Hippocrates, philosopher from Cos. Some
sixty treatises survive under his name, but it is doubtful whether he was the
author of any of them. The Hippocratic corpus contains material from a wide
variety of standpoints, ranging from an extreme empiricism that rejected all
grand theory (On Ancient Medicine) to highly speculative theoretical physiology
(On the Nature of Man, On Regimen). Many treatises were concerned with the
accurate observation and classification of diseases (Epidemics) rather than
treatment. Some texts (On the Art) defended the claims of medicine to
scientific status against those who pointed to its inaccuracies and conjectural
status; others (Oath, On Decorum) sketch a code of professional ethics. Almost
all his treatises were notable for their materialism and rejection of
supernatural “explanations”; their emphasis on observation; and their concern
with the isolation of causal factors. A large number of texts are devoted to
gynecology. The Hippocratic corpus became the standard against which later
doctors measured themselves; and, via Galen’s rehabilitation and extension of
Hippocratic method, it became the basis for Western medicine for two millennia.
historicism, the doctrine
that knowledge of human affairs has an irreducibly historical character and
that there can be no ahistorical perspective for an understanding of human
nature and society. What is needed instead is a philosophical explication of
historical knowledge that will yield the rationale for all sound knowledge of
human activities. So construed, historicism is a philosophical doctrine
originating in the methodological and epistemological presuppositions of
critical historiography. In the mid-nineteenth century certain German thinkers
(Dilthey most centrally), reacting against positivist ideals of science and
knowledge, rejected scientistic models of knowledge, replacing them with
historical ones. They applied this not only to the discipline of history but to
economics, law, political theory, and large areas of philosophy. Initially concerned
with methodological issues in particular disciplines, historicism, as it
developed, sought to work out a common philosophical doctrine that would inform
all these disciplines. What is essential to achieve knowledge in the human
sciences is to employ the ways of understanding used in historical studies.
There should in the human sciences be no search for natural laws; knowledge
there will be interpretive and rooted in concrete historical occurrences. As
such it will be inescapably perspectival and contextual (contextualism). This
raises the issue of whether historicism is a form of historical relativism.
Historicism appears to be committed to the thesis that what for a given people
is warrantedly assertible is determined by the distinctive historical perspective
in which they view life and society. The stress on uniqueness and concrete
specificity and the rejection of any appeal to universal laws of human
development reinforce that. But the emphasis on cumulative development into
larger contexts of our historical knowledge puts in doubt an identification of
historicism and historical relativism. The above account of historicism is that
of its main proponents: Meinecke, Croce, Collingwood, Ortega y Gasset, and
Mannheim. But in the twentieth century, with Popper and Hayek, a very different
conception of historicism gained some currency. For them, to be a historicist
is to believe that there are “historical laws,” indeed even a “law of
historical development,” such that history has a pattern and even an end, that
it is the central task of social science to discover it, and that these laws
should determine the direction of political action and social policy. They
attributed (incorrectly) this doctrine to Marx but rightly denounced it as
pseudo-science. However, some later Marxists (Lukács, Korsch, and Gramsci) were
historicists in the original nonPopperian sense as was the critical theorist
Adorno and hermeneuticists such as Gadamer.
heterological: Grice and Thomson go
heterological. Grice was fascinated by Baron Russell’s remarks on heterological
and its implicate. Grice is particularly interested in Russell’s philosophy
because of the usual Oxonian antipathy towards his type of
philosophising. Being an irreverent conservative rationalist, Grice found
in Russell a good point for dissent! If paradoxes were always sets of
propositions or arguments or conclusions, they would always be
meaningful. But some paradoxes are semantically flawed and some have
answers that are backed by a pseudo-argument employing a defective lemma that
lacks a truth-value. Grellings paradox, for instance, opens with a
distinction between autological and heterological words. An autological
word describes itself, e.g., polysyllabic is polysllabic, English is English,
noun is a noun, etc. A heterological word does not describe itself, e.g.,
monosyllabic is not monosyllabic, Chinese is not Chinese, verb is not a verb,
etc. Now for the riddle: Is heterological heterological or
autological? If heterological is heterological, since it describes itself,
it is autological. But if heterological is autological, since it is a word
that does not describe itself, it is heterological. The common solution to
this puzzle is that heterological, as defined by Grelling, is not what Grice a
genuine predicate ‒ Gricing is!In other words, Is heterological
heterological? is without meaning. That does not mean that an utterer, such as
Baron Russell, may implicate that he is being very witty by uttering the
Grelling paradox! There can be no predicate that applies to all and only those
predicates it does not apply to for the same reason that there can be no barber
who shaves all and only those people who do not shave themselves. Grice
seems to be relying on his friend at Christ Church, Thomson in On Some Paradoxes,
in the same volume where Grice published his Remarks about the
senses, Analytical Philosophy, Butler (ed.), Blackwell, Oxford,
104–119. Grice thought that Thomson was a genius, if ever there is one!
Plus, Grice thought that, after St. Johns, Christ Church was the second most
beautiful venue in the city of dreaming spires. On top, it is what makes Oxford
a city, and not, as villagers call it, a town. Refs.: the main source is
Grice’s essay on ‘heterologicality,’ but the keyword ‘paradox’ is useful, too,
especially as applied to Grice’s own paradox and to what, after Moore, Grice
refers to as the philosopher’s paradoxes. The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
hobbes: “Hobbes
is a Griceian” – Grice. Grice was a member of the Hobbes Society -- Thomas.
English philosopher whose writings, especially the English version of Leviathan
(1651), strongly influenced all of subsequent English moral and political
philosophy. He also wrote a trilogy comprising De Cive (1642; English version,
Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society, 1651), De Corpore
(On the Body, 1655), and De Homine (On Man, 1658). Together with Leviathan (the
revised Latin version of which was published in 1668), these are his major
philosophical works. However, an early draft of his thoughts, The Elements of
Law, Natural and Political(also known as Human Nature and De Corpore Politico),
was published without permission in 1650. Many of the misinterpretations of
Hobbes’s views on human nature come from mistaking this early work as
representing his mature views. Hobbes was influential not only in England, but
also on the Continent. He is the author of the third set of objections to
Descartes’s Meditations. Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-politicus was deeply
influenced by Hobbes, not only in its political views but also in the way it
dealt with Scripture. Hobbes was not merely a philosopher; he was mathematical
tutor to Charles II and also a classical scholar. His first published work was
a translation of Thucydides (1628), and among his latest, about a half-century
later, were translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. Hobbes’s philosophical
views have a remarkably contemporary sound. In metaphysics, he holds a strong
materialist view, sometimes viewing mental phenomena as epiphenomenal, but
later moving toward a reductive or eliminative view. In epistemology he held a
sophisticated empiricism, which emphasized the importance of language for
knowledge. If not the originator of the contemporary compatibilist view of the
relationship between free will and determinism (see The Questions Concerning
Liberty, Necessity and Chance, 1656), he was one of the primary influences. He
also was one of the most important philosophers of language, explicitly noting
that language is used not only to describe the world but to express attitudes
and, performatively, to make promises and contracts. One of Hobbes’s
outstanding characteristics is his intellectual honesty. Though he may have
been timid (he himself claims that he was, explaining that his mother gave
birth to him because of fright over the coming of the Spanish Armada), his
writing shows no trace of it. During more than half his long lifetime he
engaged in many philosophical controversies, which required considerably more
courage in Hobbes’s day than at present. Both the Roman Catholic church and
Oxford University banned the reading of his books and there was talk not only
of burning his books but of burning Hobbes himself. An adequate interpretation
of Hobbes requires careful attention to his accounts of human nature, reason,
morality, and law. Although he was not completely consistent, his moral and
political philosophy is remarkably coherent. His political theory is often
thought to require an egoistic psychology, whereas it actually requires only
that most persons be concerned with their own self-interest, especially their
own preservation. It does not require that most not be concerned with other
persons as well. All that Hobbes denies is an undifferentiated natural
benevolence: “For if by nature one man should love another (that is) as man,
there could no reason be returned why every man should not equally love every
man, as being equally man.” His argument is that limited benevolence is not an
adequate foundation upon which to build a state. Hobbes’s political theory does
not require the denial of limited benevolence, he indeed includes benevolence
in his list of the passions in Leviathan: “Desire of good to another,
BENEVOLENCE, GOOD WILL, CHARITY. If to man generally, GOOD NATURE.”
Psychological egoism not only denies benevolent action, it also denies action
done from a moral sense, i.e., action done because one believes it is the
morally right thing to do. But Hobbes denies neither kind of action. But when
the words [’just’ and ‘unjust’] are applied to persons, to be just signifies as
much as to be delighted in just dealing, to study how to do righteousness, or
to endeavor in all things to do that which is just; and to be unjust is to
neglect righteous dealing, or to think it is to be measured not according to my
contract, but some present benefit. Hobbes’s pessimism about the number of just
people is primarily due to his awareness of the strength of the passions and
his conviction that most people have not been properly educated and
disciplined. Hobbes is one of the few philosophers to realize that to talk of
that part of human nature which involves the passions is to talk about human
populations. He says, “though the wicked were fewer than the righteous, yet
because we cannot distinguish them, there is a necessity of suspecting,
heeding, anticipating, subjugating, self-defending, ever incident to the most
honest and fairest conditioned.” Though we may be aware of small communities in
which mutual trust and respect make law enforcement unnecessary, this is never
the case when we are dealing with a large group of people. Hobbes’s point is
that if a large group of people are to live together, there must be a common
power set up to enforce the rules of the society. That there is not now, nor
has there ever been, any large group of people living together without such a
common power is sufficient to establish his point. Often overlooked is Hobbes’s
distinction between people considered as if they were simply animals, not
modified in any way by education or discipline, and civilized people. Though
obviously an abstraction, people as animals are fairly well exemplified by
children. “Unless you give children all they ask for, they are peevish, and
cry, aye and strike their parents sometimes; and all this they have from nature.”
In the state of nature, people have no education or training, so there is
“continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man, [is]
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” But real people have been brought
up in families; they are, at least to some degree, civilized persons, and how
they will behave depends on how they are brought up. Hobbes does not say that
society is a collection of misfits and that this is why we have all the trouble
that we do – a position congenial to the psychological egoist. But he does
acknowledge that “many also (perhaps most men) either through defect of mind,
or want of education, remain unfit during the whole course of their lives; yet
have they, infants as well as those of riper years, a human nature; wherefore
man is made fit for society not by nature, but by education.” Education and
training may change people so that they act out of genuine moral motives. That
is why it is one of the most important functions of the sovereign to provide
for the proper training and education of the citizens. In the current debate
between nature and nurture, on the question of behavior Hobbes would come down
strongly on the side of nurture. Hobbes’s concept of reason has more in common
with the classical philosophical tradition stemming from Plato and Aristotle,
where reason sets the ends of behavior, than with the modern tradition stemming
from Hume where the only function of reason is to discover the best means to
ends set by the passions. For Hobbes, reason is very complex; it has a goal,
lasting selfpreservation, and it seeks the way to this goal. It also discovers
the means to ends set by the passions, but it governs the passions, or tries
to, so that its own goal is not threatened. Since its goal is the same in all
people, it is the source of rules applying to all people. All of this is
surprisingly close to the generally accepted account of rationality. We
generally agree that those who follow their passions when they threaten their
life are acting irrationally. We also believe that everyone always ought to act
rationally, though we know that few always do so. Perhaps it was just the
closeness of Hobbes’s account of reason to the ordinary view of the matter that
has led to its being so completely overlooked. The failure to recognize that
the avoidance of violent death is the primary goal of reason has distorted
almost all accounts of Hobbes’s moral and political philosophy, yet it is a
point on which Hobbes is completely clear and consistent. He explicitly says
that reason “teaches every man to fly a contra-natural dissolution [mortem
violentam] as the greatest mischief that can arrive to nature.” He continually
points out that it is a dictate of right reason to seek peace when possible
because people cannot “expect any lasting preservation continuing thus in the
state of nature, that is, of war.” And he calls temperance and fortitude
precepts of reason because they tend to one’s preservation. It has not
generally been recognized that Hobbes regarded it as an end of reason to avoid
violent death because he often talks of the avoidance of death in a way that
makes it seem merely an object of a passion. But it is reason that dictates
that one take all those measures necessary for one’s preservation; peace if
possible, if not, defense. Reason’s dictates are categorical; it would be a
travesty of Hobbes’s view to regard the dictates of reason as hypothetical
judgments addressed to those whose desire for their own preservation happens to
be greater than any conflicting desire. He explicitly deplores the power of the
irrational appetites and expressly declares that it is a dictate of reason that
one not scorn others because “most men would rather lose their lives (that I
say not, their peace) than suffer slander.” He does not say if you would rather
die than suffer slander, it is rational to do so. Hobbes, following Aristotle,
regards morality as concerned with character traits or habits. Since morality
is objective, it is only those habits that are called good by reason that are
moral virtues. “Reason declaring peace to be good, it follows by the same
reason, that all the necessary means to peace be good also; and therefore that
modesty, equity, trust, humanity, mercy (which we have demonstrated to be
necessary to peace), are good manners or habits, that is, virtues.” Moral
virtues are those habits of acting that the reason of all people must praise.
It is interesting to note that it is only in De Homine that Hobbes explicitly
acknowledges that on this account, prudence, temperance, and courage are not
moral virtues. In De Cive he distinguishes temperance and fortitude from the
other virtues and does not call them moral, but he does not explicitly deny
that they are moral virtues. But in De Homine, he explicitly points out that
one should not “demand that the courage and prudence of the private man, if
useful only to himself, be praised or held as a virtue by states or by any
other men whatsoever to whom these same are not useful.” That morality is
determined by reason and that reason has as its goal self-preservation seems to
lead to the conclusion that morality also has as its goal self-preservation.
But it is not the selfpreservation of an individual person that is the goal of
morality, but of people as citizens of a state. That is, moral virtues are
those habits of persons that make it rational for all other people to praise
them. These habits are not those that merely lead to an individual’s own
preservation, but to the preservation of all; i.e., to peace and a stable
society. Thus, “Good dispositions are those that are suitable for entering into
civil society; and good manners (that is, moral virtues) are those whereby what
was entered upon can be best preserved.” And in De Cive, when talking of
morality, he says, “The goodness of actions consist[s] in this, that it [is] in
order to peace, and the evil in this, that it [is] related to discord.” The
nature of morality is a complex and vexing question. If, like Hobbes, we regard
morality as applying primarily to those manners or habits that lead to peace,
then his view seems satisfactory. It yields, as he notes, all of the moral
virtues that are ordinarily considered such, and further, it allows one to
distinguish courage, prudence, and temperance from the moral virtues. Perhaps
most important, it provides, in almost self-evident fashion, the justification
of morality. For what is it to justify morality but to show that reason favors
it? Reason, seeking self-preservation, must favor morality, which seeks peace
and a stable society. For reason knows that peace and a stable society are
essential for lasting preservation. This simple and elegant justification of
morality does not reduce morality to prudence; rather it is an attempt, in a
great philosophical tradition stemming from Plato, to reconcile reason or
rational self-interest and morality. In the state of nature every person is and
ought to be governed only by their own reason. Reason dictates that they seek
peace, which yields the laws of nature, but it also allows them to use any
means they believe will best preserve themselves, which is what Hobbes calls
The Right of Nature. Hobbes’s insight is to see that, except when one is in
clear and present danger, in which case one has an inalienable right to defend
oneself, the best way to guarantee one’s longterm preservation is to give up
one’s right to act on one’s own decisions about what is the best way to
guarantee one’s long-term preservation and agree to act on the decisions of
that single person or group who is the sovereign. If all individuals and groups
are allowed to act on the decisions they regard as best, not accepting the
commands of the sovereign, i.e., the laws, as the overriding guide for their
actions, the result is anarchy and civil war. Except in rare and unusual cases,
uniformity of action following the decision of the sovereign is more likely to
lead to long-term preservation than diverse actions following diverse
decisions. And this is true even if each one of the diverse decisions, if
accepted by the sovereign as its decision, would have been more likely to lead
to long-term preservation than the actual decision that the sovereign made.
This argument explains why Hobbes holds that sovereigns cannot commit
injustice. Only injustice can properly be punished. Hobbes does not deny that
sovereigns can be immoral, but he does deny that the immorality of sovereigns
can properly be punished. This is important, for otherwise any immoral act by
the sovereign would serve as a pretext for punishing the sovereign, i.e., for
civil war. What is just and unjust is determined by the laws of the state, what
is moral and immoral is not. Morality is a wider concept than that of justice
and is determined by what leads to peace and stability. However, to let justice
be determined by what the reason of the people takes to lead to peace and
stability, rather than by what the reason of the sovereign decides, would be to
invite discord and civil war, which is contrary to the goal of morality: a
stable society and peace. One can create an air of paradox by saying that for
Hobbes it is immoral to attempt to punish some immoral acts, namely, those of
the sovereign. Hobbes is willing to accept this seeming paradox for he never
loses sight of the goal of morality, which is peace. To summarize Hobbes’s
system: people, insofar as they are rational, want to live out their natural
lives in peace and security. To do this, they must come together into cities or
states of sufficient size to deter attack by any group. But when people come
together in such a large group there will always be some that cannot be
trusted, and thus it is necessary to set up a government with the power to make
and enforce laws. This government, which gets both its right to govern and its
power to do so from the consent of the governed, has as its primary duty the
people’s safety. As long as the government provides this safety the citizens
are obliged to obey the laws of the state in all things. Thus, the rationality
of seeking lasting preservation requires seeking peace; this in turn requires
setting up a state with sufficient power to keep the peace. Anything that
threatens the stability of the state is to be avoided. As a practical matter,
Hobbes took God and religion very seriously, for he thought they provided some
of the strongest motives for action. Half of Leviathan is devoted to trying to
show that his moral and political views are supported by Scripture, and to
discredit those religious views that may lead to civil strife. But accepting
the sincerity of Hobbes’s religious views does not require holding that Hobbes
regarded God as the foundation of morality. He explicitly denies that atheists
and deists are subject to the commands of God, but he never denies that they
are subject to the laws of nature or of the civil state. Once one recognizes
that, for Hobbes, reason itself provides a guide to conduct to be followed by
all people, there is absolutely no need to bring in God. For in his moral and
political theory there is nothing that God can do that is not already done by
reason. Grice read most of Hobbes, both in Latin (for his Lit. Hum.) and in
English. When in “Meaning,” Grice says “this is what people are getting at with
their natural versus artificial signs” – he means Hobbes.
Hobson’s
choice: willkür –
Hobson’s choice. One of Grice’s favourite words from Kant – “It’s so Kantish!”
I told Pears about this, and having found it’s cognate with English ‘choose,’
he immediately set to write an essay on the topic!” f., ‘option, discretion,
caprice,’ from MidHG. willekür,
f., ‘free choice, free will’; gee kiesen and Kur-kiesen, verb, ‘to select,’ from Middle High German kiesen, Old High German chiosan, ‘to test, try, taste for the
purpose of testing, test by tasting, select after strict examination.’
Gothic kiusan,
Anglo-Saxon ceósan,
English to choose.
Teutonic root kus (with
the change of s into r, kur in the participle erkoren, see also Kur, ‘choice’), from
pre-Teutonic gus, in
Latin gus-tus, gus-tare, Greek γεύω for γεύσω, Indian root juš, ‘to select, be fond of.’
Teutonic kausjun passed
as kusiti into
Slavonic. There is an oil portrait of Thomas Hobson, in the National Portrait
Gallery, London. He looks straight to the artist and is dressed in typical
Tudor dress, with a heavy coat, a ruff, and tie tails Thomas Hobson, a portrait
in the National Portrait Gallery, London. A Hobson's choice is a free choice in
which only one thing is offered. Because a person may refuse to accept what is
offered, the two options are taking it or taking nothing. In other words, one
may "take it or leave it". The
phrase is said to have originated with Thomas Hobson (1544–1631), a livery
stable owner in Cambridge, England, who offered customers the choice of either
taking the horse in his stall nearest to the door or taking none at all.
According to a plaque underneath a painting of Hobson donated to Cambridge
Guildhall, Hobson had an extensive stable of some 40 horses. This gave the
appearance to his customers that, upon entry, they would have their choice of
mounts, when in fact there was only one: Hobson required his customers to
choose the horse in the stall closest to the door. This was to prevent the best
horses from always being chosen, which would have caused those horses to become
overused.[1] Hobson's stable was located on land that is now owned by St
Catharine's College, Cambridge. Early
appearances in writing According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first
known written usage of this phrase is in The rustick's alarm to the Rabbies,
written by Samuel Fisher in 1660:[3] If
in this Case there be no other (as the Proverb is) then Hobson's choice...which
is, chuse whether you will have this or none.
It also appears in Joseph Addison's paper The Spectator (No. 509 of 14
October 1712); and in Thomas Ward's 1688 poem "England's
Reformation", not published until after Ward's death. Ward wrote: Where to elect there is but one, 'Tis
Hobson's choice—take that, or none. The term "Hobson's choice" is
often used to mean an illusion of choice, but it is not a choice between two
equivalent options, which is a Morton's fork, nor is it a choice between two
undesirable options, which is a dilemma. Hobson's choice is one between
something or nothing. John Stuart Mill,
in his book Considerations on Representative Government, refers to Hobson's
choice: When the individuals composing
the majority would no longer be reduced to Hobson's choice, of either voting
for the person brought forward by their local leaders, or not voting at all. In
another of his books, The Subjection of Women, Mill discusses marriage: Those who attempt to force women into
marriage by closing all other doors against them, lay themselves open to a
similar retort. If they mean what they say, their opinion must evidently be,
that men do not render the married condition so desirable to women, as to
induce them to accept it for its own recommendations. It is not a sign of one's
thinking the boon one offers very attractive, when one allows only Hobson's
choice, 'that or none'.... And if men are determined that the law of marriage
shall be a law of despotism, they are quite right in point of mere policy, in
leaving to women only Hobson's choice. But, in that case, all that has been
done in the modern world to relax the chain on the minds of women, has been a
mistake. They should have never been allowed to receive a literary
education.[7] A Hobson's choice is
different from: Dilemma: a choice between
two or more options, none of which is attractive. False dilemma: only certain
choices are considered, when in fact there are others. Catch-22: a logical
paradox arising from a situation in which an individual needs something that
can only be acquired by not being in that very situation. Morton's fork, and a
double bind: choices yield equivalent, and often undesirable, results.
Blackmail and extortion: the choice between paying money (or some non-monetary
good or deed) or risk suffering an unpleasant action. A common error is to use
the phrase "Hobbesian choice" instead of "Hobson's choice",
confusing the philosopher Thomas Hobbes with the relatively obscure Thomas
Hobson (It's possible they may be
confusing "Hobson's choice" with "Hobbesian trap", which
refers to the trap into which a state falls when it attacks another out of fear).[11]
Notwithstanding that confused usage, the phrase "Hobbesian choice" is
historically incorrect. Common law In Immigration and Naturalization Service v.
Chadha (1983), Justice Byron White dissented and classified the majority's
decision to strike down the "one-house veto" as unconstitutional as
leaving Congress with a Hobson's choice. Congress may choose between
"refrain[ing] from delegating the necessary authority, leaving itself with
a hopeless task of writing laws with the requisite specificity to cover endless
special circumstances across the entire policy landscape, or in the
alternative, to abdicate its lawmaking function to the executive branch and
independent agency". In
Philadelphia v. New Jersey, 437 U.S. 617 (1978),[15] the majority opinion ruled
that a New Jersey law which prohibited the importation of solid or liquid waste
from other states into New Jersey was unconstitutional based on the Commerce
Clause. The majority reasoned that New Jersey cannot discriminate between the
intrastate waste and the interstate waste with out due justification. In
dissent, Justice Rehnquist stated:
[According to the Court,] New Jersey must either prohibit all landfill
operations, leaving itself to cast about for a presently nonexistent solution
to the serious problem of disposing of the waste generated within its own
borders, or it must accept waste from every portion of the United States,
thereby multiplying the health and safety problems which would result if it
dealt only with such wastes generated within the State. Because past precedents
establish that the Commerce Clause does not present appellees with such a
Hobson's choice, I dissent. In Monell v.
Department of Social Services of the City of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978)[16]
the judgement of the court was that
[T]here was ample support for Blair's view that the Sherman Amendment,
by putting municipalities to the Hobson's choice of keeping the peace or paying
civil damages, attempted to impose obligations to municipalities by indirection
that could not be imposed directly, thereby threatening to "destroy the
government of the states". In the
South African Constitutional Case MEC for Education, Kwa-Zulu Natal and Others
v Pillay, 2008 (1) SA 474 (CC)[17] Chief Justice Langa for the majority of the
Court (in Paragraph 62 of the judgement) writes that: The traditional basis for invalidating laws
that prohibit the exercise of an obligatory religious practice is that it
confronts the adherents with a Hobson's choice between observance of their
faith and adherence to the law. There is however more to the protection of
religious and cultural practices than saving believers from hard choices. As
stated above, religious and cultural practices are protected because they are
central to human identity and hence to human dignity which is in turn central
to equality. Are voluntary practices any less a part of a person's identity or
do they affect human dignity any less seriously because they are not
mandatory? In Epic Systems Corp. v.
