According to anti-atomism, we represent color properties (e.g., red) in virtue of representing color relations (e.g., redder than). I motivate anti-atomism with a puzzle involving a series of pairwise indistinguishable chips. I then develop two versions of anti-atomism.

In Plato’s eponymous dialogue, Timaeus, the main character presents the universe as an (almost) perfect sphere filled by tiny, invisible particles having the form of four regular polyhedrons. At first glance, such a construction may seem close to an atomistic theory. However, one does not find any text in Antiquity that links Timaeus’ cosmology to the atomists, while Aristotle opposes clearly Plato to the latter. Nevertheless, Plato is commonly presented in contemporary literature as some sort of atomist, sometimes as supporting (...) a form of so-called ‘mathematical atomism’. However, the term ‘atomism’ is rarely defined when applied to Plato. Since it covers many different theories, it seems that this term has almost as different meanings as different authors. The purpose of this article is to consider whether it is correct to connect Timaeus’ cosmology to some kind of ‘atomism’, however this term may be understood. Its purpose is double: to obtain a better understanding of the cosmology of the Timaeus, and to consider the different modern ‘atomistic’ interpretations of this cosmology. In short, we would like to show that such a claim, in any form whatsoever, is misleading, an impediment to the understanding of the dialogue, and more generally of Plato’s philosophy. (shrink)

The influential French chemist Marcelin Berthelot spoke against the use of Dalton's atomic theory and Avogadro's hypothesis in the second half of the nineteenth century. This paper argues that Berthelot conceded that atomism might be acceptable as a system of conventions, but he feared the power of such conventions in constructing a realistic picture of atoms which was not warranted empirically. Equally, Berthelot's anti-atomism was a last-ditch effort to assert the place of chemistry within the tradition of (...) natural history and to deny the possible reduction of chemical science to the laws of nineteenth-century physics. (shrink)

Pierre Duhem’s (1861-1916) lifelong opposition to 19th century atomic theories of matter traditionally has been attributed to his conventionalist and/or positivist philosophy of science. Relatively recently, the traditional view has been challenged by the new claim that Duhem’s opposition to atomism was due to the precarious state of atomic theories at the beginning of the 20th century. In this paper, I present some of the difficulties with both the traditional and the new interpretation of Duhem’s opposition to atomism, (...) and provide a new framework in which to understand Duhem's rejection of atomic hypotheses. I argue that although not positivist, instrumentalist, or conventionalist, Duhem’s philosophy of physics was not compatible with belief in unobservable atoms and molecules. The key for understanding Duhem’s resistance to atomism during the final phase of his career is the historicist arguments he presented in support of his ideal of physics. (shrink)

The heated debates and severe conflicts between the atomists and the anti-atomists of the latter half of the nineteenth century are well known to the historian of science. The position of Dmitrii Ivanovich Mendeleev towards these nineteenth century debates on atomism will be studied in this paper. A first attempt will thus be offered to reconcile Mendeleev’s seemingly contradictory comments and ambiguous standpoints into one coherent view.

This article initially presents Ernst Mach's anti-realist or instrumentalist stance that underpin his opposition to atomism and reveal his idea that science should be based totally on objectively observable facts. Then, the details of Mach's phenomenalist arguments which recognize only sensations as real are revealed. Phenomenalist thought is not compatible with the idea of realism, which evaluates unobservable entities such as atom, molecule and quark as mind-independent things. In this context, Mach considers the atom as a thought symbol (...) or a metaphysical fiction. This results in the idea that the existence of matter or entity is not independent of the perceiving minds, which is considered Mach’s subjective idealism. As a result of these arguments, the article argues that it would not be wrong to associate Mach's thoughts with solipsism, a radical form of subjective idealism. -/- Bu makalede ilk olarak Ernst Mach’ın atomun varlığına ilişkin itirazının temelini oluşturan ve bilimin sadece gözlemlenebilir olgulara dayandırılması gerektiği yönündeki düşüncelerini ortaya koyan anti-realist ya da enstrümantalist görüşlerine yer verilmektedir. Ardından Mach’ın enstrümantalist tavrının alt metninde bulunan ve yalnızca duyumları gerçek olarak kabul eden fenomenalist argümanlarının ayrıntıları serimlenecektir. Fenomenalist düşünce atom, molekül ve kuark gibi gözlemlenemeyen varlıkları zihinden bağımsız şeyler olarak değerlendiren realizm düşüncesi ile uyuşmamaktadır. Bu bağlamda yapılan incelemeler, Mach’ın atomu bir düşünce sembolü ya da metafiziksel bir kurgu olarak değerlendirmesine ve dış dünyadaki varlıkların var olmasını, onların bir zihin tarafından duyumsanması koşuluna bağlaması ile sonuçlanmaktadır. Makalede Mach’ın öznel idealizmi olarak ele alabileceğimiz bu argümanlarının radikal bir sonucu olarak onun düşüncelerini solipsizm ile ilişkilendirmenin yanlış olmayacağı sonucuna varılmaktadır. (shrink)

RésuméL'atomisme dukalāms'est constitué en opposition à la philosophie naturelle aristotélicienne desfalāsifa. Dans laPhysiqueduShifā', Avicenne s'en est livré à une réfutation détaillée et fondée sur de nombreux arguments. Ces derniers ont donné lieu à une réponse fort discrète chez al-Ghazālī, dont l'obédience aukalāmétait au mieux évanescente. Une réponse plus développée semble avoir été le fait d'al-Shahrastānī, encore qu'on n'en puisse retracer que les grandes lignes en raison du manque de sources transmises. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, qui est passé dans son développement intellectuel (...) par une phase avicennienne, donc par une adoption vigoureuse des arguments anti-atomistes d'Avicenne, suivie d'une phrase critique à l'égard de la philosophie du maître, ne se borne pas à fournir une réponse détaillée aux arguments d'Ibn Sīnā, mais construit de nouveaux arguments en faveur de l'atomisme dukalām. (shrink)

