bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Prolegomena to the Study of the Black Man's Mind
Authors: Hoernlé R. F. Alfred
Published: February 2009

The Symposium on the “ Colour-problem,” recently organized by our Institute and published in this Journal, deserved to be welcomed, not only for the intrinsic importance of its topic, but also as an indication that it is the policy of the Institute not to restrict philosophy to purely theoretical questions. This is a return to the Platonic tradition which lays upon the philosopher the obligation to descend from the sunlit world of pure theory into the dark cave of practice. It is a much needed reminder to our “ practical ” age (which has some respect for science, but little, if any, for philosophy), that where practice touches on fundamental human values, it will fail of wisdom and, therefore, of the highest success without that illumination of experience which philosophy alone can give.
The Problem of Ethics
Authors: Burrell P. S.
Published: February 2009

The problem of ethics may arise in any circumstances, at all times and in all places. For it is an ever-present problem which confronts every individual at all stages of his career after the dawn of consciousness. It is not limited to any particular aspect or department of life; it concerns the whole life of every human being from the cradle to the grave. Its existence may not be consciously recognized, and generally the choice of right and wrong action is unaccompanied by reflection; but the problem begins to operate as soon as the development of character begins, and people are always deciding between good and evil, whether they look inside their minds or not. For the formation of character depends on the manner in which the problems of conduct or morals are solved by each individual for himself. If he solves them correctly, he becomes good;

If he solves them badly, he sows in himself the seeds of evil. The general problem, moreover, is essentially the same for all, though in each particular case its specific nature may vary according to particular circumstances.
The Attempt to Conceive the Absolute As A Spiritual Life
Authors: Joachim Harold H.
Published: February 2009

§ 1. “To the mind of the philosopher”, according to Plato,1 “there belongs a vision of all time and all being"; and certainly many of the great thinkers have made it their business to speculate about the omnitudo realitatis or the ens realissimum—about the universe as a whole and in its wholeness, or about that which is supremely real—in short (to use the most convenient term) about ‘ the Absolute ‘. It may be (as the history of philosophical speculation suggests) that this interest in the Whole lies at the heart of all genuine philosophy, giving to it its distinctive inspiration and character. It may be, on the other hand, that it is a misdirected solicitude—an anxiety to solve the inherently insoluble. The Absolute, we shall perhaps be told, is a vox nihili—a name for that which, being nothing, has no attributes ; or we, at least, can never hope to characterize it. All our available predicates, being drawn of necessity from a limited field, must ‘ come short‘must prove inadequate for so immense and so august a subject.
The Relations of Science and Philosophy
Authors: Wrinch Dorothy
Published: February 2009

It is, I think, one of the outstanding characteristics of our age that during a short spell of thirty or forty years fundamental advances have been made in a large number of different sciences. These developments have altered almost every aspect of material life—they have certainly had great influence upon modern education, and upon modern ideas of politics, as well as upon a host of less important things. But chief of all we notice the effect of this Golden Age of Science in the birth of new ideas. The revolution in ideas has only just started. Where it will end no one can see.
The Philosophical Background of Ethnological Theory
Authors: Smith G. Elliot
Published: February 2009

Every student of the early history of mankind, and their numbers have greatly increased of recent years, must be well acquainted with the recent conflict between the advocates of diffusion in interpreting the origins and world-wide manifestations of civilization and those of independent development, or, in more exact terms, of the spontaneous generation of cultures. To an unbiassed observer of the evidence, it must also be a matter of astonishment that the ethnologists of the latter school have for so long refused to admit a distribution of ideas, beliefs and customs which are not only of proved historical but daily and common occurrence. It is impossible to enter a library or a club, or to walk down Regent Street and look into the shop windows, without realizing that world-diffusion is the very stuff of civilized existence. It is impossible to travel the remoter regions of the globe to-day without being constantly reminded of London, Leeds and Manchester. Nobody, again,
would dream of controverting the known phenomena of the spread of great religions, Christianity, Mohammedanism, Buddhism, from a single original centre. The school of independent development of cultures not merely ignores or twists to its own purposes a gigantic mass of evidence bearing upon the subject in dispute and capable of being interpreted in only one way; it displays a singular disregardof common sense and human nature. The innate conservatism of humanity, its readiness to live on the.
Some Aspects of the Materialist Conception of History
Authors: Selincourt Oliver De
Published: February 2009

