The objection from the insolvability of principle-based modal disagreements appears to support the claim that there are no objective modal facts, or at the very least modal facts cannot be accounted for by modal rationalist theories. An idea that resurfaced fairly recently in the literature is that the use of ordinary empirical statements presupposes some prior grasp of modal notions. If this is correct, then the idea that we may have a total agreement concerning empirical facts and disagree on (...) modal facts, which is the starting point of the objection from the insolvability of modal disagreement, is undercut. This paper examines the no-separation thesis and shows that some of the arguments against the classical (empiricist) distinction between empirical and modal statements fail to be conclusive if they are taken to defend a strong notion of metaphysical possibility. The no-separation thesis appears to work only in theoretical frameworks where metaphysical modalities are considered (broadly) conceptual. For these reasons, the no-separation thesis cannot save modal rationalism from the insolvability of modal disagreement. (shrink)

In a now classic paper, Karen Carr argues that Kierkegaard is a religious “anti-rationalist”: He holds that reason and religious truth exist in necessary tension with one another. Carr maintains that this antagonism is not a matter of the logical incoherence of Christianity, but rather the fact that genuine submission to Christ precludes approaching him through demonstration. In this essay, we argue that while Kierkegaard is in fact an anti-rationalist, the literature has failed to appreciate the full strength of (...) his position. It is not just that reason and obedience are in tension; rather, Kierkegaard holds the stronger view that reason is actively offended by Christianity’s primary claims. Not only is reason incapable of generating any positive evidence for the truth of Christianity, more radically, it provides evidence against it. In order to make this case, we offer a close reading of Practice in Christianity, developing a typology of Kierkegaard’s account of Christ’s “offense.” Finally, having motivated Kierkegaard’s strong anti-rationalism, we consider why, on his account, anyone would want to be a Christian. (shrink)

This article presents a visualist theory of design that contrasts with the instrumental rationalism that dominates the philosophy of design. My critique of rationalism is based on two omnipresent and paradigmatic phenomena in design: the variety of forms for one single function and the variety of uses of one form. Instrumental rationalism defines design as a coherent line that runs from a rational goal to the proper means and proper use of an object. Therefore, this philosophy values (...) design according to its efficiency. However, the diverse aesthetic forms of design objects and the creative ways that users engage with them. do not follow the instrumental rational plan, but rather aesthetic motivations and design’s visual affordance. I argue that the variety of forms of design objects and emergent uses are often more substantial than rationality in the constitution of design. Claiming that these encounters are innate to our essence and ontology as visual beings, I offer a visualist anti-rationalist theory of design and human nature. Keywords: instrumental rationalism, form, affordance, emergent properties, Visualism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:192. THE HUME LITERATURE FOR 1983 The Hume literature from 1925 to 1976 has been thoroughly covered in my book Fifty Years of Hume Scholarship: A Bibliographical Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 1978; £9.50), which also lists the main earlier writings on Hume. Publications of the years 1977 to 1982 were listed in Hume Studies in previous Novembers. What follows here will bring the record up to the (...) end of 1983. Readers are invited to inform me of any omissions, and to send me offprints of their own articles and reviews. The intention is to maintain a complete bibliographical record of critical work on Hume, by the regular publication in Hume Studies of an annual bibliography, with addenda consisting of items omitted through ignorance in previous years. References to recently-appearing reviews (of books from earlier lists) are given at the end. The following abbreviations of journal titles are used here: APQ American Philosohical Quarterly JHI Journal of the History of Ideas JHP Journal of the History of Philosophy JP Journal of Philosophy PAS Proceedings of the Arisotelian Society PB Philosophical Books PQ Philosophical Quarterly PR Philosophical Review RIP Revue Internationale de Philosophie RM Review of Metaphysics TLS Times Literary Supplement Other abbreviations should be obvious enough, and mainly follow the British standard (no. 4148). 193, ARNOLD, N. S. 'Hume's Skepticism about Inductive Inference', JHP 21, 31-55. BARKER, S. 'Hume on the Logic of Design', Hume Studies 9, 1-18. [19-24] BERMAN, D. 'David Hume and the Suppression of Atheism', JHP 21, 375-87. BOX, M.? Gloss on Goldsmith's Remark on Hume', Notes & Queries 30, 59-60. BRETT, N. 'Hume's Debt to Kant', Hume Studies 9, 5973. BROUGHTON, J. 'Hume's Skepticism about Causal Inference', Pacific phil. Q. 64, 3-18. CALVERT, B. 'Another Problem about Part IX of Hume's Dialogues', Int. J. Phil. Relig. 14, 65-70. COLWELL, G.G. 'Miracles and History', Sophia 22, 9-14. DARWALL, S. L. Impartial Reason, ch. 5 ('Hume's Internalism1 ). Ithaca, N. Y. DEL VECCHIO, M. 'Un Impotesi di Lettura Esegetlica del "Dubbio Scettico" Humeano', Riv. crit. Stor. FiI. 38, 457-64. FOGELIN, R. J. 'The Tendency of Hume's Skepticism', in M. Burnyeat, The Skeptical Tradition, 397-412. Berkeley, CaI. GASKIN, J. CA. 'Hume's Attenuated Deism', Arch. Gesch. Phil. 65, 160-73. GEMES, K.? Refutation of Inductive Scepticism', Australas. J. Phil. 61, 434-8. GUTTENPLAN, S. 'Hume and Contemporary Ethical Naturalism', Midwest Stud. Phil. 8, 309-20. HARRIS, H. S. 'Hume and Barker on the Logic of Design', Hume Studies 9, 19-24. HARTSHORNE, C 'Hume's Metaphysics and its Influence', in C Hartshorne, Insights and Oversights of Great Thinkers, 136-50. HIRSCH, E. 'Hume's Distinction between Genuine and Fictitious Identity', Midwest Stud. Phil. 8, 321-38. 194, IMMERWAHR, J. 'David Hume, Sexism, and Sociobiology ', Sth. J. Phil. 21, 359-70. KIVY, P. 'Hume's Neighbour's Wife: An Essay on the Evolution of Hume's Aesthetics', Br. J. Aesth. 23, 195-208. KUEHN, M. 'Kant's Conception of "Hume's Problem"', JHP 21, 175-93. KUEHN, M. 'Hume's Antinomies', Hume Studies 9, 25-45. McCRACKEN, CJ. Malebranche and British Philosophy, ch. 7. Oxford. McLYNN, F.J. 'Jacobitism and David Hume: The Ideological Backlash Foiled', Hume Studies 9, 171-99. MALHERBE, M. 'La notion de circonstance dans la philosophie de Hume', Hume Studies 9, 130-49. NATHAN, G. J.? Humean Pattern of Justification', Hume Studies 9, 150-70. NIELSEN, K. 'Hobbesist and Humean Alternatives to a Religious Morality', Int. J. Phil. Relig. 14, 33-47. PENELHUM, T. 'Natural Belief and Religious Belief in Hume's Philosophy', P£ 33, 166-81. [182-6] PONKO, T. A. 'Artificial Virtue, Self-interest, and Acquired Social Concern', Hume Studies 9, 4658. ROD, W. 'The Rationalist Theory of Double Causality as an Object of Hume's Criticism', Erkenntnis 19, 315-29. ROHATYN, D. 'Hume's Dialectical Conceits: The Case of Dialogue XII', Phil. & phenomenol. Res. 43, 519-32. RUSSELL, P. 'On the Naturalism of Hume's "Reconciling Project"', Mind 92, 593-600. SCARRE, G. 'What was Hume's worry about Personal Identity?', Analysis 43, 217-21. SCARRE, G. 'Was Mill Really Concerned with Hume's Problem of... (shrink)

