding” (in the Preface to the A edition of the first Critique). One can ask of course what this physiology of the understanding was, and if it existed, in or out of the Lockean intellectual world (as I have sought to investigate in a 2016 paper). This leads me to inquire into the outcome of his empiricism for a scientific treatment of the mind, including in the sense of a ‘naturalization’ of the mind (with implications also for our understanding of empiricism: Anstey’s influential distinction between experimental and speculative philosophy does not seem useful here). Because if Kant made this charge, there were also many 18th-century thinkers who positively treated Locke as their great forerunner in psychology and related fields: Charles Bonnet and Joseph Priestley among them, just as some prominent physicians such as Cabanis claimed to be ‘finishing the job’ that Locke had started in, e.g. their materialist theories of the passions. What one might term ‘the Locke Problem’ here is: how can one reconcile empiricism and claims about cerebral processes, while seeking to remain a Lockean? Differently put, what is the process of naturalization, a naturalization of? (shrink)

This paper discusses the 17th-century Latin translation of Proclus’ Commentary on the First Book of Euclid’s Elements, preserved in Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional de España, MS 9871, produced by the Spaniard Vicente Mariner. The author examines the historical context, sources, and motivations behind Mariner’s translation, his intellectual profile, and the potential reasons for translating a mathematical text given his background in literature. Via a comparison of Mariner’s text with the original Greek, this paper delves into Mariner’s translation choices and (...) linguistic nuances to highlight the challenges he faced while translating it. Transcriptions of the collated passage both from Grynaeus’ 1533 editio princeps of Proclus’ text and Mariner’s manuscript are provided in the Appendix. Overall, this paper attempts to shed light on Mariner’s contribution to the Latin reception of Proclus’ work in the early modern period. (shrink)

In response to widespread doubts among professional philosophers (Russell, Horwich, Dietrich, McGinn, Chalmers), Stoljar argues for a ‘reasonable optimism’ about progress in philosophy. He defends the large and surprising claim that ‘there is progress on all or reasonably many of the big questions.’ However, Stoljar’s caveats and admitted avoidance of historical evidence permits overlooking persistent controversies in philosophy of mind and cognitive science that are essentially unchanged since the 17th Century. Stoljar suggests that his claims are commonplace in (...) philosophy departments and, indeed, the evidence I adduce constitutes an indictment of the widely shared view among professional analytic philosophers. (shrink)

What should we make of claims by members of other groups to have moralities different from our own? Human Rights in Chinese Thought gives an extended answer to this question in the first study of its kind. It integrates a full account of the development of Chinese rights discourse - reaching back to important, though neglected, origins of that discourse in 17th and 18th century Confucianism - with philosophical consideration of how various communities should respond to contemporary Chinese (...) claims about the uniqueness of their human rights concepts. The book elaborates a plausible kind of moral pluralism and demonstrates that Chinese ideas of human rights do indeed have distinctive characteristics, but it nonetheless argues for the importance and promise of cross-cultural moral engagement. (shrink)

During the period 1870-1914 the existing discipline of psychology was transformed. British thinkers including Spencer, Lewes, and Romanes allied psychology with biology and viewed mind as a function of the organism for adapting to the environment. British and German thinkers called attention to social and cultural factors in the development of individual human minds. In Germany and the United States a tradition of psychology as a laboratory science soon developed, which was called a 'new psychology' by (...) contrast with the old, metaphysical psychology. Methodological discussion intensified. New syntheses were framed. Chairs were established and Departments founded. Although the trend toward institutional autonomy was less rapid in Britain and France, significant work was done by the likes of Galton and Binet. Even in Germany and America the purposeful transformation of the old psychology into a new, experimental science was by no means complete in 1914. And while the increase in experimentation changed the body of psychological writing, there was considerable continuity in theoretical content and non-experimental methodology between the old and new psychologies. This chapter follows the emergence of the new psychology out of the old in the national traditions of Britain, Germany, and the United States, with some reference to French, Belgian, Austrian, and Italian thinkers. While the division into national traditions is useful, the psychological literature of the second half of the nineteenth century was generally a European literature, with numerous references across national and linguistic boundaries, and it became a North Atlantic literature as psychology developed in the United States and Canada. The order of treatment, Britain, Germany, and the US, follows the center of gravity of psychological activity. The final section considers some methodological and philosophical issues from these literatures. (shrink)

This chapter examines the history of philosophy of psychology and philosophy of psychiatry as subfields of philosophy of science that emerged in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century. The chapter also surveys related literatures that developed in psychology and psychiatry. Philosophy of psychology (or philosophy of cognitive science) has been a well-established subfield of philosophy of mind since the 1990s and 2000s. This field of philosophy of psychology is narrowly focused on issues in cognitive (...) psychology and cognitive science. Compared to the thriving subfield of philosophy of cognitive science, there has been a lack of corresponding interest among philosophers of science in broader methodological questions about different paradigms and fields of study in psychology. These broader methodological questions about psychology have been addressed in the field of theoretical psychology, which is a subfield of psychology that materialized in the 1980s and 1990s. Philosophy of psychiatry emerged as a subfield of philosophy of science in the mid-2000s. Compared to philosophy of psychology, the philosophy of psychiatry literature in philosophy of science engaged with issues examined in an older and more interdisciplinary tradition of philosophy of psychiatry that developed after the 1960s. The participation of philosophers of science in the literature on theoretical psychology, by contrast, has been limited. (shrink)