The so-called materialist conception of history is not only very popular in certain quarters, it is also embodied in much of the practice of historians. Yet, in spite of the current interest in philosophies of history, it is not often that one finds it seriously and critically discussed by philosophers, or indeed by anybody. One reason for this is, no doubt, that though claiming to be scientific it is closely connected with a militant political and economic creed. But there are further and more honourable reasons, in the apparent comprehensiveness of the theory itself and in the lack of any comprehensive statement of it from its chief author. To some of its supporters it appears to be not merely a complete explanation of all history, past, present, and future, but also a psychology, a philosophy, and even a religion ; and yet Marx—who, if he did not originate it, is anyhow mainly responsible for its wide popularity—nowhere expounds it at any length, and for an adequate and authoritative discussion of it we must consult the correspondence of Engels, which is not gathered together in any one place. Thus, while opponents of materialism and determinism tend to reject or ignore a theory which is supposed to imply them both, opponents of Marxism are naturally unwilling to read through that author's very voluminous works for the purpose of reconstructing from his fragmentary remarks a theory that he nowhere fully states.
Social Perfection and Personal Immortality
Authors: Wadia A. R.
Published: February 2009

A Student of ethics cannot but be struck by some fundamental difference of outlook in the ethics of the East and the West. This has a particular bearing on the problem of the relation of the individual to society. In practice this has given rise to a question of supreme importance to every thinking man: is an individual completely subservient to society, or is society completely subservient to the demands of individuality? I.e., is the moksha (salvation) of any individual impossible till all the needs of society have been completely satisfied, or is an individual free to use or not to use society as a field for his own spiritual expansion? There is no doubt a fundamental discrepancy in these outlooks as thus conceived, and the problem is : can we reconcile them ?
The Animate and Mechanical Models of Reality
Authors: Gregory Joshua C.
Published: February 2009

Ben Jonson, writing before 1641 in Discoveries, observed that nature intends us no courtesies. The rivers carry our boats, the winds favour our sails, and the sunlight warms our bodies, by necessary motions that contain no kindliness. This represented, or expressed, though perhaps unwittingly and certainly without scientific precision, the mechanical version of physical nature that steadily prevailed during the seventeenth century.
A Functional Theory of Knowledge
Authors: Reyburn Hugh A.
Published: February 2009

The problem of knowledge is generally regarded as an essential part of philosophy, and since the time of Descartes at least, every philosopher has found it necessary to show that his own view can afford a solution to the problem. In this paper, however, the method of approach is psychological rather than philosophical, and an attempt is made to deal with the question from a point of view differing in several respects from those more commonly accepted.
Present Tendencies in Speculative Philosophy
Authors: Mackenzie John S.
Published: February 2009

According to Plato, it is the aim of Philosophy to furnish us with a certain vision of all time and all existence. This must always have seemed a large and difficult undertaking; but the opening years of the present century have already introduced considerable changes in our estimation of magnitudes. We are learning to think of modes of existence that are much more minute and of others that are much larger than any that had previously been conceived with any definiteness. Analysis now leads us to entities and processes that are almost inconceivably small; and synthesis points to a totality that is almost inconceivably great, and that may be even greater than we know. Our interests naturally begin with our human lives on earth ; and we are rapidly discovering that even these have to be thought of in ways that were hardly possible for any previous generation. In a sense, it may be said that our human world has been becoming much smaller. Distances within it are beginning to seem, in many respects, almost negligible ; and great hopes may be based upon this contraction.
A Functional Theory of Knowledge
Authors: Reyburn Hugh A.
Published: February 2009

In the first part of this article an attempt was made to clear the ground for a functional theory of knowledge, and the discussion of structure and function with which it concluded enables us to approach the problem of cognition. If the view already set forth is sound, it seems clear that the relation of the mind to its object is a function and not a structure of the mental processes involved. The mere existence of a mental content, however complex it may be, however decorated with fringes or set off by a background, does not constitute an act of knowledge or give the content a meaning. In order to see a mental act as cognitive we must consider its function, its origin, its results, and in general the circumstances in which it stands.
Life and Matter
Authors: Lodge Oliver
Published: February 2009

To treat of the relation between life and matter, after the problem has been discussed from so many points of view and in the light of the teachings of philosophers of all ages, must seem perhaps ambitious and certainly presumptuous; but I presume that philosophers do not consider that they have completely solved the age-long problem, and some may be willing to hear what a physicist has to suggest in the light of our present knowledge of nature. I have no wish to challenge controversy, but controversial topics cannot be wholly avoided.
Nationalism and the Internationalideal
Authors: lamont W. D.
Published: February 2009

“Nation” and “nationalism” are not easily defined; mainly, perhaps, because these words, as popularly used, do not have precise meanings. A nation may mean: (1) A people living under a common government,—as when we speak of British or French “nationals"; or (2) A people with a common racial inheritance—the Jews; or (3) A people, inhabiting a certain tract of the earth's surface, with generally common sentiments and habits of thinking, though possibly of mixed race, and part of a wider political society—the English, as distinguished from the Scottish, or Irish, nation.
Reference to the Non-Existent
Authors: Honoré A. M.
Published: February 2009

