Locke scholars continue to disagree over how he analyzed natural laws, real essence-power relations in physical substances. Some say he regarded them as emanations, necessitated by the corpuscular structure of real essences; for others his laws are adventitious, imposed on substances by God and contingent on divine alterable will. The second view has been increasingly favored in recent years, assisted no doubt by Edwin McCann's potent case for it in "Lockean Mechanism" (1985). The present article, whose authors are sympathetic to (...) the necessitarian reading of Locke, argues against McCann's exegesis. (shrink)

As far back as we know, there have been individuals incapacitated by memories that have filled them with sadness and remorse, fright and horror, or a sense of irreparable loss. Only recently, however, have people tormented with such recollections been diagnosed as suffering from "post-traumatic stress disorder." Here Allan Young traces this malady, particularly as it is suffered by Vietnam veterans, to its beginnings in the emergence of ideas about the unconscious mind and to earlier manifestations of traumatic memory (...) like shell shock or traumatic hysteria. In Young's view, PTSD is not a timeless or universal phenomenon newly discovered. Rather, it is a "harmony of illusions," a cultural product gradually put together by the practices, technologies, and narratives with which it is diagnosed, studied, and treated and by the various interests, institutions, and moral arguments mobilizing these efforts. This book is part history and part ethnography, and it includes a detailed account of everyday life in the treatment of Vietnam veterans with PTSD. To illustrate his points, Young presents a number of fascinating transcripts of the group therapy and diagnostic sessions that he observed firsthand over a period of two years. Through his comments and the transcripts themselves, the reader becomes familiar with the individual hospital personnel and clients and their struggle to make sense of life after a tragic war. One observes that everyone on the unit is heavily invested in the PTSD diagnosis: boundaries between therapist and patient are as unclear as were the distinctions between victim and victimizer in the jungles of Southeast Asia. (shrink)

O presente artigo discute a importância das aulas de regência do estágio supervisionado, cuja finalidade é desenvolver em cada estudante em formação, a compreensão da relação teórico-prática durante o tempo universidade e promover o contato inicial com a docência. O estágio supervisionado, como componente curricular obrigatório no curso de Licenciatura Intercultural Indígena em Matemática, estabelece esse diálogo entre a teoria apreendida no contexto da educação escolar indígena (tempo-universidade) e sua aplicabilidade na prática comunitária das escolas estaduais indígenas de Alagoas. Este (...) trabalho trata das observações realizadas no transcorrer do Estágio Supervisionado II com alunos do Alto Sertão de Alagoas. As informações apresentadas resultam das observações e participações nos cenários escolares por parte do autor e co-autora e, nas salas de aula, pelo autor na condição de professor orientador que acompanhou o desenvolvimento das aulas de regências. A investigação foi amparada por uma revisão bibliográfica e por relatos obtidos nas observações das aulas de regência. Teve como aporte teórico Bianchi et al. (2005), Lima e Pimenta (2006), Pimenta (1997), Tardif (2002) e dentre outros. O estágio mostrou-se como um espaço de importantes reflexões e debate, ações e atitudes e crescimentos e experiências no contato com a profissão escolhida. (shrink)

Through the eye of the developmentalist, human activity is everywhere characterized by evolution and growth. It is seen in the psychological makeup of individuals as well as in the lives of cultures and nations. Developmentalists from Sigmund Freud to Lawrence Kohlberg (1981), Robert Kegan (1994) and Clare Graves (1981; Beck & Cowan, 1996) have studied the growth of emotional, intellectual, and moral capabilities in individuals and extrapolated their findings to issues of cultural and international import. Ken Wilber's unique contribution, here (...) and in other recent books (e.g., Wilber, 1995; 1997; 2000a), is to synthesize many lines of scholarship into a powerful developmental model that spans the distance from persons to cultures and societies. (shrink)

Aristotle's biological works - constituting over 25% of his surviving corpus and for centuries largely unstudied by philosophically oriented scholars - have been the subject of an increasing amount of attention of late. This collection brings together some of the best work that has been done in this area, with the aim of exhibiting the contribution that close study of these treatises can make to the understanding of Aristotle's philosophy. The book is divided into four parts, each with an introduction (...) which places its essays in relation to each other and to the wider issues of the book as a whole. The first part is an overview of the relationship of Aristotle's biology to his philosophy; the other three each concentrate on a set of issues central to Aristotelian study - definition and demonstration; teleology and necessity in nature; and metaph themes such as the unity of matter and form and the nature of substance. (shrink)