Lewis (2018), Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dissented and added in one of the
footnotes that the petitioners "faced a Hobson’s choice: accept
arbitration on their employer’s terms or give up their jobs". In Trump et al v. Mazars USA, LLP, US Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia No. 19-5142, 49 (D.C. Cir. 11 October
2019) ("[w]orse still, the dissent’s novel approach would now impose upon
the courts the job of ordering the cessation of the legislative function and
putting Congress to the Hobson’s Choice of impeachment or nothing."). Popular culture Hobson's Choice is a
full-length stage comedy written by Harold Brighouse in 1915. At the end of the
play, the central character, Henry Horatio Hobson, formerly a wealthy,
self-made businessman but now a sick and broken man, faces the unpalatable
prospect of being looked after by his daughter Maggie and her husband Will
Mossop, who used to be one of Hobson's underlings. His other daughters have
refused to take him in, so he has no choice but to accept Maggie's offer which
comes with the condition that he must surrender control of his entire business
to her and her husband, Will. The play
was adapted for film several times, including versions from 1920 by Percy Nash,
1931 by Thomas Bentley, 1954 by David Lean and a 1983 TV movie. Alfred Bester's 1952 short story Hobson's
Choice describes a world in which time travel is possible, and the option is to
travel or to stay in one's native time.
In the 1951 Robert Heinlein book Between Planets, the main character Don
Harvey incorrectly mentions he has a Hobson's choice. While on a space station
orbiting Earth, Don needs to get to Mars, where his parents are. The only
rockets available are back to Earth (where he is not welcome) or on to
Venus. In The Grim Grotto by Lemony
Snicket, the Baudelaire orphans and Fiona are said to be faced with a Hobson's
Choice when they are trapped by the Medusoid Mycelium Mushrooms in the
Gorgonian Grotto: "We can wait until the mushrooms disappear, or we can
find ourselves poisoned".In Bram Stoker's short story "The Burial of
Rats", the narrator advises he has a case of Hobson's Choice while being
chased by villains. The story was written around 1874. The Terminal Experiment, a 1995 science
fiction novel by Robert J. Sawyer, was originally serialised under the title
Hobson's Choice. Half-Life, a video game
created in 1998 by Valve includes a Hobson's Choice in the final chapter. A
human-like entity, known only as the 'G-Man', offers the protagonist Gordon
Freeman a job, working under his control. If Gordon were to refuse this offer,
he would be killed in an unwinnable battle, thus creating the 'illusion of free
choice'. In Early Edition, the lead
character Gary Hobson is named after the choices he regularly makes during his adventures. In an episode of Inspector George Gently, a
character claims her resignation was a Hobson's choice, prompting a debate
among other police officers as to who Hobson is. In "Cape May" (The Blacklist season
3, episode 19), Raymond Reddington describes having faced a Hobson's choice in
the previous episode where he was faced with the choice of saving Elizabeth
Keen's baby and losing Elizabeth Keen or losing them both. In his 1984 novel Job: A Comedy of Justice,
Robert A. Heinlein's protagonist is said to have Hobson's Choice when he has
the options of boarding the wrong cruise ship or staying on the island. Remarking about the 1909 Ford Model T, US
industrialist Henry Ford is credited as saying “Any customer can have a car
painted any color that he wants so long as it is black”[19] In 'The Jolly Boys' Outing', a 1989 Christmas
Special episode of Only Fools and Horses, Alan states they are left with
Hobson's Choice after their coach has blown up (due to a dodgy radio, supplied
by Del). There's a rail strike, the last bus has gone, and their coach is out
of action. They can't hitch-hike as there's 27 of them, and the replacement
coach doesn't come till the next morning, thus their only choice is to stay in
Margate for the night. See also
Buckley's Chance Buridan's ass Boulwarism Death and Taxes Locus of control
Morton's fork No-win situation Standard form contract Sophie's Choice Zugzwang
References Barrett, Grant.
"Hobson's Choice", A Way with Words
"Thomas Hobson: Hobson's Choice and Hobson's Conduit".
Historyworks. See Samuel Fisher.
"Rusticus ad academicos in exercitationibus expostulatoriis, apologeticis
quatuor the rustick's alarm to the rabbies or The country correcting the
university and clergy, and ... contesting for the truth ... : in four
apologeticall and expostulatory exercitations : wherein is contained, as well a
general account to all enquirers, as a general answer to all opposers of the
most truly catholike and most truly Christ-like Chistians called Quakers, and
of the true divinity of their doctrine : by way of entire entercourse held in
special with four of the clergies chieftanes, viz, John Owen ... Tho. Danson
... John Tombes ... Rich. Baxter ." Europeana. Retrieved 8 August
2014. See The Spectator with Notes and
General Index, the Twelve Volumes Comprised in Two. Philadelphia: J.J.
Woodward. 1832. p. 272. Retrieved 4 August 2014. via Google Books Ward, Thomas (1853). English Reformation, A
Poem. New York: D.& J. Sadlier & Co. p. 373. Retrieved 8 August 2014.
via Internet Archive See Mill, John
Stuart (1861). Considerations on Representative Government (1 ed.). London:
Parker, Son, & Bourn. p. 145. Retrieved 23 June 2014. via Google Books Mill, John Stuart (1869). The Subjection of
Women (1869 first ed.). London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. pp. 51–2.
Retrieved 28 July 2014. Hobbes, Thomas
(1982) [1651]. Leviathan, or the Matter, Form, and Power of a Commonwealth,
Ecclesiastical and Civil. New York: Viking Press. Martinich, A. P. (1999). Hobbes: A Biography.
Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN
978-0-521-49583-7. Martin, Gary.
"Hobson's Choice". The Phrase Finder. Archived from the original on 6
March 2009. Retrieved 7 August 2010.
"The Hobbesian Trap" (PDF). 21 September 2010. Retrieved 8
April 2012. "Sunday
Lexico-Neuroticism". boaltalk.blogspot.com. 27 July 2008. Retrieved 7
August 2010. Levy, Jacob (10 June 2003).
"The Volokh Conspiracy". volokh.com. Retrieved 7 August 2010. Oxford English Dictionary, Editor:
"Amazingly, some writers have confused the obscure Thomas Hobson with his
famous contemporary, the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. The resulting malapropism
is beautifully grotesque". Garner, Bryan (1995). A Dictionary of Modern
Legal Usage (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press. pp. 404–405. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/437/617/ "Monell v. Department of Soc. Svcs. -
436 U.S. 658 (1978)". justicia.com. US Supreme Court. 6 June 1978. 436
U.S. 658. Retrieved 19 February 2014.
"MEC for Education: Kwazulu-Natal and Others v Pillay (CCT 51/06)
[2007] ZACC 21; 2008 (1) SA 474 (CC); 2008 (2) BCLR 99 (CC) (5 October
2007)". www.saflii.org. Snicket,
Lemony (2004) The Grim Grotto, New York: HarperCollins Publishers p.145 -
147 Henry Ford in collaboration with
Samuel Crowther in My Life and Work. 1922. Page 72 External links Chisholm,
Hugh, ed. (1911). "Hobson's Choice" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 13
(11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 553. Categories: English-language
idiomsFree willMetaphors referring to peopleDilemmas. Refs.: H. P. Grice and D.
F. Pears, The philosophy of action, Pears, Choosing and deciding. The H. P.
Grice Papers, BANC.
hohfeld,
of Stanford and Yale. His main contribution to moral theory was his
identification of EIGHT fundamental conceptions: One person X has a duty to a
second person Y to do some act A when it is required that X to do A for Y. X
has a privilege (or liberty) in face of Y to do A when X has no duty to Y not
to do A. X has a right (or claim) against Y that Y do A when Y has a duty to X
to do A. X has a no-right against Y that Y not do A when Y has a liberty in
face of X to do A. X has a power over Y to effect some consequence C for Y when
there is some voluntary action of X that will bring about C for Y. X has a disability
in face of Y to effect C when there is no action X can perform that will bring
about C for Y. X has a liability in face of Y to effect C when Y has a power to
effect C for X. X has a immunity against Y from C when Y has no power over X to
effect C. Philosophers have adapted Hohfeld’s terminology to express analogous
conceptions. In ethics, these fundamental conceptions provide something like
atoms into which all more complex relationships can be analyzed. Semantically,
these conceptions reveal pairs of correlatives, such as a claim of X against Y
and a duty of Y to X, each of which IMPLIES the other, and pairs of opposites,
such as a duty of X to Y and a liberty of Y in face of X, which are
contradictories. In the theory of rights, his distinctions between liberties,
claims, powers, and immunities are often used to reveal ambiguities in the
language of rights or to classify species of rights – Grice thought this was
“all implicatural, and due to an inability to understand Hohfeld.”
hölderlin:
studied
at Tübingen, where he befriended Schelling and Hegel, and at Jena, where he met
Schiller and Fichte. Since Hölderlin never held an academic position or
published any of his philosophical writings, his influence on philosophy was
primarily through his personality, conversations, and letters. He is widely
viewed as the author of the so-called “Oldest System-Program of German
Idealism,” a fragment that culminates in an exaltation of poetry and a call for
a new “mythology of reason.” This theme is illustrated in the novel Hyperion
(1797/99), which criticizes the subjective heroism of ethical idealism,
emphasizes the sacred character of nature, and attempts to conflate religion
and art as “overseers of reason.” In his veneration of nature and objections to
Fichte’s treatment of the “Not-I,” Hölderlin echoed Schelling’s
Naturphilosophie. In his Hellenism and his critique of the “philosophy of
reflection” (see Ueber Sein und Urteil [“On Being and Judgment”]) he
anticipated and influenced Hegel. In Hölderlin’s exaltation of art as alone
capable of revealing the nature of reality, he betrayed a debt to Schiller and
anticipated Romanticism. However, his view of the poet possesses a tragic
dimension quite foreign to Schelling and the younger Romantics. The artist, as
the interpreter of divine nature, mediates between the gods and men, but for this
very reason is estranged from his fellows. This aspect of Hölderlin’s thought
influenced Heidegger.
holism: From Grecian ‘holon,’ Latin ‘totum.’ “One
of Quine’s dogma of empiricism – the one I and Sir Peter had not the slightest
intereset in!” – Grice. Holism is one of a wide variety of theses that in one
way or another affirm the equal or greater reality or the explanatory necessity
of the whole of some system in relation to its parts. In philosophy, the issues
of holism (the word is more reasonably, but less often, spelled ‘wholism’) have
appeared Hohenheim, Theophrastus Bombastus von holism 390 4065h-l.qxd
08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 390 traditionally in the philosophy of biology, of
psychology, and especially of the human sciences. In the context of description,
holism with respect to some system maintains that the whole has some properties
that its parts lack. This doctrine will ordinarily be trivially true unless it
is further held, in the thesis of descriptive emergentism, that these
properties of the whole cannot be defined by properties of the parts. The view
that all properties of the wholes in question can be so defined is descriptive
individualism. In the context of explanation, holism with respect to some
object or system maintains either (1) that the laws of the more complex cases
in it are not deducible by way of any composition laws or laws of coexistence
from the laws of the less complex cases (e.g., that the laws of the behavior of
people in groups are not deducible by composition laws or laws of coexistence
from the laws of solitary behavior), or (2) that all the variables that
constitute the system interact with each other. This denial of deducibility is
known also as metaphysical or methodological holism, whereas affirming the
deducibility is methodological individualism. In a special case of explanatory
holism that presupposes descriptive emergentism, holism is sometimes understood
as the thesis that with respect to some system the whole has properties that
interact “back” with the properties of its parts. In the philosophy of biology,
any of these forms of holism may be known as vitalism, while in the philosophy
of psychology they have been called Gestalt doctrine. In the philosophy of the
social sciences, where ‘holism’ has had its most common use in philosophy, the
many issues have often been reduced to that of metaphysical holism versus
methodological individualism. This terminology reflected the positivists’
belief that holism was non-empirical in postulating social “wholes” or the
reality of society beyond individual persons and their properties and relations
(as in Durkheim and other, mostly Continental, thinkers), while individualism
was non-metaphysical (i.e., empirical) in relying ultimately only on observable
properties in describing and explaining social phenomena. More recently,
‘holism’ has acquired additional uses in philosophy, especially in epistemology
and philosophy of language. Doxastic or epistemic holism are theses about the
“web of belief,” usually something to the effect that a person’s beliefs are so
connected that their change on any topic may affect their content on any other
topic or, perhaps, that the beliefs of a rational person are so connected.
Semantic or meaning holism have both been used to denote either the thesis that
the meanings of all terms (or sentences) in a language are so connected that
any change of meaning in one of them may change any other meaning, or the
thesis that changes of belief entail changes of meaning. Cited by Grice, “In
defense of a dogma” “My defense of the other dogma must be left for another
longer day” Duhem, Pierre-Maurice-Marie, physicist who wrote extensively on the
history and philosophy of science. Like Georg Helm, Wilhelm Ostwald, and
others, he was an energeticist, believing generalized thermodynamics to be the
foundation of all of physics and chemistry. Duhem spent his whole scientific
life advancing energetics, from his failed dissertation in physics a version of
which was accepted as a dissertation in mathematics, published as Le potentiel
thermodynamique 6, to his mature treatise, Traité d’énergétique 1. His
scientific legacy includes the Gibbs-Duhem and DuhemMargules equations.
Possibly because his work was considered threatening by the Parisian scientific
establishment or because of his right-wing politics and fervent Catholicism, he
never obtained the position he merited in the intellectual world of Paris. He
taught at the provincial universities of Lille, Rennes, and, finally, Bordeaux.
Duhem’s work in the history and philosophy of science can be viewed as a
defense of the aims and methods of energetics; whatever Duhem’s initial
motivation, his historical and philosophical work took on a life of its own.
Topics of interest to him included the relation between history of science and
philosophy of science, the nature of conceptual change, the historical
structure of scientific knowledge, and the relation between science and
religion. Duhem was an anti-atomist or anti-Cartesian; in the contemporary
debates about light and magnetism, Duhem’s anti-atomist stance was also
directed against the work of Maxwell. According to Duhem, atomists resolve the
bodies perceived by the senses into smaller, imperceptible bodies. The
explanation of observable phenomena is then referred to these imperceptible
bodies and their motions, suitably combined. Duhem’s rejection of atomism was
based on his instrumentalism or fictionalism: physical theories are not
explanations but representations; they do not reveal the true nature of matter,
but give general rules of which laws are particular cases; theoretical
propositions are not true or false, but convenient or inconvenient. An
important reason for treating physics as nonexplanatory was Duhem’s claim that
there is general consensus in physics and none in metaphysics thus his insistence on the autonomy of
physics from metaphysics. But he also thought that scientific representations
become more complete over time until they gain the status of a natural
classification. Accordingly, Duhem attacked the use of models by some
scientists, e.g. Faraday and Maxwell. Duhem’s rejection of atomism was coupled
with a rejection of inductivism, the doctrine that the only physical principles
are general laws known through induction, based on observation of facts.
Duhem’s rejection forms a series of theses collectively known as the Duhem
thesis: experiments in physics are observations of phenomena accompanied by
interpretations; physicists therefore do not submit single hypotheses, but
whole groups of them, to the control of experiment; thus, experimental evidence
alone cannot conclusively falsify hypotheses. For similar reasons, Duhem
rejected the possibility of a crucial experiment. In his historical studies,
Duhem argued that there were no abrupt discontinuities between medieval and
early modern science the so-called
continuity thesis; that religion played a positive role in the development of
science in the Latin West; and that the history of physics could be seen as a
cumulative whole, defining the direction in which progress could be expected.
Duhem’s philosophical works were discussed by the founders of twentieth-century
philosophy of science, including Mach, Poincaré, the members of the Vienna
Circle, and Popper. A revival of interest in Duhem’s philosophy began with Quine’s
reference in 3 to the Duhem thesis also known as the Duhem-Quine thesis. As a
result, Duhem’s philosophical works were tr. into English as The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory 4
and To Save the Phenomena 9. By contrast, few of Duhem’s extensive historical
works Les origines de la statique 2
vols., 608, Études sur Léonard de Vinci 3 vols., 613, and Système du monde 10
vols., 359, e.g. have been tr., with
five volumes of the Système du monde actually remaining in manuscript form
until 459. Unlike his philosophical work, Duhem’s historical work was not
sympathetically received by his influential contemporaries, notably George
Sarton. His supposed main conclusions were rejected by the next generation of
historians of science, who presented modern science as discontinuous with that
of the Middle Ages. This view was echoed by historically oriented philosophers
of science who, from the early 0s, emphasized discontinuities as a recurrent
feature of change in science e.g. Kuhn
in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 2.
hologram:
the image of an object in three dimensions created and reproduced by the use of
lasers. Holography is a method for recording and reproducing such images.
Holograms are remarkable in that, unlike normal photographs, every part of them
contains the complete image but in reduced detail. Thus a small square cut from
a hologram can still be laser-illuminated to reveal the whole scene originally
holographed, albeit with loss of resolution. This feature made the hologram
attractive to proponents of the thesis of distribution of function in the
brain, who argued that memories are like holograms, not being located in a
single precise engram – as claimed by advocates of localization of function –
but distributed across perhaps all of the cortex. Although intriguing, the
holographic model of memory storage failed to gain acceptance. Current views
favor D. O. Hebb’s “cell assembly” concept, in which memories are stored in the
connections between a group of neurons.
homoeomerous (from Greek
homoiomeres, ‘of like parts’), having parts, no matter how small, that share
the constitutive properties of the whole. The derivative abstract noun is
‘homoeomery’. The Greek forms of the adjective and of its corresponding
privative ‘anhomoeomerous’ are used by Aristotle to distinguish between (a)
nonuniform parts of living things, e.g., limbs and organs, and (b) biological
stuffs, e.g., blood, bone, sap. In spite of being composed of the four
elements, each of the biological stuffs, when taken individually and without
admixtures, is through-and-through F, where F represents the cluster of the
constitutive properties of that stuff. Thus, if a certain physical volume
qualifies as blood, all its mathematically possible subvolumes, regardless of
size, also qualify as blood. Blood is thus homoeomerous. By contrast, a face or
a stomach or a leaf are anhomoeomerous: the parts of a face are not a face,
etc. In Aristotle’s system, the homoeomery of the biological stuffs is tied to
his doctrine of the infinite divisibility of matter. The distinction is
prefigured in Plato (Protagoras 329d). The term ‘homoeomerous’ is stricter in
its application than the ordinary terms ‘homogeneous’ and ‘uniform’. For we may
speak of a homogeneous entity even if the properties at issue are identically
present only in samples that fall above a certain size: the color of the sea
can be homogeneously or uniformly blue; but it is not homoeomerously blue. The
adjective homoiomeres, -es, and the noun homoiomereia also occur – probably
tendentiously, under the influence of Aristotle’s usage – in our ancient
sources for a pre-Aristotelian philosopher, Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, with
reference to the constituent “things” (chremata) involved in the latter’s
scheme of universal mixture. Moreover, the concept of homoeomery has played a
significant role outside ancient Greek philosophy, notably in twentieth-century
accounts of the contrast between mass terms and count terms or sortals.
homomorphism, in model
theory, a structurepreserving mapping from one structure to another. A
structure consists of a domain of objects together with a function specifying
interpretations, with respect to that domain, of the relation symbols, function
symbols, and individual symbols of a given language. Relations, functions, and
individuals in different structures for a language L correspond to one another
if they are interpretations of the same symbol of L. To call a mapping
“structure-preserving” is to say (1) that if objects in the first structure
bear a certain relation to one another, then their images in the second
structure (under the mapping) bear the corresponding relation to one another,
(2) that the value of a function for a given object (or ntuple of objects) in
the first structure has as its image under the mapping the value of the
corresponding function for the image of the object (or n-tuple of images) in
the second structure, and (3) that the image in the second structure of an
object in the first is the corresponding object. An isomorphism is a homomorphism
that is oneto-one and whose inverse is also a homomorphism.
Homoousios. Athanasius --
early Christian father, bishop, and a leading protagonist in the fourth-century
disputes concerning Christ’s relationship to God. Through major works like On
the Incarnation, Against the Arians, and Letters on the Holy Spirit, Athanasius
contributed greatly to the classical doctrines of the Incarnation and the
Trinity. Opposing all forms of Arianism, which denied Christ’s divinity and
reduced him to a creature, Athanasius taught, in the language of the Nicene
Creed, that Christ the Son, and likewise the Holy Spirit, were of the same
being as God the Father homoousios. Thus with terminology and concepts drawn
from Grecian philosophy, he helped to forge the distinctly Christian and
un-Hellenistic doctrine of the eternal triune God, who became enfleshed in time
and matter and restored humanity to immortality, forfeited through sin, by
involvement in its condition of corruption and decay. homoousios (Greek, ‘of the same substance’),
a concept central to the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, enshrined in the
Nicene Creed of A.D. 381. It attests that God the Son (and by extension the
Spirit) is of one and the same being or substance (ousia) as the Father.
Reflecting the insistence of Athanasius against Arianism that Christ is God’s
eternal, coequal Son and not a creature, the Nicene homoousios is also to be
differentiated from a rival formula, homoiousios (Greek, ‘of similar
substance’), which affirms merely the Son’s likeness in being to God. Though
notoriously and superficially an argument over one Greek iota, the issue was
philosophically profound and theologically crucial whether or not Jesus of
Nazareth incarnated God’s own being, revealed God’s own truth, and mediated God’s
own salvation. See also TRINITARIANISM. A.E.L. homuncular functionalism.
homunculus (from Latin,
‘little man’), a miniature adult held to inhabit the brain (or some other
organ) who perceives all the inputs to the sense organs and initiates all the
commands to the muscles. Any theory that posits such an internal agent risks an
infinite regress (sometimes called the homunculus fallacy), since we can ask
whether there is a little man in the little man’s head, responsible for his
perception and action, and so on. Many familiar views of the mind and its
activities seem to require a homunculus. For instance, models of visual
perception that posit an inner picture as its product homoromery homunculus 392
4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 392 apparently require a homunculus to look
at the picture, and models of action that treat intentions as commands to the
muscles apparently require a homunculus to issue the commands. It is never an
easy matter to determine whether a theory is committed to the existence of a homunculus
that vitiates the theory, and in some circumstances, homunculi can be
legitimately posited at intermediate levels of theory: “Homunculi are bogeymen
only if they duplicate entire the talents they are rung in to explain. If one
can get a team or committee of relatively ignorant, narrow-minded, blind
homunculi to produce the intelligent behavior of the whole, this is progress”
(Dennett, Brainstorms, 1978). Theories (in philosophy of mind or artificial
intelligence or cognitive science) that posit such teams of homunculi have been
called homuncular functionalism by William Lycan.
Horkheimer: philosopher,
the leading theorist of the first generation of the Frankfurt School of
critical theory. Both as director of the Institute for Social Research and in
his early philosophical essays published in the Zeitschrift für
Sozialforschung, Horkheimer set the agenda for the collaborative work of the
Frankfurt School in the social sciences, including analyses of the developments
of state capitalism, the family, modern culture, and fascism. His programmatic
essays on the relation of philosophy and the social sciences long provided the
philosophical basis for Frankfurt School social criticism and research and have
profoundly influenced Habermas’s reformulation of Frankfurt School critical
theory. In these essays, such as “The Present Situation of Social Philosophy
and the Tasks of an Institute for Social Research” (1931), Horkheimer
elaborated a cooperative relation between philosophy and the social sciences
through an interdisciplinary historical materialism. His “Traditional and
Critical Theory” (1937) develops the distinction between “critical” and
“traditional” theories in terms of basic goals: critical theories aim at
emancipating human beings rather than describing reality as it is now. In the
darkest days of World War II Horkheimer began collaborating with Adorno on The
Dialectic of Enlightenment (1941), in which they see the origins of modern
reason and autonomy in the domination of nature and the inner self. This
genealogy of modern reason argues that myth and enlightenment are inseparably
“entwined,” a view proposed primarily to explain the catastrophe in which
Europe found itself. While Horkheimer thought that a revised notion of Hegelian
dialectics might lead beyond this impasse, he never completed this positive
project. Instead, he further developed the critique of instrumental reason in
such works as Eclipse of Reason (1947), where he argues that modern
institutions, including democracy, are under the sway of formal and
instrumental rationality and the imperatives of self-preservation. While he did
little new work after this period, he turned at the end of his life to a
philosophical reinterpretation of religion and the content of religious
experience and concepts, developing a negative theology of the “completely
Other.” His most enduring influence is his clear formulation of the
epistemology of practical and critical social inquiry oriented to human
emancipation.
