Studie se věnuje dialogu Anselma z Canterbury De grammatico. Tento spis byl samotným autorem označen jako úvod do dialektiky. V dobové dialektice zastával klíčové místo Aristotelův spis Kategorie. Tento článek se proto pokouší interpretovat Anselmův dialog jako určitou pedagogicky koncipovanou podobu komentáře k Aristotelovým Kategoriím. V návaznosti na Anselmův spis jsou postupně představeny jednotlivé teze z Aristotelových Kategorií (jak tzv. antepredicamenta, tak pojednání o substanci, kvalitě a částečně i vlastnictví) a způsob, jakým s nimi Anselm pracoval.

This paper is consecrated to the problems of the semantics in the Anselm’s philosophy of language – one of the most important parts of his philosophical inquiry. The main care is focused to the analysis of terms veritas and rectitudo, mainly because of significatio and the semantics – e.g. significatio with respect to names (proper and common; infinite, privative and empty). Special passage refers to denominative names, because in their case Anselm of Canterbury makes differences between significatio ( per (...) se, per aliud and ut unum) and appellatio in his semantic analysis. (shrink)

This article sheds new light on the interesting but little-studied figure of Thomas Scott of Canterbury (1566–1635). In presenting Scott's ideas I will modify the interpretation laid out by Peter Clark whose groundbreaking study, ‘Thomas Scott and the Growth of Urban Opposition to the Early Stuart Regime’, is still the only secondary source that pays detailed attention to Scott and his thought, especially his religious opinions. The necessity to revisit Clark's interpretation of Scott's place within the political and doctrinal (...) debates of early Stuart England stems from the conviction that his political work and his ideological stances deserve more subtle attention. Most importantly, they were part of the emerging reaction against the policies of the first two Stuart Kings which can be labelled ‘country patriotism’. Finally, the elucidation of Scott's writings will provide a novel insight into an early configuration of English national identity. ☆ Earlier versions of this article were presented at the seminar ‘British History in the 17th Century’ held at the Institute of Historical Research (London) and at the ‘Modern History Seminar’ held at the History Department of the University of Birmingham. I wish to thank the audiences on both occasions for their questions and comments, especially Justin Champion, Richard Cust, John Miller. I would also like to thank Jonathan Scott, Johann P. Sommerville and Richard Whatmore for reading the text. This article is based on archival research pursued at the Kentish Archive Office, Maidstone (KAO), Canterbury Cathedral Library (CCL), Bodleain Library, Oxford (BLO) and British Library, London (BL). The manuscripts referred to in the text are listed as KAO U951/z/9, U951/z/10, U951/z16, U951/z17 (Knatchbull Papers); CCL Urry Mss 66 (‘Thomas Scott's Papers on the Elections to the Parliament of 1626’, 1a–141a); BLO Ballard Ms 61; BL Harley 7018, Additional MSS 62135, n. 31. The majority of the material consists of Scott's diary and of a series of mostly unfoliated papers in Scott's own hand. Some portions of the diary are in secretarial hand, whilst others are reproduced in Proceedings in Parliament 1628, ed. R.C. Johnson et al., 6 vols. (New Haven and London, 1977–1983), VI, Appendixes and Indexes, 126–37, 218–43 (hereafter PP 1628; where there are passages in both manuscript and printed form I refer to the latter). Amongst the miscellanous Scott manuscripts two are in Bodleian Library, Rawlinson Ms A 346, 224a–34b and 285a–97b. These are transcribed and published in Dorothea Scott, otherwise Gotherson and Hogben, of Egerton House, Kent, 1611–1680, A New and Enlarged Edition by G.D. Scull (Oxford, 1883) (hereafter Dorothea Scott). (shrink)

Koncepcja wszechmocy absolutnej (lub maksymalnej mocy) Boga, prezentowana przez Stanisława Judyckiego, odwołuje się do intuicji bytu najdoskonalszego Anzelma z Canterbury oraz bytu nieskończonego Kartezjusza. Poprzez swój radykalizm narusza jednak podstawowe intuicje klasycznego teizmu, dotyczące rozumności i dobroci bytu Bożego, realizującego te atrybuty w swoim stworzeniu. Wydaje się, że intelektualna cena tej koncepcji jest dosyć wysoka dla racjonalnego rozumienia Boga w doktrynie chrześcijańskiej. Znacznym zrównoważeniem tej koncepcji byłaby propozycja doktryny o prostocie Boga, prezentowana przez Tomasza z Akwinu.

