Metaphysical Basis Research Articles

The codification of false refutations in Aristotle's De Sophisticis Elenchis

My aim in this paper is to examine the general conception and the detailed problems in Aristotle's comments in the S.E. on how to organise the handling of false refutations. The influence of Aristotle's work in this area has been immense, as C. L. Hamblin has recently shown: the discussions of fallacious and illicit reasoning in books of logic down the centuries are dominated by the aim of adhering to what their authors conceive to be Aristotle's divisions of the subject. Even after the logical and metaphysical bases on which the Aristotelian treatment rests had been abandoned, logicians persisted with a codification of fallacies the very purpose of which had become obscure. Hamblin has well exposed the distortions to which the servile but misconceived tradition has subjected Aristotle's insights. Now that modern developments in formal logic enable us to appreciate that Aristotle's syllogistic occupies a small, albeit paradigmatic, part of the calculus of relations, we are better placed to understand the character of the non-syllogistic areas of his logical work. At the same time there has been a growth in the historical understanding of Aristotle's dialectic. So the way should lie open to a better appreciation of Aristotle's conception of errors in argument, and to a clearer grasp of the actual phenomenon.

The dilemma of science and morals.

The conflicts between science and morals which still continue to arise despite the apparent hegemony of atheistic scientism over traditional Judeo-Christianity in the twentieth century reflect a basic contradiction in the metaphysical foundation of Western lives. As was set forth by Machiavelli, the contradiction inherent in Western ethics is that it is based on the simultaneous belief in both objectively valid moral truths and purely relative values of communal purpose. The achievements of twentieth century science have intensified these contradictions. Modern physics has put in question the validity of its own metaphysical basis, namely the belief in Natural Law, and modern biology has been unable to come to terms with the Cartesian dualism of body and soul. By contrast, Chinese lives are comparatively free of these contradictions, being founded on the philosophies of Confucianism and Taoism, to which the concepts of objectively valid truth or Natural Law are foreign. Recent developments in Western attitudes regarding science and morals can be interpreted as a movement away from the traditional belief in absolute truths towards a Chinese relativism.

The Social Thought of James Logan

HE social thought of James Logan has been touched upon in passing by intellectual historians of British America, but it has never been given full expository and analytical treatment.1 The purpose of this essay is to provide in concise form a statement of Logan's moral and social philosophy and its epistemological and metaphysical basis. Logan's ideas were, of course, the product of extensive reading in classical literature and the philosophical work of his time, as well as of practical experience in the everyday world of early eighteenth-century Pennsylvania. However, no attempt will be made here to explore the sources of his thought. That would be a large undertaking, and the result would be a book, not an essay. If the following exposition contributes to a better understanding of one of the more important colonial intellectuals of the first half of the eighteenth century, it will have served its purpose.

Procreation, Overpopulation and Responsible Parenthood

RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD AND OVERPOPULATION 407 PART Two PROCREATION, OVERPOPULATION AND RESPONSIBLE PARENTHOOD With the conclusion of Part One we completed a study of the goals and values of procreation as contained in the formula, "procreatio ad bonum speciei." In Part Two we leave the order of ends and values and enter the order of moral responsibility . Procreation and the entire sexual life have been shown to be in the service of the species, and of the future of the species, especially by way of education. Is the good of the species simply a service which is rendered, without the conscious cooperation of man? Or is the bonum speciei an end of respon.nble action of a particular married couple? Does the individual man or married couple have any responsibility towards the species in the act of procreation, independently of and prior to any laws which may be enacted to govern this relation? I. RESPONSIBILITY TO THE SPECIES 1. Basis of Responsibility to the Species That the answer to the above question should be in the affirmative is obvious from all that has been said concerning the relations between the individual and the species, especially in the case of man, where the relation is one between a rational individual and the species. The close union existing between the member and the species has a metaphysical basis which has already been explored. This metaphysical basis produces the foundation for the relation of responsibility between the individual and the species considered as a universal notion. Responsibility to the species considered as society is based on an ethical consideration which stems from the Aristotelian-Thomistic notion of "person." 408 WARREN REICH Substance is that which exists in and for itself. The incommunicable individual substance reaches its highest level in its rational form, which is the person. The person is first of all an ontological entity, inasmuch as it possesses a superiOr incommunicability on account of its soul; but even more so is it a psychological and ethical entity, capable of performing free actions and of having rights and duties. Only the person is master of its own actions.1 This freedom of and mastery over one's own actions, opening up onto unlimited possibilities, establishes the value of the individual man. Man is conscious of the fact that his greatest potentialities are not realized in the present moment, but can only be effected through the harmonization of all his powers, which can best be accomplished in union with other men. The corporal and spiritual progress of the individual man is essentially bound up with the community.2 Thus drawn into society, the person must look beyond his self-fulfillment, for he has a natural appetite to seek the good of his species.3 J\1an, being a superior rational creature, has a rational appetite for a broader common good, whereby he is drawn to do good for other members of his species, even those far removed from himself.4 Consequently, the individual person is responsible for attaining a greater good, i.e. the bonum commune, which he is serving. Therefore, the notion of personality implies a relation to one's self and to the surrounding world: the entire material world with its need for work and cultural development, but more especially the world of humans, in which man finds himself responsible to the fellow-members of the species, who also enjoy individual rights. The essential elements of personality include, then, freedom, imperishability, and responsibility for the whole of the world.5 1 Pot. 9, 1 ad 3. 2 I 96, 4 co.; ll-ll109, 3 ad 1; 114, ~ ad 1; III 65, 1 co. 3 C. G. III, ~4. 'Ibid. 5 Josef Pieper, Uber die Gerechtigkeit (Munich: Kosel, 1953), p. ~4, citing C. G. III, 11~. RESPONSIBLE PARENTilOOD AND OVERPOPULATION 409 It should be noted again that when we speak of having a responsibility to the human species, we mean the human species as that concrete unity known as " the human race," as well as a given part thereof, within the framework of a country, state, community, etc., of which the individual man is a member. But it should also be asked whether man...

