History of Western Philosophy, Misc

It’s common knowledge that those objects we regard as great works of art have a capacity to survive across time. But that observation is only a half-truth: it tells us nothing about the nature of this power of survival – about how art endures. -/- This question was once at the heart of Western thinking about art. The Renaissance solved it by claiming that great art is “timeless”, “eternal” – impervious to time, a belief that exerted a powerful influence on (...) Enlightenment philosophers and, later, on modern aesthetics. -/- The notion that art is timeless was contradicted by nineteenth century thinkers such as Hegel, Marx, and Taine who stressed the historical embeddedness of art. The conflict of these two ideas, together with other major factors discussed in this paper, has left us today without a viable account of the nature of art’s capacity to transcend time. -/- This paper proposes an alternative solution: the proposition that art survives by a process of metamorphosis. But the principal emphasis of the paper is on the question itself: how does art transcend time? (a question that has nothing to do with the so-called “test of time”). If modern aesthetics is to remain relevant to our modern world of art, in which the art of the past – stretching back to Lascaux and beyond – is as important as Picasso and contemporary art, it urgently needs to address this neglected question. (shrink)

An account of the three rival conceptions of Western philosophy: "theoretical," "difference," and "practical." Note that a previous version of this paper appears as chapter 13 of my Patriotic Elaborations: Essays in Practical Philosophy (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2009).

Following Kant, subjectivity is seen as an obstacle to any access into things themselves. For this reason, Kant concludes that metaphysics as the science of being as being is necessarily impossible. In this essay, the possibilities of metaphysics in light of the problem of subjectivity are reexamined. The nature of subjectivity and the subject’s encounter with being are analyzed yielding two fundamental relational structures that hold with respect to being and the subject. Further examination of the act of reflection coupled (...) with judgment reveals that these structures may in fact be transcended, from which an encounter with being as such follows. On the basis of reflection and judgment, metaphysics is in consequence determined to be possible. (shrink)

The role of consciousness in evolutionary psychology, apart from postponing, rerouting, reinterpreting or ignoring stimuli, may simply be independently confirming, as in any science’s methodology.

This article claims that communication within the same culture in the present and with the past and communication across cultures pose serious methodological challenges for philosophers. These challenges are particularly obvious when we engage in comparative philosophy between East and West. However, if (1) we understand philosophy as a discipline involved in problem solving, and (2) we use the Framework Approach advocated in this article, such communication does not seem impossible. Of course, this approach may not help us with the (...) challenges posed by the kind of philosophy that does not deal with problems. (shrink)

For many years I have maintained that I learned to philosophize by translating Francisco Suárez’s Metaphysical Disputation V from Latin into English. This surely is a claim that must sound extraordinary to the members of this audience or even to most twentieth century philosophers. Who reads Suárez these days? And what could I learn from a sixteenth century scholastic writer that would help me in the twentieth century? I would certainly be surprised if one were to find any references to (...) some of Suárez’s works in any of the works of twentieth-century major philosophers. One of the reasons for my claim is the great difficulty I had in figuring out what Suárez’s text means and how to render it understandable to English readers. Translating the text forced me to think in ways that were quite different from those I was used to think in Spanish, my native tongue, or English, my adoptive tongue. In fact, the translation I produced after having completed many drafts continued, and still continues to this day, to appear to me unsatisfactory, and that dissatisfaction was the key to understanding things I had understood very differently before. I hope to make clear why in what follows. The thesis that I defend is that semantic equivalence between texts of philosophy in different languages is difficult, if not impossible in some cases, to achieve and, therefore, that it is a mistake to restrict doing analytic philosophy to English, as Gustavo Rodríguez-Pereyra argues we should do in a recent article (2013). (shrink)

