Internalism, externalism, and transcendental idealism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Zahavi
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Final Part ◽  
The Mind

Whereas a certain popular (Fregean) interpretation of Husserl’s theory of intentionality makes Husserl into an internalist and methodological solipsist, the aim of Chapter 4 is to show that Husserl’s commitment to transcendental idealism prevents his theory from being either. I first discuss competing interpretations of Husserl’s concept of the noema, and argue that the Fregean interpretation misreads the transcendental character of Husserl’s phenomenology. I next present an interpretation of Husserl’s transcendental idealism that highlights its difference from metaphysical idealism and shows why Husserl’s conception of the mind–world relationship cannot be adequately captured within the internalism–externalism framework. In the final part of the chapter, I discuss how the claim that Husserl is a methodological solipsist fails to engage properly with his account of transcendental intersubjectivity, and how that latter account eventually transforms the very character of the transcendental project.

Uncentred Minds

2020 ◽  
pp. 107-117
Author(s):  
Jonardon Ganeri
Keyword(s):  
Fernando Pessoa ◽  
The World ◽  
Simone Weil ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship

In this chapter I explore the relationship between Fernando Pessoa and Buddhism. I first introduce the brilliant French philosopher Simone Weil (1909–43), a contemporary of Pessoa but someone of whom he certainly had never heard. One way to read her remarks is as directed against the positional use of ‘I’, against the deployment in thought and speech of a positional conception of self. One should abandon forms of self-consciousness that are grounded in one’s thinking of oneself as the one at the centre of a landscape of sensation. For Weil, it is precisely such contact with reality as attention makes possible which holds the uncentred mind together, preventing its content being ‘a phantasmagoric fluttering with no centre or sense’. The uncentred mind would thus be a sort of conformal and aperspectival map of reality, standing in correspondence with the world without any privileged perspectival point. With these distinctions in mind, we say more of the mind of Alberto Caeiro, and address the question whether he is a Buddhist heteronym.

Chapter I

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Henry Fielding
Keyword(s):  
The Mind

It is a trite but true Observation, that Examples work more forcibly on the Mind than Precepts: And if this be just in what is odious and blameable, it is more strongly so in what is amiable and praiseworthy. Here Emulation most effectually operates...

Some Considerations against the Way of Ideas

2019 ◽  
pp. 76-104
Author(s):  
Kenneth A. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
The Way

In this chapter, I offer some considerations against the way of ideas. I do not claim that these considerations are ultimately decisive against all version of the way of ideas. Three different version of the way of ideas in metaphysics are presented and assessed, including Kant’s transcendental idealism, Frege’s aspirational Platonism, and Strawson descriptive metaphysics. Though none of the three is decisively refuted, some shortcomings of each are demonstrated. These shortcomings motivate a turn away from the way of ideas in metaphysics and toward the way of reference in metaphysics.

scholarly journals The Contribution of the Greek Patristic Idea to the Teaching of “Lumen Gentium” on the Nature of the Church

2020 ◽  
pp. 583-599
Author(s):  
Przemysław Jeliński
Keyword(s):  
Final Part ◽  
People Of God ◽  
Lumen Gentium ◽  
John Chrysostom ◽  
The Church

e nature of the Church was expressed in Dogmatic Constitution on the Church“Lumen gentium” by numerous pictures and new expressions. ey refer to theBible and patristics. It is necessary to place special attention on two expressions.ese are: the mystery of the Church and the new people of God. e SecondVatican Council used these expressions to name two of titles of chapters of Lumengentium.In this article, the speeches of the Greek Fathers of the Church are detailedanalysed. e Council document refers to them in glosses only. ` numbers –4 in each chapter – contain references to Greek patristics. Totally, in +7 glossesto chapter I and II the Constitution refers to +5 Greek Fathers of the Church andto the anonymous patristic text of Didache. In the final part of this work thedevelopment of the patristic period was summarized in a chronological aspect.It began with Didache, then Irenaeus and John Chrysostom, and finally Johnof Damascus. In comparison to the whole Constitution with reference to thenature of the Church (as the mystery and new people of God) there is very littlepatristic inspiration.In this article, speeches of the Fathers of the Church were not only analysed,but also compared to council texts. anks to this, we see it as a shortanthology of patristic ideas.

