DISCOURSE ON THE METHOD BY RENÉ DESCARTES

10/ 01/ 2022

René Descartes (1596-1650) is a great French mathematician, scientist, and philosopher. According to the Britannica Encyclopedia, he is regarded as "the founder of modern philosophy" for three following reasons: firstly, he was one of the first to reject Scholastic Aristotelianism; secondly, he established the first modern version of body-mind dualism, from which given rise to the problems of body-mind, and thirdly, he advocated the development of science based on observation and experimentation.

Discourse on the Method, its full name, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences, is one of the most influential works in modern philosophy history. Interestingly, while most scholarly people at that time wrote in Latin, Descartes wrote this in French, which was thought to be cheap, unintelligent and unable to express academic problems. Because he wanted it to be comprehensible to anyone who has a common sense, as his witty way of speaking about the book “of which I wanted even women to understand something”.

Title page of Discourse on the Method by Descartes, first edition, 1637

Vietnamese translation by Trần Thái Đỉnh with the title Phương Pháp luận

Vietnamese translation by Nguyễn Văn Châu và Cao Văn Luận with the title Phương Pháp luận

This work is divided into 6 parts: 1) Various scientific considerations; 2) Principal rules of the Method; 3) Morals and Maxims of conducting the Method; 4) Proof of God and the Soul; 5) Physics, the heart, and the soul of man and animals; 6) Prerequisites for advancing the investigation of Nature.

Through autobiographical form, Descartes recounted the process of his studies in the Jesuit college at La Flèche. In addition to studying literature, theology, philosophy, science, he also sought to read all kinds of books, including banned books in libraries. As a result of devoting his youth to learning, Descartes "found himself involved in so many doubts and errors". He commented on the subjects as follow: most subjects are not built on a solid theoretical basis except for mathematics, but despite their strong and solid foundations, they are not very helpful for the development of science.

On the basis of this remark, Descartes reflected on the scientific knowledge building process on the basis of observation that any building, city or nation designed or produced by a single hand, such as architect, administrator or lawyer, is more beautiful and better than what is done spontaneously. In order to get to new insights, we need to get rid of all the insights that we already have in mind, establish a new method of thinking, and from which rebuild the foundation of sciences. He laid out four rules: first, never take anything as true as we haven’t known; second, to solve difficult problems, divide them into as many parts as possible; third, thinking must be sequential, from simplicity gradually progress to complexity; and we need to assume that everything has its order; and finally, inventory what we have done to make sure of not missing anything.

Like rebuilding a house, while demolishing an old house and waiting for a new house, we need a temporary house. The work of rebuilding thought also needs a "temporary house," which Descartes must followed when applying the method. There are three maxims: one, follow the laws and customs of countries in a harmonious manner, avoiding all extremes; two, be deeply consistent and determined actions; and three, try to do the best of all in our power and capabilities.

With these four rules and three maxims, Descartes strived to find a truly solid new foundation for science and philosophy. That truly solid foundation means something we can't doubt anymore. He conducted this work with an experiment of thought. He tried to be skeptical of everything in the world, including his own existence, from which he then found out that one thing he couldn't be skeptical about was the fact that he was doubting. This doubting act itself is an act of thought, the Cogito. So the only true and solid basis for philosophical and scientific knowledge is Cogito or "I think." This is exactly Descartes' great discovery in this book.

In the fifth part of the book, Descartes summarized the opinions that had been expressed in other works on the laws and physical phenomena of nature, and emphasized the difference between humans and animals that humans have souls and animals do not. Animals are just automatic machines, and animal activities are just the mechanical operation of organs that are organized in some way.

Descartes spent the last part of the book talking about his worries about the foreground of science in the situation where the relationship between scientific truths and religious and political authority is strained.

The English and Vietnamese translations of this work are now available in Ex Libris Hermes. Please stop by to pick up.

