The prominent philosopher Feng Youlan in the late 1950s devised an 'abstract inheritance method' with which he sought to salvage traditional thought. The debates over this method and what it entailed lasted until the Cultural Revolution. This book is an examination of those debates, and therepercussions arising from them in the discussions on classical Chinese philosophy.

In this paper I defend the traditional interpretations of Kant’s Formula of a Law of Nature from recent attacks leveled by Faviola Rivera-Castro, James Furner, Ido Geiger, Pauline Kleingeld and Sven Nyholm. After a short introduction, the paper is divided into four main sections. In the first, I set out the basics of the three traditional interpretations, the Logical Contradiction Interpretation, the Practical Contradiction Interpretation and the Teleological Contradiction Interpretation. In the second, I examine the (...) work of Geiger, Kleingeld and Nyholm: these three commentators reject the traditional interpretations entirely, but I argue that this rejection is ill-founded. In the third and fourth, I take a detailed look at Furner’s work, work in which he seeks to revise (rather than reject) the traditional interpretations. I argue that, despite his more modest aims, Furner’s revision is also ill-founded. (shrink)

Cet article présente quelques-unes des recherches de l’auteure, très succinctement exposées, sur les traducteurs anciens. Face à une divergence de la Septante et du Targum par rapport au texte massorétique, des indices sont d’abord rassemblés pour la situer, par exemple, au niveau du traducteur ou déjà de sa copie hébraïque, à moins qu’il n’ait conservé le texte primitif, et qu’il s’agisse d’une variante dans le texte massorétique. La recherche porte ensuite sur le motif et la méthode de la modification, s’il (...) s’agissait d’une modification volontaire. Dans plusieurs cas, cela permet de replacer la Septante dans le cadre d’interprétations de l’exégèse juive ancienne, puisque plusieurs procédés herméneutiques employés par les traducteurs grecs peuvent être retracés tant dans le texte massorétique lui-même que dans les traductions araméennes et les littératures intertestamentaire et rabbinique. (shrink)

Kant’s Antinomy of Teleological Judgment is unique in offering two pairs of oppositions, one of regulative maxims, and the other of constitutive principles. Here I defend a traditional interpretation of the antinomy— as proposed, for example, by Stadler (1874), Adickes (1925), and Cassirer (1921)—that the antinomy consists in an opposition between constitutive principles, and is resolved by pointing out their legitimate status as merely regulative maxims. I argue against recent interpretations—for example, in McLaughlin (1990), Allison (1991), and Watkins (...) (2009)—which treat the regulative pair as itself antinomial. I then address several textual worries having to do with reconciling the traditional interpretation within the overall structure of the Dialectic of Teleological Judgment that have led these scholars to espouse the new view. Throughout the paper, I emphasize hitherto neglected parallels with Kant’s treatment of the antinomy of taste, which sheds light on understanding the antinomy of teleology. (shrink)

The list of katēgoriai presented at the start of Top. I 9 was traditionally interpreted as a version of the canonical Aristotelian list of categories, and as largely equivalent to the list we find in Categories 4. Accordingly, its first item, the ‘what it is’, was identified with the category of substance. This interpretation has been challenged by several scholars, all sharing the view that the ‘what it is’ in Top. I 9 cannot be substance, since it collects items (...) belonging to all Aristotelian categories (e. g. human being, colour, length). Rather, they say, it is a manner of predication – i. e. essential predication – and can only determine an ontologically miscellaneous class of items. Against this family of proposals, I argue afresh that the traditional interpretation is almost entirely correct. To this purpose, I take advantage of the distinction between kinds of predicate and kinds of predication. (shrink)

Nous proposons de montrer une rupture que la tradition interprétative médiévale du passage 16a3-8 du De interpretations a subie dans la seconde moitié du XIIIe siècle. On met ainsi en évidence que, dans cette même période, s'est façonnée une nouvelle théorie de la signification, qu'on retrouve notamment dans l'œuvre de théologiens franciscains ou proches des idées franciscaines, opposée sur des points fondamentaux à celle qui a été transmise par Boèce dans son deuxième commentaire du De interpretations. The aim of this (...) article is to describe a rupture that occurred in the second half of the 13th century concerning the interpretation of the passage 16a3-8 of the De interpretatione. We also discuss a new theory of signification which arose during the same period, a theory found in the works of Franciscan theologians or of theologians close to the Franciscan tradition. This theory is fundamentally opposed to the one transmitted by Boethius in his second commentary on the De interpretatione. (shrink)

