Peirce’s True Gorgias is a brief dialogue from his essay “Grounds of Validity of the Laws of Logic”, published in 1869. The True Gorgias exposes the fallacy of existential import. It has received no sustained attention in the secondary literature, perhaps because the fallacy is now familiar. Peirce’s assessment of the fallacy involved in the reasoning, however, changes between 1865 and 1869, and he only arrives at the contemporary account of existential import in 1880. Moreover, a careful examination of the (...) context in which the True Gorgias appears reveals it provides an argument in support of Peirce’s early Aristotelian realism about universals in contradistinction to non-Aristotelian varieties of realism advocated by W.T. Harris, editor of the journal in which the True Gorgias was published. (shrink)

Subtitled: Illinois as seen by the Farm Security Administration photographers, 1936-1943. 162 photos reflect the wide diversity of what has been called the nation's most representative state. Includes the work of Dorthea Lange, Esther Bubley, Edwin Rosskam and others. Cloth edition, $29.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Sport was included in ancient educational systems because it was thought to promote aretê or human excellence which could be applied to almost any endeavor in life. The goal of most modern scholastic athletic programs might be better summed up in a word: winning. Is this a sign that we have lost touch with the age-old rationale for including sport in education? I argue that it need not be by showing that we value winning precisely for the virtues associated with (...) it. I then take Plato's traditional parts of aretê: piety, sophrosunê, courage and justice and show how they are manifest in modern athletic ideals of self-knowledge, discipline, courage and justice. To the extent that scholastic athletic programs develop these virtues, I conclude, their pursuit of winning is not at odds with the institutional mission of educating students. If an athletic program's pursuit of victory allows such character-building to fall by the wayside, however, it deserves no place in our high schools, colleges or universities. (shrink)

When contemplating the origins of philosophical paideia one is tempted to think of Socrates, perhaps because we feel that Socrates has been a philosophical educator to us all. But it is Plato and his literary genius that we have to thank as his dialogues preserve not just Socratic philosophy, but also the Socratic educational experience. Educators would do well to better understand Plato's pedagogical objectives in the Socratic dialogues so that we may appreciate and utilize them in our own educational (...) endeavors, and so that we may adapt the Socratic experience to new interactive educational technologies. Plato designed his Socratic dialogues to arm students for real world challenges and temptations. First, in both form and function the dialogues attempt to replicate the Socratic experience for their audience. They demand from their readers what Socrates demanded from his students: active learning, self-examination, and an appreciation for the complexity and importance of wisdom. Second, the dialogues challenge the conflation of professional and personal excellence, best exemplified by sophists such as Hippias, and exhort their reader to pursue personal aretê separately from and alongside practical and professional skills or technai. Third, they aim not to transmit some prepackaged formula for success, but to teach students to learn for themselves; that is to love and pursue wisdom. The Socratic dialogues, and philosophic dialogue itself, are educationally important in that they teach us to be philosophers in the literal sense. (shrink)

Ethics in sport demand not only that we respect ourselves and others, but also that we respect sport itself. But the question of respecting sport seems to create a kind of moral dilemma between the obligation to “play one’s best” by maximizing performance, and the obligation to follow rules and traditions that ban the use of ergogenic aids. It is often argued that bans on performance-enhancing substances, equipment, and training techniques are paternalistic and violate athletes’ liberty to rationally accept risks (...) in their pursuit of excellence. Against advocates for the legalization of ergogenic aids, however, I argue in this paper that such bans must be respected because they are an essential part of the nature of sport. Whether one understands sports metaphysically to be Suits’ “voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles” or a MacIntyrean social practice, inefficiency of means is an essential component sport that demands respect from all participants. The performance principle in sport is ontologically posterior to the prescription of inefficiencies upon which sport depends, so ethical respect for sport demands that we limit the efficiencies provided by ergogenic aids. (shrink)

From the modern scientific perspective, Olympia is a ruin at the far end of a fading sense of history that represents little more than the origins from which sport has continuously evolved. Quantitative measurements show continued increases in human performance, equipment efficiency and funding. But some question this athletic evolution. We worry about qualitative issues, such as virtue, meaning and beauty. The source of this contrast is a difference in values: Olympic vs. Efficiency values. Such values establish an ethos in (...) sporting communities that influences how we behave, explain and even conceptualize our activities. I argue from the perspectives of metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics and politics, that Olympic Ethos is needed to balance out the modern Efficiency Ethos, which threatens to dehumanize sport. (shrink)