Ho Yen (d.A.D. 249),
Chinese philosopher, an early leader of the Neo-Taoist movement. Ho Yen brought
into currency the idea of “non-being” (wu) in explaining the tao and the origin
of being. Without limit and inexhaustible, the tao constitutes the totality of
all there is. Formless and nameless, it is a creative vital energy (ch’i) that
through a process of differentiation produces heaven and earth and the myriad
creatures. Ho Yen is also famous for his view that the sage does not have
emotions (ch’ing). This is because the sage is exceptionally endowed with pure
ch’ienergy, which precludes emotional disturbance. Ethically, this further
translates into a critique of hypocrisy and the abuse of power that Ho Yen
considered the bane of Chinese society.
hsiao, Chinese team
meaning ‘filial piety’. Hsiao refers both to a virtue and to acts manifesting
that virtue. Originally, hsiao had to do with the proper performance of one’s
parents’ funeral rituals and sacrifices to one’s ancestors. Later, hsiao came
to encompass the proper treatment of one’s parents while they are alive. Hsiao
is fundamental to Confucianism in that showing proper respect for one’s parents
is thought to be related to respect for legitimate political authority.
hsien, in Chinese
philosophy, divine “immortals” or “transcendents” – spiritual beings who have
attained the tao and are characterized by transcendence and immortality; a
central ideal in Horkheimer, Max hsien 393 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page
393 religious Taoism. The idea has its roots in ancient Chinese religion; in its
mature form, it signifies a being constituted by the purest and most potent
form of vital energy (ch’i), which renders him/ her beyond the limitations of
mundane life. Thus, hsien are often characterized by the power of flight. In
poetry and philosophic discourse, hsien evokes fulfillment and freedom,
especially from desire and the vagaries of human striving. In religious Taoism,
there is an important debate whether immortality can be achieved through
effort. Various methods that fall under the general rubrics of “internal
alchemy” (nei-tan) and “external alchemy” (wai-tan) have been devised to bring
about the perfected state.
Hsi K’ang (A.D.223–62),
Chinese philosopher, a key representative of Neo-Taoism. Hsi K’ang’s philosophy
centers on the concept of tzu-jan – naturalness or, literally, what is of
itself so – which depicts the inherent order of the Taoist universe. Nature
conforms to “necessary principles” (pi-jan chih li); individuals receive an
energy endowment (ch’i) at birth of varying richness that defines their nature
and capacity. While endowment is inborn, self-cultivation directed at
dispelling self-interest can substantially enhance one’s physical and spiritual
well-being. In ethics and politics, Hsi K’ang thus advocates going beyond the
orthodox teachings of Confucianism (ming-chiao), which emphasize learning,
conformity, and tradition. Hsi is also famous for his musical theory that
“sounds do not have sorrow or joy” (sheng wu ai-lo): while sounds are naturally
produced, emotions involve subjective and cognitive reactions.
hsin1, Chinese term
meaning ‘heart’, ‘mind’, ‘feeling’. Generally, the hsin is both the physical
organ we call the heart, and the faculty of appetition, cognition, and emotion,
but the precise nature and proper role of hsin is one of the fundamental issues
dividing Chinese philosophers. Mencius speaks of “four hearts,” associating a
particular virtue and set of emotional and cognitive capacities with each.
Chuang Tzu suggests that we “fast” (chai), rather than cultivate, the hsin,
letting ourselves be guided instead by the ch’i. Hsün Tzu holds that the hsin
should control and sublimate the desires. In Neo-Confucianism, the hsin is
conceived as a fully developed moral sense, present in every human, whose
proper functioning is obscured by selfish desires. NeoConfucians differ over
whether hsin is identical with principle (li) and nature (hsing).
hsin2, Chinese term
meaning ‘trust’, ‘faith’, ‘trustworthiness’, ‘honest’. In early texts, hsin is
the mutual trust of sincerity between worshiper and spirit. The Chinese
character for this word consists of two elements representing ‘person’ and
‘speech’, and this provides a reliable guide to its root sense: being true to
one’s word. Hsin became one of the cardinal Confucian virtues: trustworthiness
or honesty (but only in service to what is right). In Buddhist contexts, hsin
can mean ‘faith’ in the religious sense, e.g., the Pure Land School’s practice
of faith in Amitabha Buddha. This influenced Neo-Confucianism and is manifested
in their faith in a perfect, innate moral faculty.
hsing, Chinese
philosophical term generally agreed to be derived from ‘sheng’ (life, growth),
and usually translated as ‘nature’. In its earliest use as a term distinct from
‘sheng’, it probably referred to the tendency or direction of development that
a thing will realize if unobstructed (e.g. it is the hsing of a sprout to grow
into a fullgrown plant and the hsing of water to flow downward), and the hsing
of human beings is also supposed to be their proper course of development. The
concept hsing probably entered philosophical discourse with the development of
the school of thought associated with Yang Chu (fifth–fourth century B.C.),
which regarded the hsing of human beings as the tendency to live a life of a certain
span in good health and with sensory desires appropriately satisfied. It
subsequently became a central concept in Confucian thought, though understood
differently by different Confucian thinkers. Mencius (fourth century B.C.)
regarded the moral way of life as a full realization of the hsing of human
beings, which is constituted by the direction of development indicated by
certain incipient moral inclinations of the heart/mind (hsin); hsing is good in
that it has a moral direction. Hsün Tzu (third century B.C.) regarded the moral
way of life as a transformation of the hsing of human beings, which comprises
primarily self-regarding desires human beings have by birth; hsing is evil in
that unregulated pursuit of satisfaction of such desires leads to strife and
disorder. Different views of hsing continued to evolve; but ever since the view
that Mencius was the true transmitter of Confucius’s teachings became
established, Hsi K’ang hsing 394 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 394
largely through the efforts of Chu Hsi (1130– 1200), the idea that the hsing of
human beings is good has been a central tenet of Confucian thought.
hsing-erh-shang, in
Chinese philosophy, formless or metaphysical. In part one of the I-Ching (the
Book of Changes) there is a statement that what is hsing-erh-shang is called
tao (the Way), and what is hsing-er-hsia (with form) is called ch’i, a concrete
thing. In the Chinese way of thinking, tao and ch’i are understood to be
inseparable from each other; as tao is both transcendent and immanent, it
permeates things, and things must not be cut off and alienated from their
metaphysical origin.
hsing-ming, in Chinese
philosophy, “forms and names,” an important philosophical concept associated
with Legalism and the Huang–Lao School (the school of the Yellow Emperor and
Lao Tzu), which flourished during the Warring States period and the early Han
dynasty (third– second century B.C.). The narrower meaning of the term has to
do with a system of law and punishment, designed especially to keep state
officials in check. More broadly, hsing-ming points to a vision of order, in
which all “names” (ming) should correspond to their underlying “form” (hsing)
or reality. Applied to politics, this suggests that the ruler must discern the
workings of the cosmos, ensure that officials perform their assigned duties,
and allow the people to prosper in the perceived natural order of things.
Hsiung Shih-li
(1885–1968), Chinese contemporary New Confucian philosopher. He was a
revolutionary when young and later studied Wei-shih (Vijnanavada,
‘Consciousness-Only’) philosophy at the China Buddhist Institute under Ou-yang
Ching-wu (1871–1943). But, dissatisfied, he developed his New Wei-shih
philosophy of creativity based on the insights he derived from the I-Ching. He
became influential and had Mou Tsung-san, T’ang Chün-i, and Hsü Fu-kuan among
his disciples. After the Communist takeover in 1949, he still rejected
materialism, but embraced a radical social philosophy that was not shared by
most of his former disciples.
Hsü Fu-kuan (1903–82),
Chinese intellectual and historian who served directly under Chiang Kai-shek at
one time, but became a critic of the Nationalist government after it moved to
Taiwan in 1949. He founded Democratic Review, the influential magazine that
spread the ideas of contemporary New Confucians. He also started the Department
of Chinese at Tunghai University in 1955 and invited Mou Tsung-san to join the
staff to form another center of New Confucianism other than New Asia College in
Hong Kong. He characterized his own position as between academic studies and
politics, and between historical scholarship and philosophical understanding.
His magnum opus was the three-volume History of Han Thought; his works on
Chinese literature and art were also widely quoted.
Hsü Hsing (c.315 B.C.),
Chinese philosopher, a member of the Tillers or Agriculture School (Nung Chia).
The Tillers believed that in antiquity Shen Nung, the Divine Farmer, had ruled
without reward, punishment, or administration over a decentralized utopia of
small communities where all, including the ruler, lived by their own labor.
Accordingly, Hsü Hsing attacked contemporary rulers who did not plow the fields
but rather lived off the labor of others. He also sought to stabilize grain
prices by controlling supply: grain would be stored in good years and
distributed in bad ones.
Hsün Tzu (third century
B.C.), a tough-minded Confucian philosopher best known for his opposition to
Mencius’s conception of the inherent goodness of human nature. For Hsün Tzu,
the essential nature of human beings is bad in the sense of possessing a
problematical motivational hsing-erh-shang structure: every human seeks to
satisfy his/her desires; unless guided by li (propriety) and i (rightness),
these desires inevitably lead to conflict especially in view of the scarcity of
goods and the native human tendency toward partiality for one’s own benefits
and for those of one’s close relations. Significantly, the li or rules of
proper behavior perform three basic functions: delimiting, supportive, and
ennobling. The first draws the boundaries of proper conduct; the second
provides channels for satisfaction of desires within these boundaries; and the
third provides sources for ennobling personal character in accordance with jen (benevolence)
and i (rightness). Hsün Tzu is also noted for emphasizing law as a supplement
to li (rules of proper conduct); the need of argumentation to resolve ethical
disagreement; the importance of clarity of mind, as opposed to pi (obscuration)
in the pursuit of ethical knowledge; and the importance of Confucian classics
in character education.
Huai Nan Tzu, an ancient
Chinese syncretic compendium of knowledge. It was compiled by an academy of
scholars residing under the patronage of one of the most prominent literary
figures of the age, Liu An, Prince of Huai Nan, and presented to the imperial
court of Emperor Wu in about 140 B.C. The twenty treatises that make up the
text include technical tracts on astronomy, topography, and calendrics, as well
as original reconfigurations of the ideas and beliefs that flourished in the
formative period of classical Chinese philosophy. In many ways, it is a Han
dynasty (206 B.C.–A.D. 220) summary of existing knowledge, and like most
Chinese documents it is practical and prescriptive. As a political document, it
is syncretic, blending Confucian, Legalist, and Taoist precepts to recommend a
kind of practicable Taoist alternative to political centralism.
Huang–Lao (Chinese,
‘School of the Yellow Emperor and Lao Tzu’), an eclectic school (c. third
century B.C.) purportedly based on the teachings of the mythic Yellow Emperor
and Lao Tzu, advocating a kind of Realpolitik Taoism stressing reliance on
methods of ruling (e.g., rewards and punishments) and the power of political
and social structures. Huang–Lao sought to establish a perfectly organized
state, which tzu jan (naturally) runs smoothly, in which the ruler reigns (not
rules) through wu wei (non-action). Huang–Lao’s mystical side concerns its
claim that only the ruler can attain the unifying vision needed for such
organization and that this vision is achieved through the practice of stillness
and hsü (tenuousness). P.J.I. Huang Tsung-hsi (1610–95), Chinese philosopher
and historian. A student of Liu Tsung-chou (1578–1645), the last great
Neo-Confucian philosopher in the Ming dynasty, he compiled Ming-ju-hsüeh-an and
Sung-Yüan-hsüeh-an, important anthologies and critical accounts of the
Neo-Confucianists of the Ming dynasty and Sung and Yüan dynasties. He also
wrote Ming-i-taifang-lu (“Waiting for the Dawn: A Plan for the Prince”), in
which he denounced the system of government working only for the selfish
interest of the ruler. This work exerted great influence in the last days of
the Chinese empire.
Hu Hung, also called
Wu-feng (1100–55), Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher and an important figure in
the Hunan School. According to him, hsin (mind/heart) is the outward
manifestation of hsing (human nature); one must first understand the nature of
jen (humanity) before one can practice moral cultivation. Professor Mou
Tsung-san believed that Hu Hung succeeded Chou Tun-yi, Chang Tsai, and Ch’eng
Hao, representing a third line of thought other than those of Ch’eng–Chu and
Lu–Wang.
Hui Shih (c.380–305
B.C.), Chinese philosopher, prime minister of the state of Wei, and a leading
member of the School of Names (ming chia, also referred to as pien che, the
Dialecticians or Sophists). As a friend and debating partner of the Taoist
philosopher Chuang Tzu, Hui Shih parried Chuang Tzu’s poetic, rhapsodic, and
meditationbased intuitions with sophisticated logic and analytic rigor. An
advocate of the Mohist idea of impartial concern for others (chien ai) and an
opponent of war, he is most famous for his Ten Paradoxes, collected in the Chuang
Tzu. Though Hui Shih’s explanations are no longer extant, paradoxes such as “I
go to Yüeh today but arrived yesterday” and “The south has no limit yet has a
limit” raise issues of relativity and perspectivism with respect to language,
values, and concepts such as space and time.
humanism, a set of
presuppositions that assigns to human beings a special position in the scheme of
things. Not just a school of thought or a collection of specific beliefs or
doctrines, humanism is rather a general perspective from which the world is
viewed. That perspective received a gradual yet persistent articulation during
different historical periods and continues to furnish a central leitmotif of
Western civilization. It comes into focus when it is compared with two competing
positions. On the one hand, it can be contrasted with the emphasis on the
supernatural, transcendent domain, which considers humanity to be radically
dependent on divine order. On the other hand, it resists the tendency to treat
humanity scientifically as part of the natural order, on a par with other
living organisms. Occupying the middle position, humanism discerns in human
beings unique capacities and abilities, to be cultivated and celebrated for
their own sake. The word ‘humanism’ came into general use only in the
nineteenth century but was applied to intellectual and cultural developments in
previous eras. A teacher of classical languages and literatures in Renaissance
Italy was described as umanista (contrasted with legista, teacher of law), and
what we today call “the humanities,” in the fifteenth century was called studia
humanitatis, which stood for grammar, rhetoric, history, literature, and moral
philosophy. The inspiration for these studies came from the rediscovery of
ancient Greek and Latin texts; Plato’s complete works were translated for the
first time, and Aristotle’s philosophy was studied in more accurate versions
than those available during the Middle Ages. The unashamedly humanistic flavor
of classical writings had a tremendous impact on Renaissance scholars. Here,
one felt no weight of the supernatural pressing on the human mind, demanding
homage and allegiance. Humanity – with all its distinct capacities, talents,
worries, problems, possibilities – was the center of interest. It has been said
that medieval thinkers philosophized on their knees, but, bolstered by the new
studies, they dared to stand up and to rise to full stature. Instead of
devotional Church Latin, the medium of expression was the people’s own language
– Italian, French, German, English. Poetical, lyrical self-expression gained
momentum, affecting all areas of life. New paintings showed great interest in
human form. Even while depicting religious scenes, Michelangelo celebrated the
human body, investing it with instrinsic value and dignity. The details of
daily life – food, clothing, musical instruments – as well as nature and
landscape – domestic and exotic – were lovingly examined in paintings and
poetry. Imagination was stirred by stories brought home by the discoverers of
new lands and continents, enlarging the scope of human possibilities as
exhibited in the customs and the natural environments of strange, remote
peoples. The humanist mode of thinking deepened and widened its tradition with
the advent of eighteenth-century thinkers. They included French philosophes
like Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau, and other European and American figures –
Bentham, Hume, Lessing, Kant, Franklin, and Jefferson. Not always agreeing with
one another, these thinkers nevertheless formed a family united in support of
such values as freedom, equality, tolerance, secularism, and cosmopolitanism.
Although they championed untrammeled use of the mind, they also wanted it to be
applied in social and political reform, encouraging individual creativity and
exalting the active over the contemplative life. They believed in the
perfectibility of human nature, the moral sense and responsibility, and the
possibility of progress. The optimistic motif of perfectibility endured in the
thinking of nineteenth- and twentiethcentury humanists, even though the
accelerating pace of industrialization, the growth of urban populations, and
the rise in crime, nationalistic squabbles, and ideological strife leading to
largescale inhumane warfare often put in question the efficacy of humanistic
ideals. But even the depressing run of human experience highlighted the appeal
of those ideals, reinforcing the humanistic faith in the values of endurance,
nobility, intelligence, moderation, flexibility, sympathy, and love. Humanists
attribute crucial importance to education, conceiving of it as an all-around
development of personality and individual talents, marrying science to poetry
and culture to democracy. They champion freedom of thought and opinion, the use
of intelligence and pragmatic research in science and technology, and social
and political systems governed by representative institutions. Believing that
it is possible to live confidently without metaphysical or religious certainty
and that all opinions are open to revision and correction, they see human
flourishing as dependent on open communication, discussion, criticism, and
unforced consensus.
human nature, a quality
or group of qualities, belonging to all and only humans, that explains the kind
of being we are. We are all two-footed and featherless, but ‘featherless biped’
does not explain our socially significant characteristics. We are also all both
animals and rational beings (at least potentially), and ‘rational animal’ might
explain the special features we have that other kinds of beings, such as
angels, do not. The belief that there is a human nature is part of the wider
thesis that all natural kinds have essences. Acceptance of this position is
compatible with many views about the specific qualities that constitute human
nature. In addition to rationality and embodiment, philosophers have said that
it is part of our nature to be wholly selfinterested, benevolent, envious,
sociable, fearful of others, able to speak and to laugh, and desirous of
immortality. Philosophers disagree about how we are to discover our nature.
Some think metaphysical insight into eternal forms or truths is required,
others that we can learn it from observation of biology or of behavior. Most
have assumed that only males display human nature fully, and that females, even
at their best, are imperfect or incomplete exemplars. Philosophers also
disagree on whether human nature determines morality. Some think that by noting
our distinctive features we can infer what God wills us to do. Others think
that our nature shows at most the limits of what morality can require, since it
would plainly be pointless to direct us to ways of living that our nature makes
impossible. Some philosophers have argued that human nature is plastic and can
be shaped in different ways. Others hold that it is not helpful to think in
terms of human nature. They think that although we share features as members of
a biological species, our other qualities are socially constructed. If the
differences between male and female reflect cultural patterns of child rearing,
work, and the distribution of power, our biologically common features do not
explain our important characteristics and so do not constitute a nature.
humboldt: scholar, and
educator, often regarded as the father of comparative linguistics. Born in
Potsdam, Wilhelm, with his younger brother Alexander, was educated by private
tutors in the “enlightened” style thought suitable for future Prussian
diplomats. This included classical languages, history, philosophy, and
political economy. After his university studies in law at Frankfurt an der Oder
and Göttingen, his career was divided among assorted diplomatic posts, writing
on a broad range of topics, and (his first love) the study of languages. His
broad-ranging works reveal the important influences of Herder in his conception
of history and culture, Kant and Fichte in philosophy, and the French
“Ideologues” in linguistics. His most enduring work has proved to be the
Introduction (published in 1836) to his massive study of the Kawi language
spoken on Java. Humboldt maintained that language, as a vital and dynamic
“organism,” is the key to understanding both the operations of the human mind
and the distinctive differences characteristic of various national cultures.
Every language possesses a distinctive inner form that shapes, in a way
reminiscent of Kant’s more general categories, the subjective experiences, the
worldview, and ultimately the institutions of a given nation and its culture.
While all later comparative linguists are indebted to both his empirical
studies and his theoretical insights, such philosophers of culture as Dilthey
and Cassirer acknowledge him as establishing language as a central concern for
the human sciences.
Hume – “My unfavourite
philosopher” – Grice. “His real name was “Home””. See Grice’s “Humean
projection,” or “Humeian projection,” “I like his spread.” Philosopher who may
be aptly considered the leading neo-skeptic of the early modern period. Many of
Hume’s immediate predecessors (Descartes, Bayle, and Berkeley) had grappled
with important elements of skepticism. Hume consciously incorporated many of
these same elements into a philosophical system that manages to be both
skeptical and constructive. Born and educated in Edinburgh, Hume spent three
years (1734–37) in France writing the penultimate draft of A Treatise of Human
Nature. In middle life, in addition to writing a wide-ranging set of essays and
short treatises and a long History of England, he served briefly as companion
to a mad nobleman, then as a military attaché, before becoming librarian of the
Advocates Library in Edinburgh. In 1763 he served as private secretary to Lord
Hertford, the British ambassador in Paris; in 1765 he became secretary to the
embassy there and then served as chargé d’affaires. In 1767–68 he served in London
as under-secretary of state for the Northern Department. He retired to
Edinburgh in 1769 and died there. Hume’s early care was chiefly in the hands of
his widowed mother, who reported that young David was “uncommon wake-minded”
(i.e., uncommonly acute, in the local dialect of the period). His earliest
surviving letter, written in 1727, indicates that even at sixteen he was
engaged in the study that resulted in the publication (1739) of the first two
volumes of A Treatise of Human Nature. By the time he left college (c.1726) he
had a thorough grounding in classical authors, especially Cicero and the major
Latin poets; in natural philosophy (particularly that of Boyle) and
mathematics; in logic or theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and moral
philosophy; and in history. His early reading included many of the major
English and French poets and essayists of the period. He reports that in the
three years ending about March 1734, he read “most of the celebrated Books in
Latin, French & English,” and also learned Italian. Thus, although Hume’s
views are often supposed to result from his engagement with only one or two
philosophers (with either Locke and Berkeley, or Hutcheson or Newton), the
breadth of his reading suggests that no single writer or philosophical
tradition provides the comprehensive key to his thought. Hume’s most often
cited works include A Treatise of Human Nature (three volumes, 1739–40); an
Abstract (1740) of volumes 1 and 2 of the Treatise; a collection of
approximately forty essays (Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, first
published, for the most part, between 1741 and 1752); An Enquiry concerning
Human Understanding (1748); An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals
(1751); The Natural History of Religion (1757); a six-volume History of England
from Roman times to 1688 (1754–62); a brief autobiography, My Own Life (1777);
and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion (1778). Hume’s neo-skeptical stance
manifests itself in each of these works. He insists that philosophy “cannot go
beyond experience; and any hypothesis, that pretends to discover the ultimate
original qualities of human nature, ought at first to be rejected as
presumptuous and chimerical.” He says of the Treatise that it “is very
sceptical, and tends to give us a notion of the imperfections and narrow limits
of the human understanding.” But he goes well beyond the conventional
recognition of human limitations; from his skeptical starting place he projects
an observationally based science of human nature, and produces a comprehensive
and constructive account of human nature and experience. Hume begins the
Treatise with a discussion of the “elements” of his philosophy. Arguing that it
is natural philosophers (scientists) who should explain how sensation works, he
focuses on those entities that are the immediate and only objects present to
the mind. These he calls “perceptions” and distinguishes into two kinds,
“impressions” and “ideas.” Hume initially suggests that impressions (of which
there are two kinds: of sensation and of reflection) are more forceful or
vivacious than ideas, but some ideas (those of memory, e.g.) do sometimes take
on enough force and vivacity to be called impressions, and belief also adds
sufficient force and vivacity to ideas to make them practically
indistinguishable from impressions. In the end we find that impressions are
clearly distinguished from ideas only insofar as ideas are always causally
dependent on impressions. Thomas Reid charged that the allegedly representative
theory of perception found in Descartes and Locke had served as a philosophical
Trojan horse leading directly to skeptical despair. Hume was fully aware of the
skeptical implications of this theory. He knew well those sections of Bayle and
Locke that reveal the inadequacy of Descartes’s attempts to prove that there is
an external world, and also appreciated the force of the objections brought by
Bayle and Berkeley against the primary–secondary quality distinction championed
by Locke. Hume adopted the view that the immediate objects of the mind are
always “perceptions” because he thought it correct, and in spite of the fact
that it leads to skepticism about the external world. Satisfied that the battle
to establish absolutely reliable links between thought and reality had been
fought and lost, Hume made no attempt to explain how our impressions of
sensation are linked to their entirely “unknown causes.” He instead focused
exclusively on perceptions qua objects of mind: As to those impressions, which
arise from the senses, their ultimate cause is, in my opinion, perfectly
inexplicable by human reason, and ‘twill always be impossible to decide with
certainty, whether they arise immediately from the object, or are produc’d by
the creative power of the mind, or are deriv’d from the author of our being.
