In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Reviewed by Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers by Brian C. Ribeiro Donald C. Ainslie Brian C. Ribeiro. Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers. Brill: Leiden, 2021. Pp. 165. Hardback, $154.00. Brian C. Ribeiro’s Sextus, Montaigne, Hume: Pyrrhonizers is a charming and quirky investigation of his three titular skeptics. It is perhaps best understood as a skeptical investigation of skepticism. By that I mean that, like a good Pyrrhonist, Ribeiro explains how (...) things appear to him without claiming to lay down a doctrine or dogma. His topic is how and why skepticism still matters (7). And he suggests that those who are moved by skeptical arguments can learn intellectual modesty from them and thereby achieve a degree of philosophical “calmness of soul” (141).Ribeiro approaches his three figures by taking the cogency of their skeptical arguments for granted. There is little investigation of why these philosophers call various beliefs into question, and his concern is rather what remains once the skeptical doubts are taken on board. Because what he calls “Pyrrhonizing” philosophers reveal that large swaths of our beliefs lack epistemic merit, they also show us how we are not fully rational creatures in our everyday lives. In the case of Sextus, Ribeiro’s focus is on the famous question of whether skeptics can live their skepticism once they have actually suspended all belief. With Sextus, as with Montaigne and Hume, Ribeiro opts for the more radical of the interpretive options; he is not persuaded by Michael Frede’s suggestion that Pyrrhonists restrict their suspension only to abstruse matters, not the everyday (51). But even if we follow the “four-fold way” (20–23) that Sextus offers us as guides for life—the directives of nature, feelings, custom, and expertise—Ribeiro still thinks we will inevitably fall back into belief. He concludes that the original Pyrrhonists should be read aspirationally: insofar as we develop our capacities [End Page 517] to argue on both sides of every question and thus are able to suspend judgment, to that extent we will achieve tranquility. In the case of Montaigne, Ribeiro focuses on his Christian fideism. Once he recognizes the incapacity of reason to resolve intellectual problems, he falls back on faith. And Ribeiro argues that the Catholic flavor of this faith is simply a reflection of Montaigne’s surroundings. In a different community, he could just as easily have embraced a different faith. The heart of the book concerns Hume, whom Ribeiro discusses in three chapters, as opposed to the one each devoted to Sextus and Montaigne. In keeping with his interpretive preferences, Ribeiro’s Hume is a radical skeptic, though he acknowledges the significant yet “utterly perplexing” (95n22) naturalist strains that are also present. Ribeiro takes the resulting tension to be insoluble (98), though I was not convinced. Consider that, in both the Treatise and the Enquiry, Hume uses causal reasoning to investigate causal reasoning. He learns that our ideas are caused by prior impressions; that repeated experience of conjoint events causes us to associate our ideas of similar events; and so on. In the Treatise, he concludes the argument that association is at the root of such causal reasoning by presenting a set of rules, a “logic,” for it. The argument is not as such skeptical, though when Hume “recasts” it in the first Enquiry, he does so in terms of “sceptical doubts” and a “sceptical solution.” In the Treatise, “total” and “extravagant” skepticism come into play only as “systems of philosophy” that Hume uses to shed light on his own core commitments. The problem, I think, is that Ribeiro tends to read Hume a little too literally, as if he is himself falling prey to the skeptical upheaval of the conclusion to the first book of the Treatise, or the final section of the first Enquiry. But I would suggest that Hume is rather deploying the rhetoric of skepticism in these discussions, using it for his ultimate philosophical ends (a point that is especially clear in Ribeiro’s favorite of Hume’s works, the Dialogues). He is showing his reader how his naturalistic philosophical project is itself rooted in human nature, and thus does not yield insight into the intrinsic structure of... (shrink)

Are there universal values of right and wrong, good and bad, shared by virtually every human? The tradition of natural law argues that there is. Drawing on the work of psychoanalyst Melanie Klein, whose analyses have touched upon issues related to original sin, trespass, guilt, and salvation through reparation, in this 2006 book C. Fred Alford adds an extra dimension to this argument: we know natural law to be true because we have hated before we have loved and have wished (...) to destroy before we have wanted to create. Natural law is built upon the desire to make reparation for the goodness we have destroyed, or have longed to destroy. Through reparation, we earn salvation from the most hateful part of ourselves, that which would destroy what we know to be good. (shrink)

Curio’s six lictors with laureled fasces (Cic. Att. 10.4.9) are best explained by his holding command in 49 BC not as Caesar’s legatus, but pro praetore with imperium nominally in his own right, granted (‘extra-constitutionally’) by Caesar directly, without vote of Senate and People.