This book investigates Aristotle’s views on abstraction and explores how he uses it. In this work, the author follows Aristotle in focusing on the scientific detail first and then approaches the metaphysical claims, and so creates a reconstructed theory that explains many puzzles of Aristotle’s thought. Understanding the details of his theory of relations and abstraction further illuminates his theory of universals. Some of the features of Aristotle’s theory of abstraction developed in this book include: abstraction is a relation; perception (...) and knowledge are types of abstraction; the objects generated by abstractions are relata which can serve as subjects in their own right, whereupon they can appear as items in other categories. The author goes on to look at how Aristotle distinguishes the concrete from the abstract paronym, how induction is a type of abstraction which typically moves from the perceived individuals to universals and how Aristotle’s metaphysical vocabulary is "relational.’ Beyond those features, this work also looks at how of universals, accidents, forms, causes and potentialities have being only as abstract aspects of individual substances. An individual substance is identical to its essence; the essence has universal features but is the singularity making the individual substance what it is. These theories are expounded within this book. One main attraction in working out the details of Aristotle’s views on abstraction lies in understanding his metaphysics of universals as abstract objects. This work reclaims past ground as the main philosophical tradition of abstraction has been ignored in recent times. It gives a modern version of the medieval doctrine of the threefold distinction of essence, made famous by the Islamic philosopher, Avicenna. (shrink)

This chapter explores a species of false modesty, false intellectual humility, which is defined as affected or pretended intellectual humility concealing intellectual arrogance. False intellectual humility is situated in a virtue epistemological framework, where it is contrasted with intellectual humility, understood as excellence in self-attribution of intellectual weakness. False intellectual humility characteristically takes the form of insincere expressions of ignorance or uncertainty – as when dogmatically committed conspiracy theorists insist that they just want to know what’s going on – and, (...) in such cases, false intellectual humility is a kind of false skepticism or false fallibilism. In connection with this, the chapter further explores the relationship between the concepts of intellectual humility, skepticism, and fallibilism. A distinction can be drawn between the virtues of intellectual humility, skepticism, and fallibilism, but the traditional association of skepticism and fallibilism with intellectual humility is vindicated by the fact that the virtues of intellectual humility, skepticism, and fallibilism overlap. (shrink)

Intellectual pride is pride about intellectual matters – for example, knowledge about what you know, about your intellectual virtues, or about your intellectual achievements. It is the opposite of intellectual humility (e.g. knowledge about what you don’t know, about your intellectual vices, or about your intellectual failures). In this paper I will advocate for intellectual pride by explaining its importance in the contexts of education (where a lack of pride threatens to undermine motivation), intellectual marginalization (where a lack of pride (...) threatens to facilitate oppression), and collective inquiry (where a lack of pride threatens to undermine public discourse). In these contexts, intellectual humility is problematic and intellectual pride is valuable. I’ll go on to offer a sketch of intellectual pride as a virtue. Just as the virtue of intellectual humility comprises excellence in negative intellectual self-evaluation, the virtue of intellectual pride comprises excellence in positive intellectual self-evaluation. (shrink)

Populism, as I shall understand the term here, is a style of political rhetoric that posits a Manichean conflict between the people and corrupt elites. In the present decade, populism has played a particularly salient role in the politics of the United States and Europe. Moreover, populism is commonly associated with a kind of skepticism about expertise, on which the opinions of non- experts are to be preferred to any expert consensus. In light of all this, populist expertise skepticism appears (...) to be a kind of pathology of excessive intellectual autonomy. I shall argue, however, that this connection between populism and intellectual autonomy is mere appearance: populist expertise skepticism does not involve excessive intellectual autonomy, because it does not involve a disposition for non-deferential belief, but rather a disposition for deference to “alternative” sources of information. (shrink)

Can understanding be transmitted by testimony, in the same sense that propositional knowledge can be transmitted by testimony? Some contemporary philosophers – call them testimonial understanding pessimists – say No, and others – call them testimonial understanding optimists – say Yes. In this chapter I will articulate testimonial understanding pessimism (§1) and consider some arguments for it (§2).

