Religion's ‘Foundation in Reason’: The Common Sense of Hume's Natural History

1994 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 565-581
Author(s):  
M. Jamie Ferreira
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
The Other ◽  
Rational Justification ◽  
Rational Argument ◽  
Regular Model ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
Forceful Critique ◽  
Critique Of Religion

David Hume’s critique of religion reveals what seems to be a vacillation in his commitment to an argument-based paradigm of legitimate believing. On the one hand, Hume assumes such a traditional (argumentbased) model of rational justification of beliefs in order to point to the weakness of some classical arguments for religious belief (e.g., the design argument), to chastise the believer for extrapolating to a conclusion which outstrips its evidential warrant. On the other hand, Hume, ‘mitigated’ or naturalist skeptic that he is, at other times rejects an argumentbased paradigm of certainty and truth, and so sees as irrelevant the traditional or ‘regular’ model of rational justification; he places a premium on instinctive belief, as both unavoidable and (usually) more reliable than reasoning. On this view, a forceful critique of religion would have to fault it, not for failing to meet criteria of rational argument (failing to proportion belief to the evidence), but (as Hume sometimes seems to) for failing to be the right sort of instinct.

The Promoting and the Financing of the Suez Canal

1956 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 361-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Werner Baer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
World History ◽  
Suez Canal ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
Professional Fields

This timely account of the hunching of the Suez Canal project reveals both sides of the coin of innovation. It is, on the one hand, a study of the character and methods of one of the most famous innovators of the nineteenth century. Ferdinand DeLesseps was not a politician, a financier, an engineer, a promoter (in the common sense of the word), or a businessman. Yet he succeeded brilliantly in a venture requiring consummate mastery of all these professional fields. On the other hand is revealed the waterway itself — vital to one civilization, useless and neglected in another, and then of transcendent importance as world history marched on. Realization of the grand scheme envisaged by the Pharaohs came at last when economic and political factors momentarily aligned in a pattern of opportunity for a unique set of entrepreneurial qualifications.

scholarly journals ‘I felt a noble shock’: James Boswell in German Princely Courts

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Markku Kekäläinen
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
The Other ◽  
Court Culture ◽  
Positive View ◽  
James Boswell ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
British Court

The article deals with James Boswell’s (1740–1795) attitudes towards the courtly milieu in the context of eighteenth-century British court discourse. The central argument is that, strongly contrary to the anti-court ethos of his intellectual and social milieu, Boswell had an affirmative and enthusiastic attitude towards the court. Moreover, the fact that he was neither an Addisonian moralist ‘spectator’ nor a cynical court aristocrat like Lord Chesterfield, but in many senses a highly affective ‘man of feeling’ of the age, did not diminish the uniqueness of his positive view of court culture. On the one hand, Boswell’s appreciation of the court was connected with his firm monarchism and belief in hereditary rank; on the other hand, he was aesthetically fascinated by the splendour and magnificence of the courtly milieu. His appraisal of the court did not include the common-sense moralism of the moral weeklies or the cynical observations of the  aristocratic court discourse; rather his attitude was immediate, emotional, and enthusiastic in the spirit of the cult of sensibility.

scholarly journals El sentido común en el horizonte del humanismo / Common Sense and the Humanistic Perspective

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 131-140
Author(s):  
Ana Marcela Mungaray Lagarda ◽  
Herminio Núñez Villavicencio
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The World ◽  
The Common ◽  
Classical Traditions ◽  
The One ◽  
Interdisciplinary Integration ◽  
Great Call

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses the concept of common sense in the humanism. We´ll consider two proposals for the discussion on this concept: On the one hand, the classical conception of humanism considered in crisis associated with a lack of pluralism and inclusion from the ordinary to the contents and humanistic practice. On the other hand, the idea about that common sense in the context of the humanism is heterogeneous, so it recreates and includes in a new dialogue the everyday man by himself. The invitation from the United Nations about “Humanism, a new idea” (2011) is the context like a great call to refocus the discussion on practices derived from humanistic policy agreements in the world, integration projects between the classical traditions of the concept and dreams of interdisciplinary integration in the concert of nations. The path of analysis on the concept about the common sense in this proposal is a guide to review the rational framework as a concept in crisis. This is considering from several interpretations in a dialogic discussion, both the diversity debate about the nature of the concept as the depth of the social implications of the proposals.RESUMENSe presenta una discusión sobre el sentido común desde dos tesis, una es desde la concepción clásica del pensamiento humanista, al dar por hecho las implicaciones del sentido de lo común; por la otra parte bajo la idea de la necesidad de plantear un humanismo heterogéneo, incluyendo el reconocimiento del sentido propio de la comunidad del hombre cotidiano. La ruta de análisis se plantea desde la invitación de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Humanismo, una nueva idea (2011) como el contexto para replantear la tarea del humanismo actual, hacia las nuevas inclusiones necesarias en un mundo globalizado. Se discute una idea de crisis del concepto de lo humano, de las tareas del humanismo actual, desde las diversas interpretaciones elaboradas históricamente. Podemos decir que el humanismo actual es un recurso dialógico para entrar al debate acerca de la naturaleza del concept, la inclusión del hombre y del sentido común así como sus implicaciones y propuestas sociales.

