There is an underlying assumption in the social sciences that consciousness and social life are ultimately classical physical/material phenomena. In this ground-breaking book, Alexander Wendt challenges this assumption by proposing that consciousness is, in fact, a macroscopic quantum mechanical phenomenon. In the first half of the book, Wendt justifies the insertion of quantum theory into social scientific debates, introduces social scientists to quantum theory and the philosophical controversy about its interpretation, and then defends the quantum consciousness hypothesis against the orthodox, (...) classical approach to the mind-body problem. In the second half, he develops the implications of this metaphysical perspective for the nature of language and the agent-structure problem in social ontology. Wendt's argument is a revolutionary development which raises fundamental questions about the nature of social life and the work of those who study it. (shrink)

A large part of Hilary Putnam’s latest work is spent on disagreeing with John McDowell’s conceptualist view of perception which has been expressed in Mind and World and the McDowellian disjunctivism. Nevertheless, Putnam does not articulate which specific aspects of McDowell’s view he disagrees with. This paper endeavours to: first, clarify what Putnam’s disagreement with McDowell precisely is based on an investigation of the views held by each of the two philosophers regarding the problem of the mind and (...) perception, as well as their attitudes toward the relevant sciences; and second, examine Putnam’s argument against McDowell, then reconstruct it in its most plausible form. Before diving into Putnam’s exact disagreement with McDowell in §3, I consider it important to first clarify the common stance that the two philosophers share, namely the stance which opposes reductionism and eliminativism about the mind. Following that, I will explicate the views held by each of the two philosophers as well as point out where they diverge or disagree on. We will see that Putnam has appreciated the virtue in McDowell’s conceptualist view of doxastic perception. Nevertheless, Putnam argues that perceptual experience is not exhausted by what must be put under the actualisation of the perceiving subject’s conceptual capacities, and there is the dimension of ‘sense impression’, together with the possibility for science’s intervention to our discussion on perception, that has been neglected by McDowell. Finally, in §4, I will discuss some problems I have found in Putnam’s argument and give my own solutions in the hope of contributing to today’s current debates. I argue that ‘sense impression’, though it exceeds the perceiver’s acquired conceptual capacities, must in principle be conceptual insofar as it can be intelligible to us. Putnam’s criticism of McDowell only stands if McDowell’s conceptualist view is understood as a static first-order metaphysical picture of human perception. Meanwhile, Putnam’s proposal for science’s intervention should be taken not as aiming at a better substitutive picture to McDowell’s, but as advocating a certain attitude towards our enterprise of studying human perception which is always open to possible collaborations between different disciplines as well as to possible critiques from future reflections. (shrink)

This book evaluates the widespread preference in philosophy of mind for varieties of property dualism over other alternatives to physicalism. It takes the standard motivations for property dualism as a starting point and argues that these lead directly to nonphysical substances resembling the soul of traditional metaphysics. In the first half of the book, the author clarifies what is at issue in the choice between theories that posit nonphysical properties only and those that posit nonphysical substances. The crucial (...) question, he argues, is whether one posits nonphysical things that satisfy an Aristotelian-Cartesian independence definition of substance: nonphysical things that could exist in the absence of anything else. In the second half, the author argues that standard and Russellian monist forms of property dualism are far less plausible than we usually suppose. Most significantly, the presuppositions of one of the leading arguments for property dualism, the conceivability argument, lead by parity of reasoning to the view that conscious subjects are nonphysical substances. He concludes that if you posit nonphysical properties in response to the mind-body problem then you should be prepared to posit nonphysical substances as well. Mainstream philosophy of mind must take nonphysical substances far more seriously than it has done for the best part of a century. The Mind-Body Problem and Metaphysics will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Although physicalism is a dominant position in contemporary philosophy of mind and metaphysics, there are surprisingly very few serious arguments for physicalism, which may contribute to the revival of anti-physicalism in recent decades. In this article, I develop a causal argument for physicalism in general, inspired by the causal argument for reductive physicalism. By comparing each pair of premises, I argue that, while the causal argument for reductive physicalism is controversial, the causal argument for physicalism simpliciter is (...) promising. (shrink)

Since Descartes’s division of the human subject into mental and physical components in the seventeenth century, there has been a great deal of discussion about how—indeed, whether or not—our mental states bring about our physical behavior. Through historical and contemporary readings, this collection explores this lively and important issue. In four parts, this anthology introduces the problem of mental causation, explores the debate sparked by Donald Davidson's anomalous monism, examines Frank Jackson's knowledge argument for the view that qualia are epiphenomenal, (...) and investigates attempts to employ the controversial concept of supervenience to explain mental causation. (shrink)

The relation between body and mind is one of the oldest riddles that has puzzled mankind. That material and mental events may interact is accepted even by the law: our mental capacity to concentrate on the task can be seriously reduced by drugs. Physical and chemical processes may act upon the mind; and when we are writing a difficult letter, our mind acts upon our body and, through a chain of physical events, upon the mind of (...) the recipient of the letter. This is what the authors of this book call the 'interaction of mental and physical events'. We know very little about this interaction; and according to recent philosophical fashions this is explained by the alleged fact that we have brains but no thoughts. The authors of this book stress that they cannot solve the body mind problem; but they hope that they have been able to shed new light on it. Eccles especially with his theory that the brain is a detector and amplifier; a theory that has given rise to important new developments, including new and exciting experiments; and Popper with his highly controversial theory of 'World 3'. They show that certain fashionable solutions which have been offered fail to understand the seriousness of the problems of the emergence of life, or consciousness and of the creativity of our minds. In Part I, Popper discusses the philosophical issue between dualist or even pluralist interaction on the one side, and materialism and parallelism on the other. There is also a historical review of these issues. In Part II, Eccles examines the mind from the neurological standpoint: the structure of the brain and its functional performance under normal as well as abnormal circumstances. The result is a radical and intriguing hypothesis on the interaction between mental events and detailed neurological occurrences in the cerebral cortex. Part III, based on twelve recorded conversations, reflects the exciting exchange between the authors as they attempt to come to terms with their opinions. (shrink)

Vivarium (VIV) is an international journal dedicated to the history of philosophy and intellectual life from the early Middle Ages to the early modern era. It is widely recognized as an unrivalled resource for the history of logic, semantics, epistemology, and metaphysics. It welcomes articles on medieval, Renaissance and early-modern thinkers, their ideas, arguments, and writings, as well as the institutional and intellectual life of this period. -/- Editions of texts as brief appendices to the main articles may be (...) added. Articles on early-modern philosophy are welcome if they link it with the medieval and Renaissance traditions. Articles on Arabic and Jewish thought are welcome if there is a clear connection with the Latin tradition. Vivarium also publishes regularly special issues devoted to a particular theme or philosopher. (shrink)

CURRENT CONTROVERSIES about the Mind-Body Identity Theory form a case-study for the investigation of the methods practiced by linguistic philosophers. Recent criticisms of these methods question that philosophers can discern lines of demarcation between "categories" of entities, and thereby diagnose "conceptual confusions" in "reductionist" philosophical theories. Such doubts arise once we see that it is very difficult, and perhaps impossible, to draw a firm line between the "conceptual" and the "empirical," and thus to differentiate between a statement embodying a (...) conceptual confusion and one that expresses a surprising empirical result. The proponent of the Identity Theory are identical with certain brain-processes) holds that his opponents' arguments to the effect that empirical inquiry could not identify brain-processes and sensations are admirable illustrations of this difficulty. For, he argues, the classifications of linguistic expressions that are the ground of his opponents' criticism are classifications of a language which is as it is because it is the language spoken at a given stage of empirical inquiry. But the sort of empirical results that would show brain processes and sensations to be identical would also bring about changes in our ways of speaking. These changes would make these classifications out of date. To argue against the Identity Theory on the basis of the way we talk now is like arguing against an assertion that supernatural phenomena are identical with certain natural phenomena on the basis of the way in which superstitious people talk. There is simply no such thing as a method of classifying linguistic expressions that has results guaranteed to remain intact despite the results of future empirical inquiry. Thus in this area there is no method which will have the sort of magisterial neutrality of which linguistic philosophers fondly dream. (shrink)

The ArgumentLike many controversies in science, the one between Freud and Jung is overloaded with ad hominem arguments despite the incompatibility of such arguments with the pretensions of both sides to attain scientific ad rem validity. Unlike natural scientists, Freud and Jung regarded their own ad hominem arguments as relevant to general and impersonal truths. They practically legitimized such a use claiming to have a clinical basis for the rejection of the opponent's objections by a de-validating analysis of the opponent's (...) personality as a whole. The argument of this paper is that the de-validating strategy was neither an inevitable psychological outcome of the intricate interpersonal relationships in analytic situations nor the logical consequence of any clinical or scientific psycho-analytical discovery. It followed from the epistemological invalid pretension to have a general theory of mind which could explain by mental analysis the existence of “unreasonable opinions,” and the application of the same principles to the opinion that the theory itself is unreasonable. Such a pretension, apparently specific to mystical traditions in theology and metaphysics, was deeply rooted in the modern epistemological tradition. The paper examines the impact of the different branches of that tradition on Freud and Jung's respective ideologies, theories, and practice, including the ad hominem malpractice. (shrink)

