DOCSLIB.ORG

Comments on Nicholas Gier's “Aristotle, Confucius, and Practical

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Comments on Nicholas Gier's “Aristotle, Confucius, and Practical Comments on Nicholas Gier’s “Aristotle, Confucius, and Practical Reason” I know quite a bit about Aristotle’s ethics, but only a little about Confucianism; I have read and taught enough of the latter to be familiar with concepts like yi, li, and ren. Hence the bulk of my comments will pertain to Professor Gier’s interpretation of Aristotle. Given that discussion, I will then have some suggestions about the role of yi as I understand it. Professor Gier’s main claim is that “the Confucian concept of yi performs roughly the same function as phronesis in Aristotle” (1), and more specifically that “Confucian yi, just as does Aristotelian phronesis, allows us to adapt norms to context and to choose exceptions to rules” (5). I agree with this description of phronesis. However, Professor Gier makes other claims about the nature of phronesis that I believe are mistaken or at least misleading. Perhaps by clearing up some of these misconceptions, I can offer Professor Gier an account of phronesis with which he can strengthen his case for the parallel with the Confucian yi. On the other hand, he might think I am just wrong about Aristotle, in which case I am open to being corrected. Prof. Gier begins by suggesting that we translate sophia and phronesis as theoretical and practical reason respectively. He immediately adds: “The principal disadvantage with this choice is that it obscures the fact that Aristotle believes that both are virtues and not faculties, a concept alien to the Greek mind” (1). I would respond that whether we call them faculties or not, Aristotle clearly delineates parts or elements of the soul distinguishing them by their capacities or functions. He does distinguish the theoretical from the practical intellect assigning sophia and phronesis as the respective excellent states, or virtues, of these two parts. As a state of excellence, phronesis does not come in degrees, (which is why Aristotle says that “there is no such thing as excellence in practical wisdom [=phronesis]” [1140b22]). Increasing through experience and training one’s practical reasoning skills is a necessary condition for achieving phronesis, but phronesis itself is not something that matures over time, as Gier suggests (2); rather, we should say that mature practical reasoning skills are a sign of phronesis. That may seem a picky point, but I think one problem with Gier’s analysis of Aristotle is that it does not always clearly distinguish the parts of the soul from their respective excellences. An example of this problem is in the schematic chart of the Aristotelian soul and its excellences which Gier borrows from Damien Keown. This chart is a bit confusing because it does not clearly indicate which excellences correspond to which parts of the soul. In NE I.13 Aristotle is careful to name and describe the excellent state of each part of the soul relevant to his discussion. I would like to offer another chart based on NE I.13 and VI.1. A careful reading of these chapters yields the following in which CAPS indicate a part of the soul and underlining indicate an excellent state (that is, a virtue) of some part of the soul. [see attached chart] By way of contrast, first look at the Confucian schematic that appears in Gier’s essay. According to Gier, the “heart-mind” (called xin) at the core of this chart “represents a unified agent of the Confucian self” in which “[r]eason and passions are united” (12). Although Gier believes that in the end Aristotle inconsistently dichotomizes reason and passions (and I would I add here that I agree, but this is only a problem with Book X and its praise for the contemplative life), he also claims that the Confucians and Aristotle “share a functional holism in which the virtues must always work together in harmony with one another” (10). This Aristotelian holism appears in my chart in the quotations cited there. First, Aristotle says that the appetitive element can be called rational if it has been habituated such that it tends to obey the rational element (see 1103a3). Only a soul that has developed such a tendency could be said to have moral excellence. And this is why Aristotle insists that “it is not possible to be good in the strict sense without practical wisdom, nor practically wise without moral excellence” (1144b30-31). And, of course, that passage is of apiece with the one at the bottom of my chart (1144a6-8). This bit of text is crucial to an understanding of the relation between moral excellence and the intellectual excellence of phronesis. It says that phronesis guides us in choosing the proper means while moral excellence ensures that we are desiring the right ends. For this reason I believe that Gier’s page-four summary of how practical reason functions in the moral life is slightly inaccurate. I agree wholeheartedly when he says that “phronesis allows us to determine the proper means to the specific ends of our own lives,” but I believe it is misleading to say that “phronesis allows us to discover the reasons why we must be virtuous.” Aristotle is clear both that we do not deliberate about ends and that phronesis is the capacity to deliberate well regarding means to ends (see NE III.3 and VI.5). So it is not phronesis as such that enables one to grasp the why, the ends of virtuous action. However, nous, a kind of intuitive insight or perception of means-ends connections, does enable such a grasp of ends; a mature nous is a prerequisite for phronesis, and those who have the latter have “experience [that] has given such people an eye (nous) with which they can see correctly” (1143b13, Ostwald translation as quoted by Gier). To explain my account of Aristotelian nous, let me first agree with Gier that nous has both a theoretical and a practical function. Aristotle delineates these two functions in NE VI.11. The passages here are quite complex, and all I can do here is summarize my own findings. (I argue for these interpretations in my “Acquiring Ethical Ends,” Ancient Philosophy 10, 63-79.) In its theoretical function nous grasps first principles, the major premises of demonstrations. In its practical function, which is the only function relevant to the present discussion, nous grasps the minor premises of deliberations; that is it enables one to perceive what action to take as means to an end. For example, if I know that I should behave politely (major premise), and I perceive with nous that listening while others are speaking is a means to that end (minor premise), then I conclude that listening while others are speaking is what I should do. In addition to its role of locating the proper means in practical deliberation, nous also plays a role in the discovery of the proper ethical ends in a practical induction. For example, I know, as my parents have instilled this in me, that I should chew with my mouth closed, that I should listen while others are speaking without interrupting, that I should interact with older adults like my grandmother with an attitude of respect, that I should open a door for someone whose arms are full. Taken together these things-to-be-done form a pattern; they all have the same point, fall under a similar description, are means to a common end, namely, behaving politely. If I am perceptive with my nous, I will conclude that behaving politely is what I should do. Thus nous plays the same sort of perceptive role both in practical deliberations as one calculates the means to an end and in practical inductions as one generalizes ends; in both cases the role of nous is to perceive means-ends connections. When my parents insist that I chew with my mouth closed, etc., they are instilling good habits in me, training me to want to do the right thing. And when I generalize that behaving politely is an end worthy of pursuit, I am grasping a more unified description of what I already desire to do. I am on my way to becoming morally excellent, since I am developing a character that desires right ends. And I am on my way to becoming practically wise, since I am learning to perceive proper means-ends connections. This explains why Aristotle says that moral excellence and phronesis go hand in hand; “for the function of man is achieved only in accordance with practical wisdom (=phronesis) as well as with moral excellence; for excellence makes the aim right and practical wisdom (=phronesis) the things leading to it” (1144a8, quoted on my chart). Given this passage and my long-winded interpretation of it, I would recommend a change in Prof. Gier’s Aristotelian formula from page six of his essay. He suggests: “anthropos + phronesis + ethos = ethike arete.” I would suggest: anthropos + phronesis + ethike arete = anthrop? arete; or in English: being human + practical wisdom + moral excellence = human excellence. The term ethos (which Gier defines as “social custom”) appears in Gier’s formula, but not in my own. However, ethos is playing a role behind the scenes in my formula, and so is nous. We have already seen the crucial role nous plays in making one practically wise. One could also say that ethos, social custom, the habits instilled by proper parental guidance, plays a crucial role in making one morally excellent. (See NE II.1, 1103a16, where Aristotle says that “moral excellence comes about as a result of habit.”) With this background in Aristotle’s ethics, let me return to Prof.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Part 1 What Is Negative Entropy? from World Views
    What is Controlling Life? 21 PART 1 WHAT IS NEGATIVE ENTROPY? FROM WORLD VIEWS TO BIOENERGETICS What an organism feeds upon is negative entropy. Or, to put it less paradoxically, the essential thing in metabolism is that the organism succeeds in freeing itself from all the entropy it cannot help producing while alive. Erwin Schrödinger: What is Life? Modern Trends in BioThermoKinetics 3 1994 BTK Ed. E. Gnaiger et al., Innsbruck Univ. Press 22 What is Controlling Life? Erwin Schrödinger around 1902 What is Controlling Life? 23 ERWIN SCHRÖDINGER'S WORLD VIEW. THE ROLE OF PHYSICS AND BIOLOGY IN HIS PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEM Johann Götschela, Werner Leinfellnera,b Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Wissenschaftsforschung und Institut für Philosophie der Universität Graz, Mozartgasse 14, 8010 Graz, Austria; bDepartment of Philosophy, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68588, USA PHYSICS, BIOLOGY AND PHILOSPHY Erwin Schrödinger is well-known as one of the greatest figures of theoretical physics. He became famous for his mathematical formulation of atomic dynamics, known as the Schrödinger equation, and its application to atomic structures. In 1933, he received the Nobel Prize in physics (jointly with Paul Dirac). It therefore comes as no surprise that interpreters of Schrödinger's work, dazzled by his genius and the results he obtained in quantum physics, almost forget the other Schrödinger, the biologist and philosopher. In reality, he not only revolutionized the foundations of modern physics but also made significant contributions to biology and the philosophy of science [1]. The paradigm change he initiated has had great consequences for the natural and social sciences, the humanities, and our present world-view in general [1,2].
