bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Introduction
Authors: Nussbaum Martha C.
Published: October 2003

This introduction provides a description of the manuscripts of the De Anima; commentaries on the De Anima; and its links with other works such as Metaphysics, Physics, the biological treatises, and the ethical works. The agenda of the De Anima is discussed, and three general positions concerning the materiality of the psuchē are identified. Recent interpretations of the De Anima are then considered.
Changing Aristotle's Mind
Authors: Nussbaum Martha C. , Putnam Hilary
Published: October 2003

This essay is a response to Myles Burnyeat’s paper that attacks an interpretation of the credibility and acceptability of Aristotle’s views of the body and soul. It begins with a discussion of Aristotle’s motivating problems. An interpretation is defended against Burnyeat, which distinguishes Aristotle from both materialist reductionism, and from the Burnyeat interpretation that perceiving etc. does not require concomitant material change, and that awareness is primitive. Aristotle’s position is then defended as tenable, even in the context of a modern theory of matter.
Living Bodies
Authors: Whiting Jennifer
Published: October 2003

Aristotle is committed to the existence of essentially ensouled bodies, and says that such bodies are purely of animal matter. Ackrill has argued that this commitment conflicts with Aristotle’s primary conception of matter as potentiality and as the substratum of generation and destruction. This essay contends that Ackrill’s problem can be solved by allowing that there is a sense in which the matter of an animal is only contingently related to its form, and that this can be done without undermining Aristotle’s arguments for introducing ensouled bodies in the first place.
Aspects of the Relationship Between Aristotle's Psychology and His Zoology
Authors: Lloyd G. E. R.
Published: October 2003

This essay explores the extent to which Aristotle’s zoological researches were influenced by his general psychological theory and specific psychological doctrines, and the match or mismatch between the results of his zoological investigations and his general position on questions such as definition, essence, form, and matter. It argues that psychology provides the major articulating framework for Aristotle’s zoology. Certain key points in his zoology and specific psychological doctrines influence his interpretation of the biological phenomena.
Dialectic, Motion, and Perception: De Anima Book
Authors: Witt Charlotte
Published: October 2003

Book 1 of Aristotle’s De Anima extensively discusses two characteristics of the soul: the soul as the source of motion of the living being, and the soul as the seat of perception and cognition. The following conclusions are drawn on the nature and function of the soul. The soul is not a magnitude and not material; it is a substance and not an attribute; it is a unity, and the principle of unity is not material continuity. The soul is the origin of perception and motion, and of psychological processes such as emotions and desires. An adequate account of how the soul causes perception, motion, and the like must not attribute motion to the soul.
Aristotle on the Sense of Touch
Authors: Freeland Cynthia
Published: October 2003

This essay explores the central place of Aristotle’s views of the sense of touch within his empiricist epistemology and general physical theory. It argues that Aristotle was not committed to a ‘literalist’ view of the nature of sensory representation, according to which an organ literally becomes ‘like’ the said object. It suggests an interpretation of Aristotle’s defence of the objectivity of tactile representation, which shows a deep and complex link between his theory of sense-knowledge and his project of scientific explanation.
Aristotle on the Imagination
Authors: Schofield Malcolm
Published: October 2003

This essay explores Aristotle’s treatment of imagination. It argues that Aristotle need not be charged with the radical inconsistency in his treatment of phantasia diagnosed by Hamlyn. Although a conceptual link can be made between imagination and a use of ‘appears’, the link is not as close as the connection between phantasia and phainesthai, nor does ‘appears’ provide the natural entree to the study of imagination which phainetai provides to that of phantasia. A little lexicography will show that the syntactic behaviour and semantic range of phantasia are different from those of imagination.
The Cognitive Role of Phantasia in Aristotle
Authors: Frede Dorothea
Published: October 2003

Phantasia is viewed as a unified concept in Aristotle. When the metaphoric meaning of ‘phantisizing’ is excluded, the causal account for all imagination is the same: all phantasiai are motions in the soul caused by sense-perceptions. These are sensory images or imprints that can exist independently from their original source. Their history may be different, and their character and value may vary. Aristotle’s insistence on their sensory nature indicates that he saw them as a unitary phenomenon in the soul, as sensory appearances.
Aristotle on Memory and the Self
Authors: Annas Julia
Published: October 2003

This essay argues that Aristotle’s view of memory is more like that of the modern psychologist than that of a modern philosopher; he is more interested in accurately delineating different kinds of memory than in discussing philosophical problems of memory. The short treatise On Memory and Recollection is considered a treatise on memory and loosely associated phenomenon and recollection. It is suggested that this work is better regarded as a treatise on two kinds of memory.
Desire and the Good in De Anima
Authors: Richardson Henry S.
Published: October 2003

