Dogmatic Philosophers Research Articles

SCETTICISMO E RICERCA DELLA VERITÀ NOTA SUL TERMINE ΖΗΤΗΣΙΣ IN SESTO EMPIRICO

This paper argues that Sceptic philosophers’ search for the truth is different from the Dogmatic one: the Sceptics indeed investigate the truth of Dogmatic philosophers’ theories. That is not inconsistent with a genuine search for truth, since the Sceptics do not maintain that the Dogmatic philosophical theories are necessarily false

Логика, математика или метафизика: так достаточно ли основательности в концепции Лейбница??

Whether Leibniz was a metaphysicist or a dogmatic philosopher? We argue that S. Secundant in his book 1) convincingly proved that the epistemology of Leibniz played a leading role in relation to his metaphysics; 2) described in detail its critical foundation. The significant scientific achievement of S. Secunant is the analysis of the differences in the grounds of Leibniz’ epistemology and Kant's critique, as well as evidence of a more profound nature of the tasks and normative bases the first of them.

Beyond the Veil: A Woman Named Truth and the Truth of Woman

‘Beyond the Veil’ seeks to understand the relation between truth and woman in Nietzsche's works. I will attempt this by asking two questions. First: how does Nietzsche establish an anthropomorphic feminine truth, and what is achieved by this metaphor? Second: what is Nietzsche's truth about woman? Through analysis of selected passages, I will argue that Nietzsche, through gendering truth, displays a conviction that what we believe to be true functions as such only when ‘veiled’; the metaphor of a veiled woman named truth, I will argue, presents truth as something that retains its value insofar as the truth remains shrouded, distant and unexamined. With this first answer established, the second question will prove to be undermined by Nietzsche's numerous and at times ironic ‘truths' about woman. I will argue that the diverse range of women in Nietzsche's texts problematises the possibility of a Nietzschean ambition to reveal woman in her true form. Moreover, I will claim that Nietzsche's critique of the dogmatic philosopher's ‘will to truth’ subverts the notion that Nietzsche intends to offer a sincere, ‘unveiled’, truth about woman.

Contextualism and Externalism: Trading in One Form of Skepticism for Another

Let me begin by explaining, first, the title of this essay, then its scope. When contemporary philosophers speak of skepticism, they almost invariably have in mind some version or descendent of Cartesian skepticism. Setting aside scholarly questions of accuracy, Cartesianism is usually thought of as containing two key elements: first, a strong commitment to internalism, and, second, a strong commitment to pure (or unfettered) inquiry-that is, inquiry that protects no propositions from interrogation, A brief word about what I understand by Pyrrhonism-at least for the purposes of this essay. Pyrrhonism is often associated with a radical doubt involving the total suspension of belief. Following Michael Frede, I do not think that Sextus Empiricus's texts support this reading.1 The target of Pyrrhonian doubt was not common, innocently held, beliefs, but the beliefs of dogmatic philosophers and other professors who engaged in dogmatic enterprises of a similar kind. The Pyrrhonists found that suspending judgment on these topics yields, as it turns out, peace of mind, or blessedness.

The Stoic Analysis of Tense and of Plural Propositions in Sextus Empiricus, Adversus Mathematicos x 99

Adversus Mathematicos (M.) x is the second book dedicated by Sextus to the discussion of the physical doctrines put forward by dogmatic philosophers. An extensive section (M. x 85–120) deals with Diodorus Cronus' arguments concerning movement.

