Cvsp 202 Fall 2013–2014

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Cvsp 202 Fall 2013–2014 AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT Civilization Sequence Program CVSP 202 FALL 2013–2014 LECTURE 1 (10th September 2013) ‘Philosophical Background’ [Dr. Nader El-Bizri] [email protected] The ancient Greek legacies in philosophy, in particular the thoughts and experiences of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, influenced the intellectual history of the Abrahamic monotheistic traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, from late antiquity to the 13th century (This document offers simplified and adapted highlights about some of the main concepts of this ancient Greek philosophical background). * * * * * * * PLATO [ca. 427–347 BC] أﻓﻼطﻮن / Πλάτων ‘The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato’ [Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality: An Essay in Cosmology (1929)] The ‘Simile of the Cave’ (Plato’s Republic 514a-521b) Imagine a group of people who lived chained in a cave all their lives, and facing a blank wall on which shadows are projected from objects situated in front of a fire behind them. They ascribe forms to these shadows, and this is the closest they get to reality and truth. Unlike them, the philosophers are freed prisoners from the cave who understand that the shadows on the wall do not make up reality, and who also grasp the true form of the real and its source of illumination, rather than being fixated on mere shadows and appearances. They generally believe that their duty is to free the chained others by giving them knowledge in order to distinguish truth/reality from appearances. A Theory of Forms Prior to Socrates and Plato (in Pre-Socratic times), there were two main Ancient Greek conceptions of reality in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. One was static (as represented by Parmenides) and the second dynamic (as represented by Heraclitus). According to the first, reality is one, undifferentiated, and immutable, while the second grasped reality as constantly changing and in flux. Plato attempted to bridge this divide by distinguishing the sensory material changing world of appearances (the spatial-temporal cosmos of motion, sense perception, and of particular things) from the intelligible and immaterial realm of the unchanging and eternal reality (the domain of rest, abstract forms, ideas, and universals). 1 The immutable ‘Forms’ (or ‘Ideas’) are exemplars and archetypes, which are copied and imitated as models in the formation of the mutable objects of sense perception. A Form (eidos) or an idea would be akin to the essence of something. For example: the universal form or idea of ‘whiteness’ characterizes all particular instances of white things in the world; similarly, the universal form or idea of a ‘square’ characterizes all the particular things in the world (bodies and drawings) that have the shape of a square. A Conception of ‘God’ as ‘Demiurge’ (‘Artisan Godhead’) An artisan Godhead, the Demiurge, acts on pre-existing matter to produce the cosmos of sensory perception as an orderly configuration analogical to the shapes of the archetypal models of the eternal Forms. The Demiurge does not create the eternal matter, but brings order to it as inspired by the pre-existing Forms (The four elements of air, water, fire, and earth have specific shapes as geometric solids, which are constituted from miniscule triangles. Acquiring knowledge about reality rests on geometry and abstract reasoning). * * * * * * * ARISTOTLE [384 – 322 BC] أرﺳﻄﻮطﺎﻟﯿﺲ / Ἀριστοτέλης Cultivated in Plato’s academy in Athens, Aristotle developed his independent own philosophy, which was as influential as that of his mentor. His millennial longstanding legacy earned him the title: ‘The First Teacher’. Like Plato, Aristotle's philosophy aimed at universals, which he found in particular things. He called this: the ‘essence’ of things. His thesis implied an ascent from the study of particular phenomena to the knowledge of essences, while Plato’s method also entailed a descent from the knowledge of universal forms (or ideas) to an assessment of particular imitations of them in the world of sense perception. Motion from Potentiality to Actuality Natural Philosophy is a branch of ancient inquiry that studies the phenomena and entities of nature, as composites of matter and form. It includes physics, biology, and other natural sciences. Motion (kinesis) is the principle of spatial-temporal change in nature. It is of various kinds: (i) growth and diminution: as a change in quantity; (ii) locomotion: as a displacement in space; (iii) alteration: as a modification in quality; etc. The generation of something (its birth or coming about) embodies the motion of bringing it forth from potentiality to actuality, as the happening of its form in matter through the connection between causes and their respective effects. The Four Causes The generation of a given thing in the motion of bringing it from potentiality to actuality is attributed to four simultaneous active causes: material, formal, efficient, and teleological. Citing these four causes in a reasoned explanation is necessary and sufficient. 