This essay presents an interpretation of the theory of animal movement that emphasizes the place Aristotle accords the good as the object of desire and the coordinate importance he assigns to desire and discernment. This interpretation is based on two competing models: the desire-based model, where the shape of the account of any action is based on some one occurrent desire; and the good-based model, where the account starts from some object aimed at as good. It is argued that the texts of De Anima 3. 9-11 better fit the good-based model of animal motion than the desire-based model.
The Seas of Language
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

The book contains articles in metaphysics and philosophy of language written between 1975 and 1992. Dummett defends the verificationist theory of meaning, according to which in order to know the meaning of a statement one must be in possession of a procedure to verify it. He also argues for the link between bivalence and the metaphysical doctrine of realism. Other topics discussed include refutation of instrumentalism, mathematical applicability, backward causation, and the analysis of the concept of existence.
Language and Truth
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

According to one view, it is as absurd to explain the notion of truth in general as it is to explain the notion of winning the game for an arbitrary game. Knowing what it takes to win the game is inseparable from knowing what the game consists in. Far from showing the absence of a philosophical problem about truth, this argument establishes the link between the concept of truth and the concept of meaning. The meaning of a sentence should be given in terms of the procedure in which this sentence may be verified. Hence, the notion of verification may play a part of the theoretical rôle usually ascribed to the notion of truth, even if the latter might not be wholly explainable in terms of the former.
Truth and Meaning
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

According to the code conception of language, we need language merely because we happen to lack the faculty to transmit thoughts directly from one mind to another. A fatal obstacle to the code conception is the complexity of thought: having a thought involves possession of its component concepts, and concepts cannot come before consciousness unless expressed in words. However, the explanatory priority of thought and language is not the most urgent: both the theory of meaning and the theory of thought have to explain what it is to have a thought. The principal trait of thoughts is their aptness for being true or false. In order to say anything illuminating about the concept of truth, we must link it with the notions of recognizing and of accepting a thought or statement as true.
Realism
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

Realism has traditionally been understood as an epistemological doctrine about the direct awareness of the external objects. There is another sense of realism, in which one is said to be a realist about a particular subject matter. In the latter sense, it is a semantic thesis about the bivalence of the statements of the given subject matter. The anti‐realist semantical claim amounts to denying the possibility of knowing a statement to be true unless one has the means to arrive at such knowledge. Dummett argues that only the semantic thesis is coherent, exploring interactions between the semantic versions of realism and anti‐realism.
Testimony and Memory
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

Testimony should not be regarded as a source, and still less as a ground, of knowledge: it is the transmission from one individual to another of knowledge acquired by whatever means. A sceptic cannot admit memory, but not testimony, as a channel for the transmission of knowledge, for the analogy between them is too close. The idea that it is unreasonable to believe something to be so on the sole basis of having been told that it is so is as myopic as the idea that it is unreasonable to believe something to have been so on the sole basis of remembering it as having been so. Lying should be treated as an abnormal phænomenon in linguistic practice, since otherwise words could not mean what they do mean.
What Is Mathematics About?
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

While it is relatively clear what the subject matter of empirical sciences is, puzzles persist about the proper subject matter of mathematics. The logicists took mathematics to be concerned solely with deductive arguments. Their programme attempted to combine three incompatible claims: that mathematics is a body of truths, that it is non‐empirical, and that it employs proofs obeying the rules of classical logic. By giving up the third contention, it becomes possible to salvage the logicist programme and to explain better mathematical practice, including the fact of its application in empirical disciplines.
Realism and Anti‐Realism
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

Disputes about realism should be construed as disputes not about a class of entities, but about the truth‐value of the statements in a given class. For what reality consists in is not determined just by what objects there are, but by what propositions hold good: the world is the totality of facts, not of things. However, the rejection of bivalence is not a sufficient ground for rejecting realism. A genuine rejection of realism amounts to the view that logical constants classically understood do not make sense.
Critical Aesthetics and Postmodernism
Authors: Crowther Paul
Published: October 2003

Considerable controversy has raged around the question of postmodern culture and its products. This book attempts to overcome some of the antagonistic viewpoints involved by developing themes from the work of Kant, Benjamin, and Merleau–Ponty in the context of themes from contemporary culture. Attention is paid to such topics as the relation between art and politics, the problematics of poststructuralist and feminist approaches to art, the emergence and re‐emergence of theories of the sublime, and the continuing possibility of artistic creativity. The central theme is that there are experiential constants around which art and philosophy constellate. At the same time, however, due account must be given of the ways in which such constants are historically mediated. By articulating various aspects of this relation, it is shown how postmodern sensibility can be more than that of an alienated consumerism. Understood in the proper theoretical context, it is grounded on experiences and artefacts that humanize.
Introduction
Authors: Crowther Paul
Published: October 2003