In this chapter I sympathetically consider the idea that skepticism is an epistemic virtue. I argue that this depends on whether skepticism is admirable, and articulate three defenses of skepticism as admirable: a Pyrrhonian defense (on which skepticism leads to tranquility), a Cartesian defense (on which skepticism is prophylactic against error), and a liberal defense (on which skepticism counteracts dogmatism and closed-mindedness). I give the liberal defense the most attention: I distinguish skepticism from several species of dogmatism that are sometimes (...) called “skeptical” (e.g. that of “climate change skeptics”), and associate skepticism with political moderation and intellectual independence. (shrink)

Hume argued that passions, unlike judgments of the understanding, cannot be reasonable or unreasonable. Crucial for his argument was the premise that passions cannot be correct or incorrect. As he put it: “[a] passion is an original existence … and contains not any representative quality” and “passions are not susceptible of any … agreement or disagreement either to the real relations of ideas, or to real existence and matter of fact … being original facts and realities, compleat in themselves.” In (...) this paper I will argue that desires, like beliefs, can be correct or incorrect. Specifically, I will argue that goodness is the correctness condition for desire, in the same way that truth is the correctness condition for belief. (shrink)

Donald Preziosi, an influential modern voice in art history, argues that his discipline has proved ‘particularly effective in naturalizing and validating the very idea of art as a “universal” human phenomenon’. If this claim is true, it would mean, in my view, that art history has done a serious disservice to our modern understanding of art. For as the French art theorist, André Malraux, points out, the idea of art is definitely not a universal human phenomenon, there being ample evidence (...) that the vast majority of cultures throughout history, have not regarded their painting, sculpture, poetry, and music as ‘art’. -/- Today, of course, we willingly regard many works from non-European and early cultures as art and welcome them into art museums, but this is a recent development, barely more than a century old. This paper examines certain major issues arising from this situation, including: when and why the idea of art arose; the radical change in the word’s meaning that occurred after Manet; how this change led to the inclusion of many non-European and ancient works in our modern world of art; and the inadequate responses to these developments by modern philosophers of art and art historians. (shrink)

The paper explores the much-neglected but crucial topic of the capacity of art to transcend time.

Explores the failure of analytic aesthetics to examine the question of the capacity of art to transcend time, and its own commitment – seldom explicitly acknowledged – to the assumption that this capacity functions through the traditional, but no longer viable, notion of timelessness inherited from Enlightenment aesthetics.

In this concluding chapter, Allan and Keller posit that Just Peace should be defined as a process resting on four necessary and sufficient conditions: thin recognition whereby the other is accepted as autonomous; thick recognition whereby identities need to be accounted for; renouncement, requiring significant sacrifices from all parties; and rule, the objectification of a Just Peace by a ‘text’ requiring a common language respecting the identities of each, and defining their rights and duties. This approach, based on a (...) language-oriented process amongst directly concerned parties, goes beyond liberal and culturalist perspectives. By moving beyond the idea of a peace founded on norms claiming universal scope, each side of a conflict has a place at the negotiating table to present their own perspective on what justice might entail. This inclusion into the decision-making process helps create the feeling of personal investment in the final negotiated product. In addition, negotiators need to work towards building a novel shared reality as well as a new common language to help foster an enduring harmony between previously clashing peoples. (shrink)

Lloyd Gerson has a vision of what Platonism is. Those who see things differently may find his vision bewildering. In Platonism and Naturalism, to his credit, his vision is synoptic and impressively focused on critical passages and issues, especially in Plato's metaphysics and epistemology, though ethics also receives much attention. Leaving aside the introduction and chapter 1, chapters 2–6 are devoted to Plato and comprise two-thirds of the work. Chapters 7, "Aristotle the Platonist," 8, "Plotinus the Platonist," and 9, "Proclus (...) and Trouble in Paradise," along with brief concluding remarks, comprise the remainder. Naturally they take up only certain issues in the Platonism of these successors.... (shrink)

This essay responds to Lewis Ford’s “Allan’s Atheism,” in which he assesses a recent essay of mine that finds God an unnecessary and indeed coherence-destroying addition to Process and Reality. I clarify my position by showing how Whitehead’s notions of physical purpose and aesthetic determination adequately account for the novelty required for an actual occasion’s concrescence and for increases in achieved value. I then criticize Ford’s claim that genuine novelties must have a divine origin and that in Adventures of (...) Ideas the Eros of the Universe refers to God. (shrink)

Cette étude présente une explication systématique des éléments clés de la théorie de l’art d’André Malraux. Se basant sur des œuvres telles que Les Voix du silence, Le Surnaturel, L’Irréel et L’Intemporel, elle aborde des sujets cruciaux comme la nature de la création artistique, la psychologie de notre réaction à l’art, la naissance de la notion d’« art » et sa transformation après Manet, la naissance et la mort de l’idée de beauté, la question cruellement négligée de la relation entre (...) l’art et le passage du temps, l’émergence de notre « premier monde de l’art universel », le rôle contemporain du musée d’art et du Musée Imaginaire, et la question épineuse du lien entre l’art et l’histoire. Contrairement aux critiques négatives parfois émises contre la pensée de Malraux, l’étude soutient qu’il nous offre une théorie de l’art mûrement réfléchie, entièrement cohérente et très éclairante. De surcroît, et malgré des allégations occasionnelles que la pensée de Malraux manque d’originalité, l’analyse montre que sa théorie de l’art est hautement originale et constitue un défi radical aux explications traditionnelles de l’art issues des Lumières qui ont dominé la pensée occidentale pendant quelque trois cents ans. En bref, l’étude dévoile une façon de comprendre la nature de l’art qui n’est rien de moins qu’une révolution intellectuelle. Le livre va être publie également en anglais. (shrink)

