Implementing an algorithm on part of our causally-interconnected physical environment requires three choices that are typically considered arbitrary, i.e. no single option is innately privileged without invoking an external observer perspective. First, how to delineate one set of local causal relationships from the environment. Second, within this delineation, which inputs and outputs to designate for attention. Third, what meaning to assign to particular states of the designated inputs and outputs. Having explained these types of arbitrariness, we assess their (...) relevance for algorithms from various computational theories of mind (CTM) seeking to account for phenomenal consciousness. Some CTM accounts can survive some of these arbitrariness challenges, but eventually each one examined faces a trilemma. Each is under pressure to dilute at least one of three important CTM desiderata: its causal relevance, its substrate neutrality, or its assignment discrimination (e.g. ability to avoid near-panpsychism). However, unlike previous research, we suggest the debate cannot be fully settled at the level of principle. Certain complex CTM algorithms may be salvageable, albeit not the algorithms specified to date. The paper specifies three areas of investigative work, as well as further theoretical avenues of research, which computationalists may wish to explore to escape the trilemma. (shrink)

Three distinct things have been called "referential opacity," causing some confusion. A noun position in a sentence may be opaque in three different ways: (1) substitutivity of identity may fail there, (2) quantifiers prefixed to the sentence may not be able to bind variables in that position, or (3) substitutivity of identity may fail when the singular nouns in question are read as having small scope. Some connections among these three types of opacity are examined.

Despite the prevalence of the virtue of considerateness in everyday moral discourse and the proliferation of philosophical studies of virtue language, considerateness hardly ever appears on philosophical agendas. When discussed in academia, its meaning seems fuzzy and unclear. This article makes amends for this gap by subjecting considerateness to conceptual scrutiny. The author argues that considerateness designates a cluster concept, encompassing three types of virtuousness that share a family resemblance only. One is a hybrid civic-moral social-glue virtue, extensionally (...) equivalent to Aristotle's virtue of agreeableness. The second is an intellectual virtue of phronetic consideration (moral sensitivity and integration). The third is a full-fledged discrete moral virtue with standard Aristotelian features of a golden-mean structure and an emotional component as a motivator. The advantages of identifying these three types of virtuousness are elicited, as are some of the educational ramifications of analyzing the differentia of considerateness in this way. (shrink)

When the COVID-19 surge hit New York City hospitals, the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College, and our affiliated ethics consultation services, faced waves of ethical issues sweeping forward with intensity and urgency. In this article, we describe our experience over an eight-week period (16 March through 10 May 2020), and describe three types of services: clinical ethics consultation (CEC); service practice communications/interventions (SPCI); and organizational ethics advisement (OEA). We tell this narrative through the prism (...) of time, describing the evolution of ethical issues and trends as the pandemic unfolded. We delineate three phases: anticipation and preparation, crisis management, and reflection and adjustment. The first phase focused predominantly on ways to address impending resource shortages and to plan for remote ethics consultation, and CECs focused on code status discussions with surrogates. The second phase was characterized by the dramatic convergence of a rapid increase in the number of critically ill patients, a growing scarcity of resources, and the reassignment/ redeployment of staff outside their specialty areas. The third phase was characterized by the recognition that while the worst of the crisis was waning, its medium- and long-term consequences continued to pose immense challenges. We note that there were times during the crisis that serving in the role of clinical ethics consultant created a sense of dis-ease as novel as the coronavirus itself. In retrospect we learned that our activities far exceeded the familiar terrain of clinical ethics consultation and extended into other spheres of organizational life in novel ways that were unanticipated before this pandemic. To that end, we defined and categorized a middle level of ethics consultation, which we have termed service practice communication intervention (SPCI). This is an underappreciated dimension of the work that ethics consult services are capable of in times of crisis. We believe that the pandemic has revealed the many enduring ways that ethics consultation services can more robustly contribute to the ethical life of their institutions moving forward. (shrink)

Xuanzang (602–664) is famous for his legendary life, his important translation works, and also his Discourse on the Realisation of Consciousness-Only (Vijñapti-mātratā-siddhi, 成唯識論). This text, which is considered as a synthesis of Yogācāra thought, has been diversely interpreted by modern scholars and is still discussed, in particular about the status of external things. Nevertheless, this issue seems to be of little interest for Yogācāra thinkers compared to other topics such as the Noble Path, or else the three types (...) of wisdom (trividhā prajñā, 三慧): learning (śruta, 聞), reasoning (cintā, 思), and cultivating (bhāvanā, 修). As emphasized in recent research, this topic represents a major issue for Buddhist practitioners. In an attempt to analyse it in Xuanzang’s Discourse, and more generally in Yogācāra thought, this paper will first discuss Asaṅga’s and Vasubandhu’s thought on the three types of wisdom. Secondly, since it is important to replace the three types of wisdom in the general argumentation of Xuanzang’s Discourse, we will present the structure of his text which is modelled on a “path” leading progressively to Supreme Awakening. Then, we will present the main elements of the Noble Path and situate the three types of wisdom into it. Finally, we will explain that Xuanzang follows Asaṅga’s and Vasubandhu’s conceptions and eventually confirm the importance of the three types of wisdom in Yogācāra thought. (shrink)

This book is a collection of essays on the philosophy of religion, but it draws on contemporary work in the social sciences as well as in philosophy. It examines the ways in which conceptions of God reflect notions of the self that are present in the thought and experience of each author.

In this article, we argue for the distinction of three different types of predicates: existence entailing, (existence) neutral, and nonexistence entailing predicates. We provide linguistic tests as well as examples to motivate this distinction. After motivating our views on predicates, we show how our theory is able to deal with a multitude of problematic data both known from the literature as well as new. Then, we develop a multi-domain predicate logic inspired by certain versions of free logics in (...) order to represent these entailments in a formal way. (shrink)

Most of the chapters in this slim volume are revised or extended versions of essays published earlier in various journals. The opening three essays, originally presented as Lowell Lectures, set the theme of the book as an exposition of Hartshorne's own neoclassical metaphysics.

The existence of different types of semiosis has been recognized, so far, in two ways. It has been pointed out that different semiotic features exist in different taxa and this has led to the distinction between zoosemiosis, phytosemiosis, mycosemiosis, bacterial semiosis and the like. Another type of diversity is due to the existence of different types of signs and has led to the distinction between iconic, indexical and symbolic semiosis. In all these cases, however, semiosis has been defined (...) by the Peirce model, i.e., by the idea that the basic structure is a triad of ‘sign, object and interpretant’, and that interpretation is an essential component of semiosis. This model is undoubtedly applicable to animals, since it was precisely the discovery that animals are capable of interpretation that allowed Thomas Sebeok to conclude that they are also capable of semiosis. Unfortunately, however, it is not clear how far the Peirce model can be extended beyond the animal kingdom, and we already know that we cannot apply it to the cell. The rules of the genetic code have been virtually the same in all living systems and in all environments ever since the origin of life, which clearly shows that they do not depend on interpretation. Luckily, it has been pointed out that semiosis is not necessarily based on interpretation and can be defined exclusively in terms of coding. According to the ‘code model’, a semiotic system is made of signs, meanings and coding rules, all produced by the same codemaker, and in this form it is immediately applicable to the cell. The code model, furthermore, allows us to recognize the existence of many organic codes in living systems, and to divide them into two main types that here are referred to as manufacturing semiosis and signalling semiosis. The genetic code and the splicing codes, for example, take part in processes that actually manufacture biological objects, whereas signal transduction codes and compartment codes organize existing objects into functioning supramolecular structures. The organic codes of single cells appeared in the first three billion years of the history of life and were involved either in manufacturing semiosis or in signalling semiosis. With the origin of animals, however, a third type of semiosis came into being, a type that can be referred to as interpretive semiosis because it became closely involved with interpretation. We realize in this way that the contribution of semiosis to life was far greater than that predicted by the Peirce model, where semiosis is always a means of interpreting the world. Life is essentially about three things: (1) it is about manufacturing objects, (2) it is about organizing objects into functioning systems, and (3) it is about interpreting the world. The idea that these are all semiotic processes, tells us that life depends on semiosis much more deeply and extensively than we thought. We realize in this way that there are three distinct types of semiosis in Nature, and that they gave very different contributions to the origin and the evolution of life. (shrink)

Sufficientarian libertarianism is a theory of justice that combines libertarianism’s focus on property rights and non-interference with sufficientarianism’s concern for the poor and needy. Persons are conceived as having stringent rights to direct their lives as they see fit, provided that everyone has enough to live a self-guided life. Yet there are different ways to combine libertarianism and sufficientarianism and hence different types of sufficientarian libertarianism. In the article I present and discuss three types, and I argue (...) that the last one overcomes the problems of the other two. The first type combines libertarianism with a sufficiency principle in what is sometimes called the ‘ethics of distribution’. The second incorporates modest welfare rights into a libertarian theory of justice. The third endorses a sufficientarian Lockean proviso for practices of private property within a libertarian theory of justice. I argue that it is superior to the others. (shrink)

Distinctions among juristic ways of thinking -- Classification of juristic ways of thinking in the overall development of legal history.

본 논문은 삼론종 길장과 혜균의 중도사상을 고찰하고, 이를 통해 고대 중국과 백제의 중관사상에서 보이는 변증법적 특징을 비교했다. 길장과 혜균은 모두 그들의 스승인 법랑의 중도사상을 계승하여, ‘非A非B’(‘不A不B’) 형식을 사용하여 중도를 나타냈지만, 동일한 언어형식을 통해 두 사람이 역설하고자 하는 지점은 달랐다. 길장은 그가 펼친 삼종중도(三種中道)에서 가명과 중도의 ‘상즉’을 강조하였으며, 그의 ‘不A不B’ 형식은 양변을 동시에 지양하는 철저한 무득(無得)의 정신을 구현하는 데 초점을 두고 있다. 이와 달리, 혜균은 그의 『대승사론현의기(大乘四論玄義記)』 제1권 『초장중가의(初章中假義)』에서 삼론종의 이원적 범주들에 관한 독창적인 해석을 전개하였는데, 그의 ‘非A非B’ 형식은 ‘진정한 해탈은 현실에서 (...) 대립적으로 나타난 자타(自他)의 변증법적 융합을 통해 이루어짐’을 역설한다. 따라서 혜균의 ‘非A非B’ 논법에서 타자와의 합일은 진정한 보편성을 획득하는 필요충분조건이다. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE FAILURE OF HUME'S TREATISE The Treatise is, of course, a failure; Hume tells us so himself. Hume's reservations about the Treatise both in later writings and even within the work itself are well known. What is less clear is exactly why Hume found the Treatise so unsatisfactory. This is a complicated question, for to explain why the Treatise does not live up to Hume's expectations presupposes an understanding (...) of the more fundamental problem of what Hume's expectations were in the first place. In what follows I present a theory about what it was that Hume hoped to accomplish in the Treatise and why this project was ultimately unsuccessful. In the first two sections of this paper I discuss three philosophical positions with which Hume was concerned, and I present three faculties of the understanding which he isolates in the Treatise. In the third section I argue that Hume's goal is to match these three philosophical positions with the three faculties, and by doing so to provide both a critique of unsatisfactory positions and a foundation for his own "science of man." I conclude by showing that this matching project is ultimately unsuccessful, thus dooming the Treatise to at least partial failure. My analysis is based primarily on Treatise I; without argument here I subscribe to Kemp Smith's thesis that Treatise I represents the most advanced stage of thinking in the 2 Treatise. This explains to me how Hume can continue to write Books II and III after the partial failure of the project which he registers in the conclusion of Treatise I. I read the conclusion to Book I as the conclusion of the whole project. Three Philosophical Positions The three philosophical positions which I wish to discuss are described by Hume at one point as that of the vulgar, that of a false philosophy, and that of the true (T222). 58. Let us discuss them in that order: 1.Vulgar Superstition. Hume frequently discusses and criticizes a set of beliefs and ways of thinking which for convenience I call "vulgar superstition." The real enemy here is popular religion, which for Hume is the clearest expression of this mode of thought. In the Treatise Hume is more wary of criticizing popular religion than he sometimes was in later works, but the general target of his remarks is still clear. The kinds of thought Hume has in mind here are bigotry, superstition, credulity, prejudice, and indoctrination. This type of thinking presents a constant barrier to human enlightenment and progress, and for Hume the role of philosophy is to attack superstition and keep it in check. As Hume expressed it a few years later, One considerable advantage that arises from philosophy, consists in the sovereign antidote which it offers to superstition and false religion. All other remedies against that pestilent distemper are vague, or at least uncertain. 2.Dogmatism. Another target which Hume attacks in the Treatise is a dogmatic or rationalistic approach to philosophy, best exemplified by Cambridge Platonism and Cartesianism. This type of philosophy seeks to base ethics upon pure reason, to know things with certainty, and to penetrate the ultimate nature of man, God, and the universe. Hume hopes to show the fallacy of all this philosophy (T 413) by showing that reason can never motivate action, that only fools claim to know things with certainty (T 270), and that we must be content to understand the appearance of things rather than to know their secret causes (T 64). 3.The Science of Man. Hume's own position, the "science of man," is presented as a middle ground-empirical rather than a priori and scientific rather than superstitious. The goal of this true philosophy is to discover the original qualities of human nature (T 562), resulting in a Newtonian analysis of man himself. For Hume true philosophers are characterized by their moderate scepticism (T 224), so Hume's system is to be built on probable judgments rather than certain ones, and it will deal with appearances rather than essences. Here again Hume follows the "constructive scepticism" of Newton. Hume sees considerable danger in following either rationalism or superstition, but he has great... (shrink)

This paper develops a language for distinguishing more rigorously between various senses of the term ‘anthropocentrism.’ Specifically, it differentiates between:1. Perceptual anthropocentrism (which characterizes paradigms informed by sense-data from human sensory organs);2. Descriptive anthropocentrism (which characterizes paradigms that begin from, center upon, or are ordered around Homo sapiens / ‘the human’)3. Normative anthropocentrism (which characterizes paradigms that constrain inquiry in a way that somehow privileges Homo sapiens / ‘the human’ [passive normative anthropocentrism]; and which characterizes paradigms that make assumptions or (...) assertions about the superiority of Homo sapiens, its capacities, the primacy of its values, its position in the universe, and/or make prescriptions based on these assertions and assumptions [active normative anthropocentrism]). (shrink)

This paper considers the controversy surrounding the Buddhist doctrine of “no-self”, and especially the question of whether the Buddha himself meant by it unequivocally the ontological denial of the self. The emergence of this doctrine is connected with the Buddha’s attempt to forge a “middle way” that avoids the extreme views of “eternalism” in regards to the soul and “annihilationism” of the soul at bodily death. By looking at the earliest works of the Pāli canon, three of the (...) five Nikāyas along with later Abhidharmist developments, my discussion shows that its original intent was not explicitly ontological. The intent was more practical than theoretical, with the aim of bringing about a freedom from attachment to such theories as eternalism and annihilationism. The Buddha’s “middle” position was, hence, a praxis towards freedom rather than a theoria about the existence or non-existence of the self. (shrink)