Nor is such a question any way material to our present purpose. We may draw
inferences from the coherence of our perceptions, whether they be true or
false; whether they represent nature justly, or be mere illusions of the
senses. Book I of the Treatise is an effort to show how our perceptions cohere
to form certain fundamental notions (those of space and time, causal
connection, external and independent existence, and mind) in which, skeptical
doubts notwithstanding, we repose belief and on which “life and action entirely
depend.” According to Hume, we have no direct impressions of space and time,
and yet the ideas of space and time are essential to our existence. This he
explains by tracing our idea of space to a “manner of appearance”: by means of
two senses, sight and touch, we have impressions that array themselves as so
many points on a contrasting background; the imagination transforms these
particulars of experience into a “compound impression, which represents
extension” or the abstract idea of space itself. Our idea of time is, mutatis
mutandis, accounted for in the same way: “As ‘tis from the disposition of
visible and tangible objects we receive the idea of space, so from the
succession of ideas and impressions we form the idea of time.” The abstract
idea of time, like all other abstract ideas, is represented in the imagination
by a “particular individual idea of a determinate quantity and quality” joined
to a term, ‘time’, that has general reference. Hume is often credited with
denying there is physical necessity and that we have any idea of necessary
connection. This interpretation significantly distorts his intent. Hume was
convinced by the Cartesians, and especially by Malebranche, that neither the
senses nor reason can establish that one object (a cause) is connected together
with another object (an effect) in such a way that the presence of the one
entails the existence of the other. Experience reveals only that objects
thought to be causally related are contiguous in time and space, that the cause
is prior to the effect, and that similar objects have been constantly
associated in this way. These are the defining, perceptible features of the
causal relation. And yet there seems to be more to the matter. “There is,” he
says, a “NECESSARY CONNECTION to be taken into consideration,” and our belief
in that relation must be explained. Despite our demonstrated inability to see
or prove that there are necessary causal connections, we continue to think and
act as if we had knowledge of them. We act, for example, as though the future
will necessarily resemble the past, and “wou’d appear ridiculous” if we were to
say “that ‘tis only probable the sun will rise to-morrow, or that all men must
dye.” To explain this phenomenon Hume asks us to imagine what life would have
been like for Adam, suddenly brought to life in the midst of the world. Adam
would have been unable to make even the simplest predictions about the future
behavior of objects. He would not have been able to predict that one moving
billiard ball, striking a second, would cause the second to move. And yet we,
endowed with the same faculties, can not only make, but are unable to resist
making, this and countless other such predictions. What is the difference
between ourselves and this putative Adam? Experience. We have experienced the
constant conjunction (the invariant succession of paired objects or events) of
particular causes and effects and, although our experience never includes even
a glimpse of a causal connection, it does arouse in us an expectation that a
particular event (a “cause”) will be followed by another event (an “effect”)
previously and constantly associated with it. Regularities of experience give
rise to these feelings, and thus determine the mind to transfer its attention
from a present impression to the idea of an absent but associated object. The
idea of necessary connection is copied from these feelings. The idea has its
foundation in the mind and is projected onto the world, but there is
nonetheless such an idea. That there is an objective physical necessity to
which this idea corresponds is an untestable hypothesis, nor would
demonstrating that such necessary connections had held in the past guarantee
that they will hold in the future. Thus, while not denying that there may be
physical necessity or that there is an idea of necessary connection, Hume
remains a skeptic about causal necessity. Hume’s account of our belief in
future effects or absent causes – of the process of mind that enables us to
plan effectively – is a part of this same explanation. Such belief involves an
idea or conception of the entity believed in, but is clearly different from
mere conception without belief. This difference cannot be explained by supposing
that some further idea, an idea of belief itself, is present when we believe,
but absent when we merely conceive. There is no such idea. Moreover, given the
mind’s ability to freely join together any two consistent ideas, if such an
idea were available we by an act of will could, contrary to experience, combine
the idea of belief with any other idea, and by so doing cause ourselves to
believe anything. Consequently, Hume concludes that belief can only be a
“different MANNER of conceiving an object”; it is a livelier, Hume, David Hume,
David 400 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 400 firmer, more vivid and
intense conception. Belief in certain “matters of fact” – the belief that
because some event or object is now being experienced, some other event or
object not yet available to experience will in the future be experienced – is
brought about by previous experience of the constant conjunction of two
impressions. These two impressions have been associated together in such a way
that the experience of one of them automatically gives rise to an idea of the
other, and has the effect of transferring the force or liveliness of the
impression to the associated idea, thereby causing this idea to be believed or
to take on the lively character of an impression. Our beliefs in continuing and
independently existing objects and in our own continuing selves are, on Hume’s
account, beliefs in “fictions,” or in entities entirely beyond all experience.
We have impressions that we naturally but mistakenly suppose to be continuing,
external objects, but analysis quickly reveals that these impressions are by
their very nature fleeting and observer-dependent. Moreover, none of our
impressions provides us with a distinctive mark or evidence of an external
origin. Similarly, when we focus on our own minds, we experience only a
sequence of impressions and ideas, and never encounter the mind or self in
which these perceptions are supposed to inhere. To ourselves we appear to be
merely “a bundle or collection of different perceptions, which succeed each
other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and
movement.” How do we, then, come to believe in external objects or our own
selves and self-identity? Neither reason nor the senses, working with
impressions and ideas, provide anything like compelling proof of the existence
of continuing, external objects, or of a continuing, unified self. Indeed,
these two faculties cannot so much as account for our belief in objects or
selves. If we had only reason and the senses, the faculties championed by,
respectively, the rationalists and empiricists, we would be mired in a
debilitating and destructive uncertainty. So unfortunate an outcome is avoided
only by the operation of an apparently unreliable third faculty, the imagination.
It, by means of what appear to be a series of outright mistakes and trivial
suggestions, leads us to believe in our own selves and in independently
existing objects. The skepticism of the philosophers is in this way both
confirmed (we can provide no arguments, e.g., proving the existence of the
external world) and shown to be of little practical import. An irrational
faculty, the imagination, saves us from the excesses of philosophy: “Philosophy
wou’d render us entirely Pyrrhonian,” says Hume, were not nature, in the form
of the imagination, too strong for it. Books II and III of the Treatise and the
Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals reveal Hume’s concern to explain
our moral behavior and judgments in a manner that is consistent with his science
of human nature, but which nonetheless recognizes the irreducible moral content
of these judgments. Thus he attempted to rescue the passions from the ad hoc
explanations and negative assessments of his predecessors. From the time of
Plato and the Stoics the passions had often been characterized as irrational
and unnatural animal elements that, given their head, would undermine
humankind’s true, rational nature. Hume’s most famous remark on the subject of
the passions, “Reason is, and ought only to be, the slave of the passions,”
will be better understood if read in this context (and if it is remembered that
he also claims that reason can and does extinguish some passions). In contrast
to the long-standing orthodoxy, Hume assumes that the passions constitute an
integral and legitimate part of human nature, a part that can be explained
without recourse to physical or metaphysical speculation. The passions can be
treated as of a piece with other perceptions: they are secondary impressions
(“impressions of reflection”) that derive from prior impressions and ideas.
Some passions (pride and humility, love and hatred) may be characterized as
indirect; i.e., they arise as the result of a double relation of impressions
and ideas that gives them one form of intentional character. These passions
have both assignable causes (typically, the qualities of some person or some
object belonging to a person) and a kind of indirect object (the person with
the qualities or objects just mentioned); the object of pride or humility is
always oneself, while the object of love or hatred is always another. The
direct passions (desire, aversion, hope, fear, etc.) are feelings caused
immediately by pleasure or pain, or the prospect thereof, and take entities or
events as their intentional objects. In his account of the will Hume claims
that while all human actions are caused, they are nonetheless free. He argues
that our ascriptions of causal connection have all the same foundation, namely,
the observation of a “uniform and regular conjunction” of one object with
another. Given that in the course of human affairs we observe “the same
uniformity and regular operation of natural principles” found in the physical
world, and that this uniformity results in an expectation of exactly the sort
produced by physical regularities, it follows that there is no “negation of
necessity and causes,” or no liberty of indifference. The will, that “internal
impression we feel and are conscious of when we knowingly give rise to” any
action or thought, is an effect always linked (by constant conjunction and the
resulting feeling of expectation) to some prior cause. But, insofar as our
actions are not forcibly constrained or hindered, we do remain free in another
sense: we retain a liberty of spontaneity. Moreover, only freedom in this
latter sense is consistent with morality. A liberty of indifference, the
possibility of uncaused actions, would undercut moral assessment, for such
assessments presuppose that actions are causally linked to motives. Morality is
for Hume an entirely human affair founded on human nature and the circumstances
of human life (one form of naturalism). We as a species possess several notable
dispositions that, over time, have given rise to morality. These include a
disposition to form bonded family groups, a disposition (sympathy) to
communicate and thus share feelings, a disposition – the moral sense – to feel
approbation and disapprobation in response to the actions of others, and a
disposition to form general rules. Our disposition to form family groups
results in small social units in which a natural generosity operates. The fact
that such generosity is possible shows that the egoists are mistaken, and
provides a foundation for the distinction between virtue and vice. The fact
that the moral sense responds differently to distinctive motivations – we feel
approbation in response to well-intended actions, disapprobation in response to
ill-intended ones – means that our moral assessments have an affective but
nonetheless cognitive foundation. To claim that Nero was vicious is to make a
judgment about Nero’s motives or character in consequence of an observation of
him that has caused an impartial observer to feel a unique sentiment of
disapprobation. That our moral judgments have this affective foundation
accounts for the practical and motivational character of morality. Reason is
“perfectly inert,” and hence our practical, actionguiding moral distinctions
must derive from the sentiments or feelings provided by our moral sense. Hume
distinguishes, however, between the “natural virtues” (generosity, benevolence,
e.g.) and the “artificial virtues” (justice, allegiance, e.g.). These differ in
that the former not only produce good on each occasion of their practice, but
are also on every occasion approved. In contrast, any particular instantiation
of justice may be “contrary to the public good” and be approved only insofar as
it is entailed by “a general scheme or system of action, which is
advantageous.” The artificial virtues differ also in being the result of
contrivance arising from “the circumstances and necessities of life.” In our
original condition we did not need the artificial virtues because our natural
dispositions and responses were adequate to maintain the order of small,
kinshipbased units. But as human numbers increased, so too did the scarcity of
some material goods lead to an increase in the possibility of conflict,
particularly over property, between these units. As a consequence, and out of
self-interest, our ancestors were gradually led to establish conventions
governing property and its exchange. In the early stages of this necessary
development our disposition to form general rules was an indispensable
component; at later stages, sympathy enables many individuals to pursue the artificial
virtues from a combination of self-interest and a concern for others, thus
giving the fully developed artificial virtues a foundation in two kinds of
motivation. Hume’s Enquiry concerning Human Understanding and his Enquiry
concerning the Principles of Morals represent his effort to “recast” important
aspects of the Treatise into more accessible form. His Essays extend his
human-centered philosophical analysis to political institutions, economics, and
literary criticism. His best-selling History of England provides, among much
else, an extended historical analysis of competing Whig and Tory claims about
the origin and nature of the British constitution. Hume’s trenchant critique of
religion is found principally in his Enquiry concerning Human Understanding,
Natural History of Religion, and Dialogues. In an effort to curb the excesses
of religious dogmatism, Hume focuses his attention on miracles, on the argument
from design, and on the origin of the idea of monotheism. Miracles are putative
facts used to justify a commitment to certain creeds. Such commitments are
often maintained with a mind-numbing tenacity and a disruptive intolerance
toward contrary views. Hume argues that the widely held view of miracles as
violations of a law of nature is incoherent, that the evidence for even the
most likely miracle will always be counterbalanced by the evidence establishing
the law of nature that the miracle allegedly violates, and that the evidence
supporting any given miracle is necessarily suspect. His argument leaves open
the possibility that violations of the laws of nature may have occurred, but
shows that beliefs about such events lack the force of evidence needed to
justify the arrogance and intolerance that characterizes so many of the
religious. Hume’s critique of the argument from design has a similar effect.
This argument purports to show that our well-ordered universe must be the
effect of a supremely intelligent cause, that each aspect of this divine
creation is well designed to fulfill some beneficial end, and that these
effects show us that the Deity is caring and benevolent. Hume shows that these
conclusions go well beyond the available evidence. The pleasant and
well-designed features of the world are balanced by a good measure of the
unpleasant and the plainly botched. Our knowledge of causal connections depends
on the experience of constant conjunctions. Such connections cause the vivacity
of a present impression to be transferred to the idea associated with it, and
leave us believing in that idea. But in this case the effect to be explained,
the universe, is unique, and its cause unknown. Consequently, we cannot
possibly have experiential grounds for any kind of inference about this cause.
On experiential grounds the most we can say is that there is a massive, mixed
effect, and, as we have through experience come to believe that effects have
causes commensurate to them, this effect probably does have a commensurately
large and mixed cause. Furthermore, as the effect is remotely like the products
of human manufacture, we can say “that the cause or causes of order in the
universe probably bear some remote analogy to human intelligence.” There is
indeed an inference to be drawn from the unique effect in question (the
universe) to the cause of that effect, but it is not the “argument” of the
theologians nor does it in any way support sectarian pretension or intolerance.
The Natural History of Religion focuses on the question of the origin of
religion in human nature, and delivers a thoroughly naturalistic answer: the
widespread but not universal belief in invisible and intelligent power can be
traced to derivative and easily perverted principles of our nature. Primitive
peoples found physical nature not an orderly whole produced by a beneficent
designer, but arbitrary and fearsome, and they came to understand the
activities of nature as the effect of petty powers that could, through
propitiating worship, be influenced to ameliorate their lives. Subsequently,
the same fears and perceptions transformed polytheism into monotheism, the view
that a single, omnipotent being created and still controls the world and all
that transpires in it. From this conclusion Hume goes on to argue that
monotheism, apparently the more sophisticated position, is morally retrograde.
Monotheism tends naturally toward zeal and intolerance, encourages debasing,
“monkish virtues,” and proves itself a danger to society: it is a source of
violence and a cause of immorality. In contrast, polytheism, which Hume here
regards as a form of atheism, is tolerant of diversity and encourages genuine
virtues that improve humankind. From a moral point of view, at least this one
form of atheism is superior to theism.
hu
shih:
philosopher and historian and a famous liberal intellectual in contemporary
China. He studied at Columbia University under Dewey, and brought pragmatism to
China. He was the Chinese ambassador to the United States during World War II
and later headed the Academia Sinica in Taipei. A versatile writer, he helped
to initiate the vernacular movement in Chinese literature; published his
Ancient History of Chinese Philosophy in 1919, the first history of Chinese
philosophy written from a modern point of view; and advocated wholesale
Westernization or modernization of China. A reformist committed to the
democratic ideal, he remained an anti-Communist throughout his life.
husserl: philosopher
and founder of phenomenology. Born in Prossnits (now Proste v jov in the Czech
Republic), he studied science and philosophy at Leipzig, mathematics and
philosophy at Berlin, and philosophy and psychology at Vienna and Halle. He
taught at Halle, Göttingen, and Freiburg (1916–28). Husserl and Frege were the
founders of the two major twentiethcentury trends. Through his work and his
influence on Russell, Wittgenstein, and others, Frege inspired the movement
known as analytic philosophy, while Husserl, through his work and his influence
on Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, and others, established the movement known
as phenomenology. Husserl began his academic life as a mathematician. He
studied at Berlin with Kronecker and Weierstrass and wrote a dissertation in
mathematics at Vienna. There, influenced by Brentano, his interests turned
toward philosohumors Husserl, Edmund 403 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page
403 phy and psychology but remained related to mathematics. His habilitation,
written at Halle, was a psychological-philosophical study of the concept of
number and led to his first book, The Philosophy of Arithmetic (1891). Husserl
distinguishes between numbers given intuitively and those symbolically
intended. The former are given as the objective correlates of acts of counting;
when we count things set out before us, we constitute groups, and these groups
can be compared with each other as more and less. In this way the first few
numbers in the number series can be intuitively presented. Although most
numbers are only symbolically intended, their sense as numbers is derived from
those that are intuitively given. During 1890–1900 Husserl expanded his
philosophical concerns from mathematics to logic and the general theory of
knowledge, and his reflections culminated in his Logical Investigations
(1900–01). The work is made up of six investigations preceded by a volume of
prolegomena. The prolegomena are a sustained and effective critique of
psychologism, the doctrine that reduces logical entities, such as propositions,
universals, and numbers, to mental states or mental activities. Husserl insists
on the objectivity of such targets of consciousness and shows the incoherence
of reducing them to the activities of mind. The rest of the work examines signs
and words, abstraction, parts and wholes, logical grammar, the notion of
presentation, and truth and evidence. His earlier distinction between intuitive
presentation and symbolic intention is now expanded from our awareness of
numbers to the awareness of all sorts of objects of consciousness. The contrast
between empty intention and fulfillment or intuition is applied to perceptual
objects, and it is also applied to what he calls categorial objects: states of
affairs, relationships, causal connections, and the like. Husserl claims that
we can have an intellectual intuition of such things and he describes this
intuition; it occurs when we articulate an object as having certain features or
relationships. The formal structure of categorial objects is elegantly related
to the grammatical parts of language. As regards simple material objects,
Husserl observes that we can intend them either emptily or intuitively, but
even when they are intuitively given, they retain sides that are absent and
only cointended by us, so perception itself is a mixture of empty and filled
intentions. The term ‘intentionality’ refers to both empty and filled, or
signitive and intuitive, intentions. It names the relationship consciousness
has toward things, whether those things are directly given or meant only in
their absence. Husserl also shows that the identity of things is given to us
when we see that the object we once intended emptily is the same as what is
actually given to us now. Such identities are given even in perceptual
experience, as the various sides and aspects of things continue to present one
and the same object, but identities are given even more explicitly in categorial
intuition, when we recognize the partial identity between a thing and its
features, or when we directly focus on the identity a thing has with itself.
These phenomena are described under the general rubric of identitysynthesis. A
weakness in the first edition of Logical Investigations was the fact that
Husserl remained somewhat Kantian in it and distinguished sharply between the
thing as it is given to us and the thing-in-itself; he claimed that in his
phenomenology he described only the thing as it is given to us. In the decade
1900–10, through deeper reflection on our experience of time, on memory, and on
the nature of philosophical thinking, he overcame this Kantian distinction and
claimed that the thing-in-itself can be intuitively given to us as the identity
presented in a manifold of appearances. His new position was expressed in Ideas
Pertaining to a Pure Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy (1913). The
book was misinterpreted by many as adopting a traditional idealism, and many
thinkers who admired Husserl’s earlier work distanced themselves from what he
now taught. Husserl published three more books. Formal and Transcendental Logic
(1929) was written right after his retirement; Cartesian Meditations (1931),
which appeared in French translation, was an elaboration of some lectures he
gave in Paris. In addition, some earlier manuscripts on the experience of time
were assembled by Edith Stein and edited by Heidegger in 1928 as Lectures on
the Phenomenology of Inner Time-Consciousness. Thus, Husserl published only six
books, but he amassed a huge amount of manuscripts, lecture notes, and working
papers. He always retained the spirit of a scientist and did his philosophical
work in the manner of tentative experiments. Many of his books can be seen as
compilations of such experiments rather than as systematic treatises. Because
of its exploratory and developmental character, his thinking does not lend
itself to doctrinal summary. Husserl was of Jewish ancestry, and after his
death his papers were in danger from the Nazi regime; they were covertly taken
out of Germany by a Belgian scholar, Herman Husserl, Edmund Husserl, Edmund 404
4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 404 Leo Van Breda, who, after World War II,
established the Husserl Archives at Louvain. This institution, with centers at
Cologne, Freiburg, Paris, and New York, has since supervised the critical
edition of many volumes of Husserl’s writings in the series Husserliana.
Husserl believes that things are presented to us in various ways, and that
philosophy should be engaged in precise description of these appearances. It
should avoid constructing large-scale theories and defending ideologies. It
should analyze, e.g., how visual objects are perceived and how they depend on
our cognitive activity of seeing, focusing, moving about, on the correlation of
seeing with touching and grasping, and so on. Philosophy should describe the
different ways in which such “regions of being” as material objects, living
things, other persons, and cultural objects are given, how the past and the
present are intended, how speech, numbers, time and space, and our own bodies
are given to us, and so on. Husserl carries out many such analyses himself and
in all of them distinguishes between the object given and the subjective
conscious activity we must perform to let it be given. The phenomenological
description of the object is called noematic analysis and that of the
subjective intentions is called noetic analysis. The noema is the object as
described phenomenologically, the noesis is the corresponding mental activity,
also as described by phenomenology. The objective and the subjective are
correlative but never reducible to one another. In working out such
descriptions we must get to the essential structures of things. We do so not by
just generalizing over instances we have experienced, but by a process he calls
“free variation” or “imaginative variation.” We attempt in our imagination to
remove various features from the target of our analysis; the removal of some features
would leave the object intact, but the removal of other features would destroy
the object; hence, when we come upon the latter we know we have hit on
something essential to the thing. The method of imaginative variation thus
leads to eidetic intuition, the insight that this or that feature belongs to
the eidos, the essence, of the thing in question. Eidetic intuition is directed
not only toward objects but also toward the various forms of intentionality, as
we try to determine the essence of perception, memory, judging, and the like.
Husserl thinks that the eidetic analysis of intentionality and its objects
yields apodictic truths, truths that can be seen to be necessary. Examples
might be that human beings could not be without a past and future, and that
each material perceptual object has sides and aspects other than those
presented at any moment. Husserl admits that the objects of perceptual
experience, material things, are not given apodictically to perception because
they contain parts that are only emptily intended, but he insists that the
phenomenological reflection on perceptual experience, the reflection that
yields the statement that perception involves a mixture of empty and filled
intentions, can be apodictic: we know apodictically that perception must have a
mixture of empty and filled intentions. Husserl did admit in the 1920s that
although phenomenological experience and statements could be apodictic, they
would never be adequate to what they describe, i.e., further clarifications of
what they signify could always be carried out. This would mean, e.g., that we
can be apodictically sure that human beings could not be what they are if they
did not have a sense of past and future, but what it is to have a past and
future always needs deeper clarification. Husserl has much to say about
philosophical thinking. He distinguishes between the “natural attitude,” our
straightforward involvement with things and the world, and the
“phenomenological attitude,” the reflective point of view from which we carry
out philosophical analysis of the intentions exercised in the natural attitude
and the objective correlates of these intentions. When we enter the
phenomenological attitude, we put out of action or suspend all the intentions
and convictions of the natural attitude; this does not mean that we doubt or
negate them, only that we take a distance from them and contemplate their
structure. Husserl calls this suspension the phenomenological epoché. In our
human life we begin, of course, in the natural attitude, and the name for the
processs by which we move to the phenomenological attitude is called the
phenomenological reduction, a “leading back” from natural beliefs to the
reflective consideration of intentions and their objects. In the
phenomenological attitude we look at the intentions that we normally look
through, those that function anonymously in our straightforward involvement
with the world. Throughout his career, Husserl essayed various “ways to
reduction” or arguments to establish philosophy. At times he tried to model the
argument on Descartes’s methodical doubt; at times he tried to show that the
world-directed sciences need the further supplement of phenomenological
reflection if they are to be truly scientific. One of the special features of the
natural attitude is that it simply accepts the world as a background or horizon
for all our more particular experiences and beliefs. The world is not a large
thing nor is it the sum total of things; it is the horizon or matrix for all
particular things and states of affairs. The world as noema is correlated to
our world-belief or world-doxa as noesis. In the phenomenological attitude we
take a distance even toward our natural being in the world and we describe what
it is to have a world. Husserl thinks that this sort of radical reflection and
radical questioning is necessary for beginning philosophy and entering into
what he calls pure or transcendental phenomenology; so long as we fail to
question our world-belief and the world as such, we fail to reach philosophical
purity and our analyses will in fact become parts of worldly sciences (such as
psychology) and will not be philosophical. Husserl distinguishes between the
apophantic and the ontological domains. The apophantic is the domain of senses
and propositions, while the ontological is the domain of things, states of
affairs, relations, and the like. Husserl calls “apophantic analytics” the
science that examines the formal, logical structures of the apophantic domain
and “formal ontology” the science that examines the formal structures of the
ontological domain. The movement between focusing on the ontological domain and
focusing on the apophantic domain occurs within the natural attitude, but it is
described from the phenomenological attitude. This movement establishes the
difference between propositions and states of affairs, and it permits
scientific verification; science is established in the zigzag motion between
focusing on things and focusing on propositions, which are then verified or
falsified when they are confirmed or disconfirmed by the way things appear.
Evidence is the activity of either having a thing in its direct presence or
experiencing the conformity or disconformity between an empty intention and the
intuition that is to fulfill it. There are degrees of evidence; things can be
given more or less fully and more or less distinctly. Adequation occurs when an
intuition fully satisfies an empty intention. Husserl also makes a helpful
distinction between the passive, thoughtless repetition of words and the
activity of explicit judging, in which we distinctly make judgments on our own.
Explicit thinking can itself fall back into passivity or become “sedimented” as
people take it for granted and go on to build further thinking upon it. Such
sedimented thought must be reactivated and its meanings revived. Passive
thinking may harbor contradictions and incoherences; the application of formal
logic presumes judgments that are distinctly executed. In our reflective
phenomenological analyses we describe various intentional acts, but we also
discover the ego as the owner or agent behind these acts. Husserl distinguishes
between the psychological ego, the ego taken as a part of the world, and the
transcendental ego, the ego taken as that which has a world and is engaged in
truth, and hence to some extent transcends the world. He often comments on the
remarkable ambiguity of the ego, which is both a part of the world (as a human
being) and yet transcends the world (as a cognitive center that possesses or intends
the world). The transcendental ego is not separable from individuals; it is a
dimension of every human being. We each have a transcendental ego, since we are
all intentional and rational beings. Husserl also devoted much effort to
analyzing intersubjectivity and tried to show how other egos and other minds,
other centers of conscious and rational awareness, can be presented and
intended. The role of the body, the role of speech and other modes of
communication, and the fact that we all share things and a world in common are
important elements in these analyses. The transcendental ego, the source of all
intentional acts, is constituted through time: it has its own identity, which
is different from that of the identity of things or states of affairs. The identity
of the ego is built up through the flow of experiences and through memory and
anticipation. One of Husserl’s major contributions is his analysis of
time-consciousness and its relation to the identity of the self, a topic to
which he often returns. He distinguishes among the objective time of the world,
the inner time of the flow of our experiences (such as acts of perception,
judgments, and memories), and a third, still deeper level that he calls “the
consciousness of inner time.” It is this third, deepest level, the
consciousness of inner time, that permits even our mental acts to be
experienced as temporal. This deepest level also provides the ultimate context
in which the identity of the ego is constituted. In one way, we achieve our
conscious identity through the memories that we store and recall, but these
memories themselves have to be stitched together by the deepest level of
temporality in order to be recoverable as belonging to one and the same self.
