The Sense of the Past: Essays in the History of Philosophy. By Bernard Williams, edited by Myles Burnyeat

Obwohl jede menschliche Handlung mit einem gewissen Grad an Improvisation erfolgt, gibt es kulturelle Praktiken, bei denen Improvisation eine überwiegende Rolle spielt. Um das Risiko zu vermeiden, einen zu breiten Begriff von Improvisation zu übernehmen, konzentriere ich mich im vorliegenden Beitrag auf den Jazz. Meine zentrale Frage lautet, wie Improvisation verstanden werden muss. Mein Vorgehen ist folgendes: Ich beginne mit einem Vergleich von Improvisation und Komposition, damit die Spezifizität der Improvisation erklärt werden kann. Danach wende ich mich dem Thema der Originalität als Merkmal der Improvisation zu. Zum Schluss führe ich den Begriff affordance ein, um die kollektive und zirkuläre Logik eines Solos zu analysieren. Paradigmatisch wird der Jazzmusiker mit dem Engel der Geschichte verglichen, der nur auf das Vergangene blickt, während er der Zukunft den Rücken zugekehrt hat, und lediglich ihr zugetrieben wird. Weder kann der Improvisierende das Material der Vergangenheit vernachlässigen noch seine genuine Tätigkeit, das Improvisieren in der Gegenwart und für die Zukunft, aufgeben: Er visiert die Zukunft trotz ihrer Unvorhersehbarkeit über die Vermittlung der Vergangenheit an.<br><br>While improvised behavior is so much a part of human existence as to be one of its fundamental realities, in order to avoid the risk of defining the act of improvising too broadly, my focus here will be upon one of the activities most explicitly centered around improvisation – that is, upon jazz. My contribution, as Wittgenstein would say, has a »grammatical« design to it: it proposes to clarify the significance of the term »improvisation.« The task of clarifying the cases in which one may legitimately speak of improvisation consists first of all in reflecting upon the conditions that make the practice possible. This does not consist of calling forth mysterious, esoteric processes that take place in the unconscious, or in the minds of musicians, but rather in paying attention to the criteria that are satisfied when one ascribes to an act the concept of improvisation. In the second part of my contribution, I reflect upon the logic that governs the construction of an improvised performance. As I argue, in playing upon that which has already emerged in the music, in discovering the future as they go on (as a consequence of what they do), jazz players call to mind the angel in the famous painting by Klee that Walter Benjamin analyzed in his Theses on the History of Philosophy: while pulled towards the future, its eyes are turned back towards the past.

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Bernard Williams on the History of Ethical Views and Practices

Philosophy ◽

10.1017/s0031819110000069 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 85 (2) ◽

pp. 225-243

Author(s):

Tim Heysse

Keyword(s):

Bernard Williams ◽

Way Of Life ◽

The Past ◽

Look Back ◽

History Of ◽

David Wiggins

How should we look back on the history and the origins of our ethical outlook and our way of life? We know that in the past, strange and appalling ethical views and practices have enjoyed widespread and sincere support. Yet we do not regard our contemporary outlook – to the extent that we do, at the present, have a common outlook – as one option among many. However bemused we may feel in ethical matters, at least on some issues we claim to have reasons that are good (enough). If we do not object to the use of the predicate ‘true’ in ethics, we may say that we are confronted with the (ethical) truth of an outlook. Or, to echo a provocative expression of David Wiggins, we claim that ‘there is nothing else to think’.

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WHY STUDYING THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY MATTERS

Think ◽

10.1017/s1477175621000294 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (60) ◽

pp. 5-20

Author(s):

Anna Marmodoro

Keyword(s):

Ancient Philosophy ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

Special Focus ◽

The Past ◽

History Of ◽

The One

The debate over whether and how philosophers of today may usefully engage with philosophers of the past is nearly as old as the history of philosophy itself. Does the study of the history of philosophy train or corrupt the budding philosopher's mind? Why study the history of philosophy? And, how to study the history of philosophy? I discuss some mainstream approaches to the study of the history of philosophy (with special focus on ancient philosophy), before explicating the one I adopt and commend.

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Free Will

Philosophy ◽

10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0047 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Kevin Timpe

Keyword(s):

Moral Responsibility ◽

Free Will ◽

Philosophy Of Religion ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

The Past ◽

Wide Range ◽

History Of

Free will is a perennial issue in philosophy, both in terms of the history of philosophy and in contemporary discussions. Aspects of free will relate to a wide range of philosophical issues, but especially to metaphysics and ethics. For roughly the past three decades, the literatures on free will and moral responsibility have overlapped to such a degree that it is impossible to separate them. This entry focuses on contemporary discussions about the nature and existence of free will, as well as its relationship to work in the sciences and philosophy of religion.

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The Oxford Handbook of Hegel

10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199355228.001.0001 ◽

2017 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Keyword(s):

Political Philosophy ◽

German Idealism ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

Phenomenology Of Spirit ◽

Science Of Logic ◽

The Past ◽

Philosophical Movement ◽

History Of ◽

The Many ◽

Systematic Importance

The Oxford Handbook of Hegel is a comprehensive guide to the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel, the last major thinker in the philosophical movement known as German Idealism. Beginning with chapters on his first published writings, the authors draw out Hegel’s debts to his predecessors and highlight the themes and arguments that have proven the most influential over the past two centuries. There are six chapters each on the Phenomenology of Spirit and The Science of Logic, and in-depth analyses of the Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences. Five chapters cover Hegel’s philosophy of law, action, and the ethical and political philosophy presented in his Philosophy of Right. Several chapters cover the many recently edited lecture series from the 1820s, bringing new clarity to Hegel’s conception of aesthetics, the philosophy of religion, and the history of philosophy. The concluding part focuses on Hegel’s legacy, from his role in the formation of Marx’s philosophy to his importance for contemporary liberal political philosophy. The Handbook includes many essays from younger scholars who have brought new perspectives and rigor to the study of Hegel’s thought. The essays are marked by close engagement with Hegel’s difficult texts and by a concern with highlighting the ongoing systematic importance of Hegel’s philosophy.

