Schelling's Naturalism: Motion, Space, and the Volition of Thought
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Studia Philosophiae Religionis 21
STUDIA PHILOSOPHIAE RELIGIONIS 21 Editores: Catharina Stenqvist et Eberhard Herrmann Ulf Zackariasson Forces by Which We Live Religion and Religious Experience from the Perspective of a Pragmatic Philosophical Anthropology UPPSALA 2002 Doctoral Dissertation in Philosophy of Religion for the Degree of Doctor of Theology at Uppsala University 2002. ABSTRACT Zackariasson, Ulf. 2002. Forces by which We Live. Religion and Religious Experience from the Perspective of a Pragmatic Philosophical Anthropology. Studia Philosophiae Religionis 21. 254 pp. ISBN 91–628–5169–1. ISSN 0346–5446. This study argues that a pragmatic conception of religion would enable philosophers to make important contributions to our ability to handle concrete problems involving religion. The term ’philosophical anthropology’, referring to different interpretative frameworks, which philosophers draw on to develop conceptions of human phenomena, is introduced. It is argued that the classical pragmatists embraced a philosophical anthro- pology significantly different from that embraced by most philosophers of religion; accordingly, pragmatism offers an alternative conception of religion. It is suggested that a conception of religion is superior to another if it makes more promising contributions to our ability to handle extra-philosophical problems of religion. A pragmatic philosophical anthropology urges us to view human practices as taking shape as responses to shared experienced needs. Religious practices develop to resolve tensions in our views of life. The pictures of human flourishing they present reconstruct our views of life, thereby allowing more significant interaction with the environment, and a more significant life. A modified version of reflective equilibrium is developed to show how we, on a pragmatic conception of religion, are able to supply resources for criticism and reform of religious practices, so the extra-philosophical problems of religion can be handled. -
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A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick Permanent WRAP URL: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/110900 Copyright and reuse: This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: [email protected] warwick.ac.uk/lib-publications THE BRITISH LIBRARY BRITISH THESIS SERVICE COPYRIGHT Reproduction of this thesis, other than as permitted under the United Kingdom Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under specific agreement with the copyright holder, is prohibited. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. REPRODUCTION QUALITY NOTICE Th e quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the original thesis. Whilst every effort has been made to ensure the highest quality of reproduction, some pages which contain small or poor printing may not reproduce well. Previously copyrighted material (journal articles, published texts etc.) is not reproduced. THIS THESIS HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FLATLINE CONSTRUCTS: GOTHIC MATERIALISM AND CYBERNETIC THEORY-FICTION Mark Fisher Presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Philosophy University of Warwick July 1999 Numerous Originals in Colour Abstract FLATLINE CONSTRUCTS: GOTHIC MATERIALISM AND CYBERNETIC THEORY- FICTION Cyberpunk fiction has been called “the supreme literary expression, if not of postmodernism then of late capitalism itself.” (Jameson) This thesis aims to analyse and question this claim by rethinking cyberpunk Action, postmodernism and late capitalism in terms of three - interlocking - themes: cybernetics, the Gothic and fiction. -
The Golden Cord
THE GOLDEN CORD A SHORT BOOK ON THE SECULAR AND THE SACRED ' " ' ..I ~·/ I _,., ' '4 ~ 'V . \ . " ': ,., .:._ C HARLE S TALIAFERR O THE GOLDEN CORD THE GOLDEN CORD A SHORT BOOK ON THE SECULAR AND THE SACRED CHARLES TALIAFERRO University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana Copyright © 2012 by the University of Notre Dame Press Notre Dame, Indiana 46556 www.undpress.nd.edu All Rights Reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Taliaferro, Charles. The golden cord : a short book on the secular and the sacred / Charles Taliaferro. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-268-04238-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-268-04238-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. God (Christianity) 2. Life—Religious aspects—Christianity. 3. Self—Religious aspects—Christianity. 4. Redemption—Christianity. 5. Cambridge Platonism. I. Title. BT103.T35 2012 230—dc23 2012037000 ∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. CONTENTS Acknowledgments vii Introduction 1 CHAPTER 1 Love in the Physical World 15 CHAPTER 2 Selves and Bodies 41 CHAPTER 3 Some Big Pictures 61 CHAPTER 4 Some Real Appearances 81 CHAPTER 5 Is God Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know? 107 CHAPTER 6 Redemption and Time 131 CHAPTER 7 Eternity in Time 145 CHAPTER 8 Glory and the Hallowing of Domestic Virtue 163 Notes 179 Index 197 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply grateful for the patience, graciousness, support, and encour- agement of the University of Notre Dame Press’s senior editor, Charles Van Hof. -
Masses, Turbo-Capitalism and Power in Jean Baudrillard's Social