    [Show full text]
  • Taking Holism Seriously: a Reply to Critics
    1 Taking Holism Seriously: A Reply to Critics Published in Philosophical Books 42 (2001), 187-195 By Mark Bevir Department of Political Science University of California, Berkeley Berkeley CA 94720 2 Taking Holism Seriously: A Reply to Critics I would like to thanks Professors Dodson, Gendler, and Gracia for their thoughtful responses to my work. I am particularly thankful because their critical comments have prompted me to reflect further on how I would situate the arguments of The Logic of the History of Ideas in relation to trends in both the philosophy of history and (post)analytic philosophy more generally. Indeed, I want to begin now by considering how to situate my arguments since I think doing so will enable me to move swiftly to many of the pertinent issues raised by Dodson, Gendler, and Gracia. When discussing the Logic with historical theorists, I realized that my use of philosophy, especially (post)analytic philosophy, was itself a controversial move.1 The dominant modes of historical theorizing today seem to be an emphasis on rhetoric and poetics associated with Hayden White and one on sociology and power associated with Michel Foucault. (Post)analytic philosophy in comparison occupies a relatively small space. One reason for the marginalization of (post)analytic philosophy is, I suspect, that its practitioners have almost entirely withdrawn from the field. While the concerns and arguments of analytic philosophers have changed quite noticeably over the last twenty to thirty years, these changes have occurred within an increasingly narrow disciplinary focus on questions of mind, language, and epistemology. They have had almost no impact on the philosophy of history.
    [Show full text]
  • 3 Holism, Chinese Medicine And
    3 HOLISM, CHINESE MEDICINE AND SYSTEMS IDEOLOGIES: REWRITING THE PAST TO IMAGINE THE FUTURE Volker Scheid Int roduction his chapter explores the articulations that have emerged over the last half- Tcentury between various types of holism, Chinese medicine and systems biol- ogy. Given the discipline’s historical attachments to a defi nition of ‘medicine’ that rather narrowly refers to biomedicine as developed in Europe and the US from the eighteenth century onwards, the medical humanities are not the most obvious start- ing point for such an inquiry. At the same time, they do offer one advantage over neighbouring disciplines like medical history, anthropology or science and technol- ogy studies for someone like myself, a clinician as well as a historian and anthro- pologist: their strong commitment to the objective of facilitating better medical practice.1 This promise furthermore links to the wider project of critique, which, in Max Horkheimer’s defi nition of the term, aims at change and emancipation in order ‘to lib erate human beings from the circumstances that enslave them’.2 If we take the critical medical humanities as explicitly affi rming this shared objective and respon- sibility, extending the discipline’s traditional gaze is not a burden but becomes, in fact, an obligation. With that in mind, this chapter seeks to accomplish three inter-related goals. It is fi rst an inquiry into the historical processes whereby Chinese medicine, holism and systems biology have come to be entangled with each other in the present. The term holism is not originally Chinese and was only applied to Chinese medicine from the 1950s onward.
