Bocheński and Balance: System and History in Analytic Philosophy

Using the work of Józef Bocheski as apositive example, this paper sets out the casefor a balanced use of historical knowledge indoing analytic philosophy. Between the twoextremes of relativizing historicism, whichdenies absolute truth, and arrogant scientism,which denies any constructive role for thehistory of ideas in philosophy, lies a viamedia in which historical reflection onconcepts and their history is placed at theservice of the system of cognitive philosophy.Knowledge of the history of philosophy, whilenot a sine qua non, can empower analyticphilosophy to push forward to new and moresatisfactory solutions to old and new problems.Examples are adduced from Bocheski's oeuvreand from the author's own experience.     

Reclamation from Absence? Luce Irigaray and Women in the History of Philosophy

Luce Irigaray's work does not present an obvious resource for projects seeking to reclaim women in the history of philosophy. Indeed, many authors introduce their reclamation project with an argument against conceptions, attributed to Irigaray or “French feminists” more generally, that the feminine is the excluded other of discourse. These authors claim that if the feminine is the excluded other of discourse, then we must conclude that even if women have written philosophy they have not given voice to feminine subjectivity; therefore, reclamation is a futile project. In this essay, I argue against such conclusions. Rather, I argue, Irigaray's work requires that philosophy be transformed through the reclamation of women's writing. She gives us a method of reclamation for the most difficult cases: those in which we have no record of women's writing. Irigaray offers this method through an engagement with the character of Diotima in Plato's Symposium. The method Irigaray demonstrates is reclamation as love.     

What can the Philosophy of Mathematics Learn from the History of Mathematics?

This article canvasses five senses in which one might introduce an historical element into the philosophy of mathematics: 1. The temporal dimension of logic; 2. Explanatory Appeal to Context rather than to General Principles; 3. Heraclitean Flux; 4. All history is the History of Thought; and 5. History is Non-Judgmental. It concludes by adapting Bernard Williams’ distinction between ‘history of philosophy’ and ‘history of ideas’ to argue that the philosophy of mathematics is unavoidably historical, but need not and must not merge with historiography.

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Philosophy of Education in the Public Sphere: The Case of “Relevance”

Universities are under increasing pressure to demonstrate the economic and social relevance of the research they produce. In the UK, for example, recent developments in the UK under the Research Excellence Framework (REF) suggest that future funding schemes will grant “significant additional recognition…where researchers build on excellent research to deliver demonstrable benefits to the economy, society, public policy, culture and quality of life” (HEFCE 2009). Having conceded that this and similar developments are likely to continue into the future, this paper explores the problematic ethical terrain facing philosophers of education under increasing pressure to produce work that has unambiguous, demonstrable practical value on terms offered by various funding regimes. A preliminary ethics of relevance is developed through an examination of the debate between John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas on the relationship between philosophy, public policy and public reason. The paper then articulates and defends a principle of legitimate relevance. This principle is then applied to the case of directing disciplinary competence in philosophy of education for the educational policy process as a means to producing social and economic benefits.     

The Nothing and the Ontological Difference in Heidegger's What is Metaphysics?

This essay gives an interpretation of Heidegger's “What is Metaphysics?” lecture in light of passages from his other writings and lecture courses of the period. This exegetical task is important, for interpreters of “What is Metaphysics?” have been confused by puzzling phrases in the lecture without noticing that Heidegger makes the same points in clearer terms elsewhere. In particular, these interpreters ignore Heidegger's crucial distinction between entities and the being of entities. Since Heidegger's “nothing” is an aspect of being, this difference is at the core of Heidegger's lecture. The present interpretation establishes a conditional conclusion: If the ontological difference makes sense, then we have a sound basis for understanding “What is Metaphysics?” and do not need to read Heidegger as an irrationalist who debunks science or rejects the principle of contradiction. This paper does not give independent justification for the ontological difference.     

Conjunctions and/or Disjunctions： Radical Empiricism in the History of Philosophy

William James challenged the traditions of British Empiricism （Hume） on one hand and German Idealism （Kant and Hegel） on the other. James＇ ＂Radical Empiricism＂ is a via media （＂middle road＂） between these divergent positions. His central points of contention are the ontological status of relationships and the correct analysis of experience. British Empiricism leaves us with a world of separate, particular facts, based on atomic sense impressions. Idealists, on the other hand, claim that all worldly phenomena are conjoined by one rational principle. According to James＇ account, neither side recognizes that both conjunctive and disjunctive relations are integral to experience. Furthermore, James＇ critique proved to influence A. N. Whitehead＇s philosophy of experience and orientation toward Hume and Kant. This essay situates James＇ philosophy in this polemical and historical context.     

Why did the new physics force out the old?

The aim of my paper is to demonstrate that Special Relativity and the early quantum theory were created within the same programme of statistical mechanics, thermodynamics and Maxwellian electrodynamics. I shall try to explain why classical mechanics and classical electrodynamics were “refuted” almost simultaneously or, in other words, why the quantum revolution and the relativistic one both took place at the beginning of the 20th century. I shall argue that the quantum and relativistic revolutions were simultaneous since they had a common origin—the clash between the fundamental theories of the second half of the 19th century that constituted the “body” of classical physics. The revolution's most dramatic point was Einstein's 1905 photon paper that laid the foundations of both special relativity and the old quantum theory. Hence the dialectic of the old theories is crucial for theory change. Later, classical physics was forced out by the joint development of quantum and relativistic sub‐programmes. The title of my paper can be reformulated in Bruno Latour's terms: The Einstein Revolution or Drawing Models Together.     

