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Brian Leiter - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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nietzsche against the Philosophical canon
2013Co-Authors: Brian LeiterAbstract:Nietzsche views the Western Philosophical Tradition as organized around a conception of philosophy deriving from Socrates. According to this (loosely) Socratic Philosophical canon: (1) Philosophy, as the “love of wisdom,” aims for knowledge of timeless and non-empirical truths, including truths about the good and the right; (2) Knowledge of the truth is the overriding value in philosophy and is also essential for living well; and (3) Philosophical knowledge is acquired through the exercise of reason, understood as a faculty that can operate independently, in whole or in part, of a posteriori evidence. This paper explores Nietzsche's reasons for rejecting this conception of philosophy on each count, especially as developed in his book, Twilight of the Idols. Nietzsche's replacement of metaphysical speculation with psychological diagnosis is compared to Carnap's own critique of metaphysics, and helps explain Carnap's high appraisal of Nietzsche compared to other major figures in post-Kantian German philosophy. Nietzsche's rejection of the Traditional Philosophical canon is contrasted with that of other critics of the Tradition, including Marx, Quine, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. The reaction against naturalism in recent Anglophone philosophy is offered, finally, as a case study in support of Nietzsche's skepticism about the Philosophical canon.
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rorty and the Philosophical Tradition comment on professor szubka
Diametros, 2010Co-Authors: Brian LeiterAbstract:I am grateful to Professor Szubka for the stimulus of his paper 1 and the op� portunity it presents to think about the relationship between Richard Rorty's later "pragmatic" philosophy and the socalled "analytic" Tradition he came to repudi� ate. I am in agreement with Professor Szubka's central thesis, namely, that there is a "partial" continuity between the Rorty of Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature and his later writing, and the Rorty of the 1960s: Rorty was not the diehard "analytic" philosopher who then, suddenly and inexplicably, gave up on the whole business. His metaPhilosophical work in that decade, especially as exemplified in The Lin� guistic Turn, signaled quite clearly his misgivings about the Philosophical project typically associated with the analytic Tradition (which at that time, at least, was not yet moribund). I will offer some additional support for Professor Szubka's thesis drawn from Neil Gross's recent biography of Rorty, which illuminates both Rorty's education at Chicago and Yale in the 1940s and 1950s and the context in which he became a kind of "analytic" philosopher at Princeton in the 1960s 2 . I shall then suggest that the more striking question about Rorty is not why he gave up on "analytic" philosophy, but why he gave up on philosophy , that is, on a two� thousand year Tradition stretching back to antiquity, one which nothing in his pre� Princeton education and experience would have led us to expect. Rorty's "radical break" was not with 'analytic' philosophy — a point often obscured in popular presentations of his work — but with philosophy itself. And it is that that demands some explanation. As Neil Gross demonstrates, the two formative influences in Rorty's phi� losophical education were the historical orientation of the University of Chicago (especially under the tutelage of Richard McKeon), where he was an undergradu� ate, and the "metaphysical" and even "theological" orientation of the Yale Univer� sity department, where he was a graduate student. Indeed, speculative metaphys�
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rorty and the Philosophical Tradition a comment on professor szubka
Social Science Research Network, 2010Co-Authors: Brian LeiterAbstract:I agree with Tadusz Szubka's thesis that there is a "partial" continuity between Rorty's work in the 1960s (esp. The Linguistic Turn) and his later pragmatic philosophy in which he repudiated "analytic" philosophy. I suggest additional support for the thesis of continuity comes from an examination of Rorty's undergraduate and graduate education. I then argue that the real puzzle about Rorty's intellectual development is not why he gave up on "analytic" philosophy - he had never been much committed to that research agenda, even before it became moribund--but why, beginning with Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (PMN), he gave up on the central concerns of philosophy going back to antiquity. Many contemporary philosophers influenced by Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction and Sellars' attack on "the Myth of the Given" (the two argumentative linchpins of PMN) didn't abandon Philosophical questions about truth, knowledge, and mind, they just concluded those questions needed to be naturalized, to be answered in conjunction with the empirical sciences. Why didn't Rorty go this route? The paper concludes with some interesting anecdotes about Rorty that invite speculative explanations.
A Nash - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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how kierkegaard came to stellenbosch the transformation of the stellenbosch Philosophical Tradition 1947 1950
South African Journal of Philosophy, 1997Co-Authors: A NashAbstract:This is the second in a series of three articles on the development of a Socratic moment in the Stellenbosch Philosophical Tradition. By the early 1940s, a distinctive Philosophical Tradition had taken shape in Stellenbosch. This article describes how the characteristic themes and concerns of that Tradition were fundamentally recast by a generation of graduate students - the most prominent of whom were Daantjie Oosthuizen, James Oglethorpe and Johan Degenaar - in the years from about 1947 to 1950. At a time when Afrikaner political, cultural and intellectual life were becoming increasingly regimented, this generation drew on the writings of Soren Kierkegaard to argue Philosophically for a radical individualism in which all beliefs and commitments were seen as existential wagers made in uncertainty. They re-interpreted Traditional Philosophical and theological concepts in such a way as to deprive them of their function in legitimating the emerging social order, but were never able to develop the concepts needed for sustained social and political critique. Their transformation of the Stellenbosch Philosophical Tradition nonetheless made possible its moment of Socratic commitment to interrogation of all received truths.
