This initial volume in a series of new translations of Plato’s works includes a general introduction and interpretive comments for the dialogues translated: the _Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, Meno, Gorgias, _and _Menexenus. _ _ _“Allen’s work is very impressive. The translations are readable, lucid, and highly accurate. The general introduction is succinct and extremely clear. The discussion of the dating of the dialogues is enormously useful; there has previously been no brief account of these issues to which one could refer (...) the student. Finally, the particular introductions are first rate: fine jobs of clear philosophical and historical explanation—succinct and yet sophisticated, both close to the text and philosophically incisive.”—Martha Nussbaum, _Brown University_ “This is an important work that deserves our respect and attention.”—_Ethics _ _ _“This and the promised succeeding volumes will probably become the standard English version of the complete dialogues…. The commentaries take advantage of the best scholarship, judge judiciously between divergent views, and often introduce new and brilliant interpretations. This is true both in the area of philosophy and in that of literary criticism.”—Anthony C. Daly, S.J., _Modern Schoolman_ _ _“Allen is a superb translator, whose elegantly simple yet precise language gives access to Plato both as a philosopher and as a literary artist.”—_Library Journal__ _ “An important event in the world of scholarship.”—_London Review of Books_ _ _R.E. Allen is professor of classics and philosophy at Northwestern University. (shrink)

“It has been our fate as a nation not to have ideologies,” Richard Hofstadter famously wrote, “but to be one.” Defining that “American ideology” or “American creed” obsessed scholars of the consensus era, who celebrated Americans’ allegiance to a limited liberal vocabulary of rights, freedoms, and markets. The cultural transformations begun in the 1960s seemed to question the very idea of a unitary culture or creed, but some historians responded by exploring alternative ideological founding myths to the liberal consensus. Over (...) the ensuing decades scholars mounted formidable efforts to support republicanism or millennial Christianity as challengers, but liberalism proved a resilient foe. And it seemed to have contemporary history on its side: during the Reagan revolution of the century's final decades the classic liberal combination of scaled-down government and free markets carried the day as Americans’ ideal if not their reality. The Lockean liberal tradition that Louis Hartz described a half-century earlier still appeared the only game in town, although scholars continued to argue over its terms, history, and boundaries. (shrink)

Toen professor dr. Carl Friedrich, Freiherr von Weizsäcker op 28 juni 1992 tachtig jaar werd, verscheen zijn filosofische hoofdwerk, Zeit und Wissen, een boek van 1184 bladzijden. Omdat de auteur, die we verder met W. zullen aanduiden, behalve een bekend kernfysicus ook filosoof is en een actief christen, wil ik wat breder op zijn werk ingaan, mede omdat in Philosophia Reformata nog niet eerder over zijn wijsbegeerte werd gepubliceerd. Daarbij telt ook dat W. in zijn boek op bladzijde 1149 (...) schrijft: ‘Philosophie, die sich von den Worten der Bergpredigt, von der Erfahrung von Gebet und Meditation, von der Kreuzigung Jesu und seiner lebendigen Gegenwart bei allen, die ihm zu folgen bereit waren, nicht wesentlich bestimmen läszt, ist keine heute noch glaubwürdige Philosophie’. In het beschrijvende deel zal ik uit de vele boeken en met name uit Zeit und Wissen uitvoerig citeren, om pas aan het eind een beoordeling te geven. (shrink)

IPC, the intuitionistic predicate calculus, has the property(i) Vc(A c /x) xA.Furthermore, for certain important , IPC has the converse property (ii) xA Vc(A c /x). (i) may be given up in various ways, corresponding to different philosophic intuitions and yielding different systems of intuitionistic free logic. The present paper proves the strong completeness of several of these with respect to Kripke style semantics. It also shows that giving up (i) need not force us to abandon the analogue of (ii).

Intervencions a càrrec de Ronald J. Allen i Susan Haack sobre diferents idees del pensament de Michele Taruffo.

Benacerraf’s Problem about mathematical truth displays a tension, indeed a seemingly unbridgeable gap, between Platonist foundations for mathematics on the one hand and Hilbert’s ‘finitary standpoint’ on the other. While that standpoint evinces an admirable philosophical unity, it is ultimately an effete rival to Platonism: It leaves mathematical practice untouched, even the highly non-constructive axiom of choice. Brouwer’s intuitionism is a more potent finitist rival, for it engenders significant deviation from standard (classical) mathematics. The essay illustrates three sorts of intuitionistic (...) deviations (weakening, refinement and outright contradiction), and goes on to sketch the technical tools and arguments that engender those clashes with classical mathematics and the philosophical principles underlying those arguments. Those philosophical principles coalesce into a “standpoint” no less unified and no less finitary that Hilbert’s. This intuitionistic standpoint is sufficiently detailed that it itself provides a benchmark for comparing all the rival positions; and it is sufficiently robust that it dissolves the Benacerrafian dichotomy. However, the intuitionistic refutation of the axiom of choice reveals two distinct sub-streams within that intuitionistic standpoint. Distinguishing these streams suggests perhaps that in spite of that robustness, intuitionism has an internal dichotomy parallel to the Benacerrafian split. The Benacerrafian split is a crack in the foundations of mathematics. But I shall argue that this internal intuitionistic dichotomy is not at all a foundational gap; it is rather a special insight about the nature of mathematical thought. (shrink)

