bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Philosophy in Germany
Authors: Heinemann F. H.
Published: February 2009

One of the fundamental differences between English and German civilisation which leads to different philosophical problems is their attitude to the reality of history. The English “live” history as if it were nature. They found at least by the thirteenth century their own form of life, of government, constitution, and state, which have lasted ever since through all changes so that a rich system of traditions has developed. Germany did not find a lasting unity as early as that, but, being divided into many autonomous parts, religions, and tribes, it did not reach a strong social or moral tradition. Consequently the “rise of the historical consciousness“ and even the wish to awaken the nation as a whole to it is in Germany an intellectual product. But what has been a disadvantage in the sphere of politics has been an advantage to science and philosophy. The German even believes it to be one of their chief contributions to the History of Thought that they have developed a scientific history and all the sciences which analyse its field, and above that the “Historism,“ a historical Weltanschauung or the task of interpreting the whole world from the point of view of history.
The Metaphysical Systems of F. H. Bradley and James Ward
Authors: Hicks G. Dawes
Published: February 2009

We entered upon the work of last session under the heavy cloud occasioned by the loss of Mr. F. H. Bradley, who died only a few days before its opening at the age of seventy-eight; and, in the midst of that session, on March 4th, Professor James Ward passed away at the ripe age of eighty-two years. Thus the two foremost English philosophers of our time have been removed from our midst; and it seems fitting that, in commencing the duties of this new session, I should say something about their contributions to our common pursuit, and try to indicate what we owe to them who have been for so long the leaders of philosophical research in this country.
The Present Outlook in Social Philosophy
Authors: Mackenzie John S.
Published: February 2009

There has been a great deal of valuable work done in the department of Social Philosophy in recent years; and, though much of it has been of a controversial character, it seems possible to indicate some leading conceptions about which there is not now very much difference of opinion, and which may be taken as furnishing a firm basis for future work. Many of the older conceptions—such as the Divine Right of Kings, the Social Contract, and the unqualified emphasis on either Liberty or Equality—have either passed into complete oblivion or are maintained in forms so greatly modified as to be hardly recognizable. Some others are perhaps just on the point of disappearing; but the following conceptions and special problems in which they are involved may be singled out as still retaining a certain degree of vitality.
God and the World
Authors: Webb Clement C. J.
Published: February 2009

I Suppose that most believers in God, if asked what is the relation of God to the world, would reply that he is its Creator and its Lord. But, like all the language in which we express our religious convictions, the language of this reply is plainly metaphorical. It calls up the picture of a human artificer or artist, the image of a human ruler or proprietor. And yet it needs but little reflection to perceive that there must be essential differences between a human artificer or artist, who has a material to work in ready to his hand, and One who makes all things, as it is said, “ out of nothing “; between a human ruler or proprietor.
Mind Considered From the Point of View of Biology
Authors: Huxley Julian S.
Published: February 2009

The concept of evolution is of fundamental importance to any general scheme of thought: and one of the ways in which its importance is greatest is in defining the place of mind within any such scheme. If bodies and their contained brains have evolved, why not the accompanying minds? Indeed, to-day the question can only be properly put the other way round: how can the minds not have evolved? Mental evolution can only have failed to occur if we deny to mind the principle of continuity, which is one of our axioms on the physical side: only, that is to say, if the world ceases to be rational.
The Bearing of Ethics on Psychology
Authors: Stapledon Olaf
Published: February 2009

Ethics and psychology are apt to look askance at one another. The ethicist warns the psychologist that he cannot “ explain away ” the objective distinction between good and evil merely by describing the process by which we come to apprehend that distinction. Nor can he in any such manner show that moral obligation is illusory. On the other hand, some psychologists do claim that in exposing the psychological sources of moral experience they show that no objective distinction is involved in it.
The Possibility of Man's Freedom
Authors: Kaye Michael
Published: February 2009

We may consider the possibility of man's freedom from two points of view: (i) From the point of view of the metaphysical problem of “ free-will “; (2) from the point of view of the meaning and conditions of felt freedom. The first point of view is the more familiar, and I propose to discuss it here only by way of preparing for a consideration of the second.
Government By the People
Authors: Macmurray John
Published: February 2009

In the historical process by which our knowledge develops, new ideas and new experiences tend very naturally to define themselves by reference to the old. It is not merely that an original thinker must express his originality in terms of old modes of language and thought (which is true and important), but that the new idea, the new experience, being vague and indistinctly grasped, is apt to coin for its expression and propagation phrases in which the emphasis falls upon the difference or variation from what is familiar and concretely understood. In the history of practical developments like that of the theory of political organization this factor is both evident and momentous. In the transition to modern democracy, for example, the familiar distinction between the Sovereign and Subjects dictates the form in which the old order is challenged.
Great Thinkers
Authors: Walker Leslie J.
Published: February 2009