Husserl observes that on this deepest level of the consciousness of inner time,
we never have a simple atomic present: what we come to as ultimate is a moving
form Husserl, Edmund Husserl, Edmund 406 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page
406 that has a retention of the immediate past, a protention of that which is
coming, and a central core. This form of inner time-consciousness, the form of
what Husserl calls “the living present,” is prior even to the ego and is a kind
of apex reached by his philosophical analysis. One of the important themes that
Husserl developed in the last decade of his work is that of the life-world or
Lebenswelt. He claims that scientific and mathematical abstraction has roots in
the prescientific world, the world in which we live. This world has its own
structures of appearance, identification, evidence, and truth, and the
scientific world is established on its basis. One of the tasks of phenomenology
is to show how the idealized entities of science draw their sense from the
life-world. Husserl claims, e.g., that geometrical forms have their roots in
the activity of measuring and in the idealization of the volumes, surfaces,
edges, and intersections we experience in the life-world. The sense of the
scientific world and its entities should not be placed in opposition to the life-world,
but should be shown, by phenomenological analysis, to be a development of
appearances found in it. In addition, the structures and evidences of the
lifeworld itself must be philosophically described. Husserl’s influence in
philosophy has been very great during the entire twentieth century, especially
in Continental Europe. His concept of intentionality is understood as a way of
overcoming the Cartesian dualism between mind and world, and his study of
signs, formal systems, and parts and wholes has been valuable in structuralism
and literary theory. His concept of the life-world has been used as a way of
integrating science with wider forms of human activity, and his concepts of
time and personal identity have been useful in psychoanalytic theory and existentialism.
He has inspired work in the social sciences and recently his ideas have proved
helpful to scholars in cognitive science and artificial intelligence.
hutcheson: philosopher
who was the chief exponent of the early modern moral sense theory and of a
similar theory postulating a sense of beauty. He was born in Drumalig, Ireland,
and completed his theological training in 1717 at the University of Glasgow,
where he later taught moral philosophy. He was a Presbyterian minister and
founded an academy for Presbyterian youth in Dublin. Sparked by Hobbes’s
thesis, in Leviathan (1651), that human beings always act out of selfinterest,
moral debate in the eighteenth century was preoccupied with the possibility of
a genuine benevolence. Hutcheson characterized his first work, An Inquiry into
the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), as a defense of the
nonegoistic moral sense theory of his more immediate predecessor, Shaftesbury,
against the egoism of Bernard Mandeville (1670–1733). His second work, An Essay
on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections with Illustrations on
the Moral Sense (1728), explores the psychology of human action, apparently
influenced by Butler’s classification of the passions (in his Sermons, 1726).
Hutcheson asserts the existence of several “internal” senses – i.e., capacities
for perceptual responses to concepts (such as one’s idea of Nero’s character),
as opposed to perceptions of physical objects. Among these internal senses are
those of honor, sympathy, morality, and beauty. Only the latter two, however,
are discussed in detail by Hutcheson, who develops his account of each within
the framework of Locke’s empiricist epistemology. For Hutcheson, the idea of
beauty is produced in us when we experience pleasure upon thinking of certain
natural objects or artifacts, just as our idea of moral goodness is occasioned
by the approval we feel toward an agent when we think of her actions, even if
they in no way benefit us. Beauty and goodness (and their opposites) are
analogous to Lockean secondary qualities, such as colors, tastes, smells, and
sounds, in that their existence depends somehow on the minds of perceivers. The
quality the sense of beauty consistently finds pleasurable is a pattern of
“uniformity amidst variety,” while the quality the moral sense invariably
approves is benevolence. A principal reason for thinking we possess a moral
sense, according to Hutcheson, is that we approve of many actions unrelated or
even contrary to our interests – a fact that suggests not all approval is
reason-based. Further, he argues that attempts to explain our feelings of
approval or disapproval without referring to a moral sense are futile: our
reasons are ultimately grounded in the fact that we simply are constituted to care
about others and take pleasure in benevolence (the quality of being concerned
about others for their own sakes). For instance, we approve of temperance
because overindulgence signifies selfishness, and selfishness is contrary to
benevolence. Hutcheson also finds that the ends promoted by the benevolent
person have a tendency to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest
number. Thus, since he regards being motivated by benevolence as what makes
actions morally good, Hutcheson’s theory is a version of motive utilitarianism.
On Hutcheson’s moral psychology, we are motivated, ultimately, not by reason
alone, but by desires that arise in us at the prospect of our own or others’
pleasure. Hutcheson formulates several quantitative maxims that purport to relate
the strength of motivating desires to the degrees of good, or benefit,
projected for different actions – an analysis that anticipates Bentham’s
hedonic calculus. Hutcheson was also one of the first philosophers to recognize
and make use of the distinction between exciting, or motivating, reasons and
justifying reasons. Exciting reasons are affections, or desires, ascribed to an
agent as motives that explain particular actions. Justifying reasons derive
from the approval of the moral sense and serve to indicate why a certain action
is morally good. The connection between these two kinds of reasons has been a
source of considerable debate. Contemporary critics included John Balguy
(1686–1748), who charged that Hutcheson’s moral theory renders virtue arbitrary,
since it depends on whatever human nature God happened to give us, which could
just as well have been such as to make us delight in malice. Hutcheson
discussed his views in correspondence with Hume, who later sent Hutcheson the
unpublished manuscript of his own account of moral sentiment (Book III of A
Treatise of Human Nature). As a teacher of Adam Smith, Hutcheson helped shape
Smith’s widely influential economic and moral theories. Hutcheson’s major works
also include A Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy (originally published in
Latin in 1742) and A System of Moral Philosophy (1755).
huygens:
c., physicist and astronomer who ranked among the leading experimental
scientists of his time and influenced many other thinkers, including Leibniz.
He wrote on physics and astronomy in Latin (Horologium Oscillatorium, 1673; De
Vi Centrifuga, 1703) and in French for the Journal des Scavans. He became a
founding member of the French Academy of Sciences. Huygens ground lenses, built
telescopes, discovered the rings of Saturn, and invented the pendulum clock.
His most popular composition, Cosmotheoros (1699), inspired by Fontenelle,
praises a divine architect and conjectures the possible existence of rational
beings on other planets.
materia:
One
of Grice’s twelve labours is against Materialism -- Cicero’s translation of
hyle, ancient Greek term for matter. Aristotle brought the word into use in
philosophy by contrast with the term for form, and as designating one of the
four causes. By hyle Aristotle usually means ‘that out of which something has
been made’, but he can also mean by it ‘that which has form’. In Aristotelian
philosophy hyle is sometimes also identified with potentiality and with
substrate. Neoplatonists identified hyle with the receptacle of Plato.
forma:
Grice always found ‘logical form’ redundant (“Surely we are not into ‘matter’ –
that would be cheap!”) – “‘materia-forma’ is the unity, as the Grecians well
knew.”- hylomorphism, the doctrine, first taught by Aristotle, that concrete
substance consists of form in matter (hyle). The details of this theory are
explored in the central books of Aristotle’s Metaphysics (Zeta, Eta, and
Theta).
hylozoism:
from Greek hyle, ‘matter’, and zoe, ‘life’), the doctrine that matter is
intrinsically alive, or that all bodies, from the world as a whole down to the
smallest corpuscle, have some degree or some kind of life. It differs from
panpsychism though the distinction is sometimes blurred – in upholding the
universal presence of life per se, rather than of soul or of psychic
attributes. Inasmuch as it may also hold that there are no living entities not
constituted of matter, hylozoism is often criticized by theistic philosophers
as a form of atheism. The term was introduced polemically by Ralph Cudworth,
the seventeenth-century Cambridge Platonist, to help define a position that is
significantly in contrast to soul–body dualism (Pythagoras, Plato, Descartes),
reductive materialism (Democritus, Hobbes), and Aristotelian hylomorphism. So
understood, hylozoism had many advocates in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries, among both scientists and naturalistically minded philosophers. In
the twentieth century, the term has come to be used, rather unhelpfully, to
characterize the animistic and naive-vitalist views of the early Greek
philosophers, especially Thales, Anaximenes, Heraclitus, and Empedocles – who
could hardly count as hylozoists in Cudworth’s sophisticated sense.
hypatia: philosopher who
lived and taught in Alexandria. She was brutally murdered by a Christian mob
Huygens, Christiaan Hypatia 408 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 408 because
of her associations with the city’s prefect, who was in conflict with its
aggressive archbishop, Cyril. She is said to have written commentaries on
certain mathematical works, but the only certain trace of her literary activity
is in her father Theon’s commentary on book 3 of Ptolemy’s Almagest, which
Theon says is Hypatia’s redaction. Hypatia appears to have been a very popular
philosophy teacher. She presumably professed a standard Neoplatonist
curriculum, using mathematics as a ladder to the intelligible world. A good
sense of her views can be gained from the essays, hymns, and letters of her
pupil Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais and an eclectic man of letters. Hypatia’s
modern fame can be traced back to the anticlericalism of the Enlightenment;
see, e.g., chapter 47 of Edward Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire (1778). The most influential representation of her appeared in
Charles Kingsley’s didactic historical novel Hypatia or New Foes with an Old
Face (1853). The facts that – according to ancient report – Hypatia was not
only a brilliant person, but a beautiful one who aroused the erotic passion of
(at least) one student, and that she was stripped naked before being
slaughtered, seem to have contributed to the revival of interest in her.
substantia –
hypostasis, the process of regarding a concept or abstraction as an independent
or real entity. The verb forms ‘hypostatize’ and ‘reify’ designate the acts of
positing objects of a certain sort for the purposes of one’s theory. It is
sometimes implied that a fallacy is involved in so describing these processes
or acts, as in ‘Plato was guilty of the reification of universals’. The issue
turns largely on criteria of ontological commitment.
Hypostasis: Arianism,
diverse but related teachings in early Christianity that subordinated the Son
to God the Father. In reaction the church developed its doctrine of the
Trinity, whereby the Son and Holy Spirit, though distinct persons hypostases,
share with the Father, as his ontological equals, the one being or substance
ousia of God. Arius taught in Alexandria, where, on the hierarchical model of
Middle Platonism, he sharply distinguished Scripture’s transcendent God from
the Logos or Son incarnate in Jesus. The latter, subject to suffering and
humanly obedient to God, is inferior to the immutable Creator, the object of
that obedience. God alone is eternal and ungenerated; the Son, divine not by
nature but by God’s choosing, is generated, with a beginning: the unique
creature, through whom all else is made. The Council of Nicea, in 325,
condemned Arius and favored his enemy Athanasius, affirming the Son’s
creatorhood and full deity, having the same being or substance homoousios as
the Father. Arianism still flourished, evolving into the extreme view that the
Son’s being was neither the same as the Father’s nor like it homoiousios, but
unlike it anomoios. This too was anathematized, by the Council of 381 at Constantinople,
which, ratifying what is commonly called the Nicene Creed, sealed orthodox
Trinitarianism and the equality of the three persons against Arian
subordinationism.
Supposition – Cicero for
‘hypothesis’, as in ‘hypothetico-deductive’ – a hypothetico-deductive method, a
method of testing hypotheses. Thought to be preferable to the method of
enumerative induction, whose limitations had been decisively demonstrated by
Hume, the hypothetico-deductive (H-D) method has been viewed by many as the
ideal scientific method. It is applied by introducing an explanatory hypothesis
resulting from earlier inductions, a guess, or an act of creative imagination.
The hypothesis is logically conjoined with a statement of initial conditions.
The purely deductive consequences of this conjunction are derived as
predictions, and the statements asserting them are subjected to experimental or
observational test. More formally, given (H • A) P O, H is the hypothesis, A a
statement of initial conditions, and O one of the testable consequences of (H •
A). If the hypothesis is ‘all lead is malleable’, and ‘this piece of lead is
now being hammered’ states the initial conditions, it follows deductively that
‘this piece of lead will change shape’. In deductive logic the schema is formally
invalid, committing the logical fallacy of affirming the consequent. But
repeated occurrences of O can be said to confirm the conjunction of H and A, or
to render it more probable. On the other hand, the schema is deductively valid
(the argument form modus tollens). For this reason, Karl Popper and his
followers think that the H-D method is best employed in seeking falsifications
of theoretical hypotheses. Criticisms of the method point out that infinitely
many hypotheses can explain, in the H-D mode, a given body of data, so that
successful predictions are not probative, and that (following Duhem) it is
impossible to test isolated singular hypotheses because they are always
contained in complex theories any one of whose parts is eliminable in the face of
negative evidence.
I: particularis dedicativa.. See Grice, “Circling the Square
of Opposition.
avempace: Ibn
Bajja, Abu Bakr, philosopher who was exceptionally well regarded by later
Arabic authorities. During a career as a government official and vizier he
wrote important treatises on philosophy but appears to have left most of them
unfinished. One of them provides an important theory of the conjunction of the
intellect with the human, based in part on notions of progressive abstraction
of specific forms and the universality of the Active Intellect. Another offers
a political philosophy grounded in assumptions about a representative of the
virtuous city who exists within a hostile, erring city as a solitary or
aberrant “weed.” P.E.W. Ibn Daud, Abraham, also called Rabad (c.1110– 80),
Spanish Jewish historian and astronomer, a philosophic precursor of Maimonides.
Born in Córdova and schooled by a beloved uncle, Baruch Albalia, in Jewish and
Greco-Arabic learning, he fled the Almohad invasion of 1146, settling in
Christian Toledo, where he was martyred. His Sefer ha-Qabbalah (1161;
translated by Gerson Cohen as The Book of Tradition, 1967) finds providential
continuity in Jewish intellectual history. His Emunah Ramah (1161; translated
by Norbert Samuelson as The Exalted Faith, 1986) was written in Arabic but
preserved in Hebrew. It anchors Jewish natural theology and ethics in Avicennan
metaphysics, mitigated by a voluntaristic account of emanation and by the
assertion that God created matter. Ibn Daud saves human freedom by holding that
God knows undetermined events as possible. He defends prophecy as an outpouring
of the Active Intellect – or of God – on those whose natures and circumstances
permit their inspiration. Prophetic miracles are perfectly natural alterations
of the familiar characters of things.
avicebron: Ibn
Gabirol, Solomon, philosopher and poet, the author (in Arabic) of The Source of
Life, a classic of Neoplatonic thought. This work was written without any
explicit Jewish associations, and was preserved only in a twelfth-century Latin
translation, the Fons vitae. Consequently, its author was assumed until the
last century to be Muslim or Christian. Jewish Neoplatonists and mystics until
the Renaissance were familiar with the work and its author, and its influence
was felt in Christian Scholastic circles as well. Ibn Gabirol’s philosophy is
also reflected in his epic Hebrew poem “The Royal Crown,” which merges the
personal and religious feelings of the poet with a verse summary of his metaphysical
and astronomical beliefs. The Fons vitae is a prolix and often inconsistent
treatise, but exhibits radical creativity. The influence of Proclus and of the
first Jewish Neoplatonist, the tenth-century Isaac Israeli, is also evident.
Ibn Gabirol superimposes on the traditional Neoplatonic triad of universal
substances, the Intellect, Soul, and Nature, another set of creative and more
fundamental hypostases, the One, Divine Will, and Form and Matter. In one of
his most radical formulations, this primordial Form and Matter are thought to
suffuse not only the entire world that proceeds from them, but to be found
within the One itself, Matter being identified with the divine essence, Form
with Divine Will. Matter here emerges as prior and more essential to the divine
being than Form; God by implication is identified primarily with potentiality
and becoming, a point not lost upon the mystics.
Ibn Khaldun, ‘Abdurrahman
(1332–1406), Arab historian, scholar, and politician, the first thinker to
articulate a comprehensive theory of historiography and philosophy of history
in his Muqaddima (final revision 1402), the introductory volume to his
Universal History (Kitab al-’ibar, 1377–82). Born and raised in Tunis, he spent
the politically active first part of his life in northwestern Africa and Muslim
Spain. He moved to Cairo in 1382 to pursue a career as professor of Maliki law
and judge. Ibn Khaldun created in the Muqaddima (English translation by F.
Rosenthal, 1967) what he called an “entirely original science.” He established
a scientific methodology for historiogra410 I phy by providing a theory of the
basic laws operating in history so that not only could the occurrences of the
past be registered but also “the how and why of events” could be understood.
Historiography is based on the criticism of sources; the criteria to be used
are inherent probability of the historical reports (khabar; plural: akhbar) –
to be judged on the basis of an understanding of significant political,
economic, and cultural factors – and their conformity with reality and the
nature of the historical process. The latter he analyzed as the cyclical (every
three generations, c.120 years) rise and decline of human societies (‘umran)
insofar as they exhibit a political cohesiveness (‘afabiya) in accepting the
authority of a dynastic head of state. Ibn Khaldun’s sources were the actual
course of Islamic history and the injunctions about political and social
behavior found in the Greek/Persian/Arab mirrors for princes and wisdom
literature, welded together by an Aristotelian teleological realism/empiricism;
by contrast, he was critical of the metaphysical Platonic utopias of thinkers
like al-Farabi. His influence is to be felt in later Arab authors and in
particular in Ottoman historiography. In the West, where he has been intensely
studied since the eighteenth century, he has been variously seen as the founder
of sociology, economic history, and other modern theories of state. (See A.
Al-Azmeh, Ibn Khaldun, 1989.)
Ibn Tufayl, Abu Bakr
(d.1186), Spanish Islamic philosopher who played an important role in promoting
the philosophical career of Averroes. His own contribution, however, is a
famous philosophical fantasy, Hayy ibn Yaqzan – an account of a solitary
autodidact who grows up on a deserted island yet discovers by his own unaided
efforts a philosophical (Aristotelian) explanation of the world and of divine
truths. Later, having finally come in contact with human civilization, this
character also recognizes the necessity of religious law and regulation for
that other, essentially imperfect, society, although he holds himself
personally above this requirement. The work attracted considerable attention in
late seventeenth-century Europe following its publication in 1671.
I-Ching (“Book of
Changes”), a Chinese divination manual that may have existed in some form as
early as the seventh century B.C. It was not philosophically significant until
augmented by a group of appendices, the “Ten Wings,” around 200 B.C. The book
has tremendously influenced Chinese thought since the Han dynasty, for at least
two reasons. First, it provided a cosmology that systematically grounded
certain ideas, particularly Confucian ethical claims, in the nature of the
cosmos. Second, it presented this cosmology through a system of loosely
described symbols that provided virtually limitless interpretive possibilities.
In order to “read” the text properly, one needed to be a certain kind of
person. In this way, the I-Ching accommodated both intuitionism and
self-cultivationism, two prominent characteristics of early Chinese thought. At
the same time, the text’s endless interpretive possibilities allowed it to be
used in widely different ways by a variety of thinkers.
ichthyological necessity: topic-neutral:
Originally, Ryle’s term for logical constants, such as “of ” “not,” “every.”
They are not endowed with special meanings, and are applicable to discourse
about any subject-matter. They do not refer to any external object but function
to organize meaningful discourse. J. J. C. Smart calls a term topic-neutral if
it is noncommittal about designating something mental or something physical.
Instead, it simply describes an event without judging the question of its
intrinsic nature. In his central-state theory of mind, Smart develops a topic-neutral
analysis of mental expressions and argues that it is possible to account for
the situations described by mental concepts in purely physical and
topic-neutral terms. “In this respect, statements like ‘I am thinking now’ are,
as J. J. C. Smart puts it, topic-neutral. They say that something is going on
within us, something apt for the causing of certain sorts of behaviour, but
they say nothing of the nature of this process.” D. Armstrong, A Materialist
Theory of the Mind
icon
-- Would Ciero prefer the spelling ‘eiconicus’ or ‘iconicus’? We know Pliny
preferred ‘icon.’īcon ,
ŏnis, f., = εἰκών,I.an image, figure:
“fictae ceră icones,” Plin. 8, 54, 80, § 215.Iconicity -- depiction,
pictorial representation, also sometimes called “iconic representation.”
Linguistic representation is conventional: it is only by virtue of a convention
that the word ‘cats’ refers to cats. A picture of a cat, however, seems to
refer to cats by other than conventional means; for viewers can correctly
interpret pictures without special training, whereas people need special
training to learn languages. Though some philosophers, such as Goodman
Languages of Art, deny that depiction involves a non-conventional element, most
are concerned to give an account of what this non-conventional element consists
in. Some hold that it consists in resemblance: pictures refer to their objects
partly by resembling them. Objections to this are that anything resembles
anything else to some degree; and that resemblance is a symmetric and reflexive
relation, whereas depiction is not. Other philosophers avoid direct appeal to
resemblance: Richard Wollheim Painting as an Art argues that depiction holds by
virtue of the intentional deployment of the natural human capacity to see
objects in marked surfaces; and dependence, causal depiction 222 222 Kendall Walton Mimesis as Make-Believe
argues that depiction holds by virtue of objects serving as props in reasonably
rich and vivid visual games of make-believe.
forma:
ideatum
– Cicero was a bit at a loss when trying to translate the Greek eidos or idea.
For ‘eidos’ he had forma, but the Romans seemed to have liked the sound of
‘idea,’ and Martianus Capella even coined ‘ideal,’ which Kant and Grice later
used. idea, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, whatever is
immediately before the mind when one thinks. The notion of thinking was taken in
a very broad sense; it included perception, memory, and imagination, in
addition to thinking narrowly construed. In connection with perception, ideas
were often (though not always – Berkeley is the exception) held to be
representational images, i.e., images of something. In other contexts, ideas
were taken to be concepts, such as the concept of a horse or of an infinite
quantity, though concepts of these sorts certainly do not appear to be images.
An innate idea was either a concept or a general truth, such as ‘Equals added
to equals yield equals’, that was allegedly not learned but was in some sense
always in the mind. Sometimes, as in Descartes, innate ideas were taken to be
cognitive capacities rather than concepts or general truths, but these capacities,
too, were held to be inborn. An adventitious idea, either an image or a
concept, was an idea accompanied by a judgment concerning the non-mental cause
of that idea. So, a visual image was an adventitious idea provided one judged
of that idea that it was caused by something outside one’s mind, presumably by
the object being seen. From Idea Alston coined ‘ideationalism’ to refer to
Grice’s theory. “Grice’s is an ideationalist theory of meaning, drawn from
Locke.”Alston calls Grice an ideationalist,
and Grice takes it as a term of abuse. Grice would occasionally use ‘mental.’
Short and Lewis have "mens.” “terra corpus est, at mentis ignis est;” so
too, “istic est de sole sumptus; isque totus mentis est;” f. from the root ‘men,’ whence ‘memini,’ and ‘comminiscor.’ Lewis and Short render
‘mens’ as ‘the mind, disposition; the heart, soul.’ Lewis and Short have
‘commĭniscor,’ originally conminiscor ), mentus, from ‘miniscor,’ whence also ‘reminiscor,’
stem ‘men,’ whence ‘mens’ and ‘memini,’
cf. Varro, Lingua Latina 6, § 44. Lewis and Short render the verb as,
literally, ‘to ponder carefully, to reflect upon;’ ‘hence, as a result of
reflection; cf. 1. commentor, II.), to devise something by careful thought, to
contrive, invent, feign. Myro is perhaps unaware of the implicata of ‘mental’
when he qualifies his -ism with ‘modest.’ Grice would seldom use mind (Grecian
nous) or mental (Grecian noetikos vs. æsthetikos). His sympathies go for more
over-arching Grecian terms like the very Aristotelian soul, the anima, i. e.
the psyche and the psychological. Grice discusses G. Myro’s essay, ‘In defence
of a modal mentalism,’ with attending commentary by R. Albritton and S. Cavell.
Grice himself would hardly use mental, mentalist, or mentalism himself, but
perhaps psychologism. Grice would use mental, on occasion, but his Grecianism
was deeply rooted, unlike Myro’s. At Clifton and under Hardie (let us recall he
came up to Oxford under a classics scholarship to enrol in the Lit. Hum.) he
knows that mental translates mentalis translates nous, only ONE part, one
third, actually, of the soul, and even then it may not include the ‘practical
rational’ one! Cf. below on ‘telementational.’
formalism:
Cicero’s translation for ‘idealism,’ or ideism -- the philosophical doctrine
that reality is somehow mind-correlative or mind-coordinated – that the real
objects constituting the “external world” are not independent of cognizing
minds, but exist only as in some way correlative to mental operations. The
doctrine centers on the conception that reality as we understand it reflects
the workings of mind. Perhaps its most radical version is the ancient Oriental
spiritualistic or panpsychistic idea, renewed in Christian Science, that minds
and their thoughts are all there is – that reality is simply the sum total of
the visions (or dreams?) of one or more minds. A dispute has long raged within
the idealist camp over whether “the mind” at issue in such idealistic formulas
was a mind emplaced outside of or behind nature (absolute idealism), or a
nature-pervasive power of rationality of some sort (cosmic idealism), or the
collective impersonal social mind of people in general (social idealism), or
simply the distributive collection of individual minds (personal idealism).