International Journal of Theology, Philosophy and Science No. 3, Year 2/2018 MASSES, TURBO-CAPITALISM AND POWER IN JEAN BAUDRILLARD’S SOCIAL AND POLITICAL ONTOTHEOLOGY PhD. Prof. Spiros MAKRIS Assistant Professor in Political Theory University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, GREECE Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT If postmodern Jean Baudrillard (1929-2007) could be defined as a theorist of power - to the extent that for some this is a contradiction by definition, although something very similar takes place in the case of Michel Foucault, he could be defined as a theorist of meta-power in the globalized era of turbo-capitalism. In his late texts (2005), which were published in 2010, the eminent French philosopher builds a provocative theory about power by using the classic concepts of domination and hegemony within the contemporary social, economic, political and ideological context of neoliberal globalization. In these papers, he analyzes in-depth the meta- power of hegemony in comparison with the power of domination. Actually, by signifying the critical passage of postwar capitalism from the phase of production to the phase of consumption, as Zygmunt Bauman does in his relevant work, Baudrillard formulates a meta-power theory as the equivalent of what he defines as turbo-capitalism. What is at stake is no longer the conventional issues of state sovereignty, Marx-inspired concept of alienation and Critical Theory-like negative dialectics but the crucial questions of hegemony, hostage and evilness. In short, Jean Baudrillard builds a new ontological and by extension disciplinary and theoretical field concerning global power, where the ‘Empire of Good’, or turbo-capitalism in his own terminology, is reborn in a totally catastrophic way (see simulation in the sense of a capitalist hypocrisy) either as an ‘Axis of Evil’ or as the ‘problem of terror’ (see simulacrum in the sense of a Lacanian stage of image within which turbo-capitalism represses, through a Freudian process of repelling, its unfamiliar self/i.e. -
Bringing Nature to Light: Schellingâ•Žs Naturphilosophie in the Early
Marquette University e-Publications@Marquette Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications Philosophy, Department of 1-1-2013 Bringing Nature to Light: Schelling’s Naturphilosophie in the Early System of Identity Michael Vater Marquette University, [email protected] Published version. Analecta Hermeneutica, Vol. 5 (2013). Permalink. © 2013 International Institute for Hermeneutics. Used with permission. ISSN 1918-7351 Volume 5 (2013) Bringing Nature to Light: Schelling’s Naturphilosophie in the Early System of Identity Michael Vater Light is already a completely ideal activity that deconstructs and reconstructs objects just as the light of idealism always does— and so Naturphilosophie provides a physical explanation of idealism, which proves that at the boundaries of nature there must break forth the intelligence we see break forth in the guise of humanity [Person des Menschen]. Schelling, General Deduction of Dynamic Process, § 631 In November of 1800 the issue of the reality of nature and its meaning for a transcendental philosophy interrupts, or rather heats up, the exchange of letters between Fichte in Berlin and Schelling in Jena. Fichte has faint praise for the latter‟s System of Transcendental Idealism and marks as problematic the way it sets nature alongside of consciousness as the subject of a genetic deduction. For transcendental philosophy, he insists, nature can only be something found, finished, perfect because lawful, but whose lawfulness is not its own, but that of the intelligence which beholds and explains.2 Schelling responds with a long recital of his philosophical development and poses several alternative ways that philosophy of nature might coincide with Wissenschaftslehre, the most radical of which suggests that philosophy of consciousness must be based on natural philosophy, not the reverse. -
Introduction: Towards a Reconsideration of Neo-Kantianism Nicolas De Warren and Andrea Staiti
Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-03257-6 - New Approaches to Neo-Kantianism Edited by Nicolas De Warren and Andrea Staiti Excerpt More information Introduction: towards a reconsideration of Neo-Kantianism Nicolas de Warren and Andrea Staiti In the summer of 1914, T. S. Eliot arrived in Marburg from Harvard University to attend a summer course in philosophy before taking up residency at Merton College, Oxford, for a year of study with Harold Joachim, F. H. Bradley’s successor. At the University of Marburg, Eliot met Paul Natorp, who assisted him in finding affordable accommodation and lectured in his course on philosophy. The outbreak of the First World War would cut short Eliot’s stay in Marburg, but not before he had the chance to sketch a portrait of the venerable Neo-Kantian Professor. Natorp strikes a professorial pose, one arm tucked behind his back, the other slung across his waist. With elven ears and bald cranium, the philosopher appears endearing in his otherworldliness. Natorp’s face is hidden behind oval glasses, so large that they seem to constitute a hindrance rather than an aid to seeing reality. Eliot’s sketch can be seen as a visual epitome for how Neo-Kantianism appeared to a younger generation of intellectuals and philosophers who would come of age in the aftermath of a Europe laid waste through the cataclysm of the Great War. Eliot’s amusing sketch is an apt illustration for what Hans-Georg Gadamer, who wrote his PhD dissertation on Plato under Natorp in 1922, characterized as the Neo-Kantian “calm and 1 confident aloofness” engrossed in “complacent system-building.” With slightly more bite, Hannah Arendt charged Neo-Kantianism with drown- ing philosophy “in a sea of boredom,” thereby offering a softer version of the same hostility that spirited Martin Heidegger’s confrontation with 2 Ernst Cassirer at Davos in 1929. -
