Early Philosophy Research Articles

Alice Ambrose and early analytic philosophy

ABSTRACT Alice Ambrose (1906–2001) is best known as Wittgenstein’s student during the 1930s. Her association with probably the most famous philosopher of the twentieth century contributes to her obscurity. Ambrose is referred to in historiography of this period as ‘follower’ or ‘disciple’ but never considered in her own right as a philosopher. The neglect of her place in the history of philosophy needs to be resisted. This paper explores some of Ambrose’s most interesting ideas from the early 1950s, when she developed and expanded some of Wittgenstein’s inchoate suggestions and contributed to on-going debates about how to do philosophy and the role of language in the discipline. By combining an analysis of the 1950 paper “The Problem of Linguistic Inadequacy” and the 1952 paper “Linguistic Approaches to Philosophical Problems”, it will be seen that Ambrose rejects the idea that ordinary language can be improved and begins to develop the view that philosophical language adapts to usage. Thus, Ambrose does not blindly follow Wittgenstein but breaks with his idea that there is something inherently wrong with the way philosophers communicate. The paper also seeks to show how marginalized philosophers become obscured in the history of the subject through the example of Ambrose.

THE REPRESENTATIONS ON THE CONTEMPLATIVE AND ACTIVE LIFE IN EARLY HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHY

It is established that the question of the preferred way of life was actualized in the early Hellenistic philosophy. For many philosophers, the contemplative and the active life were equivalent. This position was held by Demetrius of Phalerum, early Stoics, probably Xenocrates and Menedemus of Eretria. Dicaearchus preferred an active life. Aristotle, Theophrastus, and Epicurus preferred the contemplative life. Unlike Aristotle and Theophrastus, Epicurus viewed the contemplative life not as an end, but only as a means of achieving serenity. It was also found that the high value of active life in early Hellenistic philosophy was due to the preservation of the polis system and the formation of Hellenistic monarchies, which opened up wide opportunities for philosophers to participate in political activities. The desire for a contemplative life was associated with the crisis of the polis system.

Van Els, Paul, The Wenzi: Creativity and Intertextuality in Early Chinese Philosophy

Van Els, Paul, The Wenzi: Creativity and Intertextuality in Early Chinese Philosophy

Christian Discourse in the Tragedy Comedy by Feofan Prokopovich “Vladimir”

The central work of art by the outstanding Russian thinker of the early 18th century, philosopher, theologian and writer, associate of Peter I is examined in the article. The novelty of the study is that until now, religious discourse has not been subjected to systemic analysis. The relevance of the study is determined by the need to comprehend Christian motives and reminiscences, as well as the Gospel text as part of the play. Various plot situations are brought into consideration, giving the author the opportunity to show that in the comparison of two worldviews the opposite of their axiological systems is revealed. It is established that the opposition “Christianity / paganism”, which forms the basis of the artistic conflict, correlates in the play with the oppositions “life / death”, “truth / falsehood”, “spiritual / material”, “heavenly / earthly”, “salvation / death”. It has been proven that an important place is given to the play of Christian anthropology, as evidenced by the presentation of the biblical story of the expulsion of the first people from paradise, as well as the depiction of a difficult spiritual struggle that the protagonist experiences when deciding on a change of faith. A systematic analysis leads the author to the conclusion that the play uses the compositional principle that was used in the ancient fine arts and received in the works of Fr. Pavel Florensky called “reverse perspective”.

The morality of the desire for esteem: Gassendi and the Augustinian challenge

ABSTRACT Pierre Gassendi (1592–1655) has not been perceived as one of the early modern philosophers who had something interesting to say about the role of the desire for esteem in social life and the moral duties connected with this desire. Nevertheless, in his Animadversiones in decimum librum Diogenis Laertii (1649) there are some scattered, but interrelated remarks about how the desire for esteem could be supportive of civic virtue. These remarks were written during the years when Jansenism became a considerable intellectual force in France, and the specific strengths of Gassendi's approach to the desire for esteem can be seen when it is read against this background. In the second volume of Augustinus (1640), Cornelius Jansen comments upon Augustine's objections to the moral value of striving for esteem. Contextualizing Gassendi's remarks against the Augustinian challenge is made plausible by two circumstances: The Augustinian challenge with respect to the desire for esteem contains explicit criticism of Epicurean ethics; and Gassendi responded to Augustine's central charge that, in desiring temporal goods such as esteem, one confuses things that are useful with things that should be enjoyed.