Analyses the relation between experience and techniques of mechanical reproduction through a critical discussion of ideas from Walter Benjamin. Argues that postmodern sensibility is one that is oriented towards shock and novelty. These experiences are linked to the realm of the sublime and art, respectively.
From Différance to Embodiment
Authors: Crowther Paul
Published: October 2003

A critique of Derrida's approach to language using ideas from Merleau–Ponty. Focuses on an extended reappraisal of the notion of différance, and stresses the continuity that exists between perception and our reading of texts and other symbolic formations. This continuity stabilizes presence and meaning, and is grounded on our existence as embodied beings.
Beyond Formalism
Authors: Crowther Paul
Published: October 2003

Addresses Kant's theory of fine art. Pays particular attention to the notions of genius, and the subjective conditions of artistic creativity. Further argument determines the key significance of a horizon of comparisons in justifying judgements of artistic merit.
The Producer as Artist
Authors: Crowther Paul
Published: October 2003

Further analyses the question of artistic merit, starting from a critical discussion of Benjamin and Adorno using aspects of Kant's theory of art. Focuses on a clarification of the relations between politics, artistic merit, and aesthetic experience. Culminates in the introduction of critical aesthetics as a key methodological notion.
Violence in Painting
Authors: Crowther Paul
Published: October 2003

Centres on a discussion of violence in painting. Recent discussions of the topic have tended to reduce it to gender issues—an approach so narrow as to warrant the term gendercentrism. The approach taken here, however, is one that builds on concepts broached in earlier chapters, and that emphasizes the possible interplay of imagination and aesthetic empathy even in the context of violent representation.
The Existential Sublime
Authors: Crowther Paul
Published: October 2003

Offers an initial detailed exposition of Burke's influential theory of the sublime. Argues that Burke identifies what might be called an existential sublime. His theory is then upgraded and applied in relation to the understanding of socio‐political aspects of the postmodern sensibility.
Moral Insight and Aesthetic Experience
Authors: Crowther Paul
Published: October 2003

Analyses and applies Kant's theory of the sublime. Offers the approach as an alternative to revisions of Kant (such as that by Thomas Weiskel) that are based on structural linguistics or psychoanalysis. Then defends the approach from criticisms raised against a version of it offeredearlier in this book The Kantian Sublime.
Causal Theories
Authors: Child William
Published: October 2003

Introduces and explains the basic argument for a causal theory of action‐explanation, and defends it against various non‐causal views of action: explaining an action is explaining why something happened, and an explanation of why something happened is always a causal explanation. But what is involved in the claim that reason‐explanation is a form of causal explanation? The chapter begins to answer that question. First, it considers the relation between causal explanation, on the one hand, and the singular relation of causation, on the other. Second, it considers the relation between mental causation and physical causation, defending the idea that we cannot take a purely mentalist view of mental causation.
Frege and Other Philosophers
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

This book deals with Frege's philosophy by comparing and contrasting his views with those of other philosophers, mostly contemporary with him.
Frege on the Consistency of Mathematical Theories
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

Concerns Frege's views on the consistency of mathematical theories, particularly as evidenced by his controversy with David Hilbert over his book on the foundations of geometry. Frege identified consistency with satisfiability, but wrongly thought a theory could be shown to have a model only by exhibiting such a model.
Frege's ‘Kernsätze Zur Logik’
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

A very early fragment contained in Frege's nachlaβ is here shown to have been a series of comments on the introduction to Herman Lotze's Logik (1874, 1880), and thus provides the only proof that Frege ever read Lotze. They demonstrate Frege's concern from early in his career with the question ‘what is a thought?’, and conviction from the same period that truth is indefinable.
Frege and Wittgenstein
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

Abstracts and keywords to be supplied.
Frege's Myth of the Third Realm
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

Abstracts and keywords to be supplied.
More About Thoughts
Authors: Dummett Michael
Published: October 2003

Abstracts and keywords to be supplied.
Concepts
Authors: Fodor Jerry A.
Published: October 2003

Jerry Fodor presents a strikingly original theory of the basic constituents of thought. He suggests that the heart of a cognitive science is its theory of concepts, and that cognitive scientists have gone badly wrong in many areas because their assumptions about concepts have been seriously mistaken. Fodor argues compellingly for an atomistic theory of concepts, and maintains that future work on human cognition should build upon new foundations. He starts by demolishing the rival theories that have prevailed in recent years—that concepts are definitions, that they are prototypes or stereotypes, that they are abstractions from belief systems, etc. He argues that all such theories are radically unsatisfactory for two closely related reasons: they hold that the content of a concept is determined, at least in part, by its inferential role; and they hold that typical concepts are structurally complex. Empirical and philosophical arguments against each of these claims are elaborated. Fodor then develops his alternative account, arguing that conceptual content is determined entirely by informational (mind—world) relations, and that typical concepts are atomic. The implications of this ‘informational atomism’ are considered in respect of issues in psychology, lexical semantics, and metaphysics, with particular attention to the relation between informational atomism and innateness.
Plato on Parts and Wholes
Authors: Harte Verity
Published: October 2003

