Roger Bacon is a remarkable figure for his theory of the sign. According to the new reading hypothesis presented in this article, the whole theory is grounded on the relational nature of the sign. Every sign is involved in two relations: one to the interpreter, the other to the significate, the first being “more essential” than the second. The hypothesis allows for a better understanding of Bacon’s central claim that speakers constantly re-impose words in colloquial practice, as (...) well as of its main technical developments. In his whole semantics, Bacon’s focus is not so much on entities as on relations holding between entities. From a comparative point of view, the paper offers considerations on the theological background of Bacon’s ideas. (shrink)

[Sensation, Causality, and Attention: Roger Bacon and Peter Olivi] This paper investigates what conditions are to be met for sensory perception to occur. It introduces two diff erent theories of perception that were held by two medieval Franciscan thinkers — namely, Roger Bacon (1214/1220–1292) and Peter Olivi (ca. 1248–1298). Bacon analyses especially the causal relation between the object and the sensory organ in his doctrine of the multiplication of species. In his view, a necessary condition of perception (...) is the reception of the species in a fully disposed sensory organ. On the contrary, Olivi stresses the active role of the sensory power. A necessary condition of sensation is the aspectus — i.e. the focus of our power’s attention on the object. Furthermore, the paper investigates whether and how each of the two thinkers can deal with the arguments proposed by his opponent — namely whether Bacon’s theory is able to explain attention and what the causal role of the object in Olivi’s theory is. (shrink)

In his recent study, Concepts, Fodor identifies five nonnegotiable constraints on any theory of concepts. These theses were all shared by the standard medieval theories of concepts. However, those theories were cognitivist, in contrast with Fodor’s: concepts are definitions, a form of natural knowledge. The medieval theories were formed under two influences, from Aristotle by way of Boethius, and from Augustine. The tension between them resulted in the Ockhamist notion of a natural language, concepts as signs. Thus (...) conventional signs, spoken and written, signify things in the world by the mediation of concepts which themselves form a language of thought, signifying those things naturally by their similarity. Indeed, later thinkers realised that everything signifies itself and what is like it naturally in a broad sense by means of the concept of its natural likeness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 273-274 [Access article in PDF] Christoph Lüthy, John E. Murdoch, and William R. Newman, editors. Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories. Leiden: Brill, 2001. Pp. viii + 610. Cloth, $186.00. The nineteen papers of this weighty (handsomely produced, but expensive) volume are mostly devoted to the views of one thinker or group of persons on "corpuscularism" (see (...) 17ff.), in either physics or mathematics, with few synthetic or diachronic studies. Only a quarter of the volume is devoted to the medieval period: Danielle Jacquart on minima in the Salerno school of medicine (twelfth century); the late George Molland on Roger Bacon's and Grosseteste's "corpuscular tendencies"; Charles Lohr on Ramon Lull; John Murdoch on minima naturalia in the medieval and Renaissance periods; and the greater part of William Newman's study of corpuscularian conceptions in "Aristotelian alchemy" from Geber to Sennert. The early-modern part includes studies on mostly expected figures: Francesco Patrici, Giordano Bruno, the Northumberland circle, Francis Bacon, David Gorlaeus (a little-known Dutch theology student; 1591-1612, sic), Daniel Sennert, Honoré Fabri, Galileo, Gassendi, Charleton, Boyle, Locke, and Homberg. Alan Gabbey more generally distinguishes different patterns of explanations in mechanical philosophy.As far as I can judge, the authors are knowledgeable and competent, and the studies make important contributions. But just because this is a high-quality volume produced with the ambition of making a step toward rewriting the history of a major chapter in the history of science, its two significant and principled deficiencies must be pointed out.The volume follows the intention of "show[ing] the debt of early-modern matter theory to previous traditions and thereby [explaining] its bewildering heterogeneity" (back cover). Now, the study of the corpuscular traditions in the pre-modern period is certainly an important desideratum (although this volume again attends chiefly to the early modern corpuscularians). But the motivation and perspective here announced—the medieval period [End Page 273] is to be studied because early modern science is indebted to it—are astoundingly Whiggish. Worse: the study of the entire Arabic-Islamic tradition is dismissed, on the grounds that "Islamic atomism does not seem to have been of any influence upon Christian fourteenth-century atomism" (8): this is not only Whiggism, but also frank and explicit euro- and Christian-centrism, which in the beginning of the twenty-first century is simply stunning. The method amusingly consists in affirming the consequent: presupposing that "Islamic atomism" did not influence the West and early-modern science, no scholar was asked to examine whether or not this was indeed the case, with the congenial result that the volume seemingly confirms the initial presupposition. Q.E.D. Similarly and no less regrettably, the fact that (ps.-) Geber's Summa Perfectionis is not, as Lasswitz had thought, the translation of an Arabic work is here used as grounds on which to dismiss altogether his claim concerning the importance of the Arabic input (13, but see also 293). This way, incomprehension between civilizations is reinforced instead of being reduced, and I believe we did not need September 11 to know this.The thusly dismissed Mu'tazilite school of Islamic theology had important repercussions in Judaism, so that referring to it as "Islamic atomism" is misleading (see notably Hagai Ben-Shammai, "Studies in Karaite Atomism," Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 6 [1985]: 243-93). The volume's forty-page cumulative bibliography, for which the editors are to be congratulated, reflects the volume's parochial viewpoint: H. A. Wolfson's important The Philosophy of the Kalam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976), with some 150 pages on atomism, is not included; nor is the (English version of the) landmark study by the late S. Pines, Studies in Islamic Atomism (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1997; the original 1936 German version is mentioned). Wolfson's study, incidentally, shows that the editors' presupposition (8) that the Kalâm tradition could have influenced the West only via the Latin translation of Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed is unwarranted, for Isaac... (shrink)

