Theorists, historians, and artists address the precarious futurity of the notion of the future. Not long ago, a melancholic left and a manic neoliberalism seemed to arrive at an awkward consensus: the foreclosure of futurity. Whereas the former mourned the failure of its utopian project, the latter celebrated the triumph of a global marketplace. The radical hope of realizing a singularly different, more equitable future displaced by a belief that the future had already come to pass, limiting post-historical society to (...) an uneventful life of endless accumulation. Today, amidst an abundance of neofuturisms, posthumanisms, futurologies, speculative philosophies and accelerationist scenarios, there is as well an expanding awareness of a looming planetary catastrophe driven by the extractionist logic of capitalism. Despite this return to the future, the temporal horizon of our present moment is perhaps more aptly characterized by the “shrinking future” of just-in-time production, risk management, high-frequency trading, and the futures market. In Futurity Report, theorists, historians, and artists address the precarious futurity of the notion of the future itself. Contributors McKenzie Wark, China Miéville, Kerstin Stakemeier, Diedrich Diederichsen, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, Marina Vishmidt, Johannes Paul Raether, Felicity D. Scott, Silvia Maglioni, Graeme Thomson, Doreen Mende, Pedro Neves Marques, Achille Mbembe, Kodwo Eshun, Haytham El-Wardany, T. J. Demos, Ana Teixeira Pinto. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Remembering Lewis E. HahnGeorge C. H. Sun, President, John Howie, Professor Emeritus, Thomas Alexander, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Kenneth W. Stikkers, Professor and Chair, Randall Auxier, Professor, Robert Hahn, Professor, Joseph Wu, Professor Emeritus, Elizabeth R. Eames, Professor Emeritus, Martin Lu, Professor of Philosophy, George Kimball Plochmann, Professor Emeritus, Matt Sronkoski, Philosophy Graduate and Academic Adviser, Dave Clarke, Professor Emeritus, Eugenie Gatens-Robinson, Professor Emerita, Hans H. Rudnick, (...) Professor Emeritus, Stephen Bickham, Professor EmeritusPresident, and Don Mikula (bio)The following testimonials were offered on the occasion of a memorial gathering for Dr. Lewis E. Hahn held on February 19, 2005, and were compiled for presentation here by Sharon (Hahn) Crowell.A Tribute to Dr. Lewis E. Hahn (1908-2004) from a Global PerspectiveGeorge C. H. Sun President, Thomé H. Fang Institute, Inc., Mobile, AlabamaAmong the philosophical community in both the East and the West, no word of introduction is needed for our beloved Master, who was the recipient of numerous distinctions and honors, with titles that included "Man of the Year in Philosophy" and "Award of Lifetime Achievement." The very name "Lewis E. Hahn" itself already stands now for genuineness, dedication, and fulfillment.A great work is a dialogue with eternity; a great person is such a work. In less than thirty years he succeeded in developing Carbondale from what had been a small college town in the Midwest into the Mecca of American philosophy. His most important achievements were the Dewey Center and the Pepper Archives that he helped install at SIUC These, among other such institutions, will remain a unique contribution, a glory of American philosophy, and a monument in the history of human thought.For posterity Lewis E. Hahn will remain an object of wonder and amazement. How is it possible for one human being to have accomplished so much, so well, and in so short a span of time—less than one century—in breadth, depth, and diversity? Some one hundred years ago, by bridging the gap between the New World and the Old, William James was hailed as the great genius of international friendship among philosophical thinkers, but we now find a greater genius in Lewis E. Hahn, who succeeded in bringing together the peoples of East and West from at least four continents: Europe, Australia, America (both North and Latin America), and Asia. To my knowledge, few of his predecessors and contemporaries have been half so widely read and liberal-minded as he was, in view of the range and scope of the Library of Living Philosophers that he helped continue after the passing of its founder, Dr. Paul A. Schilpp.What type of man was Hahn, our younger generation will wonder? Only a pluralist approach can help us understand the true character of such a legendary pluralist-contextualist. In short, he was "a full personality." As I recall, while working on my dissertation with him in the 1970s, we had a brief discussion on Confucius, the sage of ancient China. "A full personality!" was his laconic assessment. Suddenly I realized, to quote the Analects: "The Master is talking about himself!" For, as the Buddhists put it, only a Buddha can understand a Buddha. Or, as William James put it, only one who has philosophy can appreciate philosophy. Many friends [End Page 1] of my generation admire him so much; Te Chen of Hong Kong calls him "a great Confucian in America." Those who regret the loss of many precious Confucian virtues in China today have now rediscovered them in the person of Lewis E. Hahn! If Nietzsche called Kant "a great Chinese in Königsberg," it is simply because he had not encountered our own Master.A paradigm of academic leadership, Dr. Hahn is simply irreplaceable—this is a tribute I personally heard in Carbondale in the late 1960s. It is not an exaggeration to say that he was a superb administrator, and he could have been the best Secretary of the State we ever had, for he possessed more in the way of philosophical wisdom than all his predecessors put together! As a great teacher, he was no less "serene, good, learned, wise, and ardent" than... (shrink)