From the third century we pass to the thirteenth, from a century in which Europe is still pagan to a century in which Christianity has been so long established there that its paganism is wellnigh forgotten, from a century in which it is ruled by a Roman emperor to one in which ecclesiastically it is still ruled by Rome, but the empire has passed from the Roman to the Teuton.
The Philosophy of Melchior Palágyi
Authors: Gibson W. R. Boyce
Published: February 2009

The guiding idea of Palágyi's Monism is what he has called the Principle of Polarity. This is made clear in Palágyi's own preface to the second edition of his main work, the Naturphilosophische Vorlesungen (N.V.). The lectures were originally given in 1908. The Second Edition and the Preface date from 1924. In this preface we learn that the quest for the creative on the one hand, and for unity through polarity on the other, were ever the two leading motives of his thought. Both are pervasive and permanent, and they support each other; but in so far as the intellectual urge towards unity prevails over the more artistic impulse to creative freedom, it is the principle of polarity that receives the main stress and exercises the greater influence. For Palágyi, as for Hegel, it is the main principle of mental evolution. “ Polarity,” so Palágyi tells us (N.V., p. vii), does not simply mean “ opposition,” the
The Limits of Historical Knowledge
Authors: Collingwood R. G.
Published: February 2009

“ The doubtful story of successive events.” With this contemptuous phrase1 Bernard Bosanquet brushed aside the claim of history to be considered a study deserving the attention of a thoughtful mind. Unsatisfactory in form, because never rising above uncertainty; unsatisfactory in matter, because always concerned with the transitory, the successive, the merely particular as opposed to the universal; a chronicle of small beer, and an untrustworthy chronicle at that. Yet Bosanquet was well read in history; he had taught it as a young man at Oxford, and his first published work had been a translation of a recent German book on the Athenian constitution; he knew that a vast amount of the world's best genius in the last hundred years had been devoted to historical studies; and when, late in life, he asked himself what it came to, that was all he could say.
Freedom in the Present-day World
Authors: Hoernlé R. F. Alfred
Published: February 2009

A few months ago General Smuts, as Rector of St. Andrews University, addressed a stirring appeal to the youth of the world to dedicate itself to the defence of the threatened cause of Freedom. As a young man, General Smuts fought in the Anglo-Boer war for the political freedom of the South African Republics. As a member of the British War Cabinet during the Great War, he was prominent among the Allied leaders in what was declared to be a war to “make the world safe for democracy”. As a signatory of the Treaty of Versailles, he was the first outstanding statesman who, on the very morrow of the signing, had the courage to confess the inadequacies of that settlement, and to appeal to a war-torn world to lay aside the passions of bitter conflict and return to sanity and co-operation. In the League of Nations, which he, more than anyone else, helped to conceive and bring into being, he has sought to create the machinery for the peaceful co-operation between nations.
Great Thinkers
Authors: Gibson A. Boyce
Published: February 2009

There is a belief among the aborigines of Central Australia that the attributes of the divine ancestor are parcelled out among the component members of the tribe: and there are long periods in the history of ideas in which “divine philosophy” is similarly dismembered. The reason is that all great philosophical systems rest on a balanced tension of contemporary cultural elements, and as these change, and especially if they change rapidly or decisively, the unity of thought under which they have been gathered begins to disintegrate. There follows a period of piecemeal experiment, in which the material of philosophy is too rich and too disorganized to be appropriated in a single conspectus: a period in which there will be no great philosophers, and perhaps little conscious philosophizing, not because philosophic genius is lacking, but because there is no scope for it till the various special tendencies of the age have achieved a certain internal development and a definite sense of direction.
Kant's Kingdom of Ends
Authors: McCloskey Mary A.
Published: February 2009

There are many uses of the word ‘ought’, not all of which are moral uses. The following sentences contain ‘oughts’ which are not moral ‘oughts’. The peaches on the tree nearest the house ought to be ripe. The old car ought to go now it's had a re-bore. You ought to prune your Lorraine Lee roses in February. You ought to wash your hands before meals. You ought to take more exercise.
Descartes, Belief and the Will
Authors: Grant Brian
Published: February 2009

I want to discuss the puzzling, but, in some ways, persuasive view that I have a familiar and unproblematic kind of freedom with respect to my beliefs.
Plato and his Liberal Opponents
Authors: Versenyi Laszlo G.
Published: February 2009

In One of the few thoughtful essays that have come out of the controversy about the Republic's political theory, Renford Bambrough draws attention to the basic philosophical issue underlying the controversy in the following manner:
Talents, Abilities and Virtues
Authors: Attfield Robin
Published: February 2009