METAPHYSICS is the most controversial and controverted of the philosophical disciplines. I want to argue, nevertheless, that if it did not already exist in some form, then it would be necessary to invent it. For the need to think fundamentally is not incidental to the inquiring energy of the human mind. That energy has taken form as myth, meditation, and reflection among a variety of peoples of diverse cultures. In our rather abstract and articulate culture, however, fundamental (...) thinking has taken the rational, argumentative and conceptual form of discourse. (shrink)

"Death is a subject which has always been high on the philosophical agenda. But strangely enough the historically and traditionally most important aspect of that subject - the so-called transcendent problem of death, i.e. the question of what actually happens to mind or consciousness after physical death - is almost taboo-laden within modern academic philosophy." "It is, however, the contention of this book that a discussion of the transcendent problem of death makes good sense even on contemporary premises, granted (...) the fulfillment of certain preconditions that should not be rejected offhand." "The main parts of this book deal with questions concerning the viability of preconditions such as mind-body dualism, a substance-theory of mind, a non-reductionist view of personal identity, the notion of 'a minimal self', the persistence of the phenomenal 'now' etc." "In this connection the author presents and evaluates a number of arguments pertaining to the view that, even though an individual mind may contain outward-directed functions that allow it to relate to physical and social surroundings, it has an ontologically peculiar self-enclosed mode of being relative to the physical world. Hereby an understanding of 'the ontology of mind' is achieved, which indicates the possibility of a revival of some old and extremely important metaphysical questions which are commonly and unjustly neglected - for instance the transcendent problem of death." --Book Jacket. (shrink)

This book provides a clear and comprehensive introduction to the work of Willard van Orman Quine, the most important and influential American philosopher of the post-war period. An understanding of Quine's work is essential for anyone who wishes to follow contemporary debates in the philosophy of language, the philosophy of mind and metaphysics. Hookway traces the development of Quine's work from his early criticisms of logical positivism and empiricism to his more recent theories about mind and meaning. (...) He gives particular attention to Quine's controversial arguments concerning the indeterminacy of translation, comparing Quine's views with those of Davidson, Putnam and others. Hookway concludes by offering a critical appraisal of Quine's approach and of some of his fundamental philosophical commitments. This lucid and balanced study will be essential reading for students of philosophy. It will also be invaluable for students in the social sciences and other disciplines who are looking for a clear introduction to Quine's ideas. (shrink)

Even after many years of empirical and conceptual research there are underlying controversies which lead scholars to dispute identity theory. One of the most influential examples is Kripke’s modal argument leading to the rejection of the claim that pain and C-fibres firing are identical. The aim of the first part of the paper is to expose that Kripke does not rigorously distinguish the meaning of individual relata entering the identity relation, and therefore his claim about the faultiness of the analogy (...) between propositions “heat is molecular motion”, and “pain is C-fibres firing”, is mistaken. Moreover, whilst much emphasis within metaphysics of mind-brain relations has been placed upon conscious phenomenal states, it might be worthwhile to also consider cases of unconscious phenomenal states. If one admits the unconscious phenomenal states, such as unconscious pain, then, Kripke’s claim is further discredited by the fact that even pain can be individuated through its contingent property. Identity statements about pain could therefore be analogous to any other identity statements. The second part of the paper focuses on the relevance of the modal argument in confrontation with empirical evidence. It argues against the assumption embedded in the modal argument that an identical neurobiological pattern occurs regardless of whether conscious pain is present or completely absent. (shrink)

The concepts of mind and soul have occupied the thoughts of philosophers throughout the ages and have given rise to numerous conflicting theories. This book provides an incisive and stimulating introduction to central tropics in the philosophy of mind. The author writes about the differences and connections between the ideas of ‘mind’ and ‘soul’ and about the metaphysical issues of Dualism, Solipsism, Behaviourism and Materialism. In the course of her account she discusses the arguments of several philosophers (...) including Plato, Descartes, Wittgenstein, Ryle and Hume. Review of the original edition, 1974: "It is clear, incisive and unidiosyncratic. Issues and theories are discussed simply yet without serious distortion or vapidity, and the book is full of argument.’ – Stewart Candish, Mind. (shrink)

Over the last decade, attention has crawled from out of the shadows into the philosophical limelight with several important books and widely read articles. Carolyn Dicey Jennings has been a key player in the attention revolution, actively publishing in the area and promoting awareness. This book was much anticipated by insiders and does not disappoint. It is in no way redundant with respect to other recent monographs, covering both a different range of material and developing novel positions throughout. The book (...) might have been called The Attending Self, since Jennings defines attention as mental prioritization controlled by the self. This invocation of the self is among her central innovations, and may prove to be the main source of controversy. I will highlight points of contention here, but want to emphasize at the outset that the book is essential reading for anyone interested in attention. Jennings also contributes to a range of other debates, which will help a broader audience appreciate the importance this topic.After a brief introduction, Jennings provides “a philosophical landscape” of attention (chap. 2), tracing the concept through history. This is an invaluable achievement that will be welcomed by both newcomers and veterans. Jennings exhibits enormous breadth, covering areas that contemporary philosophers of mind tend to neglect: medieval philosophy, Buddhist thought, and phenomenology, to name a few. We also get perspectives on attention from core figures in the Western canon, such as Descartes, Locke, and Kant, as well as thinkers who gave the topic a more political inflection: Mary Wollstonecraft and W. E. B. DuBois. Jennings surveys contemporary literature as well, locating recent work in these older lineages. Some authors get more treatment later in the book (e.g., William James and Wayne Wu). Overall, Jennings provides the best overview of this history I have seen. She proves that attention is not a new topic, but one with deep roots and one that can inform current debates; Jennings draws on these roots throughout. I would love to see a companion piece surveying scientific theories, including “gain control” and “biased competition,” which get little airtime in the book. Some recent philosophical theories are under-explored as well, including Chris Mole’s concept of cognitive unison (Jennings discusses other aspects of his view), Carlos Montemayor and Harry Haladjian’s exploration of attention’s diversity (we get a touch of this), and my own proposal that attention is a gateway to working memory (not mentioned here). That said, no extant survey is more complete.Chapter 3 begins with the empirical claim that attention is regulated by slow brainwaves, and then takes up two issues. The first is mental causation. Endorsing moderate emergentism, Jennings argues that slow brain waves are causally efficacious even though they are not reducible to lower-level processes. (The metaphysics and neuroscience are presented accessibly, aided by three appendixes.) Second, Jennings argues that these slow brain waves indicate that attention is controlled by the self. As someone who was never moved by the mental causation problem—I don’t think overdetermination threatens efficacy—I would have welcomed more development of this second issue. For one thing, in linking attention to subjective control, Jennings eschews the idea that there can be purely “bottom-up” attention driven by stimulus features alone. This goes against the orthodoxy in attention science, and makes it hard for her to accommodate phenomena such as “pop-out,” or the commonsense idea that attention can be “captured” by a sudden flash or loud sound. For another thing, I wanted to hear more on why Jennings relates slow brain waves to the self. Does this include the slow waves that occur during deep sleep? Is there even such a thing as the self? Is there one self or many? How do slow brain waves reflect our interests, projects, values, self-conceptions, autobiographical narratives, or social identities? Does the social self invoked by Wollstonecraft and DuBois gain a foothold here? The whole chapter campaigns against metaphysical reductionism, but arrives at a perspective on the self that will strike some readers as highly reductive.In the fourth chapter, Jennings sheds further light on her conjecture that attention involves the self by advancing the thesis that attention endows sensory information with meaning. On the face of it, this may sound implausible. Object recognition, reading, and many other meaning-involving processes can take place outside of attention and outside of consciousness. But Jennings has a richer notion of “meaning” in mind. She develops the idea of “subject unity,” which is imposition of structure on perception that reflects the interests of the perceiving subject. This, she claims, is what brings perception into the space of reasons. Along the way, she has interesting observations about binding, feature integration, and demonstrative reference. The material is highly original, and Jennings’s postulation of interest-based perceptual organization is compelling. At the same time, one might wonder whether interests are really relegated to the ambit of attentional control. Consider the cocktail party effect, wherein one’s own name captures attention. This implies a preattentive filter that reflects our interests. Emotionally charged words, facial expressions, and dangerous objects also work this way, and social biases can operate preattentively as well. If these reflect our interests, then meaning may arise outside attention.Jennings’s fifth chapter explores the relationship between attention and consciousness. Some authors have argued that attention is necessary and sufficient for consciousness. Jennings focuses primarily on the necessity claim. She does not systematically review the empirical literature here, but she addresses some of the key findings, and effectively rebuts studies that allege to find consciousness outside attention. She does not rest her case there, however. Instead, she identifies a new class of examples that purport to establish the possibility of consciousness without attention. Her central example she calls “conscious entrainment,” which is what we experience when engaged in habitual or skilled activities. Other possible examples touched on in the chapter include hypervigilance in individuals with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), passive movie watching, dreaming, and “attentional neglect.” These states all involve intense focus, Jennings admits, but not attention. To some readers this may sound contradictory. Isn’t focus a kind of attention? Don’t these states of absorption involve stimulus selection and enhancement of relevant features, suppression of distractors, and other hallmarks of attention? Jennings says none of this is tantamount to attention. Recall that she thinks attention is controlled by the self. In these cases, we are invited to imagine that the self takes a passive role: control is either ceded to the world (movie watching) or to previously mastered routines (skills and habits). Thus, Jennings’s claim that there is no attention in these cases hangs on her contentious thesis that attention requires a controlling self. One might also push back by arguing that, in some of Jennings’s allegedly selfless examples, the self remains involved. Skilled activities and hypervigilance, for example, can reflect personal interests.Skills and hypervigilance get more airtime in chapter 6. There, Jennings turns to questions of responsibility—a neglected topic in attention research. The chapter begins with a manslaughter trial in which the teenage plaintiff was given a light sentence because the judge evidently believed that the teen’s ADHD compromised his ability to control his actions. The example may be a bit triggering for people who have a personal relationship with this diagnosis, but, putting that aside, Jennings uses it to introduce the important concept of attention-based control. With reduced control, Jennings argues, comes reduced responsibility. I am inclined to see ADHD as involving dysregulation of attention (difficulty disengaging and dividing attention, for example) rather than diminished attention, but that can still be characterized as an issue with control of attention; therefore ADHD still illustrates Jennings’s point that there is a link between responsibility and control of attention. This, it turns out, is only half of her story. Having argued for this link, one might expect Jennings to follow Wayne Wu, who contends that attention is necessary for action, and hence for responsibility. She does not. Instead, she says argues that responsibility can also arise in cases of “strategic automaticity.” This brings us back to skills. When skills are deployed, action is governed by learned pairings between stimuli and responses. The choice to exercise a skill requires attention, so attention is needed for being a responsible agent, but once a skill kicks in, attention is no longer required, and one can be held responsible for actions performed skillfully—thus attention is not required for responsibility tout court. Jennings addresses an opposing view (defended by Wu, Ellen Fridland, and Barbara Montero), according to which skills involve “automatic attention” rather than no attention. Jennings worries that this move will collapse the distinction between attention and other kinds of selection and filtering that occur throughout the nervous system, including the retina. She says that the attentional interpretation of skilled action is at odds with the lack of top-down reweighing of sensory inputs, regulated by lateral frontal cortex. These objections to automatic attention warrant response. My own view is that attention involves broadcasting to working memory, so retinal filtering is ruled out. Jennings’s insistence on top-down reweighing will not move those who believe attention can be purely bottom-up. For all that, I side with Jennings in wanting to allow for responsibility without attentional control. I think we can be responsible for implicit biases, for example. I also think attentional control is insufficient for responsibility, as when we act under duress.Jennings offers fresh perspective on the nature of attention, and its role in meaningful perception, consciousness, action, and responsibility. Each chapter can be read separately, but they hang together well, and each reflects her thesis that attention is essentially linked to the self. Though I am skeptical of that strong claim, we would do well to follow Jennings in regarding attention as interest-laden interface between mind and world. I look forward to a sequel in which attention is related to richer conceptions of identity, and where the political consequences of this link are actively explored. Meanwhile, one can hardly fault Jennings for covering too little. She tackles a remarkable range of topics, from metaphysics to ethics. Her arguments throughout demand response, repay careful study, and propel the field forward. (shrink)

