Knowing, Framing, and Enframing

2021 ◽  
pp. 182-298
Author(s):  
Stephen Mulhall
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Complex Interaction ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Ascetic Ideal ◽  
Final Essay

The first half of this chapter is an exercise in the philosophy of film, which treats Christopher Nolan’s body of cinematic work as Nietzsche treats a Wagner opera in the final essay of the Genealogy—as a key cultural site at which the complex interaction of the elements of the ascetic ideal play themselves out. The second half takes the analysis into the realms of science and philosophy: taking orientation from certain of Nietzsche’s claims about how modern philosophy adopts a scientistic stance, it weaves together these suggestions with some complex and controversial arguments advanced by the later Heidegger, to defend the idea that our contemporary age is best understood as the age of technology, and how this has informed and deformed some central cultural projects—in art, particularly the advent of modernist painting and its continuation in contemporary photographic practices; and in philosophy, in its treatment of secondary qualities, and more generally in its willingness to regard physics as metaphysics.

scholarly journals Why Hume Cannot Be A Realist

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 143-161
Author(s):  
Jani Hakkarainen
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Metaphysical Realism ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Treatise Of Human Nature ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
Realist Interpretation ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Decisive Objection ◽  
Sceptical Argument

In this paper, I argue that there is a sceptical argument against the senses advanced by Hume that forms a decisive objection to the Metaphysically Realist interpretations of his philosophy – such as the different naturalist and New Humean readings. Hume presents this argument, apparently starting with the primary/secondary qualities distinction, both in A Treatise of Human Nature, Book 1, Part 4, Section 4 (Of the modern philosophy) (1739) and An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, Section 12 (Of the Academical or Sceptical Philosophy), paragraphs 15 to 16 (1748). The argument concludes with the contradiction between consistent reasoning (causal, in particular) and believing in the existence of Real (distinct and continued) entities. The problem with the Realist readings of Hume is that they attribute both to Hume. So their Hume is a self-reflectively inconsistent philosopher. I show that the various ways to avoid this problem do not work. Accordingly, this paper suggests a non-Realist interpretation of Hume's philosophy: Hume the philosopher suspends his judgment on Metaphysical Realism. As such, his philosophical attitude is neutral on the divide between materialism and idealism.

Are We Mad? Intensity and the Problems of Modern Philosophy

2017 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-215
Author(s):  
Jeffrey A. Bell
Keyword(s):  
Modern Philosophy ◽  
Sense Perception ◽  
The Relationship

In this essay Deleuze's concept of intensity is placed into the context of the problem of accounting for the relationship between sense perception and our conceptual categories. By developing the manner in which Kant responds to Hume's critique of metaphysics, this essay shows how Deleuze develops a Humean line of thought whereby the heterogeneous as heterogeneous is embraced rather than, as is done in Kant, being largely held in relationship to an already prior unity.

Reid's Primary/Secondary Quality Distinction in a Broad Context

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-62
Author(s):  
Adam Weiler Gur Arye
Keyword(s):  
Broad Context ◽  
Secondary Qualities ◽  
Secondary Quality ◽  
Quality Distinction

The paper focuses on Reid's unique epistemological distinction between the primary and the secondary qualities and examines it in relation to other facets of his philosophy: his stance vis-à-vis the scientific inquiries of secondary qualities; his aesthetics; his analysis of the perception of the primary quality of hardness; his theory of learning. An inquiry into the primary/secondary distinction which takes into account such a broad context will reveal it to be far more sophisticated, dynamic and flexible than an analysis of the distinction which solely takes into consideration the passages in which the Scottish philosopher directly and straightforwardly introduces it.

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