Hume Regards it as a mere “Verbal Dispute” whether or not various “natural abilities” should be regarded as moral virtues. In his Treatise he complains that “good sense and judgment”, “parts and understanding” are classed in all systems of ethics of the day with bodily endowments and ascribed no “merit or moral worth”. Yet if compared with the received virtues, they fell short in no material respect, both sets being “mental qualities” and each equally tending to procure “the love and esteem of mankind’.
A Comment on Some of Sir Francis Galton's Observations and Inferences with Regard to Free-Will
Authors: Reeve E. G.
Published: February 2009

Sir Francis Galton writes:

“Those who find a difficulty in understanding how a feebly felt mental action can vanquish a strong desire, will find the difficulty vanish if they consent to assume a physiological and not a psychical standpoint. The gain is as great as viewing the planetary system after the fashion of Copernicus, instead of that of Ptolemy. There is nothing contrary to experience in supposing that conflicting physiological actions may be perceived with a distinctness quite disproportionate to their real efficacy. We may compare the conflict between faintly perceived activities of one kind and clearly perceived activities of another kind, to that between troops dressed in a uniform scarcely distinguishable from the background with others clad in staring scarlet. We must be content to admit that our consciousness has a very inexact cognisance of the physiological battles in our brain, and that the mystery why apparently weak motives of one class should invariably get the better of apparently strong motives of another class, lies wholly in the word ‘apparently’. In short, that the appearances of their relative strength are deceptive”.
Induction And Probability
Authors: Harrod H. R. F.
Published: February 2009

It is the purpose of the following pages to reconsider the basic problem of induction. According to Hume the concomitance of A with B on one or more occasions gives no valid presumption that A will be accompanied by B on any other occasion. The data of experience may give rise to an association of ideas or set up mental habits, but they provide no reasonable grounds for expecting similar concomitances or sequences in future. If this is correct, we have no starting point for the formation of any valid opinions about matters of fact; we remain ice-bound in a region of total scepticism.
Objectivity In Morals
Authors: Mayo B.
Published: February 2009

There is among many moral philosophers today a renewed emphasis on the connection between reason and morality, and an attempt to exhibit moral behaviour as characteristically rational. What is original in Mr. Kneale's extremely interesting paper (April 1950) is the following-up of a suggestion that certain words like “right,” “wrong,” “ought,” are used in the same way both by lawyers and by moralists; this leads to a logical rehabilitation of the somewhat unpopular concept of the moral law, which in turn argues objectivity and rationality in morals, and makes it possible “to distinguish between good and bad moralists in much the same way as we can distinguish between good and bad lawyers.” The legal pattern is essentially the same as the moral pattern.
Representation in Music
Authors: Scruton Roger
Published: February 2009

Music may be used to express emotion, to heighten a drama, to emphasize the meaning of a ceremony; but it is nevertheless an abstract art, with no power to represent the world. Representation, as I understand it, is a property that does not belong to music.
Psychiatric Prolegomena: A Plea for the Help of Philosophy
Authors: Palmer Harold
Published: February 2009

Personality may be defined as “that aspect of human beings where by we are recognized by others, ” that is, “that which constitutes recog-nizability.” The term therefore implies a subject-object field in which the object is another person or persons. There exist as many criteria of personality assessment as there are significant viewpoints of human beings, but there seems little doubt that the human voice is that which impresses us most about our fellows, closely followed by facial expression. Both these convey that whereby we assess “purpose” which is a most important matter about which we habitually assess others.
Leavis and Literary Criticism
Authors: Pole David
Published: February 2009

Philosophers almost by profession are minders of other people's business, that is their intellectual business; which, though a necessary trade, is not always a popular one. So Socrates found long ago. Discretion may therefore seem called for, and still more so in writing of Dr Leavis. Leavis is, so to speak, a hot subject; and not only so in himself, hence to be taken up with caution, but a cause that heat is in other men. Nor is that all; other, harder obstacles remain. It would seem that Leavis explicitly shuts the door on any philosophical approach. Philosophers, broadly speaking, deal in abstractions (even those who profess not to). Leavis wrote long ago, at the start of Revaluation, ‘No treatment of poetry can be worth much that does not keep very close to the concrete’. That ruling, which might debar my whole enterprise, I can take instead as raising immediately its main theme.
Truth, Happiness and Obligation: the Moral Philosophy of William Wollaston
Authors: Tweyman Stanley
Published: February 2009

