For some years there has been a controversy about whether brain state variables such as EEG or neuronal spike trains exhibit chaotic behaviour. Wright & Liley claim that the local dynamics measured by spike trains or local field potentials exhibit chaotic behaviour, but global measures like EEG should be governed by linear dynamics. We propose a different scheme. Based on simulation studies and various experiments, we suggest that the pointwise dimension of EEG time series may provide some valuable information about (...) underlying neuronal generators. (shrink)

Müller's target article aims to summarize approaches to the question of how language elements (phonemes, morphemes, etc.) and rules are laid down in the brain. However, it suffers from being too vague about basic assumptions and empirical predictions of neurobiological models, and the empirical evidence available to test the models is not appropriately evaluated. (1) In a neuroscientific model of language, different cortical localizations of words can only be based on biological principles. These need to be made explicit. (2) Evidence (...) for and against word class differences could be evaluated more rigorously. (3) All (and only) humans are able to learn languages with complex syntactic structures; it is, therefore, not appropriate to deny innateness and universality of syntactic principles. The real question appears to be the following: Which neurobiological principles are the linguistic principles based on? (shrink)

Amit defines cell assemblies aslocal cortical neuron populationswith strong internal connections. However, Hebb himself proposed that cell assemblies are distributed over different cortical areas (nonlocal ortranscortical assemblies). We review evidence from cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology supporting the assumption that cell assemblies are transcortical.

Are fictional characters such as Sherlock Holmes real? What can fiction tell us about the nature of truth and reality? In this excellent introduction to the problem of fictionalism R. M. Sainsbury covers the following key topics: what is fiction? realism about fictional objects, including the arguments that fictional objects are real but non-existent; real but non-factual; real but non-concrete the relationship between fictional characters and non-actual worlds fictional entities as abstract artefacts fiction and intentionality and the problem of irrealism (...) fictionalism about possible worlds moral fictionalism. R. M. Sainsbury makes extensive use of examples from fiction, such as Sherlock Holmes, Anna Karenina and Madame Bovary and examines the work of philosophers who have made significant contributions to the topic, including Meinong, David Lewis, and Bas Van Fraassen. Additional features include chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary of technical terms, making _Fiction and Fictionalism_ ideal for those coming to the issue for the first time. (shrink)

This study investigated the performance of boys with psychopathic tendencies and comparison boys, aged 9 to 17 years, on two tasks believed to be sensitive to amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex func- tioning. Fifty-one boys were divided into two groups according to the Psychopathy Screening Device (PSD, P. J. Frick & R. D. Hare, in press) and presented with two tasks. The tasks were the gambling task (A. Bechara, A. R. Damasio, H. Damasio, & S. W. Anderson, 1994) and the Intradimensional/ (...) Extradimensional (ID/ED) shift task (R. Dias, T. W. Robbins, & A. C. Roberts, 1996). The boys with psychopathic tendencies showed impaired performance on the gambling task. However, there were no group differences on the ID/ED task either for response reversal or extradimensional set shifting. The implications of these results for models of psychopathy are discussed. (shrink)

Implicit processes almost certainly preceded explicit processes in our evolutionary history, so they are likely to be more resistant to disruption according to the principles of evolutionary biology [Reber, A. S. . The cognitive unconscious: An evolutionary perspective. Consciousness and Cognition, 1, 93–133.]. Previous work . Knowledge, nerves and know-how: The role of explicit versus implicit knowledge in the breakdown of a complex motor skill under pressure. British Journal of Psychology, 83, 343–358.]) has shown that implicitly learned motor skills remain (...) stable under psychological pressure and concurrent cognitive demands, and recently [Poolton, J. M., Masters, R. S. W., & Maxwell, J. P. . Passing thoughts on the evolutionary stability of implicit motor behaviour: Performance retention under physiological fatigue. Consciousness and Cognition, 16, 456–468.] showed that they also remain stable under conditions of anaerobic fatigue that would have significantly challenged the survival skills of our ancestors. Here we examine the stability of an implicitly learned motor skill under fatigue conditions that primarily tax a different physiological system , but which have equally strong evolutionary connotations. Participants acquired a throwing task by means of an errorless learning method or an errorful method. Motor performance in the errorless condition, but not the errorful condition, remained stable following an exhaustive VO2 max. running test. Our findings replicate and extend the work of Poolton et al., providing further support for Reber’s evolutionary distinction between implicit and explicit processes. (shrink)