This paper challenges the traditional account of vulnerability in healthcare which conceptualizes vulnerability as a list of identifiable subpopulations. This list of ‘usual suspects’, focusing on groups from lower resource settings, is a narrow account of vulnerability. In this article we argue that in certain circumstances middle-class individuals can be also rendered vulnerable. We propose a relational and layered account of vulnerability and explore this concept using the case study of cord blood (CB) banking. In the first section, two (...) different approaches to ‘vulnerability’ are contrasted: categorical versus layered. In the second section, we describe CB banking and present a case study of CB banking in Argentina. We examine the types of pressure that middle-class pregnant women feel when considering CB collection and storage. In section three, we use the CB banking case study to critique the categorical approach to vulnerability: this model is unable to account for the ways in which these women are vulnerable. A layered account of vulnerability identifies several ways in which middle-class women are vulnerable. Finally, by utilizing the layered approach, this paper suggests how public health policies could be designed to overcome vulnerabilities. (shrink)

In this essay, I outline fundamental anthropological and moral principles related to human sexuality and gender identity and then apply these principles to analyze and evaluate the views of several authors who attempt to carve out a “middle way” between liberal and traditionalist approaches to these issues. In doing so, I engage especially with the claim that gender dysphoria, rather than being a psychological issue, is a type of biological intersex condition in which one’s “brain sex” is out of (...) line with one’s genital and chromosomal sex. I argue that understanding the human person as a unity of body and soul and recognizing human sexuality as ordered toward the human good of marriage understood as inseparably unitive and procreative reveals the flaws in this position and helps to show why hormonal or surgical gender reassignment therapy is not a medically or ethically appropriate response to gender dysphoria. I also offer an alternative characterization of gender dysphoria and suggestions for responding with true compassion to those who suffer from it. (shrink)

