Platonism has played a central role in Christianity and is essential to a deep understanding of the Christian theological tradition. At times, Platonism has constituted an essential philosophical and theological resource, furnishing Christianity with an intellectual framework that has played a key role in its early development, and in subsequent periods of renewal. Alternatively, it has been considered a compromising influence, conflicting with the faith's revelatory foundations and distorting its inherent message. In both cases the fundamental importance of Platonism, as (...) a force which Christianity defined itself by and against, is clear. Written by an international team of scholars, this landmark volume examines the history of Christian Platonism from antiquity to the present day, covers key concepts, and engages issues such as the environment, natural science and materialism. (shrink)

An element of the contemporary dispute amongst evolution minded psychologists and social scientists hinges on the conception of mind as being adapted as opposed to adaptive. This dispute is not trivial. The possibility that human minds are both adapted and adaptive courtesy of selection pressures that were social in nature is of particular interest to a putative evolutionary social psychology. I suggest that the notion of an evolved psychological adaptation in social psychology can be retained only if it is accepted (...) that this adaptation is for social interaction and has no rigidly fixed function and cannot be described in terms of algorithmic decision rules or fixed inferential procedures. What is held to be the reason for encephalisation in the Homo lineage and some of best atested ideas in social psychology offers license for such an approach. (shrink)

Jacobi held a position of unparalleled importance in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century intellectual history. This includes his role in bringing about the close of the Enlightenment, his central part in shaping the reception of Kant's philosophy and German idealism, and his influence on the development of Romanticism and existentialism.

Early German Romanticism sought to respond to a comprehensive sense of spiritual crisis that characterised the late eighteenth century. The study demonstrates how the Romantics sought to bring together the new post-Kantian idealist philosophy with the inheritance of the realist Platonic-Christian tradition. With idealism they continued to champion the individual, while from Platonism they took the notion that all reality, including the self, participated in absolute being. This insight was expressed, not in the language of theology or philosophy, but through (...) aesthetics, which recognised the potentiality of all creation, including artistic creation, to disclose the divine. In explicating the religious vision of Romanticism, this study offers a new historical appreciation of the movement, and furthermore demonstrates its importance for our understanding of religion today. (shrink)

Largely neglected today, the work of Karl Philipp Moritz was a highly influential source for Early German Romanticism. Moritz considered the form of myth as essential to the absolute nature of the divine subject. This defence was based upon his aesthetic theory, which held that beautiful art was “disinterested”, or complete in itself. For Moritz, Myth, like art, constitutes a totality providing an idiom free from restriction in the imitation of the divine. This examination offers a consideration of Moritz’s aesthetics (...) and mythography, before turning briefly to consider his influence on the authors of Early German Romanticism. An understanding of the role of Moritz’s thought supports a number of recent claims that challenge the conventional reading of Romanticism. At the same time it allows us to see Romanticism’s unconventional realist theological programme, permitting us to overcome the problematic secularising readings of the movement. I would like to thank Kurt Mueller-Vollmer, as well as Fredrick Beiser and Lars Fischer for their help with this project. (shrink)

This is the first volume to offer a systematic consideration and comprehensive overview of Christianity’s long engagement with the Platonic philosophical tradition. The book offers a detailed consideration of the most fertile sources and concepts in Christian Platonism, a historical contextualization of its development, and a series of constructive engagements with central questions. Bringing together a range of leading scholars, the volume guides readers through each of these dimensions, uniquely investigating and explicating one of the most important, controversial, and often (...) misunderstood elements of Christian intellectual history. (shrink)

Novalis was a central figure in early German Romantic philosophy. Whilst the importance of both Fichte and Spinoza for the development of Romanticism is well established, the vital influence of the Platonic tradition in allowing the Romantics to synthesise these divergent philosophies merits closer attention. Essential to the development of Novalis’ thought was his exposure to Plotinus. This examination first sets out the religious and philosophical problems in Germany at the close of the eighteenth century and situates Novalis in relation (...) to this intellectual environment. Following this, a brief survey of Plotinus-scholarship at the close of the eighteenth century in Germany frames how Novalis came into contact with Plotinus through Dieterich Tiedemann. The examination proceeds to consider how Tiedemann shaped Novalis reception of Plotinus and allowed him to develop a synthesis of Spinoza and Fichte. Finally, it briefly examines the poetic realisation of this synthesis through Novalis’ late poetic work. (shrink)

This examination considers the influence of the seventeenth century Cambridge Platonist Cudworth upon the thought of the late eighteenth century German thinker Herder. It focuses upon Herder's use of Cudworth's philosophy to create a revised version of Spinoza's metaphysics. Both Cudworth and Herder were concerned with the problem of determinism. Cudworth outlined a number of difficulties relating to this problem in the thought of Spinoza and proposed amendments, particularly the introduction of the middle principle of plastik, which would mediate between (...) the Ideas of transcendent reason and mechanical materialism. We find these amendments to Spinoza's philosophy also employed in Herder's contribution to the Pantheism Controversy, in which he too offers a revised Spinozism and introduces his own middle principle of Kraft. This demonstrates an important but under-explored English contribution to a key development in German intellectual history. The Pantheism Controversy was an epoch-making event, helping to bring an end to the German Enlightenment and to inaugurate the Romantic movement. Herder's version of Spinoza's thought revived the philosopher's fortunes, and Herder's notion of Kraft became central to Romantic aesthetics. Finally, Herder's use of Cudworth demonstrates the important but overlooked source of Platonic realism in German Romantic thought. (shrink)