This book provides a radical alternative to naturalistic theories of content, and offers a new conception of the place of mind in the world. Confronting the scientific conception of the nature of reality that has dominated the Anglo-American philosophical tradition, Morris presents a detailed analysis of content and propositional attitudes based on the idea that truth is a value. He rejects the causal theory of the explanation of behavior and replaces it with an alternative that depends upon a rich (...) conception of the behavior we explain with references to state of mind. His lucid and detailed exposition of this controversial arguments poses an emphatic challenge to the naturalistic orthodoxy in areas as diverse as metaphysics, ethics, and cognitive science. (shrink)

The purpose of the dissertation is to defend and elaborate on internal realism, a doctrine first put forward by Hilary Putnam. Chapter 1 surveys the current philosophical conceptions of truth and reference, a necessary background for the ensuing discussion. Chapter 2 explains the metaphysical realism vs. internal realism controversy. Internal realism is construed as consisting of three theses: the ontological mind-dependence of the world, verificationism about truth , and conceptual relativism . Chapter 3 offers an internal realist account of (...) reference. The key idea is that the references of words get fixed by justification conditions of sentences. It also discusses Putnam's controversial Twin Earth and model-theoretic arguments. These arguments might seem to pull into different directions, but they can be reconciled, and they fit well with the internal realist account. Chapter 4 presents an internal realist account of truth. Within a conceptual scheme, given the reference of words, truth can be defined by Tarkis's method. Conceptual schemes themselves are adequate if they can support a choiceworthy and successful practice. It is also shown--through an analysis of Putnam's brains-in-a-vat argument--that internal realism leaves no room for global skepticism. Chapter 5 defends the much maligned notion of conceptual scheme. It is argued that the analytic-synthetic and the observational-theoretical distinctions, which provided its basis, can be revised so that the familiar criticism are rendered harmless. The key idea is that the distinctions are relative to the perspective of an interpreter. The revised notion of conceptual scheme can also withstand Davidson's attack and other frequent objections. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Leibniz and Bayle: Manicheism and Dialectic DAVID NORTON LEIBNIZ' CLAIM that this is the "best of all possible worlds" has seemed so prima facie absurd that his critics have often considered the assertion adequately refuted by their pointing to things which are clearly "bad" and which might conceivably be "better." The paradigm case is Voltaire's Candide, which is certainly an effective refutation of Leibniz' claim at this level. We (...) can, however, by taking another point of view find what appear to be other absurdities in Leibniz' metaphysics. The point of view I wish to take, or attempt to take, is that of Pierre Bayle. I wish to suggest some objections to Leibniz which Bayle may have felt, but which he did not make explicit. Such an undertaking will, hopefully, add to our understanding of both Leibniz and Bayle. I What I propose to do is unorthodox, or at least unusual, and for that reason it is extremely important that the reader have from the very outset a clear idea of what is being undertaken. I can best clarify my aims, I think, by first attending briefly to some historical matters. Between 1695 and 1699 Bayle and Leibniz carried on a lively controversy over the latter's metaphysical views, though the debate was limited almost entirely to the notion of pre-established harmony. This controversy is well enough known that we need not stop over its details; in summary, Bayle first admits delight at what appears to be a new metaphysical explanation of the union of mind and body, but then goes on to argue that, after all, Leibniz' system is either no more than a reformulation of occasionalism, or impossible, since it violates clear and accepted metaphysical canons? Now, so far as we know, Bayle did not comment further on Leibniz' metaphysics, though the latter was * I wish to thank Prof. Harry M. Bracken, Arizona State University, and Prof. Richard H. Popkin, University of California, San Diego, for the suggestions and criticisms which they made of an earlier form of this paper. Their suggestions were all enlightening, if not all adopted-meaning, of course, that they would probably not agree with all that I here suggest. x Pierre Bayle, Dictionaire historique et critique, 5=. 6dition, revue, corrig6e, et augment6e, avec la vie de l'auteur, par Mr. Des Maizeaux, 4 tomes (Amsterdam, Leide. La Haye, Utrecht: 1740), article "Rorarius," reins. H. and L. For a fuller account of the Bayle-Leibniz controversy, see Austin Farrer, "Editor's Introduction," in G. W. Leibniz, Theodicy, ed. Austin Farrer, trans. E. M. Huggard (London: 1951), pp. 7-47, esp. pp. 33-47. 24 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY eager to continue the controversy, and did so, his final effort being a gigantic one, the Essais de Thdodicde. Unfortunately, Bayle died before the Thdodicde was published and was deprived accordingly of any opportunity to reply to it. Bayle did, however, leave in the Dictionaire historique et critique a number of arguments against various metaphysical positions. The point of my paper is to show that certain of these arguments are applicable to Leibniz' system, and that applied to that system they reveal features of it which we might otherwise have overlooked. Bayle adduces arguments which seem with only slight modification to point directly at Leibniz--though without indicating that he has Leibniz in mind. I hope first of all to show what these arguments are and in what sense they refute Leibniz. I have said that Bayle gives no indication that these arguments of his apply to Leibniz; strictly speaking, this is correct. This does not mean, however, that I am understaking an unjustified wild goose chase through the Dictionaire : Bayle himself offers the motivation which has led to this study when he says in "Rorarius" (rem. L) that he has withheld some objections to Leibniz' opinions on the ground that these are no more objections to Leibniz than to certain other philosophers: "Je m'abstiens aussi de toutes les Objections qui ne sont pas plus contraires ~t son sentiment qu'~t celui de quelques autres Philosophes." In one sense then this paper can be thought of as my speculations of what these waived objections are... (shrink)

