Results for 'Toland'

28 found
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  1. Medieval Approaches to Consciousness: Ockham and Chatton.Susan Brower-Toland - 2012 - Philosophers' Imprint 12:1-29.
    My aim in this paper is to advance our understanding of medieval approaches to consciousness by focusing on a particular but, as it seems to me, representative medieval debate. The debate in question is between William Ockham and Walter Chatton over the existence of what these two thinkers refer to as “reflexive intellective intuitive cognition”. Although framed in the technical terminology of late-medieval cognitive psychology, the basic question at issue between them is this: Does the mind (or “intellect”) cognize its (...)
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  2. Intuition, Externalism, and Direct Reference in Ockham.Susan Brower-Toland - 2007 - History of Philosophy Quarterly 24 (4):317-336.
    In this paper I challenge recent externalist interpretations of Ockham’s theory of intuitive cognition. I begin by distinguishing two distinct theses that defenders of the externalist interpretation typically attribute to Ockham: a ‘direct reference thesis’, according to which intuitive cognitions are states that lack all internal, descriptive content; and a ‘causal thesis’, according to which intuitive states are wholly determined by causal connections they bear to singular objects. I then argue that neither can be plausibly credited to Ockham. In particular, (...)
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  3. "Deflecting Ockham's Razor: A Medieval Debate on Ontological Commitment".Susan Brower-Toland - 2023 - Mind 132 (527):659-679.
    William of Ockham (d. 1347) is well known for his commitment to parsimony and for his so-called ‘razor’ principle. But little is known about attempts among his own contemporaries to deflect his use of the razor. In this paper, I explore one such attempt. In particular, I consider a clever challenge that Ockham’s younger contemporary, Walter Chatton (d. 1343) deploys against the razor. The challenge involves a kind of dilemma for Ockham. Depending on how Ockham responds to this dilemma, his (...)
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  4. Olivi on Consciousness and Self-Knowledge: the Phenomenology, Metaphysics, and Epistemology of Mind's Reflexivity.Susan Brower-Toland - 2013 - Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 1 (1).
    The theory of mind that medieval philosophers inherit from Augustine is predicated on the thesis that the human mind is essentially self-reflexive. This paper examines Peter John Olivi's (1248-1298) distinctive development of this traditional Augustinian thesis. The aim of the paper is three-fold. The first is to establish that Olivi's theory of reflexive awareness amounts to a theory of phenomenal consciousness. The second is to show that, despite appearances, Olivi rejects a higher-order analysis of consciousness in favor of a same-order (...)
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  5. Ockham on Judgment, Concepts, and the Problem of Intentionality.Susan Brower-Toland - 2007 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (1):67-110.
    In this paper I examine William Ockham’s theory of judgment and, in particular, his account of the nature and ontological status of its objects. Commentators, both past and present, habitually interpret Ockham as defending a kind of anti-realism about objects of judgment. My aim in this paper is two-fold. The first is to show that the traditional interpretation rests on a failure to appreciate the ways in which Ockham’s theory of judgment changes over the course of his career. The second, (...)
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  6. How Chatton Changed Ockham’s Mind.Susan Brower-Toland - 2015 - In Gyula Klima (ed.), Intentionality, Cognition, and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press. pp. 204-234.
    It is well-known that Chatton is among the earliest and most vehement critics of Ockham’s theory of judgment, but scholars have overlooked the role Chatton’s criticisms play in shaping Ockham’s final account. In this paper, I demonstrate that Ockham’s most mature treatment of judgment not only contains revisions that resolve the problems Chatton identifies in his earlier theories, but also that these revisions ultimately bring his final account of the objects of judgment surprisingly close to Chatton’s own. Even so, I (...)
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  7. William Ockham on the Scope and Limits of Consciousness.Susan Brower-Toland - 2014 - Vivarium 52 (3-4):197-219.
