In questo saggio argomento che esistono due modi di pensare i luoghi: l’uno accetta l’idea che alcuni di essi abbiano una dimensione trascendente, che per semplificare potremmo chiamare il Genius loci, ovvero il loro spirito, la loro anima; l’altro tende a svuotarli di significati che vanno al di là dell’esperienza sensibile. Chiamerò “religioso” e “profano” questi due modi di pensare: come si caratterizzano? E come definiscono l’idea di luogo? Soprattutto, quali sono le conseguenze dell’adozione dell’uno o dell’altro modo di (...) pensare? Queste sono le domande che mi pongo in questo saggio. (shrink)

We need to give up single visions that are supposed to embrace social and place totalities. We live in overlapping nets rather than single places. We cannot plan unlimited geometrical vistas a la Versailles; but that was always an illusion, and today it would be an oppression. Can we still plan like Sixtus at Rome? Only if we also encourage other modes of organization at the same time. The whole may often end up more like Tokyo, with corners of design (...) and beauty that do not make an overall plan. (shrink)

In the Critique of Judgment, Kant claims that genius is a talent for art, but not for science. Despite his restriction of genius to the domain of fine art, several recent interpreters have suggested that genius has a role to play in Kant’s account of cognition in general and scientific practice in particular. In this paper, I explore Kant’s reasons for excluding genius from science as well as the reasons that one might nevertheless be tempted to (...) think that his account allows room for the scientific genius. I then argue that Kant’s concerns are not only epistemic, but also moral, and together, they give us good reason for resisting the veneration of genius. (shrink)

This paper aims for a more robust epistemological disjunctivism (ED) by offering on its behalf a new and better response to the ‘new evil genius’ problem. The first section articulates the ‘new evil genius challenge’ (NEG challenge) to ED, specifying its two components: the ‘first-order’ and ‘diagnostic’ problems for ED. The first-order problem challenges proponents of ED to offer some explanation of the intuition behind the thought that your radically deceived duplicate is no less justified than you are (...) for adopting her perceptual beliefs. In the second section, I argue that 'blamelessness' explanations are inadequate to the task and offer better explanations in their place—that of ‘trait-level virtue’ and ‘reasonability’. The diagnostic problem challenges proponents of ED to explain why it is that classical internalists disagree with them about how to interpret 'new evil genius' considerations. The proponent of ED owes some error theory. I tackle this problem in the third section, arguing that classical internalists overlook disjunctivist interpretations of new evil genius intuitions owing to a mistaken commitment to a ‘vindicatory’ explanation of perceptual knowledge. (shrink)

This paper considers the debate between teams of skilled contributors versus a genius by focusing on a specific case: a team project to overturn some remarks by Wittgenstein on Frazer’s The Golden Bough. In theory, there can be a team which does this, but in actual practice, such a team seems unlikely to arise.

This article presents an axiological reading of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, reframing its most famous sentence ‘one is not born, but becomes, a woman’ as a claim about femininity, love, and alienation under particular conditions of sexual hierarchy. Because this sentence is often taken to express the thesis of The Second Sex on social constructionist readings, Section 1 rejects the aptness of this approach on three grounds. Section 2 outlines an alternative, axiological reading, which better attends to all (...) of the work’s parts, and to Beauvoir’s emphasis on the concrete inseparability of the physiological, sexual, economic, legal, religious, moral, and aesthetic dimensions of women’s situations. Section 3 turns to the sister ‘one is not born’ clause, in Volume I—‘one is not born, but becomes, a genius’—to show that Beauvoir’s account of frustrated freedom in The Second Sex concerns not only alienated labour, sex, and love, but also aesthetic creativity and moral invention. (shrink)

A great visionary, renowned scientist, a humanist and a mystic poet - Professor Puran Singh was perhaps the first eminent chemist born in Punjab. The founder head of the Department of Chemistry of forest products at the Forest Research Institute, Dehradun, Puran Singh pioneered many chemical efforts in the utilization of forest products. He was one of the new breeds of scientists who flowered in the subcontinent at the fag end of the nineteenth century and founded the base on which (...) the edifice of today's Indian science rests. In this article, a brief account of his life and works is described. (shrink)

Guru Gobind Singh was a many splendoured genius, possessed of extraordinary qualities of virtue and valour, service and sacrifice, solider and scholar. He was not only a great warrior but a prolific writer and a poet of high calibre. The brief span of forty-two years of his life is full of much activity. He wrote in many languages. It is said that fourteen maunds load of manuscripts were lost in Sirsa when the Guru was being pursued from Anandpur to (...) Chamkaur. Fortunately, some of his work survived and from this, we get a pretty clear picture of his aims and ideals. The Guru compiled a variety of poetic compositions, some of which are considered masterpieces of medieval Punjabi poetry and Braj literature. His patronage of poets and scholars at his Darbar contributed a significant addition to the storehouse of Puranic Epics in Indian literature. (shrink)

Thomas Nagel provides a brief summary of Wittgenstein's thought, both early and late, for the general public. Summarizing the late Wittgenstein, Nagel writes: "The beginning, the point at which we run out of justifications for dividing up or organizing the world or experience as we do, is typically a form of life. Justification comes to an end within it, not by an appeal to it. This is as true of the language of experience as it is of the language of (...) physical objects or mathematic. Experience cannot be regarded as the absolute given on which the structure of the world is based, for the categories of experience itself—what constitutes sameness, difference, and structure in that domain—are as much dependent on the interpersonal responses of a communal form of life as any other conceptual or linguistic domain.". (shrink)

