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Form Without Matter, Was an Essay in the Philosophy of Perception Written in the Medium of Historiography
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by PhilPapers Sympathy in Perception Mark Eli Kalderon i I focused at intervals as the great dome loomed up through the smoke. Glares of many fires and sweeping clouds of smoke kept hiding the shape. Then a wind sprang up. Suddenly, the shining cross, dome and towers stood out like a symbol in the inferno. The scene was unbelievable. In that moment or two I released my shutter. Herbert Mason Contents Preface iii Acknowledgements ix 1 Grasping 1 1.1 The Dawn of Understanding ...................... 1 1.2 Haptic Perception ............................ 4 1.3 The Protagorean Model ......................... 10 1.4 Assimilation ............................... 13 1.5 Shaping .................................. 21 1.6 Active Wax ................................ 27 1.7 A Puzzle ................................. 30 2 Sympathy 37 2.1 Haptic Metaphysics ........................... 37 2.2 The Dependence upon Bodily Awareness ............... 39 2.3 Against Haptic Indirect Realism .................... 44 2.4 Sympathy ................................. 46 2.5 Sensing Limits .............................. 52 2.6 TheStoics ................................ 58 2.7 Plotinus .................................. 61 2.8 The Principle of Haptic Presentation ................. 69 3 Sound 79 3.1 Moving Forward ............................. 79 3.2 The Berkeley–Heidegger Continuum ................. 82 3.3 The Bearers of Audible Qualities .................... 87 3.4 The Extent of the Audible ....................... 91 3.5 TheWaveTheory ............................ 95 3.6 Auditory Perspective .......................... 101 3.7 Phenomenological Objections ..................... 104 i ii CONTENTS 4 Sources 117 4.1 The Heideggerian Alternative ..................... 117 4.2 The Function of Audition ........................ 118 4.3 Sources and the Discrimination of Sound ............... 121 4.4 Sympathy and Auditory Presentation ................. 125 4.5 Listening ................................ -
Demystifying the Saint
DEMYSTIFYING THE SAINT: JAY L. GARFIELDʼS RATIONAL RECONSTRUCTION OF NĀGĀRJUNAʼS MĀDHYAMAKA AS THE EPITOME OF CONTEMPORARY CROSS-CULTURAL PHILOSOPHY TIINA ROSENQVIST Tampereen yliopisto Yhteiskunta- ja kulttuuritieteiden yksikkö Filosofian pro gradu -tutkielma Tammikuu 2011 ABSTRACT Cross-cultural philosophy approaches philosophical problems by setting into dialogue systems and perspectives from across cultures. I use the term more specifically to refer to the current stage in the history of comparative philosophy marked by the ethos of scholarly self-reflection and the production of rational reconstructions of foreign philosophies. These reconstructions lend a new kind of relevance to cross-cultural perspectives in mainstream philosophical discourses. I view Jay L. Garfieldʼs work as an example of this. I examine Garfieldʼs approach in the context of Nāgārjuna scholarship and cross-cultural hermeneutics. By situating it historically and discussing its background and implications, I wish to highlight its distinctive features. Even though Garfield has worked with Buddhist philosophy, I believe he has a lot to offer to the meta-level discussion of cross-cultural philosophy in general. I argue that the clarity of Garfieldʼs vision of the nature and function of cross-cultural philosophy can help alleviate the identity crisis that has plagued the enterprise: Garfield brings it closer to (mainstream) philosophy and helps it stand apart from Indology, Buddhology, area studies philosophy (etc). I side with Garfield in arguing that cross- cultural philosophy not only brings us better understanding of other philosophical traditions, but may enhance our self-understanding as well. I furthermore hold that his employment of Western conceptual frameworks (post-Wittgensteinian language philosophy, skepticism) and theoretical tools (paraconsistent logic, Wittgensteinian epistemology) together with the influence of Buddhist interpretative lineages creates a coherent, cogent, holistic and analytically precise reading of Nāgārjunaʼs Mādhyamaka philosophy. -
Quine and Whitehead: Ontology and Methodology 3
McHENRY I QUINE AND WHITEHEAD: ONTOLOGY AND METHODOLOGY 3 philosophical scene as of late (e.g., deconstructionism, postmodem relativism), the and Whitehead: Ontology and gulf that separates Whitehead and analytical philosophy is not as great as it used to Quine 'be.3 Before I begin to explore the affinities, as well as some contrasts, between Methodology . Quine and Whitehead, a word of caution is in order. It is well known that Quine wrote his doctoral dissertation, "The Logic of Sequences: A Generalization of LeemonMcHenry Principia Mathematica," under Whitehead's direction.4 Quine also took two of Whitehead's seminars at Harvard,"Science and the Modem World" and "Cosmol I LEEMON McHENRY reaches philosophy at Loyola Marymount University, Los ogies Ancient and Modem," but he says that he "responded little to these courses" Angeles, CA 90045, E-mail: [email protected] and "took refuge in his relatively mathematical material on 'extensive abstrac tion. "'s Despite Quine's statement that he "retained a vivid sense of being in the presence of the great," he does not acknowledge any philosophical influence from · Introduction . the ph!losoph!es o!'W.V . Qu�e an d Whitehead. Rather, Camap and Russell are cited as the inspirations of Quine's The very idea· of a basis for comparing . , mcluding Qume himself. early development. A.N. Whitehead may be surprising to most philosophe� . philosophy two completely Both produced systems of thought that have taken m When Quine overlapped with Whitehead at Harvard, Whitehead was deeply at the forefron: of c�ntemp� involved in working out the details of his metaphysics of process--a philosophic different directions. -