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wine farming heresy trials and the whole personality the emergence of the stellenbosch Philosophical Tradition 1916 40
South African Journal of Philosophy, 1997Co-Authors: A NashAbstract:This is the first of a series of three articles on the development of a Socratic moment in the Stellenbosch Philosophical Tradition. This article seeks to describe and explain the emergence of a distinctive local Philosophical Tradition in the Stellenbosch context. To this end, it analyses the historical peculiarities of Afrikaner political and intellectual life in the Western Cape, showing how these prevented Stellenbosch philosophers both from identifying with capitalist modernity and from rejecting it in favour of pre-modern ideals. A distinctive response to this dilemma, seeking a Philosophical reconciliation of modernity and Tradition, was first articulated by Tobie Muller. But his arguments led away from the study of philosophy itself, and towards the tasks of social and spiritual upliftment. Philosophy as a discipline only expanded after the removal of Professor du Plessis from the theological seminary after repeated charges of heresy. The Philosophical optimism propounded by du Plessis and Het Zoeklicht had suffered a decisive defeat, and the next generation of philosophers turned towards more individualist and voluntarist themes.
Bradley Monton - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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chapter 14 presentism and quantum gravity
Philosophy and Foundations of Physics, 2006Co-Authors: Bradley MontonAbstract:Abstract There is a Philosophical Tradition of arguing against presentism, the thesis that only presently existing things exist, on the basis of its incompatibility with fundamental physics. I grant that presentism is incompatible with special and general relativity, but argue that presentism is not incompatible with quantum gravity, because there are some theories of quantum gravity that utilize a fixed foliation of spacetime. I reply to various objections to this defense of presentism, and point out a flaw in Godel's modal argument for the ideality of time. This paper provides an interesting case study of the interplay between physics and philosophy.
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presentism and quantum gravity
2001Co-Authors: Bradley MontonAbstract:There is a Philosophical Tradition of arguing against presentism, the thesis that only presently existing things exist, on the basis of its incompatibility with fundamental physics. I grant that presentism is incompatible with special and general relativity, but argue that presentism is not incompatible with quantum gravity, because there are some theories of quantum gravity that utilize a fixed foliation of spacetime. I reply to various objections to this defense of presentism, and point out a flaw in Godel’s modal argument for the ideality of time. This paper provides an interesting case study of the interplay between physics and philosophy.
Mary I Bockover - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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confucianism and ethics in the western Philosophical Tradition i foundational concepts
Philosophy Compass, 2010Co-Authors: Mary I BockoverAbstract:Confucianism conceives of persons as being necessarily interdependent, defining personhood in terms of the various roles one embodies and that are established by the relationships basic to one's life. By way of contrast, the Western Philosophical Tradition has predominantly defined persons in terms of intrinsic characteristics not thought to depend on others. This more strictly and explicitly individualistic concept of personhood contrasts with the Confucian idea that one becomes a person because of others; where one is never a person independently or in and of oneself but develops into one only in community. This article surveys some differences between Confucian and Western ideas of self and their connection to ethics mainly in light of the relational self of the Confucian Analects and Mencius. A Philosophy Compass article called Confucianism and Ethics in the Western Philosophical Tradition: A Comparative Analysis of Personhood (CEWII) will follow, that examines how the more individualistic way of conceiving of personhood in the West has had moral and political implications that differ, and even conflict, with those of Confucianism. [Correction added after online publication 31 May 2010: Sentence changed.]
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confucianism and ethics in the western Philosophical Tradition ii a comparative analysis of personhood
Philosophy Compass, 2010Co-Authors: Mary I BockoverAbstract:This Philosophy Compass article continues the comparison between Confucian and mainstream Western views of personhood and their connection with ethics begun in Confucianism and Ethics in the Western Philosophical Tradition: Fundamental Concepts (CEWI), by focusing on the Western self conceived as an independent agent with moral and political rights. More specifically, the present article briefly accounts for how the more strictly and explicitly individualistic notion of self dominating Western philosophy has developed, leading up to a recent debate in modern Western rights theory between Herbert Fingarette and Henry Rosemont, Jr., two contemporary Western philosophers who are both steeped in Confucian thought as well as moral and political philosophy. This compares and contrasts Confucian principles with some basic to modern Western rights theory and the more individualistic view of self they entail. In the end, a new view of personhood and “free will” is offered that synthesizes insights from the Confucian treatment of persons as being essentially interdependent with the Western treatment of persons as being essentially independent. [Correction added after online publication 31 May 2010: Sentence changed.]
González De Requena Farré, Juan Antonio - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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La conceptualización de la mentira en tiempos de la posverdad
2019Co-Authors: González De Requena Farré, Juan AntonioAbstract:This article aims to systematize different alternatives for the conceptualization of lying, in order to clarify the meaning of contemporary posttruth. Given the limitations of a historical reconstruction of the meanings of lying devised by the Philosophical Tradition, and because conceptual analysis risks of fetishizing the lying assertion, we aim to enrich the conceptualization of lying through the lexicographical description of the prototypical sense and the variants of our idiomatic vocabulary for lying. By distinguishing the formal conditions of telling a lie and the situational nuances of the realization of lying, one can recognize a new regime of lies in contemporary post-truth.Este artículo se propone sistematizar distintas opciones de conceptualización de la mentira para así clarificar el sentido de la posverdad contemporánea. Ante las limitaciones de la reconstrucción histórica de las acepciones de la mentira legadas por la tradición filosófica y debido a que el análisis conceptual corre el riesgo de fetichizar la afirmación mentirosa, apostamos por enriquecer la conceptualización de la mentira a través de la descripción lexicográfica del sentido prototípico y de las variantes del vocabulario idiomático de la mentira. Al distinguir las condiciones formales del decir una mentira y los matices situacionales de la realización del mentir, se puede reconocer en la posverdad contemporánea un nuevo régimen de la mentira
