Metaphysical Doctrine Research Articles

Against No-Ātman Theories of Anattā

Suppose we were to randomly pick out a book on Buddhism or Eastern Philosophy and turn to the section on 'no-self' (anattā). On this central teaching, we would most likely learn that the Buddha rejected the Upanisadic notion of Self (Ātman), maintaining that a person is no more than a bundle of impermanent, conditioned psycho-physical aggregates (khandhas). The rejection of Ātman is seen by many to separate the metaphysically 'extravagant' claims of Hinduism from the austere tenets of Buddhism. The status quo has not, however, gone unchallenged. I shall join forces against this pernicious view, integrating some recent contributions into a sustained, two-pronged argument against no-Ātman theories of anattā. At the end it shall be suggested, in line with Thanissaro Bhikkhu, that anattā is best understood as a practical strategy rather than as a metaphysical doctrine.

The Platonic Academy and Democracy

From the days of Plato’s Academy, academic life and discourse have operated in tension with political life, and often the political life of democracy. Since World War II, this tension has been read as essentially antagonistic. In this survey of the relationship of the original and subsequent incarnations of the Academy to ancient Athens, republican Rome, and the Florentine city-state, it becomes clear that the tension was, in fact, potentially as much of an asset to democracy as an assault upon it—even as the tension forever remained real. Readings of Plato and versions of the Academy become antagonistic to civic life only when their intellectual posture takes refuge in metaphysical doctrines or political ideologies that bear only marginal connections to the effective argument of Plato’s dialogues or the initial political postures of Academic life.

'Courage Not Under Fire': Realism, Anti-realism, and the Epistemological Virtues

This article offers a critical perspective on two lines of thought in recent epistemology and philosophy of science, namely Michael Dummett?s anti-realist approach to issues of truth, meaning, and knowledge and Bas van Fraassen?s influential programme of ?constructive empiricism?. While not denying the salient differences between them (the one a metaphysical doctrine premised on logicolinguistic considerations, the other a thesis primarily concerned with the scope and limits of empirical inquiry) it shows how they converge on a sceptical outlook concerning the realist claim that truth might always transcend the restrictions of some given (or indeed some future best-possible) state of knowledge. The author puts the case that such sceptical arguments, if followed through consistently, must involve giving up all claim to account for our knowledge of the growth of scientific knowledge. He also takes issue with Dummett?s idea of truth as nothing more than a matter of ?warranted assertibility? and with van Fraassen?s likewise verificationist conception of empirical warrant as the most we can have by way of epistemic justification. Thus it is wrong to suppose that the realist is merely indulging in a display of ?courage not under fire? when she assumes ontological commitments in excess of the observational data. This disavowal of realism in favour of a theory which ?saves the (empirical) appearances? has a less-than-distinguished prehistory in the range of compromise strategies adopted by upholders of a dominant metaphysics or world-view, starting out with the orthodox Catholic attempt to defuse the implications of the heliocentric hypothesis advanced by Copernicus and Galileo. Such theological motives are nowadays not so prominent although ? it is suggested ? they do emerge at certain points in Dummett?s writing. More constructively, this article presents a case for objectivism with regard to scientific truth and also for inference to the best causal explanation ? on both the micro- and the macrophysical scale ? as the only approach with an adequate claim to make sense of the history of advancements in scientific knowledge to date.

Language and Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Language (review)