According to François Laruelle, French thought has been unduly influenced by corpuscular or atomist thinking, yet Laruelle has himself employed key atomist terms—in particular, that of the clinamen or swerve—in framing his own style of thought. This essay looks at this tension between atomism and anti-atomism in Laruelle’s thought, taking the measure of his contribution to a larger stream of postwar French thinking about the relevance and stakes of ancient atomism. Its contention is that Laruelle subtly (...) but really outlines a quantum theoretical resumption of ancient atomist philosophy—one that deserves closer attention and comparative study in the larger context of French philosophical interest in the atomists. A first section of the paper briefly describes Laruelle’s general project, along with his claim that he differs from his contemporaries because he uniquely escapes the dangers of what he calls corpuscular thought. A second section addresses the apparent tension between Laruelle’s claim to produce a non-corpuscular thinking and his consistent recent use of the atomist image of the clinamen, ultimately arguing that Laruelle sides with the clinamen against two forms of corpuscularity supposedly avoided by the clinamen itself but nonetheless usefully embodied in atomist thought. The final section of the paper draws up in preliminary terms a comparison between Laruelle’s understanding of his relationship to atomism and that of his contemporaries, focusing in particular on Alain Badiou. (shrink)

This article documents the general tendency of seventeenth-century natural philosophers, irrespective of whether they were atomists or anti-atomists, to regard space, time and matter as magnitudes having the same internal composition. It examines the way in which authors such as Fromondus, Basson, Sennert, Arriaga, Galileo, Magnen, Descartes, Gassendi, Charleton as well as the young Newton motivated their belief in the isomorphism of space, time and matter, and how this belief reflected on their views concerning the relation between geometry and (...) physics. Special attention is paid to the fact that most of the authors mentioned above regarded rarefaction and condensation, on the one hand, and acceleration and deceleration, on the other hand, as analogous phenomena, which consequently had to be explained in similar terms. (shrink)

Theoretical thinking in modern sociology is still dominated by a morked anti-individualistic orientation. This paper examines the influence that Parsons’ critique of utilitarian social thought had on the formation and justification of this methodological view. Since then the utilitaristic (economic) tradition is held to demonstrate the fundamental weakness of individualistic sociological approaches in general: the failure to grasp the importance of emergent properties of social systems. It is argued that Parsons’ critique rests on a by far too restrictive Interpretation (...) of utilitaristic (economic) thinking which led to a false identification of social-scientific individualism with sociological atomism. (shrink)

This dissertation may be viewed as an exposition of the philosophical implications of a single eight-character sentence from the works of the Tiantai Buddhist monk Siming Zhili , the literal meaning of which may be rendered: "Other than the devil there is no Buddha, other than the Buddha there is no devil." A context in which to effectively interpret the significance of this claim is provided by examining the Chinese philosophical tradition with an eye for three closely related themes: notions (...) that do not share the arguably common-sense assumption that "good" and "bad" are mutually exclusive categories; concepts of holism ; and the conception of intersubjectivity as a primary, constitutive and ultimate component of experience. The work begins with introductory chapters laying out the nature of the problem, its parameters and implications, and the methodological limitations bearing on the investigation to follow. The next portion consists of an examination of ideas of value paradox, holism and intersubjectivity as they are developed by pre-Qin thinkers, including Confucius, Mencius, Xunzi Mozi, Laozi and Zhuangzi. The study culminates in an examination of the disputes over the Tiantai doctrine of "the evil inherent in the Buddha-nature" , beginning with its background in Indian and earlier Chinese Buddhism, and reaching its zenith in Zhili's notion of "the ultimacy of the dung beetle," as predicated on an assertion of an uncompromising identity between value and anti-value , a thoroughgoing omnicentric holism, and an insistence on the all-pervasiveness and ultimacy of constitutive intersubjectivity. By rendering these initially counterintuitive notions coherent, it is hoped that an alternative view of human experience, premised on omnicentric holism rather than atomism or unicentrism, on intersubjectivity rather than objectivity or subjectivity, and on value paradox rather than value dichotomy, will come into focus, thereby providing an additional resource to our arsenal of possible approaches to the world. (shrink)

This paper argues that, for Ockham, the parts of the continuum exist in act in the continuum: they are already there before any division of the continuum. Yet, they are infinitely many in that no division of the continuum will exhaust all the existing parts of the continuum taken conjointly. This reading of Ockham takes into account the crucial place of his new concept of the infinite in his analysis of the infinite divisibility of the continuum. Like many of his (...) fellow anti-atomists, Ockham stresses that the concept of a potential infinite seems to contradict Aristotle’s modal logic, in particular the central assumption that there is no potency that will never be realized. Ockham, like other fourteenth-century anti-atomists, tried not only to refute atomism, but also to propose an analysis of the infinite divisibility of the continuum that is not incompatible with their modal logic. (shrink)

My research in metaphysical realism and analytic metaphysics consists mainly in attacks on analytic metaphysics. My reason for this is a result of the fact that I am a mereological nihilis t, a blob theorist , an atomist (philosophic atomist), and a specific sort of conceptualist (see below). The variety atomism I argue for is similar to the traditional atomism of some of the ancient Greek and ancient..

This paper argues that Epicurus held a non-reductionist view of mental states that is in the spirit of Davidson's anomalous monism. We argue for this conclusion by considering the role that normative descriptions play in the peritropē argument from "On Nature" 25. However, we also argue that Epicurus was an indeterminist. We can know that atoms swerve because we can know that we make choices that are up to us and this is incompatible with the ancestral causal determination of mental (...) states by atomic processes. Epicurus escapes the traditional criticism of indeterminist libertarians because the swerve is not meant to explain how choices may be free. The anti-reductionist stance on the mental means that nothing about atomic processes could possibly explain any particular mental event. Moreover, because of the practical and therapeutic nature of Epicurean philosophy, it is not necessary that Epicurus provide an explanation of how the swerve subserves freedom of choice. We know all that we need to know for eudaimonia when we know that some choices are up to us. (shrink)

This article deals with the first Latin reception of Pseudo-Aristotle’s On Indivisible Lines and its impact on the medieval debate about the continuum. Robert Grosseteste’s and Albert the Great’s references to this pseudo-Aristotelian text show that it could be regarded as a source for where to find information about the indivisibilist tenet, as well as an expansion of Aristotle’s anti-atomistic critiques scattered throughout his authentic works. The use of On Indivisible Lines made by Henry of Harclay and Adam of (...) Wodeham confirms this trend: the reading of this text could be twofold according to the tenet defended. While Henry argues against Pseudo-Aristotle to defend indivisibilism, Adam expands on pseudo-Aristotelian arguments to show the incongruities implied by indivisibilism. (shrink)

In the present article, the role of Gestalt concepts in clarifying the issues of perception is evaluated. Grounded in anti-atomism, Gestalt assumed organizing forces intrinsic to perception. Insofar these were identified with singularity preference, Gestalt is criticized for having failed to distinguish between perception and thought.