Modernism and rationalism; other; philosophical aspects; philosophy, modern; 20th century.

al-Juzʼ al-awwal. al-Taʼsīs al-Qurʼānī al-muʻāṣir li-ʻilm uṣūl al-fiqh al-muqāran, dirāsah istiqrāʼīyah fī al-manjhaj wa-al-athar al-qānūnī -- al-Juzʼ al-thānī. Handasat al-insān al-qānūnī, dirāsah iṭārīyah fī mutatāliyat al-muthul wa-taṭwīʻ al-insān al-muntaẓim -- al-Juzʼ al-thālith. Tiknūlūjyā al-taʻāẓum al-insānī, ruʼyah fikrīyah iṭārīyah fī al-handasah wa-ṣināʻat al-insān al-qānūnī -- al-Juzʼ al-rābiʻ. al-Lā yaqīn al-ẓarfī, dirāsah fī al-masārāt al-falsafīyah al-ʻilmīyah wa-al-qānūnīyah lil-zamakān -- al-Juzʼ al-khāmis. Lughat ṣināʻat al-naṣṣ al-qānūnī, dirāsah fī al-naẓarīyah wa-al-taṭbīq -- al-Juzʼ al-sādis. Ibtikār al-manhaj al-qānūnī bayna al-usus al-ʻilmīyah wa-al-taṣawwurāt al-naẓarīyah wa-al-ʻilmīyah -- al-Juzʼ (...) al-sābiʻ. al-istidlāl al-istiqrāʼī li-qānūn al-mustaqbal fī al-nānū tiknūlūjī -- al-Juzʼ al-thāmin. Naẓarīyāt muʻāṣirah fī ḍawʼ al-manhaj al-Sanhūrī lil-ʻalāqah al-baynīyah lil-qānūn wa-al-sharīʻah -- al-Juzʼ al-tāsiʻ. al-Ḥayāh al-shakhṣīyah wa-al-mawt, naẓarāt qānūnīyah falsafīyah fī al-mafhūm, al-tamyīz, al-miʻyār -- al-Juzʼ al-ʻāshir. Falsafat al-qānūn fī ʻālam al-ḥadāthah wa-mā baʻda al-ḥadāthah. (shrink)

[D. H. Mellor] Kant's claim that our knowledge of time is transcendental in his sense, while false of time itself, is true of tenses, i.e. of the locations of events and other temporal entities in McTaggart's A series. This fact can easily, and I think only, be explained by taking time itself to be real but tenseless. /// [J. R. Lucas] Mellor's argument from Kant fails. The difficulties in his first Antinomy are due to topological confusions, not the tensed nature (...) of time. Nor are McTaggart' s difficulties due to the tensed nature of time. The ego-centricity of tensed discourse is an essential feature of communication between selves, each of whom refers himself as 'I', and is required for talking about time as well as experience and agency. Arguments based on the Special Theory are misconceived. Some rest on a confused notion of 'topological simultaneity'. In the General Theory a cosmic time is defined, as also in quantum mechanics, where a natural present is defined by a unique hyperplane of collapse into eigen-ness. (shrink)

This article is the text of an interview with D. H. Mellor conducted by Andrew Pyle and first published in the Spring 1993 issue of the philosophical journal Cogito.

D. H. Mellor; I *—The Presidential Address: Nothing Like Experience, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 93, Issue 1, 1 June 1993, Pages 1–16, https.