This book is an examination of Plato's treatment of the relation between a whole and its parts in a group of Plato's later works: the Theaetetus, Parmenides, Sophist, Philebus, and Timaeus. Plato's discussions of part and whole in these texts fall into two distinct groups: a problematic one in which he explores, without endorsing, a model of composition as identity; and another in which he develops an alternative to this rejected model. Each model is concerned with the nature of composition of a whole from its parts, such that a whole is an individual, rather than a mere collection or heap. According to the problematic model of composition, a whole is identical to its many parts, that is, the relation of many parts to one whole is just the relation of identity. This model is shown to have the paradoxical consequence that the same thing(s) is (or are) both one thing and many things, and for this reason, amongst others, it cannot support an adequate account of composition. According to the alternative model of composition, wholes of parts are contentful structures (or, instances of such structures), whose parts get their identity only in the context of the whole they compose. Plato presents the structure of such wholes as the proper objects of Platonic science: essentially irreducible, intelligible, and normative in character.
The Problem of Composition
Authors: Harte Verity
Published: October 2003

Examines several modern accounts of composition—especially David Lewis's, a version of classical extensional mereology—with the aim of framing a shared question about composition. The problem that Plato sets out to solve is of how to give an account of composition in such a way as to allow that a whole is an individual rather than merely a collection of parts. The relation between composition and identity, and the ontological innocence or otherwise of composition, are both matters right at the heart of Plato's discussions of composition, since on the view of composition that identifies a whole with its parts, a whole is both one and many. Consideration of a passage from the Theaetetus (203–206) gives content to the points of contact established between Platonic and modern discussions of composition and provides the first example of Plato's concern with this model of composition that he rejects.
A New Model of Composition
Authors: Harte Verity
Published: October 2003

This chapter, along with the next, focuses on the alternative model of composition that Plato develops to respond to the problems he has posed in his discussion of the rejected model. The focus here is first on the Parmenides, from which the outline of an alternative theory emerges, and then on the Theaetetus and the Sophist, from which some of the broader context of Plato's problem of composition is recovered within which his solution to the problem takes shape. Central to this solution is Plato's distinguishing of the part–whole relation from the relations of distinctness and, more importantly, of identity. On the alternative model, composition is restricted; it is ontologically committed or creative; and it centrally involves the existence of certain structural relations between the parts of a whole.
Composition and Structure
Authors: Harte Verity
Published: October 2003

Begins with some general considerations about structure and the role it might be thought to play in the constitution of a whole and then turns to Plato's own account of both composition and structure. In the Sophist, structure is the proper object of science, as in mathematical structuralism for example, and it is so because structure is made a basic and irreducible item in its ontology. The same holds true in the Philebus, in which the class of limit captures the structure of things, abstractly conceived, and the unlimited captures the domain of content on which it is imposed, while together these are the two ingredients of the analysis of a mixture, normatively conceived, that is, of a whole. Then, in the Timaeus, structure is characterized mathematically, but, as in the Philebus, wholes may again be characterized as contentful structures.
The Mind of God and the Works of Man
Authors: Craig Edward
Published: October 2003

The overall aim of this book is to examine the relation between philosophy studied as a specialized academic discipline and ‘philosophies’, general visions of man and reality that provide guidance in thought and behaviour, and form the background for any specific philosophical enquiry. Philosophical thought has always had the function of articulating such very general pictures of the real. To forget this, Craig argues, leads to a serious distortion of the writings and concerns of great philosophers of the past, and also to trivial philosophy.

Two important consequences of looking at philosophy in this way are, first, an increased sympathy for the idea that philosophy can occur in a variety of media, for example literature, and second, a greater appreciation of the historically variable factors in philosophy, including our own.

The more specific aim of the book is to identify, by means of a broad survey of four centuries of philosophical thought, two visions of man and reality that have been dominant in the history of modern philosophy. In chapter 1, Craig is concerned with the dominant philosophy of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, arguing that the central metaphysical vision was the ‘Image of God’ doctrine, or ‘Similarity Thesis’: the view that man was made in God’s image.

In chapter 5, Craig portrays the very different ‘Agency Theory’, or ‘Practice Ideal’, that rose to prominence during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: the view that human beings are autonomous creators of their environment and values.

Chapter 3 discusses the metaphysic of the Romantic Era, revealing it to be a bridge period, in which the chief characteristics of the previous and following centuries were for a time closely united.