    [Show full text]
  • Understanding Cognitive Holistic Theory of Language and Its Public Utility
    COGNITIVE HOLISM: UNDERSTANDING COGNITIVE HOLISTIC THEORY OF LANGUAGE AND ITS PUBLIC UTILITY Devendra Nath Tiwari Abstract: Understanding an indivisible cognition through the analytic part has its own beauty that we can call analytic skill, but that must aim at clarity and conception of the cognition which is a whole approached through individual steps. Composite forms have their own beauty, imposition of the cognition on our different allegiance has a different beauty but if one does not understand clearly the different roles the indivisible cognition plays in causing the pleasure in some and pain in others, amusing in some and an obsession in others, illuminating in some and deviating in others, one cannot enjoy wisdom and bliss. Holism talks about language as power, the potency that works differently in wise and in ignorant in causing different effects that veils and deviates from the indivisible cognition. Interpretation of the cognition needs cognitive holistic approach to realize wisdom. Consciousness, at human level, is channelized for flashings of concepts/thoughts that are determinate because language infuses them. All that consciousness flashes is a concept that serves as incentive for action including producing verbal noises and is analyzed and interpreted variously to make it understandable to beginners and ignorant. The language that infuses cognition is intelligible being and so is the thought we directly know them when they flash. In order to articulate the intelligible being of language, we use verbal noises (dhvaniyān), gestures and written marks (lipiyān) which differ from one to the other language speaking communities. Cognition is indivisible whole and language only determinates it.
    [Show full text]
  • Hume's Problem of Induction and the Universalization Of
    In Defense of Newtonian Induction: Hume's Problem of Induction and the Universalization of Primary Qualities Ori Belkind November 1, 2018 Abstract This paper aims to advance two claims. First, it aims to show that Hume's argument against the rationality of induction is sound. However, I claim that the conclusion does not follow merely from the self-defeating attempts to justify the rule of induction, unlike traditional readings of the argument. Rather, the skeptical conclusion must also take into account Hume's argument that the secret powers that are present in bodies and give rise to sensible qualities are unknowable. The paper's second aim is to show that Newtonian induction escapes Hume's secret powers argument, given that it includes a transductive inference, from observable phenomena to the powers present in the ultimate parts of matter. Consequently Hume's argument against the rationality of induction does not demonstrate the non-rational nature of Newtonian induction. 1 Introduction This paper articulates a certain reading of Hume's argument against the rationality of induction. Unlike traditional interpretations of Hume's argument, mine takes his argument to involve two distinct sub-arguments; the first is that inductive inferences lack rational support. I term this sub-argument the No Rational Support Argument (NRSA) (Section 2). I also argue that Hume uses a second sub- argument, one I term the Secret Powers Argument, or SPA, to undermine our belief in the rationality of induction. According to the SPA (examined in Section 3), we do not have access to the secret powers of bodies.
    [Show full text]
  • 5 Holism and Animal Minds
    WML05 12/20/2006 6:36 PM Page 251 5 Holism and Animal Minds David Finkelstein 1 It’s not unusual for influential philosophers to make statements about the minds of nonlinguistic creatures that to a nonphilosopher would seem not merely implausible, but plainly and obviously false. For example, in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Richard Rorty (1979, 187) defends the claim “that knowledge, awareness, concepts, . all descend on the shoulders of the bright child somewhere around the age of four, without having existed in even the most primitive form hitherto.” According to Rorty, a creature without language—whether human or nonhuman—is not aware of any- thing, and, contrary to what you might imagine when he climbs into bed with you each night, your dog has never once even noticed you. In arguing for this thesis, Rorty takes himself to be following the lead of Wilfrid Sellars. He quotes approvingly a passage from “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind” in which Sellars (1997, 63) describes his own position as one “according to which all awareness of sorts, resemblances, facts, etc., in short all awareness of abstract entities—indeed, all awareness even of particulars—is a linguistic affair.” According to Rorty, Sellars finds an innocent way to allow that brutes may be said to enjoy a kind of awareness. As Rorty (1979, 182) reads him, Sellars distinguishes “between aware- ness-as-discriminative behavior and awareness as . being ‘in the logical space of reasons, of justifying what one says.’” He goes on: “Awareness in the first sense is manifested by rats and amoebas and computers; it is simply reliable signaling.