Corey W. Dyck presents a new account of Kant's criticism of the rational investigation of the soul in his monumental Critique of Pure Reason, in light of its eighteenth-century German context. When characterizing the rational psychology that is Kant's target in the Paralogisms of Pure Reason chapter of the Critique commentators typically only refer to an approach to, and an account of, the soul found principally in the thought of Descartes and Leibniz. But Dyck argues that to do (...) so is to overlook the distinctive rational psychology developed by Christian Wolff, which emphasized the empirical foundation of any rational cognition of the soul, and which was widely influential among eighteenth-century German philosophers, including Kant. In this book, Dyck reveals how the received conception of the aim and results of Kant's Paralogisms must be revised in light of a proper understanding of the rational psychology that is the most proximate target of Kant's attack. In particular, he contends that Kant's criticism hinges upon exposing the illusory basis of the rational psychologist's claims inasmuch as he falls prey to the appearance of the soul as being given in inner experience. Moreover, Dyck demonstrates that significant light can be shed on Kant's discussion of the soul's substantiality, simplicity, personality, and existence by considering the Paralogisms in this historical context.Readership: Scholars and advanced students in history of philosophy, especially those working on Kant. (shrink)

The article analyses libertine themes and authors of 17th century in articles, critical notes and reviews of three major Italian journals of the 20th century – Rivista di filosofia, Giornale critico della filosofia italiana and Rivista critica di storia della filosofia (since 1984 titled Rivista di storia della filosofia). The category of ‘libertinism’ refers to various disciplinary fields: philosophy, politics, literature, modern history or religious history. This ambiguity influences the analyses of libertinism in the Italian historic-philosophical debate. (...) The last two decades of the 20th century show a renewed interest of the three journals on libertine themes and on the relationship between libertinism and philosophy. Research on libertine thought focuses mainly on French libertinism (i.e. libertinage érudit) and on the philosophical clandestine literature: the journals discuss or review clandestine texts, as the Theophrastus redivivus (1659), whose critical edition was published in Italy in 1981–1982. (shrink)

Scholarly processes play a pivotal role in discovering, challenging, improving, advancing, synthesizing, codifying, and disseminating knowledge. Since the 17th Century, both the quality and quantity of knowledge that scholarship has produced has increased tremendously, granting academic research a pivotal role in ensuring material and social progress. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to enable a new leap in the creation of scholarly content. New forms of engagement with AI systems, such as collaborations with large language models like GPT-3, offer (...) affordances that will change the nature of both the scholarly process and the artifacts it produces. (shrink)

"Language and its Public Features: Reorganizing the Trivium in Locke's Essay and Port-Royal Logic" The new theory of language in the 17th century coincides with the end the traditional order of disciplines in the trivium (grammar, logic and rhetoric), which in the mediaeval times provided a comprehensive view of the problems of discourse. The article focuses on some key passages in Port-Royal Logic and Locke's Essay that provide us with a typical early modern scheme of linguistic representation, characterised (...) by heavily emphasized dualism of ideas and words. Since ideas are also the meanings of words and are ontologically essentially private, one can raise the question, where in this analysis of language is it even possible to locate its public features. The article tries to show that private language is not only possible for Locke and the Port-Royalists, but that it is even a necessary and primary character of language. Language becomes a public medium of communication only on the junctures of private meanings constituted by the “common use” of words. The article then focuses on almost complete marginalisation in the two works of the theory of public speech. Rhetoric, in the 17th century often reduced to mere eloquence, has no place in philosophy, and the duties of making speeches persuasive are taken over by reason alone. To show how the domains of jurisdiction of the trivial disciplines had been transformed in the linguistic theories proposed by the Port-Royal Logic and Locke, one can construct a hypothetical early modern trivium in the light of the following order: idea – word – figure, or, logic – grammar – rhetoric. Rhetoric is found to have kept its structural place only to be singled out as dangerous. (shrink)

This paper examines the fortunes of non-European philosophies in histories of philosophy written by European and American philosophers from the 17th century to the present day. It charts the shift from inclusive histories of philosophy, which included non-European philosophies, to exclusive histories of philosophy, which excluded and/or marginalized non-European philosophies, at the end of the 18th century. This shift was motivated by racial Eurocentrism, which cast a long shadow over histories of philosophy written during the 19th and (...) 20th centuries. The paper also considers recent attempts to produce a more inclusive history of philosophy. By examining the history of the inclusion and exclusion of non-European philosophies in histories of philosophy, this paper seeks to challenge the assumption that philosophy began and has been practised exclusively by European or western thinkers. (shrink)