Language After Philosophy of Nature: Schelling’S Geology of Divine Names
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Liverpool Repository LANGUAGE AFTER PHILOSOPHY OF NATURE: SCHELLING’S GEOLOGY OF DIVINE NAMES DANIEL WHISTLER Each mineral is a real philological problem.1 Future commentary on Dante belongs to the natural sciences… No one has yet approached Dante with a geologist’s hammer, in order to ascertain the crystalline structure of his rock, in order to study the particles of other minerals in it, to study its smoky colour, its garish patterning, to judge it as a mineral crystal which has been subjected to the most varied series of accidents.2 What happens to language after the post-linguistic turn? In what does a speculative approach to religion consist? Such are the two questions around which this essay is structured. It is not my purpose to give a comprehensive answer to either question; rather, I am concerned with one very specific approach that could be taken, and this is the approach of F.W.J. Schelling. Schelling has never been so relevant, and this is in no small part thanks to Iain Hamilton Grant’s Philosophies of Nature after Schelling. Grant’s work–part of the recent resurgence in speculative philosophies—has been instrumental in presenting Schelling’s Naturphilosophie as a viable pursuit for philosophy in the wake of Deleuze. This chapter is intended as a “regional application” of Grant’s presentation of Schelling onto philosophy of language and religion. It is important to stress straight-off that, while language and the numinous may well be two of the deconstructionist’s favourite tools for undermining theoretical discourse, this chapter has no such aim. -
Neo-Kantian Foundations of Geometry in the German
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector Historia Mathematics 10 (1983) 184-201 NEO-KANTIANFOUNDATIONS OFGEOMETRY IN THE GERMANROMANTIC PERIOD BY FREDERICK GREGORY DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, GAINESVILLE, FL 32611 SUMMARIES While mathematics received relatively little atten- tion in the idealistic systems of most of the German Romantics, it served as the foundation in the thought of the Neo-Kantian philosopher/mathematician Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773-1843). It fell to Fries to work out in detail the implications of Kant's declaration that all mathematical knowledge was synthetic a priori. In the process Fries called for a new science of the philosophy of mathematics, which he worked out in greatest detail in his Mathematische Naturphilosophie of 1822. In this work he analyzed the foundations of geometry with an eye to clearing up the historical controversy over Euclid's theory of parallels. CO&l- trary to what might be expected, Fries' Kantian per- spective provoked rather than inhibited a reexamination of Euclid's axioms. Fries' attempt to make explicit through axioms what was being implicitLy assumed by Euclid while at the same time wishing to eliminate unnecessary axioms belies the claim that there was no concern to improve Euclid prior to the discovery of non-Euclidean geometry. Fries' work therefore serves as an important historical example of the difficulties facing those who wanted to provide geometry with a logically secure foundation in the era prior to the published work of Gauss, Bolyai, and others. Die Mathematik erhielt wenig Aufmerksamkeit in den philosophisch-idealistischen Systemen der meisten deutschen Romantiker. -
210 the Genesis of Neo-Kantianism
SYNTHESIS PHILOSOPHICA Book Reviews / Buchbesprechungen 61 (1/2016) pp. (207–220) 210 doi: 10.21464/sp31116 of his book is that the movement’s origins are to be found already in the 1790s, in the Frederick Charles Beiser works of Jakob Friedrich Fries, Johann Frie- drich Herbart, and Friedrich Eduard Beneke. They constitute “the lost tradition” which pre- The Genesis of served the “empiricist-psychological” side of Neo-Kantianism Kant’s thought, his dualisms, and things-in- themselves against the excessive speculative idealism of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel who Oxford University Press, tried to rehabilitate the dogmatic rationalist Oxford 2014 metaphysics of Spinoza, Leibniz, and Wolff after Kant’s critical project. Frederick Charles Beiser, professor of phi- The first chapter of the first part (pp. 23–88) losophy at Syracuse University (USA) whose is concerned with the philosophy of Fries field of expertise is the modern German phi- who tried to base philosophy on empirical losophy, is one of the most erudite historians psychology, and epistemology on psychol- of philosophy today. His first book The Fate ogy which could recognize the synthetic a of Reason: German Philosophy from Kant priori but not prove it. His book Reinhold, to Fichte (1987) didn’t only present a fresh Fichte und Schelling (1803) saw the history account of German philosophy at the end of of philosophy after Kant as the “struggle of th the 18 century, but it also introduced a new rationalism to free itself from the limits of method of historical research. His more re- the critique”. In his political philosophy Fries cent works, starting with The German His- was an anti-Semite, but gave the leading role toricist Tradition (2011) until the most recent to public opinion which could correct even Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philoso- the ruler, although he encountered problems phy, 1860–1900 (2016), have focused on the in trying to reconcile his liberal views with th main currents of the 19 century German the social injustice that liberalism created. -