Lohenstein’s Protagonists

Lohenstein’s Protagonists

Leibniz's Method and the Basis of His Metaphysics

The monumental works of Bertrand Russell and Louis Couturat have set a firm pattern of interpretation which many follow in their approach to the Philosophy of Leibniz. In the Preface to the second edition of The Philosophy of Leibniz, Russell reaffirms his contention that “Leibniz’s philosophy was almost entirely derived from his logic”. He welcomes the support provided in Couturat’s La Logique de Leibniz. Russell remarks “No candid reader—can doubt that Leibniz’s metaphysic was derived by him from the subject-predicate logic. This appears, for example, from the paper ‘Primae Veritates’ where all the main doctrines of the Monadology are deduced, with terse logical rigor from the premises; ‘Always therefore the predicate or consequent adheres in the subject or antecedent, and in this fact consists the nature of truth in general—But this is true in every affirmative truth, universal or singular, necessary or contingent’.” Referring further to Couturat, he points out that in his book the “Principle of Sufficient Reason” and “The Identity of Indiscernibles” are “expressly deduced—from the analytic character of all true propositions”. In short, Russell is contending that in formulating his metaphysics Leibniz (i) used the rigorous methods of deductive logic and (2) employed “models” drawn from logic to construct his “picture of reality”, i.e. his metaphysics.

Chang Tsai's Theory of Mind and Its Metaphysical Basis

CHINESE PHILOSOPHY DURING the Sung and Ming periods is generally divided into two schools, that of Ch'eng-and-Chu and that of Lu-and-Wang. Yet, the school of Chang Tsai is really a school by itself. The central concept of Ch'eng-and-Chu is reason, that of Lu-and-Wang, mind, and that of Chang Tsai, ether (ch'i3). It is generally accepted that the philosophy of the Sung and Ming periods started with Chou Tun-i, whose major work is the T'ung Shu. Now, the T'ung Shu deals mainly with the ways of spiritual cultivation in order to become a sage or a worthy. As for Chou's Explanation of the Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate, it would seem too simple except for Chu Hsi's commentary. The Cheng-meng4 of Chang Tsai, on the other hand, is a book that seeks consciously to establish a system of philosophy of its own, and thus establishes a theoretical foundation for spiritual cultivation. Ch'eng I critically referred to the book as exhibiting much effort and strain, which meant at that time the lack of mellowed maturity. In our day, however, we can see that the philosophy of Chang Tsai is worked out with much care and detail, though it might not have reached the high level of Ch'eng Hao, Chu Hsi, or Wang Shou-jen. He defined unequivocally such vague terms in traditional Chinese thought as Heaven and man, human nature and the Heavenly decree, spirituality (shen5) and transformation (hua6), the mind and the nature, the void7 and the ether, the searching for spirituality and the knowledge of transforma-

Original Sin vs. Utopia in British Socialism

Since the end of World War II, Great Britain has provided a happy hunting ground for students of politics, whose chief prey has been the British Labour movement. Perhaps it is because some considered the Labour Government of 1945–51 to be an “experiment,” and experiments of any sort ought to be watched closely. Or it may be that here was a party with a mass backing which, at the same time, had a corpus of theory which it professed to be implementing; hence the consistency between the words of the ideologues and the actions of the politicians could be measured. Yet for all the consideration of Socialist theory, Labour ideology, and Transport House practice, scholars have tended to neglect the psychological and metaphysical bases of the movement's approach to politics. An examination of the presuppositions regarding the nature of man is vital to the understanding of any political theory—or, for that matter, any practical program of action. While studies of nationalized industries, foreign policy, the bureaucracy, and the internecine warfare of party factions are desirable and of interest, if we are to put our observations in philosophical perspective we must base our investigation of British Socialism and the British Labour movement on its views of human nature.