Guru Gobind Singh was a versatile genius, a unique personality of contrasting qualities of virtue and valour, the spirit of service and sacrifice, solider and scholar. He was not only a great warrior but also a prolific writer and a poet of high calibre. The brief span of forty-two years of his life is vibrant with activity. He wrote in several languages. It is said that fourteen maunds load of manuscripts were lost in Sirsa when the Guru was being (...) pursued from Anandpur to Chamkaur. Fortunately, part of his work survived and they afford a pretty clear view of his aims and ideals. The Guru compiled a variety of poetic compositions, some of which are considered masterpieces of medieval Punjabi poetry and Braj literature. His patronage of poets and scholars at his Darbar contributed a significant addition to the storehouse of Puranic Epics in Indian literature. (shrink)

In this paper I defend two closely related claims. The first claim, to which the first section of the paper is devoted, is that for Kant taste is a sort of cognition, that is, a form of awareness of reality for which questions of justification are appropriate. Nevertheless, In our appreciation of natural beauty we are aware of the suitability of appearances for inclusion in a rational system, albeit in a way that is subject to important limitations in comparison with (...) scientific cognition. In the second section of the paper, I will use this reading of Kant’s theory of taste to throw new light on Kant’s account of genius later in the “Critique of Aesthetic Judgment.”. (shrink)

This paper explores the elusive dialectic between concentration and forgetfulness, consciousness and unconsciousness in spontaneous artistic creation favoured by artists and advocated by critics in Chinese art history, by examining texts on painting and tracing back to ancient Daoist philosophical ideas, in a comparison with Kantian and post-Kantian aesthetics. Although artistic spontaneity in classical Chinese aesthetics seems to share similarities with Kant’s account of spontaneity in the art of genius, the emphasis on unconsciousness is valued by classical Chinese artists (...) and critics inspired by the Daoist idea of ‘Wu Wei’ (acting without conscious intention or effort). As the Qing painter Wang Yuanqi (1642–1715) claimed when admitting his failure to copy the Yuan master Ni Zan (1301–1374), Ni Zan’s success in natural and untrammelled expression lies ‘in between having an intention and not having one’. A similar idea about the dialectic of consciousness and unconsciousness in artistic spontaneity was suggested by Heinrich von Kleist’s On the Marionette Theatre (1880), which demonstrated that while self-consciousness might disturb and hinder the naturalness of artistic expression and thus encourage affectation, it does not mean that there is no role for consciousness. Although the views on unconsciousness in art and the co-play of consciousness and unconscious in artistic creation by Schelling, Schiller, Goethe, and even Nietzsche might get inspirations from Kant’s hidden view of the unconscious, Kant’s emphasis on the harmonious cooperation between imagination and understanding disguises his inexplicit idea of the unconscious. This paper will demonstrate that while in both Classical Chinese and European cultural contexts, artists, critics and philosophers talk about the same elusive relation, the philosophical explanations of the same phenomenon are essentially distinctive. (shrink)

Bolivian writer Victor Hugo Viscarra is a constant figure on whom a good number of readers have focused their attention. Review after review of his work has been appearing in the Bolivian press and, in that sense, readers have taken his writings with a blind acceptance omitting in such a way a position that goes beyond the literary frontier. The existence of any work on Viscarra’s role as a thinker, his views on politics, the customs of society itself or the (...) imaginaries and identities in Bolivian territory is doubtful. This work aims, on the one hand, to take a critical tour of his thought from a philosophical view (particularly inspired by Nietzsche) and, on the other hand, to try to place the figure of Viscarra next to the virtues of genius and as a “critic of society”. What do Víctor Hugo Viscarra’s ideas express? Is it possible to find in your writings a critique of the way of thinking, living and acting of Bolivian society, in particular to today’s society? In short, does Viscarra’s thinking diagnose the malaise of society at that time? Answering these questions is the intention of this work. (shrink)

This paper examines Timothy Gowers’ attempt to counter a mythology of genius in mathematics: that to be a mathematician one has to be a mathematical genius. Someone might take such attacks on the myth of genius as expressions of envy, but I propose that there is another reason for cautioning against placing a high value on genius, by turning to research in the humanities.

This paper responds to Theron Pummer’s distinction between Sorites arguments and repugnant conclusion arguments by presenting a Sorites overpopulation argument. Also I present a Sorites argument in favour of myths of genius.

Salvador Dali titled one of his books Diary of a Genius. You might think that anyone who would title his book thus must be a spoilt brat and should be “cured” of the illusion that he, or she, is so amazing. But it seems to me that there is a “position” one can occupy in which this is difficult.

By referring to notable analytic philosophers, this paper raises a question of whether a certain myth of genius captures something universal: that a genius is neglected by their own society.

Wagner's treatise Beethoven (1870), written to celebrate the centenary of Beethoven's birth, is one of his most influential theoretical works. Its influence on Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy is well known, and Gustav Mahler regarded it as one of the most profound writings on music he knew, on a par with Schopenhauer's theory on the subject. Wagner's main concern in this text is to bring his theory of opera into line with his recent 'conversion' to Schopenhauer's philosophy. It contains an account (...) of the relation of music and drama which emphasizes the superiority and dominance of music, true to the philosopher's ideas on this subject. This aspect of Beethoven is in fact the main focus of most commentaries devoted to this work. (shrink)

In this chapter I argue that writers on metaphor have misunderstood Aristotle on metaphor. Aristotle is not an elitist about metaphor and does not consider metaphors to be merely ornamental. Rather, Aristotle believes that metaphors are ubiquitous and believes that people can express themselves in a clearer and more attractive way through the use of metaphors and that people learn and understand things better through metaphor. He also distinguishes between the use of metaphor and the coinage of metaphor, and believes (...) that the ability to coin marvelous new metaphors is a form of literary genius, and he provided an entirely natural origin of metaphor coinage. (shrink)

