|
Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Metaphysics & ontology
Baruch Spinoza began his studies in the Jewish community of
seventeenth century Amsterdam by learning Hebrew and the Talmud,
only to be excommunicated at the age of twenty-four for supposed
heresy. Because of his radical transformation of the concept of
God, he has been characterized, on the one hand, as an atheist, and
on the other as the God-intoxicated man. This book is an
exploration of what Spinoza understood God to be; how, for him, the
infinite and eternal power of God is expressed; and how finite
human beings can have a true idea of this greatest of all entities.
Sherry Deveaux begins with an analytic discussion of these three
questions and an explication of three different views held by
contemporary commentators on Spinoza. She then shows that the
commonly held views about Spinoza are inconsistent with his
texts--especially his magnum opus, the Ethics. Next, she provides
analyses of central topics in Spinoza's metaphysics--such as
'power', 'true idea', and 'essence'--that must be understood in
order to correctly answer the three questions. Deveaux concludes by
arguing (i) that Spinoza defines God's essence as 'absolutely
infinite and eternal power' and (ii) that, far from identifying
God's essence with the divine attributes (such as thought and
extension) as commentators commonly suppose, Spinoza regards God's
essence or power as something that is expressed through the divine
attributes.
The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote down his thoughts between
170 and 180. He was a late Stoic Philosopher and this one of the
few examples of this type of literature that exists today. The book
is written as personal notes to himself and his thesis is that one
can obtain inner calm irrespective of outer adversity. The text
considers good and evil, solidarity, adversity and inner freedom.
It is a book that offers wisdom, comfort and inspiration. As well
as the thought, this edition contains a biographical sketch and
summary of the philosophy of Marcus Aurelius, a number of
illustrations and both an index and index of terms.
This book presents an alternative reading of the respective works
of Moses Maimonides and Baruch Spinoza. It argues that both
thinkers are primarily concerned with the singular perfection of
the complete human being rather than with attaining only rational
knowledge. Complete perfection of a human being expresses the
unique concord of concrete activities, such as ethics, politics,
and psychology, with reason. The necessity of concrete historical
activities in generating perfection entails that both thinkers are
not primarily concerned with an "escape" to a metaphysical realm of
transcendent or universal truths via cognition. Instead, both are
focused on developing and cultivating individuals' concrete desires
and activities to the potential benefit of all. This book argues
that rather than solely focusing on individual enlightenment, both
thinkers are primarily concerned with a political life and the
improvement of fellow citizens' capacities. A key theme throughout
the text is that both Maimonides and Spinoza realize that an
apolitical life undermines individual and social flourishing.
What is the relation between time and change? Does time depend on
the mind? Is the present always the same or is it always different?
Aristotle tackles these questions in the Physics, and Time for
Aristotle is the first book in English devoted to this discussion.
Aristotle claims that time is not a kind of change, but that it is
something dependent on change; he defines it as a kind of 'number
of change'. Ursula Coope argues that what this means is that time
is a kind of order (not, as is commonly supposed, a kind of
measure). It is universal order within which all changes are
related to each other. This interpretation enables Coope to explain
two puzzling claims that Aristotle makes: that the now is like a
moving thing, and that time depends for its existence on the mind.
Brilliantly lucid in its explanation of this challenging section of
the Physics, Time for Aristotle shows his discussion to be of
enduring philosophical interest.
This volume investigates what is beyond the Principle of
Non-Contradiction. It features 14 papers on the foundations of
reasoning, including logical systems and philosophical
considerations. Coverage brings together a cluster of issues
centered upon the variety of meanings of consistency,
contradiction, and related notions. Most of the papers, but not
all, are developed around the subtle distinctions between
consistency and non-contradiction, as well as among contradiction,
inconsistency, and triviality, and concern one of the above
mentioned threads of the broadly understood non-contradiction
principle and the related principle of explosion. Some others take
a perspective that is not too far away from such themes, but with
the freedom to tread new paths. Readers should understand the title
of this book in a broad way,because it is not so obvious to deal
with notions like contradictions, consistency, inconsistency, and
triviality. The papers collected here present groundbreaking ideas
related to consistency and inconsistency.
This book presents a set theoretical approach to sociological
research. It revisits existing sociological approaches and
discusses their limitations, before suggesting an alternative.