Over the years, the less grandiose versions of the theory came increasingly to
the fore, and in recent times virtually all idealists have construed “the
minds” at issue in their theory as separate individual minds equipped with
socially engendered resources. There are certainly versions of idealism short
of the spiritualistic position of an ontological idealism that (as Kant puts it
at Prolegomena, section 13, n. 2) holds that “there are none but thinking
beings.” Idealism need certainly not go so far as to affirm that mind makes or
constitutes matter; it is quite enough to maintain (e.g.) that all of the
characterizing properties of physical existents resemble phenomenal sensory
properties in representing dispositions to affect mind-endowed creatures in a
certain sort of way, so that these properties have no standing without
reference to minds. Weaker still is an explanatory idealism which merely holds
that an adequate explanation of the real always requires some recourse to the
operations of mind. Historically, positions of the generally idealistic type
have been espoused by numerous thinkers. For example, Berkeley maintained that
“to be [real] is to be perceived” (esse est percipi). And while this does not
seem particularly plausible because of its inherent commitment to omniscience,
it seems more sensible to adopt “to be is to be perceivable” (esse est
percipile esse). For Berkeley, of course, this was a distinction without a
difference: if something is perceivable at all, then God perceives it. But if
we forgo philosophical reliance on God, the matter looks different, and pivots
on the question of what is perceivable for perceivers who are physically
realizable in “the real world,” so that physical existence could be seen – not
so implausibly – as tantamount to observability-in-principle. The three
positions to the effect that real things just exactly are things as philosophy
or as science or as “common sense” takes them to be – positions generally
designated as Scholastic, scientific, and naive realism, respectively – are in
fact versions of epistemic idealism exactly because they see reals as
inherently knowable and do not contemplate mind-transcendence for the real.
Thus, the thesis of naive (“commonsense”) realism that ‘External things exist
exactly as we know them’ sounds realistic or idealistic according as one
stresses the first three words of the dictum or the last four. Any theory of
natural teleology that regards the real as explicable in terms of value could
to this extent be counted as idealistic, in that valuing is by nature a mental
process. To be sure, the good of a creature or species of creatures (e.g.,
their well-being or survival) need not be something mind-represented. But
nevertheless, goods count as such precisely because if the creatures at issue
could think about it, they would adopt them as purposes. It is this circumstance
that renders any sort of teleological explanation at least conceptually
idealistic in nature. Doctrines of this sort have been the stock-in-trade of
philosophy from the days of Plato (think of the Socrates of the Phaedo) to
those of Leibniz, with his insistence that the real world must be the best
possible. And this line of thought has recently surfaced once more in the
controversial “anthropic principle” espoused by some theoretical physicists.
Then too it is possible to contemplate a position along the lines envisioned in
Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre (The Science of Knowledge), which sees the ideal as
providing the determining factor for the real. On such a view, the real is not
characterized by the science we actually have but by the ideal science that is
the telos of our scientific efforts. On this approach, which Wilhelm Wundt
characterized as “ideal-realism” (Idealrealismus; see his Logik, vol. 1, 2d
ed., 1895), the knowledge that achieves adequation to the real idea, clear and
distinct idealism (adaequatio ad rem) by adequately characterizing the true
facts in scientific matters is not the knowledge actually afforded by
present-day science, but only that of an ideal or perfected science. Over the
years, many objections to idealism have been advanced. Samuel Johnson thought
to refute Berkeley’s phenomenalism by kicking a stone. He conveniently forgot
that Berkeley goes to great lengths to provide for stones – even to the point
of invoking the aid of God on their behalf. Moore pointed to the human hand as
an undeniably mind-external material object. He overlooked that, gesticulate as
he would, he would do no more than induce people to accept the presence of a
hand on the basis of the handorientation of their experience. Peirce’s “Harvard
Experiment” of letting go of a stone held aloft was supposed to establish
Scholastic realism because his audience could not control their expectation of
the stone’s falling to earth. But an uncontrollable expectation is still an
expectation, and the realism at issue is no more than a realistic
thought-exposure. Kant’s famous “Refutation of Idealism” argues that our
conception of ourselves as mindendowed beings presupposes material objects
because we view our mind-endowed selves as existing in an objective temporal
order, and such an order requires the existence of periodic physical processes
(clocks, pendula, planetary regularities) for its establishment. At most,
however, this argument succeeds in showing that such physical processes have to
be assumed by minds, the issue of their actual mind-independent existence
remaining unaddressed. (Kantian realism is an intraexperiential “empirical”
realism.) It is sometimes said that idealism confuses objects with our
knowledge of them and conflates the real with our thought about it. But this
charge misses the point. The only reality with which we inquirers can have any
cognitive commerce is reality as we conceive it to be. Our only information
about reality is via the operation of mind – our only cognitive access to
reality is through the mediation of mind-devised models of it. Perhaps the most
common objection to idealism turns on the supposed mind-independence of the
real: “Surely things in nature would remain substantially unchanged if there
were no minds.” This is perfectly plausible in one sense, namely the causal one
– which is why causal idealism has its problems. But it is certainly not true
conceptually. The objector has to specify just exactly what would remain the
same. “Surely roses would smell just as sweet in a minddenuded world!” Well . .
. yes and no. To be sure, the absence of minds would not change roses. But
roses and rose fragrance and sweetness – and even the size of roses – are all
factors whose determination hinges on such mental operations as smelling,
scanning, measuring, and the like. Mind-requiring processes are needed for
something in the world to be discriminated as a rose and determined to bear
certain features. Identification, classification, property attribution are all
required and by their very nature are all mental operations. To be sure, the
role of mind is here hypothetical. (“If certain interactions with duly
constituted observers took place, then certain outcomes would be noted.”) But
the fact remains that nothing could be discriminated or characterized as a rose
in a context where the prospect of performing suitable mental operations
(measuring, smelling, etc.) is not presupposed. Perhaps the strongest argument
favoring idealism is that any characterization of the real that we can devise
is bound to be a mind-constructed one: our only access to information about
what the real is is through the mediation of mind. What seems right about
idealism is inherent in the fact that in investigating the real we are clearly
constrained to use our own concepts to address our own issues – that we can
learn about the real only in our own terms of reference. But what seems right
about realism is that the answers to the questions we put to the real are
provided by reality itself – whatever the answers may be, they are
substantially what they are because it is reality itself that determines them
to be that way. -- idealism, Critical.
ordinary
language – opposed to ‘ideal’ language -- ideal language, a
system of notation that would correct perceived deficiencies of ordinary
language by requiring the structure of expressions to mirror the structure of
that which they represent. The notion that conceptual errors can be corrected
and philosophical problems solved (or dissolved) by properly representing them
in some such system figured prominently in the writings of Leibniz, Carnap,
Russell, Wittgenstein, and Frege, among others. For Russell, the ideal, or
“logically perfect,” language is one in which grammatical form coincides with
logical form, there are no vague or ambiguous expres sions, and no proper names
that fail to denote. Frege’s Begriffsschrift is perhaps the most thorough and
successful execution of the ideal language project. Deductions represented
within this system (or its modern descendants) can be effectively checked for
correctness.
ideal market, a
hypothetical market, used as a tool of economic analysis, in which all relevant
agents are perfectly informed of the price of the good in question and the cost
of its production, and all economic transactions can be undertaken with no
cost. A specific case is a market exemplifying perfect competition. The term is
sometimes extended to apply to an entire economy consisting of ideal markets
for every good.
ideal observer, a
hypothetical being, possessed of various qualities and traits, whose moral
reactions (judgments or attitudes) to actions, persons, and states of affairs
figure centrally in certain theories of ethics. There are two main versions of
ideal observer theory: (a) those that take the reactions of ideal observers as
a standard of the correctness of moral judgments, and (b) those that analyze
the meanings of moral judgments in terms of the reactions of ideal observers.
Theories of the first sort – ideal observer theories of correctness – hold,
e.g., that judgments like ‘John’s lying to Brenda about her father’s death was
wrong (bad)’ are correct provided any ideal observer would have a negative
attitude toward John’s action. Similarly, ‘Alison’s refusal to divulge
confidential information about her patient was right (good)’ is correct
provided any ideal observer would have a positive attitude toward that action.
This version of the theory can be traced to Adam Smith, who is usually credited
with introducing the concept of an ideal observer into philosophy, though he
used the expression ‘impartial spectator’ to refer to the concept. Regarding
the correctness of moral judgments, Smith wrote: “That precise and distinct
measure can be found nowhere but in the sympathetic feelings of the impartial
and well-informed spectator” (A Theory of Moral Sentiments, 1759). Theories of
a second sort – ideal observer theories of meaning – take the concept of an
ideal observer as part of the very meaning of ordinary moral judgments. Thus,
according to Roderick Firth (“Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer,”
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 1952), moral judgments of the form ‘x
is good (bad)’, on this view, mean ‘All ideal observers would feel moral
approval (disapproval) toward x’, and similarly for other moral judgments
(where such approvals and disapprovals are characterized as felt desires having
a “demand quality”). Different conceptions of an ideal observer result from
variously specifying those qualities and traits that characterize such beings.
Smith’s characterization includes being well informed and impartial. However,
according to Firth, an ideal observer must be omniscient; omnipercipient, i.e.,
having the ability to imagine vividly any possible events or states of affairs,
including the experiences and subjective states of others; disinterested, i.e.,
having no interests or desires that involve essential reference to any
particular individuals or things; dispassionate; consistent; and otherwise a
“normal” human being. Both versions of the theory face a dilemma: on the one
hand, if ideal observers are richly characterized as impartial, disinterested,
and normal, then since these terms appear to be moral-evaluative terms, appeal
to the reactions of ideal observers (either as a standard of correctness or as
an analysis of meaning) is circular. On the other hand, if ideal observers
receive an impoverished characterization in purely non-evaluative terms, then
since there is no reason to suppose that such ideal observers will often all
agree in their reactions to actions, people, and states of affairs, most moral
judgments will turn out to be incorrect. Refs.: The reference to mentalism in the essay on ‘modest
mentalism,’ after Myro, in The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
ideatum. Quite used by Grice. Cf. Conceptum. Sub-perceptual. Cognate
with ‘eidos,’ that Grice translates as ‘forma.’ Why is an ‘eidos’ an ‘idea’ and
in what sense is an idea a ‘form’? These are deep questions!
idem: a
key philosophical notion that encompasses linguistic, logic, and metaphysical
issues, and also epistemology. Possibly the central question in philosophy.
Vide the principle of ‘identity.’ amicus est tamquam alter idem,” a second self, Identicum. Grecian ‘tautotes.’ late L. identitās (Martianus
Capella, c425), peculiarly formed from ident(i)-, for L. idem ‘same’ + -tās,
-tātem: see -ty. Various suggestions have been offered as to the
formation. Need was evidently felt of a noun of condition or quality from
idem to express the notion of ‘sameness’, side by side with those of ‘likeness’
and ‘oneness’ expressed by similitās and ūnitās: hence the form of the
suffix. But idem had no combining stem. Some have thought that
ident(i)- was taken from the L. adv. "identidem" ‘over and over
again, repeatedly’, connexion with which appears to be suggested by Du Cange's
explanation of identitās as ‘quævis actio repetita’. Meyer-Lübke suggests
that in the formation there was present some association between idem and id
ens ‘that being’, whence "identitās" like "entitās." But
assimilation to "entitās" may have been merely to avoid the solecism
of *idemitās or *idemtās. sameness. However originated,
"ident(i)-" (either from adverb "identidem" or an
assimilation of "id ens," "id ens," that being, "id
entitas" "that entity") became the combining stem of idem, and
the series ūnitās, ūnicus, ūnificus, ūnificāre, was paralleled by identitās,
identicus, identificus, identificāre: see identic, identific, identify above.]
to OED 3rd: identity, n. Pronunciation: Brit./ʌɪˈdɛntᵻti/ , U.S. /aɪˈdɛn(t)ədi/
Forms: 15 idemptitie, 15 ydemptyte, 15–16 identitie, 15– identity, 16
idemptity. Etymology: < Middle French identité, ydemtité, ydemptité,
ydentité (French identité) quality or condition of being the same (a1310; 1756
in sense ‘individuality, personality’, 1801 in sense ‘distinct impression of a
single person or thing presented to or perceived by others’) and its etymon
post-classical Latin identitat-, identitas quality of being the same
(4th cent.), condition or fact that a person or thing is itself and not
something else (8th cent. in a British source), fact of being the same (from
12th cent. in British sources), continual sameness, lack of variety, monotony
(from 12th cent. in British sources; 14th cent. in a continental source)
< classical Latin idem same (see idem n.) + -tās (see -ty suffix1)
[sameness], after post-classical Latin essentitas ‘being’ (4th cent.).The
Latin word was formed to provide a translation equivalent for ancient Greek
ταὐτότης (tautotes) identity. identity: identity was a key concept for Grice.
Under identity, he views both identity simpliciter and personal identity. Grice
advocates psychological or soul criterianism. Psychological or soul
criterianism has been advocated, in one form or another, by philosophers such
as Locke, Butler, Duncan-Jones, Berkeley, Gallie, Grice, Flew, Haugeland,
Jones, Perry, Shoemaker and Parfit, and Quinton. What all of these
theories have in common is the idea that, even if it is the case that some kind
of physical states are necessary for being a person, it is the unity of
consciousness which is of decisive importance for personal identity over time.
In this sense, person is a term which picks out a psychological, or mental,
"thing". In claiming this, all Psychological Criterianists entail the
view that personal identity consists in the continuity of psychological
features. It is interesting that Flew has an earlier "Selves,"
earlier than his essay on Locke on personal identity. The first, for Mind,
criticising Jones, "The self in sensory cognition"; the second for
Philosophy. Surely under the tutelage of Grice. Cf. Jones, Selves: A reply to
Flew, Philosophy. The stronger thesis asserts that there is no
conceivable situation in which bodily identity would be necessary, some other
conditions being always both necessary and sufficient. Grice takes it that
Locke’s theory (II, 27) is an example of this latter type. To say
"Grice remembers that he heard a noise", without irony or
inverted commas, is to imply that Grice did hear a noise. In this respect remember
is like, know, a factive. It does not follow from this, nor is it true, that
each claim to remember, any more than each claim to know, is alethic or
veridical; or, not everything one seems to remember is something one really
remembers. So much is obvious, although Locke -- although admittedly
referring only to the memory of actions, section 13 -- is forced to invoke
the providence of God to deny the latter. These points have been emphasised by
Flew in his discussion of Locke’s views on personal identity. In formulating
Locke’ thesis, however, Flew makes a mistake; for he offers Lockes thesis in
the form if Grice can remember Hardies doing such-and-such, Grice and Hardie
are the same person. But this obviously will not do, even for Locke, for we
constantly say things like I remember my brother Derek joining the army without
implying that I and my brother are the same person. So if we are to formulate
such a criterion, it looks as though we have to say something like the
following. If Derek Grice remembers joining my, he is the person who did that
thing. But since remembers doing means remembers himself doing, this is
trivially tautologous, and moreover lends colour to Butlers famous objection
that memory, so far from constituting personal identity, presupposes
it. As Butler puts it, one should really think it self-evident that
consciousness of personal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot
constitute, personal identity; any more than knowledge, in any other case, can
constitute truth, which it presupposes. Butler then asserts that Locke’s
misstep stems from his methodology. This wonderful mistake may possibly have
arisen from hence; that to be endued with consciousness is inseparable from the
idea of a person, or intelligent being. For this might be expressed
inaccurately thus, that consciousness makes personality: and from hence it
might be concluded to make personal identity. One of the points that Locke
emphasizes—that persistence conditions are determined via defining kind
terms—is what, according to Butler, leads Locke astray. Butler
additionally makes the point that memory is not required for personal
persistence. But though present consciousness of what we at present do and feel
is necessary to our being the persons we now are; yet present consciousness of
past actions or feelings is not necessary to our being the same persons who
performed those actions, or had those feelings. This is a point that others
develop when they assert that Lockes view results in contradiction. Hence
the criterion should rather run as follows. If Derek Grice claims to remember
joining the army. We must then ask how such a criterion might be
used. Grices example is: I remember I smelled a smell. He needs two
experiences to use same. I heard a noise and I smelled a smell.The singular
defines the hearing of a noise is the object of some consciousness. The pair
defines, "The hearing of a noise and the smelling of a smell are objects
of the same -- cognate with self as in I hurt me self, -- consciousness. The
standard form of an identity question is Is this x the same x as that x
which E and in the simpler situation we are at least presented with just
the materials for constructing such a question; but in the more complicated
situation we are baffled even in asking the question, since both the
transformed persons are equally good candidates for being its Subjects, and the
question Are these two xs the same (x?) as the x which E is not a recognizable
form of identity question. Thus, it might be argued, the fact that we could not
speak of identity in the latter situation is no kind of proof that we could not
do so in the former. Certainly it is not a proof, as Strawson points out to
Grice. This is not to say that they are identical at all. The only case in
which identity and exact similarity could be distinguished, as we have just
seen, is that of the body, same body and exactly similar body really do mark a
difference. Thus one may claim that the omission of the body takes away all
content from the idea of personal identity, as Pears pointed out to
Grice. Leaving aside memory, which only partially applies to the case,
character and attainments are quite clearly general things. Joness character
is, in a sense, a particular; just because Jones’s character refers to the
instantiation of certain properties by a particular (and bodily) man, as
Strawson points out to Grice (Particular and general). If in ‘Negation and
privation,’ Grice tackles Aristotle, he now tackles Locke. Indeed, seeing that
Grice went years later to the topic as motivated by, of all people, Haugeland,
rather than perhaps the more academic milieu that Perry offers, Grice became
obsessed with Hume’s sceptical doubts! Hume writes in the Appendix that when he
turns his reflection on himself, Hume never can perceive this self without
some one or more perceptions. Nor can Hume ever perceive any
thing but the perceptions. It is the composition of these, therefore,
which forms the self, Hume thinks. Hume grants that one can conceive a thinking
being to have either many or few perceptions. Suppose, says Hume, the mind to
be reduced even below the life of an oyster. Suppose the oyster to have only
one perception, as of thirst or hunger. Consider the oyster in that situation.
Does the oyster conceive any thing but merely that perception? Has the oyster
any notion of, to use Gallies pretentious Aristotelian jargon, self or
substance? If not, the addition of this or other perception can never give
the oyster that notion. The annihilation, which this or that philosopher,
including Grices first post-war tutee, Flew, supposes to follow upon
death, and which entirely destroys the oysters self, is nothing but
an extinction of all particular perceptions; love and
hatred, pain and pleasure, thought and sensation. These therefore
must be the same with self; since the one cannot survive the other.
Is self the same with substance? If it be, how can that question have
place, concerning the subsistence of self, under a change of
substance? If they be distinct, what is the difference betwixt them? For his
part, Hume claims, he has a notion of neither, when conceived distinct
from this or that particular perception. However extraordinary Hume’s
conclusion may seem, it need not surprise us. Most
philosophers, such as Locke, seems inclined to think, that personal
identity arises from consciousness. But consciousness is nothing but
a reflected thought or perception, Hume suggests. This is Grices quandary about
personal identity and its implicata. Some philosophers have taken Grice as
trying to provide an exegesis of Locke. However, their approaches surely
differ. What works for Grice may not work for Locke. For Grice it is
analytically true that it is not the case that Person1 and
Person may have the same experience. Grice explicitly states that he thinks
that his logical-construction theory is a modification of Locke’s theory. Grice
does not seem terribly interested to find why it may not, even if the
York-based Locke Society might! Rather than introjecting into Lockes shoes,
Grices strategy seems to dismiss Locke, shoes and all. Specifically, it not
clear to Grice what Lockes answer in the Essay would be to Grices question
about this or that I utterance that he sets his analysis with. Admittedly,
Grice does quote, albeit briefly, directly from Lockes Essay. As far as any
intelligent being can repeat the idea of any past action with the same
consciousness it had of it at first, and with the same consciousness it has of
any present action, Locke claims, so far the being is the same personal self.
Grice tackles Lockes claim with four objections. These are important to
consider since Grice sees as improving on Locke. A first objection concerns
icircularity, with which Grice easily disposes by following Hume and appealing
to the experience of memory or introspection. A second objection is Reid’s
alleged counterexample about the long-term memory of the admiral who cannot
remember that he was flogged as a boy. Grice dismisses this as involving too
long-term of a memory. A third objection concerns Locke’s vagueness about the
aboutness of consciousness, a point made by Hume in the Appendix. A fourth
objection concerns again circularity, this time in Locke’s use of same in the
definiens ‒ cf. Wiggins, Sameness and substance. It’s extraordinary that
Wiggins is philosophising on anything Griceian. Grice is concerned with the
implicatum involved in the use of the first person singular. I will be fighting
soon. Grice means in body and soul. The utterance also indicates that this is
Grices pre-war days at Oxford. No wonder his choice of an example. What else
could he have in his soul? The topic of personal identity, which label Hume and
Austin found pretentious, and preferred to talk about the illocutionary force
of I, has a special Oxonian pedigree, perhaps as motivated by Humes challenge,
that Grice has occasion to study and explore for his M. A. Lit. Hum. with
Locke’s Essay as mandatory reading. Locke, a philosopher with whom Oxford
identifies most, infamously defends this memory-based account of I. Up in
Scotland, Reid reads it and concocts this alleged counter-example. Hume, or
Home, if you must, enjoys it. In fact, while in the Mind essay he is not too
specific about Hume, Grice will, due mainly to his joint investigations with
Haugeland, approach, introjecting into the shoes of Hume ‒ who is idolised in
The New World ‒ in ways he does not introject into Lockes. But Grices quandary
is Hume’s quandary, too. In his own approach to I, the Cartesian ego, made
transcendental and apperceptive by Kant, Grice updates the time-honoured
empiricist mnemonic analysis by Locke. The first update is in style. Grice
embraces, as he does with negation, a logical construction, alla Russell, via
Broad, of this or that “I” (first-person) utterance, ending up with an analysis
of a “someone,” third-person, less informative, utterance. Grices immediate
source is Gallie’s essay on self and substance in Mind. Mind is still a review
of psychology and philosophy, so poor Grice has not much choice. In fact, Grice
is being heterodoxical or heretic enough to use Broad’s taxonomy, straight from
the other place of I utterances. The logical-construction theory is a third
proposal, next to the Bradleyian idealist pure-ego theory and the
misleading covert-description theory. Grice deals with the Reids alleged
counterexample of the brave officer. Suppose, Reid says, and Grice quotes
verbatim, a brave officer to have been flogged when a boy at school, for
robbing an orchard, to have taken a standard from the enemy in his first
campaign, and to have been made a general in advanced life. Suppose also, which
must be admitted to be possible, that when he2 took the
standard, he2 was conscious of his having been flogged at
school, and that, when made a general, he3 was conscious of his2 taking
the standard, but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his1 flogging. These
things being supposed, it follows, from Lockes doctrine, that he1 who is
flogged at school is the same person as him2 who later takes
the standard, and that he2 who later takes the standard is the same
person as him3 who is still later made a general. When it
follows, if there be any truth in logic, that the general is the same person
with him1 who is flogged at school. But the general’s
consciousness does emphatically not reach so far back as his1 flogging.
Therefore, according to Locke’s doctrine, he3 is emphatically
not the same person as him1 who is flogged. Therefore, we can say about the
general that he3 is, and at the same time, that he3 is
not the same person as him1 who was flogged at school. Grice, wholl
later add a temporal suffix to =t yielding, by transitivity. The flogged boy =t1 the
brave officer. And the brave officer =t2 the admiral. But the
admiral ≠t3 the flogged boy. In Mind, Grice tackles the basic
analysans, and comes up with a rather elaborate analysans for a simple I or
Someone statement. Grice just turns to a generic affirmative variant of the
utterance he had used in Negation. It is now someone, viz. I, who hears that
the bell tolls. It is the affirmative counterpart of the focus of his earlier
essay on negation, I do not hear that the bell tolls. Grice dismisses what, in
the other place, was referred to as privileged-access, and the indexicality of
I, an approach that will be made popular by Perry, who however reprints Grices essay
in his influential collection for the University of California Press. By
allowing for someone, viz. I, Grice seems to be relying on a piece of reasoning
which hell later, in his first Locke lecture, refer to as too good. I hear that
the bell tolls; therefore, someone hears that the bell tolls. Grice attempts to
reduce this or that I utterance (Someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls) is
in terms of a chain or sequence of mnemonic states. It poses a few quandaries
itself. While quoting from this or that recent philosopher such as Gallie and
Broad, it is a good thing that Grice has occasion to go back to, or revisit,
Locke and contest this or that infamous and alleged counterexample presented by
Reid and Hume. Grice adds a methodological note to his proposed
logical-construction theory of personal identity. There is some intricacy of
his reductive analysis, indeed logical construction, for an apparently simple
and harmless utterance (cf. his earlier essay on I do not hear that the bell
tolls). But this intricacy does not prove the analysis wrong. Only that Grice
is too subtle. If the reductive analysis of not is in terms of each state which
I am experiencing is incompatible with phi), that should not be a minus, or
drawback, but a plus, and an advantage in terms of philosophical progress. The
same holds here in terms of the concept of a temporary state. Much later,
Grice reconsiders, or revisits, indeed, Broads remark and re-titles his
approach as the (or a) logical-construction theory of personal identity. And,
with Haugeland, Grice re-considers Humes own vagaries, or quandary, with
personal identity. Unlike the more conservative Locke that Grice favours in the
pages of Mind, eliminationist Hume sees ‘I’ as a conceptual muddle, indeed a
metaphysical chimæra. Hume presses the point for an empiricist verificationist
account of I. For, as Russell would rhetorically ask, ‘What can be more direct
that the experience of myself?’ The Hume Society should take notice of Grices
simplification of Hume’s implicatum on I, if The Locke Society won’t. As a
matter of fact, Grice calls one of his metaphysical construction routines the
Humeian projection, so it is not too adventurous to think that Grice considers
I as an intuitive concept that needs to be metaphysically re-constructed
and be given a legitimate Fregeian sense. Why that label for a construction
routine? Grice calls this metaphysical construction routine Humeian projection,
since the mind (or soul) as it were, spreads over its objects. But, by mind,
Hume does not necessarily mean the I. Cf. The minds I. Grice is especially
concerned with the poverty and weaknesses of Humes criticism to Lockes account
of personal identity. Grice opts to revisit the Lockeian memory-based of this
or that someone, viz. I utterance that Hume rather regards as vague, and
confusing. Unlike Humes, neither Lockes nor Grices reductive analysis of
personal identity is reductionist and eliminationist. The
reductive-reductionist distinction Grice draws in Retrospective epilogue as he
responds to Rountree-Jack on this or that alleged wrong on meaning that. It is
only natural that Grice would be sympathetic to Locke. Grice explores these
issues with Haugeland mainly at seminars. One may wonder why Grice spends so
much time in a philosopher such as Hume, with whom he agreed almost on nothing!
