Download or read book Aristotle on Teleology written by Monte Ransome Johnson and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2005-11-03 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Monte Johnson examines one of the most controversial aspects of Aristiotle's natural philosophy: his teleology. Is teleology about causation or explanation? Does it exclude or obviate mechanism, determinism, or materialism? Is it focused on the good of individual organisms, or is god or man the ultimate end of all processes and entities? Is teleology restricted to living things, or does it apply to the cosmos as a whole? Does it identify objectively existent causes in the world, or is it merely a heuristic for our understanding of other causal processes? Johnson argues that Aristotle's aporetic approach drives a middle course between these traditional oppositions, and avoids the dilemma, frequently urged against teleology, between backwards causation and anthropomorphism. Although these issues have been debated with extraordinary depth by Aristotle scholars, and touched upon by many in the wider philosophical and scientific community as well, there has been no comprehensive historical treatment of the issue. Aristotle is commonly considered the inventor of teleology, although the precise term originated in the eighteenth century. But if teleology means the use of ends and goals in natural science, then Aristotle was rather a critical innovator of teleological explanation. Teleological notions were widespread among his predecessors, but Aristotle rejected their conception of extrinsic causes such as mind or god as the primary causes for natural things. Aristotle's radical alternative was to assert nature itself as an internal principle of change and an end, and his teleological explanations focus on the intrinsic ends of natural substances - those ends that benefit the natural thing itself. Aristotle's use of ends was subsequently conflated with incompatible 'teleological' notions, including proofs for the existence of a providential or designer god, vitalism and animism, opposition to mechanism and non-teleological causation, and anthropocentrism. Johnson addresses these misconceptions through an elaboration of Aristotle's methodological statements, as well as an examination of the explanations actually offered in the scientific works.
Download or read book The Sentences written by Peter Lombard (Bishop of Paris) and published by Sapientia Press Ave Maria Univ. This book was released on 2016 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although he wrote sermons, letters, and commentaries on Holy Scripture, Lombard's Four Books of Sentences (1148-51) established his reputation and subsequent fame, earning him the title of magister senteniarum ("master of the sentences: ). The Sentences, a collection of teachings of the Church Fathers and opinions of medieval masters arranged as a systematic treatise, marked the culmination of a long tradition of theological pedagogy, and until the 16th century it was the official textbook in the universities. Hundreds of scholars wrote commentaries on it, including the celebrated philosopher St. Thomas Aquinas.
Download or read book Politics and Teleology in Kant written by Tatiana Patrone and published by University of Wales Press. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume critically examines and elucidates the complex relationship between politics and teleology in Kant's philosophical system. Examining this relationship is of key philosophical importance since Kant develops his political philosophy in the context of a teleological conception of the purposiveness of both nature and human history. Kant's approach poses the dual task of reconciling his normative political theory with both his priori moral philosophy and his teleological philosophy of nature and human history. The fourteen essays in this volume, by leading scholars in the field, explore the relationship between teleology and politics from multiple perspectives. Together, the essays explore Kant's normative political theory and legal philosophy, his cosmopolitanism and views on international relations, his theory of history, his theory of natural teleology, and the broader relationship between morality, history, nature and politics in Kant's works. This important new volume will be of interest to a wide audience, including Kant scholars, scholars and students working on topics in moral and political philosophy, the philosophy of history, political theory and political science, legal scholars and international relations theorists, as well as those interested broadly in the history of ideas.
Download or read book Vital Forces Teleology and Organization written by Andrea Gambarotto and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-10-03 with total page 137 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book offers a comprehensive account of vitalism and the Romantic philosophy of nature. The author explores the rise of biology as a unified science in Germany by reconstructing the history of the notion of “vital force,” starting from the mid-eighteenth through the early nineteenth century. Further, he argues that Romantic Naturphilosophie played a crucial role in the rise of biology in Germany, especially thanks to its treatment of teleology. In fact, both post-Kantian philosophers and naturalists were guided by teleological principles in defining the object of biological research. The book begins by considering the problem of generation, focusing on the debate over the notion of “formative force.” Readers are invited to engage with the epistemological status of this formative force, i.e. the question of the principle behind organization. The second chapter provides a reconstruction of the physiology of vital forces as it was elaborated in the mid- to late-eighteenth century by the group of physicians and naturalists known as the “Göttingen School.” Readers are shown how these authors developed an understanding of the animal kingdom as a graded series of organisms with increasing functional complexity. Chapter three tracks the development of such framework in Romantic Naturphilosophie. The author introduces the reader to the problem of classification, showing how Romantic philosophers of nature regarded classification as articulated by a unified plan that connects all living forms with one another, relying on the idea of living nature as a universal organism. In the closing chapter, this analysis shows how the three instances of pre-biological discourse on living beings – theory of generation, physiology and natural history – converged to form the consolidated disciplinary matrix of a general biology. The book offers an insightful read for all scholars interested in classical German philosophy, especially those researching the philosophy of nature, as well as the history and philosophy of biology.