While the existing canonical approaches of Positivism,
Conflictualism, and Pragmatism are based on biology, history, and
physics, respectively, the set theoretical approach is based on
mathematics. Utilising its philosophical exploration delineated by
Alain Badiou, the book further translates his work into the field
of social science. The result of this translation is termed
Multiplitism, which evades the limiting contradictions of existing
approaches. Drawing on the mathematical notion of 'set' and
relating it to recent sociological turns such as the relational and
the ontological, the book proposes a scale-relativity through which
the researcher (as subject) and the researched (as object) are
integrated. The book will be of interest to social scientists,
particularly social theorists and advanced level students.
"Time: A Philosophical Introduction" presents the philosophy of
time as the central debate between being and the becoming.This core
theme brings together the key topics, debates and thinkers, making
ideas such as Zeno's paradoxes, the experience of change and
temporal flow and the direction and shape of time and time travel,
clear and understandable. Alongside a glossary and detailed
timeline to further enhance study and understanding, each chapter
features: - Extensive lists of further reading in both primary and
secondary sources- A chronological listing of key figures, brief
biographical data and references- True/false questions, matching,
multiple choice, and short answer questionsTime is a central
philosophical subject, impacting on all many different aspects of
philosophy. More technical discussions of issues from mathematics,
logic and physics are separated into Technical Interludes, allowing
readers to choose their level of difficultly. As a result this
comprehensive introduction is essential reading for upper-level
undergraduates studying the philosophy of time, metaphysics or the
philosophy of science.
If natural law arguments struggle to gain traction in contemporary
moral and political discourse, could it be because we moderns do
not share the understanding of nature on which that language was
developed? Building on the work of important thinkers of the last
half-century, including Leo Strauss, Eric Voegelin, John Finnis,
and Bernard Lonergan, the essays in Concepts of Nature compare and
contrast classical, medieval, and modern conceptions of nature in
order to better understand how and why the concept of nature no
longer seems to provide a limit or standard for human action. These
essays also evaluate whether a rearticulation of pre-modern ideas
(or perhaps a reconciliation or reconstitution on modern terms) is
desirable and/or possible. Edited by R. J. Snell and Steven F.
McGuire, this book will be of interest to intellectual historians,
political theorists, theologians, and philosophers.
Aesthetic Transcendentalism is a philosophy endorsing the
qualitative and creative aspects of nature. Theoretically it argues
for a metaphysical dimension of nature that is aesthetically real,
pluralistic, and prolific. It directs our attention to the rich
complexity of immediate experience, the possibility of discovering
new aesthetic features about the world, and the transformative
potential of art as an organic expression. This book presents the
philosophy in its relationship to its historical roots in the
philosophic and artistic traditions of nineteenth-century North
America. In this multidisciplinary study, Nicholas L. Guardiano
brings together a philosophic and literary figure in Ralph Waldo
Emerson, the scientifically minded philosopher Charles S. Peirce,
and the plastic arts in the form of American landscape painting.
Guardiano evaluates this constellation of philosophers and artists
in global perspective as it relates to other historical theories of
metaphysics and aesthetics, while simultaneously performing a
cultural analysis that identifies an essential feature of the
American mind. Aesthetic Transcendentalism thus possesses abiding
significance for our vital interactions with nature, daily
experiences, and contemplations of great works of art. Aesthetic
Transcendentalism in Emerson, Peirce, and Nineteenth-Century
American Landscape Painting will be of interest to scholars of
American philosophy and American art history, especially
specialists of Charles S. Peirce, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and the
Hudson River School painters. It will also appeal to philosophers
working on systematic metaphysical theories of nature.
Your Greater Self or The Inner Consciousness, written by William
Walker Atkinson in 1908, is yet another title in his repertoire
pertaining to greater or higher thought. In this case, the book
centers on the idea that there are higher levels of consciousness
and meaning that we can become in tune with through meditation and
concentration. Atkinson starts by describing the different centers
of the mind-such as the basement and the storehouse-and uses
imagery to help his readers understand how to reach their inner
consciousness and use it to its full potential.American writer
WILLIAM WALKER ATKINSON (1862-1932) was editor of the popular
magazine New Thought from 1901 to 1905 and editor of the journal
Advanced Thought from 1916 to 1919. He authored dozens of New
Thought books under numerous pseudonyms, including the name "Yogi,"
some of which are likely still unknown today.
