Imaginative universals and human cognition in The New Science of Giambattista Vico

2015 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 185-206 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariagrazia Granatella
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Giambattista Vico ◽  
New Science ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Rational Thought ◽  
And Control

Universals have occupied a central role in philosophy ever since the Socratic quest for definitions. The need to find concepts both universal and shareable is rooted in the Western philosophical tradition, in order to capture and control the disorder that besets human life. In other words, Universals occur as part of a rational attitude by which to substantiate knowledge and its evaluation. My aim in this paper is to confront Vico’s discovery of imaginative universals with the classical paradigm of rational thought that, formed by abstraction from empirical experience, reduces the knowledge to a rigorous process of inference. Against this barbarism of reflection, what Vico does in his works is to chart out possible new ways in which science can innovate itself.

‘A passion can only be overcome by a stronger passion’: Philosophical Anthropology before and after Ernst Cassirer

2005 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 557-575 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOHN MICHAEL KROIS
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
The Body ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Cultural Activity ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ernst Cassirer ◽  
Physical Study ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Before And After

‘Philosophical anthropology’ was initiated in the late 1920s as an alternative to abstract philosophical definitions of human nature (‘animal rationale’) and to the exclusively empirical, physical study of anthropology. Philosophical anthropology focused upon what it meant to be a human being. Its founders concentrated upon the situated existence of human beings and their ability to think beyond and to deny even what was actually vitally important to them. For Cassirer, these efforts remained too abstract because they failed to take the breadth of human cultural activity into account. The decisive feature of human life is neither reason nor language. These are derivative from symbolism, not the other way around. Human beings are best described as ‘animal symbolicum’. The error of earlier anthropological conceptions was not that they venerated reason, but that they ignored the body and so separated reason from emotion. The concept of symbolism, as Cassirer conceived it, overcame this dualism. His philosophical anthropology has been vindicated today in many areas of empirical research, but replacing the concept of ‘reason’ with that of ‘symbolism’ was no minor revision to the Western philosophical tradition, and the amplification and application of this new outlook has barely begun.

scholarly journals Covid-19, Philosophy and the Leap Towards the Posthuman

Phronimon ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Malesela John Lamola
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Philosophical Anthropology ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Western Philosophy ◽  
Technological Transformation ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Critical Understanding ◽  
Human Ontology

A discursive canon around transhumanism and posthumanism as beliefs in the efficacy and necessity of technology as the beneficial transformer of human life “for the better” is well-established in the Western philosophical tradition. However, none of the theorists and protagonists of this technological reconfiguration of humanity could ever have predicted that what they envisaged would be propelled into manifestation with as dramatic and phenomenal momentum such as has been ushered in by the mainly technology-driven interventions introduced in various measures globally to curb the SARS-CoV2 virus. The effect of these responses to the pandemic, it is here demonstrated, have set humanity into a technogenesis, a transformative ontological process headed towards a machinistic and de-anthropic life idealised by posthumanists. Apropos, a set of three intertwined tasks are here executed. Firstly, I explicate my foregoing claim, namely, how at the helm of the variety of measures to control Covid-19 is a discernible socio-scientific movement that is directed at inaugurating and regularising a posthumanist consciousness and de-anthropic modes of sociality. Secondly, I venture a critical understanding of “the Covid-19 moment” that exposes the quadripartite alliance of a postmodernist Western philosophy, technoscience, commercial interests, and politics as the systemic drivers of this technocratic philosophical anthropology. Thirdly, or rather concurrently, taking the work of Nick Bostrom as the theoretical heuristic advocating human technological transformation, I normatively alert of the ramifications of this emerging human ontology.

Den fantastiske ­retorik. Jesuitten Nogheras forsvar for retorikken med et perspektiv til Vico

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (79) ◽  
pp. 94-111
Author(s):  
Hanne Roer
Keyword(s):  
Human Cognition ◽  
Classical Rhetoric ◽  
Giambattista Vico ◽  
Original Theory ◽  
New Science

This article presents the almost forgotten work on Christian and secular eloquence by the Italian Jesuit and professor of eloquence, Giovambattista Noghera (1719-1784): Della moderna eloquenza sacra e del moderno stile profano, e sacro, ragionamenti di Giovambattista Noghera della Compagnia di Gesù (Venezia: Stamperia Remondini 1753). Noghera was a prolific writer, and his collected works were published posthumously in 18 volumes. His work on Christian rhetoric and eloquence, adressed to his students in Milan and Vienna, is a vigorous and and creative attempt at updating the tradition of Christian rhetoric. Apart from expanding the canon used for imitation with secular literature, science and philosophy, Noghera defends rhetoric by appealing to the role of fantasy in human cognition and communication. Though never mentioning Giambattista Vico (1668-1744), he argues in favour of rhetoric in similar ways, stressing the importance of rhetoric in education and in the formation of citizenship. While Noghera still adheres to classical rhetoric, Vico develops this tradition into an original theory of culture in The New Science

Cultivating Reason

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Harvey Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Critical Thinking ◽  
Philosophy Of Science ◽  
Social Epistemology ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Epistemic Dependence ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Educational Ideal

The Western philosophical tradition has historically valorized the cultivation of reason as a fundamental intellectual ideal. This ideal continues to be defended by many as educationally basic. However, recent philosophical work has challenged it on several fronts, including worries stemming from relativistic tendencies in the philosophy of science, the apparent ubiquity of epistemic dependence in social epistemology, and broad critiques of objectionable hegemony launched from feminist and postmodernist perspectives. This chapter briefly reviews the historical record, connects the cultivation of reason to the educational ideal of critical thinking, spells out the latter ideal, and evaluates these challenges. It ends by sketching a general, “transcendental” reply to all such critiques of reason.

