Mark Glouberman

Il se peut du point de vue des etudiants qui s'approchent de la position contextuelle de Descartes, qu'il accepte la distinction reelle entre l'esprit et le corps parce qu'il n'a pas percu comment une forme d'explicarion mecanique-materialiste pourrait etre appropriee aux phenomenes psychologiques. Mais on pourrait demander la signification de cette proposition en ce qui concerne le raisonnement de Descartes pour Pactualite du dualisme. Je demontre que son raisonnement dans les Meditations est defectueux relatif a un probleme theorique emanant de 1' argumentation du cogito. Sum est deduit de cogito. Si c'est le cas, pourquoi Descartes pretend-t-il que celui-la est la premiere certitude? Comme j'explique, cogito c'est clair, mais ce n'est pas distinct; mais sum, c'est Pun et l'autre-et, a cause de cela, possede les qualites necessaires. Mais le caractere particulier du sum possede une variete speciale, et le raisonnement subsequent de Descartes que le sujet reflechissant n'est pas materiel echoue de cette ambiguite. Le cartesianisme sans dualisme n'est pas done un cercle sans un centre

Examining Kant's critical philosophy, this study focusses upon its dialectical constitution and gauging its implications. It attempts to determine the meaning of the critical system more by determining the dialectical and rhetorical influences on Kant by focussing on its manifest reasoning. The volume begins by taking stock of meta-physical and meta-interpretive materials; then goes on to examine the major doctrines of the first Critique; and finally draws wider morals for Kant specifically and for philosophy generally.

The Bible ridicules idolaters for bowing down to sticks and stones. Since idolaters worship what the sticks and stones stand for, not the sticks and stones themselves, isn’t the biblical position confused? At the basis of the Bible’s consistent refusal to observe the preceding distinction are found the conceptual underpinnings of its critique of idolatry. Men and women alone among creatures are inspired with God’s breath. Men and women alone among creatures, that is, are like God. They alone among creatures are persons. Since mere pieces of nature cannot understand prayers, entreaties, etc., and hence cannot respond in the personal way, idolatrous practices are incoherent. But while it is true that (sub-person) elements of nature cannot enter into inter-personal relations, idolatry has a sequel: the scientific interrogation of nature, an interrogation which has been magnificently effective in eliciting responses. Elijah’s dramatic confrontation with the Baalites is a stylized version of the clash between the biblical view of men and women as in an irreducible respect non-natural, and the naturalizing scientific view. On the Carmel, the prophets of the Baal are soundly defeated. Must those who inherit from them lose too? That is a live question. Read closely, the story of Elijah implies that those behind the Bible would defend the view of human distinctiveness against the renascent idolatry.

Ever ramifying debate over the correct analysis of linguistic representation unfolds against the backdrop of uncontested acceptance as baseline datum, by those aiming to determine the nature of the cognizing subject’s contact with the world, of language as the vehicle of factual packaging of experience. Given the easy two-way traffic in the contemporary lexicon between “concept” and “ word,” the modern reader’s antennae are not attuned to detect doctrinal parti pris when he encounters the mention, in a classical text, of concepts in the course of a treatment of cognition. Kant’s declaration that “[t]he knowledge yielded by understanding, or at least by the human understanding, must…be by means of concepts” will likely be glossed as an archaic variant of the baseline datum. While it does not go unnoticed by those acquainted with the major texts of the tradition that a Descartes and a Hume speak of ideas and not concepts, this is approached, more often than not, as a verbal variant on the common theme. Of course, closer attention to the sources reveals that Kant presents cognition-by-concepts as part of a theory of cognition supplanting the ideational accounts of his predecessors. But subject to a certain amount of textual reform—prophylactic and reconstructive—cognition-by-concepts and cognition-by-ideas continue to be regarded as functional equivalents. The superiority of Kant’s treatment is accordingly evaluated conservatively, as the superiority of a more penetrative analysis.

SummaryBecause it is not generally appreciated that Hume's analysis of the causal tie as radically contingent or ‘irrational’ is bound up with his specialised theory of cognition, its historical position is widely misconceived. Even a rationalist like Spinoza would agree that if, as Hume maintains, the causal tie holds between items each of which is‘ adequately’ grasped independently of the other, i.e. between what Spinoza calls ‘substances’, then the tie is indeed irrational. Also, Kant does not attempt to show that the causal tie, as Hume sees it, is not irrational. His anti‐Humean result is based on the prior denial Humean causal fundaments are available in experiential cognition as we know it.RésuméLa position historique de Hume est généralement mal comprise parce qu'on ne voit pas que son analyse de la relation causale comme étant radicalement contingente ou »irrationnelle« est liée à sa théorie particulière de la connaissance. Même un rationaliste tel que Spinoza accorderait que la causalité est en effet irrationnelle si elle relie, ainsi que le prétend Hume, deux choses saisies indépendamment, c'est‐à‐dire deux substances selon Spinoza. Même Kant ne cherche pas à démontrer que le lien causal tel que Hume le voit n'est pas irrationnel. Son résultat anti‐humien est basé sur la négation préalable que le fondement de la causalité puisse être tiré de la connaissance expérimentale.ZusammenfassungWeil man im allgemeinen nicht berilcksichtigt, dass Humes Analyse der kausalen Verknüpfung als einer radikal kontingenten oder »irrationalen« Relation mit seiner besonderen erkennt‐nistheoretischen Position verbunden ist, wird deren historische Bedeutung oft missverstanden. Sogar ein Rationalist wie Spinoza würde zugestehen, dass die Verknüpfung irrational sein muss, wenn sie zwischen Substanten irn Sinne Spinozas, d.h. zwischen Dingen bestehen soll, die unabhängig voneinander adäquat erfasst werden, wie Hume das behauptet. Auch Kant versucht nicht zu zeigen, dass eine Kausalverknüpfung, so wie Hume sie auffasst, nicht irrational sei. Denn er bestreitet ja gerade, dass kausale Grundlagen auf Grund gewöhnlicher Erfahrung überhaupt gefunden werden können