The paper aims to circumscribe, through a specific history of ideas approach, the relevance of Benedict Spinoza’s theological rationalism to the major debate which generated the Early Enlightenment, the radical conception on the new status of philosophy in relation to theology, on libertas philosophandi and rational philosophizing. The main lines of Spinoza’s theological rationalism are sustained as being inspired and encouraged by Hobbes’ “negative theology,” the only theology considered consonant with the “true philosophy.” The paper also indicates the (...) originality of Spinoza’s theological criticism and the reasons under which Hobbes—despite the radicalism of his biblical interpretation and of his thesis of separating the philosophy (natural science) from theology—Hobbes enjoyed an attenuated critical reception compared to that one applied to Spinoza and the “acute” tone of which was set by Leibniz. (shrink)

Gareth Evans famously observed that he can answer the question ‘Do you think there is going to be a third world war?’ by attending to “precisely the same outward phenomena as I would attend to if I were answering the question ‘Will there be a third world war?’”. I argue that this observation follows from two independently plausible ideas in philosophy of mind. The first is about rationality and consciousness: it is that to be rational is in part to be (...) required to believe that you are in a conscious state if you are in one, at least if various background conditions are met. The second is about consciousness and attention: it is that consciousness in a belief state consists in its subject engaging, to a sufficient extent, in a certain sort of world-directed attention. I also argue that this suggestion is superior to others that have been made in the literature regarding Evan’s observation. (shrink)

A popular approach to monothematic delusions in the recent literature has been to argue that monothematic delusions involve broadly rational responses to highly unusual experiences. Campbell calls this the empiricist approach to monothematic delusions, and argues that it cannot account for the links between meaning and rationality. In place of empiricism Campbell offers a rationalist account of monothematic delusions, according to which delusional beliefs are understood as Wittgensteinian framework propositions. We argue that neither Campbell's attack on empiricism nor his (...) rationalist alternative to empiricism is successful. (shrink)

A collection of essays (1971-1999) centering on the philosophy of science. Musgrave, a philosopher whose academic affiliations are not given, defends realism, partly from an appeal to common sense. He discusses anti-realist trends in Anglo-American philosophy (Wittgenstein, instrumentalism, construc.

Examining the literature of slavery and race before the Civil War, Maurice Lee demonstrates for the first time exactly how the slavery crisis became a crisis of philosophy that exposed the breakdown of national consensus and the limits of rational authority. Poe, Stowe, Douglass, Melville, and Emerson were among the antebellum authors who tried - and failed - to find rational solutions to the slavery conflict. Unable to mediate the slavery controversy as the nation moved toward war, their writings (...) form an uneasy transition between the confident rationalism of the American Enlightenment and the more skeptical thought of the pragmatists. Lee draws on antebellum moral philosophy, political theory, and metaphysics, bringing a fresh perspective to the literature of slavery - one that synthesizes cultural studies and intellectual history to argue that romantic, sentimental, and black Atlantic writers all struggled with modernity when facing the slavery crisis. (shrink)