This is partly fictional. It is chiefly a reconstruction (not always faithful) of Hume’s fundamental uses of notions of similarity, mostly based on Enquiry. It is the first part (out of four) of a monograph on the evolution of similarity toolmaking. Histories of doctrines are common in our discipline, not so for histories of tools; this is what it’s about. What’s disturbing: I write as if I were talking about the customs and beliefs of ancient tribes instead of real philosophers. (...) Advantages: helps focus on what similarity tools are apt to, I don’t have to worry about my Hume being merely MY Hume; more fun. Here is the thematic layout: 1.1: (very fictional) methodological introduction; page 2. 1.2: on the origin of ideas + missing shade of blue; p. 4. 1.3: the Xenophobia model; p. 12. 1.4: case studies of cognitive trickery; p. 16 : 1.4.1: arguments from experience; p. 17. 1.4.2: the idea of necessary connection; p. 21. 1.4.3: abstract and very general ideas; p. 23. 1.5: conceptual distinctions between used similarity tools and a few comments; p. 29. (shrink)

Erik Olof Burman (1845–1929) was professor of practical philosophy at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, between 1896 and 1910. In 1879 he published a long essay entitled ”Om den nyare italienska filosofien” (”On recent Italian philosophy”). About half the essay is devoted to the philosophical system of Antonio Rosmini (1797–1855), the second half to that of Vincenzo Gioberti (1801–1852). The text is mainly descriptive, apparently aiming at informing Swedish colleagues about the situation in Italy. However, there are also passages revealing (...) the rationalist-idealist subjectivism of Burman himself as well as his considering Rosmini’s ontology too objectivistic and Gioberti’s idealism insufficiently coherent. A preliminary translation of Burman’s essay into Italian is presented. -/- Erik Olof Burman (1845–1929) fu professore di Filosofia Pratica all’Università di Uppsala negli anni 1896–1910. New 1879 publicò un saggio intitolato ”Om den nyare italienska filosofien” (“Sulla filosofia italiana recente”). Quasi metà di questo lavoro si concentra sul sistema di Antonio Rosmini (1797–1855); la seconda parte verte anzitutto invece su quello di Vincenzo Gioberti (1801–1852). Il testo è principalmente descrittivo, ovviamente mirante a informare filosofi svedesi sulle posizioni attuali in Italia. Vi si trovano anche però commenti sparsi indicanti il razialismo-idealismo soggetivo di Burman stesso e considerazioni riguardo a come egli consideri l’ontologia di Rosmini troppo oggettiva e l’idealismo di Gioberti insufficientemente coerente. Riflettendo l’immagine della filosofia italiana del IX secolo in uno specchio straniero, il lavoro potrebbe essere di un certo valore informativo per moderni filosofi e storici italiani. Per questa ragione una traduzione preliminare del saggio di Burman è presentata. (shrink)

Recently we proposed “quantum language”which was characterized as the metaphysical and linguistic turn of quantum mechanics. This turn from physics to language does not only realize the remarkable extension of quantum mechanics but also yield the quantum mechanical world view. And thus, the turn urges us to dream that Western philosophies (i.e., Parmenides, Plato, Descartes, John Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein, etc.) can be understood in quantum language. In this paper, from the quantum linguistic point of view, we give the (...) answers of the following two problems. (i): Has western philosophy made progress? Or what is the measure of "progress"? (ii):Why has useless western philosophy been prospering? (shrink)

Jede Philosophie bezieht ihre Farbe von der geheimen Lichtquelle eines Vorstellungshintergrunds, der niemals ausdrücklich in ihren Gedankenketten auftaucht.

Abstract: Giorgio Agamben's recent works have been preoccupied with a certain obscure passage from St. Paul's 'Second Epistle to the Thessalonians,' which describes the portentous events that must occur before the Second Coming of Jesus Christ can take place---specifically, the appearance of a 'man of lawlessness' (the Antichrist?) and the exposure of who or what is currently restraining the 'man of lawlessness' from being exposed as the Antichrist: a mysterious agency called the 'katechon.' In 'The Mystery of Evil: Benedict XVI (...) and the End of Days,' this obscure passage is connected with the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI through certain equally obscure references to the fourth century theologian, Tyconius, although the precise connection between these apocalyptic events and their mysterious agents remains obscure. This review attempts to shed some critical light upon this cryptic subject, both by considering the world-historical context of St. Paul's epistle, and by asking what role these apocalyptic figures play in Agamben's political theology. But, to begin with, the review also asks: Who, really, is the Antichrist? a scarcely rhetorical question that demands a sardonic answer. Although various candidates from contemporary politics are proposed, the review finally argues that the Antichrist and the katechon are not specific individuals or worldly institutions, but rather refer to world-historical trends within Western European Christian civilization itself that have resulted in what Friedrich Nietzsche called 'the devaluation of all higher values' and 'the desecration of the Christian moral world-view': an apocalyptic turn of events which Nietzsche equally sardonically referred to in 'The Antichrist.'. (shrink)