The typically dismissive treatment of Bradleian idealism, to the extent that it is based on philosophical criticism rather than historical bias, suffers from a failure to distinguish Bradley's negative views from his positive doctrines. But the intermingling of the two plays havoc in Bradley's own presentation, so that proper interpretation requires a particularly aggressive approach to the texts. Specifically, in denying a real multiplicity of facts, Bradley, though he may seem to be, is not attacking the commonsense belief that there are many and disparate facts. His claim, as is confirmed by an examination of the analysis of judgement in The principles of logic, is that the facts ordinarily recognized are not those of the bona fide fact-pluralist, e.g. Mill. By getting Bradley's position straight, it becomes possible to tell an illuminating story about the early formation of ?analytic? philosophy, with its often bewildering faith in the ontological significance of logic

Does the character called “God” make an essential contribution to the [Hebrew] Bible? So far as religion and religiosity are concerned, the Bible minus the character called “God” is not theoretically incomplete. In other words, the Bible is not at core a theological document. From this it does not however follow that the deity of the Bible is theoretically otiose. The character called “God” plays a role that is indispensable for anthropological reasons. The self-definition and self-understanding of men and women who define and understand themselves as you and I do cannot be accomplished without at least implicit appeal to that role. The key to the theoretical disposition of the Bible is an appreciation of the fact that it is expressly designed to counteract pagan-type views about the nature of men and women and about their position in the wider scheme of things.

In the book A Secular Age, Charles Taylor argues that: (1) modern secularism carries in it more than a trace residue of the explicitly religious way of thinking that it supersedes, and (2) the secular ensemble would not survive if the residue were filtered out. Modern secularism is not, in short, exclusively humanistic. Many who profess exclusive humanism, even perhaps the majority, are therefore—according to Taylor—exclusive humanists in name alone. My position is that Judeo-Christianity, in its teachings about men and women, is humanism. Humanism is what Western religion is all about at its core. This I defend by close examination of Taylor’s argument and by exposing some of the philosophical core of the Bible.

Unhappy with a recent submission of mine, a referee for a journal specialising in the history of philosophy wagged a finger at what he or she called my ‘hermeneutical principles’. Though I am no stranger to the collegial woodshed, my initial reaction was nonetheless one of surprise. For had I then been asked about interpretive methodology I would have scoffed. The construer’s best course, I would have said, is to nose about the texts until some rough shape begins to emerge from the murk, and to inch forward in an effort to block in details, frequently doubling back for more nosing about. Isn’t this —fill, back, adjust, refill, back again, re-adjust—a counsel of anti-method?

Did Descartes make a revolutionary contribution to philosophy? Given the widespread application to him of the title ‘father of modem philosophy,’ the standard affirmative proves surprisingly difficult to justify. ln this paper I locate Descartes’s epoch-making philosophical shift. Descartes contributed a very strong idea of realism, an idea modelled in his cogito-argument. To grasp the contribution aright, it is however necessary to de-emphasise what is usually identified as his key contribution---an epistemological one. AIso, the theoretical connection between Descartes’s core philosophical activity and the scientific revolution of his time has to be appreciated. ln the course of the discussion I explain, in a more philosophical vein, how the influence of Kant clouds the abiIity of post-Kantians to see what Descartes did. A route to an understanding of Descartes’s realism is an inconsistency in Kant’s modal views. The antirealism of Kant’s view---his transcendental idealism---yields up some of its mystery once the dialectical interplay with Cartesian realism is elicited.

Throughout the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant locates his position relative to those of his predecessors and near contemporaries. Save for Spinoza, all the ‘greats’ of the early modern canon put in appearances. But while Kant’s idiom is respectful—Hume is referred to as ‘celebrated’ ; Berkeley is characterised as ‘good’ ; both Locke and Leibniz are called ‘illustrious’ —this ‘language of good will’ recalls Mark Antony’s ‘honourable man’. In fact, the debt Kant acknowledges to the prior toilers is largely negative: the earlier thinkers adhere to views whose correction or rejection enabled Kant to win through to the truth.

Although Western culture draws substantively on Athens and Jerusalem, hostility tends to be shown towards Jerusalem from the philosophical wing. I attempt to correct the imbalance. Philosophy, I argue, arose in the Greek context because of a problem of self‐confidence. ‘Philosophical rationality’ cannot therefore be taken as normative for rationality generally. The contrast between the Jerusalemite and the Athenian views of self and of the contrasting estimates and explanations of the efficacy of the self’s agency is developed through an examination of the main documents of pre‐classical and classical Greece, and the Bible

To what extent is conceptual analysis under strict semantic control? In an effort to show that conceptual structure transcends the linguistic dimension proper, the tensions within, and between, several current treatments of the concept red are revealed and explored. It is argued that certain extra-semantic factors — factors, broadly speaking, which concern the manner in which a concept applier interacts with the world as an extralinguistic agent - provide a backdrop against which conceptual analysis guided by language in a strict sense must be deepened and tested.