D. W. Hamlyn; I*—The Presidential Address: Focal Meaning, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 78, Issue 1, 1 June 1978, Pages 1–18, https://doi.org/.

Is it possible to do something intentionally and yet be unconscious of so doing? Many philosophers would answer ‘No’ to this question on the grounds that it is of the essence of intention that if we do something intentionally we do it knowing what we are doing.

The construction of models plays a vital part in scientific thought.And many questions about the characteristics demanded of a good model, and the implications of using models are often asked by philosophers of science. Although models are frequently and successfully used in scientific explanation, this does not imply that they are a necessary feature of such explanation, though it does provide some justification for their use. However, any attempt to provide a model for a scientific theory undoubtedly leads to a (...) clearer understanding of that theory. Models and theories are often considered as separate features in a scientific explanation, but a theory is not usually devised and then consciously provided with a model. (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)

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)

INTRODUCTION If there is one underlying implication in the following essays it is the inadequacy of the information-processing model for cognitive ...

In a recent article [Mertz 2001] in this journal I argued for the virtues of a realist ontology of relation instances (unit attributes). A major strength of this ontology is an assay of ontic ('material') predication that yields an account of individuation without the necessity of positing and defending 'bare particulars'. The crucial insight is that it is the unifying agency or combinatorial aspect of a relation instance as predicable that is for ontology the principium individuationis [Mertz 2002; 1996]. Or (...) in short, what is ontically predicable, precisely as such, is the cause of individuation. As a preface to this positive doctrine I offered arguments against the coherence of bare particulars as defended in an article by J. P. Moreland [1998]. In a reply contained in this issue Moreland and Timothy Pickavance (hereafter M/P) propose to answer my objections [2002]. The response that follows provides reasons why, I contend, M/P have not succeeded in parrying my objections to bare particulars. (shrink)

Central to Elements is an assay of the attributional union properties and relations have with their subjects, a topic historically left metaphorical. The work critiques eight Aristotelian assumptions concerning attribute dependence and ‘inherence’, per se subjects, attributes as agent-organizers, and unity-by-a-shared-one. Groups of these assumptions are seen to yield contradiction, vicious regress, or other problems. This analysis, joined with insights from an assay of ubiquitous structure, motivate ten theses explicating attribution and its primary ontic status. The theses detail: attributes proper (...) as individuated instances, structure as instance-generated facts and their two forms of composition, the conditioning role and universal nature of instances’ component intensions, the primacy of attribute instances for generating all forms of composition and complex entities, and identity and indiscernibility criteria for the latter. Principal is the insight that attribution is intension-determined combinatorial agency. It is its systematizing implications that provide solutions to classic problems, e.g., Composition, Individuation, and Universals, and in net generate a comprehensive one-category structuralist ontology. (shrink)

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)

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.

D W Hamlyn; The Concept of Development, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 9, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 26–39, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.197.

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

OBJECTIVES: To study empirically whether ethical theory (from the mainstream principles-based, virtue-based, and feminist schools) usefully describes the approaches doctors and nurses take in everyday patient care. DESIGN: Ethnographic methods: participant observation and interviews, the transcripts of which were analysed to identify themes in ethical approaches. SETTING: A British old-age psychiatry ward. PARTICIPANTS: The more than 20 doctors and nurses on the ward. RESULTS: Doctors and nurses on the ward differed in their conceptions of the principles of beneficence and respect (...) for patient autonomy. Nurses shared with doctors a commitment to liberal and utilitarian conceptions of these principles, but also placed much greater weight on relationships and character virtues when expressing the same principles. Nurses also emphasised patient autonomy, while doctors were more likely to advocate beneficence, when the two principles conflicted. CONCLUSION: The study indicates that ethical theory can, contrary to the charges of certain critics, be relevant to everyday health care-if it (a) attends to social context and (b) is flexible enough to draw on various schools of theory. (shrink)