Professor de Rijk's interest here is in the views on reality put forward by the medieval thinkers from Boethius to William of Ockham, but especially in the 12th-14th centuries, the period from Abelard onwards.Theology was naturally a key influence, but sematic theories - the philosophical theories on how terms signify, or how a name has its meaning and how this is affected by its context - were fundamental as the starting point of ontological speculation. The categories formulated in (...) order to differentiate various types of context and their impact on the semantics of the verb esse, 'to be', and its related forms. De Rijk's aim is to understand how these medieval thinkers interpreted reality according to their own semantic views, and to see how their own particular concerns - for instance William of Ockham's application of the 'principle of parsimony' to ontology - shaped the nature of their thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXIII, Number 2, November 1997, pp. 315-335 Reid: Conception, Representation and Innate Ideas ROGER D. GALLIE Section I of this paper begins with a presentation of Thomas Reid's doctrine of the signification of words, of what words signify or represent. That presentation serves to introduce a problem of interpretation, namely, what Reid thinks the connection is between conceiving something and grasping what a term for (...) it signifies. It is pointed out that even if Reid maintains that what a word signifies is conceived by both speaker and hearer when that word is understood, this is a far cry from the position that he takes the stronger view, whether for all or only for some things, that their being conceived involves the understanding of a term or terms. The position that he does indeed take this stronger, although moderate, view is defended in sections II, III and IV. In sections II and III it is argued that, in Reid's view, for an adequate conception of an individual, real or imaginary, a conception of its attributes is needed. In section IV it is argued that the possession of general conceptions (in distinction from their formation), without which conception of attributes is impossible, requires appropriate understanding of general terms. So since for the conception of an individual a conception of its attributes is needed, and since for the conception of attributes appropriate understanding of general terms is required, we arrive at a textually well-founded position: for the conception of most things, in Reid's view, understanding of terms is indispensable. Roger D. Gallie is at the Department of Philosophy, Nottingham University, University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD UK. email: Roger.Gallie@nottingham.ac.uk 316 Roger D. Gallie The remainder of the paper considers the following question: to what extent, if any, Reid is committed to acceptance of nativist views on concept possession? To answer, in section V we consider to what extent Reid's moderate position on the possession of conceptions commits him to accepting Jerry Fodor's representational theory of mind (RTM) for propositional attitudes. It is clear that the view that a propositional attitude state such as belief involves some relation between a person and a representation such as a significant word, phrase or sentence of a natural language such as English can fairly be attributed to Reid. But it is also clear that Reid cannot be an adherent of the view that persons have a functional cum computational relation to Fodorean mental representations, so he cannot be an adherent of any nativism ex- plicitly contained in such a view. But it is to be noted that in his Inquiry, Chapter IV, Reid argues by a different route that in order to acquire a language such as English prior mastery of a system of significant signs is required. In section VI Keith Lehrer's argument in criticism of a reductionist interpretation of a position such as Fodor's is presented: that for a sign to signify something to someone presupposes that that person has a conception of what is signified. It is however pointed out that since there is a case for not viewing Fodor's position as reductionist overall Fodor can accept Lehrer's argument. Lehrer's innatist position, which he both claims to follow easily from this critical argument and to be a correct interpretation of Reid, is then presented: that we must presuppose an innate understanding of some signs to account for our learning the meaning of any signs. The objection that Reid too must accept the alleged innatist implications of Lehrer's critical argument in view of the implications of his moderate position on the possession of conceptions is considered and rebutted. In section VIII argue that while Lehrer makes a respectable case for innate principles of formation of conceptions such as that of hardness, something that Reid clearly endorses in his Inquiry, Chapter V, he does not succeed in making a case for there being any innate possession of conceptions. Finally, in section VIII, Reid's mature views in the Intellectual Powers, Essay VI, on how conceptions come to be possessed are expounded, and are fleshed out with some... (shrink)

Scholars have known that a variety of medieval theories on relation existed, but no full-length systematic study has been attempted until now. With this book Henninger fills an important gap in our knowledge of medieval philosophy. Dealing with such varied thinkers as Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, Richard of Mediavilla, John Duns Scotus, Henry of Harclay, William of Ockham, and Peter Aureoli, the book will interest anyone concerned with late medieval philosophy and the transition to the (...) early modern period. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The scholarly context and philosophical issues Bacon's influence and importance as a thinker Roger Bacon as a logician and an Aristotelian commentator Roger Bacon's “new” experimental philosophy, 1260–92 Bacon's account of language and signs.

The meaning of Christian rationalism -- The handmaiden of theology -- The doctrine of double truth -- Appendix : Texts of John the Jandun on the relations between reason and faith -- The historical significance of Thomism -- Reasoning by analogy in Campanella -- Theology and Cartesian innatism -- Descartes, Harvey, and scholasticism -- Appendix: William Harvey's critique of the Cartesian theory of the movement of the heart -- Cartesian and scholastic meteors.

This is the first comprehensive textbook on higher order logic that is written specifically to introduce the subject matter to graduate students in philosophy. The book covers both the formal aspects of higher-order languages -- their model theory and proof theory, the theory of λ-abstraction and its generalizations -- and their philosophical applications, especially to the topics of modality and propositional granularity. The book has a strong focus on non-extensional higher-order logics, making it more appropriate for (...) foundational metaphysics than other introductions to the subject from computer science, mathematics, and linguistics. A Philosophical Introduction to Higher Order Logics assumes only that readers have a basic knowledge of first-order logic. With an emphasis on exercises, it can be used as a textbook though is also ideal for self-study. Author Andrew Bacon organizes the book's 18 chapters around four main parts: I. Typed Language II. Higher Order Languages III. General Higher-Order Languages IV. Higher-Order Model Theory In addition, two appendices cover the Curry-Howard isomorphism and its applications for modeling propositional structure. Each chapter includes exercises that move from easier to more difficult, strategically placed throughout the chapter, and concludes with an annotated suggested reading list providing graduate students with most valuable additional resources. Key Features Is the first comprehensive introduction to higher-order logic as a grounding for addressing problems in metaphysics Introduces the basic formal tools that are needed to theorize in, and model, higher order languages Offers an abundance of: - Simple exercises throughout the book, serving as comprehension checks on basic concepts and definitions - More difficult exercises designed to facilitate long-term learning Contains annotated sections on further reading, pointing the reader to related literature, learning resources, and historical context. (shrink)

In A Pluralistic Universe, James argues that the world we experience is more than we can describe. Our theories are incomplete, open, and imperfect. Concepts function to try to shape, organize, and describe this open, flowing universe, while the universe continually escapes beyond our artificial boundaries. For James and myself, the universe is unfinished, a “primal stuff” or “pure experience.” However, James starts with parts and moves to wholes, and I want to start from wholes and move to parts and (...) back to wholes again. This is an issue between us I further consider, for while he describes himself as a radical empiricist, emphasizing the parts, my descriptions are in terms of w/holism. I use this opportunity to explore James’s contributions to my metaphor of “pure experience” as being like an infinite Ocean and the fishing nets we create represent our ontologies and epistemologies that help us catch up our experiences and give them meaning. I also make the case for why a better understanding of ontology matters for us as educators, using Maria Montessori’s curriculum and instruction design, Dinè Primary School, and Cajete’s theology of place and culturally based science as examples of relational fishing nets we could be using to teach our children. (shrink)

This volume explores the potential of employing a relational paradigm for the purposes of interdisciplinary exchange. Bringing together scholars from the social sciences, philosophy and theology, it seeks to bridge the gap between subject areas by focusing on real phenomena.Although these phenomena are studied by different disciplines, the editors demonstrate that it is also possible to study them from a common relational perspective that connects the different languages, theories and perspectives which characterize each discipline, by going beyond their (...) differences to the core of reality itself. As an experimental collection that highlights the potential that exists for cross-disciplinary work, this volume will appeal to scholars across a range of field concerned with critical realist approaches to research, collaborative work across subjects and the manner in which disciplines can offer one another new insights. (shrink)

This volume constitutes the largest collection of writings by the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben hitherto published in any language. With one exception, the fifteen essays, which reflect the wide range of the author’s interests, appear in English for the first time. The essays consider figures in the history of philosophy and twentieth-century thought. They also examine several general topics that have always been of central concern to Agamben: the relation of linguistic and metaphysical categories; messianism in Islamic, Jewish, and (...) Christian theology; and the state and future of contemporary politics. Despite the diversity of the texts collected here, they show a consistent concern for a set of overriding philosophical themes concerning language, history, and potentiality. In the first part of the book, Agamben brings philosophical texts of Plato and Benjamin, the literary criticism of Max Kommerell, and the linguistic studies of J.-C. Milner to bear upon a question that exposes each discipline to a limit at which the possibility of language itself is at stake. The essays in the second part concern a body of texts that deal with the structure of history and historical reflection, including the idea of the end of history in Jewish and Christian messianism, as well as in Hegel, Benjamin, and Aby Warburg. In the third part, the issues confronted in the first and second parts are shown to be best grasped as issues of potentiality. Agamben argues that language and history are structures of potentiality and can be most fully understood on the basis of the Aristotelian theory of _dynamis_ and its medieval elaborations. The fourth part is an extensive essay on Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener.”. (shrink)