In chapters 2, 4, and 6 the attempt is made to show how selected philosophical texts are illuminated when read against the background of the dominant metaphysics of their time. Chapter 2 focusses on Hume, chapter 4 on Hegel, while chapter 6 turns to philosophical doctrines of the twentieth century.
The Mind of God
Authors: Craig Edward
Published: October 2003

The principal aim of this chapter is to document and describe the ‘dominant philosophy’ of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries: the doctrine that man was made in the image of God. Examining writings by thinkers such as Galileo, Descartes, Pascal, Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, Newton, Clarke, and Berkeley, Craig finds that they were all committed to some version of the Similarity Thesis. Its cognitive branch, the ‘Insight Ideal’, manifests itself in the view that our logical and mathematical knowledge and our knowledge of our own mental states possesses a certainty that even God cannot surpass, as well as in the, then widespread, view that we live in a world that is, in principle, fully intelligible to us. The link between the human and the divine mind is usually thought to be provided by the faculty of reason, but the Similarity Thesis has also taken the form that the human mind is in fact a part of the divine intellect. It connects with the prevalence of a contemplative or scientific ethic in which the pursuit of knowledge appears as a good in itself. Moreover, there is a version of the Image of God doctrine focusing on agency and finding expression in the view of, for example, Descartes that, at its best, the human will is as free as a will could possibly be.
The Metaphysic of the Romantic Era
Authors: Craig Edward
Published: October 2003

This chapter considers the philosophy of the years shortly before and shortly after the beginning of the nineteenth century, and in doing so illustrates the claim that the ‘dominant philosophy’ of an era can sometimes be found most clearly expressed in works of literature. The philosophy of the romantic era is characterised by one great metaphysical theme: unity, its loss and recovery. Schiller’s poem ‘Die Götter Griechenlands’, Goethe’s ballad ‘Der Fischer’, Kleist’s article ‘ Über das Marionettentheater’, and Hölderlin’s novel ‘Hyperion’, Craig suggests, all illustrate a fundamental striving towards unity that is lost through knowledge and consciousness, and although they differ both in their assessment of the situation and in their reaction to it, they express a singular awareness of the deep dichotomies that characterise the intellectual climate of their time. At the most general level, the romantic vision was of the oneness of man and nature, the immanence of God in nature, and an element of divinity in man. Deeply indebted to the Image of God doctrine, yet also on the way to abandoning it, these themes inform, and in part anticipate, the systematic philosophy of Hegel.
One Way to Read Hegel
Authors: Craig Edward
Published: October 2003

Chapter 4 relates Hegel, the great spokesman and philosophical champion of the Weltbild of his literary contemporaries, to the two major themes of the book. On the one hand, it shows how he picked up the idea of the divinity of man, a prominent feature of the romantic Weltbild, and interpreted it in such a way as to keep contact with the Similarity Thesis. In Hegel’s philosophy, it is reason that constitutes the link between God, nature, and man. On the other hand, the chapter shows how Hegel added impetus and theoretical weight to a style of thought that, by stressing human autonomy and creativity, turns the view away from the divine mind, and on to the works of man. At the textual level, a close reading of the famous chapter on Sense-Certainty in the Phenomenology of Spirit reveals the centrality of the concept of activity: the reason why purely passive sense-certainty collapses is that its content turns out to be always universal, and so cannot be the product of mere passivity.
Sensations and Brain‐Events
Authors: Swinburne Richard
Published: October 2003

If we are to give a full history of the world, we need to count two properties as distinct, if possession of one does not entail possession of the other. Hence, mental properties are distinct from physical properties, and so mental events including sensations are distinct from physical events. So functionalism is rejected. And (New Appendix A shows) mental events do not supervene on, are not constituted by, or realized in, physical events
Thoughts
Authors: Swinburne Richard
Published: October 2003

Thoughts are understood as passive conscious events consisting in entertaining propositions. They may be accompanied by sensory images of written or spoken sentences; but such sentences never contain the whole content of the thought. New Appendix B discusses Fodor's ‘language of thought’ hypothesis.
Desires
Authors: Swinburne Richard
Published: October 2003

Desires are natural inclinations, hard to change, to do certain actions or allow certain events to occur. Enjoyment consists in the believed satisfaction of present desire. We always act on our strongest desires, unless we have good reason for not doing so and then we have to choose between reason and desire. Weakness of will consists in yielding to desire when reason suggests that we should not do so. Modification of desire is distinguished from forming an intention for the future, which in turn is distinguished from having an intention in one's present actions.
Beliefs
Authors: Swinburne Richard
Published: October 2003