The current standard interpretation of Moore’s proof assumes Moore offers a solution to Kant’s famously posed problem of an external world, which Moore quotes at the start of his 1939 lecture “Proof of an External World.” As a solution to Kant’s problem, Moore’s proof fails utterly. Similarly, a second received interpretation imputes an aim of refuting metaphysical idealism that Moore’s proof does not at all achieve. This study departs from the received interpretations to credit Moore’s stated aim for the proof (...) Moore performed in his 1939 lecture that is to impose a counter-example to an explicitly stated presupposition of Kant’s famously posed problem of an external world. The outcome would therefore subvert Kant’s problem. There is not, however, any rival external world problem that Moore commends in place of Kant’s problem. (shrink)

Reading only the contemporary and popular literature on the Orthodox spiritual life, it is possible to get the impression that Orthodox Christianity affirms only mystical theology and that it has no place for philosophical investigation, rational inquiry, or thinking for oneself. In this paper I show that this view of the relationship between philosophy and the Orthodox Christian life is one-sided and distorted. For while it is certainly true that reason is impotent to lay bare the very nature of God, (...) St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Maximos the Confessor, and St. John of Damascus all see it as a guide and powerful ally in coming to know that God exists and a little of what He is like, as well as in patterning our lives after He who is the source of all life. The explicit statements that these Fathers make as well as the use that they make of reason in their writings show how it can function as a guide for those in the beginning stages of the spiritual life even if it ultimately points beyond itself to the God who is beyond every conception. (shrink)

The word 'reason' as used today is used ambiguous in its meaning. It may denote either of two mental faculties: a lower reason associated with discursive, linear thinking, and a higher reason associated with direct apprehension of first principles of mathematics and logic, and possibly also of moral and religious truths. These two faculties may be provisionally named Reason (higher reason) and rationality (lower reason). Common language and personal experience supply evidence of these being distinct faculties. So does classical philosophical (...) literature, the locus classicus being Plato's Divided Line analogy. -/- The effect of currently using a single word to denote both faculties not only produces confusion, but has had the effect of decreasing personal and cultural awareness of the higher faculty, Reason. Loss of a sense of Reason has arguably contributed to various psychological, social, moral, and spiritual problems of the modern age. This issue was also a central concern of 19th century Transcendentalists, who reacted to the radical empiricism of Locke. It would be advantageous to adopt consistent terms that make explicit a distinction between higher and lower reason. One possibility is to re-introduce the Greek philosophical terms nous and dianoia for the higher and lower reason, respectively. This discussion has certain parallels with the recent theories of McGilchrist (2009) concerning the increasingly left-brain hemisphere orientation of human culture. (shrink)

The issue discussed in this paper is as topical today as it was in the early modern period. The Reformation presented with heightened urgency the question of how to relate the system of beliefs and values regarded as fundamental by an established political community to alternative beliefs and values introduced by new groups and individuals. Through a discussion of the views on toleration advanced by some key early modern thinkers, this paper will revisit different ways of addressing this problem, focusing (...) on the relationship between truth and toleration. The comparison between different proposals in their historical and political contexts, will reveal a variety of understandings of toleration and of models for its promotion. These understandings will be shown to be grounded in different conceptions of religious belief, of its relation to truth, and of human reason’s ability to reach it. They will provide a map of possible models for addressing conflict in a pluralist world from which lessons of enduring relevance can be learnt. The upshot of the paper is that, from a theoretical point of view, the culprit in intolerance is not in itself belief in some objective truth. Some of the common assumptions about the denial of religious truth or the reduction of religious truth to a minimal creed as the best paths to universal toleration will be challenged. Likewise, the narrative centred on England and France which has led to the celebration of the heroes of a supposedly ‘universal’ toleration that still manages to exclude millions of people will be shown to be in need of significant revision. After discussing approaches based on the rights of the individual conscience and on the unknowability of religious truths above human reason, the paper will finally investigate whether grounds for a general and principled theory of toleration can be found in religious truth itself and, following the tradition of natural law, in some universal truth discoverable by natural reason. (shrink)

