Hegel's natural philosophy is an integral part of his objective idealist philosophical system, is his encyclopedic narration of all the achievements in the natural sciences attained up to the early years of the nineteenth century. Only after a long process of distillation did he tie together his philosophy of thought and of natural science to establish his rich and comprehensive natural philosophy. His On the Orbits of the Planets , written to secure his teaching credentials (...) for the University of Jena, marked the opening phase in the process of the formation of his philosophical thought on nature. Hegel's Philosophical Manuscripts written at the University of Jena and his Philosophy Primer compiled at the Gymnasium in Nuremberg represent his important transitional middle period. Part II of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy , from his lectures at the University of Heidelberg, was his already distilled and mature Natural Philosophy. (shrink)

Excerpt from Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts, oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse Unb mit jener eifernen @raft gn (R)tanbe gebraebt toorben bie bor ?i[iem unfern %rennb anbgeicbnete, ibobi aber in ber ?in@fiibrnng, 2[norbnnng nnb in ber gang tonnbérbaren ecbiteftonif, mit ber jebe @eite unb jeber $ranm bebanbeit, in bern %ieif3e, ber jebem qbintet beb (R)ebänbeb angetoanbt ift, in bein einen ebenmiifgigen unb bocb toieber berfcbiebenen (c)tbte, ber bon ber (R)bitg;e bi@ gur (R)rnnbtage ficb bewerten Iäfit, unb ber ba(R) (R)ange (...) jenen sbanten be 9rittetatter@ an bie (R)eite fetgt, bie aneb anf befä;ränften unb engen btätgen erricbtet, trot; bem bnrcb ibre @rbabenbeit bon ber 11rngebnng abgieben, unb naeb ibren (c)bben ben (c)inn 5n ricbten toiffen. I(R)enn toa@ bat ber bentfcbe (R)eift niebt afie@ begriinbet ober 311 begrünben berfncbt? Rnit ber (R)dpanfei unb bein (R)baten ift man bei nné trnnrer bei ber (R)anb, 2riffe 311 Einfügen (R)ebänben werben tbobt aa berfertigt, unb ibre 2in(R)fiibrnng bern C nfet ber niebt mebr baran benit übertaffen, aber fetten finb bie (R)ebanfen, tbeicbe bie 2ibftraftion abfcbtobrenb, aneb (R)eftatten Werben, feitener ber nn; ermnbiicbe (R)eift ber in jebe weitergefcbrittenefläerf bicbtnng feineé (R)tofieö bie %rifcbe be8 qinfangß unb ben bermebrten be6 bnrebianfenen $?reifeß bringt. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Although he had intermittently toiled over his translation of Hegel's Science of Logic for nearly half a century without finding a publisher, Henry Conrad Brokmeyer, the petulant visionary of St. Louis Hegelian fame, concluded it was naive to expect an infant nation to devote itself to philosophical reflection while it was "carving civilization out of wilderness." Brokmeyer's difficulties may have had more to do with his disdain for the grammatical and spelling conventions of the English language than he cared (...) to admit.1 Nonetheless, his observation about the culture of his adopted homeland brings into sharp relief a tension between high intellectual pursuits and more practical concerns. Brokmeyer's juxtaposition of "civilization" and "wilderness" also highlights the... (shrink)

Henry Harris noted that ‘the Baconian applied science of this world is the solid foundation upon which Hegel’s ladder of spiritual experience rests’. Understanding the philosophical character of Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature requires recognizing some basic legitimate philosophical issues embedded in the development of physics from Galileo to Newton (§2). These issues illuminate the character of Hegel’s analysis of philosophical issues regarding nature (§3) and the central aims and purposes of Hegel’s philosophy (...) of nature (§4). Hegel recognized some key weaknesses in Newton’s own mathematical treatment of planetary orbits which were only rectified when Johann Bernoulli recast Newtonian gravitational theory on the basis of mathematical analysis (calculus). So reconstructed, Newtonian physics provides sufficient grounds to ascribe gravitational force to matter (Enz. §§262, 269). Hegel incorporated this important point into his illuminating accounts of causal laws of nature and natural-scientific explanation. These points reveal how Hegel’s Science of Logic and Philosophy of Nature are interdependent works, integrated in part by Hegel’s critical, moderately holistic theory of semantic meaning and reference. Highlighting these features of Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature illuminates Hegel’s emergentist account of structural and functional organization of various kinds of natural phenomena. (shrink)

This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!

