Chapter The Conceptual Unity of Dissociation: A Philosophical Argument

Moreana ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 45 (Number 175) (3) ◽  
pp. 14-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Cummings

The relationship between scripture and tradition has always been recognised as central to the controversy between More and Tyndale in the late 1520s and early 1530s. It was already one of the key issues in the English campaign against Luther instigated in 1521, and in the 1540s became one of the lynchpins of confessional identity both among Catholic theologians at Trent and in the English reformed articles of 1553. This is often seen as a doctrinal issue, but beneath the surface it can also be seen as part of a profound philosophical argument about the authority of oral and written evidence, an argument which goes back to the origins of Jewish and Christian religious practice and which continues to haunt the ecumenical concerns of today.


Author(s):  
Andrew Steane

The chapter discusses the subject of values and moral judgement. This begins with what is meant by values, and whether or not they can be objective and absolute. The main business of the chapter is to present a philosophical argument about the nature of this area. The argument shows that the existence of a standard which can properly command the allegiance of all free agents can be neither proved nor disproved using the tools of reason and logic. It is argued that the absence of such a standard would tend towards isolation of individuals from one another. Finally, it is pointed out that what people are most drawn to and value highest is not well captured in terms of purely impersonal abstractions. This is a pointer towards the journey beyond atheism. The interplay of reason and faith is then discussed.


2010 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-53 ◽  
Author(s):  

AbstractThe history of ethics contains many moral faculty theories, which usually are sorted by their metaphysics. The usual suspects include moral rationalism (Richard Price, Kant), moral sentiment theory (Hutcheson, Hume, Smith) and the varieties of ethical naturalism. Moral faculty theories differ importantly upon yet another dimension, on how widely it is distributed. Some, the Platonic elitists (Plato, J.S. Mill, R.M. Hare), suppose that moral truth can be discerned only by philosophical argument. Hence, they ascribe a revisionary task to normative theory, that of correcting nonphilosophers' moral errors. Others, the communalists (Aquinas, Hume, W.D. Ross), hold that the moral faculty is universally distributed. Hence, they hold that normative theory's task is not to revise, but rather to discern and explain the shared moral conception that we all apply in our ordinary moral lives. I here offer arguments to support commonalism.


2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 478-498
Author(s):  
Christopher Paone

Abstract Against the traditional reading of Cynic cosmopolitanism, this essay advances the thesis that Diogenes’ world citizenship is a positive claim supported by philosophical argument and philosophical example. Evidence in favor of this thesis is a new interpretation of Diogenes’ syllogistic argument concerning law (nomos) (D.L. 6.72). Important to the argument are an understanding of Diogenes’ philanthropic character and his moral imperative to ‘re-stamp the currency’. Whereas Socrates understands his care as attached specially to Athens, Diogenes’ philosophical mission and form of care attach not to his native Sinope but to all humanity. An important result is that Diogenes’ Cynicism provides an ancient example of cosmopolitanism that is philanthropic, minimalistic, experimental, and utopian.


2017 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-4
Author(s):  
Michael Kelly

This is the introduction to a special number of French Cultural Studies devoted to religion in France, focusing on the issues of belief, identity and laïcité. The articles deal with social and cultural issues of secularity and identity, and also reach into philosophical argument and literary representation. They explore the relationship between France and Islam, issues of Jewish and Catholic heritage, the philosophical issues of belief and non-belief, and the historical roots of French secularism and the search for ways of living together.


1999 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Emlyn-Jones

The characters in Plato's Socratic Dialogues and the sociocultural beliefs and assumptions they present have a historical dramatic setting which ranges over the last quarter of the fifth century b.c.—the period of activity of the historical Socrates. That this context is to an extent fictional is undeniable; yet this leaves open the question what the dramatic interplay of (mostly) dead politicians, sophists, and other Socratic associates—not forgetting Socrates himself—signifies for the overall meaning and purpose of individual Dialogues. Are we to assume, with a recent study, that Plato is entirely concerned with his contemporary world and is, as it were, borrowing his characters from the fifth century, or does the fiction reveal something of his real involvement in the values and debates of the recent past? The aim of this paper is to argue that a detailed study of the characterization and dramatic structure of one particular Dialogue, Laches, strongly suggests that Plato is using a perceived tension between past and present to generate not only a philosophical argument but also a commentary on the cultural and political world of late fifth-century Athens and in particular Socrates’ position within it.


Author(s):  
Elena Carpi

The philosophical discourse in Spanish was born in the first decades of the 18th century, when the proponents of modern ideas abandoned Latin, in which were written the treatises on philosophy of the previous centuries. The debate between novatores and Aristotelians characterizes the cultural panorama of the first decades of the Enlightenment, and with the entrance in Spain of the ideas of the modern philosophers, new discursive traditions are created. This paper analyzes a corpus formed by texts of philosophical argument published in Spain during the first part of 18th century, with the purpose of investigating the passage from the discursive tradition of the syllogism to structures that bring with them a greater degree of objectivity and impersonality.


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