Reviewed by: Language and reality: An introduction to the philosophy of language by Michael Devitt, Kim Sterelny Luis Alonso-Ovalle Language and reality: An introduction to the philosophy of language. By Michael Devitt and Kim Sterelny. 2nd edn. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Pp. xiii, 342. Michael Devitt and Kim Sterelny’s introduction to the philosophy of language was first published more than a decade ago. On that occasion, the preface presented the work as intended, ‘primarily, but not solely’, to be a textbook. The very same aim prevails in this second edition, which, despite numerous profitable changes, maintains the general axes of content and form of the first. As in the first edition, the authors organize the material without any pretense of neutrality: their realist and naturalist perspective still pervades the whole book. D & S are realists in that they claim that the world exists objectively. They are naturalists both in that they reject the idea that philosophical knowledge [End Page 188] is a priori and in that they claim that physical objects and processes are all that exist. The book surveys the relationships between language and reality, on the one hand, and language and thought on the other, and includes some further discussion on the place and role of the philosophy of language within the philosophical building. After a brief introduction on the nature of the phenomena to be explored, Part 2 begins wondering about the relation between language and reality by focusing on the problem of meaning and reference. There is an emphasis on the truth-referential theory of meaning, by which the truth conditions of a sentence depend on the referential properties of its elements together with the way they are combined (Frege’s insight). Part 3 focuses on the relation between language and thought, suggesting that it should be considered somewhat ‘symbiotic’: The authors argue for both the hypothesis that thought is language-like and for the relative independence of language with respect to thought. Within Part 3, Ch. 8 will be of special interest for linguists since it is devoted to the notion of linguistic competence. Interestingly enough, D & S remain dubious of the idea that grammatical rules play an important role in language processing and look critically at the alleged innate character of certain linguistic principles. Part 4 explores the relation between theories of language and the metaphysical doctrine of realism, according to which the objects of our environment exist independently of us and our thoughts. The main point of the authors here is that, since a realist metaphysics has a more secure epistemic foundation than any theory of language, it has to take precedence over whatever metaphysics of any other kind a theory of language assumes. Metaphysics should override linguistic assumptions. Despite maintaining the general flavor of the first edition, there are important changes in this second one. The material on causal theories of reference and their competitors has changed substantially and so have issues dealing with a speaker’s linguistic and conceptual competence. Linguists will be delighted to see that the views on the role of a Chomskyan theory of grammar within a theory of mind and meaning have been completely reworked. The authors argue that developing a theory of sentence structure is a different task from that of explaining the speaker’s ability to understand and produce those sentences. Therefore, a good theory of sentence structure is not necessarily a good theory of linguistic competence. The book is a most welcome updated introduction to the philosophy of language, useful for anyone interested in dealing with the basics and beyond and of special value for readers coming from such related disciplines as formal semantics or artificial intelligence. The book is also pedagogically outstanding. The use of asterisks to mark off more difficult sections is retained from the first edition as are the suggested reading sections that accompany each chapter. Both will help those who decide to tackle the subtleties of the philosophical argumentation on the domain of language. Luis Alonso-Ovalle University of Massachusetts, Amherst Copyright © 2001 Linguistic Society of America

Holmes, Nietzsche & Classical Realism

The point of departure is Richard Posner's striking suggestion that Holmes is American Nietzsche. What is it that the great American judge and the great German philosopher have in common? The Essay argues that the real thematic (and tempermental) affinity between Holmes and Nietzsche lies in the fact that both are proponents of a general, but neglected, perspective on questions of moral, political, and legal theory that I will call Realism. Importantly, the Classical of Holmes and Nietzsche places them in a long tradition of theories of morals, politics, and society that we find in writers like Thucydides, Machiavelli, Freud and (to some extent) Marx, among others. This tradition, however, has almost vanished from the modern academy. It is the most general aim of this paper to revive the doctrine of Classical as a serious--albeit debunking--position in normative theory. By using the label Realism I wish to reclaim for the term realism a meaning both older than and different from that current in academic debates, especially in philosophy, where it names certain doctrines in semantics and metaphysics. Classical Realism, by contrast, is a very different kind of view; indeed, it entails no particular semantic and metaphysical doctrines at all. Classical denotes a certain hard-headed, unromantic, uncompromising attitude towards the world, which manifests itself in a brutal honesty and candor in the assessment of human motives and the portrayal of human affairs. The Essay explores this doctrine in some detail in a variety of thinkers, including Holmes, Posner, Nietzsche, Marx, and the American Legal Realists. The Appendix to the Essay offers a critical discussion of Posner's and David Luban's treatment of the Holmes-Nietzsche relation.

