Hobbes against Descartes

2021 ◽  
pp. 9-22
Author(s):  
Stewart Duncan
Keyword(s):  
Existence Of God ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Idea Of God

This chapter looks at Hobbes’s objections to Descartes’s Meditations, focusing on issues connected to materialism. It considers Hobbes’s argument that we have no idea of God, and his associated view that ideas are images which represent by resembling. In the Third Objections, Hobbes does not deny the existence of God, but he does deny that we have an idea of God, and thus undercuts Descartes’s arguments for God’s existence. He thinks we cannot prove the immateriality of the mind, and even suggests that the mind is purely material. The chapter also considers Hobbes’s claim that we have no idea of substance, asking where exactly Hobbes differs from Descartes on this issue.

Al-Rasm al-ʿUthmānī: Towards Correct Pronunciation and the Preclusion of Ambiguity

2011 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-171
Author(s):  
Nāṣir Al-Dīn Abū Khaḍīr
Keyword(s):  
Specific Pattern ◽  
Writing Style ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Different Ages ◽  
Correct Pronunciation ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

The ʿUthmānic way of writing (al-rasm al-ʿUthmānī) is a science that specialises in the writing of Qur'anic words in accordance with a specific ‘pattern’. It follows the writing style of the Companions at the time of the third caliph, ʿUthmān b. ʿAffān, and was attributed to ʿUthmān on the basis that he was the one who ordered the collection and copying of the Qur'an into the actual muṣḥaf. This article aims to expound on the two fundamental functions of al-rasm al-ʿUthmānī: that of paying regard to the ‘correct’ pronunciation of the words in the muṣḥaf, and the pursuit of the preclusion of ambiguity which may arise in the mind of the reader and his auditor. There is a further practical aim for this study: to show the connection between modern orthography and the ʿUthmānic rasm in order that we, nowadays, are thereby able to overcome the problems faced by calligraphers and writers of the past in their different ages and cultures.

Do conhecimento objetivo ao problema corpo - mente

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-113
Author(s):  
Nathalia Gleyce dos Santos Salazar
Keyword(s):  
Third World ◽  
Sao Paulo ◽  
Karl Popper ◽  
São Paulo ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The Third ◽  
Belo Horizonte ◽  
The Third World ◽  
The Mind

Resumo:  Apresenta-se uma discussão sobre o conhecimento e a tese dos três mundos no qual a interação entre estes nos aproxima da verdade do problema corpo-mente, tendo em vista, uma nova proposta de solução. O terceiro mundo é uma peça importante neste trabalho; sendo assim, analisaremos o que Popper designa como Mundo 3, em que ele consiste e o papel da linguagem como diferencial do ser humano. Apresentamos as críticas popperianas às correntes monistas e dualistas, ousando fazer uma crítica a Teoria do Conhecimento tradicional. Desta forma, a proposta apresentada por este filósofo da ciência diferencia-se de tudo que estava sendo feito até então, por isso, o interesse de apresentar essa abordagem pouco trabalhada de Popper. Palavras-chave: Conhecimento. Corpo-Mente. Mundo 3.Abstract: In this work, we present a discussion about knowledge and the theory of the three worlds in which the interaction between them approaches to the truth of the mind-body problem, in view of a proposed solution. The third world is an important piece in this work. Therefore, we will analyze what Popper describes as World 3, what it is and the role of language as a differential of human beings. We present Popper’s criticisms to the monistic and dualistic currents, daring to criticize the theory of traditional knowledge. Thus, the proposal of science presented by this philosopher differs from everything that was being done until then. This explains the interest in presenting this unusual approach to Popper.Keywords: Knowledge. Body-Mind.  World 3. REFERÊNCIASLEAL-TOLEDO, Gustavo . Popper e seu Cérebro. Revista da Faculdade de Letras. Série Filosofia, v. XXIII, p. 59-68, 2007.POPPER, Karl Raimund. A Lógica da Pesquisa Científica. Tradução de Leonidas Hegenberg e Octanny Silveira de Mota.  São Paulo: editora Cultrix. 2007.POPPER, Karl Raimund. Conhecimento Objetivo: uma abordagem evolucionária. Tradução de Milton Amado.  Belo Horizonte, Ed. Itatiaia Ilimitada. São Paulo, Ed. Da Universidade São Paulo, 1975._______.  O Conhecimento e o Problema Corpo –Mente. Tradução Joaquim Alberto Ferreira Gomes. Lisboa, Ed. 70. 1996.   _______. Conjecturas e Refutações: o desenvolvimento do conhecimento científico. Trad. Benedita Bettencourt. Ed. Livraria Almedina, 2006._______.  O Eu e Seu Cérebro. Karl Popper, Jonh C. Eccles;Tradução Silvio Meneses Garcia, Helena Cristina F. Arantes e Aurélio Osmar C. de Oliveira. – Campinas, SP: Papirus; Brasília, DF: Editora Universidade de Brasília. 1991.   _______. O Racionalismo Crítico na Política. Tradução de Maria da Conceição Côrte – Real. Brasília, Editora Universidade de Brasília, 2ª edição, 1994, 74p.SEARLE, John R. La construcción de la realidad social. Trad. Antoni Domènech. Barcelona: Paidós Ibérico, 1995.  