Regarding the relation of Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, scholars have been divided to two opposing groups: unitarists and developmentalists. While developmentalists try to prove that there are some noticeable and even fundamental differences between Plato’s early and middle period dialogues, the unitarists assert that there is no essential difference in there. The main goal of this article is to suggest that some of Plato’s ontological as well as epistemological principles change, both radically and fundamentally, between the (...) early and middle period dialogues. Though this is a kind of strengthening the developmentalistic approach corresponding the relation of the early and middle period dialogues, based on the fact that what is to be proved here is a essential development in Plato’ ontology and his epistemology, by expanding the grounds of development to the ontological and epistemological principles, it hints to a more profound development. The fact that the bipolar and split knowledge and being of the early period dialogues give way to the tripartite and bound knowledge and benig of the middle period dialogues indicates the development of the notions of being and knowledge in Plato’s philosophy before the dialogues of the middle period. -/- Keywords Plato; early dialogues; middle dialogues; being; knowledge; development -/- Introduction The differences between two groups of the early and middle period dialogues have always been a matter of dispute. Whereas the developmentalists like Vlastos, Silverman (2002), Teloh (1981), Dancy (2004) and Rickless (2007) think that from the early to the middle dialogues Plato’s philosophy changes, at least in some essential points, the unitarists like Kahn, Cherniss and Shorey believe that there happens no development and the differences must be taken as natural, ignorable and even pedagogic. In his well-known article, Socrates contra Socrates in PLATO, Vlastos lists ten theses of difference between two groups of dialogues. The first group which includes Plato’s early dialogues he divides to 'elenctic' (Apology, Charmides, Crito, Euthyphro, Gorgias, Hippias Minor, Ion, Laches, Protagoras and Republic I) and 'transitional' (Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Lysis, Menexenus and Meno) dialogues. These transitional come after all the elenctic dialogues and before all the dialogues of the second group which compose Plato’s middle period dialogues, including (with Vlastos' chronological order) Cratylus, Phaedo, Symposium, Republic II-X, Phaedrus, Parmenides and Theaetetus (1991, 46-49). Vlastos asserts strictly that his list of differences are 'so diverse in content and method that they contrast as sharply with one another as with any third philosophy you care to mention, beginning with Aristotole’s' (ibid, 46). Vlastos’ list of differences between two Socrateses is considered a view breaking sharply between the early and the middle dialogues. Besides all ten differences between the two Socrateses in Vlastos’ list that can be supportive for our doctrine here, we intend to focus on some ontological as well as epistemological distinctions that have not completely been discussed hitherto. Contrary to the developmentalist theory of Vlastos, unitarian theory of Charles Kahn wishes to eliminate any substantial difference between the early and the middle dialogues. He distinguishes seven 'pre-middle' or 'threshold' dialogues including Laches, Charmides, Euthyphro, Protagoras, Meno, Lysis and Euthydemus from the other Socratic dialogues which he calls 'earliest group' (1996, 41). The threshold dialogues, Kahn thinks, 'embarke upon a sustained project' that is to reach to its climax in the middle period dialogues, namely Phaedo, Symposium and Republic. Believing in that there is no 'fundamental shift'between the early and middle dialogues (ibid, 40), Kahn thinks the Socratic dialogues are just the 'first stage' with a 'deliberate silence' towards the theories of later periods (ibid, 339). One of the reasons of the surprising fact that Plato gives no hint of the metaphysics and epistemology of the Forms in the early dialogues, he thinks, is the pedagogical advantages of aporia. He thinks that Plato 'obscurely', and mostly because of education, hinted to some doctrines and conceptions in his early dialogues and with the aim of clarifying them only in the later ones (ibid, 66). The seven threshold dialogues, Kahn asserts, 'had been designed from the first' to prepare the pupils and readers for the views expounded in the middle period dialogues (ibid, 59-60). To show that the differences of the two Socrateses of the early and middle period dialogue are in their onto-epistemological grounds and thence cannot be explained by a unitaristic view, we try to draw the ontological and epistemological principles of the early dialogues in the first part below in order to show, in the second part, that those principles have been developed in the middle period dialogues. -/- A. The Onto-Epistemologic Principles of the Early Dialogues Socratic dialogues are paradoxical about knowledge because while being knowledge-oriented always searching for knowledge, they deny it and even never discuss it directly. Three elements of Socrates’ way of searching Knowledge throughout the early dialogues, i.e. Socratic 'what is X?' question, his disavowal of knowledge and his elenctic method combined together produce something like a circle which works, more or less, in the same way in these dialogues. Though this circle is an embaressing inquiry always resulting in ignorance instead of knowledge, its motivation is surprisingly Socrates’ passionate enthusiasm for knowledge, an intensive love of wisdom. The starting point of this circle is Socrates’ confession of having no knowledge which might be explicitly asserted or presupposed, maybe because it was one of the famous characteristics of Socrates; a confession always paradoxically accompanied with his intense longing for knowledge (e.g., Gorgias 505e4-5). Every time Socrates encounters with someone who thinks he knows something (οἴεταί τι εἰδέναι) (Apology 21d5) and tries to examine him. This examination seems to be the simplest one asking just what it is that he knows. Socrates’ elenchus, therefore, is always connected with 'what is X?' (τίς ποτέ ἐστιν) question, a question that most of the early dialogues of Plato are concerned with; 'what is courage?' in the Laches, 'what is piety?' in Euthydemus, 'what is temperance?' in Charmides and 'what is beauty?' in Hippias Major. This question we call here 'Socratic question' and probably is the very question the historical Socrates used to employ, is tightly interrelated with both his disavowal and his elenchus. He disclaims knowledge because he cannot find the answer to the question himself and he rejects others’ since they cannot offer the correct answer too. Every interlocutor can claim he knows X, if and only if he can answer the Socratic question. Otherwise, he is more of an ignorant than of a knower of τί ποτέ ἐστι X. Knowing the answer to this question is, thus, knowledge’s criterion for Socrates. Having found out that he cannot answer what it is which he would claim to know, the interlocutor comes to the point Socrates was there at the beginning. The least advantage of this circle is that he becomes as wise as Socrates does about the subject, becoming aware that he does not know it. At the end of the circle they are both still at the beginning, not knowing what X is. So let us first take a glance at these three elements. Socratic disavowal of knowledge is strictly asserted in some passages. At Apology 21b4-5, Socrates says: -/- I do not know of myself being wise at all (οὔτε μέγα οὔτε σμικρὸν σύνοιδα ἐμαυτῷ σοφὸς ὤν) -/- Moreover, at 21d4-6: -/- None of us knows anything worthwhile (καλὸν κἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι) …. I do not know (οἶδα) neither do I think I know. -/- In Charmides Socrates speaks about a fear about his probable mistake of thinking that he knows (εἰδέναι) something when he does not (166d1-2). The somehow generalization of this disavowal can be seen in Gorgias. After calling his disavowal 'an account that is always the same' (509a4-5), Socrates continues (a5-7): -/- I say that I do not know (οἶδα) how these things are, but no one I have ever met, like now, who can say anything else without being absurd. -/- At the end of Hippias Major (304d7-8), Socrates affirms his disavowal of knowledge of 'what is X?' this time about the fine: -/- I do not know (οἶδα) what that is itself (αὐτὸ τοῦτο ὅτι ποτέ ἐστιν). Some other passages, however, made a number of scholars dubious about Socrates’ disavowal. Vlastos mentions Apology 29b6-7 as an evidence : 'that to do wrong and to disobey one’s master, both god and men, I know (οἶδα) to be evil and shameful'. He thinks that if we give this single text 'its full weight' it can suffice to show that Socrates does claim knowledge of a moral truth (1985, 7). Vlastos’ claim is not admittable since it would be too strange, I think, for a man like Socrates to violate his disavowal claim just after emphasizing it. We can see his claim just before the already mentioned passage: -/- And surely it is the most blameworthy ignorance to believe that one knows what one does not know. It is perhaps on this point and in this respect, gentlemen, that I differ from the majority of men and if I were to claim that I am wiser than anyone in anything it world be in this, that, as I have no adequate knowledge (οὐκ εἰδὼς ἱκανῶς) of things in the underworld, so I do not think I have (οὐκ εἰδέναι) (Apology 29b1-6) Vlastos tries to solve what he calls the 'paradox' of Socrates’ disavowal of knowledge distinguishing the 'certain' knowledge from 'elenctic' knowledge (1985, 11) and thinking that when Socrates avows knowledge, we must perceive it as an elenctic knowledge, a knowledge its content 'must be propositions he thinks elenctically justifiable' (ibid, 18). Irwin’s solution is the distinction of knowledge and belief. He approves that Socrates does not 'explicitly' make such a distinction, but still thinks that Socrates’ 'test for knowledge would make it reasonable for him to recognize true belief without knowledge, and his own claims are easily understood if they are claims to true belief alone' (1977, 40). While I agree with Vlastos up to a point, I strongly disagree with Irwin about the early dialogues. As I will try to show below, we are not permitted to consider any kind of distinction within knowledge in Socratic dialogues because only one category of knowledge is alluded to there and the distinction of knowledge and belief thoroughly belongs to the second Sorcates. Although no kind of distinction can be admittable here, I think Vlastos’ distinction can be accepted only if we regard it as a distinction between knowledge, which is unique and without any, even incomparable, rival, and a semi-idiomatic and ordinary one that is a necessary requirement for any argument, and thus, unavoidable even for someone who does not claim any kind of knowledge. An apparent evidence of this is Gorgias 505e6-506a4: -/- I go through the discussion as I think it is (ὡς ἄν μοι δοκῇ ἔχειν), if any of you do not agree with admissions I am making to myself, you must object and refute me. For I do not say what I say as I know (οὐδὲ γάρ τοι ἔγωγε εἰδὼς λέγω ἃ λέγω) but as searching jointly with you (ζητῶ κοινῇ μεθ᾽ ὑμῶν). -/- The minimal degree of knowledge everyone must have to take part in an argument, conduct it and use the phrase "I know" when it is necessary is what Socrates cannot deny. We can call it elenctic knowledge only if we agree that it is not the kind of knowledge that Socrates has always been searching, the one that can be accepted as the answer of Socratic 'what is X?' question. His disavowal of knowledge is applied only to the knowledge which can truly be the answer of Socratic question and pass the elenctic exam; a knowledge that, I believe, is never claimed by first Socrates. Socrates conducts his method of examining his interlocutors’ knowledge, our second element here, by almost the same method repeated in Socratic dialogues. That whether we are allowed to regard all the examinations of Socrates in the early dialogues as based on the same or not has been a matter of dispute. Vlastos himself (1994, 31) distinguished Euthydemas, Lysis, Menexenns and Hippias Major from the other Socratic dialogues because he thinks Socrates has lost his faith to elenchus in there. Irwin (1977, 38) distinguishes Apology and Crito where Socrates’ own convictions is present. Contrary to some scholars like Benson (2002, 107) who take elenchus in all the Socratic dialogues as a unique method, Michelle Carpenter and Ronald M. Polansky (2002, 89-100) argue pro the variety of methods of elenchus. Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith (2002, 145-160) even reject such a thing as Socratic elenchus which can gather all of the Socrates’ various arguments under such a heading. There can be no solution for the problem of elenchus, they think, is due to 'the simple reason that there is no such thing as 'the Socratic elenchos"'(p.147). Though we consider elenchus a somehow determined process and a part of Socratic circle in the early dialogues, all we assume is that whatever differences it might have in different dialogues, it has the same onto-epistemological principles and, thus, we are not going to take it necessarily as a unique method. This method sets out to prove that the interlocutors are as ignorant as Socrates himself is. That whether elenchus is constructive, capable of establishing doctrines as Vlastos (1994) or Brickhouse and Smith (1994, 20-21) believe or not is another issue to which this paper is not to claim anything. What is crucial for our discussion here is that elenchus does not reach to the very knowledge Socrates is looking for. This is strictly against Irwin who thinks that not only elenchus leads to positive results, 'it should even yield knowledge to match Socrates’ conditions'(1977, 68, cf. 48). He does not explain where and how they really yield to that kind of knowledge. He explains his elenctic method in his apology in the court (Apology 21-22), that how he used to examine wise men, politicians, poets and all those who had the highest reputation for their knowledge and every time found that they have no knowledge. If we accept, as I strongly do, that Socrates’ disavowal of his knowledge is not irony, it might seem more reasonable to agree that the process that has that disavowal as its first step cannot be irony as well. The key of the circle which can explain why Socrates disclaims knowledge and how he can reject others’ claim of having any kind of knowledge lies in the third element, Socratic question. In Hippias Major (287c1-2), Socrates asks: 'Is it not by Justice that just people are Just? (ἆρ᾽ οὐ δικαιοσύνῃ δίκαιοί εἰσιν οἱ δίκαιοι). He insists at 294b1 that they were searching for that by which (ᾧ) all beautiful things are beautiful (cf. b4-5, 8). At Euthyphro 6d10-11 it is said that the Socratic question is waiting for 'the form itself (αὐτὸ τὸ εἶδος) by which (ᾧ) all the pious actions are pious; and at 6d11-e1: -/- Through one form (που μιᾷ ἰδέᾳ) impious actions are impious and pious actions pious. -/- Since the X itself is that by which X is X, knowing 'X itself' is the only way of knowing X. It is probably because of this that Socrates makes the distinction between the ousia as a right answer to the question and effect as a wrong one: -/- I am afraid, Euthyphro, that when you were asked what piety is (τὸ ὅσιον ὅτι ποτ᾽ ἐστίν) you did not wish to make clear its nature itself (οὐσίαν … αὐτοῦ) to me, but you said some effect (πάθος) about it. (Euthp. 11a6-9) -/- 1. Knowledge of what X is Now it is time to look for the onto-epistemological principles of Socratic circle and its three elements. It cannot reasonably be expected from the first Socrates to present us explicitly and clearly formulated principles of his onto-epistemology when such explications cannot be found even in the second Socrates who has some obviously positive theoris. Since there must be some principles underlying this first systematic inqury of knowledge, we must seek to them and be satisfied with elicitation of the first Socratas’ principle. What will be drawn out as his principles cannot and must not, thus, be taken as very fix and dogmatic principles. Some very slightest principles and grounds suffice for our purposes here. The first principle that is the prima facie significance of the Socratic question and his implementation of all those elenctic arguments I call the principle of 'Knowledge of What X is' (KWX): -/- KWX To know X, it is required to know what X is. -/- Aristotle (Metaphysics 1078b23-25, 27-29, 987b4-8) takes Plato’s τί ἐστι question as seeking the definition of a thing that is the same as historical Socrates’ search but applying to a different field. That Plato’s 'what is X?' question was a search for definition became the prevailed understanding of this question up to now. I am going neither to discuss the answer of Socratic question nor to challenge taking it as definition. What I am to insist is that knowledge is attached firmly to the answer of the question: Knowledge of X is not anything but the knowledge of what X is. It entails, certainly, the priority of this knowledge to any other kind of knowledge about X but it also has something more fundamental about the relation of knowledge and Socratic question. Socrates’ exclusive focus on the answer of his question can authorize the consideration of such an essential role for KWX in his epistemolgoy. The total rejection of his interlocutors’ knowledge when they are unable to answer the question can be regarded as a strong evidence for it. Socrates’ elenctic method and his rejection of others’ knowledge in the early dialogues, which all end aporetically with no one accepted as knower and nothing as knowledge, prevent us from finding any positive evidence for this. We have to be content, therefore, of negative evidences which, I think, can be found wherever Socrates rejects his interlocutors’ knowledge when they are not able to give an acceptable answer to his 'what is X?' question. 2. Bipolar Epistemology Socrates’ rejection of his interlocutors’ knowledge has another epistemological principle as its basis. Let me call this principle Bipolar Epistemology' (BE): BE There is no third way besides knowledge and Ignorance. -/- BE says that about every object of knowledge there are only two subjective statuses: knowledge and Ignorance. Socrates’ disavowal, however, says nothing but that he is ignorant of knowledge of X because he does not know what X is. This means that BE is presupposed here. Socrates’ elenchus and his rejection of interlocutors’ having any kind of knowledge are the necessary results of the fact that he does not let any third way besides knowledge and ignorance. The first Socrates never let anyone partly know X or have a true opinion about it, as he would not let anyone know anything about X when he did not know what X is. -/- 3. Bipolar Ontology The principle of BE in first Socrates’ epistemology is parallel to another principle in his ontology. Plato’s bipolar distinction between being and not being is as strict and perfect as his distinction between knowledge and ignorance. This principle I shall call the principle of 'Bipolar Ontology' (BO): BO Being is and not being is not. BO is apparently the same with the well-known Parmenidean Principle of being and not being (cf. Diels-Kranz (DK) Fr. 2.2-5). Euthydemus’ statement against the possibility of false knowledge can be good evidence for this principle: -/- The things which are not surely do not exist (τὰ δὲ μὴ ὄντα … ἄλλο τι ἢ οὐκ ἔστιν). (Euthydemus 284b3-4) -/- He continues (b4-5): -/- There is nowhere for not being to be there (οὖν οὐδαμοῦ τά γε μὴ ὄντα ὄντα ἐστίν). -/- That BE does not let true opinion as a third option besides knowledge and ignorance seems to be related to BO’s rejecting a third option besides being and not being, which is itself the basis of the impossibility of false belief. Socrates’ elaborate discussion of the problem of false belief in Theatetus that leads to a more decisive discussion and finally to some solutions in Sophist can make our consideration of BO for the first group of dialogues authentive. -/- 4. &5. Split Knowledge and Split Being The fourth principle I shall call the principle of 'Split Knowledge' (SK): -/- SK Knowledge of X is separated from any other knowledge (of anything else) as if the whole knowledge is split to various parts. -/- This Principle is hinted and criticized as Socrates’ way of treating with knowledge in Hippias Major: -/- But Socrates, you do not contemplate the entireties of things, nor do people you have used to talk with (τὰ μὲν ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων οὐ σκοπεῖς, οὐδ᾽ ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι). (301b2-4) -/- Contrary to Rankin who regards the passage as 'antilogical, almost eristic in tone rather than presenting a serious philosophy of being' (1983, 54), I think it can be taken as serious. Hippias criticizes Sorcates that he does not contemplate (σκοπεῖς) the entireties of things (ὅλα τῶν πραγμάτων), a critique which Socrates is not its only subject but all those whom Socrates accustomed to talk with (ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι). This last phrase, I think, extends this critic beyond this dialogue to other Socratic dialogues. Hippias’ use of the perfect tense of the verb ἔθω (to be accustomed) is a good evidence of this extension. We can get, thus, these ἐκεῖνοι as Socrates’ interlocutors in his other dialogues that hints that this criticism has the epistemological groundings of the previous dialogues as its subject. What ἐκεῖνοι οἷς σὺ εἴωθας διαλέγεσθαι points to is that Hippias does not have in mind Socrates’ way of treating things only in this dialogue, but he is also criticizing Socrates’ way throughout his dialogues. At 301b4-5, Socrates and his interlocutors’ way of beholding things is described as such: -/- You people knock (κρούετε) at the fine and each of the beings (ἕκαστον τῶν ὄντων) by taking each being cut up in pieces (κατατέμνοντες) in words (ἐν τοῖς λόγοις). This leads us to our next principle that is parallel to, and the ontological side of, SK, the principle of 'Split Being'(SB): -/- SB Everything (being) is separated from any other thing as if the whole being is split to many beings. -/- Socrates and his interlocutors and thus, as we saw, the Socratic dialogues are accused to regard everything as it is separated from all other things. This separation is en tois logois that, I think, can reasonably be taken as saying that Socratic dialogues (it refers of course to the dialogues before Hippias Major) cut up all things which have the same name/definition from all other things and try to understand them separately, without considering other things that are not in their logos. They, for example in Hippias Major, are cutting up to kalon and try to understand what it and all others inside this logos are by separating it from all other things. This is directed straightly against Socratic question and the way Socratic dialogues follow to find its answer, every time separating one logos. As Meyer (1995, 85) points out, every question 'presupposes that the X in question in a logos is something' and 'every answer to every question aims at unity' (84). The critique of Hippias Major is, therefore, at the same time a critique of SK and SB. It is also a critique of KWX because it is only based on KWX that Socratic dialogues could search for the answer of 'what is X' question supposing that knowing what X is is enough for the knowledge of X. SK and KWX are absolutely interdependent. What Socrates and all his previous interlocutors have neglected in Socratic dialogues, Hippias says, was 'continuous bodies of being' (διανεκῆ σώματα τῆς οὐσίας) (301b6). Either this theory actually belongs to the historical Hippias as it is being said or not, it is strictly criticizing SB. We have the same phrase with changing sūma to logos some lines later at 301e3-4: διανεκεῖ λόγῳ τῆς οὐσίας. Although this theory that can be observed as both an ontological and an epistemological theory is rejected by Socrates (301cff.), it is still against first Socrates’ onto-epistemological principles and might let us look at what is rejected as Socratic prineple. -/- 6. Knowledge is of Being The sixth principle that I think is presupposed by the first Socrates, is the 'Knowledge of Being' Principle (KB): -/- KB Knowledge is of Being. -/- This principle is obviously the source of the problem of false knowledge, a very important problem throughout Plato’s philosophy. We face this problem maybe for the first time in Euthydemus. In less than 20 Stephanus’ pages, 276-295, we are encountered with different interwoven problems about knowledge , all grounded in the problem of false opinion. Having challenged the obvious possibility of telling lies at 283e, at 284 Euthydemus discusses it saying that the man who speaks is speaking about 'one of those things that are (ἓν μὴν κἀκεῖνό γ᾽ ἐστὶν τῶν ὄντων)' (284a3) and thus speaks what is (λέγων τὸ ὄν) (a5). He must necessarily be saying truth when he is speaking what is because he who speaks what is (τὸ ὄν) and the things that are (τὰ ὄντα) speaks truth (τἀληθῆ λέγει) (a5-6). This is based on Parmenidean principle of the impossibility of being of not being which Euthydemus restates (284b3-4) and we mentioned discussing BO principle above. The things that are not are nowhere (οὐδαμοῦ) and there is no possibility for anyone to do (πράξειεν) anything with them because they must be made as being before anything else can be done, which is impossible (b5-7). The words, then, are of things that exist (εἰσὶν ἑκάστῳ τῶν ὄντων λόγοι) (285e9) and as they are (ὡς ἔστιν) (e10). The result is that no one can speak of things as they are not. It is this impossibility of false speach that is extended to thinking (δοξάζειν) at 286d1 and leads to the impossibility of false opinion (ψευδής … δόξα) (286d4). The general conclusion is asserted at 287a extending this impossibility to actions and making any kind of mistake. Not only knowledge is of being but speech, thought and action are of being simply because of the fact that nothing can be of not being. -/- B. First Socrates’ Principles in the Middle Period Dialogues Out of what were presupposed or criticized mostly in five dialogues, Euthyphro, Euthydemus, Hippias Major, Laches and Charmides, we tried to draw the first Socrates’ principles. Our inquiry here is directed to find out the fate of these principles in the three dialogues of the middle period, Meno, Phaedo and Republic. To do this, first we ought to check the situation of Socratic circle in these dialogues. The Socratic circle that was predominant in the early dialogues, does not look like a circle here anymore though they certainly have some features in common. Meno, Phaedo and Republic II-X are not committed to the principles of the circle and the whole circle in disrupted in them. The difference of the two Socrateses towards acquiring knowledge is obvious. The Socrates of Meno, Phaedo and Republic is evidently more self-confident that he can get to some truths during his arguments as he does. They are in their first appearance, as almost all other dialogues, committed to Socrates’ disavowal. All of them try to keep the shape of the Socratikoi Logoi genre, which is committed to the historical Socrates’ way of discussion; a dramatic personage who is to challenge his interlocutors, ask them and refuse the answers. Nevertheless, the fact is that what we have in common between two groups of dialogues is mostly a dramatic structure. Whereas the first group’s arguments are based on Socrates’ disavowal and lead to no positive results, the second group is decisively going to achieve some positive results. The aim of the first Socrates was to show others that they are ignorant of what they thought they knew. The new Socrates of Meno, on the opposite, makes so much efforts to show that the slave boy has within himself true opinions (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι) about the things that he does not know (οἶδε) (85c6-7). Despite his lack of knowledge, he has true opinions nevertheless. The way from these true opinions to knowledge, as Socrates states, is not so long. These true opinions are now like a dream but 'can become knowledge of the same things not less accurate than anyone’s' (οὐδενὸς ἧττον ἀκριβῶς ἐπιστήσεται περὶ τούτων) (c11-d1), if they be repeated by asking the same questions. The most outstanding text regarding Socrates’ disavowal is Meno 98b where he explicitly claims knowledge: -/- And indeed I also speak as (ὡς) one who does not know (εἰδὼς) but is guessing (εἰκάζων). However, [about the fact] that true opinion and knowledge are different, I do not altogether expect (δοκῶ) myself to be guessing (εἰκάζειν), but if I say about anything that I know (εἰδέναι) -which about few things I say- this is one of the things that I know (οἶδα). (98b1-5) This passage is very significant about Plato’s disavowal of knowledge. There can hardly be found, I think, anywhere else in Plato’s corpus where Socrates speaks about his knowledge of something as such. He says first that he speaks as someone who does not know. This ὡς οὐκ εἰδὼς λέγω comparing with what he used to say in the first group, οὐκ οἶδα, has this added ὡς. Socrates does not claim strongly anymore that he does not know anything but speaks only as someone who does not know. He needs this ὡς not only because he is going to accept that he does know some, though few, things immediately after this sentence, but also because he needs his previous disavowal to be loosened from Meno on. He does not merely say here that he knows something. It is then different from the examples mentioned before which could be taken as idiomatic or at least not emphatic. Socrates’ remarkable emphasis on distinguishing εἰδέναι from εἰκάζειν departs it from all other passages where he says only he knows something. Moreover, he claims definitely that he has knowledge about few (ὀλίγα) things. From the early to the middle dialogues, Socrates’ attitude to knowledge has totally renewed its face. He brings forth a new concept, true opinion, and he does not speak of knowledge as he used to before; the rough, perfect and unachievable knowledge of the first group has turned to something more smooth, realistic and achievable. Comparing with the early dialogues that did not set out from the first to reach positive results, the middle ones are extraordinarily and surprisingly positive and hence destroy the basis of the Socratic circle. The questions and answers are purposely directed to some specific new theories; most of them are not directly related to the topics or the main questions of the dialogues. They are suggested when Socrates draws the attention of the interlocutor away from the main question because of the necessity of another discussion. Even if the main question remains unanswered, we have still many positive theories, prominently of metaphysical type. These theories are so abundant and dominant in these dialogues, especially Phaedo and Republic, that one might think that they may appear to be arbitrarily sandwiched in there. This helps dialogues to keep their original Socratic structure while they are suggesting new theories. Hence, the Socratic question of 'what is X?', though is still used to launch the discussion, is loosened and is forgotten for most part of the dialogues. Meno that has first a differently formulated question, 'can virtue be taught?', leads finally to the Socratic question of 'What is virtue?'. Phaedo is dedicated to the demonstration of the immortality of soul and the life after death without having a central Socratic question. The case of Republic is more complicated. The first book, on the one hand, has all the criteria of a Socratic circle: its 'what is justice?' question, Socrates’ strong disavowal (e.g. 337d-e), his rejection of all answers and coming back to the first point without finding out any answer. This Book, considered alone, is a perfect Socratic dialogue, as many scholars regard it as early and separated from other books. The books II-X are, on the other hand, far from implementing a Socratic circle. They have still the 'what is justice?' question as their incentive leading question, but they are, in most of the positive doctrines and methods that encompass the main parts, ignoring the question. Even these books that, I believe, are the farthest discussions from the Socratic circle are so cautious not to break the Socratic structure of the dialogue as long as it is possible. What is changed is not the structure of the dialogue but the ontological and epistemological grounds based on which new theories are suggested. -/- 1. Knowledge of the Good We can clearly see in the second group of dialogues that the KWX principle loses the place it had before in our first group. It is not, of course, rejected, but still we cannot say that it has the same situation. KWX that was based on Socratic question, as we discussed before, was the leading principle of the first Socrates’ epistemology and of the highest position. Other epistemological principles, SK directly and BE indirectly, were relying on Socratic question and therefore on KWX. Such a position does not belong to KWX from Meno on. What makes it different in the second Socrates is another principle that is needed it not only as its complementary principle but also as what is more fundamental. Plato, then, does not reject KWX in this period, but, it seems, he transcends to another more basic principle; a principle we shall call the principle of 'Knowledge of the Good' (KG): -/- KG Knowledge of X requires knowledge of the Good. -/- Whereas all the dialogues of our first group are free from any discuscon about KG, it bears a very important role in the second group so as becomes the superior principle of knowledge in Republic. Trying to solve the problem of teachability of virtue, Socrates says that it can be teachable only if it is a kind of knowledge because nothing can be taught to human beings but knowledge (ἐπιστήμην) (Meno 87c2). The dilemma will be, then, whether virtue is knowledge or not (c11-12) and since virtue is good, we can change the question to: whether is there anything good separate from knowledge (εἰ μέν τί ἐστιν ἀγαθὸν καὶ ἄλλο χωριζόμενον ἐπιστήμης) (d4-5). Therefore, the conclusion will be that if there is nothing good which knowledge does not encompass, virtue can be nothing but knowledge (d6-8). What let us discuss KG as an epistemological principle for the second Secrates is the relation he tries to establish between knowledge and the Good which, though is alongside with the mentioned thesis and the idea of virtue as knowledge, goes much deeper inside epistemology asking to regard the Good as the basis of knowledge. The effort of Phaedo cannot succeed in establishing the Good as the criterion of explanation and knowledge since, I think, it needs a far more complicated ontology of Republic where Socrates can finally announce KG. What is said in Republic is totally compatible with Phaedo 99d–e and the metaphor of watching an eclipse of the sun. In spite of the fact that we do not have adequate knowledge of the Idea of the Good, it is necessary for every kind of knowledge: 'If we do not know it, even if we know all other things, it is of no benefit to us without it' (505a6-7). The problem of our not having sufficient knowledge of the Idea of Good is tried to be solved by the same method of Phaedo 99d-e, that is to say, by looking at what is like instead of looking at thing itself (506d8-e4). It is this solution that leads to the comparison of the Good with sun in the allegory of Sun (508b12-13). What the Good is in the intelligible realm corresponds to what the sun is in the visible realm; as sun is not sight, but is its cause and is seen by it (b9-10), the Good is so regarding knowledge. It has, then, the same role for knowledge that the sun has for sight. Socrates draws our attention to the function of sun in our seeing. The eyes can see everything only in the light of the day being unable to see the same things in the gloom of night (508c4-6). Without the sun, our eyes are dimmed and blind as if they do not have clear vision any longer (c6-7). That the Good must have the same role about knowledge based on the analogy means that it must be considered as a required condition of any kind of knowledge: -/- The soul, then, thinks (νόει) in the same way: whenever it focuses on what is shined upon by truth and being, understands (ἐνόησέν), knows (ἔγνω) and apparently possesses understanding (νοῦν ἔχειν). (508d4-6) -/- Socrates does not use agathon in this paragraph and substitutes it with both aletheia and to on. He links them with the Idea of the Good when he is to assert the conclusion of the analogy: -/- That which gives truth to the objects of knowledge and the power of knowing to the knower, you must say, is the Idea of the Good: being the cause of knowledge and truth (αἰτίαν δ᾽ ἐπιστήμης οὖσαν καὶ ἀληθείας) so far as it is known (ὡς γιγνωσκομένης μὲν διανοοῦ). (508e1-4) Knowledge and truth are called goodlike (ἀγαθοειδῆ) since they are not the same as the Good but more honoured (508e6-509a5). KG, which had been implicitly contemplated and searched in Phaedo, is now explicitly being asserted in Republic. As what was quoted clearly proves, this principle is the very one which we can observe as the most fundamental principle of the second Socrates in Republic, corresponding to the role KWX had in the first Socrates. The Form of the Good in Republic, of which Santas speaks as 'the centerpiece of the canonical Platonism of the middle dialogues, the centerpiece of Plato’s metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and …' (1983, 256) much more can be said. Plato’s Cave allegory in Book VIII dedicates a similar role to the Idea of the Good. The Idea of the Good is there as the last thing to be seen in the knowable realm, something so important that its seeing equals to understanding the fact that it is the cause of all that is correct and beautiful (517b). Producing both light and its source in visible realm, it controls and provides truth and understanding in the intelligible realm (517c). -/- 2. Tripartite Epistemology BE is thoroughy rejected in the second Socrates and substituted by its opposite, the principle of 'Tripartite Epistemolgy' (TE): -/- TE Opinion is an epistemological status between knowledge and ignorance. BE of the first Socrates was denying any third way besides knowledge and ignorance which was the foundation of Socratic circle without which Socrates could not reject his interlocutors’ possessing any kind of knowledge. We cannot say, however, that the first Socrates had a third epistemological status in mind but rejected it. Such a status was unacceptable for him so that one can say that he would reject any kind of such status if suggested. There were only two possibilities about knowledge: either one knows something or he does not know it. TE, thus, was not the first Socrates’ discovery and, I think it is not the second Socrates’discovery. All we can see in our second group of dialouges is that he uses this principle as an already demonstrated one. Having examined the slave boy in Meno for the prupose of showing the working of recollection, it truns out that he has some opinions in him while he still does not know. Without trying to prove it, Socrates takes this as the distinction between knowledge and opinion: -/- So, he who does not know (οὐκ εἰδότι) about what he does not know (περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ) has within himself true opinions (ἀληθεῖς δόξαι) about the same things he did not know (περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε) (85c6-7). -/- The same distinction is set between ὀρθὴν δόξαν and ἐπιστήμην at 97b5-6 ff. (also cf. 97b1-2: ὀρθῶς μὲν δοξάζων … ἐπιστάμενος). He connects then their difference to the myth of Daedalus, the statue that would run away and escape. So are true opinions, not willing to remain long in mind and thus not worthy until one ties them down by αἰτίας λογισμῷ (98a3-4). Socrates says that this tying down is anamnesis. We face, in Phaedo, the same relation is settled between knowledge as the process of being tied down and getting the capability to give an account, on the one hand, and anamnesis, on the other hand. When a man knows, he must be able to give an account of what he knows (Phaedo 76b5-6) and since not all people are able to give such an account, those who recollect, recollect what once they learned (76c4). Although the distinction between knowledge and opinion is not explicitly used in Phaedo, referring to the parallel link between knowledge plus account and anamnesis in Phaedo and Meno, one can say that those who cannot recollect are not able to give account and, thus, are in a state of opinion. What is said at Phaedo 84a, though not yet a definite distinction between knowledge and opinion, makes a distinction between their objects so as we can agree that it is presupposed. The soul of the philosopher, Socrates says, follows reason, stays with it forever and contemplates the divine, which is not the object of opinoin (ἀδόξαστον) (84a8, cf. Meno 98b2-5). The distinction of knowledge and belief in Republic has a significant difference with what we discussed in Meno and Phaedo since the distinction of Meno was based on anamnesis and thus more an epistemological distinction. Even in Phaedo that we do not have any elaborate discussion about the distinction, the only hint to the matter at 76 is bound to the theory of anamnesis. In addition to the relation of the distinction with this theory, there is another evidence that does not permit us to consider the distinction as an ontological distinction. Let’s see Meno 85c6-7: -/- So, he who does not know about what he does not know has within himself true opinions about the same things he did not know (τῷ οὐκ εἰδότι ἄρα περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ ἔνεισιν ἀληθεῖς δόξαι περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε). (85c6-7) -/- This last sentence persists that the objects of knowledge and true opinion are the same. What Socrates is to say here is that whereas he does not know X he has true opinion about the same X. I think Socrates’ sentence that the slave boy οὐκ εἰδότι ἄρα περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ and his restatement of it by saying περὶ τούτων ὧν οὐκ οἶδε is because he wants to emphasize that the slave boy who does not know, has true opinion about the same thing. Socrates could say this just with using τούτων and there would be no necessity to bring περὶ ὧν ἂν μὴ εἰδῇ for οὐκ εἰδότι if he did not want to emphasize. -/- 3. Tripartite Ontology The distinction between knowledge and true opinion in Republic, on other side, has nothing to do with recollection, but is based on an ontological principle, 'Tripartite Ontology' (TO): -/- TO There are things that both are and are not. -/- This principle I confine, among our three dialogues of the second group, to Republic not extended to Meno and Phaedo, is obviously the opposite of BO. Speaking about the lovers of sights and sounds in the fifth book, Socrates distinguishes them from philosophers because their thought is unable to understand the nature of beautiful itself besides beautiful things (476a6-8) and hence they can only have opinions. The philosopher who, on the contrary, believes in beautiful itself and can distinguish it from beautiful things (476c9-d3), has knowledge because he knows, contrasting others who have opinion because they only opine (d5-6). Since those whose knowledge were degraded as opinion will complain about Socrates’ such calling their thought, he provides them the following argument (476e7-477b1): -/- - Does the person who knows, knows (γιγνώσκει) something (τὶ) or nothing (οὐδέν)? - He knows something (τί). - Something that is (ὂν) or is not (οὐκ ὄν)? - Something that is (ὂν) for how could something that is not be known (πῶς γὰρ ἂν μὴ ὄν γέ τι γνωσθείη)? - Then we have an adequate grasp of this: No matter how many ways we examine it, what completely is (παντελῶς ὂν) is completely knowable (παντελῶς γνωστόν) and what is in no way (μὴ ὂν δὲ μηδαμῇ) is in every way unknowable (πάντῃ ἄγνωστον). - A most adequate one. - Good. Now, if anything is such as to be and also not to be (ὡς εἶναί τε καὶ μὴ εἶναι), won’t it be intermediate (μεταξὺ) between what purely is (εἰλικρινῶς ὄντος) and what in no way is (μηδαμῇ ὄντος)? - Yes, it’s intermediate. - Then as knowledge (γνῶσις) is set over what is (τῷ ὄντι), while ignorance (ἀγνωσία) is of necessity set over what is not (μὴ ὄντι) mustn’t we find an intermediate between ignorance (ἀγνοίας) and knowledge (ἐπιστήμης) to be set over the intermediate, if there is such a thing? -/- From the third status of being we must reach to the third status of knowledge. The simple reading of this text can be an existential reading, taking the "is" of the mentioned sentences as existence. The problem is that when it is said that there is something that both is and is not reading "is" existentially, it sounds too bizarre to be acceptable. It cannot easily be understandable to have something as both existent and non-existent at the same time. This problem arose so many debates and led many scholars to reject the existential reading of "is" and suggest some other readings like predicative or veridical readings. I think though Plato’s complicated ontology of Republic cannot be correctly understood by a simple existential reading, this "is" cannot be free from existential sense of being and, thus, cannot be reduced to just a predicative or veridical sense of being. -/- 4. Bound Knowledges In addition to KG, the Good is also the basis of another principle in the second Socrates, namely the principle of 'Bound Knowledge' (BK): -/- BK Knowledge of everything is bound to the knowledge of the Good. -/- We distinguished BK from KG because we want to insist, in BK, on what had not been insisted upon in KG, that is, the binding role that the Good plays in the second Socrates, contrasting the absence of such a role in the first Socrates. Socrates remembers, in Phaedo, his wonderful keen on natural philosophers' wisdom when he was young. The origin of this enthusiasm was Socrates’ hope to know the cause of everything as they used to claim. When he was searching the matters of his interest on their basis, Socrates says, he became convinced he can get no acceptable answer from them and found himself blind even to the things he thought he knew before. One day he hears Anaxagoras’ theory that 'it is Mind that arranges and is the cause of everything (ὡς ἄρα νοῦς ἐστιν ὁ διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος)' (Phd. 97c1-2 cf. DK, Fr.15.8-9, 11-12, 12-14) and thinks that he can finally find what he has always expected, i.e. something which can explain all things. What I intend to show here is that what makes Socrates hopeful is that Anaxagoras’ theory tries 1) to explain all things by one thing and 2) this explanation is understood by Socrates as if it is based on the concept of the Good. That Socrates was searching for one explanation for all things can be proved even from what he has been expecting from natural philosophers. The case is, nonetheless, more clearly asserted when he speaks about Anaxagoras’ theory. In addition to διακοσμῶν τε καὶ πάντων αἴτιος of 97c2 mentioned above, we have τὸ τὸν νοῦν εἶναι πάντων αἴτιον (c3-4) and τόν γε νοῦν κοσμοῦντα πάντα κοσμεῖν (c4-5) all emphasizing on the cause of all things (πάντα) which can clearly prove that one of the reasons which caused Socrates to embrace it delightfully was its claim to provide the cause of all things by one thing. Another reason was that Anaxagoras’ Mind, at least in Socrates’ view, was attempting to explain everything by the concept of the Good. This connection between Mind and Good belongs more to the essential relation they have in Socrates’ thinking than Anaxagoras’ theory because there are almost nothing about such a relation in Anaxagoras. The reason for Socrates’ reading can be that Mind is substantially compatible with Socrates’ idea of the relation between good and knowledge. Both the thesis 'no one does wrong willingly' and the theory of virtue as knowledge we pointed to above are evidences of this essential relation. Nobody who knows that something is bad can choose or do it as bad. The reason, when it is reason, that means when it is as it should be, when it is wise or when it knows, works only based on good-choosing. In this context, when Socrates hears that Mind is considered as the cause of everything, it sounds to him like this: good should be regarded as the basis of the explanation of all things. We see him, thus, passing from the former to the latter without any proof. This is done in the second sentence after introducing Mind: -/- I thought that if this were so, the arranging Mind would arrange all things and put each thing in the way that was Best (ὅπῃ ἂν βέλτιστα ἔχῃ). If one then wished to find the cause of each thing by which it either perishes or exists, one needs to find what is the best way (βέλτιστον αὐτῷ ἐστιν) for it to be, or to be acted upon, or to act. On these premises then it befitted a man to investigate only, about this and other things, what is the most excellent (ἄριστον) and best (βέλτιστον). The same man must inevitably also know what is worse (χεῖρον), for that is part of the same knowledge. (97c4-d5) This passage is a good evidence of Socrates’ leap from Anaxagoras’ Mind to his own concept of the Good that can explain why Socrates found Anaxagoras theory after his own heart (97d7). Mind is welcomed because of its capability for explanation on the basis of good to 'explain why it is so of necessity, saying which is better (ἄμεινον), and that it was better (ἄμεινον) to be so' (97e1-3). What Socrates thought he had found in Anaxagoras can indicate what he had been expecting from natural scientists before. Socrates could not be satisfied with their explanations because they were unable to explain how it is the best for everything to be as it is. It can probably be said, then, that it was the lack of the unifying Good in their explanation that had disappointed him. We must insist that we are discussing what Socrates thought that Anaxagoras’ theory of Mind should have been, not about Anaxagoras’ actual way of using Mind. Phaedo 97c-98b, is not about what Socrates found in Anaxagoras but what he thought he could find in it. On the contrary, it should also be noted that it was not this that was dashed at 98b, but Anaxagoras’ actual way of using Mind. It was Anaxagoras’ fault not to find out how to use such an excellent thesis (98b8-c2, cf. 98e-99b). Socrates gives an example to show how not believing in 'good' as the basis of explanation makes people be wanderers between different unreal explanations of a thing. His words δέον συνδεῖν (binding that binds together) as a description for the Good we chose as the name of BK principle: They do not believe that the truly good and binding binds and holds them together (ὡς ἀληθῶς τὸ ἀγαθὸν καὶ δέον συνδεῖν καὶ συνέχειν οὐδὲν οἴονται). (99c5-6) -/- Having in mind Plato’s well-known analogy of the sun and the Good at Republic 508-509, we can dare to say that his warning of the danger of seeing the truth directly like one watching an eclipse of the sun in Phaedo (99d-e) is more about the difficulty of so-called good-based explanation than its insufficiency, a difficulty which is precisely confirmed in Republic (504e-505a, 506d-e). Moreover, BK is asserted in a more explicit way in the Republic, where the Good is considered not only as a condition for the knowledge of X, as was noted above discussing KG, but also as what binds all the objects of knowledge and also the soul in its knowing them. At Republic VI, 508e1-3, when Socrates says that the Form of the Good 'gives truth to the things known and the power to know to the knower (τοῦτο τοίνυν τὸ τὴν ἀλήθειαν παρέχον τοῖς γιγνωσκομένοις καὶ τῷ γιγνώσκοντι τὴν δύναμιν ἀποδιδὸν)', he wants to set the Good at the highest point of his epistemological structure by which all the elements of this structure are bound. This binding aspect of the Good is by no means a simple binding of all knowledges or all the objects of knowledge, but the most complicated kind of binding as it is expected from the author of the Republic. The kind of unity the Good gives to the different knowledges of different things is comparable with the unity which each Form gives to its participants in Republic: as all the participants of a Form are united by referring to the ideas, all different kinds of knowledge are united by referring to the Good. If we observe Aristotle's assertion that for Plato and the believers of Forms, the causative relation of the One with the Forms is the same as that of the Forms with particulars (e.g. Metaphysics 988a10-11, 988b4), that is to say the One is the essence (e.g., ibid, 988a10-11: τοῦ τί ἐστὶν, 988b4-6: τὸ τί ἢν εἶναί) of the Forms besides his statement that for them One is the Good (e.g., ibid, 988b11-13) the relation between the Good and unity may become more understandable. Since the quiddity of the Good (τί ποτ᾽ ἐστὶ τἀγαθὸν) is more than discussion (506d8-e2), we cannot await Socrates to tell us how this binding role is played. All we can expect is to hear from him an analogy by which this unifying role is envisaged, the sun. The kind of unity that the Good gives to the knowledge and its objects in the intelligible realm is comparable to the unity that the sun gives to the sight and its objects in the visible realm (508b-c). The allegory of Line (Republic VI, 509d-511), like that of the Sun, tries to bind all various kinds of knowledges. The hierarchical model of the Line which encompasses all kinds of knowledge from imagination to understanding can clearly be considered as Plato’s effort to bind all kinds of knowledges by a certain unhypothetical principle. The method of hypothesis starts, in the first subsection of the intelligible realm, with a hypothesis that is not directed firstly to a principle but a conclusion (510b4-6). It proceeds, in the other subsection, to a 'principle which is not a hypothesis' (b7) and is called the 'unhypothetical principle of all things' (ἀνυποθέτου ἐπὶ τὴν τοῦ παντὸς ἀρχὴν) (511b6-7). This παντὸς must refer not only to the objects of the intelligible realm but to the sensible objects as well. Plato does posit, therefore, an epistemological principle for all things, a principle that all things are, epistemologically, bound and, thus, unified by. -/- 5. Bound Beings The ontological aspect of BK we shall call the principle of 'Bound Beings' (BB): -/- BB Being of all things are bound by the Good. -/- We saw in our principle of Split Being (SB) how the first Socrates was criticized because of his approach to split being and separate each thing from other things. The principle of Bound Beings intends to make the things more related, a duty which is done again by the Good. In the allegory of Sun, there are two paragraphs that evidently and deliberately extend the binding role of the Good to the ontological scene: -/- You will say that the sun not only makes the visible things have the ability of being seen but also coming to be, growth and nourishment. (509b2-4) -/- This clearly intends to remind the ontological role the sun plays in bringing to being all the sensible things in order to display how its counterpart has the same role in the intelligible realm (b6-10): -/- Not only the objects of knowledge (γιγνωσκομένοις) owe their being known (γιγνώσκεσθαι) to the Good, but also their existence (τὸ εἶναί) and their being (οὐσίαν) are due to it, though the Good is not being but superior to it in rank and power. That the Good is here represented as responsible for being of things in addition to their being known means, in my opinion, that Plato wants to posit BB in addition to BK. The allegory of Cave at the very beginning of the seventh Book (514aff.) can be taken as another evidence. The role of the Good, one might say, is confined to the intelligible realm because it is asserted that the role the Good plays in this realm is corresponding to that of the sun in the visible realm. The fact that Plato wants to observe the Good also as the ontological cause of the sensible things is obvious from his saying, in the allegory of Cave, that the Form of the Good 'produces light and its source (τὸν τούτου κύριον) [i.e. the sun] in the visible realm' (517c3). We can conclude, then, that the ontological function of the Good is not confined to the intelligible realm in which it is the lord and provides truth and understanding (c3-4) because it is also responsible to produce τὸν κύριον of light. 6. Proportionality of Being and Knowledge Insofaras BE and BO principles of the first Socrates gave way to TE and TO principles of the second Socrates, we cannot expect him to preserve KB in the same way as it was in the first Socrates. The new tripartite ontology and epistemology necessitates some modifications in KB which results in the principle of 'Proportionality of Being and Knowledge' (PBK): -/- PBK To every class of being there is a proportionate category of knowledge. -/- This principle, of course, does not entail the refutation of KB and thus is not kind of rejecting PBK but only a more complicated version of it. Based on PBK, we can still agree that knowledge is of being (KB) but the issue is that since none of the concepts of knowledge and being in the second Socrates are as simple as they were for the first Socrates, we need a more complicated principle for their relation here. Although from Meno 97a where the distinction of knowledge and true opinion is drawn out in the second group of the dialogues, we can expect a new relation, it is articulated in its most complete way in Republic and specifically in the allegory of Line. All the beings are divided there hierarchically to four classes, to each of them belongs a class of knowledge: imagination to images, belief to the sensible things (more correctly: the things of which they[in previous class] were images (ᾧ τοῦτο ἔοικεν)), thought to mathematical objects (?) and understanding to the Forms and the first principle. The degree of clarity that each of the classes of knowledge shares in (σαφηνείας ἡγησάμενος μετέχειν) is proportionate to the degree that its object shares in truth (ἀληθείας μετέχει). (511e2-4) -/- Conclusion From the six onto-epistemilogical principles of the first Socrates, four principles turn to their opposite in the middle period dialogues. While bipolar epistemology and ontology of the early dialogues give place to tripartite epistemology in the middle period dialogues and tripartite ontology in Republic, the split knowledge and being of the first Socrates are inclined to be substituted by bound knowledges and bound beings in the second Socrates and specifically in Republic. Not all our system of principles in this article is necessarily determinative. Either they are rightly formulated or not, our result would not be vulnerable if we accept that 1) making the distinction of knowledge and belief, 2) accepting the being of not being and 3) trying to bind both being and knowledge by the concept of the Good happens only in middle period dialogues, having been absent in the early ones. These are the favourite results all those somehow arbitrary and even oversimplified principles were to illustrate; that there is kind of a development in the epistemological as well as the ontological grounds of Plato’s philosophy. -/- Notes . (shrink)