The concept of instinct espoused in psychology in the early 20th century and the contemporary concept of psychological adaptation invite comparison. Definitions of both employ the notions of inheritance, selection, functional specificity, and species typicality. This article examines how psychologists before the rise of behaviourism sought to establish instinct as a psychological phenomenon. One of the consequences of doing so was a decoupling of psychological and physiological forms of instinct. This led to a failure of constraint in the usage of (...) the term instinct and the abandonment of the project to establish it as foundational. I argue that the notion of psychological adaptations at the heart of contemporary evolutionary psychology as espoused by John Tooby and Leda Cosmides invites similar difficulties and may come to share a similar fate. (shrink)

Christianity has understood the environment as a gift to nurture and steward, a book of divine revelation disclosing the divine mind, a wild garden in need of cultivation and betterment, and as a resource for the creation of a new Eden. This Cambridge Companion details how Christianity, one of the world's most important religions, has shaped one of the existential issues of our age, the environment. Engaging with contemporary issues, including gender, traditional knowledge, and enchantment, it brings together the work (...) of international scholars on the subject of Christianity and the Environment from a diversity of fields. Together, their work offers a comprehensive guide to the complex relationship between Christianity and the environment that moves beyond disciplinary boundaries. To do this, the volume explains the key concepts concerning Christianity and the environment, outlines the historical development of this relationship from antiquity to the present, and explores important contemporary issues. (shrink)

Irenaeus, Coleridge and Gadamer all wrote about religion in distinct historical periods, however the work that each produced reflects the anthropological condition of the middle position. Furthermore, each thinker provides an opportunity for self-reflection about the motivations of faith without requiring the individual to abandon their religious belief in order to do so. In this manner they present a productive alternative to the required external views of the social sciences. The individual's position in mid-creation, his moral freedom and his historical (...) contingence all require the acceptance, commitment and trust of faith. Gnosticism, Empiricist thought and the desire to overcome historical contingency all reveal intellectual impatience in riposte to this condition. This intellectual impatience seeks the absolute without the need for faith. For Irenaeus, Coleridge and Gadamer such absolute, logocentric, complete systems end up alienating man from the reality of the incomplete condition that permeates his existence and the faith-requiring mythos that ultimate realities necessitate in order to be communicated. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXI, Number 1, April 1995, pp. 57-74 Does Hume Have an Instrumental Conception of Practical Reason? JEAN HAMPTON Many philosophers and social scientists regard the instrumental theory of practical reason as highly plausible, and standardly credit David Hume as the first philosopher to formulate this conception of reason clearly. Yet I will argue in this paper that Hume does not advocate the instrumental conception of (...) practical reason as that conception is normally understood by contemporary theorists who endorse it. Although it is often thought that Hume's position on reason is the "common-sense" one, I will argue that in a very fundamental way, his view of reason defies common-sense. The Instrumental Conception of Reason Consider the following definition of an instrumental theory of reason, understood normatively: 1) An action is rational to the extent that an agent believes (reasonably)1 that it furthers the attainment of an end; and 2) Human reasoning involves the determination of means to achieve ends, in a way described by the theory (I will say, henceforth, that using reason to determine the extent to which an action is a means to an end is an instrumental use of reason); and 3) These ends are in no way fixed by reason operating non-instrumentally; i.e., what makes them our ends is something other than reason. Jean Hampton is at the Department of Philosophy, University of Arizona, Tuscon, AZ 85721 USA. 58 Jean Hampton In this article I will consider as instrumental all and only theories that accept these three theses.2 Thesis 3 is normally understood as the hallmark of the instrumental theory. Hume's famous remark "Reason is...the slave of the passions" (T 415) is a clear endorsement of this thesis. In contrast, theories of reason that do not count as instrumental maintain that reason not only pursues means to ends, but also defines ends of action, thereby denying thesis 3. On this sort of view, it is reason that is, at least sometimes, the master. For example, Kant portrays reason as concerned both with the efficiency and the morality of an action, and as that faculty which determines whether any proposed course of action is acceptable. So for Kant, reason "constructs" the ends of action insofar as it picks out from among the goals proposed by our desires those which are appropriate for us to pursue: it is the final determiner of what our ends of action ought to be. Moreover, after approving these ends, Kant says that reason provides a motivation to achieve them in virtue of the fact that it has approved them, a motivation which, if it directs a moral action, is always sufficient to determine that action, if the agent chooses to let it.3 So on Kant's view, practical reason is a master that issues directives, provides the impetus for obeying them, and calculates how best to do so. There are two reasons why philosophers have been troubled by the Kantian type of view. First, it is a conception of reason that seems unacceptable from the standpoint of science. What special "sight" or access to normative reality can we realistically ascribe to human reason, such that it can tell us our ends in life? And how does a scientific world view permit us to believe that there are unmotivated ends which we are rationally compelled to pursue? Science, after all, does not recognize such objects or properties with inherent prescriptive power. J. L. Mackie calls such objects and properties "queer"—indeed, too queer, given the strictures of science, for us to believe they obtain.4 Moreover, no scientific description of human beings has identified a rational capacity within us that can determine these objects, respond to their inherent prescriptivity, and motivate action in compliance with their requirements. The other problem facing any non-instrumental account of reason concerns motivation. Most theorists believe that whereas the question "Why be moral?" is deeply troubling, the question "Why be rational?" does not seem to be. Yet if reason is developed along Kantian lines, it becomes so expansive, and its directives so wide-ranging and divergent from interests the individual is readily able to... (shrink)