Can we refer to objects which do not exist? Searle says that we cannot. He postulates an ‘axiom of existence’ such that, if an object does not exist, we cannot refer to it. This ‘axiom of existence’ could be taken simply as a way of defining the notion of ‘reference’; we would not count a reference to a non-existent object as a ‘reference’ in the philosophical sense; or perhaps it might count as a reference but not as a ‘successful’ or ‘consummated’ reference, to use the terminology which Searle sometimes adopts. Whichever way we take Searle's doctrine I wish to argue that it is objectionable. The conceptual scheme he advocates obscures the truth. But I do not deny that there is a temptation to resort to it, and I hope to show that, where lawyers have yielded to the temptation, pernicious doctrines have resulted.
‘Ought’ and Institutional Obligation
Authors: Cameron J. R.
Published: February 2009

An obligation may take either of two forms, each form being reported in a different way. For example, when we report the obligation of parents to care for their children, if it is the moral obligation we mean, we will say ‘Parents ought to look after their children’ but if we mean the legal obligation, we will say ‘Parents have to look after their children’. The law specifies that people shall do thus and so, not that they ought to do thus and so.
Kierkegaard and the ‘Truth’ of Christianity
Authors: Edwards Paul
Published: February 2009

The Alleged Turning Point in European Philosophy

Existentialists, especially those who follow either Heidegger or Jaspers, find a great deal objectionable in what they variously call ‘scientism’, ‘scientific rationalism’, and ‘positivism’. In this article I shall discuss one of the alleged defects of scientific rationalism, that it recognizes only one kind of truth—the kind that existentialists call ‘objective truth’. ‘One great achievement of existential philosophy,’ writes William Barrett, ‘has been a new interpretation of the idea of truth in order to point out that there are different kinds of truth, where a rigid scientific rationalism had postulated but one kind: objective scientific truth.’ Not only scientific rationalists but traditional metaphysicians from Plato to Aquinas and Hegel are judged to be equally at fault here: they too have failed to recognize any truth other than the objective variety. It was Kierkegaard who for the first time effectively challenged the assumptions shared by scientific rationalists and traditional metaphysicians. Kierkegaard, in Barrett's words, ‘had to re-open the whole question of the meaning of truth … his stand on the question may well have marked a turning point in European philosophy.’
Instinct and Moral Life
Authors: Reid Louis Arnaud
Published: February 2009

The problem before us is the question: How far is the term ‘ instinct ‘ applicable in ethics? How far is it true to say that instincts are the determinants of the good, or moral, life? And if it is true at all to say they are determinants, how Far is it true?
Philosophy in Russia
Authors: Duddington Natalie A.
Published: February 2009

Some new information has recently come to light with regard to philosophy in Russia. It appears that it is next to impossible for anyone living there to study the subject or indeed to form an adequate conception of it. There is not a single teacher of philosophy or logic in any of the Universities ; a course of the history of philosophy is only read in theethnological department of the Moscow University. It is proposed, however, to introduce the teaching of logic and of the history of philosophy in certain towns “ when a sufficient number of teachers are available,” and with this purpose a department of philosophy at the ‘ Institute of red professorship ’ has been opened. But the qualifications required of the future professors of philosophy make one more than doubtful of their capacity to teach the subject. All that is required of them is that they should have read the first volume of Lange's History of Materialism, Hoffding's History of Modern Philosophy, Gomperz's Greek Thinkers up to Socrates (only the early part of Gomperz's work has been translated into Russian, and the knowledge of foreign languages is not required from the candidates), Wundt's Introduction to Philosophy, and the writings of various philosophizing Marxists. In addition to these academic qualifications they must have a recommendation from the communist party or some similar organization. The kind of ideas that are being instilled into these prospective teachers may be gathered from the writings of the accredited ‘ red ’ philosophers in the only philosophical periodical which is being published in Russia, Under the Banner of Marxism, and in other magazines.
The Present Chaos in Psychology and the Way Out
Authors: McDougall William
Published: February 2009

There is at the present time a bewildering variety of schools of psychology in open rivalry and conflict with one another. The Press and the general public, in America, at least, seem to be aware of only two of these, namely the psychoanalytic and the behaviouristic schools; and the newspaper writers and the average highbrow are content to mix snippets and catchwords from these two utterly different schools, ignoring all the rest, unless they add to their shop-window display some uncertain reference to the work of the mental testers.
From Magic to Science
Authors: Gregory J. C.
Published: February 2009