Wholes, Parts, and Infinite Collections

Philosophy ◽  
1992 ◽  
Vol 67 (261) ◽  
pp. 367-379 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. O. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Infinite Series ◽  
Infinite Number ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
The Other ◽  
Bertrand Russell ◽  
Popular View ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
Infinite Set

In his book, The Principles of Mathematics, the young Bertrand Russell abandoned the common-sense notion that the whole must be greater than its part, and argued that wholes and their parts can be similar, e.g. where both are infinite series, the one being a sub-series of the other. He also rejected the popular view that the idea of an infinite number is self-contradictory, and that an infinite set or collection is an impossibility. In this paper, I intend to re-examine Russell's wisdom in doing both these things, and see if it might not have made more sense, and caused his enterprise fewer problems, if he had simply stuck to our commonplace ideas. To this end, I shall also be considering his treatment of certain paradoxes that he claims can only be resolved by the abandonment of the above notions, as well as certain others which his theories appear to have generated.

scholarly journals The Ethics of Uncovering Something Else in Histoire(s) du cinema

2014 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-60
Author(s):  
Jiewon Baek
Keyword(s):  
Oscar Wilde ◽  
The Other ◽  
Film Adaptation ◽  
Written Text ◽  
Film Version ◽  
Funeral Music ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
Inside Out

In lieu of an abstract, here is the essay's opening paragraph:Marguerite Duras prefaces the second edition of Le navire night, from which an excerpt is cited above, by explaining that after writing the story of a man named J.M., everything came too late, including the realization of the film version of Le navire night. Once the event has been written and the common night of history been closed up, did she have the right to flash a light into the darkness to go back and see? The only seeing through cinema that was possible, she continues, was to film the failure, the disaster of the film. But how does one film the failure of realizing a film adaptation of a written text, which itself was transcribed from an oral re-telling of a story, which itself was adapted from memory? The event already took place – writing, “this history here” –, leaving cinema to film what never took place, namely, the film itself. As Jean-Luc Godard confirms in a chapter titled Seul le cinéma in Histoire(s) du cinéma, not only in the form of his project as a whole but also more explicitly in one shot that positions two close-up photographs of his face with the sound of Paul Hindemith’s “Funeral Music” and this text: “Faire une description précise de ce qui n’a jamais eu lieu est le travail de l’historien.” Describing the rise of the film Le navire night from its disastrous death, Duras writes: “On a mis la caméra à l’envers et on a filmé ce qui entrait dedans, de la nuit, de l’air, des projecteurs, des routes, des visages aussi.” The camera turned upside-down, or in the other sense, inside-out, Duras films the entrance of the exterior, a sort of a Levinasian visage. The question no longer is one of having the right but of the duty to re-write history, as is insinuated by the reference to “The Critic as Artist” written across one of the photographs mentioned above, which is again a gesture of Godard’s positioning himself as the critic whose role Oscar Wilde defined: “The one duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”

A Reconsideration of Possessio

1956 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-247
Author(s):  
R. W. M. Dias
Keyword(s):  
Common Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Present Writer ◽  
Roman Law ◽  
Physical Control ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right ◽  
What Matters

The literature on possessio has now assumed such proportions that it will require a volume at least to do anything like justice to it. The purpose of this article is only to outline an approach to the Roman law of possessio as suggested by Kocourek's analysis of possession in the common law. The present writer believes that a substantial similarity exists between these two great systems in their approach to possession and this has not been due to any borrowing by the one from the other: a fact which, if proved, should be of no little jurisprudential interest. It is, therefore, merely as a prologue to a fuller exposition elsewhere that the following contentions are advanced as to possessio in Roman law.Kocourek, writing of the common law, maintained that “possession” as a juridical concept distinct from physical control on the one hand and the right to have physical control on the other was unnecessary. If a person actually holds a thing, he either has a right to continue holding it or he has no right; if he is not holding a thing, he either has or has not a right to hold it. In all cases what matters is the right to have physical control. As long as the term “possession” is confined to physical control, no harm is done, but what Kocourek objects to is that mysterious tertium quid, called “possession,” from which are distinguished both physical control and the right to it, the former being known variously as “de facto possession,” “custody,” “detention,” and the latter as the “right to possess.”