Denne artikkelen tar utgangspunkt i et skille mellom samfunnsstrukturer som avgrenser legers skjønnsmessige utfoldelse på den ene siden, og profesjonens tilrettelegging for kultiveringen av erkjennelsesmessige ferdigheter på den annen. Ved å videreføre H. Grimen og A. Molanders anvendelse av S.E. Toulmins modell for praktisk resonnering i en klinisk kontekst redegjør jeg for legeskjønnets multidimensjonale, epistemiske struktur. Gjennomgangen viser hvordan skjønnsanvendelse i legerollen kan analyseres i henhold til en fagteknisk, en distributiv og en relasjonell dimensjon. Mot denne bakgrunnen diskuterer jeg så (...) spenninger som oppstår i skjæringspunktet mellom strukturering og kultivering av skjønnets ulike dimensjoner. Diskusjonen tydeliggjør at den medisinske profesjonen ikke kan betraktes som en selvtilstrekkelig premissleverandør når det gjelder å sikre adekvat kultivering av medlemmenes skjønnsutøvelse i en klinisk kontekst. Ved å synliggjøre og vektlegge de relevante profesjonseksterne bidragene i profesjonens pågående selvregulering kan befolkningens berettigete tillit til profesjonen styrkes ytterligere.Nøkkelord: strukturelt skjønn, epistemisk skjønn, profesjon, selvregulering, tillitEnglish summary: In Between Structures of Society and Profession: On Delimitation, Cultivation and Premises for Adequately Exercising Judgment in the Role as PhysicianThe point of departure of this article is a distinction between societal structures that delimit the discretion of the physician on the one hand and the profession's arrangements for the cultivation of the physician's judgment on the other. By developing H. Grimen and A. Molander's application of S.E. Toulmin's model for practical reasoning in a clinical context, the multi-dimensional epistemic structure of the physician's judgment in terms of technical, distributive, and relational judgment is accounted for. Against this backdrop, tensions emerging in the intersection between delimitation and cultivation of professional judgment in its various dimensions are discussed. The discussion clarifies that the medical profession is not a self-sufficient provider when it comes to ensuring an adequate cultivation of its members' judgment in a clinical context. It is argued that by emphasising and implementing the relevant external contributions to the profession's ongoing self-regulation, the public's justified trust in the medical profession can be strengthened. (shrink)

By the absolute Good, I understand the Idea of the Good; by the human goods, I understand pleasure and reason, which have been disqualified in Plato's "Republic" as candidates for the absolute Good (cf.R.505b-d). Concerning the Idea of the Good, we can distinguish a maximal and a minimal interpretation. After the minimal interpretation, the Idea of the Good is the absolute Good because there is no final cause beyond the Idea of the Good. After the maximal interpretation, the Idea of (...) the Good is the One. The maximal and the minimal interpretation go beyond the textual evidence. I will defend two theses: (1) Since the platonic Socrates deliberately gives no more information, it seems wise to stop with Socrates and to give only a formal, not a substantive, interpretation: The absolute good is the third item between and above knowledge and the known. (2) To mediate between the absolute Good and the human goods, Plato’s Eleatic Stranger introduced in the "Politicus" and "Philebus" an intermediate principle: "the appropriate" (to metrion). For more information concerning "the appropriate" cf. Ferber, Rafael (2010). Plato's Side Suns: Beauty, Symmetry and Truth. Comments concerning semantic monism and pluralism of the "Good" in the Philebus (65A 1-5). Elenchos, 31, p. 51-76, esp. 64-67. (shrink)