    Ockham holds what nowadays would be characterized as a “higher-order perception” theory of consciousness. Among the most common objections to such a theory is the charge that it gives rise to an infinite regress in higher-order states. In this paper, I examine Ockham’s various responses to the regress problem, focusing in particular on his attempts to restrict the scope of consciousness so as to avoid it. In his earlier writings, Ockham holds that we are conscious only of those states to (...)
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  8. Facts vs. Things.Susan Brower-Toland - 2006 - Review of Metaphysics 60 (3):597-642.
    Commentators have long agreed that Wodeham’s account of objects of judgment is highly innovative, but they have continued to disagree about its proper interpretation. Some read him as introducing items that are merely supervenient on (and nothing in addition to) Aristotelian substances and accidents; others take him to be introducing a new type of entity in addition to substances and accidents—namely, abstract states of affairs. In this paper, I argue that both interpretations are mistaken: the entities Wodeham introduces are really (...)
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  9. Ockham on Memory and the Metaphysics of Human Persons.Susan Brower Toland - 2023 - Philosophical Quarterly (2):453-473.
    This paper explores William Ockham's account of memory with a view to understanding its implications for his account of the nature and persistence of human beings. I show that Ockham holds a view according to which memory (i) is a type of self-knowledge and (ii) entails the existence of an enduring psychological subject. This is significant when taken in conjunction with his account of the afterlife. For, Ockham holds that during the interim state—namely, after bodily death, but prior to bodily (...)
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  10. Perception in Augustine's De Trinitate 11: A Non-Trinitarian Analysis.Susan Brower-Toland - 2020 - Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 8:41-78.
    In this paper, I explore Augustine’s account of sense cognition in book 11 of De Trinitate. His discussion in this context focuses on two types of sensory state—what he calls “outer vision” and “inner vision,” respectively. His analysis of both types of state is designed to show that cognitive acts involving external and internal sense faculties are susceptible of a kind of trinitarian analysis. A common way to read De Trin. 11, is to interpret Augustine’s account of “outer” vision as (...)
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  11. Can God Know More? A Case Study in the Later Medieval Debate about Propositions.Susan Brower-Toland - 2013 - In Charles Bolyard & Rondo Keele (eds.), Later Medieval Metaphysics: Ontology, Language, and Logic. New York: Fordham University Press. pp. 161-187.
    This paper traces a rather peculiar debate between William Ockham, Walter Chatton, and Robert Holcot over whether it is possible for God to know more than he knows. Although the debate specifically addresses a theological question about divine knowledge, the central issue at stake in it is a purely philosophical question about the nature and ontological status of propositions. The theories of propositions that emerge from the discussion appear deeply puzzling, however. My aim in this paper is to show that (...)
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  12. Causation and Mental Content: Against the Externalist Interpretation of Ockham.Susan Brower-Toland - 2017 - In Magali E. Roques & Jennifer Pelletier (eds.), The Language of Thought in Late Medieval Philosophy. Cham: Springer.
    On the dominant interpretation, Ockham is an externalist about mental content. This reading is founded principally on his theory of intuitive cognition. Intuitive cognition plays a foundational role in Ockham’s account of concept formation and judgment, and Ockham insists that the content of intuitive states is determined by the causal relations such states bear to their objects. The aim of this paper is to challenge the externalist interpretation by situating Ockham’s account of intuitive cognition vis-à-vis his broader account of efficient (...)
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  13. How Chatton Changed Ockham’s Mind.Susan Brower-Toland - 2015 - In Gyula Klima (ed.), Intentionality, Cognition, and Mental Representation in Medieval Philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press. pp. 204-234.
    It is well-known that Chatton is among the earliest and most vehement critics of Ockham’s theory of judgment, but scholars have overlooked the role Chatton’s criticisms play in shaping Ockham’s final account. In this paper, I demonstrate that Ockham’s most mature treatment of judgment not only contains revisions that resolve the problems Chatton identifies in his earlier theories, but also that these revisions ultimately bring his final account of the objects of judgment surprisingly close to Chatton’s own. Even so, I (...)