Encyclopedia living reference work entry about Jacob Burckhardt, his ife, his main works and his historiographical method. In particular the entry focuses on Burckhardt's masterpiece, "The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy".

Thomas White’s views on transubstantiation have been the focus on a recent article that analyzes his manuscript essay “Of Transubstantiation.” This paper sheds further light on White’s views by exploring a second manuscript essay: “A Discourse Concerning the Eucharist”. This second essay seeks to make transubstantiation rationally comprehensible through an analysis of philosophical topics such as quantity, place, and change. While “Of Transubstantiation” draws on elements of the mechanical philosophy, “A Discourse Concerning the Eucharist” appears more closely aligned with traditional (...) Aristotelian views. The paper concludes by considering the differences between the essays and how they might be reconciled. (shrink)

Neo-Aristotelian metaphysics comprises the topics in contemporary metaphysics which bear similarity to the interests, commitments, positions and general approaches found in Aristotle. Despite the current interest in these topics, there is no monograph length general introduction to the methodology and themes of neo-Aristotelian metaphysics. One underdiscussed question concerns demarcation: what unifies the topics that fall under the heading of neo-Aristotelianism? Contemporary metaphysicians who might be classified as ‘neo-Aristotelians’ tend towards positions reminiscent of Aristotle’s metaphysics—such as sympathy with grounding, substance ontology, (...) non-modal construals of essence, hylomorphism, causal powers, presentism, endurantism and agent causation. However, prima facie it seems that one might hold any one of these positions while rejecting the others. What perhaps unifies a neo-Aristotelian approach in metaphysics, then, is not a shared collection of positions so much as a willingness to engage with Aristotle and to view this historical figure as providing a fruitful way of initially framing certain philosophical issues. However, also missing in the literature is a sustained methodological discussion on the contribution historical scholarship on Aristotle might make to contemporary metaphysics, and the contribution contemporary metaphysics might make to historical scholarship. Little hinges on whether what gets labelled neo-Aristotelian metaphysics is or isn’t Aristotle’s metaphysics. But historical scholarship is useful within contemporary metaphysics not merely to to apply historically accurate labels to positions. There are topics where the historical and contemporary issues dovetail in mutually rewarding ways: serious engagement with the history of philosophy can yield living philosophical rewards for today’s metaphysician; and serious engagement with contemporary philosophy can yield exegetical rewards for the historian. The monograph will introduce these methodological issues, and then turn to case studies on ontological dependence, substance ontology, category theory and hylomorphism. These are all topics where there is robust debate within both Aristotle studies and contemporary metaphysics, and topics where historians and metaphysicians are working somewhat in isolation from each other. The aim of the monograph is to make the relevant exegetical questions accessible to contemporary metaphysicians, and the corresponding contemporary topics accessible to historians. The target audience includes researchers, graduate students and advanced undergraduates, in both metaphysics and Aristotle studies. (shrink)

In this chapter, I examine similarities and divergences between Du Châtelet and Descartes on their endorsement of the use of hypotheses in science, using the work of Condillac to locate them in his scheme of systematizers. I conclude that, while Du Châtelet is still clearly a natural philosopher, as opposed to modern scientist, her conception of hypotheses is considerably more modern than is Descartes’, a difference that finds its roots in their divergence on the nature of first principles.

