Rethinking the powers of the imagination, Søren Kierkegaard both anticipates and challenges contemporary approaches to a descriptive philosophy of religion. In contrast to the reigning approaches to religion in his day, Kierkegaard reconceives philosophy as, first of all, descriptive of human, including specifically ethical and religious, existence. To this end, he develops conceptual tools, including a descriptive ontology of human existence, a “pluralist epistemology” exploring both cognitive and passional dimensions of religion, and a role for the poetic in (...) philosophy, strikingly expressed in his observer figures who “imaginatively construct” “thought projects” to explore human existence. While this new descriptive account anticipates subsequent approaches to the philosophy of religion, it could be interpreted as another “objectivist” endeavor, yet Kierkegaard attempts more in this descriptive philosophy. He imaginatively deploys conceptual and rhetorical strategies maieutically to both describe and elicit self-reflection aimed at transformation, thus expanding the imagination’s uses for his readers. Comparing Kierkegaard to Pierre Hadot’s recovery of ancient Greek philosophy as “a way of life” will show how Kierkegaard also engages the particularity of “the Christian principle”, with implications for how philosophy can both describe and elicit the pathos of other religious traditions as well. (shrink)

This book combines a historical and philosophical study of Russell's theory of descriptions. It defends, develops, and extends the theory as a contribution to natural language semantics while also arguing for a reassessment of the importance of linguistic inquiry to Russell's philosophical project.

Au début du XXe siècle une idée semble prééminente chez deux philosophes aussi différents que Husserl et Peirce : le projet d’une philosophie purement descriptive appelée phénoménologie , une science sans présuppositions. Dans les années 1920-1940, deux autres philosophes importants, Dewey et Wittgenstein revendiquent l’idée que la philosophie est une description de l’ordinaire. Wittgenstein entend décrire des faits bien connus qui nous échappent à cause de leur familiarité. Ainsi la philosophie doit être descriptive, mais le peut-elle ? Et qu’est-ce (...) que cela signifie ? Cet article cherche à montrer que la description ne suffit pas à ces auteurs et qu’en fin de compte ils trahissent leur projet descriptif.At the beginning of the 20th century an idea seems to get prominent among two philosophers as different as Husserl and Peirce : the project of a purely descriptive philosophy called phenomenology , a science without presuppositions. Along the 1920-1940s, two other important philosophers, Dewey and Wittgenstein claim that philosophy must be the description of the ordinary. Wittgenstein intends to describe well known facts which we fail to see because of their familiarity. So philosophy must be descriptive, but can it ? And what does it means ? This paper tries to show that description is not enough for these authors and that they ultimately betray their descriptive project. (shrink)

Cet article porte sur la notion de description (Beschreibung) chez Marty. L’article débute par l’étude de la distinction entre psychologie descriptive et génétique chez Brentano, non seulement dans les cours donnés à Vienne dès 1887, mais également dans la Psychologie du point de vue empirique. L’article se concentre ensuite sur la reprise martyienne de cette distinction. Si Marty, fidèle à la pensée de son maître, en reprend les principales conclusions dans ses propres travaux de psychologie, il étend de manière (...) originale la distinction entre recherches descriptives et génétiques à la philosophie du langage, notamment à la « sémasiologie » (Semasiologie) ou « théorie de la signification » (Bedeutungslehre). L’article se clôt sur une discussion des critiques adressées par Husserl à la philosophie du langage de Marty. (shrink)

An increasingly common complaint about philosophy of religion—especially, though not exclusively, as it is pursued in the “analytic tradition”—is that its preoccupation with questions of rationality and justification in relation to “theism” has deflected attention from the diversity of forms that religious life takes. Among measures proposed for ameliorating this condition has been the deployment of “thick description” that facilitates more richly contextualized understandings of religious phenomena. Endorsing and elaborating this proposal, I provide an overview of different but (...) related notions of thick description before turning to two specific examples, which illustrate the potential for engagement with ethnography to contribute to an expanded conception of philosophy of religion. (shrink)

