Intelligent Will, Causality, and Action in Hegel’s Jenaer Realphilosophie 1805/06

460 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:3 JULY 1996 Graeme Hunter, editor. Spinoza: The Enduring Questions. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. Pp. xi + 182. Cloth, $70.00. This volume of eight essays is dedicated to the memory of the late David Savan, and originated from a conference held in his honor prior to his untimely death. The lead essay is by Savan himself, and most of the other essays acknowledge the influence of his work. The first three essays address not only an "enduring question," but a question about enduring: namely, the nature of eternality and immortality in Spinoza's metaphysics. In a dense and detailed essay that amply rewards close analysis, Savan aims to clarify Spinoza's conception of eternity. That conception, Savan argues, cannot be identified with any of the three main conceptions dominant in previous philosophizing: (1) eternity as sempiternity; (2) eternity as Platonic timelessness; and (3) eternity as necessary existence, following from a thing's own essence. Chief among his reasons is that Spinoza characterizes eternity not as one superlative kind of existence, but rather as "existence itself," conceived in a certain way (i.e., conceived as "following from the definition itself of the eternal thing"). On Savan's interpretation, Spinoza has a strict or absolute sense of "eternity" in which only God can be said to be eternal, and another, qualified sense in which all singular things are eternal (as well as being contingent and durational). Thus, on Savan's interpretation, each individual human mind is itself eternal. His attribution of this latter doctrine to Spinoza is greatly facilitated by three other aspects of his interpretive procedure: (1) his unwillingness to draw a distinction between "eternal" and "conceived under a form of eternity"; his treatment of a thing's formal and actual essences as two "aspects" (eternal and durational, respectively) of what is in reality the same essence; and (3) his nominalizing tendency to read Spinoza as identifying (or nearly identifying) singular things with their essences. The result is that Spinoza's various remarks about the conceivability of the human mind "under a form of eternity" and about the eternality of the formal essence of the human mind can all be recruited as evidence that Spinoza regarded human minds themselves as eternal. Savan goes on to attribute to Spinoza the seemingly un-Spinozistic doctrine that "each distinctive existent is eternally free." In the essay immediately following Savan's, James C. Morrison outlines and reaffirms the strong textual evidence that, for Spinoza, it is only a part of each individual mind, and not the individual human mind itself, that is eternal. Leslie Armour offers a wildly speculative interpretation of Spinoza according to which human minds survive death because they will be re-expressed--complete with sets of distinctive personal memories--at some future time (or perhaps even "in some different world"), so that God and his eternal idea of each human being's essence may be expressed with maximal reality. Armour recommends interpreting Spinoza as holding this doctrine of the "afterlife as a continuing adventure" partly because of the doctrine's alleged capacity to provide emotional comfort--evidently without noticing that Spinoza's psychology involves a claim to demonstrate that the emotions attending adequate understanding are themselves capable of overcoming fear of death, quite without the need for quasiresurrections or quasi-reincarnations. BOOK REVIEWS 461 Edwin Curley's "Notes on a Neglected Masterpiece: Spinoza and the Science of Hermeneutics" takes as its starting point Savan's claim that Spinoza is the "founder of scientific hermeneutics." Rejccting the most extreme interpretation of this claim--i.e., that Spinoza created scientific hermeneutics ex nihilo--Curlcy carefully compares Spinoza 's contributions to Biblical criticism with those of Hobbes and Isaac La Peyr~re, and concludes that Spinoza's work possesses, in addition to a generally higher level of hermeneutical rigor, something quite specific that they do not--namely, "a well worked-out theory of what is required for the interpretation of a text." This theory demands that we begin by applying to textual interpretation the Cartesian strategy of "removing all prejudices" and preconceptions; doing so allows us to interpret a text such as the Bible in...

How do individual human minds create languages, legal systems, scientific theories, and technologies? From a cognitive science viewpoint, such collective phenomena may be considered a type of distributed computation in which human minds together solve computational problems beyond any individual. This viewpoint may also shift our perspective on individual minds.

Maurice Bloch (2012) argues that ethnographers’ animosity toward and ignorance of cognitive science is based on a false dichotomy between ‘nature’ (as in universal human nature) and ‘culture’. Bloch characterises ethnography as evoking and describing culturally and historically specific symbolic systems that ground and enable meaningful lives. He further argues that there is no such thing as ‘super-organic meaning’. All meaning, even culturally constructed meaning, is the product of individual human minds and must be interpreted by individual minds. Cognitive science, including philosophy and linguistics as well as psychology, is the science of mental representations, and thus of the symbols individual minds create, interpret and use in practice, communication and thought. Bloch argues that ignoring the science of mental representation, at the very least, makes the work of ethnographers less nuanced and rich than it might otherwise be and, at worst, leads to theoretical commitments that are deeply counterproductive. Conversely, he argues that cognitive scientists’ refusal or inability to understand the profound lessons of the work of ethnographers from Malinowski through Boas through Evans-Pritchard through Geertz symmetrically makes their work less nuanced and rich thanitmightotherwisebeandsimilarlyleadstoavoidable,theoreticallyimportant,errors. Here I focus on the latter possibility. I respond to two of Bloch’ sw orries concerning where cognitive science has gone wrong by virtue of not properly appreciating the cultural/historical specificity of symbol systems. Although I believe these worries are groundless, I endorse Bloch’s call for rapprochement, and conclude with other reasons cognitive scientists should enlist in the more sustained collaboration Bloch advocates. Bloch’s worries:

