The UnknowablePub Date : 2020-05-19DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0002
W. Mander
{"title":"Sir William Hamilton","authors":"W. Mander","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"William Hamilton epitomizes very clearly the challenge that contemporary philosophers face in studying their nineteenth-century predecessors. There can be few thinkers who have been the subject of such a massive reversal of reputational fortune as Hamilton, from being heralded in his day as a philosophical genius to being ignored by subsequent generations as a pompous blunderer. The chapter examines the central principles of Hamilton’s metaphysics, with special reference to his assertion of the relativity of knowledge and the law of the conditioned. The chapter considers how his metaphysical system relates both to that of Kant’s Critical philosophy and the Scottish common sense school, and examines its application to the specific concepts of substance and adjective, space and time, causality, free will and God.","PeriodicalId":440687,"journal":{"name":"The Unknowable","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133166982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The UnknowablePub Date : 2020-05-19DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0005
W. Mander
{"title":"Thomas Henry Huxley","authors":"W. Mander","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"We have seen how in Hamilton, Mansel, and Spencer the combination of metaphysical realism and a belief in ‘the relativity of knowledge’ leads to agnosticism about ultimate reality—the position that cognition stands defeated before the ‘unconditioned’, or ‘absolute’, or ‘unknowable’. But the thinker most associated with the term ‘agnosticism’—indeed, the one who first came up with the word—was Thomas Henry Huxley. This chapter begins by examining Huxley’s own account of the origins of the term ‘agnosticism’ as well as his relationship with Herbert Spencer. Following a general discussion of his philosophical orientation that takes into account his suspicion of metaphysics, his strict adherence to scientific methodology, and his views about both Hume and Kant, the discussion moves on to consider in more detail his views about religion, causation, the external world, and the mind–brain relationship. The chapter concludes by contrasting Huxley’s views about ethics and evolution with those of Herbert Spencer.","PeriodicalId":440687,"journal":{"name":"The Unknowable","volume":"34 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115002696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The UnknowablePub Date : 2020-05-19DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0004
W. Mander
{"title":"Herbert Spencer","authors":"W. Mander","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter examines the philosophy of Herbert Spencer which, after a discussion of his epistemology, focuses on his agnostic assertion of the unknowable as a means of reconciling the spheres of religion and science. Taking first a general perspective, the chapter examines his case against the possibility of religious knowledge as well as his claim that science too deals on with symbols or appearances, before considering in more detail his specific views about space, time, matter, force, causation, and human fee will. The discussion concludes with an examination of the way in which his psychology seemingly points in two opposite directions.","PeriodicalId":440687,"journal":{"name":"The Unknowable","volume":"97 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114594212","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The UnknowablePub Date : 2020-05-19DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0013
W. Mander
{"title":"F. H. Bradley","authors":"W. Mander","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0013","url":null,"abstract":"Earlier discussions of the development of agnosticism and of empiricism demonstrated how an initially quite clear and straightforward position, evolving through dialogue with its rivals, gradually developed into an orientation so complex and multiform that at times it might seem to be pointing in almost the exact opposite direction to that in which it first set out. The final chapter of this book uses an examination of the philosophy of F. H. Bradley to show that exactly the same process of contradictory and complex development holds true of Idealism also. After general consideration of his objections to empiricism and to unknowability, special attention is paid to an early discussion of his on the relativity of knowledge and to Collingwood’s thesis that his philosophy is best understood as polemic against Mansel. The chapter concludes with a consideration of his unorthodox belief that, idealism notwithstanding, reality must be understood transcending thought—a form of realism that which seem to bring his thought back round again to a position not so different from the agnosticism of Hamilton and Mansel from which our story started.","PeriodicalId":440687,"journal":{"name":"The Unknowable","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124578238","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The UnknowablePub Date : 2020-05-19DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0010
W. Mander
{"title":"James Frederick Ferrier","authors":"W. Mander","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0010","url":null,"abstract":"Following a general discussion of how idealism relates to both agnosticism and empiricism, its origin in nineteenth-century British philosophy are explored through consideration of how Ferrier reacted to the philosophy of William Hamilton. Insisting that the minimal epistemic unit is always subject-plus-some-object, Ferrier challenged agnosticism by claiming that we could only be ignorant of what we might at some point know, and this challenge is examined by means of a detailed exploration of his conceptions of knowledge, ignorance and the contradictory, before it is explained how this stance leads to a form of absolute idealism and belief in the existence of God. The chapter concludes with a discussion of Ferrier’s influence on the British Idealists.","PeriodicalId":440687,"journal":{"name":"The Unknowable","volume":"24 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121631437","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The UnknowablePub Date : 2020-05-19DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0012
W. Mander
{"title":"The British Idealists","authors":"W. Mander","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198809531.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"British Idealism came to the fore in the 1870s, by which time the figures of Mill and Hamilton were fast disappearing into history. Hence the Idealists’ two-fronted war on agnosticism and empiricism was conducted against more contemporary representatives such as Spencer and Huxley on the one hand, and Bain and Lewes on the other. But at the same time as criticizing rival approaches, more positively—both in theory and through the actual construction of bold metaphysical systems—the Idealists urged the potential of reason adequately to understand reality; for in their eyes the former was something fundamentally of a piece with the latter. The British Idealist movement lasted several decades and took in a great many names, but this chapter confines its attention to just four representative figures, John and Edward Caird, Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison, and Henry Jones.","PeriodicalId":440687,"journal":{"name":"The Unknowable","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-05-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133813127","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：