William Wollaston, a leading British moral philosopher of the eighteenth century, has fallen into obscurity primarily, I believe, for two reasons. In the first place, it is usually supposed that Wollaston's moral theory was refuted by Hume in the opening section of the third book of the Treatise of Human Nature. Secondly, Wollaston's theory, or parts thereof, have been assigned pejorative labels such as ‘odd’ and ‘strange’, which create the impression that it is not a moral philosophy which can be taken seriously. In this paper I attempt to deal with the second of these reasons by setting forth what I take to be Wollaston's meaning in certain key sections of his work, The Religion of Nature Delineated, especially in so far as they help to shed light on his theories of truth and happiness, and the relation of these to his theory of obligation. Wollaston will be found to be a moral philosopher with important things to say, and therefore to be a moral philosopher with a theory worth taking seriously. If I am correct in my interpretation of Wollaston, then it can also be established that Hume has not refuted Wollaston in the opening section of Book III of the Treatise. But here my attention will be confined entirely to Wollaston's own moral theory.
Ayer on Personal Identity
Authors: Madell Geoffrey
Published: February 2009

In ‘The Concept of a Person’ Ayer presents a theory of personal identity which has never, to my knowledge, attracted the close attention which it deserves. The theory puts forward bodily continuity as the central criterion of personal identity. In this, of course, Ayer does not differ from many other philosophers who have written on this subject. The real interest of Ayer's view is that it is quite explicit that the body is taken as the principle of unity underlying one's experiences, as that in virtue of which a series of experiences are the experiences of one person. Without the body, ‘not only is it not clear how the individual experiences are to be identified, but there appears to be no principle according to which they can be grouped together; there is no answer to the question what makes two experiences which are separate in time the experiences of the same self’ (pp. 113–114). Some link between experiences there must be. Memory cannot serve as this link, since remembering an experience already implies thinking of it as one's own. The only acceptable candidate is the body.
The Psychology of Religious Dogma
Authors: Thouless Robert H.
Published: February 2009

The psychologist finds himself in disagreement with a method of treating religious dogma current amongst many philosophers and theologians who regard it as a purely intellectual matter with an entirely intellectual history. This tradition belongs not only to philosophers and theologians; students of comparative religions have, in the past, erred in the same way. Tylor, for example, lays it down as the first condition for research into primitive religions that “the religious doctrines and practices examined … are treated as belonging to theological systems devised by human reason, without supernatural aid or revelation.” Elsewhere he says that the student will “search for the reasonable thought which once gave life to observances now become in seeming or reality the most abject and superstitious folly.”
Right and Good: the Contradiction of Morality
Authors: de Burgh W. G.
Published: February 2009

We were led, at the close of the last paper, to the conclusion that the moral judgment lays claim to a knowledge of what is unknowable. It is not merely that our volition is imperfect, that the act of necessity falls short of what we know to be right. This seems bad enough; but the plight in which we actually find ourselves is even worse. The paradox is that we never know, and never can know, in any particular situation, what it is really right to do. We know indeed that it is always right, really and absolutely right, to do what we believe to be right. For a man to act “against his conscience,” after all possible thought has been taken for its enlightenment, we know to be morally wrong. But this knowledge is purely formal and gives no clue to the matter of moral obligation. It tells us what is common alike to any and every case of moral duty; it does not tell us what we ought to do. For the right that we will cannot be merely the rightness of willing it. What I ought to do cannot be merely that I ought to do it. Now our beliefs and judgments as to material rightness, i.e. as to what it is right to do in a concrete situation, are notoriously liable to error. So we seek for a criterion by which to test our variable and fallible judgments, a criterion of what is really right. But the search is doomed to failure; we can only test beliefs by beliefs, our former beliefs by our later, the beliefs of one man or society or age by those of others.
Behaviourism and the Guidance of Action
Authors: Morgan C. Lloyd
Published: February 2009

Even those who have not yet read Dr. Broad’s recent book on The Mind and its Place in Nature have not improbably had their attention drawn to his carefully considered pronouncement on Behaviourism. At the close of ten pages of critical discussion he says: “ It seems to me that Reductive Materialism in general, and strict Behaviourism in particular, may be rejected. They are instances of the numerous class of theories which are so preposterously silly that only very learned men could have thought of them. I may be accused of breaking a butterfly on a wheel in this discussion of Behaviourism. But it is important to remember that a theory which is in fact absurd may be accepted by the simple-minded because it is put forward in highly technical terms by learned persons who are themselves too confused to know exactly what they mean. When this happens, as it has happened with Behaviourism, the philosopher is not altogether wasting time by analysing the theory and pointing out its implications” (pp. 623–4). I quote the passage at length so that those of us who dally with Behaviourism may realize just how they stand.
Comte's Positivism and the Science of Society
Authors: Acton H. B.
Published: February 2009