The body of philosophical knowledge concerning the relations among language, the senses, and deafness, interpreted as a canon of key ideas which have found their way into folk metaphysics, constitutes one of the historically sustained conditions of the oppression of deaf people. Jonathan Rée, with his book I see a voice, makes the point that a philosophical history, grounded in a phenomenological and causal concern with philosophical thought and social life, can offer an archaeology of philosophy's contribution to the (...) social oppression of deaf people.This article offers support for such a project while being critical of Rée's philosophical phenomenology, since it presumes, àpriori, two ideas about deafness and sign language: firstly, that deaf experience is like hearing experience but without hearing; and secondly, that the iconic qualities of sign languages are strictly superficial phenomena. Both presumptions, it is argued here, derive from the same philosophical knowledge which has linked deafness to the sense of hearing and the voice, and in doing so secured an intellectual basis for the oppression of deaf people in social life. (shrink)

In some passages of the Opus maius and the Opus tertium, Roger Bacon holds that mathematical objects are the immediate and adequate objects of human’s intellect: in our sensible life, the intellect develops mostly around quantity itself. We comprehend quantities and bodies by a perception of the intellect because their forms belong to the intellect, namely, an understanding of mathematical truths is almost innate within us. A natural reaction to these sentences is to deduce a strong Pythagorean or Platonic (...) influence in Roger Bacon’s theory of mathematical knowledge. However, Bacon has always followed Aristotle’s view according to which numbers and figures have no real existence apart from the sensible substances, and universal knowledge comes from sensory experience as well. It appears that Bacon’s claim that quantity is the first object of human's intellect comes from an original reading of a passage of Aristotle’s On Memory and Reminiscence. In this paper, we try to clarify Bacon’s views about mathematical abstraction and intellectual perception of mathematical forms in his Parisian questions on Physics and Liber De causis, the Perspectiva, Opus maius, Opus tertium, the Communia mathematica and the Geometria speculativa. We conclude that Bacon considered mathematical abstraction as a mode of perception of the internal structure of the physical world: mathematical abstraction does not mean for Bacon an act of separation of ideal forms from the sensible matter, but a possibility of intuition of the internal structure of the sensible world itself, a faculty which is necessary for human’s perception of space and time. (shrink)

This book uses the tools of analytic philosophy of disability (and Disability Studies more generally) and close readings of medieval Christian philosophical and theological texts in order to survey what these thinkers said about what today we call “disability.” The chapters also compare what these medieval authors say with modern and contemporary philosophers and theologians of disability. This dual approach enriches our understanding of the history of disability in medieval Christian philosophy and theology and (...) opens up new avenues of research for contemporary scholars working on disability. The volume is divided into three parts. Part I addresses theoretical frameworks regarding disability, particularly on questions about the definition(s) of “disability” and how disability relates to well-being. The chapters are then divided into two further parts in order to reflect ways that medieval philosophers and theologians theorized about disability. Part II is on disability in this life, and Part III is on disability in the afterlife. Taken as a whole, these chapters support two general observations. First, these philosophical theologians sometimes resist Greco-Roman ableist views by means of theological and philosophical anti-ableist arguments and counterexamples. Here we find some surprising disability-positive perspectives that are built into different accounts of a happy human life. We also find equal dignity of all human beings no matter ability or disability. Second, some of the seeds for modern and contemporary ableist views were developed in medieval Christian philosophy and theology, especially with regard to personhood and rationality, an intellectualist interpretation of the imago Dei, and the identification of human dignity with the use of reason. This volume surveys disability across a wide range of medieval Christian writers from the time of Augustine up to Francisco Suarez. It will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in medieval philosophy and theology or disability studies. (shrink)

Contents Acknowledgements vii Illustrations ix Preface xi Further Bibliography of A.C. Crombie xiii 1 Designed in the Mind: Western visions of Science, Nature and Humankind 1 2 The Western Experience of Scientific Objectivity 13 3 Historical Perceptions of Medieval Science 31 4 Robert Grosseteste 39 5 Roger Bacon [with J.D. North] 51 6 Infinite Power and the Laws of Nature: A Medieval Speculation 67 7 Experimental Science and the Rational Artist in Early Modern Europe 89 8 Mathematics (...) and Platonism in the Sixteenth-Century Italian Universities and in Jesuit Educational Policy 115 9 Sources of Galileo Galilei’s Early Natural Philosophy 149 10 The Jesuits and Galileo’s Ideas of Science and of Nature [with A. Carugo] 165 11 Galileo and the Art of Rhetoric [with A. Carugo] 231 12 Galileo Galilei: A Philosophical Symbol 257 13 Alexandre Koyré and Great Britain: Galileo and Mersenne 263 14 Marin Mersenne and the Origins of Language 275 15 Le Corps à la Renaissance: Theories of Perceiver and Perceived in Hearing 291 16 Expectation, Modelling and Assent in the History of Optics: i, Alhazen and the Medieval Tradition; ii, Kepler and Descartes 301 17 Contingent Expectation and Uncertain Choice: Historical Contexts of Arguments from Probabilities 357 18 P.-L. Moreau de Maupertuis, F.R.S. : Précurseur du Transformisme 407 19 The Public and Private Faces of Charles Darwin 429 20 The Language of Science 439 21 Some Historical Questions about Disease 443 22 Historians and the Scientific Revolution 451 23 The Origins of Western Science 465 Appendix to Chapter 10: 479 Sources and Dates of Galileos Writings [with A. Carugo] Pietro Redondi, Galileo eretico [with A. Carugo] Mario Biagioli, Galileo, Courtier Corrections to Science, Optics and Music in Medieval and Early Modern Thought 495 Index 497. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 417-418 [Access article in PDF] Heidi M. Ravven and Lenn E. Goodman, editors. Jewish Themes in Spinoza's Philosophy. Albany: The State University of New York Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 290. Cloth, $78.50. Paper, $26.95.The current anthology presents an important contribution to the study of Spinoza's relation to Jewish philosophy as well as to contemporary scholarship of Spinoza's (...) metaphysics and political theory.In the opening essay, Lenn Goodman takes upon himself the ambitious task of evaluating Spinoza's positions as to several central disputes throughout the history of philosophy. In this rich and extensive essay Goodman argues that Spinoza's radical rationalism makes him pursue syntheses between traditionally opposed poles. Lee Rice's article, "Love of God in Spinoza," carefully analyzes Spinoza's concept of love and suggests the existence of three kinds of love parallel to the three kinds of knowledge. Warren Montag addresses the unresolved issue of Spinoza's relation to the Kabbalah. Montag sides with Deleuze against the association of Spinozism with the Neo-Platonic theory of emanation, arguing that unlike the Neo-Platonists and Kabbalists, Spinoza's view of God rules out any hierarchy, and does not assume a descent from primal simplicity into complexity. Edwin Curley contributes a beautiful reading of the story of Job and of Maimonides' interpretation of the story. Curley follows Maimonides' discussion of the various positions regarding the question of divine providence and his attempt to identify the speeches of the characters of the book of Job with each of these positions. Following a sensitive consideration of various attempts to [End Page 417] recover Maimonides' own rather concealed view about providence, Curley concludes that "[W]hatever you think Maimonides' final word on Job is, our examination of him certainly supports [Spinoza's] claim that [Maimonides] reads Scripture in terms of Platonic or Aristotelian speculations" (170).Warren Zev Harvey's essay addresses Spinoza's most neglected work, the Compendium of the Grammar of the Hebrew Language. Apart from providing an outline of Spinoza's work as a Hebrew grammarian ("a noun-intoxicated grammarian") and pointing out some of Spinoza's more eccentric views about the nature of the Hebrew language, Harvey makes a compelling case for the importance of the book for the study of Spinoza's metaphysics. He points out a fascinating analogy which Spinoza draws between the parts of speech: (proper) noun, adjectives, and participles, and Spinoza's key metaphysical terms: substance, attributes, and modes. (Think about the weighty implications of this analogy for Curley's interpretation of the substance-mode relation.) According to Harvey, Spinoza's claim that all Hebrew words are derived from nouns is a linguistic parallel to Spinoza's pivotal metaphysical doctrine which makes all things be in the substance (or God). Kenneth Seeskin's article discusses the views of Maimonides and Spinoza on the question of creation and God's relation to the world. Seeskin reconstructs an interesting critical dialogue between these two philosophers. According to Seeskin, both philosophers held that an effect must be similar to its cause. Maimonides' commitment to Negative Theology and to the denial of any common measure between God and finite things forced him to deny causal or explanatory relation between God and the world. What Maimonides can suggest instead is rather to prove that the emergence of the world ex nihilo and according to the divine will, is possible, and even likely given certain astronomical facts of medieval science. Thus, Maimonides would hold that "although we have grounds for believing that creation occurred, we will never be in a position to say how" (120). For Spinoza, such a view constitutes nothing but a "sanctuary of ignorance." Thus, according to Seeskin, Spinoza affirms a clear causal relation between God and the world of finite things insofar as God is said to explain the world. While I tend to agree with most aspects of this analysis, it is important to note that Spinoza also claims that "between the finite and infinite there is no relation" (Letter 54). This... (shrink)