The aim of this entry is to provide the reader with a philosophical map of the progression of the concept and experience of boredom throughout the Western tradition—from antiquity to current work in Anglo-American philosophy. By focusing primarily on key philosophical works on boredom, but also often discussing important literary and scientific texts, the entry exposes the reader to the rich history of boredom and illustrates how the different manifestations of boredom—idleness, horror loci, acedia, sloth, mal du siècle, melancholy, ennui, (...) monotony, and emptiness—are grounded in the historical context in which they arise. (shrink)

"Begriff" und "Kategorie" gehören zu der Klasse sprachliche Ausdrücke, die einerseits in alltäglichen Verwendungen und andererseits als philosophische Fachtermini gebräuchlich sind. Beide Ausdrücke haben eine bis in die antike Philosophie zurückführbare diskontinuierliche Geschichte und weisen dabei phasenweise systematische Affinitäten und bemerkenswerte Bedeutungsüberschneidungen auf. Alle drei Faktoren - das changierende Verhältnis terminologischer und nichtterminologischer Verwendungen, geschichtliche Verschiebungen und systematische Überschneidungen des Begriffs- und Kategorienverständnisses - hinterlassen ihre Spuren insbesondere in Kontexten, in denen unterschiedliche Fachdisziplinen wie Philosophie, Kognitionspsychologie und Sprachwissenschaften involviert sind, (...) die in je eigener Weise mit den Vorgängen des Begreifens und Kategorisierens befasst sind. Der vorliegende Beitrag will insofern über historisch-begriffsanalytische Differenzierungen zu "Begriff" und "Kategorie" einen Beitrag zum interdisziplinären Verständnis epistemischer Prozesse und ihrer Verhältnisbestimmung leisten. (shrink)

This paper introduces the philosophy of Grace Andrus de Laguna in order to renew interest in it. I show that, in the 1910s and 1920s, she develops ideas and arguments that are also found playing key roles in the development of analytic philosophy decades later. Further, I describe her sympathetic, but acute, criticism of pragmatism and Heideggerian ontology, and situate her work in the tradition of American, speculative philosophy. Before 1920, we will see, de Laguna appeals to multiple realizability to (...) undermine reductionism in science, to support perspectival, scientific realism and, with help from a private language argument, to favour the view that mental states are classified by behavioural, teleological roles over what came to be called ‘type physicalism’. Her view of speech, mostly developed in the 1920s, tells us that its primary role is coordinating group behaviour rather than expressing thoughts. Belief is understood in terms of its causal role, including its causal relations to other kinds of mental states, when coordinating group behaviour. Thought is similarly understood. In developing her theory of mind, de Laguna rejects the pragmatist claims that belief can be reduced to dispositions to behaviour and that thought’s function is to address specific, rather than general, problems. She also favours meaning holism and rejects the analytic-synthetic distinction. In later work, de Laguna argues that individuals’ activity of self-maintenance brings universals, conceived of as irreducible potentialities, into being and makes them increasingly determinate. Further, she identifies the existence of all individuals with forms of self-maintenance and takes the existence of people to include maintenance of the cultural world. Such a unified treatment of existence, she holds, permits making its evolution intelligible. Heidegger’s view of being is rejected for not permitting this. All de Laguna’s work, we will see, fits a vision of philosophy as the systematic, imaginative and naturalistic examination of being as well as a source of criticism of science. (shrink)

A new series entitled Oxford Philosophical Concepts (OPC) made its debut in November 2014. As the series’ Editor Christia Mercer notes, this series is an attempt to respond to the call for and the tendency of many philosophers to invigorate the discipline. To that end each volume will rethink a central concept in the history of philosophy, e.g. efficient causation, health, evil, eternity, etc. “Each OPC volume is a history of its concept in that it tells a story about changing (...) solutions to specific philosophical problems” (xiii). The series presents itself as innovative along three main lines: its reexamination of the so-called “canon,” its reconsidering the value of interdisciplinary exchanges, and its encouraging philosophers to move beyond the current borders of philosophy. By engaging with non-Western traditions and carefully considering topics and materials which are not strictly philosophical, the collections from this series aim to render the history of philosophy accessible to a wide audience. -/- The first OPC volume to appear in print is “Efficient Causation – A History” edited by Tad Schmaltz. Using careful historical and philosophical analysis as well as interdisciplinary reflections this anthology proposes to tell the story of how efficient causation, equated nowadays with “causation” tout court, came to play its prominent role in our philosophical and scientific vocabulary. Eleven contributions cover the period from Ancient times (Aristotle and the Stoics), through the Middle Ages (both the Western and the Islamic traditions), passing through the Early Modern times (represented here by Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Malebranche, Berkeley and Hume), all the way to Kant and finally contemporary philosophers (classified into two opposing camps: Humean and Neo-Aristotelian). There are also four reflections which explore the applications of the notion of efficient causation to areas different from philosophy, especially the arts (literature, music, painting, etc.). (shrink)