Positivism is the view that the only way to obtain knowledge of the world is by means of sense perception and introspection and the methods of the empirical sciences. Positivists believe that it is futile to attempt to deduce or demonstrate truths about the world from alleged self-evident premisses that are not based primarily on sense perception. They consider, on the contrary, that knowledge of things can only be advanced by framing hypotheses, testing them by observation and experiment, and reshaping them in the light of what these reveal. Thus they regard metaphysics, in so far as it is the effort to find out about the world by methods other than those employed in the empirical sciences, as a hopelessly misdirected activity. The method of hypothesis, they hold, is applicable to any field of factual enquiry, although they admit that differences of subject-matter may call for very considerable variations of emphasis. Such variations, however, important though they be, are, on their view, matters of detail, and do not detract from the essential sameness of the effective method. This method was first consciously analysed by reference to the sciences of nature, where its use has led to impressive results both in the theoretical and practical sphere.
Psychiatric Prolegomena: a Plea for the Help of Philosophy
Authors: Palmer Harold
Published: February 2009

“It is almost impossible for a working neurologist to think clearly about the functions of the highest centres because the counters of thought, the words he must employ—are often of psychological origin and for the most part meaningless.”
The Problem of Duty and Knowledge
Authors: Nystedt Hans
Published: February 2009

In his book The Right and the Good Professor W. D. Ross states a theory that ethics is concerned with two distinct conceptions which are logically quite independent of each other and must not be confused: the right, viz. the act which we are under an obligation to do irrespective of our motives, and the morally good, viz. the good motives, desires and so on, irrespective of what actions they lead us to. In a later book, Foundations of Ethics, he repeats this theory somewhat altered and enlarged. Professor Broad says about the first book that it is “the most important contribution to ethical theory made in England for a generation,” and for the second book he proposes the nickname “the righter and the better.”
Kant and Natural Science
Authors: Laing B. M.
Published: February 2009

The title of this article might quite well be given the more hackneyed form, Has Kant answered Hume? Much of the discussion pertains to this latter question, but as the aim is also to emphasize some points concerned with Kant himself a deviation in title may be permissible.
The Nature of Physical Science and the Objectives of the Scientist
Authors: Fitzgerald John J.
Published: February 2009

The history of Western Thought since the seventeenth Century leaves little doubt as to the practical validity of the method of natural investigation discovered by Galileo, interpreted by Descartes, and variously generalized by Newton and Einstein. The repercussions of its success on every level of human activity, religious, political, commercial, and educational (to mention only the more obvious ones) have awakened the most diverse ánd even contradictory speculations as to the nature of this science and the objectives of the scientist. Often enough one gets the impression that these speculations are founded on an arbitrary and unjustifiable conception of the nature of modern science; a conception formulated in terms of what one thinks or wishes to think science is from its effects upon the extra-scientific domain (which, in this context, includes philosophy) rather than in terms of a patient and critical penetration of its intrinsic structure.
Mathematical Formalisms and their Realizations
Authors: Kneebone G. T.
Published: February 2009

In a short article, published in an earlier volume of Philosophy1 under the title “Philosophy and Mathematics,” I tried to explain the current conception of pure mathematics as the study of abstract structure by construction and elaboration of appropriate axiomatic formalisms. In the present paper I propose to consider certain philosophical problems, of interest to philosophers and mathematicians alike, which have their origin in the relation between such formalisms and any applications to experience that they may possess. Consideration of problems of this kind is no new undertaking, and in Reichenbach's Wahrscheinlichkeitslehre, for instance, a considerable amount of space is devoted to the Anwendungsproblem or problem of application of the formal calculus under consideration. Most such discussions, however, are at bottom an appendage to an account of the formalism itself, and the author's interest is primarily mathematical. The result is that the philosophical issues involved are not given due weight; and it is these philosophical issues that I wish to discuss in the present paper.
An Examination of the Argument from Theology to Ethics
Authors: Hughes George E.
Published: February 2009

It is not infrequently said that the true justification of moral beliefs lies in theology. I wish here to examine precisely what is meant by this contention, and by what arguments, if any, it can be substantiated.

The view I am examining is not that the only valid reason for doing what is right is a theological reason (e.g. the fact that God wills it); as if we could know independently of theology what was right, but required a theological motive to make it reasonable to do it. It is rather that the very fact that it is right is logically dependent on certain facts of a theological nature; or, to express the matter otherwise, that from certain theological propositions it is possible validly to draw certain conclusions in the form of propositions which state what I ought to do, and that this fact is the source of the validity of these latter propositions.