Occam’s Razor, Dogmatism, Skepticism, and Skeptical Dogmatism

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Walker
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
External World ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Sense View ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
Occam’S Razor ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
Occam's Razor

Underdetermination arguments for skepticism maintain that our common sense view of the external world is no better, evidentially speaking, than some skeptical competitors. An important and well-known response by dogmatists, those who believe our commonsense view is justified, appeals to abduction or inference to the best explanation. The predominant version of this strategy, going back at least to Locke, invokes Occam’s razor: dogmatists claim the common sense view is simpler than any of its skeptical alternatives and so has more to recommend it, evidentially speaking. This dispute has overshadowed another possible view: skeptical dogmatism. Skeptical dogmatists hold that we are justified in believing that the common sense view is probably false. I argue that skeptical dogmatism presents some interesting complications to the dialectic between the dogmatist and the skeptic. On the one hand, even if the dogmatist’s use of Occam’s razor is sufficient to rebut skepticism, in itself it is not sufficient to refute skeptical dogmatism. On the other hand, skeptics themselves, ironically, must, given the assumptions of the paper, appeal to something like Occam’s razor in order to avoid capitulating to skeptical dogmatism.

The Problem of the Typology of Rationality in Muslim Culture

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (6) ◽  
pp. 88-99
Author(s):  
Andrey A. Lukashev
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Theoretical Basis ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
The Other ◽  
Common Denominator ◽  
Islamic Culture ◽  
The Common ◽  
Per Se ◽  
The One ◽  
Muslim Culture

The typology of rationality is one of major issues of modern philosophy. In an attempt to provide a typology to Oriental materials, a researcher faces additional problems. The diversity of the Orient as such poses a major challenge. When we say “Oriental,” we mean several cultures for which we cannot find a common denominator. The concept of “Orient” involves Arabic, Indian, Chinese, Turkish and other cultures, and the only thing they share is that they are “non-Western.” Moreover, even if we focus just on Islamic culture and look into rationality in this context, we have to deal with a conglomerate of various trends, which does not let us define, with full confidence, a common theoretical basis and treat them as a unity. Nevertheless, we have to go on trying to find common directions in thought development, so as to draw conclusions about types of rationality possible in Islamic culture. A basis for such a typology of rationality in the context of the Islamic world was recently suggested in A.V. Smirnov’s logic of sense theory. However, actual empiric material cannot always fit theoretical models, and the cases that do not fit the common scheme are interesting per se. On the one hand, examination of such cases gives an opportunity to specify certain provisions of the theory and, on the other hand, to define the limits of its applicability.

Challenges of Media Education Standards in Georgia

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marine Vekua
Keyword(s):  
Working Conditions ◽  
Teaching Methods ◽  
International Standards ◽  
The Other ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Journalism Education ◽  
Education Standards ◽  
Modern Media ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

The main goal of this research is to determine whether the journalism education of the leading media schools inGeorgia is adequate to modern media market’s demands and challenges. The right answer to this main questionwas found after analyzing Georgian media market’s demands, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, differentaspects of journalism education in Georgia: the historical background, development trends, evaluation ofeducational programs and curricula designs, reflection of international standards in teaching methods, studyingand working conditions.

The Taubman/Golandsky Approach to the Violin

Public Voices ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Sophie Till
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Technical Approach ◽  
Piano Technique ◽  
Pedagogical Approach ◽  
New Developments ◽  
Body Of Knowledge ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Helping Others ◽  
The One ◽  
The Right

Three years ago Sophie Till started working with pianist Edna Golandsky, the leading exponent of the Taubman Piano Technique, an internationally acclaimed approach that is well known to pianists, on the one hand, for allowing pianists to attain a phenomenal level of virtuosity and on the other, for solving very serious piano-related injuries. Till, a violinist, quickly realized that here was a unique technical approach that could not only identify and itemize the minute movements that underlie a virtuoso technique but could show how these movements interact and go into music making at the highest level. Furthermore, through the work of the Golandsky Institute, she saw a pedagogical approach that had been developed to a remarkable depth and level of clarity. It was an approach that had the power to communicate in a way she had never seen before, despite her own first class violin training from the earliest age. While the geography and “look” on the violin are different from the piano, the laws governing coordinate motion specifically in playing the instrument are the same for pianists and violinists. As a result of Till’s work translating the technique for violin, a new pedagogical approach for violinists of all ages is emerging; the Taubman/Golandsky Approach to the Violin. In reflecting on these new developments, Edna Golandsky wrote, “I have been working with the Taubman Approach for more than 30 years and have worked regularly with other instrumentalists. However, Sophie Till was the first violinist who asked me to teach her with the same depth that I do with pianists. With her conceptual and intellectual agility as well as complete dedication to helping others, she has been the perfect partner to translate this body of knowledge for violinists. Through this collaboration, Sophie is helping develop a new ‘language’ for violinist that will prevent future problems, solve present ones and start beginners on the right road to becoming the best they can be. The implications of this new work for violinists are enormous.”

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