This essay focuses on theories of creativity from six historical figures, while noting comparisons to several others. In Ancient Greece: (i) Plato advances the thesis that the poet is a passive vessel inspired by a muse. (ii) Aristotle replies with the antithesis that the poet creates through skilled activity. (iii) Longinus provides the synthesis. Plato is right that poets are passively inspired with original ideas – though the source is natural genius instead of some muse. But Aristotle is also (...) right that the poet must actively employ skill. In early modern Europe: (iv) Margaret Cavendish argues that through creativity women can enjoy some freedom and happiness despite oppression. (v) Alexander Gerard and Immanuel Kant both inherit the Longinian synthesis. Gerard says we form original ideas through remote associations. (vi) Kant notices that although the genius must be passive in the origination of ideas, she must also be active in the very same process, because she merits acclaim for her originality. Kant designs his theory of genius to resolve this Paradox of Creative Agency. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that culture plays a pivotal role for understanding Nietzsche’s own normative commitments. My argument develops as follows: Section 2 shows that Nietzsche advances an ideal of self-cultivation (Bildung) which is derived from the existential role of culture, elevating a peculiar concept of artistic creativity to ground his perfectionist understanding of value. Section 3 traces Nietzsche’s image of Goethe as exemplar of creative excellence. I contend that Nietzsche portrays Goethe as a male genius, rendering his (...) concept of self-cultivation entrenched in the cultural imagery of his time. The fin de siècle was obsessed with the image of genius as well as the relationship of creativity and gender. Moreover, as towering figure of German culture after the founding of the German Empire in 1871, Goethe was a frequent example of creative genius. Section 4 deepens the discussion of the role of gender in Nietzsche’s concept of creativity, exploring how the essentialist gender psychology of his mature works curtails the creative potential of women and explains his dismissal of feminism. (shrink)

This chapter explores the importance of writing by early nineteenth-century women for post-structuralist accounts of philosophy of art in German Idealism and Romanticism. Work by Romantic writers Karoline von Günderrode and Bettina Brentano-von Arnim is related to post-structuralist analyses of the sublime, the fragment, the work of art, and the artist/genius.

Ancient Greek philosophers claimed that the particular task of art was mimesis. This kind of view about the relation between art and the world was dominant until the beginning of the 19th century. The theory of genius rethought this relation, and it did not presume that art needs to mirror the world. On the contrary, it expected originality, that is, the creation of a new world. Since the beginning of the 20th century, the artworld operates under a wider notion (...) of the ‘work of art’, e.g. Duchamp’s “readymade” and “institutional readymade”, which are linked to outsider art. In both cases, the creation of an object and the creation of an art piece are separate actions performed by different individuals. This paper attempts to tackle these problems and prove that the contemporary art does not relate primarily to the world, but mainly to the artworld. Thus, the path from art to the world goes through the artworld. (shrink)

Speight has recently raised the question, which he himself leaves unanswered, how naturalism relates to spirit in Hegel’s philosophy of art. ‘Naturalism’ denotes an explanation that invokes aspects of nature that are (allegedly) irreducible or resistant to thought. I call nature ‘stubborn’ insofar as it evinces resistance to its being formed by thought and hence to its being united with it. This paper argues that §§556, 558 and 560 of Hegel’s Encyclopedia answer Speight’s question by specifying three elements of nature (...) that, first, are present in art and, second, are resistant to thought. These are materiality, natural form, and genius. They exhibit nature’s stubbornness in art. This stubbornness, I argue, is what justifies Hegel’s claim that art is absolute spirt only implicitly (§556), which leads to the claim that art needs to be superseded by religion and philosophy. In this way, Speight’s question receives a precise answer. (shrink)

How should emotions figure in scientific practice? I begin by distinguishing three broad answers to this question, ranging from pessimistic to optimistic. Confirmation bias and motivated numeracy lead us to cast a jaundiced eye on the role of emotions in scientific inquiry. However, reflection on the essential motivating role of emotions in geniuses makes it less clear that science should be evacuated of emotion. I then draw on Friedrich Nietzsche’s perspectivism to articulate a twenty-first century epistemology of science that recognizes (...) the necessity of emotion to inquiry but aims to manage the biases that emotions can introduce. Twenty-first century perspectivism is both social and (temporally) distal, helping it to overcome a paradox of self-critical inquiry. (shrink)

Although the character of the “lady detective”is a staple of the cozy mystery genre, we contend that there are no great lady detectives to rival Holmes or Poirot. This is not because there are no clever or interesting lady detective characters, but ratherbecause the concept of greatness is sociallyconstructed and, like coolness, depends on public acclaim and perception. We explore the mechanics of genre formation, arguing that the very structure of cozy mysteries precludes female greatness. To create a “great”character,theauthor cannot (...) just endowher with certain attributes; she must actively work to overcome her audience’s tendency to import structures of oppression into the story, and she must wrestle against the conventions of the genre. In doing so, however, authors risk setting their stories in a wholly different genre. (shrink)

Artwork of astounding genius requires a spectator (and not just anyone will do!). The materialist magic worked by an artistic genius only affects others; each genius is impervious to their own magic. Diderot's thought is wonderful and really deserves wider attention (if any thought really does deserve attention ...): a masterpiece is incomplete without one who can appreciate it. -/- This is a talk presented (a few years ago) to an audience of nearly none at a conference. (...) I only post it in case there is anyone out there who enjoys Diderot, art, French, hardcore materialism and magic. (shrink)