The encounter of the medieval Muslims with Greek philosophy undeniably shaped the course of their philosophical and theological thought. This encounter led to the complex and contentious issue of ‘philosophy versus theology’. Medieval Muslim thinkers needed to develop a response to the issue of philosophy versus theology. The present article will first highlight the response of the Islamic theologians to their encounter with Greek philosophy in the form of three major trends in (...) medieval Islamic theology: (1) strong opposition to the application of reason and rationalist approach to Islamic doctrines, and strict adherence to the actual text of the Qur’an and the Hadith, (2) the adoption of Greek philosophy, and the application of reason and rationalist approach to explain and defend Islamic religion and (3) acknowledging the significance of reason in exploring the matters related to the natural world but, at the same time, stressing the subordination of reason to revelation. This article will discuss Atharism, Muʿtazilism and Ashʿarism as the representatives of the first, second and third trends, respectively. The response of the medieval Islamic theologians to the issue of philosophy versus theology serves as a context in which medieval Muslim philosophers carried out their philosophy–theology debate. The article will proceed to show that some medieval Muslim philosophers, such as Abu Bakr Al-Razi, subordinated religion or revelation to philosophy or reason. Other medieval Muslim philosophers, such as Al-Ghazali, subordinated philosophy to theology. The third group of medieval Islamic philosophers represented by Alfarabi argued for the reconciliation and harmonious co-existence of philosophy and religion. Contribution: This article highlights the response of medieval Islamic theologians and philosophers to the issue of philosophy versus theology that was caused by their encounter with Greek philosophy. (shrink)

The paper open with an outline of Roger Bacon’s linguistic interests. He claimed that the knowledge of languages is the propedeuctics of any knowledge because it is formulated in the Hebrew, Greek, and Arabic languages, and no translation can fully render the original text. There are also other reasons for which the knowledge of languages is necessary for the functioning of the Church, e.g. in the Liturgy or for missionary purposes. Bacon distinguished three stages of the command of a (...) language, and the second is the skill of translation postulated for each person that studies philosophical and theological texts. This programme was too idealistic and, if only for the scarcity of original texts, it could not be carried out on a broader scale in medieval universities doomed to use Latin translations. And these translations were so negatively evaluated by Roger Bacon. He referred to his knowledge of some details that showed the translators’ incompetence. Then the paper discusses Bacon’s opinions on medieval translators. It indicates Bacon’s chronological mistakes and his lack of information with reference to many facts about the translator’s movements. It provides some possible reasons for Bacon’s ignorance and his harsh evaluation of that movement. There were the following reasons for that: he distanced himself from some learned information due to the fact that Aristotle had for many decades been condemned in Paris, there were excessive expectations in relation to the alleged astronomic and astrological knowledge of Aristotle, and its lack was painful for this scholar. He failed to be aware of the vagueness of Aristotle’s original text due to, among other things, only a rudimentary knowledge of Greek that Roger Bacon had, and Greek original texts were inaccessible. One may also mention a tendency typical of Bacon to trace causes of mistakes and his fear of being rush in creating authorities. Bacon’s testimony concerning William of Moerbeke is discussed in detail. This was done with a view to show that Bacon conveys some information that is not true and some that can be regarded as trustworthy or hypothetical in further research on the life and literary work of this medieval translator. The unique piece of information is that William of Moerbeke decided to revise the ancient translations of Aristotle’s writings. Bacon’s negative opinion about William’s translator’s skills must be treated as unjust, although contemporary research shows that, despite his indisputable accomplishments, William’s translations have some drawbacks. Accordingly, we cannot completely reject Roger Bacon’s testimony. (shrink)

