Philosophy Commons^™

Intelligence And Weapons Of Mass Destruction, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

The author discusses the ramifications of the lack of epistemological underpinnings from which the rightness or wrongness regarding WMD in Iraq can be constructed and adjudicated.

Nietzsche’S Aphoristic Turn, Steven Michels

Political Science & Global Affairs Faculty Publications

Nietzsche’s use of the aphorism has most often been taken as evidence of his esotericism. Nietzsche was less than clear in his writings, it is claimed, because he did not want his true teaching to be available to just anyone. This article contends the opposite—that is, that Nietzsche wrote aphoristically for the very purpose of being read, and understood, by the widest possible audience. Moreover, this change in style had a marked impact on the nature of his philosophy. Unburdened by conventional methods, Nietzsche’s critique of modernity became more exact and his own positive philosophy became more radical.

Immanuel Kant (Reference Entry), Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

"Immanuel Kant," published in Ethics, Revised Edition, pages 804-06, reprinted (or reproduced) by permission of the publisher Salem Press. Copyright, ©, 2004 by Salem Press.

Kantian Ethics (Reference Entry), Harry Van Der Linden

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

"Kantian Ethics," published in Ethics, Revised Edition, pages 806-08, reprinted (or reproduced) by permission of the publisher Salem Press. Copyright, ©, 2004 by Salem Press.

A Critical Examination Of The Philosophy Of Charles S. Peirce: A Defence Of The Claim That His Pragmatism Is Founded On His Theory Of Categories, Siosifa Ika

Theses

This thesis explores the relation in Peirce’s philosophy between his theory of categories and his pragmatism. My most central claim is that the possibility and validity of metaphysics as a philosophical science depend on the appropriateness of its method. I argue that an appropriate method for metaphysics is possible, and that in Peirce’s pragmatism as founded on his theory of categories we find such a method. In developing this thesis I seek to demonstrate four key propositions: 1. Peirce’s ‘pragmatism’ is fundamentally a form of metaphysical and epistemological realism and in this respect differs from logical positivism and other types …

Abstracting Aristotle’S Philosophy Of Mathematics, John J. Cleary

Research Resources

In the history of science perhaps the most influential Aristotelian division was that

between mathematics and physics. From our modern perspective this seems like an unfortunate deviation from the Platonic unification of the two disciplines, which guided Kepler and Galileo towards the modern scientific revolution. By contrast, Aristotle’s sharp distinction between the disciplines seems to have led to a barren scholasticism in physics, together with an arid instrumentalism in Ptolemaic astronomy. On the positive side, however, astronomy was liberated from commonsense realism for the conceptual experiments of Aristarchus of Samos, whose heliocentric hypothesis was not adopted by later astronomers because …

Understanding Imperfection, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

Because of their inherent abstraction, systems ideas are not themselves sufficient for gaining scientific knowledge or solving practical problems, but they can be a source of insights into the universality of imperfection, insights which can contribute to a new scientific world view. Systems theory offers a metaphysics, or more precisely an ontology, of imperfection. Through it, we can heed Spinoza's injunction, “Not to lament, not to curse, but to understand.”

Smith On Hanley, 'The Metaphysics Of Star Trek, Anne Collins Smith

Faculty Publications

Review by Anne Collins Smith on the H-PCAACA mailing list, June 1998.

The Metaphysics of Star Trek by Richard Hanley. New York: Basic Books, 1997. xviii + 253 pp. $18.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-465-09124-9.

Richard Hanley's The Metaphysics of Star Trek is an engaging examination of certain philosophical issues raised within the Star Trek universe. Its title, however, is overly broad; it would be more correctly titled, The Twentieth-Century Applied Metaphysics of Star Trek. The earliest reference in the bibliography is an article written in 1950; the next earliest, 1960. The vast majority of sources are from the 1980's and …

The Parts Of Definitions, Unity, And Sameness In Aristotle's Metaphysics, Mark R. Wheeler

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

First principles (ἀρχάι) are crucial to Aristotle's conception of scientific knowledge (επιστήμη). In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle teaches us that all scientific knowledge is either knowledge arrived at through demonstration from first principles or knowledge of the first principles themselves. The first principles of a given science are the primary premises (τὰ πρώτα) of that science (Pst. An., 72a7); they express the essential characteristics of the substance about which the given science is concerned; and all other scientific knowledge is derived from the first principles through syllogistic inference.

The first principles of the various sciences are expressed through definition (ὁρισμός). …

Parmenides On Possibility And Thought, Owen Goldin

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Review Of Heidegger's Confrontation With Modernity: Technology, Politics, And Art By Michael E. Zimmerman, Albert Borgmann

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Michael Zimmerman has composed this book in two voices. One is the clear and generous voice that we have heard for two decades and that has made Zimmerman the foremost expositor of Heidegger in the English language....The second voice is bitterly critical of Heidegger and responds to the recent discussion of Heidegger's entanglements in reactionary and fascist politics.