    [Show full text]
  • 01. Logic, Empiricism, Confirmation
    STS-UY 2004 Science, Technology, and Society Study questions for [GS] Introduction 1. What does empiricism claim? 2. Describe the view of science that empiricism subscribes to. 3. What is the relation between mathematics and science according to Galileo? 4. How can the social structure of science affect how it is done? 5. What is instrumentalism? 6. Describe the mechanical view of the world. Study questions for [GS] Chapter 2: Logic Plus Empiricism 1. What is the difference between external world skepticism and inductive skepticism? 2. Is empiricism compatible with external world skepticism? Explain. 3. How are rationalists different from empiricists? 4. What do "idealist" philosophies like Hegel's claim about the world? 5. What is the distinction between an analytic sentence and a synthetic sentence? 6. What does the verifiability theory of meaning claim? 7. What did the positivists mean by "verification". 8. What is wrong with the claim "God exists", according to the verifiability theory of meaning? 9. What is the distinction between "observation" language and "theoretical" language? 10. What is the difference between deductive logic and inductive logic, according to the positivists? 11. What is the distinction between the "context of discovery" and the "context of justification"? 12. When it comes to analyzing science, what is the status of logic compared with history and psychology, according to the positivists? 13. Describe a problem with the verifiability theory of meaning. 14. What does holism about testing (i.e., the "Duhem-Quine thesis") claim? In what sense does it argue against the verifiability theory of meaning? 15. In what sense does the Duhem-Quine thesis argue against the analytic-synthetic distinction.
    [Show full text]
  • Holism, Physical Theories and Quantum Mechanics *
    Holism, Physical Theories and Quantum Mechanics ? M.P. Seevinck a aInstitute for History and Foundations of Natural Science, P.O.Box 80.000, University of Utrecht, 3508 TA Utrecht, The Netherlands Abstract Motivated by the question what it is that makes quantum mechanics a holistic the- ory (if so), I try to define for general physical theories what we mean by `holism'. For this purpose I propose an epistemological criterion to decide whether or not a physical theory is holistic, namely: a physical theory is holistic if and only if it is impossible in principle to infer the global properties, as assigned in the theory, by local resources available to an agent. I propose that these resources include at least all local operations and classical communication. This approach is contrasted with the well-known approaches to holism in terms of supervenience. The criterion for holism proposed here involves a shift in emphasis from ontology to epistemology. I apply this epistemological criterion to classical physics and Bohmian mechanics as represented on a phase and configuration space respectively, and for quantum mechanics (in the orthodox interpretation) using the formalism of general quan- tum operations as completely positive trace non-increasing maps. Furthermore, I provide an interesting example from which one can conclude that quantum me- chanics is holistic in the above mentioned sense, although, perhaps surprisingly, no entanglement is needed. Key words: holism, supervenience, classical physics, quantum mechanics, entanglement PACS: 03.65.-w, 01.70.+w ? This paper is based on talks given at the `International Workshop on Holism in the Philosophy of Physics' held at Bonn on 4-5 July 2003 and at the `12th UK Conference on the Foundations of Physics' held at Leeds on 2-5 September 2003.
    [Show full text]
  • Analyticity and Holism in Quine's Thought Peter Hylton
    Analyticity and Holism in Quine's Thought Peter Hylton This essay is based on a talk that Ifirstgave at a conference in honour of the memory of my teacher, the late Burton Dreben, who taught at Harvard from 1956-1990. I dedi- cate it to his memory. Throughout our conversations, and in his teaching moregeneral- ly, Burt always stressed the complexity of what is often called 'the analytic-synthetic debate'. In the last philosophical conversation that I had with him, he particularly emphasized the role that holism plays for Quine. This essay is based upon those two points. I attempt togive a sketch of Quine's complex views on analyticity, a sketch that will emphasize the central role that holism plays in those views. I should emphasize that my primary aim is to show how the matter appears from Quine's perspective. From other points of view, most notably Carnap's, it would no doubt seem rather different at crucial points; I note some of these points in passing, but do not discuss them. I. The Nature of the Question More than fifty years after the publication of "Two Dogmas of Empiricism," more than forty years after the first appearance of "Carnap and Logical Truth," there is no sign of agreement about the lessons that we should draw from Quine's writings on analyticity.' More alarming, there isn't even agreement about what Quine's claims are. As evidence here I offer a passage from an essay of Paul Boghossian's. Boghossian is discussing a notion which he calls 'Frege-analyticity': a sentence is Frege-analytic just in case it is "transformable into a logical truth by the substitution of synonyms for synonyms."2 Commenting on what he takes to be Quine's attitude towards this idea, Boghossian says: What form does Quine's resistance take? We may agree that the result being advertised isn't anything modest, of the form: There are fewer analytic truths than we had previously thought.