Beliefs are people's maps of the world. They are passive and involuntary; agents have infallible beliefs about their own beliefs, but only fallible beliefs about the beliefs of others. All other mental events, such as memories and emotions, can be analysed in terms of the five components of the mental life – sensations, thoughts, and purposes (which are all conscious events in that we are aware of them while we have them) and beliefs and desires (which are both mental states that continue and we are unaware of them).
Language, Rationality, and Choice
Authors: Swinburne Richard
Published: October 2003

Part 3 (Chs. 11–15) analyses the capacities of human souls, not possessed by animal souls. Animals do not have a structured language; and hence we have no reason to suppose that they have the concepts of past and future, truth, universality, and logical inference; or the distinction between what one desires and what one thinks most worthwhile.
The World as Will
Authors: Magee Bryan
Published: October 2003

This material object, my body, is no different in the constitution of its matter from the rest of the physical universe. And my knowledge of it uniquely from inside has led us to the conclusion that what in its outer nature is matter in motion is, in its inner nature, activity of will. This puts into my hand the key to understanding the inner nature of the world: the whole empirical world, what we have called the phenomenal, appears to be matter in motion, but in its hidden inner nature it is will. The noumenal will, however, is unknowable, not self‐experiencing but a blind, purposeless force, such as moves the galaxies. In keeping with this, in human beings it is the Unconscious.
Some Criticisms and Problems
Authors: Magee Bryan
Published: October 2003

Schopenhauer's chief mistake derived from his acceptance of Newtonian science and lay in his belief that the empirical world must be deterministic. This deprived his assumptions of any basis for moral judgements in this world, and led to inner contradictions in his ethics: it means that we are not free to reject the world, as he believes we should; and in any case, if we did, that would constitute a rejection of compassion, which he is not in favour of. There is also a contradiction in his theory of music: if music is the direct voice of the metaphysical will, and the metaphysical will is inherently evil, there should be something nightmarish about music, yet Schopenhauer considers it uniquely marvellous. There are other errors in his philosophy too: for instance, he underestimates the importance of history. But, as Voltaire said, it is the privilege of a great genius to make great mistakes.
Additions and Omissions
Authors: Magee Bryan
Published: October 2003

In addition to his large‐scale system of metaphysics, Schopenhauer produced many essays, and it was eventually these that made his name and drew attention to his philosophy. The biggest collection of them is called Parerga and Paralipomena. They are of help in understanding the philosophy, because they often contain bolder, more clear‐cut statements of the same points. They are written in an aphoristic style and are the source of many epigrams. For a long time they were more widely read than the philosophy itself.
Schopenhauer and Later Thinkers
Authors: Magee Bryan
Published: October 2003

Schopenhauer was the first, and to the end the greatest philosophical influence on Nietzsche, who said it was Schopenhauer who had turned him into a philosopher. For many years the young Nietzsche was a thoroughgoing Schopenhauerian; but then he rebelled against this influence, attacked it and tried to overthrow it. Other substantial intellectual figures of the nineteenth century who were significantly influenced by Schopenhauer include the historian Jacob Burckhardt, author of The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy; Hans Vaihinger, author of The Philosophy of ‘As If’; Edward von Hartmann, author of The Philosophy of the Unconscious; and Sigmund Freud.
A Note on Schopenhauer and Buddhism
Authors: Magee Bryan
Published: October 2003

Schopenhauer did not believe in the existence of God or the soul, yet he thought Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism to contain some of the profoundest of all truths, in symbolic form. He is the only major Western philosopher to take account of the Hindu and Buddhist religions and he shares a number of fundamental doctrines with them. Perhaps surprisingly, some of these have been confirmed by modern science. So there are three‐way comparisons to be made between Schopenhauerism, Buddhism, and modern science.
Schopenhauer and Wagner
Authors: Magee Bryan
Published: October 2003

Outstanding among the many creative artists on whom Schopenhauer exercised influence was the opera composer Richard Wagner (1813–83), who, rarely for a composer, was an intellectual and studied Schopenhauer's philosophy seriously. He was already composing operas in accordance with a published theory of his own, which involved treating all its constituent elements as of equal importance. Schopenhauer persuaded him to accept not only hitherto rejected metaphysical ideas but also the supremacy of music over the other arts. In response, Wagner composed works such as Tristan and Isolde and Parsifal whose libretti are pervaded with Schopenhauer's ideas and whose music dominates the opera. Although the first of these Schopenhauerian works, Tristan and Isolde, was published in 1859, and therefore before Schopenhauer's death in 1860, it is virtually certain that he never knew of its existence.
Descartes: An Intellectual Biography
Authors: Gaukroger Stephen
Published: October 2003