Platonic Ethics: Old and New (review)

Reviewed by: Platonic Ethics: Old and New Eve Browning Cole Julia Annas . Platonic Ethics: Old and New. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. Pp. vii + 196. Cloth, $35.00 Readers of Plato's dialogues in our time are almost unanimously affected by what Annas here calls "the developmental thesis." We bring to Plato's texts as a dogma the [End Page 114] view that his doctrines evolved over time, that later dialogues return to problems unsuccessfully addressed in earlier dialogues, and in short that the Platonic corpus as a whole should be arranged as a kind of intellectual "Bildungsroman." The early and inconclusive explorations of Socrates give way to mature and expansive metaphysical doctrines, which in turn are tested and revised in subsequent works. This developmentalist dogma has dominated interpretations of Plato, with few exceptions (notably Paul Shorey), for a century and more. Yet this makes it a rather young dogma after all. Annas argues that it is a product of Victorian scholars, and especially targets the highly influential work of Benjamin Jowett (95 n.56). Jowett placed the Republic at the center of Plato's works and interpreted others backward and forward from it. The influence of this developmental thesis has been sweeping and, Annas argues, unfortunate. Armed with it, we are reluctant to consider the doctrines of the dialogues on their own terms; we make problems for one dialogue with concerns expressed in quite another; we tend to force our readings to fit the progressive picture and distort the works in the process. To achieve some distance from developmentalism and other modern preconceptions and dogma, Annas proposes listening with an open mind to ancient readings of Plato, especially those of the so-called Middle Platonists. Most modern students of ancient philosophy have been accustomed to discount these ancients as either too marginal to deserve a hearing or too biased to be fair readers. (In addition, access to their works in reliable texts and translations has been impossible until quite recently.) But such ancient readers as Albinus, Alcinous, Arius Didymus, Philo, and Numenius have (Annas argues) much to offer. First, they are active participants in an ongoing intellectual conversation about "eudaimonism," or the sufficiency of virtue for happiness. They comfortably engage Plato in this conversation as a proponent of eudaimonism. This is as true for the Plato of Republic and Laws as for the earlier dialogues. These older readers of Platonic ethics demonstrate that it is indeed possible to discern a unified view of the relation between goodness and happiness, without violence to the texts. While Plato may speak with "many voices," as Arius Didymus averred, this does not entail that he held "many doctrines" (9). Another modern shibboleth which the older readers can help us dislodge concerns the proper understanding of the Republic. We have tended to classify it as political theory (and in this are supported by the Library of Congress, as Annas points out). While recognizing the hefty core of more individual ethical thinking which goes into the definition of justice in the soul, we have insisted that the "Fairest City" is a serious utopian project description and should shape and contain the Republic's ethical teachings. Here too the ancients were much less inhibited than we; most of them cheerfully ignore the city-building and attend mainly to the implications for moral life. Annas finds this not only salubrious and unity-supporting but more faithful to the text, whose political content she finds "brief and underdeveloped" (82). Many readers will find the treatment of Republic's political significance (or lack thereof) objectionable. Many readers will also find the idea of relinquishing developmentalism to be unappealing or even frightening. But Annas makes a strong case for [End Page 115] seriously consulting the ancient readers if only for their medicinal value; they can "... wake us from our developmental slumbers" (165). Moreover, she provides a friendly and accessible entree to their world, one which will be of value to many modern readers who have been mystified by them heretofore. All texts quoted are in translation, and the occasional bits of original texts are transliterated. An extremely helpful "cast of characters" (which everyone will be tempted to xerox and...

Metaphysics and the morality of abortion

Conclusions about the morality of abortion have been thought to receive some support from metaphysical doctrines about persons. The paper studies four instances in which philosophers have sought to draw such morals from metaphysics. It argues that in each instance the metaphysics makes no moral difference, and the manner of failure seems indicative of a general epistemic irrelevance of metaphysics to the moral issue.