The answer is Humes influence in the Third World that forced Grice to focus on
this or that philosopher. Surely Locke is less popular in the New World than
Hume is. One supposes Grice is trying to save Hume at the implicatum level, at
least. The phrase or term of art, logical construction is Russells and Broads,
but Grice loved it. Rational reconstruction is not too dissimilar. Grice
prefers Russells and Broads more conservative label. This is more than a terminological
point. If Hume is right and there is NO intuitive concept behind I, one cannot
strictly re-construct it, only construct it. Ultimately, Grice shows that, if
only at the implicatum level, we are able to provide an analysandum for this or
that someone, viz. I utterance without using I, by implicating only this
or that mnemonic concept, which belongs, naturally, as his theory of negation
does, in a theory of philosophical psychology, and again a lower branch of it,
dealing with memory. The topic of personal identity unites various interests of
Grice. The first is identity “=” simpliciter. Instead of talking of the meaning
of I, as, say, Anscombe would, Grice sticks to the traditional category, or
keyword, for this, i. e. the theory-laden, personal identity, or even personal
sameness. Personal identity is a type of identity, but personal adds something
to it. Surely Hume was stretching person a bit when using the example of a soul
with a life lower than an oyster. Since Grice follows Aristotles De Anima, he
enjoys Hume’s choice, though. It may be argued that personal adds Locke’s
consciousness, and rational agency. Grice plays with the body-soul distinction.
I, viz someone or somebody, fell from the stairs, perhaps differs from I will
be fighting soon. This or that someone, viz. I utterance may be purely bodily.
Grice would think that the idea that his soul fell from the stairs sounds, as
it would to Berkeley, harsh. But then theres this or that one may be mixed
utterance. Someone, viz. I, plays cricket, where surely your bodily mechanisms
require some sort of control by the soul. Finally, this or that may be purely
souly ‒ the one Grice ends up analysing, Someone, viz. I, hear that the bell
tolls. At the time of his Mind essay, Grice may have been unaware of the
complications that the concept of a person may bring as attached in adjective
form to identity. Ayer did, and Strawson and Wiggins will, and Grice learns
much from Strawson. Since Parfit, this has become a common-place topic for
analysis at Oxford. A person as a complexum of a body-soul spatio-temporal
continuant substance. Ultimately, Grice finds a theoretical counterpart here. A
P may become a human, which Grice understands physiologically. That is not
enough. A P must aspire, via meteousis, to become a person. Thus, person
becomes a technical term in Grices grand metaphysical scheme of things.
Someone, viz. I, hear that the bell is tolls is analysed as ≡df, or
if and only if, a hearing that the bell tolls is a part of a total temporary
tn souly state S1 which is one in a s.
such that any state Sn, given this or that
condition, contains as a part a memory Mn of the
experience of hearing that the bell tolls, which is a component in some
pre-sequent t1n item, or contains an experience of hearing
that the bell tolls a memory M of which would, given this or that
condition, occur as a component in some sub-sequent t2>tn item,
there being no sub-set of items which is independent of the rest. Grice
simplifies the reductive analysans. Someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls
iff a hearing that the bell tolls is a component in an item of an interlocking
s. with emphasis on lock, s. of this or that memorable and memorative
total temporary tn state S1. Is Grice’s Personal
identity ever referred to in the Oxonian philosophical literature? Indeeed.
Parfit mentions, which makes it especially memorable and memorative. P. Edwards
includes a reference to Grices Mind essay in the entry for Personal identity,
as a reference to Grice et al on Met. , is referenced in Edwardss encyclopædia
entry for metaphysics. Grice does not attribute privileged access or
incorrigibility to I or the first person. He always hastens to add that I can
always be substituted, salva veritate (if baffling your addressee A) by someone
or other, if not some-body or other, a colloquialism Grice especially detested.
Grices agency-based approach requires that. I am rational provided thou art,
too. If, by explicitly saying he is a Lockeian, Grice surely does not wish us
to see him as trying to be original, or the first to consider this or that
problem about I; i.e. someone. Still, Grice is the philosopher who explores
most deeply the reductive analysis of I, i.e. someone. Grice needs the
reductive analysis because human agency (philosophically, rather than
psychologically interpreted) is key for his approach to things. By uttering The
bell tolls, U means that someone, viz. himself, hears that the bell tolls, or
even, by uttering I, hear, viz. someone hears, that the bell tolls, U means
that the experience of a hearing that the bell tolls is a component in a
total temporary state which is a member of a s. such that each member
would, given certain conditions, contain as an component one
memory of an experience which is a component in a pre-sequent member, or
contains as a component some experience a memory of which would,
given certain conditions, occur as a component in a post-sequent member;
there being no sub-set of members which is independent of the rest.
Thanks, the addressee might reply. I didnt know that! The reductive bit to
Grices analysis needs to be emphasised. For Grice, a person, and consequently,
a someone, viz. I utterance, is, simpliciter, a logical construction out of
this or that Humeian experience. Whereas in Russell, as Broad notes, a
logical construction of this or that philosophical concept, in this case
personal identity, or cf. Grices earlier reductive analysis of not, is thought
of as an improved, rationally reconstructed conception. Neither Russell nor
Broad need maintain that the logical construction preserves the original
meaning of the analysandum someone, viz. I, hears that the bell tolls, or I do
not hear that the bell tolls ‒ hence their paradox of reductionist analysis.
This change of Subjects does not apply to Grice. Grice emphatically intends to
be make explicit, if rationally reconstructed (if that is not an
improvement) through reductive (if not reductionist) analysis, the concept
Grice already claims to have. One particular development to consider is within Grices
play group, that of Quinton. Grice and Quinton seem to have been the only two
philosophers in Austins play group who showed any interest on someone, viz. I.
Or not. The fact that Quinton entitles his thing “The soul” did not help. Note
that Woozley was at the time editing Reid on “Identity,” Cf. Duncan-Jones on
mans mortality. Note that Quintons immediate trigger is Shoemaker. Grice writes
that he is not “merely a series of perceptions,” for he is “conscious of a
permanent self, an I who experiences these perceptions and who is now
identical with the I who experienced perceptions yesterday.” So, leaving aside
that he is using I with the third person verb, but surely this is no
use-mention fallacy, it is this puzzle that provoked his thoughts on temporal-relative
“=” later on. As Grice notes, Butler argued that consciousness of experience
can contribute to identity but not define it. Grice will use Butler in his
elaboration of conversational benevolence versus conversational self-interest.
Better than Quinton, it is better to consider Flew in Philosophy, 96, on Locke
and the problem of personal identity, obviously suggested as a term paper by
Grice! Wiggins cites Flew. Flew actually notes that Berkeley saw Lockes problem
earlier than Reid, which concerns the transitiveness of =. Recall that Wigginss
tutor at Oxford was a tutee by Grice, Ackrill. identity, the relation each thing
bears just to itself. Formally, a % b Q EF(Fa P Fb); informally, the identity
of a and b implies and is implied by their sharing of all their properties.
Read from left to right, this biconditional asserts the indiscernibility of
identicals; from right to left, the identity of indiscernibles. The
indiscernibility of identicals is not to be confused with a metalinguistic
principle to the effect that if a and b are names of the same object, then each
may be substituted for the other in a sentence without change of truth-value:
that may be false, depending on the semantics of the language under discussion.
Similarly, the identity of indiscernibles is not the claim that if a and b can
be exchanged in all sentential contexts without affecting truth-value, then
they name the same object. For such intersubstitutability may arise when the
language in question simply lacks predicates that could discriminate between
the referents of a and b. In short, the identity of things is not a relation
among names. Identity proper is numerical identity, to be distinguished from
exact similarity (qualitative identity). Intuitively, two exactly similar
objects are “copies” of each other; still they are two, hence not identical.
One way to express this is via the notions of extrinsic and intrinsic
properties: exactly similar objects differ in respect of the former only. But
we can best explain ‘instrinsic property’ by saying that a thing’s intrinsic
properties are those it shares with its copies. These notions appear virtually
interdefinable. (Note that the concept of an extrinsic property must be
relativized to a class or kind of things. Not being in San Francisco is an
extrinsic property of persons but arguably an intrinsic property of cities.)
While qualitative identity is a familiar notion, its theoretical utility is
unclear. The absolute notion of qualitative identity should, however, be
distinguished from an unproblematic relative notion: if some list of salient
properties is fixed in a given context (say, in mechanics or normative ethics),
then the exactly similar things, relative to that context, are those that agree
on the properties listed. Both the identity of indiscernibles and (less
frequently) the indiscernibility of identicals are sometimes called Leibniz’s
law. Neither attribution is apt. Although Leibniz would have accepted the
former principle, his distinctive claim was the impossibility of exactly similar
objects: numerically distinct individuals cannot even share all intrinsic
properties. Moreover, this was not, for him, simply a law of identity but
rather an application of his principle of sufficient reason. And the
indiscernibility of identicals is part of a universal understanding of
identity. What distinguishes Leibniz is the prominence of identity statements
in his metaphysics and logical theory. Although identity remains a clear and
basic logical notion, identity questions about problematic kinds of objects
raise difficulties. One example is the identification of properties,
particularly in contexts involving reduction. Although we know what identity
is, the notion of a property is unclear enough to pose systematic obstacles to
the evaluation of theoretically significant identity statements involving
properties. Other difficulties involve personal identity or the possible
identification of numbers and sets in the foundations of mathematics. In these
cases, the identity questions simply inherit – and provide vivid ways of
formulating – the difficulties pertaining to such concepts as person, property,
or number; no rethinking of the identity concept itself is indicated. But
puzzles about the relation of an ordinary material body to its constituent matter
may suggest that the logician’s analysis of identity does not cleanly capture
our everyday notion(s). Consider a bronze statue. Although the statue may seem
to be nothing besides its matter, reflection on change over time suggests a
distinction. The statue may be melted down, hence destroyed, while the bronze
persists, perhaps simply as a mass or perhaps as a new statue formed from the
same bronze. Alternatively, the statue may persist even as some of its bronze
is dissolved in acid. So the statue seems to be one thing and the bronze
another. Yet what is the bronze besides a statue? Surely we do not have two
statues (or statuelike objects) in one place? Some authors feel that variants
of the identity relation may permit a perspicuous description of the relation
of statue and bronze: (1) tensed identity: Assume a class of timebound
properties – roughly, properties an object can have at a time regardless of
what properties it has at other times. (E.g., a statue’s shape, location, or
elegance.) Then a % t b provided a and b share all timebound properties at time
t. Thus, the statue and the bronze may be identical at time t 1 but not at t 2.
(2) relative identity: a and b may be identical relative to one concept (or
predicate) but not to another. Thus, the statue may be held to be the same lump
of matter as the bronze but not the same object of art. identity identity 415
4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 415 In each case, only detailed study will
show whether the variant notion can at once offer a natural description of
change and qualify as a viable identity concept. (Strong doubts arise about
(2).) But it seems likely that our everyday talk of identity has a richness and
ambiguity that escapes formal characterization.
identity, ‘is’ of. See IS. identity, psychophysical. See PHYSICALISM.
identity, theoretical. See PHILOSOPHY OF MIND. identity of indiscernibles, any
of a family of principles, important members of which include the following:
(1) If objects a and b have all properties in common, then a and b are
identical. (2) If objects a and b have all their qualitative properties in
common, then a and b are identical. (3) If objects a and b have all their
non-relational qualitative properties in common, then a and b are identical.
Two questions regarding these principles are raised: Which, if any, are true?
If any are true, are they necessarily true? Discussions of the identity of
indiscernibles typically restrict the scope of the principle to concrete
objects. Although the notions of qualitative and non-relational properties play
a prominent role in these discussions, they are notoriously difficult to
define. Intuitively, a qualitative property is one that can be instantiated by
more than one object and does not involve being related to another particular
object. It does not follow that all qualitative properties are non-relational,
since some relational properties, such as being on top of a brown desk, do not
involve being related to some particular object. (1) is generally regarded as
necessarily true but trivial, since if a and b have all properties in common
then a has the property of being identical with b and b has the property of
being identical with a. Hence, most discussions focus on (2) and (3). (3) is
generally regarded as, at best, a contingent truth since it appears possible to
conceive of two distinct red balls of the same size, shade of color, and
composition. Some have argued that elementary scientific particles, such as
electrons, are counterexamples to even the contingent truth of (3). (2) appears
defensible as a contingent truth since, in the actual world, objects such as
the red balls and the electrons differ in their relational qualitative
properties. It has been argued, however, that (2) is not a necessary truth
since it is possible to conceive of a world consisting of only the two red
balls. In such a world, any qualitative relational property possessed by one
ball is also possessed by the other. Defenders of the necessary truth of (2)
have argued that a careful examination of such counterexamples reveals hidden
qualitative properties that differentiate the objects. Refs.: The main references covering identity simpliciter are
in “Vacuous Names,” and his joint work on metaphysics with G. Myro. The main
references relating to the second group, of personal identity, are his “Mind”
essay, an essay on ‘the logical-construction theory of personal identity,’ and
a second set of essays on Hume’s quandary, The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
Griceian ideology: a term
used by Ernest Gellner to refer to Grice’s Clifton/Corpus Christi background. generally
a disparaging term used to describe someone else’s political views which one
regards as unsound. This use derives from Marx’s employment of the term to
signify a false consciousness shared by the members of a particular social
class. For example, according to Marx, members of the capitalist class share
the ideology that the laws of the competitive market are natural and
impersonal, that workers in a competitive market are paid all that they can be
paid, and that the institutions of private property in the means of production
are natural and justified.
ideo-motor action, a
theory of the will according to which “every representation of a movement
awakens in some degree the actual movement which is its object” (William
James). Proposed by physiologist W. B. Carpenter, and taught by Lotze and
Renouvier, ideo-motor action was developed by James. He rejected the regnant
analysis of voluntary behavior, which held that will operates by reinstating
“feelings of innervation” (Wundt) in the efferent nerves. Deploying
introspection and physiology, James showed that feelings of innervation do not
exist. James advanced ideo-motor action as the psychological basis of volition:
actions tend to occur automatically when thought, unless inhibited by a
contrary idea. Will consists in fixing attention on a desired idea until it
dominates consciousness, the execution of movement following automatically.
James also rejected Bain’s associationist thesis that pleasure or pain is the
necessary spring of action, since according to ideo-motor theory thought of an
action by itself produces it. James’s analysis became dogma, but was
effectively attacked by psychologist E. L. Thorndike (1874– 1949), who proposed
in its place the behavioristic doctrine that ideas have no power to cause
behavior, and argued that belief in ideo-motor action amounted to belief in
sympathetic magic. Thus did will leave the vocabulary of psychology.
“if” – German “ob,”
Latin, “si,” Grecian, “ei” -- conditional, a compound sentence, such as ‘if Abe
calls, then Ben answers,’ in which one sentence, the antecedent, is connected
to a second, the consequent, by the connective ‘if . . . then’. Propositions
statements, etc. expressed by conditionals are called conditional propositions
statements, etc. and, by ellipsis, simply conditionals. The ambiguity of the
expression ‘if . . . then’ gives rise to a semantic classification of
conditionals into material conditionals, causal conditionals, counterfactual
conditionals, and so on. In traditional logic, conditionals are called
hypotheticals, and in some areas of mathematical logic conditionals are called
implications. Faithful analysis of the meanings of conditionals continues to be
investigated and intensely disputed.
conditional proof. 1 The argument form ‘B follows from A; therefore, if
A then B’ and arguments of this form. 2 The rule of inference that permits one
to infer a conditional given a derivation of its consequent from its
antecedent. This is also known as the rule of conditional proof or /-
introduction. conditioning, a form of associative learning that occurs when
changes in thought or behavior are produced by temporal relations among events.
It is common to distinguish between two types of conditioning; one, classical
or Pavlovian, in which behavior change results from events that occur before
behavior; the other, operant or instrumental, in which behavior change occurs
because of events after behavior. Roughly, classically and operantly
conditioned behavior correspond to the everyday, folk-psychological distinction
between involuntary and voluntary or goaldirected behavior. In classical
conditioning, stimuli or events elicit a response e.g., salivation; neutral
stimuli e.g., a dinner bell gain control over behavior when paired with stimuli
that already elicit behavior e.g., the appearance of dinner. The behavior is
involuntary. In operant conditioning, stimuli or events reinforce behavior
after behavior occurs; neutral stimuli gain power to reinforce by being paired
with actual reinforcers. Here, occasions in which behavior is reinforced serve
as discriminative stimuli-evoking behavior. Operant behavior is goal-directed,
if not consciously or deliberately, then through the bond between behavior and
reinforcement. Thus, the arrangement of condiments at dinner may serve as the
discriminative stimulus evoking the request “Please pass the salt,” whereas
saying “Thank you” may reinforce the behavior of passing the salt. It is not
easy to integrate conditioning phenomena into a unified theory of conditioning.
Some theorists contend that operant conditioning is really classical
conditioning veiled by subtle temporal relations among events. Other theorists
contend that operant conditioning requires mental representations of reinforcers
and discriminative stimuli. B. F. Skinner 4 90 argued in Walden Two 8 that
astute, benevolent behavioral engineers can and should use conditioning to
create a social utopia. conditio sine
qua non Latin, ‘a condition without which not’, a necessary condition;
something without which something else could not be or could not occur. For
example, being a plane figure is a conditio sine qua non for being a triangle.
Sometimes the phrase is used emphatically as a synonym for an unconditioned
presupposition, be it for an action to start or an argument to get going. I.Bo.
Condorcet, Marquis de, title of Marie-JeanAntoine-Nicolas de Caritat
174394, philosopher and political
theorist who contributed to the Encyclopedia and pioneered the mathematical
analysis of social institutions. Although prominent in the Revolutionary
government, he was denounced for his political views and died in prison.
Condorcet discovered the voting paradox, which shows that majoritarian voting
can produce cyclical group preferences. Suppose, for instance, that voters A,
B, and C rank proposals x, y, and z as follows: A: xyz, B: yzx, and C: zxy.
Then in majoritarian voting x beats y and y beats z, but z in turn beats x. So
the resulting group preferences are cyclical. The discovery of this problem
helped initiate social choice theory, which evaluates voting systems. Condorcet
argued that any satisfactory voting system must guarantee selection of a
proposal that beats all rivals in majoritarian competition. Such a proposal is
called a Condorcet winner. His jury theorem says that if voters register their
opinions about some matter, such as whether a defendant is guilty, and the
probabilities that individual voters are right are greater than ½, equal, and
independent, then the majority vote is more likely to be correct than any
individual’s or minority’s vote. Condorcet’s main works are Essai sur
l’application de l’analyse à la probabilité des décisions rendues à la
pluralité des voix Essay on the Application of Analysis to the Probability of Decisions
Reached by a Majority of Votes, 1785; and a posthumous treatise on social
issues, Esquisse d’un tableau historique des progrès de l’esprit humain Sketch
for a Historical Picture of the Progress of the Human Mind, 1795. “if” corresponding conditional of a given
argument, any conditional whose antecedent is a logical conjunction of all of
the premises of the argument and whose consequent is the conclusion. The two
conditionals, ‘if Abe is Ben and Ben is wise, then Abe is wise’ and ‘if Ben is
wise and Abe is Ben, then Abe is wise’, are the two corresponding conditionals
of the argument whose premises are ‘Abe is Ben’ and ‘Ben is wise’ and whose
conclusion is ‘Abe is wise’. For a one-premise argument, the corresponding
conditional is the conditional whose antecedent is the premise and whose
consequent is the conclusion. The limiting cases of the empty and infinite
premise sets are treated in different ways by different logicians; one simple
treatment considers such arguments as lacking corresponding conditionals. The
principle of corresponding conditionals is that in order for an argument to be
valid it is necessary and sufficient for all its corresponding conditionals to
be tautological. The commonly used expression ‘the corresponding conditional of
an argument’ is also used when two further stipulations are in force: first,
that an argument is construed as having an ordered sequence of premises rather
than an unordered set of premises; second, that conjunction is construed as a
polyadic operation that produces in a unique way a single premise from a
sequence of premises rather than as a dyadic operation that combines premises
two by two. Under these stipulations the principle of the corresponding
conditional is that in order for an argument to be valid it is necessary and
sufficient for its corresponding conditional to be valid. These principles are
closely related to modus ponens, to conditional proof, and to the so-called
deduction theorem. “if” counterfactuals,
also called contrary-to-fact conditionals, subjunctive conditionals that
presupcorner quotes counterfactuals pose the falsity of their antecedents, such
as ‘If Hitler had invaded England, G.y would have won’ and ‘If I were you, I’d
run’. Conditionals or hypothetical statements are compound statements of the
form ‘If p, then q’, or equivalently ‘q if p’. Component p is described as the
antecedent protasis and q as the consequent apodosis. A conditional like ‘If
Oswald did not kill Kennedy, then someone else did’ is called indicative,
because both the antecedent and consequent are in the indicative mood. One like
‘If Oswald had not killed Kennedy, then someone else would have’ is
subjunctive. Many subjunctive and all indicative conditionals are open,
presupposing nothing about the antecedent. Unlike ‘If Bob had won, he’d be
rich’, neither ‘If Bob should have won, he would be rich’ nor ‘If Bob won, he
is rich’ implies that Bob did not win. Counterfactuals presuppose, rather than
assert, the falsity of their antecedents. ‘If Reagan had been president, he
would have been famous’ seems inappropriate and out of place, but not false,
given that Reagan was president. The difference between counterfactual and open
subjunctives is less important logically than that between subjunctives and
indicatives. Whereas the indicative conditional about Kennedy is true, the
subjunctive is probably false. Replace ‘someone’ with ‘no one’ and the
truth-values reverse. The most interesting logical feature of counterfactuals
is that they are not truth-functional. A truth-functional compound is one whose
truth-value is completely determined in every possible case by the truth-values
of its components. For example, the falsity of ‘The President is a grandmother’
and ‘The President is childless’ logically entails the falsity of ‘The
President is a grandmother and childless’: all conjunctions with false
conjuncts are false. But whereas ‘If the President were a grandmother, the
President would be childless’ is false, other counterfactuals with equally
false components are true, such as ‘If the President were a grandmother, the
President would be a mother’. The truth-value of a counterfactual is determined
in part by the specific content of its components. This property is shared by
indicative and subjunctive conditionals generally, as can be seen by varying
the wording of the example. In marked contrast, the material conditional, p /
q, of modern logic, defined as meaning that either p is false or q is true, is
completely truth-functional. ‘The President is a grandmother / The President is
childless’ is just as true as ‘The President is a grandmother / The President
is a mother’. While stronger than the material conditional, the counterfactual
is weaker than the strict conditional, p U q, of modern modal logic, which says
that p / q is necessarily true. ‘If the switch had been flipped, the light
would be on’ may in fact be true even though it is possible for the switch to
have been flipped without the light’s being on because the bulb could have
burned out. The fact that counterfactuals are neither strict nor material
conditionals generated the problem of counterfactual conditionals raised by
Chisholm and Goodman: What are the truth conditions of a counterfactual, and
how are they determined by its components? According to the “metalinguistic”
approach, which resembles the deductive-nomological model of explanation, a
counterfactual is true when its antecedent conjoined with laws of nature and
statements of background conditions logically entails its consequent. On this
account, ‘If the switch had been flipped the light would be on’ is true because
the statement that the switch was flipped, plus the laws of electricity and
statements describing the condition and arrangement of the circuitry, entail
that the light is on. The main problem is to specify which facts are “fixed”
for any given counterfactual and context. The background conditions cannot
include the denials of the antecedent or the consequent, even though they are
true, nor anything else that would not be true if the antecedent were.
Counteridenticals, whose antecedents assert identities, highlight the
difficulty: the background for ‘If I were you, I’d run’ must include facts
about my character and your situation, but not vice versa. Counterlegals like
‘Newton’s laws would fail if planets had rectangular orbits’, whose antecedents
deny laws of nature, show that even the set of laws cannot be all-inclusive.