This paper focuses on abstraction as a mode of reasoning that facilitates a productive relationship between philosophy and science. Using examples from evolutionary developmental biology, I argue that there are two areas where abstraction can be relevant to science: reasoning explication and problem clarification. The value of abstraction is characterized in terms of methodology (modeling or data gathering) and epistemology (explanatory evaluation or data interpretation).

This chapter of Victor Lowe's Alfred North Whitehead: The Man and His Work, Volume II: 1910-1947 covers the development of Whitehead's philosophy of physics while he was Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Imperial College, London. Under the influence of Einstein's theory of relativity, Whitehead developed a theory of extension that explained the basis of the space-time manifold in terms of an ontology of events. Pan-physics was his term for the unification of the natural sciences as one general (...) science. (shrink)

In the seventeenth century, natural philosophy was seen as an integrated enterprise, embracing what are now seen as separate disciplines, such as philosophy, the natural sciences, mathematics, and theology. Although often portrayed as a now redundant precursor of the natural sciences, natural philosophy was far more than this, enfolding the two quite different notions of learning about and learning from nature. This book argues for the retrieval of the 'disciplinary imaginary' of natural philosophy. (...) The first part of the work explores how this idea emerged in the writings of Aristotle, and achieved its greatest influence in the seventeenth century. It offers a critical conversation with leading representatives of the movement--such as Johann Kepler, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton--to clarify its scope and significance, as well as identifying the factors causing the decline of the movement in the nineteenth century. The second part of the book sets out a comprehensive account of how natural philosophy can be retrieved and reimagined. Drawing on recent discussions of progress in philosophy, it argues that a retrieved natural philosophy can hold together both the objective and subjective aspects of the human engagement with the natural world. Using Mary Midgley's approach to safeguarding the complexity of nature and Karl Popper's model of the 'three worlds' of human knowledge--objective, subjective, and theoretical--the book offers a comprehensive vision of the scope of a revitalized natural philosophy, and the benefits this brings to the human understanding and appreciation of nature"--Publisher's description. (shrink)

This volume contains the papers delivered at the International Schelling Conference in Zürich, 1979, on the occasion of the 125th anniversary of Schelling’s death. The theme of the conference, as enunciated by the editor, was “taking Schelling seriously.” It is Hasler’s view that our age, which has learned by experience that both idealism and materialism are dead-end world-views, has much to learn from the philosopher who early in his career insisted that the human is just as much a natural being (...) as a spiritual one, and who late in his career attempted to make human freedom the determinative power in history, both on a human and on a cosmic scale. Accordingly, the conference was organized around two themes, nature and history, and was divided into three colloquia, the first considering Schelling’s early philosophy of nature, its relation to empirical science, and its philosophical significance. The second colloquium considered the large theme of Schelling’s view of history, and discovered three crucial transitions in his career-long meditation on that theme, a turn from the interpretation of freedom as human reason to a scheme wherein freedom pertains to divine history, the territory of mythology and revelation, a turn from an idealistic approach to history towards a materialistic one, and a general transition from absolute philosophy to a philosophy of finitude. A third colloquium, devoted to Schelling’s political philosophy, confined itself to the period of his collaboration with Hegel in Jena. While Hasler acknowledges the superiority of Hegel’s political philosophy, especially in his concrete grasp of economics, jurisprudence and politics, he notes that both philosophers entered upon the path of philosophy through their respective attempts to criticize religion as an ideological power. I will mention here only those articles which state new views in Schelling scholarship or which would be particularly of interest to students of Hegel. (shrink)

Hegel's Introduction to the Philosophy of History remains one of the most profound and influential books on the philosophy of history. In clear and cogent terms this book: * examines the ideas and arguments of the Introduction to the Philosophy of History * explains key concepts of Hegel's system, a knowledge of which is essential for fully understanding his philosophy of history * assesses the continuing relevance of Hegel to the contemporary debate about (...) the nature of history. (shrink)