The author maintains that "man’s chief purpose in life consists in wanting to know the truth and to experience the real." But in the tradition of Kant and recent continental philosophy, he claims that one can know the real only as constituted by the mind, not as it is in itself. Rauche goes on to conclude, that all truths are perspectival and that the Truth can never be known—though it remains our highest aspiration. The perspectival character of truth is (...) the foundation upon which Rauche develops his position. He claims that truths, as perspectives, are in controversial relations to one another which state of affairs he calls a multiple of broken logos and which reveal a natural reference within the permanent state of crisis of human truth. Rauche puts it as follows: "... if man and his fellowman strive towards the Truth earnestly, they must accept each other’s truths as being complementary to each other." At this point men will become conscious of the fact that they are referred to one another. Thus the controversial relations of man’s truths are a permanent crisis which is the source both of individuality and of community. The experience of the permanent crisis of truths competing with one another is what Rauche means by "actuality." The positive acceptance of the permanent crisis of human truth is the empirical basis of the moral ought. Since human truths are complementary and refer to each other, it is "in their mutual willingness to respect each other’s claims and to see their existential needs and interests in the light of those of the other that [men] may be said to lead an ethical existence." The empirical ground of the moral ought is then seen to be the controversial relation existing between human truths. Rauche rejects in principle any attempt to constitute a theoretical ethics on a rationally conceived principle. Since the moral ought is grounded in the controversial relation existing between human truths, moral principles can be experienced only in our dealings with our fellow man, e.g., in the family and society—wherever the relationship of I-Thou is found. In effect, as in the case of truth, the moral ought appears in the field of actuality; and the crisis in truth is revealed as an ethical ground. The same permanent crisis which is the ground of truth and of the moral ought is regarded by Rauche as the basis of reality. Truth, moral existence, and reality are all conjoined in actuality. The permanent crisis of human truths is an empirical limit which has logical, epistemological, ethical and metaphysical significance. And, Rauche concludes, "... it becomes clear that man’s real existence can never be derived from a rationally conceived essence, but that essence is the way in which man realizes himself by projecting himself into his environment from the peculiar situation in which he happens to find himself, and which induces him to constitute the world in controversy with his fellowman." This is a tightly argued book and Rauche remains consistent with his assumptions throughout. One wishes, however, that the author would examine some of his assumptions. One looks in vain for a single argument which establishes that, e.g., the Truth which is unknowable and yet is the indispensable point to which men strive does in fact exist. If it does not, and Rauche has given us no reason to believe otherwise, then the basis of complementarity of conflicting human truths is lost.—J. J. F. (shrink)

Hans Reichenbach’s pragmatic treatment of the problem of induction in his later works on inductive inference was, and still is, of great interest. However, it has been dismissed as a pseudo-solution and it has been regarded as problematically obscure. This is, in large part, due to the difficulty in understanding exactly what Reichenbach’s solution is supposed to amount to, especially as it appears to offer no response to the inductive skeptic. For entirely different reasons, the significance of Bertrand Russell’s classic (...) attempt to solve Hume’s problem is also both obscure and controversial. Russell accepted that Hume’s reasoning about induction was basically correct, but he argued that given the centrality of induction in our cognitive endeavors something must be wrong with Hume’s basic assumptions. What Russell effectively identified as Hume’s (and Reichenbach’s) failure was the commitment to a purely extensional empiricism. So, Russell’s solution to the problem of induction was to concede extensional empiricism and to accept that induction is grounded by accepting both a robust essentialism and a form of rationalism that allowed for a priori knowledge of universals. So, neither of those doctrines is without its critics. On the one hand, Reichenbach’s solution faces the charges of obscurity and of offering no response to the inductive skeptic. On the other hand, Russell’s solution looks to be objectionably ad hoc absent some non-controversial and independent argument that the universals that are necessary to ground the uniformity of nature actually exist and are knowable. This particular charge is especially likely to arise from those inclined towards purely extensional forms of empiricism. In this paper the significance of Reichenbach’s solution to the problem of induction will be made clearer via the comparison of these two historically important views about the problem of induction. The modest but important contention that will be made here is that the comparison of Reichenbach’s and Russell’s solutions calls attention to the opposition between extensional and intensional metaphysical presuppositions in the context of attempts to solve the problem of induction. It will be show that, in effect, what Reichenbach does is to establish an important epistemic limitation of extensional empiricism. So, it will be argued here that there is nothing really obscure about Reichenbach’s thoughts on induction at all. He was simply working out the limits of extensional empiricism with respect to inductive inference in opposition to the sort of metaphysics favored by Russell and like-minded thinkers. (shrink)

The questions of whether there is a shared nature common to all human beings and, if so, what essential qualities define this nature are among the most widely discussed topics in the history of philosophy and remain the subject of perennial interest and controversy. This book offers a metaphysical investigation of the composition of the human essence-that is, with what is a human being identical or what types of parts are necessary for a human being to exist: an immaterial (...) class='Hi'>mind, a physical body, a functioning brain, a soul? It also considers the criterion of identity for a human being across time and change-that is, what is required for a human being to continue existing as a person despite undergoing physical and psychological changes over time? Jason Eberl's investigation presents and defends a theoretical perspective from the thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas. Advancing beyond descriptive historical analysis, this book places Aquinas's account of human nature into direct comparison with several prominent contemporary theories: substance dualism, emergentism, animalism, constitutionalism, four-dimensionalism, and embodied mind theory. There are practical implications of exploring these theories as they inform various conclusions regarding when human beings first come into existence-at conception, during gestation, or after birth-and how we ought to define death for human beings. Finally, each of these viewpoints offers a distinctive rationale as to whether, and if so how, human beings may survive death. This book's central argument is that the Thomistic account of human nature includes several desirable features that other theories lack and offers a cohesive portrait of one's continued existence from conception through life to death and beyond. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 413-414 [Access article in PDF] Katerina Ierodiakonou, editor. Byzantine Philosophy and its Ancient Sources. New York: Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press, 2002. Pp. vii + 309. Cloth, $55.00.Talking about, let alone writing on "Byzantine Philosophy" within the English-speaking philosophical community could cause embarrassment. It is only recently that this field has gained a few notable entries in philosophical works of reference (...) like the Routledge Encyclopedia or the Oxford Dictionary—but still it cannot make its way into the histories of medieval philosophy, not to mention the general histories of philosophy. Byzantine Philosophy aims at providing good reasons for changing that tendency and seeks to "persuade [us] that Byzantine Philosophy is worth investigating" (13).The book contains eleven articles, plus Ierodiakonou's introduction and Linos Benakis's review of the current research, read in part at a Conference held in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1997, but it is more than a mere collection of conference papers. Written both by well-established and younger scholars from diverse disciplines, the volume focuses on the explicit or implicit dialogue of Byzantine thinkers with ancient Greek philosophy, one of the two ingredients of Byzantine Philosophy (the other being patristic thought).Ierodiakonou in her introduction prefers to make a few—but penetrating—remarks on the nature of Byzantine Philosophy and its proper study. Her arguments are presented in a non-conclusive form and they are intended to serve as guidelines to further research. While a longer discussion of the issues involved would be welcome by the less-specialized reader, her choice seems reasonable as long as one thinks—rightly in my opinion—that it is premature to embark on general methodological suggestions about how to investigate Byzantine Philosophy, or believes that scrutinizing the texts themselves is a more promising approach at this relatively early stage of research (as perhaps always).With one exception, each article deals at length with a special issue spanning from metaphysics to political philosophy and concentrates on individual thinkers from the patristic era to the Renaissance; the absence of philosophical theology is surprising. Expectedly the presence of Aristotle can be traced in logic: in an eleventh-century humble handbook (thoroughly analyzed by Jonathan Barnes); in Psellos's Paraphrase on Aristotle's De Interpretationeand in the anti-logical movement in the fourteenth century (Ierodiakonou); as well as in John of Damascus's discussion of will (Michael Frede). On the Christian-neoplatonic tradition are founded a nominalistic position of Basil of Caesarea concerning the semantics of proper names (Paul Kalligas); a sixth-century treatise On Political Science (Dominic O'Meara); Psellos's conception of philosophy (John Duffy); and the peculiar case of Chaldaean Oracles and their commentators (Polymnia Athanassiadi). The last article on the Renaissance controversy between Plethon and Scholarios over the primacy of Plato or Aristotle (George Karamanolis) brings the volume appropriately to an end.That Platonism and Aristotelianism nearly monopolize the contributors' concerns is justified but this must not give the simplified impression that Byzantine Philosophy can be exclusively explained against this background. Other Greek philosophical traditions, such as Stoicism, are mentioned as well, and the fourteenth-century interest in skepticism is densely discussed (Börje Bydén on Metochites). The first essay is an informative outline of the Greek-Latin Philosophical Interaction (Sten Ebbesen), whose inclusion in the volume makes a similar survey of ancient Greek-Byzantine philosophical interaction more warranted.The contributors do not confine themselves to resolving specific problems of a Quellenforschung, by identifying parallel texts or recurring arguments in order to establish the obvious dependence of Byzantine thought on Greek Philosophy. In fact, as many articles show, it is the very analysis of patristic and Byzantine texts that makes us return to their ancient sources and also makes clear how this revisiting can deepen our understanding of the texts and the philosophical problems they are trying to present or to solve. When doing philosophy, Byzantine thinkers have ancient Greek concepts in their minds, and quite often have ancient texts in their hands. Now it is up to us to evaluate... (shrink)

The emphasis is always on the arguments used, and the way one position develops from another. By the end of the book the reader is afforded both a grasp of the state of the controversy, and how we got there.