Another leading approach pioneered by Robert C. Stalnaker and David K. Lewis
extends the possible worlds semantics developed for modal logic, saying that a
counterfactual is true when its consequent is true in the nearest possible
world in which the antecedent is true. The counterfactual about the switch is
true on this account provided a world in which the switch was flipped and the
light is on is closer to the actual world than one in which the switch was
flipped but the light is not on. The main problem is to specify which world is
nearest for any given counterfactual and context. The difference between
indicative and subjunctive conditionals can be accounted for in terms of either
a different set of background conditions or a different measure of nearness.
counterfactuals counterfactuals
Counterfactuals turn up in a variety of philosophical contexts. To
distinguish laws like ‘All copper conducts’ from equally true generalizations
like ‘Everything in my pocket conducts’, some have observed that while anything
would conduct if it were copper, not everything would conduct if it were in my
pocket. And to have a disposition like solubility, it does not suffice to be
either dissolving or not in water: it must in addition be true that the object
would dissolve if it were in water. It has similarly been suggested that one
event is the cause of another only if the latter would not have occurred if the
former had not; that an action is free only if the agent could or would have
done otherwise if he had wanted to; that a person is in a particular mental
state only if he would behave in certain ways given certain stimuli; and that
an action is right only if a completely rational and fully informed agent would
choose it.
iff, an abbreviation for
‘if and only if’ that is used as if it were a single propositional operator
(connective). Another synonym for ‘iff’ is ‘just in case’. The justification
for treating ‘iff’ as if it were a single propositional connective is that ‘P
if and only if Q’ is elliptical for ‘P if Q, and P only if Q’, and this
assertion is logically equivalent to ‘P biconditional Q’.
Il’in, Ivan
Aleksandrovich, philosopher and conservative legal and political theorist. He
authored an important two-volume commentary on Hegel (1918), plus extensive
writings in ethics, political theory, aesthetics, and spirituality. Exiled in
1922, he was known for his passionate opposition to Bolshevism, his extensive
proposals for rebuilding a radically reformed Russian state, church, and
society in a post-Communist future, and his devout Russian Orthodox
spirituality. He is widely regarded as a master of Russian language and a
penetrating interpreter of the history of Russian culture. His collected works
are currently being published in Moscow.
illatum, f. illātĭo (inl- ), ōnis,
f. infero, a logical
inference, conclusion: “vel illativum rogamentum. quod ex acceptionibus colligitur et infertur,” App.
Dogm. Plat. 3, pp. 34, 15. – infero: to conclude, infer, draw an inference, Cic. Inv. 1, 47, 87; Quint. 5, 11, 27. ILLATUM -- inference, the
process of drawing a conclusion from premises or assumptions, or, loosely, the
conclusion so drawn. An argument can be merely a number of statements of which
one is designated the conclusion and the rest are designated premises. Whether
the premises imply the conclusion is thus independent of anyone’s actual
beliefs in either of them. Belief, however, is essential to inference.
Inference occurs only if someone, owing to believing the premises, begins to
believe the conclusion or continues to believe the conclusion with greater
confidence than before. Because inference requires a subject who has beliefs,
some requirements of (an ideally) acceptable inference do not apply to abstract
arguments: one must believe the premises; one must believe that the premises
support the conclusion; neither of these beliefs induction, eliminative
inference 426 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 426 may be based on one’s
prior belief in the conclusion. W. E. Johnson called these the epistemic
conditions of inference. In a reductio ad absurdum argument that deduces a
self-contradiction from certain premises, not all steps of the argument will
correspond to steps of inference. No one deliberately infers a contradiction. What
one infers, in such an argument, is that certain premises are inconsistent.
Acceptable inferences can fall short of being ideally acceptable according to
the above requirements. Relevant beliefs are sometimes indefinite. Infants and
children infer despite having no grasp of the sophisticated notion of support.
One function of idealization is to set standards for that which falls short. It
is possible to judge how nearly inexplicit, automatic, unreflective,
lessthan-ideal inferences meet ideal requirements. In ordinary speech, ‘infer’
often functions as a synonym of ‘imply’, as in ‘The new tax law infers that we
have to calculate the value of our shrubbery’. Careful philosophical writing
avoids this usage. Implication is, and inference is not, a relation between
statements. Valid deductive inference corresponds to a valid deductive
argument: it is logically impossible for all the premises to be true when the
conclusion is false. That is, the conjunction of all the premises and the
negation of the conclusion is inconsistent. Whenever a conjunction is
inconsistent, there is a valid argument for the negation of any conjunct from
the other conjuncts. (Relevance logic imposes restrictions on validity to avoid
this.) Whenever one argument is deductively valid, so is another argument that
goes in a different direction. (1) ‘Stacy left her slippers in the kitchen’
implies (2) ‘Stacy had some slippers’. Should one acquainted with Stacy and the
kitchen infer (2) from (1), or infer not-(1) from not-(2), or make neither inference?
Formal logic tells us about implication and deductive validity, but it cannot
tell us when or what to infer. Reasonable inference depends on comparative
degrees of reasonable belief. An inference in which every premise and every
step is beyond question is a demonstrative inference. (Similarly, reasoning for
which this condition holds is demonstrative reasoning.) Just as what is beyond
question can vary from one situation to another, so can what counts as
demonstrative. The term presumably derives from Aristotle’s Posterior
Analytics. Understanding Aristotle’s views on demonstration requires
understanding his general scheme for classifying inferences. Not all inferences
are deductive. In an inductive inference, one infers from an observed combination
of characteristics to some similar unobserved combination. ‘Reasoning’ like
‘painting’, and ‘frosting’, and many other words, has a process–product
ambiguity. Reasoning can be a process that occurs in time or it can be a result
or product. A letter to the editor can both contain reasoning and be the result
of reasoning. It is often unclear whether a word such as ‘statistical’ that
modifies the words ‘inference’ or ‘reasoning’ applies primarily to stages in
the process or to the content of the product. One view, attractive for its
simplicity, is that the stages of the process of reasoning correspond closely
to the parts of the product. Examples that confirm this view are scarce.
Testing alternatives, discarding and reviving, revising and transposing, and so
on, are as common to the process of reasoning as to other creative activities.
A product seldom reflects the exact history of its production. In An
Examination of Sir William Hamilton’s Philosophy, J. S. Mill says that
reasoning is a source from which we derive new truths (Chapter 14). This is a
useful saying so long as we remember that not all reasoning is inference. --
inference to the best explanation, an inference by which one concludes that
something is the case on the grounds that this best explains something else one
believes to be the case. Paradigm examples of this kind of inference are found
in the natural sciences, where a hypothesis is accepted on the grounds that it
best explains relevant observations. For example, the hypothesis that material
substances have atomic structures best explains a range of observations
concerning how such substances interact. Inferences to the best explanation
occur in everyday life as well. Upon walking into your house you observe that a
lamp is lying broken on the floor, and on the basis of this you infer that the
cat has knocked it over. This is plausibly analyzed as an inference to the best
explanation; you believe that the cat has knocked over the lamp because this is
the best explanation for the lamp’s lying broken on the floor. The nature of
inference to the best explanation and the extent of its use are both
controversial. Positions that have been taken include: (a) that it is a
distinctive kind of inductive reasoning; (b) inference rule inference to the
best explanation 427 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 427 that all good
inductive inferences involve inference to the best explanation; and (c) that it
is not a distinctive kind of inference at all, but is rather a special case of
enumerative induction. Another controversy concerns the criteria for what makes
an explanation best. Simplicity, cognitive fit, and explanatory power have all
been suggested as relevant merits, but none of these notions is well
understood. Finally, a skeptical problem arises: inference to the best
explanation is plausibly involved in both scientific and commonsense knowledge,
but it is not clear why the best explanation that occurs to a person is likely
to be true. -- inferential knowledge, a kind of “indirect” knowledge, namely, knowledge
based on or resulting from inference. Assuming that knowledge is at least true,
justified belief, inferential knowledge is constituted by a belief that is
justified because it is inferred from certain other beliefs. The knowledge that
7 equals 7 seems non-inferential. We do not infer from anything that 7 equals 7
– it is obvious and self-evident. The knowledge that 7 is the cube root of 343,
in contrast, seems inferential. We cannot know this without inferring it from
something else, such as the result obtained when multiplying 7 times 7 times 7.
Two sorts of inferential relations may be distinguished. ‘I inferred that
someone died because the flag is at half-mast’ may be true because yesterday I
acquired the belief about the flag, which caused me to acquire the further
belief that someone died. ‘I inferentially believe that someone died because
the flag is at halfmast’ may be true now because I retain the belief that
someone died and it remains based on my belief about the flag. My belief that
someone died is thus either episodically or structurally inferential. The
episodic process is an occurrent, causal relation among belief acquisitions.
The structural basing relation may involve the retention of beliefs, and need
not be occurrent. (Some reserve ‘inference’ for the episodic relation.) An
inferential belief acquired on one basis may later be held on a different
basis, as when I forget I saw a flag at half-mast but continue to believe
someone died because of news reports. That “How do you know?” and “Prove it!”
always seem pertinent suggests that all knowledge is inferential, a version of
the coherence theory. The well-known regress argument seems to show, however,
that not all knowledge can be inferential, which is a version of
foundationalism. For if S knows something inferentially, S must infer it
correctly from premises S knows to be true. The question whether those premises
are also known inferentially begins either an infinite regress of inferences
(which is humanly impossible) or a circle of justification (which could not
constitute good reasoning). Which sources of knowledge are non-inferential
remains an issue even assuming foundationalism. When we see that an apple is
red, e.g., our knowledge is based in some manner on the way the apple looks. “How
do you know it is red?” can be answered: “By the way it looks.” This answer
seems correct, moreover, only if an inference from the way the apple looks to
its being red would be warranted. Nevertheless, perceptual beliefs are formed
so automatically that talk of inference seems inappropriate. In addition,
inference as a process whereby beliefs are acquired as a result of holding
other beliefs may be distinguished from inference as a state in which one
belief is sustained on the basis of others. Knowledge that is inferential in
one way need not be inferential in the other.
illuminism: d’Alembert,
Jean Le Rond 171783, mathematician,
philosopher, and Encyclopedist. According to Grimm, d’Alembert was the prime
luminary of the philosophic party. An abandoned, illegitimate child, he
nonetheless received an outstanding education at the Jansenist Collège des
Quatre-Nations in Paris. He read law for a while, tried medicine, and settled
on mathematics. In 1743, he published an acclaimed Treatise of Dynamics. Subsequently,
he joined the Paris Academy of Sciences and contributed decisive works on
mathematics and physics. In 1754, he was elected to the Academy, of which he later became permanent
secretary. In association with Diderot, he launched the Encyclopedia, for which
he wrote the epoch-making Discours préliminaire 1751 and numerous entries on
science. Unwilling to compromise with the censorship, he resigned as coeditor
in 1758. In the Discours préliminaire, d’Alembert specified the divisions of
the philosophical discourse on man: pneumatology, logic, and ethics. Contrary
to Christian philosophies, he limited pneumatology to the investigation of the
human soul. Prefiguring positivism, his Essay on the Elements of Philosophy
1759 defines philosophy as a comparative examination of physical phenomena.
Influenced by Bacon, Locke, and Newton, d’Alembert’s epistemology associates
Cartesian psychology with the sensory origin of ideas. Though assuming the
universe to be rationally ordered, he discarded metaphysical questions as
inconclusive. The substance, or the essence, of soul and matter, is unknowable.
Agnosticism ineluctably arises from his empirically based naturalism.
D’Alembert is prominently featured in D’Alembert’s Dream 1769, Diderot’s
dialogical apology for materialism. Grice’s
illuminism – “reason enlightens us” Enlightenment, a late eighteenth-century
international movement in thought, with important social and political
ramifications. The Enlightenment is at once a style, an attitude, a temper critical, secular, skeptical, empirical, and
practical. It is also characterized by core beliefs in human rationality, in
what it took to be “nature,” and in the “natural feelings” of mankind. Four of
its most prominent exemplars are Hume, Thomas Jefferson, Kant, and Voltaire.
The Enlightenment belief in human rationality had several aspects. 1 Human
beings are free to the extent that their actions are carried out for a reason.
Actions prompted by traditional authority, whether religious or political, are
therefore not free; liberation requires weakening if not also overthrow of this
authority. 2 Human rationality is universal, requiring only education for its
development. In virtue of their common rationality, all human beings have
certain rights, among them the right to choose and shape their individual
destinies. 3 A final aspect of the belief in human rationality was that the
true forms of all things could be discovered, whether of the universe Newton’s
laws, of the mind associationist psychology, of good government the U.S.
Constitution, of a happy life which, like good government, was “balanced”, or
of beautiful architecture Palladio’s principles. The Enlightenment was
preeminently a “formalist” age, and prose, not poetry, was its primary means of
expression. The Enlightenment thought of itself as a return to the classical
ideas of the Grecians and more especially the Romans. But in fact it provided
one source of the revolutions that shook Europe and America at the end of the
eighteenth century, and it laid the intellectual foundations for both the
generally scientific worldview and the liberal democratic society, which,
despite the many attacks made on them, continue to function as cultural ideals.
illusion: cf. veridical memories, who needs them? hallucination
is Grice’s topic.Malcolm argues in Dreaming and Skepticism and in his Dreaming
that the notion of a dream qua conscious experience that occurs at a definite
time and has definite duration during sleep, is unintelligible. This
contradicts the views of philosophers like Descartes (and indeed Moore!), who,
Malcolm holds, assume that a human being may have a conscious thought and a
conscious experience during sleep. Descartes claims that he had been deceived
during sleep. Malcolms point is that ordinary language contrasts consciousness
and sleep. The claim that one is conscious while one is sleep-walking is
stretching the use of the term. Malcolm rejects the alleged counter-examples
based on sleepwalking or sleep-talking, e.g. dreaming that one is climbing stairs
while one is actually doing so is not a counter-example because, in such a
case, the individual is not sound asleep after all. If a person is in any state
of consciousness, it logically follows that he is not sound asleep. The concept
of dreaming is based on our descriptions of dreams after we have awakened in
telling a dream. Thus, to have dreamt that one has a thought during sleep is
not to have a thought any more than to have dreamt that one has climbed Everest
is to have climbed Everest. Since one cannot have an experience during sleep,
one cannot have a mistaken experience during sleep, thereby undermining the
sort of scepticism based on the idea that our experience might be wrong because
we might be dreaming. Malcolm further argues that a report of a conscious state
during sleep is unverifiable. If Grice claims that he and Strawson saw a
big-foot in charge of the reserve desk at the Bodleian library, one can verify
that this took place by talking to Strawson and gathering forensic evidence
from the library. However, there is no way to verify Grices claim that he
dreamed that he and Strawson saw a big-foot working at the Bodleian. Grices
only basis for his claim that he dreamt this is that Grice says so after he
wakes up. How does one distinguish the case where Grice dreamed that he saw a
big-foot working at The Bodleian and the case in which he dreamed that he saw a
person in a big-foot suit working at the library but, after awakening,
mis-remembered that person in a big-foot suit as a big-foot proper? If Grice
should admit that he had earlier mis-reported his dream and that he had
actually dreamed he saw a person in a big-foot suit at The Bodleian, there is
no more independent verification for this new claim than there was for the
original one. Thus, there is, for Malcolm, no sense to the idea of
mis-remembering ones dreams. Malcolm here applies one of Witters ideas from his
private language argument. One would like to say: whatever is going to seem
right to me is right. And that only means that here we cannot talk about right.
For a similar reason, Malcolm challenges the idea that one can assign a
definite duration or time of occurrence to a dream. If Grice claims that he ran
the mile in 3.4 minutes, one could verify this in the usual ways. If, however, Grice
says he dreamt that he ran the mile in 3.4 minutes, how is one to measure the
duration of his dreamt run? If Grice says he was wearing a stopwatch in the
dream and clocked his run at 3.4 minutes, how can one know that the dreamt
stopwatch is not running at half speed (so that he really dreamt that he ran
the mile in 6.8 minutes)? Grice might argue that a dream report does not carry
such a conversational implicata. But Malcolm would say that just admits the
point. The ordinary criteria one uses for determining temporal duration do not
apply to dreamt events. The problem in both these cases (Grice dreaming one saw
a bigfoot working at The Bodleian and dreaming that he ran the mile in 3.4
minutes) is that there is no way to verify the truth of these dreamt events —
no direct way to access that dreamt inner experience, that mysterious glow of
consciousness inside the mind of Grice lying comatose on the couch, in order to
determine the facts of the matter. This is because, for Malcolm, there are no
facts of the matter apart from the report by the dreamer of the dream upon
awakening. Malcolm claims that the empirical evidence does not enable one to
decide between the view that a dream experience occurs during sleep and the
view that they are generated upon the moment of waking up. Dennett agrees with
Malcolm that nothing supports the received view that a dream involves a
conscious experience while one is asleep but holds that such issues might be
settled empirically. Malcolm also argues against the attempt to provide a
physiological mark of the duration of a dream, for example, the view that the
dream lasted as long as the rapid eye movements. Malcolm replies that there can
only be as much precision in that common concept of dreaming as is provided by
the common criterion of dreaming. These scientific researchers are misled by
the assumption that the provision for the duration of a dream is already there,
only somewhat obscured and in need of being made more precise. However, Malcolm
claims, it is not already there (in the ordinary concept of dreaming). These
scientific views are making radical conceptual changes in the concept of
dreaming, not further explaining our ordinary concept of dreaming. Malcolm
admits, however, that it might be natural to adopt such scientific views about
REM sleep as a convention. Malcolm points out, however, that if REM sleep is
adopted as a criterion for the occurrence of a dream, people would have to
be informed upon waking up that they had dreamed or not. As Pears observes, Malcolm
does not mean to deny that people have dreams in favour of the view that they
only have waking dream-behaviour. Of course it is no misuse of language to
speak of remembering a dream. His point is that since the concept of dreaming
is so closely tied to our concept of waking report of a dreams, one cannot form
a coherent concept of this alleged inner (private) something that occurs with a
definite duration during sleep. Malcolm rejects a certain philosophical
conception of dreaming, not the ordinary concept of dreaming, which, he holds,
is neither a hidden private something nor mere outward behaviour.The account of
dreaming by Malcolm has come in for considerable criticism. Some argue that
Malcolms claim that occurrences in dreams cannot be verified by others does not
require the strict criteria that Malcolm proposes but can be justified by
appeal to the simplicity, plausibility, and predictive adequacy of an
explanatory system as a whole. Some argue that Malcolms account of the sentence
I am awake is inconsistent. A comprehensive programme in considerable detail
has been offered for an empirical scientific investigation of dreaming of the
sort that Malcolm rejects. Others have proposed various counterexamples and counter
arguments against dreaming by Malcolm. Grices emphasis is in Malcolms easy way
out with statements to the effect that implicata do or do not operate in dream
reports. They do in mine! Grice considers, I may be dreaming in the two essays
opening the Part II: Explorations on semantics and metaphysics in WOW. Cf.
Urmson on ‘delusion’ in ‘Parentheticals’ as ‘conceptually impossible.’ Refs.: The
main reference is Grice’s essay on ‘Dreaming,’ but there are scattered
references in his treatment of Descartes, and “The causal theory of perception”
(henceforth, “Causal theory”), The H. P. Grice Papers, BANC.
imagination: referred to
by Grice in “Prolegomena” – the rabbit that looks like a duck -- the mental
faculty sometimes thought to encompass all acts of thinking about something
novel, contrary to fact, or not currently perceived; thus: “Imagine that
Lincoln had not been assassinated,” or “Use your imagination to create a new
design for roller skates.” ‘Imagination’ also denotes an important
perception-like aspect of some such thoughts, so that to imagine something is
to bring to mind what it would be like to perceive it. Philosophical theories
of imagination must explain its apparent intentionality: when we imagine, we
always imagine something. Imagination is always directed toward an object, even
though the object may not exist. Moreover, imagination, like perception, is
often seen as involving qualia, or special subjective properties that are
sometimes thought to discredit materialist, especially functionalist, theories
of mind. The intentionality of imagination and its perceptual character lead
some theories to equate imagination with “imaging”: being conscious of or
perceiving a mental image. However, because the ontological status of such
images and the nature of their properties are obscure, many philosophers have
rejected mental images in favor of an adverbial theory on which to imagine
something red is best analyzed as imagining “redly.” Such theories avoid the
difficulties associated with mental images, but must offer some other way to
account for the apparent intentionality of imagination as well as its
perceptual character. Imagination, in the hands of Husserl and Sartre, becomes
a particularly apt subject for phenomenology. It is also cited as a faculty
that idols of the cave imagination 417 4065h-l.qxd 08/02/1999 7:39 AM Page 417
separates human thought from any form of artificial intelligence. Finally,
imagination often figures prominently in debates about possibility, in that
what is imaginable is often taken to be coextensive with what is possible.
immanence, a term most
often used in contrast to ‘transcendence’ to express the way in which God is
thought to be present in the world. The most extreme form of immanence is
expressed in pantheism, which identifies God’s substance either partly or wholly
with the world. In contrast to pantheism, Judaism and Christianity hold God to
be a totally separate substance from the world. In Christianity, the
separateness of God’s substance from that of the world is guaranteed by the
doctrine of creation ex nihilo. Aquinas held that God is in the world as an
efficient cause is present to that on which it acts. Thus, God is present in
the world by continuously acting on it to preserve it in existence. Perhaps the
weakest notion of immanence is expressed in eighteenth- and nineteenthcentury
deism, in which God initially creates the world and institutes its universal
laws, but is basically an absentee landlord, exercising no providential
activity over its continuing history.
immaterialism, the view
that objects are best characterized as mere collections of qualities: “a
certain colour, taste, smell, figure and consistence having been observed to go
together, are accounted one distinct thing, signified by the name apple”
(Berkeley, Principles, 1). So construed, immaterialism anticipates by some two
hundred years a doctrine defended in the early twentieth century by Russell.
The negative side of the doctrine comes in the denial of material substance or
matter. Some philosophers had held that ordinary objects are individual
material substances in which qualities inhere. The account is mistaken because,
according to immaterialism, there is no such thing as material substance, and
so qualities do not inhere in it. Immaterialism should not be confused with
Berkeley’s idealism. The latter, but not the former, implies that objects and
their qualities exist if and only if they are perceived.
immediacy, presence to
the mind without intermediaries. The term ‘immediate’ and its cognates have
been used extensively throughout the history of philosophy, generally without
much explanation. Descartes, e.g., explains his notion of thought thus: “I use
this term to include everything that is within us in a way that we are
immediately aware of it” (Second Replies). He offers no explanation of
immediate awareness. However, when used as a primitive in this way, the term
may simply mean that thoughts are the immediate objects of perception because
thoughts are the only things perceived in the strict and proper sense that no
perception of an intermediary is required for the person’s awareness of them.
Sometimes ‘immediate’ means ‘not mediated’. (1) An inference from a premise to
a conclusion can exhibit logical immediacy because it does not depend on other
premises. This is a technical usage of proof theory to describe the form of a
certain class of inference rules. (2) A concept can exhibit conceptual
immediacy because it is definitionally primitive, as in the Berkeleian doctrine
that perception of qualities is immediate, and perception of objects is defined
by the perception of their qualities, which is directly understood. (3) Our
perception of something can exhibit causal immediacy because it is not caused
by intervening acts of perception or cognition, as with seeing someone
immediately in the flesh rather than through images on a movie screen. (4) A
belief-formation process can possess psychological immediacy because it
contains no subprocess of reasoning and in that sense has no psychological
mediator. (5) Our knowledge of something can exhibit epistemic immediacy
because it is justified without inference from another proposition, as in
intuitive knowledge of the existence of the self, which has no epistemic
mediator. A noteworthy special application of immediacy is to be found in
Russell’s notion of knowledge by acquaintance. This notion is a development of
the venerable doctrine originating with Plato, and also found in Augustine,
that understanding the nature of some object requires that we can gain
immediate cognitive access to that object. Thus, for Plato, to understand the
nature of beauty requires acquaintance with beauty itself. This view contrasts
with one in which understanding the nature of beauty requires linguistic
competence in the use of the word ‘beauty’ or, alternatively, with one that
requires having a mental representation of beauty. Russell offers sense-data
and universals as examples of things known by acquaintance. To these senses of
immediacy we may add another category whose members have acquired special
meanings within certain philosophical traditions. For example, in Hegel’s
philosophy if (per impossibile) an object were encountered “as existing in
simple immediacy” it would be encountered as it is in itself, unchanged by
conceptualization. In phenomenology “immediate” experience is, roughly,
bracketed experience.
impartiality, a state or
disposition achieved to the degree that one’s actions or attitudes are not
influenced in a relevant respect by which members of a relevant group are
benefited or harmed by one’s actions or by the object of one’s attitudes. For
example, a basketball referee and that referee’s calls are impartial when the
referee’s applications of the rules are not affected by whether the calls help
one team or the other. A fan’s approval of a call lacks impartiality if that
attitude results from the fan’s preference for one team over the other.
Impartiality in this general sense does not exclude arbitrariness or guarantee
fairness; nor does it require neutrality among values, for a judge can be
impartial between parties while favoring liberty and equality for all.
Different situations might call for impartiality in different respects toward
different groups, so disagreements arise, for example, about when morality
requires or allows partiality toward friends or family or country. Moral
philosophers have proposed various tests of the kind of impartiality required
by morality, including role reversibility (Kurt Baier), universalizability
(Hare), a veil of ignorance (Rawls), and a restriction to beliefs shared by all
rational people (Bernard Gert).
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