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    • SHOULD WE LIVE ACCORDING TO OUR NATURE? - DR. DUONG NGOC DUNG
      SHOULD WE LIVE ACCORDING TO OUR NATURE? - DR. DUONG NGOC DUNG
      25/ 07/ 2022
      Many books written for young people often use a quote that says: “Live your life!” “I am a genius, so are you!” If this is just a slogan to give motivation to souls who are lost and disoriented due to many complex and inexplicable reasons, then it is very true, because in a world already full of lies, one more lie wouldn't complicate the situation at all. But when we look back at this empty slogan, we would see that it has the appearance of a fallacy. First of all, what does this sentence mean? These are the assumptions underlying this advice: 1-You have a certain innate "nature", according to Meng Zi (human nature is good) or Xun Tzu (human nature is evil). 2-Live according to your “true” nature and you will be “successful” or “happy.” This is a kind of fallacy because it involves other “ingredients” that are not well defined: 1-Is there any evidence that human beings have a fixed "nature" (variety in nature)? 2-If we live according to this "nature" could we be "happy" or "successful"? Or is it easier to live "in harmony" with people, following the trends of the times, will we be more "successful" and "happy"? 3-But what is "success"? What is its standard measure? Whose? From what era? Mozart more successful or Son Tung more successful? 4-What is "happiness"? If so, can the use of stimulants, as addictive as drugs, bring about “happiness”? Or for example, if "harming someone" brings "happiness" to a person, should that person continue to "fight" for the "happiness" of his life? In philosophy there is a fallacy called Naturalistic Fallacy. But when we think more deeply about this, we realize that there is no more ambiguous, controversial concept than the concept of "natural", for example "natural" eating or dressing " What is ''natural”? Is eating a live fish without any preprocessing steps? Or is it best to dress like Mr. ADAM or Mrs. EVA in the garden of Eden? Wouldn't it be best to give birth to a child without teaching and bring them to the forest? Speaking "naturally" means just saying what's on your mind to the other person: "You're the dumbest idiot on the planet!" Or in the usual "fake" way (what we call "polite")? In fact, the history of mankind is a process of taming all the animal instincts of man, helping man to become more cultured, more civilized, to become more "human". So which is better? "Nature" or "culture"? Even herbs must be processed to be used, rather than picking leaves in the forest to chew and swallow, they are considered to have consumed herbs. The so-called "pure forest honey" is full of harmful bacteria that cannot be harvested and "used" directly. Many fishermen have "closed their lives" ahead of time just because of eating raw fish bile in the sea in such a "natural is best" fashion. CONCLUSION: 1- Humans do not have a given "nature". Humans have created that "nature" in the process of growing up and adapting to difficulties and limitations in real life and interacting with other members who share a cultural community. 2- Humanity is a complex product of 4 factors: biological genetics, society, culture, and natural environment, but humans still have a very "human" characteristic. is: The ability to overcome all these factors through learning new things. All other animals known to date are far behind humans in this capacity. 3- But when saying “Live according to your nature!” We just want to remind that "you only have one life to live, so live your own goals and passions, don't have to follow the prevailing social trends" then this saying can be acceptable in its common usage sense. Of course, as a particular socio-cultural member, we cannot “choose” types of “passion” and “purpose” that conflict with socio-cultural norms. For example, it is difficult to accept a person who chooses "the hobby of killing" as his "noble" goal in life and "resolutely" implements that "goal". It's just that you haven't had time to realize this "passion" and have been shunned by society and joined hands to "send" you to a mental hospital!
    • SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN AMERICA - TS. DUONG NGOC DUNG
      SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN AMERICA - TS. DUONG NGOC DUNG
      18/ 07/ 2022
      During his thirty years of teaching theology, Professor Snyder has always used a single example to explain the difference between Judaism and Christianity: a man fell from a roof and accidentally fell on a woman lying below, this fall is so “special” that it makes for a very “special” pose. According to the Judaic Talmud, a man is not guilty because when he does the act, he doesn't think about it (in Vietnamese words, "not intentionally, just accidentally") but from the Christian point of view (in the New Testament) thinking means doing it, for example, lusting for a woman in the mind alone is enough to constitute fornication. This theological distinction is too subtle for us to extend here, but the point is that the above casual example of Professor Snyder was expounded by a female student as "creating a hostile environment of a sexual harassment in class” and she filed a lawsuit against Professor Snyder. She further emphasizes that the example above constitutes what is known as "insensitivity to rape" because rapists always argue that "we didn't mean and "think" about it, we just did it..” Instead of correcting the abusive student, the school agreed with her and suspended Professor Snyder's teaching, requiring him to receive mental health treatment for causing an "environmental hostile” in class. The main problem is that the term or concept of "sexual harassment" here is increasingly expanded in meaning. It originally indicated a particular "loathing" demanded by an individual in a position of higher power from his subordinates. But gradually, even the "accidental touches" are also listed in the category of sexual harassment, even language, verbal communication, are also dragged into the note. This violates the First Amendment in the American legal system because it clearly states that "ensuring the people's right to freedom of speech". Having allowed the people to freely speak, how can they punish "the people" for the crime of "communication in the language"? In 1992, Stroh beer was sued by female employees when it released a commercial in which bikini-clad beauties clutched barrels of Stroh beer parachuting down on men camping in the area below. In the complaint, the female workers allege that Stroh's owner created a "hostile environment" in the brewery due to the advertisement. Fortunately, the court rejected the lawsuit of these "excessive" female workers, if they win the case, I don't know what other "unique lawsuits" they will launch. In the language of Buddhist philosophy, what we perceive in the real world is a reflection of our own "mind". If you have been sexually obsessed, you can infer anything from looking at it that it has something to do with "that". And if the matter is pushed to its logical final consequence, the current law, if it wants to avoid messy litigation, needs to be left to the ladies to make sure, because in America only men are at risk. Most likely to be convicted of sexual harassment, but women do not know what sex is, and to mock these naive claims, Michael Crichton wrote Disclosure, which was adapted into a famous movie of the same name with actress Demi Moore playing the role. The boss sexually harasses an employee under the role played by Michael Douglas. If even language is condemned now the issue of free speech becomes a pipe dream of the past because whatever you say can be interpreted by women as sexual harassment. For example, a very trivial statement like "It's raining, wait back" can also be sued in court for the purpose of "inciting someone not to leave, but to stay to do something shady". Duc Huy's song "Wet and Rainy Road" showed. A common question like “Is he out yet?” could also be prosecuted for sexual harassment by means of language.” In general, everything will be chaotic and everyone should have a lawyer standing by before they want to say anything.
    • KARMA, JUSTICE OR MEDIA INFLUENCE
      KARMA, JUSTICE OR MEDIA INFLUENCE
      11/ 07/ 2022
      On September 25, 1996, the radio program in Orlando, Florida gave a talk in memory of baby Ursula Sunshine Assaid who was brutally killed fourteen years ago. At that time, the little girl Ursula was only 5 years old. According to the photo, she was a beautiful baby but  had a heartless mother. The mother is blindly in love and infatuated with her mistress, Donald McDoughal, the one-of-a-kind barbarian who tortured little Ursula. The little girl was starved for a week and in the end, Donald beat her to death right in front of her dehumanized mother. The person who told this story so passionately on the radio was Rollins. At exactly 8:30 a.m., the time Ursula took her last breath 14 years ago, Rollins asked all listeners to his program to observe a minute of silence. No one listens to this child massacre story without feeling bewildered and indignant. They don't understand how there can be such cruel mothers and mistresses.Why would Susan agree with Donald to torture and kill her own child? But in the prison, where Donald is "temporarily staying" and is likely to be released in the near future thanks to the defense of a lawyer, no one is silent at all. An inmate named Arba Earl Barr, 33 years old, serving a sentence at Avon Park Correctional Institution, also listened to Ursula's heartbreaking story. This Barr is also a debt-ridden inmate, sentenced to 114 years in prison for robbery and violence. On October 1, according to police reports, while Barr and Donald and 200 other inmates were living in the prison yard after dinner, Barr used an iron rod and beat Donald to death right in front of him. everyone. Donald had been beaten to death just like little Ursula fourteen years ago. Karma, justice, or media influence? Prison officers said they were also on the lookout for this after hearing Rollins' radio talk and put Donald on guard. A police officer revealed that an anonymous phone call was made to the prison and offered a $1,000 reward to whoever killed Donald. After five days in solitary confinement for protection, Donald insisted on his release. In the afternoon he was released, Donald was beaten to death with an iron rod by Barr. What was the role of radio in Donald's death? The radio station denied mentioning the $1,000 reward, but it refused to provide a tape recording of all the phone calls exchanged that day. It is important to note a very rare occurrence in Vietnam: when a program is hosted on television or radio in the United States, he often encourages the audience to participate by calling directly to radio for direct communication. It's also very possible that in such back-and-forth exchanges, someone in a fit of rage offered a $1,000 reward to whoever beat the "inhuman" to death. Barr confessed to his lawyer that many inmates also listened to Rollins' talk and talked animatedly among themselves. Many inmates offered to cover Donald with blankets to beat him to death. Some prisoners even called Rollins' radio program to suggest this "kill the blanket" option. Back to the main character Donald McDoughal. After killing Ursula, he was sentenced to 34 years in prison. Susan was sentenced to 15 years for manslaughter. Twice, Donald almost got pardoned by justice, but the state of Florida tightened the laws related to the release of prisoners, so Donald had to lie still and wait for his time. But a week before Donald was killed in prison, the Florida state supreme court overturned previous changes and made Donald likely to be released last Friday. America's justice is about to throw out a murderer of great caliber to society, but "fortunately" he paid his penalty just before he was released, even though the "executioner" character is also a criminal insignificant in society. Rollins categorically disclaims any responsibility for Donald's death in prison, even though it was his "inspirational" talk that resulted in Donald being beaten to death. "We are just people who express their personal opinions and make it possible for others to voice their opinions," he asserted. He said many people continue to call and fax to the station asking for money to be given to "justice fighter" Arba Earl Barr. The reaction to this story has certainly been varied. Many might argue that Donald's death represents a kind of invisible justice, if not frankly the law of retribution that governs Donald's death. Many people may seriously question the responsibility of the media. It is impossible not to recall the role of the paparazzi that contributed to the death of Princess Diana. Of course, the comparison between the beautiful, benevolent Diana and the savage killer Donald McDoughal is unfair, but the role of reporters is the same in both cases. Especially the program host Rollins has a very attractive and stimulating presentation method, the average person can hear the anger that wants the judge to immediately bring the murderer to the court. But most are satisfied with the fact that justice is "outlawed" in the style of Charles Bronson movies and they are ready to "silence" the soul of Donald McDoughal by sending money to Arba Earl Barr.
    • ZHOU JIANG'S STORY BY ZHANG SHENG LI
      ZHOU JIANG'S STORY BY ZHANG SHENG LI
      04/ 07/ 2022
      Zhang Sheng Li is a rather strange name for Vietnamese readers. Even Chinese scholars rarely know him, but in China, Zhang Sheng Li's name is no stranger to readers of Ming Xi Daily. Zhang Sheng Li has worked with this newspaper for many years with various important positions after graduating from Fudan University in 1982. His works are also quite voluminous, most of which have not been published yet. translated into Vietnamese, and most specialize in the genre of reportage with historical nuances in the broadest sense of the word. Zhou Jiang’ story is a typical work of this genre. The main character of the work is Zhou Jiang, a living witness of modern Chinese history with many ups and downs, changes, objects and transformations "escape and change bones" (as the author said) go from this side of darkness and suffering to the other shore of prosperity and happiness. And the real journey is not over yet: the other shore is still far away, but it has been seen with relative clarity that the "stone probes" have stopped arguing with each other about the direction. Now they argue on other topics: What is sustainable development? Is ecological protection the responsibility of the government or the people? The current situation of "protecting one hand, destroying the other" is seriously degrading the ecological and natural resource management situation in China. And there are many other issues that belong to the unique specialty of China in the context of both industrializing and building a democratic rule of law that is compatible with the development momentum of society. Author Zhang Sheng Li in this work presented the reform in Zhou Jiang area, whose main breakthrough was the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone (Shenzhen), in a relatively systematic, concise, and no lack of depth. It could be said that this is a piece of the history of Shenzhen during the most critical and vital period in the history of China. The Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Shantou Special Economic Zones, according to the author's presentation, appear in the reader's eyes as birth attendants or laboratories in which all Chinese people are attentive and anxiously watching the birth of a new thought, a new product, a new generation. Shenzhen's process of pregnancy, birth, growth and maturity is the same as the general development of China in an attempt to break free from the lingering obsession of leftist thinking of the past via. Could China's lesson be also the lesson of Vietnam? Studying the reform history of modern China is not just to satisfy a need for theoretical knowledge: it can help those in leadership positions draw practical lessons, specific experience to apply to solving or forecasting problems of macroeconomic - social - ecological policy. Judging a book must also be based on the intention of the work. Although it could not be explicitly stated, the intentions of the author and the work could be judged by the style and content of presentation as well as by the formal structure of the work. The book is very short (only 117 pages), full of color illustrations, and has no bibliography. The author also did not quote any experts during the presentation. Therefore, this work is aimed at the average reader, who likes to know but doesn't want to spend a lot of time, and doesn't want to be dizzy and headache because of complicated data, general readers. This book is of course not for the highly qualified. To go deeper, we recommend that readers refer to China in 2007-2008 (Editor Do Tien Sam, Publisher, Encyclopedia, Hanoi, 2008), The Pivotal Moment (Editor Hua Minh, Vietnamese translation by Dao Van Luu, People's Public Security Publishing House, Hanoi, 2003), China: The Great Asian Dragon by Daniel Burstein & Arne de Keijzer (Minh Vi translation, Encyclopedia Publishing House, Hanoi, 2008), Changing the class structure in China during the period of reform and opening up (Editor Phung Thi Hue, Social Science Publishing House, Hanoi, 2008), the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China: Theoretical Issues theory and practice (Editor Do Tien Sam, Social Science Publishing House, Hanoi, 2008), China's reforming and opening up (Edited by Nguyen Van Hong, World Publishing House, Hanoi, 2003), with China's ambition to become a superpower, how? (Ted Fishman, translated by Ngoc Tien, Culture and Information Publishing House, Hanoi, 2007), China Development Report: Situation and Prospects (Do Tien Sam, Owner of the Sea, World Publishing House, Hanoi, Vietnam). 2007). These are just a few typical examples in the vast forest of books written about the reform process in China today. If there is a weakness in the author's presentation, it is certainly the dark areas, the negative aspects in the reform and renovation process are almost never mentioned, if any, it is also very important. sketchy, fleeting, as if the bright light of the reform had dazzled the author, unable to recognize the serious downsides of the current rapid development in China, which which Hua Ming presented very deeply in the book The Pivotal Moment. World events such as Sichuan earthquake, Chen Xitong and Wang Baosen incident, acid rain in Southern China, Increasing unemployment rate, and other socio-economic events, almost never mentioned or analyzed by the author. But, as said, with a work of such brevity and intent, we should not ask too much of the author, who has a more liberal aim: to present a brief history of thirty years of reform economy in Shenzhen.
    • TRADITION OF PERCEPTION IN THE CHINESE PHILOSOPHY PHILOSOPHY (PART 2)
      TRADITION OF PERCEPTION IN THE CHINESE PHILOSOPHY PHILOSOPHY (PART 2)
      28/ 06/ 2022
      (A summary of an interview with Professor Tu Weiming (Do Duy Minh) by Trung Van published in the anthology of Confucianism, Tradition, Tradition, Modern Transformation, edited by Nhac Hoa (China's Quang Ba Dien Thi Publishing House, 1992), pages 173 to 191.) Vietnamese translation: Dr. Duong Ngoc Dung Formation of a unique solipsistic consciousness in Chinese culture Interviewer: When people mention a conservatism inherent in Chinese culture itself, it is common to raise an issue of "uniqueness" (only one is worthy of respect). From ancient times, Chinese culture has had a unique solipsistic consciousness, a kind of inhuman tendency (items are not necessary). This tendency not only attacks cultural flows coming from abroad, but also increases the character of Chinese culture. What do you think about this matter? Do Duy Minh: This issue has also been discussed by Phi Chi Khanh (John K. Fairbank). There is a view as follows: because China is a big country with the so-called “ traditional rites”, has a unique solipsistic sense, considers outsiders as ethnic groups who must pay tribute, because they have special interests. Because they have things to petition for us, and we have nothing to ask of them. Once they arrived in China, we had to use a series of rituals to transform them into gods who were tasked with worshiping the throne. From the Tang dynasty on, the situation was like that, until the Ming dynasty it developed into a relatively obvious kind of narcissism. This kind of egotistical extravagance makes it difficult for China to meet the challenge of Western culture in a realistic, definitive way. The so-called "Nam Man, Dong Di, Tay Nhung, Bac Dich" have nothing to say, only China is the nucleus of civilization. This represents a very intense culture, even a sort of racial chauvinism. I think that for the above statements, it is necessary to make a distinction at deeper levels. There's no denying that China does have a kind of self-centered cultural ideology, but behind the big screen the situation can be very complicated. During the Tang dynasty, Chinese culture developed to its peak, but the Tang dynasty did not have theism of considering Huaxia culture as the center, but had a great spirit of tolerance and synthesis. After the Tang dynasty, the Han ethnic group in China not only fell into the state of national weakness, but also suffered from a particularly great threat from the steppe peoples (such as the Mongols), the forest peoples (such as the Kim), China's central cultural perspective and the life-or-death experience it has to endure are closely related. Especially in the period of nearly a thousand years of history, the concept of solipsism is very difficult to convince. During the Song dynasty, for Lieu, Kim, and Nguyen many times, they had to accept the title "god". Chu Xi, a thinker with a very strong sense of Huaxia culture, but still with deep feelings of anxiety and fear, he fears that the dynamics of the center of the world are no longer within China. Moreover, China was invaded by outsiders and had to face national disaster. By the Nguyen dynasty, eighty years, completely subjected to the interference of foreign culture, the intellectuals were turned into a kind of "old-timer" (stale, stinky old man). Until the Ming dynasty, the situation of border defense was always complicated and tense. On the one hand, they had to worry about Mongolia, because Mongolia was able to recover, and on the other hand, they had to deal with Manchuria. The situation is unpredictable, even the emperor is arrested. In such a situation, it is not easy to want to have a sense of grandeur. A strong sense of danger is expressed in the work of Vuong Phu Chi and the slogan proposed by Co Viem Vo: "the world is dying, the commoner is responsible" (whether the nation is stable or broken, the common people are also partly responsible), all showing that is not a unique, self-centered solipsistic consciousness, but it should be said that it is a sense of anxiety about the survival of the nation.  The so-called unique solipsistic consciousness, mainly formed in the Qing dynasty. Manchu was a dynasty founded by invaders into China. With the aim of completing the control of internal affairs, the Qing government used a cultural strategy completely similar to that of Confucianism. Sun Confucius (revering Confucius, studying Confucian classics), those are the things that the Ming government could not do, but the Qing dynasty did. It can be said that the Qing dynasty has completely disarmed the Chinese intellectuals, and the intelligentsia's judgment on some major issues has also been disturbed by politics. At the same time, the intelligentsia, especially the Han intelligentsia, when they are no longer able to govern the country, feel that they are completely separated from the times and no longer belong to this era. Therefore, the so-called extravagant disease of the imperial dynasty has not yet fully developed after the Song dynasty, and the unique sense of solipsism of the Qing dynasty is also due to the hundred years of time without contact with foreign countries. Western culture is completely ignorant of the difficult situation created by itself.  Interviewer: But we fear that it would be difficult to use the state's decaying situation to deny the existence of a unique solipsistic consciousness. During Emperor Wu's reign, Dong Zhongshu demanded "decommissioning of all masters and uniqueness of Confucianism," which was indeed a slogan against all kinds of ideas that differed from him academically or culturally. After Dong Zhongshu's so-called Confucianism became the official culture of China, the spirit of "denunciation" and "uniqueness" was feared to have become a distinctive feature of Chinese culture. Even when the country is in decline, it is easy to provoke feelings of "uniqueness" to take a step forward, because people who are weak in regard to self-esteem sometimes also have guilt, not only that. but this guilt sometimes becomes too much. I'm afraid that this is the phenomenon of "low self-esteem turns into self-esteem complex" (return target emotion)? Do Duy Minh: Regarding the issue of "single and unique" I think it can be explained from two angles. From the first perspective, Confucianism assumes the morphological function of a kind of state religion, which, after all, has been maintained in China for a very long time and has great influence. The second angle, Confucianism in China, in addition to playing the role of an official form of consciousness, for Chinese society, especially for many classes of the people, through many different ways that it develops. influence generation. I think we have overstated the influence of orthodox Confucianism on the state domain. Although the issue of the Han dynasty promulgating the "unique Confucianism" is true, Emperor Wu was not an acceptor of Confucian thought, he was completely like Qin Shi Huang, very fond of creating wars. He was a great man, was fascinated by the magicians, and had a very strong legalist ideology, for example, his use of Tang Hoang Duong was a victory of the Pharisee sect, this is reflected in the work of Yan theory. Moreover, Wei Jin and Sui Tang were not dynasties that worshiped Confucianism, and it was not until the Yuan dynasty that the Four Books of the Five Classics became the standard for the examination system. I do not deny the great influence of Confucianism in Chinese political culture, serving as a standard principle in governing the country, but in the final analysis there is still an osmosis in which many factors of French thought. I just want to be wary of the views of many people: The reason that Confucianism can permeate all aspects of social life and all classes of people is not entirely political, but also for many factors. As we can recall, Confucianism in the Han dynasty, despite having a very high position, still could not be arbitrarily criticized for the Hoang Lao theory prevailing in society. Wei Tan can be said to be the period when Confucianism gradually grasped its position, at the time respected the clan, taught and studied family law, and made Confucianism, especially Kinh Do and Ritual School, develop in the architectural structure. society. But it is very difficult to explain this from a politicized perspective. Due to the invasion of China by foreigners, a large number of clans fled to the South, and because of the desire to maintain the clan status, certain norms and ideals were necessary. During the Tang Dynasty, the Confucian studies and rituals were more widely developed. But there is no doubt that, from the Wei Jin Dynasty to the Tang Dynasty, the dominant ideology was still Buddhist and mystical thought, if considered in terms of ideology, it was not until the Song and Confucian dynasties that it was established. Revival and revival, the new theories of body, mind, nature and destiny proposed by everyone, for Buddhism become a strong creative counterpart. Therefore, when considering the issue of Confucianism, it is not possible to explain only from the perspective of "unique Confucianism" or "single branch of excellence" (only one beautiful branch) to explain, but must consider the The meridians of Confucianism permeate all walks of life. From the Han dynasty until now, regardless of the dynasty, if you want to carry out the establishment of political structures, the role of Confucianism is needed. This can play an important role in political culture along with Confucianism, clearly reflecting the Chinese people's distinctive historical consciousness and cultural sensibility. I don't know if this will increase the sense of uniqueness of the Chinese people or the disease of egotism? I think that in this regard there are many specific circumstances that we are completely unaware of. Indeed, in the Qing Dynasty, we already knew that, but there must be deep causes and causes originating from previous eras.