Perhaps no philosopher has so fully explored the nature and conditions of historical understanding as Wilhelm Dilthey. His work, conceived overall as a Critique of Historical Reason and developed through his well-known theory of the human studies, provides concepts and methods still fruitful for those concerned with analyzing the human condition. Despite the increasing recognition of Dilthey's contributions, relati vely few of his writings have as yet appeared in English translation. It is therefore both timely and useful to have available (...) here two works drawn from different phases in the development of his philosophy. The "Ideas Concerning a Descriptive and Analytic Psychology" (1894), now translated into English for the first time, sets forth Dilthey's programma tic and methodological viewpoints through a descriptive psychology, while "The Understanding of Other Persons and Their Expressions of Life" (ca. 1910) is representative of his later hermeneutic approach to historical understanding. DESCRIPTIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND THE HUMAN STUDIES Dilthey presented the first mature statement of his theory of the human studies in volume one of his Einleitung in die Geisteswissenschaften (Introduction to the Human Studies), published in 1883. He argued there that for the proper study of man and history we must eschew the metaphysical speculation of the absolute idealists while at the same time avoiding the scientistic reduction of positivism. (shrink)

Niels Bohr, founding father of modern atomic physics and quantum theory, was as original a philosopher as he was a physicist. This study explores several dimensions of Bohr's vision: the formulation of quantum theory and the problems associated with its interpretation, the notions of complementarity and correspondence, the debates with Einstein about objectivity and realism, and his sense of the infinite harmony of nature. Honner focuses on Bohr's epistemological lesson, the conviction that all our description of nature is dependent (...) on the words we use and the ways we can unambiguously use them. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell was one of the greatest logicians since Aristotle, and one of the most important philosophers of the past two hundred years. As we approach the 125th anniversary of the Nobel laureate's birth, his works continue to spark debate, resounding with unmatched timeliness and power. The Problems of Philosophy, one of the most popular works in Russell's prolific collection of writings, has become core reading in philosophy. Clear and accessible, this little book is an intelligible and stimulating (...) guide to those problems of philosophy which often mistakenly lead to its status as too lofty and abstruse for the lay mind. Focusing on problems he believes will provoke positive and constructive discussion, Russell concentrates on knowledge rather than metaphysics, steering the reader through his famous 1910 distinction between "knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description," and introducing important theories of Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Hume, Locke, Plato, and others to lay the foundation for philosophical inquiry by general readers and scholars alike.With a new introduction by John Perry, this valuable work is a perfect introduction to the field and will continue to stimulate philosophical discussion as it has done for nearly forty years. (shrink)

This book is an investigation into the descriptive task of moral philosophy. Nora Hämäläinen explores the challenge of providing rich and accurate pictures of the moral conditions, values, virtues, and norms under which people live and have lived, along with relevant knowledge about the human animal and human nature. While modern moral philosophy has focused its energies on normative and metaethical theory, the task of describing, uncovering, and inquiring into moral frameworks and moral practices has mainly been left (...) to social scientists and historians. Nora Hämäläinen argues that this division of labour has detrimental consequences for moral philosophy and that a reorientation toward descriptive work is needed in moral philosophy. She traces resources for a descriptive philosophical ethics in the work of four prominent philosophers of the twentieth century: John Dewey, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Michel Foucault, and Charles Taylor, while also calling on thinkers inspired by them. (shrink)

Empirically-informed philosophy of mind (EIPM) has become a dominant research style in the twenty-first century. EIPM relies on empirical results in various ways. However, the extant literature lacks an empirical description of how EIPM philosophers rely on empirical results. Moreover, though EIPM is essentially a form of cross-disciplinary research, it has not been analyzed as cross-disciplinary research so far. We aim to fill the above two gaps in the literature by producing quantitative and qualitative descriptions of EIPM as (...) a kind of cross-disciplinary research. Our descriptions aim to enable metaphilosophers to evaluate EIPM methodologically and epistemically. Our analyses use co-citation and categorization analyses informed by the literature on interdisciplinarity. We present five sets of descriptions and identify the three most common types of cross-disciplinary interactions in EIPM. The resulting descriptions enable us to locate two metaphilosophical challenges for EIPM philosophers. One concerns how they should incorporate empirical results in different disciplinary contexts, and the other concerns which theoretical virtue(s) they should aim for when tinkering with scientific theories. (shrink)

In defining his phenomenology as descriptive psychology in the introduction to the first edition of his Logical Investigations 1, Husserl suggests that the field study of his phenomenology as his methodology are very close to that of Brentano’s psychology, and that the research in the book somehow contributes to Brentano’s philosophical program, one of whose main axes is psychology or philosophy of mind.