Upshot: The three commentaries focus on the c-book as “object,” on locating the learner in the design process and on the challenge to develop more fine-grained theory for constructionist collaborative design of educational resources. I respond to this delightfully critical discussion in three ways, addressing the c-book as a potentially new kind of mediation, thinking of constructionist collaborative designs as creativity enhancers and considering constructionism as one of the key frameworks for understanding collective designs.

In this interview, C. P. Goodman invites British Polanyi scholar Richard T. Allen to reflect on his interest in Polanyi’s philosophical ideas and share what he believes is valuable in his thought.

In this article C. L. Tsou, of the Institute of Biophysics, Beijing, criticizes the use of the expression I50, the inhibitor concentration to produce 50% inhibition of a particular enzyme as a ‘most unfortunate’ parameter, when screening enzyme inhibitors designed as drugs. Comments on Dr Tsou's point of view will be welcomed from readers.

A compact edition of Mr. Beck's excellent translation of the second Critique, slightly revised, together with a helpful short introduction and a bibliography.--V. C. C.

C A Wringe; Pupils’ Rights, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 7, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 103–115, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.1973.tb00475.

Ethics & Behavior, Volume 22, Issue 5, Page 409-410, September-October 2012.

Although Broad published many books in his lifetime, this volume is unique in presenting some of his most interesting unpublished writings. Divided into five clear sections, the following figures and topics are covered: Autobiography, Hegel and the nature of philosophy, Francis Bacon, Hume's philosophy of the self and belief, F. H. Bradley, The historical development of scientific thought from Pythagoras to Newton, Causation, Change and continuity, Quantitative methods, Poltergeists, Paranormal phenomena. -/- Each section is introduced and placed in context by (...) the editor, Joel Walmsley. The volume also includes an engaging and informative foreword by Simon Blackburn. It will be of great value to those studying and researching the history of twentieth-century philosophy, metaphysics, and the recent history and philosophy of science, as well as anyone interested in Broad's philosophical thought and his place in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

As the author of the first book on general hermeneutics Johann Conrad Dannhauer occupies a place in the pantheon of philosophy. The Lutheran theologian wo...

Volume 46, Issue 1, February 2025, Page 194-196.

One of the most significant difficulties that we encounter today in the post-truth era is in constructing a reality in the gap between deceptive pre-given facts and how we experience them in our lives. This gap is mostly caused by our incapacity to see reality beyond the given frames and this very characteristic of post-truth enforces us to examine the meaning of seeing more extensively. Two particular reasons make seeing things and people even more difficult: first, the claim of transparency (...) in politics is essentially deceptive; it suggests us a way of seeing, but what it does, is rather to determine what or whom to see and from which aspect we are allowed to see them. As a result, for politics, transparency turns into a means to a desired end. Second, instrumentalization in politics works effectively only when its administrators and its subjects become invisible ‘nobodies’ who can only act and see in the pregiven limits of reality. For an alternative political approach, this article turns to a phenomenological understanding of reality which emphasizes that reality can only be constituted in the plurality of aspects. For a reconstitution of reality and politics, first, this study offers an analysis of the strong need for such a plurality that requires the inclusion of the invisibles at all levels; second, in order to develop a genuine sense of embodied plurality, it proposes a new political category, here termed ‘the politics of the invisible’. (shrink)

Explores the people and ideas that contributed to the formation of the 19th-century philosophico-religious movement known as New Thought, a movement dedicated in large measure to the remedying of illness through nonphysical means. Originally presented as the author's doctora thesis (Boston U., 1962) under the title Horatio W. Dresser and the Philosophy of New Thought. Supplementary bibliographical notes and an addendum outlining the author's further thoughts accompany this presentation. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

Volume 1 of the Routledge History of Philosophy covers one of the most remarkable periods in human thought. The essays present the fundamental approaches and thinkers of Greek philosophy in chronological order.

Humans and other animals are capable of thought, emotion, consciousness, and understanding. Galaxies, trees, rocks, and chairs are not. Why is this? Is it merely that we are more complicated, or that we are made out of a different kind of material? Or is it that we are not entirely material at all? That is, what does it mean to say that something has a mind? In this course, we will focus on the mind-body problem, the question of how the (...) mind is related to the body, but we will also address a number of related questions: Can computers think? How is it that our thoughts manage to be about other things? What is the nature of consciousness? What do psychology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence have to tell us about the fundamental nature of the mind? (shrink)