Through an exploration of theoretical physics, this paper suggests the need for regrounding natural science in phenomenological philosophy. To begin, the philosophical roots of the prevailing scientific paradigm are traced to the thinking of Plato, Descartes, and Newton. The crisis in modern science is then investigated, tracking developments in physics, science's premier discipline. Einsteinian special relativity is interpreted as a response to the threat of discontinuity implied by the Michelson-Morley experiment, a challenge to classical objectivism that Einstein sought to (...) counteract. We see that Einstein's efforts to banish discontinuity ultimately fall into the “black hole” predicted in his general theory of relativity. The unavoidable discontinuity that haunts Einstein's theory is also central to quantum mechanics. Here too the attempt has been made to manage discontinuity, only to have this strategy thwarted in the end by the intractable problem of quantum gravity. The irrepressible discontinuity manifested in the phenomena of modern physics proves to be linked to a merging of subject and object that flies in the face of Cartesian philosophy. To accommodate these radically non-classical phenomena, a new philosophical foundation is called for: phenomenology. Phenomenological philosophy is elaborated through Merleau-Ponty's concept of depth and is then brought into focus for use in theoretical physics via qualitative work with topology and hypercomplex numbers. In the final part of this paper, a detailed summary is offered of the specific application of topological phenomenology to quantum gravity that was systematically articulated in The Self-Evolving Cosmos (Rosen 2008a). (shrink)

To paraphrase Locke (Essay, 9-10), Leibniz may be counted among the master-builders of modern science, but also among the philosophical under-labourers who helped clear the ground for scientific knowledge. In the area of natural philosophy, he contributed directly to the advancement of science, but his achievements, for instance the invention of the infinitesimal calculus and the foundation of the dynamics, bore the mark of a philosophical mind and were systematically exploited in furthering significant epistemological objectives. The scope of Leibniz's (...) scientific interest and contributions was broad. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Natural Philosophy: On Retrieving a Lost Disciplinary Imaginary by Alister E. McGRATHJack ZupkoMcGRATH, Alister E. Natural Philosophy: On Retrieving a Lost Disciplinary Imaginary. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023. viii + 248 pp. Cloth, $39.95This book attempts to retrieve and reimagine the tradition of natural philosophy as an antidote for what the author sees as the fragmented, instrumentalized, and ethically disengaged understanding of the natural world (...) most of us have today. The idea is not to reinstate the older vision of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, with its final causes and animated spheres, or even the early modern culmination of natural philosophy in Newton’s universe of mathematically fixed natural laws; rather, the author hopes to engender a newer and deeper understanding of nature that is at once scientific, ethical, and poetic, which he explains in terms of the conceptual framework of Popper’s “Three Worlds”: objective, subjective, and theoretical. What is recovered thereby is said to be a “lost conceptual space” wherein human beings learn both about and from nature, modes of knowing rendered obsolete by disciplinary specialization in the sciences as well as our commitment to objective methods that leave no room for ethical or spiritual approaches to understanding the natural world and our place in it.The author covers quite a bit of ground on the historical side, from the ancient Greeks through the Middle Ages, moving on to the idea of natural philosophy as it was gradually transformed during the early modern period by Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, Boyle, and Newton—a picture finally eclipsed by the objective, empirical concept of natural science familiar to us today. Curiously, the book says very little about the Platonic tradition of natural philosophy that grew up around the Timaeus. Because it was available in Latin (or the first half of it, anyway, in a Latin translation by the Roman Neoplatonist Calcidius, who also wrote an influential commentary on the work), the Timaeus was, for almost a millennium, the authoritative text in natural philosophy in the West, at least until Aristotle’s nonlogical and scientific writings were recovered in the twelfth century. The Timaeus was the subject of many commentaries and philosophical discussions, from Calcidius in the fourth century to Bernardus Silvestris, William of Conches, and Alan of Lille in the twelfth. It fell out of favor among philosophers with the rise of Aristotle’s Physics and Aristotelian natural philosophy, though it continued to shape the popular imagination of nature in other genres, such as art and literature—recall, for example, the well-known image of “God the Geometer” (c. 1230), measuring the cosmos with a compass. If the author’s project is about “retrieving” natural philosophy “as a lost disciplinary imaginary” (the book’s subtitle), then surely the Platonic vision of the universe deserves equal billing with the Aristotelian. [End Page 158]That said, there is much to like in the project sketched here. The author’s diagnosis of the epistemic malaise of modern-day science sounds right to anyone familiar with the history of philosophy and natural science. So, even though we can now correctly describe the velocity constant of earth’s gravity as 9.8 m/s2, among other scientific achievements, we take ourselves to be wearing a different hat when we wax poetic at the beauty of the sky and the stars. Early-and pre-modern authors were more adept at bringing together science and poetry, but that might be because their epistemic position was radically different from our own. Calcidius, for example, finds it easy to draw moral and aesthetic conclusions from the motions of the cosmos because he really believed heavenly bodies are, like us, animated by souls. Even a materialist like Lucretius accepts that the gods exist; his (still) very radical thesis is that they don’t care about us. (And why should they? The Pythagorean theorem is much more beautiful and edifying to consider than the troubles of ignorant and weak-willed mortals.) Enlightened moderns that we are, we no longer believe the heavens are populated by super-intelligent beings; yet we continue to marvel at Van Gogh’s Starry Night and feel it is wrong to cause gratuitous... (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is better known as a philosopher but in the pre-critical period he studied in a very deep way many aspects of the natural sciences and that’s why the new volume of the English edition of Kant’s works is devoted to the publications of Kant’s writings on natural science. This massive volume is edited by Erik Watkins and Kant’s writing are translated by Lewis White Back, Jeffrey B. Edwards, Olaf Reinhardt, Martin Schönfeld and Erik Watkins.