As Vyasa, scribe of the epic Mahabarata, said,
This is an important new monograph on Plato's metaphysics, focusing
on the theory of the forms, which is the central philosophical
concept in Plato's theory.Few philosophical doctrines have been as
influential and as widely discussed as Plato's theory of Forms; yet
few have been as misunderstood. Most philosophers, following the
recommendation of Aristotle, regard the Forms as abstract entities.
However, this view is difficult to square with other aspects of
Plato's thought, in particular his theory of knowledge.Francis A.
Grabowski aims to dissociate the theory of Forms from its
Aristotelian reception, by interpreting it within the larger
framework of Plato's philosophy. Grabowski notes that the theory
emerged largely from epistemological concerns. He shows that the
ancients conceived of knowledge almost exclusively as a
perception-like acquaintance with things. He goes on to examine
Plato's epistemology and shows that Plato also regards knowledge as
the mind being directly acquainted with its object. Grabowski
argues that, by modelling knowledge on perception, Plato could not
have conceived of the Forms as Aristotle and others have claimed.
He concludes that an interpretation of the Forms as concrete rather
than abstract entities provides a more plausible and coherent view
of Plato's overall philosophical project.
The title of this work may seem to beg an important question, since
it rests on the assumption that Diderot has a 'concept of physical
energy'. Indeed the aim of the study is, in part, to assemble
evidence in support of the acte de foi implicit in its title. I am
using 'physical energy' in a loose sense, as a convenient term to
denote 'what matter can do' as distinct from 'what matter is made
of'. Hence it may be taken as broadly synonymous with 'power' or
'force', encompassing both active and potential forms, and thus
corresponding to a combination of the fourth and fifth senses
identified by the Oxford English Dictionary: 4. Power actively and
efficiently displayed or exerted. 5. Power not necessarily
manifested in action; ability or capacity to produce an effect.
Modern subatomic physics, of course, recognises no such distinction
between 'being' and 'doing'; at a fundamental level,
matter-as-substance and matter-as-energy are interchangeable (and,
as I shall argue towards the end of the study, Diderot himself
comes close to a similar position). Nevertheless, the division is
both justifiable and useful within the context of
eighteenth-century philosophies of nature. For, as many scholars
have pointed out, the trend towards nature as an integrated, active
phenomenon, in place of the cartesian view of passive etendue only
incidentally endowed with motion, was crucial to the development of
scientific thought in the mid-eighteenth century. Debate and
development on such issues as Newtonian attraction, inertia,
electricity and magnetism, chemical reactions, not only contributed
directly to the advancement of physics and chemistry, but also
(like cartesian mechanism) impinged upon the perennial biological
questions, themselves being investigated from a new and exciting
angle. As a philosopher rather than a practising scientist, Diderot
was ideally placed to draw freely and creatively on all these
areas, and his speculations on what we might call 'the nature of
nature' are highly characteristic of the new approach. He comes
increasingly to discuss and define natural phenomena (organic and
inorganic alike) from the point of view of nature's powers - in the
spirit of Renaissance naturalism, but from the perspective of
up-to-date scientific findings. It is in this sense that I refer to
a 'concept of physical energy'. Given the organic quality of
Diderot's thought, it is not surprising to find the idea of energy
recurring in other areas of his works. If man is composed of matter
- active matter - than all human activity, be it moral, political,
aesthetic, becomes capable of interpretation in terms of energy. I
share Chouillet's conviction that this is a crucial aspect of
Diderot's overall philosophy, which deserves to be more widely
recognised and more fully understood.
This book brings together papers from a conference that took place
in the city of L'Aquila, 4-6 April 2019, to commemorate the 10th
anniversary of the earthquake that struck on 6 April 2009.
Philosophers and scientists from diverse fields of research debated
the problem that, on 6 April 1922, divided Einstein and Bergson:
the nature of time. For Einstein, scientific time is the only time
that matters and the only time we can rely on. Bergson, however,
believes that scientific time is derived by abstraction, even in
the sense of extraction, from a more fundamental time. The
plurality of times envisaged by the theory of Relativity does not,
for him, contradict the philosophical intuition of the existence of
a single time. But how do things stand today? What can we say about
the relationship between the quantitative and qualitative
dimensions of time in the light of contemporary science? What do
quantum mechanics, biology and neuroscience teach us about the
nature of time? The essays collected here take up the question that
pitted Einstein against Bergson, science against philosophy, in an
attempt to reverse the outcome of their monologue in two voices,
with a multilogue in several voices.
|
You may like...
Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
Paperback
R131
Discovery Miles 1 310
|