D W Hamlyn; Knowledge and the Beginnings of Understanding: a reply to R. K. Elliott, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 14, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages.

This volume examines some of the arguments that have been put forward over the years to explain the way in which understanding is acquired. The author looks firstly at the empricist thesis of genesis without structure, and secondly at the opposing theory, represented by Chomsky of structure without genesis. His greatest sympathy is with the theory of Piaget, who represents structure with genesis. He considers that Piaget's account is flawed, however, by its biological model and by its failure to deal (...) adequately with the problem of objectivity. The second part of the book contains chapters on language, the differences between early and later learning, and on teaching. The book provides a general understanding of the principles that make it possible, and the differences between the ways in which they work at different stages. (shrink)

Aspects of Mind contains previously unpublished manuscript material by Gilbert Ryle along with notes taken by the editor, Rene Meyer, at lectures given by Ryle on the philosophy of mind in 1964. Gilbert Ryle, Waynflete Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy at the University of Oxford from 1945 until 1967, had a decisive influence on contemporary philosophy. His Concept of Mind (1949) not only put a methodological edge in a most readable way to what has become known as Analytical Philosophy, but it (...) also stimulated interest in the philosophy of mind as a pivotal part of philosophy as a whole. A second important influence derives from his reorganization of philosophical studies at Oxford after the war which made it, for several years, one of the liveliest philosophical centres in the world. Ryle's interest covered almost the entire field of philosophy. He also made substantial contributions to the history of philosophy, notably on Plato, Locke, Hume, Husserl and Heidegger. Gilbert Ryle died in October 1976. The book also includes two tributes to Ryle; one from John Mabbott, a close friend, on Ryle the man, and one from David Gallop, an ex-student, on Ryle the Philosopher. A chapter entitled "Philosophy, Logical Geography and Dilemmas" by Rene Meyer provides a perspective on Ryle's philosophy. (shrink)

To those who think that an institution must be a function of its history it must seem a considerable anomaly that when universities were first set up in the Middle Ages their main aim, apart from being communities of scholars, was to produce theologians, lawyers and doctors of medicine. For arts and what then had some connection with what we now know as science, as incorporated in the traditional seven liberal arts of grammar, logic and rhetoric, followed by arithmetic, geometry, (...) music and astronomy, were thought of as merely propaedeutic to the study of theology, law and medicine. Those seven liberal arts occupied the student during the course for the B.A., which gave the licence to teach, and some students went no further than that. But the main concern of a university lay in what happened after the B.A., in the attainment of a mastership or in what was in effect the doctorate in one of the three areas which I have mentioned before. Indeed, in some universities, particularly those in the south of Europe, the B.A. was given only scant attention and only lip service was given to the idea of liberal arts. (shrink)

This book provides an introduction to metaphysics. At the outset Professor Hamlyn distinguishes two conceptions of metaphysics running through the history of the subject. One, which goes back to Aristotle, is concerned with ontology, and with what has to exist for beings such as we are; the other separates appearance and reality and attempts to establish what really exists. Professor Hamlyn's account of metaphysics conforms with the first tradition. This is not, however, primarily a historical exposition. The discussion (...) concentrates on central metaphysical concepts and problems, including the principles of ontology, substance, particulars and universals, monism and pluralism, space and time, minds, selves and personal identity. Throughout, Professor Hamlyn's thoroughly informed and argued consideration of the topics presents both a persuasive view of the subject and an excellent grounding in it. (shrink)

The book attempts, in as comprehensive a way as possible, to make clear the central issues for the theory of knowledge, so as to provide a framework for that subject and also to indicate something of the way in which, as the author believes, the issues should be faced.

There has been a good deal of interest in recent years in what Franz Brentano had to say about the notion of ‘intentional objects’ and about intentionality as a criterion of the mental. There has been less interest in his classification of mental phenomena. In his Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint Brentano asserts and argues for the thesis that mental phenomena can be classified in terms of three kinds of mental act or activity, all of which are directed towards an (...) immanent object. These are, respectively, presentation, judgment and what he calls the phenomena of love and hate. Once again, less interest has been shown in what he has to say about the last of these three than in what he says about the others. I wish to take Brentano's views as the point of departure for a discussion of love and hate, since these notions seem to me to have a good deal of philosophical interest, for at least two main reasons. First, I have recently had some concern with the part that personal relations play in our understanding of others and of ourselves, and love and hate seem to be very important elements in such relations. Second, love and hate have long seemed to me to provide important counter-examples to some prevalent philosophical theories about the emotions. I shall take this issue first. (shrink)

Looks at the major philosophers from Socrates and Plato to Heidegger and Sartre, and traces the development of central philosophical themes.