It is remarkable how similar today's mind-body debates are to the philosophical critiques of biological science, such as Henri Bergson's Vitalism at the turn of the last century. Philosophers like Bergson became famous arguing that science could never account for life. One reason was that living creatures could not be decomposed into fundamental units, in spite of the empirical finding that all animate things consist of basic cells with remarkably general properties in a bewildering profusion of variation. Today we know (...) that each of those cells has nearly identical DNA-RNA mechanisms, and that, to give one example, humans have about 50% of DNA in common with such creatures as yeast and C. elegans, the tiny worms that is now almost completely defined in genotype and phenotype. The cell and its genetic machinery can plausibly be called the atom of life. So Bergson's anti-atomism was wrong in large part. Indeed, had we followed his advice about 1900, we would still be living in the first great industrial age. (shrink)

David Hume’s and later Ludwig Wittgenstein’s views on concepts are generally presented as standing in stark opposition to each other. In a nutshell, Hume’s theory of concepts is taken to be subjectivistic and atomistic, while Wittgenstein is metonymic with a broadly pragmatistic and holistic doctrine that gained much attention during the second half of the 20th century. In this essay, I shall argue, however, that Hume’s theory of concepts is indeed much more akin to the views of Wittgenstein and his (...) epigones than many, including Wittgenstein himself, probably might have suspected. As I try to show, Hume anticipates many themes central to Wittgenstein’s writings on language and meaning, and actually takes initial steps towards both an anti-subjectivistic and anti-atomistic psychology and epistemology. (shrink)

ABSTRACT. Associationist psychologists of the late 19th-century premised their research on a fundamentally Humean picture of the mind. So the very idea of mental science was called into question when T. H. Green, a founder of British idealism, wrote an influential attack on Hume’s Treatise. I first analyze Green’s interpretation and criticism of Hume, situating his reading with respect to more recent Hume scholarship. I focus on Green’s argument that Hume cannot consistently admit real ideas of spatial relations. I then (...) argue that William James’s early work on spatial perception attempted to vindicate the new science of mind by showing how to avoid the problems Green had exposed in Hume’s empiricism. James’s solution involved rejecting a basic Humean assumption—that perceptual experience is fundamentally composed of so-called minima sensibilia, or psychological atoms. The claim that there are no psychological atoms is interesting because James supported it with experimental data rather than (as commentators typically suppose) with introspective description or a priori argument. James claimed to be the real descendant of British empiricism on grounds that his anti-atomistic model of perception fortified what Green had perhaps most wanted to demolish—the prospect of using empirical, scientific methods in the study of mind. (shrink)

In this paper I build a case for considering the pioneering behaviourist philosopher Grace de Laguna as one of the grandmothers of analytic philosophy. I argue against the ‘Great Men’ narrative of analytic philosophy as composed of Moore, Russell, Wittgenstein and their followers, and in favour of a more inclusive ‘movement’ narrative of analytic philosophy as a broad and varied movement with an anti-idealist and naturalistic orientation aimed at fitting around novel development in the sciences, including Einsteinian physics and (...) psychology. I compare de Laguna’s prescient early views to Whitehead’s; both share an anti-idealist but also anti-atomist solution to the problem of perception, and both oppose the bifurcation of nature, with de Laguna expressing these views before Whitehead did. I conclude that while both opposed the narrower project of logical atomism, both count as ancestors of the wider analytic movement. (shrink)

This paper develops the metaphysical hypothesis that there are irreducibly collective pluralities, pluralities of objects that do not have a singular object among them. A way to formulate this hypothesis using plural quantification will be proposed and the coherence of irreducibly collective existence will be defended. Furthermore, irreducibly collective existence will be shown to allow for bottomless scenarios that do not involve things standing in relations of parthood. This will create logical space for an anti-atomistic form of mereological nihilism.

This paper pursues a question about the spatial relations between the three types of matter posited in Margaret Cavendish’s metaphysics. It examines the doctrine of complete blending and a distinctive argument against atomism, looking for grounds on which Cavendish can reject the existence of spatial regions composed of only one or two types of matter. It establishes, through that examination, that Cavendish operates with a causal conception of parts of nature and a dynamic notion of division. While the possibility (...) of unmixed spatial regions is found to be consistent with both the doctrine of complete blending and Cavendish’s anti-atomism by themselves, it is finally ruled out by a consideration of her theory of place. In fact, the geometrical question of the spatial relations between types of matter that drives the paper is ultimately exposed as illicitly mathematical from the perspective of Cavendish’s metaphysics. (shrink)

Frege appears to hold both that thoughts are internally articulated, in a way that mirrors the semantic articulation of the sentences that express them, and that the same thought can be analyzed in different ways, none of which has to be more fundamental than the others. Commentators have often taken these theses to be mutually incompatible and have tended to polarize into two camps, each of which attributes to Frege one of the theses, but maintains that he is only apparently (...) committed to the other. This paper argues that there are good exegetical and philosophical reasons for reconciling the two theses; that this reconciliation can be achieved by rejecting an assumption shared by the two opposite camps of the exegetical debate, i.e., the assumption that essential articulatedness implies unique articulation; and finally, that this crucial assumption can be resisted by appreciating Frege’s anti-atomistic and ‘organic’ conception of the internal complexity of thoughts. (shrink)

This paper explores Cavendish’s argument for what she calls “animate matter.” Her commitment to the ubiquity of animate matter, styled “Cavendish’s animism,” is presented as the conclusion of an inference to the best explanation of nature’s order. The reconstruction of Cavendish’s argument begins with an examination of the relationship between God’s creation of our world and the order produced through nature’s wise governance of her parts. Cavendish’s materialism and anti-atomism are presented as ingredients in her final account of (...) God’s ordering of the world by making it a self-moving whole. On the present account of Cavendish’s metaphysics, this self-moving whole then freely produces the regular motions that constitute its ordering of itself, as a distinct ordering beyond God’s initial act of creating our world. The depth of Cavendish’s commitment to the animistic elements of her materialism—or in other words, the extent to which her system is genuinely animistic—is then considered. (shrink)