Bu makale, Sözde-Aristoteles’in Risâletü’t-Tüffâha veya Kitâbü’t-Tüffâha’sını (Lat. Liber de Pomo) tarihçesi, muh- temel yazarı ve yazmaları itibarıyla incelemekte, içeriği hakkında genel bir bakış sunmakta ve daha önce tahkikli neşri yapılmamış olan Arapça tam versiyonunun tahkikli neşrini içermektedir. Tahkikte, risalenin orijinal Arapça versiyonuna en yakın yazma nüshası esas alınmış ve ikinci bir tam nüsha ile karşılaştırma yapılmıştır. Makalede Risâletü’t-Tüffâha’nın ilk olarak Kindî-çevresinde Arapça telif edildiği, ardından Bâtınî-İsmâilî ve Hermetik gelenek- lerde alımlandığı ve hikemiyât literatüründe ve tabakat eserlerinde dolaşıma girdiği öne sürülmektedir. (...) Bununla birlikte, bilimsellik vurguları ve risalenin sözde bir eser olduğuna dair farkındalıkları sebebiyle Meşşâî filozoflara göre Risâletü’t-Tüffâha makbul bir risale değildir. Ayrıca, İbrânî-Latin geleneğinin risaleye ilgisi felsefenin Yahudi ve Hıristiyan toplumlarında kabul görmesini kolaylaştıracak şekilde Aristoteles’in tüm eserlerini alımlamaya yönelik geniş çaplı gayretlerinin bir parçası olduğu için dikkate değerdir. Sonuç olarak, Sözde-Aristoteles’in Risâletü’t-Tüf- fâha’sı felsefeyle dinin uzlaştırılmasını kolaylaştıran dinî-felsefî bir eser olup İslâm, Yahudi ve Hıristiyan çevrelerde özellikle bu nedenden dolayı dolaşıma girmiştir. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:CHRISTOLOGY IN POLITICAL AND LIBERATION THEOLOGY R. R. RENO Creighton University Omaha, Nebraska Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems ; and he has a name inscribed which no one knows but himself. (...) He is clad in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God. And armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, followed him on white horses. From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, King of kings and Lord of lords. Revelation 19:11-16 SHARP IS THE SWORD of The Word of God: so proclaims a growing body of literature in political and liberation theology. Although this literature evidences a deep pluralism when describing wherein the sword is sharp and toward what it is aimed, the unifying claim is that Christianity has decisive political significance. And this significance takes an explicitly theoretical form. Unlike other politically directed theological programs (e.g., Reinhold Niebuhr, Walter Rauschenbush, Paul Lehmann), political and liberation theologies do not restrict the practical to a pre- or post-theoretical moment. The practical questions of liberation and justice are internal to explicitly theological reflection. The manner in which questions of liberation and justice are 291 292 R. R. RENO woven into the fabric of theology is manifold. Juan Luis Segundo, in Liberation of Theology, presents an account of theological method which is necessarily political.1 He attempts to show that, to the degree that it is faithful, theological reflection must be constituted by ideological critique and transformative social commitment. In a similar although more ambiguous way, Matthew Lamb's Solidarity with Victims seeks to build social and political issues into the ground floor of method.2 On a different front, Jiirgen Moltmann's Theology of Hope emphasizes the necessarily political dimension of eschatology.3 Quite far removed from the radicalism of most political and liberation theologies, but equally important and increasingly self-conscious of its theological context, the Roman Catholic human rights tradition can be seen as a political theology which chooses to operate within the context of a strong doctrine of creation.4 1 Juan Luis Segundo, Liberation of Theology. (Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1976). 2 Lamb's program is more than a methodological proposal for theology in itself. He promotes an interesting mixture of critical theory and interdisciplinary study as a path for all inquiry. The result is a pastiche of Adorno and Lonergan. Lamb explains his interdiscipinary vision as follows : " Such a noetic praxis of theologizing would develop academically institutionalized ways of promoting an intellectual conversion (metanoia) whereby the suffering witness of the victims of history would challenge the systems and theories constitutive of our world experience " (Victims, p. 17). However, the critical element of this interdisciplinary "noetic praxis" which Lamb draws from Adorno's Negative Dialectics militates against this " institutionalized" use. At the deepest level Adorno questions the very possibility of a noetic practice which mediates the reality of experience, and he certainly rejects any institutional reification of the small insights which we might garner. For Adorno, critical thought cannot mediate the actual suffering of concrete individuals ; rather, its ultimate impotence in the face of such a reality mirrors the suffering of finite beings. Thought bears witness formally not materially. This basic feature of Adorno's thought runs counter to Lonergan's cognitive optimism, making Lamb's program interesting but implausible. Matthew Lamb, Solidarity with Victims (New York: Crossroad, 1982). SJiirgen Moltmann, Theology of Hope. (New York: Harper & Row, 1967). 4 David Hollenbach's Claims in Confiict (New York: Paulist Press, 1979) provides an example of a recent attempt to uncover the theological foundations for a theory of rights. Showing that the language of rights flows from a basic respect... (shrink)