In common with traditional forms of epistemic internalism, epistemological disjunctivism attempts to incorporate an awareness condition on justification. Unlike traditional forms of internalism, however, epistemological disjunctivism rejects the so-called New Evil Genius thesis. In so far as epistemological disjunctivism rejects the New Evil Genius thesis, it is revisionary. -/- After explaining what epistemological disjunctivism is, and how it relates to traditional forms of epistemic internalism / externalism, I shall argue that the epistemological disjunctivist’s account of the intuitions underlying (...) the New Evil Genius thought experiment is at best incomplete. As presented, therefore, epistemological disjunctivism is unable to accommodate the core guiding intuitions of epistemic internalism. Given the stated aim of not being revisionary on this score, the view is at a dialectical disadvantage over the traditional forms of epistemic internalism the position is meant to replace. Unfortunately, therefore, at present, the impasse between internalism and externalism remains. (shrink)

Recent advances in the Super Linguistics of pictures have laid the Super Semantic foundation for modelling the phenomena of narrative sequencing and co-reference in pictorial and mixed linguistic-pictorial discourses. We take up the question of how one arrives at the pragmatic interpretations of such discourses. In particular, we offer an analysis of: (i) the discourse composition problem: how to represent the joint meaning of a multi-picture discourse, (ii) observed differences in narrative sequencing in prima facie equivalent linguistic vs pictorial discourses, (...) and (iii) the phenomenon of co-referencing across pictures. We extend Segmented Discourse Representation Theory to spell out a formal Super Pragmatics that applies to linguistic, pictorial and mixed discourses, while respecting the particular ‘genius’ of either medium and computing their distinctive pragmatic interpretations. (shrink)

The main objective of this work was to produce a scientifically reasonable definition of God. The rationale was to generate a definition for filling a small part of the spiritual vacuum of the 21st century and thus initiate a new understanding of the Intelligence that permeates the cosmos with mystery, love, order, direction and morals. This resulted in the following definition: “God may be a-humanly incomprehensible-eternal cosmic existence, intimately related to the endlessness of space, to the nature of the deepest (...) common substance of matter and energy, to this common substance’s unceasing motion responsible for time, and to the basic laws of their allness, letting love transform this allness to an ordered Multiverse with a Soul: the—scientifically approachable—Soul of Multiverse inspired to guard these laws and equip their order with direction and morals while imbuing the cosmos with the potential of lives evolving, at the right spatial and temporal distances, to embrace the sense of the divine, thus justifying the existence of God.” The likely neural circuitry for sensing God in the human brain was identified as a network for spiritual data flow across the conscious and subconscious layers of the association cortical cognitive system exchanging data with the prefrontal cortical Self-Ken and modulated by inputs from the emotional and motivational systems of the brain. To study this mental process, the design of a God-Experience Monitor was also developed: a comfortably wearable combination of EEG and audiovisual-recorders tailored to at least partially capture the individual experiences of God anytime and at the very “genius loci” of such experiences. (shrink)

The following is not a successful skeptical scenario: you think you know you have hands, but maybe you don't! Why is that a failure, when it's far more likely than, say, the evil genius hypothesis? That's the question.<br><br>This is an earlier draft.

In this article I explore the concept of originality from several viewpoints. Within the world of printmaking, I show that while print dealers may draw attention to originality in order to enhance economic value, artists emphasize the aesthetic value of a work based on the freedom to express artistic intent and to experiment with techniques of the medium. Within the worlds of philosophy and to some extent, psychology, “originality” has been misleadingly tied to the notions of “creativity” and “genius,” (...) thereby replicating a cultural bias that links an artist to particular mental processes that are unnecessarily exclusive. An experiential account of creativity like the one recently advanced by Bence Nanay not only disadvantages those artists whose lived experiences reflect fewer social opportunities than their counterparts, but also invokes a concept of luck that undermines the role of originality within an artwork's overall aesthetic value. (shrink)

Neuroeconomics illustrates our deepening descent into the details of individual cognition. This descent is guided by the implicit assumption that “individual human” is the important “agent” of neoclassical economics. I argue here that this assumption is neither obviously correct, nor of primary importance to human economies. In particular I suggest that the main genius of the human species lies with its ability to distribute cognition across individuals, and to incrementally accumulate physical and social cognitive artifacts that largely obviate the (...) innate biological limitations of individuals. If this is largely why our economies grow, then we should be much more interested in distributed cognition in human groups, and correspondingly less interested in individual cognition. We should also be much more interested in the cultural accumulation of cognitive artefacts: computational devices and media, social structures and economic institutions. (shrink)