Hegel's Phenomenology as a Philosophy of Culture

Hegel's Phenomenology as a Philosophy of Culture ALBERT WILLIAM LEVI 1 There are many ways to read Hegel's Phenomenology: strictly for itself as a great classic in the history of philosophy (this is the strategy of the notable commentaries of Hyppolite, Loewenberg, and Lauer); as an introduction to the Hegelian system or a significant segment of the same (the way of Walter Kaufmann, Charles Taylor, and J. N. Findlay), or as a notable illumination of a particular domain of subject matter (as in Judith Shklar's Freedom and Independence: a Study of the Political Ideas of Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind).' I wish to follow in the footprints neither of Loewenberg and Hyppolite nor of Findlay and Taylor, but of Shklar. However, my reading of the Phenomenology of Spirit places it not in the tradition of political ideas which begins with Plato, but in the tradition of the philosophy of culture which begins with Voltaire and Kant. Kant died in 18o4. The Phenomenology was published in 18o7. But this three year interval signifies something infinitely more important than the end of one philosopher's life and the first significant publication of another. In fact it represents a decisive break between the rationalism of the eighteenth century Enlightenment and the emerging spirit of romanticism coming to life in the first decades of the nineteenth century. Kant died late but his mind was made by Christian Wolff, Leibniz and Newton, and David Hume, and his mode of perception was not unlike that of Lichtenberg, Jean Hyppolite, Genkse et Structure de la Ph~nom~nologie de L'Esprit de Hegel (Paris: Aubier, Editions Montaigne, 1946) ~ vols.; J. Loewenberg, Hegel's Phenomenology: Dialogues on the Li]e ~ Mind (La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, 1965); Quentin Lauer, S. J., A Reading of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (New York: Fordham University Press, 1976); Walter Kauf'mann, Hegel: A Reinterpretation (New York: Anchor Books, 1966); Charles Taylor, Hegel (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1975); J. N. Findlay, Hegel."A Re-examination (New York: Collier Books, 196~); Judith Shklar, Freedom and Independence: The Political Ideas of Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976). [445] 446 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 2~: 4 OCT 1984 Lessing, and Laplace. Hegel's mind was formed on other models and his mental slant had much in common with Hoelderlin's lyrics, Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and the more romantic historical dramas of Schiller. It is a question of historical moment and world-feeling. The formation of Kant's mentality predates the great historical divide of the French Revolution. It is not so much that his politics is ancien r~gime (it is, of course, liberal and forward looking) as that his mode of perception is classic. For him, to domesticate experience requires the imposition of order and organization, of rationality and rules. But Hegel's universe is instinct with the flux of post-revolutionary uncertainty, and thus for him all human culture is primarily a matter of movement, growth, and dialectical development. Romanticism implies a triumph of temporality and historicity over logic, of growing and developing concepts over categorial fixity. Kant praised Christian Wolff--"the greatest of all the dogmatic philosophers"--for his rationalist method, for having by his example awakened the spirit of thoroughness in Germany, and Kant himself in his methodological rigor continued this tradition even further. But if the Critique of Pure Reason courts comparison with the exactitude of a scientific treatise, Walter Kaufmann is surely right in denying such scientific rigor to Hegel 's great work. "The Phenomenology," he said, ~ "is certainly unwissenschaftlich : undisciplined, arbitrary, full of digressions, not a monument to the austerity of the intellectual conscience and to carefulness and precision but a wild, bold, unprecented book that invites comparison with some great literary masterpieces." The characterization is just. I have already mentioned the analogy with Goethe's Bildungsroman Wilhelm Meister. Others have likened the Phenomenology of Spirit to Dante's Divine Comedy,Goethe's Faust, and Homer's Odyssey. What is apt and central in all of these analogies is the notion of a spiritual journey through time and history. Here the Phenomenologyemerges less as an epistemology...

Some Problems In The History of Skepticism

Just as speculative philosophy has something of a spiritual father in the figure of Socrates, skepticism is the direct descendant of the fourth century Greek philosopher, Pyrrho of Elis, hence the archaic use of Pyrrhonism as a synonym for skepticism. Since we have none of Pyrrho's works, historians have had to rely upon testimony, especially from his disciple the satirist Tiraon of Phlius (whose works are only known in fragments), to determine what he believed and how he lived. 1 It seems necessary to consider the work of Pyrrho and Timon as a single philosophy. If a distinction is to be made, it is that Pyrrho was concerned to live the tranquillity he taught, while Timon, being more gregarious, seems to have delighted in engaging in being a general railer against all dogmatic philosophers. 2