This dialogue between Achilles and the Tortoise – in the spirit of those of Carroll and Hofstadter – argues against the idea, identified with the “traditional” interpretation of Aristotle’s “sea battle argument”, that future contingents are an exception to the Principle of Bivalence. It presents examples of correct everyday predictions, without which one would not be able to decide and to act; however, doing this is incompatible with the belief that the content of these predictions lacks a truth-value. (...) The cost of using a non-classical logic to cope with that may be too high for Stagirite’s defenders, and they would still need to explain why our ordinary predictions seem to have a binary truth-value. In the end, the paper suggests that the problem of future contingents – and of free will – is not a logical problem at all, but rather a limit on what an agent can believe before taking a decision. (shrink)

According to the doctrine in Christianity and the church in West Sulawesi, especially in Kalumpang and Bonehau areas, men and women who are legally married have the right to live together in a home. However, in the context of the tradition of the Tanalotong tribal community in West Sulawesi, there was still a traditional procession that must be followed by married couples. The couple would be separated for a certain period of time after the wedding party is over. This (...) traditional procession is called Ma’parappo. The researcher used a qualitative approach to present a theological interpretation of the implementation of the Ma’parappo tradition in Christian marriage. Therefore, this type of research is theological and ethnographic. Based on this interpretation, the researcher concluded that theologically, the Ma’parappo tradition is a traditional procession that is loaded with values and norms that govern the integrity of a marriage. This tradition is not a cultural ritual that goes against the teachings of the Bible. Therefore, Christians and churches in Kalumpang and Bonehau should not be antipathetic to the implementation of Ma’parappo in marriage. Contribution: This study also aims to reveal the positive values contained in the marriage tradition of the Tanalotong tribe which can benefit religion and churches in West Sulawesi, especially in Bonehau and Kalumpang sub-districts. Therefore, the findings of this article can contribute to the development of the encounter between Christianity and the culture of the Tanalotong tribe. (shrink)

Après avoir évoqué le caractère dérangeant, voire scandaleux, pour le croyant, des réponses de l'Ecriture et de la tradition juive au dramatique problème de la souffrance humaine, en général, et à celui de la maladie, en particulier, l'auteur procède à un inventaire sommaire des conceptions relatives à la maladie, telles qu'elles s'expriment dans les écrits bibliques canoniques (I), dans le Nouveau Testament (II) et dans la littérature rabbinique des premiers siècles (III), en les illustrant par des textes de référence, choisis (...) parmi ceux qui font autorité tant pour le judaïsme que pour le christianisme. Dans la dernière partie de son étude, l'auteur brosse, à grands traits, un panorama des opinions et des croyances des penseurs juifs orthodoxes, du Moyen-Âge à l'époque moderne, et des comportements qu'ils préconisent face à la maladie et aux souffrances qui en découlent. Il précise que, s'adressant à un public non versé dans les sciences juives, il a choisi de donner à son exposé "un caractère plus descriptif que spéculatif". (shrink)

I present some objections to traditional literary interpretation and consider subversive interpretation as a solution to these problems. Subversive interpretation may seem more scientific and more democratic than traditional interpretation, but it is open to doubt that it is more democratic.

This article responds to Bell’s notion of an Interpretive Arc, by considering his reinterpretation of Babel in the light of rabbinic traditions of interpretation. It is suggested that Bell’s interpretation of Babel is not altogether different from some rabbinic interpretations. This is particularly true of the tradition which lays great emphasis on discovering the plain sense of the text. However, there is a difference between Bell’s hermeneutic method and the rabbinic tradition of interpretation. The latter insists on (...) working with the original text, not a translation of the text. By attending to the original Hebrew, one can see how translation can close down meanings. Moreover, the notion of a hermeneutic arc, especially its assumption of a final stage of appropriation, does not fit well with a tradition that has continuing rituals of reading and interpretation. This is better conceived as an interpretive helix. (shrink)

A traditional interpretation holds that Kant's political theory simply constitutes an account of the constraints which reason places on the state's authority to regulate external action. Alexander Kaufman argues that this traditional interpretation succeeds neither as a faithful reading of Kant's texts nor as a plausible, philosophically sound reconstruction of a `Kantian' political theory. Rather, he argues that Kant's political theory articulates a positive conception of the state's role.