There is a popular view that Descartes and Pascal were antagonists. I argue instead that Pascal was a Cartesian, in the manner of other Cartesians in the seventeenth century. That does not, of course, mean that Pascal accepted everything Descartes asserted, given that there were Cartesian atomists, for example, when Descartes was a plenist and anti-atomist. Pascal himself was a vacuuist and thus in opposition to Descartes in that respect, but he did accept some of the more distinctive and (...) controversial aspects of Cartesianism, including his mechanistic philosophy and the consequent view that animals are automata. (shrink)

Résumé Le débat holisme-réductionnisme se structure autour de trois domaines sémantiques : l 'ontologie, la méthodologie et l'épistémologie. Généralement, une méthodologie analytique s'accompagne d'une ontologie atomiste et de la réduction des lois et théorie des niveaux d'organisation supérieurs aux lois et théorie des niveaux inférieurs. Par contre, une ontologie holiste, relationnelle peut s'accorder au concept d'émergence. En conséquence dans l'élaboration des lois et théories d'un phénomène appartenant à un niveau donné la prise en compte du niveau d'organisation supérieurs se révélera (...) déterminante. Les propositions philosophiques anti-mécanicistes de précurseur tels que Bradley, S. Alexander, A.N. Whitehead, C.L. Morgan, D.C. Broad, même en restant au niveau d'une forme de proto-émergentisme représentent le fondement épistémologique à partir duquel s'est développée une méthodologie véritablement émergentiste. Abstract The holism-reductionism debate is structured around three areas of semantics: ontology, methodology and epistemology. As a general rule, an analytical methodology goes with an atomist ontology, and the reduction of laws and theories from the higher levels of organisation to the laws and theories of lower levels. On the other hand, a holistic and relational ontology can be in unison with the concept of emergence. As a consequence, in elaborating laws and theories of a phenornenon of a given level, taking into account that the higher level of organisation will be determinant. The philosophical and anti-mechanistic propositions of precursors such as F. Bradley, S. Alexander, A.N. Whitehead, C.L. Morgan, D.C. Broad, even remaining at the level of a kind of proto-emergentism represent the epistemological basis on which a true emergentist methodology has been developed. (shrink)

Moral Internalism is the claim that it is a priori that moral beliefs are reasons for action. At least three conceptions of 'reason' may be disambiguated: psychological, epistemological, and purely ethical. The first two conceptions of Internalism are false on conceptual, and indeed empirical, grounds. On a purely ethical conception of 'reasons', the claim is true but is an Externalist claim. Positive arguments for Internalism — from phenomenology, connection and oddness — are found wanting. Three possible responses to the stock (...) Externalist objections are uncovered and overturned. In so doing a close relation between Internalism and Behaviourism is revealed, and some stock anti-behaviouristic arguments are co-opted for Externalism. The likely dependence of Internalism on an Atomistic Associationism is uncovered and criticised. Internalism is seen as being ultimately a type of Ethical Determinism. Finally, a sketch of an Anti-Associative Externalism is given whereby the notion of self determination of action is put forward as an account of moral motivation fit to resist both the internalist and the belief-desire psychology premises of the stock non-cognitivist argument. (shrink)

Memory, funerals, and the communion of the saints: growing old and practices of remembering / M. Therese Lysaught -- God bends over backward to accommodate humankind...while the Civil Rights Acts and the Americans with Disabilities Act require [only] minimum effort / Mary Jo Iozzio -- Radical solidarity: migration as challenge ofr contemporary Christian ethics / Kristin E. Heyer -- Catholic lesbian feminist theology / Mary E. Hunt -- Theology of whose body? Sexual conplementarity, intersex conditions, and La Virgen de Guadalupe (...) / Katie M. Grimes -- Social conscience and politics in the United States of America: reflections / Mary Jo Bane -- Pope Francis, women, and the church for the poor / Lisa A. Fullam -- Floodwaters and the ticking clock: the systematic oppression and stigmatization of poor, single mothers in American and Christian theological responses / Julie A. Mavity Maddalena --What causes inequity? / Dean Baker -- Engaging the U.S. Bishops' pastoral on crime and criminal justice: from atomism to community justice / Robert DeFina and Lance Hannon -- Reconstructing the moral claim of racially unjust mass incarceration / Alison Benders -- The systemic erasure of the Black/dark-skinned body in Catholic ethics / Bryan Massingale -- Anti-blackness and white supremacy in the making of American Catholicism / M. Shawn Copeland -- White privilege / Charles E. Curran -- The Black Lives Matter Movement: justice and health equity / Michael P. Jaycox -- Mujerista theology: a challenge to traditional theology / Ada María Isasi-Díaz -- Faith of our mothers; Catholic womanist God-talk / Diana L. Hayes. (shrink)