Interpretation pervades human thinking. Whether perception or experience, spoken word or written theory, whatever enters our consciousness must be interpreted in order to be understood. Every area of inquiry—art and literature, philosophy and religion, history and the social sciences, even many aspects of the natural sciences—involves countless opportunities to interpret the object of inquiry according to very different paradigms. These paradigms may derive from the language we speak, the nature of our education, or personal preferences. The abundance and diversity of (...) paradigms make interpretation both fascinating in its complexity and often frustrating for the conflicts it generates. In _Dialectical Readings_, Dunning distinguishes three types of interpretation, each defined in terms of a distinctive dialectical way of thinking: theoretical interpretation, which assumes binary oppositions; transactional interpretation, which seeks reciprocal relations; and transformational interpretation, which discerns paradoxical meanings. Dunning offers new and insightful readings of familiar texts by B. F. Skinner, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Lee Benson, Roland Barthes, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Michel Foucault and sheds new light on works by Thomas Kuhn, Joseph Campbell, Reinhold Niebuhr, Søren Kierkegaard, Paul Tillich, and Paul Ricoeur. _Dialectical Readings _enables readers to recognize diverse dialectical approaches to understanding—their own as well as those of others—in a way that provides new and helpful insights into a wide variety of subjects in which conflicting interpretations abound. (shrink)