The chapters in this volume focus on the philosophical aspects of Maimonides' work: the religious obligation to study philosophy, Maimonides' knowledge of the philosophical literature, and certain fundamental issues where philosophy and religion intersect."--ECIP summary.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.2 (2001) 307-308 [Access article in PDF] Mayer, Paola. Jena Romanticism and Its Appropriation of Jakob Böhme: Theosophy, Hagiography, Literature. McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Ideas, no. 25. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999. Pp. x + 242. Cloth, $65.00. Paolo Mayer sets out to revise the accepted image of the influence of Jakob Böhme, the sixteenth-century mystic and theosophist, (...) on the romantic poets and philosophers who congregated at Jena in the years 1798-1803. She convincingly argues that, except for the philosophers and critics Friedrich Schlegel and F. W. J. Schelling, Böhme's direct influence was negligible, more a matter of the self-proclaimed new religion of romanticism making ideological use of a controversial, in some sense subversive, forerunner in German literary history. In the hands of Ludwig Tieck, for instance, or Novalis, Böhme becomes a symbol of the new religion of Poesie and the hostile reception afforded by the orthodox evangelical pastors of his time becomes an allegory for the hostility that the new, "let it all hang out" aesthetic of romanticism encountered in the more classical and form-loving members of the literary culture. In Mayer's terms, Böhme's reception among the poets was hagiographic; he was the romantics' poster child.Böhme lived from 1575 to 1624. The son of peasants, but by no means unlettered, the "mystic shoemaker of Görlitz" claimed the source of his teachings was direct divine revelation. He claimed to have visions in 1600 and 1610, whose content he translated into his unusually graphic writings, interspersed with Pietist attacks on reason and on outward religious observances. This unusual 'theology' blended themes that F. Schlegel and Schelling, at least, found attractive: (a) the idea of a self-generating or developmental God, (b) an approach to the problem of evil that logically seems to place responsibility on God, and (c) a large systematic role for desire and will, rather than reason, in the origin of the world and in human salvation. Notable also is the physicalism of Böhme's theology, and the assignment of a wrathful nature to God the Father. Böhme's reception in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, determined largely by a first biography written in 1652 by a disciple named von Furstenburg, was generally warm in pietist circles, cool in rationalist quarters, e.g., in that of Lessing and Leibniz.The established story is that all the major romantic writers, poets as well as philosophers, were influenced through a direct study of Böhme's texts. Mayer takes issue with that, especially in the case of the poets Tieck and Novalis and the scientists J. W. Ritter. Though each of them writes glowingly of Böhme as a poet—in fact a persecuted poet, a near-martyr for the religion of Poesie—Mayer finds no sound evidence for a direct transmission, either of ideas or of terminology, from Böhme to these figures. What other literary critics have advanced as evidence is, she argues, a body of ideas and vocabulary common to the Neoplatonic, mystic tradition and to Christian thinking in general. If a stricter standard of proving "reception" than mere similarity of language is adopted, it seems that Tieck, Novalis, and Ritter had a slim acquaintance with Böhme's writings, but nonetheless advanced a hagiographic view of the "folk poet." Others among the Jena circle—Schleiermacher, A. W. Schlegel, Dorothea and Caroline Schlegel—took a skeptical view of this propagandistic ploy. Only the more philosophical minds, F. Schlegel and Schelling, read Böhme in any depth or ventured elaborate appropriations. Mayer argues that both these figures went [End Page 307] through an initial phase of enthusiasm for Böhme, to be later followed by personal reservations about him and, eventually, by public criticism from a philosophical or orthodox theological stance. Mayer obviously relishes the irony, in this case, of an initial idolization of Böhme as a representative of the 'new religion... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Seventeenth-Century Catholic Polemic and the Rise of Cultural Rationalism: An Example from the EmpireSusan RosaIn Galileo’s Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems Sagre-do, an intelligent, cultivated, and well-traveled young man who is persuaded of the truth of arguments in favor of the Copernican opinion presented by the philosopher Salviati, dismisses the counter-arguments of the Aristotelian Simplicio with sympathetic condescension: “I pity him,” he proclaims,no less than I (...) should some fine gentleman who, having built a magnificent palace at great trouble and expense, employing hundreds and hundreds of artisans, and then beholding it threatened with ruin because of poor foundations, should attempt, in order to avoid the grief of seeing the walls destroyed, adorned as they are with so many lovely murals; or the columns fall, which sustain the superb galleries, or the gilded beams, or the doors spoiled, or the pediments and the marble cornices, brought in at so much cost—should attempt, I say, to prevent the collapse with chains, props, iron buttresses, and shores. 1 [End Page 87]This elegant simile, which suggests that the fine gentleman can only preserve his palace by destroying its beauty, is meant to evoke the dilemma of the scholastic philosopher who is confronted by the evident disintegration of his intellectual home. Like the desperate owner who seeks to shore up his real palace, he must rebuild a philosophical edifice whose apparent beauty and coherence have been achieved at the expense of substance and can only be preserved by recourse to means so ugly and inadequate that they destroy even the illusion of credibility.Such a dilemma, I would argue, was the legacy bequeathed to many defenders of traditional religion in the seventeenth century by more than one hundred years of confessional rivalry. To simplify a complex process, this lengthy period of controversy and apologetic, to say nothing of warfare and mutual persecution, had generated a discourse which objectified and prob-lematized religion, making it something to think about rather than to think with. 2 In other words, the formal statements of conviction issued in the wake of the Reformation by competing denominations within Christendom, like the Catechism of the Council of Trent, the Augsburg Confession, the Genevan Confession, or the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England had encouraged the development of the notion of religion as adherence to a set of propositions. As Peter Harrison has explained, this creation of a propositional religion in turnenabled discussion of the merits of other “religions” conceived to exist similarly as sets of beliefs. The truth or falsity of a religion had become a function of the truth or falsity of the propositions which constituted it. True religion... [had become]... a body of certain knowledge. 3Harrison’s remarks are significant because they suggest that the origins of rationalized discourse about religion and its consequent transformation from a way of thinking to an object of thought are to be found squarely within orthodoxy itself. 4To be specific, the competing content of official doctrinal pronouncements led not only to the comparison of the religions but implicitly to their emergence as subjects of a discourse which proposed reason as the norm, a [End Page 88] development clearly reflected in the wave of pamphlets, broadsides, printed disputations, and formal polemical treatises written in both Latin and the vernacular languages which poured from the presses of Catholic and mainstream Protestant denominations in England and on the continent throughout the seventeenth century. In this literature, Protestants accused Catholics of “superstition” and “idolatry,” while Catholics urged potential converts to compare the religions with a view to discovering their “marks of truth,” argued for the compatibility of Catholic faith and “natural light,” and identified heresy, on the contrary, with unreason, passion, lust, and self-contradiction. On both sides of the confessional fence, polemicists frequently insisted that religious discussion conform to the rules of logic, accusing one another of failing to argue from incontrovertible first principles, and of succumbing to the fatal dangers of petitio principii and circular reasoning. In other words, they claimed that in religious matters poor argumentation is a sure sign of error, and it would not be... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:86. THE HUME LITERATURE FOR 1977 In my recently-published book, Fifty Years of Hume Scholarship: A Bibliographical Guide (Edinburgh University Press, 1978; ^ 5.50), the reader will find a thorough coverage of the Hume literature from 1925 to 1976, with lists of the main earlier writings on Hume, all indexed by author, language, and subject. What follows here will bring the record up to the end of (...) 1977.· Readers are invited to inform me of any omissions. The intention is to maintain a complete bibliographical record of critical work on Hume, by the regular publication in Hume Studies of an annual bibliography covering the previous year, with addenda consisting of items omitted through ignorance in previous years. The following abbreviations of journal titles are used here: APQ American Philosophical Quarterly JHI Journal of the History of Ideas JHP Journal of the History of Philosophy JP Journal of Philosophy PAS Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society PB Philosophical Books PBA Proceedings of the British Academy PQ Philosophical Quarterly PR Philosophical Review RIP Revue Internationale de Philosophie RM Review of Metaphysics TLS Times Literary Supplement Other abbreviations should be obvious enough, and mainly follow the British Standard. ÄRDAL, P. S. 'Convention and Value',in G. P. Morice, David Hume, Bicentenary Papers,51-68. Edinburgh. ÁRDAL, P. S. 'Another Look at Hume'sAccount of Moral Evaluation', JHP 15, 405-21. 87. BERK, E.? Note on Hume's Treatise I. iv. 1', Mind 86, 118-19. BERLIN, I. 'Hume and the Sources of German Anti-Rationalism', in Morice, op. cit., 95-116. BERRY, C. J. 'From Hume to Hegel: The Case of the Social Contract', JHI 38, 691-703. BOTWINICK, A.? Case for Hume's Nonutilitarianism', JHP 15, 423-35. BRADLEY, M. C. 'Stove on Hume', Australas. J. Phil. 55, 69-73. BRANDT, R. 'The Beginnings of Hume's Philosophy', in Morice, op. cit., 117-27. BRICKE, J. 'Hume on Self-Identity, Memory and Causality', in Morice, op. cit., 167-74. BRITTON, K. 'Hume on some Non-Natural Distinctions', in Morice, op. cit., 205-9. BURKS, A. W. Chance, Cause, Reason, esp. 128-42 ('Hume's thesis on the justification of induction'). Chicago. CASSIDY, J. 'The Nature of Hume's Inductive Scepticism: A Critical Notice', Ratio 19, 47-54. (on Stove 1973) COHEN, E. D. 'Hume's Fork', Sth. J. Phil. 15, 443-55. CONNON, R. W. 'The Textual and Philosophical Significance of Hume's MS Alterations to Treatise III ', in Morice, op. cit., 186-204. [PQ 28 (1978), 265-8] CONNON, R. W. & POLLARD, M. On the Authorship of "Hume's" Abstract', PQ 27, 60-6. CORSANO, A. 'Vico et Hume face au problème religieux', Archives de Phil. 40, 241-50. DAVIE, G. E. 'Edmund Husserl and "the as yet, in its most important respect, unrecognised greatness of Hume",' in Morice, op. cit., 69-76. DAVIS, J. W. 'Hume on Qualitative Content', in Morice, op. cit., 175-80. DELEULE, D. Hume, Lettre d'un Gentilhomme à son ami d'Edimbourg, présentation, traduction et notes. Paris. (French translation, with facing original, of A Letter from a Gentleman, Edinburgh, 1745) 88. DÉME", N. 'La Méthode Newtonienne et les Lois Empiriques de l'Anthropologie dans Traité II', in Morice, op. cit., 139-45. FORBES, D. 'Hume's Science of Polities', in Morice, op. cit., 39-50. FORCE, J. E. 'Hume in the Dialogues, the Dictates of Convention, and the Millennial Future State of Biblical Prophecy', S. -west. J. Phil. 8, 131-41. GAWLICK, G. 'Hume and the Deists: a Reconsideration', in Morice, op. cit., 128-38. GLOSSOP, R. J. 'In defence of David Hume', Australas. J. Phil. 55, 59-63. GLOUEERMAN, M. 'Hume on Modes', Hume Studies 3, 32-50. GUPTA, B. 'Buddha and Hume: A Popular Comparison Revisited ', Int. Phil. Q. 17 (1977), 135-46. HALL, R. 'The Hume Literature for 1976', Hume Studies 3, 94-102. HEALY,. M. 'Substance and Spiritual Substance - A criticism of David Hume', Alethe ia (Irving, Texas) 1 (1977), 159-83. HEDENIUS, I. Filosofien i ett föränderligt samhälle, 37-59 ( ' Värdeteorierna hos Hume': the value-theories in Hume). Stockholm. HINCKFUSS, I. 'Stove, Induction and the Irish', Australas. J. Phil. 55, 64-8. HISKES... (shrink)