We discuss the ‘Consciousness Causes Collapse Hypothesis’ (CCCH), the interpretation of quantum mechanics according to which consciousness solves the measurement problem. At first, it seems that the very hypothesis that consciousness causally acts over matter counts as a reductio of CCCH. However, CCCH won’t go so easily. In this paper we attempt to bring new light to the discussion. We distinguish the ontology of the interpretation (the positing of a causally efficacious consciousness as part of the furniture of reality) from (...) metaphysics (the metaphysical character of that consciousness). That distinction allows us to map the philosophical theories of consciousness compatible with quantum mechanics under the tenets of CCCH. Also, it indicates that the problem will have to be discussed at a metaphysical level rather than at the physical level. Our analysis corroborates recent arguments to the effect that this interpretation is not ruled out so easily. (shrink)

_Philosophy for A Level_ is an accessible textbook for the new 2017 AQA Philosophy syllabus. Structured closely around the AQA specification this textbook covers the two units Metaphysics of God and Metaphysics of Mind, in an engaging and student-friendly way. With chapters on 'How to do philosophy', exam preparation providing students with the philosophical skills they need to succeed, and an extensive glossary to support understanding, this book is ideal for students studying philosophy. Each chapter includes: argument (...) maps that help to develop student’s analytical and critical skills comprehension questions to test understanding discussion questions to generate evaluative argument explanation and commentary of the AQA set texts ‘thinking harder’ sections for advanced study cross-references to help students make connections bullet-point summaries of each topic. The companion website hosts a wealth of further resources, including PowerPoint slides, flashcards, further reading, weblinks and handouts, all structured to accompany the textbook. It can be found at www.routledge.com/cw/alevelphilosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eclipsing Art: Method and Metaphysics in Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria *Tim MilnesColeridge’s PredicamentIn his self-addressed “letter” which precipitates the abrupt end to the thirteenth chapter (and with it, the first volume) of the Biographia Literaria, Coleridge likens the current state of his argument to “the fragments of the winding steps of an old ruined tower.” 1 The suggestion of intellectual ascent in this is revealing and is echoed a (...) few years later by his explanation of the pedagogical function of the “Landing-Places” between the essays in The Friend (1818). 2 The underlying idea, as usual with Coleridge, is akin to that of an exercise in intellectual and spiritual mountaineering. The thinker, having established a safe base camp in fixed first principles, gradually ascends to higher truths, which are at the same time taken to be foundational and which form the ground of the whole process. The logical return here is what Coleridge elsewhere explains as the “seeming argumentum in circulo, incident to all spiritual Truths.” 3 In the Biographia, however, this process of simultaneous levitation and descent remains notoriously incomplete, left over for the projected but never completed “great book on the constructive philosophy.” 4 Thus, the procedure initiated in the philosophical [End Page 125] theses of chapter twelve having been arrested, the project of chapter thirteen, “in which the results [of the theses] will be applied to the deduction of the imagination, and with it the principles of production and genial criticism in the fine arts,” 5 is left as a fragmentary exposition in the hugely influential but attenuated and gnomic sequence of distinctions between primary and secondary imagination, and fancy.Consequently, students of Coleridge have been left to puzzle over the “missing” argument for themselves and to explain why Coleridge seems to give up at this point. At least since Thomas McFarland’s Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition it has been accepted that a significant part of the problem lies with the “counter-pull” 6 exerted upon Coleridge’s thought at this point in time between Kant and Schelling (or, as McFarland sees it, between Kant and Schelling / Spinoza). In other words, it is the pull between a system in which free will is preserved at the price of being declared noumenal and one in which free will is imperilled but set against the goal of a system of total and undivided philosophy at ease with the infinite. The difference between the methodologies of Kant and Schelling, as Gian Orsini noted, is the product of their contrasting first postulates, or philosophical starting-points. While Kant sets out from the epistemological problem of to what extent objects can be said to conform to human knowledge, Schelling asks, “do we deduce Mind from Nature or Nature from Mind?” 7 Each of these presumes a completely different kind of enquiry from the other, and thus a different method; a fact Coleridge appears to have fully appreciated only during the composition of the Biographia.The Biographia’s problems have provoked a diverse range of critical responses over the years. 8 Among these, however, there is a more or less settled [End Page 126] opinion that Coleridge’s failure at this stage to come to terms with the Kant / Fichte / Schelling debate merely added to the difficulty of a work which, having begun its life as a reply to and a rebuttal of Wordsworth’s empirical and associative definition of imagination as set out in the Preface to his Poems (1815), had already far exceeded its initial plan both in scope and size. As the statement of his poetic principles and critique of Wordsworth had turned into a literary life, and this into a broader exploration of his developing views on epistemology, religion, and the history of language, so the “Preface” to the Sibylline Leaves (as it had originally been conceived) now dwarfed that work. Coleridge’s printer’s decision to produce the Biographia in two volumes only served to emphasize the break between its “philosophical” and literary-critical planes and the failure of Coleridge’s declared intention to apply the rules of art, “deduced from philosophical principles, to poetry and criticism.” 9Yet there was always something... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mind and Purpose in Nature: A Reply to Donald A. CrosbyMikael Leidenhag (bio)One might say that there is a blurred line between panpsychism and emergentism. They are both committed to anti-reductionism and have often been construed as viable options to crude physicalism and Cartesian dualism. Yet, the panpsychist will find the bruteness of emergent properties concerning, in that they seem to emerge unpredictably and in defiance of any (...) logical explanation. In my book and article, I highlighted potential weaknesses in various forms of emergentism, including Donald Crosby’s way of using emergence theory to lay a metaphysical foundation for a Religion of Nature.1 In his most recent book Evolutionary Emergence of Purposive Goals and Values: A Naturalistic Teleology, Crosby responds to some of my criticisms.2 This short essay offers a reply to what I take to be the key issues in this important dialogue between panpsychism and emergentism.Before I proceed to respond to Crosby’s informative criticism, let me summarize some important commonalities between my own panpsychist view of consciousness and Crosby’s teleological emergentism.First, we both share a commitment to mental and teleological realism, in that our accounts take it as a fact that there is something to be explained. Mentality and teleological features of nature are not appearances to be explained (away) by some underlying, purely physical, level. In that regard, both Crosby and I take Daniel Dennett’s illusionist and eliminativist view of consciousness to be an insufficient metaphysical starting point. I agree with Crosby’s assessment in Evolutionary Emergence of Purposive Goals and Values that such an eliminative stance “provides no satisfying explanation for teleology or convincing interpretation of its critical role” in humans and non-human animals.3 [End Page 84]A second, important, common denominator is that our accounts reject what Crosby terms “mechanistic materialism” according to which, contra Dennett, there is something to be explained, but that consciousness/teleology (C/T) can be wholly accounted for in terms of physico-mechanical interactions, opening the door for wholescale causal determinism and denial of freedom in nature.4Third, albeit in significantly different ways, our accounts of C/T rely on something more fundamental to explain higher-level phenomena. I take mind/mindedness to be a fundamental and universal feature of existence, whereas Crosby suggests that novelty is a “pervasive trait of the temporal universe,” enabling the emergence of C/T through longer evolutionary trajectories.5Fourth, C/T can act as a pointer towards a Sacred dimension of reality. On Crosby’s Religion of Nature, the reality of C/T signifies the valuative dimensions of nature and a “sacredness that is not derivative from something else or from some other realm.”6 While I concede that there is no necessary connection between panpsychism and theism, I have previously made the argument that the former makes the latter significantly more reasonable.Given these commonalities, Crosby and I would occupy a rather similar spot on a hypothetical map of all the available positions in philosophy of mind.I outline these common denominators to make sure that the differences between our accounts are not exaggerated and that it hopefully makes it easier to follow my response to Crosby’s criticism below.I will, in particular, focus on three areas of contention: (1) That emergence theory does not entail a stronger notion of unpredictability/incomprehensibility, (2) that consciousness (and teleological norms) can arise naturally through the evolutionary process if given sufficient time; and (3) that emergence theory does not entail dualism.It should be emphasized that my arguments, and concerns about Crosby’s emergentism, are mostly based on philosophers that subscribe to some form of naturalism, materialism, or physicalism.Emergence Theory and UnpredictabilityIn my book Naturalizing God? and the article “Does Naturalism Make Room for Teleology?” I make the argument that the plausibility of emergentism is undercut by one of its core commitments; namely, that emergent properties, [End Page 85] while ontologically dependent on their material base, are unpredictable in relation to the subvenient base. That is, while consciousness depends on the brain structure, the coming into being of consciousness—our very ability to have thoughts, feelings, and perceptions... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dutch Cartesianism and the Birth of Philosophy of Science by Andrea StrazzoniAaron SpinkAndrea Strazzoni. Dutch Cartesianism and the Birth of Philosophy of Science. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2019. Pp. ix + 245. Hardback, $124.99.Andrea Strazzoni's Dutch Cartesianism and the Birth of Philosophy of Science is a clear step forward in our understanding of the rise and fall of Cartesianism. The work, limited to the Dutch context with one (...) notable German excursion, covers roughly one hundred years starting from the 1630s. While the time frame is rather large in scope, the majority of the work is narrower in focus, with a heavy emphasis on the academic circles in mid-to-late seventeenth-century Leiden and Utrecht. It is thus a welcome addition to the growing body of literature dealing with the unique political, religious, and academic contexts in which Dutch Cartesians found themselves. While much of the book deals with the philosophy of Descartes and then Newton, Strazzoni is not concerned with giving any novel interpretations of either figure; instead, he sheds a great deal of light on a cast of characters who are only now coming to be appreciated for their contributions and influence on philosophical movements of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The book has two main explicit goals. First, Strazzoni wants to show why foundationalism came to play such a prominent role in Dutch Cartesian circles and what foundationalism's effects were. Second, through this examination, Strazzoni hopes to show that the multiplication of worldviews [End Page 154] shaped a new function for metaphysics and logic as tools for examining principles, which in turn determined a change in the function of philosophy itself that eventually gave birth to a kind of philosophy of science familiar to us today.Strazzoni divides this project into eight chapters, with a focus on six figures: Henricus Regius, Johannes Clauberg, Johannes de Raey, Arnold Geulincx, Burchard de Volder, and Willem Jacob's Gravesande. In addition to a brief overview of the goals and structure of the work, the first chapter includes a survey of how methodologies have changed in the history of philosophy and the history of the philosophy of science, which will be helpful background for those less familiar with the fields.The following two chapters deal with the crises that emerged in Utrecht and Leiden over the spread of Cartesian philosophy. In chapter 2, building on Theo Verbeek's work, Regius takes center stage. While some context of the Utrecht crisis is given, Strazzoni spends much of the chapter detailing how Regius's medical background led to a more empirical approach and lack of metaphysical foundation. While Regius's own controversial positions embroiled both himself and Descartes in the Utrecht Crisis, ripple effects spread to Leiden, resulting in prohibitions against discussions of Cartesian philosophy. In the third chapter, Strazzoni highlights a group of anti-Cartesians, with Jacob Revius as the primary antagonist, and the responses from De Raey and Clauberg. Clauberg, the subject of Strazzoni's only sustained discussion of Cartesianism from Germany, coordinated with de Raey on both a positive campaign of promotion and strategizing responses to the anti-Cartesian front. Outside of discussing Clauberg's explicit role in Leiden, Strazzoni studies his logic and Ontosophia, neatly explaining his shift to more metaphysical foundations.Chapters 4, 5, and 6 continue exploring the various approaches and roles for foundational philosophy in more detail, delving into how these controversies motivated renewed analysis of core Cartesian principles with integration into an academic curriculum in mind. Apart from de Raey's efforts to show that Cartesianism was aligned with Aristotelianism, Strazzoni claims a period of Cartesian physics without an explicit preoccupation with metaphysical questions, especially in light of the restrictions imposed by the curators of Leiden's university. However, as Spinoza and Hobbes came to prominence, multiplying the number of philosophical worldviews, foundational arguments were needed to combat them. Strazzoni highlights how varied these responses could be, as Geulincx's own take on foundations leaned heavily toward ethics rather than epistemology, metaphysics, or logic. However, the discussion of Geulincx is much broader, also including illuminating expositions of Geulincx's theology, epistemology, and metaphysics.Chapter 5 expounds further... (shrink)