For Mortal Souls: Philosophy and Therapeia in Nietzsche's Dawn

2010 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 137-163
Author(s):  
Keith Ansell Pearson
Keyword(s):  
Main Part ◽  
General Point ◽  
Human Relations ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Modern Age ◽  
Romantic Music ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Insight Into

This chapter seeks to make a contribution to the growing interest in Nietzsche's relation to traditions of therapy in philosophy that has emerged in recent years. It is in the texts of his middle period (1878–82) that Nietzsche's writing comes closest to being an exercise in philosophical therapeutics, and in this chapter I focus on Dawn from 1881 as a way of exploring this. Dawn is a text that has been admired in recent years for its ethical naturalism and for its anticipation of phenomenology. My interest in the text in this chapter is in the way it revitalises for a modern age ancient philosophical concerns, notably a teaching for mortal souls who wish to be liberated from the fear and anguish of existence, as well as from God, the ‘metaphysical need’, and romantic music, and are able to affirm their mortal conditions of existence. As a general point of inspiration I have adopted Pierre Hadot's insight into the therapeutic ambitions of ancient philosophy which was, he claims, ‘intended to cure mankind's anguish’ (for example, anguish over our mortality). This is evident in the teaching of Epicurus which sought to demonstrate the mortality of the soul and whose aim was, ‘to free humans from “the fears of the mind”.’ Similarly, Nietzsche's teaching in Dawn is for mortal souls. In the face of the loss of the dream of the soul's immortality, philosophy for Nietzsche, I shall show, has new consolations to offer in the form of new sublimities. Indeed, for Nietzsche it is by reflecting, with the aid of psychological observation, on what is ‘human, all too human’, that ‘we can lighten the burden of life’ (HH 35). Nietzsche's thinking in Dawn contains a number of proposals and recommendations of tremendous value to philosophical therapeia, including (a) a call for a new honesty about the human ego and human relations, including relations of self and other and love, so as to free us from certain delusions; (b) the search for an authentic mode of existence which appreciates the value of solitude and independence; (c) the importance of having a rich and mature taste in order to eschew the fanatical. After an introduction to Nietzsche's text the chapter is divided into two main parts. In the first main part I explore various aspects of his conception of philosophical therapy, including purification of the higher feelings and liberation from the destructive effects of ‘morality’ and Christianity. In the second main part I explore his conception of ‘the passion of knowledge’, which is the passion that guides modern free spirits as they seek to overcome the need of religion and constraints of ‘morality’, and to access the new sublimities of philosophy.

On the History of Universal Grammar

2016 ◽  
pp. 76-94
Author(s):  
James McGilvray
Keyword(s):  
Natural Science ◽  
Universal Grammar ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Scientific Study ◽  
Science Method ◽  
Technical Term ◽  
History Of ◽  
Ordinary Usage ◽  
The Mind

As with other technical natural science terms, ‘Universal Grammar’ or ‘UG’ is defined not by ordinary usage, but within a science. While the methodological foundations (where to look, and how) of the natural science of language were laid in the 17th century, it is only with the advent of formal tools due to Church, Turing, and others in the 1930s and the efforts of Chomsky from the 1950s on that that science came to fruition. In this chapter, I outline the brief history of the technical term UG and assess the progress of the natural science of language. And as Chomsky does in his ‘Cartesian Linguistics,’ while acknowledging Descartes’s many errors, I sketch his lasting contributions to natural science method and to the nativist and internalist scientific study of the mind.

Freedom in Kant’s Revolution

2021 ◽  
pp. 66-149
Author(s):  
John Skorupski
Keyword(s):  
Practical Reason ◽  
Moral Theory ◽  
Categorical Imperative ◽  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Full Account ◽  
Copernican Revolution ◽  
Political Views

This chapter turns to the philosophical revolution of Kant. Starting from what he described as his ‘Copernican’ revolution in epistemology, it examines what he took to be its implications, negative and positive, for metaphysics, ethics, and religion. It examines Kant’s account of freedom as autonomy; his moral theory and its basis in the categorical imperative; his conception of the relation between morality and practical reason; and his ethical views and ideals. His political views are examined in relation to the ideas identified in Chapter I, particularly those of the revolutionary thinker Sieyès. In the concluding section Kant’s critical and hermeneutic stance in metaphysics and ethics is defended. It is argued, however, that while transcendental idealism is a powerful response to the problem of knowledge, it is not required for a full account of freedom, will, and reason.

II. Models of the Self

1995 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 5-19
Keyword(s):  
Social Relationships ◽  
Related Question ◽  
The Self ◽  
Greek Culture ◽  
Recent Debate ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Clear Line

The notion of the ‘self, together with related ideas such as ‘personality’, ‘character’, can be used primarily in connection with human psychology, or ethical and social relationships, or a combination of these. In this chapter, I focus on the self as a psychological notion, taking up in Chapters III and IV related questions about ethical character and about the individual and society. On this topic, as on ethics and values, much recent debate has centred on the question whether we can trace a clear line of development within Greek culture, and on the related question of the relationship between Greek and modern conceptions of the self and the mind.

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