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  14. "Self-Knowledge and the Science of the Soul in Buridan's Quaestiones De Anima".Susan Brower-Toland - 2017 - In Gyula Klima (ed.), Questions on the soul by John Buridan and others. Berlin, Germany: Springer.
    Buridan holds that the proper subject of psychology (i.e., the science undertaken in Aristotle’s De Anima) is the soul, its powers, and characteristic functions. But, on his view, the science of psychology should not be understood as including the body nor even the soul-body composite as its proper subject. Rather its subject is just “the soul in itself and its powers and functions insofar as they stand on the side of the soul". Buridan takes it as obvious that, even thus (...)
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  15. Aquinas on Mental Representation: Concepts and Intentionality.Jeffrey E. Brower & Susan Brower-Toland - 2008 - Philosophical Review 117 (2):193-243.
    This essay explores some of the central aspects of Aquinas's account of mental representation, focusing in particular on his views about the intentionality of concepts (or intelligible species). It begins by demonstrating the need for a new interpretation of his account, showing in particular that the standard interpretations all face insurmountable textual difficulties. It then develops the needed alternative and explains how it avoids the sorts of problems plaguing the standard interpretations. Finally, it draws out the implications of this interpretation (...)
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  16. Aquinas on Human Self-Knowledge. By Therese Scarpelli Cory. [REVIEW]Susan Brower-Toland - 2016 - American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 90 (1):147-151.
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  17. Toland, Leibniz, and Active Matter.Stewart Duncan - 2013 - Oxford Studies in Early Modern Philosophy 6:249-78.
    In the early years of the eighteenth century Leibniz had several interactions with John Toland. These included, from 1702 to 1704, discussions of materialism. Those discussions culminated with the consideration of Toland's 1704 Letters to Serena, where Toland argued that matter is necessarily active. In this paper I argue for two main theses about this exchange and its consequences for our wider understanding. The first is that, despite many claims that Toland was at the time of (...)
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  18. John Toland a jeho Křesťanství bez mystérií.Jan Čížek A. Kol - 2017 - Pro-Fil 17 (2):30.
    Text John Toland a jeho Křesťanství bez mystérií sestává ze dvou provázaných částí. První část představuje stručné biografické pojednání o Johnu Tolandovi (1670–1722), v němž se mimo jiné snažíme předložit obecný úvod do jeho myšlení. Druhá část pak nabízí první český překlad předmluvy k Tolandovu nejznámějšímu spisu Christianity not Mysterious (1696), který je považován za základní impulz deistické diskuze na Britských ostrovech.
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  19. Toland and Locke in the Leibniz-Burnett Correspondence.Stewart Duncan - 2017 - Locke Studies 17:117-141.
    Leibniz's correspondence with Thomas Burnett of Kemnay is probably best known for Leibniz's attempts to communicate with Locke via Burnett. But Burnett was also, more generally a source of English intellectual news for Leibniz. As such, Burnett provided an important part of the context in which Locke was presented to and understood by Leibniz. This paper examines the Leibniz-Burnett correspondence, and argues against Jolley's suggestion that "the context in which Leibniz learned about Locke was primarily a theological one". That said, (...)
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  20. Alle radici del deismo inglese Una lettura di Christianity not mysterious di John Toland.de Grandi Marta - 2013 - Comunicazione Filosofica.
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  21. Review of Jonathan S. Marko, Measuring the Distance between Locke and Toland[REVIEW]Stewart Duncan - 2018 - Locke Studies 18.
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  22. Locke and his Critics on the Possibility of Material Minds.Stewart Duncan - 2024 - In John Symons & Charles Wolfe (eds.), The History and Philosophy of Materialism. Routledge.
    This chapter looks at the discussion of materialism in John Locke’s Essay concerning Human Understanding, and then at parts of the Anglophone reaction to those discussions. It considers the early criticisms of Locke by Edward Stillingfleet and the anonymous author of three sets of Remarks on Locke’s Essay. It then looks at some other ways in which readers reacted to Locke’s discussions: the views of Anthony Collins and John Toland, which one might be tempted to think of as Lockean (...)