The tomb of the ancient Pharaoh, Tut-ankh-Amen, was opened some years ago. Lord Carnarvon, who financed the investigations, died shortly after the opening. Lord Westbury fell to his death from the high window of a London flat on February 21, 1930. His son, the Hon. Richard Bethell, had been found dead in his room the previous November. He was secretary to Mr. Howard Carter, one discoverer of Tut-ankh-Amen’s tomb. Many persons who had been connected with the excavations had died previously—M. Benedite, for example, died after participating in the research, and Mrs. Greely committed suicide after visiting the tomb. The Hon. Richard Bethell was the thirteenth person connected with Tut-ankh-Amen's tomb, directly or indirectly, to die, and his father, Lord Westbury, was the fourteenth. The death of Lord Carnarvon, a few weeks after the tomb was opened, stirred the notion that a curse had been placed on the mummy of the Pharaoh, or in his tomb, to menace violators. Succeeding deaths kept the notion alive, and the thirteenth death, of the Hon. Richard Bethell, wrung an opinion from Dr. Mardus, the eminent French Egyptologist. He was convinced that the ancient Egyptians could surround “their mummies with some dynamic force.” Such a force lurked in the tomb of Tut-ankh-Amen. Its nature was unknown, but it had manifested itself in the series of deaths.
The Dual Basis of Conduct
Authors: Samuel Herbert
Published: February 2009

I do not propose in this paper to discuss what is the nature of the Good. Although the content of morality and the sanction for morality are closely connected, and it may be argued with much force that it is not practicable to deal with them separately, limits must be set to any one discussion. I would propose, therefore, not to embark upon the general question—what conduct is right and what is wrong; but, assuming that there is right and wrong, to consider why we should pursue the one and avoid the other.
Philosophy in France
Authors: Keeling S. V.
Published: February 2009

The source and inspiration of French “eclecticism” in the first half of last century was historical; its immediate purpose, the reconstitution of philosophical doctrines of the past; its riper though remoter effects, the formation of a tradition which insisted on reinterpretation as an indispensable preliminary to further construction. And it is largely a result of this that we to-day find commonplace the declaration: “A peculiarity of systems that are epoch-making is that their influence should extend beyond their own generation, and that they should prepare, as it were in secret, the thought that is to come.” So far as fuller and comparative scholarship have been applied to the elucidation of Cartesian philosophy and science, the results appear to fall into three groups. First, largely a result of the impetus of Cousin's teaching at the École Normale, there is the ample story of the development and modifications of Cartesianism in Bouillier's Histoire, and the Cartésianisme of Bordas-Demoulin. Later in the century, after the reaction against Cousin, come the invaluable study of Liard, insisting on the greater importance of Descartes' methodology and physics and the priority of the latter over his metaphysics, and the elegant monograph of Fouillee stressing the “voluntarist” tendencies in Descartes.
Philosophy in Germany
Authors: Knight Helen
Published: February 2009

This survey deals with (i) Contemporary [German] Philosophy, vol. vii, by several contributors; (ii) The Machine-Theory of Life, by Julius Schultz; (iii) Bernard Bolzano, by Heinrich Fels; (iv) The Theory of Classes, by Adolf Fraenkel; (v) An Abstract of Logistic, by Rudolf Carnap.
Science and the Explanation of Phenomena
Authors: Stace W. T.
Published: February 2009

My subject to-day falls within that branch of philosophy which is commonly called the philosophy of science. And it is intended, among other things, to illustrate, by the particular case of science, the suggestion which I made in my first lecture that all subjects, scientific, literary, moral, if you examine their first principles, will lead you back into philosophy.
The Physical World and Reality
Authors: Gomborow Joel
Published: February 2009

In his masterly article, “Sir Arthur Eddington and the Physical World,” which appeared in the January 1934 issue of Philosophy, Dr. Stace has brought out a number of interesting points on which I should like to comment. However, as the main issues between Professor Stace and Professor Eddington are with regard to the physical world and reality, these will form the main topics of my remarks.
Reason and the Problem of Suffering
Authors: Campbell C. A.
Published: February 2009

The problem of suffering is essentially a problem in philosophical theology. For many philosophical systems the phenomena of suffering set no special problem at all. The most influential philosophies of the present age, for example, have almost nothing to say on the subject—and there is no reason why, on their metaphysical; principles, they should say anything. The problem is a relevant one only for those philosophies which claim to be in at least general accord with the “religious interpretation of the universe.” But for them it is crucial. Given a Weltanschauung like that of Absolute Idealism, for which the ultimate principle from which all things derive their being is an Infinite and Perfect Spirit, and it becomes at once a clear obligation to offer some explanation of how we are to reconcile the Goodness of God with the existence in the world of so much suffering which is prima facie just bad. As we all know, the problem is an extraordinarily hard one to solve. But, inasmuch as the religious interpretation of the universe demands its solution as a condition of its own possibility, its importance is proportionate to its difficulty.
Mr. Dunne's Theory of Time in “an Experiment With Time"
Authors: Broad C. D.
Published: February 2009