The Subjective Tradition in Phenomenological Psychology

Phenomenology, currently the most active philosophical movement on the European scene, has shown persistent concern for psychological problems and principles, and for the science of psychology in general. This concern has taken the form of various attempts to amend psychology according to phenomenological precepts and methods with the intent of providing it with a new metaphysical basis. Recent examples of this trend are the textbook of Snygg and Combs (20) and the two books published in France by the philosopher, Merleau-Ponty (16, 18).

Freedom, Value, and the Law: Three Paradoxes

Previous articleNext article No AccessDiscussionFreedom, Value, and the Law: Three ParadoxesJohn Nelson ParkJohn Nelson Park Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Ethics Volume 62, Number 1Oct., 1951 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/290805 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1951 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

An Outline of Semantics for the Psychologist

It is possible that many of the difficulties of the contemporary psychologist are related to a continued reliance on antique systems of formal logic, ancient philosophy, or hand-me-down oriental or primitive mysticism. The purpose of this paper is to indicate ways in which such factors are influencing present day psychology, with the object of creating a greater awareness of the metaphysical bases of much of our current theory and practice. The primary consideration in a paper such as this is to define the function or functions of language in scientific investigation. Korzybski (3, pp. 21-24) holds that the only possible function that words can perform is in terms of their direct influence on the inter-relationships existing between organisms and events. He illustrates this point by asking a person to define a word, any word, and then asking him to define the term or terms used in the original definition, and the terms of each successive definition, until a point is reached at which definitions either become circular (such as defining thought in terms of mind and mind in terms of thought) or the response I know but cannot tell is given. We suggest that language is essentially referential in nature and contains no 'meaning' of itself. All efforts at verbal definition must eventually end with a group of terms which cannot be defined further. Psychologically, language is a behavior situation in which a person refers someone (or is referred) to some object or event either vocally or by gesture (2). Language behavior is an adjustment of an individual to another individual and the object referred to: it is not a set of symbols that act as carriers for mysterious meanings. Language from this point of view is seen as a potential tool of science, a tool which can be of aid if the priority of the or primary datum of the science is recognized, but as Korzybski indicates, ... verbal levels are only auxiliary, sometimes useful, but at present often harmful (3, p. 23). Harm results from the fact that popular language, philosophy, and formal logic are based on the universe as it was assumed to be when

Observations on Enumerative Style in Modern German Poetry

In a previous article I attempted to analyze the philosophical implications of enumerative style in three outstanding, sharply differentiated individuals. My purpose was to show that especially “heterogeneous” enumeration, seemingly a haphazard assortment of unrelated objects, tends to have a “conjunctive” function, to express a sense of universal ontological oneness: all things can appear in juxtaposition as emanations of one identical cosmic principle; the more disparate the catalogued items, the more effectively is this conception brought out. At the same time it was pointed out that stylistic traits, once established, are likely to occur independently of the intellectual and emotional contents to which they owe their existence; thus also the enumerative tendency may divorce itself from its metaphysical basis and appear in passages where its origin and meaning are no longer obvious.

The Metaphysical Basis of Induction

The Metaphysical Basis of Induction

The Mental Condition of Saint-Simon [L'état Mental De Saint-Simon]. (Rev. Phil., Jan., March, April, 1902.) Dumas, G.

The Mental Condition of Saint-Simon [L'état Mental De Saint-Simon]. (Rev. Phil., Jan., March, April, 1902.) Dumas, G.

The Metaphysical Basis of Plato's Ethics.

The Metaphysical Basis of Plato's Ethics.

The Metaphysical Basis of Plato's Ethics.Arthur Bernard Cook

Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewsThe Metaphysical Basis of Plato's Ethics. Arthur Bernard Cook John BurnetJohn Burnet Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Volume 7, Number 1Oct., 1896 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/intejethi.7.1.2375398 Views: 8Total views on this site Journal History This article was published in The International Journal of Ethics (1890-1938), which is continued by Ethics (1938-present). PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Cook's Metaphysical Basis of Plato's Ethics - The Metaphysical Basis of Plato's Ethics. By A. B. Cook, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Deighton, Bell and Co. Crown 8vo. Pp. xvi. + 160. 6s.

Cook's <i>Metaphysical Basis of Plato's Ethics</i> - The Metaphysical Basis of Plato's Ethics. By A. B. Cook, Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Deighton, Bell and Co. Crown 8vo. Pp. xvi. + 160. 6<i>s</i>.