Hermeneutics in Heidegger’s Science of Being

AbstractHeidegger calls his early philosophy a “science of being.” Being and Time combines phenomenological, ontological, hermeneutical, and existential themes in a way that is not obviously coherent. Commentators have worried in particular that Heidegger’s hermeneutical transformation of phenomenology is incompatible with his “scientific” aspirations. I outline three interpretations on which Heidegger cannot adopt Husserl’s “scientific” conception of phenomenology as eidetic, intuitive, propositionally articulated, and non‐relativistic due to his hermeneutical commitments. I argue that each of these readings rests on a misinterpretation of one or more of three hermeneutical concepts that are central to Heidegger’s early thought: the understanding of being, the hermeneutical situation, and phenomenological destruction. By giving fresh analyses of these concepts, I show that Heidegger retains the scientific conception while refining it to avoid distortions that are introduced when inquiry is “infiltrated with traditional theories and opinions about being.” I also respond to the charge that Being and Time is a “disguised theology.”

A potpourri of philosophical and child development research-based perspectives as a way forward for early childhood curricula and pedagogy: reconcilable schism or irreconcilable severance?

ABSTRACT The field of early childhood education is propelled by guiding principles stemming from philosophical and child development research positions. While the guiding principles of high-quality early childhood education are influenced by universal and local perspectives, it is critical that early childhood curricula and pedagogy are firmly evidence-based. The necessity of an evidence-base does not serve to reduce or eliminate the influence of the pioneering philosophers in early childhood education, whose legacy should not be relegated to history. Through this paper we aim to demonstrate a reconcilable schism rather than an irreconcilable severance between philosophical and child development research-based positions in early childhood education. For the purposes of this paper, attachment, bioecological, sociocultural and self-regulation research, together with a selection of seminal early childhood education philosophers, are selected to demonstrate the potential of theoretical intersectionality in the era of the early childhood teacher-as-researcher.

Can Damasio's Somatic Marker Hypothesis Explain More Than Its Originator Will Admit?

It is a very old conjecture that emotion governs human choice. Early philosophers like Epicurus (1993) and Aristippus of Cyrene [see Parry (2014)] appear to have held this assumption, often described as “psychological hedonism” [see Overskeid (2002)]. British thinkers of the 18th and 19th century were among the most important exponents of psychological hedonism. In a well-known dictum, Bentham (1823, p. 1) left little doubt as regards his own view: “Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. … They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think …” Famously affirming that human rationality or reason could never on its own control behavior, Hume (1739) was equally clear. Indeed, he claimed (p. 413) that reason “can never oppose passion in the direction of the will.” Instead, said Hume (p. 415), “Reason is … the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve and obey them.” In the second half of the 20th century, psychologists and neuroscientists tended [with some exceptions, such as Toda (1980)] to stay away from the question of how reason and emotion interact to govern human conduct. Important in turning the tide, however, helping researchers see the role of emotions in thinking and decision making, were Damasio and his co-workers (e.g., Damasio, 1994; Bechara et al., 1997). Damasio (1994) argued convincingly that there is no necessary conflict between reason and emotion—indeed, that emotion can support rational thought, and often does. To describe how cognition and emotion can interact when people choose, Damasio developed the somatic marker hypothesis (SMH). Central to the SMH is the assumption that people often do not choose on the basis of intellectual analysis alone, but also based on emotions elicited as part of the decision-making process. Verweij and Damasio (2019, p. 2) explain: “[T]he elements in this process—such as the options before us or the anticipation of the consequences of selecting one or another option—trigger emotive responses and generate the corresponding feelings or the corresponding covert signals, which can bias decisions nonconsciously.” Though demonstrating that choice can be controlled by emotions, Damasio (1994) held that this is not always the case. He described several circumstances under which the somatic marker mechanism cannot, in his view, explain why people choose the way they do. On p. 173, he states, “Somatic markers may not be sufficient for normal human decision-making since a subsequent process of reasoning and final selection will still take place in many though not all instances.” He adds (p. 196) that “logical competence does come into play beyond somatic markers.” Furthermore, says Damasio (1994, p. 177): “Some sublime human achievements come from rejecting what biology or culture propels individuals to do” —though “freedom from biological and cultural constraints can also be a hallmark of madness and can nourish the ideas and acts of the insane.” These aspects of Damasio's hypothesis are worth discussing, since the SMH, though controversial, has been so influential—and the man behind the hypothesis has not changed his mind. A recent paper (Verweij and Damasio, 2019) repeats the claim that affect does not necessarily dictate our behavior. “On the basis of reasoning,” say Verweij and Damasio (2019, p. 3) “individuals are capable of making choices that are not in line with their emotive responses.”

Radical Empiricism, Neutral Monism, and the Elements of Mind

AbstractNeutral monism is the view that both ‘mind’ and ‘matter’ are grounded in a more fundamental form of reality that is intrinsically neither mental nor material. It has often been treated as an odd fringe theory deserving of at most a footnote in the broader philosophical debates. Yet such attitudes do a grave disservice to its sophistications and significance for late nineteenth and early twentieth-century philosophy of mind and psychology. This paper sheds light on this neglected view by situating it within broader historical monist debates about the mind and bringing attention to one of its central internal disputes regarding ‘mental chemistry’. By taking a closer look at how Ernst Mach, William James, and Bertrand Russell address the question of whether and how our mental episodes are composed of more basic elements, it highlights deep differences among their conceptions of the fundamental ‘neutral stuff’ and its relations to ‘mind’ and ‘matter’.