Mathematics, Time, and Confirmation
Mathematics, Time, and Confirmation Ulrich Meyer Doctor of Philosophy in Mathematics University of Cambridge, 1995 Submitted to the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy in partial fulfil- ment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. September 2001 Author: ................................. .. .... Department of Linguistics aKPhilosophy August 10, 2001 Certified by: .......................... Robert C. Stalnaker Professor of Philosophy Thesis Supervisor Accepted by: .............. Vann McGee Professor of Philosophy Chair, Committee on Graduate Students @Ulrich Meyer 2001. All rights reserved. The author hereby grants permission to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to reproduce and distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this thesis in whole or in part. MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY OCT 11 2001 ARCMly LIBRARIES Mathematics, Time, and Confirmation by Ulrich Meyer Submitted to The Department of Linguistics and Philosophy on 10 August 2001 in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy ABSTRACT This dissertation discusses two issues about abstract objects: their role in scientific theories, and their relation to time. Chapter 1, "Why Apply Mathematics?" argues that scientific theories are not about the mathematics that is applied in them, and defends this thesis against the Quine-Putnam Indispensability Argument. Chapter 2, "Scientific Ontology," is a critical study of W. V. Quine's claim that metaphysics and mathematics are epistemologically on a par with nat- ural science. It is argued that Quine's view relies on a unacceptable account of empirical confirmation. Chapter 3, "Prior and the Platonist," demonstrates the incompatibility of two popular views about time: the "Platonist" thesis that some objects exist "outside" time, and A. -
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy
European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy XII-2 | 2020 Democracy as a Form of Life Quine’s Ontology The Interplay Between Commitment and Decision Andrei Ionuţ Mărășoiu Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/ejpap/2243 DOI: 10.4000/ejpap.2243 ISSN: 2036-4091 Publisher Associazione Pragma Electronic reference Andrei Ionuţ Mărășoiu, « Quine’s Ontology », European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy [Online], XII-2 | 2020, Online since 14 December 2020, connection on 15 December 2020. URL : http:// journals.openedition.org/ejpap/2243 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/ejpap.2243 This text was automatically generated on 15 December 2020. Author retains copyright and grants the European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Quine’s Ontology 1 Quine’s Ontology The Interplay Between Commitment and Decision Andrei Ionuţ Mărășoiu AUTHOR'S NOTE Acknowledgments: A forerunner of this text was a part of my MA thesis in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Bucharest in 2010, advised by professor Mircea Flonta. I owe him a debt of gratitude for his patient guidance and thorough scrutiny. Later versions of the text were also presented at the 3rd congress of the Société de Philosophie des Sciences (Paris, 2009), and the British Society for the Philosophy of Science (Dublin, 2010), and I thank their audiences. I am especially grateful for questions and suggestions coming from prof. James Cargile, dr. Nora Grigore, prof. Pierre Wagner and dr. Ioannis Votsis. In its current form, this work was supported by a grant of the Romanian Ministry of Education and Research, CNCS - UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P1-1.1-PD-2019-0535, within PNCDI III. -
Waiting for Hume PETER LIPTON
03-KAIL-Chap02.qxd 31/12/04 6:32 PM Page 59 Waiting for Hume PETER LIPTON It was David Hume’s great sceptical argument about non-demonstrative reasoning—the problem of induction—that hooked me on philosophy. I am still wriggling, but in the present essay I will not consider how the Humean challenge to justify our inductive practices might be met; rather, I ask why we had to wait until Hume for the challenge to be raised. The question is a natural one to ask, given the intense interest in scepticism before Hume for as far back as we can see in the history of philosophy, and given that Hume’s sceptical argument is so simple and so fundamental. It is not so easy to answer. I am no historian of philosophy, and given the pull that the problem of induction exerts on my own philosophical thinking, I know there is a considerable risk that the historical speculations I consider here will turn out to be worthlessly anachronistic. But I hope not. Hume’s discussion is deeply attractive for a number of reasons. In part it is the scope of Hume’s scepticism. Our reliance on induction is ubiquitous, and Hume’s argument seems to impugn all of it. But this does not explain why Hume impressed me even more than Descartes, who in his First Meditation questions far more. (I was, however, pretty excited by Descartes too.) The contrast is explained in part by the fact that Hume’s argument is in at least two senses more radical than the sceptical arguments that Descartes offers. -