Sri Lanka completed eloquent pull Dage described the love of wisdom is a holistic, practical way of life, which of course requires an abstract, theoretical science of meditation, more importantly, it also contains many religious practices is legal, such as flexible do not rot the soul, bitter conduct regular ring legal, social and political reform program, sustained ethics reflection, body control, dietary rules and taboos. However, this Pythagorean philosophy as a better life to all the light and fade away (...) In order to view at any time. The original philosophy of travel to another utterly abnormal interest in the pilgrimage of the way, that is abstract, a clear knowledge and commitment of this knowledge by the certainty of pursuit. "Knowledge" and "real management" into the vocabulary of philosophy In order systems, "smart" In order to become a college corridor in the West has been seriously neglected under the words. With the flow of time driving on the theory and psychiatric abstract admiration, which means practical wisdom, rhetoric and aesthetics into a whole都In order to two yuan regardless. Philosophy - the "love of wisdom" - in all intent and purposes都becomes In order to philo-episteme-"love of knowledge certainty." Started with the ancient Chinese culture, hope臘different. It is rooted in Confucianism, "the next school on up," the admonition of Chinese philosophy from the initial thinking on the road from the daily behavior persist in the pursuit of wisdom, relationships conducted by the "self" as the meaning of things by the event source. Everyone from family, community, political relations, to obtain a unique perspective, they participate in the growth of sperm heart and minds of thinking, their family and community relationships to adjust to a clearer, more meaningful position. Personal self-cultivation increased by the universe meaning, and meaning of the universe has increased over the coming anti-In order for individuals to provide a self fertile soil. For the eloquent Pythagoras, the holistic way of life he described as philosophia-"the love of wisdom"-while entailing the contemplation of abstract, theoretical science, involved much more importantly religious practices based upon the immortality of the soul, ascetic observances, a program of social and political reform, ethical reflection, a physical regimen, and even dietary prescriptions and prohibitions. But this conception of philosophy as a holistic vision of the good life faded in time, and gave way to the search for apodictic knowledge and its promise of certainty. "Knowledge" and "truth" became the vocabulary of systematic philosophy, and "wisdom" was banished from conversation in the corridors of the Western academy. The worship of the theoretically and spiritually abstract meant that in the fullness of time practical wisdom , rhetoric, and the aesthetic were relegated to the down side of a prevailing dualism. The Chinese cultural narrative unfolded differently. Grounded in the Confucian exhortation-"Study what is near at hand and aspire to what is lofty the next school on the up"-the Chinese philosophical narrative has from earliest times sustained a commitment to the pursuit of wisdom by understanding personal cultivation as the ultimate source of an emergent cosmic meaning. It is the revolution currently taking place within the Western philosophical community as an attempt to reinstate wisdom that provides an opening and an invitation to take Chinese philosophy and culture more seriously. An internal critique continues to be waged within professional Western philosophy under the many banners of process philosophy, hermeneutics, post-modernism, neo-pragmatism, neo-Marxism, deconstructionism, feminist philosophy , and so on, that takes as a shared target what Robert Solomon has called "the transcendental pretense"-idealism, objectivism, logocentrism, essentialism, the master narrative, "the myth of the given"-the familiar reductionistic "isms" that have emerged as putatively novel choices as philosophers switch horses on the merry-go-round of systematic philosophy. In place of a Cartesian philosophical language that privileges the function of clear and distinct ideas in our quest for an objective certainty, vocabularies of process, change, and indeed productive vagueness have increasingly come into vogue. These recent developments in Anglo-European philosophy itself have begun to foreground interpretative vocabularies more relevant to the articulation of Chinese culture. In this essay, I will argue that the pragmatic theory of truth as expounded by William James and particularly John Dewey is an attempt to reauthorize "wisdom" as a philosophical goal in the Western philosophical narrative. This development opens a space for a conversation between Deweyan pragmatism and Confucianism on how best to achieve it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IntroductionEthics and Interdisciplinarity in Philosophy and Literary TheoryMark Sanders (bio)Two questions—the first calls for information, the second for justification. What points of contact, if any, are there between the current investment in ethics in literary theory, and the elaboration of ethics in contemporary philosophy? In other words, does an interdisciplinarity exist? Second, what reasons might literary theorists have, or have they had, to be aware and (...) take stock of developments in philosophical ethics? That is to say, what might be gained from interdisciplinary work? A third question emanates from the first two: where a cross-disciplinary engagement with philosophy has taken place, has there occurred any transformation of literary theory? I hope to show in what follows that, when we consider ethics in literary theory, no less than in philosophy, it is necessary to attend both to method within each discipline and to the nature of relations between them.The first of my questions begs the question of what contemporary philosophy is. Literary theorists entering into ethics have tended to draw on the work of Emmanuel Lévinas, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Luce Irigaray, and more recently that of Giorgio Agamben and Alain Badiou. If the last has, in a spirit of polemic, professed to displace the "other" in the name of the "Same,"1 the dominant paradigm, when it [End Page 3] comes to ethics, remains one of alterity and difference. There are fundamental reasons why this should be the case: operating in figural language, literature, or the literary, differs from itself in response to an other. To borrow, translate, and adapt an Afrikaans term from the South African poet Breyten Breytenbach,2 literature engages in a process of andersmaak, of other-making or making-other: in making-other and, in so doing, inventing others, it makes itself other. Literature is an other-maker. It is to this activity that literary theory must attend. That is why it is natural for it to turn to ethics—not only the nexus Lévinas-Derrida and the other thinkers mentioned above, but also, for instance, to psychoanalysis: what may have begun as the teasing out of hidden meanings (the received idea is that this is what psychoanalysis and literary criticism share) has, following Lacan's "return to Freud," evolved into a consideration of the ethics of psychoanalysis in the context of reading and listening [see, for example, Felman and Laub].Literature may be an other-maker, and reading may be exemplary in the topoi of current theory for responsibility before the other,3 but it is not clear that literary theorists have been equal to setting this responsibility to work fully when it comes to responding to philosophy. There has been relatively little attention among literary theorists to developments in disciplinary philosophy—where, in recent decades, in North America and the Anglophone world generally, the tendency in ethics has been to bring moral reflection to bear on questions in political theory. The pólis in question is, however, no longer only the nation-state; the politics that engages political thought is transnational and global. Whether or not a given thinker subscribes to the idea of world citizenship, the horizon for thought is cosmopolitan.PhilosophyAlthough thinkers have continued to enter into basic questions in ethics,4 the writings of Charles Taylor, Will Kymlicka, Iris Young, Seyla Benhabib, and others attest to a shift from ethics to politics powerfully influenced by John Rawls (1921-2002)—notably in A Theory of Justice (1971) and Political Liberalism (1993)—and the ensuing criticisms of these works. As the weight of the North American debate has moved from liberal multiculturalism and minority rights [see Taylor et al.; Ackerman; Kymlicka; Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference] toward transnationality and globalization, Rawls's more recent critics have come to view his assumption of the nation-state as the basic context of analysis—even in The Law of Peoples (1999), which is devoted to international relations—as a limitation to his thinking of justice.5 These changes in emphasis are a clear sign of how the effects of globalization have begun to draw a response from political theorists.Links between ethics and political... (shrink)

In this survey, I should like to present an overview of the scholarly literature that appeared during the last decade or so in the field of fourteenth-century natural philosophy. This survey is partial in both senses of the term: it is fragmentary, and occasionally, it records my disagreements with some of the scholarly literature. Before narrowing down its scope it might be well to raise two methodological problems which one encounters when attempting to deal with the history of late- (...) class='Hi'>medieval natural philosophy of the sort with which this survey is concerned. First, the terminology of «natural philosophy», and second, the relation between natural philosophy and theology in the late Middle Ages. (shrink)

Originally published in 1993, Modalities in Medieval Philosophy looks at the idea of modality as multiplicity of reference with respect to alternative domains. The book examines how this emerged in early medieval discussions and addresses how it was originally influenced by the theological conception of God acting by choice. After a discussion of ancient modal paradigms, the author traces the interplay of old and new modal views in medieval logic and semantics, philosophy and theology. (...) A detailed account is given of late medieval discussions of the new modal logic, epistemic logic, and the logic norms. These theories show striking similarities to some basic tenets of contemporary approaches to modal matters. This work will be of considerable interest to historians of philosophy and ideas and philosophers of logic and metaphysics. (shrink)

The most comprehensive collection of its kind, this unique anthology presents fifty-four readings--many of them not widely available--by the most important and influential Christian, Jewish, and Muslim philosophers of the Middle Ages. The text is organized topically, making it easily accessible to students, and the large selection of readings provides instructors with maximum flexiblity in choosing course material. Each thematic section is comprised of six chronologically arranged readings. This organization focuses on the major philosophical issues and allows a smooth introduction (...) to the material. The topics covered are: (1) The Existence of God, (2) Ethics and the Problem of Evil, (3) God's Foreknowledge and Free Will, (4) Theology, (5) Political Philosophy, 6) Knowledge and Sensation, (7) Universals, (8) Logic and the Philosophy of Language and (9) Physics. Each text is preceded by a biographical note on the author and a brief analytical introduction. Unlike other anthologies, which present sources as a series of truncated excerpts, this collection avoids intrusive editing and includes many selections in their entirety, thus preserving the rich flavor of the medieval mind at work. (shrink)

As the title of this volume indicates, its focus is medieval literary theory and criticism, primarily "the tradition of systematic commentary on authors both sacred and profane, Latin and vernacular, 'ancient' and 'modern', from around 1100 until around 1375". Of necessity the contents are selective, but represent an extensive range of writing. This includes introductions to textual exposition on canonical authors, as they provide a theoretical framework for literary theory in terms of the "Aristotelian four causes"; a (...) prologue to the Sic et non of Peter Abelard; theorizing about the use of language which takes place outside a commentary per se, as in the theological treatises of Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent; and a letter by Dante in which he speaks "in the capacity of commentator". (shrink)

