Public and professional debates have come to rely heavily on a special type of reasoning: the argument-from-ignorance, in which conclusions depend on the _lack_ of compelling information. "I win my argument," says the skillful advocate, "unless you can prove that I am wrong." This extraordinary gambit has been largely ignored in modern rhetorical and philosophical studies. Yet its broad force can be demonstrated by analogy with the modern legal system, where courts have long manipulated burdens of proof with skill and (...) subtlety. This legal, philosophical, and rhetorical study by Richard H. Gaskins provides the first systematic treatment of arguments-from-ignorance across a wide range of modern discourse—from constitutional law, scientific inquiry, and moral philosophy to organizational behavior, computer operation, and personal interaction. Gaskins reviews the historic shifts in constitutional proof burdens that have shaped public debate on fundamental rights and, by analogy, on the fundamental status of intellectual and cultural authority. He shows how similar shifts have dominated polemical battles between scientific and ethical modes of authority, affecting both academic and popular discussion. Finally, he discovers the philosophical roots of default reasoning strategies in the arguments of Kant and nineteenth-century Kantian schools. Concluding that shifting proof burdens are inescapable in a world of scientific and moral uncertainty, Gaskins emphasizes the common strategic ground shared by dogmatic and skeptical reasoning. Using Hegelian strategies, he describes a more pluralistic temper that can move critical thinking beyond polemics and strengthen our capacities for common discourse. (shrink)

This latest book, whose editors were among those who prepared the first two volumes, centers on Popkin's crucial role in bringing together scholars from around ...

It is tempting to think that we have heard just about all we want or need to know about race. As the above quotes indicate, modern notions of race have always revolved around the faculty of vision, with supplementary contributions from other senses such as hearing, as Arendt notes in a tacit allusion to one mark of Jewish difference—the way they sounded when concentrated in urban settings. Yet two very recent works—Mark M. Smith's How Race Is Made and Anne C. (...) Rose's Psychology and Selfhood in the Segregated South —have much to teach us about how race has “worked”, particularly in the twentieth-century South but also, by implication, in the United States in general. Both works assume that, historically, race is no mere add-on to the self, a kind of externality that, once detected, can be relatively easily excised. Rather, it stands right at the heart of personal and group identity in a nation where race and ethnicity continue to assume surprising new shapes and forms. (shrink)

Neuroscientific scanning of meditators is taken as providing data on mystical experiences. However, problems concerning how the brain and consciousness are related cast doubts on whether any understanding of the content of meditative experiences is gained through the study of the brain. Whether neuroscience can study the subjective aspects of meditative experiences in general is also discussed. So too, whether current neuroscience can establish that there are “pure consciousness events” in mysticism is open to question. The discussion points to limitations (...) on neuroscience's capability to add to our understanding of the phenomenological content of mystical experiences. (shrink)

Scientific interest in drug-induced mystical experiences reemerged in the 1990s. This warrants reexamining the philosophical issues surrounding such studies: Do psychedelic drugs cause mystical experiences? Are drug-induced experiences the same in nature as other mystical experiences? Does the fact that mystical experiences can be induced by drugs invalidate or validate mystical cognitive claims? Those questions will be examined here. An overview of the scientific examination of drug-induced mystical experiences is included, as is a brief overview of the history of the (...) use of psychedelic drugs in religion. (shrink)

This is the third edition of a classic book first published in 1960, which has sold thousands of copies in two paperback edition and has been translated into several foreign languages. Popkin's work ha generated innumerable citations, and remains a valuable stimulus to current historical research. In this updated version, he has revised and expanded throughout, and has added three new chapters, one on Savonarola, one on Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, and one on Pascal. This authoritative treatment of the (...) theme of scepticism and its historical impact will appeal to scholars and students of early modern history now as much as ever. (shrink)