2 Let us take the case of a wooden table as an example: (1) Its material cause is the matter from which it is made, namely: wood. (2) Its formal cause is the configuration of its matter, namely its form: as a model that existed in the mind of the carpenter, in the drawing of the table’s geometric shape, and as actualized in carving and cutting the wood to make it. (3) Its efficient cause is the primary source from which a change or its ending is initiated. It refers to the agent that causes change, and sets a thing in motion. In this context, it is the maker (the carpenter) as engaged in the acts of producing the wooden table. (4) Its teleological cause (from telos; end), is the final purpose or reason for which it exists and is made to serve. It encompasses volition, need, and motivation; like the aim of making a wooden table for dining purposes and other uses. Ten Categories (ways of accounting for beings in their being) A thing-in-itself as substance is the subject of predicates other than itself, which are its attributes. A property-bearer is distinguished from the properties it bears: SUBSTANCE in its primary sense it refers to a specific individual being (Socrates) Quality characterizes the kind and nature of something (educated, Greek) Quantity answers the question ‘how much?’ (double, half) Relation being towards something (the parent of a child) Place answers the question ‘where?’ (auditorium, marketplace) Time answers the question ‘when?’ (now, tomorrow) Position location [of the parts of a body] (standing here, sitting there) Possession state of having something (wearing glasses, having knowledge) Action acting upon something (cutting, carving, lifting) Affection being affected by an other (motivated by the attentiveness of students) A Conception of ‘God’ as ‘Unmoved Mover’ The Unmoved Mover lets nature flow in its causal course by imparting motion on it. It is the ultimate primary cause of all there is in the universe without itself being in motion or caused. * * * * * * * PLOTINUS [ca. 204/5–270/1 CE] أﻓﻠﻮطﯿﻦ / Πλωτῖνος Plotinus’ legacy gives a mystical expression of Platonism whilst responding critically to the Aristotelian doctrines, and in certain respects also reconciling them with some of Plato’s teachings (Plotinus’ tradition is more commonly known as ‘Neo-Platonism’). A Conception of ‘God’ as ‘The ONE’ ‘Being’ (existence) applies to all the finite changing entities of sense experience. The ONE, as the ultimate source and causal principle of reality, is necessarily above the realm of the senses and transcends the world of finite things and of human experience. As the generator of Being, ‘The ONE is beyond being!’ as a pure simplex, an unbroken unity, perfection, and absoluteness. 3 Emanation All beings issue forth from The ONE as their primeval ultimate origin by necessity, and they are emanated as such through intermediaries. The basic principle of this emanation is that: it is necessary that the less perfect proceed in a flux from the more perfect. This describes a grand hierarchical ‘chain of being’ that is causal and animated by imitative (mimetic) analogies: ‘The ONE’ (Akin to Plato’s ‘Good’ as the Form of all forms) ↓ Universal Intellect (Nous – Akin to Plato’s Demiurge) ↓ World Soul ↓ <Individual souls> ↓ Physical Universe / Matter The first emanation from The ONE is the Universal Intellect. The Platonic Forms and Ideas are gathered in it. This Intellect is akin to Plato’s Demiurge, without being distinct from the Forms and Ideas that it uses as models in shaping the cosmos. The Intellect is beyond time, and grasps all things in an eternal present. The World Soul, as an emanation from the Intellect, is the link between the realm of the Forms and Ideas, as found in the Intellect, and the sensible/sensory universe. The emanation of the cosmos from The ONE is like being illuminated by rays of light from the sun: (i) the sun and its rays are distinct; (ii) although the rays of the sun are dependent on it, the sun itself does not exist without its rays; (iii) yet, as the rays become more distant from their source and origin, they lose the intensity of their brilliance, and eventually fade away into the darkness of opaque matter. Plotinus focused on the triad: The ONE, Intellect, and World Soul, whilst subsequent Neo-Platonists added more intermediaries between The ONE and the physical universe in a great ‘chain of being’ (or a ‘scala naturae’, as a ‘ladder of nature’ and a hierarchical structure in ordering life and matter). * * * * * * * Selected references (entries on Aristotle, Plato, Plotinus, and their legacies): STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY http://plato.stanford.edu/ ROUTLEDGE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY http://www.rep.routledge.com/ [N.B.: The contents of this document are simplified and adapted to meet the CVSP 202 requirements] 4 .