Gerald Holton has famously described Einstein’s career as a philosophical “pilgrimage”. Starting on “the historic ground” of Machian positivism and phenomenalism, following the completion of general relativity in late 1915, Einstein’s philosophy endured (a) a speculative turn: physical theorizing appears as ultimately a “pure mathematical construction” guided by faith in the simplicity of nature and (b) a realistic turn: science is “nothing more than a refinement ”of the everyday belief in the existence of mind-independent physical reality. Nevertheless, Einstein’s mathematical constructivism (...) that supports his unified field theory program appears to be, at first sight, hardly compatible with the common sense realism with which he countered quantum theory. Thus, literature on Einstein’s philosophy of science has often struggled in finding the thread between ostensibly conflicting philosophical pronouncements. This paper supports the claim that Einstein’s dialog with Émile Meyerson from the mid 1920s till the early 1930s might be a neglected source to solve this riddle. According to Einstein, Meyerson shared (a) his belief in the independent existence of an external world and (b) his conviction that the latter can be grasped only by speculative means. Einstein could present his search for a unified field theory as a metaphysical-realistic program opposed to the positivistic-operationalist spirit of quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Isaiah Berlin's (1909-97) standing in twentieth-century intellectual history rests primarily upon his post-Second World War writings in political theory and the history of ideas. Berlin's investigations into the antagonistic traditions of Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment thought, and his advocacy of liberal responses to the conflicts between values, which, he believed, were an unavoidable feature of the human condition, have been the subject of extensive discussion. Less has been written, however, about Berlin's formative experiences of analytic philosophy during the 1930s and late (...) 1940s. It is often assumed that Berlin 'abandoned' philosophy after the war in favour of the history of ideas. As such, there is a tendency in much of the existing literature to underestimate the influence of Berlin's early analytical work on his later historical and political writings. Indeed, Berlin's work is regularly thought to be marked by a fracture at which point the study of philosophy is relinquished for that of history and political theory. The present article will aim to challenge this reading of Berlin's work. The article will advance two main claims. Firstly, it will be argued that not only is Berlin's early work in analytic philosophy of interest to those concerned with the development of his thought as a whole but also that it is highly edifying for any understanding of the nature of the outlook contained in his later writings. Secondly, the article will maintain that there exists a degree of continuity in Berlin's thought that connects his earlier and later work in a manner reflecting a greater level of coherence than is generally assumed. The main theme of continuity emphasized in the article is represented by Berlin's critique of what he terms the 'fallacy of reduction'. (shrink)