Gestützt auf die bisher unveröffentlichten Teile des Briefwechsels von Leibniz mit Denis Papin aus der Zeit von 1692 bis 1700 wird in diesem Aufsatz versucht, einige Aspekte der Leibnizschen Dynamik darzulegen. Insbesondere wird der apriorische Beweis der Erhaltung der actio f ormalis im Zusammenhang mit der Diskussion zwischen Leibniz und Papin über die Messung der Kraft bei der horizontalen Bewegung behandelt. Es war Leibniz* Absicht, durch den apriorischen Beweis die Dynamik zu begründen und die Cartesianischen Gesetze der Bewegung zu ersetzen. (...) Papin seinerseits beschränkte sich auf die physikalische Ebene der Gesetze der Mechanik. Im Laufe der Debatte entwickelte Leibniz als Antwort auf Papins Kritik wichtige Argumente über die metaphysische Begründung der Dynamik. Die Begriffe actio f ormalis, inertia naturalis, entelecheia und Geschwindigkeit als quantitas intensiva werden in diesem Zusammenhang von Leibniz gegen Papins Einwände verteidigt. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 387 vs. "objective" is all no doubt rather imprecise, but points toward an important truth. In fact, in the contrast between them, we can see, I believe, not merely a clash of methods, standards or styles in writing history, but, more deeply still, an instance of the general antithesis between a "formalist" and a "sympathetic" sensibility, one encountered over and over in humanistic studies.6 PLATO New in (...) this section is an essay on "Some Controversial Points of Plato Interpretation Reconsidered" (pp. 183-209). Its first two parts combat the view that Plato ever gave up the metaphysics of his "middle period," but they do so only by rehearsing familiar theses about the Idea of the Good and the "two worlds" theory. These pages afford nothing new (apart from an extremely unfortunate appeal [p. 185 and again on p. 230] to an Homeric usage of the genitive to settle a problem at Rep. 518C9). The third part (pp. 194209 ) expands upon some views about later Plato for which Mme. de Vogel is already widely known, and these are very useful indeed. They offer a welcome expansion and defense of her view that in order to "do justice" (196-197, cf. 228) to the famous phrase,o) 7r,,v,e)~r ~v,t at Soph. 248E7, we must concede that Plato came to assign "the motion of a thinking mind" (208-209) to the very being of the Ideas, i.e., came to regard "the intelligibleworld as a vo~r (p. 194). Two interesting objections to her reading are confronted at some length (pp. 200-206) and several others are more briefly dealt with, thus affording her a good chance to explain her view. Valuable as these pages are, however, their upshot is rather unsatisfactory: just what Plato's view would, on her reading of it, really come to, remains mightily obscure--an obscurity she tends to concede but to explain away as Plato's "seeming peculiar to a modern mind" though we can get some grip upon his views if we but "take the trouble to follow his lead" (pp. 201, 198; cf. pp. 228-230, etc.). Such reminders of the genuine strangeness of Plato's view can no doubt be healthy in themselves, but can also be stultifying when reiterated in the face of genuine dissatisfaction with the sense that she makes of his meaning. This situation is not helped by the fact that, at crucial junctures in her argument, she buttresses her case about Plato's meaning by appeals to Aristotle's report at de Anima 1.2, 404b18-27 (see pp. 193-194, 199-200, 208, 277-281, 384-385). As she rightly reports (pp. 280, 385), Prof. Harold Cherniss has vigorously opposed the view that Aristotle is there giving Plato's view at all; yet--despite the fact that she has dedicated this volume to Cherniss--she never makes any reference to his most extended and most powerful defense of his position on this text, and much less does she attempt to answer his argument. (See Cherniss' review of H. D. Saffrey's book--a book to which de Vogel does refer, and repeatedly--in Gnomon 31 [1959], 36-51.) This matter is crucial, not merely as a bibliographical nicety, but because she tends to argue ]rom this text, maintaining that, however peculiar and isolated the sense of Soph. 248-249 and of certain phrases in the Timaeus may, on her reading of them, seem, this text proves that Plato must be read in her way. If it is not about Plato's view at all, it of course proves no such thing. The full weight of her argument will thus be borne by her view of how best to "do justice" to the text of Soph. 248E. Though she makes a clear and reasonable case 6 See Leo Steinberg's comments on this contrast as encountered in current art criticism: Other Criteria (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972), Essay 3 (especially pp. 63-68). His remarks about the prescriptive or "interdictory stance" of formalism also fit an important aspect of Burkert's book--an aspect which, though not articulated by her, accounts (I suspect... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Leibniz and China: A Commerce of LightRobin R. WangLeibniz and China: A Commerce of Light. By Franklin Perkins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. xvi + 224.In December 1697, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716) wrote to a Jesuit friend in China, praising the Jesuit mission there as "the greatest affair of our time" (p. 42). The purpose of that mission, in Leibniz's view, was not simply to glorify God (...) and to spread Christianity; it was also being undertaken for the good of humanity and the growth of human knowledge. He went on:For this is a commerce of light, which could give to us at once their work of thousands of years and render ours to them, and to double so to speak our true wealth for one and the other. This is something greater than one thinks.(p. 42)Why was Leibniz, unlike his contemporaries Locke and Spinoza, so enthusiastic about other cultures, especially Chinese culture? Why, in contrast to the scholars of today who claim that philosophy is the privilege of the Western mind and who dismiss philosophical exchange as useless, was Leibniz able to understand the importance of cultural exchange? And why is it that his "commerce of light" can still illuminate our path toward wisdom in this age of globalization? In a well-researched and carefully crafted monograph, Leibniz and China: A Commerce of Light, Franklin Perkins answers these questions with compelling evidence and persuasive argument.To emphasize the significance, magnitude, and relevance of cultural exchange Perkins organizes his book thematically in five chapters. The first chapter provides the historical context of the world in which Leibniz lived. Perkins cites well-documented events to illustrate how Europeans first encountered other cultures and the "three lenses" through which they viewed them (p. 12). This exploration sets the stage for understanding Leibniz's knowledge of China and his basic orientation toward learning from diversity.In chapter 2 Perkins challenges current scholarship and makes the critical claim that Leibniz's interest in China and cultural exchange was "not accidental" (p. 45), but rather flowed from his own distinctive philosophical system. This argument distinguishes Perkins's innovative approach from the mainstream traditional scholarship on Leibniz. He claims that Leibniz was "a more pragmatic, empirical and fallibilistic investigator of the world," that he was "motivated by practical and theological concerns," and that he was "a pluralistic thinker" (p. 45). To support his argument, Perkins discusses Leibniz's "monads" in the context of order, diversity, and perfection. Each monad is a different manifestation of the same universe, yet one unitary universe is multiplied by its expression in diverse monads. God chose to create a world exemplifying the utmost perfection, with "the greatest possible combination of order and diversity" (p. 44). Diversity is essential to the perfection of the world since the most perfect possible world maximizes the greatest order. This intrinsic relation between order, diversity, and perfection creates an unqualified need for cultural exchange because order requires diversity for perfection, and an ordered diversity only amplifies the magnificence of its Creator. On a metaphysical level, cultural exchange for Leibniz [End Page 111] was "driven by the value of diversity in the best possible world and the derivation of diversity from variations in monadic perspectives. On an epistemological level, exchange was driven by the necessary limits of our own perspective and the fact that monads in distant places have different and complementary perspectives" (p. 108).After laying out the philosophical foundation for cultural exchange in Leibniz's system, Perkins turns his discussion to Leibniz's specific connection with China. In chapter 3 he offers a historical narrative that traces the development and growth of Leibniz's interest in and knowledge of China. Leibniz's first mention of China was in his De Arte Combinationis in 1666, when he was only twenty years old (p. 109). Through his massive correspondence with Jesuits in China and his active social participation in controversies around the Jesuit mission, Leibniz's knowledge of China grew in depth and sophistication as the decades passed. His initial approach to China reflected "his interest in international politics and economics" (p. 113). But this practical focus was... (shrink)