Recommended publications
  • INTUITION .THE PHILOSOPHY of HENRI BERGSON By
    THE RHYTHM OF PHILOSOPHY: INTUITION ·ANI? PHILOSO~IDC METHOD IN .THE PHILOSOPHY OF HENRI BERGSON By CAROLE TABOR FlSHER Bachelor Of Arts Taylor University Upland, Indiana .. 1983 Submitted ~o the Faculty of the Graduate College of the · Oklahoma State University in partial fulfi11ment of the requirements for . the Degree of . Master of Arts May, 1990 Oklahoma State. Univ. Library THE RHY1HM OF PlllLOSOPHY: INTUITION ' AND PfnLoSOPlllC METHOD IN .THE PHILOSOPHY OF HENRI BERGSON Thesis Approved: vt4;;. e ·~lu .. ·~ests AdVIsor /l4.t--OZ. ·~ ,£__ '', 13~6350' ii · ,. PREFACE The writing of this thesis has bee~ a tiring, enjoyable, :Qustrating and challenging experience. M.,Bergson has introduced me to ·a whole new way of doing . philosophy which has put vitality into the process. I have caught a Bergson bug. His vision of a collaboration of philosophers using his intuitional m~thod to correct, each others' work and patiently compile a body of philosophic know: ledge is inspiring. I hope I have done him justice in my description of that vision. If I have succeeded and that vision catches your imagination I hope you Will make the effort to apply it. Please let me know of your effort, your successes and your failures. With the current challenges to rationalist epistemology, I believe the time has come to give Bergson's method a try. My discovery of Bergson is. the culmination of a development of my thought, one that started long before I began my work at Oklahoma State. However, there are some people there who deserv~. special thanks for awakening me from my ' "''' analytic slumber.
    [Show full text]
  • Mereology Then and Now
    Logic and Logical Philosophy Volume 24 (2015), 409–427 DOI: 10.12775/LLP.2015.024 Rafał Gruszczyński Achille C. Varzi MEREOLOGY THEN AND NOW Abstract. This paper offers a critical reconstruction of the motivations that led to the development of mereology as we know it today, along with a brief description of some questions that define current research in the field. Keywords: mereology; parthood; formal ontology; foundations of mathe- matics 1. Introduction Understood as a general theory of parts and wholes, mereology has a long history that can be traced back to the early days of philosophy. As a formal theory of the part-whole relation or rather, as a theory of the relations of part to whole and of part to part within a whole it is relatively recent and came to us mainly through the writings of Edmund Husserl and Stanisław Leśniewski. The former were part of a larger project aimed at the development of a general framework for formal ontology; the latter were inspired by a desire to provide a nominalistically acceptable alternative to set theory as a foundation for mathematics. (The name itself, ‘mereology’ after the Greek word ‘µρoς’, ‘part’ was coined by Leśniewski [31].) As it turns out, both sorts of motivation failed to quite live up to expectations. Yet mereology survived as a theory in its own right and continued to flourish, often in unexpected ways. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that today mereology is a central and powerful area of research in philosophy and philosophical logic. It may be helpful, therefore, to take stock and reconsider its origins.
    [Show full text]
  • Marx, Process, and the Metaphysics of Production: the Relations of Change
    Running head: MARX AND PROCESS 1 Marx, Process, and the Metaphysics of Production: The Relations of Change ---------------------- ------- ABSTRACT: In this essay I offer a reading of Karl Marx which deviates from traditionalapproaches. I should like to explicate the metaphysics of process in Marx‟s philosophy. This work will make explicit a Marxianconcept of change and transformation in the flow of history—as Marx‟s vision of history is adynamic unfolding. On my view, Marx‟s underlying structure which serves to support his metaphysics of process is production. In The German Ideology(1845-1846) Marx writes, “The way men produce their means of subsistence depends first of all on the nature of the actual means of subsistence they find in existence and have to reproduce. This mode of production must not be considered simply as being the reproduction of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather it is a definite form of activity of these individuals, a definite form of expressing their life, a definite mode of life on their part” (Tucker, 1978, p. 150). It is from the departure of real human relations that we see Marx beginning his analyses. I contend that that these relations (human production) have ontological primacy. As I see Marx as a philosopher of change, I contend that the modern process philosopher is better suited to understand the metaphysics of Marx—and therefore the dynamics of production—in pursuit of the revolutionary struggle. MARX AND PROCESS 2 Marx, Process, and the Metaphysics of Production In this essay I will offer a reading of Karl Marx which deviates from more traditional philosophical approaches.