Download or read book Inside Versus Outside written by Harald Atmanspacher and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In our daily lives we conceive of our surroundings as an objectively given reality. The world is perceived through our senses, and ~hese provide us, so we believe, with a faithful image of the world. But occ~ipnally we are forced to realize that our senses deceive us, e. g. , by illusions. For a while it was believed that the sensation of color is directly r~lated to the frequency of light waves, until E. Land (the inventor of the polaroid camera) showed in detailed experiments that our perception of, say, a colored spot depends on the colors of its surrounding. On the other hand, we may experience hallucinations or dreams as real. Quite evidently, the relationship between the "world" and our "brain" is intricate. Another strange problem is the way in which we perceive time or the "Now". Psychophysical experiments tell us that the psychological "Now" is an extended period of time in the sense of physics. The situation was made still more puzzling when, in the nineteen-twenties, Heisenberg and others realized that, by observing processes in the microscopic world of electrons and other elementary particles, we strongly interfere with that world. The outcome of experiments - at least in general - can only be predicted statistically. What is the nature ofthis strange relationship between "object" and "observer"? This is another crucial problem of the inside-outside or endo-exo dichotomy.
Download or read book The Principle of Teleology in the Critical Philosophy of Kant written by David R. Major and published by . This book was released on 1897 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Freedom Teleology and Evil written by Stewart Goetz and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2011-10-27 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Freedom, Teleology, and Evil Stewart Goetz defends the existence of libertarian freedom of the will. He argues that choices are essentially uncaused events with teleological explanations in the form of reasons or purposes. Because choices are uncaused events with teleological explanations, whenever agents choose they are free to choose otherwise. Given this freedom to choose otherwise, agents are morally responsible for how they choose. Thus, Goetz advocates and defends the principle of alternative possibilities which states that agents are morally responsible for a choice only if they are free to choose otherwise. Finally, given that agents have libertarian freedom, Goetz contends that this freedom is integral to the construction of a theodicy which explains why God allows evil.
Download or read book Anthropology History and Education written by Immanuel Kant and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-11-29 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2007 volume contains all of Kant's major writings on human nature.
Download or read book Explanation and Teleology in Aristotle s Science of Nature written by Mariska Leunissen and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-08-26 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Aristotle's teleological view of the world, natural things come to be and are present for the sake of some function or end (for example, wings are present in birds for the sake of flying). Whereas much of recent scholarship has focused on uncovering the (meta-)physical underpinnings of Aristotle's teleology and its contrasts with his notions of chance and necessity, this book examines Aristotle's use of the theory of natural teleology in producing explanations of natural phenomena. Close analyses of Aristotle's natural treatises and his Posterior Analytics show what methods are used for the discovery of functions or ends that figure in teleological explanations, how these explanations are structured, and how well they work in making sense of phenomena. The book will be valuable for all who are interested in Aristotle's natural science, his philosophy of science, and his biology.
Download or read book Current Issues in Teleology written by Nicholas Rescher and published by . This book was released on 1986 with total page 160 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents a collection of twelve essays on teleological explanation in the natural sciences dealing with considerations regarding teleological concepts in biology to the role of teleology in the human sciences and even in cosmology. Co-published with the Center for Philosophy of Science.
Download or read book Theory of Ethics written by Immanuel Kant and published by . This book was released on 1873 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Principle of Teleology in the Critical Philosophy of Kant written by David R. Major and published by . This book was released on 2018-02-13 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Kant s Doctrine of Teleology written by Elijah Everett Kresge and published by . This book was released on 1914 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Principle of Teleology written by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-06-26 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This essay-a thesis accepted for the Cornell doctorate-consists of two parts, the first historical, the second expository and critical. Part I. traces the influences that led to the acceptance of a tripartite division of mind (intellect, feeling, will) in place of the older bipartite division. It also shows that Kant's original intention, in writing a third Critique, was to establish a priori principles of the new faculty of feeling; and argues that the combination of the Critiques of Taste and of Teleology into a single Critique of Judgment was due to the fact that both alike were seen to centre round the idea of purposiveness. Part II indicates the need of mediation, formal and real, between the two Critiques of theoretical and of practical philosophy. The real opposition between them is to be found, primarily and chiefly, in the admission or rejection of the concept of freedom. By an elaborate analysis of Kant s theory of the beautiful, and a discussion of his use of the principle of teleology as applied to organic nature, the author is able to make it clear that the Critique of Judgment effects the desired real reconciliation. A concluding section suggests that Kant would have allowed objective validity to the teleological principle, had not the table of categories in the K. d. r. V. been already complete. -Mind [1898]
Download or read book The Cambridge Rawls Lexicon written by Jon Mandle and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014-12-11 with total page 1112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: John Rawls is widely regarded as one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, and his work has permanently shaped the nature and terms of moral and political philosophy, deploying a robust and specialized vocabulary that reaches beyond philosophy to political science, economics, sociology, and law. This volume is a complete and accessible guide to Rawls' vocabulary, with over 200 alphabetical encyclopaedic entries written by the world's leading Rawls scholars. From 'basic structure' to 'burdened society', from 'Sidgwick' to 'strains of commitment', and from 'Nash point' to 'natural duties', the volume covers the entirety of Rawls' central ideas and terminology, with illuminating detail and careful cross-referencing. It will be an essential resource for students and scholars of Rawls, as well as for other readers in political philosophy, ethics, political science, sociology, international relations and law.
Download or read book The Principle of Teleology in the Critical Philosophy of Kant by David R Major written by David R. Major and published by Palala Press. This book was released on 2018-02-23 with total page 118 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Download or read book Teleological Explanations written by Larry Wright and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-08-19 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1976.
