Kile Jones explains the differences between these ways of thinking. Shakespeare never met Wittgenstein, Russell, or Ryle, and one wonders what a conversation between them would have been like. “What’s in a name, you ask?” Wittgenstein might answer “A riddle of symbols.” Russell might respond “An explanation of concepts,” and Ryle might retort “Many unneeded …
Patrick Cox tells us why Zen has to use words to get beyond words. In Zen Buddhism, one often finds ‘explanation’ spoken about in a negative manner. But in writing on Zen, one necessarily explains; explaining something is often the only purpose of an article or book. Can Zen and explanation be reconciled? What about …
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Russell Berg has fifteen criteria for scientificness and he knows how to use them. The ‘scientific method’ is a group of methods and procedures. But since Thomas Kuhn argued in the 1960s that the concept of ‘falsification’ formulated by Karl Popper is insufficient on its own to determine the scientificness of an idea, there has …
Ian James Kidd introduces an iconic iconoclast of the philosophy of science. Paul Feyerabend (1924-1994) was not a conventional philosopher – a fact he delighted in and took great care to maintain. He trained as an opera singer and a physicist, and only came to philosophy by accident, as he freely admitted. He disliked academia …
At the end of the 20th century humankind has developed a new understanding of its interrelatedness in all aspects of life. The economic basis of international integration is the world market. The socio-political aspects of the consolidation process involve the expansion of democracy everywhere in the world. Democracy is becoming a prerequisite for the implementation …
Harvard philosopher Tu Wei-ming is the most famous advocate of the Confucian tradition outside China. Anja Steinbauer talked to him in Boston. Professor Tu, could you give our readers an idea of where your philosophical interests lie? When I first came to the States to study philosophy in 1962, to my great surprise, at the …
Edward Ingram explains the West’s debt to the Islamic philosophers. Europe in the centuries following the fall of the Roman Empire was not a happy place to be – at least for scholars. For the most part, the aristocracy, including kings, were illiterate and, to all intents and purposes, innumerate – applied mathematics in the …
For years debate has raged among African philosophers: does Africa have a distinct philosophical tradition, and if so, what is its nature? Rick Lewis asked Emmanuel Eze, who though based in the United States is a leading figure on the African philosophical scene. Are there philosophical traditions which are distinctively African? There certainly are distinctive …
Mary Midgley questions the superficial allure of endless life. “Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things all fall away in the …
Nick Bostrom tells us a philosophical parable about death. Once upon a time the world was tyrannized by a great dragon. The dragon stood taller than the largest cathedral, and was covered with thick black scales. Its red eyes glowed with hate, and from its terrible jaws flowed an incessant stream of evil-smelling yellowish slime. …