Review of Fodor: Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong -/- The cover of Fodor’s book proudly claims that this is his most irritating book in years, guaranteed to exasperate all those who read it. The book lives up to this promise. Although leavened by moments of wit and humour, Fodor misses no opportunity for the one-liner put-down, be it about lexical semantics, empiricism, cognitive neuropsychology or the psychology of cognitive development. He even writes a whole chapter on Prototypes without referring (...) to Rosch except in a footnote, where her name is consistently mis-spelled for good measure. Those looking to see how his ideas relate to current work in psychology and linguistics on lexical concepts will be disappointed. (shrink)

On 18–19 May 2018, a symposium was held in the Research Institute of Irish and Scottish Studies at the University of Aberdeen to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of Ronald W. Hepburn (1927–2008). The speakers at this event discussed Hepburn’s oeuvre from several perspectives. For this book, the collection of the revised versions of their talks has been supplemented by the papers of other scholars who were unable to attend the symposium itself. Thus this volume contains contributions from (...) eighteen notable scholars of different disciplines, ranging from contemporary aesthetics and art theory through to philosophical approaches to religion, education and social anthropology. It also includes a bibliography of Hepburn’s writings. The essays were first published in two special issues of the Journal of Scottish Thought, vols. 10–11 (2018–2019). -/- Ronald William Hepburn was born in Aberdeen on 16 March 1927. He went to Aberdeen Grammar School, then he graduated with an M.A. in Philosophy (1951) and obtained his doctorate from the University of Aberdeen (1955). His tutor at Aberdeen was Donald MacKinnon (1913– 1994), a Scottish philosopher and theologian, the author of A Study in Ethical Theory (1957) and The Problem of Metaphysics (1974). Hepburn taught as Lecturer at the Department of Moral Philosophy at Aberdeen (1956–60), and he was also Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy at New York University (1959–60). He returned from the United States as Professor of Philosophy at Nottingham University. In 1964, he was appointed as a Chair in Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and between 1965 and 1968 he was also Stanton Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion at the University of Cambridge. From 1975 until his retirement in 1996, he held the Professorship of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh. He died in Edinburgh on 23 December 2008. His philosophical interests ranged from theology and the philosophy of religion through moral philosophy and the philosophy of education to art theory and aesthetics. Notably, Hepburn is widely regarded as the founder of modern environmental and everyday aesthetics as a result of the influence of papers in the 1960s which pioneered a new approach to the aesthetics of the natural world. (shrink)

In her later writings Jean Hampton develops an expressive theory of punishment she takes to be retributivist. Unlike Feinberg, Hampton claims wrongdoings as well as punishments are expressive. Wrongdoings assert that the victim is less valuable than victimizer. On her view we are obligated to punish because we are obligated to respond to this false assertion. Punishment expresses the moral truth that victim and wrongdoer are equally valuable. We argue that Hampton's argument would work only if she (...) held that exerting power over another provides evidence (albeit defeasible) of one's greater value. This is clearly a premise that neither she nor her readers are likely to accept. (shrink)

This chapter defends the project of global media ethics against the skeptics. The overall question for this chapter can be stated as follows: Is the creation of global media ethics as a whole a realistic and desirable goal? The chapter proceeds by exploring, and responding to, the major criticisms of the project and its idea of moral globalism. It then presents a realistic conception of what can be achieved by global media ethics. The chapter concludes that it is both rational (...) and practically worthwhile to support the project of global media ethics. (shrink)

The paper discusses the critical importance of interdependence and team development for the devel opment of human values, humane organizations, and sustainable earth management. The paper accords priority to the cultivation and nurturance of this spirit over TQM, reengineering, strategic management and the like. While not denying the practical need for hierarchy, specialization and discipline, the paper argues that it is the one-sided emphasis on such features which has aggravated fragmentation in organizations, militating against interdependent teamwork.

This commentary explores biological models of analogical and associative learning in support of Illusion 1 and Illusion 4 in D. Noble’s target article. The intent is to support Noble’s theses of emergent higher level functionality from lower level stochastic dynamics and his etiological claim that “there is no privileged level of causation” through a biosemiotic lens. Upon these arguments, a case for creative agency via higher-dimensional constraints will also be made in support of Noble’s claim that organismic behavior is actively (...) directed by an agent. (shrink)

Filosofische ponering van de subjectiviteit van elke interpretatie.