Search results for "Western philosophy"
showing 10 items of 16 documents
Modeling Metaphysics: The Rise of Simulation and the Reversal of Platonism
2019
Philosophical reflection on and around Modeling and Simulation (M&S) is often focused on the ethical and epistemological implications of empirical findings or innovative methods within the field. In this paper I highlight some of the metaphysical implications of developments within M&S. I argue that the rise of simulation within and across scientific disciplines is accelerating the reversal of Platonism, whose emphasis on transcendence and reliance on hierarchical, static categories has dominated western philosophy for over two millennia. The success of M&S methodologies opens up new conceptual space for articulating a metaphysics of immanence that may provide a more adequate basis for unde…
The Bachelardian Tradition in the Philosophy of Science
2005
To present either Bachelard's epistemology or philosophy of science means, in some ways, to undertake the characterization of an original philosophical approach, one that perhaps begins with August...
A Hermeneutical Analysis of the InternalistApproachin the Philosophy of Sport
2015
Abstract In this paper, we make a hermeneutical analysis of internalism, the dominant tradition in the philosophy of sports. In order to accomplish this, we identify the prejudices that guide the internalist view of sports, namely the Platonic-Analytic prejudice introduced by Suits, one of the forefathers of internalism. Then, we critically analyze four consequences of following such a prejudice: a) its reductive nature, b) the production of a unrealistic view of sports, c) the vagueness of the idea of excellence; and d) the leap from the descriptive analysis of the sporting phenomenon to the setting of normative requirements for the practice of sports.
The Czech Nation: Between Czechoslovak and Czech Nationalism
2009
According to a popular saying, when Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918, it became an Austria-Hungary in miniature. This historian’s simile indicated that the nation-state of the Czechoslovaks displayed all the good and undesirable features of the Dual Monarchy. On the positive side, it was the only Central European polity where democracy survived throughout the interwar period. In general, the state was a welcoming home to three nations (the Czechs, Slovaks, and Ruthenians), and three sizeable minorities (Germans, Magyars, and Poles). The Czechoslovak economy (concentrated in the Czech lands, formerly Austria-Hungary’s most significant powerhouse) was the strongest in the region and enabled…
Forty Years of the Philosophy of Education in the Nordic Countries
1997
Abstract The authors of this section's article are of the opinion that the ‘pure’ philosophers in Scandinavia do not usually consider philosophy of education to be a philosophical discipline in line with other ‘hyphenated’ philosophies. They argue that the way that philosophy of education is viewed in the Nordic countries is more like how it is treated in English‐speaking countries, which is different from the German tradition where Bildung is historically both an educational and a philosophical concept. But Nordic contributors to philosophy of education, inspired by the main philosophical trends of the time, have perceived themselves in the last few decades as partakers in the general phil…
The fragility of Finnish parliamentary democracy at the moment when Prussianism fell
2019
The Finnish case is in many ways illustrative of the complexities of democratisation after World War I. Finland found itself at the nexus of a Swedish constitutional tradition, legalism and ideological controversies adopted from Imperial Germany, the radicalised Russian Revolution, and Western parliamentary democracy. After having been a model for reformers demanding women’s suffrage, for instance, the country found itself in autumn 1918 going in the opposite direction to almost all other European countries. This article analyses the fragility of Finnish parliamentary democracy then, contrasting it with longer-term trends supportive of democratisation. ‘Democracy’ had been the goal for mos…
The Ancient Commentators of Plato and Aristotle
2009
In late antiquity the works of Plato and Aristotle were subject to intense study, which eventually led to the development of a new literary form, the philosophical commentary. Until recently these commentaries were understood chiefly as sources of information for the masters, Plato and Aristotle, they commented upon. However, in recent years, it has become increasingly acknowledged that the commentators themselves - Aspasius, Alexander, Themistius, Porphyry, Proclus, Philoponus, Simplicius and others - even though they worked in the Platonist-Aristotelian framework, contributed to this tradition in original, innovative and significant ways such that their commentaries are philosophically im…
Talis hominibus fuit oratio qualis vita. Nietzsche y la narración de sí
2015
Ecce Homo certainly is an unconventional autobiography. Both its structure and its contents are in fact quite different from that traditionally adopted. First, in Ecce Homo life and literary production basically coincide; second, in that book Nietzsche deals with an “I” which is not the traditional “subject” of Western philosophy. In this paper I shall argue that in Ecce Homo Nietzsche tries to develop a new kind of subjectivity. In particular, Nietzsche rejects the idea of an unchanging, absolute, substance subject, and sees it as a mobile construction, something that can be described only insofar as it “becomes what it is”, that is, as it consciously reacts to its unavoidable destiny.
Locating the Self Within the Soul – Thirteenth-Century Discussions
2008
According to the traditional picture of the history of Western philosophy the High Middle Ages was intellectually Aristotelian, dominated by the Thomist approach. To some extent, this picture was formed already in the Early Modern Era, when many important thinkers distinguished their own philosophy from that of the scholastics. The university philosophy rejected by Descartes, for example, was indeed characteristically Aristotelian, and to a considerable extent even based on a thirteenth-century interpretation of Aristotle by Thomas Aquinas. It may be true that the scholastic philosophy, superseded in the seventeenth century by new approaches, was a direct extension of certain Classical tren…
Sourcebook for the History of the Philosophy of Mind
2014
Introduction.- I Soul as an entity.- 1. The soul and the mind in ancient philosophy (Juha Sihvola and Henrik Lagerlund).- 2. The soul and the mind in medieval and early modern theories (Henrik Lagerlund).- II Sense perception.- 1. Ancient theories (Miira Tuominen).- 2. Medieval theories (Simo Knuuttila & Pekka Karkkainen).- 3. Early modern theories (Tuomo Aho).- III Common sense, fantasy, and estimation.- 1. Common sense and fantasy in ancient philosophy (Miira Tuominen).- 2. Medieval theories of internal senses (Simo Knuuttila & Pekka Karkkainen).- 3. Renaissance theories of internal senses (Lorenzo Casini).- 4. Common sense and fantasy in the seventeenth and eighteenth century Tuomo Aho).…