I want to state the theory in An Experiment with Time as clearly as I can in my own way; then to consider its application to Precognition; and then to consider whether there are any other grounds for accepting it beside its capacity to account for the possibility of Precognition. Mr. Dunne himself holds that the theory is required quite independently of explaining Precognition. He also holds that the facts which demand a serial theory of Time require that the series shall be infinite. Both these contentions might be mistaken, and yet Mr. Dunne might be right to the extent that it is necessary to assume a series of at least two terms for the special purpose of explaining Precognition.
Substance
Authors: Mabbott J. D.
Published: February 2009

In the Metaphysics (IV. 8), Aristotle examines the various meanings of concludes that its proper and primary meaning is “that which has predicates and is not predicated of anything else.” My aim in this paper is to accept this as an account of the notion of “substance,” and to free it from confusion with other notions, and then to consider whether when it is thus freed any “problem of substance” remains. I shall illustrate from the classical treatments of the subject both the confusions and the development of a clearer view because it has seemed to me that exposition and criticism of those authorities sometimes show the same obscurities as the authorities themselves.
Philosophy in Russia
Authors: Duddington Natalie
Published: February 2009

In U.S.S.R. dialectical materialism is still the only subject discussed by writers on philosophy. Philosophical publications during the last year include Lenin’s Philosophical Note-books; Dialectical Materialism and the Theory of Balance, by Selektor; Marx’s Philosophical Development, by Lipendin; A Course of Dialectical Materialism, by Markuse; Dialectical Materialism and Social Democracy, by Rudash; The Idealistic Dialectic of Hegel and the Materialist Dialectic of Marx, by L. Axelrod. On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Marx’s death the Communist Academy Institute of Philosophy has published a Symposium containing papers on materialistic dialectics, on the relation of Marxism-Leninism to culture and natural science, and discussion of those papers. A number of small textbooks on dialectical materialism, or Diamat as it is called for short, are issued for university schools not only in Russian but also in some of the languages spoken in the Soviet Union.
Fifty Years of Philosophy and Philosophers
Authors: Ryle Gilbert
Published: February 2009

The foundation of the (now Royal) Institute of Philosophy coincided with my own entry into the ranks of academic philosophers. It may therefore on this special occasion be of some interest if I cast some retrospective glances at philosophy's daily life in and after the middle 1920s. I shall not steal from the proper hands the task of sketching the history of the Royal Institute itself; but I have some now fairly rare qualifications for describing the philosophical world into which it was born.
Who's in Control Here?
Authors: Hannaford Robert V.
Published: February 2009

The question arises from recent arguments, including one by G. E. M. Anscombe, which hold that a belief in one's ability to choose one's actions is incompatible with a causal account of the world. For, if one's arguments deny either choice or causal sequences, how can one account for human control of actions? If to control one's actions means to work to cause some chosen end, and if either point of the argument were correct, how could anyone ever control one's actions at all? Yet we must be able to control actions if we are to seek out and select from evidence or develop any kind of conceptual scheme. I want to develop this necessity-of-control notion to show that arguments such as those advanced by Miss Anscombe are incoherent and to show that we must retain our notion of choice while giving a causal account of the world. I will argue that deterministic sequences and the notions of choice and control go together: in order for us to have a tenable explanation of the world we must be able to talk about choice and control and we must identify and use predictable deterministic sequences in our acting and choosing. I shall argue that we can retain both causal explanation and choice only by employing two different conceptions of causal agency: merely physical agency and the voluntary agency of embodied actors.
Plato's Analogy of State and Individual: The Republic and the Organic Theory of the State
Authors: Neu Jerome
Published: February 2009

“Imagine A rather short-sighted person told to read an inscription in small letters from some way off….' So begins the quest for “the real nature of justice and injustice” undertaken in response to the challenge of Glaucon and Adeimantus to show that “justice pays”. It is often alleged that the search leads through analogy to a monster “organic” state that lives by devouring individual rights. I believe that these charges are mistaken. Plato's political theory does not derive from an analogy which makes the state a monster individual with interests superior to and independent of those of ordinary citizens; it derives rather from a doctrine of objective interests discernible by those with special training and ability, interests which later thinkers (and perhaps Plato) have taken to be the object of a “real will”, unerring even where a person's mere empirical desires are shortsightedly misdirected. Plato identifies the interests of his ideal state with the objective interests of its citizens (so they are not independent), and in his harmonious world, metaphysics, moral psychology, and political organization combine to ensure that those interests need never override individual mundane interests (not superior) for they never conflict: they coincide. That the whole theory is dubious should not prevent us from seeing that just what the theory is may be clarified by examining the arguments which putatively lead to it, and that those arguments provide grounds for not confounding Plato's theory with others which may reach similar conclusions about political organization and obligation.
Reflections On The Natural Philosophy Of Goethe
Authors: Yourgrau Wolfgang
Published: February 2009