According to Bruineberg and colleagues, philosophical arguments on life, mind, and matter that are based on the free-energy principle (FEP) (1) essentially draw on the Markov blanket construct and (2) tend to assume that strong metaphysical claims can be justified on the basis of metaphysically innocuous formal assumptions provided by FEP. I argue against both (1) and (2).

Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is central to John McDowell’s classic Mind and World. In Lectures IV and V of that work, McDowell makes three claims concerning Aristotle’s ethics: first, that Aristotle did not base his ethics on an externalist, naturalistic basis (including a theory of human nature); second, that attempts to read him as an ethical naturalist are a modern anachronism, generated by the supposed need to ground all viable philosophical claims on claims analogous to the natural sciences; and third, (...) that a suitably construed Aristotelian conception of “second nature” can form the basis of a viable contemporary philosophy of mind, world, and normativity. This paper challenges each of these three claims. Aristotle’s ethics, we will claim alongside Terence Irwin, Bernard Williams, Philippa Foot, and many premodern commentators, is based in the kind of physics, metaphysics, and metaphysical biology that McDowell says it cannot be. Historically, we will argue that McDowell’s argument that Aristotle’s ethical reasoning is “autonomous” or “self-standing” is distinctly modern, citing evidence from the leading medieval commentators on the Nicomachean Ethics. The felt need to which McDowell responds, of reading Aristotle’s ethical or political thought as wholly non-metaphysical, arises from out of the successes of the natural sciences in the modern world, which he agrees discredit the Aristotelian, teleological account of nature. In the final part of the paper, we propose that McDowell’s account of normativity, rooted in the non-metaphysical “second nature” he reads into Aristotle, we will contend, is as it stands inescapably relativistic. On a different note, we need also to recognize, as McDowell does not, that this is a new Aristotle, one shaped by our requirements and space of reasons, not the mind and world of the Greek Philosopher himself.
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The frame problem is a fundamental challenge in AI, and the Lucas-Penrose argument is supposed to show a limitation of AI if it is successful at all. Here we discuss both of them from a unified Gödelian point of view. We give an informational reformulation of the frame problem, which turns out to be tightly intertwined with the nature of Gödelian incompleteness in the sense that they both hinge upon the finitarity condition of agents or systems, without which their alleged (...) limitations can readily be overcome, and that they can both be seen as instances of the fundamental discrepancy between finitary beings and infinitary reality. We then revisit the Lucas-Penrose argument, elaborating a version of it which indicates the impossibility of information physics or the computational theory of the universe. It turns out through a finer analysis that if the Lucas-Penrose argument is accepted then information physics is impossible too; the possibility of AI or the computational theory of the mind is thus linked with the possibility of information physics or the computational theory of the universe. We finally reconsider the Penrose’s Quantum Mind Thesis in light of recent advances in quantum modelling of cognition, giving a structural reformulation of it and thereby shedding new light on what is problematic in the Quantum Mind Thesis. Overall, we consider it promising to link the computational theory of the mind with the computational theory of the universe; their integration would allow us to go beyond the Cartesian dualism, giving, in particular, an incarnation of Chalmers’ double-aspect theory of information. (shrink)

One familiar affirmative answer to this question holds that these facts suffice to entail that Descartes' picture of the human mind must be mistaken. On Descartes' view, our mind or soul (the only essential part of ourselves) has no spatial location. Yet it directly interacts with but one physical object, the brain of that body with which it is, 'as it were, intermingled,' so as to 'form one unit.' The radical disparity posited between a nonspatial mind, whose (...) intentional and conscious properties are had by no physical object, and a spatial body, all of whose properties are had by no mind, has prompted some to conclude that, pace Descartes, causal interaction between the two is impossible. Jaegwon Kim has recently given a new twist to this old line of thought.(1) In the present essay, I will use Kim's argument as a springboard for motivating my own favored picture of the metaphysics of mind and body and then discussing how an often vilified account of freedom of the will may be realized within it. (shrink)

In the brief space I have, I can provide only a quick taste of what the reader is in for with Han-Kyul Kim's Locke's Ideas of Mind and Body. Kim argues that his account of Locke's metaphysics of substance in terms of ideas of mind and body makes sense of the relation between four crucial and often overlooked topics in Locke's philosophy: " Locke's mind-body nominalism, his epistemic humility, his functionalist account of substrata, and his naturalist (...) approach to the human mind". Kim opens in chapter 1 with a survey of various ontological doctrines that have been associated with Locke and provides arguments that none are... (shrink)

Perception is one of the most pervasive and puzzling problems in philosophy, generating a great deal of attention and controversy in philosophy of mind, psychology and metaphysics. If perceptual illusion and hallucination are possible, how can perception be what it intuitively seems to be, a direct and immediate access to reality? How can perception be both internally dependent and externally directed? Perception is an outstanding introduction to this fundamental topic, covering both the perennial and recent work on the (...) problem. Adam Pautz examines four of the most important theories of perception: the sense datum view; the internal physical state view; the representational view; and naïve realism, assessing each in turn. He also discusses the relationship between perception and the physical world and the issue of whether reality is as it appears. Useful examples are included throughout the book to illustrate the puzzles of perception, including hallucinations, illusions, the laws of appearance, blindsight, and neuroscientific explanations of our experience of pain, smell and color. The book covers both traditional philosophical arguments and more recent empirical arguments deriving from research in psychophysics and neuroscience. The addition of chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading and a glossary of terms make Perception essential reading for anyone studying the topic in detail, as well as for students of philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychology and metaphysics. (shrink)

This chapter explores several episodes in the eighteenth-century discussion of the metaphysics of mind. It begins with Locke’s suggestion that it would not be impossible for God to “superadd” the power of thought to matter. It then describes the debate about Locke’s suggestion between Samuel Clarke and Anthony Collins, and considers Hume’s discussion of the immateriality of the soul in relation to that debate. Next it presents Berkeley’s philosophy of immaterialism as a way of protecting the mental from (...) reduction to the physical. Then it gives an account of the materialist arguments of Hartley and Priestley, and concludes with a summary of Reid’s criticisms of those arguments. (shrink)

This thesis gives an historical overview of some of the issues connecting philosophy of mind and philosophy of langauge in the twentieth century, especially with regard to the relevance of both disciplines to theories of cognition. Specifically, the interrelation between the theories of Peirce,Chomsky, Derrida, and Deacon are discussed. Furthermore, an overview of twentieth century views on mind in both philosophy and the cognitive sciences is given. The argument is made that many of the apparently insurmountable issues that (...) plague theories on mind and cognition today can be traced back to the metaphysical mould into which the philosophical questions at issue here were cast. Also, despite current resistance to the idea from many philosophical quarters, a case is made for approaching language and mind in terms of neo-Darwinist evolutionary theory. (shrink)