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The Animal Face of Early Modern England

Theory Culture & Society ◽

10.1177/0263276413496122 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 30 (7-8) ◽

pp. 177-198 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Erica Fudge

Keyword(s):

Early Modern ◽

17Th Century ◽

Early Modern England ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

Historical Reconstruction ◽

The Past ◽

History Of ◽

Human Animal ◽

Ways Of Thinking ◽

Archival Study

This article is both a work of historical reconstruction and a theoretical intervention. It looks at some influential contemporary accounts of human-animal relations and outlines a body of ideas from the 17th century that challenges what is presented as representative of the past in posthumanist thinking. Indeed, this article argues that this alternative past is much more in keeping with the shifts that posthumanist ideas mark in their departure from humanism. Taking a journey through ways of thinking that will, perhaps, be unfamiliar, the revised vision of human-animal relations outlined here emerges not from a history of philosophy but from an archival study of people’s relationships with and understandings of their livestock in early modern England. At stake are conceptions of who we are and who we might have been, and the relation between those two, and the livestock on 17th-century smallholdings are our guides.

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The Natural History of Philosophy in Canada

Dialogue ◽

10.1017/s0012217300042864 ◽

1986 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

pp. 53-66

Author(s):

Thomas Mathien

Keyword(s):

Natural History ◽

Biological Species ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

The Past ◽

Evolutionary Study ◽

Major Study ◽

History Of ◽

The Subject ◽

The One ◽

Intellectual Discipline

Some writers about the history of philosophy in Canada have wondered why it should be studied. That is a worthy question, but it is not the one I want to discuss here. I am going to assume there are good reasons for doing so because I want to consider some general features of the subject of such studies and to determine what has to be done to establish certain descriptive claims about it. I will also point out some concerns I have about the proper explanation of certain interesting features of Canadian philosophic activity, and I will present a brief evaluation of one major study. I will do this with the aid of a contention that the study of the history of an intellectual discipline is a little like an evolutionary study of a biological species, but I will close by pointing out one reason for doing history which goes beyond description, and even explanation, of the past.

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Philosophy of Religion M.M.Bogolyubov

Ukrainian Religious Studies ◽

10.32420/2006.42.1819 ◽

2006 ◽

pp. 38-42

Author(s):

Georgii D. Pankov

Keyword(s):

Philosophy Of Religion ◽

Religious Studies ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

Creative Work ◽

Important Place ◽

Philosophical Thought ◽

The Past ◽

History Of ◽

Philosophical Understanding

An important place in the creative work of thinkers of the Orthodox tradition in the broad occupied the philosophical understanding of religion. However, the national religious and philosophical heritage of Orthodoxy of the past is mainly studied in the history of philosophy, but not in religious studies. Therefore, according to the author, for modern academic religious studies one of the urgent tasks is to study the philosophy of religion in its theological paradigm, which is expressed in its various confessional variants. While there are still no fundamental works in this field, but to create them it is necessary to take into account the experience of theological-philosophical thought and to critically revise it

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Geschichtsphilosophie und Philosophiegeschichte

Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie ◽

10.1515/dzph-2018-0002 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 66 (1) ◽

pp. 2-24

Author(s):

Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann

Keyword(s):

Philosophy Of History ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

The Past ◽

Systematic Philosophy ◽

The Future ◽

History Of

Abstract The essay – an elaborated version of my academic farewell speech [Abschiedsvorlesung] – discusses three theses: 1. Histories and history as well as history of philosophy and philosophy of history can only be staged as narratives. “True” stories enact the past and deliver schemes for anticipating the future; insofar history and future constitute the semantics of the present. 2. “Systematic” philosophy analyses the temporal narratives which store the historical experiences and eliminates their temporality in a process of transforming narratives into arguments. The most important step in this transformation consists in isolating the key notions of the narratives and in arranging these key notions in a “timeless” systematic order. 3. History of philosophy and philosophy of history restage, however, the temporal narrative, which systematic philosophy wants to eliminate from philosophy. This operation produces an unsolvable paradox where the claim of timeless truth and that of unescapable temporality are both valid. It throws up questions such as: how can it be possible for philosophical truths to lose their credit? Do timeless truths exist, and if so what do they mean? Do these paradoxes lead to schadenfreude on the part of the historian of philosophy, who knew it all along, or should one see these unsolvable complexities as a chance to enjoy the richness of possibilities which history unfolds? The essay chooses the second alternative.

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Extended Knowledge and Confucian Tradition

10.1093/oso/9780198769811.003.0011 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Eric L. Hutton

Keyword(s):

Lessons Learned ◽

History Of Philosophy ◽

Current Work ◽

Confucian Tradition ◽

Contemporary Philosophy ◽

Western Tradition ◽

The Past ◽

History Of

Although studies in the history of philosophy look backward to the past, developments in contemporary philosophy can often contribute to such studies by teaching us how to analyze particular issues more carefully, and sometimes the lessons learned from reconsidering past thinkers in such a light can in turn contribute to current work in philosophy by highlighting problems or approaches that might otherwise go unnoticed. This phenomenon is not limited to the Western tradition alone: scholars of Asian thought may benefit from the conceptual tools offered by contemporary Western philosophers, and contemporary Western philosophers may find value in insights from the Asian tradition. This chapter hopes to provide support for this last claim by means of a concrete example involving contemporary theories of extended knowledge and an ancient Chinese Confucian thinker, Xunzi.

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