Lichtenberg, the German philosopher and physicist, once remarked: “It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without singeing someone's beard.” Goethe, coeval with Lichtenberg, possessed by the conviction that he too was the bearer of truth, recked not whose beard was singed. Between his scientific attitude and his philosophic insight, however, a contradiction was patent, as revealed in his maxim that truth is a torch and that it is only with blinking eyes that we try to get past it, whilst in actual terror of being burnt.
A Criticism of Present-Day Physics
Authors: Samuel Viscount
Published: February 2009

I am grateful for the attention which Philosophy has given to my little book Essay in Physics. The review by Professor McCrea brings out clearly its essential point, and criticizes it in a manner so wellbalanced and fair, and at the same time so penetrating, that it calls for a reply.
A Realism for Reconciliation
Authors: Henderson Kenneth
Published: February 2009

“I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak the words of truth and soberness.” In this cry of Paul's we hear the idealist in all ages making his agonized claim to realism in face of the Powers that Be. Festus and Agrippa represent the ex-officio history-makers in this scene. Paul is proclaiming fundamental facts and possibilities that those who have power fail to see. And so, in claiming to be sane, he becomes the spokesman for all who see the Not-Yet as stronger than the Now, and behold What is Meant to Be as more powerful than What Is.
(I) Action at a Distance
Authors: McCrea W. H.
Published: February 2009

This is a subject of recurrent interest which calls for review from time to time; I believe the last word upon it can never be said. Several topical reasons might be cited for attempting to deal with it at the present time, but these could not be pursued to the relevant applications in such a short discussion. In fact the subject is obviously a difficult one to deal with at all briefly since it is so closely bound up with other large subjects—causality, space–time, and so on.
Games and the World
Authors: Cherry Christopher
Published: February 2009

Discussing what Wittgenstein means by ‘the use’ of an expression, Dr Kenny writes:

Does a word have a use provided that it can fit into acceptable sentences, or does its use have to make some difference in the world ? Wittgenstein's two favourite similes point in opposite directions. A game, like chess, has only syntactical rules; what goes on in chess has no effect on the world except indirectly through the consequence of winning and losing.
The Earl of Balfour
Authors: Wolf A.
Published: February 2009

Arthur James Balfour was born at Whittinghame, East Lothian, on July 25, 1848. He was barely ten years old when his father died, and he succeeded to the estate. He entered Eton in 1862, and there met Lord Rosebery. In 1866 he went to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied philosophy under Henry Sidgwick. In 1869 he obtained a second-class in the Moral Sciences Tripos. In an autobiographical note, written long afterwards, Lord Balfour made the following reference to his mental attitude as an undergraduate: “I went to Cambridge with a very small equipment of either philosophy or science, but a very keen desire to discover what I ought to think, and why. For the history of speculation I cared not a jot. Dead systems seemed to me of no more interest than abandoned fashions. My business was with the groundwork of living beliefs: in particular with the groundwork of that scientific knowledge whose recent developments had so profoundly moved the world.” Considering his attachment to the past in matters of Church and State, Lord Balfour's contempt for the history of philosophy seems to betray a curious limitation. Unfortunately for him, the history of philosophy was not an important feature in the Cambridge philosophical curriculum, and the defect avenged itself by marring his subsequent philosophy in various ways. No doubt Sidgwick did all he could to encourage and develop Balfour's critical powers. Cambridge philosophy, under the influence of Sidgwick, was critical rather than imaginative, just as Oxford philosophy, under the influence of Green, was imaginative rather than critical.
God and Man
Authors: Webb Clement C. J.
Published: February 2009

Just three years ago I contributed to this Journal a few remarks on the problem of the relation of “God” to “the World.” I propose in the present article to add some observations on the closely connected (and, indeed, overlapping) problem of the relation of “God” to “Man”; especially in view of the theory, by no means a new one, but at the moment much in evidence (and that in more shapes than one), that when we speak of God what we have really in mind is our own human nature or some part or aspect of it, imaginatively objectified as a distinct or independent reality.
The Conception of Excess-Value in Biology
Authors: Johnstone James
Published: February 2009

By an “organism” I mean a living thing, in the most ordinary sense. There is an “organic theory of nature” in which the term “organism” is extended so as to include atoms, molecules, crystals, colloidal micelles, etc.; such constellations of parts have been called “inorganic organisms” by Driesch. I shall regard them as the “results of organization.” As we know them they are “models” (variant with the progress of physics), and they exist in the minds of physicists just as differential equations are in the minds of mathematicians. They express arrangements just as a trade union (an organization) is an arrangement, and just as artifacts, such as the nest of a chaffinch or the sleeping-bag of an Arctic explorer, are expressions of arrangements.
Philosophies of Education
Authors: Haack R. J.
Published: February 2009