This paper explores the meaning of Veblenian instrumental value from the perspective of two strands of twentieth-century systems literature: the theories of Niklas Luhmann and C. West Churchman. The distinct Veblenian approach to defining instrumental value is in terms of the "generic ends of life" implicated in the development of technological knowledge. Based on Luhmann's work, the paper argues that the complexity of technological knowledge would overburden the individual human mind. Consequently, it needs to be reduced through the institution of the business firm, the meaning of which is shown to be in substituting private ownership and profit-seeking motivation for those segments of technological complexity that cannot be grasped by the individual mind. Churchman's work is utilized to discuss the possibility of attaining instrumental value by "sweeping-in" the complexity that has been reduced by the business firm. This sweeping-in is the task of the Deweyian "public" manifesting itself in law and comparable forms of public regulation. Thus, the proposed systems theory perspective explains pecuniary value as a complexity-reducing device, and instrumental value as the human capacity to preserve sensitivity to those aspects of complexity that are suppressed by pecuniary value.

The pragmatist tradition in philosophy has left a sound legacy in many contemporary research fields. John Dewey’s continuist and emergentist approach to the nature-or-nurture problem in relation to the individual human mind has been regained lately in evolutionist psychology and related disciplines. For Dewey, language plays a fundamental role in creating and maintaining this continuity between the individual mind and the social and physical environment humans inhabit. The present article will focus on a few contemporary lines of research that identify language as the ‘glue’ that bonds each individual to one another and to society, with a decisive impact on the development of one’s own mind.

Paideiarefers to a particular sort of education which has historically been concerned with learning for the sake of learning, i.e., for the development of mind. As such, paideia is distinguished from specialized learning, training and learning for extrinsic purposes. Paideia is embodied in the traditional notion of Liberal Education which holds that such an education is the development of mind through the achievement of worthwhile knowledge and understanding. A contemporary trend in the literature of philosophy of mind and epistemology is a concern with cognitive functions of the human mind and the role of these functions in the acquisition of knowledge. The functional conception of the mind emphasizes learning (cognitive development) through cognitive training to monitor and control one's own mental processes. The uncritical incorporation of cognitive theories of mind and knowledge acquisition into current educational theory and practice suggests that paideia can be combined with, if not enhanced by, cognitive training. This paper takes the position that such an assumption is misguided and that the 'matter' of mind is an issue which requires clarification for advocates of paideia. The paper contrasts the cognitive approach to a 'conventionalist' conception of mind which, arguably, is the concept of mind assumed by advocates of paideia.

Humans are perhaps the most social animals. Although some eusocial insects, herd mammals and seabirds live in colonies comprising millions of individuals, no other species lives in such a variety of social groups as Homo sapiens . We live in many different sized societies, from small, nomadic hunter

Abstract: Mind for Peirce is a system of beliefs that acts to achieve a certain purpose. Not only Peirce attributes mind to institutions and social groups, but the development of mind depends on the extension of mind beyond individual human minds. Therefore, social communities or institutions embody social habits, and act as minds with their own purposes, fixing beliefs of two types: beliefs of vital importance, and theoretical ones, which have a bearing towards knowledge and truth. Internet social media can be seen as a complex social mind composed of individuals and their digital media that encompasses gadgets, algorithms, and platforms. If internet social media acts in a way to achieve certain beliefs, of what type are they? Are they beliefs of vital importance or theoretical ones that lead to knowledge and truth? Are these two types of beliefs sufficient to understand the modes of action of internet social media?

Complex design problems require more knowledge than any single person possesses because the knowledge relevant to a problem is usually distributed among stakeholders. Bringing different and often controversial points of view together to create a shared understanding among these stakeholders can lead to new insights, new ideas, and new artifacts. New media that allow owners of problems to contribute to framing and resolving complex design problems can extend the power of the individual human mind. Based on our past work and study of other approaches, systems, and collaborative and participatory processes, this article identifies challenges we see as the limiting factors for future collaborative human-computer systems. The Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory (EDC) is introduced as an integrated physical, and computational environment addressing some of these challenges. The vision behind the EDC shifts future development away from the computer as the focal point, toward an emphasis that tries to improve our understanding of the human, social, and cultural system that creates the context for use. This work is based on new conceptual principles that include creating shared understanding among various stakeholders, contextualizing information to the task at hand, and creating objects to think with in collaborative design activities. Although the EDC framework is applicable to different domains; our initial effort has focused on the domain of urban planning (specifically transportation planning) and community development.