This article examines some of S. Lem’s statements about his philosophical and worldview positions regarding the mysterious nature of language and the linguistic sign, the connection between language, mind and reality. The main goal of the paper is to understand what texts on the philosophy of language the Polish thinker read and what attitude he has formed towards them. Lem is the follower of an analytical intellectual culture that focuses on the naturalistic worldview and the consequences of the “linguistic turn” (...) in Western philosophy. For Lem, language is not only an interesting philosophical object, but also a complex precise instrument of his own creative thinking. In this regard, the philosophy of language for a writer cannot be based only on logical-linguistic atomistic methodology. Lem seeks in his contemporary interdisciplinary methods ways to combine realistic and anti-realist positions. Many concepts, such as “the effect of semantic transparency”, “polymorphic language model”, “variation model” are quite correlated with modern theories of language and require additional philosophical comments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:_Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2502\REVIEWS.252 : 2006-02-27 11:52
eviews WITTGENSTEIN APPROACHED G L Philosophy / U. of Iowa Iowa City,  ,  -@. Brian McGuinness. Approaches to Wittgenstein: Collected Papers. London and New York: Routledge, . Pp. xv, . .. his book is a joy to read. Brian McGuinness is among the foremost Tscholars of Wittgenstein’s life and work. For better than  years, his papers have given (...) perhaps the most clear and authoritative account of the complex intellectual and personal journey of Wittgenstein. The collection of these important papers in one book is an outstanding gift to all who are interested in early analytic philosophy. The papers are not presented diachronically, but topically, starting with McGuinness’s discussions of the interplay between Wittgenstein’s philosophy and his conception of himself, as Austrian patriot, as teacher, as Jew, as architect, as penitent. There is much controversy in all of this. It is upsetting to learn that Wittgenstein remarked (likely sometime shortly after the events of Pearl Harbor in ) that “Things will be terrible when the war is over, whoever wins. Of course very terrible if the Nazis won, but terribly slimy if the Allies win” (p. ). In spite of McGuinness’s attempts at charitable explanation, it is hard to excuse this remark. Wittgenstein should have recognized that it was imperative that the Allies win, for surely he could not, by then, have been blind to the pogroms of Nazism (if not the implementation of their Final Solution to the Jewish question). It is just disappointing to discover Wittgenstein’s dalliance with anti-Semitism or with Weininger’s deplorable Sex and Gender. Nonetheless, McGuinness offers a wonderful and balanced portrait of Wittgenstein with a welcome minimum of hyperbole either concerning his genius, achievements and influences, or his eccentricities and failings.  As also in McGuinness’s Wittgenstein, a Life: Young Ludwig (London: Duckworth, and Berkeley : U. of California P., ; reprinted as Young Ludwig: Wittgenstein’s Life, – with a new Preface [Oxford: Clarendon P., ]) russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s.  (winter –): – The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U.  - _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2502\REVIEWS.252 : 2006-02-27 11:52  Reviews In a second part, the book delves into the origins and nature of Wittgenstein ’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Since the papers in this part do not come diachronically, it would be nice for each to have a date by its title, so that if there is an historical development of McGuinness’s ideas it could be more easily tracked. But evolving or not, the interpretations in McGuinness’s papers are of the very highest quality. I know of no one else who has come closer to unravelling the often cryptic entries in the Tractatus. Though some of McGuinness’s assumptions about Russell’s philosophy are now challenged by new interpretations —in particular, it seems that Russell never held a theory of types of entities —there remain a great many gems in these papers. Among them are the following: Wittgenstein’s conception of solipsism is not Cartesian and epistemic, but concerns the limits of logical form and the proper ethical attitude towards life (p. ); the Notes on Logic were offered as satisfying the dissertation requirement for Wittgenstein’s .. degree (p. ); Wittgenstein included among the “logical constants” such notions as that of a “predicate” and a “dual complex”, not just logical particles such as “not”, “or”, “all” and “some” (p. ); Wittgenstein’s Grundgedanke was independent of his “picture theory” (p. ); Wittgenstein’s “logical atomism” was to be a purified form of Russell’s so that it forms “true logical atomism” with no differences of type and with the unification provided by neutral monism of mental and physical particulars (p. ); Wittgenstein and Russell had similar attractions to Spinozistic ethics, the conception of the world sub specie aeternitatis and the “mystical” as what inspires the scientific attitude (pp. , ); Hertz’s elimination of the concept of “force” in physics was an inspiration for Wittgenstein’s elimination of “classes”, “probability”, and the logical constants (p. ); structured variables were central to Wittgenstein’s Tractarian programme (p. ); Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophical analysis has important ties to Kuhn’s concept of a paradigm (pp. , , ). These... (shrink)

The world is configured in ways that seem systematically hospitable to life forms, especially the human race. Is this the outcome of divine planning or simply of the laws of physics? Ancient Greeks and Romans famously disagreed on whether the cosmos was the product of design or accident. In this book, David Sedley examines this question and illuminates new historical perspectives on the pantheon of thinkers who laid the foundations of Western philosophy and science. Versions of what we call the (...) "creationist" option were widely favored by the major thinkers of classical antiquity, including Plato, whose ideas on the subject prepared the ground for Aristotle's celebrated teleology. But Aristotle aligned himself with the anti-creationist lobby, whose most militant members—the atomists—sought to show how a world just like ours would form inevitably by sheer accident, given only the infinity of space and matter. This stimulating study explores seven major thinkers and philosophical movements enmeshed in the debate: Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Socrates, Plato, the atomists, Aristotle, and the Stoics. (shrink)