The ancient Greek word kalon can be translated as beautiful, good, noble, or fine—yet somehow it transcends any one of those concepts. In art and literature, it can apply straightforwardly to figures like Helen or Aphrodite, or enigmatically to the pais kalos: the youthful athlete that decorates so much sympotic pottery. In the philosophy of Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, meanwhile, it takes on an ethical, even transcendent dimension. And yet, the thread between a beautiful painting and the Platonic form of (...) the beautiful is never completely broken. In the summer of 2018, a group of scholars from varying disciplines gathered in Siracusa, Sicily – a place of not indifferent beauty itself – to discuss the nature of to kalon in ancient Greek culture. We were especially interested in the large part of that heritage that derives from or was influenced by Western Greece – the ancient Hellenic cities of Sicily and Southern Italy. The result is a volume that considers art, literature, rhetoric, and philosophy in exploring the nature of beauty. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: My Last Race Rolling Up to the Starting Line Racing Toward the Truth Climbing Up Mountains Keeping the Rubber Side Down My Best Race Notes.

Despite the rich philosophical heritage of the East, the connection between athletics and education for character or virtue is more commonly associated with the West. Classical Eastern philosophy does focus on virtue, but it seems to exclude sport as a means of cultivation since the Confucian is uninterested in victory and the Daoist seeks passivity and avoids contention. A closer look reveals, however, that Eastern conceptions of virtue have much in common with those of Ancient Greece so often linked to (...) sport. Combining research in the history and philosophy of sport with analysis of such texts such as the Analects of Kongzi (Confucius), Laozi's Daodejing , Plato's Republic and Epictetus's Handbook , this paper argues that the enlightened practice of sport has the potential to cultivate qualities common both to de and aret . The fact that sport was linked to virtue in Ancient Greece but not Ancient China derives from different ideas about social prestige more than different conceptions of ethical education. Indeed, the enlightened practice of modern sport may develop a more universal kind of virtue; thereby providing common ground upon which to heal the East-West split in a way characterised by mutual respect and emphasising our common humanity. (shrink)

Using my experience at a stage of the 2014 Giro d'Italia, I argue that de is the soul of cycling and that ancient Chinese philosophy's insight into the conditions that promote de may help the sport. I compare the relationship between sages and virtuous practitioners, to the ancient Greek relationship between heroes and athletes, both of which depend on the performance of de. I also criticize modern cycling for its focus on technology, stark commercialism, and emphasis on the individual, prescribing (...) as antidotes the connection between de and wuwei, the rejection of acquisitiveness and the emphasis on collectivity. (shrink)

Recent research indicates that among young women, Blacks have lower employment rates than whites. Evidence is provided about whether young Black women's lower employment rates stem from structural features of the labor market, discrimination, or changing family or individual characteristics. Data show that Black women exit full-time employment at higher rates because they are more likely to be laid off, to leave because they work in temporary/seasonal jobs, and to leave for other reasons. Structural features of the labor market are (...) key in explaining Black women's higher rates of lay-offs, exits from temporary/seasonal work, and exits for other reasons. Individual characteristics and discrimination play a role in Black women's higher rates of lay-offs and exits for other reasons while family characteristics are important in explaining Black women's higher rates of leaving temporary/seasonal work and leaving for other reasons. Evidence suggests that Black women's higher exit rates are indicative of disadvantage in the labor market. (shrink)

It often surprises modern readers to find the cerebral philosopher Socrates hanging out in gymnasia and wrestling schools. We tend to downplay Socrates’ association with athletes and contest as mere literary window-dressing. I would like to suggest, to the contrary, that Plato’s depiction of Socrates as an athlete goes beyond dramatic setting and linguistic metaphor. Plato actually presents Socrates as an athlete of the soul, engaged in intellectual contest, occasionally defeating his opponents, and coaching young protégées toward victory in the (...) struggle for aretē. Socratic dialogue is itself an agōn. Sometimes it is aimed at defeating famous opponents such as Euthyphro, Euthydemus, Gorgias, or Protagoras. By refuting these challengers, Socrates elicits shame—a benevolent shame “in service of the god” that serves as a starting point to re-launch and redirect the investigation. At other times Socratic dialogue tests personal beliefs about virtue, amounting to a revelation and examination of the soul that corresponds to gymnastic nudity and competition. In every case Socratic contest aims to serve the greatest agōn: the struggle to be good. Socrates appropriates the competitive spirit (philonikia) he finds in his comrades, and he directs it beyond the relativistic goal of defeating ones opponent towards the idealistic goals of education, virtue, and wisdom. In this way he transforms philonikia into philosophia. Socrates’ approach to and engagement in agōn not only connects the worlds of philosophy and athletics, it serves as a model for how athletic agōn can be put in the service of psychic as well as physical virtue. (shrink)

An overview of Japanese philosophy from the seventh century to the present.