Hegel’s early work The Life of Jesus (Das Leben Jesu) of 1795 presents Jesus as a teacher of Kantian morality and ends abruptly with his death, anointing of his body, and burial, such that Jesus could appear to be merely a figure of the remote past. However, within a few years Hegel’s view of the death of Jesus was to change radically. Writing of his death in terms of the ‘death of God’, this individual is transformed into the universality of (...) Spirit who dwells in the community. This paper examines how this fundamental change in Hegel’s thought came about, how Hegel’s mature understanding of the death of Jesus was appropriated by Richard Wagner in his proposed opera Jesus of Nazareth, and how this ‘death of God’ became the model for the death of Brünnhilde in the Ring cycle. For both Hegel and Wagner, the death of Christ can only be understood as a self-involving enterprise, the bringing together of the ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’. Further, Wagner largely shares Hegel’s immanent understanding of God, although under other influences he can affirm the idea of a transcendent God or a transcendent world. (shrink)

A comprehensive exploration of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism. This work is a comprehensive study of the philosophical issues raised by mysticism. Mystics claim to experience reality in a way not available in normal life, a claim which makes this phenomenon interesting from a philosophical perspective. Richard H. Jones’s inquiry focuses on the skeleton of beliefs and values of mysticism: knowledge claims made about the nature of reality and of human beings; value claims about what is significant and (...) what is ethical; and mystical goals and ways of life. Jones engages language, epistemology, metaphysics, science, and the philosophy of mind. Methodological issues in the study of mysticism are also addressed. Examples of mystical experience are drawn chiefly from Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta, but also from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Daoism. “This is a significant extension of the seminal work by Walter Stace, Mysticism and Philosophy. That work has stimulated much literature, all of which Jones manages to review here. He critically extends Stace’s universal core and embeds it in a sophisticated discussion of the extent, range, and metaphysical implications of mysticism.” — Ralph W. Hood, Jr., coauthor of The Psychology of Religion: An Empirical Approach. (shrink)

Times of heightened risk to the physical safety of their citizens inevitably cause democracies to recalibrate their institutions and processes and to reinterpret existing legal norms, with greater emphasis on security, and less on individual liberty, than in "normal" times. This article explores the ways in which the American courts have responded to the tension between civil liberties and national security in times of crises. This history illustrates that courts have rejected both of the two polar positions that characterize public (...) discourse on these issues. Civil libertarians argue that political bodies are too easily gripped by passions, hysteria, and self-interest in these times and that courts therefore ought to play a central role in protecting liberty. Executive unilateralists argue that the qualities that uniquely characterize the executive branch, such as decisiveness, access to information, and efficiency, must become so dominant in these moments that few checks, if any, should constrain executive prerogatives. Oddly, civil libertarians and executive unilateralists find implicit consensus in the view that, in times of war, courts have tended not to play a significant role in overseeing executive power. We argue to the contrary: historically, a significant constitutional tradition of judicial scrutiny in the United States during times of war does exist. But this scrutiny does not take the form of courts making first-order substantive judgments about the content of liberty or other claimed constitutional rights. Nor does it take the form of judicial assessment of how significant or credible the national security claims of the executive branch might be. Instead, judicial oversight has been focused on preserving the institutional structures and processes through which decisionmaking on these issues takes place. The judicial role has centered on the second-order question of whether the right institutional processes have been used to make the decisions at issue, rather than on what the content of the underlying rights ought to be. This approach has historically rejected or resisted most claims of executive unilateralism. When courts have upheld the government's actions, they have done so only after a judgment that Congress, as well as the executive, has endorsed the action. This approach has also rejected the civil libertarian framework. When courts find bilateral institutional endorsement, they have typically accepted the joint political judgment of how liberty and security tradeoffs ought to be made. By focusing on congressional endorsement of emergency measures, the courts have created a broad-based political accountability for the actions taken in the name of national security. We suggest that even if congressional endorsement is more apparent than real in some of these contexts, the judicial maintenance of this structure of rhetorical justifications sustains desirable understandings of political structure. Because the President and Congress draw from different political constituencies in a presidential rather than a parliamentary system, we also raise questions about whether the American judicial approach to these questions should be limited to political systems with separated executive and legislative powers. (shrink)