Co jest większe, bycie czy nic? Anzelm dowodzi istnienia Boga przy pomocy nihil. Bóg jako to, od czego nic większego nie może zostać pomyślane przez skończony umysł. Właściwe dla Anzelma logiczne – i być może mistyczne – użycie słowa „nic” domaga się porównania z negatywną ontologią Heideggera i jej recepcją w ramach tzw. Szkoły z Kioto założonej przez Nishidę. Czyż jednak pustka buddyzmu zen nie odsyła nas do – niewypowiedzianej – boskiej obecności?

Siehe hierzu auch Manuela Lenzens Rezension "Vom Himmel hoch: Wie weit trägt die Intuition der menschlichen Intuition?" in der F.A.Z. vom 28. April 1999Im Spätmittelalter vollzog sich eine Wendung in der Entwicklung des Begriffs der Intuition, die bedeutende philosophiegeschichtliche Konsequenzen hatte, indem in ihr die neuzeitliche Spaltung in eine empiristische und eine spekulative Tradition grundgelegt wurde. Dieser Wandel wird anhand der relevanten Stellen bei Thomas von Aquin, Johannes Duns Scotus und Wilhelm von Ockham dargelegt, wobei zur Erläuterung der Ausgangssituation bei (...) Thomas auch auf Augustinus und Anselm von Canterbury zurückgegriffen wird. In dieser bis zu Thomas reichenden Tradition war der Begriff 'intuitio' für das übernatürliche Erkennen, die Schau Gottes reserviert und konnte nur in abgeleiteter Weise, nämlich durch den reflexiven Charakter des spekulativen Erkennens, auch auf den Menschen bezogen werden. Im Lauf der weiteren Entwicklung zu Ockham hin wurde Intuition zur unmittelbaren Erkenntnis der Einzeldinge und vermischte sich mit der sinnlichen Anschauung. Damit war das Fundament des empiristischen Ansatzes gegeben, dessen wissenschaftstheoretische Implikationen schon bei Ockham zutagetraten. (shrink)

There is a well-known remark in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations which even some philosophers sympathetic to his work have found very hard to accept. It reads:Philosophy may in no way interfere with the actual use of language;it can in the end only describe it.For it cannot give it any foundation either.It leaves everything as it is. Surely, it is said, that is carrying matters too far. Wittgenstein's hyperbole should be excused as a harmless stylistic flourish.

Religions, ideologies try to give a complete vision of the world a vision containing both its origin, explanation and a “normative kit”: a collection of precepts and rules, which should regulate human activities and behavior. Their synergetic meaning is clear: if embraced by all they allow for development of strong synergetic effects on the social macro scales. These in turn may lead to creation of order and beauty, of intellectual, spiritual and moral development within men and in society. In this (...) consist the elements of their natural—i.e. not explicitly reasoned out—wisdom. However, as they contain also some elements of harmful consequences—at least if they are literally accepted and in a fundamentalist manner practiced—they cannot be universally accepted. But—rejecting them we lose also the important sourcesof natural—or should we say instinctive—wisdom.Could the solution of this contradiction, of this one of the basic human sources of suffering be looked for in the modern science of complexity?Synergetics and the sciences of complex systems in general offer a solid scientific base for a meta-philosophical, universalist intellectual framework. Its offspring the social synergetics offers concrete propositions of optimized social structures. Optimized in the sense of espousing the main synergetic effects with being at the same time free of the negative “side effects” happening when religions or ideologies are the source of synergism.Finally a connection is discussed between the presented ideas and the concept of “love of wisdom”. The term “love of wisdom” may be understood as striving not only to possess a “sound and serene judgment regarding the conduct of life” but also a practical ability to act according to that judgment.This ability may be also expressed using the information-thermodynamic concepts of synergetics. Indeed without the ever continuing negentropy transformation neither survival of a complex system like man or society nor its continuing development—uncovering of all his “hidden potentials” is possible.To assure maximization of this transformation process creation of strong synergetic effects—of reinforcement, of positive feedback—between all human beings—i.e. not excluding any nations, any social groups, and any individuals—are necessary. Acting towards local and global realization of such a structure everywhere on our planet constitutes the essence of social wisdom.Removing all obstacles towards this goal—obstacles existing on the intellectual, emotional and spiritual level—should be one of the most important tasks of various institutions, of state structures, of purified from mythical elements ideologies, of man oriented sciences and above all of the modern universalism.Thus striving towards its realization is an expression of the love of wisdom. Of wisdom once based on the elements of mythos and now regained in the full light of Logos. (shrink)