This article examines some of S. Lem’s statements about his philosophical and worldview positions regarding the mysterious nature of language and the linguistic sign, the connection between language, mind and reality. The main goal of the paper is to understand what texts on the philosophy of language the Polish thinker read and what attitude he has formed towards them. Lem is the follower of an analytical intellectual culture that focuses on the naturalistic worldview and the consequences of the “linguistic turn” (...) in Western philosophy. For Lem, language is not only an interesting philosophical object, but also a complex precise instrument of his own creative thinking. In this regard, the philosophy of language for a writer cannot be based only on logical-linguistic atomistic methodology. Lem seeks in his contemporary interdisciplinary methods ways to combine realistic and anti-realist positions. Many concepts, such as “the effect of semantic transparency”, “polymorphic language model”, “variation model” are quite correlated with modern theories of language and require additional philosophical comments. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 161-163 [Access article in PDF] Avrum Stroll. Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Pp. ii + 302. Cloth, $32.50. Analytic philosophy has entered the history of philosophy since the greatest twentieth-century philosophers of that tradition are dead or retired. It is appropriate then to have a book that clearly and accurately explains the main theories and identifies (...) its character. Avrum Stroll has written such a book, and more. He explains and evaluates where analytic philosophy is today and speculates about where it might go from here.Reserving the first and last chapters for discussion later, I will begin with the seven intervening ones: 2. "Philosophical Logic," 3. "Logical Positivism and the Tractatus," 4. "G. E. Moore: A Ton of Bricks," 5. "Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy: 'The Stream of Life,'" 6. "Ryle and Austin: the Golden Age of Oxford Philosophy," 7. "W. V. O. Quine," and 8."Direct Reference Theories." Chapter 2 deals mostly with Frege and Russell, and Chapter 8 deals mostly with Kripke and Putnam. As the titles and contents indicate, Stroll inclines to a great man understanding of philosophical history, a sensible [End Page 161] approach given the consensus that four or five philosophers have dominated analytic philosophy in the last century, with another four or five being especially talented.Among his expositions of the various philosophical "isms," such as logical atomism and positivism, Stroll intersperses biographical matters that give the book rhythm—he demolishes the widespread idea popularized by Ray Monk that Wittgenstein was anti-Semitic—and charm—he quotes a letter that Wittgenstein wrote to Moore shortly after learning that a certain piece of work could not count as his bachelor's thesis at Cambridge: Dear Moore: Your letter annoyed me. When I wrote Logik I didn't consult the Regulations, and therefore I think it would only be fair if you gave me my degree without consulting them so much either!... If I am not worth you making an exception for me even in some STUPID details then I may as well go to HELL directly... (pp. 91-2). In Chapter One, "The Solera System," Stroll lays out the controlling analogy of his book. The system refers to a way of making sherry. A quantity of wine, drawn from the oldest and best barrel, is replaced by the same quantity drawn from the next oldest, and so one for each successive barrel. The old wine improves the new, and the new refreshes the old. Likewise, "old philosophy has the power to educate and improve new philosophy," according to Stroll. He then continues: "And new philosophy not only preserves the quality and character of old philosophy but has the capacity to refresh it" (246).Also in Chapter One, Stroll observes that "philosophy is essentially a humanistic activity" (3). As such philosophy is tied to its history in a way that science is not. I would put his underlying point differently. Philosophy is humanistic because its problems are timeless and universal; these include what it is to exist, what it is to be conscious, what causation is, and what is the good life. Further, its solutions rarely hang on technical devices.But something has been amiss. Most of the theories distinctive of analytic philosophy, from the theory of descriptions, to modal logic, the causal theory of names, and functionalism, seem to approach these problems obliquely. Also, some of the most respected analytic theories are 'evasion' theories. Eschewing the need to give a substantive account of relations, analytic philosophers hold that relations are n-tuples of objects, which themselves are reducible to unordered sets of objects. Notwithstanding its formal adequacy, the substantive issue seems to be left begging. Loving, causing, being taller than, and being the square of are all relations, but is it illuminating to treat all of them in the same way? Moderating his normal optimism, Stroll says, "I wonder whether the very conception of the role of philosophy has not changed recently. It strikes me that the classical problems that the solera model presupposes are... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Descartes’s Dualism by Marleen RozemondSteven J. WagnerMarleen Rozemond. Descartes’s Dualism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998. Pp. xx + 279. Cloth, $24.00.Rozemond gives particular attention to questions of mind-body distinctness vs. union and to the status of sensory ideas. Her historical emphasis, backed by impressive scholarship, is Descartes’s relation to the late scholastics. Rozemond is clear, alert to detail, and fair-minded. While the text is too long (esp. in (...) chapters 4–5), this study is indeed rich, its scope and architecture justified.Any good reading of a philosopher is defined—both enhanced and limited—by certain decisions. I have mentioned one of Rozemond’s: her account of Descartes’s dialogue with such predecessors as Suárez and Fonseca sheds important light. It makes one ask, further, whether standard histories are not just as wrong to ignore scholastic concerns in, say, Hobbes, Spinoza, and Locke. Yet Rozemond is less helpful with issues that make more sense when we read forward from the 1640s, not back. An historian also sets a level of philosophical engagement. One chooses between presenting a meaningful narrative, and struggling with the endless problems of detail that can both doom [End Page 678] a philosophical position and give it life. Rozemond inclines toward narrative, often stopping just short of hard questions. Yet she shows curiosity and intelligence throughout. As in the first case, another decision would not have been better or worse but simply yielded a different kind of history.Fundamental is a third choice. A philosopher’s thought may appear as an orderly structure; or as a mix of fixed points and shifting, inconsistent tendencies. Most of us are trained to the former style of representation (although we let philosophers “develop” over time). Rozemond’s Descartes, too, turns out this way. He occupies definite positions. Within each position he knows whether Ρ is a premise for Q, vice versa, or neither. This way of presenting a body of thought, i.e., as a determinate structure admitting logical assessment, is an indispensable tool for historians. Its value in any particular case is, however, a matter of judgment. Rozemond attacks textual problems with skill, often improving decisively on the competition, but the going looks smoother than it is. Sometimes she carries the privilege of selective reading too far. At other times, she overlooks the poor mutual fit of separately smooth solutions, or rests with an outcome that could not have satisfied Descartes. Some examples:1. There is an old question how far Descartes goes towards proving dualism in the Second Meditation, how much is left for the Sixth. Rozemond basically champions the Second Meditation. Although some texts favor this, she ignores important contrary passages. Her reconstruction of the “argument from separability” also fails completely to carry over to Descartes’s alternate proof (AT VII, 85–6) from the indivisibility of mind.2. Rozemond identifies (“pure”) intellection with thought or mind (56). This leaves a problem how sensation could be a mode of thought, given that for her sensations differ from pure thoughts in being ‘modes of the mind as united to the body’ (201, emphasis mine). She remarks that sensations are not ‘straightforward modes of the mind’; yet her earlier chapters have no place for obscure modal hybrids and indeed require the tidy metaphysical scheme that is now denied.3. Although Rozemond handles Descartes’s anti-empiricism well, the discussion of empty space (95–7) no sooner suggests than it drops a crucial question. Descartes traces belief in the void to a childhood prejudice according to which all bodies are perceptible; rejecting the prejudice is supposed to remove support for the hypothesis of the void. But can Descartes really pick up the doctrine of childhood prejudice, an anti-Aristotelian weapon, and turn it against the radically different atomist framework? Rozemond passes on the attendant philosophical and textual problems (cf. 133–7).4. Rozemond’s extensive treatment of sensory perceptions and qualities rewards study (particularly on the importance, for dualism, of problems about body). But she misses the chance for more. Her Descartes firmly “places sensory qualities in the mind.” The real one struggled repeatedly over whether sensory ideas can or must... (shrink)