Boris N. Chicherin on Western Liberalism and Its Shortcomings

ABSTRACT This article examines the criticisms that Chicherin directed at the classical Western liberalism that emerged from the works of John Locke, Claude-Adrien Helvétius, Baron d’Holbach, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the criticisms that can also be directed at modern Western liberalism. Following the early nineteenth-century German philosophers (Fichte, Hegel), Chicherin proves the falsity of liberalism’s philosophical foundations and, above all, the fallacy of its individualism. The latter assumes that the individual is not just independent of society and the state but also primary in relation to them, as well as a limited understanding of freedom that is reducible to an absence of external restrictions on human activity. As Chicherin shows, the stability of a state built on these principles can be ensured only by manipulating the consciousness of its citizens such that they are satisfied with their rulers. The Russian version of liberalism created by Chicherin and his followers is based on an understanding of the individual’s dependence on society’s spiritual wholeness, as well as on an understanding of freedom as man’s spiritual inner quality manifested primarily in his ability to create high culture. Russian liberalism views the state as a value equal to and complementary to the value of individual freedom, defining it as a way of organizing the life of a people that arises naturally in history and is independent of the will of individuals.

The Priority of Natural Laws in Kant's Early Philosophy

It is widely held that, in his pre-Critical works, Kant endorsed a necessitation account of laws of nature, where laws are grounded in essences or causal powers. Against this, I argue that the early Kant endorsed the priority of laws in explaining and unifying the natural world, as well as their irreducible role in grounding natural necessity. Laws are a key constituent of Kant’s explanatory naturalism, rather than undermining it. By laying out neglected distinctions Kant draws among types of natural law, grounding relations, and ontological levels, I show that his early works present a coherent and sophisticated laws-first account of the natural order. Laws are a key constituent of Kant’s explanatory naturalism with respect to the empirical domain, and do not undermine it.

Russell and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus

The author argues that Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus owes much to Russell’s early philosophy. This point of view is demonstrated in the article by referring to G. Landini’s recent research on Russell’s Substitution Theory, as well as by the evaluations of the Tractatus of the prominent researchers: L. Goldstein, J. Hintikka, and J. Hacking. A skeptical view on the influence of the Tractatus and Wittgenstein personally on the doctrines of the Vienna Circle is presented by A. Koffa. The author proposes to reject extreme judgments about the Tractatus outside the context of Principia Mathematica.

The Young Leibniz and the Ontological Argument

Leibniz considered the Cartesian version of the ontological argument not as an inconsistent proof but only as an incomplete one: it requires a preliminary proof of possibility to show that the concept of ‘the most perfect being’ involves no contradiction. Leibniz raised this objection to Descartes’s proof already in 1676, then repeated it throughout his entire life. Before 1676, however, he suggested a more substantial objection to the Cartesian argument. I take into account a text written around 1671-72, in which Leibniz considers the Cartesian proof as a paralogism and a petition of principle. I argue that this criticism is modelled on Gassendi’s objections to the Cartesian proof, and that Leibniz’s early rejection of the ontological argument has to be understood in the general context of his early philosophy, which was inspired by nominalist authors, such as Hobbes and Gassendi. Then, I take into account the reconsideration of the ontological argument in a series of texts of 1678, showing how Leibniz implicitly replies to the kind of criticism to the argument he himself shared in his earlier works.

Connecting the Dots

Connecting the Dots

Антифонт. Фрагменты и свидетельства

Antiphon (c. 480–411 BCE) was famous in antiquity for his forensic speeches as well as more theoretical works, such as The Truth and On concord. He is also credited with the invention of logography as a profession. The majority of his heritage is now lost. The present publication contains a collection of scant doxographic evidence about Antiphon’s life and writings. The evidences are based on A. Lask and G. Most’ Early Greek Philosophy (2016).

Критика Аристотелем принципа «подобное познается подобным» (комментарий к О душе II 5 416b 32 – 417a 20)

One of the principles underlying Aristotle’s theory of sense perception is that the sense faculty is potentially such as the sensible object is actually. On closer examination, this statement turns out to be a modernization of the ancient rule "like is known by like", shared by most of the early Greek philosophers, including Empedocles and Plato. The paper shows that though Aristotle criticizes this principle in his treatise On the Soul, he doesn’t really abandon it. On the contrary, he retains it for his own theory of sense perception while using the notions of the possible and the actual. The paper is written in the form of a line-by-line commentary to De anima II 5 416b 32–417a 20, where Aristotle reproaches his predecessors for the inconsistency and contradictions of their theories; shows that the “like is known by like” principle entails certain difficulties, and solves these difficulties by introducing his own theory of being moved and acted upon, according to which the patient is in a sense unlike the agent and in a sense like it.