Rush Rhees, a close friend of Wittgenstein and a major interpreter of his work, shows how Wittgenstein's _On Certainty_ concerns logic, language, and reality – topics that occupied Wittgenstein since early in his career. Authoritative interpretation of Wittgenstein's last great work, _On Certainty_, by one of his closest friends. Debunks misconceptions about Wittgenstein's _On Certainty_ and shows that it is an essay on logic. Exposes the continuity in Wittgenstein's thought, and the radical character of his conclusions. Contains a substantial and (...) illuminating afterword discussing current scholarship surrounding _On Certainty_, and its relationship to Rhees's work on this subject. (shrink)

This paper provides a discussion of Jacques Rancière’s former teacher at École Normale Supérieure, then famous for fashioning Marxism with the philosophical gauge of structuralism, Louis Althusser. Perhaps a brief discussion on the relation between the two would render context to the origins of Rancière's philosophico-political praxis, specifically the humble beginnings of conceptualizing an egalitarian method out of his philosophical rupture with Althusserianism. Meanwhile, to reduce the philosophical enterprise of Althusser into its practical shortcomings and silence during the revolutionary events (...) of May 1968 in France would do an injustice to the magnitude of his contribution to contemporary French political theory and his major revisions in the theoretical direction of the Parti communiste français. Thus, the following discussions focus on sketching Althusser's theoretical foundations, which possibly clarifies the political decision he has made during May '68: a demand for organization over spontaneous revolutionary activity based on the authority of theoretical practice over the ideological activities—a decision that became the point of departure for Rancière's subversion of both mastery and the structural inequality Althusserianism entail. The whole piece is guided by the following two-fold question—a question, perhaps, akin to Badiou's inquiry: What were the philosophico-political interventions of Louis Althusser, and why did Rancière move away from his direction? (shrink)

The idea that knowledge as an individual mental attitude with certain propositional content is not only true justified belief but a belief the truth of which does not result from any kind of luck, is widely spread in contemporary epistemology. This account is known as anti-luck epistemology. A very popular explanation of the inconsistency of that concept of knowledge with the luck-dependent nature of truth (so called veritic luck taking place when a subject’s belief could not be true if not (...) by mere coincidence) presumes that the status of propositional knowledge crucially depends on the qualities of actions that result in the corresponding belief, or processes backing them, which reflect the socalled intellectual virtues mainly responsible for subject’s relevant competences. This account known as Virtue Epistemology presumes that if a belief is true exclusively or mainly due to its dependence on intellectual virtues, it just cannot be true by luck, hence no place for lucky knowledge. But this thesis is hard to prove given the existence of true virtuous beliefs which could nevertheless be false if not for some lucky (for the knower) accident. This led to an appearance of virtue epistemological theories aimed specifically at an assimilation of such cases. Their authors try to represent the relevant situations as such where the contribution of luck is not crucial whereas the contribution of virtues is crucial. This article provides a critical analysis of the corresponding arguments as part of a more general study of the ability of Virtue Epistemology to provide justification for the thesis of incompatibility of propositional knowledge with veritic luck. It is shown that there are good reasons to doubt that Virtue Epistemology can do this. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.4 (2003) 295 [Access article in PDF] Agency, Narrative, and Self:A Philosophical Case Conference John Z. Sadler and K. W. M. Fulford This issue of PPP features our second "philosophical case conference," which addresses three important and interrelated concepts in the philosophy of psychiatry. Our first philosophical case conference (Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology Volume 5, Number 2, 1998) featured detailed case material concerning the manifold (...) issues involved in psychiatric euthanasia. For this issue, guest edited by J. Melvin Woody, the rich cases supplied by Lloyd Wells provide the foundation for a discussion of narrative accounts of the self and what it means to be an agent.Philosophical case conferences are an occasional feature of PPP, and develop topics to satisfy one or more criteria: to provide discussions that are important to clinical practice or research, to embed current or perennial philosophical debates in the nitty gritty of clinical practice and personal experience, and/or to provide a clinical testing ground for new conceptual developments relevant to the philosophy of psychiatry.The format for this issue involves four feature articles, the first by Wells, presenting detailed case material of several patients, followed by discussions (by Kennett & Matthews, Phillips, and Woody) inspired by, or addressing explicitly, the philosophical questions implied in such cases. Following these four feature articles, a panel of commentators (Glas, Hardcastle, Radden, Thornton, Weiner, Woodbridge) respond to the four feature articles as they wish, providing the variations on the agency, narrative, and self themes. We think you will find this issue of PPP to be a fine example of what the philosophy of psychiatry can do, and we give our abundant thanks to Mel Woody for putting this issue together.... (shrink)

_A distinguished discussion of Weil's views on social philosophy, science, ethics, and religion._.