Debates in Medieval Philosophy: Essential Readings and Contemporary Responses aims to de-mystify medieval works by offering an illuminating, engaging introduction to the problems that medieval philosophers from Augustine through Ockham wrestled with. Each of the volume’s 11 units presents a debate that will enable students to return to the primary texts prepared to think critically and imaginatively about them. Debates include: Does Anselm have a hierarchical or a flat conception of free will? Is Abelard’s ethics conceptually (...) impoverished? Does Avicenna teach that we acquire concepts through abstraction or emanation? What is Aquinas’s purpose in writing the Summa contra gentiles? How sound are Ockham’s criticisms of Scotus’s theory of universals and individuation? The 10 essays newly commissioned for this volume will advance scholarship in medieval metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, logic, and philosophical theology, and in particular they will showcase what is philosophically distinctive and original in medieval philosophy. Students without experience in the history of philosophy will benefit from each unit’s clear, sharply written introductions that supply the necessary background to approach the debates intelligently. In addition, the volume’s general introduction elucidates the value of studying the history of philosophy through debate, in particular the history of medieval philosophy. Students will find in these debates models that will train them to formulate their own critical evaluations of a wide range of philosophical texts by thinkers with diverse philosophical commitments. (shrink)

Historians of medieval philosophy have always paid attention to the topic of intentionality. This is not surprising. For medieval authors, the analysis of the metaphysics and the mechanisms of human cognition became over time one of the most important instruments for approaching a bundle of basic philosophical and theological questions, such as the nature of universals, the mind-world relation, the explanation of divine knowledge, and the like. For this and other reasons, theories of cognition have been a (...) crucial theme for historians of medieval philosophy and a privileged subject in the literature. The present volume presents a collection of articles devotes to later medieval perspectives on intentionality. Chronologically speaking, they cover the period from Thomas Aquinas to John Buridan. The reason is easy to explain: in this period, historians of medieval philosophy encounter accounts of intentionality of such a structure and sophistication that they can be compared, in a philosophically suitable way, with modern and contemporary explanations of the intentionality of mind. (shrink)

How we come to know the external world has intrigued thinkers throughout the history of philosophy. Medieval philosophers understood that a theory of perception requires an account of the categorization of sensory information: to perceive things as being dangerous or beneficial and even as being individuals that belong to certain kinds (e.g., 'this is a dog'). A key question is whether this requires the intervention of rational cognitive capacities, cooperating with sensory ones in normal instances of perception. (...) The contributions to this volume investigate how thinkers from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries answer this and other related questions about human perception. Contributors are Fabrizio Amerini, Joel Biard, Veronique Decaix, Christian Kny, Lydia Schumacher, Josee Filipe Silva, and Jorg Alejandro Tellkamp. (shrink)

Peter Adamson presents a lively introduction to six hundred years of European philosophy, from the beginning of the ninth century to the end of the fourteenth century. The medieval period is one of the richest in the history of philosophy, yet one of the least widely known. Adamson introduces us to some of the greatest thinkers of the Western intellectual tradition, including Peter Abelard, Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Roger (...) Bacon. And the medieval period was notable for the emergence of great women thinkers, including Hildegard of Bingen, Marguerite Porete, and Julian of Norwich. Original ideas and arguments were developed in every branch of philosophy during this period - not just philosophy of religion and theology, but metaphysics, philosophy of logic and language, moral and political theory, psychology, and the foundations of mathematics and natural science. (shrink)

Over the last two decades there has been an increasing interest in the influence of medieval Jewish thought upon Spinoza's philosophy. The essays in this volume, by Spinoza specialists and leading scholars in the field of medieval Jewish philosophy, consider the various dimensions of the rich, important, but vastly under-studied relationship between Spinoza and earlier Jewish thinkers. It is the first such collection in any language, and together the essays provide a detailed and extensive analysis of (...) how different elements in Spinoza's metaphysics, epistemology, moral philosophy, and political and religious thought relate to the views of his Jewish philosophical forebears, such as Maimonides, Gersonides, Ibn Ezra, Crescas, and others. The topics addressed include the immortality of the soul, the nature of God, the intellectual love of God, moral luck, the nature of happiness, determinism and free will, the interpretation of Scripture, and the politics of religion. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 24, Issue 2, pp 224 - 278 This article discusses the anonymous early kabbalistic work _Sefer Maʿayan ha-Ḥokhmah_, one of the pivotal works of ʿIyyun literature. The first part deals with the book’s historical and literary aspects. The second part interprets a specific formulation in light of the basic ideas of the book itself, presenting the twofold pattern as a mystical type and as a grounding for linguistic-theological theory. The third part discusses the term “positive (...) class='Hi'>theology” in the theosophical and religious dimension, from the phenomenological perspective of extrovertive mysticism, and as a linguistic structure that provides the layer of signs as a stable basis for the restrained progress of Tongue. Acquiring the source as hidden but attendant by its constant grounding as a part of linguistic progression, uses the bifocal sight of binary extrovertive mysticism to denote the twofold structure of each being and each part of speech. (shrink)

How does language represent the world it can be used to talk about? Or does it? A negative answer is maintained by one of the main traditions in language theory that includes Frege, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Quine and Rorty. A test case is offered by the question whether the critical ''mirroring'' relations, especially the notion of truth, are themselves expressible in language. Tarski's negative thesis seemed to close the issue, but dramatic recent developments have decided the issue in favour of (...) the expressibility of truth. At the same time, the "mirroring" relations are not natural ones, but constituted by rule-governed human activities a la Wittgenstein's language games. These relations are nevertheless objective, because they depend only on the rules of these "games", not on the idiosyncrasies of the players. It also turns out that the "truth games" for a language are the same as the language games that give it its meaning in the first place. Thus truth and meaning are intrinsically intertwined. (shrink)

How do we judge whether we should be willing to follow the views of experts or whether we ought to try to come to our own, independent views? This book seeks the answer in medieval philosophical thought. In this engaging study into the history of philosophy and epistemology, Peter Adamson provides an answer to a question as relevant today as it was in the medieval period: how and when should we turn to the authoritative expertise of other (...) people in forming our own beliefs? He challenges us to reconsider our approach to this question through a constructive recovery of the intellectual and cultural traditions of the Islamic world, the Byzantine Empire, and Latin Christendom. Adamson begins by foregrounding the distinction in Islamic philosophy between taqlid, or the uncritical acceptance of authority, and ijtihad, or judgment based on independent effort, the latter of which was particularly prized in Islamic law, theology, and philosophy during the medieval period. He then demonstrates how the Islamic tradition paves the way for the development of what he calls a "justified taqlid," according to which one develops the skills necessary to critically and selectively follow an authority based on their reliability. The book proceeds to reconfigure our understanding of the relation between authority and independent thought in the medieval world by illuminating how women found spaces to assert their own intellectual authority, how medieval writers evaluated the authoritative status of Plato and Aristotle, and how independent reasoning was deployed to defend one Abrahamic faith against the other. This clear and eloquently written book will interest scholars in and enthusiasts of medieval philosophy, Islamic studies, Byzantine studies, and the history of thought"-- Back cover. (shrink)