Schelling's Naturphilosophie. in So Doing He Became One of the Most
Book Reviews to one on 'Feedback theory and its application to biological systems' by K. E. Machin (1924- ), which appeared in 1964. The texts that were in English originally are reprinted in facsimile and are taken from journals or books; nine are translated from French (8) or German (1). They are grouped into, 'The power of the body to destroy heat', 'Le milieu interieur', 'Homeostasis', and 'Closing the feedback loop'. Each of these sections is introduced by the editor, the total material amounting to only ten pages, and much of it being devoted to biographical notes. The selection is good and will provide the student with a ready source of landmark papers, a similar collection never having been made before. However, the paucity of explanatory and introductory material limits the usefulness of the book. If the way through it is led by an instructor this will not be needed, providing the teacher is aware of the history of homeostasis. On his own the student will have difficulties, but in view of the price he is unlikely in any case to possess his own copy. There is no reference to the extensive secondary literature on the history of this vital biological principle, or on the individuals whose work is represented here. These, and suggestions for further reading, may have stimulated the reader to peer further into the history of physiology. Perhaps the editor's deficiencies in the history of medicine are re- sponsible. They are certainly responsible for John Hunter being classed as an English- man (p. 4), for the inadequacy of the biographical sketches, and for naivety con- cerning the long-s (p. -
Bertrand Russell: Cognitivism, Non- Cognitivism and Ethical Critical Thinking
ARTICLE BERTRAND RUSSELL: COGNITIVISM, NON- COGNITIVISM AND ETHICAL CRITICAL THINKING Angelo Nicolaides University of South Africa [email protected] ABSTRACT Bertrand Russell converted from ethical cognitivism to ethical non-cognitivism and this was historically important, as it gave rise in part, to meta-ethics. It also clarified the central problem between cognitivism and non-cognitivism. Russell’s view was that defining “good” is the basic problem of ethics. If “good” is not amorphous, the rest of ethics will follow. He did not believe in ethical knowledge per se and asserted that reason is, and must only be, the servant of desire. A factual statement is thus true if there is an equivalent fact, but as ethical statements do not state facts, there is no issue of a corresponding fact or the statement being true or false in the sense in which factual statements are. Ethics has no statement whether true or false, but consists only of desires of a general kind and people know intuitively what is “right” or “wrong”. To Russell critical thinking is entrenched in the structure of philosophy. His epistemological conviction was that knowledge is difficult to attain, while his ethical conviction showed that people should be expected to exercise freedom of inquiry when arriving at conclusions of something being either “good” or “bad”. Keywords: Ethics; cognitivism; non-cognitivism; utilitarianism; desire INTRODUCTION Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) was one of the great British thinkers of the twentieth century. He wrote more than 50 books, over 74 years, and established the terms of the debate in logic and philosophy. -
Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-‐Darwinian
Thomas Nagel, Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. 144 pp. $24.95. For some time now, Thomas Nagel has been troubled by the place of Darwinism in public intellectual life. In 2008, he argued in Philosophy and Public Affairs that Intelligent Design Theory has a place in high-school science curricula. More recently, he reviewed Alvin Plantinga’s anti-Darwinism favourably in the New York Review of Books, writing: when our faculties lead us to beliefs vastly removed from those our ancestors needed to survive—as in the recent production and assessment of evidence for the existence of the Higgs boson—Plantinga’s sceptical argument remains powerful. Now, in Mind and Cosmos, we have a more systematic treatment, which affords us a better understanding of his view. Let us begin with the inflammatory sub-title. You might think that Nagel is offering a refutation of a scientific theory. As far as I can tell, this is not exactly his intention (except for a strange pronouncement I’ll discuss later). And it is certainly not the result, of his argument. Nagel claims that materialist neo-Darwinism (“Darwinism” for short) doesn’t offer us a certain sort of understanding: it doesn’t render the emergence of mind, consciousness, and value intelligible. For reasons I’ll outline, scientific Darwinism doesn’t claim to, and perhaps couldn’t, offer this kind of understanding. So Nagel does not meet Darwinism on its ground. This criticism is from a point of view external to Darwinism itself.