Reason and Community

The political and social ideal of the Enlightenment can be usefully characterized in terms of the question of human rights. Against the dictates of traditional sources of authority, held to be grounded in superstition and untenable metaphysical doctrines, a person's freedom to make his or her own life choices was put forward as an inalienable right. Despite the unprecedented successes of this concep tion of society in territorial expansion since the ending of the Cold War, its theoretical foundations have come under increasing philosophical attack. Under the broad umbrella of Communitarianism, a number of important philosophers have challenged the viability of a theory based on individual rights.1 The general argument at the strictly political or social level is that individual rights are in some fashion fundamentally dependent on specific historical conditions and that the idea of a set of rights that transcends such conditions is a myth. Furthermore, such an emphasis destroys the very foundations of a strong, vibrant, and happy society. It has also been claimed that liberal political theories face a similar problem concerning the nature of reason and rational choice. The enlightenment claim for the political rights and freedoms of the individual was in great part grounded in a similar claim about the nature of reason and truth. For example, Descartes's understanding of the appropriate use of reason reinforces the notion that the individual is the final authority on questions of truth. It is the individual who can strip away the merely given, fallible, and historical character of material existence

The Yin‐Yang‐Wu‐Hsing doctrine in the textual tradition of Tokugawa Japanese Agriculture

Japanese agricultural scholarship reached its peak in the Tokugawa period (1603–1868). Most of its representative works were imbued with the Chinese metaphysical doctrine of yin‐yang‐wu‐hsing. They used the ideas of yin‐yang, wu‐hsing, yun‐ch'i, hexagrams, and feng‐shui extensively to develop their views and to explain various practices. There were two different attitudes towards Chinese concepts among Tokugawa scholars. Some regarded Chinese ideas as universal principles, and faithfully introduced them to Japan, whereas some were faced with the problem of national identity and attempted to accommodate Chinese metaphysical principles to Japanese agriculture. This article examines the adoption of the yin‐yang‐wu‐hsing doctrine in Tokugawa agriculture through a careful and critical textual study of several major Tokugawa writings.

Reduction and Understanding

Reductionism, in the sense of the doctrine that theories on different levels of reality should exhibit strict and general relations of deducibility, faces well-known difficulties. Nevertheless, the idea that deeper layers of reality are responsible for what happens at higher levels is well-entrenched in scientific practice. We argue that the intuition behind this idea is adequately captured by the notion of supervenience: the physical state of the fundamental physical layers fixes the states of the higher levels. Supervenience is weaker than traditional reductionism, but it is not a metaphysical doctrine: one can empirically support the existence of a supervenience relation by exhibiting concrete relations between the levels. Much actual scientific research is directed towards finding such inter-level relations. It seems to be quite generally held that the importance of such relations between different levels is that they are explanatory and give understanding: deeper levels provide deeper understanding, and this justifies the search for ever deeper levels. We shall argue, however, that although achieving understanding is an important aim of science, its correct analysis is not in terms of relations between higher and lower levels. Connections with deeper layers of reality do not generally provide for deeper understanding. Accordingly, the motivation for seeking deeper levels of reality does not come from the desire to find deeper understanding of phenomena, but should be seen as a consequence of the goal to formulate ever better, in the sense of more accurate and more-encompassing, empirical theories.

Adam Smith: Natural Theology and Its Implications for His Method of Social Inquiry

This paper sees a systematic unity between Smith's theological view and scientific study of society. Smith's theological outlook as to a benevolent deity is grasped as a metaphysical doctrine in his system of social science. It arises from the fact that while Smith's opinion concerning God's attributes is established, in the first instance, on the basis of his empirical study of nature, it also stands irrespective of other facts which are not in line with the patterns of order and design. Smith's metaphysical proposition as such is methodologically suggestive in that it proposes theoretical possibilities for progress and harmony and rules out the features of conflict at the analytic level. This implies a difficulty in subscribing to a conventional interpretation that introduces the “two Smiths's” view (the duality of his method and vision).