O idealismo transcendental anunciado por Husserl como idêntico à própria fenomenologia nunca deixou de ser um dos pontos mais polêmicos de sua filosofia. A esse respeito, um dos primeiros críticos da posição filosófica esposada publicamente por Husserl a partir de Ideias para uma fenomenologia pura foi seu outrora aluno Roman Ingarden. Seu denso e resoluto criticismo em relação à perspectiva idealista de Husserl é amparado por minuciosas investigações de ordem ontológica, contidas sobretudo em seu magnum opus, Controvérsia acerca da existência (...) do mundo. Contudo, algumas das discussões aí indicadas já se faziam presentes em seu famoso escrito A obra de arte literária, de 1929. Com efeito, neste texto, que busca demarcar o estatuto ontológico das obras literárias, Ingarden já empreende análises que lhe permitem questionar alguns dos pressupostos centrais ao idealismo transcendental advogado por Husserl. A proposta do presente trabalho é apresentar algumas das noções básicas da ontologia ingardeniana, bem como sua visão acerca do modo de ser da obra literária, e tentar compreender como estes elementos se coordenam a fim de fornecer a Ingarden alguns dos elementos que lhe permitem ensaiar uma resposta realista à perspectiva de Husserl. (shrink)

This new translation of _De Caelo_ fits seamlessly with other volumes in the New Hackett Aristotle series, enabling Anglophone readers to study Aristotle’s work in a way previously not possible. The Introduction describes the book that lies ahead, explaining what it is about, what it is trying to do, how it goes about doing it, and what sort of audience it presupposes. Sequentially numbered endnotes provide the information most needed at each juncture, while a detailed Index indicates the places where (...) focused discussion of key notions occurs. (shrink)

Based on a conference held at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, 24-25 March, 1988.

Stephen Edelston Toulmin, philosopher and historian of science, pioneer in the logical analysis of substantive argumentation, was educated in physics and philosophy at Cambridge, where he studied with Paul Dirac, John Wisdom and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Cambridge, Issac Newton’s university, remained his philosophical home: he always was very critical of the way that philosophy was done at The Other Place, as Oxford is known there. The only philosopher whom he really revered there was John Austin – although it is necessary hastily (...) to add that he deeply respected Gilbert Ryle and Isaiah Berlin. Like the latter, he considered himself a “public intellectual”. As such he was delighted to be invited to become a contributor to Encounter and later, from the mid-1960s a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. He was fascinated by Wittgenstein, attending as many of his classes as he could, but had no interest in becoming close to him. Both the idea of discipleship and Wittgenstein’s dominating personally were uncongenial to him. Like Wittgenstein and Berlin he was never at home among professional philosophers . On occasion his relationships with philosophers could be stormy indeed as was the case with Sir Karl Popper and Nelson Goodman. He prided himself on being an amateur and was only mildly disturbed when “experts” chided him as a bungler. His deepest belief was that professional philosophers do not determine what the real problems of philosophy are; rather those problems arise out of conundrums in human life. That meant for him engaging in intense dialogues, with physicists, psychologists, psychoanalysts, medical doctors, lawyers, musician artists and, of course, historians of science. (shrink)

Schönberg liet zijn pogingen om Igisch te componeren vergezeld gaan met kritische en analytische geschriften. Hij wilde, net als vele andere kritische intellectuelen van zijn tijd, een authentieke Weense muziekcultuur ontwikkelen, die zich tegen de heersende esthetische smaak keerde. Zijn hekel aan populaire muziek was eerder gegrond op morele dan op esthetische overwegingen. Mooie muziek leidt tot dagdromen en niet tot nadenken, vond hij. Zijn werk eist een aktieve deelname van de luisteraar, die de idee achter de muziek moet trachten (...) te vinden. (shrink)

_I lyset af Trumps valgsejr i 2024 har vi valgt at gøre en række af artiklerne fra #85: Folk, folkestyre og populisme frit tilgængelige tidligere, end vi plejer. Resten af nummeret bliver tilgængeligt i marts 2025._.