    • TRADITION OF PERCEPTION IN CHINESE PHILOSOPHY HISTORY (PART 1)
      TRADITION OF PERCEPTION IN CHINESE PHILOSOPHY HISTORY (PART 1)
      20/ 06/ 2022
      A summary of an interview with Professor Tu Weiming (Do Duy Minh) by Trung Van published in the anthology of Confucianism, Tradition, Tradition, Modern Transformation, edited by Nhac Hoa (China's Quang Ba Dien Thi Publishing House, 1992), pages 173 to 191. Vietnamese translation: Dr. Duong Ngoc Dung Inventing philosophy by interpreting tradition Interviewer: Do Duy Minh, you have repeatedly emphasized "consensus understanding" (consensus understanding) for the ancient seers, thus proceeding with the traditional interpretation on a large scale. However, I feel that one of the worst diseases of Chinese culture is the strong will to interpret tradition, regardless of time, place, or any kind of challenge. any puzzle, always find ways to seek answers from tradition, find ways to absorb strength from tradition. In such a style, for more than two thousand years, the intelligentsia could only stand in front of a few cult classics, lose both its creative power, lose its ability to adapt, and finally create something new. "injecting poison into oneself" (self-poisoning), causing the entire society to be bogged down and stagnate in the midst of a serious illness. How do you explain this matter? Do Duy Minh: I think this event is related to the problem of historical consciousness of the Chinese people, that is, the issue of cause and effect and reform. From the Xia to the Shang, from the Shang to the Zhou, there is always a causal and reforming relationship between the latter and the former, which is closely related to inheritance in Chinese culture. . First we need to distinguish two types of creativity. The first type of innovation is disruptive. This property manifests relatively clearly in the field of science. Science develops, sometimes with breakthroughs in previous theories, negating previous theories, sometimes collapsing previous authorities, then a new kind of model emerges. This type of internal stratigraphic fault is very natural, with the meaning of progress and leap. But it is not uncommon for observers to think that the faulting of the stratigraphy is not as serious as we thought. There is also a second type of creativity, such as literary creativity, no matter how new a literary work is, the use of language must be consistent with the rules or the grammar that exists. available, these rules cannot be violated. He can only use language inconsistent with the grammar to create new things within a limited range of self-discipline. This is similar to the ancient literature movement of the Northern Song Dynasty, during this period there appeared a number of writers such as u Duong Tu, To Thuc or Hoang Dinh Kien, all of whom masterfully used ancient literature, really reached the level of "completing the wind and peeling off the image" (catching the wind to chase the image) that modern white dialogue literature has not yet been able to reach. Therefore, using extremely fluently and flexibly the language people often use is also a form of creating new things. This type of creativity is not the same as the type of creativity in science. It has a certain inheritance. The Chinese tradition, in Western terms, creates philosophy through interpretation, that is, from the point of view of hermeneutics. He must definitely absorb nutrients from the traditional scriptures before he can express his own unique point of view. These unique points of view can also help you or someone else with respect to the problem of vindication in the scriptures to make a step forward in promoting and promoting it. This is a kind of cyclical progress in which the circle is expanding more and more widely. The Chinese tradition is a kind of tradition with a very strong sense of history. I cannot accept the view of some people towards Chinese culture that it is a culture that is oriented towards the cult of the past, and refuses to look to the future. I think that Chinese culture is a culture of "thinking out of the new" (exploiting the old, making the new appear), which has always had a very strong vitality. Otherwise, Chinese culture cannot be both ancient and precious. In the world, there are many ancient and ancient cultures, but ancient cultures are relatively rare. Traditional culture has a strong vitality like that of Trung Hoa culture which is a unique historical phenomenon. China's cultural tradition is inherited and has shown its flourishing power for a long time. If we put it in the language of the I Ching, this is the result of "self-restraint" (self-efforts to progress without stopping), it is not possible to simply say that Chinese culture is a "self-defeating" phenomenon. poison." There are many who believe that the vitality of Chinese culture, especially the creative power in the field of philosophy, reached its peak during the Xian Qin period, and then gradually declined. (To be continued)
    • FILM, LITERATURE AND THE SCARLET LETTER
      FILM, LITERATURE AND THE SCARLET LETTER
      14/ 06/ 2022
      The Scarlet Letter is a masterpiece of 19th century American literature. The author is Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), a customs officer in the state of Massachusetts. The setting of the above novel is also located in the state of Massachusetts. Plymouth Harbor, in the 17th century, many times welcomed the British Puritans who crossed the sea in search of freedom of religion, today still retains the old scenery to attract visitors. The story is simple but also dramatic: Hester Prynne, married in England, came to America to settle down. Karma is nowhere to be seen, "debt": Hester fell in love with the young pastor Arthur Dimmelsdale and became pregnant. This is a serious sin in the Puritan community. The guilty can be executed by hanging. The state governor offered Hester leniency if she would give the name of the "author" of the child in her womb. But Hester adamantly refused. The court ordered her to wear a red A on her chest for the rest of her life. "A" means "adultery". The suffering and regretful Arthur also silently carved a similar letter A on his body. Hester's husband later also crossed the sea from England and when he learned that his wife betrayed him, he used a fake name to settle in the same town as Hester and Arthur to "search" for the culprit who gave him horns and avenge. really worthy. This work has just been adapted into a movie (with the same name as the work) with two stars Demi Moore and Gary Oldman. Demi Moore is so beautiful in the role of a woman who is determined to fight for love that the audience forgets that if author Nathaniel Hawthorne was allowed to come back to life to see this film, he would surely cry and die. Monday. In the movie, Arthur and Hester turned into America's Romeo and Juliet, falling in love with the scent of the sky. Gary Oldman plays a manly hero, while the cuckold victim, Hester's husband, is portrayed as a sinister, evil Satan. In the end, "he" linked up with all the Indians for "the devil to grow horns" a battle, saved her from the hanging ropes, went straight to California and lived happily there. Audiences inevitably leave gloating for a happy ending, unaware that the author Hawthorne is swearing at the other side of the world.   In the novel it is different. Arthur died in a state of regret full of torment when he strayed from the path God had outlined for a monk. Even the husband, after taking revenge, also died in regret, so he left the entire estate to little Pearl, the child of Hester and Arthur. The ending was heavy and sad. Many scholars have discussed this work but still have not come up with a satisfactory explanation: which side does Hawthorne take: Hester's side that fights for freedom of love or the Puritan ethnocentrism that condemns it all Are all romantic feelings immoral, immoral? In fact, Hawthorne has avoided bringing up a very transparent subject. In the character of Hester we find the eloquent argument for a burning love that defies all social norms, defying the foundations of religion. But in the character of Arthur we find an affirmation to the contrary: love is an evil sin, his fall only proves that the Puritan doctrine is absolutely correct: every human being is a sinner in the eyes. God. It takes a firm grasp of Puritan teachings to understand the mood of Arthur or the character of Goodman Brown in the Young Goodman Brown short story, which every critic considers Hawthorne's finest short story. Arthur did not think that what he did was right, while Hester insisted that the truth must come from the heart, where passionate passions reside, despite the sober voice of reason. Analyzing this novel we have to separate this couple into two opposing thematic lines: Hester symbolizes love understood as a strong desire beyond all control. Arthur symbolizes religious sentiments assimilating the closeness of man and woman, which only proves the inherent animality in man and prevents him from reaching lofty spiritual goals. And of course Hawthorne isn't on anyone's side. He did not give the final answer because in life there are no final answers, definitive solutions once and for all. Every human being has to find the answers to the riddles in life by himself. Just as Hester believes that a bright world will come in the future when the relationship between man and woman is established on a foundation of mutual happiness, but she does not consider herself qualified to be a fairy. tri.   An angel will bring good news in a distant future, but that angel is pure and pure, not dirty and sinful like her. In these thoughts of Hester we seem to have witnessed the sad end of a fervent heart. The life she lived, was living, had no answer and no door to an answer. The one who closes the door from the outside is the morality of Puritanism.
    • LAW: MEASUREMENT OF THE LEADERS' ETHICS
      LAW: MEASUREMENT OF THE LEADERS' ETHICS
      14/ 06/ 2022
        The process of forming democratic institutions, viewed from a global perspective, has always been accompanied by a severe critique of political practice. The rapid changes in the United States after 1985 have aroused public interest in the question of the relationship between politics and morality. Before 1985 criticism of the lack of democracy was often directed towards the (former) Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, but after 1992 that criticism turned to the democratic institution itself in the United States. Leaders in today's world are often the target of criticism based on two diametrically opposed sets of standards: on the one hand, they must satisfy a morally perfect and virtually unattainable ideal. is possible for an ordinary person, but on the other hand, the masses also require a leader with a high sense of reality and work with the highest efficiency and productivity. If one wants to be a fully moral saint, a leader falls into a state of complete uncertainty and often becomes conservative and narrow-minded. Of course, the lack of or ethical judgment is entirely within the subjective scope of the leader and may not necessarily be consistent with reality. But this does not result in the end justifying the means by means: a leader who is both virtuous and capable is not a contradiction. The case of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji in China are two typical examples in the modern world. But how ethical is the leader's morality, morality according to the Confucian model (such as ancient China), or morality according to the Christian model (such as medieval Europe), or according to the model of morality? Buddhist model (Sri Lanka, India under King Asoka, Burma under U Nu..), or morality following the Enlightenment model after the French Revolution? If one accepts and chooses one of the above models, the leader will immediately fall into the opposition of groups that support other ethical systems. What is the law? How to understand morality? The law includes the following basic points: (1) human rights as recognized in the constitution; (2) the legal system (civil law, criminal law, procedural law) to express and protect basic human rights in specific and specific circumstances; (3) political institutions for the expression and protection of human rights as a citizen (National Assembly and other elected bodies). What are human rights or human rights? Scholars often start by going back to the concept of human nature and use that as the basis for arguing for the concept of "human rights". In fact, fundamental human rights arose from a traumatic experience of a destructive nature and their early proponents wanted to assert that a similar experience cannot be repeated. A Russian philosopher, Vladimir Solovyov writes: "The task of the law is not to turn this terrible world into the kingdom of God, its task is to prevent this world from falling into hell ahead of time. "Human rights don't come from an abstract ideal or philosophy. They come from the realization that: "Things like that should never happen again." Ethics includes requirements of an unconditional nature, and is not aimed at satisfying personal needs, but towards obligations or obligations to be performed at the expense of personal interests. For example, when helping the poor but still haggling, calculating benefits and harms, the moral foundation of that behavior no longer exists. This is, of course, a Kantian definition, but we accept it because of its absolute nature. Law is the only institutional means to prevent the world from falling into "hell" by affirming and protecting basic human rights. It is naive to think that people all over the world will be perfected and united in a dream of universal democracy, but that humanity can still work together to prevent the world from falling apart. fell into chaos and disbandment due to lack of legal glue. In practice this means that the democratization of political institutions must go hand in hand with the legalization of power structures. The contribution of the press in promoting these two parallel processes has an important mission: to remind everyone that the law is the moral barometer of a leader.
    • FAITH AND REASON: CATHOLIC VS ISLAM
      FAITH AND REASON: CATHOLIC VS ISLAM
      14/ 06/ 2022
      In the encyclical Fides et ratio (Faith and Reason) of Pope John Paul II to the bishops of the Catholic Church on the relationship between faith and reason in 1998, the Pope wrote: "Faith and Reason is the wings that help the human intellect to climb up to contemplate the truth. God has instilled in man's heart the desire to know the truth, and finally to know himself, so that having known and loved him, man may also know the full truth about himself" (cf. Ex 33:18; Ps 27.8-9; 63.2-3; Jn 14:8; 1 John 3:2). Perhaps this was also the intention of Pope Benedict XVI in his lecture at the University of Regensburg (Germany) on September 12, 2006, titled “Glaube, Vernunft und Universität— Erinnerungen und Reflexionen” (Faith). , reason and university: recollections and reflections). In this presentation, Pope Benedict XVI quoted the 14th-century emperor Manuel II Palaiologos, the last Catholic emperor of the Roman Empire before the fall of Constantinople in 1453, as saying, about Islam (Islam) and this has caused a backlash against this religion in countries. The emperor's comment on Islam, according to the English version of the Vatican, is as follows: "Show me what is new Muhammad has brought and you will find only inhuman things. pious and cruel, as his command was to spread the faith he preached with the sword.” When quoting this comment of the emperor Manuel II, the Pope wanted to make a distinction, on the one hand, the Catholic view (represented by the emperor Manuel II) that: "do not act in accordance with reason. The mind is contrary to the nature of God", with the view of Islam (represented by Theodore Khoury, an Islamic scholar), that Allah (God) is superior to human reason and the will of God. His will cannot be limited by any principle, including reason. In quoting the emperor Manuel II, Pope Benedict XVI wanted to point out a feature that the other emperor opposed in Islam "forced conversion" and argued that this practice contradicts contradicts the teaching in the Quran that "in religion there is no compulsion". Pope Benedict XVI wanted to say that there is a contradiction between the practice and the teachings of Islam. According to the post-Thomas Aquinas scholastic view (accepted by Pope Benedict XVI): God is Logos (Reason incarnate) and man is His creature (Imago Dei) who makes man in action. must be based on principles of Reason and which are not in conflict with Faith. Whereas the Allah of Islam transcends the principles of Reason. That is, Allah has the right to contradict Himself if He wishes. According to Pope Benedict XVI, a true dialogue between religions must be grounded in the broadest principles of Reason. After the backlash, the Holy See issued a statement re-explaining the "true" meaning of the aforementioned speech by Pope Benedict XVI and emphasizing that the pope's intention was to emphasize combating violence. for whatever reason or from any religion (not just Islam). This argument does not appear to be of much value in mitigating the attack on the presentation. As head of the Catholic Church, the Holy Father has always faced two conflicting demands in dialogue with other religions: Defending genuine Catholic faith and identity Criticize wrong practices (e.g. violence) in other religions while respecting them, for example respecting the unique faith and identity of Islam (e.g. a religious The famous Islamic scholar holds that Allah stands above reason and that He can overcome all the laws that He himself has made.
    • FOUR TEACHINGS ON MEDITATION OF BODHIDHARMA - PhD. Duong Ngoc Dung
      FOUR TEACHINGS ON MEDITATION OF BODHIDHARMA - PhD. Duong Ngoc Dung
      14/ 06/ 2022
      In the Zen tradition, enlightenment is the heart of Buddhism. But Zen is not enlightenment, enlightenment is not Zen. Strictly, enlightenment is the end goal of Zen. To penetrate the ultimate realization, so-called pure academic knowledge needs to be cut from the root to be replaced by a deeper, more intimate insight, rooted in the Buddha-nature itself in truth. Bodhidharma said: "A sentient being who is crazy and doesn't know or understand his own mind is the Buddha." Of all the schools of Buddhism, only Zen Buddhism affirms the close connection between 'enlightenment' and enlightenment. And it was Bodhidharma who first laid the foundation for that connection. If Zen studies are the essence of Buddhism, then Bodhidharma is the essence of Zen Buddhism. The birth and development of this sect cannot be conceived without this half-historical, half-legendary figure.   In Vietnam, perhaps the scholar Truc Thien, who translated the first volume of Meditation Discussion of D.T. Suzuki, who was the first translator of Bodhidharma (Six doors to Thieu That cave, An Tiem, 1971). By 2006, all works attributed to Bodhidharma were fully translated from Chinese by researcher Nguyen Minh Tien (Thieu That Luc Mon, Religion Publishing House, Hanoi, 2006). Recently, Van Lang Culture Joint Stock Company has released a new translation by translator Tien Thanh based on the English version of Red Pine (The Zen Teachings of Bodhidharma). The advantage of the Red Pine version is that it comes with the original Chinese text, so translator Tien Thanh, who is knowledgeable in Chinese (he has translated the entire Hoang De Noi Kinh), can refer and translate directly. . But based on the Red Pine version, translator Tien Thanh did not fully translate all six works that are said to be Bodhidharma's. The translation this time only has: The summary of the Mahayana path into the four practices, Bloodline theory, Enlightenment theory, and Breaking general theory. Some researchers (including scholar Nguyen Minh Tien) have a skeptical attitude, saying that Bodhidharma is just a mythical, historical figure, and the works attributed to him. It's actually the work of posterity. In fact, in the current academic situation, it is difficult to make a final judgment on this issue. The earliest written mention of Bodhidharma is the 150-year-old Bodhidharma of Duong Huyen Chi (circa 547) who met a monk at Vinh Ninh temple claiming to be Bodhidharma. . The second work, Tuc Cao Sang, by Dao Tuyen (died about 667), wrote a detailed biography of Bodhidharma (volume 16) and named Hue Kha and Dao Duc as two disciples of Dat Ma. The details of the 150-year-old Dat Ma in this biography are probably borrowed from the old Lam Ky Luoyang. Dao Tuyen could also use information from Dam Lam (525-543), who knew about Dat Ma's thoughts through Hue Kha. Dam Lam is the author of the preface to the lecture on the Law of the Second Enter the Four Actions. Dam Lam probably used very old documents because the same information is also found in the work Tomb of the old monk discovered at Dunhuang (dating between 713 and 716). Yanagida Seizan (Liu Dien Thanh Son), a leading Japanese expert on the history of Zen, highly appreciates the historicity of Dam Lam's preface, although he admits that "there are many confusing things in the biography. of the Dalai Lama" (Chùgoku zenshùshi, p.12). Going into the content of the works that are said to be by Bodhidharma, who is officially recognized as the first ancestor of the Chinese Zen lineage, we feel that regardless of whether the character Bodhidharma is real or not, these works clearly capture the essence of Zen learning from the inside, especially the section Breaking the Generals. It can be affirmed that in this primordial Zen thought, there is no distinction between the Southern and Northern Schools, between meditation and reading and chanting of scriptures, between keeping precepts and realizing enlightenment, as many people later misunderstood. . There are no strange behaviors or language. There is no such thing as psychic powers. In contrast, the philosophy of Zen, or of Buddhism in general, still only boils down to the two words "liberation," freeing sentient beings from attachment to appearances, into the delusions that imprison us deeply. sorrowful life. That spirit of Zen is really a great contribution to human civilization. Bodhidharma was a semi-legendary Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Buddhism to China, and regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. According to Chinese legend, he also began the physical training of the monks of Shaolin Monastery that led to the creation of Shaolin kungfu. He is known as Dámó in China and as Daruma in Japan. His name means "dharma of awakening (bodhi)" in Sanskrit. Works attributed to Bodhidharma The two entrances referred to in the title are the entrance of principle (理入 lǐrù) and the entrance of practice (行入 xíngrù).
    • TAOIST SECRETS SERIES BY MANTAK CHIA
      TAOIST SECRETS SERIES BY MANTAK CHIA
      10/ 05/ 2022
      It is difficult to answer the question “What is Taoism?” Was it a religious movement that appeared in the Han Dynasty in the second century? What was this movement related to the thoughts of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu? Can Chinese martial arts and qigong practices and Tao Yin be included in Taoism? Or is it a set of secrets to enable initiates to become immortals? All above questions are answered perfectly in the Taoism Secrets series by Mantak Chia and many other American scholars. It is the first time in the history of the Vietnamese publication that readers have witnessed the appearance of such a massive encyclopedia of Taoism. Two authors of Secrets of Taoism series have perfectly combined all three parts: from the traditional theoretical basis of Taoism, the Buddhist meditation method, as well as a solid modern biomedical foundation, the authors offer a complete regimen that guides readers step by step into the secret of Taoism alchemy to prolong life, enjoy a happy life, and become as immortal as the universe itself. To live for good is the ultimate goal of practices of Taoism. It is such an unrealistic dream, but the spectacular advances in biological engineering have revealed extremely new perspectives for humanity. That prospect, if it turns out to be true, is a terrible disaster or an overwhelming happiness for people, it is still an open question for philosophers, moralists, and state agencies. The concept of "immortality" is no longer a silly dream of the Han Taoists. It deserves our serious consideration and evaluation.
    • A DISGUSTING FOOD
      A DISGUSTING FOOD
      18/ 04/ 2022
      In Mozi, there is a very strange passage as follows: 昔者越之東有輆沐之國者，其長子生則解而食之，謂之宜弟 = “Formerly, to the east of Yue, there was the county of the Kaimu. When a first son was born, they cut him up and ate him. They call this “fitting for the younger brother”.” (Mozi 墨子: Jiezang Xia 節葬下 [Moderation in funerals Ⅲ]) The custom of eating the first-born son is also mentioned in another place of Mozi: 魯陽文君語子墨子曰：‘楚之南有啖人之國者橋，其國之長子生，則鮮而食之，謂之宜弟。美，則以遺其君，君喜則賞其父。豈不惡俗哉？’子墨子曰：‘雖中國之俗，亦猶是也。殺其父而賞其子，何以異食其子而賞其父者哉？苟不用仁義，何以非夷人食其子也？’  = Prince Wen of Luyang spoke to Master Mo Zi, saying: “To the south of Chu there is the county, Qiao, in which the eating of people occurs. In that county, when the first son is born, he is eaten alive. This is said to be a protection for younger brothers. If he tastes good, then he is offered to the prince, and if the prince is pleased, he rewards the father. How is this not an evil custom?” Master Mo replied: ‘Even in the customs of the central states there is also something like this, for how is killing the father and rewarding the son different from eating the son and rewarding the father? If ren and yi are not practised, how can there be censure of barbarians for eating their sons?’ In Hou Han Shu 後漢書 (The Book of the Later Han), this custom was recorded as: 其西有噉人國，生首子輒解而食之，謂之宜弟。味旨，則以遺其君，君喜而賞其父。取妻美，則讓其兄。今烏滸人是也。= To the west of it there is a county in which the eating of people occurs. In that county, when the first son is born, they cut him up and eat him. This is said to be a protection for younger brothers. If he tastes good, then he is offered to the prince and if the prince is pleased, he rewards the father. If a man marries a beautiful wife, he offers his wife to his elder brother. They are now the people of Wu Hu. (Hou Han Shu 後漢書: Nanman Zhuan 南蠻傳 [Treatise on the South Barbarians]). Qiu Xigui 裘錫圭, inspired by Western anthropological studies, asserts in Explaining the phenomenon of killing the first son 殺首子解 that killing and eating the first-born son was a religious custom that corresponded to the custom of offering the new harvest to the gods in rituals. But one other scholar, Pan Shixiong 潘世雄 argues in an article, the representation of the custom of eating the first son in so-called “barbarian” areas might be the result of Mo Zi’s misinterpretation of a funeral custom. According to archaeological and ethnographic studies, there was a funeral custom in ancient south China in which people dismembered the body of a child who had died young before burying him/her, because otherwise the ferocious ghost of that child was believed to be very dangerous to later newborns, which explains why the dismemberment would benefit the younger brothers. This explanation sounds more reasonable because it is consistent with religious archeological data in many other parts of the world.
    • HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION: A PREMISE OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION
      HISTORICAL INVESTIGATION: A PREMISE OF PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATION
      04/ 04/ 2022
      If we have the opportunity to read the philosophical works of modern history of famous authors such as Hayden White, Robert F. Berkhofer, Barbara Tuchman, David McCullough, Louis Mink, Fredrich Jameson, Herbert J. Mueller, Paul Ricoeur, WH Walsh, Lucas M. Gisi, we often see the aforementioned authors stressing the close relationship between literature and history. Historical works, in their view, often unconsciously use literary narrative tools when presenting historical events. We see this very clearly when we read Sima Qian, Gibbon, Michelet, Taine, Spengler, Toynbee, Durant. To call their works literary masterpieces is not far from the truth. Arnold J. Toynbee himself, an outstanding British historian, also wrote in his work A Study on History: “The mere selection, arrangement and presentation of facts is a technique belonging to the field of fiction, and popular opinion is right in its insistence that no historian can be ‘great’ if he is not also a great artist.”   Toynbee & A Study of History Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975) is the author of the great book series A Study of History, consisting of 12 volumes. If we compare him with Will Durant, an equally famous and popular American historian, we would immediately see the difference. Will Durant has a popular, simple, sometimes witty writing style that is as engaging as novels, but Toynbee is more profound. His style of writing has a scholarly mature feature, familiar to traditional historians, although it is not "dry as dust" as many people have commented. Moreover, he wrote history to illustrate his philosophy of history, so it is not far from the truth if you consider him a philosopher. The first remarkable thing in Toynbee's enormous historical work is that he emphasizes that the study of history, if confined to individual nation, will lack the necessary comprehensiveness to understand the nature of historical movements, especially when learning about European history. Toynbee's second, more well-known argument, is the "challenge and response" one. It is quite simple: any society is always faced with some kind of challenge that, if surmountable, has an appropriate 'response' to have a chance to continue to grow and develop. This is precisely a type of Darwinian evolution applied to the field of historical philosophy. It is perhaps no coincidence that most of the proponents of Theory of Evolution are Toynbee's fellow countrymen: Thomas Huxley, Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, and most recently Richard Dawkins. Finding Toynbee's 12-volume book series too massive to comprehend for most readers, D.C. Somervell took the effort to summarize this history into 2 volumes. This is a commendable feat because few people in today's busy times take the time to read history books, especially European history, but in my opinion, sharing the same view with Toynbee, I think that In order to understand the historical movement of any country, it is impossible not to take into account the role of European history, including the history of Britain, France, and the United States, which has a direct relationship to the destiny of the nations. So, what is the educational value of history? And what is historical truth? First of all, regarding education, I would like to borrow the words of John Dewey, an American philosopher: "Education has not only to safeguard an individual against the besetting erroneous tendencies of his own mind its rashness, presumption, and preference of what chimes with self-interest to objective evidence but also to undermine and destroy the accumulated and self-per petuating prejudices of long ages.” (How We Think). If history helps us to do these two things - think based on objective evidence and eliminate harmful prejudices - then history, like all other humanities subjects, has a great educational value. As for the so-called "historical truths" I suggest that we maintain a healthy skepticism - an attitude necessary not only for philosophers but for historians as well. Even Toynbee himself admits frankly that there are many hidden links between history and literature that are closely related, not that completely opposite. John Dewey Dr. Dương Ngọc Dũng - Managing Director of Ex Libris Hermes    
    • LESSONS FROM THE DYING - RODNEY SMITH
      LESSONS FROM THE DYING - RODNEY SMITH
      28/ 03/ 2022
      A great German philosopher, perhaps the greatest philosophers of 20th century, Martin Heidegger, hold that man is a "being-towards-death" (Sein zum Tode). A man only lives a true life when he is conscious of his being on a journey back to his most original source - death. People don't tremble at the thought of the end of the world, except for the heroic heroes who proudly proclaim "Death comes to all men / Let me but leave a loyal heart shining in the pages of history” - Poetry of Wen Tian Xiang. Much of humanity's philosophy and religion stemmed from efforts to meet this ultimate challenge. But is death really the end of everything? Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust? What have we known about death? According to Wittgenstein, a philosopher as great as Heidegger, "death" is not an event in life, not a part of "living," so we can't help taking it as something incomprehensible. The author Rodney Smith, a Buddhist practitioner who practiced for many years in Thailand and Myanmar, provides an interesting insight based on his experiences with the dying in hospitals. He strongly criticized the attitude, mainly of Westerners, when they are too fetish for life and terrified of death, taking it as a destructive force that robs the best things. When we are afraid of death, we close the door ourselves to new experiences that intertwines with life and death. The Eastern mind, which has long been maintained in Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, has always maintained a peaceful and peaceful attitude in the face of death. For a long time the Eastern mind, nurtured mainly in Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, has always maintained a calm, peaceful attitude before death. Westerners, under the influence of Christianity, view life as unique, completely separate from the darkness of Death. Jesus Christ is honored for his victory over the lord of the hell. In the thinking of most Asian religions, both "dead" and "alive" are only two sides of the same living, ever-moving reality. “Start” or “end” are only approximate. The most important attitude of mind is the attitude of letting go. Just the word "equanimity" in the four words “loving-kindness, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity," is enough to summarize the essential spirit of Buddhism. "Equanimity" (in Sanskrit, upeksha) is translated very accurately as "equanimity" (calmness, peace of mind), expressing an attitude of openness to all forms of "reality," free from entanglement, anger, greed, or affliction when “reality” changes. Death is also one of the "faces" of human "reality" that we need to recognize in an inseparable relationship with present life. Death is not the ultimate end. Perhaps it's the beginning of a never-before-seen experience. But that is not the most important message that Rodney Smith wants to send to readers. A person with strong religious beliefs (a Buddhist or a Christian, or a devotee of Allah) is not obsessed with death. Non-religious people (like most scientists) take death as the end of a natural biological process. But neither of these groups of people see contemplating the meaning of death as opening the door to a truly fulfilling life. Living, existing, for many people is anxiety, affliction, regret. Worried about the uncertain future, they have to collect and store a lot of wealth. They greedily enjoy and hunt for material pleasures as much as possible because death is the end when nothing is left. And that will inevitably lead to affliction because with boundless lust, how can we ever be satisfied? While lying on the hospital bed waiting for Death to come and take us to a strange land, people regret the countless sorrows and mistakes of the past. If only we could return? If only we weren't so absorbed in making money and forgot about the whole family? If only we had realized the true values ​​in life sooner? According to Rodney Smith, it is death that is the great teacher to help us truly live better. Most of us never brood over this until it's too late. The book is a philosophical treatise on death and life. It is really necessary for those who have been wandering in life and want to stop and reflect on the value of existence. As the Buddha replied to the murderer Angulimala who was pursuing him when he called out: "Stop, contemplative! Stop!": "I have stopped, Angulimala. You stop.” Sometimes we need to stop in the flow of life to ask ourselves the question: “Where are we going? Can we stop it yet?” Dr. Dương Ngọc Dũng - Managing Director of Ex Libris Hermes    
    • ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE - ROBERT M.PIRSIG
      ZEN AND THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE - ROBERT M.PIRSIG
      21/ 03/ 2022
      As you go through the title, you'll get the impression that this is a ridiculous book: "What does Zen have to do with maintaining a motorcycle? Then there should be titles like Zen and the sale of baluts, Zen and prostitution, Zen and drug trafficking, and so on." But when we curiously flip a few pages, we would feel that this is a serious book, really serious in terms of philosophical thinking which is expressed in the form of a novel in a light, flying style. The work is a dream success for any writer: millions of copies have been sold, translated into more than twenty languages, and numerous articles praising it as "the most widely read philosophical novel of all time." The father and son's motorcycle journey across America is just a contemporary metaphor for a spiritual journey that begins with fundamental questions enquiries about the meaning of things in life through the character Phaedrus. To many pepple, these enquiries seem meaningless and out of line in a world completely dominated by the Internet and mobile phones. Even traditional intellectual pursuits centered on reflection and contemplation can now be summed up in a single word: Google. The work was written in the 1960s, when there was no Internet or smartphone, and the leisurely attitude of two people wandering the paths in search of truth and complete enlightenment (Aren’t they the ultimate goal of Zen, are they?) which seem alien, even a little too romantic, in the hustle and bustle of today's world. But it is at this strange point that the work has given the reader its greatest strength. How long have people lost their honest, innocent self that only knows how to love and accept life? Returning to our roots, reverting back to the origin to being able to see through our true self in the transparent water of enlightenment, isn't that the attitude of Zen Zong? Of course, leaving does not mean that you will definitely return, much less guarantee that you will find it. But if you do not strongly embark on the journey, will life still have any meaning? Human life is not only about birth, old age, illness, and death. As humans, we are superior to animals thanks to our sense of self-reflection to find the meaning of life. It is true that "Death comes to all men" but we still wonder to know the meaning of death, even yearning to conquer death by performing longlasting works: “Let me but leave a loyal heart shining in the pages of history." Heidegger, one of the greatest philosophers of the West, held that human existence (Dasein) is a pilgriming being to the dead (Sein zum Tode). The author of Zen and the Art of motorcycle maintenance invites us to bravely turn away from pragmatic, practical life, money, fame, envy in better-than games, to once innocently embark on a world of thinking and searching for true human values that ​​are still hidden somewhere in the endless life. In addition to being a poetic philosophical novel, Zen and the Art of motorcycle maintenance also discusses other important topics such as the relationship between philosophical thinking and scientific attitudes, the role of religion in human life, but always in a style of a writer, not of a school academic scholar, that is, gentle, profound, attractive and contemplative stemming from personal experiences more than from immersing in the books in some library. I venture to suggest that instead of requiring philosophy students to recite some boring introductory textbook, teachers should recommend this work to students so that they can initiate their own searching of wisdom for themselves. Dr. Dương Ngọc Dũng - Managing Director of Ex Libris Hermes
    • ON THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH - MARTIN HEIDEGGER - translated by JOHN SALLIS - PART III
      ON THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH - MARTIN HEIDEGGER - translated by JOHN SALLIS - PART III
      14/ 03/ 2022
      Read ON THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH - MARTIN HEIDEGGER - translated by JOHN SALLIS - PART I Read ON THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH - MARTIN HEIDEGGER - translated by JOHN SALLIS - PART II 7. Untruth as Errancy As insistent, man is turned toward the most readily available beings. But he insists only by being already ek-sistent, since, after all, he takes beings as his standard. However, in taking its standard, humanity is turned away from the mystery. The insistent turning toward what is readily available and the ek-sistent turning away from the mystery belong together. They are one and the same. Yet turning toward and away from is based on a turning to and fro proper to Dasein. Man‟s flight from the mystery toward what is readily available, onward from one current thing to the next, passing the mystery by — this is erring.* Man errs. Man does not merely stray into errancy. He is always astray in errancy, because as eksistent he in-sists and so already is caught in errancy. The errancy through which man strays is not something which, as it were, extends alongside man like a ditch into which he occasionally stumbles; rather errancy belongs to the inner constitution of the Da-sein into which historical man is admitted. Errancy is the free space for that turning in which insistent ek-sistence adroitly forgets and mistakes itself constantly anew. The concealing of the concealed being as a whole holds sway in that disclosure of specific beings, which, as forgottenness of concealment, becomes errancy. Errancy is the essential counter-essence to the primordial essence of truth. Errancy opens itself up as the open region for every opposite to essential truth. Errancy is the open site for and ground of error. Error is not just an isolated mistake but rather the realm (the domain) of the history of those entanglements in which all kinds of erring get interwoven. In conformity with its openness and its relatedness to beings as a whole, every mode of comportment has its mode of erring. Error extends from the most ordinary wasting of time, making a mistake, and miscalculating, to going astray and venturing too far in one‟s essential attitudes and decisions. However, what is ordinarily and even according to the teachings of philosophy recognized as error, incorrectness of judgments and falsity of knowledge, is only one mode of erring and, moreover, the most superficial one. The errancy in which any given segment of historical humanity must proceed for its course to be errant is essentially connected with the openness of Dasein. By leading him astray, errancy dominates man through and through. But, as leading astray, errancy at the same time contributes to a possibility that man is capable of drawing up from his ek-sistence — the possibility that, by experiencing errancy itself and by not mistaking the mystery of Da-sein, he not let himself be led astray. Because man‟s in-sistent ek-sistence proceeds in errancy, and because errancy as leading astray always oppresses in some manner or other and is formidable on the basis of this oppression of the mystery, specifically as something forgotten, in the ek-sistence of his Dasein man is especially subjected to the rule of the mystery and the oppression of errancy. He is in the needful condition of being constrained by the one and the other. The full essence of truth, including its most proper non-essence, keeps Dasein in need by this perpetual turning to and fro. Dasein is a turning into need. From man‟s Dasein and from it alone arises the disclosure of necessity and, as a result, the possibility of being transposed into what is inevitable. The disclosure of beings as such is simultaneously and intrinsically the concealing of being as a whole. In the simultaneity of disclosure and concealing errancy holds sway. Errancy and the concealing of what is concealed belong to the primordial essence of truth. Freedom, conceived on the basis of the in-sistent eksistence of Dasein, is the essence of truth (in the sense of the correctness of presenting) only because freedom itself originates from the primordial essence of truth, the rule of the mystery in errancy. Letting beings be takes its course in open comportment. However, letting beings as such be as a whole occurs in a way befitting its essence only when from time to time it gets taken up in its primordial essence. Then resolute openness toward the mystery [Ent-schlossenheit zum Geheimnis] is under way into errancy as such. Then the question of the essence of truth gets asked more originally. Then the ground of the intertwining of the essence of truth with the truth of essence reveals itself. The glimpse into the mystery out of errancy is a question — in the sense of that unique question of what being as such is as a whole. This questioning thinks the question of the Being of beings, a question that is essentially misleading and thus in its manifold meaning is still not mastered. The thinking of Being, from which such questioning primordially originates has since Plato been understood as “philosophy” and later received the title “metaphysics.” 8. Philosophy and the Question of Truth In the thinking of Being the liberation of man for ek-sistence, the liberation that grounds history, is put into words. These are not just the “expression” of an opinion but are always already the ably conserved articulation of the truth of being as a whole. How many have ears for these words matters not. Who those are that can hear them determines man‟s standpoint in history. However, in the same period in which the beginning of philosophy takes place, the marked domination of common sense (sophistry) also begins. Sophistry appeals to the unquestionable character of the beings that are opened up and interprets all thoughtful questioning as an attack on, an unfortunate irritation of, common sense. However, what philosophy is according to the estimation of common sense, which is quite justified in its own domain, does not touch on the essence of philosophy, which can be determined only on the basis of relatedness to the original truth of being as such as a whole. But because the full essence of truth contains the non-essence and above all holds sway as concealing, philosophy as a questioning into this truth is intrinsically discordant. Philosophical thinking is gentle releasement that does not renounce the concealment of being as a whole. Philosophical thinking is especially the stern and resolute openness that does not disrupt the concealing but entreats its unbroken essence into the open region of understanding and thus into its own truth. In the gentle sternness and stem gentleness with which it lets being as such be as a whole, philosophy becomes a questioning which does not cling solely to beings yet which also can allow no externally imposed decree. Kant presaged this innermost need that thinking has. For he says of philosophy: Here philosophy is seen in fact to be placed in a precarious position which is supposed to be stable—although neither in heaven nor on earth is there anything on which it depends or on which it is based. It is here that it has to prove its integrity as the keeper of its laws [Selbsthalterin ihrer Gesetze], not as the mouthpiece of laws secretly communicated to it by some implanted sense or by who knows what tutelary nature. (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten. Werke, Akademieausgabe IV, 425.) With this essential interpretation of philosophy, Kant, whose work introduces the final turning of Western metaphysics, envisions a domain which to be sure he could understand only on the basis of his fundamental metaphysical positions founded on subjectivity, and which he had to understand as the keeping of its laws. This essential view of the determination of philosophy nevertheless goes far enough to renounce every subjugation of philosophical thinking, the most destitute kind of which lets philosophy still be of value as an “expression” of “culture” (Spengler) and as an ornament of productive mankind. However, whether philosophy as “keeper of its laws” fulfills its primordially decisive essence, or whether it is not itself first of all kept and appointed to its task as keeper by the truth of that to which its laws pertain, this depends on the primordiality with which the original essence of truth becomes essential for thoughtful questioning. The present undertaking takes the question of the essence of truth beyond the confines of the ordinary definition provided in the usual concept of essence and helps us to consider whether the question of the essence of truth must not be, at the same time and even first of all, the question concerning the truth of essence. But in the concept of “essence” philosophy thinks Being. In tracing the inner possibility of the correctness of statements back to the eksistent freedom of letting-be as its “ground,” likewise in pointing to the essential commencement of this ground in concealing and in errancy, we want to show that the essence of truth is not the empty “generality” of an “abstract” universality but rather that which, self-concealing, is unique in the unremitting history of the disclosure of the “meaning” of what we call Being — what we for a long time have been accustomed to considering only as being as a whole. 9. Note The question of the essence of truth arises from the question of the truth of essence. In the former question essence is understood initially in the sense of whatness (quidditas) or material content (realitas), whereas truth is understood as a characteristic of knowledge. In the question of the truth of essence, essence is understood verbally; in this word, remaining still within metaphysical presentation, Being is thought as the difference that holds sway between Being and beings. Truth signifies sheltering that lightens [lichtendes Bergen] as the basic characteristic of Being. The question of the essence of truth finds its answer in the proposition the essence of truth is the truth of essence. After our explanation it can easily be seen that the proposition does not merely reverse the word order so as to conjure the specter of paradox. The subject of the proposition — if this unfortunate grammatical category may still be used at all — is the truth of essence. Sheltering that lightens is — i. e., lets essentially unfold — accordance between knowledge and beings. The proposition is not dialectical. It is no proposition at all in the sense of a statement. The answer to the question of the essence of truth is the saying of a turning [die Sage einer Kehre] within the history of Being. Because sheltering that lightens belongs to it, Being appears primordially in the light of concealing withdrawal. The name of this lighting [Lichtung] is aletheia. Already in the original project the lecture “On the Essence of Truth” was to have been completed by a second lecture “On the Truth of Essence.” The latter failed for reasons that are now indicated in the “Letter on Humanism.” The decisive question (in Being and Time, 1927) of the meaning, i. e., of the project-domain (cf. p. 151), i. e., of the openness, i. e., of the truth of Being and not merely of beings, remains intentionally undeveloped. Our thinking apparently remains on the path of metaphysics. Nevertheless, in its decisive steps, which lead from truth as correctness to ek-sistent freedom, and from the latter to truth as concealing and as errancy, it accomplishes a change in the questioning that belongs to the overcoming of metaphysics. The thinking attempted in the lecture comes to fulfillment in the essential experience that a nearness to the truth of Being is first prepared for historical man on the basis of the Dasein into which man can enter. Every kind of anthropology and all subjectivity of man as subject is not merely left behind — as it was already in Being and Time — and the truth of Being sought as the ground of a transformed historical position; rather, the movement of the lecture is such that it sets out to think from this other ground (Dasein). The course of the questioning is intrinsically the way of a thinking which, instead of furnishing representations and concepts, experiences and tries itself as a transformation of its relatedness to Being.
    • ON THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH - MARTIN HEIDEGGER - translated by JOHN SALLIS - PART II
      ON THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH - MARTIN HEIDEGGER - translated by JOHN SALLIS - PART II
      07/ 03/ 2022