The article is devoted to the historical analysis of teleological argumentation evolution in the legal interpretation. The ideas of ancient Greek and Roman orators, philosophers and lawyers, which served as the basis for development of the idea of teleological interpretation in the European legal tradition, are examined. The history of teleological interpretation method development in European legal theory from Medieval jurists to sociological legal approach of the late 19 th and 20 th centuries is observed, as well (...) the existence of two main approaches in understanding the teleological method of interpretation, namely subjective-teleological and objective-teleological, is ascertained. The author states that there is a direct correlation between the concept of law and the approach to understanding of the teleological interpretation method. In conclusion, the author insists on the more progressive nature of the objective-teleological method of legal interpretation. (shrink)

Mugerauer seeks to make deconstruction and hermeneutics accessible to people in the environmental disciplines, including architecture, planning, urban studies, environmental studies, and cultural geography. Mugerauer demonstrates each methodology through a case study. The first study uses the traditional approach to recover the meaning of Jung's and Wittgenstein's houses by analyzing their historical, intentional contexts. The second case study utilizes deconstruction to explore Egyptian, French neoclassical, and postmodern attempts to use pyramids to constitute a sense of lasting presence. And the (...) third case study employs hermeneutics to reveal how the American understanding of the natural landscape has evolved from religious to secular to ecological since the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Arthur C. Danto did not live to witness the proliferation of AI in artistic creation. However, his philosophy of art offers key ideas about art that can provide an interesting perspective on artwork generated by artificial intelligence (AI). In this article, I analyze how his ideas about contemporary art, intention, interpretation, and authorship could be applied to the ongoing debate about AI and artistic creation. At the same time, it is also interesting to consider whether the incorporation of AI (...) into artistic creation marks a new chapter in the narrative, which seems to have reached its end, or if it represents a significant rupture with past artistic traditions. (shrink)

In the proposed article by Maxim Isaenko "Ukrainian Christian tradition of state creation... "on the question of application A comparative methodological approach is presented in the analysis conceptual dispositions available in Ukrainian, Polish, and Russian types of state-building and organization of power institutions. Studying socio-legal models that are characteristic of three Slavic peoples, vectors of kinship and distance are outlined understanding of the phenomena of the state, power, law.

Did John Dewey’s ‘new philosophy of education’ really try to dissolve the whole block of tradition or is his debt namely to educational core-concepts of neo-humanism deeper than he was prepared to acknowledge? After some general remarks on the process of reception as productive re-adaptation and its implication for historiography I will deal with Dewey’s own contexts that shape the interpretative grid through which he receives the tradition. Two case studies attempt to illustrate both continuity and discontinuity with a specific (...) part of this tradition, namely two critical perspectives within German neo-humanism: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Johann Friedrich Herbart. (shrink)

The article analyzes the translations and interpretations of the philosophical course Stephan Kalynovskyi taught at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 1729–1731. Drawing on unpublished translations, editorial corrections, letters, etc., the author reconstructs the history of this course’s translation for the first time, which began in the late 1960s. The author analyzes whether the researchers transcribed and translated the handwritten Latin text correctly and to what extent their interpretations of the course’s philosophical ideas are valid. The article demonstrates that researchers neither had (...) the proper knowledge of the scholastic philosophical tradition and, in some cases, its specific type of Latin nor created the necessary critical apparatus. It resulted in many flaws in their works. Ukrainian philosophers grossly misinterpreted Kalynovskyi’s course because they found the Enlightenment, Cartesian, and local Ukrainian ideas in the text, written in Paris in the 1630s. The author also demonstrates that contemporary studies of Kalynovskyi’s course mostly repeat dubious Soviet ideas, while several dishonest scholars even practice plagiarism. (shrink)