A defense of Yogacara Buddhism in light of contemporary trends in Western philosophy and theology, this paper begins with an historical survey and proceeds with a comparative analysis. Yogacara was successful in addressing the same problems 1600 years ago that many in the West have failed to address, or even recognize today. With its metaphysical and epistemological implications, Yogacara may also be employed in the resolution of, or continuing investigation into, long-standing problems within Christian theology over and against the (...) Greek metaphysics of presence. (shrink)

The article discusses the features of landscape philosophy, as well as the prospects of its practical application to analyze the crises of modern society associated with the scientific and technological revolution, globalization and the massification of culture. The concept of landscape becomes particularly important in connection with the urban turn in philosophy. The analysis given in this article has shown that landscape philosophy explains the negative characteristics of colonial cognition. The interpretation of the concept of space in (...) landscape philosophy is considered. Following S. Goryainov, we consider landscape philosophy as a philosophy of crisis. Our analysis has shown that landscape philosophy contributes to the approbation of models for solving the crisis of language and mind. Landscape philosophy and philosophical anthropology reveal existential problems. The works of M. de Unamuno, M. Scheler, M. Foucault and V. Podoroga were analyzed in this context. The significance of Unamuno's philosophy for the analysis of the role of individual creative space in the contemporary world is revealed. The applicability of Scheler's concept of spirit for the analysis of the problems of landscape philosophy is revealed. It is proved that within the framework of Podoroga's landscape philosophy, the problem of the correlation of politics and political. Using the concepts of utopia, atopia, and heterotopia, various aspects of the crisis of contemporary man man associated with the transformation of the subject's identity, the fragmentation of meanings and significance are studied. Thus, Podoroga's works are valuable for crisis philosophy because they analyze both spatial and political aspects of the crisis of contemporary society. Podoroga's works make it possible to reflect the contradictions of contemporary society, which ensures the prospects of their application for the analysis of changes in the contemporary social space. (shrink)

This dissertation seeks to explicate the fundamental contributions of phenomenology to the philosophy of language as it is presently conceived in the Anglo-American tradition for which John Searle serves as the representative. They are the essence of language in the later essays of Martin Heidegger and the perspicacious description of the experience of speaking in Maurice Merleau-Ponty. ;After roughly describing the subjectivistic assumptions, the questions, and the goals of the philosophy of language in the works of Searle, (...) the study proceeds to explore how phenomenology's characteristic search for essences and concern for lived-experience can set it on a more circumspect path. ;The study elicits the following conclusions. Despite significant contrasts, there is a solid complementarity between Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty as phenomenologists concerned with the language phenomenon. Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty make substantial contributions to the philosophy of language. Specifically, its traditional subjectivistic assumptions are phenomenologically re-thought; answers to its customary questions are formulated from a pre-subjective and pre-objective perspective; and the traditional problem of how language and speaking can be creative is resolved. Finally, some of the concerns of a complete philosophy of language left unaddressed by Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty are itemized. (shrink)

In this study Friedrich Waismann gives a systematic presentation of insights into philosophical problems which can be achieved by clarifying the language in which the problems are posed. Much of the material and the method itself derive from Wittgenstein's work in the early 30s. The book was originally envisaged as a lucid and well organized account of Wittgenstein's distinctive form of linguistic philosophy to enable the Vienna Circle to incorporate these valuable methods into their own programme of analysis. The (...) project evolved over many years into a wide-ranging survey of the dissolution of many philosophical problems and the construction of a systematic philosophical grammar. Waismann shows in detail how puzzlement can be removed by careful description of the uses of the terms employed in framing problems. At the same time, he sketches a general framework for analysis of language, including chapters on names, general terms, logical operators, propositions, questions, etc. This book is an authoritative presentation of Wittgenstein's influential philosophy of language in a format much easier to follow than his own intricate and elusive texts. Waismann exhibits clearly the merits of this method of philosophizing. This book should serve as an important and useful text for those who wish to understand the method and power of linguistic philosophy. It has no equal as an introduction to Wittgenstein's philosophy. (shrink)