In Posterior Analytics 1.13, Aristotle introduced a distinction between two kinds of demonstrations: of the fact (quia), and of the reasoned fact (propter quid). Both demonstrations take a syllogistic form, in which the middle term links either two facts (in the case of quia demonstrations) or a proximate cause and a fact (in the case of propter quid demonstrations). While Aristotle stated that all the terms of one demonstration must be taken from within the same subject matter, he admitted some (...) exceptions in which the fact and the reasoned fact are instantiated by terms from different sciences, as when mathematics provides the reason and another science the empirical fact. This was the methodological foundation of the “mixed sciences”, a subject of varying interpretations in the thirteenth century. Roger Bacon (C. 1220–1292), adhering to Robert Grosseteste’s (C. 1168–1563) commentary on Posterior Analytics, presented a unique interpretation of this exception. He replaced propositional demonstrations with geometrical considerations and diagrams, thus producing geometrical arguments for theorems in natural philosophy. I focus on Bacon’s propter quid arguments, as applied in three case studies: (1) the heat caused by a body moving to its natural place; (2) the motion of the scale; (3) and the contraction of water. Based on an analysis of these demonstrations, I argue that Bacon’s interpretation of propter quid demonstration reflects his application of a scientific methodology that imbues geometrical objects with causal power over material bodies. (shrink)

This exploratory enquiry seeks to examine the largely unexplored potential of semiotics for intercultural training and education. The proposed three-partdiscussion describes the process by which semiotic theoretical principles were selected and progressively refined into an applied model which was then pilotedthrough a 2007 research initiative entitled Tools for Cultural Development. The case study involved six groups of French and Australian trainees from both theacademic and professional sectors, in collaboration with university, government and community partners. The first part of the article (...) summarizes a review of theliterature on approaches to cultural competence training. The study then outlines the transcoding process by which the stated objectives of intercultural educationwere reformulated in semiotic terms, particularly in reference to cultural semiotics on which the theoretical core of the applied model was subsequently based.Relevant principles from other semiotic schools as well as similar theoretical and methodological stances in the social sciences reinforced the established body of theory for the training design. The third part of the study discusses the process by which semiotic principles were further defined as skill-based outcomes and goals for workshop implementation. This pragmatic defining process facilitated development of questionnaires and surveys, thereby allowing participants to evaluate the training experience by examining their perceptions about the workshop outcomes at the beginning and end of the sessions. This article presents the quantitative results of the evaluation and, in discussing the gains and limits of data obtained, provides the context for a follow-up article on the qualitative findingsof the study. (shrink)

The main thrust of this book, novel and yet convincing, is that medieval philosophy cannot be studied without noting the importance its participants paid to political matters. The selections are mostly whole sections of different works, thus enabling the reader to form his own judgments without fear that he is reading the philosophical interpretations of the editors. Writings of al-Fârâbî, Avicenna, Averroes, Maimonides, Abravenel, Aquinas, Roger Bacon and Dante are among the twenty-five entries.--C. E. B.

This sourcebook explores how the Middle Ages dealt with questions related to the mental life of creatures great and small. It makes accessible a wide range of key Latin texts from the fourth to the fourteenth century in fresh English translations. Specialists and non-specialists alike will find many surprising insights in this comprehensive collection of sources on the medieval philosophy of animal minds. The book’s structure follows the distinction between the different aspects of the mental. The author has (...) organized the material in three main parts: cognition, emotions, and volition. Each part contains translations of texts by different medieval thinkers. The philosophers chosen include well-known figures like Augustine, Albert the Great, and Thomas Aquinas. The collection also profiles the work of less studied thinkers like John Blund, Peter of Spain, and Peter of Abano. In addition, among those featured are several translated here into English for the first time. Each text comes with a short introduction to the philosopher, the context, and the main arguments of the text plus a section with bibliographical information and recommendations for further reading. A general introduction to the entire volume presents the basic concepts and questions of the philosophy of animal minds and explains how the medieval discussion relates to the contemporary debate. This sourcebook is valuable for anyone interested in the history of philosophy, especially medieval philosophy of mind. It will also appeal to scholars and students from other fields, such as psychology, theology, and cultural studies. (shrink)

The article shows that the currently fashionable idea of an omnipresence of mediality is already effective in some areas of medieval thought, even though in another form. The medieval conception of the relation between god, the world, and man implies a theological world view, according to which the phenomenon of mediality is not only universally present in the world, but in which the mundus creatus itself appears as a medium par excellence, as a message to man, assisting him (...) in transcending that medium. Furthermore it is argued that medieval philosophical thought is by no means restricted to such a symbolic world view. Scholastic philosophy does not only come with a highly elaborate theory about the different forms of cognitive media, but also has developed, particularly in the context of logic, a thoroughly rational theory of the sign and its functions, by which the symbolic and allegorical thinking was pushed to the margins of the philosophical discourse. (shrink)

“Austrian” (or “Austro-German”) philosophy of language is characterized, among other things, by the following two features: (1) Problems of language are considered within the broader framework of an intentionality-based philosophy of mind—or, to put it more precisely, questions of meaning are considered as involving a quite articulated theory of intentions; (2) several aspects of such an account are explicitly presented as inspired by or somehow already at work in the Medieval Scholastic tradition. In this study we (...) follow the track indicated by these two features and use some “Austrian” reflections on the articulation between meanings and intentions as a “heuristic filter”, as it were, to shed a new and different light on some Medieval debates in philosophy of language on the relationship between significare and intendere. It will be roughly divided into three parts. We begin by singling out some distinctive tenets of the “Austrian” strategy aimed at describing the relationship between meaning and intentions (section I), and then turn to various Medieval texts from the 13th and 14th century dealing with the two related notions of significatio and intentio (section II). The upshot of our investigation is to show how, for both “Austrian” and Medieval philosophers of language (and beyond their differences), a proper understanding of linguistic meaning—in the twofold sense of words or sentences having a lexical content and utterances having a determinate pragmatic function—presupposes an account of what one could call the “agentive intentionality”, i.e. the complex intentionality proper to practical goal-directed human behaviours. Some final remarks about outcomes, meaning, scope and perspectives opened by the method applied will conclude the study (section III). (shrink)

This is a study of the development of Western inwardness from Plato to Augustine. It traces the origin of three concepts: inward turn, private inner space, and outward expression. All three were originally theological concepts; i.e., they belonged to philosophical theories that related God to the soul. ;Part I examines the precursors of these three concepts in Plato, then notes the central contribution made by Aristotle's doctrine that the mind is identical with the Forms it knows. This allows Plotinus to (...) identify the divine Mind with the intelligible world and locate it within the soul. This then is the foundation of Plotinus' inward turn: in turning its mind into its own interior, the soul is turning to the divine. ;Part II argues that it was Augustine who invented the concept of a private inner space of the self. Augustine's search for God builds on Plotinus' inward turn, but must adjust to the fact that Christian doctrine denies the divinity of the soul. Hence the inner self in Augustine is no longer the intelligible world, but the soul's own inner world. It only becomes a private world, however, inasmuch as the soul is fallen and therefore separated from other souls by the opacity of mortal bodies. (shrink)

