Port-Royal

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth L. Pearce
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Mental Operation ◽  
Linguistic Representation ◽  
Port Royal ◽  
History Of ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Antoine Arnauld ◽  
Influential Theory

Port-Royal-des-Champes was an abbey in France, initially located near Versailles, but later moved to Paris. Its importance to the history of philosophy is due primarily to a group of Augustinian-Cartesian thinkers who developed an influential theory of mental and linguistic representation. This theory is found in the 1660 Port-Royal Grammaire générale et raisonnée (General and Rational Grammar) by Antoine Arnauld and Claude Lancelot, and the 1662 Port-Royal La logique ou l’art de penserLogic (Logic or the Art of Thinking) by Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole. The aim of the Grammar is to identify the universal structures of thought underlying all languages, and thereby explain the similarities and differences among languages. The aim of the Logic is to understand the natural operations of the human mind in order that we might learn to employ our faculties better. A fundamental presupposition of both works is that words are signs used to indicate to others what is taking place in the speaker's mind. This leads the Port-Royalists to regard the structure of language as reflective of the structure of thought, and vice versa. The most important aspect of this structure is the manner in which ideas are put together into propositions and words are put together into sentences. According to the Port-Royalists, a proposition is constructed by a special mental operation, which they call judging. It is this operation that gives rise to truth and falsity. Affirmation, or taking two ideas to belong together, is one species of judging; denial, or taking two ideas not to belong together, is another. These acts of judging are signified by verbs, while nouns signify ideas. The Port-Royal theory had an enormous influence on Locke's approach to mind and language. It was also regarded by Chomsky as a predecessor to his own linguistic theories.

Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Zuckert
Keyword(s):  
Charles Taylor ◽  
Human Action ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
The Self ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
History Of

This chapter reviews Charles Taylor’s Sources of the Self. The book displays Taylor’s mastery not only of the history of philosophy, but of theology, poetry, and art. He also shares Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s commitment to synthesizing competing and conflicting elements of the culture. Unlike Hegel, however, Taylor does not see philosophy as the highest and truest expression of the human mind or spirit; rather he sees the artists—the poets most especially—as the ones who “can put us in contact with” what we as living and thinking humans need to be in contact with. This chapter examines Taylor’s arguments as articulated in Sources of the Self, especially his view that human beings are self-interpreting and self-misinterpreting animals and that self-interpretation has ontological significance. It also considers what Taylor identifies as a “phenomenology” of human action, his theory of morality and identity, and his concept of the “punctual self.”

Lehrer Reading Reid

Dialogue ◽  
1991 ◽  
Vol 30 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 103-108
Author(s):  
D. D. Todd
Keyword(s):  
Page Number ◽  
English Translation ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Monograph Series ◽  
Ideal System ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Mind

Lehrer's “reason for writing this book is that the philosophy of Thomas Reid is widely unread, while the combination of soundness and creativity of his work is unexcelled.” The book contributes to the ongoing Reid revival. Chapter 1 presents an overview of Reid's life and works and the last, Chapter 15, gives Lehrer's appraisal of Reid's philosophy. Chapter 2, “Beyond Impressions and Ideas,” outlines Reid's “refutation of what he called the Ideal System” of impressions and ideas that dominated philosophy from Descartes through Hume, and summarizes Reid's theory of the mind. The remaining chapters conduct the reader through the three books Reid published during his lifetime. There are three chapters covering the Inquiry of the Human Mind (1764), five on the Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1785), a chapter comparing Reid on conception and evidence in the Inquiry and the Essays, and three chapters on Essays on the Active Powers of Man (1788). The index is helpful despite occasional references to a page number larger than the number of pages. The bibliography is generally good, although, oddly, Lehrer lists the inaccessible 1937 Latin edition of Reid's important Philosophical Orations and not the English translation published by the Philosophy Research Archives in 1977 and republished by the Journal of the History of Philosophy Monograph Series early in 1989. The text is remarkably free of typographical errors, but on p. 130 Putnam's 1973 article, “Meaning and Reference,” is said to have been published in 1983.