Bu yazıda, Ürdün/Yermük Üniversitesi Fizik Bölümü öğretim üyesi Prof. Dr. M. Bâsil et-Tâî 'nin " God, Nature and the Cause: Essays in Islam and Science" isimli eseri tanıtılmıştır. Eser, Kalam Research&Media tarafından 2016 yılında ABD'de yayınlanmış olup, 224 sayfadır.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXI, Number 2, November 1995, pp. 275-287 Virtue, Commerce, and Self-Love R. G. FREY Can economic activity be virtuous? Can the pursuit of commerce and profits be moral? Both Hume and Adam Smith are agreed that Britain will live or die as a trading nation, and trade requires the harvesting or production of goods with which to trade. This in turn requires that people be motivated (...) to harvest or to produce these goods, and neither Hume nor Smith give any evidence of believing that people are motivated by a general love of mankind, an extensive sympathy, or a broadly-encompassing benevolence to produce them. Indeed, quite the opposite appears to be the case: both writers think the pursuit of luxury, wealth, and the general riches of life have much more to do with the harvesting and production of goods for trade than does any widespread, general concern for the well-being of others. And this fact leads straightforwardly to the question I want to consider, namely, whether this kind of what I shall call economic motivation is compatible with moral motivation.1 In Smith, our question can be seen as leading to what is sometimes called the "Adam Smith problem" (which on another occasion I should want to argue is a pseudo-problem). The Theory of Moral Sentiments gives an account of moral motivation in which sympathy and/or benevolence plays an integral role, whereas in The Wealth of Nations self-love is very much to the fore. No remark in Smith is better-known than his statement of this latter position: R. G. Frey is at the Department of Philosophy, Bowling Green State University, 305 Shatzel Hall, Bowling Green OH 43403-0222 USA. e-mail: rfrey@andy.bgsu.edu 276 R. G. Frey It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.2 Now it has sometimes been suggested that the way to solve this problem is to keep economics and ethics separate, to try to confine economic activity to a domain about which, in essence, we do not ask ethical questions. But to most of us this clearly will not do; the whole point is that we do want to ask ethical questions about economic activity. That is, in pursuing their trades, it must be possible for the butcher, brewer, and baker to be acting morally; otherwise, commerce and virtue will be incompatible, and in enjoining us to take up and to pursue the former vigorously Hume and Smith would be advocating immorality. Again, neither writer gives any evidence of taking himself to be advocating any such thing. It must be possible, then, for motivation by selflove to be moral, if a vibrant, prosperous nation is to result from and to propagate further commerce and trade. If the cost of morality is penury and a life of dreadful unhappiness, then while such a life may recommend itself to one consumed with the monkish virtues, it is far from clear that it would recommend itself to the rest of us. I am interested here in Hume and in one possible way of construing his remarks on self-love in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals.3 But first a few words on Mandeville are necessary, since it is he who sets the terms of the debate over the compatibility of moral and economic motivation. In The Fable of the Bees,4 Mandeville praises vice (or the pursuit of selfinterest ) in the cause of national prosperity and castigates virtue as threatening to undermine prosperity. Employing an egoistic account of man's passions and motivation, he argues that individual pursuit of self-interest or vice produces public benefits. Pride, avarice, and the pursuit of enjoyment, luxury, and the fine things of life create economic activity, jobs, and economic and social opportunities, and these in turn benefit society. His point is that growth of (i) mutually beneficial economic activity, (ii) increases in general... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:R. D. Ackerman BELIEVING IN A FICTION: WALLACE STEVENS AT THE LIMITS OF PHENOMENOLOGY The "ring of men" of "Sunday Morning" will chant their "devotion to the sun, / Not as a god, but as a god might be, / Naked among them, like a savage source" (CP, pp. 69-70).' Solar nakedness is deferred even as it is named. The problem for belief is the question of appearance and (...) representation. Things appear as and like.... The phenomenological return to things is also a turn to fiction, as Husserl understood: "If anyone loves a paradox, he can really say... that the element which makes up the life of phenomenology... is fiction. ' " The sun is divine, and it is not; it is both naked and clothed, savage and civilized, source (or end) and means. But such paradox is ultimately unsatisfying, and as we will see with Stevens, the need for belief—for an image or idea of totality—forces the issue of fiction and reality. The Stevens we will have in view is not the Stevens—as if there were such a creature. Our Stevens is the one most persuaded by promises such as those of phenomenology, the one most concerned with decreation (reduction) and fresh beginnings, with discovery and recognition, with imagination, the body, and the earth. This is the Stevens for whom the barrier of language presages at last not absence and difference but fictive recovery of presence and identity, the one for whom poetry represents a way of belief beyond mysticism even as it bodes mythic proximity. Finally, this is the Stevens who predominates throughout the prose (as well as in much of the poetry), who tries mightily to secure a belief while disencumbering himself of metaphysics—but alas, I think, with small success. Although Stevens's association of the problem of belief with the idea of fiction occurs in early poems such as "A High-Toned Old Christian 79 80Philosophy and Literature Woman" and "To the One of Fictive Music," his most intensive involvement with fiction as belief dates from the early 1940s and spans the period of his major essays and his last four volumes of poems. He recounts, for instance, a 1942 conversation with a student: "I said that I thought that we had reached a point at which we could no longer really believe in anything unless we recognized that it was a fiction. The student said that that was an impossibility, that there was no such thing as believing in something that one knew was not true. It is obvious, however, that we are doing that all the time" (L, p. 430). What does it mean to believe in a fiction? That is my main subject here, as we seek out the limits of the phenomenological Stevens. His letters of this period are preoccupied with the problem of fictive belief: "If one no longer believes in God (as truth), it is not possible merely to disbelieve; it becomes necessary to believe in something else.... A good deal of my poetry recently has concerned an identity for that thing.... In one of the short poems that I have just sent to the harvard advocate, I say that one's final belief must be in a fiction. I think that the history of belief will show that it has always been in a fiction" (L, p. 370). The poem referred to, "Asides on the Oboe," begins: The prologues are over. It is a question now, Of final belief. So, say that final belief Must be in a fiction. It is time to choose. (CP, p. 250) Acknowledging that "in the long run, poetry would be the supreme fiction" (L, pp. 430-31), Stevens nonetheless singles out the nominative function of poetry as the essence of its claim to supremacy: "Poetry means not the language of poetry but the thing itself.... The subject matter is what comes to mind when one says of the month of August... 'Thou art not August, unless I make thee so'" (L, p. 377). The quoted line (also from "Asides") underscores the paradox that for Stevens the essence of fiction (the nontrue) is its capacity to nominate the true or the real. This... (shrink)

Every person acquires a worldview, a picture of reality. Within that picture, the existence of some things will be taken wholly for granted as the background to, and support of, everything else. Their existence will rarely be questioned. The cosmos or universe, the gods, God, Brahman, Heaven, the Absolute--R. T. Allen claims that all these and other world- views have been held to be that which necessarily exists and upon which all other beings depend in one way or another. European (...) philosophers, since antiquity, have offered arguments to show that their chosen candidates for the role of the necessary being or beings that support the rest of reality do actually exist. The Necessity of God sets the valid core of previous ontological arguments. It does not and cannot prove that God exists, but only that something necessarily exists. In an a priori manner and without inferring anything from what in fact exists, Allen proceeds to show that which necessarily exists is one, transfinite, eternal, and the archetype of personal existence: in short, that it is God as classically conceived. As for everything else that may exist, it must be finite and dependent for its existence upon God as its creator and sustainer. Few things are more erroneous in philosophy and disastrous in practice than artificial constructions produced without constant reference to concrete reality. That which necessarily exists may be the one exception. Before this constructive argument, Allen examines previous examples of ontological arguments in order to show exactly where they go wrong and to extract the valid core obscured within them. This will make clear the difference between them and his new version. The reader who is eager to engage the philosophical sources of belief will find a distinct treasure in The Necessity of God. (shrink)