This far-ranging and ambitious attempt to rethink postcolonial theory's discussion of the nation and nationalism brings the problems of the postcolonial condition to bear on the philosophy of freedom. Closely identified with totalitarianism and fundamentalism, the nation-state has a tainted history of coercion, ethnic violence, and even, as in ultranationalist Nazi Germany, genocide. Most contemporary theorists are therefore skeptical, if not altogether dismissive, of the idea of the nation and the related metaphor of the political body as an organism. Going (...) against orthodoxy, Pheng Cheah retraces the universal-rationalist foundations and progressive origins of political organicism in the work of Kant and its development in philosophers in the German tradition such as Fichte, Hegel, and Marx. Cheah argues that the widespread association of freedom with the self-generating dynamism of life and culture's power of transcendence is the most important legacy of this tradition. Addressing this legacy's manifestations in Fanon and Cabral's theories of anticolonial struggle and contemporary anticolonial literature, including the Buru Quartet by Indonesian writer Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and the Kenyan writer Ngugi Wa Thiong'o's nationalist novels, Cheah suggests that the profound difficulties of achieving freedom in the postcolonial world indicate the need to reconceptualize freedom in terms of the figure of the specter rather than the living organism. (shrink)

Until the late 1970s, it was difficult publishing economic methodology research in any mainstream economics journal. Today there are at least two journals devoted to articles about economic methodology. However, it is important to keep in mind that there are two types of economic methodology. There is what has been called small-m methodology which is about the assumptions made by economic model builders, and there is big-M methodology which is about matters of interest to philosophers but not to economists. The (...) recent history of economic methodology literature and conferences has displayed the hijacking of economic methodology research by philosophers with the result that those of us who wish to do research on small-m methodology are back where we were in the 1960s and 1970s. (shrink)

A distinguished group of authors reflects on problems currently enlivening the space shared by philosophy and literary theory in a series of chapters that range in scope from Plato to postmodernism.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 10.2 (2000) 175-188 [Access article in PDF] Scope Note 38 Bioethics Resources on the Web * Once described as an "enormous used book store with volumes stacked on shelves and tables and overflowing onto the floor" (Pool, Robert. 1994. Turning an Info-Glut into a Library. Science 266 (7 October): 20-22, p. 20), Internet resources now receive numerous levels of organization, from basic directory listings (...) to elaborate "links" (cross-references to other Internet documents) that flash and glow in the dark. In many ways, the Internet functions as a direct extension of the traditional library. Following linked references across various sites is an electronic version of browsing library stacks, and the serendipitous discoveries made while "surfing the Net" recall the wonders of physically going "book-to-book." Although many of the Internet's best aspects augment library strengths by eliminating physical distance from sources, Net resources pose unique problems for researchers. It is not always clear who is responsible for the content of Web documents, when the document was produced, or how often (if ever) it is updated. Internet resource tools, then, must enable researchers to identify appropriate resources and to evaluate what they find when they get there. Web Research as Taking "Snapshots" Given the Internet's visual nature and fluid content, the process of conducting research on the Web has been likened to taking an informal picture of information on a specific date at a particular time. This metaphor also conveys the "zoom-in" aspect of searching through Web pages by going from general to specific categories. In the first section of this Scope Note, National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature (NRCBL) staff present a snapshot of bioethics resources taken during the spring months of 2000. Entries are divided into the categories of directories, electronic journals, full-text documents, news/current awareness, and teaching resources. In the two subsequent sections, this series of categories is repeated for entries on a specific topic within bioethics-genetics-and again for general search and evaluation tools. Where a Web site may contain pages applicable [End Page 175] to more than one category, multiple entries are made for that site with appropriate information for each category.Much as telecommunication advances have strengthened the relationship of patients and providers as partners, the dynamic nature of the Internet acknowledges that the researcher functions as a librarian whenever accessing the Web. It is our hope that BIOETHICSLINE and the other NRCBL databases not only will enable researchers to search the Web more efficiently, but also will help them to evaluate what they find when they get there. Bioethicsline on the Web: An International Plan in Progress Once only available through libraries, the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), the funding agency for the ongoing development of the BIOETHICS LINE® database from the Kennedy Institute, has provided free Web access to that database of 63,000 citations since September 1998 through Internet Grateful Med. Plans are now underway to eliminate such specialty databases and incorporate all citations into PubMed (for journal articles) or LOCATORplus (for book-like materials and chapters in books). Both of these databases are likewise available at no cost on the Web. In the transition to PubMed and LOCATORplus some features of BIOETHICSLINE that presently are available may be lost. Researchers are encouraged to contact the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature with search requests or for search strategy assistance with either the current or the future system ([email protected]).The inclusion of bioethics citations in PubMed and LOCATORplus will have several advantages. First, unique keywords from the Bioethics Thesaurus will be considered for inclusion in Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), the indexing vocabulary for PubMed and LOCATORplus, thereby enhancing retrieval of relevant clinical literature by offering more precise terminology covering ethical issues. Second, it will be easier to identify foreign-language materials, which are not currently included in the scope of BIOETHICSLINE. Third, the updating schedule will become more frequent. On the other hand, there may be some loss of searching precision because certain specialized features... (shrink)

