Justin Bartlett explores a basic distinction between understandings of ethics. We are all concerned, to a greater or lesser degree, with ethical issues. Whether it be concerns over crime and punishment, humanitarian aid, ecological destruction, or simply the fact that your friend has broken a promise, ethical considerations seem to creep into almost all areas …
Chad Trainer on Leonardo da Vinci as a philosopher. Francis I, King of France and patron of Leonardo da Vinci, once proclaimed in a conversation with the King of Navarre and the Cardinals of Ferrara and Lorraine that nobody in the world knew more than Leonardo. As much reverence as Francis I had for Leonardo’s …
Stephen Stewart on a forgotten golden age of philosophy. Leonardo, Raphael and Michelangelo in the visual arts. Bruno, Machiavelli, Erasmus and Thomas More in the world of philosophy. With names like that, it is little wonder that the Renaissance, spanning some three hundred years from the 14th to the 16th centuries, is seen as a …
In which Mark Goldblatt starts off by discussing Thomas Aquinas and ends up by killing theology. What does it mean to say “God is just” or “God is merciful” or “God is loving”? Do such statements mean anything, rationally? In this essay, I’m going to argue that they don’t – not if we follow the …
What would the medieval philosophers who developed the theory of a Just War have thought about the invasion of Iraq? Ian Dungate imagines their response. In America and Australia, the voters have retrospectively endorsed their leaders’ decision to invade Iraq and topple the regime of Saddam Hussein. In Britain, the arguments continue, and some opposition …
Mark Daniels introduces the most famous work of Moses Maimonides and asks – was he a philosopher, a heretic or a mystic? Moses Maimonides (Moses the son of Maimon – or the RaMBaM – Rabbi Moses ben Maimon in Hebrew) was the leading Jewish medieval philosopher. In addition to his work in philosophy, he was …
The Perplexing Nature of the Guide for the Perplexed Read More »
Mark Daniels introduces a whole millenium of ideas. Let us start by considering three points. First, medieval philosophy came from a period when philosophy was under attack: the proponents of religious faith felt that the claims of the philosophers concerning the superiority of reason were false and this led to medieval philosophers such as Aquinas …
Imadaldin Al-Jubouri on the medieval Islamic philosopher who pioneered the scientific understanding of history. Some consider the Italian philosopher Vico (1668-1744) to have been the founder of philosophy of history; others give the credit to the French philosopher Montesquieu (1689-1755). In fact, the Arabic philosopher and historian ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) was the first pioneer to …
Susan Leigh Anderson and Michael Anderson relate how their attempts to build ethical machines have advanced their understanding of ethics. Our current research is concerned with the newly emerging field of machine ethics. Unlike computer ethics, which has traditionally focused on ethical issues surrounding humans’ use of machines, machine ethics is concerned with ensuring that …
Thomas M. Powers on how a computer might process Kant’s moral imperative. Philosophers have worried about how to compare humans and machines ever since Alan Turing proposed his famous ‘intelligence test’ in his 1950 Mind article ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’. If the successful imitation of a human conversation is one sufficient condition for intelligence, as …