This qualitative multiple case study explored the conceptual frameworks of two congenitally blind male adolescents on the nature of matter. We examined participants' responses on four tactile investigations focused on concepts and processes associated with matter changes. The matter changes investigated were dissolution, chemical change, expansion, and condensation. Individual interview and model‐making sessions comprised the primary data collection, whereas journal writing and focus group interviews provided additional, secondary data. Participants' responses during matter activities were analyzed by using three data frames: structural views of matter, types of understanding of matter changes, and conceptual consistency of students' explanatory schemes. Coding of the responses identified macro‐ (physically observable) and microparticulate (invisible) views of matter and both scientifically accurate and alternate understandings of matter changes coexisting within one response set. Data analysis led to the development of individual meandering mind maps as an analytical tool that illustrates the shifting of each participant's thinking between the macro‐ and microparticulate views of matter. A meandering mind map utilized in the study consists of a macroparticulate outer layer, microparticulate inner layer, and an interface layer that includes lynchpin concepts compound, molecule, atom, and element. The lynchpin concepts are perceived to mediate and scaffold cognitive shifts between the macroparticulate and the microparticulate views of matter. During individual interviews, each participant's responses were coded to one of the three categories, plotted in clockwise sequence and connected with a line. The findings include that congenitally blind participants hold (a) both macro‐ and microparticulate views of the nature of matter, (b) scientifically accepted and scientifically alternative understandings about matter concepts, and (c) conceptually inconsistent explanatory schemes of matter across the four data collection activities. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Sci Ed 94:448–477, 2010

Humanities education emphasizes humanistic education, aims at perfecting personality, and focuses on achieving and promoting the harmonious development of individual body and mind. Humanities education in universities is mainly embodied in general education courses, but specialized courses education also plays a non-negligible and irreplaceable role in cultivating humanities education for college students. In this paper, we explore the functions of specialized Russian courses in disseminating humanistic knowledge, enlightening humanistic thoughts, cultivating humanistic spirit and shaping a sound personality from the perspective of university Russian education, and discuss the qualities that teachers should possess and the role they should play in it.

Currently, the mental health of students at all stages of our country is also of great concern, and junior high school students are an important stage of life growth, in which is students will form their own stable psychology of adolescence. Therefore, schools must focus on psychological counseling for junior high school students in order for students to establish the right concepts. This paper focuses on the role of applied psychology in counseling middle school students, discusses the important role of the development of applied psychology for students, and analyzes how to better infiltrate applied psychology into the counseling education work of middle school students, so that students can be encouraged to face the learning and life in middle school period with a more positive mindset, and further enhance middle school students to achieve healthy development of individual body and mind.

Guest Editorial: Ecological knowledge co‐production and the contested imaginaries of development in Southeast Asia

The research subject in the present article is A. Comte’s and H. Spencer’s beliefs, who are considered the representatives of early positivism. The particular emphasis is made on the ethnicity issues. A. Comte distinguished three stages of the human consciousness elevating: theological or fictitious, metaphysic or abstract, positive or real. The scientist claimed the quality of a society as a whole is directly related to the level of the individual development. Moreover, moral ideas, which have to be free from theology and metaphysics and based on the new philosophy of positive thinking, have a powerful influence on the society development. As a result, moral principles have to be guided by social solidarity and be a society’s logical controller. However, the societal progress rejected the scientist’s notion. According to H. Spencer, social morality arises from natural one whereby altruism and social equity are built on the concern of the kind preservation. The higher the society is organized, the greater the level of the equity is. The researcher provides the example illustrating an ideal society in which a well-functioning organ evolves better than others which in turn means “social equity” principle is implemented. The scientific novelty of the article is determined by the first comparative analysis of A. Comte’s and H. Spencer’s moral-ethnical concepts as well as defining the most controversial theses in their theories. There has been found out that the key difference in the philosophers’ ideas is their seeing into the real nature of morality, having its ground either in the human mind (Comte) or natural environment (Spencer). The definition of the society as an entity with its characteristics resembling a biological organism is considered to be significantly similar in their views. Secondly discovered similarity is the definition of the human history as a progressive process in which individual human mind, morality and a society as an entity are evolving simultaneously. The present paper also puts forward the conclusion that the ideas about the history as a progressive process resulted at a “positive” stage turned out to be the most debatable issues.

<strong>Abstract. </strong>The paper is focused on the study of the political conflict image from the perspective of psychosemantics. The integral psychosemantic approach to the political conflict allowed establishing semantic universals viewed as students’ evaluation of the conflict’s image. Among the parameters were active, dangerous, open, rational, moral, close, aggressive, etc. The results of the students’ semantic space study through the semantic differential showed that the semantic constructs of “political conflict” image as reflected in the minds of the students, and “real political conflict” image are different, since the reality is able to change their cognitive interpretation and emotional attitude.