Much attention in the meaningful work literature has been devoted to calling as an orientation toward work characterized by a strong sense of purpose and a prosocial motivation beyond self-gain. Nonetheless, debate remains as to whether individuals change or maintain their calling, and especially whether they live their calling differently in different occupational stages. In this article, we respond to this conundrum through an analysis of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) occupation—substantiated by interviews with 57 CSR practitioners from Swedish international (...) companies who are living their calling. We demonstrate that social/commercial tensions affect these CSR practitioners, fueled by a divide between their social aspirations and the commercial goals, and prompt them to respond in a way that impacts how they construct the purpose of their work. Subsequently, we induce three stages of the CSR occupation—_early-, mid- and late-stage_—and conceptualize three types of purpose in each stage—_activistic_, _win–win_ and _corporate purpose_. By uncovering how and why CSR practitioners respond to social/commercial tensions and construct different types of purpose in each stage of the CSR occupation, we show that individuals can live the same calling in multiple ways. Hence, our article advances the meaningful work literature as well as studies of micro-CSR. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Recovering the Vestiges of Primeval Europe: Archaeology and the Significance of Stone Implements, 1750–1800Matthew R. GoodrumFor the antiquaries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who studied the few broken monuments and obscure artifacts that survived from the earliest periods of human history there was a dawning realization that these remote epochs were not as inaccessible as had previously been believed. This attitude was mirrored in geological research where natural (...) historians were using fossils and geological formations to reconstruct the history of the earth, which was turning out to be considerably longer and more dynamic than had previously been thought.1 Antiquarianism and natural history shared many features and problems in common during this period and their fates would become more intertwined than either discipline realized at the time.2Despite the growing hope that archaeological monuments could illuminate the past, a great deal of early human history remained hidden, enveloped in a fog that the antiquary could only occasionally peer through.3 Yet [End Page 51] the nascent science of archaeology made great strides during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Antiquaries throughout Europe were investigating field monuments, collecting artifacts, and excavating barrows in an attempt to throw some light on the original inhabitants of the continent. 4 Antiquarianism, a scholarly discipline dedicated to the study of antiquities and other historical documents, had close links with natural history during this period and many antiquaries employed methods and a mode of reasoning drawn from the sciences.5 By By the late eighteenth century, antiquarianism itself was changing and a new science of archaeology was emerging and defining its own professional identity.6Among the objects investigated by these antiquaries was a particularly curious class of artifacts that had long been collected and examined in Europe. Natural historians throughout the early modern period had collected a type of stone called ceraunia, or thunderstones. It was not until the end of the seventeenth century that antiquaries and natural historians suggested that these stones were not produced in clouds by natural processes but instead were stone arrowheads, axe-heads, and other implements fabricated by early Europeans. Once these objects were accepted as ancient human artifacts, entirely new sets of questions arose: for example, why would early Europeans make tools out of stone instead of metal, what were these objects used for, and what could they tell us about the culture of ancient peoples.7 The latter question was all the more disturbing since it [End Page 52] was apparent that the stone artifacts found in Europe were very similar to the stone implements and weapons used by the so-called “savages” of the New World and the South Pacific. By the middle of the eighteenth century there was an increasing amount of evidence and a growing consensus that the inhabitants of many parts of northern Europe prior to the Roman era possessed only stone implements and culturally were rude and barbarous peoples. This idea that early Europeans had been barbarians was not new; Roman historians had asserted as much, but what was new was the quantity of archaeological evidence for this idea and the way it was understood within the context of European contact with the indigenous peoples of the New World and the South Pacific who still used stone tools.Antiquaries and natural historians during the first half of the eighteenth century were still accumulating evidence to support the idea that so-called thunderstones were in fact archaeological artifacts. They were also attempting to understand what they meant as historical and cultural artifacts, and importantly they were trying to integrate this new understanding within the traditional biblical view of human history.8 A great deal has been written about the study of prehistoric stone artifacts in the early nineteenth century, especially since it was during this period that Scandinavian archaeologists formulated the Three Age System that organized prehistory into a succession of periods from the Stone Age through the Bronze Age to the Iron Age.9 In addition, the important theoretical breakthroughs of the early nineteenth century, combined with the expansion and professionalization of archaeology as a discipline during this period, have tended to focus the attention of historians of archaeology... (shrink)

In recent years, much attention has been given to the puzzling relationship between tense and evidence type found in languages where a single morpheme appears to encode both reference to time and to the evidential source for the assertion. In natural language, _tense_ has long been understood as serving to locate the time at which the proposition expressed by the sentence holds. The two main theories of _evidentials_ both agree that these morphemes serve to identify the type of evidence the (...) speaker has for their assertion. In languages with evidential-tense morphology, these two categories of meaning are intertwined in ways that are unexpected given our understanding of both phenomena. Specifically, these evidential-tense morphemes appear to encode reference to a time that is linked to the situation in which the speaker gains evidence for their assertion. Two competing approaches have emerged in the literature as to whether these evidential-tense morphemes make crucial reference to the _time_ evidence was acquired (Lee 2013 ; Smirnova 2013 ) or to the _time and place_ of the speaker with respect to the event (Faller 2004 ; Chung 2007 ). This paper examines the temporal and evidential properties of the Mvskoke (or Creek) _graded_ past tense system and finds novel support for the view in which evidential-tenses encode _Evidence Acquisition Time_ (EAT). Mvskoke is shown to have three evidential-tenses which form part of its graded tense system, comprising recent, middle, and distant past. The main proposal is a formalization of EAT as a moment of belief-state change, i.e., the moment the speaker comes to believe the proposition. It is shown that Mvskoke’s evidential-tenses are compatible with a range of evidence types, and this distribution is explained through interactions with viewpoint aspect. (shrink)