    [Show full text]
  • Science and Mind in Contemporary Process Thought
    Science and Mind in Contemporary Process Thought Science and Mind in Contemporary Process Thought Edited by Jakub Dziadkowiec and Lukasz Lamza Science and Mind in Contemporary Process Thought Series: European Studies in Process Thought Edited by Jakub Dziadkowiec and Lukasz Lamza This book first published 2019 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2019 by Jakub Dziadkowiec, Lukasz Lamza and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-3697-1 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-3697-5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword .................................................................................................. vii Part I: Towards a Science of Process Introduction to Part I .................................................................................. 2 Bogdan Ogrodnik Chapter 1 .................................................................................................... 6 Formal Representation of Space Michael Heather and Nick Rossiter Chapter 2 .................................................................................................. 19 An Inductively Formulated Process Metaphysics Lukasz Lamza Chapter 3 .................................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Mind–Body Problem and Whitehead's Non-Reductive Monism
    Anderson Weekes The Mind–Body Problem and Whitehead’s Non-reductive Monism Abstract: There have been many attempts to retire dualism from active philosophic life, replacing it with something less removed from sci- ence, but we are no closer to that goal now than fifty years ago. I pro- pose breaking the stalemate by considering marginal perspectives that may help identify unrecognized assumptions that limit the main- stream debate. Comparison with Whitehead highlights ways that opponents of dualism continue to uphold the Cartesian ‘real distinc- tion’between mind and body. Whitehead, by contrast, insists on a con- ceptual distinction: there can no more be body without mind than mind without body (at least at the level of ultimate constituents). Key to this integration is Whitehead’s understanding that mind, at its most rudimentary, is simply the intrinsic temporality of a physical event. Thus, the resulting form of ‘panpsychism’ is more naturalistic than commonly supposed, and it solves both the composition problem (tra- ditionally fatal to panpsychism) and the ‘hard problem’. I. Introduction In this paper I look at the ideas of the mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead (1861–1947) in light of the contemporary debate on the ‘hard problem’of physically explaining consciousness. Consciousness studies is a burgeoning business, but one still marked by partisan controversy. If we look closely, however, we can find consensus behind the controversy. There is, for example, well attested agreement on the structure of the problem space.Onealso Correspondence: Email: [email protected] Journal of Consciousness Studies, 19, No. 9–10, 2012, pp.
    [Show full text]
  • Whitehead's Panpsychism As the Subjectivity of Prehension
    Whitehead's Panpsychism as the Subjectivity of Prehension Leemon B. McHenry LEEMON B. McHENRY is Visiting Scholar in the Department of Philosophy, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90024. 1. Introduction Whitehead's concept of prehension is undeniably the master principle of his process metaphysics. It is the central function of a creative universe whereby the many past occasions become a novel one. In my view, the concept of pre­ hension is Whitehead's most original and distinctive contribution to metaphy­ sics. It is also the very idea that prevents most contemporary philosophers from understanding or appreciating his thought. In this paper, I wish to explore the idealist context in which the concept of prehension becomes intelligible. While I do not deny that important influences from physics and biology helped Whitehead frame his idea, I contend that pre­ hension only makes sense as a concept of panpsychistic idealism. Here I use the term 'idealism' not in the sense of nature dependent on mind, but rather nature understood fun.damentally as sentient experience. 1 This appears to be White­ head's intention when, introducing the term 'prehension' for the first time in Science and the Modern World, he says: For Berkeley's mind, I substitute a process of prehensive unification. In order to make intelligible this concept of the progressive realization of natural occurrences, considerable' expansion is required, and confrontation with its actual implications in terms of concrete experience. (SMW 69) Whitehead also draws analogies with Leibniz's monads and Spinoza's modes in order to clarify how his novel idea of prehension squares with the notion of individual perspectives interlocked in a system of internal relations.