Benedict de Spinoza’s Virtue

Benedict de Spinoza (1632–1677) was about the most radical of the early modern philosophers who developed a unique metaphysics that inspired an intriguing moral philosophy, fusing insights from ancient Stoicism, Cartesian metaphysics, Hobbes and medieval Jewish rationalism. While helping to ground the Enlightenment, Spinoza’s thoughts, against the intellectual mood of the time, divorced transcendence from divinity, equating God with nature. His extremely naturalistic views of reality constructed an ethical structure that links the control of human passion to virtue and happiness. By denying objective significance to things aside from human desires and beliefs, he is considered an anti-realist; and by endorsing a vision of reality according to which everyone ought to seek their own advantage, he is branded ethical egoist. This essay identified the varying influences of Spinoza’s moral anti-realism and ethical egoism on post-modernist thinkers who decried the “naïve faith” in objective and absolute truth, but rather propagated perspective relativity of reality. It recognized that modern valorization of ethical relativism, which in certain respects, detracts from the core values of the Enlightenment, has its seminal roots in his works.

Архивное наследие философов русского послеоктябрьского зарубежья в современных отечественных и зарубежных исследованиях

Researching the archives of Russian post-October abroad thinkers is one of the main tasks of modern Russian philosophy. The return of the spiritual wealth of Russian intellectual culture that has begun in the late 1980s with the publication of hard access and works of bibliographic rarity of N.O. Lossky, N.A. Berdyaev, S.L. Frank, S.N. Bulgakov and others, is continuing today. However, at the be­ginning of the XXI century the trajectory of this return changes slightly. The pub­lished works of Russian abroad thinkers require a holistic reading, rethinking and actualization. These problems cannot be effectively solved without plunging into the existential and intellectual history of Russian philosophy in the first half of the twentieth century. That is why modern historians of philosophy turn to the archive, and not so much as an empirical object, collection and repository of documents, but as a cultural, historical, humanitarian phenomenon, thanks to which, through the collective efforts of philosophers and scientists, a holistic portrait of Russian philosophy in its personal dimension is brought together. We can consider the archive of any Russian philosopher of the first half of the twentieth century as an “archive of the era” (T.G. Shchedrina), as a “sphere of conversation” in which the meeting of thinkers of the early twentieth century and modern philosophers is possible. Such a methodological turn affects the content of historical and philosophical research and changes our ideas about the Russian abroad philosophy, about the era as a whole, and also allows us to reconstruct the heritage of Russian philosophers and consistently collect the value-semantic unity of Russian intellectual culture while preserving its “diversity and unity” (M.A. Maslin).

Problem of method and Subject in the early philosophy of S.L. Rubinstein

The article examines a number of methodological and conceptual features in the philosophical work of S.L. Rubinstein of the early (Marburg) period. It is assumed that the copies of Rubinstein’s doctoral inaugural dissertation available at the university of Marburg (Germany) and it the private archive of K.A. Abulkhanova represents two parts of one research, which understated expect in it’s first part (the text submitted for defense) an interpretation and criticism of Hegel’s absolute rationalism, and in the second part an exposition of the author’s own concept. It is proved that Rubinstein overcomes the logical limitation the Hegelian philosophical absolutization – the opposition of being and consciousness, the author fuses object and subject in a single being as a domain of accommodation of both, the construction of the internal consistent picture of being as the actual being of a leaving subject. Acknowledgement of Sources. The author is sincerely grateful to the D. Sc. in Philosophy, Professor, Academician of the Russian Academy of Education K.A. Abulkhanova for the materials provided from her personal archive.

LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN: TOWARDS A MEANINGFUL TALK ABOUT RELIGION

Wittgenstein’s profound thought had rich implications regarding religious belief and religion. In his early philosophy, silence occupies a central place to articulate what is beyond the boundary of language. Silence overcomes the limits of human language. In Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, religious language and different religious languages are legitimized by the multiple uses of language. An evaluation of his linguistic philosophy and its application in religious belief reveals that despite the limitations of his philosophy, Wittgenstein has enriched the contemporary philosophy of religion. This paper discusses the meaningful talk about religion, religious speech acts and religious rituals with Wittgenstein’s later understanding of the religious domain. Though Wittgenstein was not a religious man, he saw things from a religious point of view. His insight on religious belief can be seen from different perspectives. From a pragmatic perspective, religious language is very much tied up with the form of life. It emerges from the everyday shared practices of the community of believers.