Leibniz’s lengthy theological treatise, Examen religionis christianae, has long puzzled scholars. Although a lifelong Lutheran who spurned many attempts to convert him to Catholicism, in the Examen Leibniz defends the Catholic position on a range of matters of controversy, from justification of the sinner to transubstantiation, from veneration of images to communion under both kinds. Inevitably, when finally published in 1819, the Examen quickly became the focus of a heated and sometimes ill-tempered debate about Leibniz’s true religious commitments. For many, (...) what was at stake was not simply the interpretation of a particular text but the very soul of Leibniz, that universal genius and ornament of Europe. The aim of this paper is to chart the various ways in which the earliest readers of the Examen responded to the text and sought to understand it. Such a study will enable us not only to see the varying and quite contrasting interpretations put forward for Leibniz’s motive for writing the Examen, some of which inform contemporary interpretations, but also give us the opportunity to take a deeper look at certain features of the text and the context in which it was written. (shrink)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716) was a universal genius, making original contributions to law, mathematics, philosophy, politics, languages, and many areas of science, including what we would now call physics, biology, chemistry, and geology. By profession he was a court counselor, librarian, and historian, and thus much of his intellectual activity had to be fit around his professional duties. Leibniz’s fame and reputation among his contemporaries rested largely on his innovations in the field of mathematics, in particular his discovery of (...) the calculus in 1675. Another of his enduring mathematical contributions was his invention of binary arithmetic, though the significance of this was not recognized until the 20th century. These days, a good proportion of scholarly interest in Leibniz is focused on his philosophy. Among his signature philosophical doctrines are the pre-established harmony, the theory of monads, and the claim that ours is the best of all possible worlds, which forms the central plank of his theodicy. For Leibniz, philosophy was not the discovery of deep truths of interest only to other philosophers, but a practical discipline with the means to increase happiness and well-being. Philosophical truths, he believed, revealed the beauty and rational order of the universe, and the justice and wisdom of its creator, and accordingly could inspire contentment and peace of mind. Leibniz’s other intellectual projects were likewise geared toward the improvement of the human condition. He lobbied tirelessly for the establishment of scientific societies, devised measures to improve public health, and was actively engaged in projects to unite the churches and so end the religious strife that marred the Europe of his day. He was also engaged in politics for much of his career, and often took on a diplomatic role, sometimes officially and other times not. In the political sphere, Leibniz did not wield true power but was a man with influence, obtained in no small part by his cultivation of relationships with leaders and sovereigns both inside and outside Germany. The sheer range of Leibniz’s interests, projects, and activities can make him a difficult figure to study, and the vast quantity of his writings only compounds the problem (around fifty thousand of his writings survive). Nevertheless, even a sampling of Leibniz’s work is enough to get a sense of his vision, originality, and intellectual depth, and good secondary literature will only enhance this. The items in this bibliography were chosen with this in mind. (shrink)

Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling (1775-1854) is often thought of as a “philosopher’s philosopher,” with a specialist rather than generalist appeal. One reason for Schelling’s lack of popularity is that he is something of a problem case for traditional narratives about the history of philosophy. Although he is often slotted in as a stepping stone on the intellectual journey from Kant to Hegel, any attention to his ideas will show that he does not fit this role very well. His later (...) philosophy suggests a materialism and empiricism that puts him outside of idealism proper; his connection with the romantic movement suggests an aestheticism that challenges traditional philosophy as such; and his mysticism allies him with medieval, pre-critical philosophies considered antiquated by the 19th century. And if Schelling was not entirely at home with his contemporaries, he seems, on the face of it, to have fared little better with his future: there has been no Schelling school, he has had no followers. No historical trajectory announces Schelling as its point of departure. -/- And yet Schelling’s influence has been an extraordinary one. He has inspired physicists, physicians, theologians, historians and poets. A wildly diverse set of philosophers have claimed that their ideas have resonance with his. Perhaps the question of Schelling’s influence can be approached by looking at what Kant says about works of genius -- that they should give rise to inspiration, not imitation. Paradoxically, to imitate genius is not to produce an imitation but a new creative work. Whether or not Schelling should be strictly viewed as a genius, Kant’s notion suggests a sense in which Schelling should be understood as a “philosopher’s philosopher”; he inspired creativity, not repetition. In this perspective, the lack of a “Schelling school” is a sign of strength; Schelling is continually being rediscovered, and his works have retained a fresh and untimely character. If Schelling does not have any obvious historical successors, it is because his influence cannot be charted by the usual methods. New philosophical tools are needed in order to understand his philosophical significance, his impact on contemporary thought and relevance for contemporary concerns. (shrink)

This volume celebrates the various facets of Alan Turing (1912–1954), the British mathematician and computing pioneer, widely considered as the father of computer science. It is aimed at the general reader, with additional notes and references for those who wish to explore the life and work of Turing more deeply. -/- The book is divided into eight parts, covering different aspects of Turing’s life and work. -/- Part I presents various biographical aspects of Turing, some from a personal point of (...) view. -/- Part II presents Turing’s universal machine (now known as a Turing machine), which provides a theoretical framework for reasoning about computation. His 1936 paper on this subject is widely seen as providing the starting point for the field of theoretical computer science. -/- Part III presents Turing’s working on codebreaking during World War II. While the War was a disastrous interlude for many, for Turing it provided a nationally important outlet for his creative genius. It is not an overstatement to say that without Turing, the War would probably have lasted longer, and may even have been lost by the Allies. The sensitive nature of Turning’s wartime work meant that much of this has been revealed only relatively recently. -/- Part IV presents Turing’s post-War work on computing, both at the National Physical Laboratory and at the University of Manchester. He made contributions to both hardware design, through the ACE computer at the NPL, and software, especially at Manchester. Part V covers Turing’s contribution to machine intelligence (now known as Artificial Intelligence or AI). Although Turing did not coin the term, he can be considered a founder of this field which is still active today, authoring a seminal paper in 1950. -/- Part VI covers morphogenesis, Turing’s last major scientific contribution, on the generation of seemingly random patterns in biology and on the mathematics behind such patterns. Interest in this area has increased rapidly in recent times in the field of bioinformatics, with Turing’s 1952 paper on this subject being frequently cited. -/- Part VII presents some of Turing’s mathematical influences and achievements. Turing was remarkably free of external influences, with few co-authors – Max Newman was an exception and acted as a mathematical mentor in both Cambridge and Manchester. -/- Part VIII considers Turing in a wider context, including his influence and legacy to science and in the public consciousness. -/- Reflecting Turing’s wide influence, the book includes contributions by authors from a wide variety of backgrounds. Contemporaries provide reminiscences, while there are perspectives by philosophers, mathematicians, computer scientists, historians of science, and museum curators. Some of the contributors gave presentations at Turing Centenary meetings in 2012 in Bletchley Park, King’s College Cambridge, and Oxford University, and several of the chapters in this volume are based on those presentations – some through transcription of the original talks, especially for Turing’s contemporaries, now aged in their 90s. Sadly, some contributors died before the publication of this book, hence its dedication to them. -/- For those interested in personal recollections, Chapters 2, 3, 11, 12, 16, 17, and 36 will be of interest. For philosophical aspects of Turing’s work, see Chapters 6, 7, 26–31, and 41. Mathematical perspectives can be found in Chapters 35 and 37–39. Historical perspectives can be found in Chapters 4, 8, 9, 10, 13–15, 18, 19, 21–25, 34, and 40. With respect to Turing’s body of work, the treatment in Parts II–VI is broadly chronological. We have attempted to be comprehensive with respect to all the important aspects of Turing’s achievements, and the book can be read cover to cover, or the chapters can be tackled individually if desired. There are cross-references between chapters where appropriate, and some chapters will inevitably overlap. -/- We hope that you enjoy this volume as part of your library and that you will dip into it whenever you wish to enter the multifaceted world of Alan Turing. (shrink)