Stephen Gaukroger traces the development of Descartes's thought in the social, religious, and intellectual context of seventeenth‐century Europe. Gaukroger describes Descartes's upbringing and his education at the Jesuit La Flèche collège, and shows the role these played in the development of his ground‐breaking work in philosophy and science. The book details the effects of his relationships with others on his work, both through collaboration and through conflict. It discusses the history of the composition of his major works and details their structure and content. It documents the correspondence, which played a major part in the development of his thinking, both before and after publication. The book concludes, as it begins, with his correspondence with Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia on the subject of the passions.
The Search for Method 1619–1625
Authors: Gaukroger Stephen
Published: October 2003

Reveals the beginnings of several important projects during Descartes's time in the army of Maximilian I, stationed at Ulm. These include the composition of the first part of the Regulae ad directionem ingenii, a general theory of method, which provoked a series of dreams, a doctrine of analysis, a work on solid geometry and figurate numbers and, possibly, the discovery of the sine law of refraction. Discusses the relationship between deduction and intuition, Descartes's doctrine of cognition and that of the Stoics, and Descartes's doctrine of clarity and distinctness in comparison with Aristotle's and Quintillian's doctrine of vividness and particularity.
The Paris Years 1625–1628
Authors: Gaukroger Stephen
Published: October 2003

Describes Descartes's time in Paris and the intellectual milieu in which he moved. Reconstructions by Schuster and Shea of his discovery, whilst collaborating with Mydorge on optics, of the law of refraction. Detailed account of the latter part of the Regulae, in which he dealt with cognition and mechanism in the form of a general natural philosophy, the problem of mortalism, and his preference for algebra over geometry in problem‐solving. His search for certainty is ascribed to his interest in the relationship between mechanism, and clarity, and distinctness, rather than an interest in scepticism.
The Defence of Natural Philosophy 1640–1644
Authors: Gaukroger Stephen
Published: October 2003

Discusses the Meditationes, its reception, and Descartes's response. In this work, Descartes avoided theological questions (except for the doctrine of transubstantiation). Describes the structure of the Principia, the culmination of his metaphysics dealing with the cogito, freedom of the will, divine predestination, inertial principles, the conservation of motion, dynamic relativism, and his theory of vortices, which he used to account for planetary orbits, weight or gravity, tides, and magnetism. Chronicles Descartes's religious controversy with Voetius and his dispute with Regius, whom he accused of plagiarizing his work.
Melancholia and the Passions 1643–1650
Authors: Gaukroger Stephen
Published: October 2003

Examines Descartes's later years through the large volume of correspondence from that period, much of it with Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia. This correspondence was mainly concerned with the passions, mind/body dualism, the nature of the soul, automata, and the doctrine of substantial union. Mind/body dualism is discussed in the usual seventeenth‐century context of the passions, in his work Passions, which also deals at length with the problem of evil. Reviews the work Descartes undertook at the end of his life—unfinished works on botany (no longer extant), anatomy, physiology, and a reply to Regius’ disagreement with him on the need for a metaphysical grounding for natural philosophy that expanded on his doctrine of innate ideas.
Eternal God
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: October 2003

Eternal God offers an exposition and philosophical defence of the idea that God is timeless. This is the traditional Christian position, though under widespread contemporary attack on both theological and philosophical grounds. The book begins by considering certain issues of method and exploring the very idea of timeless eternity. The defence of the idea of divine timelessness involves arguing against a number of claims, notably that it is incoherent and incompatible with the idea of personhood and freedom. Both these arguments are rebutted. It is argued that if God is in time, then by parity of argument this carries the unacceptable consequence that he is in space. The idea of omniscience, the propriety of speaking of an eternal God's foreknowledge, and of God's knowledge of the future are all discussed. It is argued that while divine foreknowledge is compatible only with some form of determinism, such determinism poses no greater threat to human responsibility than does atheistic determinism. The book concludes with an examination of the conditions under which one might make successful reference to such an eternal God.
The Issue of Divine Eternity
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: October 2003

Discusses two methodological issues. The first is whether a non‐philosophical text such as the Bible may be said to express or imply philosophical ideas about God. An example is taken from a recent discussion of the doctrinal implications of certain passages in the New Testament. The second is whether God's greatness or perfection is an argument that favours him being timelessly eternal.
Indexicals and Spacelessness
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: October 2003

This Chapter is concerned with omniscience and the problem raised for divine timeless eternity by temporal indexicals such as ’now’ and ’yesterday’. Can an eternal God know what is happening now? Does it matter if he cannot? It is claimed that some arguments used to establish that God is in time prove too much, for they prove that God is also in space.
Eternity and Personality
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: October 2003

Considers the argument that nothing that exists timelessly could be a person. But the philosophical idea of a person is itself unclear: different philosophers make different claims. Three main arguments against the idea of a timeless person—from memory, purpose, and knowledge—and a fourth, from agency, are considered and rebutted.
Eternity, Immutability, and Omniscience
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: October 2003

