One Foot in the Finite

One Foot in the Finite PDF Author: K. L. Evans
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810136147
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
One Foot in the Finite inspires a radical shift in our view of Melville’s project in Moby-Dick, for its guiding notion is that Melville uses his book to call into question the naturalism that distinguishes the early modern period in Europe. Naturalism is not only the idea that reality is exhausted by nature, or that there exists a domain of physical entities subject to autonomous laws and unaffected by human ingenuity; it also implies a counterpart, a world of pretense and deception, a domain of mental entities ontologically distinct from physical entities and therefore constituting a different realm. To naturalists, whales are part of the background of existing objects against which man assembles his various, subjective, rather arbitrary interpretations. But in Moby-Dick Melville casts upon the world a more ingenious eye, one free of the dualist veil. He confronts a basic misconception: that the contents of consciousness comprise a different order from physical life. He rubs out the dividing line modernity has drawn between the human world of names or concepts and the nonhuman world of plants, creatures, geological features, and natural forces. Melville’s philosophizing, carried by fiction, has dramatic consequence. It overturns our view of language as a system of mental representations that might turn out to represent falsely.

One Foot in the Finite

One Foot in the Finite PDF Author: K. L. Evans
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810136147
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
One Foot in the Finite inspires a radical shift in our view of Melville’s project in Moby-Dick, for its guiding notion is that Melville uses his book to call into question the naturalism that distinguishes the early modern period in Europe. Naturalism is not only the idea that reality is exhausted by nature, or that there exists a domain of physical entities subject to autonomous laws and unaffected by human ingenuity; it also implies a counterpart, a world of pretense and deception, a domain of mental entities ontologically distinct from physical entities and therefore constituting a different realm. To naturalists, whales are part of the background of existing objects against which man assembles his various, subjective, rather arbitrary interpretations. But in Moby-Dick Melville casts upon the world a more ingenious eye, one free of the dualist veil. He confronts a basic misconception: that the contents of consciousness comprise a different order from physical life. He rubs out the dividing line modernity has drawn between the human world of names or concepts and the nonhuman world of plants, creatures, geological features, and natural forces. Melville’s philosophizing, carried by fiction, has dramatic consequence. It overturns our view of language as a system of mental representations that might turn out to represent falsely.

Selected Spiritual Writings

Selected Spiritual Writings PDF Author: Cardinal Nicholas (of Cusa)
Publisher: Paulist Press
ISBN: 9780809136988
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
For the first time in one volume in English are the spiritual writings of this outstanding intellectual figure (1401-1464) whose work anticipated modern problems of ecumenicity and pluralism, empowerment and reconciliation, and tolerance and individuality.

The Immanence of the Infinite

The Immanence of the Infinite PDF Author: Elizabeth Brient
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 9780813210896
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Most scholars would agree that there is an epochal threshold between the world of the Middle Ages and the modern world. Agreement on the nature and dynamic structure of that threshold is harder to come by. Hans Blumenberg's original and compelling account of the transition from medieval to modern, given in his 1966 work The Legitimacy of the Modern Age, has received wide attention. Elizabeth Brient begins her own account of the transition with an extensive, critical assessment of central aspects of Blumenberg's work. She elucidates his "dialogical" method of historical explanation, then discusses the shortcomings of his defense of the "legitimacy" of modernity. The transition to the modern world is marked by the process of making infinite the finite medieval cosmos. Whereas Blumenberg focused on the spatial infinitization of the universe, Brient claims that the process must be understood intensively as well as extensively. In the now-infinite universe of the new science, the problem of finding a measure for man's self-assertive activity, and for human knowledge, comes to the fore. The second half of the book focuses on the way in which this difficulty is addressed with conceptual resources developed in the tradition of late medieval Neoplatonism, in particular in the speculative thought of Meister Eckart and Nicholas of Cusa. Specific attention is given to the way in which Cusanus' notion of the immanence of the infinite in the finite responds to the need for a regulative ideal for human knowing. This is the first book-length treatment of Blumenberg to appear in English and will be a most welcome resource for readers engaged by debates concerning the status of modernity. It will be of equal interest to students of Eckhart and Cusanus, and to those generally concerned with the transition between the medieval and the modern world. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Elizabeth Brient is Assistant Professor of philosophy at The University of Georgia. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: "Blumenberg could not have wished for a more reverent critique of his achievements or a more exacting textual exegesis regarding the sources of their philosophical content, all written in a lucid style that is forthright in the defense of the depth of thought during the Middle Ages but also pleasing in its subtle irony with respect to Blumenberg's and the author's own metaphysical creed."- Walter F. Veit, Speculum "Brient's analysis of Blumenberg's philosophy sheds significant light in the debate concerning modernity. . . ." --Albrecht Classen, University of Arizona, German Studies Review