What’s in It for the Historian of Science? Reflections on the Value of Philosophy of Science for History of Science

In this article, I explore the value of philosophy of science for history of science. I start by introducing a distinction between two ways of integrating history and philosophy of science: historical philosophy of science (HPS) and philosophical history of science (PHS). I then offer a critical discussion of Imre Lakatos’s project to bring philosophy of science to bear on historical interpretation. I point out certain flaws in Lakatos’s project, which I consider indicative of what went wrong with PHS in the past. Finally, I put forward my own attempt to bring out the historiographical potential of philosophy of science. Starting from Norwood Russell Hanson’s insight that historical studies of science involve metascientific concepts, I argue that philosophical reflection on those concepts can be (and, indeed, has been) historiographically fruitful. I focus on four issues (epistemic values, experimentation, scientific discovery and conceptual change) and discuss their significance and utility for historiographical practice.     

The Importance of Competency-based Clinical Supervision and Training in the Twenty-first Century: Why Bother?

Providing clinical supervision is challenging. Responding to the provocative question, “Why competency-based clinical supervision?” this paper provides the rationale of greater accountability in transforming supervision practice to a competency-based one. This emphasizes a focus on strength-based competency assessment and continuous professional development. Competence, an essential defining ethical component, is described. The progression of historical development of competency-based approaches in psychology, the range of available competency-based applications, and the benefits of competency-based supervision practice are discussed.     

Why Not Open the Black Box of Journal Editing in Philosophy? Make Peer Reviews of Published Papers Available

Despite general agreement within philosophy that peer review is indispensable, its fairness and reliability is often questioned. This article suggests that such worries can to a large extent be met by adopting the practice that reviews as well as earlier versions of papers are made publicly available when the final version of a paper is published. This suggestion combines the advantages of transparency with the merits of anonymity of reviewers. While there are obstacles to this suggestion, the article argues that it would be worthwhile to implement it because it can help map patterns of conduct and secure confidence in the fairness and reliability of review procedures and journal editing within philosophy.     

How can we tell the Dancer from the Dance?: The Subject of Dance and the Subject of Philosophy

One of the most important aspects of Gilles Deleuzes philosophy is his criticism of the traditional concept of praxis. In Aristotelian philosophy praxis is properly oriented towards some end, and in the case of human action the ends of praxis are oriented towards the agents good life. Human goods are, for both Aristotle and contemporary neo-Aristotelians, determined by the potentials of human life such as rationality, communality, and speech. Deleuzes account of action, by contrast, liberates movement from an external end. In his books on cinema Deleuze argues that we need to think of events in terms of their power, and not as movements within an already determined image of life. In order to think events as such we need to confront the power of the virtual. This is achieved by a philosophy of life in which becoming is not a means towards the realisation of some end. Rather, becomings are best seen as counter-actualisations: ways in which the already-constituted actual world always bears a power to become other than it already is. If we consider dance in this new context, then dance is neither expressive of an already existing life, nor a pure act that is self-sufficient and self-constituting. Rather, dance is a confrontation with life as a plane of open and divergent becomings.     

Philosophy in the Act: The Socio-Political Relevance of Mamardašvili’s Philosophizing

Although topics in social and political philosophy might not be the first to associate with Mamarda?vili, it is argued in this paper that key concepts in his thought, viz. the concepts of form, thought, and culture come together, in the 1980s in particular, in a notion of civil society that goes deeper than that of many of his contemporaries. The relevance of his philosophy at this point is intensified by the specific nature of Soviet philosophical culture, but, it is argued, extends well beyond that, fully justifying his honorary title of “Georgian Socrates”.     

Why did he do it? attribution of obedience and the phenomenon of dispositional bias

Two studies are reported which demonstrate the influence of perceptual or ‘perspective’ variables in mediating attribution processes. In both studies subjects first observed a re-enactment of Milgram's (1963) experiment of obedience in which a ‘teacher’ obeys an experimenter's request to deliver dangerously high levels of shock. They were then asked to make judgements concerning the magnitude of situational forces acting upon the teacher and also to make inferences about his personality dispositions. Study I showed that passage of time can lead observers to assume more situational control when they were required to think and write about the witnessed re-enactment of the Milgram situation compared with observers who had no time to contemplate or who were prevented from doing so. Study II did not support the notion that focus of attribution is a simple function of what one pays attention to, or a function of the differing perspectives which actors and observers employ. Both of these results seriously challenge Jones and Nisbett's (1972) contention that the differences in attribution tendencies between actors and observers arise from the difference in perspective, Moreover, considerable evidence suggests that changes in situational and dispositional attributions may not follow a simple ‘zero-sum’ model, and that subjects seem to be unwilling to treat the two sources of control as if they were inversely correlated.     

Why is Ethics First Philosophy? Levinas in Phenomenological Context

This paper explores, from a phenomenological perspective, the conditions necessary for the possession of intentional content, i.e., for being intentionally directed toward the world. It argues that Levinas's concept of ethics as first philosophy makes an important contribution to this task. Intentional directedness, as understood here, is normatively structured. Levinas's ‘ethics’ can be understood as a phenomenological account of how our experience of the other subject as another subject takes place in the recognition of the normative force of a command. This supplies a condition that—as the paper shows by examining Husserl and Sartre on how our experience of the Other constitutes an ‘objective’ world—earlier phenomenologists have misunderstood, because they have treated ethical experience as ‘founded’ on a prior theory of representation (‘ontology’ in Levinas's language). Ethics is first philosophy because it is only by acknowledging the command in the ‘face’ of the Other that we can account for the sensitivity to the normative distinctions that structure intentional content. Throughout, the paper shows how Levinas's analyses, in Totality and Infinity, draw upon and develop the analyses of Husserl and Sartre.