Descartes' Cogito
24.01: Classics of Western Philosophy Descartes’ Cogito (Meditation II) 1. The “Archimedean point” “[G]reat things are also to be hoped for if I succeed in finding just one thing, however slight, that is certain and unshaken” (63). The meditator’s candidate: “This pronouncement ‘I am, I exist’ [ego sum, ego existo] is necessarily true every time I utter it or conceive it in my mind” (64). Descartes articulated a similar point in his earlier work Discourse on the Method: And observing that this truth ‘ I am thinking, therefore I exist’ [je pense, donc je suis] was so firm and sure that all the most extravagant suppositions of the sceptics were incapable of shaking it, I decided that I could accept it without scruple as the first principle of the philosophy I was seeking.1 The most famous formulation of this point comes from Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy: For it is a contradiction to suppose that what thinks does not, at the very time when it is thinking, exist. Accordingly, this piece of knowledge— I am thinking, therefore I exist [cogito, ergo sum]—is the first and most certain of all to occur to anyone who philosophizes in an orderly way.2 2. The special status of cogito-type beliefs or claims Some epistemological concepts:3 i. Indubitable: A person S’s belief that p is indubitable if and only if S cannot doubt p. ii. Self-verifying: If S asserts p, then p is true. Note also self-refuting: If S asserts p, then p is false. Also pragmatic contradiction: presupposing p while also denying p. -
Skepticism As Epistemic Naturalization Dylan Vallance Western University, [email protected]
Western University Scholarship@Western 2016 Undergraduate Awards The ndeU rgraduate Awards 2016 Skepticism as Epistemic Naturalization Dylan Vallance Western University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/ungradawards_2016 Part of the Epistemology Commons Recommended Citation Vallance, Dylan, "Skepticism as Epistemic Naturalization" (2016). 2016 Undergraduate Awards. 11. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/ungradawards_2016/11 1 Skepticism as Epistemic Naturalization Dylan Vallance "If a road is leading us to a precipice, we do not drive ourselves over the precipice because there is a road leading to it; rather, we leave the road because of the precipice" – Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism In this paper I will argue that the skeptical projects of Pyrrhonism and David Hume share a common target, which they attack using a shared method. That target is a broad theoretical structure that is comprised of three central metaphysical and epistemological points. These are the existence of an external world, the existence of a set of epistemic norms that determine a proposition’s logical relationship to that world, and a definition of truth as the state of a proposition that meets those epistemic norms, points which I will herein refer to collectively as “realism”. These points together form a picture of human knowledge which relies on a “strong” notion of truth in which the veridicality of a proposition is guaranteed or made probable by its meeting a set of epistemic norms in a process which constitutes “justification”. Both Sextus Empiricus and David Hume aim to dispose of all three of these points, and do so by explicitly questioning the conceptual coherence and empirical adequacy of each of them. -
Descartes's Ontological Argument
Philosophy 203 History of Modern Western Philosophy Russell Marcus Hamilton College Spring 2015 Class #4 - Arguments for the Existence of God and Applying the Criterion Meditations Four through Six Marcus, Modern Philosophy, Slide 1 Topics for Today 1. Descartes’s Rule 2. Sense Perception 2A. The Wax Argument 2B. The Resemblance Hypothesis 3. The Solipsistic Barrier 4. The Causal Argument for God’s Existence 5. The Problem of Error and the Two-Faculty Theory of Mind 6. Reclaiming Class III Beliefs 7. The Ontological Argument We’ll do our best! Marcus, Modern Philosophy, Slide 2 Foundational Systems P Two essential elements: F1. Basic axioms, or undisputable truths; and F2. Rules of inference • Rules allow us to generate further theorems. P Definitions are sometimes useful. P We might distinguish the axioms in importance P But F1 and F2 are the core. P Descartes’s synthetic presentation in Second Replies follows standard axiomatic structure. P Euclid’s Elements (see website) P Spinoza’s Ethics Marcus, Modern Philosophy, Slide 3 The Synthetic (Geometrical) Version P Descartes provides definitions, postulates, common notions, and derived propositions. P Definitions: < thought, idea < objective reality, formal reality • setting up the proof of God’s existence < substance, mind, body, < God, essence, distinctness P Already in the definitions, we can find some worries about Descartes’s project. < “By the word “thought” I include everything that is in us in such a way that we are immediately aware of it... By the word “idea” I understand that form of any thought through the immediate perception of which I am aware of that very same thought “(94). -
Book Reviews 120 This Volume of Thirty-Eight Essays, by An