The Philosophy of a Christian Virtuoso ii

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victor Nuovo
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Physical Nature ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
The Mind

Although Locke’s Essay is primarily a discourse in logic, he says enough about the physical nature of things to construct a theory of the nature of things. As a virtuoso, physics replaces metaphysics in his philosophical system. His ontology, however, includes not only bodies, but God and finite spirits, and its major achievement is to prove the existence of God and demonstrate his immateriality. Perhaps encouraged by reading Cudworth, Locke was confident that our faculty of reason is sufficient to refute materialism and atheism. As to the nature of bodies, Locke finds empirical evidence that solidity or impenetrability is their most evident quality. The idea of superaddition is central to Locke’s speculative or divine physics. But although such insights may elevate the mind to God, Locke’s physics is theoretically sterile, although it may have beneficial practical uses.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nora Goldschmidt ◽  
Barbara Graziosi
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
The Body ◽  
Specific Site ◽  
Entire Volume ◽  
The Third ◽  
Religious Significance ◽  
Classical Poetry ◽  
Life Of The Mind ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Made In

The Introduction sheds light on the reception of classical poetry by focusing on the materiality of the poets’ bodies and their tombs. It outlines four sets of issues, or commonplaces, that govern the organization of the entire volume. The first concerns the opposition between literature and material culture, the life of the mind vs the apprehensions of the body—which fails to acknowledge that poetry emerges from and is attended to by the mortal body. The second concerns the religious significance of the tomb and its location in a mythical landscape which is shaped, in part, by poetry. The third investigates the literary graveyard as a place where poets’ bodies and poetic corpora are collected. Finally, the alleged ‘tomb of Virgil’ provides a specific site where the major claims made in this volume can be most easily be tested.

Leibniz, Spinoza and the Anti-Cartesian Reaction

2018 ◽  
pp. 13-39
Author(s):  
Alex Tissandier
Keyword(s):  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Main Text ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Way

This chapter looks in detail at the three main engagements with Leibniz in the main text of Deleuze’s Expressionism in Philosophy: Spinoza. The first concerns the role of real definitions and proofs of possibility in arguments for the existence of God. The second concerns the theory of adequation in a logic of ideas. The third concerns mechanism, force and essence in a theory of bodies. The chapter argues that these engagements all share the same form. First, Deleuze locates a similarity between Leibniz and Spinoza in their criticism of a particular Cartesian doctrine. Second, he grounds this criticism in a shared concern for the lack of a sufficient reason operating in Descartes’s philosophy. Third, he nominates expression as the concept best suited to address this lack and fulfil the requirements of sufficient reason. Finally, he shows that the way expression functions in Spinoza’s philosophy is each time superior to Leibniz’s own use of the concept. Despite the priority given to Spinoza in this text, it nevertheless contains our first introduction to various key Leibnizian concepts which will become increasingly important in Deleuze’s later philosophy.

God

2019 ◽  
pp. 53-73
Author(s):  
Martin Lin
Keyword(s):  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Sufficient Reason ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
The Third ◽  
Principle Of Sufficient Reason ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Way

This chapter offers reconstructions of Spinoza’s four arguments for the existence of God. Among the lessons learned from these reconstructions is that, although Spinoza’s first argument is often described as ontological, it relies on many substantive premises that go beyond the definition of God and it is not vulnerable to standard objections to ontological arguments. Additionally, the second argument introduces Spinoza’s Principle of Sufficient Reason, and seeing how Spinoza applies it to the existence of God sheds light on how he understands both the PSR and causation and explanation more generally. The chapter concludes by arguing that the third and fourth arguments pave the way for Spinoza’s claim that, besides God, no substance can be or be conceived and consideration of them shows why Spinoza’s argument for monism does not beg the question against the orthodox Cartesian.