      Read ON THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH - MARTIN HEIDEGGER - translated by JOHN SALLIS - PART I 4. The Essence of Freedom However, indication of the essential connection between truth as correctness and freedom uproots those preconceptions — granted of course that we are prepared for a transformation of thinking. Consideration of the essential connection between truth and freedom leads us to pursue the question of the essence of man in a regard which assures us an experience of a concealed essential ground of man (of Dasein), and in such a manner that the experience transposes us in advance into the originally essential domain of truth. But here it becomes evident also that freedom is the ground of the inner possibility of correctness only because it receives its own essence from the more original essence of uniquely essential truth. Freedom was first determined as freedom for what is opened up in an open region. How is this essence of freedom to be thought? That which is opened up, that to which a presentative statement as correct corresponds, are beings opened up in an open comportment. Freedom for what is opened up in an open region lets beings be the beings they are. Freedom now reveals itself as letting beings be. Ordinarily we speak of letting be whenever, for example, we forgo some enterprise that has been planned. “We let something be” means we do not touch it again, we have nothing more to do with it. To let something be has here the negative sense of letting it alone, of renouncing it, of indifference and even neglect. However, the phrase required now — to let beings be — does not refer to neglect and indifference but rather the opposite. To let be is to engage oneself with beings. On the other hand, to be sure, this is not to be understood only as the mere management, preservation, tending, and planning of the beings in each case encountered or sought out. To let be — that is, to let beings be as the beings which they are — means to engage oneself with the open region and its openness into which every being comes to stand, bringing that openness, as it were, along with itself. Western thinking in its beginning conceived this open region as ta alethea the unconcealed. If we translate aletheia as "unconcealment" rather than “truth,” this translation is not merely more literal; it contains the directive to rethink the ordinary concept of truth in the sense of the correctness of statements and to think it back to that still uncomprehended disclosedness and disclosure of beings. To engage oneself with the disclosedness of beings is not to lose oneself in them; rather, such engagement withdraws in the face of beings in order that they might reveal themselves with respect to what and how they are and in order that presentative correspondence might take its standard from them. As this letting-be, it exposes itself to beings as such and transposes all comportment into the open region. Letting-be, i. e., freedom, is intrinsically exposing, ek-sistent. Considered in regard to the essence of truth, the essence of freedom manifests itself as exposure to the disclosedness of beings. Freedom is not merely what common sense is content to let pass under this name: the caprice, turning up occasionally in our choosing, of inclining in this or that direction. Freedom is not mere absence of constraint with respect to what we can or cannot do. Nor is it on the other hand mere readiness for what is required and necessary (and so somehow a being). Prior to all this (“negative” and “positive” freedom), freedom is engagement in the disclosure of beings as such. Disclosedness itself is conserved in ek-sistent engagement, through which the openness of the open region, i. e., the “there” [“Da”], is what it is. In Da-sein the essential ground, long ungrounded, on the basis of which man is able to ek-sist, is preserved for him. Here “existence” does not mean existentia in the sense of occurring or being at hand. Nor on the other hand does it mean, in an “existentiell” fashion, man‟s moral endeavor in behalf of his “self,” based on his psychophysical constitution. Ek-sistence, rooted in truth as freedom, is exposure to the disclosedness of beings as such. Still uncomprehended, indeed, not even in need of an essential grounding, the ek-sistence of historical man begins at that moment when the first thinker takes a questioning stand with regard to the unconcealment of beings by asking: what are beings? In this question unconcealment is experienced for the first time. Being as a whole reveals itself as physis, “nature,” which here does not yet mean a particular sphere of beings but rather beings as such as a whole, specifically in the sense of emerging presence [aufgehendes Anwesen]. History begins only when beings themselves are expressly drawn up into their unconcealment and conserved in it, only when this conservation is conceived on the basis of questioning regarding beings as such. The primordial disclosure of being as a whole, the question concerning beings as such, and the beginning of Western history are the same; they occur together in a “time” which, itself unmeasurable, first opens up the open region for every measure. But if ek-sistent Da-sein, which lets beings be, sets man free for his “freedom” by first offering to his choice something possible (a being) and by imposing on him something necessary (a being), human caprice does not then have freedom at its disposal. Man does not “possess” freedom as a property. At best, the converse holds: freedom, ek-sis tent, disclosive Da-sein, possesses man — so originally that only it secures for humanity that distinctive relatedness to being as a whole as such which first founds all history. Only ek-sistent man is historical. “Nature” has no history. Freedom, understood as letting beings be, is the fulfillment and consummation of the essence of truth in the sense of the disclosure of beings. “Truth” is not a feature of correct propositions which are asserted of an “object” by a human “subject” and then are valid” somewhere, in what sphere we know not. Rather, truth is disclosure of beings through which an openness essentially unfolds [west]. All human comportment and bearing are exposed in its open region. Therefore man is in the manner of ek-sistence. Because every mode of human comportment is in its own way open and plies itself to that toward which it comports itself, the restraint of letting-be, i. e., freedom, must have granted it its endowment of that inner directive for correspondence of presentator to beings. That man ek-sists now means that for historical human ity the history of its essential possibilities is conserved in the disclosure of beings as a whole. The rare and the simple decisions of history arise from the way the original essence of truth essentially unfolds. However, because truth is in essence freedom, historical man can, in letting beings be, also not let beings be the beings which they are and as they are. Then beings are covered up and distorted. Semblance comes to power. In it the non-essence of truth comes to the fore. However, because ek-sistent freedom as the essence of truth is not a property of man; because on the contrary man eksists and so becomes capable of history only as the property of this freedom; the non-essence of truth cannot first arise subsequently from mere human incapacity and negligence. Rather, untruth must derive from the essence of truth. Only because truth and untruth are, in essence, not irrelevant to one another but rather belong together is it possible for a true proposition to enter into pointed opposition to the corresponding untrue proposition. The question concerning the essence of truth thus first reaches the original domain of what is at issue when, on the basis of a prior glimpse of the full essence of truth, it has included a consideration of untruth in its unveiling of that essence. Discussion of the non-essence of truth is not the subsequent filling of a gap but rather the decisive step toward an adequate posing of the question concerning the essence of truth. Yet how are we to comprehend the non-essence in the essence of truth? If the essence of truth is not exhausted by the correctness of statements, then neither can untruth be equated with the incorrectness of judgments. 5. The Essence of Truth The essence of truth reveals itself as freedom. The latter is ek-sistent, disclosive letting beings be. Every mode of open comportment flourishes in letting beings be and in each case is a comportment to this or that being. As engagement in the disclosure of being as a whole as such, freedom has already attuned all comportment to being as a whole. However, being attuned (attunement) can never be understood as “experience and “feeling,” because it is thereby simply deprived of its essence. For here it is interpreted on the basis of something (“life” and “soul”) that can maintain the semblance of the title of essence only as long as it bears in itself the distortion and misinterpretation of being attuned. Being attuned, i. e., ek-sistent exposedness to beings as a whole, can be “experienced" and “felt” only because the “man who "experiences" without being aware of the essence of the attunement, is always engaged in being attuned in a way that discloses beings as a whole. Every mode of historical man‟s comportment whether accentuated or not, whether understood or not — is attuned and by this attunement is drawn up into beings as a whole. The openedness of being as a whole does not coincide with the sum of all immediately familiar beings. On the contrary: where beings are not very familiar to man and are scarcely and only roughly known by science, the openedness of beings as a whole can prevail more essentially than it can where the familiar and well-known has become boundless, and nothing is any longer able to withstand the business of knowing, since technical mastery over things bears itself without limit. Precisely in the leveling and planning of this omniscience, this mere knowing, the openedness of beings gets flattened out into the apparent nothingness of what is no longer even a matter of indifference but rather is simply forgotten. Letting beings be, which is an attuning, a bringing into accord, prevails throughout and anticipates all the open comportment that flourishes in it. Man‟s comportment is brought into definite accord throughout by the openedness of being as a whole. However, from the point of view of everyday calculations and preoccupations this “as a whole” appears to be incalculable and incomprehensible. It cannot be understood on the basis of the beings opened up in any given case, whether they belong to nature or to history. Although it ceaselessly brings everything into definite accord, still it remains indefinite, indeterminable; it then coincides for the most part with what is most fleeting and most unconsidered. However, what brings into accord is not nothing but rather a concealing of beings as a whole. Precisely because letting be always lets beings be in a particular comportment which relates to them and thus discloses them, it conceals beings as a whole. Letting-be is intrinsically at the same time a concealing. In the ek-sistent freedom of Dasein a concealing of being as a whole comes to pass [ereignet sichj. Here there is concealment. 6. Untruth as Concealing Concealment deprives aletheia of disclosure yet does not render it steresis (privation); rather, concealment preserves what is most proper to aletheia as its own. Considered with respect to truth as disclosedness, concealment is then undisclosedness and accordingly the untruth that is most proper to the essence of truth. The concealment of beings as a whole does not first show up subsequently as a consequence of the fact that knowledge of beings is always fragmentary. The concealment of beings as a whole, untruth proper, is older than every openedness of this or that being. It is also older than letting-be itself which in disclosing already holds concealed and comports itself toward concealing. What conserves letting-be in this relatedness to concealing? Nothing less than the concealing of what is concealed as a whole, of beings as such, i. e., the mystery; not a particular mystery regarding this or that, but rather the one mystery — that, in general, mystery (the concealing of what is concealed) as such holds sway throughout man‟s Dasein. In letting beings as a whole be, which discloses and at the same time conceals, it happens that concealing appears as what is first of all concealed. Insofar as it ek-sists, Da-sein conserves the first and broadest undisclosedness, untruth proper. The proper non-essence of truth is the mystery. Here non-essence does not yet have the sense of inferiority to essence in the sense of what is general (koinon genos), its possibilitas and the ground of its possibility. Non-essence is here what in such a sense would be a pre-essential essence. But "non-essence" means at first and for the most part the deformation of that already inferior essence. Indeed, in each of these significations the non-essence remains always in its own way essential to the essence and never becomes inessential in the sense of irrelevant. But to speak of non-essence and untruth in this manner goes very much against the grain of ordinary opinion and looks like a dragging up of forcibly contrived paradoxes. Because it is difficult to eliminate this impression, such a way of speaking, paradoxical only for ordinary doxa (opinion), is to be renounced. But surely for those who know about such matters the “non-” of the primordial non-essence of truth, as untruth, points to the still unexperienced domain of the truth of Being (not merely of beings). As letting beings be, freedom is intrinsically the resolutely open bearing that does not close up in itself. All comportment is grounded in this bearing and receives from it directedness toward beings and disclosure of them. Nevertheless, this bearing toward concealing conceals itself in the process, letting a forgottenness of the mystery take precedence and disappearing in it. Certainly man takes his bearings [verhalt sich] constantly in his comportment toward beings; but for the most part he acquiesces in this or that being and its particular openedness. Man clings to what is readily available and controllable even where ultimate matters are concerned. And if he sets out to extend, change, newly assimilate, or secure the openedness of the beings pertaining to the most various domains of his activity and interest, then he still takes his directives from the sphere of readily available intentions and needs. However, to reside in what is readily available is intrinsically not to let the concealing of what is concealed hold sway. Certainly among readily familiar things there are also some that are puzzling, unexplained, undecided, questionable. But these self-certain questions are merely transitional, intermediate points in our movement within the readily familiar and thus not essential. Wherever the concealment of beings as a whole is conceded only as a limit that occasionally announces itself, concealing as a fundamental occurrence has sunk into forgottenness. But the forgotten mystery of Dasein is not eliminated by the forgottenness; rather, the forgottenness bestows on the apparent disappearance of what is forgotten a peculiar presence [Gegenwart]. By disavowing itself in and for forgottenness, the mystery leaves historical man in the sphere of what is readily available to him, leaves him to his own resources. Thus left, humanity replenishes its “world” on the basis of the latest needs and aims, and fills out that world by means of proposing and planning. From these man then takes his standards, forgetting being as a whole. He persists in them and continually supplies himself with new standards, yet without considering either the ground for taking up standards or the essence of what gives the standard. In spite of his advance to new standards and goals, man goes wrong as regards the essential genuineness of his standards. He is all the more mistaken the more exclusively he takes himself, as subject, to be the standard for all beings. The inordinate forgetfulness of humanity persists in securing itself by means of what is readily available and always accessible. This persistence has its unwitting support in that bearing by which Dasein not only ek-sists but also at the same time in-sists, i. e., holds fast to what is offered by beings, as if they were open of and in themselves. As ek-sistent, Dasein is insistent. Even in insistent existence the mystery holds sway, but as the forgotten and hence “inessential” essence of truth.
    • ON THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH - MARTIN HEIDEGGER - translated by JOHN SALLIS - PART I
      ON THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH - MARTIN HEIDEGGER - translated by JOHN SALLIS - PART I
      28/ 02/ 2022
      This work was first published in 1943 under the name Vom Wesen der Wahrheit. The English version On The Essence of Truth was translated by John Sallis, published in Pathmarks, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1930]1998, pp. 136-137. Ex Libris Hermes will post this edition into 3 parts. Our topic is the essence of truth. The question regarding the essence of truth is not concerned with whether truth is a truth of practical experience or of economic calculation, the truth of a technical consideration or of political sagacity, or, in particular, a truth of scientific research or of artistic composition, or even the truth of thoughtful reflection or of cultic belief. The question of essence disregards all this and attends to the one thing that in general distinguishes every “truth” as truth. Yet with this question concerning essence do we not soar too high into the void of generality which deprives all thinking of breath? Does not the extravagance of such questioning bring to light the groundlessness of all philosophy? A radical thinking that turns to what is actual must surely from the first insist bluntly on establishing the actual truth which today gives us a measure and a stand against the confusion of opinions and reckonings. In the face of this actual need what use is the question concerning the essence of truth, this “abstract” question that disregards everything actual? Is not the question of essence the most inessential and superfluous that could be asked? No one can evade the evident certainty of these considerations. None can lightly neglect their compelling seriousness. But what is it that speaks in these considerations? “Sound” common sense. It harps on the demand for palpable utility and inveighs against knowledge of the essence of beings, which essential knowledge has long been called “philosophy.” Common sense has its own necessity; it asserts its rights with the weapon peculiarly suitable to it, namely, appeal to the “obviousness of its claims and considerations. However, philosophy can never refute common sense, for the latter is deaf to the language of philosophy. Nor may it even wish to do so, since common sense is blind to what philosophy sets before its essential vision. Moreover, we ourselves remain within the sensibleness of common sense to the extent that we suppose ourselves to be secure in those multiform “truths” of practical experience and action, of research, composition, and belief. We ourselves intensify that resistance which the “obvious” has to every demand made by what is questionable. Therefore even if some questioning concerning truth is necessary, what we then demand is an answer to the question as to where we stand today. We want to know what our situation is today. We call for the goal which should be posited for man in and for his history. We want the actual “truth.” Well then — truth! But in calling for the actual “truth” we must already know what truth as such means. Or do we know this only by “feeling” and in a general way”? But is not such vague “knowing” and our indifference regarding it more desolate than sheer ignorance of the essence of truth? 1. The Usual Concept of Truth What do we ordinarily understand by “truth”? This elevated yet at the same time worn and almost dulled word “truth” means what makes a true thing true. What is a true thing? We say, for example, “It is a true joy to cooperate in the accomplishment of this task.” We mean that it is purely and actually a joy. The true is the actual. Accordingly, we speak of true gold in distinction from false. False gold is not actually what it appears to be. It is merely a “semblance” and thus is not actual. What is not actual is taken to be the opposite of the actual. But what merely seems to be gold is nevertheless something actual. Accordingly, we say, more precisely, actual gold is genuine gold. Yet both are “actual,” the circulating counterfeit no less than the genuine gold. What is true about genuine gold thus cannot be demonstrated merely by its actuality. The question recurs: what do “genuine” and “true” mean here? Genuine gold is that actual gold the actuality of which is in accordance [in der Ubereinstimmung steht] with what, always and in advance, we “properly” mean by “gold.” Conversely, wherever we suspect false gold, we say: “Here something is not in accord” [stimmt nicht]. On the other hand, we say of whatever is “as it should be”: “It is in accord.” The matter is in accord [Die Sache stimmt]. However, we call true not only an actual joy, genuine gold, and all beings of such kind, but also and above all we call true or false our statements about beings, which can themselves be genuine or not with regard to their kind, which can be thus or otherwise in their actuality. A statement is true if what it means and says is in accordance with the matter about which the statement is made. Here too we say, “It is in accord.” Now, though, it is not the matter that is in accord but rather the proposition. The true, whether it be a matter or a proposition, is what accords, the accordant [das Stimmende]. Being true and truth here signify accord, and that in a double sense: on the one hand, the consonance [Einstimmigkeit] of a matter with what is supposed in advance regarding it and, on the other hand, the accordance of what is meant in the statement with the matter. This dual character of the accord is brought to light by the traditional definition of truth: veritas est adaequatio rei et intellectus. This can be taken to mean: truth is the correspondence [Angleichungl of the matter to knowledge. But it can also be taken as saying: truth is the correspondence of knowledge to the matter. Admittedly, the above definition is usually stated only in the formula veritas est adaequatio intellectus ad rem [truth is the adequation of intellect to thing] Yet truth so conceived, propositional truth, is possible only on the basis of material truth [Sachwahrheit], of adaequatio rei ad intellectum [adequation of thing to intellect ]. Both concepts of the essence of veritas have continually in view a conforming to ... [Sichrichten nach . .]‟ and hence think truth as correctness [Richtigkeit]. Nonetheless, the one is not the mere inversion of the other. On the contrary, in each case intellectus and res are thought differently. In order to recognize this we must trace the usual formula for the ordinary concept of truth back to its most recent (i. e., the medieval) origin. Veritas as adaequatio rei ad intellectum does not imply the later transcendental conception of Kant — possible only on the basis of the subjectivity of man‟s essence — that “objects conform to our knowledge.” Rather, it implies the Christian theological belief that, with respect to what it is and whether it is, a matter, as created (ens creatum), is only insofar as it corresponds to the idea preconceived in the intellectus divinus, i. e., in the mind of God, and thus measures up to the idea (is correct) and in this sense is “true.” The intellectus humanus too is an ens creatum. As a capacity bestowed upon man by God, it must satisfy its idea. But the understanding measures up to the idea only by accomplishing in its propositions the correspondence of what is thought to the matter, which in its turn must be in conformity with the idea. If all beings are “created,” the possibility of the truth of human knowledge is grounded in the fact that matter and proposition measure up to the idea in the same way and therefore are fitted to each other on the basis of the unity of the divine plan of creation. Veritas as adaequatio rei (creandae) ad intellectum (divinum) guarantees veritas as adaequatio intellectus (humani) ad rem (creatam). Throughout, veritas essentially implies convenientia, the coming of beings themselves, as created, into agreement with the Creator, an “accord” with regard to the way they are determined in the order of creation. But this order, detached from the notion of creation, can also be represented in a general and indefinite way as a world-order. The theologically conceived order of creation is replaced by the capacity of all objects to be planned by means of a worldly reason [Weltvernunft] which supplies the law for itself and thus also claims that its procedure is immediately intelligible (what is considered “logical”). That the essence of propositional truth consists in the correctness of statements needs no further special proof. Even where an effort is made — with a conspicuous lack of success — to explain how correctness is to occur, it is already presupposed as being the essence of truth. Likewise, material truth always signifies the consonance of something at hand with the "rational" concept of its essence. The impression arises that this definition of the essence of truth is independent of the interpretation of the essence of the Being of all beings, which always includes a corresponding interpretation of the essence of man as the bearer and executor of intellectus. Thus the formula for the essence of truth (veritas est adaequatio intellectus et rei) comes to have its general validity as something immediately evident to everyone. Under the domination of the obviousness which this concept of truth seems to have but which is hardly attended to as regards its essential grounds, it is considered equally obvious that truth has an opposite, and that there is untruth. The untruth of the proposition (incorrectness) is the non-accordance of the statement with the matter. The untruth of the matter (non-genuineness) signifies non-agreement of a being with its essence. In each case untruth is conceived as a non-accord. The latter falls outside the essence of truth. Therefore when it is a question of comprehending the pure essence of truth, untruth, as such an opposite of truth, can be put aside. But then is there any further need at all for a special unveiling of the essence of truth? Is not the pure essence of truth already adequately represented in the generally accepted concept, which is upset by no theory and is secured by its obviousness? Moreover, if we take the tracing back of propositional truth to material truth to be what in the first instance it shows itself to be, namely a theological explanation, and if we then keep the philosophical definition completely pure of all admixture of theology and limit the concept of truth to propositional truth, then we encounter an old — though not the oldest — tradition of thinking, according to which truth is the accordance (homoiosis) of a statement (logos) with a matter (pragma). What is it about statements that here remains still worthy of question — granted that we know what is meant by accordance of a statement with the matter? Do we know that? 2. The Inner Possibility of Accordance We speak of accordance in various senses. We say, for example, considering two five-mark coins lying on the table: they are in accordance with one another. They come into accord in the oneness of their outward appearance. Hence they have the latter in common, and thus they are in this regard alike. Furthermore, we speak of accordance whenever, for example, we state regarding one of the five-mark coins: this coin is round. Here the statement is in accordance with the thing. Now the relation obtains, not between thing and thing, but rather between a statement and a thing. But wherein are the thing and the statement supposed to be in accordance, considering that the relata are manifestly different in their outward appearance? The coin is made of metal. The statement is not material at all. The coin is round. The statement has nothing at all spatial about it. With the coin something can be purchased. The statement about it is never a means of payment. But in spite of all their dissimilarity the above statement, as true, is in accordance with the coin. And according to the usual concept of truth this accord is supposed to be a correspondence. How can what is completely dissimilar, the statement, correspond to the coin? It would have to become the coin and in this way relinquish itself entirely. The statement never succeeds in doing that. The moment it did, it would no longer be able as a statement