For many Christian ethicists the language of individualism serves as a philosophical short-hand for an atomistic and anti-social existence which refuses the invitation of a common life with others. Is this negative description deserved? This article undertakes a close reading of the categories of the individual and the person in order to formulate a theologically affirmative account of certain liberal strands of social and political individualism. In an effort to ground this project, dialogue is initiated with the Quaker theological (...) tradition. Through a close engagement with early Quaker accounts of community, selfhood and conversion, the discussion retrieves a social and teleological model of individuality which challenges key suppositions of individualism’s contemporary critics. This article concludes by considering ways in which Quaker formations of the individual can assist the Church in the task of faithfully engaging with liberal societies. (shrink)

This study explores several arguments against Spinoza's philosophy that were developed by Henry More, Samuel Clarke, and Colin Maclaurin. In the arguments on which I focus, More, Clarke, and Maclaurin aim to establish the existence of an immaterial and intelligent God precisely by showing that Spinoza does not have the resources to adequately explain the origin of motion. Attending to these criticisms grants us a deeper appreciation for how the authority derived from the empirical success of Newton's enterprise was used (...) to settle debates within philosophy. What I emphasize is that in the progression from More to Clarke to Maclaurin, key Newtonian concepts from the Principia (1687), such as motion, atomism, and the vacuum, are introduced and exploited in order to challenge the account of matter and motion that is presented in Spinoza's Ethics (1677). Building on this treatment, I use the arguments from More and Clarke especially to help discern the anti-Spinozism that can be detected in Newton's General Scholium (1713). Ultimately, the Newtonian criticisms that I detail offer us a more nuanced view of the problems that plague Spinoza's philosophy, and they also challenge the idea that Spinoza seamlessly fits into a progressive narrative about the scientific revolution. (shrink)

In this challenging and provocative book, Steve Fuller contends that our continuing faith in science in the face of its actual history is best understood as the secular residue of a religiously inspired belief in divine providence. Our faith in science is the promise of a life as it shall be, as science will make it one day. Just as men once put their faith in God's activity in the world, so we now travel to a land promised by science. (...) In "Science", Fuller suggests that the two destinations might be the same one. Fuller sympathetically explores what it might mean to live scientifically. Can science give a sense of completeness to one's life? Can it account for the entirety of what it is to be human? And what does our continuing belief in scientific progress say about us as a species? In answering these questions, Fuller ranges widely over the history of science and religion - from Aristotle and the atomists to Dawkins and the neo-Darwinists - and takes a close look at what science is, how its purpose has changed over the years, and what role religion and in more recent years atheism have played in its progression. Science, argues Fuller, is now undergoing its own version of secularization. We are ceasing to trust science in its institutional forms, formulated by an anointed class of science priests, and instead we are witnessing the emergence of what Fuller calls Protscience' - all sorts of people, from the New Age movement to anti-evolutionists, claiming scientific authority as their own. Fuller shows that these groups are no more anti-scientific than Protestant sects were atheistic. Fearless and thought-provoking, Science questions some of our most fundamental beliefs about the nature and role of science, and is a distinct and important contribution to debates about evolution, intelligent design, atheism, humanism, the notion of scientific progress, and the public understanding of science. (shrink)

Duhem is often described as an anti-realist or instrumentalist. A contrary view has recently been expressed by Martin (1991) (Pierre Duhem: Philosophy and History in the Work of a Believing Physicist (La Salle, IL: Open Court)), who suggests that this interpretation makes it difficult to understand the vantage point from which Duhem argues in La science allemande (1915) that deduction, however impeccable, cannot establish truths unless it begins with truths. In the same spirit, the present paper seeks to establish (...) that Duhem is at any rate not the kind of anti-realist he is often presented as being, and that his views are like those Quine sees fit to call realist. An interpretation of Duhem's views on explanation and precision in science, and their bearing on the epistemological status of theory, is advanced which leads naturally into his critique of conventionalism. His attitude towards atomism, which should not be judged from a post-1925 perspective, is considered part of the unified view he strove after and appropriately called Duhem's physicalism, standing in contrast to the kind of reductionist conception usually associated with atomism. (shrink)

The category of anarchy is conventionally associated with the emergence of an autonomous discipline of International Relations. Recently, Donnelly has argued that anarchy has never been central to IR. His criticism targets not just concepts of anarchy but theories of anarchy and thereby expresses an anti-theory ethos tacitly accepted in the discipline. As a form of conceptual atomism, this ethos is hostile to structuralist and normative theories. This article aims to reinstate theoretical holism against conceptual atomism and (...) to defend the enduring relevance of theories of international anarchy for IR. This is done by revisiting two classic, structuralist accounts of international anarchy articulated in Kenneth Waltz’s Theory of International Politics and Hedley Bull’s Anarchical Society. It will be shown that both represent coherent theoretical ‘wholes’ which reveal a more complex relationship between anarchy and hierar... (shrink)

No. 20 in the Marquette series "Mediaecal [[sic]] Philosophical Texts in Translation," this translation is based on J. R. O’Donnell’s edition of the only extant manuscript of the Universal Treatise, and is preceded by a helpful introduction of 28 pp. plus a selected bibliography. An English version of this work should be welcomed by scholars not versed in Latin who are nonetheless interested in Nicholas’ thought, whether because of his highly critical reactions to Aristotle and Averroes or because of certain (...) similarities between his philosophical views and those of Hume. If the latter are primarily to be found in his two extant letters to Bernard of Arezzo, the former constitute the very heart of this work. It should also be noted that the Universal Treatise was originally intended to recall university professors, especially at Paris, to the study of Christianity and ethics. Written c. 1340, its attacks on Aristotle and Averroes were intended to contribute to this purpose. Nevertheless, some of the positions expressed therein were to bring Nicholas himself into conflict with ecclesiastical authority. Not least among these troublesome views from the standpoint of religious orthodoxy was the suggestion that all things are eternal. The situation was further complicated by Nicholas’ contention that not all the views found in the Treatise represent his own convictions. Many are to be taken as probable or more probable. In his attacks on Aristotle and Averroes he does not claim to disprove demonstratively what they held, but only to show that their opinions are less probable than those he advances. Granted that the chief unifying factor in this work is negative, its anti-Aristotelian and anti-Averroistic thrust, yet, as is suggested in the introduction, some kind of positive unifying theme is also at work, Nicholas’ view of the good. Since the universe must always contain the same amount of goodness, everything in it must remain in existence. Therefore the universe consists of unchangeable atoms. From this atomism follows the view that space consists of points and time of instants. Since change in quantity and place cannot produce or destroy real being, Nicholas must therefore hold that quantity is really identical with material substance and that movement is nothing but change in the position of atoms. Moreover, if things are eternal, it is probable that the same holds for the actions of the soul. As eternal such acts remain unchanged and hence do not vary in degree of intensity. They simply pass from person to person. Consequently, the same object cannot be seen clearly and obscurely. Nicholas also suggests that all things are as they appear, granted that such must be accepted not because it has been proved but because this conviction gives pleasure to the mind. Again, he argues that since a cause can produce only one kind of effect, not all things have been produced by God whether as their total or as their partial cause. He then suggests that because God’s power is infinite, no effect can be produced by him naturally. As finite such an effect would not be proportioned to his infinite power. His arguments against any kind of Averroistic theory of one separate intellect for all mankind are both interesting and unusual. In fact he appears to go to the opposite extreme, not only defending individual intellects for individual men but also suggesting that in one and the same soul there are as many intellects as concepts. That Nicholas himself saw some difficulties with this position may be inferred from his admonition that further thought be given to this matter. If the same might be said of other unusual theories advanced in the Treatise, its translators are to be commended for having made it available to English language readers.—J. F. W. (shrink)