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  23. Materialism and the Activity of Matter in Seventeenth‐Century European Philosophy.Stewart Duncan - 2016 - Philosophy Compass 11 (11):671-680.
    Early modern debates about the nature of matter interacted with debates about whether matter could think. In particular, some philosophers (e.g., Cudworth and Leibniz) objected to materialism about the human mind on the grounds that matter is passive, thinking things are active, and one cannot make an active thing out of passive material. This paper begins by looking at two seventeenth-century materialist views (Hobbes’s, and one suggested but not endorsed by Locke) before considering that objection (which I call here the (...)
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  24. Berkeley's pantheistic discourse.Stephen H. Daniel - 2001 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 49 (3):179-194.
    Berkeley's immaterialism has more in common with views developed by Henry More, the mathematician Joseph Raphson, John Toland, and Jonathan Edwards than those of thinkers with whom he is commonly associated (e.g., Malebranche and Locke). The key for recognizing their similarities lies in appreciating how they understand St. Paul's remark that in God "we live and move and have our being" as an invitation to think to God as the space of discourse in which minds and ideas are identified. (...)
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    Anthony Collins v kontextu raného britského osvícenství.Jan Čížek - 2018 - Pro-Fil 19 (1):19.
    Cílem této studie je představit základní rámec filozofického díla anglického volnomyšlenkáře Anthonyho Collinse (1676–1729) v kontextu britského osvícenského myšlení konce 17. a první poloviny 18. století. Prostřednictvím analýzy jednotlivých spisů je vyloženo Collinsovo chápání rozumu jako nástroje nepostradatelného nejen v oblasti poznání profánního, ale také divinálního. Studie dále sleduje Collinsovu obhajobu naprosté volnosti myšlení i formy jeho vyjádření. Významný prostor je věnován rovněž autorově filozofii náboženství. Studie dokládá, že Collins nebyl izolovaným myslitelem, ale že ve svém díle těžil jak z (...)
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  26. Newton's Metaphysics: Essays by Eric Schliesser (review).Marius Stan - 2024 - Journal of the History of Philosophy 62 (1):157-159.
    In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Newton's Metaphysics: Essays by Eric SchliesserMarius StanEric Schliesser. Newton's Metaphysics: Essays. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 328. Hardback, $99.90.Newton owes his high regard to the quantitative science he left us, but his overall picture of the world had some robustly metaphysical threads woven in as well. Posthumous judgment about the value of these threads has varied wildly. Christian Wolff thought him a metaphysical rustic, as did Hans (...)
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  27. Moderating Racism: The Attempt to Restrain Anti-Japanese Racism in World War II Propaganda Films.Gary James Jason - 2024 - Reason Papers 44 (1):92-106.
    In this essay, I want to explore one of the most ironic episodes in the history of propaganda, the attempt by various federal agencies to moderate American WWII anti-Japanese propaganda films. My texts will be four films, two produced by the military, and two by Hollywood: December 7th (1943), directed by Gregg Toland and revised by John Ford; Air Force (1943), directed Howard Hawks; Know Your Enemy: Japan (1945), directed by Frank Capra; and Betrayal for the East (1945), directed (...)
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  28. Leibniz's Mill Arguments Against Materialism.Stewart Duncan - 2012 - Philosophical Quarterly 62 (247):250-72.
    Leibniz's mill argument in 'Monadology' 17 is a well-known but puzzling argument against materialism about the mind. I approach the mill argument by considering other places where Leibniz gave similar arguments, using the same example of the machinery of a mill and reaching the same anti-materialist conclusion. In a 1702 letter to Bayle, Leibniz gave a mill argument that moves from his definition of perception (as the expression of a multitude by a simple) to the anti-materialist conclusion. Soon afterwards, in (...)
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