In this rich collection of philosophical writings, Stanley Rosen addresses a wide range of topics-from eros, poetry, and freedom to problems like negation and the epistemological status of sense perception. Though diverse in subject, Rosen’s essays share two unifying principles: there can be no legitimate separation of textual hermeneutics from philosophical analysis, and philosophical investigation must be oriented in terms of everyday language and experience, although it cannot simply remain within these confines. Ordinary experience provides a minimal criterion for the assessment of extraordinary discourses, Rosen argues, and without such a criterion we would have no basis for evaluating conflicting discourses: philosophy would give way to poetry.Philosophical problems are not so deeply embedded in a specific historical context that they cannot be restated in terms as valid for us today as they were for those who formulated them, the author maintains. Rosen shows that the history of philosophy-a story of conflicting interpretations of human life and the structure of intelligibility-is a story that comes to life only when it is rethought in terms of the philosophical problems of our own personal and historical situation.

Exploring the rupture between Wittgenstein's early and late phases, Michael Smith provides an original re-assessment of the metaphysical consistencies that exist throughout his divergent texts. Smith shows how Wittgenstein's criticism of metaphysics typically invoked the very thing he was seeking to erase. Taking an alternative approach to the inherent contradiction in his work, the 'problem of metaphysics', as Smith terms it, becomes the organizing principle of Wittgenstein's thought rather than something to overcome. This metaphysical thread enables further reflection on the poetic nature of Wittgenstein's philosophy as well as his preoccupation with ethics and aesthetics as important factors mostly absent from the secondary literature. The turn to aesthetics is crucial to a re-assessment of Wittgenstein's legacy, and is done in conjunction with an innovative analysis of Nietzsche's critique of Kantian aesthetics and Kant's 'judgments of taste'. The result is a unique discussion of the limits and possibilities of metaphysics, aesthetics, ethics and the task of the philosopher more generally.

In this remarkably clear and original study of the Tractatus Peter Carruthers has two principal aims. He seeks to make sense of Wittgenstein's metaphysical doctrines, showing how powerful arguments may be deployed in their support. He also aims to locate the crux of the conflict between Wittgenstein's early and late philosophies. This is shown to arise from his earlier commitment to the objectivity of logic and logical relations, which is the true target of attack of his later discussion of rule-following. Within this general framework Dr Carruthers explores a number of themes, including the early Wittgenstein's doctrine of the priority of logic over metaphysics, the nature and purpose of his programme of analysis for ordinary language and the various possible arguments supporting the existence of Simples. He offers many original interpretations and defends them with considerable attention to textual detail, yet the book's clarity and directness will make it accessible to anyone acquainted with the Tractatus. It will be required reading for all serious students of Wittgenstein's philosophy.

This is Volume II of five in a series on Epistemology and Metaphysics. Originally published in 1955, this text has main areas: that change which has come over philosophy as we have come to realize how very strange philosophical questions are and presents a certain new view of philosophy and its associated new philosophical procedure; second, it presents typical philosophical disputes and illustrates the new procedure, asking what has led philosophers to say the extraordinary things they have said. At this stage the study aims to carry this inquiry only far enough to reveal some of the confusions, excuses and reasons behind philosophical doctrines. Finally, the inquiry is carried further and submits that there are often causes for adherence to a philosophical theory, deeper than those which appear when we ask the reasons for the theory. In illustration of this it ventures in outline a surmise as to one of the deeper sources which lie behind the old and phoenix-like paradox ‘Change is unreal’.

In this book, setting aside his consideration of specifically ethical topics, I try to provide a comprehensive interpretation of Moore's thought. Against the background of this general interpretation I examine in detail his work on some of the central problems of metaphysics and, because Moore's being able to sustain a consistent anti-skepticism is essential to the survival of the base from which he works on those problems, of epistemology too. The interpretation of which I speak involves my taking as the centerpiece of Moore's philosophical work his book, Some Main Problems of Philosophy, written in 1910 as the text of a lecture series but left unpublished for over forty years thereafter. That book is aptly titled, for the issues with which Moore deals in it are indeed among the main problems of philosophy. Not least of these are the problems of formulating a general categorial deSCription of the world and then of defending that formulation. However, while I will discuss Moore's work in light of its contribution to this project of taking metaphysical inventory, it is important to note that he, in common with many other major figures in contemporary analytical philosophy, did not approach specific philosophical puzzles with a view to possibly integrating solutions to them into a comprehensive theory about reality as a whole, that is, into what might be called a metaphysical system.