Materialism in the philosophy of mind

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Howard Robinson
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Main Difficulty ◽  
Ordinary Sense ◽  
Causal Dependence ◽  
Physical Relation ◽  
The Third ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Mind

Materialism – which, for almost all purposes, is the same as physicalism – is the theory that everything that exists is material. Natural science shows that most things are intelligible in material terms, but mind presents problems in at least two ways. The first is consciousness, as found in the ‘raw feel’ of subjective experience. The second is the intentionality of thought, which is the property of being about something beyond itself; ‘aboutness’ seems not to be a physical relation in the ordinary sense. There have been three ways of approaching these problems. The hardest is eliminativism, according to which there are no ‘raw feels’, no intentionality and, in general, no mental states: the mind and all its furniture are part of an outdated science that we now see to be false. Next is reductionism, which seeks to give an account of our experience and of intentionality in terms which are acceptable to a physical science: this means, in practice, analysing the mind in terms of its role in producing behaviour. Finally, the materialist may accept the reality and irreducibility of mind, but claim that it depends on matter in such an intimate way – more intimate than mere causal dependence – that materialism is not threatened by the irreducibility of mind. The first two approaches can be called ‘hard materialism’, the third ‘soft materialism’. The problem for eliminativism is that we find it difficult to credit that any belief that we think and feel is a theoretical speculation. Reductionism’s main difficulty is that there seems to be more to consciousness than its contribution to behaviour: a robotic machine could behave as we do without thinking or feeling. The soft materialist has to explain supervenience in a way that makes the mind not epiphenomenal without falling into the problems of interactionism.

Nihilism, metaphysical

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Geraldine Coggins
Keyword(s):  
Ontological Argument ◽  
Analytic Philosophy ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
The Third ◽  
Concrete Objects

Metaphysical nihilism is an answer to the question ‘could there have been nothing?’ In recent analytic philosophy this tends to be interpreted as ‘could there have been no concrete objects?’ There are three ways of answering this question. The first is metaphysical nihilism, which answers in the affirmative: ‘there could have been nothing’. The second and third answers give negative replies. The second answer is based on the ontological argument for the existence of God. This argument leads us to claim that there is a necessarily existing object. If there is one object which must exist, then there could not have been nothing, there had to be this one object. The third answer also claims that there could not have been nothing but does not rely on the existence of a necessary object. This view is that whilst there had to be something, there is no one particular object which had to exist.

'n Identifikasie en analise van enkele grondvoorwaardes in die Godsidee van Jürgen Moltmann

1998 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
J.v.D. Joubert
Keyword(s):  
Church Members ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Idea Of God

In recent years the controversy on the existence of God has made many theologians and church members restless. Old familiar ideas have been shattered, and many people are confused when they are confronted by such slogans as "God is dead" and "God cannot die". These quarrels have caused new theological tendencies that point towards a new doctrine on God. The purpose of this article is a reconnoitre and adjudication of some primary conditions, "unit-ideas", which determine Moltmann's idea of God.

Topic neutrality and the parity thesis: a surrejoinder to Williams

2001 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-101
Author(s):  
J. P. MORELAND
Keyword(s):  
Body Problem ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Empirical Approach ◽  
Conceptual Approach ◽  
Important Paper ◽  
The Third ◽  
Parity Thesis ◽  
Set Up ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

In an important paper, Clifford Williams advanced a Lockean-style argument to justify the parity thesis, viz., that there is no intellectual advantage to Christian physicalism or Christian dualism. In an article in Religious Studies I offered a critique of Williams's parity thesis and he has published a rejoinder to me in the same journal centring on my rejection of topic neutrality as an appropriate way to set up the mind–body debate. In this surrejoinder to Williams, I present his three main arguments and respond to each: (1) The dualist rejection of topic neutrality is flawed because it expresses a conceptual approach to the mind–body problem instead of the preferable empirical approach. The latter favours physicalism and, in any case, clearly supports topic neutrality. (2) If the dualist rejects the first argument, then a second parity thesis can be advanced in which an essentialist view of soul and the brain are presented in which each is essentially a thinking and feeling entity. Thus, an essentialist parity thesis is preserved. (3) If the dualist rejects the second argument, a new topic neutrality emerges in the dialectic, so topic neutrality is unavoidable. Against the first argument, I claim that Williams makes two central confusions that undermine his case and that he fails to show how the mind–body debate can be settled empirically. Against the second argument, I claim that it leaves Williams vulnerable to a topic-neutral approach to God and it merely proffers a verbal shift with a new dualism between normal and ‘special’ matter. Against the third argument, I point out that it misrepresents the dualist viewpoint and leads to two counterintuitive features that follow from topic neutrality.

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