Spinoza on Reason

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael LeBuffe
Keyword(s):  
Moral Theory ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Function ◽  
Meaning And Function

In metaphysics, Spinoza associates reasons with causes or explanations. He contends that there is a reason for whatever exists and whatever does not exist. In his account of the human mind, Spinoza makes reason a peculiarly powerful kind of idea and the only source of our knowledge of objects in experience. In his moral theory, Spinoza introduces dictates of reason, which are action-guiding prescriptions. In politics, Spinoza suggests that reason, with religion, motivates cooperation in society. Reason shapes Spinoza’s philosophy, and central debates about Spinoza—including his place in the history of philosophy and in the European Enlightenment—turn upon our understanding of these claims. Spinoza on Reason starts with striking claims in each of these areas drawn from Spinoza’s two great works, the Ethics and the Theological Political Treatise; the book takes each characterization of reason on its own terms, explaining the claims and their historical context. While acknowledging the striking variety of reason’s roles, this work emphasizes the extent to which these different doctrines build upon one another. The result is a rich understanding of the meaning and function of each claim and, in the book’s conclusion, a detailed and accurate account of the contribution of reason to the systematic coherence of Spinoza’s philosophy.

The ‘Oriental’ Character of Islamic Philosophy in Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Lorella Ventura
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
General View ◽  
Islamic Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Shed Light

Abstract In his Lectures on the History of Philosophy, Hegel characterizes Arabic/Islamic philosophy as ‘Oriental’. The meaning and motivation of this characterization are not obvious. In this paper, I address his treatment and outline the key ideas that lead Hegel to describe Islamic philosophy as ‘Oriental’. By highlighting similarities and differences in relation to Oriental philosophy, I shed light on Hegel's approach to Islamic philosophy, which is connected to his view of Oriental philosophy, the East and Islam in its various aspects, and to his more general view of the history of philosophy and of the Absolute as spirit.

Port-Royal

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antony McKenna
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual History ◽  
Spiritual Leaders ◽  
Monastic Reform ◽  
Divine Grace ◽  
Port Royal ◽  
Counter Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Antoine Arnauld

The reform of the abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs in 1608 coincided with the vast movement of monastic reform which characterized the Counter-Reformation. In 1624 a second abbey was created, Port-Royal-de-Paris and, after some rivalry among spiritual leaders of the day, this was directed by Jean Duvergier de Hauranne, abbot of Saint-Cyran and one of the leaders of the parti dévot hostile to Richelieu. In 1640 the abbot’s friend Jansenius published the Augustinus, a résumé of Augustine’s doctrine, of which five propositions on divine grace were condemned by the Vatican. Ecclesiastics in France were obliged to accept this condemnation, and the resistance of the nuns of Port-Royal brought about persecution, imprisonment and finally the destruction of the abbey in 1710. The intellectual history of the abbey extends far beyond theological quibblings, however. In 1626, Saint-Cyran defended Charron against the Jesuit Garasse and formed a firm alliance between the Pyrrhonism of Montaigne and the philosophy of Augustine. In the 1640s, Antoine Arnauld played an important role in the diffusion of Cartesianism, confirmed by the publication of the Logique de Port-Royal (1662). The 1670 publication of Pascal’s Pensées can be interpreted as a symptom of the rivalry between Descartes and Gassendi in contemporary apologetics and, in the following years, the polemics between Arnauld and Malebranche played an important role in the definition of Christian rationalism.