This wall of silence has been broken in only a few instances. Pillon and Picavet in the 1890's gave some scant indication of the influence of Pyrrhonism on some aspects of modern philosophy. Various literary historians have traced the influence on Montaigne and scepticism on the general point of view of the 17th century. The studies, especially those of Boase, Busson, and Pintard, have indicated the tremendous importance of Montaigne's scepticism in the creation of the intellectual atmosphere of the 17th (...) century. Pintard, Lenoble, and Brunschvicg have, in the last decade, shown certain specific ways the Pyrrhonism of Montaigne and others led to certain features of the views of the early rationalists. Brunschvicg has pointed out that the scholars of Montaigne have failed to read Descartes, and vice versa, and hence have failed to see the link between them. In this study I shall try to show that the link is far stronger than has hitherto been supposed, and that the writings of Montaigne and Sextus Empiricus played a vital role in shaping the central problems and answers of the new philosophy of 17th century rationalism, and further that the modern Pyrrhonian tradition continued its influence in the sceptical attacks against modern rationalism of Pierre Bayle and David Hume. (shrink)

Few people will easily admit to taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others. But who doesn't enjoy it when an arrogant but untalented contestant is humiliated on American Idol, or when the embarrassing vice of a self-righteous politician is exposed, or even when an envied friend suffers a small setback? The truth is that joy in someone else's pain--known by the German word schadenfreude--permeates our society. In The Joy of Pain, psychologist Richard Smith, one of the world's foremost authorities (...) on envy and shame, sheds much light on a feeling we dare not admit. Smith argues that schadenfreude is a natural human emotion, one worth taking a closer look at, as it reveals much about who we are as human beings. We have a passion for justice. Sometimes, schadenfreude can feel like getting one's revenge, when the suffering person has previously harmed us. But most of us are also motivated to feel good about ourselves, Smith notes, and look for ways to maintain a positive sense of self. One common way to do this is to compare ourselves to others and find areas where we are better. Similarly, the downfall of others--especially when they have seemed superior to us--can lead to a boost in our self-esteem, a lessening of feelings of inferiority. This is often at the root of schadenfreude. As the author points out, most instances of schadenfreude are harmless, on par with the pleasures of light gossip. Yet we must also be mindful that envy can motivate, without full awareness, the engineering of the misfortune we delight in. And envy-induced aggression can take us into dark territory indeed, as Smith shows as he examines the role of envy and schadenfreude in the Nazi persecution of the Jews. Filled with engaging examples of schadenfreude, from popular reality shows to the Duke-Kentucky basketball rivalry, The Joy of Pain provides an intriguing glimpse into a hidden corner of the human psyche. (shrink)

Weisberg identifies the risks throughout a 2000 year span of western history of overly flexible responses to crises and perceived emergencies. So ensconced is the norm of infinite openness to ideas and changing circumstances that, he argues, his readers need to work hard to be able to resist the tendency of others to fold their tents and betray their own deepest and soundest values when challenged to do so by "new" conditions.

We focus on the recent non-causal theory of reasons explanationsof free action proffered by a proponent of the agency theory, Timothy O'Connor. We argue that the conditions O'Connor offersare neither necessary nor sufficient for a person to act for a reason. Finally, we note that the role O'Connor assigns toreasons in the etiology of actions results in further conceptual difficulties for agent-causalism.

The purpose of this article is to explore certain parallels and divergencies between contemporary philosophy of science and the comparative study of mysticism. Two types of mystical experiences, “depth‐mystical” and “nature‐mystical,” are first differentiated. Next, the role of both experience and doctrine in the development and justification of mystical knowledge is defended. Finally, the issue of whether one mystical system can be established as superior to others is discussed.

