Sandra Lapointe, ed., Philosophy of Mind in the Nineteenth Century

AbstractThis article compares early nineteenth-century English and Scottish theories of the mind and the way that it develops to findings in today's developmental psychology and neuroscience through a close observation of the work of Elizabeth Hamilton (1756–1816). Hamilton was a Scottish writer and philosopher who produced three pedagogical works in her lifetime, consisting of her carefully formulated philosophy of mind and practical suggestions to caretakers and educators. Although Hamilton has received relatively little attention in modern philosophical literature, her understanding of the mind and the way it develops—based on her nuanced understanding of associationism and Scottish faculty psychology—is overwhelmingly supported by empirical findings today. In addition to utilizing Hamilton's work for the sake of understanding early nineteenth-century philosophy of mind, I argue that a large portion of Hamilton's work should be used to inform future research programs, early caregiving guides, and educational methods.

Download Full-text

Is the Theatre a Zombie? On the Successful Failures of Émile Zola

Anglia - Zeitschrift für englische Philologie ◽

10.1515/ang-2018-0011 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 136 (1) ◽

pp. 100-120 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Dan Rebellato

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Philosophy Of Mind ◽

Thought Experiment ◽

Emile Zola ◽

Thought Experiments ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Chinese Room ◽

Late Nineteenth ◽

Zombie Argument ◽

The Mind

AbstractNaturalist theatre, in its late-nineteenth-century incarnation, and particularly in the work of Émile Zola, is often seen as advancing a physicalist view of the mind, where all mind states can be reduced to brain states. The novels and the plays do not uniformly or unambiguously support this analysis, so is the theory or the practice wrong? Physicalism is an idea that has had a recent renaissance, helped by the discoveries of neuroscience. Nevertheless I express some caution about the claims made for the eradication of free will. A range of thought experiments in the philosophy of mind have cast doubt on physicalism, culminating in David Chalmers’s much-debated zombie argument. I argue that zombies and their analogues represented deep social anxieties in the late nineteenth century, and make repeated appearances in Naturalism. The essay goes on to suggest that Naturalism should be considered to have conducted thought experiments, rather than just to have attempted to embody the theory on stage. Turning to John Searle’s ‘Chinese Room’ thought experiment, I suggest that theatre-making itself may be a kind of thought experiment model of the mind.

Download Full-text

‘Brain Disorders’, by Henry Calderwood (1879)

History of Psychiatry ◽

10.1177/0957154x17745435 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 232-248 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

GE Berrios

Keyword(s):

Nineteenth Century ◽

Philosophy Of Mind ◽

Mental Disease ◽

Explanatory Power ◽

Research Work ◽

Brain Disorders ◽

Philosophy Of Psychiatry ◽

Important Work ◽

The Mind

Henry Calderwood, a nineteenth-century Scottish philosopher interested in madness, published in 1879 an important work on the interaction between philosophy of mind, the nascent neurosciences and mental disease. Holding a spiritual view of the mind, he considered the phrase ‘mental disease’ (as Feuchtersleben had in 1845) to be but a misleading metaphor. His analysis of the research work of Ferrier, Clouston, Crichton-Browne, Maudsley, Tuke, Sankey, etc., is detailed, and his views are correct on the very limited explanatory power that their findings had for the understanding of madness. Calderwood’s conceptual contribution deserves to be added to the growing list of nineteenth-century writers who started the construction of a veritable ‘philosophy of alienism’ (now called ‘philosophy of psychiatry’).

Download Full-text

Education, history of philosophy of

Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy ◽

10.4324/9780415249126-n014-2 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Randall R. Curren

Keyword(s):

Higher Education ◽

Nineteenth Century ◽

Philosophy Of Mind ◽

Industrial Revolution ◽

Philosophy Of Education ◽

Educational Practice ◽

Classical Antiquity ◽

Late Nineteenth Century ◽

Religious Wars ◽

Civil Authority

The philosophy of education may be considered a branch of practical philosophy, aimed ultimately at the guidance of an important aspect of human affairs. Its questions thus arise more or less directly from the features of educational practice and the role of education in the promotion of individual and social wellbeing, however much its answers may be conditioned by the larger philosophical and historical settings in which they are posed. Philosophers have concerned themselves with what the aims of education should be, and through what forms of instruction, inquiry and practice those aims might be attained. This demands attention to the contents of instruction and who shall have authority over it. It demands attention to the nature of instruction itself, its circumstances, manner, epistemic dimensions and what is entailed by its reliance on language; the nature of learning and human development, both moral and intellectual; and how all of these are interrelated. The philosophy of education thus stands at the intersection of moral and political philosophy, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind and language, as they bear on the foundations of educational practice. The philosophy of education began in classical antiquity with the contentions surrounding the democratization of primary education in Athens and the competing claims of philosophers, sophists, and orators to provide the best higher education. Plato and Aristotle developed systematic theories of education guided by a Socratic ethic of fidelity to reason, and by related aspirations to promote social harmony, political stability, and a just distribution of opportunities to live well. The Stoic descendants of Socrates were expelled from Rome and the oratorical model of higher education deriving from Isocrates was given official sanction, but Augustine re-established the philosophical model through a synthesis of Platonism and Christianity, and in his mature educational thought brought elements of the oratorical and Platonic models together in his account of the Christian teacher’s training. The religious wars of the Reformation inspired several philosophical stances toward the relationships of Church, state, school and conscience. Hobbes argued for a consolidation of ecclesiastical and civil authority, with full sovereign authority over education; Locke for religious toleration and private education suitable to producing virtuous, useful, and civic-minded gentlemen; and Rousseau not just for the free development and exercise of the full array of human faculties, but for the establishment of a civic religion limited to the core of shared Christian beliefs that Enlightenment figures from Descartes onward had thought evident to natural reason. Wollstonecraft challenged patriarchal aspects of education, advancing a revolutionary defense of gender equality and a national system of day-schools in which all children would be educated together. The Enlightenment’s embrace of science and reason yielded efforts towards the development of a science of learning and pedagogy in the nineteenth century, but also a romantic counter-movement. The industrial revolution, democratic and socialist egalitarian movements, and emergence of state-sponsored schooling prompted new questions that were answered in radically different ways by Nietzsche in the late nineteenth century and Dewey in the early twentieth century.

Download Full-text