    [Show full text]
  • From a Set of Parts to an Indivisible Whole. Part I: Operations in a Closed Mode
    From a set of parts to an indivisible whole. Part I: Operations in a closed mode Leonid Andreev Equicom, Inc., 10273 E Emily Dr, Tucson, AZ 85730, U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected] February 29, 2008 Abstract This paper provides a description of a new method for information processing based on holistic approach wherein analysis is a direct product of synthesis. The core of the method is iterative averaging of all the elements of a system according to all the parameters describing the elements. It appears that, contrary to common logic, the iterative averaging of a system's elements does not result in homogenization of the system; instead, it causes an obligatory subdivision of the system into two alternative subgroups, leaving no outliers. Within each of the formed subgroups, similarity coefficients between the elements reach the value of 1, whereas similarity coefficients between the elements of different subgroups equal a certain constant value of 0>Ω<1. When subjected to iterative averaging, any system consisting of three or more elements of which at least two elements are not completely identical undergo such a process of bifurcation that occurs non- linearly. Successive iterative averaging of each of the forming subgroups eventually provides a hierarchical system that reflects relationships between the elements of an input system under analysis. We propose and discuss a definition of a natural hierarchy that can exist only in conditions of closeness of a system and can be discovered upon providing such an effect onto a system which allows its elements interact with each other based on the principle of self- organization.
    [Show full text]
  • The Weave of Meaning: Holism and Contextuality
    The Weave of Meaning: Holism and Contextuality Jeff Malpas University of Tasmania ABSTRACT: Context and meaning are notions inseparably tied together. Yet although appeal to context would seem inevitable in any discussion of meaning and understanding, the notion seems to be resistant to any attempt to render it in precise and non-question-begging terms. Context may be ubiquitous, but it is also opaque. This paper explores the notion of context in general, arguing that an understanding of context is essential for any attempt to elucidate the structure and possibility of meaning. Moreover, while the contextual character of meaning is seen to imply a form of holism about meaning, it also requires that any such holism be understood in a way that is realised only in relation to particular settings or ‘locales’. In this respect, contextuality not only gives rise to holism, but also constrains it, thereby pre-empting certain objections that are sometimes advanced against holistic approaches to meaning. KEYWORDS: Context, Meaning, Holism, Understanding, Horizonality, Locality I. Umberto Eco, in one of the short essays that make up How to Travel with a Salmon , recounts an experience that will, in its general form, be familiar to almost everyone: A few months ago, as I was strolling in New York, I saw, at a distance, a man I knew very well heading in my direction. The trouble was that I couldn’t remember his name or where I had met him. This is one of those sensations you encounter especially in a foreign city, you run into someone you met back home, or vice versa.
    [Show full text]
  • Late Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, and Their Aftermath
    Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works Faculty Publications 2010 Late Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, and Their Aftermath David Ingram Loyola University Chicago, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/philosophy_facpubs Part of the Continental Philosophy Commons, Epistemology Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, History of Philosophy Commons, Philosophy of Language Commons, and the Philosophy of Science Commons Author Manuscript This is a pre-publication author manuscript of the final, published article. Recommended Citation Ingram, David. "Late Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, and their Aftermath." In vol. 5 of The History of Continental Philosophy, ed. David Ingram and Alan D. Schrift (London: Acumen Press, 2010), 281-299. This Book Chapter is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Publications at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy: Faculty Publications and Other Works by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. © 2010 David Ingram 1 Chapter 12 [revised- Dec. 2009] Late Pragmatism, Logical Positivism, and Their Aftermath David Ingram Introduction Developments in Anglo-American philosophy during the first half of the 20 th Century closely tracked developments that were occurring in continental philosophy during this period. This should not surprise us. Aside from the fertile communication between these ostensibly separate traditions, both were responding to problems associated with the rise of mass society. Rabid nationalism, corporate statism, and totalitarianism (Left and Right) posed a profound challenge to the idealistic rationalism of neo-Kantian and neo-Hegelian philosophies.
    [Show full text]