It is commonly supposed that the philosophy of education is not a reputable area of concern for a philosopher. I have never heard a coherent, sustained and successful case made for this view. Only vague remarks about ‘autonomy’ and narrowly protectionist views of philosophy are ventured. So I shall not discuss the matter further. I shall simply be content to side with Plato, Aristotle, Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, Mill and Dewey, who thought that educational issues fell within the province of philosophy. Kant was so concerned with education that he interrupted his work on the Critique of Pure Reason in order to support Basedow's experimental school, the Philanthropin, and the educational reforms which it intended to institute. Kant says ‘… the greatest and most difficult problem to which man can devote himself is the problem of education.’ But if those who hold that the philosophy of education is unimportant, or even disreputable, have come to that view after examining a good deal of what is currently being said in this field, then their adverse reaction is not hard to understand, because a good deal of contemporary work here is clearly inadequate. I hope to show that the contemporary perspective is too narrow, and to advocate a return to a more traditional view of the philosophy of education in the hope that the subject may once again be given the importance which was formerly attributed to it.
Word Meaning
Authors: Moonan Lawrence
Published: February 2009

I shall examine a theory, set out in the form of a story, which claims to explain advance in learning the meaning of words. Ignoring some important features of the theory—those notably to do with how such learning comes about—I shall ask what it is that the theory supposes us to learn when we learn the meaning of a word, or what it is that the theory supposes us to be doing when we learn it. The theory will be imputed to one Augustine, since the story may be taken as a not unfair remythologization of a theory advanced by St Augustine in the De Magistro: but I shall not attempt here either to prove or reject paternity, being content to examine the theory on its intrinsic merits which, I hope to show, are not inconsiderable.
The Primitive and the Civilized Mind
Authors: Lossky N.
Published: February 2009

There is a profound difference between the intellectual activity of the primitive man inclined to myth-making, superstition, and visualizing mystical powers and that of the educated European of our own day with his search for exact scientific knowledge. Modern culture tends to educate the mind in the direction of sober scientific thought, and it is very important that this tendency should be subjected to a critical examination. Before beginning the pursuit of the educational ideal it is essential to see wherein the difference between the savage and the civilized mind really consists and to determine the relative value of primitive and scientific thought.
The Idealism of Caird and Jones
Authors: Lindsay A. D.
Published: February 2009

In the history of English Idealism in the nineteenth century a great place must be given to the work of two men who held the chair of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow for two periods of twenty-eight years, from 1866 to 1922, Edward Caird and Henry Jones.
Science and Social Vision
Authors: Scott J. W.
Published: February 2009

Discussions on the distinction between philosophy and science are apt to seem rather futile and academic. They would quickly lose that character if they were thought to have any bearing on the question of social survival or decay. That they have such a bearing follows if the following considerations are true, and I think that they are: first, that amongst the conditions of a society’s survival an indispensable one is the prevalence within it of a certain vision of it; secondly, that in its type this vision is akin to philosophy and not to science; and thirdly, that the due cultivation of it necessitates our being careful not to mistake its affiliations.
Intellectual Analysis and Æsthetic Appreciation
Authors: Reid Louis Arnaud
Published: February 2009

The purpose of the following article is to suggest certain problems, rather than to offer philosophical solutions of problems. I propose to state certain questions which are sometimes asked and to try to say both (a) why it is important that they should be asked, and (b) why, if we do ask them, we should endeavour to answer them as accurately as we can. A full discussion of what the true answers to the questions are will be beyond the province of this paper, and, if certain answers are suggested in passing, it will only be because it is difficult to make anything which consists of a mere sequence of questions at all interesting or readable.
Interestingness
Authors: Stace W. T.
Published: February 2009

I propose to fashion this paper after the pattern of a conventional sermon. That is, I shall begin by taking a text, and shall then elaborate on it. My text is a sentence of Whitehead, and it reads as follows: “It is more important that a proposition be interesting than that it be true; the importance of truth is that it adds to interest.” To my knowledge Whitehead makes this identical remark at least twice in his writings. It appears in Process and Reality. And it appears again, word for word, several years later in Adventures of Ideas. The fact that he thus says it twice, in identical words, suggests to me that he is himself immensely pleased with it, and that he values highly the thought which it expresses. At this I am not at all surprised. For it seems to me that the remark enshrines one of those sudden flashes of insight for which Whitehead is famous, and which stamp him as, not merely the ordinary very clever or very learned man, but the man of genius. Speaking for myself, I can record that when I first read this remark it produced in me a sudden thrill, a sense of illumination, of the opening of new vistas, not wholly dissimilar to the thrill which, as a very young man, one felt when one first read certain stanzas of Shelley or Wordsworth.
A Revaluation of Mind and Its Relation to Nature
Authors: Sutton C. W. H.
Published: February 2009