In Culture, Genre, and Literary Vocation, Michael Davitt Bell charts the important and often overlooked connection between literary culture and authors' careers. Bell's influential essays on nineteenth-century American writers—originally written for such landmark projects as The Columbia Literary History of the United States and The Cambridge History of American Literature—are gathered here with a major new essay on Richard Wright. Throughout, Bell revisits issues of genre with an eye toward the unexpected details of authors' lives, and invites us to (...) reconsider the hidden functions that terms such as "romanticism" and "realism" served for authors and their critics. Whether tracing the demands of the market or the expectations of readers, Bell examines the intimate relationship between literary production and culture; each essay closely links the milieu in which American writers worked with the trajectory of their storied careers. (shrink)

This book investigates how it is possible for us to know what is metaphysically possible. The author discusses the key empiricist and rationalist propositions advanced by Chalmers, Williamson, and others since Kripke's Naming and necessity. He demonstrates that only an anti-realist understanding of modality opens up epistemic access to this question while at the same time depriving it of philosophical relevance.

During the late eighteenth century the Bible underwent a shift in interpretation so radical as to make it virtually a different book from what it had been a hundred years earlier. Even as its text was being revealed as neither stable nor original, the new notion of the Bible as a cultural artefact became a paradigm for all literature. In Origins of Narrative one of the world's leading scholars in biblical interpretation, criticism and theory describes how, while formal religion (...) declined, the prestige of the Bible as a literary and aesthetic model rose to new heights: not merely was English, German and French Romanticism steeped in biblical references of a new kind, but hermeneutics and, increasingly, theories of literature and criticism were biblically derived. Professor Prickett reveals how the Romantic Bible became simultaneously a novel-like narrative work, an on-going site of re-interpretation, and an all-embracing literary form giving meaning to all other writing. (shrink)

A culturally influential sub-discipline within literary studies, literary theory has developed in parallel form in other arts and social science disciplines, so that one might refer to "cultural theory" or "social theory" as well, or even just to "theory." It's as familiar as the word "postmodern" and as tricky as "deconstruction." What is it about? What is at stake? Theory is about rationality. This book's title invites two different interpretations of what it might mean to say so. For many, the (...) essence of literary theory is the unmasking and redescription of rationality in other terms. Put ironically, rationality is male; rationality is white; rationality is repression.... The book's title, however, can also be read in a second way. On this reading, rationality itself is the essence of literary theory and central to literature, art, and society. Certain conceptions of what it entails can be problematic; the critique in the first way of reading the title remains relevant. Yet one can affirm rationality as integral to human flourishing, including the processes of producing, analyzing, and enjoying literature, art, and culture. This book provides readers with a clear overview of theory's development and the abiding presence of its concern with the status of rationality across its forms. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: The Story of Wittgenstein Reception Continuity vs. Discontinuity Genetic vs. Immanent Hermeneutics Rationalist vs. Irrationalist Interpretations.

This chapter discusses contemporary scientific research on the role of reason and emotion in moral judgment. The literature suggests that moral judgment is influenced by both reasoning and emotion separately, but there is also emerging evidence of the interaction between the two. While there are clear implications for the rationalism-sentimentalism debate, we conclude that important questions remain open about how central emotion is to moral judgment. We also suggest ways in which moral philosophy is not only guided by (...) empirical research but continues to guide it. (shrink)

This chapter addresses the kind of thinking that is currently being fore grounded in education, the rationalistic conception. It also examines some of the recent ways in which thinking education has been approached in the British curriculum. To be more specific, one might say that the predominant view of thinking has arisen as a result of the foregrounding of a particular type of thinking, which has in turn been made possible on the basis of a certain representation of both thinking (...) and the thinking subject. The chapter provides some indicative examples from three of the main sources contributing to the theory of thinking education which includes the philosophical literature on critical thinking, thinking skills, and philosophy for children. One of the major areas of theoretical work on thinking education has come from the critical thinking movement. (shrink)

David Miller elegantly and provocatively reformulates critical rationalism—the revolutionary approach to epistemology advocated by Karl Popper—by answering its most important critics. He argues for an approach to rationality freed from the debilitating authoritarian dependence on reasons and justification. "Miller presents a particularly useful and stimulating account of critical rationalism. His work is both interesting and controversial... of interest to anyone with concerns in epistemology or the philosophy of science." —Canadian Philosophical Reviews.

Karl Popper’s philosophy of science provides a foundation for a theory of literary interpretation that avoids the pitfalls of contemporary theories. This study outlines the approach and applies it to challenging works from the Gospel of Mark to Patrick Modiano.