    [Show full text]
  • Naturalizing Phenomenology, Phenomenologizing Nature
    Radical Orthodoxy: Theology, Philosophy, Politics, Vol. 1, Number 3 (September 2013): 504-15. ISSN 2050-392X Naturalizing Phenomenology, Phenomenologizing Nature Ben Schewel ne of the great paradoxes of modern thought has been the relationship between nature and life. For there is no place for life or mind in the materialistic image of the world of external nature deriving from 17th century philosophical and scientific O thought. Yet, clearly life and mind do exist, in that we ourselves are alive, both biologically and mentally. From Cartesian dualism, Deistic materialism, and Romantic cosmology, to contemporary cognitive science, complex systems theory, and enactment theory, we seem incapable of surmounting the tension between naturalism and the fact of life and mind. Though perhaps too simplistic, there is much truth to seeing the course of Anglophone and Continental philosophies determined largely by diverging responses to the question of life, mind, and nature: either a) we put our trust in modern science and the naturalistic habit of mind, believing that a sufficient explanation of the relations between these three spheres will ultimately emerge through sufficiently disciplined and sustained inquiry, or b) we abandon the anachronistic desire to mold philosophy in science’s image, seeking instead to retrieve and explore the patterns of intelligibility internal to human life, as such patterns forever underlie scientific inquiry and modes of intelligibility. Not surprisingly, the first approach has thus far determined the dominant Radical Orthodoxy 1, No. 3 (September 2013). 505 Anglophone approach to mind, cognitive science, and the latter the dominant Continental approach, phenomenology. Yet recently, an increasing number of thinkers have sought to combine the two approaches, to open cognitive science to the descriptive sensitivity of phenomenology, and to ground phenomenology in the rigorous scientific disciplines of cognitive science.
    [Show full text]
  • Philosophy in Reality: Scientific Discovery and Logical Recovery
    philosophies Article Philosophy in Reality: Scientific Discovery and Logical Recovery Joseph E. Brenner 1,2,* and Abir U. Igamberdiev 3 1 International Center for the Philosophy of Information, Xi’an Social Sciences University, Xi’an 710049, China 2 Chemin du Collège 1, 1865 Les Diablerets, Switzerland 3 Department of Biology, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John’s, NL A1B 3X9, Canada; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 31 March 2019; Accepted: 6 May 2019; Published: 14 May 2019 Abstract: Three disciplines address the codified forms and rules of human thought and reasoning: logic, available since antiquity; dialectics as a process of logical reasoning; and semiotics which focuses on the epistemological properties of the extant domain. However, both the paradigmatic-historical model of knowledge and the logical-semiotic model of thought tend to incorrectly emphasize the separation and differences between the respective domains vs. their overlap and interactions. We propose a sublation of linguistic logics of objects and static forms by a dynamic logic of real physical-mental processes designated as the Logic in Reality (LIR). In our generalized logical theory, dialectics and semiotics are recovered from reductionist interpretations and reunited in a new synthetic paradigm centered on meaning and its communication. Our theory constitutes a meta-thesis composed of elements from science, logic and philosophy. We apply the theory to gain new insights into the structure and role of semiosis, information and communication and propose the concept of ‘ontolon’ to define the element of reasoning as a real dynamic process. It is part of a project within natural philosophy, which will address broader aspects of the dynamics of the growth of civilizations and their potential implications for the information society.
