Augustine on Testimony

2009 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 195-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter King ◽  
Nathan Ballantyne
Keyword(s):  
David Hume ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Augustine Of Hippo ◽  
Epistemological Question ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of

Philosophical work on testimony has flourished in recent years. Testimony roughly involves a source affirming or stating something in an attempt to transfer information to one or more persons. It is often said that the topic of testimony has been neglected throughout most of the history of philosophy, aside from contributions by David Hume (1711-1776) and Thomas Reid (1710-1796). True as this may be, Hume and Reid aren't the only ones who deserve a tip of the hat for recognizing the importance of testimony: Augustine of Hippo (354-430) affirms the place of testimony in human cognition, at least in his later writings.In what follows, we consider three questions raised by Augustine's thinking about testimony: the analytical question of what sources count as testimony (Section I); the epistemological question about the status of testimony-based belief (Section II); and the doxastic question about the circumstances in which it is appropriate to believe on the basis of testimony (Section III).

Incomplete Routes to Moral Objectivity: Four Variants of Naturalism

2001 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-217
Author(s):  
David Sidorsky
Keyword(s):  
Common Sense ◽  
John Dewey ◽  
David Hume ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Knowledge ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Moral Objectivity ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
History Of ◽  
Integrated Or

The search for moral objectivity has been constant throughout the history of philosophy, although interpretations of the nature and scope of objectivity have varied. One aim of the pursuit of moral objectivity has been the demonstration of what may be termed its epistemological thesis, that is, the claim that the truth of assertions of the goodness or rightness of moral acts is as legitimate, reliable, or valid as the truth of assertions involving other forms of human knowledge, such as common sense, practical expertise, science, or mathematics. Another aim of the quest for moral objectivity may be termed its pragmatic formulation; this refers to the development of a method or procedure that will mediate among conflicting moral views in order to realize a convergence or justified agreement about warranted or true moral conclusions. In the ethical theories of Aristotle, David Hume, and John Dewey, theories that represent three of the four variants of ethical naturalism (defined below) that are surveyed in this essay, the epistemological thesis and the pragmatic formulation are integrated or combined. The distinction between these two elements is significant for the present essay, however, since I want to show that linguistic naturalism, the fourth variant I shall examine, has provided a demonstration of the epistemological thesis about moral knowledge, even if the pragmatic formulation has not been successfully realized.

Commerce, Virtue, and Politics: Adam Ferguson's Constitutionalism

1983 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 536-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary L. McDowell
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Political Thinking ◽  
Francis Hutcheson ◽  
History Of ◽  
Moral Philosophers

Adam Ferguson was one of several moral philosophers who contributed to the Scottish Enlightenment, a period aptly described as one of “remarkable efflorescence.” The works of Ferguson and his fellow Scotsmen — Adam Smith, David Hume, Dugald Stewart, Lord Kames, Francis Hutcheson and Thomas Reid — were widely distributed, seriously read, and vigorously debated during the last quarter of the eighteenth century. The greatest contribution of this Scottish school to the history of political thinking was the refinement of the idea of commercial republicanism, the synthesis of modern notions of polity and economy.

Lehrer Reading Reid

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

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

Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Mogens Lærke
Keyword(s):  
Free Speech ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
General Outline ◽  
Public Speech ◽  
The Third ◽  
Collective Self ◽  
The Status ◽  
Systematic Character ◽  
History Of

The first part of Chapter 1 presents the polemical aim of the book, namely to do away with the understanding of Spinoza’s freedom of philosophizing as a legal permission to express whatever opinion one has—a right to “free speech” in the contemporary meaning—and show how it enshrines a vision of how to better regulate public speech in view of increased collective self-determination. The second part contains methodological reflections on the status of texts, contexts, and historical circumstances in the study of the history of philosophy, and explains two assumptions made about the structure and systematic character of the Tractatus theologico-politicus. This part also includes discussion of so-called esoteric readings of Spinoza. The third and final part is a general outline of the entire book, intended to provide the reader with some guidance to the global argument.

Consciousness AND REGRESS

2008 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 45-57 ◽  
Author(s):  
KEITH LEHRER
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Mind ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Regress Problem ◽  
History Of

Thomas Reid has a theory of consciousness that is central to his philosophy of mind but which raises a regress problem. I have two tasks in this paper. The first is to give an account of Reid's views on consciousness and the avoidance of the regress based on textual analysis. The second is to expand the theory of consciousness Reid gives to offer a deeper explanation of how the regress is avoided that is based on Reid's philosophy of mind but goes beyond any text from Reid that I know. The distinction is important. Philosophers are inclined to attribute to a philosopher views that they have invented by studying the philosopher. Both textual analysis and invention based on a philosopher's writings are legitimate uses of the history of philosophy. When they are confused, however, arguments about what the philosopher held generate confusion. If you invent something from his or her philosophy, even something implied by it, that is your philosophy, not the philosopher's. The distinction is important for avoiding useless disputes. This first part of my paper is an attempt to remain true to the texts of Reid. The second part goes beyond the text, though it is what I extrapolate from Reid.

