If you dislike the conclusion of an argument by reductio, you can rebrand it as a paradox. We did this with Zeno, and more recently McTaggart. But what - if anything - is the principle at play? Is this practice of rebranding justified? Here I argue that sometimes, under certain conditions, it is. The reason why emerges from careful study of paradox and reductio in the distinctively socio-political logic of Ab & umacr; Nasr al-F & amacr;r & amacr;b & imacr;, the Arabic philosophical tradition's 'Second Teacher' (after Aristotle). As we will see, al-F & amacr;r & amacr;b & imacr; gives us a roadmap for a direction suggested by Quine.
This paper reflects on experiences teaching courses on women thinkers from antiquity and the medieval period. The discussion is built around a proposed syllabus (similar to one used in teaching at King's College London) which includes readings on women in ancient, medieval, and Renaissance European philosophy, as well as ancient China and India, the medieval Islamic world, and African oral traditions. The paper concludes with general reflections about the whole idea of building a course around female authors.
This paper argues that Spinoza is best understood as a necessitarian of a particularly radical kind: one who holds not only that the possible and the actual are coextensive, but further that the domain of actuality is as broad as the domain of conceivability. I call this view 'expansive necessitarianism' and contrast it with the more familiar 'restrictive necessitarianism'. However, while EIp16 and related texts support a plenitudinous ontology, plenitude alone does not explain why the system of finite modes must take on the unique arrangement that it does. In this paper, I develop three Spinozistic constraints that sharply narrow the apparent possibility space: (i) the requirement that the series of finite modes is ontologically exhaustive, (ii) the infinite complexity of the laws of nature, and (iii) the universal causal integration entailed by Spinoza's denial of the possibility of a physical vacuum. Together, these constraints eliminate all but one possible arrangement of finite modes, and Spinoza's necessitarianism emerges as a distinctive and hitherto underappreciated metaphysics of modality.
Kant accuses the traditional metaphysician of not only transgressing the bounds of possible experience, but also misjudging her favoured real entities to be given in experience - resulting in the error of subreption. Unfortunately, Kant's general diagnosis of how and why subreptions arise is far from obvious. I argue that progress can be made by first reconstructing the neglected pioneering diagnosis offered by Christian Wolff. On Wolff's view, subreptions are predicated on feigning notions in the imagination. I propose that Kant's departure from Wolff can be fruitfully framed as an internecine dispute: not over whether the imagination underlies both the heuristic use of certain notions and subreptions involving them, but over how it does so.
While often overlooked, loss and grief play a fundamental role in Spinoza's practical philosophy. In this paper, I offer the first comprehensive reconstruction of Spinoza's account of loss and grief, focusing on the Latin term desiderium and the Dutch term beklag. Three main theses are advanced. First, Spinoza regards loss not just as one affection among many but as the fundamental event underlying all sad passions, distinguishing between two determinations of desire: cupiditas and desiderium. Second, Spinoza provides a rich and philosophically significant account of grief, structured around three key claims: (1) The object of loss is the powers and capacities constitutive of one's individual striving: in experiencing loss, we do not lose something we possess but something we are; (2) Grief arises when a unique and irreplaceable configuration of powers central to one's striving is lost permanently or for an indeterminate time; (3) Accommodating loss involves a transformation of one's individual striving, such that the desires and powers defining one's existence change radically; Third and finally, his analysis of loss and grief supports nuanced interpretations of Spinoza that assign sad affects a crucial constitutive role in the cultivation of the good life, both at the individual and collective levels.
Conventional portrayals of Thales of Miletus as the first natural philosopher (phusiologos) often revolve around his materialist cosmology with water as the principle (arch & emacr;) of all things. This paper reconstructs a lesser-known and largely lost late ancient tradition that saw in Thales a metaphysician who anticipated a vaguely proto-Neoplatonic theology. It then argues that such late ancient reinterpretations constitute the missing link between the classical image of Thales and his reception in Islamic doxographies, particularly in the Arabic ps.-Ammonius. Thus, by closely examining the Greek and Latin evidence that paved the way for Thales Arabus, this paper advances two conjectures: (1) the metaphysically charged reading of Thales predates the advent of the Graeco-Arabic translation movement (and creatively expounds on the Aristotelian evidence), and (2) ps.-Ammonius ultimately relies on a lost Greek Vorlage, preserved through the Neoplatonizing (likely Syriac-Christian) currents of late antique apologetics and syncretism.