Dicotyledons are polarly organised in several ways. In plant morphology polarity, a principle allowing comparison of different plant structures has until yet not been studied. A division** of the vegetative plant in shoot and root as polar structures leads to the distinction of four instead of three basic organs: leaf, shoot axis, root axis and root cap together with the root hairs. The flower is also polarly organised, its poles are formed by the carpels and the stamens. The foliage (...) leaves are also polarly organised which is reflected by the morphological relationship of foliage leaf, stamen and carpel. The stamen uses the hypophyll*** as base of construction and the carpel uses the epiphyll**** as base of construction. Hypophyll and epiphyll are the two poles of the foliage leaf. Root and shoot, the polar entities of the vegetative plant and stamen and carpel, the polar entities of the generative plant, are morphologically correlated. Stamen and carpel can be understood as a combination of the basic organs of vegetative and generative parts of the plant. The basic organs of the generative plant are pollen grain and embryo sack with their gametophytes. The quantitative comparison of variable proportions is supplemented by a qualitative comparison of polarities. The result is, that the organisation type of the dicotyledons can yet be understood as constituted of morphological related parts.* in german Grundorgane. (shrink)

al-Tabarsī is one of the glossators in the Shī‘ah gloss tradition in the second middle period or first sagacity period. al-Tabarsī who had a wide knowledge in the various knowledge branches was mentioned as a glossator, narrator of Mohammad’s all sayings, deeds and approvals and scribe. One of compilations that al-Tabarsī wrote it in the field of gloss is Macmau-l-bayān fī tafsīri-l-Qur’ān. The glossator who widely included the recitations in this work used some evidence related to their averment while (...) he was reporting the recitations, and he made the recitations’ justification in the framework. The averment is a science which determines the correct recitations as distinguishing the correct one of recitation’s differences from the deficient one, and which founds an aspect of the correct category with all the other transferred and linguistic arguments of recitation in the predilection besides the imputation, the formal Qur’ān. Al-Tabarsī first mentioned the recitations under the subtitle of recitation related to the verses in each sura and then transferred the argument of recitations with the term of argument. So the glossator applied to give evidence on them with the linguistic and transferred arguments in each of the parts that the recitations were nearly mentioned. He mentioned the imputation, the Qur’ān lettering, verse, hadith, companion and natural people’s readings. He used Arabic poetry, Arabic idiom, dialect, grammar and syntax rules for the linguistic arguments. In this study, the evidences which were used in the recitations’ averment are reviewed in the sample of al-Tabarsī’s gloss in the name of Majmau-l-bayān. Summary: Full name of al-Tabarsī who was one of the leading scholar of Shī‘a is Fadl b. Hasan b Fadl al-Tabarsī. He was born in Thabaristan. According to some narration he was born in village named Tafrish which is between Kashan and Isfahan. He was called al-Tabarsī by reference to his hometown Thabaristan, according to another opinion he was called al-Tabarsī which comes from his birth place known as Tafrish located between Kashan and Isfahan. Tafrish was translated into Arabic as Tabars. Also, the commentator was known with nicknames such as Amīnü’l-islām, Amīnü’d-dīn and Umdatü’l-Mufassīrīn. He was called Sebzevarī due to the place where he died and named Maşhadī and Ṭūsī because of the place where he was buried. Although he is proficient in many fields, he has been described in the sources as commentator, muhaddīth and faqīh. Mufassīr has written many works in Islamic sciences. one of his works written in the field of commentary is Mujmau-l-bayān fī tafsīri-l-Qurʾān. Mufassīr stated that he wrote this commentary by taking advantage of Ṭūsī 's (d. 460/1067) al-Tibyān by saying “It is a guide from which I benefited from Tibiān light, and I write the subjects on the basis of his method”. The author started to write this work with the encouragement of some of his friends after he had aged quite a bit and his hair turned white. and he saw a gap in this area. He spent a lot of effort to fill that gap. This commentary, written during the first dirayet of the Shī‘a exegesis, is more moderate than the previous periods of Shī‘a commentators. The most basic indicator of this is the definitive rejection of the falsification of the Qurʾān in this period. The second important indicator is that insults and degrading expressions about the first three of the hulafā-i rashid and some of the companions are not accepted. The third important indicator is that most of the verses have been interpreted in a manner that corresponds to the views of the Ahl al-Sunnah school in linguistic analyses and proved by appealing to Arabic poems and sayings. al-Tabarsī mentioned recitation almost in all verses as a subtopic. He performed this in the surah by using subtopics. Then he has used “hujjatuhu” (its evidence) expression to narrate the evident of qirāʾāt. By doing so, commentator grounded qirāʾāts by using their evidences utilizing linguistic and narrative evidences in nearly every mentioned qirāʾāts. İhtijaj is a science that determines the authentic readings by distinguishing authentic readings from the weak ones, and that grounds the reading in the choice of an angle, which is mentioned in the authentic category, with isnād, Mushaf script and all other narrative and linguistic evidences. There are two types of ihtijaj which are ihtijaj bi-l-qirāʾāt ve ihtijaj li-l-qirāʾāt. İhtijaj li-l-qirāʾāt uses the linguistic evidences such as isnād, Mushaf line, Arabic language, consumables-nahiv pedestals, polish differences and the narrative evidences such as verses, hadith, qirāʾāt, Arabic words and poetry in determination and preference of a reading aspect. ihtijaj bi-l-qirāʾāt is the use of kıraa as evidence for any matter of science. al-Tabarsī has also mentioned detection proofs which reveal the authentic ways of qirāʾāt like isnād and rasm al-mushaf. Isnād is attribution to whom take the qirāʾāt from previous persons. This proportion reaches up to the Prophet. The persons in the chain of isnād constitute this chain. al-Tabarsī has given in preface the names of the recitors and narrators, which are famous in the cities, based on the fact that an authentic attribute is the basic element in the determination of the qirāʾāh. Thus he passed on the chains of isnād that reached up to the Prophet. Another thing that al-Tabarsī used in the determination proof of qirāʾāh is rasm al-mushaf. The commentator has used the spelling of al-mushaf scripture as evidence by saying “written in al-mushaf like this”. al-Tabarsī, also mentioned preferable evidences about ways of qirāʾā’s proof. Preferred proofs, are evidence to make choosing between qirāʾāh whose authenticity is defined by means of determination proofs. These evidences are divided into two parts which are determination proofs-based and special. Special evidence has not relation with the determination proofs. It contains evidence categories used to prefer one of the two authentic qirāʾāh as special. These categories are divided into four parts: linguistic, transplant, mental and private. al-Tabarsī has evidenced with verses of narrative proofs in the preferred evidence category. The commentator has mentioned about this method for qirāʾā evidence extensively. He has grounded qirāʾāh by using verses. al-Tabarsī also has evidenced these matters by using words of the Prophet from narrative proofs in the preferred evidence category. In this method commentator has evidenced from hadith after mentioning qirāʾāh ways. al-Tabarsī evidences from narrative proofs with qirāʾāh preferred evidence category. In this context, the commentator mentioned recitation of companion and followers by saying his qirāʾāh after reporting qirāʾāh. Moreover, the commentator has sometimes mentioned recitations which is related with reading seven of the recitation and reading ten of the recitation sciences qurra recitation and sometimes mentioned recitations which are known as shadhdh. Then, he has examined these recitations with the qirāʾāh of companions and followers. al-Tabarsī has benefited from narrative evidences, Arabic poetry and phrase in the preferred evidence category extensively. Another evidence used for examination of qirāʾāh is linguistic evidences. Qirāʾāh are related with Arabic language because it has connection with Qur’ānic wording which revelated in Arabic. al-Tabarsī has benefited from some things such as Arabic grammar rules and dialectic differences extensively. The commentator has benefited from Arabic grammar by emphasizing the meaning of the words with the literary features. He has explained grammar statement related with qirāʾāh aspects. He has also explained linguistic rules which are about aspects. (shrink)

One of the most challenging issues, essential for the actual state of science, is the search for a fragile balance between scientific normativity, openness, methodological proliferation and other key concepts, associated with the modern world of research. Paul Feyerabend understood science not as a detached and hermetic self-sufficient reality, but as a structural part of the social world, liable to politicization, discrepancies and inconsistency. His analysis of science, its strategies and institutions involved and, in a way, undermined a long living (...) concept of science as an objective, rational and neutral domain. Following his discoveries, today researchers in general, philosophers of science and social epistemologists in particular, face the problem of corrupted practices, which jeopardize the acquisition of true knowledge. According to the ideas of professor S. Turner, there are two strategies of approaching epistemic coercion: conformity or resistance. Aimed at scientific progress and sustainable development the scientists strive to overcome obstacles of technological, organizational and administrative nature. It presents the case of epistemic resistance. In other circumstances, when the mechanisms of epistemic coercion function without recognition and impediment, the epistemic environment conforms. Professor S. Turner’s article gives an in-depth analysis of epistemic coercion as a ubiquitous phenomenon, pervading intellectual and institutional practices of science and public life. Having stated the existence of the new instruments of epistemic control, he also sheds light on the requirement of the new forms of resistance. In the following article the author consequently scrutinizes the types of epistemic coercion offered by S. Turner. In order to highlight a technological perspective on all three types of epistemic coercion (information deprivation, normalizing/stigmatizing, legitimating/delegitimizing), the author places the emphasis on algorithm – based practices as a distinctive type of information deprivation. Presented from the standpoint of technological design, an algorithm could be seen as a technologically embodied form of epistemic coercion. Further on, the author argues that some of the means of resistance, given by prof. S. Turner, are more suitable to perform epistemic coercion, rather than resisting it. For instance, transparency has compromised itself as an untrustworthy concept put in use to conceal more information than to reveal. Tribalism is proven to be another arguable means of resistance because of its limiting effect on practices of open internal and external scientific communication. Finally, the author augments the list of means of epistemic coercion with construction of ignorance and coercive effect of expertise. (shrink)

_Highlights innovative partnership practices that help create educational opportunities for students in rural schools across the United States._ As editors Sara L. Hartman and Bob Klein acknowledge, rural places have long experienced systemic inequities that decrease rural students' access to education, yet many rural schools and communities have found creative means to make up for the dearth of outside resources. _The Middle of Somewhere_ brings to light a wide variety of partnerships that have been forged between K–12 schools, communities, (...) and postsecondary institutions to improve educational access. The book showcases collaborations that address three different areas of need: partnerships that prepare and support teacher candidates and educators who work in rural areas; partnerships that extend the work of rural education networks; and partnerships that promote equity, justice, and inclusion within rural populations. Using case studies of rural educational partnerships from communities across the United States, the book's contributors share their experiences of how strong partnerships have formed both organically and through thoughtful and intentional planning, and they recommend supportive strategies for their development and sustainment. The contributors also explore the many ways in which university–school–community partnerships incubate solutions to challenges common to rural education systems, such as access to STEM education and higher education. The programs featured here may serve as replicable models for practitioners, researchers, and policy makers who want to enrich the experiences of children in their schools and communities. (shrink)

Resumen El artículo es un estudio de tres concepciones asiáticas de las virtudes, como son las virtudes taoístas, confucianas y budistas. De cada una se presenta el marco general de dicha tradición, la forma de entender las virtudes y el término medio. Así, se destacan en el taoísmo las virtudes de la compasión, la moderación y la humildad. En el confucianismo se estudian las virtudes de la humanidad, la justicia, los ritos, la sabiduría y la honestidad. En el budismo se (...) presentan las virtudes de la bondad amorosa, la compasión, la alegría altruista y la ecuanimidad. En cada una de estas tradiciones hay referencias al justo medio o camino medio. Esta comprensión de las virtudes asiáticas puede permitir una idea más amplia de las virtudes.This paper is a study of three Asian conceptions of virtues, such as the Taoist, Confucian and Buddhist virtues. Each one presents the general framework of every tradition, the way of understanding the virtues and the middle ground. Thus, the virtues of compassion, moderation and humility stand out in Taoism. In Confucianism the virtues of humanity, justice, rites, wisdom and honesty are studied. In Buddhism the virtues of loving-kindness, compassion, altruistic joy, and equanimity are presented. In each one of these traditions there are references to the middle right or middle path. This understanding of the Asian virtues may allow a wider idea of virtues. (shrink)

This pioneering anthology of Middle English prologues and other excerpts from texts written between 1280 and 1520 is one of the largest collections of vernacular literary theory from the Middle Ages yet published and the first to focus attention on English literary theory before the sixteenth century. It edits, introduces, and glosses some sixty excerpts, all of which reflect on the problems and opportunities associated with writing in the "mother tongue" during a period of revolutionary change for the (...) English language. The excerpts fall into three groups, illustrating the strategies used by medieval writers to establish their cultural authority, the ways they constructed audiences and readerships, and the models they offered for the process of reading. Taken together, the excerpts show how vernacular texts reflected and contributed to the formation of class, gender, professional, and national identity. They open windows onto late medieval debates on women's and popular literacy, on the use of the vernacular for religious instruction or Bible translation, on the complex metaphorical associations contained within the idea of the vernacular, and on the cultural and political role of the "courtly" writing associated with Chaucer and his successors. Besides the excerpts, the book contains five essays that propose new definitions of medieval literary theory, discuss the politics of Middle English writing, the relation of medieval book production to notions of authorship, and the status of the prologue as a genre, and compare the role of the medieval vernacular to that of postcolonial literatures. The book includes a substantial glossary that constitutes the first mapping of the language and terms of Middle English literary theory. _The Idea of the Vernacular_ will be an invaluable asset not only to Middle English survey courses but to courses in English literary and cultural history and courses on the history of literary theory. (shrink)

Edward Conze once observed of the thirty-eight books constituting the Praj p ramit S tras that their central message could be summed up in two sentences: (1) One should become a Bodhisattva (or Buddha-to-be), i.e. one who is content with nothing less than all-knowledge attained through the perfection of wisdom for the sake of all beings. (2) There is no such thing as a Bodhisattva or as all-knowledge or as a being or as the perfection of wisdom or as an (...) attainment. [1] It seems to me that Conze was profoundly correct, as far as he went, and that what he said of the Praj p ramit literary corpus might apply to other Mah y na S tras , as well. One test of this broad application of Conze's observation to the whole of the Mah y na scriptural tradition lies in a close reading of one of the Mah y na S tras from that tradition, the Saddharmapundarika S tra, “the scripture of the lotus blossom of the wonderful law”, or the Lotus S utra . The Lotus S tra not only makes Conze's point, as I shall try to show, but it goes further in offering a new middle path between the two summary sentences above. In doing this it brings forth a practical ethical-religious way for Buddhists and others to follow who will be caught in the sufferings and terrors of the 21st century. We shall refer to this way as “the way of the Lotus” or “the Lotus way”. In what follows I want to attempt three things. First, using Edward Conze's summary sentences above, I identify and explicate three ways to liberation in the Lotus Sutra , viz. the way of ethics and attachment, i.e. “the Bodhisattva way” ("One should become a Bodhisattva...”); next, the way of emptiness and unattachment, i.e. “the Buddha way” ("There is no such thing as a Bodhisattva...”); and, finally, the Lotus way wherein the Bodhisattva way and the Buddha way combine to form a single and powerful new way of liberation. This third way is indirectly referred to in the remark which Edward Conze makes in his summary of the Praj p ramit immediately following his previous two sentences: “To accept both of these contradictory facts is to be perfect”. [2] To accept the Bodhisattva way together with the Buddha way yields the Lotus way. Second, I demonstrate the significance of the Lotus way as a practical way of solving moral problems for Buddhists and others in the 21st century. Third, and finally, I raise and attempt to answer and solve several questions and puzzles about the Lotus way as a way to peace and liberation for Buddhists and others in the 21st century. (shrink)

At the core of anthropomorphism lies a false-positive cognitive bias to over-attribute the pattern of the human body and/or mind. Anthropomorphism is independently discussed in various disciplines, is presumed to have deep biological roots, but its cognitive bases are rarely explored in an integrative way. I present an inclusive, multifaceted interdisciplinary approach to refine the psychological bases of mental anthropomorphism. I have integrated 13 conceptual dissections of folk finalistic reasoning into four psychological inference systems (physical, design, basic-goal and belief stances); (...) the latter three are truly teleological and thus prone to anthropomorphisms. I then have empirically integrated the cross-disciplinary genetic, neural, cognitive, psychiatric, developmental, comparative and evolutionary/adaptive evidence that converge supporting the nature of the distinct stances. The over-reactive calibration of the three teleological systems is framed as an evolved design feature to avoid harmful ancestral contexts. Nowadays, these stances easily engage with scientific reasoning about bio-evolutionary matters with negative and positive consequences. Design, basic-goal, and belief stances benefit biology by providing cognitive foundations, expressing a high-powered explanatory system, promoting functional generalization, fostering new research questions and discoveries, enabling metaphorical/analogical thinking and explaining didactically with brevity. Hence, it is neither feasible nor advantageous to completely eliminate teleology from biology. Instead, we should engage with the eight classes of problems in bio-philosophy and bio-education that relate to the three stances: types of anthropomorphism, variety of misunderstandings, misleading appeal, legitimacy controversy, gateway to mysticism, total prohibition and its backfire effect. Recognizing the distinction among design, basic-goal, and belief stances helps to elucidate much of the logic underlying these issues, so that it enables a much more detailed taxonomy of anthropomorphisms, and organizes the various misunderstandings about evolution by natural selection. It also offers a solid psychological grounding for anchoring definitions and terminology. This tripartite framework also shed some light on how to better deal with the over-reactive stances in bio-education, by organizing previous pedagogical strategies and by suggesting new possibilities to be tested. Therefore, this framework constitutes a promising approach to advance the debate regarding the psychological underpinnings of anthropomorphisms and to further support regulating and clarifying teleology and anthropomorphism in biology. (shrink)