This, however, is not yet a sufficiently precise account of the theory in question, since it might cover a number of different contentions, some of which I think may be reasonably maintained, while others, I think, may not. I propose to work towards a clearer formulation by considering certain arguments which have been advanced in order to deny outright the very possibility of arguing validly “from theology to ethics”; for I do believe that these arguments prove something, and rule out certain theories as untenable.
Is Philosophy Possible? A Study of Logical Positivism
Authors: Barnes Winston H. F.
Published: February 2009

The present situation in philosophy is paradoxical. On the one hand, thinking men and women all over the world are exclaiming that, while science has made sufficient advance to satisfy all our material needs, what we most need, and must find if we are not to suffer shipwreck, is a new sense of values, a new religious awakening and a new orientation towards life, in short a new philosophy. On the other hand, many professional philosophers are coming to hold the view that philosophy has had its day, or rather that it never in any proper sense had its day, because it is not a rational enterprise but a mistake, an illusion, a farrago of nonsense, “a muddle arising out of the complexities of language.” A new inquiry which goes by the name of Analysis and resembles logic more closely than any other existing discipline is at once to give the quietus to philosophy and to reign in its stead. The modern philosopher cries, with Faustus, “Sweet Analytickes! 'tis thou hast ravished me.” I will not prejudice your minds at the outset by recalling where the study of analysis led the Doctor of Wurtemburg.

Those who are thus forthrightly sceptical about philosophy and group themselves under the aegis of analysis are themselves divided into a number of sects. One and all, however, are relentless in exposing the weaknesses of philosophy, zealous in proselytizing and deadly in expounding their new technique which combines scholastic subtlety with modern scientific realism. They represent in fact a modern scholasticism loosely grouped round the dogma: “We pursue logical analysis, but not philosophy,” though, by a curious paradox which demands scrutiny, some of them say: “Philosophy is analysis.”
Philosophy in Italy
Authors: de Ruggiero Guido
Published: February 2009

After an interruption of seven years I take up once again my surveys of Italian philosophy. Many things have happened in the interval, but it is perhaps too soon for them to be susceptible of calm philosophical reflection. The problems that most interest the cultured public to-day are those of existentialism, of historicism and its limits, of German romanticism, and, more generally, of Germanic culture in relation to new spiritual orientations. The interest in existentialism is due, at least in part, to the fact that it is the philosophy in fashion. But there is in it nevertheless a depth of seriousness that is not overlooked. The tragedies of recent years have placed in the foreground the problems of immediate existence, of human personality and its place in the world, which the preceding idealistic philosophy had too easily absorbed in an impersonal and trans-subjective view of the spirit and its universal values. And, as has often happened in the course of history, there has resulted a reaction of individuality, in its most irrational and vital expressions, against the pretensions of reason to dominate it from above, and imprison it in the net of its concepts.

But if, in this regard, existentialism represents a just demand, which can exercise a beneficial influence on philosophical thought, yet to many its claim to represent a new era in philosophy seems excessive. Its value is only that of an episode. Hence some interpreters of contemporary thought have been drawn to limit the importance of the new movement.
Philosophy and Science
Authors: Russell Leonard J.
Published: February 2009

In various ways literature and the arts, science, religion and politics, come home to the ordinary man and are real for him. It is easy to see how they affect his life. Philosophy seems a thing more remote. Has it, too, had its influence on mankind? Can it point, directly or indirectly, to services rendered, work done, in the service of civilization?.
Theories of Science
Authors: Russell L. J.
Published: February 2009

I noted two directions in which the scientific worker is seeking to advance. He is trying to give a more complete account of the actual detail of what is happening, and he is seeking wider and wider generalizations. As an observer, he must note what he observes, and, it would seem, omit nothing. But in seeking generalizations he must select, from among the features he observes, only those which he takes to be of general significance. Thence arises at least the appearance of a conflict in his activities. If he is too intent on the details of what he observes, his generalizations suffer; but if he leaves aside details too readily, his generalizations suffer equally. There is danger both in omitting and in not omitting.
The Annual Meeting: Beyond Physics
Authors: Lodge Oliver
Published: February 2009

Had I been asked any time last century to discourse to philosophers on a subject entitled “Beyond Physics,” I should have taken it as meaning “Metaphysics,” and have declined on the ground that they knew more about it than I did. But now that the subject has been suggested to me in the second quarter of the twentieth century, I realize that a certain number of physicists, especially mathematical ones, have gone beyond themselves in a semiphilosophical direction, have thrown our old physical ideas into some confusion, and have devised a number of complicated abstractions which they seem able to deal with by recondite methods invented for other purposes by the pure mathematicians. Of these they do not attempt to form any mental image, and do not encourage us to try to do so. They mistrust the method of physical imagery, or what they call “models,” which constituted one of the main methods of investigation in the nineteenth century; they are content to deal with abstract symbols, which presumably represent something real, though they mistrust the term “reality,” and decline to define it. The younger modern physicists are content to work in a nebulous region of unknown and perhaps unknowable entities, remote from our ordinary conceptions and everyday experiences; so that, whereas the old idea of explanation consisted in trying to express mysterious or recondite phenomena in terms of something with which we were more familiar, they now point out that our apparent familiarity with those simpler things was more or less of an illusion, that they furnished no valid explanation at all, and that the physical and engineering conceptions or habits of thought on which we depended were largely misleading.
The Incoherence of Determinism
Authors: Mayo Bernard
Published: February 2009