Published posthumously in 1964, this volume contains a fantastic collection of essays by R. G. Collingwood on the subject of art and it's relationship with philosophy. Robin George Collingwood, FBA (1889 - 1943) was an English historian, philosopher, and archaeologist most famous for his philosophical works including "The Principles of Art" (1938) and the posthumously-published "The Idea of History" (1946). This fascinating volume will appeal to those with an interest in Collingwood's seminal work, and is not to be missed by (...) students of philosophy and art. Contents include: "Ruskin not a Philosophical Writer," "Ruskin's Attitude towards Philosophy," "On the Philosophy of Non-Philosophers," "Logicism and Historicism," "Ruskin as Historicist," "The Anti-Historicism of Ruskin's Contemporaries," "The Unity of the Spirit: Corollaries and Illustrations," "Ruskin and Browning," etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume today in an affordable, modern edition complete with a specially-commissioned new biography of the author. (shrink)

It is immensely difficult to give a philosophically adequate account of mental imagery. Peter F.R. Haynes, pp. 709–19) objects to the standard accounts, and offers one of his own which avoids the standard difficulties. Unfortunately it in turn seems to lapse into incoherence.Haynes rejects Cartesian accounts which would make images private objects in non-physical space. He also rejects current alternative views: both Rylean or behaviourist ones; and also intentionally complex ones, which assert that the relevant terms change their meaning. He (...) thinks that J. J. C. Smart's “topic neutral” approach may supply “the basis for a correct, intentionally simple, intuitively satisfying account of mental imagery”. But an adequate account must also be neutral, as Smart's is not, between different theories of mind. In addition to avoiding these difficulties an adequate theory has certain other desiderata; in particular Haynes places valuable emphasis on the need to explain the fact that we can sometimes mistake images for real perceptions or, more real perceptions for images. (shrink)

In his article ‘A Cavalry Unit in the Army of Antigonus Monophthalmus: Asthippoi’, N. G. L. Hammond argues that the reading of the manuscript R at Diodorus 19. 29. 2 should be retained and that we should read ⋯π⋯ π⋯σι δ⋯ το⋯ς τε ⋯σθ⋯ππους ⋯νομαζομ⋯νους κα⋯ τοὺς ⋯κ τ⋯ν ἄνω κατοικο⋯ντων ⋯κτακοσιο⋯ς. The readings of F and its copy X, ⋯νθ⋯ππους, and the commonly accepted conjecture of Wesseling ⋯μɸ⋯ππους, should both be abandoned. Hammond's arguments for retaining this reading are that (...) between the variant readings of R and F, R ‘is the more often correct’ ; ⋯σθ⋯ππους, the reading of R, is preferable to F's ⋯νθ⋯ππους on the principle of ‘lectio difficilior’; the ‘difficulty’ of his lectio difficilior is made less by the arguments presented by A. B. Bosworth, 245 ff.), for the restoration at several places in the text of Arrian's Anabasis the word ⋯σθ⋯ταιροι, in place of the editorial emendation of πεζ⋯ταιροι. ‘For just as asthetairoi meant an élite group of Macedonian infantrymen,’ says Hammond, ‘so asthippoi should mean an élite group of Macedonian cavalrymen.’ He then proceeds to examine the passage and its context in an attempt to find confirmation of this proposition and comes to the conclusion that Diodorus' text says that there were 800 cavalrymen, broken into two groups, the asthippoi and ‘the men from the up-country settlers’; these, though having different names, had a close relationship to each other, as is shown by their being brigaded together. Following his derivation of asthetairoi as meaning ‘townsmen-companions’, i.e. companions recruited from the towns of Upper Macedonia, he argues that asthippoi were cavalry recruited from the towns of Upper Macedonia and that τοὺς ⋯κ τ⋯ν ἄνω κατοικο⋯ντων means ‘the sons of settlers in up-country Macedonia’. These 800, says Hammond, were both among Antigonus' best troops and ‘were Macedonians from Europe’. We thus appear, on Hammond's interpretation, to have here a group of 800 Macedonian élite cavalrymen, all of whom were recruited in Upper Macedonia's townships, but of whom some were chosen to be the cavalry-equivalent of the élite ‘townsmen-companions’ by their title of ‘townsmen-cavalry’, whilst the others, similarly recruited – but perhaps of a younger generation? – had no particular distinguishing title beyond ‘sons of settlers in up-country Macedonia’.Now, while it would be exciting to be able to add another one, possibly two Macedonian cavalry units to the Macedonian army of Philip, Alexander and the Successors, there are several aspects of Hammond's arguments that, it seems to me, are less than convincing. Thus, whilst it seems beyond reasonable doubt that ⋯σθ⋯ταιροι should be retained in the text of Arrian, appearing, as it does, six times, this is not an argument that ⋯σθ⋯ππους should be read in Diodorus' text. Both it and F's reading of ⋯νθ⋯ππους are hapax legomena and it is possible that both readings are wrong. But even if we retain ⋯σθ⋯ππους as the correct reading, Hammond's explanation of its meaning is open to objection on several counts. (shrink)