Bear That Wasn't By Frank Tashlin, Gareth B. Matthews, Lenore Carlisle Reilly, Shari Tishman

Wise Owl: Talking and Thinking about Children’s Literature

In this classic children’s book (available at The Open Library), a bear wakes up from winter hibernation to find that his forest has been replaced by a factory. To make matters even worse, every human he on the assembly line and in the corporate offices, and every bear he meets at the zoo and the circus, insists that he's not even a bear, just a silly man who needs a shave and wears a fur coat. As Gareth B. Matthews observed, the book’s “philosophical whimsy” raises a host of basic epistemological and metaphysical questions.

On 'Essentially' (Hoper) In Aristotle, Alban Urbanas

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

In this paper I shall examine the notion of ταὐτόν - commonly translated as 'same' or 'identical' - and its relevance to so-called essential predications, as effected through the use of ὅπερ in Aristotle. It will be shown that propositions of the type 'A is ὅπερ B' involve an essential predication where either a genus is affirmed of a species, or a species of an individual. The possibility of such predications will be founded upon the doctrine of the categories and the ontological distinction between essence and accident. Besides predications involving generic or specific identity, others effected through propositions of …

Substances, Accidents, And Kinds: Some Remarks On Aristotle's Theory Of Predication, Frank A. Lewis

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

A major feature of Aristotle's strategy against Plato in the Categories is to collapse the dichotomy that Plato's theory of (metaphysical) predication attempts to make between forms and sensibles. In Aristotle's theory, Socrates IS some of his predicables, but HAS others. He IS what is essential to him, and HAS the rest. These different relations between Socrates and his various predicables form a large part of the motivation for the further ontological distinctions that Aristotle draws in the Categories.

Dialectical Laws And Elementary Catastrophes, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the newly developed Catastrophe Theory of Rene Thorn and E.C. Zeeman, it is possible to find mathematical interpretation of certain aspects of Hegelian and Marxist dialectics. Specifically, the three "classical" dialectical principles, (1) the transformation of quantity into quality, ( 2) the mutual interpenetration(or - the unity and struggle) of opposites, and (3) the negation of the negation, can be modeled using the seven "elementary catastrophe " given by Thom , especially the catastrophe known as the "cusp." Far from being an empty metaphysics or scholasticism, as critics have argued , these principles embody genuine insights into a class …

Aristotle On Kinesis, Arthur L. Peck

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

This paper is zetetic rather than expository: Can we define the field in which Aristotle believed kinesis to operate? My interest in this question stems from my work with his biological writings. The distinction between potentiality and actuality was for him an indispensable instrument for philosophy. The application of this principle reaches its apex when he speaks of active and passive nous.

The Origin Of Living Things, By Julius Seiler, Translated By Gerard Farley, Gerard Farley

Philosophy Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Xxii. Philosophical Meaning, Robert L. Bloom, Basil L. Crapster, Harold L. Dunkelberger, Charles H. Glatfelter, Richard T. Mara, Norman E. Richardson, W. Richard Schubart

Section XXII: Philosophical Meaning

As we have seen, philosophy was one of the major contributions of Greek Civilization. It was the Greeks who gave it its first major impetus as well as its name, "the love of learning." This very phrase embodies the most important aspects of their contribution to the West: the love of the best or most excellent; the search for something beyond a description of immediate experience; and the attempt to grasp, in some comprehensive fashion, both the actual and the ideal, both the given and the possible. In order to accomplish this task philosophy has, as we have seen, traditionally …

The Functionalism And Dynamism Of Aristotle, John Herman Randall Jr.

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

It is the contention of this paper that Aristotle's thought is relevant and suggestive for two of the most important present-day philosophical movements, the concern with language, and the concern with natural processes and their analysis. Aristotle can be viewed today as the outstanding functionalist of the Western tradition. Aristotle's philosophy is more than important, it is true.

Numbers And Magnitudes: An Iamblichean Derivation Theory And Its Relation To Speusippean And Aristotelian Doctrine, W. Gerson Rabinowitz

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Aristotle's Doctrine Of Future Contingencies, Richard Taylor

The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Indigenous Philosophy In The Valley Of Mexico, John F. Newcomer

Philosophy ETDs

This study has been undertaken in the hope of helping to open new avenues of research in both philosophy and anthropology, avenues that have heretofore been largely overlooked. It has used as an example the pre-Conquest culture-complex of the Valley of Mexico. It is not intended to be an exhaustive exposition of every aspect of that complex, for that would take it out of the realm of philosophy and too far into that of anthropology. It is rather an examination of the salient features of Aztec culture in a philosophical light. It begins with a discussion of primitive philosophy in …

A Study Of The Metaphysical Categories Of Charles Sanders Peirce, Oscar Edwyn Luttrell

Master's Theses

Little is known about the life of Charles Sanders Peirce and perhaps even less about his system and place in the history of American philosophical thought. Somewhat superficially we recognize that he influenced the pragmatism of William James, but even here, were the facts known, the influence would be exceedingly remote, owing to James's own misinterpretation of' Peirce's leading ideas. Prof. Perry says that: "Perhaps it would be correct, and just to all parties, to say that the modern movement known as pragmatism is largely the result of James's misunderstanding of Peirce." James himself at one time stated that Peirce …

The Voice Of The Phi Sigma -- 1885 -- Volume 07, No. 03, Phi Sigma

The Voice of the Phi Sigma

This item is part of the Phi Sigma collection at the College Archives & Special Collections department of Columbia College Chicago. Contact [email protected] for more information and to view the collection.