Kant ascribes two radically different kinds of language—symbolic or pictorial (qua intuitive) and discursive languages—to the “Oriental” and “Occidental” peoples respectively. By his analysis, having a merely symbolic language suggests that the “Orientals” lack understanding—and hence the ability to form concepts and think in abstracto—as well as genius and spirit. Meanwhile, he establishes discursive language as a sine qua non of the continued progress of humanity, primarily because only by means of words—as opposed to symbols—can one think (not just (...) intuit), signify one’s thoughts exactly, and make them universally communicable. Without such a language, one would not be able to make one’s feelings moral or develop a true moral character. In short, humanity would not be able to obtain its cultural or moral ends without discursive language. -/- These points add up to an exclusionary view of progress according to which the Occidental whites alone are equipped with the requisite discursive skills and other talents (including genius and spirit) to accomplish advanced culture and pursue humanity’s moral destiny. The “Orient,” with its “childish language,” is consigned to the childhood of humanity. In holding this view, Kant has departed from some of his predecessors—such as Leibniz, whose vision of the future of humanity includes an East-West harmony facilitated by a “universal symbolism,” and Rousseau, who exalts a livelier connection with the world mediated by a pictorial language. -/- The contrast with Leibniz and Rousseau also suggests that we cannot chalk up Kant’s exclusionary view of progress to mere personal prejudices. His philosophy is what gives meaning to his statements about the nature of the “Oriental” language. That is, the exclusionary view of progress emerges only when we take into account his anti-Leibnizian conceptualization of symbolic language as merely intuitive, his view that humanity is teleologically oriented toward the unique sort of moralization that he envisioned in the Groundwork, and his view that reason must lead the way in humanity’s progress toward this supposed moral end, wherefore only discursive language can facilitate such progress. (shrink)

This chapter will evaluate humor used with the specific intent to reveal glaring epistemic errors that lead to injustice; flaws in reasoning so transparent that straightforward logic, argument, and evidence seem ineffectual against them, and in some cases, just silly to think such tools would be needed. Laughter seems to be one of the only sane responses. In particular, I will assess how humor can combat conspiracy theories, propaganda, lies, and bullshit. The last one I view in Harry Frankfurt's sense (...) of a complete lack of concern for truth or reality, which I think sums up former President Donald Trump's epic lack of curiosity which has a trickle-down effect on his ardent followers. The sort of conspiracy theories I will focus on are an intermingling of propaganda, well defined and analyzed by Jason Stanley in his work How Propaganda Works, and the "new conspiracism", outlined by Muirhead and Rosenblum in A Lot of People are Saying: The New Conspiracism and The Assault on Democracy. There are perils with this potency of pugilistic comedy. It is easy to punch up, humorously fume at the foibles and fantastical blunders of a world leader who seriously considers ingesting bleach to combat the plague, who also, without irony, regales us of his capacious mnemonic prowess in recalling the following words on a cognitive test: "Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV." The self-proclaimed "stable genius" aced it. But when Trumpism and QAnon e.g., spreads among many who are impoverished and disempowered, the very people to whom Trump and others in his powerful orbit have incessantly lied, it becomes less clear how to wield truth-and justice-seeking wit. Are consciousness-raising comedians seeking to uncover and undermine obvious and dangerous falsehoods punching in the morally correct direction, and how can we tell? (shrink)

A Confederacy of Dunces (Confederacy) by John Kennedy Toole portrays an interplay between competing definitions of humanism. The one school of humanism—called by some the Modernist Paradigm—saw the Italian Renaissance as the origin of nineteenth- and twentieth-century modernist views that celebrated science, technology, and individual human freedom. The other school, led by Paul Oskar Kristeller, sought to historicize humanism by establishing that Renaissance writers and thinkers were generally conservative and preserved the philosophical ideas of the medieval era. Kristeller was the (...) President of the Renaissance Society of America and was at the height of his influence at Columbia University during the late 1950s, when Toole studied for his Master’s degree there. The main character in Confederacy, Ignatius J. Reilly, presents a parody of Kristeller’s position, which he uses to critique modern society. Ignatius also plays the part of a child of the planetary god Saturn, both by acting out the ancient astrological tradition of associating Saturn with misfortune and disorder and by being a parody of the Renaissance concept of the Genius as a Child of Saturn begun by the Renaissance philosopher whom Kristeller studied most, Marsilio Ficino. Ignatius’s worldview is an antithesis of the Modernist Paradigm. Confederacy is critical of both Modernist humanism with its attendant materialism and its antithesis—Ignatius’s dysfunctional version of Kristeller’s Renaissance philosophy. When the community expels Ignatius as a scapegoat, Toole appears to gesture toward a dialectical synthesis of the two concepts of humanism in the novel’s happy ending. (shrink)