Wittgenstein on "Universal Meanings"

This paper is an attempt to offer a Wittgensteinian critique of platonic universals, abstract objects which Plato took to be: (1) the essential elements of particulars, and (2) the meanings of general words. I will first offer an interpretation of Plato from the dialogues «Republic», «Phaedo» and «Theaetetus», and then identify specific assumptions contained within this metaphysical doctrine which concern, first, the concepts of meaning and understanding; and, second, the claim of essentialism for particulars. I will then discuss criticisms of this view from a Wittgensteinian perspective. The concepts of surface grammar and depth grammar in the «Investigations» will be discussed, and I will then apply these concepts to the theory of forms to offer a econd critique from this perspective

Wittgenstein and post‐analytic philosophy of education: Rorty or Lyotard?

I was thinking about my philosophical work and saying to myself: ‘I destroy, I destroy, I destroy…’ Context: The ‘linguistic turn’ of Western philosophy (Heidegger's later works, the penetration of Anglo-American philosophies into European thought, the development of language technologies); and correlatively, the decline of universalist discourses (the metaphysical doctrines of modern times: narratives of progress, of socialism, of abundance, of knowledge). The weariness with regard to ‘theory’, and the miserable slackening that goes along with it (new this, new that, post-this, post-that, etc.). The time has come to philosophize. …there is no danger of philosophy's ‘coming to an end’. Religion did not come to an end in the Enlightenment, nor painting in Impressionism. Even if the period from Plato to Nietzsche is encapsulated and ‘distanced’ in the way Heidegger suggests, and even if twentieth-century philosophy comes to seem a stage of awkward transitional backing and filling (as sixteenth-century philosophy now seems to us), there will be something called ‘philosophy’ on the other side of the transition.

Squaring the Circle: Hobbes on Philosophy and Geometry

Squaring the Circle: Hobbes on Philosophy and Geometry Alexander Bird With great applause the algebrists then read Wallis his Algebra now published. A hundred years that geometrick pest Ago began, which did that age infest. The art of finding out the numbers sought, Which Diophantus once, and Geber taught: And then Vieta tells you that by this Each geometrick problem solved is. Savil the Oxford reader did supply Wallis with principles noble and high That infinite had end and finite should Have parts, but those without end allow’d; Both which opinions did enrage and scare All those who Geometricasters were. This was enough to set me writing ... 1 I. In 1655 Thomas Hobbes published his Elementorum Philosophiae Sectio Prima de Corpore, 2 in which he sets out the principles, methods, and ends of his philosophy, and his doctrines of the first part of that philosophy, which concerns body. Primary among these doctrines on body are his views on geometry. In among these Hobbes gave his solutions to several geometrical problems, including the quadrature of the circle, the ancient task of [End Page 217] constructing with ruler and compass a line equal in length to the circumference of any given circle, a problem which was not then known to have no analytic solution. Almost immediately there followed the refutation of Hobbes’s quadrature claim by the ex-roundhead cryptographer and then Savilian professor of geometry at Oxford, John Wallis. 3 These were the opening shots in a bitter dispute lasting eighteen years, in which Hobbes employed to the fullest degree his prodigious powers of invective and Wallis distinguished himself as the only mathematician to have taken Hobbes’s geometry seriously. Only three others—the Belgian philosopher Moranus, John Pell, sometime professor at Amsterdam and Breda, and Viscount Brounker—are known to have given it more than passing thought. Wallis, a pioneering mathematician, was himself a proud, bitter, and unpopular man. Hobbes was certainly not one to shy away from a fight. But his geometry plays a more significant part in his thought than is generally recognized. Following Wallis at least in this, I accord some earnest thought to Hobbes’s geometry and hope to show its roots in his most general thought on the nature of philosophy. Being closer to these general principles than, for example, his political work, the geometry serves reciprocally to illuminate the premises of Hobbes’s philosophy. I aim to show how an investigation of his geometry illuminates Hobbes’s views on metaphysics, logic, and philosophy of science. In common with his contemporaries Hobbes’s use of the term “philosophy” is broader than the use accorded today. In Hobbes’s case philosophy is, roughly speaking, the working out of the doctrines of logic and metaphysics to give knowledge of a particular sort. This knowledge may be divided according to its subject matter: body, man, and commonwealth. These “parts of philosophy” form a hierarchy extending, via moral philosophy (psychology), from the science of geometry to the science of politics, as the subject matter increases in size and complexity, from single bodies to complex commonwealths. This hierarchy is epistemic. That is to say, there is a reductionism according to which the principles of sciences higher up in the hierarchy, may be deduced from those lower. As we shall see, scientific argument is demonstrative (deductive) and is couched in terms of cause and effect. Cause and effect themselves operate only through motion. These are the most general principles of Hobbes’s philosophy. Thus the foundation of science is to be found in the most universal treatment of the simplest bodies of which others are composed. This foundational science is, according to Hobbes, geometry. Thus geometry is significant because (1) it lies at the foundation of Hobbes’s scientific hierarchy and (2) being foundational reflects more clearly than the other sciences Hobbes’s logical, epistemological, and metaphysical doctrines. [End Page 218] II. De Corpore, emphasizes Hobbes, deals with the fundamentals of philosophy, which he defines as “such knowledge of effects of appearances as we acquire by true ratiocination from the knowledge we have first of their causes or generation; And again of such causes or generations as may be from...