Spinoza never discusses the scenario of radical skepticism as it was introduced by Descartes. Why not? This paper argues that he chooses a preventive strategy: instead of taking the skeptical challenge as it is and trying to refute it, he questions the challenge itself and gives a diagnosis of its origin. It is a combination of semantic atomism, dualism and anti-naturalism that gives rise to radical doubts. Spinoza attacks these basic assumptions, opting instead for semantic holism, anti-dualism (...) and naturalism. This crucial shift of basic assumptions prevents radical skepticism from arising. To be sure, local doubts are still possible, but the possibility of global doubt is ruled out. The paper examines this preventive strategy, situating it in the historical context and building a bridge to more recent anti-skeptical strategies. (shrink)

Phenomenology since Husserl has always had a problematic relationship with empirical science. In its early articulations, there was Husserl's rejection of ‘the scientific attitude’, Merleau-Ponty's distancing of the scientifically-objectified self, and Heidegger's critique of modern science. These suggest an antipathy to science and to its methods of explaining the natural world. Recent developments in neuroscience have opened new opportunities for an engagement between phenomenology and cognitive science and through this, a re-thinking of science and its hidden assumptions more generally. This (...) is so partly because of the shortcomings of conventional mechanistically-conceived science in dealing with complex and dynamic phenomena such as climate change, brain plasticity, the behaviour of collectives, the dynamics of various microbiological processes, etc. But it is also due to recent phenomenological scholarship focussed on the ‘embodied’ phenomenology of Husserl's Ideen II and Merleau Ponty's later ontology of nature which have helped to extend the insights of phenomenology beyond the narrowly ‘human’ to an understanding of nature (which includes the human) more generally. Thus recontextualised, phenomenology is well placed to examine some of the assumptions that give rise to the reductionism and associated scientism which has characterised conventional science in its approach to the study of natural processes. In light of this, it might be suggested that the ‘anti-science’ of early articulations of phenomenology is more a hostility to the underlying assumptions of science as conventionally understood than to science itself e that it is scientism rather than science that is targeted. In this paper, I aim to show how a phenomenological naturalism might be seen as a necessary step towards the development of a non-reductionist and non-scientistic approach to scientific inquiry. A key to this is a reconceptualization of nature as inclusive of meanings and of mind. It is a conception developed by Merleau-Ponty, especially in his later ontology of nature, and one that is shared by American pragmatist philosopher of science, C.S. Peirce (1839e1914). For both philosophers, meaning must be understood in terms of an ontology which is relational rather than atomistic, and dynamic or processual rather than static and substance-based. For Merleau-Ponty this is an experientially-derived ontology; for Peirce it is a more conceptually-based one. In this paper, I explore this connection between these two philosophers in two stages. The first is by reference to Peirce's theory of signs or semiotics. More specifically, I look at the application of this theory to the study of biological processes as developed in Peirce-inspired biosemiotics. In the light of this, I suggest that Merleau-Ponty's account of intentional relations in nature might be articulated as semiotic relations, and can serve as a philosophical basis for a non-reductive biological science. I then turn to questions relating to the ontology of nature. I explore Merleau-Ponty's experientially-based “ontology of flesh” and Peirce's distinctive form of naturalism to show affinities at this ontological level. These affinities consist in commitments to a reality that includes possibility, meaning, temporality, and final causation e that is, an ontology which is far more inclusive than that of conventional positivistic science. Peirce's broader scientific metaphysics enables us to extend Merleau-Ponty's phenomenological naturalism beyond the biological to the physical sciences. Whilst Merleau-Ponty's ontology of nature provides the experiential basis necessary for a critique of scientism, Peirce establishes the relevance of that ontology for a re-conceived empirical science. (shrink)

We study here the reception by their contemporaries of Antoine de Villon's and étienne de Clave's anti-Aristotelian, almost materialistic and atomistic theses, which they intended to support publicly in Paris in 1624, using chemical experiments to this purpose. After surveying the intellectual context which could have then nourished an atomism based upon chemical experiments, we go on to show how these theses, far from having been perceived as prominently atomistic, were condemned by the contemporaries above all because of (...) the theological implications of their provocative anti-Aristotelism. Alchemy itself was not directly implicated in the case of the theses. On the contrary, the theses were perceived as an alien body within the alchemical tradition. (shrink)

The first contribution of this article is a politico-philosophical map that, drawing upon two common sets of arguments against modern natural rights, might help to explain the prevailing neo-republican position on natural rights. Under the label ‘abstraction argument’, we explore the view that natural rights are a metaphysical construct that usually ends in a violent application of speculative principles to society. Under ‘self-interest argument’, we discuss the notion that natural rights endorse an atomistic and selfish conception of the human being. (...) Second, we show how Cold War authors replicated these two arguments, conveying a biased, largely anti-republican and anti-democratic view of natural rights to the twentieth century. Third, drawing on these two arguments, we critically assess the narrow view of natural rights inherited by neo-republican scholars. (shrink)