The chapter is concerned with the consistency of timeless eternity, omniscience, and immutability. Arguments from certain kinds of proposition and an attempted reductio ad absurdam of the idea are considered. It is argued that God's timeless eternity in one way restricts his knowledge, though in no material respect, and in another way significantly enlarges it. Difference senses of immutability and of change are considered and a conceptual connection between one of these and timeless eternity is established.
Timelessness and Foreknowledge
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: October 2003

This chapter is concerned with the problem of divine foreknowledge and human freedom. It is argued that an appeal to timelessness does not remove that problem, for it is claimed that there is a clear sense in which we can say that a timeless God nevertheless has foreknowledge. Talk of God's foreknowledge, though legitimate and necessary, has no metaphysical implications for God. It is argued that such foreknowledge is inconsistent with human indeterministic freedom.
Omniscience and the Future
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: October 2003

This is a continuation of the discussion of the previous chapter. It explores the consequences for omniscience if God is in time and discusses various reformulations of omniscience made to accommodate human indeterministic freedom. The metaphysical status of the future is discussed, in particular whether there is a future to be known, and arguments are formulated against those who deny that there is. Further, it is argued that the claims that the future does not already exist, and that the future is determinate, are distinct claims.
Divine Foreknowledge and Fatalism
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: October 2003

It is argued that the compatibility between divine foreknowledge and human libertarian freedom cannot be satisfactorily defended by an appeal to the ’hard fact’–'soft fact’ distinction. The fact that God's foreknowledge is incompatible with human indeterministic freedom does not logical determinism or fatalism.
Timelessness and Human Responsibility
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: October 2003

If human indeterministic choice is denied, and divine foreknowledge is compatible only with determinism, is human responsibility thereby compromised? This chapter argues ad hominem that if determinism is compatible with human responsibility in an atheistic universe then it is compatible with such responsibility in a deterministic theistic universe. Several arguments to the contrary are rebutted.
Divine Freedom
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: October 2003

In what sense is an eternal God free? Does God have the freedom to choose between alternative universes? It is claimed that there are coherent universes that God has a reason for not choosing. A sense is given to how, if God is eternal, he can make choices. Further, if God is self‐sufficient, then his choice to create is not the result of any need that he has, but the result of his overflowing goodness.
Referring to Eternal God
Authors: Helm Paul
Published: October 2003

Discusses the issue of whether an eternal God could be successfully referred to. To argue that such reference may be successful, a distinction between identity and identification is drawn, and Kripke's distinction between giving the meaning of an expression and fixing its reference is employed. It is argued that God's reference may be fixed, and so reference to particulars and to God (assuming that God is a particular) is not necessarily empirical and spatio–temporal in character.
Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle's Politics
Authors: Miller Fred D.
Published: October 2003

Argues that nature, justice, and rights are central to Aristotle's political thought. Challenges the widely held view that the concept of rights is alien to Aristotle, arguing that his theory of justice supports claims of individual rights, which are political and based in nature. Begins with an examination of three main elements in Aristotle's political theory: nature, justice, and rights. The discussion of Aristotle's political naturalism seeks to show how Aristotle can consistently argue that the polis (city‐state) exists by nature and yet is, in a way, the product of human reason. The discussion of justice focuses on the distinction between universal and particular justice and the political applications of each type of justice. The discussion of rights offers evidence of ‘rights’ locutions in Aristotle and contrasts Aristotle's theory of rights with modern theories of natural rights. The book next investigates the constitutional applications of Aristotle's theory, including a discussion of Aristotle's general account of citizenship and constitutions, followed by a study of the best constitution, the second‐best constitution, and deviant constitutions. The main thesis is that Aristotle's theory of political rights is a form of moderate individualism and thus a noteworthy alternative to the extreme‐individualistic theories of rights advanced by many modern philosophers. There is also a separate discussion of Aristotle's views on property rights. The final chapter considers the prospects for neo‐Aristotelian political theory through an examination of Aristotle's main presuppositions––natural teleology, perfectionism, community, and rulership––concluding that Aristotle's political principles may still be defensible, albeit in a circumscribed and qualified manner.
The Argument of Aristotle's Politics
Authors: Miller Fred D.
Published: October 2003

Describes Aristotle's life and historical context. Discusses the place of politics––the science of the polis (city‐state)––within Aristotle's taxonomy of science and of virtue. Provides an overview of Aristotle's argument, emphasizing the role of nature, justice, and rights. Describes the four main presuppositions of Aristotle's argument: natural teleology, perfectionism, community, and rulership. Also distinguishes and explains the different modes of interpretation employed in this book and in other works on the history of political thought.