The paper deals with the ethical-moral dimension of Popper’s critical rationalism, which is the less analyzed aspect of his philosophy. Critical rationalism is not without assumptions. As a life attitude, it is actualized on the basis of one’s moral preferences based rather on assumptions than on critical reasonableness. Critical rationalism does not exclude logical argumentation and reasoning, but the adoption of them is predominantly the result of an individual moral decision and choice, based, paradoxically enough, on an (...) irrational belief in reason. The author considers this attitude to be productive, as it emphasizes individual moral responsibility. Nobody is able to persuade us about the relevance of what we don’t want to adopt and apply. Thus we find ourselves in the sphere of personal morality. (shrink)

The seventeenth century saw a major revolution in our ways of thinking about such issues as the method appropriate to philosophy and science, the relation between mind and body, the nature of substance, and the place of humanity in nature. While not neglecting the lesser but still influential figures, such as Arnauld and Malebranche, John Cottingham focuses primarily on the three great "rationalists": Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. He examines how they approached central problems of philosophy, and shows how closely their (...) ideas are related, despite the radically different philosophical systems they produced. He not only places the major thinkers in their historical and philosophical contexts, but engages their ideas in a vigorously critical way, revealing their capacity to throw light on major philosophical topics that are still very much alive today. (shrink)

Debunking arguments typically attempt to show that a set of beliefs or other intensional mental states bear no appropriate explanatory connection to the facts they purport to be about. That is, a debunking argument will attempt to show that beliefs about p are not held because of the facts about p. Such beliefs, if true, would then only be accidentally so. Thus, their causal origins constitute an undermining defeater. Debunking arguments arise in various philosophical domains, targeting beliefs about morality, the (...) existence of God, logic, and others. They have also arisen in material-object metaphysics, often aimed at debunking common-sense ontology. And while most of these arguments feature appeals to ‘biological and cultural contingencies’ that are ostensibly responsible for our beliefs about which kinds of objects exist, few of them take a serious look at what those contingencies might actually be. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, to remedy this by providing empirical substantiation for a key premise in these debunking arguments by examining data from cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and developmental psychology that support a ‘debunking explanation’ of our common-sense beliefs and intuitions about which objects exist. Second, to argue that such data also undermines a particular kind of rationalist defense of common-sense ontology, sometimes employed as a response to the debunking threat. (shrink)

According to the scrutability argument against physicalism, an a priori gap between the physical and conscious experience entails a lack of necessitation and the falsity of physicalism. This paper investigates the crucial premise of the scrutability argument: the inference from an a priori gap to a lack of necessitation. This premise gets its support from modal rationalism, according to which there are important, potentially constitutive, connections between a priori justification and metaphysical modality. I argue against the strong form of (...) modal rationalism that underwrites the scrutability argument and suggest a more moderate rationalist view. I offer a novel demonstrative reply to the scrutability argument, according to which demonstratives play a vital role in the generation of meaning for our representations of conscious experience. This connection between conscious experience and demonstratives, rather than a metaphysical gap generated by the truth of dualism, is the source of the epistemic gap between consciousness and the physical. (shrink)

Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz stand out among their seventeenth-century contemporaries as the great rationalist philosophers. Each sought to construct a philosophical system in which theological and philosophical foundations serve to explain the physical, mental and moral universe. Through a careful analysis of their work, Pauline Phemister explores the rationalists seminal contribution to the development of modern philosophy. Broad terminological agreement and a shared appreciation of the role of reason in ethics do not mask the very significant disagreements that led to (...) three distinctive philosophical systems: Cartesian dualism, Spinozan monism and Leibnizian pluralism. The book explores the nature of, and offers reasons for, these differences. Phemister contends that Spinoza and Leibniz developed their systems in part through engagements with and amendment of Cartesian philosophy, and critically analyses the arguments and contributions of all three philosophers. The clarity of the authors discussion of their key ideas including their views on knowledge, universal languages, the nature of substance and substances, bodies, the relation of mind and body, freedom, and the role of distinct perception and reason in morals will make this book the ideal introduction to rationalist philosophy. (shrink)

This book brings together thirteen articles on the most discussed thinkers in the rationalist movement: Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, and Malebranche. These articles address the topics in metaphysics and epistemology that figure most prominently in contemporary work on these philosophers. The articles have all been produced since 1980, and their authors are among the most respected in the field.

The aim of this paper is to consider whether critical rationalism has any ideas which could usefully be applied to the internet. Today we tend to take the internet for granted and it is easy to forget that it was only about two decades ago that it began to be used to any significant extent. Accordingly in section 1 of the paper, there is a brief consideration of the history of the internet. At first sight this makes it looks (...) implausible that any of Popper’s ideas could be applicable to the internet, since Popper died before the internet came into general use. However, section 2 argues that Popper’s theory of World 3 does apply very well to the internet. This application is significant because, as shown in section 3, it leads to the problem of misinformation, which is one of the most significant problems generated by the internet. In section 4 there is an attempt to solve this problem using ideas taken from Popper’s epistemology. It is argued that there should be changes in education designed to prepare students for the internet age. Teaching in the internet age should focus on presenting to the students not just the accepted theories but also the evidence on which they are based. An illustration of how this might be done is given by considering an example from science teaching, namely the teaching of Newtonian mechanics in the last years of school or first years of university. (shrink)

The Principle of Sufficient Reason states that everything has an explanation. But different notions of explanation yield different versions of this principle. Here a version is formulated in terms of the notion of a “grounding” explanation. Its consequences are then explored, with particular emphasis on the fact that it implies necessitarianism, the view that every truth is necessarily true. Finally, the principle is defended from a number of objections, including objections to necessitarianism. The result is a defense of a “rationalist” (...) metaphysics, one that constitutes an alternative to the contemporary dogmas that some aspects of the world are “metaphysically brute” and that the world could in so many ways have been different. (shrink)

Critical Rationalism has become an influential philosophy in many areas including a great number of scientific disciplines. Yet only few studies have been devoted to the role of the philosophy of Sir Karl Popper in the vast field of education. This volume undertakes to fill this gap. Leading scholars in the educational science and in the philosophy of education have critically written for this volume in an attempt to elaborate Popper's methodological and socio-political views and confront them with a (...) globally relevant spectrum of scientific objectives and cultural values. Among the topics discussed are moral values, education for freedom and its consequences for the student, and the critical attitude in political education. Attention is also paid to the historiography of this significant philosophical movement. Regarding pedagogical research, the empirical paradigm, the falsificatory approach to educational research, the complex relationship between educational theory and practice as well as the problem of value-neutrality in educational science are objects of critical analysis. (shrink)