This thesis is about morality, causation and the connection between the two. Whether there’s some causal relation between flicking the switch and turning on the light, between donating blood and saving a life, or between rain falling and puddles on the ground, is typically understood to be a mind-independent, objective, precise matter of fact. It’s no surprise given this perspective that for a long time philosophers didn’t believe something so ostensibly nebulous as morality could be a determiner of causal (...) relations. However, recent contributions to the literature have begun to pushback against this platitude by using moral considerations, alongside a whole host of other normative notions, to determine what causal facts there are in the world. One aim of this thesis is to contribute to this recent research by arguing that an appeal to moral considerations furnishes a causal account with the resources to meet various desiderata associated with theories of causation. Insofar as this is the case, I argue that causal accounts which incorporate moral considerations are more successful than those which do not. Thus, I argue that facts about causality partly depend upon facts about morality. Causation’s effect on morality is much less controversial. Moral philosophers agree that the truth of some moral claims partly depend upon what causal relations there are in the world. This is most noticeably true in the domain of moral responsibility. The thought is that if we are to be morally responsible for some event that is not itself an aspect for our conduct, then there must be some metaphysical relation — some metaphysical glue — that links our conduct to the event in question. As I and most others see it, there is one such relation: causation. Despite this consensus, there has been surprisingly little exploration into what kinds of causal facts determine the truth of moral assessments. I suspect this lacuna has arisen because it is tempting for those working in ethics to remain neutral on questions regarding causation, lest she have to face up to dealing with the thorny issues such questions invite. However, sometimes it is only by getting involved in such issues that progress can be made. With this in mind, the second aim of the thesis is to advance this debate by clarifying and evaluating what kind of causal facts determine moral facts. In particular, I address what kind of causal facts determine whether one is morally responsible for an outcome, and whether and to what extent one is praiseworthy for that outcome. With regards to assessments of moral responsibility, I argue that whether one can be held morally responsible for the effects of an omission depends upon the causal stability of that omission. In regards to praiseworthiness, I argue that whether and to what extent one is praiseworthy for doing the right thing depends upon how causally robust one’s motivation was for acting. Thus, I argue that facts about morality are partly determined by facts about causality. In making these arguments, I defend the view that causal facts partly depend upon moral facts, and that moral facts partly depend upon causal facts. This lends support to a novel claim; namely, that morality and causation are interdependent. (shrink)

This paper aims to reconcile the phenomenology and metaphysics of value by proposing a cognitivist and metaphysically committed account of evaluation and value inspired, in part, by the phenomenological arguments of J. N. Findlay in relation to value. By the phenomenology of value I mean the affective—commendatory—character of evaluations such as when I describe something as good or bad, worthwhile or not worthwhile. Whilst this—subjective—aspect of evaluation is largely uncontested, there is much disagreement about the cognitive and metaphysical status (...) of our evaluations. The disagreement centers round two problems, which I call the intentionality problem and the metaphysical problem, respectively. These problems address whether evaluative feelings refer beyond themselves to objects and, if they do, about the character of the object to which they are directed. By drawing on and reconstructing an argument by Findlay, I argue that the affective character of evaluative experience has an intentional structure that takes the form of a judgement that is merited, or not, by its object. However, unlike Findlay, I offer a metaphysically-laden account of the distinction between evaluation and value by arguing that value properties are mind-independent dispositions that are realized in human cognitively-structured affectivity. (shrink)

Contrary to the common interpretation of Platonic art that supports the view that it is ontologically and gnoseologically irrelevant because it is mainly defined by mimetic concept as a mere imitation of the material world, and is therefore banished from the Republic, we will offer some different interpretations. Namely, it is possible to show that mimetic principle is not the reason why Plato condemns art, and that the notion of artistic mimesis in fact stems from the metaphysical notion of mimesis (...) as approximation or gradual resemblance to the paradigm. In this case artistic mimesis achieves higher ontological authenticity and imitates the ideal by means of the sensory. Parmenides’ “resemblance argument” may constitute a serious obstacle for the acceptance of, on the one hand, the idea of the relation of resemblance between Forms and particulars, that is between the paradigm and its image, and on the other hand it may question the idea of approximation in which mimetic principle has metaphysical foundation. However, when Form is seen as a synthetic unity of many things, it then represents the right standpoint for the explanation of the phenomena, and it becomes questionable when it is placed on the same level with its exemplars. If the relation of resemblance between the paradigm and its image is determined by the “dynamic”, and not by “symmetric resemblance” in which both parts are on the same level of ontological authenticity, then the view of philosophical mimesis as approximation on which relies artistic mimetic concept is legitimate. (shrink)

Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics introduces the reader to new perspectives on Indian philosophy based on philological research within the last twenty years. Concentrating on topics such as perception, inference, skepticism, consciousness, self, mind, and universals, some of the most notable scholars working in classical Indian philosophy today examine core epistemological and metaphysical issues. Philosophical theories and arguments from a comprehensive range of Indian philosophical traditions (including the Nyaya, Mimamsa, Saiva, Vedanta, Samkhya, Jain, Buddhist, materialist and skeptical traditions, as (...) well as some 20th century thought) are covered. The contributors to this volume approach the topics from both a philosophical and a philological perspective. They demonstrate the importance of the subject matter for an understanding of Indian thought in general and they highlight its wider philosophical significance. By developing an appreciation of classical Indian philosophy in its own terms, set against the background of its unique assumptions and historical and cultural development, Indian Epistemology and Metaphysics is an invaluable guide to the current state of scholarship on Indian philosophy. It is a timely and much-needed reference resource, the first of its kind. (shrink)

Almost any mainstream reading about the nature of Kant's 'content of cognition' in both non-conceptualist and conceptualist camps agree that 'singular representations' (sensible intuitions) are, at least in some weak sense, objectdependent because they supervene on a manifold of sensations that are given through the disposition of our sensibility and parallel thus the real and physical components of the world (cf. McDowell 1996, Allison 1983, Ginsborg 2008, Allais 2009). The relevant class of sensible intuitions should refer, as they argue, only (...) to empirical and not to pure ones. Kant's transcendental argument creates, however, no implications as to the metaphysics of properties. Neither does he consider the world to be consisted of sensory content simpliciter nor do sensations refer to objects per se. Instead, he provides an all-encompassing pattern for sensible intuitions of any kind through the representation of space as a cognitive map in that an object can be represented if spatial properties are attributed to it. Sensible intuitions of any kind could be referring, that is to say, and can be conceptualized if they are spatial. Consequently and unlike the contemporary philosophy of perception, Kant contrasts sensible intuitions and pure concepts of understanding 'altogether' against one single experience, from which the justification of objects should proceed. In other words, what stands at the core of exposing the content of cognition concerns not the phenomenological status and actuality of sensible intuitions in the sense of 'bits of experiential intake', but the logical structure of possibility of sensible intuitions of any (external or internal) causal background. The aim of this discussion is to clarify that Kant's transcendental idealism mutatis mutandis reviews multiple and diverse kinds of 'data of mind' and cognition in the background, without reducing the content of cognition to metaphysically determined referents as 'matters of fact' and to pure concepts of understanding. Sensible intuitions in the sense of content of cognition vary, most importantly, from unstructured and unjustifiable data of mind including (physical) contents of perception and stuff of mind and also from reflective and intellectual intuitions that are the cognates of the structured complex singular representations. Put it in simple terms, Kant advocates the thesis that 'facts' are objects for concepts if they are already well-founded trough the cognitive map of the representation of space. -/- . (shrink)

In Mabādi’ ārā’ ahl al-madīna al-fādila as well as other major political writings of al-Fārābī, politics is accompanied by metaphysics. However, the co-existence of politics and Neoplatonic metaphysics in al-Fārābī is usually refuted on the basis of two major arguments: one, the Neoplatonic argument, which denies al-Fārābī’s politics; and two, the Straussian argument, which denies al-Fārābī’s Neoplatonic metaphysics. However, this article would show that the two arguments against the co-existence of politics and Neoplatonic metaphysics in al-Fārābī (...) are faulty, and that politics and Neoplatonic metaphysics certainly co-exist in al-Fārābī’s philosophical thought. It would be shown that, in fact, Neoplatonic metaphysics plays an important role in al-Fārābī’s politics and distinguishes his theory of the virtuous city from that of Plato’s Republic. (shrink)

Mangan’s hypothesis, that consciousness is an information-bearing medium, presents an alternative to Dennett’s brand of functionalism, and Dennett’s counterattacks have yet to address Mangan’s main assertion. The medium hypothesis does not entail Cartesian theater assumptions concerning the localization, causal status, and “filling in” of consciousness in the brain. In principle, it is compatible with distributed information transfer between different media, epiphenomenalism, and gaps in visual experience. However, Mangan’s strongest empirical argument, based on consciousness’ limited “bandwidth,” does not necessarily show that (...) transduction between media of different information-bearing capacities occurs between the brain and consciousness. The features of consciousness that he attributes to a lower bandwidth medium can be explained in terms of functional constraints on a single medium. Furthermore, empirical results showing gaps and anomalies in visual experience speak against consciousness being a medium. (shrink)