Aristotle: The Value of Man and the Origin of Morality

1974 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. M. Rist
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Adult Males ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of

One of the purposes of this paper is to explore a number of questions which-to judge from what he assumes–Aristotle might well have asked, but which he apparently did not ask. It is often informative in the history of philosophy to point out the (apparently obvious) questions which are not raised; it sets those which are raised in a more precise frame.It can be argued that Aristotle implies that it is possible to look like a human being–and indeed be called a human being–without “really” or “fully” being one. Leaving aside the status of females (who for Aristotle are males manques, analogous to the blind or deaf, and of children, we cannot be certain that all adult males of the class whose members look like men “really” are men.

scholarly journals Gerda Walther’s Phenomenology of Sociality, Psychology, and Religion edited by A. Calcagno

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 620-625
Author(s):  
Renaud Evrard
Keyword(s):  
Edmund Husserl ◽  
Phenomenological Approach ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
Scientific Contribution ◽  
Psychology And Religion ◽  
History Of ◽  
Springer Series ◽  
Modern Era

This book is part of a Springer series on Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences that attempted to balance sexism in science and the so-called “Matilda” effect (denial or minimization of the scientific contribution of women researchers to the benefit of their male colleagues). I’m clearly not a specialist in the deep philosophical work discussed by the contributors of this book, and thus will not give a fully technical review, but I was strongly curious to learn more about Gerda Walther (1897-1977). Indeed, she was for me the famous “secretary of the Baron von Schrenck-Notzing” (1862-1929), one of the main psychical researchers of the modern era (Mulacz, 2013; Sommer, 2012; Wolffram, 2006). For my own historical research (Evrard, 2016), I read a lot of correspondence between Walther and members of the Institut métapsychique international in the archives of this French research group and in the archives of the Institut für Grenzgebiete der Psychologie und Psychohygiene in Freiburg-im-Breisgau. But I didn’t have any clue about the wide dimension of this character and her importance for the history of philosophy as a brilliant student and continuator of Edmund Husserl. The book provides probably the best overview of her life and philosophy. In the first part “The life and work of Gerda Walther”, Rodney Parker gives “a sketch of her life” (3-9); and Marina Pia Pellegrino writes about the general orientation of her phenomenological approach of “traces of lived experiences” (11-24).

scholarly journals “The Revolution of Relativity” and Self-Consciousness in the History of Philosophy of the 20th Century

2018 ◽  
pp. 114-125
Author(s):  
O. A. Vlasova
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Natural Sciences ◽  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
The Other ◽  
Philosophical Work ◽  
History Of ◽  
Objective Description ◽  
Critical Historiography ◽  
Physical Phenomena ◽  
The Revolution

This paper discusses the development of self-consciousness in the history of philosophy of the 20th century compared with the same development in the natural sciences. The author characterizes this stage of philosophical historiography as the “revolution of relativity.” This movement of self-consciousness was apparent in not only the humanities but also the natural sciences at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. Awareness of probability is a fundamental achievement of non-classic physics, which has since reversed its paradigm. In contrast to the Newtonian scheme, quantum theory introduces the category of probability and insists that we can talk about certain physical phenomena only in a probabilistic mode and that the method of observation affects the phenomena observed. Consequently, any “object-subject” and “subject-subject” interaction involves the experience of the researcher, which thereby affects the results. The same model of interpretation lies at the basis of the turn toward self-consciousness in the history of philosophy of the 20th century. The classical history of philosophy is built on idealization and gives an objective description of the philosophical process. Following the other sciences, the philosophy of the 20th century understood that historical and philosophical reality largely depends on the historians of philosophy; that such reality is constructed by certain means; that there is a certain kind of historical and philosophical work; and that, with different strategies, methods and approaches, we obtain different results that are complementary to each other. The 20th century was a time of competing interpretations rather than gradually progressing historical and philosophical systems. This stimulated the search for own ideal of objectivity. For philosophical historiography, this is the hermeneutic ideal of the structural analysis of text or architectonic reconstruction. The historicalphilosophical revolution of relativity promotes the development of critical historiography and revises the foundations of its classical tradition.

Sub Specie Universitatis

On Universals ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 59-83
Author(s):  
Étienne Balibar
Keyword(s):  
History Of Philosophy ◽  
The Status ◽  
History Of ◽  
Objective Value ◽  
Academic Specialization

This chapter examines the articulation of the problem of universality with that of university. The French–Latin wordplay that makes the term universitas into the origin of both university and universality is obviously anything but accidental. Philosophers, or certain of them, have been eager to use it whether in a spirit of critique or self-promotion to think about the status of their discipline. Since philosophy became an essentially academic specialization, not only has it never stopped thinking of itself as the field in which one seeks to elucidate the conditions and effects of a discourse of the universal, but universality has become the objective value from which it derives its legitimacy. Understood as “university” and as “universality,” the category of universitas always contains the idea of a totality. The chapter then describes the three major strategies that modern philosophers have deployed to think sub specie universitatis: disjunction, subsumption, and translation. Although their roots lie in the history of philosophy itself, these strategies also represent “critical” attitudes within philosophy.

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