to be in accordance with the thing. In the correspondence the statement must remain — indeed even first become — what it is. In what does its essence, so thoroughly different from every thing, consist? How is the statement able to correspond to something else, the thing, precisely by persisting in its own essence? Correspondence here cannot signify a thing-like approximation between dissimilar kinds of things. The essence of the correspondence is determined rather by the kind of relation that obtains between the statement and the thing. As long as this “relation” remains undetermined and is not grounded in its essence, all dispute over the possibility and impossibility, over the nature and degree, of the correspondence loses its way in a void. But the statement regarding the coin relates “itself” to this thing in that it presents [vor-stellt) it and says of the presented how, according to the particular perspective that guides it, it is disposed. What is stated by the presentative statement is said of the presented thing in just such manner as that thing, as presented, is. The “such-as” has to do with the presenting and its presented. Disregarding all „„psychological‟‟ preconceptions as well as those of any „„theory of consciousness,” to present here means to let the thing stand opposed as object. As thus placed, what stands opposed must traverse an open field of opposedness (Entgegen) and nevertheless must maintain its stand as a thing and show itself as something withstanding [ein Standiges] This appearing of the thing in traversing a field of opposedness takes place within an open region, the openness of which is not first created by the presenting but rather is only entered into and taken over as a domain of relatedness. The relation of the presentative statement to the thing is the accomplishment of that bearing [Verhaltnis] which originally and always comes to prevail as a comportment [Verhalten]. But all comportment is distinguished by the fact that, standing in the open region, it adheres to something opened up as such. What is thus opened up, solely in this strict sense, was experienced early in Western thinking as “what is present” and for a long time has been named “being.” Comportment stands open to beings. Every open relatedness is a comportment. Man‟s open stance varies depending on the kind of beings and the way of comportment. All working and achieving, all action and calculation, keep within an open region within which beings, with regard to what they are and how they are, can properly take their stand and become capable of being said. This can occur only if beings present themselves along with the presentative statement so that the latter subordinates itself to the directive that it speak of beings such as they are. In following such a directive the statement conforms to beings. Speech that directs itself accordingly is correct (true). What is thus said is the correct (the true). A statement is invested with its correctness by the openness of comportment; for only through the latter can what is opened up really become the standard for the presentative correspondence. Open comportment must let itself be assigned this standard. This means that it must take over a pregiven standard for all presenting. This belongs to the openness of comportment. But if the correctness (truth) of statements becomes possible only through this openness of comportment, then what first makes correctness possible must with more original right be taken as the essence of truth. Thus the traditional assignment of truth exclusively to staternents as the sole essential locus of truth falls away. Truth does not originally reside in the proposition. But at the same time the question arises of the ground of the inner possibility of the open comportment which pregives a standard, which possibility alone lends to propositional correctness the appearance of fulfilling the essence of truth at all. 3. The Ground of the possibility of Correctness Whence does the presentative statement receive the directive to conform to the object and to accord by way of correctness? Why is this accord involved in determining the essence of truth? How can something like the accomplishment of a pregiven directedness occur? And how can the initiation into an accord occur? Only if this pregiving has already entered freely into an open region for something opened up which prevails there and which binds every presenting. To free oneself for a binding directedness is possible only by being free for what is opened up in an open region. Such being free points to the heretofore uncomprehended essence of freedom. The openness of comportment as the inner condition of the possibility of correctness is grounded in freedom. The essence of truth is freedom. But does not this proposition regarding the essence of correctness substitute one obvious item for another? In order to be able to carry out any act, and therefore one of presentative stating and even of according or not according with a “truth,” the actor must of course be free. However, the proposition in question does not really mean that an unconstrained act belongs to the execution of the statement, to its pronouncement and reception; rather, the proposition says that freedom is the essence of truth itself. In this connection „„essence" is understood as the ground of the inner possibility of what is initially and generally admitted as known. Nevertheless, in the concept of freedom we do not think truth, and certainly not at all its essence. The proposition that the essence of truth (correctness of statements) is freedom must consequently seem strange. To place the essence of truth in freedom — doesn‟t this mean to submit truth to human caprice? Can truth be any more radically undermined than by being surrendered to the arbitrariness of this “wavering reed”? What forced itself upon sound judgment again and again in the previous discussion now all the more clearly comes to light: truth is here driven back to the subjectivity of the human subject. Even if an objectivity is also accessible to this subject, still such objectivity remains along with subjectivity something human and at man‟s disposal. Certainly deceit and dissimulation, lies and deception, illusion and semblance — in short, all kinds of untruth — are ascribed to man. But of course untruth is also the opposite of truth. For this reason, as the non-essence of truth, it is appropriately excluded from the sphere of the question concerning the pure essence of truth. This human origin of untruth indeed only serves to confirm by contrast the essence of truth “in itself” as holding sway “beyond” man. Metaphysics regards such truth as the imperishable and eternal, which can never be founded on the transitoriness and fragility that belong to man‟s essence. How then can the essence of truth still have its subsistence and its ground in human freedom? Resistance to the proposition that the essence of truth is freedom is based on preconceptions, the most obstinate of which is that freedom is a property of man. The essence of freedom neither needs nor allows any further questioning. Everyone knows what man is. Read ON THE ESSENCE OF TRUTH - MARTIN HEIDEGGER - translated by JOHN SALLIS - PART II
    • LESSONS IN STOICISM BY JOHN SELLARS REVIEW - WHAT ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS TEACH US ABOUT HOW TO LIVE
      LESSONS IN STOICISM BY JOHN SELLARS REVIEW - WHAT ANCIENT PHILOSOPHERS TEACH US ABOUT HOW TO LIVE
      07/ 02/ 2022
      Why are the Stoics’ ideas so popular today – is it self-help, or a lurking machismo? On 9 September 1965, during the war between Vietnam and the US, James Stockdale, an American fighter pilot, inadvertently flew his small A-4 Skyhawk into a flak trap. He later recalled his thoughts as he ejected and contemplated his impending capture: “Five years down there, at least. I’m leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.” We all react differently, and unpredictably, in moments of great peril: in this case Stockdale was drawn back to an inspirational philosophy class he had taken three years earlier, and to a period when he was obsessively reading a relatively little-known ancient Greek philosopher. Epictetus himself was a former slave who taught Stoic philosophy in the late first and early second centuries, first in Rome and then in northern Greece. Along with the Roman writers Seneca and (the emperor) Marcus Aurelius, he left us the longest surviving treatises on Stoicism, an ancient Greek philosophical doctrine that originated in the third century BCE. The Stoics (who originally gathered in the stoa or colonnade in the Athenian agora) offered a comprehensive theory of existence, covering physics, language, psychology, theology, sense perception and much more; but the doctrine was at its base an art of good living. We should concern ourselves only with what we can control (what is eph’hēmin, “up to us”), and leave the rest; we must pursue only things of real value such as enhancing collective happiness, not “things of indifference” such as wealth and the respect of our peers; we must allow ourselves to be guided by reason, and not dominated by the passions, which lessen our self-control. These were the lessons that Stockdale repeated to himself through what turned out to be seven and a half years of often brutal captivity. “You may fetter my leg,” Epictetus had written, “but not even Zeus himself can overpower my will.” In turning to Stoicism, Stockdale was ahead of his time. Particularly over the last 15 years, interest in it has surged, with articles, blogs, journals and groups springing up everywhere. Even Steve Bannon and the alt-right have been getting in on the act — although, as Donna Zuckerberg has shown, engagement on the part of this particular community can be pretty superficial, and members are in reality more likely to be found reading memes than Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations. John Sellars is one of the founders of Modern Stoicism, a group that promotes Stoicism as a constructive response to contemporary life: among their activities is Stoic Week, in which those signed up are encouraged to apply Stoic principles to their life-choices for seven days. Lessons in Stoicism represents his attempt to distil key Stoic tenets, insofar as they can help contemporary readers, into under 100 small pages. Sellars achieves the task he sets himself admirably. In elegant, economical prose, he urges us to become better, happier people by focusing on rational decision-making. This is Stoicism not in its popularised sense (the grin-and-bear-it ideology of Victorian public schools) but as self-empowerment through reasoned deliberation. Once you have learned to clarify which choices are available to you, and what their likely consequences will be, you will be better equipped to deal both with trials of adversity and the temptations of success. Certainly, translating ancient philosophical texts into guiding principles for modern living can lead to simplification and distortion. Ancient Stoicism was much more broad-ranging, complex, and indeed weird, than Sellars lets on. You won’t read anything here about the theory of language based on cognitive impressions or the idea that the universe goes through periodic cycles of conflagration and renewal. Sellars skirts the Stoics’ belief in a designer deity, arguing that ‘God’ is simply a way of thinking about nature and the animate interconnectedness of the universe (and comparing James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis). But this underplays the role of providence: ancient Stoics and Stoic-influenced writers often speak about their god as supremely rational and ordering the events of the world for the best. Philosophers both ancient and modern have struggled with this tendency in Stoicism towards determinism, and the question of where it leaves individual agency. Just occasionally, we get a glimpse of fundamental incompatibilities between ancient Greco-Roman and modern liberal values – particularly in the areas of sex and gender. For example, the Roman Stoic Musonius Rufus is saluted for his argument that women can practise philosophy just as well as men, and thereby proposing “some form of gender equality”. But Sellars doesn’t give us the full story. What Musonius actually thought was that women and men are differently equipped by nature. Learning philosophy does not make women equal to men; it just makes them better at the tasks to which they’re suited (spinning, weaving, childrearing). Some of Sellars’s paraphrases of ancient ideas, moreover, may accurately reflect ancient beliefs, but sit rather awkwardly in a 21st-century ethical context: for example, “none of us has chosen our … gender”; “a healthy relationship is one based on natural desires for companionship and procreation”. But what is striking is not that ancient and modern thought sometimes misalign: it’s that, in spite of that misalignment, Stoicism retains so much appeal for modern readers. The reasons for this popularity are several. There is certainly an extent to which Stoicism responds to modern “self-help” culture. There is also a kind of lurking machismo to its heroisation of endurance and suffering. Most of all, however, it is that maligned, embattled, but nonetheless tenacious idea of rationality that keeps drawing the readers. Few today would agree that reason alone could ever be sovereign in human decision-making, to the exclusion of emotions, group dynamics, the unconscious, the body, and instincts honed by evolutionary adaptation. But it is reason alone that can help us change, develop and take control of our lives; and the Stoic message that we must do all we can to nurture this powerful but brittle gift is timeless and ever-necessary. Source: The Guardian
    • EXISTENTIALISM IS A HUMANISM BY JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
      EXISTENTIALISM IS A HUMANISM BY JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
      17/ 01/ 2022
      Existentialism Is a Humanism was originally a public lecture of Sartre at Club Maintenant on Oct 12th, 1945, then published in books and released by Nagel publisher in 1946. Existentialism Is a Humanism, French original edition, published by Nagel publisher Vietnamese translation Among Jean-Paul Sartre's masterpieces, this thin book has been the most widely read in the past 80 years, because unlike other writings which are written in an academic penmanship and dense with incomprehensible technical terms, it is the most popular, simply written  and rarely are philosophical jargons used. Moreover, it contains all the central issues of Sartre's existential ideology, so reading this work can give commoners a basic sense of his philosophy. Within the framework of this book review, we only mention Sartre's ideas about human, and other issues will be presented later. In the face of criticism of existentialism from many sides, especially the Christians and Marxists, Sartre felt responsible for redefining the position of existentialism. First of all, he identified two branches of existentialism: Christian existentialism represented by Karl Jasper and Gabriel Marcel and Atheistic existentialism represented by him and Martin Heidegger. What these two branches have in common is that existential philosophers take "existence precedes essence” as the basic idea. With the thesis "existence precedes essence," Sartre wanted to counter the essentialism in the Western metaphysical historical tradition, which was a theory that logically essence always precedes existence. This philosophical legacy, criticized by Sartre, will inevitably lead to a deterministic tendency in the question of human status, and thus to destroy human freedom. According to Sartre, for things and other animals, their essence always precedes their existence, but humans, on the contrary, the so-called "essence" of a person who designates his or her life through projections and actions; in other words, to have essence, humans must first exist in this life. From there, Sartre jumped to the first principle of existentialism as a humanism: "Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself." Man is free, but in order to avoid falling back into the essentialism, Sartre notes to us that freedom itself is not a human property, but a human being condition. As such, humans are first a project (projet), which means “throw ourselves forward into the future“ to open up the possibilities or horizons that exist for themselves. In projection, humans face choices (choix): choosing what they will be. When choosing what he will be or who he will be, human beings choose to take actions to realize that choice, and therefore he will not avoid a sense of responsibility (responsabilité) for all his decisions. If human freedom is absolute, so is his responsibility. But this doesn't imply an individualistic thing, because according to Sartre, it's of course an individual act when choosing, but in doing so, we "choose everyone." 35), "in choosing myself, I choose man." On the basis of the ideology of freedom and responsibility, Sartre mentions three dimensions of human existence: Anxiety, abandonment, and despair. "Humans are anxiety." 37), which means that our fate is not separate from the fate of others, that all decisions we make are in solidarity with others, so when we act, we "can't get rid of our sense of comprehensive and deep responsibility. So anxiety (angoisse) is a part of act, a dimension of human existence. Every denial of anxiety is bad faith. Abandonedness (délaissement) is just a way of saying that God does not exist and that man must bear the consequences of his actions on his own. In that state, human beings have no support to hold on to, and humans have no choice but to “invent himself.” Despair (désespoir) is to say that when you do something, you have no one to rely on, you can only count on yourself. From all above, Sartre claims that existentialism is not a kind of quietism (quiétisme) that lulls humans but a theory of acts through defining humans by acts; it's not a pessimistic description of humans but an optimistic theory that shows that human destiny is made by himself.
    • BEING AND NOTHINGNESS: AN ESSAY ON PHENOMENOLOGICAL ONTOLOGY (1943) BY JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
      BEING AND NOTHINGNESS: AN ESSAY ON PHENOMENOLOGICAL ONTOLOGY (1943) BY JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
      04/ 01/ 2022
      Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was one of the representative philosophers of the 20th century. The development of Jean-Paul Sartre's philosophical thoughts can be divided into two stages. In the first stage, Sartre's philosophy mainly focused on the individual (l'individu), starting with The transcendence of Ego (1936). In the second stage, Sartre's philosophy goes from the individual to the social (le social), beginning with Notebooks for an Ethics/ Les cahiers pour une morale   (1946–7, first published in 1983). The work Being and Nothingness: An Essay On Phenomenological Ontology / L'Être et le Néant: Essai d'ontologie phénoménologique (1943) is the complete collection of Sartre's philosophical ideas at the first stage of his philosophical career. This is a colossal and incomprehensible work, so it is a huge challenge for many readers to grasp the contents of the book. Therefore, we are introducing the following article by Gary Cox, a contemporary philosopher who has a lot of research on Jean-Paul Sartre and existentialism, so that you can understand the main ideas of Being and Nothingness:   The original of Being and Nothingness (1943) published by Gallimard English translation by Hazel E. Barnes (1956) Sartre’s magnum opus, his major philosophical work. Although by no means his longest work, even at a length of over six hundred pages, it is by far his most important and influential. Most of the analysis of Sartre’s existentialism conducted by philosophers around the world has centered and continues to centre upon this work. No single book, perhaps, can lay claim to being the “bible” of existentialism, but Being and Nothingness is certainly one of the cornerstones of the existentialist school of thought. In its grand proportions and ambitions, in its structural and linguistic density and complexity, the work asprires to take its place alongside other epic, challenging, heavyweight texts of Continental philosophy, such as Heidegger’s Being and Time (1972), Schopenhauer’s World as Will and Representation (1818) or Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), works that in their different ways offer a comprehensive integrated, holistic account of the various essential features of the human condition. Sartre’s abiding question or concern in Being and Nothingness is more or less the same as that of his three major influences, Hegel, Husserl and Heidegger. What must be the nature of a being that has and is a relation-ship to the world, that is an awareness of the world and acts upon the world? Employing the dialectical style and method of his philosophical influences as an effective means of revealing the fundamental, internal relations existing between apparently distinct phenomena, Sartre argues that the only kind of being that can exist as a relation to reality or the world is a bring that is, in itself, nothing; a being that is a negation or a non-being. Some Sartre scholars argue that a more accurate English translation of L’Étre et le Néant, the French title of the work, would be Being and Non-being, but Being and Nothingness is now so well established as the work’s enigmatic sounding English title that it is unlikely any publisher would ever dare change it. It is certainly the complex dynamics of the relationship between being and non-being, or more accurately being-in-itself and being-for-itself as Sartre calls them, that is at the heart of Being and Nothingness. The work develops wide-ranging descriptions of both the relationship between being-for-itself and being-in-itself, and the relationship between one being-for-itself and another, descriptions that highlight seemingly endless implications and ramifications that extend to all aspects of a person’s being in the world - consciousness, temporality, embodiment, action, desire, freedom, anxiety, responsibility, bad faith, being-for-others, mortality and so on. It is the sheer saturation of Being and Nothingness with examples, illustrations, associations, insights, suggestions and pointers that most strongly reveals Sartre’s genius and makes his philosophy so interesting to study, criticize and develop. Precisely because Sartre strives at every turn to mention the diverse implications of his complex thought, the arguments in Being and Nothingness are somewhat convoluted and the progress of the work rather meandering. Sartre intends to leave no stone unturned, and to “get through” Being and Nothingness, or even significant parts of it, the reader must commit time and effort to taking a rambling but fascinating journey with Sartre as he maps out a vast and complex territory. The committed reader will eventually recognize that the book is relentless, even ruthless, in its pursuit of an overall direction and thesis, building up into an exhaustive, unified, brutally honest and largely coherent theory of human reality. Starting with an exploration of the ontology of being and non-being the book moves on to explain that consciousness is non-being as it is manifested at the level of phenomena or the phenomenological level. Consciousness is variously and painstakingly described as that which exists for itself rather than in itself (hence Sartre’s term “being-for-itself”), as a lack of being which strives in vain to achieve identity with itself by overcoming that lack, and as essentially intentional, temporal, embodied and free. Sartre’s radical freedom thesis derives directly from his philosophy of mind. Each person is a temporal flight from his present nothingness towards a future coincidence with himself that is never achieved. Each person is a futurizing intention, and it is in that open future that defines him and at which he aims that a person is free. As essentially free, people cannot not be free, they have to choose who they are and what they do and every attempt to evade this responsibility by choosing not to choose constitutes bad faith. A major theme of the book is how the key phenomena of consciousness, freedom and bad faith function in and are conditioned by relations with others. Sartre describes the fundamental ontological structures of the phenomenon of being-for-others before placing flesh on ontological bones through his intriguingly penetrating analysis of concrete relations with others. He brilliantly describes love, hate, sexual desire, masochism, sadism and indifference, explaining in a manner perfectly consistent with his overall thesis what is essential to them, how they arise out of the very nature of out being in the world and how they are intimately related to one another. Meanwhile, as he proceeds with his main agenda of analysing these concrete relations, he rewards his reader with a wealth of thought-provoking insights into the nature and significance of various other peculiarly Other-related phenomena such as nudity, obscenity, grace and humiliation. Though there is a lot in Being and Nothingness that demands criticism and clarification, Sartre’s piercing insight, his intellectual creativity, the extraordinary ability he demonstrates throughout the work to identify and describe the essential nature and connectedness of all aspects of the human condition, are remarkable and hugely inspiring.
    • ANTIGONE'S CLAIM BY JUDITH BUTLER
      ANTIGONE'S CLAIM BY JUDITH BUTLER
      27/ 12/ 2021
      Antigone’s Claim, whose subtitle is Kinship Between Life and Death, is a combination of the lectures of an American female philosopher Judith Butler at many prestigious universities such as California, Cornell and Princeton University. It is about Antigone by Sophocles, a deeply influential play in the history of Western philosophy. The birth of Antigone’s Claim has been such a significant event in American academic world for the past 20 years. Judith Butler's Antigone's Claim is an attempt to re-perceive the relationship between the family and the state through the figure of Antigone in ancient Greek tragedy, and from that to present a new way of reading this figure in the context of contemporary politics. In this work, Judith Butler reexamines the historical dominance of ideas raised by Hegel, Lacan and Irigaray on the issue of representativeness of Antigone. To Hegel, Antigone represents the kinship system in the field of family while Creon represents the political system in the field of society. The conflict between these two characters is an expression of the conflict between the family and the state, and according to Hegel's dialectic logic, this conflict will be reconciled in a way that the family will be ... dissipated in the state. Inheriting Hegel’s idea, Lacan put her into the Symbolic, the idealized realm of kinship which is separated from the social realm. Irigaray considered her as a representative of the transition from maternity to paternity through the symbol of “blood”. As a result of this reading, Antigone, in other words…..?, has no place in social life as a citizen. Butler argued that this was a misreading of Antigone, because as a political figure, she “points somewhere else, not to politics as a question of representation but to that political possibility that emerges when the limits to representation and representability are exposed.” (p.2) In protest of this reading, she reinterpreted the position “caught in a web of relations that produce no coherent position within kinship” (p.57), a web where “the terms of kinship become irreversibly equivocal” (p.57). Family is simultaneously Antigone's destiny and a collection of practices she performs. In that position, her actions led her to "repeat the deviation of a normal." In a social arrangement, everything is justified by norm, will deviations’ existence be justified or will they be extinguished in some way to ensure smooth operation of the normative system? Antigone's claim is the claim for the right to exist of those who are pushed to the course of fate as many other blessed people that hold standard positions. Her claim was nothing but the right to cry, but it was still something far away. The Vietnamese translation of this work is available at Ex Libris Hermes. Please drop by to pick it up.
    • GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD 3
      GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD 3
      20/ 12/ 2021
      Volume 31 René Descartes Rules for the Direction of the Mind Discourse on the Method Meditations on First Philosophy Objections Against the Meditations and Replies The Geometry Benedict de Spinoza Ethics Volume 32 John Milton English Minor Poems Paradise Lost Samson Agonistes Areopagitica Volume 33 Blaise Pascal The Provincial Letters Pensées Scientific and mathematical essays Volume 34 Sir Isaac Newton Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy Optics Christiaan Huygens Treatise on Light Volume 35 John Locke A Letter Concerning Toleration Concerning Civil Government, Second Essay An Essay Concerning Human Understanding George Berkeley The Principles of Human Knowledge David Hume An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Volume 36 Jonathan Swift Gulliver's Travels Laurence Sterne The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman Volume 37 Henry Fielding The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling Volume 38 Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu The Spirit of the Laws Jean Jacques Rousseau A Discourse on the Origin of Inequality A Discourse on Political Economy The Social Contract Volume 39 Adam Smith An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Volume 40 Edward Gibbon The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Part 1) Volume 41 Edward Gibbon The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Part 2) Volume 42 Immanuel Kant Critique of Pure Reason Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals Critique of Practical Reason Excerpts from The Metaphysics of Morals Preface and Introduction to the Metaphysical Elements of Ethics with a note on Conscience General Introduction to the Metaphysic of Morals The Science of Right The Critique of Judgement Volume 43 American State Papers Declaration of Independence Articles of Confederation The Constitution of the United States of America Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay The Federalist John Stuart Mill On Liberty Considerations on Representative Government Utilitarianism Volume 44 James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. Volume 45 Antoine Laurent Lavoisier Elements of Chemistry Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier Analytical Theory of Heat Michael Faraday Experimental Researches in Electricity Volume 46 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel The Philosophy of Right The Philosophy of History Volume 47 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Faust Volume 48 Herman Melville Moby Dick; or, The Whale Volume 49 Charles Darwin The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex Volume 50 Karl Marx Capital Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Manifesto of the Communist Party Volume 51 Count Leo Tolstoy War and Peace Volume 52 Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky The Brothers Karamazov Volume 53 William James The Principles of Psychology Volume 54 Sigmund Freud The Origin and Development of Psycho-Analysis Selected Papers on Hysteria The Sexual Enlightenment of Children The Future Prospects of Psycho-Analytic Therapy Observations on "Wild" Psycho-Analysis The Interpretation of Dreams On Narcissism Instincts and Their Vicissitudes Repression The Unconscious A General Introduction to Psycho-Analysis Beyond the Pleasure Principle Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego The Ego and the Id Inhibitions, Symptoms, and Anxiety Thoughts for the Times on War and Death Civilization and Its Discontents New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis  
    • "GREAT THINKERS" SERIES
      13/ 12/ 2021
      The series includes 9 books by the great thinkers: 1. The Great Thinker - Adam Smith In 60 Minutes 2. The Great Thinker - Habermas In 60 Minutes 3. The Great Thinker - Hegel In 60 Minutes 4. The Great Thinker - Heidegger In 60 Minutes 5. The Great Thinker - Kant In 60 Minutes 6. The Great Thinker - Rousseau In 60 Minutes 7. The Great Thinker - Sartre In 60 Minutes 8. The Great Thinker - Nietzsche In 60 Minutes 9. The Great Thinker - Freud In 60 Minutes The author of this series is Dr. Walther Ziegler, a doctor of philosophy and a university professor. He is also the author of many philosophy books. Thanks to his seasoned experience in journalism, he succeeds in interpreting complex knowledge in an engaging and understandable way. Each of the series is about a great philosopher in the world, gathering all the thoughts of a philosopher, is presented in a mere 200 pages, you may only need 60 minutes to read it all. How good must it be to manage to be able to present such a completed and complex knowledge as a system! Walther Ziegler has given readers the core thoughts of each philosopher, along with quotes and examples to bring the philosophers' works in ways that are easy to understand, interesting, and highly topical. In the book The Great Thinker - Kant in 60 Minutes, Walther Ziegler presented Kant's works and ideas in an impressive way. Kant was interested in simple questions. How do images and perceptions come to our heads? What can we know with certainty and what not? Or as in the book The Great Thinker - Satre in 60 Minutes, where is the truth of a person? Is it fixed or found somewhere? Sartre believes that, in each person's life, we constantly discover and analyze ourselves. We are also constantly researching and analyzing the people around us, when we think of them, talk about them, write about them - whether they are alive or dead. Perhaps what determines who we are is a constant process of analysis and inquiry that we and others carry out until we die or are forgotten. It is too frivolous to identify a person by just a name, isn't it? For a first step into the realm of philosophy, you can try this series of books. The book series is available at Ex Libris Hermes, please come and pick it up!
    • A PHILOSOPHICAL MASTERPIECE
      A PHILOSOPHICAL MASTERPIECE "A TREATISE CONCERNING THE PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE" BY GEORGE BERKELEY
      07/ 12/ 2021
      The philosophical work A treatise concerning the principles of human knowledge (1710) is a masterpiece by George Berkely, published at his age of 25. This treatise holds an important position in the history of empiricism in particular and of Western philosophy in general. Its central contention is the proposition that the physical world cannot exist independently of the perceiving mind, through the expression "esse est percipi" (to be is to be perceived). George Berkeley's purpose in writing this work, as he said, is "to try if I can discover what those Principles are which have introduced all that doubtfulness and uncertainty, those absurdities and contradictions, into the several sects of philosophy; insomuch that the wisest men have thought our ignorance incurable, conceiving it to arise from the natural dullness and limitation of our faculties." Translated into Vietnamese by Đinh Hồng Phúc and Mai Sơn with the revision of philosopher Bùi Văn Nam Sơn, this work was published by Tri Thức publisher in 2013. Title page of the first edition (1710) Front page of Vietnamese translation (2013) The structure of the book consists of: Introduction (including 25 subsections) and Part I (including 156 subsections). In the Introduction, Berkeley mainly criticized Locke's theory of abstract Ideas as a fundamental flawed Principle that "introduced all that Doubtfulness and Uncertainty, those Absurdities and Contradictions into the several Sects of Philosophy" (§4). For Locke and many other philosophers, the Mind "hath a power of framing abstract Ideas" (§6) by reducing  qualities or properties of individual objects to simple components to derive ones that individual objects have in common, that is, the general. Berkeley attacked this theory with a contention that abstracting such ideas is something we can't do, and the origin of that flaw is the mistaken view of language: the purpose of language is to convey our ideas, and every meaningful name represents an abstract idea. For Berkeley, language represents only general ideas, not any abstract idea. Therefore, the way we can get to the truth and avoid all mistakes is to "clear the first Principles of Knowledge, from the embarras and delusion of Words" (§25). Berkeley developed the entire content of Part I into 156 subsections in a row. Later, to help readers better understand Berkeley's presentations, the editors of Berkeley's works divided Part I into sub-categories: 1) Objects and Subjects of knowledge (§§1-2); 2) Arguments for Immaterialism (§§3-33); 3) Objections and Replies (§§34-84); and Consequences of Berkeley’ view (§§85-156). First, in the first subgroup, Berkeley identified the subjects and objects of human knowledge. The objects of knowledge are ideas, and these ideas are divided into three categories: "actually imprinted on the Senses," "perceived by attending to the Passions and Operations of the Mind," and "formed by help of Memory and Imagination." The subjects of Knowledge, according to Berkeley, are not particular persons, but "spirit," "mind," "soul," or "self." This is a dynamic perceiving entity, which is completely different from ideas, which perceives ideas, which is where ideas exist: "for the Existence of an Idea consists in being perceived." After identifying the objects and subjects of knowledge, Berkeley began to develop arguments supporting immaterialism through the next 30 subsections. Berkeley's initial argument for immaterialism is that "there is not any other Substance than Spirit" (§7). This argument was raised to refute the doctrine of abstract ideas, which argues that all perceivable objects are independent beings and completely different from those which are perceived. For Berkeley, this distinction proved unjustified because abstraction went beyond its sphere of influence. I can only abstract an object to the extent that I recognize it dependently, but I can't separate it from the spiritual perception in me of it as a self-contained entity: "all those Bodies which compose the mighty Frame of the World, have not any Subsistence without a Mind." As such, the world with only one substance is the mind, and the so-called "matter" or "substratum" of ideas cannot be regarded as substance. According to Berkeley, because things that we directly perceive all have secondary qualities and because they exist only in the mind, what we perceive is "spiritual ideas," not objects in the external world. Furthermore, on the basis of the principle of similarity, only ideas are similar to ideas, not to anything unperceivable, and he deduced that there is no similarity to ideas in the so-called material. "Any color or extensive quantity, or any perceivable property, can absolutely not exist in an unthinking subject, outside of mind," he affirmed. In this regard, Berkeley was pointing out the problem of materialism, specifically the following: One, the idea of materiality (or tangible substance) itself is a contradictory idea, in that it holds that properties that are only found in the spiritual substance can be also found in the non-spiritual body. Second, materialism is leading us to indirect realism of perception, leading to skepticism. Though ideas cannot exist on their own, they are assumed by materialists to be copies of spiritually independent beings (§15). But objects of the senses are constantly changing, while their originals are thought to be invariant, so they can't be honest copies of their originals. Third, there is no distinct meaning annexed to the concept of material substance (§17), because the concepts of substance and substratum, of what is the lift for extensive quantity, are too ambiguous and abstract that are inconceivable. Following the master argument that no object can exist outside the mind, since such objects are, in principle, impossible to perceive, Berkeley reviewed and responded to arguments that refuted the philosophy of immaterialism (subsection §34 to subsection §84). Respondence to these counterarguments is also his statements about his idealism, which is later called subjective idealism. In general, these counterarguments can be grouped into major groups: 1) of ordinary people; 2) of scientists; and 3) of religion. First of all, with arguments from ordinary people, Berkeley answered that neither did his philosophical system deny the existence of anything perceptible, nor firsthand information, - whether they existed or not did not matter, as long as they existed "in the spirit" for him; what he refuted was that materialists insist on the existence of an imperceptible substance called a "material" or "tangible substance" that supported beings with shapes, extensive quantity, motion, etc. In response to the counterarguments from the scientific side, Berkeley replied that his philosophical system was not harmful to science, if it was properly understood. It's not science's job to present metaphysical explanations, but to present the laws of operation observed in the natural world as clearly as possible. So his idealism and immaterialism are not only compatible with the right scientific practice, but they are also really useful for science to rule out the ambiguous concepts that interfere with human consciousness. Finally, there are counterarguments from the religious side. Berkeley says that although the language of the Bible refers to "materials" (e.g., mountains, rivers, vegetation, people, etc.), it does not have the same way of understanding as the materialists' one, that is, material is an imperceptible subtratrum. And since the true role of language is "marking our Conceptions, or Things only as they are known and perceived by us" (§83), his principles of presentation do not contradict the rules of language. Furthermore, the case of miracles in the Bible (Moise's scepter turned into a snake, water turned into alcohol) does not make them lose their exerted power, because it acknowledges that "the scepter turned into a snake" and "water turned into alcohol" are real. Therefore, similar to the two groups of arguments mentioned above, his immaterialism is not as dangerous as mistaken. After responding to possible counterarguments from various sides, Berkeley spent the next 49 subsections, from §85 to §134, considering the benefits his theory could bring to human cognitive activities, namely, philosophy, science, and religion. In general, the benefit that immaterialism can bring to philosophy is that it eliminates all of the "several difficult and obscure Questions, on which abundance of Speculation hath been thrown away" (§85), and once it is done, skepticism and atheism will no longer have any basis for survival, people will save much effort and time in the search of truth. In terms of science, the benefits of this theory are considered by Berkeley in the "two great provinces'' of natural science and mathematics. In the field of natural science, his aim is to counter the skeptics' contention that the true nature of things is something we cannot know in principle. The basis of this contention is the scientific interpretation of Newtonian mechanics. Berkeley's view is that in principle, we always understand the true nature of things. Scientists should not try to find the cause of impact in the natural world, because the principles of mechanics cannot help us explain the fundamental laws of nature such as attraction and cohesion of things. The principle of "analogies between events" in scientists is very susceptible to the trend of absolutization, "extending its Knowledge into general Theoremes", thus "to the prejudice of Truth" (§106). The philosophical principle of immaterialism will help scientists realize that the greatest analogy of all events is to regard the natural world as the work of a wise and benevolent agency, God, and the only correct way to interpret them is by final causes, not by corporeal causes. The last subsections of the Principles from §135 to §156, Berkeley considered spirits and God. Since Spirit is "the only supporting substance in which unthinking beings or ideas can exist" (§135), and, according to the principle of analogy, only ideas are similar to ideas, we cannot create a spiritual idea. We can only create a concept of spirit. Concepts are different from ideas in that they do not present a picture of the true content of the object being marked, but rather is the result of reflection between our ideas and those in the minds of others according to the principle of analogy. Let's just say that we don't have any idea of others' spirits, we can still infer the existence of those spirits by observing the changes in our perceptual spirits. We can derive the concept of spirit from the observation of our own self or soul, and from that, "we know other Spirits by means of our own Soul" (§140). The reason for us to do this is because of God's agency, which is present everywhere and provides a stable background on which all causal relationships take place so that we can capture the spirit of others. "He alone it is who upholding all Things by the Word of his Power, maintains that Intercourse between Spirits, whereby they are able to perceive the Existence of each other" As we can see, Berkeley's entire philosophical project was done in this work, A treatise concerning the principles of human knowledge, justifies the truths in the Gospel of God's existence as the true substance of all beings, all natural order, and the fountain of all human authentic perception. Therefore, his philosophy, namely immaterialism, has no other task than to dispel all misconceptions about God and evoke a "pious Sense of the Presence of God" for them to "reverence and embrace the salutary Truths of the Gospel" (§156).
    • GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD 2
      GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD 2
      29/ 11/ 2021
      Volume 10 Hippocrates Works Galen On the Natural Faculties Volume 11 Euclid The Thirteen Books of Euclid's Elements Archimedes On the Sphere and Cylinder Measurement of a Circle On Conoids and Spheroids On Spirals On the Equilibrium of Planes The Sand Reckoner The Quadrature of the Parabola On Floating Bodies Book of Lemmas The Method Treating of Mechanical Problems Apollonius of Perga On Conic Sections Nicomachus of Gerasa Introduction to Arithmetic Volume 12 Lucretius On the Nature of Things (translated by H.A.J. Munro) Epictetus The Discourses (translated by George Long) Marcus Aurelius The Meditations (translated by George Long) Volume 13 Virgil (translated into English verse by James Rhoades) Eclogues Georgics Aeneid Volume 14 Plutarch The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans (translated by John Dryden) Volume 15 P. Cornelius Tacitus (translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb) The Annals The Histories Volume 16 Ptolemy Almagest, (translated by R. Catesby Taliaferro) Nicolaus Copernicus On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres (translated by Charles Glenn Wallis) Johannes Kepler (translated by Charles Glenn Wallis) Epitome of Copernican Astronomy (Books IV–V) The Harmonies of the World (Book V) Volume 17 Plotinus The Six Enneads (translated by Stephen MacKenna and B. S. Page) Volume 18 Augustine of Hippo The Confessions The City of God On Christian Doctrine Volume 19 Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica (First part complete, selections from second part, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province and revised by Daniel J. Sullivan) Volume 20 Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica (Selections from second and third parts and supplement, translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province and revised by Daniel J. Sullivan) Volume 21 Dante Alighieri Divine Comedy (Translated by Charles Eliot Norton) Volume 22 Geoffrey Chaucer Troilus and Criseyde The Canterbury Tales Volume 23 Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince Thomas Hobbes Leviathan Volume 24 François Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel, but only up to book 4. Volume 25 Michel Eyquem de Montaigne Essays Volume 26 William Shakespeare The First Part of King Henry the Sixth The Second Part of King Henry the Sixth The Third Part of King Henry the Sixth The Tragedy of Richard the Third The Comedy of Errors Titus Andronicus The Taming of the Shrew The Two Gentlemen of Verona Love's Labour's Lost Romeo and Juliet The Tragedy of King Richard the Second A Midsummer Night's Dream The Life and Death of King John The Merchant of Venice The First Part of King Henry the Fourth The Second Part of King Henry the Fourth Much Ado About Nothing The Life of King Henry the Fifth Julius Caesar As You Like It Volume 27 William Shakespeare Twelfth Night; or, What You Will The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark The Merry Wives of Windsor Troilus and Cressida All's Well That Ends Well Measure for Measure Othello, the Moor of Venice King Lear Macbeth Antony and Cleopatra Coriolanus Timon of Athens Pericles, Prince of Tyre Cymbeline The Winter's Tale The Tempest The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth Sonnets Volume 28 William Gilbert On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies Galileo Galilei Dialogues Concerning the Two New Sciences William Harvey On the Motion of the Heart and Blood in Animals On the Circulation of Blood On the Generation of Animals Volume 29 Miguel de Cervantes The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha (translated by John Ormsby) Volume 30 Sir Francis Bacon The Advancement of Learning Novum Organum New Atlantis Read more: GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD
    • CHUYỆN ĐÔNG CHUYỆN TÂY BY AN CHI
      CHUYỆN ĐÔNG CHUYỆN TÂY BY AN CHI
      22/ 11/ 2021
      Chuyện Đông chuyện Tây is a collection of articles written by scholar and researcher An Chi that has been published in Today's Knowledge Journal for many years, starting in 1992. Readers have sent many difficult questions of Vietnamese language and history, science,… and hope to get answers from An Chi. Many questions are asked, for example, when the word "moong" appeared in the media, making many readers surprised because they did not understand its meaning and did not know its origin. According to An Chi, "moong" is a Vietnamese word of French origin, derived from the word "gisement", which means "bed" (mineral, soil, rock, etc.). In addition, the answers about history, culture, sports and other fields are also very thorough and interesting such as Ba Son place, the national name Đại Cồ Việt or phase "Rể Đông sàng, dâu Nam gián"… These questions were answered convincingly. Especially, he has specific examples for the answers. He also applied a lot of knowledge from Chinese, French, and English to compare and find the root of the issues, as well as find the etymology of Vietnamese. That makes his opinions more convincing and weighty. “…No one can claim to be an “encyclopedia” these days, but his answers in the magazine satisfy most readers because they are all the result of a serious research process, responsibility for science. In addition, his writing is clear, polite and intelligent, making readers pleasure…” – Prof. Cao Xuân Hạo said about An Chi. In the past, when there was no “google” for us to be able to sit down and look up everything like now, it is true that An Chi and Chuyện Đông chuyện Tây are really a valuable treasury of knowledge. The series currently has all 4 volumes at Thư Hiên, please contact Thư Hiên to get this useful knowledge.
    • GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
      GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD 
      15/ 11/ 2021
      Great Books of the Western World is a series of books originally published in the United States in 1952, by Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., to present the great books in a 54-volume set. The original editors had three criteria for including a book in the series drawn from Western Civilization: the book must have been relevant to contemporary matters, and not only important in its historical context; it must be rewarding to re-read repeatedly with respect to liberal education; and it must be a part of "the great conversation about the great ideas", relevant to at least 25 of the 102 "Great Ideas" as identified by the editor of the series' comprehensive index, what they dubbed the "Syntopicon", to which they belonged. The books were not chosen on the basis of ethnic and cultural inclusiveness, (historical influence being seen as sufficient by itself to be included), nor on whether the editors agreed with the views expressed by the authors. A second edition was published in 1990 in 60 volumes. Some translations were updated, some works were removed, and there were significant additions from the 20th century located in six new, separate volumes. Originally published in 54 volumes, The Great Books of the Western World covers categories including fiction, history, poetry, natural       science, mathematics, philosophy, drama, politics, religion, economics, and ethics. Hutchins wrote the first volume, titled The Great Conversation, as an introduction and discourse on liberal education. Adler sponsored the next two volumes, "The Great Ideas: A Syntopicon", as a way of emphasizing the unity of the set and, by extension, of Western thought in general. A team of indexers spent months compiling references to such topics as "Man's freedom in relation to the will of God" and "The denial of void or vacuum in favor of a plenum". They grouped the topics into 102 chapters, for which Adler wrote the 102 introductions. Four colors identify each volume by subject area—Imaginative Literature, Mathematics and the Natural Sciences, History and Social Science, and Philosophy and Theology. The volumes contained the following works: Volume 1 The Great Conversation Volume 2 Syntopicon I: Angel, Animal, Aristocracy, Art, Astronomy, Beauty, Being, Cause, Chance, Change, Citizen, Constitution, Courage, Custom and Convention, Definition, Democracy, Desire, Dialectic, Duty, Education, Element, Emotion, Eternity, Evolution, Experience, Family, Fate, Form, God, Good and Evil, Government, Habit, Happiness, History, Honor, Hypothesis, Idea, Immortality, Induction, Infinity, Judgment, Justice, Knowledge, Labor, Language, Law, Liberty, Life and Death, Logic, and Love Volume 3 Syntopicon II: Man, Mathematics, Matter, Mechanics, Medicine, Memory and Imagination, Metaphysics, Mind, Monarchy, Nature, Necessity and Contingency, Oligarchy, One and Many, Opinion, Opposition, Philosophy, Physics, Pleasure and Pain, Poetry, Principle, Progress, Prophecy, Prudence, Punishment, Quality, Quantity, Reasoning, Relation, Religion, Revolution, Rhetoric, Same and Other, Science, Sense, Sign and Symbol, Sin, Slavery, Soul, Space, State, Temperance, Theology, Time, Truth, Tyranny, Universal and Particular, Virtue and Vice, War and Peace, Wealth, Will, Wisdom, and World Volume 4 Homer (rendered into English prose by Samuel Butler) The Iliad The Odyssey Volume 5 Aeschylus (translated into English verse by G.M. Cookson) The Suppliant Maidens The Persians Seven Against Thebes Prometheus Bound The Oresteia Agamemnon Choephoroe The Eumenides Sophocles (translated into English prose by Sir Richard C. Jebb) The Oedipus Cycle Oedipus the King Oedipus at Colonus Antigone Ajax Electra The Trachiniae Philoctetes Euripides (translated into English prose by Edward P. Coleridge) Rhesus Medea Hippolytus Alcestis Heracleidae The Suppliants The Trojan Women Ion Helen Andromache Electra Bacchantes Hecuba Heracles Mad The Phoenician Women Orestes Iphigenia in Tauris Iphigenia in Aulis Cyclops Aristophanes (translated into English verse by Benjamin Bickley Rogers) The Acharnians The Knights The Clouds The Wasps Peace The Birds The Frogs Lysistrata Thesmophoriazusae Ecclesiazousae Plutus Volume 6 Herodotus The History (translated by George Rawlinson) Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War (translated by Richard Crawley and revised by R. Feetham) Volume 7 Plato The Dialogues (translated by Benjamin Jowett) Charmides Lysis Laches Protagoras Euthydemus Cratylus Phaedrus Ion Symposium Meno Euthyphro Apology Crito Phaedo Gorgias The Republic Timaeus Critias Parmenides Theaetetus Sophist Statesman Philebus Laws The Seventh Letter (translated by J. Harward) Volume 8 Aristotle Categories On Interpretation Prior Analytics Posterior Analytics Topics Sophistical Refutations Physics On the Heavens On Generation and Corruption Meteorology Metaphysics On the Soul Minor biological works Volume 9 Aristotle History of Animals Parts of Animals On the Motion of Animals On the Gait of Animals On the Generation of Animals Nicomachean Ethics Politics The Athenian Constitution Rhetoric Poetics Soucre: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Books_of_the_Western_World