Of the many possible, and no doubt actual, forms of incoherence covered by my title, I shall be concerned with only one, and must begin by dismissing the others. The incoherence I shall speak of is not any alleged inconsistency between deterministic and indeterministic physical theories, such as between classical particle mechanics and quantum theory. It is an inconsistency internal to determinism. Not, that is, internal to any deterministic theory; but to the general claims put forward by determinists—whether scientists, philosophers, or laymen. Still another qualification—it is ‘hard’ determinism I shall be concerned with—‘hard’ in the sense in which William James distinguished between hard and soft determinism. Soft determinism James himself ridiculed as glaringly incoherent, and in any case I shall not be specially concerned with determinism as regards human conduct—with the problem of free will and responsibility.
The Morality of Killing
Authors: Goodrich T.
Published: February 2009

At first sight there doesn't seem to be any problem about killing. Most people would say that it is wrong to kill and that's all there is to it. The same opinion is proclaimed by many members of the Christian religion. They say that ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is an absolute command. But there are several issues involving the morality of killing where ordinary men, secular and religious alike, make judgements or evince perplexity which reveals that common sense morality is less clear about killing than it at first appears.
Depicting
Authors: Squires Roger
Published: February 2009

What is the connection between a representation, such as a painting, statue or engraving, and its subject? For example, what makes a painting a painting of McX? The problem is not how to paint McX, which belongs to art experts. So the answer is not, for example, ‘The painter starts at the top with an egg-shape for the head …” The question is rather: what makes the results of such efforts a painting of McX? What conditions must a painting satisfy to warrant such a description? What is the force or meaning of the word ‘of’ in phrases like ‘painting of McX’?
Rational Morality for Empirical Man
Authors: Ralls Anthony
Published: February 2009

“It Seems natural to suppose”, wrote Mill, “that rules of action must take their whole character … from the end to which they are subservient”. Many moralists have agreed. If we could establish the Summum Bonum, the foundation of morality, the rational basis of moral thinking, this would constitute a criterion, a rule, by means of which men could actually make good practical judgments. This view is radically mistaken. I first try to show this by means of an a priori argument, and then urge the replacement of the “rational model” of practical thinking embodied in this view by an “empirical model”, which should take account of man's actual capacities and limitations. This has important consequences for morality, some of which I investigate.
On Dying
Authors: Williams C. J. F.
Published: February 2009

The first solid bit of argumentation you get in Plato's Phaedo goes something like this: Whatever comes to be, comes to be from its opposite (cf. 70e, sqq.). If at a certain time t a given thing a begins to be F, before that time t it must have been non-F. Wherever a pair of predicates, F and G, are genuine contradictories; where, that is, they stand to each other in the same relation as F stands in to non-F; it is necessarily true that if a began to be F at t before then a was G. The only trouble comes from the difficulty of finding substitutes for F and G that people will allow to be genuine contradictories. It the butter began to be soft at four o'clock, we may suggest, before four it was hard. A tiresome opponent will retort that there is a state in which butter cannot properly be called either hard or soft. We try again: If Ann began to be asleep at eight, before eight she was awake; if my shirt became dirty on Tuesday, before Tuesday it was clean; if Bonzo died last week, before last week he was alive. And when the advocate of the borderline state reminds us of the various twilight areas of consciousness or cleanliness, we are reduced to legislation: “asleep” shall henceforth apply to every mental state short of complete wakefulness, “alive” to every condition of the body before the onset of putrefaction, “clean” to every shirt incapable of producing a certain measurable discoloration in the water in which it is washed. “Let F and G be contradictories”, we still guardedly maintain: “then if a comes to be F at time t, before time t a was G”.
Lucas against Mechanism
Authors: Lewis David
Published: February 2009

J. R. Lucas argues in “Minds, Machines, and Gödel”, that his potential output of truths of arithmetic cannot be duplicated by any Turing machine, and a fortiori cannot be duplicated by any machine. Given any Turing machine that generates a sequence of truths of arithmetic, Lucas can produce as true some sentence of arithmetic that the machine will never generate. Therefore Lucas is no machine.
Goedel's Theorem and Mechanism
Authors: Coder David
Published: February 2009