The late Richard Rorty was no stranger to provocation, and many an analytic philosopher would surely count as extremely provocative comments he had made on Robert Brandom’s highly regarded book from 1994, Making It Explicit.1 Brandom’s book was, Rorty asserted “an attempt to usher analytic philosophy from its Kantian to its Hegelian stage.”2 The reception of Kant within analytic philosophy has surely been, at best, patchy, but if it is difficult to imagine exactly what Rorty could have had (...) in mind by analytic philosophy’s “Kantian phase,” the idea of an immanent Hegelian one would strike many as ludicrous. Given that the beginnings of analytic philosophy are conventionally described in terms of the radical break initiated by Russell and Moore with the Hegel-inspired idealism of their teachers at Cambridge in the closing years of the 19th century, the distinctly anti-Hegelian character of analytic philosophy has been held to be central. Moreover, the increasing naturalistic tenor of recent analytic philosophy would seem hardly propitious for a revival of 19th century idealism. And yet Rorty’s description should not be dismissed as mere provocation. (shrink)

Descriptions are phrases of the form ‘an F’, ‘the F’, ‘Fs’, ‘the Fs’ and NP's F (e.g. ‘John's mother’). They can be indefinite (e.g., ‘an F’ and ‘Fs’), definite (e.g. ‘the F’ and ‘the Fs’), singular (e.g., ‘an F’, ‘the F’) or plural (e.g., ‘the Fs’, ‘Fs’). In English plural indefinite descriptions lack an article and are for that reason also known as ‘bare plurals’. How to account for the semantics and pragmatics of descriptions has been one of the central (...) topics in philosophy for centuries. This entry focuses on the historical and contemporary philosophical debate about Bertrand Russell’s theory of descriptions and the theories that developed as responses to this theory. (shrink)

Questions about the relation between identity and discernibility are important both in philosophy and in model theory. We show how a philosophical question about identity and dis- cernibility can be ‘factorized’ into a philosophical question about the adequacy of a formal language to the description of the world, and a mathematical question about discernibility in this language. We provide formal definitions of various notions of discernibility and offer a complete classification of their logical relations. Some new and surprising (...) facts are proved; for instance, that weak dis- cernibility corresponds to discernibility in a language with constants for every object, and that weak discernibility is the most discerning nontrivial discernibility relation. (shrink)

Context: Josef Mitterer has become known for criticizing the main exponents of analytic and constructivist philosophy for their blind adoption of a dualistic epistemology based on an alleged ontological difference between world and words. Judith Butler, who has developed an influential model of (de)constructivist feminism and has been labeled a linguistic constructivist, has been criticized for sustaining exactly what, according to Mitterer, most modern philosophy fails to acknowledge: namely that there is no ontological difference between objective facts beyond (...) language and the discourse about these facts. Problem: In the scholarly discussion on non-dualism, two main questions have been raised: Where does Mitterer’s basic consensus, i.e., the starting-point description, come from? and: What does it mean, to say that further descriptions change their object? Method: Comparative analysis of the core concepts of Mitterer’s and Butler’s work in the context of the history of ideas. Results: Butler’s conception of a performative production of objectivity through discursive and non-discursive iterated practices can be interpreted as an illustration of Mitterer’s claim that descriptions change their object. The problem of where Mitterer’s starting-point descriptions come from can be solved by adopting Butler’s concept of culturally inherited practices. (shrink)

Starting from two passages of the autobiography of Lipman, which represent the description of a sort of ‘primary scene’ of P4C, the presented paper shows how the Deweyan notion of qualitative thought is pivotal for the entire Lipmanian undertaking. Dewey’s distinction between ‘situation’ and ‘object’ in thinking is read into the Lipman differentiation of schemata and concepts and used to analyze the reasons for which narrative comes to play a crucial role in the project of education for thinking. The (...) mobilization of narrative entails a movement of turning the history of philosophy inside out, which may be considered the major achievement of Lipman. This movement is opposite to that of mere historicization and can also be construed in terms of ‘dramatization,’ culminating in the Bildung. (shrink)