This volume offers authoritative discussions of all aspects of Epicurus's philosophy and then traces out some of its most important subsequent influences throughout the Western intellectual tradition. Such a detailed and comprehensive study of Epicureanism is especially timely given the tremendous current revival of interest in Epicurus and his rivals, the Stoics. The thirty-one contributions in this volume offer an unmatched resource for all those wishing to deepen their knowledge of Epicurus' powerful arguments about happiness, death, and the nature of (...) the material world and our place in it. At the same time, his arguments are carefully placed in the context of ancient and subsequent disputes, thus offering readers the opportunity of measuring Epicurean arguments against a wide range of opponents--from Platonists, Aristotelians and Stoics, to Hegel and Nietzsche, and finally on to such important contemporary philosophers as Thomas Nagel and Bernard Williams. (shrink)

Pragmatic genealogies seek to explain ideas by regarding them, primarily, not as answers to philosophical questions, but as practical solutions to practical problems. Here I argue that pragmatic genealogies can inform the formation of philosophical canons. But the rationale for resorting to genealogy in this connection is not the familiar one that genealogy renders the concepts of the present intelligible by relating them to the concerns of the past—the claim is rather the reverse one, that genealogy renders the concepts of (...) the past intelligible by relating them to the concerns of the present: past thinkers can be made to speak to us by revealing how their ideas tie in with our concerns, in the sense of helping us to remedy practical problems we still face in some form. (shrink)

Forty-two years ago, Capra published “The Tao of Physics” (Capra, 1975). In this book (page 17) he writes: “The exploration of the atomic and subatomic world in the twentieth century has …. necessitated a radical revision of many of our basic concepts” and that, unlike ‘classical’ physics, the sub-atomic and quantum “modern physics” shows resonances with Eastern thoughts and “leads us to a view of the world which is very similar to the views held by mystics of all ages and (...) traditions.“ This article stresses an analogous situation in biology with respect to a new theoretical approach for studying living systems, Integral Biomathics (IB), which also exhibits some resonances with Eastern thought. Stepping on earlier research in cybernetics1 and theoretical biology,2 IB has been developed since 2011 by over 100 scientists from a number of disciplines who have been exploring a substantial set of theoretical frameworks. From that effort, the need for a robust core model utilizing advanced mathematics and computation adequate for understanding the behavior of organisms as dynamic wholes was identified. At this end, the authors of this article have proposed WLIMES (Ehresmann and Simeonov, 2012), a formal theory for modeling living systems integrating both the Memory Evolutive Systems (Ehresmann and Vanbremeersch, 2007) and the Wandering Logic Intelligence (Simeonov, 2002b). Its principles will be recalled here with respect to their resonances to Eastern thought. (shrink)

In this article, I provide a historical and bibliographical exploration of the handwritten, dictated commentaries (dictata) of Johannes de Raey (1620/1622–1702) on the texts of René Descartes (1596–1650), shedding light on their structure, development, and on their relations with the academic commentaries of Johannes Clauberg (1622–1665) and Christoph Wittich (1625–1687). The study of these commentaries, which are extant as class notes, is important because they conveyed one of the first systematic teachings of Descartes’s ideas and constituted a vehicle for their (...) further dissemination across northern Europe. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy (or “x-phi”) is a way of doing philosophy. It is “traditional” philosophy, but with a little something extra: In addition to the expected philosophical arguments and engagement, x-phi involves the use of empirical methods to test the empirical claims that arise. This extra bit strikes some as a new, perhaps radical, addition to philosophical practice. We don’t think so. As this chapter will show, empirical claims have been common across the history of Western philosophy, as have appeals to (...) empirical observation in attempting to support or subvert these claims. While conceptions of philosophy have changed over time, across these changes we find philosophers employing empirical methods in pursuing their philosophical questions. Our primary aim in this chapter is to illustrate this fact. We begin by discussing the relevance of history to experimental philosophy (Section 2), then offer a necessarily condensed and highly selective history of empirical work in Western philosophy, ranging from the ancients (Section 3), to the early moderns (Section 4), to the late moderns (Section 5), and on to the present (Section 6). (shrink)