In the Tractatus 4.126 Wittgenstein introduces the notion of a formal concept which, he says, needs to be distinguished from the notion of a proper concept, i.e. a concept such as that of “man” which has an ordinary empirical application. The sense in which formal concepts are formal is not that they have anything in particular to do with formal logic or logical form, but that they are concerned with what Wittgenstein called the “form of representation”. That is to say (...) that they are concerned with the ways in which expressions can represent the world. To put it in another way, they are concerned with the use or application to which expressions might be put. Now, it is well known that for the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus it was impossible to say anything about the form of representation of any expression: this could only be shown. Hence Wittgenstein calls these formal concepts “pseudo–concepts”, meaning by this not that there are not such concepts, but that they are incompatible with his theory. (shrink)

The phrase koine aisthesis appears, as far as I can see, very rarely in Aristotle. There is one definite use of the phrase in the De Anima, at 425a27. The word koine without aisthesis but such that the latter must be supplied may possibly occur at 431b5, but the text is uncertain there, and there is every reason why the word should be deleted from the text. This leaves us with a single occurrence of the phrase koine aisthesis in the (...) De Anima and it is used explicitly to deal with perception of the koina, the so-called common sensibles. Outside the De Anima, the phrase occurs at De Memoria 450a10, and at De Partibus Animalium 686a27, and I think nowhere else. Of these two passages that from the De Memoria is, although somewhat obscure, in line with the De Anima reference; it seems to invoke the common sense for the perception of magnitude, motion and time, and also says that an image is a pathos of the common sense, presumably because an image must be of a magnitude. The De Partibus Animalium passage is somewhat more eccentric. It is concerned with the fact that man is the only animal to walk upright, and associates this with the fact that man can think. This would not be easy if he had much of his body weighing down on him from above, for weight makes unresponsive thought and the common sense- τὴν διάνοιαν καὶ τὴν κοινὴν αἴσθησιν. Whatever be the other curiosities in this passage, the close association of thought and the common sense is itself at first sight rather strange. If any account can be given of it, it is presumably because of the facts adduced in the De Memoria passage, that thinking involves images, and these the koine aisthesis. (shrink)

There have in recent years been at least two important attempts to get to grips with Aristotle's conception of dialectic. I have in mind those by Martha C. Nussbaum in ‘Saving Aristotle's appearances’, which is chapter 8 of her The Fragility of Goodness, and by Terence H. Irwin in his important, though in my opinion somewhat misguided, book Aristotle's First Principles. There is a sense in which both of these writers are reacting to the work of G. E. L. Owen (...) on cognate matters, particularly his well-known paper ‘Tithenai ta phainomena’. Owen himself was in part reacting to what I suppose is the traditional view of how Aristotle regarded dialectic, as revealed in Topics I. 1. On that view dialectic is for Aristotle a lesser way of proceeding than is demonstration, the method of science. For demonstration proceeds from premises which are accepted as true in themselves and moves from them to conclusions which follow necessarily from those premises; and the middle term of such a demonstrative syllogism then provides the ‘reason why’ for the truth of the conclusion. Dialectic proceeds from premises which are accepted on a lesser basis ‘by everyone or by the majority or by the wise, i.e. by all, or by the majority, or by the most notable and reputable of them’, and proceeds deductively from them to further conclusions. (shrink)

D W Hamlyn; How Does Knowledge Start? A Reply to Pamela Moore, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 137, https://doi.org/1.

Johanna Knapstein,1 Daniel Grimm,1 Marcus A Wörns,1 Peter R Galle,1 Hauke Lang,2 Tim Zimmermann111st Department of Internal Medicine, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, Germany; 2Department of General, Visceral and Transplantation Surgery, Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz, GermanyIntroduction: Hepatitis C virus reinfection occurs universally after liver transplantation, with accelerated cirrhosis rates of up to 30% within 5 years after liver transplantation. Dual antiviral therapy with pegylated interferon-2a and ribavirin only reaches sustained virological response rates of ~30% after liver transplantation. With the approval of viral NS3/4A (...) protease inhibitors telaprevir, boceprevir, and simeprevir and the NS5B polymerase inhibitor sofosbuvir, combination therapy offers new therapeutic options for HCV-infected patients, resulting in considerably higher sustained virological response rates in the nontransplant setting. Case presentation: We report three cases of TVR-based triple antiviral therapy in HCV genotype 1 reinfected patients after liver transplantation, of whom a 57-year-old Caucasian female and a 43-year-old Caucasian male were therapy naïve, and a 49-year-old Caucasian male patient was pretreated ineffectively. After 4 weeks of therapy, viral load decreased one to three log10 and became negative in weeks 6 to 8 in the therapy naïve patients. The pretreated patient showed a negative viral load in week 4. TVR was administered over 12 weeks, 750 mg thrice daily. Doses of immunosuppression with cyclosporine were reduced four to six fold. Initial peg-IFN and RBV doses ranged from 135–180 µg/week and 800–1,200 mg/day, according to the patient's body weight. Doses of peg-IFN and RBV were adapted to 90–135 µg/week and 400–800 mg/day after 2 to 12 weeks of protease inhibitor therapy. Dual therapy was continued for 36 weeks with total treatment duration of 48 weeks in the therapy naïve patients leading to a sustained virological response 12 weeks after the end of therapy. In the pretreated patient a breakthrough was detected in week 24 and therapy was discontinued. Overall, antiviral therapy was well tolerated. Side effects included dysgeusia and anemia leading to erythropoietin application and blood transfusions. Conclusion: This case series emphasizes that triple therapy with TVR is an efficient treatment for therapy naïve HCV genotype 1 reinfected patients after liver transplantation. But therapeutic options for pretreated patients require improvement. Keyword: cyclosporine, interferon, ribavirin, hepatitis C, protease inhibitor. (shrink)

D. W. Hamlyn; X—The Obligation to Keep a Promise, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 62, Issue 1, 1 June 1962, Pages 179–194, https://doi.org/10.10.