Bashabi Fraser is known the world over as a Scottish-Bengali aka diasporic writer. Further she has also been slotted as a feminist scholar with a huge corpus on Tagore. This essay proves the fallacy of such pigeon-holeing of Fraser and shows that she is as mainstream as Yeats and even before that, like unto Blake. The essay also makes a point for rejecting every other mode of poetry except the Romantic mode. It established the Vedantic nature of the poetic (...) class='Hi'>genius. The endnotes are copious and comment on how/why/(what of) Fraser should compulsory reading at which age. The essay speaks at length on the nature of poetry. It stresses the value of Vedanta in assessing true poetry written even in English. This essay is also valuable since it has within it acute observations on Fraser as a Tagore scholar. (shrink)

Dans ses Salons Denis Diderot explique l’aspect communicatif de la peinture. Le peintre de génie partage sa vision cumulative de la beauté naturelle dont il a fait l’expérience. Devant la toile réussie, le spectateur préparé vie sa propre expérience — selon lui la tentative surpassant la beauté naturelle de la nature originaire. Toutefois, semblant transcendante, cette rencontre reste carrément matérialiste. Diderot dévoile l'apparente transcendance. Du point de vue spectatoriel, en communiquant, les œuvres de génie apportent une expérience censée magique qui (...) s'explique de manière empirique: il s'agit de prestidigitation, non pas de sorcellerie. Ainsi, l'explication n'efface pas forcément le merveilleux de l'expérience. Diderot, encyclopédiste, défend la valeur riche de l'expérience, des lumières. Cette communication ciblera la magie ressentie par le spectateur en soulignant que, manque de récepteur convenable la magie s'évapore. Il incombe au spectateur de se préparer — d'où l'importance redoublée de l'expérience — afin que la communication artistique magique le réjouisse. (shrink)

The chapter provides an overview on what it means to be in a world that is uncertain, e.g., how under conditions of limited understanding any activity is an activity that designs and constructs, and how designing objects, spaces, and situations relates to the (designed) meta-world of second-order cybernetics. Designers require a framework that is open, but one that supplies ethical guidance when ‘constructing’ something new. Relating second-order design thinking to insights in philosophy and aesthetics, the chapter argues that second-order cybernetics (...) provides a response to this ethical challenge and essentially it entails a poetics of designing. //// 'A Poetics of Designing' is part of the first book-length collection of texts in Design Cybernetics. It introduces the subject from the point of view of aesthetics. Importantly, the chapter argues that second-order cybernetics circumvents the necessity for a muse inspired artist or genius as a mediator between higher spirits and life, in favour of artists and designers who have true agency. //// Cybernetics is often associated with AI, which is, however, only one of the branches that developed on the basis of the interdisciplinary research begun in the 1940s and entitled cybernetics. I hope the chapter contributes to a better understanding of the second-order cybernetics that has been conceived in close relationship with art and design from the late 60s onwards. (shrink)

While feminist aestheticians have long interrogated gendered, raced, and classed hierarchies in the arts, feminist philosophers still don’t talk much about popular music. Even though Angela Davis and bell hooks have seriously engaged popular music, they are often situated on the margins of philosophy. It is my contention that feminist aesthetics has a lot to offer to the study of popular music, and the case of popular music points feminist aesthetics to some of its own limitations and unasked questions. This (...) essay addresses the paucity of work in feminist philosophy and popular music by applying insights from other areas of feminist aesthetics to questions of popular music, and thereby using feminist aesthetics – specifically, Julia Kristea’s notion of female genius and the genius spectator – to critique itself. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate affinities between Nietzsche’s early philosophy and some aspects of Kant’s moral theory. In so doing, I develop further my reading of Nietzschean wholeness as an ideal that consists in the achievement of cultural—not psychic—integration by pursuing the ennoblement of humanity in oneself and in all. This cultural achievement is equivalent to the procreation of the genius or the perfection of nature. For Nietzsche, the process by means of which we come to realize the (...) class='Hi'>genius in ourselves is one in which our true content comes to necessarily govern or guide the shaping of our outer form (or our outward activities). Since this true content turns out to be our autonomy or free agency, I argue that this Nietzschean idea of necessitation parallels in important ways Kant’s notion of normative necessity. In particular, I claim that for Nietzsche the agent’s form becomes necessitated by his content as a result of the agent’s recognition of the duties that befall those who aspire to belong to a genuine culture and his resolve to guide his actions in accordance to them. These duties spring from the idea of humanity, from the image we have of ourselves as endowed with the capacity to be the helmsmen of our lives or to be more than mere animals or automata. The person who takes up this ideal of humanity turns his life into a living unity of content and form by organizing it around an aspect of his being that belongs necessarily, hence more truthfully, to him. He also participates in a collective project (that of the ennoblement of the human being) that can lend a certain coherence and imperishability to his individual life and through which he becomes necessarily connected to everyone else for all eternity. (shrink)