Thomas Hill Green was one of the most influential English thinkers of his time, and he made significant contributions to the development of political liberalism. Much of his career was spent at Balliol College, Oxford: having begun as a student of Jowett, he later acted effectively as his second-in-command at the college. Interested for his whole career in social questions, Green supported the temperance movement, the extension of the franchise, and the admission of women to university education. He became Whyte's (...) professor of moral philosophy at Oxford in 1878, and his lectures had a lasting influence on a generation of students. Much of Volume 1, edited by Green's pupil R. L. Nettleship and published in 1885, consists of Green's work on David Hume. In his essay, 'Introductions to Hume's Treatise of Human Nature', Green gives a detailed critique of Hume's metaphysical thought. (shrink)

In 1962 appeared one of the classic articles in Anglo-Saxon manuscript studies, the publication of two eleventh-century fragments of leaves of Old English found in the binding of a seventeenth-century printed book in the library of the University of Kansas, Lawrence. The fragment that more nearly concerns the present article now carries the shelf mark Pryce MS C2:1 in the Kenneth Spencer Research Library . It is a large part of a single leaf from The Legend of the Holy Cross (...) before Christ, an edifying work known in full only in a twelfth-century copy, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 343, fols. 14v–20v . Working from a photograph the great paleographer and codicologist N. R. Ker attributed the hand of the Kansas fragment to the scribe who also wrote the texts of two bits of the same work found in the library of Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury , at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, now MS 557 . He concluded, no doubt rightly, that all three are part of one manuscript. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Nihilistic Cosmology and Catonian Ethics in Lucan’s Bellum CivileR. Sklenár*For many years, a powerful communis opinio dominated the scholarly literature on Lucan: that the poet is not merely influenced by Stoicism but is himself a committed Stoic, who expounds his doctrines both in his own voice and in the speeches of Cato. 1 The obvious difficulty with this argument is that Cato’s Stoic ideal defies reconciliation with some of (...) the most powerful and characteristic utterances of Lucan’s authorial voice. A more recent line of interpretation, typified by W. R. Johnson (1987), John Henderson (1988), and Jamie Masters (1992), 2 has rejected the putatively Stoic Lucan in favor of a dark, sinister, at times grimly parodic poet who both describes and exemplifies a view of the cosmos as chaotic, fragmentary, and ultimately meaningless. Under this reading, which has gained currency mostly since the mid-1980s, 3 Lucan’s Cato becomes a nasty caricature both of the Stoic sage and of the traditional Roman vir bonus. 4 While this satirical interpretation of Lucan’s Cato represents a significant improvement over the orthodoxy which it has displaced, it still does not adequately account for the systematic opposition between Cato’s Stoic ideal and the universe in which he attempts to practice it, or for the painful futility of his attempt to make sense of a world where senselessness is sovereign.The Stoic morality according to which Cato regulates his life presupposes a Stoic cosmos, both governed by and part of a divine logos. This cosmos is reason and order, all its processes part of a divine plan. 5 Since the task of human beings is to understand this plan and [End Page 281] consciously to conform their actions to it, the highest ethical plane is reached when human reason, brought to perfection, governs all aspects of a person’s behavior, for it brings that person into harmony with the rationally ordered cosmos. In other words, the height of wisdom and the height of goodness are one and the same (Long and Sedley 1987, I 374). But Lucan deposits Cato into a universe devoid of reason, “one wholly without purpose or meaning” (Johnson 1987, 10), marked by “the blatant absence of any design” (8)—in short, a nihilistic universe, 6 where the cosmological prerequisites for Catonian ethics necessarily fail. Cato’s pursuit of the Stoic ideal is in a literal sense doomed from the start, as Lucan assigns a prominent section of the Bellum Civile’s long proem to an exposition of his anti-rational cosmology:Fert animus causas tantarum expromere rerum, immensumque aperitur opus, quid in arma furentem impulerit populum, quid pacem excusserit orbi. invida fatorum series summisque negatum stare diu nimioque graves sub pondere lapsus nec se Roma ferens. sic, cum compage soluta saecula tot mundi suprema coegerit hora antiquum repetens iterum chaos, [omnia mixtis sidera sideribus concurrent,] 7 ignea pontum astra petent, tellus extendere litora nolet excutietque fretum, fratri contraria Phoebe ibit et obliquum bigas agitare per orbem indignata diem poscet sibi, totaque discors machina divulsi turbabit foedera mundi.(1.67–80)As many commentators have noted, the imagery of this passage is strongly reminiscent of the Stoic theory of ekpyrosis, 8 in which the celestial fire draws the other elements up toward itself and thereby consumes [End Page 282] the entire universe; hence Lucan’s image of the stars falling into the sea (ignea pontum astra petent): in fact the sea would be rising up toward the stars, but Lucan adopts the perspective of a terrestrial observer, from which the stars would appear to be falling. The world-conflagration, moreover, is a metaphor for the civil war and its causes. 9 These causes, though multiple, are not discrete; instead, they comprise a chain of causation, as indicated by series in the first cause (invida fatorum series) and further suggested by the paratactic arrangement in which all four causes are listed. The semantic force of series does not confine itself to the first cause, but rather governs a sequence in which each cause results directly from its predecessor. Summisque negatum / stare diu and nimioque graves sub pondere lapsus, then, are both consequences of fate’s... (shrink)

Though nominalism is a major presupposition in academia and western society, R. Scott Smith shows that nominalism undermines all knowledge whatsoever. In light of the many clear examples of knowledge that we do have, nominalism should be replaced by a realist view of properties.