These lectures constitute the earliest version of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, one of the most influential works in Western political theory. They introduce a notion of civil society that has proven of inestimable importance to diverse philosophical and social agendas. This transcription of the lectures, which remained in obscurity until 1982, presents the philosopher's social thought with clarity and boldness. It differs in some significant respects from Hegel's own published version of 1821. Nowhere does Hegel make plainer the difference (...) between his concept of objective spirit and traditional concepts of natural law or offer a more prominent treatment of the key notion of recognition. His description of poverty is more forceful and his critique of existing social conditions more thorough than in the published edition, which had to satisfy the Prussian censor. The strictly limited powers of the monarch are more clearly delineated in the Heidelberg lectures, and the arguments for a bicameral legislature are more explicit. Hegel formulates in a more dynamic way his understanding of the relationship between rationality and actuality--the rational is not what exists but what is coming into being--and sets forth more simply and clearly the central themes of his political philosophy--freedom, justice, and community. The Heidelberg lectures are an indispensable resource for understanding the edition of 1821 and an invaluable supplement to one of the great classics of political philosophy. (shrink)

The intentionality of sensation -- The first person -- Substance -- The subjectivity of sensation -- Events in the mind -- Comments on Professor R.L. Gregory's paper on perception -- On sensations of position -- Intention -- Pretending -- On the grammar of "Enjoy" -- The reality of the past -- Memory, "experience," and causation -- Causality and determination -- Times, beginnings, and causes -- Soft determinism -- Causality and extensionality -- Before and after -- Subjunctive conditionals -- "Under a (...) description" -- Analysis competition--tenth problem -- A reply to Mr. C.S. Lewis's argument that "naturalism" is self-refuting. (shrink)

There is no more prominent atheist today than Jean-Paul Sartre. Yet serious students of Sartre’s philosophy are struck by his unabashed use of theological idiom. This use is so extensive that Professor Hazel Barnes in her translator’s introduction to Being and Nothingness comments: Many people who consider themselves religious could quite comfortably accept Sartre’s philosophy if he did not embarrass them by making his pronouncement, “ There is no God,” quite so specific.1 The present chapter will explore the (...) theological idiom of Sartre’s philosophy of man and pose the question whether—once the “embarrassing atheistic pronouncement” is removed—Sartre’s philosophical anthropology has any systematic value for the theologian. The chapter proceeds along six lines: (1) to investigate Sartre’s conception of human nature; (2-4) to illustrate his employment of theological language in describing man as desiring to be God, guilty of original sin, and incarnate in love; (5) to appraise his arguments for atheism; and (6) to assess particular aspects of his description of human reality. (shrink)

This book is the first part of a comprehensive study of Wittgenstein's conception of language description. Describing language was no pastime occupation for the philosopher. It was hard work and it meant struggle. It made for a philosophy that required Wittgenstein's full attention and half his life. His approach had always been working on himself, on how he saw things. The central claim of this book is that nothing will come of our exegetical efforts to see what Wittgenstein's (...) later philosophy amounts to if his work on describing language is not given the place and concern it deserves. The book shows what his philosophy might begin to look like in the light of critical questions around his interest to see the end of the day with descriptions, and these things only. (shrink)

In Other Logics: Alternatives to Formal Logic in the History of Thought and Contemporary Philosophy , edited by Admir Skodo, an array of historical and philosophical chapters decenter the idea of formal logic as the most accurate, timeless, and abstract description of all thought and reasoning.

The author enters an already old dispute, that is, whether a countеrpart of the notion of philosophy could be encountered in the traditional India, upholds the view that the term ānvīkṣikī (lit. “investigation”) was nearest to it and traces its meaning along the texts on dharma, politics, poetics and philosophy properly. Two main avenues to the understanding of philosophy’s vocations in India have been paved in the Mānavadharmaśāstra, along with the commentaries thereon and by Kamandaki, the author (...) of the Nītisāra (as the knowledge of Ātman) and in the Arthaśāstra and the Nyāya texts composed by Vātsyāyana and Uddyotakara (as a metascience helping the other branches of knowledge bear their fruits). Therefore philosophy in India as well was regarded as the duality of ideological and methodological constituents, while the emphasis on analytic practice in the definitions of ānvīkṣikī (Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophy as a practice is also referred to in this context) paves a good promise for comparative philosophy. (shrink)