Que nada se sabe

2016 ◽  
Vol 24 (48) ◽  
pp. 105-118
Author(s):  
Luís Martinho ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Old Masters ◽  
Direct Blow

Avid critic of the knowledge dependent of the old masters, Francisco Sanches strikes a direct blow at the heart of Aristotelic philosophy with the aim of demystifying the author par excellence of Scholasticism. Francisco Sanches, in this context, attempts to show that the human mind, for as sharp as it may be, is always fallible. In fact, shadows of truth show themselves if we search carefully. The whole history of philosophy proves this assertion, or had it not been more than a history of what was humanly capable of investigating. Some authors, possibly the most distinguishable, transcended the humanly capable of other authors, being therefore, unfortunately, treated as masters of knowing. Unfortunately indeed, as this dogmatic acceptance stagnates knowledge. Francisco Sanches visits exactly the classic masters of knowledge, and humbly shows the fallibility of the sapient assertions of Aristoteles.

scholarly journals Home and Family in the Novels “The White Guard” by M.A. Bulgakov and “The Suicide” by M.A. Aldanov: A Look at the Revolution from the “Inside” and the “Outside”

2020 ◽  
Vol 162 (5) ◽  
pp. 62-71
Author(s):  
Y.V. Makarova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Linguistic Representation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Sociocultural Consciousness ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Revolution

The sociocultural content of the concept of family hearth under the conditions of the revolutionary events of 1917 described in the novels “The Suicide” (‘Samoubiistvo’) by M.A. Aldanov and “The White Guard” (‘Belaya gvardiya’) by M.A. Bulgakov was revealed. The relevance of the study is determined by the fact that the concepts of home and family are the basic components of the sociocultural consciousness of any society. The study was performed with the aim of identifying key motifs in the description of home, as well as similarities and differences in the linguistic representation of this concept when describing two periods in the history of Russia (during the pre-revolutionary and revolutionary times) from the position of the author as an eyewitness to the events and the author as an emigrant. The following conclusions were made: in the descriptions of home of the pre-revolutionary Russia in the novels “The White Guard” by M.A. Bulgakov and “The Suicide” by M.A. Aldanov, the motifs of the well-being, stability, and continuity of generations are emphasized. In the episodes depicting the revolutionary events, the linguistic representation of home and family changes considerably: the motifs of doom, regret about the lost, surrealism, and tenuous imaginings become evident. The results obtained are important for linguistic analysis of some passages of the text needed for the adequate perception of the novels “The White Guard” by M.A. Bulgakov and “The Suicide” by M.A. Aldanov.

History of Western European philosophy: from Antiquity to the Renaissance

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Алексей Панищев ◽  
Aleksey Panischev
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Special Education ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Spiritual Growth ◽  
Academic Discipline ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Philosophical Thought ◽  
European Philosophy ◽  
History Of

The textbook reveals the key themes of the history of philosophical thought of Antiquity, the Middle ages and the Renaissance. The purpose of the manual is not only to present the content of various philosophical concepts, but also to promote the intellectual and spiritual growth of students. It is no coincidence that Cicero stressed that philosophy is the most fertile field for the cultivation of the human mind. The publication will be useful for students of higher education, studying the history of philosophy, which as an academic discipline contained in the curriculum of any specialty, as well as students systems of secondary special education.

The Protestant and the Pelagian

2019 ◽  
Vol 93 (3) ◽  
pp. 497-526
Author(s):  
Julie Walsh ◽  
Eric Stencil ◽  
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Nicolas Malebranche ◽  
Human Power ◽  
History Of ◽  
Antoine Arnauld ◽  
The Relationship

One of the longest and most acrimonious polemics in the history of philosophy is between Antoine Arnauld and Nicolas Malebranche. Their central disagreements are over the nature of ideas, theodicy, and—the topic of this paper—grace. We offer the most in-depth English-language treatment of their discussion of grace to date. Our focus is one particular aspect of the polemic: the power of finite agents to assent to grace. We defend two theses. First, we show that as the debate progresses, the differences between Arnauld and Malebranche become, surprisingly, less pronounced—despite mutual accusations of Pelagianism and Calvinism. Our second thesis is developed to explain the outcome of the first. We argue that the employment of different methodologies to interrogate the relationship between efficacious grace and human power prohibits any possibility of reconciliation between Arnauld and Malebranche.

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