    [Show full text]
  • A.N. Whitehead's Thought Through a New Prism Series: European Studies in Process Thought
    A.N. Whitehead’s Thought through a New Prism The European Studies in Process Thought is a book series devoted to the historical and systematic study of process philosophy in all its aspects. Although it is indebted to a philosophical tradition, in particular to the works of William James, Charles S. Peirce, Henri Bergson, Samuel Alexander and Alfred N. Whitehead, it is not dogmatically restricted to specific authors. It also aims at exploring various philosophical problems against the background of process thinking, i.e. the position that reality is in a continuous state of becoming and defies all attempts to provide definite and irrefutable answers or theories Titles in the Series: 1. IN MEMORIAM Dorothy Emmet (1904–2000), edited by Helmut Maaßen (Books on Demand Norderstedt) 2. Dynamic Being: Essays in Process-Relational Ontology, edited by Vesselin Petrov and Adam C. Scarfe 3. Through a Prism: A.N. Whitehead's Thought, edited by Aljoscha Berve and Helmut Maaßen A.N. Whitehead’s Thought through a New Prism Edited by Aljoscha Berve and Helmut Maaßen A.N. Whitehead's Thought through a New Prism Series: European Studies in Process Thought Edited by Aljoscha Berve and Helmut Maaßen This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Aljoscha Berve, Helmut Maaßen and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
    [Show full text]
  • Appendix: Formal Theories of Parthood
    Appendix: Formal Theories of Parthood Achille C. Varzi This Appendix gives a brief overview of the main formal theories of parthood, or mereologies, to be found in the literature.1 The focus is on classical theories, so the survey is not meant to be exhaustive. Moreover, it does not cover the many philosophical issues relating to the endorsement of the theories themselves, concerning which the reader is referred to the Selected Bibliography at the end of the volume. In particular, we shall be working under the following simplifying assumptions2: — Absoluteness: Parthood is a two-place relation; it does not hold relative to time, space, spacetime regions, sortals, worlds, or anything else.3 — Monism: There is a single relation of parthood that applies to every entity independently of its ontological category.4 — Precision: Parthood is not a source of vagueness: there is always a fact of the matter as to whether the parthood relation obtains between any given pair of things.5 For definiteness, all theories will be formulated in a standard first-order language with identity, supplied with a distinguished binary predicate constant, ‘P ’, to be interpreted as the parthood relation. The underlying logic will be the classical predicate calculus. 1The exposition follows Varzi (2014). For a thorough survey, see Simons (1987). 2The labels and formulations of these assumptions are from Sider (2007). 3For the view that parthood should be a three-place relation relativized to time, see e.g. Thomson (1983). For the view that it should be a four-place relation, see Gilmore (2009). 4For misgivings about Absoluteness and related worries, see e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • Mark Hansen's Metaphysics: Towards a New Relationality of Twenty-First-Century Media
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2016 "A return to reality": Mark Hansen's Metaphysics: Towards a New Relationality of Twenty-first-century Media Sandra Moyano Ariza The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1541 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] "A RETURN TO REALITY" MARK HANSEN'S METAPHYSICS: TOWARDS A NEW RELATIONALITY OF TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MEDIA by SANDRA MOYANO A master’s thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, The City University of New York 2016 © 2016 SANDRA MOYANO All Rights Reserved ii "A RETURN TO REALITY" MARK HANSEN'S METAPHYSICS: TOWARDS A NEW RELATIONALITY OF TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY MEDIA by Sandra Moyano This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Liberal Studies in satisfaction of the thesis requirement for the degree of Master of Arts. Patricia T. Clough Thesis Advisor Matthew K. Gold Executive Officer THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii ABSTRACT "A return to reality" Mark Hansen's Metaphysics: Towards a New Relationality of Twenty-first-century Media by Sandra Moyano Advisor: Patricia T. Clough. This project is framed in the recent turn to speculation in philosophy which aims to develop new ontologies that deprivilege the human and human cognition, in turn claiming the capacity of all entities to hold agency in experiential processes.
    [Show full text]
  • Process and Reality an Essay in Cosmology
    PART V FINAL INTERPRETATION in: Process and Reality An Essay in Cosmology By Alfred North Whitehead Corrected Edition Edited By David Ray Griffin and Donald W. Sherburne PART V FINAL INTERPRETATION 337 CHAPTER I THE IDEAL OPPOSITES SECTION I [512] THE chief danger to philosophy is narrowness in the selection of evidence. This narrowness arises from the idiosyncrasies and timidities of particular authors, of particular social groups, of particular schools of thought, of particular epochs in the history of civilization. The evidence relied upon is arbitrarily biased by the temperaments of individuals, by the provincialities of groups, and by the limitations of schemes of thought. The evil, resulting from this distortion of evidence, is at its worst in the consideration of the topic of the final part of this investigation—ultimate ideals. We must commence this topic by an endeavour to state impartially the general types of the great ideals which have prevailed at sundry seasons and places. Our test in the selection,† to be impartial, must be pragmatic: the chosen stage of exemplification must be such as to compel attention, by its own intrinsic interest, or by the intrinsic interest of the results which flow from it. For example, the stern self-restraint of the Roman farmers in the early history of the Republic issued in the great epoch of the Roman Empire; and the stern self-restraint of the early Puritans in New England issued in the flowering of New England culture. The epoch of the Covenanters has had for its issue the deep impression which modern civilization owes to Scotland.
    [Show full text]