Of all the developments in twentieth century physics, none has given rise to more heated debates than the changes in our understanding of science precipitated by the quantum revolution''. In this revolution, Niels Bohr's dramatically non-classical theory of the atom proved to be the springboard from which the new atomic physics drew it's momentum. Furthermore, Bohr's contribution was crucial not only because his interpretation of quantum mechanics became the most widely accepted view but also because in his role as educator (...) and spokesman for atomic physics Bohr was very much the patron spirit of the entire quantum revolution. The conceptual framework which he proposed to provide a new viewpoint for understanding the quantum theoretical description of atomic systems became for most of this century the dominant outlook of countless productive experimental and theoretical physicists. He called this new framework complementarity''. (shrink)

For the most part, attention occurs as a theme adjacent to much more topical and innovatingly operating acts: first, the intentional act, which represents a destitution of the abstract opposition between subject and object and which paves the way for a detailed analysis of our perceptive horizontal subjective life; second, the reductive act, specified in a psycho-phenomenological sense as a reflective conversion of the way I am looking at things; third, the genetic method understood as a genealogy of logic based (...) on our experiential affective pre-discursive world-life. In this respect, here are some of the leading questions of my investigation: What are the differences and the proximities between these methods and attentional activity? Why is the latter not put to the fore as a method? To what extent is this secondary part played by attention linked to the constitution of phenomenology as opposed to psychology (for which attention is a central theme), and what does it mean for the impossibility of phenomenology to freeing itself completely from psychology? (shrink)

This paper examines critically the current state of affairs in philosophy of science. It focuses on the well-Known puzzle about the relationship between the normative prescriptive methodology of science and positive descriptive history of science. This puzzle has dogged philosophers of science for over a generation and is still controversial. My conclusion is that there is really no escape from it. The best way to characterize it is as follows: "philosophy of science without history of science is empty; (...) history of science without philosophy of science is blind.". (shrink)

This essay lays out the leading principles of the theories of definite descriptions advocated by Frege, Russell, and Hilbert and Bernays, and discusses various difficulties, philosophical and otherwise, with each treatment, fixing especially on the treatment of singular existence claims. Then the leading principles of free (definite) description theory are presented and it is shown how it resolves difficulties confronting the more traditional approaches. Finally, a pair of technical problems in free (definite) description theory are addressed. They help (...) to show the fecundity of this treatment of definite descriptions. (shrink)

This chapter summarizes Russell’s The Problems of Philosophy, presents new biographical details about how and why Russell wrote it, and highlights its continued significance for contemporary philosophy. It also surveys Russell’s famous distinction between “knowledge by acquaintance” and “knowledge by description,” his developing views about our knowledge of physical reality, and his views about our knowledge of logic, mathematics, and other abstract objects.

Science and philosophy have a very long history, dating back at least to the 16th and 17th centuries, when the first scientist-philosophers, such as Bacon, Galilei, and Newton, were beginning the process of turning natural philosophy into science. Contemporary relationships between the two fields are still to some extent marked by the distrust that maintains the divide between the so-called “two cultures.” An increasing number of philosophers, however, are making conceptual contributions to sciences ranging from quantum mechanics to (...) evolutionary biology, and a few scientists are conducting research relevant to classically philosophical fields of inquiry, such as consciousness and moral decision-making. This article will introduce readers to the borderlands between science and philosophy, beginning with a brief description of what philosophy of science is about, and including a discussion of how the two disciplines can fruitfully interact not only at the level of scholarship, but also when it comes to controversies surrounding public understanding of science. (shrink)

In the face of growing skepticism and relativism, “believe in reason” is the central message in Pope John Paul II’s Fides et Ratio. Only by the two wings of reason and faith together can the human spirit soar. The current work, Ratio et Fides, is its philosophical counterpart. It is not a watered-down introduction but a “leading-into” the heart of philosophic thinking. Firmly rooted in the phenomenological description of an ordinary artifact, a mailbox, the book uses the principles involved (...) in the description to examine key figures in the history of thought. We focus on three areas: the Soul, Morality, and God. We consider seven thinkers. Plato and Aristotle, who founded the tradition, were taken up by Augustine and Aquinas in developing their theologies. Descartes launched the distinctively modern tradition, culminating in Hegel’s systematic presentation of the whole Western tradition, philosophical and religious. More recently, Heidegger approached that tradition in terms of its hidden ground in the Mystery of Being, recalling us to meditative thinking as the secular counterpart to prayer. Armed with this background, students will be able to approach with profit the Fathers of the Church and major theologians and philosophers, past and recent. (shrink)