I believe the time is come for a re-estimation of the status of minds in the universe. I use the word mind quite naïvely at first, in the belief that it has a nucleus of meaning that is sufficiently clear. I do not wish its meaning to be restricted to the phenomena of clear consciousness, still less of self-consciousness.
The Concept of Art for Art's Sake
Authors: Hannay A. H.
Published: February 2009

THE cult of “art for art's sake,” which had a great vogue at the end of the last century, was, in pictorial art, set aside, or rather absorbed between the two wars by other cults of a similar nature, such as the cult of pure form, of plastic form, of cubism, and these in their turn have been pushed into the background by the sinister spectre of the unconscious. There are genuine problems behind these cults, and they are by no means easy problems. The cult of art for art's sake fell into disrepute; but this was not so much because of its artistic products as because of the kind of life which the devotees of this cult thought they were entitled to lead.
Authority and Rationality
Authors: Grazia Sebastian De
Published: February 2009

Before an aggregation of persons can be said to constitute a community there must exist a sharing of a body of norms or values, or asystem of beliefs or morals. In sociology this conception frequentlyappears in the term “consensus,” and in political science a similar conception goes by the phrase “social contract.” The two conceptions are not identical and an important point of difference will be touched on later, but according to this position knowledge of and adherence to the fundamental rules is necessary to group unity or cohesion.
The Axiological Theism of A. E. Taylor
Authors: Virtue Charles F. Sawhill
Published: February 2009

If a rational argument is to be advanced for the existence of God, it must be some form of the cosmological, depending on the concept of causation, or the ontological, an elaboration of the concept of being. The metaphysical fertility of the axiological approach to theism consists in its reformulation of the ontological argument—viz., that the nature of existent reality itself is indicative of supra natural being.
Can Machines Think?
Authors: Mays W.
Published: February 2009

Mr. A. M. Turing was quoted in The Times about a year ago as saying it would be interesting to discover the degree of intellectual activity of which a machine was capable and to what extent it could think for itself. He has now pressed this suggestion further and given the results of his researches in an article called “Computing Machines and Intelligence,” together with a brief account of a “child-machine” which he has attempted to educate (Mind, October 1950). I intend to discuss this article in some detail and examine his claim that “machines can think.”
Philosophy And Religion
Authors: Sutton C. W. H.
Published: February 2009

I. Since the beginnings of philosophy, in all cultures which have produced any, religion and philosophy have been closely tied up together, and have often been uneasy yoke-fellows, each at times feeling it a duty to combat the other. I think there are two main reasons for this, (a) All higher religions develop a theology, or systematic statement of doctrine; the philosopher tends to regard this as a spurious kind of philosophy or science that deliberately neglects inconvenient facts; while the theologian in his turn suspects the philosopher of ignoring important data which he ought to consider, viz.: the phenomena of concrete religion, (b) Akin to this is the tendency of both parties to use the word “God” in a different sense; Pascal’s objection that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is not the God of the philosophers is prima facie justified. Nevertheless both parties might have a claim to use the word.
Kant's Presumed Repudiation of the “Moral Argument” in the Opus Postumum: An Examination of Adickes’ Interpretation
Authors: Schrader George
Published: February 2009

Until comparatively recently the complete text of the Opus Postutmum has not been available to students of the Kantian philosophy.Prior to the publication of Adickes’ commentary on this material in 1920, students of Kant were almost wholly dependent upon Reicke's incomplete and markedly inadequate edition of 1882–84.2 Adickes’ commentary, with its abundance of quoted passages, provided an access to a great deal of material hitherto unavailable. But it was not until the publication of the Academy Edition in 1936 that the complete text became available for independent study. Because of the recent publication of the full text, most accounts of Kant's position in the Opus Postumum have depended upon Reicke's inadequate edition or, as has been more frequently the case, upon Adickes’ commentary.3 In view of the considerable influence it has had upon Kant interpretation, Adickes’ analysis of the Opus Postumum warrants a careful and critical examination.
Ethics And Politics In Mandeville
Authors: Maxwell J. C.
Published: February 2009

Ever since they were first published, the works of Bernard Mandeville have met with a few careful readers as well as with a larger number of stupid or unscrupulous assailants. Both classes are faithfully recorded at the end of F. B. Kaye's splendid edition of The Fable of the Bees (Oxford, 1924), which has helped to revive interest in Mandeville, and which has moulded the current estimate of his ideas: the treatment of Mandeville in such a work as Basil Willey's Eighteenth Century Background (London, 1940) is confessedly based almost entirely on Kaye. My purpose in this paper is to suggest some modifications of the account given by Kaye, and to make claims for Mandeville's importance in one particular field, the relation of ethics to politics.
Doing My Duty
Authors: Baier K.
Published: February 2009

In this paper, I want to show, by the examination of a well-known paradox, how failure to attend to ordinary usage leads to confusion and perplexity.