This volume is based on papers presented at the XV Internordic Philosophical Symposium in Helsinki in May, 2004. It covers a number of important and timely philosophical issues: naturalism - its strengths, weaknesses, and limits - in metaphysics, epistemology, and the philosophy of science; the relation between philosophical and scientific methodology; the ethics of science and, more generally, the place of science in society; the relation between the natural sciences and the humanities; as well as the ways in (...) which scientific progress may challenge traditional philosophical concepts and problems and, on the other hand, the ways in which philosophical arguments and/or artistic innovations - or philosophical interpretations of them - may challenge some claims made in the name of science. In addition to several Scandinavian authors, a number of leading philosophers from outside the Nordic countries are among the contributors to this volume. This collection of original articles thus contributes to the current lively philosophical debates on the relations between science, philosophy, and society. (shrink)

This paper discusses the concept of information formulated by Michael (Michał) Heller. Heller—a philosopher, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and theologian—provided a complex image of information and its role in nature, which is rarely found in studies of information. Heller posited that the laws of nature may be interpreted as information, or as providing information, presenting this as a complementary view to scientific structuralism (not discussed in this paper). According to Heller, the informational content of a structure in nature (...) is inversely proportional to that structure’s degree of freedom. The more constrained or complex a structure is, and the less likely it is to exist, the more information it contains. In Heller’s view, the concept of information in Shannon’s Theory of Communication (ToC) is inadequate for expressing the notion of information beyond a numerical measure of a signal structure. Information in Heller’s research closely aligns with the concepts of Jacquette’s and Perzanowski’s combinatorial ontology (concepts not discussed in this paper) and the general theory of information (GTI) of Mark Burgin, although Heller did not explicitly make these connections. (shrink)

The thesis of this work may be summarized in the words of its author: "... the Social Sciences, which heretofore have wavered between literature and an impossible positivism after the fashion of the Natural Sciences, could establish their own scientific statute if, aided by special techniques, they began discovering their hypotheses and interpreting their observations in the light of the partial overlapping of objective man and subjective man within the idea of Universal Man possessed by all". Parain makes (...) use of the Cartesian idea of the Universal Man in her efforts to provide a solid foundation for the Human Sciences. In her dissatisfaction with procedures basing the human facts solely on scientific method, she frankly demands a framework that is truly ontological. She is confronted here with the same difficulties experienced by all those trying to define as facts our knowledge of self and our knowledge of other minds. Her solution, as in the above quote, constitutes a compromise between subjectivity and objectivity, between the lived and the reflective, between a postulated universal and an interpretative schema. The author is quite conscious of the special difficulty presented by passions and ideological biases in the definition of human facts. Here her attitude is resignation with the inevitable: an empirical observer will never quite do as a transcendental observer. In spite of this the author maintains and illustrates that we know a great deal more about man than we might suspect.—A. M. (shrink)

It is difficult to imagine that a Royal Institute of Physics would organize an annual lecture series on the theme ‘conceptions of physics’. Similarly, it is quite improbable that a Royal Institute of Astronomy would even contemplate inviting speakers for a lecture series called ‘conceptions of astronomy’. What, then, is so special about philosophy that the theme of this lecture series does not appear to be altogether outlandish? Is it, perhaps, that philosophy is the reflective discipline par excellence, (...) so that the very nature of philosophy is a topic that belongs to its domain of investigations? Or is there something more serious at issue? Let me first tell you how the question concerning the nature of philosophy arose for me as a young student, and how I tried to answer it, quite naively, by endorsing Edmund Husserl's programme of turning philosophy into a rigorous science. In a second section, I shall offer three diagnoses of the fact that all such attempts seem to have failed. Finally, I'd like to say a few words on my own research agenda in philosophy and on a public function of philosophers. (shrink)

Dear Mother Nature: Sorry to disturb you, but we humans – your offspring – come to you with some things to say. (Perhaps you could pass this on to Father, since we never seem to see him around.).