pKuzminski’s bookem Pyrrhonian Buddhism: A Philosophical Reconstruction/em presents a comparative study of Buddhism and Pyrrhonism. Pyrrhonian Buddhism, Kuzminski’s novelty, designates a synthesis of Greek and Indian influences on Pyrrho’s thought—namely Democritean atomism and Buddhist phenomenalism. It is a philosophical construct that reveals the similarities between the Buddhist and Pyrrhonian models of enlightenment (viz. bodhi and ataraxia). The book examines striking similarities between both Pyrrhonism and Buddhism, suggesting their virtual identity. In Kuzminski’s opinion, it is essentially the Buddhist practice and the (...) description of the Buddhist experience adopted by Pyrrho of Elis that resulted in the original synthesis he calls Pyrrhonian Buddhism. Putting Pyrrhonism in the setting of Buddhism and its practice brings a new understanding of Pyrrhonism as the ancient Greek school influencedbrby the east./p. (shrink)

The paper engages Christopher Boorse’s Bio-Statistical Theory (BST). In its current form, BST runs into a significant challenge. For BST to account for its central tenet—that lower-level part-dysfunction is sufficient for higher-level pathology—it must provide criteria for how to decide which lower-level parts are the ones to be analyzed for health or pathology. As BST is a naturalistic theory, such choices must be based solely on naturalistic considerations. An argument is provided to show that, if BST is to be preserved, (...) such parthood choices are based on non-naturalistic considerations. We demonstrate that even when parthood choices are based on the best way to preserve BST, there are counterintuitive results which bring the central tenet of BST into question. (shrink)

When philosophers talk about descriptions, usually they have in mind singular definite descriptions such as ‘the finest Greek poet’ or ‘the positive square root of nine’, phrases formed with the definite article ‘the’. English also contains indefinite descriptions such as ‘a fine Greek poet’ or ‘a square root of nine’, phrases formed with the indefinite article ‘a’ (or ‘an’); and demonstrative descriptions (also known as complex demonstratives) such as ‘this Greek poet’ and ‘that tall woman’, formed with the demonstrative articles (...) ‘this’ and ‘that’. Following the custom in philosophy, in this chapter often we use ‘description’ as short for ‘definite description’; and following the custom in linguistics, often we use ‘definite’, ‘indefinite’, and ‘demonstrative’ as shorthand nouns. For the most part we focus on definite and indefinites, although a few words about demonstratives are called for. At the centre of debates about descriptions is the matter of whether they are devices of reference or of predication (simple or higher-order), and much discussion focuses on how various proposals are to be incorporated into broader theories of the semantics of natural language. But philosophical interest goes beyond the confines of linguistics, logic, and the philosophy of language because choices made about the semantics of descriptions have repercussions elsewhere, particularly in epistemology and metaphysics. A simple match of form and meaning appears to fail.1 First, many occurrences of expressions of both forms ‘the φ’ and ‘a φ’ appear to be used to talk about particular individuals. Consider (1). (shrink)

In the recent literature at the interface between economics, biology and neuroscience, several authors argue that by adopting an interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of decision making, economists will be able to construct predictively and explanatorily superior models. However, most economists remain quite reluctant to import biological or neural insights into their account of choice behaviour. In this paper, I reconstruct and critique one of the main arguments by means of which economists attempt to vindicate their conservative position. Furthermore, I (...) develop an alternative defense of the thesis that economists justifiably rely on a methodologically distinctive approach to the modelling of choice behaviour. (shrink)

This paper considers the philosophical and political views of B. N. Chicherin. Chicherin was one of Hegel's better known followers in Russian philosophy. Chicherin transformed Hegel's ideas to such an extent that the main concept of his philosophy became the concept of the person, and the main problem was the description of the person's connection to the Absolute. Chicherin was also known as a representative of the liberal tradition in Russia. However, he criticized classical western liberalism for (...) belittling the value of the state. Chicherin's liberal theory was under construction in a dialectical combination of two principles: recognition of the absolute value of the person and its freedom and recognition of the necessity of a strong state for the solution of some general problems in the absence of which it will be impossible to realize the principle of freedom in all its completeness. (shrink)