The philosophical problem of describing God arises at the intersection of two different areas of inquiry. The word ‘describing’ makes it clear that the issue is in part a logical one – in the broad medieval sense of ‘logic,’ which includes semantics, the philosophy of language, and even some aspects of the theory of cognition. It is the problem, first, of forming an understanding of some extramental object and, second, of conveying that understanding by means of verbal (...) signs. But the word ‘God’ also indicates that the logical problems involved in description are exacerbated, or perhaps that new problems arise, because of the nature of the extramental object that we are seeking to describe. Given the enormous ingenuity with which logical problems were debated in the Middle Ages, it is not surprising that the problem of describing God would be worked out in detail – and that many thinkers would lose sight of the specifically theological context in which the problem was ostensibly set. We see here a familiar phenomenon. Once philosophers (even scholastic philosophers) have fully domesticated a problem, discussions of the problem seldom lay bare the practical urgency that alone made the question worth pursuing in the first place; it becomes a technical question, answerable by technical means. Yet, though it is not always in evidence, the practical upshot of the issue is never entirely forgotten, as John Duns Scotus reminds us in his curt dismissal of the view that we can at best say of God what he is not: “We do not have supreme love for negations” (Ordinatio I.3.1.1–2 n. 10). Attempts to resolve the problem of describing God are ultimately efforts to “save the appearances”: to accommodate within a philosophically defensible framework both the data of what are taken to be divinely revealed texts and the linguistic practices of believers. The appearances to be saved of course differ somewhat from one religious tradition to another. The Christian tradition, for example, faces distinctive problems that arise in understanding and describing.... (shrink)

Languages play an essential role in communicating aesthetic, scientific and religious convictions, as well as laws, worldviews and truths. Additionally, metaphors are an essential part of many languages and artistic expressions. In this paper I will first examine the role metaphors play in religion and art. Is there a specific focus on symbolic and metaphoric language in religion and art? Where are the analogies to be found in artistic metaphors and religious ones? How are differences to be described? How do (...) various concepts of aesthetics and theological concepts explain those different kinds of language and how, if at all, do they make use of them? Lastly: what could be added to aesthetics, philosophy and theology by examining carefully the role and importance of language, including nonverbal, sign language and especially metaphorical language? Without the human capacity for language, religions are scarcely imaginable. A widening of traditional exegesis and hermeneutics by taking into account nonverbal semantics is needed. Religion is a cognitive and linguistic phenomenon. By taking this seriously, we set and enable an agenda to discuss religion scientifically, leaving aside for the purpose of a scientific understanding and discourse about the inter-religious and the inner-religious claims of truth and absolutist claims. To sum it up: metaphor is introduced as an important means of language when it comes to religious conceptualization. Next, I will show that art, more than religion, deals with visual metaphor – the latter being an image that suggests a particular association, similarity or analogy between two generally unconnected visual elements. This often, but not always, functions in a roughly comparable fashion to the better-known concept of verbal metaphor. In addition, visual metaphor has developed many original and unique characteristics. These two sections are followed by another one dealing with cultural philosophy of religion and aesthetics, as well as the meaning of metaphors for these disciplines. The next section is on metaphor and metaphorical language in mathematics, natural sciences and art and how they are related, i.e. influence and help each other. I will discuss the critical approach to metaphors in natural science and provide a short introduction to the cultural history of mathematics and art. Mathematicians and artists have long been on the quest to understand the physical world they see before them and the abstract objects they know by thought alone. How have art and mathematics helped each other in representing each other’s concepts? A final section provides a summary and an outlook: theology is contextual as is science – and so is art. All these disciplines partly rely upon metaphor and by the help of metaphor get closer to an intercultural and interdisciplinary understanding. I shall argue that, by dealing more carefully with their metaphorical language and their own metaphors, together they become better equipped to map the world. (shrink)

The most recent version of the “linguistic turn,” the revolution in language theory shaped by Saussure’s structural linguistics and realized in a sweeping revision of investigations throughout the humanities and social sciences, has rushed past the most basic “fact”: that there is language. What has been lost? Almost everything of what Heidegger tried to approach under the name of “ontology” until the word proved too laden by common misapprehension to be of use. Most immediately, this is everything of language (...) that exceeds the order of signification, together with the subject’s engagement with this “excess” that is the (non)ground of history and the material site of all relationality, beginning with that unthought that is widely termed “culture.” Language and Relation returns to this site in close readings of meditations on language by Martin Heidegger, Luce Irigaray, Paul Celan, Walter Benjamin, and Maurice Blanchot. It seeks to move with these authors beyond the order of signification and toward the an-archic grounds of relation (of all relations between self and other, and of relation in general), exploring the possibility for a strong link between issues in modern philosophy of language and contemporary socio-political concerns. (shrink)

EDITORS' INTRODUCTION B he Vedas tell of a conversation between a young man, Shvetaketu, and his father concerning what the son had learned in his education ...

Higher-order logic augments first-order logic with devices that let us generalize into grammatical positions other than that of a singular term. Some recent metaphysicians have advocated for using these devices to raise and answer questions that bear on many traditional issues in philosophy. In contrast to these 'higher-order metaphysicians', traditional metaphysics has often focused on parallel, but importantly different, questions concerning special sorts of abstract objects: propositions, properties and relations. The answers to the higher-order and the property-theoretic questions may (...) coincide sometimes but will often come apart. I argue that when they do, the higher-order questions are closer to the metaphysical action and so it would be better for these debates to proceed in higher-order terms. (shrink)

“Studies on the emotions became popular in the analytically oriented philosophy of mind in the 1980s” , the author begins, but the status of emotion as reason’s rival or complement in the directing of human nature is, of course, of perennial interest to philosophy per se. True, the topic has acquired a certain prominence in recent decades, and this has led to useful historical investigations, although, as the author says, many more of them have been on emotions in (...) ancient than in medieval philosophy . In four chapters, he presents a continuous history of philosophical reflection on emotion from Plato to the fourteenth-century Franciscan Adam Wodeham, and late medieval compendia. Along the way he summarizes and comments on a large number of texts in whole or in part, regularly quotes from them in English translation, and often supplies the more significant Greek and Latin terms. For discussion of ancient theories, he acknowledges reliance on works by Martha Nussbaum and Richard Sorabji, but his scholarship extends to a wide range of primary sources and other historical studies. His recognition of the bearing of both theological and medical works on his subject is noteworthy: it is a mark of the singularity of emotion—or, as it is. (shrink)

The positioning of theory in relation to educational practice has provoked much recent debate, with some arguing that educational theory constrains thinking in education, while others dismiss ‘theory’ out of hand as belonging to the world of the ‘academic’, abstracted from the ‘realities’ of the classroom. This paper views theory as necessarily implicated in all practices, but argues that depending on the theories embraced, and the understanding of theory itself, education can be understood in very (...) different ways. Resisting the separation of theory from practice, the paper takes up the call to consider the entanglement of theory with practice, or how theory matters. It takes formative assessment as a particularly fertile case for this discussion. Formative assessment has been considerably developed in schooling across different national education systems. Its aspiration is for assessment to support learning, rather than only to credentialise learning. Having first emerged as a concept when behaviourism held sway, it has been considered through different theoretical lenses. Drawing upon empirical studies of classroom assessment practices, the paper draws out the different ‘mattering’ implicated in the different languages of assessment used by practitioners, raising questions about the practices this produced. The paper concludes by asking if formative assessment could become ‘educational’ in a more radical sense, if opportunities to focus on the contingencies and politics of our meaning-making were sometimes taken up more openly and dialogically with students, as opposed to formative assessment sitting in a instrumental relationship to a given curriculum. (shrink)

This book, sure to become a standard reference work, is a comprehensive, lucid, and systematic commentary on Kant's practical philosophy. Kant is arguably the most important moral philosopher of the modern period. Using as nontechnical a language as possible, Professor Sullivan offers a detailed, authoritative account of Kant's moral philosophy - including his ethical theory, his philosophy of history, his political philosophy, his philosophy of religion, and his philosophy of education - and demonstrates (...) the historical, Kantian origins of such important notions as 'autonomy', 'respect for persons', 'rights', and 'duties'. An invaluable resource, this book will be extremely useful to advanced undergraduates, graduates, and professional philosophers alike. (shrink)