This volume is dedicated to questions about the nature and method of metaphysics in Classical German Philosophy. Its chapters offer original investigations into the metaphysical projects of many of the major figures in German philosophy between Wolff and Hegel. The period of Classical German Philosophy was an extraordinarily rich one in the history of philosophy, especially for metaphysics. It includes some of the highest achievements of early modern rationalism, Kant's critical revolution, and the various (...) significant works of German Idealism that followed in Kant's wake. The contributions to this volume critically examine certain common themes among metaphysical projects across this period, for example, the demand that metaphysics amount to a science, that it be presented in the form of a system, or that it should proceed by means of demonstration from certain key first principles. This volume also includes material on influential criticisms of metaphysical projects of this kind. Metaphysics as a Science in Classical German Philosophy is a useful resource for contemporary metaphysicians and historians of philosophy interested in engaging with the history of the methodology and epistemology of metaphysics. (shrink)

M. Wetzel: Objektiver Idealismus und Prinzip Subjektivität in der Philosophie der Natur - G. F. Frigo: Aristoteles' Einfluß auf Hegels Naturphilosophie - W. Neuser: Das Anderssein der Idee, das Außereinandersein der Natur und der Begriff - H.-H. von Borzesz-kowski / R. Wahsner: Gibt es eine Logik der Physik als Vorstufe zur Hegelschen Begriffslogik - E.-O. Onnasch: System und Methode in der Philosophie Hegels - B. Braßler: Vorzüge einer Theorie der Dialektik - L. Fleischhacker: Mathematik und Natur, Verwandte oder Fremde - (...) P. Stekeler-Weithofer: Mathematisches und begriffliches Denken in Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik - M. J. Petry: Physik und Mathematik um 1790: Hegel und Schelling als Schüler Pfleiderers - P. Ziche: Raumdimensionen und Prinzipienreduktion. Beweise für die Dreidimensionalität des Raumes bei Schelling und Hegel - T. Bach: Leben als Gattungsprozeß: Historisch-systematische An-merkungen von Pflanze und Tier bei Hegel - S. Büttner: Das Manko des Organischen und die Krankheit als dessen Wahrheit - O. Breidbach: Überlegungen zur Typik des Organischen in Hegels Denken - C. Illies: Die Gene, die Meme und Wir - W. Kellerwessel: Reschers idealistische Dialektik - V. Hösle: Wahrheit und Verstehen. Davidson, Gadamer und das Desiderat einer objektiv-idealistsichen Hermeneutik - P. Várdy: Das Lächerliche und das Absolute - A. Rieckers: Photons and Mcroscopic Reality. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

It's well known that we have lost touch with Nature. It is not so much that Nature has retreated, or that we have dismissed it, destroyed it, or denied it.

Though Kant is best known for his strictly philosophical works in the 1780s, many of his early publications in particular were devoted to what we would call 'natural science'. Kant's Universal Natural History and Theory of the Heavens (1755) made a significant advance in cosmology, and he was also instrumental in establishing the newly emerging discipline of physical geography, lecturing on it for almost his entire career. In this volume Eric Watkins brings together new English translations of Kant's first publication, (...) Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces (1746-1749), the entirety of Physical Geography (1802), a series of shorter essays, along with many of Kant's most important publications in natural science. The volume is rich in material for the student and the scholar, with extensive linguistic and explanatory notes, editorial introductions and a glossary of key terms. (shrink)

The scope of this article is feminist philosophical engagement with the natural sciences. As a starting point we can view science as having the objective of “producing general propositions about nature, the physical ‘out there,’ that can be tested empirically where appropriate, and that are rational in character” but we also need to recognize the fluidity of the term “science”; for to term something “scientific” is honorific. It is signaled as something to be trusted and relied on, and (...) there are political as well as intellectual debates concerning what is to be dignified with this title. (shrink)

The tradition of natural kinds has shaped philosophical debates about scientific classification but has come under growing criticism. Responding to this criticism, Reydon and Ereshefsky present their grounded functionality account as a strategy for updating and defending the tradition of natural kinds. This article argues that grounded functionality does indeed provide a fruitful philosophical approach to scientific classification but does not convince as a general theory of natural kinds. Instead, the strengths and limitations of Reydon and Ereshefsky’s account illustrate why (...) it is time to move beyond general definitions of “natural kind” and experiment with new philosophical frameworks. (shrink)

Replying to my four commentators allows me to clarify some distinctive features and merits of Hegel’s natural law constructivism; how Hegel’s insights have been obscured by common, though inadequate philosophical taxonomies; and how Hegel’s natural law constructivism contributes centrally to moral philosophy today, including ethics, justice, philosophy of law and philosophy of education.