120 Book Reviews John R. Shook and Joseph Margolis, eds. A Companion to Pragmatism. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2006. xii + 431 pp. Cloth ISBN 1-4051- 1621-8 This volume of thirty-eight essays, by an impressive list of contributors, is a resource for anyone wishing to learn about pragmatism in general, its history, as well as the particular philosophies of the classical and more recent pragmatists. There are essays in A Companion to Pragmatism that discuss pragmatic philosophers in the context of the history of philosophy. For instance, Douglas Anderson in “Peirce and Cartesian Rationalism” argues that Peirce’s rejection of Cartesianism “was radical but not wholesale” (161). In other words, what Peirce inherits from modern philosophy is as important to our understanding of his philosophy as the ways he breaks away from the tradition. There are several essays in this collection that stress both the break and the continuity with the tradition of all the classical pragmatist figures. Timothy Sprigge in “James, Empiricism, and Absolute Idealism” shows the historical continuity between James and idealism. The historical and philosophical relations between Hegel and the pragmatist are explored in Kenneth Westphal’s essay “Hegel and Realism.” In “Expressivism and Mead’ Social Self” Mitchell Aboulafia argues that the pragmatists cannot be fully appreciated unless they are understood against the backdrop of the enlighment and expressivism. Thomas Alexander argues in “Dewey, Dualism, and Naturalism” that understanding how Dewey addresses the heritage of dualism (as a common western philosophical habit) provides a better insight into his general position. Other essays in A Companion to Pragmatism facilitate understanding of pragmatism by making connections or drawing similarities/differences with other philosophical traditions, some current issue or philosopher. -
Is Quine a Verificationist?
Appeared in: The Southern Journal of Philosophy Vol. XLI, 2003. IS QUINE A VERIFICATIONIST? Panu Raatikainen I Although Quine is widely known as an influential critic of logical positivism, there is now a growing tendency to emphasize the similarities between him and the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle.1 In particular, it has become usual to classify Quine as an adherent of verificationism, even if it is recognized that his position is somehow different from that of the positivists in being more holistic in character.2 For example, Cheryl Misak in her book-length examination of verificationism writes that ‘the holist [such as Quine] need not reject verificationism, if it is suitably formulated. Indeed, Quine often describes himself as a verificationist’.3 Misak concludes that Quine ‘can be described as a verificationist who thinks that the unit of meaning is large’;4 and when comparing Dummett and Quine, Misak states that ‘both can be, and in fact are, verificationists’.5 Further, it is remarkable that Roger Gibson, arguably the leading expositor of Quine’s philosophy, whose understanding of Quine’s thought has been repeatedly praised by Quine himself, interprets Quine unqualifiedly as a verificationist. Gibson speaks of ‘Quine’s explicit commitment to verificationism’.6 He cites as evidence the following well-known passage 1 from Quine’s famous article ‘Epistemology Naturalized’: ‘If we recognize with Peirce that the meaning of a sentence turns on what would count as evidence for its truth, and if we recognize with Duhem that theoretical sentences have their evidence not as single sentences but as larger blocks of theory, then the indeterminacy of translation is the natural conclusion.’7 And Gibson continues: ‘If this quotation leaves a lingering doubt as to whether Quine would really call himself a verificationist, the following quotation should erase all doubt’. -
Schopenhauer Edited by Christopher Janaway Frontmatter More Information
Cambridge University Press 978-0-521-62106-9 - The Cambridge Companion to Schopenhauer Edited by Christopher Janaway Frontmatter More information the cambridge companion to SCHOPENHAUER Each volume of this series of companions to major philoso- phers contains specially commissioned essays by an inter- national team of scholars, together with a substantial bibli- ography, and will serve as a reference work for students and nonspecialists. One aim of the series is to dispel the intimi- dation such readers often feel when faced with the work of a difficult and challenging thinker. Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) is something of a mav- erick figure in the history of philosophy. He produced a unique theory of the world and human existence based upon his notion of will. This collection analyzes the related but distinct components of will from the point of view of episte- mology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind, aesthetics, ethics, and the philosophy of psychoanalysis. This volume explores Schopenhauer’s philosophy of death, his relationship to the philosophy of Kant, his use of ideas drawn from both Bud- dhism and Hinduism, and the important influence he exerted on Nietzsche, Freud, and Wittgenstein. New readers will find this the most convenient and acces- sible guide to Schopenhauer currently available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent de- velopments in the interpretation of Schopenhauer. Christopher Janaway is Reader in Philosophy at Birkbeck College, University of London. © in this web service Cambridge University