In the summer of 1960 I visited Oxford and stayed there several months. This book was written as some slight memorial of my days in that ancient seat of learning. It is my pleasant duty to acknowledge the great debt I own to Mr. D. Lyness in the task of putting it into English. In addition I remember with gratitude Dr. J. L. Ackrill of Brasenose College, who gave me unfailing encouragement, and also Dr. R. A. Rees of Jesus College, who read my manuscript through and subjected it to a minute revision. Lastly for permission to quote from Sir W. D. Ross' translation of Aristotle's Metaphysics, I have to thank the editors of Oxford University Press. Kyoto, Japan T.A. 61 Sep.19 . To answer the readers' complaints that the first edition did not ex plain the author's attitude towards metaphysics, one more chapter on new positivism was written in 1966, but the publication was delayed till the second edition. Special thanks are due to Mr. E. B. Brooks for his assistance in writing English, to Prof. Philip P. Wiener, and to Dr. R. A. Rees, both for some kind services. T. A. Okayama 1973 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I I. THE ORIGIN OF THE CONCEPT OF METAPHYSICS I. Reimer's Theory 3 2. Aristotle's Metaphysics 6 II. THE TRADITION OF THE CONCEPT OF METAPHYSICS Ancient Interpretations 1.

Metaphysics as a branch of philosophyMetaphysics is the Greek term which, in simple terms, it means, 'the things after the physics' (from Aristotle's works META TA PHYSICA = that branch of philosophy which studies the most general categories and concepts which are presupposed in descriptions of ourselves and the world. Examples are causality, substance, ontology, time, and reality. Metaphysical questions have a very broad scope. Whereas the physical scientist might ask 'How does x cause y?' the metaphysician asks 'What does it mean for anything to cause anything else?' Whereas the chemist might investigate particular substances, the metaphysician asks what it means to be a substance, and whether there is one basic substance, or many. Metaphysical questions can become the subject of more specialised philosophical inquiry. We can ask whether our actions are subject to causality, which gives rise to the problem of free will, and the question of whether our mental experiences involve a separate substance from body is a major issue in the philosophy of mind. Although metaphysics dates back to the ancient Greeks, there have been occasions on which its status as a legitimate inquiry have been questioned. The rise of science in the 17th century led to attempts by philosophers such as Hume and Locke to limit the claims of metaphysics, and earlier in the last century scientifically minded philosophers such as the logical positivists claimed that metaphysical assertions were meaningless. SECTION 2: RELATED SUBJECTSAl-Farabi (c.873-950), Islamic philosopherHe commented on the logical works of Aristotle and the political works of Plato, combining ideas from both in his principal work, The Ideal City. This hierarchical society would be headed by a philosopher-prophet, from whom lower ranks would derive their authority. The same structure is evident in his metaphysics, in which all levels of intelligence and life emanate necessarily from the One, or God, and in his ranking of kinds of knowledge. Philosophical knowledge, acquired through logic, is the highest exercise of reason, but religious knowledge, which dresses itself in symbols accessible to the imagination of lesser thinkers, also has its place.Analytic philosophy This is a broad movement in 20th-century philosophy, influential chiefly in Austria, the UK, and the USA, which regards central philosophical problems as primarily demanding clarification or analysis of such notions as meaning, truth, and necessity. Although analytical philosophy is a loosely unified tradition, rather than a specific doctrine, there has been broad agreement on some specific matters. First, philosophy is a distinctive kind of enquiry, which employs methods different from those of the natural or social sciences; additionally, unlike, for instance, biology or economics, it is not addressed to any distinctive realm of facts.Philosophy does not seek to construct theories which build upon or add to our knowledge of the world, but to clarify the knowledge and beliefs we already have. Secondly, this clarification is to be achieved by analysis of the language in which our non-philosophical, common-sense, or scientific knowledge is expressed. This framework leaves ample room for internal divisions. There is, for instance, disagreement between Russell's view that this kind of clarification will yield answers to the traditional questions of metaphysics and epistemology, and Wittgenstein's contention that such questions are the products of confusions which the careful analysis of language will enable us to avoid. A related dispute concerns whether philosophical analysis can itself be conducted in a systematic way, using the tools and techniques of mathematical logic, as the logical positivists held, or whether resolution of philosophical problems demands piecemeal attention to specific areas of ordinary language.

Andrew Beards shows how Lonergan's philosophy can help to clarify not only particular issues in current debates but also the larger question of a basic method.

This book is intended as an exposition of a particular theory of time in the sense of an interrelated set of attempted solutions to philosophical problems about it. Generally speaking there are two views about time held by philosophers and some scientists interested in philosophical issues. The first called the A-theory (after McTaggart's expression A-determinations for the properties of being past, present or future) is often thought to be closer to our commonsense view of time or to the concept of time presupposed by ordinary language. It includes at least the following theses, (a) Logic ought really to include tensed quantifiers for existence on one of its important usages means, present existence. More generally, we can't reduce all tensed locutions to tenseless ones. (b) The distinction between past, present and future is an objective one. It is not, for example, dependent on our consciousness of change; some A-theorists hold also, that the distinction, in effect, is an absolute one.