The volume presents essays on the philosophical explanation of the relationship between body and soul in antiquity from the Presocratics to Galen. The title of the volume alludes to a phrase found in Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, referring to aspects of living behaviour involving both body and soul, and is a commonplace in ancient philosophy, dealt with in very different ways by different authors.

‘The Principle of Sufficient Reason in all its forms is the sole principle and the sole support of all necessity. For necessity has no other true and distinct meaning than that of the infallibility of the consequence when the reason is posited. Accordingly every necessity is conditioned ; absolute, i.e. unconditioned, necessity therefore is a contradicto in adjecto . For to be necessary can never mean anything but to result from a given reason.’ These words are taken from the beginning (...) of section 49 of Schopenhauer's The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason . They express sentiments with which I am to some extent in agreement, and it therefore seemed to me worth while to explore in some kind of detail Schopenhauer's treatment of the issues. It might, however, be asked why the view expressed by Schopenhauer should be of philosophical interest, what, if anything, turns on the rejection of the notion of absolute necessity. To this I can reply by saying only that apart from the intrinsic interest of the notion of necessity itself, an issue on which a philosopher ought to make himself clear, Schopenhauer himself points to some of the consequences of his doctrine - the impossiblity, for example, of an absolutely necessary being, and the similar impossibility of ontological or cosmological arguments. (shrink)

This book is an attempt to provide an account of the conception of perception by way of a discussion of the conditions which may have to be satisfied for that concept to have an application. There is included, therefore, a discussion not only of perceptual experience but of the part played in perception by such things as conceptual understanding, belief, imagination, attention and activity. Although there is some reference to psychological work in the field of perception the main approach is (...) philosophical in an analytical style. Nevertheless, the book tends to eschew large gestures in the philosophy of mind, favouring an attention to detail in a way which some might describe as phenomenological. The author has written much about perception in the past and the book might be characterized as summing up a lifetime of thinking about the subject. (shrink)

The traditional empiricist view of perception is that in perception we receive information through the senses of the so-called external world. This idea is reflected in the notions of the ‘given’ and of 1‘data’ which have figured so largely in theories of perception. Even if philosophers of this persuasion have gone on to say something about what we do with the data, it remains true that at rock bottom and in the last resort perception is thought of as something passive. (...) I have tried to chart the historical issues elsewhere, and I shall not repeat anything about them here. That is not my concern. I am here interested in the question whether the notion of a purely passive perceiver makes any sense in itself. That it does not has been suggested by philosophers on occasion. There are some brief remarks to that effect in G.E.M. Anscombe’s Intention ; and Stuart Hampshire’s Thought and Action lays great weight on action in connection with our awareness of the world, although I do not myself believe that the exact nature of the connection is clearly worked out by him. Some aspects of his views, however, have been taken up by Campbell Garnett with explicit reference to perception in his The Perceptual Process, with a resulting theory that bears more than a superficial resemblance to that of Maine de Biran. (shrink)

There are certain metaphysical theories which present a view of the world and of the position of human-beings within it which have seemed attractive or at least impressive to many irrespective of the arguments that are marshalled in their favour. That is certainly true of Schopenhauer. His identification of the inner nature of reality with the will, and the conclusions which he drew from this as regards the nature of human-beings and their place in the world, have seemed striking and (...) perhaps even illuminating to many thinkers, not all of whom have been philosophers in the most obvious sense and not all of whom have had much concern for the underlying argument that led Schopenhauer to his conclusions. It is in this way too, perhaps, that certain of Schopenhauer's ideas have become well known—his emphasis on the will to live, his pessimism and his views on suicide, and his thoughts about human nature and about sex that have been seen as something of an anticipation of Freud. In recent times attention has also been directed to his influence on Wittgenstein. In all these respects, however, it is Schopenhauer's ideas that have been influential, rather than the argument that underlies them. Indeed it is sometimes said that Schopenhauer was not a very systematic thinker at all. If that seems true it is so in the sense that Kant too has seemed to some unsystematic in the details of his argument. That does not mean that the main structure of the argument is not clear. So it is with Schopenhauer. (shrink)

The paper investigates the senses in which the world may be thought external, and argues that none of them supports doubt about the possibility of knowledge of the world. Scepticism sometimes depends on certain erroneous conceptions of perception, especially those which lead to belief in 'inner, representational states'. How we perceive things depends on the satisfaction of certain general conditions--on what concepts we have, on the kind of senses we have, and so on a kind of anthropocentricity; but this does (...) not prevent objectivity, even in the case of secondary qualities. (shrink)