The history of western philosophy is split to its core by a long-standing, fundamental dispute. On the one hand there are the so-called empiricists, like Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Mill, Russell, the logical positivists, A. J. Ayer, Karl Popper and most scientists, who hold empirical considerations alone can be appealed to in justifying, or providing a rationale for, claims to factual knowledge, there being no such thing as a priori knowledge – items of factual knowledge that are accepted on grounds other (...) than the empirical. And on the other hand there are the so-called rationalists, like Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Bradley, McTaggart, who hold that a priori knowledge does exist, and even plays a crucial role in science. This long-standing dispute is resolved by the line of thought developed in this essay. The empiricists were right to deny the existence of a priori knowledge where this means factual knowledge of apodictic certainty justified independently of any appeal to experience. They were wrong, however, to deny the existence of a priori knowledge where this means conjectural items of factual knowledge whose acceptance is justified independently of any appeal to experience. Science requires there to be a priori knowledge in this latter sense, and two items of such knowledge will be exhibited. In addition to resolving this empiricist/rationalist dispute, the essay also develops a new conception of science – aim-oriented empiricism – and solves the long-standing problem of what it means to say of a theory that it is unified or explanatory. Furthermore, aim-oriented empiricism does not just change our conception of science; it requires that science itself needs to change. Science needs to become much more like the 17th century conception of natural philosophy, intermingling consideration of testable theories with consideration of untestable metaphysical, epistemological and methodological ideas. The whole relationship between science and the philosophy of science is transformed. The philosophy of science, construed as the exploration and critical assessment of rival ideas about what the aims and methods of science ought to be, ceases to be a meta-discipline, and becomes an integral part of science – or natural philosophy – itself. (shrink)

I argue, contra traditional interpretations of James's emotion theory like Antonio Damasio and alternative interpretations like Phoebe Ellsworth and Lisa Barrett, that James is best classified as a functionalist regarding emotion categories. In arguing for this point, I will make four textual claims: (1) James was an important precursor to Basic Emotion Theory (BET) and his theory is best identified as a flavor of BET; (2) James's theory individuates emotion categories by their evolutionary, functional roles; (3) The only necessary condition (...) on something being an emotion is that it is a bodily feeling; and, (4) Contrary to Barrett and Ellsworth, James was loath to offer a definitive list of basic emotions not because he loathed taxonomy but rather because he thought psychology was not yet a natural science with well-defined theoretical categories. I close by arguing that a proper understanding of James's emotion theory defangs some critiques of BET and of Neo-Jamesian theory. (shrink)

This article explores the development of the concept of Phenomenological Psychology in the work of the philosopher Edmund Husserl and, more specifically, in the work "Phenomenological Psychology" that corresponds to vol. IX of the complete works of the philosopher, denominated Husserliana. We present the husserlian through the formation of the concept of Phenomenological Psychology and how its understanding makes possible answers to questions about psychology scientificity, which has been present since its foundation as a modern science, (...) at the end of the XIX century. We conclude that it is necessary to construct an intermediate field between Phenomenology and scientific studies in Psychology, through the rediscovery of Husserl's theory over the possibility of a Scientific Psychology of eidetic-transcendental bases and the usage of the phenomenological method, as well as the intersubjective character of human psyque as the basis of this possibility. (shrink)

On the 17th of May 2020, the Albanian National Theatre in Tirana was demolished overnight, in the days of the first major lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The theatre was built in 1939, when the Italian military occupation of the Albanian territory was officially established, after decades of increasing influence on the local economy by the fascist regime. That day was the climax of a two-year-long protest against its demolition by local associations, and international organisations. This event demonstrates (...) the importance of debating on the contested material and immaterial traces that the Italian presence in Albania left behind, culminating with a military occupation during WWII. This text surveys the exhibitions, curated or organised by Italian institutions, with the aim of tracing the evolution of the colonial narrative from fascist propaganda to contemporary initiatives. Starting in the 1920s, the Italian Ministero delle Colonie opened trade exhibitions, ethnographic displays, political and recreational events. During the occupation, Albania was featured in the Mostra Triennale delle Terre Italiane d'Oltremare (1940) and many other venues up to recent shows in Tirana. The first exhibitions were essential devices to support Italian territorial claims, built on the argument of an alleged Mediterranean tradition of the area, reunited once again under the “Roman” identity flag. The political-ideological nature of the artistic productions, the biased historical discourses around the myth of Roman origins, and the aesthetics employed in such events formed a strong narration that lasted much longer than the military presence on the territory. Taking this case as an example, we will see how exhibitions were instrumental to the authoritarian regime in the identity-building process; how contested narratives can be twisted in the contemporary political debate; and to what degree this heritage can be considered a shared legacy by both parties, the coloniser and the colonised. (shrink)