For most of the church's history, people have seen Christian ethics as normative and universally applicable. Recently, however, this view has been lost, thanks to naturalism and relativism. R. Scott Smith argues that Christians need to overcome Kant's fact-value dichotomy and recover the possibility of genuine moral and theological knowledge.

The import of this long and careful study is primarily negative: the author attempts to show that the various theories which contemporary analysts have held against the a priori are not tenable; he leaves us not with still another proposal but with the conviction that this philosophical ground is still fertile.--R. P.

A defence of the idea that there are sui generis duties of love: duties, that is, that we owe to people in virtue of standing in loving relationships with them. I contrast this non‐reductionist position with the widespread reductionist view that our duties to those we love all derive from more generic moral principles. The paper mounts a cumulative argument in favour of the non‐reductionist position, adducing a variety of considerations that together speak strongly in favour of adopting it. The (...) concluding section connects this debate with larger issues in moral theory concerning the general idea of obligation. (shrink)

Day argues that the meaning of "probable" is partly evaluative and partly descriptive--to say that a proposition is probable is both to recommend its assertion and to say that a certain procedure shows it to be so. The paradigm of an inductive probability judgment, which is the major concern of the book, is "The fact that all observed A's are B's makes it probable that all A's are B's." Several more complex kinds of probability judgments are distinguished and discussed in (...) detail, the author's own theory being illuminated by extensive criticism of the views of other philosophers, including Aristotle, Hume, Whewell, Mill, Peirce, Russell, Braithwaite, Carnap, and Von Wright. Philosophic problems related to induction, such as the existence of other minds and the reliability of memory, are briefly discussed. Ambitious in scope and carefully executed, the book demands, and rewards, close study.--J. R. W. (shrink)

A medley of sensible and informative papers ranging over Advaita Vedanta, the similarities of Eastern and Western philosophy, and social problems of contemporary India.--R. J. B.

Beginning with a sketch of Aristotelian science and the challenge of the new sciences, Smith leads the reader into a consideration of problems concerning the relation of philosophy and science. Smith provides a panoramic view of traditional and contemporary points of views. Smith also attempts to develop and defend an Aristotelian theory of the philosophy of nature.—R. J. B.

From a study of Hindu scriptures, the author concludes that there is a "spiritual overturning in consciousness," after which there will be a purification and a Golden Age. The book is disorganized and diffuse.--A. R.

A revised and expanded version of studies by McKinsey, Winet and the authors, in axiomatic theories of value, together with a report of experiments designed to test the formal theories. This volume makes an important contribution to the theoretical and experimental investigation of values and decision-making, both of which subjects are still in their infancy. Experimental studies by Mosteller and Nogee and theoretical discussions of von Neumann and Morgenstern are criticized and improved. Ch. IV contains original suggestions for a theory (...) of utility involving incomparable values. -- A. R. A. (shrink)

A theistic study which rejects negative and purely analogical theology. An historical review of the traditional categories applied to the divine nature shows that God's perfection includes an infinity of possibles whose actualization is a matter of free but controlled selection. The argument does not always appear precise or inevitable, but it is suggestive.--A. R.

A collection of previously printed articles on Greek philosophy, from the pre-Socratics to the neo-Platonists. It includes an article defending the methods and aims of the historian of philosophy, in which Bréhier argues that the problems of philosophy cannot be properly understood outside of their historical contexts.--A. R.

A collection of previously unpublished essays--philosophical, literary and critical--presenting the influential views of T. E. Hulme and throwing new light upon the complex personality of their originator. The book also includes Hulme's war diary, his controversy with Russell on war, some poems and fragments, and a complete bibliography of his writings.--A. R.

An application of Einsteinian physics to biology and psychology, in the hope of developing a "unified ethical theory."--A. R.

A critical analysis of Hegel's aesthetics, both in its relation to his dialectical phenomenology and in its use as a foundation for criticism. The author holds that Hegel's aesthetics is more a philosophy of the history of art than a philosophy of art, properly speaking. There is an annotated bibliography.--A. R.

Section Philosophique, No. 39. Bruges: Desclée De Brouwer, 1955. 227 pp. 245 fr. B.--A Thomistic defense of Plato against Gilson's criticism of "essentialism." The first of the book's two sections, that dealing with "ascending" dialectic, argues that 1) Being or intelligible Form is not merely essence, but is considered as existent, 2) Plato proves the existence of a transcendent and supreme Being, and 3) the supreme Being whose existence is proven in the Republic is identical with the primary object of (...) the intellect defined in the Symposium. The second section, on "descending" dialectic, treats the problems of participation, and attempts to derive the world of becoming from the world of Forms, without, however, accepting a neo-Platonic account of emanations. An interesting, but highly controversial interpretation of Plato. --A. R. (shrink)

A short study of the historical circumstances to which Marxism responded, and of the systematic character of its dialectic. The strength of Marxism the author finds to lie in its comprehensiveness, its weakness in the contradiction which arises from its espousal of humanitarian goals and its rejection of individual freedom.--A. R.