This paper provides a critique of the contemporary notion of intellectual property based on the consequences of Wittgenstein's “private language argument”. The reticence commonly felt toward recent applications of patent law, e.g., sports moves, is held to expose erroneous metaphysical assumptions inherent in the spirit of current IP legislation. It is argued that the modern conception of intellectual property as a kind of natural right, stems from the mistaken internalist or Augustinian picture of language that Wittgenstein attempted to diffuse. This (...) view becomes persuasive once it is shown that a complete understanding of the argument against private language must include Wittgenstein's investigation of the role of the will in the creative process. It is argued that original thought is not born by decree of the will, but engendered by a public context of meaning and value. What marks a person as a genius is, therefore, according to Wittgenstein, not some sovereign capacity of conceptual world-making, but merely a propitious dose of intellectual courage. (shrink)

In this essay, I will look into Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimism, which culminates in the view that since life is not worth living, it is better for us to deny it than try to affirm it. I will argue that his pessimism is not sustainable, and that it fails on its own propositions. In section 1, I will look at the importance of suffering as the central point in Schopenhauer’s pessimism. For Schopenhauer, the essence of the world, which he calls will, (...) is a never-ending, blind and purposeless striving that objectifies itself in the organic and inorganic world. Will, which can also be called the will to live, is constantly driving us from one desire to another, leaving us almost without rest in the constant state of need, hence suffering. I will argue against his position that only suffering is of a positive nature, while happiness can only be negative. According to Schopenhauer, the rare moments of happiness we experience consist only in the absence of suffering. I will also look into his view that absolute happiness is impossible to achieve and question this statement as a weak argument for pessimism. -/- Section 2 will focus on Schopenhauer’s use of the concepts of pain and suffering. As it seems that he uses them as co-extensive terms, I will explain why they are not co-extensive. -/- In section 3, I will discuss Schopenhauer’s view that the world has a moral meaning. Because of inevitable suffering, according to Schopenhauer, our only moral solution to the problem of suffering will be to deny suffering, consequently, life itself. And this is, for him, the hidden moral meaning of the world that only philosophy can uncover. -/- In section 4, I will look at the importance of aesthetic experience, which for Schopenhauer, represents the proof that the will can be abandoned and that the short periods of liberation from the will/suffering can be reached. As for Kant, for Schopenhauer, the aesthetic experience must be purposeless and unintentional and never contemplated or purposeful. Since our contemplated activities belong to the knowledge driven by the principle of practical reason that operates on the basis of our innate categories of time, space and causality and is related only to the phenomenal world, ideas that are the essence of artistic experience cannot be grasped by such knowledge. They can only be contemplated by objective knowledge by genius, who, in the process of artistic creation, abandons his individuality and disconnects from the phenomenal world completely, grasping the idea of a perceived object purely by its rare gift and not by reason. -/- In the final section, I will look at compassion, which can help us overcome suffering, according to Schopenhauer. By abandoning our selfishness through compassion, we can identify with the suffering of others and understand that we are the same as others. That will help us comprehend that our individuality is the main cause of suffering and trigger our attempt to overcome suffering through compassion. I will argue that compassion cannot be devoid of self-interest and, as such, still requires a strong presence of the will. I will also show why asceticism is, as the ultimate attempt to completely redeem suffering, antipodal to compassion. (shrink)

This essay concerns Heidegger’s assertion that the biography of the poet is unimportant when interpreting great works of poetry. I approach the question in three ways. First, I consider its merits as a principle of literary interpretation and contrast Heidegger’s view with those of other Trakl interpreters. This allows me to clarify his view as a unique variety of non-formalistic interpretation and raise some potential worries about his approach. Second, I consider Heidegger’s view in the context of his broader philosophical (...) project. Viewed this way, Heidegger’s decision to neglect the poet’s biography seems quite reasonable and consistent with his inquiry into the being of language. Finally, I consider Heidegger’s suggestion that Trakl is a kind of mad genius. I recast this paradigmatic figure in terms of what I call the ‘wretched prophet’ and consider some ways in which its appeal sheds light on the crisis of modernity and the aestheticization of politics. (shrink)

In this article I seek to come to some understanding of the interlocutors in the first book of Plato’s Republic, particularly Cephalus. A more complete view of Cephalus not only provides some interesting ways to think about Plato and the Republic, but also suggests an interesting alternative to Plato’s view of justice. The article will progress as follows: First, I discuss Plato’s allegory of the cave. I, then, critique the cave allegory by applying the same kind of reasoning that O. (...) K. Bouwsma used to criticize Descartes’ evil genius. Next, I present what I think is a fruitful way to understand Cephalus. Finally, I draw some important conclusions regarding justice and offer some interesting critiques of Plato and Platonism. (shrink)

Originally introduced by Plato and Aristotle, the doctrine of the mean is the most prevalent theory of ethics among Islamic scholars. According to this doctrine, every virtue or excellence of character lies in the observance of the mean, whereas vices are the excess or deficiency of the soul in his functions. Islamic scholars have been influenced by the doctrine, but they have also developed and re-conceptualized it in innovative ways. Kindi, Miskawayh, Avicenna, Raghib Isfahani, Nasir al-Din Tusi, and others are (...) among the Islamic contributors to the subject. Some of their contributions are as follows: bringing together Aristotle's doctrine of the mean with Plato's psychology, dividing virtues into four higher geniuses, dividing vices into eight higher geniuses, setting various kinds of vices and virtues under these higher geniuses, adding the criteria of quality to Aristotle's quantitative evaluation of excess and deficiency, dividing various conceptualizations of justice, adding religious and mystical virtues into the existing list of virtues, and proposing a comprehensive model for curing diseases of the soul. (shrink)