Inside insights: A phenomenology of interoception

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Drew Leder
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Awareness ◽  
Lived Body ◽  
The West ◽  
Body Experience ◽  
Health And Wellbeing ◽  
Outer World ◽  
Body Experiences ◽  
Rational Thought ◽  
And Control

This chapter undertakes a phenomenology of inner-body experience, starting with a focus on visceral interoception. While highly personal, such experience also reveals a level of the lived body that is pre-personal, beyond our understanding and control. In contrast to exteroception, elements of the visceral field can be inaccessible, or surface only indistinctly and intermittently to conscious awareness. Nonetheless, interoception is more than just a series of such sensations. This chapter argues for the “exterior interior”—that is, we interpret inner body experiences through models drawn from the outer world, and interoception itself is bound up with emotion, purpose, and projects. In the West, we tend to valorize the interiority of rational thought; by contrast, experience of the inner body is a kind of “inferior interior,” often overlooked or overridden, yet inside insights—gained from attending to messages from the inner body—may preserve our health and wellbeing.

Introduction

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad
Keyword(s):  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Phenomenological Tradition ◽  
The Third ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
The Subject ◽  
To Come

The Introduction outlines the various chapters. It then situates the question of ‘body’ in the modern Western philosophical tradition following Descartes, and argues that this leaves subsequent responses to come under one of three options: metaphysical dualism of body and subject; any anti-dualist reductionism; or the overcoming of the divide. Describing the Phenomenology of Merleau-Ponty as a potent example of the third strategy, the Introduction then suggests his philosophy will function as foil to the ecological phenomenology developed and presented in the book. Moreover, one approach within the Western Phenomenological tradition, of treating phenomenology as a methodology for the clarification of experience (rather than the means to the determination of an ontology of the subject) is compared to the approach in this book. Since classical India, while understanding dualism, did not confront the challenge of Descartes (for better or for worse), its treatment of body follows a different trajectory.

The New Science of Giambattista Vico. Thomas Goddard Bergin , Max Harold Fisch

Ethics ◽  
1950 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-141
Author(s):  
Elio Gianturco
Keyword(s):  
Giambattista Vico ◽  
New Science

Anthropocentrism without a centre?

1997 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Being And Time ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Unusual Structure ◽  
Western Philosophical Tradition ◽  
History Of ◽  
Unique Relationship ◽  
Made In ◽  
Number Of Authors ◽  
The Way

I am grateful to Håkan Karlsson for his thoughtful commentary on some of the issues concerning Heidegger and archaeology which were raised in a previous issue of this journal, and find myself fascinated by his project of a ‘contemplative archaeology’. However, one or two points of clarification could be made in relation to Karlsson's contribution. Firstly, as a number of authors have pointed out (e.g. Anderson 1966, 20; Olafson 1993), the gulf between Heidegger's early work and that which followed the Kehre may have been more apparent than real. While his focus may have shifted from the Being of one particular kind of being (Dasein) to a history of Being (Dreyfus 1992), the continuities in his thought are more striking. Throughout his career, Heidegger was concerned with the category of Being, and the way in which it had been passed over by the western philosophical tradition. It is important to note that in Being and time the analysis of Dasein essentially serves as an heuristic: the intention is to move from an understanding of the Being of one kind of being to that of Being in general. What complicates the issue is the very unusual structure of this specific kind of being, for Heidegger did not choose to begin his analysis with the Being of shoes or stones, but with a kind of creature which has a unique relationship with all other worldly entities. ‘Dasein’ serves as a kind of code for ‘human being’ which enables Heidegger to talk about the way in which human beings exist on earth, rather than becoming entangled in biological or psychological definitions of humanity. In this formulations, what is distinctive about human beings is that their own existence is an issue for them; Dasein cares, and this caring is fundamentally temporal.

scholarly journals CONTEMPORARY TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT FOR EDUCATION

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 802-806 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teodor Savov ◽  
Valentina Terzieva ◽  
Katia Todorova ◽  
Petia Kademova-Katzarova
Keyword(s):  
Information And Communication Technologies ◽  
Technology Implementation ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Instructional Process ◽  
Innovative Learning ◽  
Information And Communication ◽  
Teaching Learning ◽  
Almost All ◽  
And Control

The information and communication technologies (ICT) have penetrated into almost all areas of human life. They have a dual impact on education – increase learning efficiency and train students actively to use innovations. We assess this impact by examining teachers’ experience with innovative tools in Bulgarian schools. In an anonymous online survey, we investigate their opinions on the issues related to technology integration in contemporary classrooms. The research shows that educators appreciate the benefits of technology implementation in the teaching-learning process, but they need a single structured system encompassing all technological resources and tools. This work proposes a conception for a smart classroom – an innovative learning environment that can establish and control suitable conditions for education as well as to impact the instructional process directly.

scholarly journals Reflection of the philosophical problem of life, death and immortality in ancient Ukrainian paganism

2002 ◽  
pp. 4-14
Author(s):  
A. Valchuk
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Philosophical Problem ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Large Array

Based on the urgent need to promote the process of revival of the spirituality of the Ukrainian people, our ancient cultural strata should be analyzed. Particularly interesting here is the consideration of the origin and development of their own philosophical tradition. Undoubtedly, such a tradition stands out for certain issues that were relevant at the time. From a large array of problems of philosophical direction should be distinguished those closely related to human life. Exactly such problems belong to the category of "eternal".

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