More than half a century ago, a so-called Third Side appeared in China's political arena. The word "third" signified that its proponents intended to take a "middle way" amid the desperate, life-and-death battle between the Nationalist party and the Communist party. In a 1946 speech delivered at the Tianjin YMCA, entitled "A Political Line of an Intermediate Nature," Zhang Dongsun presented a clear and to-the-point formulation of this "middle way":In the political aspect, we should adopt more from the (...) British and American type of liberalism and democracy, while at the same time adopting, in the economic aspect, more from the Soviet Union's type of planned economy and socialism. From the negative aspect, we should adopt democracy but not capitalism. We should also adopt socialism but not the revolution of proletarian dictatorship. We want freedom but not an everything-goes attitude. We want cooperation but not struggle. Since we do not want an everything-goes attitude, we do not want monopolies by capitalists. Since we do not want struggle, we do not want class struggle. (shrink)

Skepticism has always been a part of the history of Western philosophy. If one were to look at current works focusing on the history of skepticism in philosophy, however, one would get the impression that skepticism disappeared from the philosophical landscape after the work of Sextus Empiricus, only to reappear with the methodological skepticism of Descartes. Yet, did skepticism, which had thus been so prevalent in the ancient period, disappear so completely during the middle Ages? The resounding answer that (...) this dissertation proposes to give to this question is no. To that end, the main focus will be on Nicolaus of Autrecourt, a figure in the waning High Middle Ages who revived skepticism within a peculiarly Christian context. In the first three chapters of the dissertation, the skepticism of Nicolaus of Autrecourt will be studied. Starting in the first chapter with a study of Nicolaus's life and the skeptical elements of his correspondence, the second chapter will continue to look for these same skeptical elements in his Exigit ordo, while the third chapter will look for possible influences on Nicolaus's skepticism. The fourth and fifth chapter will present views similar to Nicolaus's in the works of the Muslim thinker al-Ghazali and the more well-known David Hume concerning the skepticism of causal necessity. In the sixth and final chapter, a major difference between the doctrines of Nicolaus and al-Ghazali on the one hand and Hume on the other concerning the issue of miracles will be examined. From this point, a simplified genealogy of skepticism shall be offered, and it will be contended that the skepticisms of Nicolaus and al-Ghazali deserve a place in that genealogy. By allowing Nicolaus's and al-Ghazali's type of skepticism into this genealogy, the main conclusion shall be that skepticism is in fact a double-edged sword that can be used against religion by attempting to destroy the ability of reason to come to any definitive conclusions about God or against atheistic philosophy in leaving room for faith in the omnipotence of God. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThere are two distinct types of legal wrongdoing: civil and criminal. This article demonstrates in three ways that Immanuel Kant's Universal Principle of Right, properly interpreted, offers a plausible and resilient account of this important distinction. First, Kant's principle correctly identifies attempted crimes as crimes themselves even when they do not violate the rights of any individual. Second, it justifies our treatment of reckless endangerment as a crime by distinguishing it from ordinary negligence, traditionally thought to be only (...) civilly wrong. Third, it explains and justifies differences between the features of traditional criminal punishments and the features of civil remedies. Moreover, the Universal Principle of Right yields a Kantian standard for criminal wrongdoing that is compelling enough to inform future philosophical inquiries into the nature and limits of the state's criminal lawmaking authority. (shrink)

The paper identifies three recent lines of interpretation of the politics that can be derived from Deleuze and Guattari, all of which share a way of reading the dualisms in their work that can be traced back to how they understand the actual/virtual partition, and to an alleged pre-eminence of the virtual over the actual. It is argued that this reading is not only inaccurate, but obscures the political dimension of Deleuze and Guattari's work. Clarifying the latter requires a (...) reinterpretation of the dualisms involved (as dyads rather than binaries), of the relation between virtual and actual (as a formal distinction where one acts back upon the other), and the drawing of a clear distinction between what Deleuze calls a ‘transcendent exercise’ of thought and sensibility and the properly metaphysical exercise that sets up the distinction between virtual and actual. What then appears is an image of Deleuze's and Guattari's thought that is far more concerned with practical questions and with a situated political practice of intervention. (shrink)

Systemic history is an approach to explaining the past, that tries to maximize our understanding of context. Unlike most history, it does not do this by just narrating a chain of causal relationships for a given group through time. Instead, it shows how simpler systems become more complex over time through the interaction of reinforcing and balancing feedback loops. Systemic history offers the best way of understanding the processes that shape the Middle Way, because the Middle Way involves (...) improving responses to complexity, rather than falling back on shortcut simplifications (absolutizations). -/- This book examines the history of the Middle Way in four inter-related ways: as the biological development of organisms in relation to reinforcing or balancing feedback loops, as the psychological development of individual humans during a lifetime, as a succession of reinforcing and balancing feedback tendencies in human culture through history, and as a successive development of integrative practice. This shows how the Middle Way is a path distinctive to the human response to complexity, but nevertheless one rooted in the wider processes of all life. In the process it provides a detailed exploration of the relationship between the Middle Way and systems theory, biology, developmental psychology, and world history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE ANALOGIES OF BEING IN ST. THOMAS AQUINAS RICHARD LEE New School for Social Research New York, New York IN HIS Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard, Aquinas offers three modes of analogy.1 The three modes offered there are referred to, though not by the names given them, throughout his works. It remains a curious fact, however, that Aquinas varies his opinion as to whether analogy (...) of attribution or analogy of proportionality (sometimes referred to as analogy of proper proportionality as attribution is referred to in the literature as analogy of proportion) is the proper mode of analogical predication. In fact, as we shall see, Aquinas himself imports elements of the analogy of attribution into the analogy of proportionality. What needs to be investigated, then, is what characterizes these two modes of analogy; what makes them both analogy; why do they differ. Before understanding the specific nature of each form of analogy, however, one should understand why Aquinas appealed to analogy in the first place. Finally, one should attempt to grasp what the implications of each form of analogy are for Aquinas's metaphysical system and why he seems to favor the analogy of attribution over that of proportionality at crucial points in his thought. Why analogy? In general, one can say that Aquinas uses the concept of analogy (and that of proportionality) to solve two problems. On the one hand, the concept of analogy is used to argue that God does, 1 In I sent., 19. 5. 2, ad 1. 471 472 RICHARD LEE in fact, have knowledge of his creatures. The issue here is that the intellect knows in proportion to the thing known. However, God is infinite and if he knows anything finite he would know that thing in proportion to the created, finite thing. Since there is no proportion between finite and infinite, God cannot have any knowledge of his creatures.2 The element of knowledge, however, is not merely a preface to the discussion of the types of analogy. Aquinas argues that we can name a thing insofar as it is known.3 Since we have no concept of God (in his essence), we cannot name God, at least in the same way we name other things. On the other hand, Aquinas uses analogy to fill a metaphysical gap in his system. For he agrees with Pseudo-Dionysius and Maimonides that we cannot know God in his essence. Therefore, any names that we apply to God are not names which tell us anything about God. Aquinas is well aware that the God of revelation is not a God about whom one ought to speak. To say anything at all about God is already to say too much; it is already doomed to failure because of God one should not speak. However, this situation leaves Aquinas in a peculiar position. For he takes seriously the Aristotelian dictum that a thing is known only when its principles are known.4 If God is the principle, something must be known of him if anything is to be known at all. There must be some way to speak of God. Aquinas sees in analogy a middle ground between these two positions. For what he seeks is a mode of predication that lies between univocity and equivocity. In other words, he seeks a mode of predication that predicates the same thing in a different way of two (or more) things. In univocal predication the same term is applied according to the same ratio.5 Thus, the community 2 This is the issue, for example, in De Veritate, q. 8, a. 1, ad 6; De Veritate, q. 2, a.3, ad 4. 3 Cf. Summa Theologiae I, 13, 1, c. 4 For example, cf. Physics I, 1. 5 One is tempted to render ratio as " definition." However, it is not clear that definition is enough. Clearly, in univocal predication the definition must be the same (e.g., predicating animal of man and ox). But is it enough that only the definition is the same? Is there not some metaphysical element lack- THE ANALOGIF'.$ OF BEING 473 that applies to univocal predication is one of identity. The concept of animal... (shrink)

Jizang (549–623) is regarded as a prominent figure in Sanlun Buddhism (三論宗) and a revitalizer of Nāgārjuna’s Mādhyamaka tradition in China. In this essay, I argue that Jizang’s concept of non-empty Buddha-nature is compatible with the idea of universal emptiness. My argument unfolds in three steps. First, I argue that, for Jizang, Buddha-nature is the Middle Way (zhongdao 中道), which signifies a spiritual state that avoids the extremes of both emptiness and non-emptiness. Next, I explore how and why (...) Jizang believes that Buddha-nature is eternal. I examine Jizang’s notions of intrinsic eternality (dingxing chang 定性常) and conditional eternality (yinyuan chang 因緣常), aiming to demonstrate that his understanding of Buddha-nature as eternal can be framed within the concept of conditional eternality, where Buddha-nature is seen as the objective manifestation of the dharma body. Since this type of eternality aligns with the principle of universal emptiness, Jizang’s assertion that Buddha-nature is eternal is thus compatible with the notion of universal emptiness. Furthermore, I illustrate that Jizang’s theory of eternal Buddha-nature carries practical implications, suggesting that this assertion serves as encouragement rather than being merely an ontological claim. (shrink)

My main aim in my thesis is to show that, contrary to the commonly held belief according to which Aristotle was the first to conceive and develop intellectual virtues, there are strong indications that Plato had already conceived and had begun developing the concept of intellectual virtues. Nevertheless, one should not underestimate the importance of Aristotle’s work on intellectual virtues. Aristotle developed a much fuller (in detail and argument) account of both, the concept of ‘virtue’ and the concept of ‘intellect’, (...) metaphysically, epistemologically and psychologically. Still, the first conception of intellectual virtues is to be found in the Platonic corpus. Such a realization is not only of historic interest, but most importantly, as I am going to show, the Platonic conception of intellectual virtues could prove promising in contemporary debates on virtue epistemology theories and in virtue-based approaches to education. Plato’s discussion of rational desires is the strongest indication of the presence of the concept of intellectual virtues in Platonic dialogues. Rational desires are constitutive of intellectual virtues: desires are dispositional; rational desires are dispositions to pursue rational goods. Intellectual virtues are such dispositions. Additionally, there is further evidence that Plato had conceived of intellectual virtues. His rigorous educational program in the Republic aims at the development of rational desires, while in the Symposium he discusses the intense rational desire to know the Good. Nevertheless, in order to be intellectually virtuous, one must not only have a desire for knowledge; one must also be systematically and reliably successful in achieving the end of their rational desires. I will show that the success component of Plato’s intellectual virtues can be found in his dialectic method. Plato’s dialectic is both a virtue developer and a reliable method used by philosophers in order to reach the objects of their rational desires. I will argue that episteme is one of Plato’s primary intellectual virtues. Towards this end, I will invoke Pritchard’s recent argument according to which understanding, which is distinct from knowledge, is a form of cognitive achievement and therefore what is finally valuable. I will argue, based on textual evidence from the middle Platonic dialogues and recent discussions in the exegetical literature, that Plato’s episteme, although commonly translated as knowledge, is closer to Pritchard’s conception of understanding. I will also show that Plato’s episteme, similarly to Pritchard’s conception of understanding, is a cognitive achievement that cannot be attained by luck or testimony. The Platonic conception of intellectual virtues has something unique to offer to contemporary virtue epistemology. Plato, unlike Aristotle, does not differentiate between theoretical and practical wisdom. A wise agent, according to Plato, is wise in both practical and theoretical matters. Moreover, Plato, unlike Aristotle does not make a sharp distinction between moral and intellectual virtues. Therefore, the Platonic conception of intellectual virtues, in comparison to the Aristotelian, offers a more suitable starting point for scholars who want to argue that intellectual virtues are but a subpart of moral. Furthermore, I will argue that the Platonic conception of intellectual virtues is also of significant merit for virtue-based approaches to education. Plato questioned whether we can attain knowledge but nevertheless went on to develop his Socratically inspired theory of education according to which we can teach learning without knowing. Socrates proclaimed his ignorance numerous times; nevertheless, he went on to educate the youth of Athens. This is what I will suggest that Plato’s notion of intellectual virtues can contribute to theories of education: we should teach children not by transferring knowledge to them directly but by building dispositions into them to seek and acquire the truth. I will argue that although somewhat ignored by contemporary scholars, Plato’s theory of education has much to teach us about epistemic character education today. The Platonic educational program does not advocate the direct transmission of knowledge from the teacher to the student but rather focuses on building the learners’ epistemic dispositions. Building upon the Socratic method, Plato’s educational program does not “spoon-feed” knowledge to the learners but rather fosters the growth of intellectual virtues through problem-solving. The Platonic decades long educational regime aims at training Philosopher-Kings in three types of virtue: (i) Moral Virtue; (ii) the Cognitive Virtue of Abstraction; (iii) the Cognitive Virtue of Debate. I will explain ways in which fostering intellectual virtues through problem-solving could be applied in classrooms today and I will argue that Plato’s rigorous education program is of definite merit for contemporary theories of education, especially given the fact that scholars in the field are looking for alternatives to the traditional methods of teaching. I will also dedicate a section to showing that Socrates was not a moral philosopher but rather an epistemic character builder. Socrates trained his students/interlocutors in desiring the truth without offering them any knowledge-education. I will also briefly highlight some of the most significant differences between the Platonic educational program, as described in the Republic, and the Socratic educational method. I will also discuss, before concluding my thesis, two different accounts of educational failure as presented by Plato in the Republic. The first one is the individuals employing the eristic method (as a result of failure in dialectic education) and the second is the individuals who correspond to the four imperfect societies (brought about again by the lack of proper education). I will argue that these two accounts can inform our understanding of what should be avoided when educating for epistemic (and moral) virtue nowadays. (shrink)