The Mathematical Development of Set Theory from Cantor to Cohen

Set theory is an autonomous and sophisticated field of mathematics, enormously successful not only at its continuing development of its historical heritage but also at analyzing mathematical propositions cast in set-theoretic terms and gauging their consistency strength. But set theory is also distinguished by having begun intertwined with pronounced metaphysical attitudes, and these have even been regarded as crucial by some of its great developers. This has encouraged the exaggeration of crises in foundations and of metaphysical doctrines in general. However, set theory has proceeded in the opposite direction, from a web of intensions to a theory of extensionpar excellence, and like other fields of mathematics its vitality and progress have depended on a steadily growing core of mathematical structures and methods, problems and results. There is also the stronger contention that from the beginning set theory actually developed through a progression ofmathematicalmoves, whatever and sometimes in spite of what has been claimed on its behalf.What follows is an account of the development of set theory from its beginnings through the creation of forcing based on these contentions, with an avowedly Whiggish emphasis on the heritage that has been retained and developed by current set theory. The whole transfinite landscape can be viewed as the result of Cantor's attempt to articulate and solve the Continuum Problem.

American Behaviorism

Behaviorism dominated mainstream American academic psychology from the 1920s for four or five decades. It emerged slowly under Watson from a background going back to Darwin and involving the development of comparative psychology in Britain, continental Europe and America. Watsonian behaviorism was a mixture of certain methodological principles and certain metaphysical doctrines. The main behaviorists were active experimenters and diligent theorists. They agreed with Watson and with each other on a few methodological principles but they disagreed on others. In respect of content they concentrated on learning, ignored perception and behavior genetics and had little to say on the taxonomy of motivation. Even in their principal field of investigation they could not agree on the nature and conditions of learning. Yet behaviorism has had a significant influence on mainstream empirical American psychology and for that matter elsewhere: while not confining itself to intersubjectively testable data, it has become critical in respect of data used; it has become rigorous in experimental design and more critical in theorizing. Although some of this could have been a trend which helped generate behaviorism it would seem to be mainly a heritage from behaviorism itself.