In “Minds, Machines, and Gödel”, J. R. Lucas claims that Goedel's incompleteness theorem constitutes a proof “that Mechanism is false, that is, that minds cannot be explained as machines”. He claims further that “if the proof of the falsity of mechanism is valid, it is of the greatest consequence for the whole of philosophy”. It seems to me that both of these claims are exaggerated. It is true that no minds can be explained as machines. But it is not true that Goedel's theorem proves this. At most, Goedel's theorem proves that not all minds can be explained as machines. Since this is so, Goedel's theorem cannot be expected to throw much light on why minds are different from machines. Lucas overestimates the importance of Goedel's theorem for the topic of mechanism, I believe, because he presumes falsely that being unable to follow any but mechanical procedures in mathematics makes something a machine.
Is ‘Tractatus’ 5.542 More Obscure in English than it is in German?
Authors: Huby Pamela M.
Published: February 2009

It is odd that something that Wittgenstein says is clear should have been so puzzling to English-speaking philosophers. 5.542 begins:— ‘Es ist aber klar, dass “A glaubt, dass p”, “A denkt p”, “A sagt p” von der Form, “p ‘sagt p” sind.’ I would like to suggest that one reason for the difficulties that have been felt with this lies in a misleading translation, particularly of, “p ‘sagt p”. For this both English translations have “p” says p’. But since German has a single present tense where English has two, ‘sagt’ may be rendered either ‘says’, or ‘is saying’, and I want to argue that ‘“p” is saying p’ is preferable.
Is Pain Necessary?
Authors: Puccetti Roland
Published: February 2009

Many writers have been struck by what Ronald Melzack, a leading investigator of pain mechanisms, calls the ‘puzzle’ of pain. Thus the surgeon Leriche, often quoted in this connection, says:

Defence reaction? Fortunate warning? But as a matter of fact the majority of illnesses, even the most serious, attack us without warning. Sickness is nearly always a drama in two acts, of which the first takes place, cunningly enough, in the dim silence of bur tissues, with the lights out, before the candles have been lit. When pain makes its appearance, we are almost in the second act…… Pain merely makes more distressing and sad a situation already long lost…… In fact, pain is always a baleful gift, which reduces the subject of it, and makes him more ill than he would be without it (pp. 22–23).
Aristotle's Concept of God as Final Cause
Authors: Forsyth T. M.
Published: February 2009

During my student days at Edinburgh I became particularly interested in Aristotle's doctrine of God as Final Cause. Concern with other problems and periods of Philosophy, along with many years of teaching in most of its branches, has kept me from ever writing anything down on the subject except in the very briefest way. But it has always seemed to me to claim fuller attention than is commonly accorded to it. That Aristotle's conception, however independently it was worked out, owes much to the philosophy of Plato appears to be beyond question. The design of the present article is to relate Aristotle's view on the subject with that of Plato. I will first state Plato's allied doctrine; then, after indicating Aristotle's criticisms of Plato, so far as relevant to the subject, summarize his argument for his own position; and, lastly, consider the significance of the concept concerned.
The Causes of Determinism
Authors: Kellenberger J.
Published: February 2009

If determinism is correct, then all that men do is in principle predictable. Further, all that they do is predictable in a certain way, namely on the basis of the causes of their actions, where those causes are sufficient for their actions. That is, according to determinism, the antecedents of human actions, their causes, are such that, given a knowledge of those antecedents, the actions that are their effects can be predicted with certainty because they cannot but occur.
Logic and Faith
Authors: de Burgh W. G.
Published: February 2009

“He who tries to rise above reason, falls outside of it,” said Plotinus. If this be so; if, as Plotinus said also, “ Nous is King,” reason must cover more than inferential reasoning. The methods of inference are not sovereign, but manifestly instrumental; they furnish the scaffolding for the mind's ascent, but not the goal of its endeavour. This distinction between the wider and the narrower use of reason is familiar in every age of thought; it appears in the Platonic and Aristotelian doctrines of Nous, in Aquinas's discrimination of discursive and intuitive knowledge, in Spinoza's of ratio and scientia intuiliva, and in that of the understanding and the reason in post–Kantian idealism. At times, as in the case last mentioned, it has been pressed to an extreme, with the result that reason was set in sharp contrast to the understanding, which came to be regarded as a separate faculty and even as a source of error. Wordsworth, to whom the antithesis passed through Coleridge, wrote of “that false secondary power, by which we multiply distinctions.” In face of such excesses, it behoves us to be on our guard, and to remember that thought is one amid the diversity of its operations, and that faith is at least as fallible as logic. It is only by co-operating in the service of reason that either can point the way to truth.
Finality in Theology
Authors: Laird John
Published: February 2009

Theology, or the science of God, has to be distinguished from religion which might be godless, may contain very tittle of science, dogma, or creed, and sometimes consists very largely of the habit, attitude, or even the mode of public or private devotion or ritual.