The volume gathers eleven studies on the intellectual exchanges during the Middle Ages among the three cultures which existed side by side in the same geographical area, i.e. the vast space from the British Isles to the Sahara Desert, and from the Douro Valley to the Hindu Kush. These three cultures – who may not be reduced to their confession or ethnicity – are historically related to each other in many respects, both material (trade, wars, marriages) and immaterial (the interdependence (...) among their religious narratives and their philosophical speculations). The studies herein presented focus on some peculiar examples of the transcultural interactions among exponents of the Arabic, Hebrew and Latin philosophical and theological traditions. While we do not want to downplay the fundamental role of the religious contexts, our focus on the linguistic denominations of these cultures aims at drawing attention to the conceptual medium, or rather media, which underlined and shaped the interactions and interplays among these traditions – interplays that were characterized by the contact of these three languages being used by people of different religious beliefs in their quest for knowledge: Spanish Jews writing in Arabic, Jews collaborating in the translation of Arabic texts into Latin through the vernacular, Western Muslims whose writings were read mainly by Jews and Christians in Hebrew and Latin. (shrink)

The propensity interpretation of fitness (PIF) is commonly taken to be subject to a set of simple counterexamples. We argue that three of the most important of these are not counterexamples to the PIF itself, but only to the traditional mathematical model of this propensity: fitness as expected number of offspring. They fail to demonstrate that a new mathematical model of the PIF could not succeed where this older model fails. We then propose a new formalization of the (...) PIF that avoids these (and other) counterexamples. By producing a counterexample-free model of the PIF, we call into question one of the primary motivations for adopting the statisticalist interpretation of fitness. In addition, this new model has the benefit of being more closely allied with contemporary mathematical biology than the traditional model of the PIF. (shrink)

This ambitious book presents a new interpretation of Chinese thought guided both by a philosopher's sense of mystery and by a sound philosophical theory of meaning. That dual goal, Hansen argues, requires a unified translation theory. It must provide a single coherent account of the issues that motivated both the recently untangled Chinese linguistic analysis and the familiar moral-political disputes. Hansen's unified approach uncovers a philosophical sophistication in Daoism that traditional accounts have overlooked. The Daoist theory treats the (...) imperious intuitionism that alienates critical thinkers as a feature of Confucianism alone. Freed from the view that Confucianism is the core of Chinese thought and from myopic Confucian interpretations, Chinese thinkers emerge as unmistakably philosophical. (shrink)

This article surveys some of the ways in which certain representative feminists from each of the Abrahamic religions have argued that patriarchal religious traditions have systematically excluded women from contributing to traditionally accepted interpretations of their sacred texts. It shows how, in response to this exclusion, feminist theologians from each of these religions have observed a need to interpret the scriptures of their traditions from the standpoint provided by their own experience as women–thus offering new interpretations which they perceive to (...) constitute a powerful tool with which to mount a critique of the theological traditions that had excluded them. The article concludes that, as women achieve greater opportunities for assessing their sacred texts themselves, this will have a growing effect on how the texts are read, on the religious institutions that claim to be justified by them and on the core religious concepts, such as ‘God’, that lie at the heart of those texts, whether their tradition be Jewish, Christian or Islamic. (shrink)

Ideal for students and scholars alike, this edition of _Zhuangzi _ includes the complete Inner Chapters, extensive selections from the Outer and Miscellaneous Chapters, and judicious selections from two thousand years of traditional Chinese commentaries, which provide the reader access to the text as well as to its reception and interpretation. A glossary, brief biographies of the commentators, a bibliography, and an index are also included.

_The Essential Analects_ offers a representative selection from Edward Slingerland's acclaimed translation of the full work, including passages covering all major themes. An appendix of selected traditional commentaries keyed to each passage provides access to the text and to its reception and interpretation. Also included are a glossary of terms and short biographies of the disciples of Confucius and the traditional commentators cited.

There are two competing interpretations of the modern synthesis theory of evolution: the dynamical (also know as ‘traditional’) and the statistical. The dynamical interpretation maintains that explanations offered under the auspices of the modern synthesis theory articulate the causes of evolution. It interprets selection and drift as causes of population change. The statistical interpretation holds that modern synthesis explanations merely cite the statistical structure of populations. This paper offers a defense of statisticalism. It argues that a change (...) in trait frequencies in a population can be attributed only to selection or drift against the background of a particular statistical description of the population. The traditionalist supposition that selection and drift are description‐independent causes of population change leads the dynamical interpretation into a dilemma: it must face a contradiction or accept the loss of explanatory power. (shrink)

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 1, January 2022.