_ Source: _Volume 29, Issue 1, pp 86 - 102 The aim of this paper is to give an overview of the place that Hobbes assigns to optics in the context of his classification of sciences and disciplinary boundaries. To do this, I will begin with an account of Hobbes’s conception of philosophy or science, and particularly his distinction between true and hypothetical knowledge. I will also show that in his demarcation between mathematics or geometry and natural (...) class='Hi'>philosophy Hobbes was influenced by Galileo’s _Dialogue_. I then analyse the consequences of this distinction for optics, and conclude by clarifying its status among the scientific disciplines. (shrink)

Anaxagoras brought to Athens the hope that becoming, despite the tradition of the Eleatic school, might still be intelligible, not only because he sees it as the effect of an order crafted by a divine mind, but also because he opposes the Parmenidean claim that there is no point in trying to know the ϕύσις (i.e. essence) of things that need to grow (ϕύεσθαι). Anaxagoras finds in the growth (ϕύεσθαι) of vegetais a principle of identity that makes becoming intelligible. Using (...) parts of animals to which ancient Greek also applies the same verb (we grow flesh, nails and hair), Anaxagoras extends the consistency of vegetal becoming to all beings, all of them now coming from seeds. The essence (ϕύσις) of things, can now be explained through its origins -that from which it grows (ϕύεσθαι). The new philosophical fifth century meaning of ϕύσις, as origin, could have stemmed from such a new impulse to inquire about the seeds of all things. (shrink)

Selections from "Phenomenology of mind", "Science of logic", and "Philosophy of history", serving as an introduction to the ideas of the 18th century German philosopher.

One of the main issues in philosophy is the refl ection on sciences. In order to conciliate the unity and plurality of sciences, this paper sets out a new strategy for theory reduction by means of functional sub-concepts. This strategy is intended to get around the multiple realization objection that leads to a dilemma for the scientifi c quality of the special sciences. Taking Kim’s argument for token identity as starting point, I shall show a strategy (...) to establish a systematic link between concepts of the special sciences with physical concepts. By this means, a conservative theory reduction is in principle possible despite multiple realization. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy is sometimes said to have particularly close connections to logic and to science, and no particularly interesting or close relation to its own history. It is argued here that although the connections to logic and science have been important in the development of analytic philosophy, these connections do not come close to characterizing the nature of analytic philosophy, either as a body of doctrines or as a philosophical method. We will do better to understand (...) analytic philosophy—and its relationship to continental philosophy—if we see it as a historically constructed collection of texts, which define its key problems and concerns. It is true, however, that analytic philosophy has paid little attention to the history of the subject. This is both its strength—since it allows for a distinctive kind of creativity—and its weakness—since ignoring history can encourage a philosophical variety of “normal science.”. (shrink)

In this paper, I take inspiration from some themes in Ann Murphy’s recent book, Violence and the Philosophical Imaginary, especially her argument that philosophy’s identity and relation to itself depends on an intimate relationship with that which is designated as not itself, the latter of which is a potential source of shame that calls for some form of response. I argue that this shame is particularly acute in regard to the natural sciences, which have gone on in various (...) ways to distance themselves from their progenitor discipline and to achieve both agreement and technical progress in a way that could never be said of philosophy. I trace out some of the reactions to this shame that have dominated in the twentieth century and been a factor in the so-called analytic-continental ‘divide’. The options here are many and varied, but they range from cannibalism, scientific naturalism, or some kind of irenic separatism about methods or domains such that science and philosophy do not encroach upon the territory of each other. My aims here are mainly diagnostic, but I will indicate where I think that certain responses to this shame are unproductive and unhelpful, with divergent weaknesses associated with the traditions that have come to be labelled ‘analytic’ and ‘continental’ respectively. My tacit suggestion, then, is that philosophy needs to become post-analytic and meta-continental, but I will also briefly criticize some recent efforts to do precisely this in what is sometimes called the ‘scientific turn’ in contemporary continental philosophy. (shrink)