A philosophical diary, bringing together the previously published "Prelude to the Life of an Ordinary Man," "Commentary on Common Sense," and "Common Experience," with a new essay, "The Right Time."--A. R.

A collection of essays in the history of ideas, including studies of Max Weber, Meinong, William James, and Royce, as well as of some Scandinavian thinkers of the recent past.--A. R.

An assessment of the problem of evil in the philosophy of Schopenhauer, from the point of view of Christian nature-theory. Treats of metaphysical, as well as ethical, evil.--A. R.

Diagnosing the "breakdown of modern philosophy" as a result of a neglect of existence and metaphysics, leading to a radical separation of theory and practice, the author examines the attempts of existentialism to correct the shortcomings of post-Cartesian "intellectual subjectivity." The book begins with a short history of existentialism, following which are critical expositions of Jaspers, Sartre, Heidegger and Marcel. The range of topics considered--epistemology, ethics and ontology--prevents detailed discussion of any single problem, and both the exposition and the criticism (...) remain on a very general level. The final chapters of the book are devoted to correcting what the author considers the excesses of the existentialistic reaction to intellectualism by supplementing it with realism. Here, however, he promises more than he delivers. Though sometimes too facile, the book constitutes an important attempt to come to grips with existentialism by relating it to trends in traditional philosophy.--A. R. (shrink)

A study of Blake's poetry and its use of Kabalistic imagery to depict the fall of man to selfhood and the hope of regeneration through the "sweet science" of imagination.--A. R.

During the past few years a number of stimulating and philosophically tough papers dealing with God and the problem of other minds have been published by Plantinga. Now one can clearly grasp the full outlines of his argument. He carefully examines natural theology, especially the proofs for the existence of God, and finds these "proofs" unsatisfactory. He then considers a number of the recent versions of arguments designed to show us that it is impossible or unlikely that God exists and (...) finds these unsatisfactory. A final section explores the analogies between natural theology and the "problem of other minds." And Plantinga's provocative conclusion is "that belief in other minds and belief in God are in the same epistemological boat; hence if either is rational, so is the other. But obviously the former is rational; so, therefore, is the latter." What distinguishes this book from similar investigations, and sets it apart, is the thoroughness and analytical rigor of Plantinga's argument. It is a model of the application of analytical tools to traditional philosophic problems. Anyone seriously interested in the problems treated will surely benefit from an encounter with Plantinga.--R. J. B. (shrink)

Was Hegel a good guy or a bad guy? Was he a conservative or a liberal? Was he a proto-fascist as Popper has claimed or the greatest philosophic champion of human freedom as Marcuse has claimed? The debate has been a long and heated one and in this volume, Kaufmann includes a number of articles written in English that are concerned with these related issues. But one feels that something is missing from these heated controversies and that is Hegel himself. (...) As Kaufmann himself says: "Whoever wants to know what Hegel's political philosophy really was, must in the end go back to Hegel himself...." These papers do, however, succeed in giving one a sense of what are key issues in understanding and assessing Hegel's political philosophy.--R. J. B. (shrink)

Miller has undertaken the difficult task of providing a new translation of Hegel's Wissenschaft der Logik sometimes referred to as Hegel's "Greater Logic." Part of the reason for the neglect of Hegel has been the unavailability of good translations. The "first generation" of Hegel translators heroically sought to create an English idiom for Hegel's terminology, but their results left much to be desired in accuracy, readability and intelligibility. Although this is a conservative translation which follows the conventions established by English (...) Hegelians nevertheless the translation is a big improvement over the earlier one by Johnston and Struthers. Since the passing of the English Hegelians, Hegel's Logic has been largely ignored by Anglo-Saxon philosophers. And for those who think that logic really is or ought to be what is found in contemporary symbolic or mathematical logic, Hegel's book will seem old-fashioned and outdated. Yet this book has exerted an enormous influence on both those who have seriously attacked it and those who have devotedly followed it--a group that includes Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger, and the English idealists. The publication of this massive translation not only has historical value for making Hegel's thought more accessible, but it is still a rich source for the philosopher interested in Thought and Being.--R. J. B. (shrink)

A welcome republication of Guignebert's impressive scholarly study of the life, teaching, and death of Jesus. Guignebert's conclusion, on the basis of a careful examination of sources, is that nothing or very little of Jesus' work remained and that, from an historical point of view, he cannot be considered the founder of Christianity. -- R. B.

It is difficult to see the point of putting this book together. Presumably, it is intended to serve as an introduction to basic issues concerning the nature and status of Marxism. As such it fails miserably. The introductions to the various chapter headings, as well as the initial introduction, tend to be simplistic, dogmatic, and inaccurate. The selection of material and its organization is quixotic. It doesn't succeed in presenting the best of international Marxist interpretation and scholarship or in presenting (...) the material needed for a depth understanding of any of the topics treated. Most of the selections--even from eminent scholars on Marx--are so brief that it is difficult to grasp the logic of their arguments and positions. One can buy several paperback books of Marx's original writings for the price of this anthology, and certainly learn a great deal more about Marxism.--R. J. B. (shrink)