It is commonly held that our intuitive judgements about imaginary problem cases are justified a priori, if and when they are justified at all. In this paper I defend this view — ‘rationalism’ — against a recent objection by Timothy Williamson. I argue that his objection fails on multiple grounds, but the reasons why it fails are instructive. Williamson argues from a claim about the semantics of intuitive judgements, to a claim about their psychological underpinnings, to the denial of (...) rationalism. I argue that the psychological claim — that a capacity for mental simulation explains our intuitive judgements — does not, even if true, provide reasons to reject rationalism. (More generally, a simulation hypothesis, about any category of judgements, is very limited in its epistemological implications: it is pitched at a level of explanation that is insensitive to central epistemic distinctions.) I also argue that Williamson’s semantic claim — that intuitive judgements are judgements of counterfactuals — is mistaken; rather, I propose, they are a certain kind of metaphysical possibility judgement. Several other competing proposals are also examined and criticized. (shrink)

I draw on neurobiological evidence to defend the rationalist thesis that moral judgments are essentially dependent on reasoning, not emotions (conceived as distinct from inference). The neuroscience reveals that moral cognition arises from domain-general capacities in the brain for inferring, in particular, the consequences of an agent’s action, the agent’s intent, and the rules or norms relevant to the context. Although these capacities entangle inference and affect, blurring the reason/emotion dichotomy doesn’t preferentially support sentimentalism. The argument requires careful consideration of (...) the empirical evidence (from neuroimaging to psychopathology) and philosophical analysis of the commitments of rationalism versus sentimentalism in ethics. (shrink)

Many different serious challenges like catastrophes, conflicts, wars humanity often has to face make both historical science and philosophy of history (historiosophy) very actual branches of knowledge. It is necessary to take care of their theoretical basis thoroughly. That is why development of human rational approach to historical process must be considered as an important problem of philosophical discourse. The aim of our research is to prove the expediency of moderate rational comprehension of historic process. The research methodology can be (...) explained as critical rationalism in the meaning of tending to use our rational abilities actively. Research results: Having analyzed the theory of cognition by famous Polish thinker and artist Leon Chwistek, the author of the treatise underlines the value of the so-called “strict thinking”. Undoubtedly, the usage of the latter is really able to improve a process of scientific exploration. At the same time, we should to avoid the absolutization of our rational potential: it is obvious enough one just cannot comprehend all the facts connected with the object of our study. Actually, there is plenty of historical facts, and it is impossible to take into consideration all of them with the help of our sensory cognition and to think all of them over as well. Thereby, rationalism as a belief in our intellectual potential must the moderate and even the modest one. Conclusions. The moderate rationalistic position would help scientists to be careful while making their conclusions. Such reasonable approach presents a theoretical instrument of more or less successful and adequate comprehension of history and of its principles – the only possible way of rational studying of historical process. (shrink)

Engineering is often said to be ‘scientific’, but the nature of knowledge in engineering is different to science. Engineering has a different ontological basis—its theories address different entities and are judged by different criteria. In this paper I use Popper’s three worlds ontological framework to propose a model of engineering theories, and provide an abstract logical view of engineering theories analogous to the deductive-nomological view of scientific theories. These models frame three key elements from definitions of engineering: requirements, designs of (...) artefacts, and theories for reasoning about how artefacts will meet requirements. In a subsequent paper I use this ontological basis to explore methodological issues in the growth of engineering knowledge from the perspective of critical rationalism. (shrink)

Over the past thirty years Paul Feyerabend has developed an extremely distinctive and influentical approach to problems in the philosophy of science. The most important and seminal of his published essays are collected here in two volumes, with new introductions to provide an overview and historical perspective on the discussions of each part. Volume 1 presents papers on the interpretation of scientific theories, together with papers applying the views developed to particular problems in philosophy and physics. The essays in volume (...) 2 examine the origin and history of an abstract rationalism, as well as its consequences for the philosophy of science and methods of scientific research. Professor Feyerabend argues with great force and imagination for a comprehensive and opportunistic pluralism. In doing so he draws on extensive knowledge of scientific history and practice, and he is alert always to the wider philosophical, practical and political implications of conflicting views. These two volumes fully display the variety of his ideas, and confirm the originality and significance of his work. (shrink)

Engineering deals with different problem situations than science, and theories in engineering are different to theories in science. So, the growth of knowledge in engineering is also different to that in science. Nonetheless, methodological issues in engineering epistemology can be explored by adapting frameworks already established in the philosophy of science. In this paper I use critical rationalism and Popper’s three worlds framework to investigate error elimination and the growth of knowledge in engineering. I discuss engineering failure arising from (...) the falsification of engineering theories, and present taxonomies of the sources of falsification and responses to falsification in engineering. From this I discuss contexts of research and design in engineering, ad hoc rescue of engineering theories, and engineering assurance. (shrink)

The treatment of Descartes' philosophy within this book takes it to be a specific instance of rationalism. Descartes gave the human intellect the central role in this system; thus, it is considered a variant of an intellectual rationalism.

This book is a critique of rationalism. It aims to explain both its powerful contributions to mathematics and physical sciences, where our arithmetical, geometrical, and mechanical intuitions have had a highly productive role in the development of pure theory, and its disastrous failures in cosmology and the moral sciences. In these supposed sciences, rationalism has all but destroyed the social conscience of the West, by creating the disastrous political philosophy of neoliberalism. To reset our moral compasses, we must (...) develop new, and socially just versions, of the old welfare states. And, to restore democracy, we must return to Keynesian economic management" -- back cover. (shrink)