The article deals with the philosophical component of the legacy of theprominent early Middle Ages, the first encyclopedic Isidore of Seville (560-637).By analyzing the works of foreign medical scholars and writings of Isidore, the author spans the evolution of views on the legacy of the Seville Bishop. Particular importance is given to quotations from ancient literature in the writings of Isidore, the transformation of the meaning of the quotation, which was due to a change in the context, and often (...) the very text, the agreement of these quotation among themselves and the general conclusions of the author. The second book Differentials and the three books of Senencius of Isidore are defined as the original “theological works” that corresponded to the cultural and ideological demands of the European society of the early Middle Ages, formed the foundations of European education, the idea of the appointment of the royal (state) power.The presentation of the doctrine and related problems is carried out in the three books of Senentius, which contain a number of thematic and meaningful parallels with the second book Differentials. The genius of Senentius is reinterpreted by Isidore: this is not just a thematic selection of aphoristic statements; quotations from various works and Isidor’s own maxims are designed in a clear structure), which explains a certain position and “policy” of the author, a strictly defined set of interconnected concepts. In the three books of Senentia, dogmatic, ascetic themes, what is called the “political theology” are considered.Thus, the second book “Differentials” and the three books “Sentence”,marked by us as “theological works”, are expected to contain a wealth of material for historical and philosophical analysis and, above all, philosophical concepts perceived by Isidor through the inheritance of the Fathers of the Church. However, if he can be blamed in a certain way in the reception of philosophy, then a large number of quotations from ancient literature is not simply a reference to the works of predecessors. They represent the consistency of Isidor’s thoughts with his predecessors, as well as his own conclusions. Given that the Sevillian Bishop was extremely lucky and virtually all his works were preserved, it is not surprising that they caused such controversy in the scientific community of the Medievists and not only the Medievists. The analysis of works on revealing their philosophical component continues to this day and the “supporters” of Isidore-philosopher are becoming more and more. Evolution in a positive direction in foreign historiography regarding the value of the Isidor Sevillian heritage is the basis of its new research by representatives of all branches of science. (shrink)

Newman sought a via media—a middle ground—between “evidentialists,” who considered reason supreme and so disparaged faith, and “existentialists,” who wanted to create a fortress of faith impenetrable to reason. Examining the way people actually think, Newman identified three types of inference that lead people to make decisions. This inferential process, which is operative in the decisions of every day life, serves as a paradigm for understanding how the human mind—particularly the illative sense—operates in religious matters; accordingly, Newman (...) presents faith as a personal and reasonable inference. (shrink)

There are three conceptions of expression in Husserl: (1) expression as a physical or sensible entity (expression-token), (2) expression as a repeatable entity (expression-type), and (3) expression as an act that connects token and type to each other (act of expressing). Only when all three notions are considered canHusserl's theory of expression and its meaning be correctly interpreted. However, such an interpretation does not ensure the correctness of Husserl’s theory itself. Rather, the distinctions of the three notions (...) reveal implausibility in the theory, because using an expression-token is nothing other than having a presentation(Vorstellung) of it. In his manuscript of 1914, Husserl attempts to overcome that implausibility but in a way that gives rise to another difficulty. (shrink)

The Vestal Virgins are one of the most famous elements of Roman religion, yet despite their perennial appeal and the importance of some smaller scale studies of the priesthood, the priestesses have not received a monograph-length study since F. Giuzzi, Aspetti giuridici del sacerdozio romano. II sacerdozio di Vesta (Naples, 1968). Now we have books by R.L. Wildfang and M.C. Martini that could not be more different. The former offers a thorough survey of what the sources can tell us about (...) the priesthood in the period from the end of the Second Carthaginian War to the first century C.E. The latter is an analysis of early Roman historiography and the role the Vestals, in particular their periodic unchastity, played in the creation of the traditional account of the development of Rome. W's book puts forward two main arguments: (1) the Vestals were charged with the ritual purification of the city and with the storage and preparation of ritual materials, and (2) many aspects of the priesthood that have long puzzled scholars are tied to the Vestals' status as Roman citizens, but citizens who existed outside the traditional family structure. The book will be accessible to those new to the topic, but the notes will repay specialists. Ancient sources are quoted in translation, with original texts provided in an appendix. A second appendix provides a list of known Vestals. This slender volume could have been even thinner if the frequent repetitions were cut down. W's work might have been better as a hefty article, so little is there to know about the Vestals. The Classical Review vol. 58 no. 1 C The Classical Association 2008; all rights reserved This content downloaded from 204.235.148.90 on Sat, 26 Jul 2014 11:47:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 213 In the Introduction, W makes a welcome distinction among types of rituals often lumped together in discussions of 'fertility' rituals, with which the Vestals are often associated (p. 4). W reserves 'fertility' to describe only those rites that deal with the reproduction of people, livestock and the growth of crops. Harvest rituals are linked to the harvesting of crops, while another set of rites, 'storage rites', are tied to the preservation of the harvest. The final group, purification rituals, aim at the cleansing of an individual, place or object of 'all forms of pollution that would render it or them unfit to come into contact with the religious sphere'. The book is arranged thematically. The first two chapters lay out all we can know about the priestesses' ritual obligations performed in the seclusion of the temple and out amongst the people. While a reader may not find W's interpretation of each of the Vestals' actions equally persuasive, the overall argument that the priestesses' activities were, by and large, purificatory is convincing. Two of the more interesting aspects of W.'s discussion are her considerations of Vesta's fire and of the water required for some of her rituals (pp. 8-11). Fire was seen by the Romans as both a fertile and a sterile force, and scholars have emphasised one or the other, or the contrast between them, in their interpretation of the Vestals. W points out that fertile fire is always described in masculine terms and is associated with Vulcan. Vesta's fire, however, is always associated with sterility and purity, and so should be understood as having a purificatory significance. W points out that Vesta's fire was used only in the manufacture of ritually necessary items: roasting spelt for mola salsa, baking brine for muries and burning ashes from the fetal cow from the Fordicidia and the tail of the October horse, both of which were used at the Parilia. For other rituals, the Vestals were required to use water, the purificatory substance par excellence, drawn only from the spring of Juturna and carried only in vessels that could not be set down. These restrictions ensured that the water was always fresh, running water that never touched profane earth. Chapters 3-5 trace out the unique position the Vestals occupied in Roman society, arguing that they existed outside the standard Roman familial and other social structures, yet remained fully part of the Roman state. W suggests that the initiation rite of captio removed the new priestess not only from her family but, more importantly, from her family cult, thus avoiding any potential contamination of familial and public cult. Virginity was required for multiple reasons, the most significant being that such a status allowed the priestess to remain a full member of the Roman state, but prevented her from being a member of a traditional family structure. Throughout the book, W makes much of the idea of Vestals as represen tatives of Roman citizen women without ever really dealing with the question to what extent any Roman woman, priestess or not, was a ciuis. Though W is probably correct, it is not entirely certain to what extent women were citizens in the Republic, and at least a reference to some key ancient sources and to recent scholarship on this question should be made (e.g. L. Peppe, Posizione giuridica e ruolo sociale della donna romana in eta repubblicana [Milan, 1984]). The sixth chapter, 'The Vestals in the Romans' History', looks at the appearance of Vestals in the early history of Rome, refining the common assumption that accusations of, and convictions for, incestum arose only in periods of great stress and danger. W adds that a priestess's involvement, or her family's involvement, in one of the groups taking part in the conflict or struggle of the moment also played a role. This chapter traces changes over the course of 300 years in the attitudes of the priestesses and the Romans more generally toward the priesthood, its role in society This content downloaded from 204.235.148.90 on Sat, 26 Jul 2014 11:47:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 214 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW and its requirement of 30 years of chastity. The argument hangs on even less evidence than other sections of the work. In contrast to their central place in W's book, the Vestals play only a small (though crucial, in her interpretation) role in M.'s work. The basic argument of the book is that episodes of Vestal incestum are linked in the historiographic tradition to key moments in the development of the Roman state: the separation of augurium from regnum, the development of a mixed patrician-plebeian aristocracy, the creation of a monetary system and the expansion of the colonial system outside Italy. The history of Rome can be seen as alternating phases of stasis and transformation; instances of Vestal incestum mark the transitions (p. 95). The work falls into two parts that are not well integrated. The first is a useful discussion of the historiography of the Roman Republic, taking in turn each element of the story of the founding of Rome from the arrival of Aeneas to the death of Remus. M. traces how early Roman writers, especially Fabius Pictor, reshaped the tradition already present in some Greek authors, distancing Rome from the Greek world and adding an Italic element to the tale. This detailed analysis is well worth consulting and will be of interest to those working on many aspects of cultural life in the Republic. The second, larger, section of the book comprises a series of studies of the Vestals known to have been convicted of incestum during the Republic. After dealing with issues of dating and sources, M. links each case of incestum to a major event in Roman history. Not all the events are equally important for the creation of the Rome of the middle and late Republic. One wonders why M. chose to tie the conviction of Minucia, somewhere between 339 and 332, to the admission of plebeians to the praetorship in 337 rather than to the conclusion of the Latin War in 338. Some explanation is warranted. The connection M. draws is often very vague, as in the case of Sextilia (pp. 144-54), convicted and interred alive in either 275 or 274. M. sees this as marking the end of any meaningful distinction between patricians and plebeians, following as it does the first time a plebeian censor completed a lustrum. The gap of five or six years between Sextilia's conviction and Cn. Domitius Calvinus Maximus' censorship in 280 passes unremarked. Similarly, in discussing the three Vestals accused of incestum in 114-113 (pp. 188-210), M. steps away from the commonly accepted interpretation of the event as part of the continuing struggle between Gracchan and senatorial forces, arguing instead that it is tied to the establishment in 118 of the colony of Narbo Martius, Rome's first colony in Gaul. Here, as elsewhere, there is no evidence that any ancient author linked the founding of the colony and Vestal unchastity; the temporal gap makes an association even more unlikely. Ultimately, it is not possible to accept M.'s argument that Vestal incestum punctuated key stages in the development of the 'cosmo Romano' in the way she imagines. Even so, M.'s effort to reintegrate the Vestals into the larger narrative of Rome's history is thought-provoking, and it is to be hoped that it will spark further work in the same vein. The field is perhaps in a better position to undertake work on this scale now that we have W's careful and comprehensive collection and interpre tation of what there is to know about the Vestals. Yale University CELIA E. SCHULTZ celia.schultz(yale.edu This content downloaded from 204.235.148.90 on Sat, 26 Jul 2014 11:47:09 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions. (shrink)

A formal language of two-valued logic is developed, whose terms are formulas of the language of Kleene's three-valued logic. The atomic formulas of the former language are pairs of formulas of the latter language joined by consequence operators. These operators correspond to the three sensible types of consequence (strong-strong, strong-weak and weak-weak) in Kleene's logic in analogous way as the implication connective in the classical logic corresponds to the classical consequence relation. The composed formulas of the considered (...) language are built from the atomic ones by means of the classical connectives and quantifiers.A deduction system for the developed language is given, consisting of a set of decomposition rules for sequences of formulas. It is shown that the deduction system is sound and complete. (shrink)

A ideia de beleza - e sua consequente fruição estética - variou conforme as transformações das sociedades humanas, no tempo. Durante a Idade Média, coexistiram diversas concepções de qual era o papel do corpo na hierarquia dos valores estéticos, tanto na Filosofia quanto na Arte. Nossa proposta é apresentar a estética do corpo medieval que alguns filósofos desenvolveram em seus tratados (particularmente Isidoro de Sevilha, Hildegarda de Bingen, João de Salisbury, Bernardo de Claraval e Tomás de Aquino), além de algumas (...) representações corporais nas imagens medievais (iluminuras e esculturas), e assim analisar o tema em três vertentes: a) o corpo como cárcere da alma, b) o corpo como instrumento, e c) o corpo como desregramento. The concept of beauty, and its consequent aesthetic enjoyment, has varied according the transformations of human societies over time. During the Middle Ages there were different conceptions, in both philosophy and art, of what the role of the body is in the hierarchy of aesthetic values. Our purpose is to present the aesthetic of the body that some medieval philosophers developed in their treatises (especially Isidore of Seville, Hildegard of Bingen, John of Salisbury, Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas), as well as some bodily representations of medieval images (illuminations and sculptures). We thus examine the issue in three ways: a) the body as a prison of the soul, b) the body as an instrument, and c) the body as degradation. (shrink)

During the Latin Middle Ages, as today, “tyranny” connotes the exercise of power arbitrarily, oppressively, and violently. Medieval thinkers generally followed in the footprints of early Christian theologians and ancient philosophers regarding the tyrant as the very embodiment of evil rulership and thus as the polar opposite of the king, who governed for the good of his people according to virtue and religion. However, examination of the writings of some well-known and influential authors from ca. 1150 to ca. 1400—including (...) John of Salisbury, Ptolemy of Lucca, William of Ockham, Bartolous of Sassoferrato, and Nicole Oresme—reveals three very diverse and distinct conceptions of tyranny, each of which justified the tyrant in one way or another. (shrink)

Many different kinds of items have been called vague, and so-called for a variety of different reasons. Traditional wisdom distinguishes three views of why one might apply the epitaph "vague" to an item; these views are distinguished by what they claim the vagueness is due to. One type of vagueness, The Good, locates vagueness in language, or in some representational system -- for example, it might say that certain predicates have a range of applicability. On one side of the (...) range are those cases to which the predicate clearly applies and on the other side of the range are those cases where the negation of the predicate clearly applies. But there is no sharp cutoff place along the range where the one range turns into the other. Most examples of The Good are those terms which describe some continuum -- such as bald describes a continuum of the ratio of hairs per cm2 on the head. But not all work this way. Alston (1968) points to terms like religion invoking a number of criteria the joint applicability of which ensures that the activity in question is a religion and the failure of all to apply ensures that it is not a religion. But when only some middling number of the criteria are fulfilled, the term religion neither applies nor fails to apply. Some accounts of "family resemblance" and "open texture" might also fit this picture. Such a view is often called a "representational account of vagueness". Another conception of vagueness, The Bad, locates vagueness as a property of discourses, of memories, and of certain philosophers and their papers, etc. This sort of vagueness occurs when the information available does not allow one to tell, for example, that a certain sentence is true, but also does not allow one to determine that it is false. It occurs when the information available does not allow one to claim that a predicate applies to a name, but also does not allow one to claim that the negation of the predicate applies to that name.. (shrink)

In its formlessness and potentiality, prime matter is a problematic entity of medieval metaphysics and its ontological limitations drastically affect human possibility of conceiving it. In this article, I analyse three influential strategies elaborated to justify an epistemic access to prime matter. They are incidental perception, negative abstraction, and analogy. Through a systematic and historical analysis of these procedures, the article shows the richness of interpretations and theoretical stakes implied by the conundrum of how prime matter can be known (...) by human beings. In particular, the reasons behind the later medieval acceptance of analogy as the main way to unveil prime matter become clearer by pointing out the correlation between the ontological and epistemological levels of the medieval examination of prime matter. (shrink)

In this issue of Philosophical Studies, Richard Arneson, Jonathan Quong and Robert Talisse contribute papers discussing The Order of Public Reason (OPR). All press what I call “agent-type challenges” to the project of OPR. In different ways they all focus on a type (or types) of moral (or sometimes not-so-moral) agent. Arneson presents a good person who is so concerned with doing the best thing she does not truly endorse social morality; Quong a bad person who rejects it and (...) violates the basic rights of others, and Talisse a morally ugly person, a hypocrite, who criticizes others for failing to do what he does not do. All suggest that OPR does not give a satisfying account of what we are to say to, or how we should act towards, such agents. In my response I highlight some core concerns of OPR, while also seeking to show that OPR does not say quite what they think it says, and it often leaves them room for saying what they would like to say about such agents. (shrink)