MICHAEL DUMMETT, Elements of intuitionism. With the assistance of Robert Minio. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. xii + 466 pp. No price stated.

Languishing in exile after Louis Napoleon's coup d'état of December 1851 shut down socialist agitation, the followers of the utopian theorist Charles Fourier turned their attention to the New World as an "asylum" where Fourierism's communal ideals might be realized. In so doing they joined a long line of utopian dreamers who saw the young United States as a promised land of free expression and social experimentation. The head of the French Fourierists, Victor Considerant, made contacts with the remnant of (...) the American Fourierist movement, toured the United States in 1853, and was thrilled by the vast open spaces of Texas. Considerant discounted the fate of another French socialist group, the disciples... (shrink)

Zhuangzi and Henry David Thoreau share a critical interest in the relations between wandering, nature, and experience. Their attitudes toward nature provide a basis for their views of human well-being, which in turn inform their attitudes toward language, society, and politics. Both celebrate nature as a source of constant novelty, change, and nourishing life. These values clash against social conformity and political homogeneity. For both Zhuangzi and Thoreau, how we experience life is already constitutive of human well-being. Wandering thus provides (...) a unique vision of freedom, one that binds experience, nature, and social-political criticism. (shrink)

The Battle for the American Mind brings together religion, politics, economics, science, and literature to present a compelling history of the American people. In this brief and entertaining book, noted historian Carl J. Richard argues that there have been three worldviews that have dominated American thought—theism, humanism, and skepticism. By clearly explaining what Americans believed, exploring why they did so, and showing how that impacted the nation's development, Richard presents a unique portrait of the United States—past and present.

L. E. J. Brouwer, the founder of mathematical intuitionism, believed that mathematics and its objects must be humanly graspable. He initiated a program rebuilding modern mathematics according to that principle. This book introduces the reader to the mathematical core of intuitionism – from elementary number theory through to Brouwer's uniform continuity theorem – and to the two central topics of 'formalized intuitionism': formal intuitionistic logic, and formal systems for intuitionistic analysis. Building on that, the book proposes a systematic, philosophical foundation (...) for intuitionism that weaves together doctrines about human grasp, mathematical objects and mathematical truth. (shrink)

An examination and evaluation of Hegel's most important works including The Philosophy of History, The Philosophy of Right and Law, and The Science of Logic.

This essay departs from conventional American Studies treatments to resituate Bellamy's utopia of 1888 within transnational debates over industrialism, socialism, and the state in European nations and their settler societies between 1890 and 1940. Building upon critical studies and information about the reception of Bellamy's utopia abroad, it offers three approaches: a genre-based analysis of the utopian hybrid that suggests textual bases for multiple readings; a transnational history of evolutionary socialism that helps explain Bellamy's global relevance in the 1890s and (...) again in the 1930s; and a comparative approach that contrasts the reception of Looking Backward in different national contexts. In the face of traditionally exceptionalist scholarship and the narrower, nationalistic frame of Bellamy's sequel, Equality, to understand Bellamy's global appeal we must recover the international context of Looking Backward and the internationalist views expressed in its pages. (shrink)

volume 1. The critical philosophy and its roots.

Kant's views about mathematics were controversial in his own time, and they have inspired or infuriated thinkers ever since. Though specific Kantian doctrines fell into disrepute earlier in this century, the past twenty-five years have seen a surge of interest in and respect for Kant's philosophy of mathematics among both Kant scholars and philosophers of mathematics. The present volume includes the classic papers from the 1960s and 1970s which spared this renaissance of interest, together with updated postscripts by their authors. (...) It also includes the most important recent work on Kant's philosophy of mathematics. The essays bring to bear a wealth of detailed Kantian scholarship, together with powerful new interpretative tools drawn from modern mathematics, logic and philosophy. The cumulative effect of this collection upon the reader will be a deeper understanding of the centrality of mathematics in all aspects of Kant's thought and a renewed respect for the power of Kant's thinking about mathematics. The essays contained in this volume will set the agenda for further work on Kant's philosophy of mathematics for some time to come. (shrink)