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Religious Background of Seventeenth-Century Philosophy RICHARD H. POPKIN IT IS AN EXCEEDINGLY GREAT PLEASURE tO participate in the twenty-fifth anniversary issue of the Journal of the Historyof Philosophy.The editor, Professor Makkreel, offered me the opportunity to discuss the rationale for my present research, which I hope has some relevance for future research in the history of philosophy. At a symposium at the American Philosophical Association meeting in (...) Washington in December x985, I argued for taking the historyof philosophy seriously, that is, understanding thinkers and ideas in their actual historical contexts, instead of detaching them into some ahistorical ethereal realm. I argued that one could not make sense of a philosopher's thought detached from his time and circumstances. His ideas could not be understood unless one took account of the language, the usages, the issues and the concerns of the thinker and his time. The all too frequent "reconstruction" of philosophers ' thoughts sees them instead as logical machines, simply moving from clearly stated premises to their logical consequences. As many of us have sought to show, this often grossly distorts what Descartes, Spinoza, Locke, Leibniz and others might have actually thought, and misses much of what they were probably thinking about. I should like to carry this theme further by examining the need to take seriously the religious aspect of philosophizing. I will center on the intellectual scene of the seventeenth century, which I am currently working on though I believe many of the same points could be made about any period in the history of philosophy. Among historians of science there is an ongoing debate about whether the history of the subject should be studied internally or externally. The [:35] 36 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY internalists examine a set of ideas presented by scientist A, and trace their use or development by scientist B. The study that results is primarily the tracing of the course of a set of ideas through a time period. Background data about the scientists, their problems, and their place in society are regarded as of little relevance. The externalists insist that one cannot understand why various questions became important, why various individuals tried to solve them, why they used certain kinds of possible solutions instead of others, etc., unless one knows the external conditions of the time. This has spawned a lot of interesting research into the way scientific studies went on, who supported them, who did them, how they got accepted, and so on. The sociology and even anthropology of science is now a thriving research area, yielding many amazing studies about the scientific world and how it functioned. In so doing, scholars have not just examined the great successful scientists, the Keplers, Galileos, Harveys, and Newtons, but also the small fry, the mediocre, the poor scientists, and even the incompetent ones. They have examined why wrong-headed theories were supported, and accepted, while evidence supporting other theories was readily available. Their concern with the actual course of scientific development as an ongoing part of intellectual history is vital to understanding the scientific world of today, which plays such an overwhelming role in our society. So, some people study the education of the good, the mediocre, the bad scientists; their relative social statuses, incomes, and so on. The religious concerns are, of course, an obvious part of the story from Copernicus to Kepler to Newton to Darwin to Freud to Einstein. The scientists were involved in an ongoing religious world that influenced the role of science. The above named scientists had their religious or irreligious views that were involved with their scientific concerns. And, as we know too well, the impact of their work on religion has been of great importance to the broader intellectual world, and the impact of religion on the acceptance of their science has been and is part of the ongoing intellectual world. This interest amongst historians of science in the sociology, psychology, and anthropology of science has hardly rubbed off on the historians of philosophy. Most of the leading scholars of the last few decades in this work are hardly known and rarely cited in studies in the history of philosophy. We... (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to expose a basic flaw at the root of perennialism as a method for studying mysticism—its distinction between ‘exoteric’ and ‘esoteric’ components of mysticism and religion. Rather than being distinct, the specific ‘exoteric’ doctrines of a given mystic’s tradition penetrate the mystics’ knowledge-claims. Thus, the ‘esoteric’ dimension in a mystical tradition is permeated by that mystical tradition’s ‘exoteric’ doctrines, not by the transcultural and ahistorical perennial spine that perennialists postulate. Contrary to what the perennialists (...) suggest, there is no one underlying esoteric set of beliefs embedded in all traditional religions that all mystics share. Rather, in the different religious traditions of the world, there are genuinely different mysticisms with different beliefs, practices, values, and goals. Thus, the perennialist approach distorts the history of mysticism. It is better seen as a theology of religions than as an alleged discernment of timeless truths presented throughout the history of mysticism. (shrink)