Leibniz on Divine Foreknowledge of Future Contingents and Human Freedom

The issue of freedom and contingency as it appears in the works of Leibniz is one that has frustrated and fascinated students of Leibniz beyond measure. Since the publication of Bertrand Russell's A Critical Exposition of Leibniz's Philosophy in 1900, English-language discussions on this issue have focused on how Leibniz can have freedom and contingency as part of his given the logical, metaphysical, and modal doctrines he wants to defend. These discussions usually begin with an exposition of some set of logical, metaphysical, or modal doctrines that Leibniz endorsed and proceed through a protracted attempt to reconcile the set with some notion of freedom or contingency. In addition, these discussions have often taken for granted, and in fact modelled, the popular notion, endorsed and promoted by Russell, that Leibniz begins his philosophizing with a certain set of logical or metaphysical doctrines he wishes to defend, and then proceeds to build a system around them. However, as more of Leibniz's work becomes available to us this model of Leibniz's work seems less and less accurate. It is now becoming clear that for Leibniz, as for most figures in the history of philosophy, numerous factors were responsible for leading him to the claims he endorsed. One of these factors which has received surprisingly little attention in the English-language literature on Leibniz is the role that his theological commitments played in the development of his views. In this essay I would like to look at one facet of Leibniz's theological agenda in order to show that his thoughts on this matter profoundly impacted his views on freedom. The air in the seventeenth century was surely filled with as many theological disputes of central importance as any other prior to it or since. The Reformation had taken full hold and the theological factionalism that arose in its wake left the Catholic Church with more than just Luther and his progeny to worry about. One of the central disputes which raged, not only between Catholics and Protestants, but within Catholicism and Protestantism them-

The Political Aspects of Islamic Philosophy: Essays in Honor of Muhsin S. Mahdi

This volume consists of nine essays on the political teaching of such Muslim philosophers as al-Kindi and al-Razi, as well as the more familiar al-Farabi, Avicenna, Ibn Bajjah, Ibn Tufayl, and Averroes. It makes a contribution to the study of Islamic philosophy, which has thus far emphasized the metaphysical and illuminationist doctrines of Islamic, and especially Iranian, philosophy. Muhsin Mahdi's exploration of how political questions are addressed by the philosophical tradition is perhaps his most important contribution to medieval Islamic studies. So it is fitting that this book, intended to honour him on his 65th birthday, focuses exclusively on his specialty, and that these original essays are written by scholars who completed their post-graduate training under his supervision. This book strives to bring to light the political teaching of philosophers, who are usually considered totally apolitical. Responding to a long-recognized need, and aiming to chart a revolutionary course for future scholarship, it should appeal to students and scholars as well as to general readers seeking clarity about what lies behind current Islamic politics. It should also be welcomed for its presentation of previously ignored material about particular thinkers and its analyses of key texts in Islamic philosophy.

Nietzsche's Ethics of History

In On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life Nietzsche sets forth prescriptions for placing history in the service of human excellence. Nietzsche's prescriptions are based on a substantive metaphysical doctrine and a definite conception of human needs and capacities. Contrary to the dominant trends in recent scholarship that depict Nietzsche as primarily a teacher of antifoundationalism, historicism, and perspectivism, in his major thematic statement on the matter Nietzsche views history as a means to discover and to display nonhistorical and enduring knowledge about human nature and the rank order of desires, human types, and forms of life. For Nietzsche, the task of the “genuine historian” is nothing less than the transformation of history into poetry in the effort to defend wisdom, to distinguish nobility from baseness, and to establish the love of truth as a resplendent vice and noble faith. Nietzsche's account of the right use of history suggests an underappreciated unity in his writings by raising the possibility that in his several histories Nietzsche wrote from the perspective, and assumed the responsibility, of the genuine historian.

Diderot et le confucianisme : autour du terme Ju-kiao de l'article *Chinois (Philosophie des)

Takeshi Koseki: Diderot and Confucisnism (the article PHILOSOPHIE DES CHINOIS). An analysis of several Encyclopédie articles, in particular CHINOIS (PHILOSOPHIE DES) enables the author to question the generally held opinion that Diderot was hostile to the Chinese. In this article we find an apparent contradiction between Diderot's praise for Confucius's moral philosophy and his criticism of Mediæval Chinese sects, in particular Ju-kiau, which is in fact Confucianism. However, as we see in d'Holbach's article JUKIAO, this was considered, following du Halde, the founder of 18th-century Chinese studies, to be a later sect which presented a corrupt form of Confucisnism. Diderot's criticism is thus not directed towards Confucianism, which he respects for its practical moral philosophy, but to the obscure metaphysical doctrines of Ju-kiao.