Abbreviating Kantian and Aristotelian outlooks' evolution, recomposition and differentiation, this brief sketches some effects and outlines such viewpoints have had upon behaviorism, finally delineating emerging approaches on to knowledge and reality.

This paper provides a philosophical analysis and a new edition of an anonymous Epitome of John Dumbleton’s solution to the semantic paradoxes. The first part of this paper briefly presents Dumbleton’s cassationist solution to the semantic paradoxes, which the English philosopher proposes in his Summa Logicae, written in the 1330s–40s. The second part investigates the solution to various types of insolubles proposed by the anonymous author of the Epitome. The third part provides a new critical edition of the Latin text (...) – a first edition was edited by Bottin in 1978 – and an English translation. (shrink)

During the 13th century, several logicians in the Latin medieval tradition showed a special interest in the nature of impossibility, and in the different kinds or ‘degrees’ of impossibility that could be distinguished. This discussion resulted in an analysis of the modal concept with a fineness of grain unprecedented in earlier modal accounts. Of the several divisions of the term ‘impossible’ that were offered, one became particularly relevant in connection with the debate on ars obligatoria and positio impossibilis: the distinction (...) between ‘intelligible’ and ‘unintelligible’ impossibilities. In this article, I consider some 13th-century tracts on obligations that provide an account of the relation between impossibility and intelligibility and discuss the inferential principles that are permissible when we reason from an impossible – but intelligible – premise. I also explore the way in which the 13th-century reflection on this topic survives, in a revised form, in some early 14th-century accounts of positio, namely, those of William of Ockham, Roger Swineshead and Thomas Bradwardine. (shrink)

From what standpoint have the canonical philosophies of history looked at death? And, more particularly, at life and death, since these two “events” are intimately linked? According to what idea, n...

Interactive theorem provers might seem particularly impractical in the history of philosophy. Journal articles in this discipline are generally not formalized. Interactive theorem provers involve a learning curve for which the payoffs might seem minimal. In this article I argue that interactive theorem provers have already demonstrated their potential as a useful tool for historians of philosophy; I do this by highlighting examples of work where this has already been done. Further, I argue that interactive theorem provers can continue to (...) be useful tools for historians of philosophy in the future; this claim is defended through a more conceptual analysis of what historians of philosophy do that identifies argument reconstruction as a core activity of such practitioners. It is then shown that interactive theorem provers can assist in this core practice by a description of what interactive theorem provers are and can do. If this is right, then computer verification for historians of philosophy is in the offing. (shrink)

Federico Pendasio was a highly esteemed professor at the universities of Padua and Bologna. His contemporaries as well as modern scholars have recognized his commitment both to Aristotle and Plato. The aim of this paper is to provide a contribution to the study of the dissemination of Platonism in sixteenth-century university teaching by examining Pendasio’s Platonic sources, in particular Olympiodorus’s and Damascius’s commentaries on Plato’s Phaedo, Damascius’s commentary on the Philebus and Hermias Alexandrinus’s Scholia on the Phaedrus. These works are (...) used in two of Pendasio’s most representative works: his De animae immortalitate and Lectiones dictatae in librum De anima. In order to assess Pendasio’s interests in Platonism, a general survey of most of his university lectures and quaestiones will also be provided. (shrink)