Cela fait maintenant dix ans que Nicola Lacey nous a livré cette saisissante biographie de l’illustre juriste britannique H.L.A. Hart, intitulée A Life of H.L.A. Hart, the Nightmare and the Noble Dream. La tâche n’était pas aisée. D’une part, Hart est sans doute le juriste le plus lu du monde anglo-saxon, et comme certains ont pu le remarquer, il est parfois compliqué d’écrire sur Hart étant donné que tout le monde a débuté ses études de droit avec la lecture du (...) Concept de droit. Pour cette... (shrink)

D. H. Mellor; VI*—Conscious Belief, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 78, Issue 1, 1 June 1978, Pages 87–102, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian.

The paper argues that very different part-whole relations hold between different kinds of entities. While these relations share most of their formal properties, they need not share all of them. Nor need other mereological principles be true of all kinds of part–whole pairs. In particular, it is argued that the principle of unrestricted composition, that any two or more entities have a mereological sum, while true of sets and propositions, is false of things and events.

Originally published in 1936, this book presents the ancient Greek text of the paraphrases and quotations of Zeno's philosophical arguments, together with a facing-page English translation and editorial commentary. Detailed notes are incorporated throughout and a bibliography is also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Zeno and ancient philosophy.

This book deals not so much with statistical methods as with the central concept of chance, or statistical probability, which statistical theories apply to nature.

Logic; Islam and philosophy; Tunisia; early works to 1800.

The paper, analyses the role of measurable concepts in deductive explanation. It is shown that such concepts are, although imprecise in a defined sense, exact in that neutral candidates to them do not arise. An analysis is given of the way in which imprecision is related to generalisation, and it is shown how imprecise concepts are incorporated in testable deductive explanations.

D. H. Mellor; VI*—I and Now, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 89, Issue 1, 1 June 1989, Pages 79–94, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotelian/89.1.79.

Ṣadr al-Dīn Shīrāzī, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm, -1641--Criticism and interpretation. ; Islamic philosophy.

[D. H. Mellor] Kant's claim that our knowledge of time is transcendental in his sense, while false of time itself, is true of tenses, i.e. of the locations of events and other temporal entities in McTaggart's A series. This fact can easily, and I think only, be explained by taking time itself to be real but tenseless. /// [J. R. Lucas] Mellor's argument from Kant fails. The difficulties in his first Antinomy are due to topological confusions, not the tensed nature (...) of time. Nor are McTaggart' s difficulties due to the tensed nature of time. The ego-centricity of tensed discourse is an essential feature of communication between selves, each of whom refers himself as 'I', and is required for talking about time as well as experience and agency. Arguments based on the Special Theory are misconceived. Some rest on a confused notion of 'topological simultaneity'. In the General Theory a cosmic time is defined, as also in quantum mechanics, where a natural present is defined by a unique hyperplane of collapse into eigen-ness. (shrink)

My object in this paper is to consider what relevance, if any, current analyses of probability have to problems of religious belief. There is no doubt that words such as ‘probable’ are used in this context; what is doubtful is that this use can be analysed as other major uses of such words can. I shall conclude that this use cannot be so analysed and hence, given the preponderance of the other uses that can, that it is misleading.

If Bertrand Russell had lived in an earlier century, no one would have hesitated to call him a moral philosopher. In our more finicking age, some academics may want to say that, great as his achievements have been in other branches of philosophy, he is less a moral philosopher than a moralist. That is to say, he has consistently advocated ideals and expressed beliefs which have made him, along with Shaw and Wells, if not quite with Marx and Freud, one (...) of the formative influences on the modern mind; but he has usually addressed these writings to the general public, and, although writing always with great force, clarity and skill, he has not always troubled his readers with the minutiae of philosophical argument. But this point should not be exaggerated. Even in his most popular works, Russell never loses sight of the philosophical problems in his concern for the political or psychological ones, and he certainly has views on meta-morals and meta-politics as well as on morals and politics. Indeed, his attempts to reconcile the two are highly illuminating; for they show one of the clearest minds of our time faced with one of the central problems of our time: how to justify passionately-held moral convictions when all the evidence seems to lead to moral scepticism. (shrink)