Cusanus

Cusanus PDF Author: Peter J. Casarella
Publisher: CUA Press
ISBN: 0813214262
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
This volume offers a detailed historical background to Cusanus's thinking while also assaying his significance for the present. It brings together major contributions from the English-speaking world as well as voices from Europe.

The Usefullness of Mathematical Learning

The Usefullness of Mathematical Learning PDF Author: Isaac Barrow
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317845536
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 307

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Book Description
This is a collection of mathematical lectures that were read in the Publick Schools at the University of Cambridge and was originally published in 1734. It includes twenty-three lectures which range in topic from the name and general division of mathematical sciences, to An answer to Borellus' Objections.

The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle

The Dictionary Historical and Critical of Mr. Peter Bayle PDF Author: Pierre Bayle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Biography
Languages : en
Pages : 1028

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Book Description


Henry of Harclay

Henry of Harclay PDF Author: Mark G Henninger
Publisher: OUP/British Academy
ISBN: 9780197263815
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
This volume completes the first full critical edition of the later work of the medieval philosopher and theologian Henry of Harclay, together with an English translation prepared in collaboration with Raymond Edwards. Questions 1-14 were published as volume XVII in the Auctores series.

The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume One

The Complete Works of Aristotle, Volume One PDF Author: Aristotle
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400835844
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 1265

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Book Description
Volume one of the acclaimed Oxford translation of Aristotle’s works—now fully revised and expanded Originally published in twelve volumes between 1912 and 1954, the Oxford translation of Aristotle is universally recognized as the standard English version of the great philosopher’s works. This revised edition has been fully updated in the light of modern scholarship while remaining faithful to the substance and vibrancy of the original translation. Now available in two volumes with three new translations and an enlarged selection of Fragments, The Complete Works of Aristotle makes the surviving writings of Aristotle readily accessible to a new generation of English-speaking readers.

Fundamental Philosophy ... Translated ... by Henry F. Brownson

Fundamental Philosophy ... Translated ... by Henry F. Brownson PDF Author: Jaime Luciano Balmes
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 574

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Book Description


Philosophy of Mathematics in Antiquity and in Modern Times

Philosophy of Mathematics in Antiquity and in Modern Times PDF Author: Ulrich Felgner
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3031273044
Category : Mathematics
Languages : en
Pages : 314

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Book Description
»Philosophy of Mathematics« is understood, in this book, as an effort to clarify such questions that mathematics itself raises but cannot answer with its own methods. These include, for example, questions about the ontological status of mathematical objects (e.g., what is the nature of mathematical objects?) and the epistemological status of mathematical theorems (e.g., from what sources do we draw when we prove mathematical theorems?). The answers given by Plato, Aristotle, Euclid, Descartes, Locke, Leibniz, Kant, Cantor, Frege, Dedekind, Hilbert and others will be studied in detail. This will lead us to deep insights, not only into the history of mathematics, but also into the conception of mathematics as it is commonly held in the present time. The book is a translation from the German, however revised and considerably expanded. Various chapters have been completely rewritten.