This paper provides an account of the evolution of the notion of comparatio in the main dialectical works of Valla, Agricola, and Vives. It highlights the elements of continuity and discontinuity and sheds light on the original contributions of Vives’s treatment. In Valla, Agricola and Vives, the notion of comparatio characterizes: a) the locus of the relation to another in the inventio method; b) the cognitive act through which one can grasp the relationships of similarity and difference between concepts; c) (...) the epistemic method for weighing the degree of plausibility of probable arguments. The paper also shows how Vives enhances the role of comparatio within dialectical art. Firstly, he attributes a pre-eminent position to the locus of the comparatio by virtue of the transversality of its application to all the other loci. Secondly, he identifies the explanation of the key concept of syllogism in the act of compering two sentences with a third. Finally, he finds the essence of the disputatio in the method of comparing equally probable contradictory arguments. This can rightly be considered an innovative element of the Vivesian dialectical treatment with respect to the most advanced European humanist movement of the first decades of the sixteenth century. (shrink)

Beginning in the 1990s, the medieval historiography has devoted increasing attention to the presence of thought experiments in the medieval philosophical sources. Following the line drawn by King, Perler, Grellard and Marenbon studies, this paper aims to use the concept of thought experiment as an historiographical category to explore the issues of Peter Damian’s dilemma, in the chapter I of De divina omnipotentia, about the capacity of the divine power to restore the virginity of a maiden who has lost it. (...) In this perspective, the case of the virgin appears as a counterfactual scenario, that makes us understand how the question is not metaphysical but fundamentally epistemological. Peter Damian is not discussing about possible boundaries of God’s nature: he is rather arguing about the inability of the dialectic arguments to explain the omnipotence, in an attempt to define the cognitive and linguistic modes under which the human intellect could comprehend the virgin’s dilemma. The crucial step is the shift from possibilitas – intended as a statistical approach to the possible as “potential” – to potentia as a metaphysical attribute, regardless of her actualization: in this way, Peter Damian lifts the question up from the level of the human will, which often fails to grasp his objects, to the divine form of the will, which unfailingly achieves his objectives. (shrink)

Lo personal es político. Revisito la potente frase de Carol Hanish (1970) que sigue resonando en las luchas y discursos feministas desde que se hiciera pública a comienzos de 1970. Me permito reversionarla, con gran libertad, para marcar el pulso de este texto y contar, a partir de mi relación con la filosofía, cómo lo personal pasó a ser político en el interés por conocer las filósofas modernas e interpelar y rearmar el canon filosófico. Con ello, los y las invito (...) a reflexionar sobre la perspectiva de género en la historiografía filosófica, las formas de construcción del canon y sus repercusiones en la enseñanza de la filosofía. (shrink)

It has been insufficiently remarked that Murdoch deems “Kant’s ethical theory” to be “one of the most beautiful and exciting things in the whole of philosophy” in her 1959 essay “The Sublime and the Good”. Murdoch specifically has in mind the connection between Kant’s ethics and his theory of the sublime, which runs via the moral feeling of respect (Achtung). The chapter examines Murdoch’s interest in Kant on this point as a way to tease out the range of issues that (...) complicate Kant’s significance for the development of Murdoch’s distinctive conception of ethics as it is articulated in _The Sovereignty of Good_ and earlier essays. It focuses on her particular concerns about the moral dangers of consolation, and why this led her to propose reworking the Kantian theory of the sublime as a theory of art, and specifically of tragedy. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the early sixteenth-century epistemic logic developed by John Mair’s circle and discusses iterated epistemic modalities, epistemic closure and Bradwardinian semantics related to the logic of epistemic statements. These topics are addressed as part of setting up and solving epistemic sophisms based on traditional scenarios which can be traced back to fourteenth-century British epistemic logic. While the ultimate source for the debate appears to be the second chapter of William Heytesbury’s Regule solvendi sophismata, the immediate source is (...) the Italian editorial, commentarial and philosophical tradition, notably Paul of Venice and Cajetan of Thiene. (shrink)

This is a review of Cheryl Misak's book, Frank Ramsey: A Sheer Excess of Powers (OUP, 2020).

Finitude as an affirmative moment is what stands at the center of this paper. While death cannot be represented or conceptualized, it is present in events of death in the life of an individual and...