This paper reconsiders Hegel's account of madness in the Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences and the Lectures on the Philosophy of Subjective Spirit. Hegel characterizes mental disorder as a disruption rooted in the natural determinacy of the mind, while simultaneously insisting on its necessary relation to rationality and maintaining their conceptual separation. Against this background, his emphasis on humane treatment, grounded in the presupposed rationality of patients, raises tensions that invite further scrutiny. By examining the systematic position of madness within the Anthropology, the paper explores whether it may be interpreted as a point of inflection in processes of social reproduction, drawing on the conceptual resources of Marxist-feminist theory. Madness emerges not merely as dysfunction but as a phenomenon embedded within the reproduction of forms of life. In dialogue with Freud's theory of the symptom, the paper concludes by proposing that psychic disturbance may be understood as a mode of participation in sociality, rather than its breakdown. This interpretive shift re-evaluates Hegel's account and outlines a framework for conceiving mental disorder as a moment within, rather than outside, minded and rational life.
Resolution plays a defining role in Descartes' conception of virtue, but it is not obvious why resolution has such a prominent place in Cartesian ethics, and what Descartes says on the matter admits of different interpretations. I survey three ways of explaining the importance of being resolute for Descartes: (1) the decision-theoretic analysis, according to which resolution optimises decisional outcomes in a proto-decision-theoretic manner; (2) the deontological analysis, according to which in being resolute we fulfill our duty to properly exercise our free will; and (3) the psychological consequentialist analysis, according to which resolution secures psychological tranquility by promoting contentment and avoiding the psychological turmoil of irresolution, especially that associated with regret. My central contention is that only the third, psychological consequentialist analysis ultimately explains the importance of being resolute in Descartes. As such, my argument brings out what I take to be the Epicurean underpinning of Descartes' ethical thought.
Given Hegel's well-known praise of private property, there is a surprising, and often under-emphasized, fact about his vision for rational social life: namely that most social members will own all their property in common with others - specifically with their family members. Indeed, by far the majority of social members in Hegel's rational state will be embedded in familial property unions: acting not as sole proprietors, but rather as 'representatives' of an underlying property collective, for which they bear legal and ethical responsibility. My thesis in this paper is that, perhaps because of this seeming tension, the prevalence of collective property in Hegel's Ethical Life has not been emphasized enough - but that it is, in fact, crucial to Hegel's view and of philosophical relevance for us today. In particular, I argue that, on a closer look, the prevalence of collective ownership in rational Ethical Life is (i) consistent with Hegel's praise of private property, (ii) central to Hegel's overall economic view (especially the 'taming' of the market), and (iii) relevant for our thinking about private property and its social place today.
This paper argues that Candrak & imacr;rti's (c. 7th century) systematic use of 'non-analysis' (avic & amacr;ra) functions not merely as a philosophical technique for preserving conventional reality from ultimate deconstruction, but also as embedded meditative guidance intended to foster contemplative realization. While contemporary scholarship has largely approached Madhyamaka through Western philosophical frameworks, this paper argues that Candrak & imacr;rti's corpus operates simultaneously as both dialectical discourse and contemplative exercise. Building upon Anne MacDonald's research on Candrak & imacr;rti's distinctive theory of yogic cognition - which operates through 'non-seeing' and the cessation of ordinary consciousness (vij & ntilde;& amacr;na) in favour of objectless gnosis (j & ntilde;& amacr;na) - this paper examines how his philosophical arguments function as techniques for gradually pacifying conceptual proliferation (prapa & ntilde;ca). Drawing on Candrak & imacr;rti's major works and Tibetan meditation guides by R & eacute;ndawa, Rongt & ouml;npa, and Ju Mipham, the paper traces how analytical refutations of intrinsic existence (svabh & amacr;va) serve as contemplative exercises that eventually transcend conceptualization itself. Candrak & imacr;rti's four-stage pedagogical framework outlines a progressive movement from conceptual negations towards a state beyond all philosophical positions - the 'noble silence' of realized practitioners. This reading resolves the apparent paradox of N & amacr;g & amacr;rjuna's rejection of theses while systematically deploying them, and shows that Candrak & imacr;rti's analytical sophistication is most clearly seen in his ability to bridge polemics and meditative insight.
This paper explains how the Chan Buddhists understood moral conduct by examining what they would consider to be moral constraints and how these functioned. Doing this will first require outlining the Chan Buddhist account of reality as metaphysically non-dualistic. One of the implications of non-duality is that each aspect of reality can be understood as thusness or as qualitatively unique. Building on the Chan Buddhist's account of thusness, I further explain how the Chan Buddhist provides a new account of what it means to be 'unconditional'. What we will see is that their account of reality holds that each aspect of existence participates in the same 'higher order' pattern of relationships or what some scholars call a holographic relationship. This reiterating, holographic relationship is what dictates how the Chan Buddhist would respond to situations and how their account of moral constraints would function.