    • PRAGMATISM BY WILLIAM JAMES
      PRAGMATISM BY WILLIAM JAMES
      08/ 11/ 2021
      On an interview by Nigel Warburton on pragmatism in fivebooks.com, Robert Talisse recommended Pragmatism by William James as one of the five best books on pragmatism. This work has just been translated into Vietnamese by Phạm Viêm Phương and published by Sách Khai Tâm (https://www.khaitam.com/khai-tam-phat-hanh/chu-nghia-thuc-dung-bia-mem). Here is the extract from the interview: That links nicely to the next book in that it seems to be describing an approach to the world that is very sympathetic to scientific enquiry, with an emphasis on the correct way of going about discovering things about the world. It’s called Pragmatism and it’s by William James, best known as an early psychologist, and as brother of Henry James. Interestingly, both James and Peirce were trained scientists. Peirce was a chemist and James studied anatomy and to be a physician. James is the one who popularizes the term ‘pragmatism’, and credits Peirce with having coined it. Jamesian pragmatism is, on the one hand, a theory of meaning — the pragmatic maxim that he picks up from Peirce — and, on the other hand, a theory of truth. He’s picking up from Peirce that pragmatism is a two-pronged idea, a conception of meaning and an epistemic conception. It’s intended to be a scientific conception of meaning, it’s supposed to be pulled out of a laboratory, to give one a sense of the understanding of meaning that scientists employ when they do their experiments. James thinks that meaning is to be cashed out in terms of the implications of believing a proposition or a statement for your behaviour or conduct. James thinks that part of the meaning of a statement might even be — and this is one of James’s own innovations, something that Peirce gets very cross about — its implications for your psychological wellbeing. This is where pragmatism goes a bit odd, because doesn’t William James use that style of thinking to suggest that when somebody says they believe in God that is really a statement about the psychological effects of that belief? Yes, this is the way the view starts moving in James’s hands. What’s really important to understanding what motivates James to say that kind of thing is that he is biographically deeply torn. There is his scientific training: he is still regarded as the father of modern experimental psychology, he knows how to run a lab and do experiments. When one reads his The Principles of Psychology it’s very sophisticated measurement of difficult things to measure. He’s really good at the science. But temperamentally he is drawn to various kinds of spiritualism. He’s a religious guy. He believes, in parts of his life, in ghosts and spirits. In fact, towards the end of his life, he started trying to investigate, in scientific ways, parapsychological and paranormal things. So he’s got an almost spooky side to him, and he sees pragmatism as a kind of empiricism which — unlike the logical empiricism of the logical positivists — is going to be more hospitable to religion, spirituality, and values, in a very broad sense of that term. James is constantly talking about “feeling at home in the universe.” Part of what motivates his pragmatism is the attempt to reconcile a scientific, hard-nosed view of the world with a spiritualistic, religious conception of our place in it, these two drives that he personally felt quite strongly. So the way it works is that we’re supposed to understand the meanings of propositions in terms of their implications for our behaviour — our behaviour very broadly defined to include our psychological moods and comportments and attitudes. We understand what the proposition means by how it would lead us to act. Then, there’s the conception of the truth, and a proposition is true in so far as it leads us to act in a way that is successful, or a way that is good for us to act. It’s a very puzzling conception of truth, philosophically speaking. It’s also very difficult to formulate it in a way that makes it sound anything but silly. When James says things that are not as cautious as they should be like, “Truth is what works,” he invites — unnecessarily I should say — a lot of well-placed criticism. Truth is what works? If I believe that I’m a very handsome guy, that could work for all kinds of purposes. It might not be true. These are the kinds of statements that earlier in the 1900s people like Bertrand Russell and G.E. Moore had a field day with. It seemed like a crazy conception of truth. But I think it’s a more nuanced view than James sometimes suggests. It’s a view that says, we have beliefs for purposes. Beliefs are tools. A belief is like a hammer or a pair of scissors. It’s supposed to do things, behaviourally, it’s supposed to guide our actions. James thinks that the truth of a belief is to be understood in terms of the success it brings to our action when it serves as our guide. When you put it that way, there are still all kinds of objections and problems that can be raised, but it’s not so obviously the easily dismissible, silly idea that one gets when one leaves it at “the truth is what works” formulation. And one of the ways that William James’s writing works, pragmatically, is that he’s a superb writer at the sentence level, like his brother. Absolutely. If anybody ever wants to read a book of philosophy that’s about truth and meaning and religion and metaphysics that is a breeze — that you could almost read at the poolside — James’s Pragmatism is a brilliantly written piece of philosophy. I don’t think it’s too far of a stretch to say that William was a better writer than his brother. Source: https://fivebooks.com/best-books/robert-talisse-on-pragmatism/
    • PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (2 VOLUMES)
      PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY (2 VOLUMES)
      31/ 10/ 2021
      This is a major, wide-ranging history of analytic philosophy since 1900, told by one of the tradition’s leading contemporary figures. The first volume takes the story from 1900 to mid-century. The second brings the history up to date. As Scott Soames tells it, the story of analytic philosophy is one of great but uneven progress, with leading thinkers making important advances toward solving the tradition’s core problems. Though no broad philosophical position ever achieved lasting dominance, Soames argues that two methodological developments have, over time, remade the philosophical landscape. These are (1) analytic philosophers’ hard-won success in understanding, and distinguishing the notions of logical truth, a priori truth, and necessary truth, and (2) gradual acceptance of the idea that philosophical speculation must be grounded in sound prephilosophical thought. Though Soames views this history in a positive light, he also illustrates the difficulties, false starts, and disappointments endured along the way. As he engages with the work of his predecessors and contemporaries — from Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein to Donald Davidson and Saul Kripke — he seeks to highlight their accomplishments while also pinpointing their shortcomings, especially where their perspectives were limited by an incomplete grasp of matters that have now become clear. Soames himself has been at the center of some of the tradition’s most important debates, and throughout writes with exceptional ease about its often complex ideas. His gift for clear exposition makes the history as accessible to advanced undergraduates as it will be important to scholars. Despite its centrality to philosophy in the English-speaking world, the analytic tradition in philosophy has had very few synthetic histories. This will be the benchmark against which all future accounts will be measured. Table of contents, volume 1 Acknowledgments Introduction to the Two Volumes PART ONE: G. E. MOORE ON ETHICS, EPISTEMOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS CHAPTER 1: Common Sense and Philosophical Analysis CHAPTER 2: Moore on Skepticism, Perception, and Knowledge CHAPTER 3: Moore on Goodness and the Foundations of Ethics CHAPTER 4: The Legacies and Lost Opportunities of Moore’s Ethics PART TWO: BERTRAND RUSSELL ON LOGICAL AND LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS CHAPTER 5: Logical Form, Grammatical Form, and the Theory of Descriptions CHAPTER 6: Logic and Mathematics: The Logicist Reduction CHAPTER 7: Logical Constructions and the External World CHAPTER 8: Russell’s Logical Atomism PART THREE: LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN’S TRACTATUS CHAPTER 9: The Metaphysics of the Tractatus CHAPTER 10: Meaning, Truth, and Logic in the Tractatus CHAPTER 11: The Tractarian Test of Intelligibility and Its Consequences PART FOUR: LOGICAL POSITIVISM, EMOTIVISM, AND ETHICS CHAPTER 12: The Logical Positivists on Necessity and Apriori Knowledge CHAPTER 13: The Rise and Fall of the Empiricist Criterion of Meaning CHAPTER 14: Emotivism and Its Critics CHAPTER 15: Normative Ethics in the Era of Emotivism: The Anticonsequentialism of Sir David Ross PART FIVE: THE POST-POSITIVIST PERSPECTIVE OF THE EARLY W. V. QUINE CHAPTER 16: The Analytic and the Synthetic, the Necessary and the Possible, the Apriori and the Aposteriori CHAPTER 17: Meaning and Holistic Verificationism Index Table of contents, volume 2 Acknowledgments Introduction to Volume 2 PART ONE: LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN’S PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS CHAPTER 1: Rejection of the Tractarian Conception of Language and Analysis CHAPTER 2: Rule Following and the Private Language Argument PART TWO: CLASSICS OF ORDINARY LANGUAGE PHILOSOPHY: TRUTH, GOODNESS, THE MIND, AND ANALYSIS CHAPTER 3: Ryle’s Dilemmas CHAPTER 4: Ryle’s Concept of Mind CHAPTER 5: Strawson’s Performative Theory of Truth CHAPTER 6: Hare’s Performative Theory of Goodness PART THREE: MORE CLASSICS OF ORDINARY LANGUAGE PHILOSOPHY: THE RESPONSE TO RADICAL SKEPTICISM CHAPTER 7: Malcolm’s Paradigm Case Argument CHAPTER 8: Austin’s Sense and Sensibilia PART FOUR: PAUL GRICE AND THE END OF ORDINARY LANGUAGE PHILOSOPHY CHAPTER 9: Language Use and the Logic of Conversation PART FIVE: THE PHILOSOPHICAL NATURALISM OF WILLARD VAN ORMAN QUINE CHAPTER 10: The Indeterminacy of Translation CHAPTER 11: Quine’s Radical Semantic Eliminativism PART SIX: DONALD DAVIDSON ON TRUTH AND MEANING CHAPTER 12: Theories of Truth as Theories of Meaning CHAPTER 13: Truth, Interpretation, and the Alleged Unintelligibility of Alternative Conceptual Schemes PART SEVEN: SAUL KRIPKE ON NAMING AND NECESSITY CHAPTER 14 Names, Essence, and Possibility CHAPTER 15: The Necessary Aposteriori CHAPTER 16: The Contingent Apriori CHAPTER 17: Natural Kind Terms and Theoretical Identification Statements EPILOGUE: The Era of Specialization Index
    • WITTGENSTEIN‘S WORKS
      WITTGENSTEIN‘S WORKS
      25/ 10/ 2021
      During his lifetime, Wittgenstein only published Tractatus (1921) and one article. Most of his two dozens works were edited and published posthumously by his students. Books 1) Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921) 2) Notebooks 1914–1916 (1961; Sổ tay 1914-1916) 3) ProtoTractatus—An Early Version of Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus (1971; Proto-tractatus – phiên bản đầu của Tractatus) 4) Wittgenstein’s Notes on Logic (2009; Những ghi chú về logic của Wittgenstein) 5) Philosophical Investigations (1953; Những khảo sát mang tính triết học) 6) The Blue and Brown Books (1958; Sách xanh và sách nâu) 7) Philosophical Remarks (1964; Những nhận xét triết học) 8) Zettel (1967) 9) Philosophical Grammar (1974; Ngữ pháp triết học) 10) On Certainty (1969; Về sự chắc chắn) 11) Culture and Value (1980; Văn hóa và giá trị) 12) Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics (1956; Những nhận xét về Các cơ sở của toán học) 13) Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology (1980, 2 volumes; Những nhận xét về triết học tâm lý học) 14) Last Writings on the Philosophy of Psychology (2 volumes; Những tác phẩm cuối cùng về Triết học tâm lý học) 15) Remarks on Colour (1977; Những nhận xét về màu sắc) 16) The Collected Manuscripts of Ludwig Wittgenstein on Facsimile CD Rom, 1997; (Tổng tập bản thảo của Ludwig Wittgenstein) 17) The Big Typescript: TS 213, German English Scholars’ Edition, 2005. Lectures 18) Wittgenstein’s Lectures on the Foundations of Mathematics (1976; Những bài giảng về Các cơ sở của toán học của Wittgenstein) 19) Wittgenstein’s Lectures, Cambridge 1932–1935 (1979; Những bài giảng ở Cambridge 1932-1935 của Wittgenstein) 20) Wittgenstein’s Lectures on Philosophical Psychology 1946 - 47 (1988; Những bài giảng về tâm lý học triết học 1946-47 của Wittgenstein) 21) Lectures and Conversations on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religious Belief (1966; Các bài giảng và trò chuyện về Mỹ học, tâm lý học, và niềm tin tôn giáo) Correspondence and conversations 22) Letters to C. K. Ogden with Comments on the English Translation of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1973; Thư từ gửi C. K. Odgen với những bình luận về bản dịch Tractatus) 23) Letters to Russell, Keynes and Moore (1974; Thư từ gửi Russell, Keynes, và Moore) 24) Wittgenstein: Conversations, 1949–1951 (1986; Wittgenstein: những cuộc trò chuyện 1949-1951) 25) Ludwig Wittgenstein: Public and Private Occasions (2003; Ludwig Wittgenstein: những dịp riêng tư và công cộng) 26) The Voices of Wittgenstein: The Vienna Circle: Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich Waismann (2003; Các tiếng nói của Wittgenstein: Nhóm Vienna: Ludwig Wittgenstein và Friedrich Waismann) 27) Wittgenstein in Cambridge: Letters and Documents 1911–1951, 2008, Brian McGuinness (ed.), Oxford: Blackwell. Vietnamese translations of Wittgenstein‘s works include: - Luận văn logic - triết học. Translated by Trần Đình Thắng, Nxb Đà Nẵng, 2018. - Những tìm sâu triết học. Translated by Trần Đình Thắng, Nxb Đà Nẵng, 2019. - Về tính chắc chắn. Translated by Trần Đình Thắng, Nxb Đà Nẵng, 2021.
    • THE WORKS OF HEGEL
      THE WORKS OF HEGEL
      17/ 10/ 2021
      Several attempts have been made to publish Hegel‘s complete works, among them is the most popular edition Werke in 20 Bänden edited by E. Moldenhauer and K. M. Michel published by Suhrkamp during 1969–1971. This edition includes: Volume 1: Frühe Schriften (Các tác phẩm thời đầu) Volume 2: Jenaer Schriften (Các tác phẩm thời ở Jena) Volume 3: Phänomenologie des Geiste (Hiện tượng học tinh thần) Volume 4: Nürnberger und Heidelberger Schriften (Các tác phẩm thời ở Nürnberg und Heidelberg) Volume 5: Wissenschaft der Logik I (Khoa học logic I) Volume 6: Wissenschaft der Logik II (Khoa học logic II) Volume 7: Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (Các nguyên lý của triết học pháp quyền) Volume 8: Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften I (Bách khoa thư các khoa học triết học I) Volume 9: Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften II (Bách khoa thư các khoa học triết học II) Volume 10: Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften III (Bách khoa thư các khoa học triết học III) Volume 11: Berliner Schriften 1818–1831 (Các tác phẩm thời ở Berlin 1818-1831) Volume 12: Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte (Các bài giảng về triết học lịch sử) Volume 13: Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik I (Các bài giảng về Mỹ học I) Volume 14: Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik II (Các bài giảng về Mỹ học II) Volume 15: Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik III (Các bài giảng về Mỹ học III) Volume 16: Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion I (Các bài giảng về Triết học tôn giáo I) Volume 17: Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Religion II (Các bài giảng về Triết học tôn giáo II) Volume 18: Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie I (Các bài giảng về Lịch sử triết học I) Volume 19: Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie II (Các bài giảng về Lịch sử triết học II) Volume 20: Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie III (Các bài giảng về Lịch sử triết học III) The most noteworthy Hegel‘s complete works is Academy edition published since 1968, 28 volumes up to now (not yet completed). There is no Hegel‘s complete works in English translation which are comparable to The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant. Vietnamese translations of Hegel‘s works are: Hiện tượng học tinh thần. Translated by Bùi Văn Nam Sơn, Nxb Văn học, 2006. Các nguyên lý của triết học pháp quyền. Translated by Bùi Văn Nam Sơn, Nxb Tri thức, 2010. Bách khoa thư các khoa học triết học I: Khoa học logic (its nickname is Smaller Logic). Translated by Bùi Văn Nam Sơn, Nxb Tri thức, 2008. Mỹ học (2 volumes). Translated by Phan Ngọc, Nxb Văn học, 1999. Triết học pháp quyền. Translated by Phạm Chiến Khu, Nxb Chính Trị Quốc Gia Sự Thật, 2013. Bách khoa thư các khoa học triết học I: Khoa học logic. Translated by Phạm Chiến Khu, Nxb Chính Trị Quốc Gia Sự Thật, 2013.
    • THE CAMBRIDGE EDITION OF THE WORKS OF IMMANUEL KANT
      THE CAMBRIDGE EDITION OF THE WORKS OF IMMANUEL KANT
      16/ 10/ 2021
      General Editors: Paul Guyers and Allen W. Wood; published since 1992. The first ever complete English-language edition of the works of Immanuel Kant, still the most influential figure in modern philosophy. The purpose of the Cambridge Edition is to offer scrupulously accurate translations of the best modern German editions of Kant's work in a uniform format suitable for both Kant scholars and students. When complete the Cambridge Edition will include all of Kant's published writings, together with a generous selection of his unpublished writings such as the Opus Postumum, Handschriftliche Nachlass, lectures, and correspondence. Each volume will be furnished with a substantial editorial apparatus (linguistic and factual notes, bibliographies, glossaries). The published volumes include: Theoretical Philosophy, 1755–1770 (1992; Triết học lý thuyết 1755-1770). Theoretical Philosophy after 1781 (2002; Triết học lý thuyết sau 1781). Translated by Gary Hatfield, Michael Friedman. Critique of Pure Reason (1998; Phê phán lý tính thuần túy). Practical Philosophy (1996; Triết học thực hành), including Critique of Practical Reason (Phê phán lý tính thực hành). Critique of the Power of Judgment (2000; Phê phán năng lực phán đoán). Translated by Eric Matthews. Opus Postumum (1993; Di cảo). Kant: Natural Science (2002; Kant: Khoa học tự nhiên). Anthropology, History, and Education (2007; Nhân học, lịch sử, và giáo dục). Edited and translated by Robert B. Louden, Günter Zöller. Religion and Rational Theology (1996; Tôn giáo và thần học thuần lý). Edited and translated by Allen W. Wood, George di Giovanni. Lectures on Logic (1992; Những bài giảng về logic học). Lectures on Anthropology (2012; Những bài giảng về nhân học). Translated by Robert R. Clewis, G. Felicitas Munzel. Lectures on Metaphysics (1997; Những bài giảng về siêu hình học). Edited and translated by Karl Ameriks, Steve Naragon. Lectures on Ethics (1997; Những bài giảng về đạo đức học). Edited and translated by Peter Heath. Kant: Lectures and Drafts on Political Philosophy (2016; Kant: Những bài giảng và bản thảo về triết học chính trị). Translated by Kenneth R. Westphal. Correspondence (1999; Thư từ). Notes and Fragments (2005; Chú thích và đoản văn). Edited and translated by Paul Guyer. Vietnamese translations of Kant‘s works from original German are: Phê phán lý tính thuần túy. Translated by Bùi Văn Nam Sơn, Nxb Văn học, 2005. Phê phán lý tính thực hành. Translated by Bùi Văn Nam Sơn, Nxb Tri thức, 2007. Phê phán năng lực phán đoán. Translated by Bùi Văn Nam Sơn, Nxb Tri thức, 2007. Source: https://www.cambridge.org/core/series/cambridge-edition-of-the-works-of-immanuel-kant/703660AAB7838A41309D7E80AD5C8EEE
    • THE HISTORY OF CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY (ALAN D. SCHRIFT)
      THE HISTORY OF CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY (ALAN D. SCHRIFT)
      30/ 09/ 2021
      From Kant to Kierkegaard, from Hegel to Heidegger, continental philosophers have indelibly shaped the trajectory of Western thought since the eighteenth century. Although much has been written about these monumental thinkers, students and scholars lack a definitive guide to the entire scope of the continental tradition. The most comprehensive reference work to date, this eight-volume History of Continental Philosophy will both encapsulate the subject and reorient our understanding of it. Beginning with an overview of Kant’s philosophy and its initial reception, the History traces the evolution of continental philosophy through major figures as well as movements such as existentialism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, and poststructuralism. The final volume outlines the current state of the field, bringing the work of both historical and modern thinkers to bear on such contemporary topics as feminism, globalization, and the environment. Throughout, the volumes examine important philosophical figures and developments in their historical, political, and cultural contexts. The first reference of its kind, A History of Continental Philosophy has been written and edited by internationally recognized experts with a commitment to explaining complex thinkers, texts, and movements in rigorous yet jargon-free essays suitable for both undergraduates and seasoned specialists. These volumes also elucidate ongoing debates about the nature of continental and analytic philosophy, surveying the distinctive, sometimes overlapping characteristics and approaches of each tradition. Featuring helpful overviews of major topics and plotting road maps to their underlying contexts, A History of Continental Philosophy is destined to be the resource of first and last resort for students and scholars alike. Table of contents Volume 1: Kant, Kantianism, and idealism: the origins of continental philosophy (edited by Thomas Nenon) Introduction, Thomas Nenon   Immanuel Kant’s turn to transcendental philosophy, Thomas Nenon Kant’s early critics: Jacobi, Reinhold, Maimon, Richard Fincham Johann Gottfried Herder, Sonia Sikka Play and irony: Schiller and Schlegel on the liberating prospects of aesthetics, Daniel Dahlstrom Fichte and Husserl: life-world, the other, and philosophical reflection, Robert R. Williams Schelling: philosopher of tragic dissonance, Joseph P. Lawrence Schopenhauer on empirical and aesthetic perception and cognition, Bart Vandenabeele G.W.F. Hegel, Terry Pinkard From Hegelian reason to the Marxian revolution, 1831-48, Lawrence S. Stepelevich Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Proudhon: “utopian,” French socialism, Diane Morgan Volume 2: Nineteenth-century philosophy: revolutionary responses to the existing order (edited by Alan D. Schrift and Daniel Conway) Introduction, Daniel Conway Feuerbach and the left and right Hegelians, William Clare Roberts Marx and Marxism, Terrell Carver Søren Kierkegaard, Alastair Hannay Dostoevsky and Russian philosophy, Evgenia Cherkasova Life after the death of god: Thus Spoke Nietzsche, Daniel Conway Hermeneutics: Schleiermacher and Dilthey, Eric Sean Nelson French spiritualish philosophy, F.C.T. Moore The emergence of sociology and its theories: from Comte to Weber, Alan Sica Developments in philosophy of science and mathematics, Dale Jacquette Peirce: pragmatism and nature after Hegel, Douglas R. Anderson Aesthetics and the philosophy of art, 1840-1900, Gary Shapiro Volume 3: The new century: Bergsonism, phenomenology and responses to modern science (edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson and Alan D. Schrift) Introduction, Keith Ansell-Pearson Henri Bergson, John Mullarkey Neo-Kantianism in Germany and France, Sebastian Luft and Fabien Capeillères The emergence of French sociology: Émile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss, Mike Gane Analytic and continental traditions: Frege, Fusserl, Carnap, and Heidegger, Michael Friedman and Thomas Ryckman Edmund Husserl, Thomas Nenon Max Scheler, Dan Zahavi The early Heidegger, Miguel de Beistegui Karl Jaspers, Leonard H. Ehrlich Phenomenology at home and abroad, Diane Perpich Early continental philosophy of science, Babette Babich Ludwig Wittgenstein, John Fennell and Bob Plant Freud and continental philosophy, Adrian Johnston Responses to evolution: Spencer’s evolutionism, Bergsonism, and contemporary biology, Keith Ansell-Pearson, Paul-Antoine Miquel and Michael Vaughan Volume 4: Phenomenology: responses and developments (edited by Leonard Lawlor) Introduction, Leonard Lawlor Dialectic, difference and the other: the Hegelianizing of French phenomenology, John Russon Existentialism, S. K. Keltner and Samuel J. Julian Sartre and phenomenology, William l. McBride Continental aesthetics: phenomenology and antiphenomenology, Galen A. Johnson Merleau-Ponty at the limits of phenomenology, Mauro Carbone The hermeneutic transformation of phenomenology, Daniel L. Tate The later Heidegger, Dennis Schmidt Existential theology, Andreas Grossmann Religion and ethics, Felix Ó Murchadha The philosophy of the concept, Pierre Cassou-Noguès Analytic philosophy and continental philosophy: four confrontations, Dermot Moran Volume 5: Critical theory to structuralism: philosophy, politics and the human sciences (edited by David Ingram) Introduction, David Ingram Carl Schmitt and early Western Marxism, Christopher Thornhill The origins and development of the model of early critical theory in the work of Max Horkheimer, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse, John Abromeit Theodor Adorno, Deborah Cook Walter Benjamin, James McFarland Hannah Arendt: rethinking the political, Peg Pirmingham Georges Bataille, Peter Tracey Connor French Marxism in its heyday, William McBride Black existentialism, Lewis R. Gordon Ferdinand de Saussure and linguistic structuralism, Thomas F. Broden Claude Lévi-Strauss, Brian C. J. Singer Jacques Lacan, Ed Pluth Late pragmatism, logical positivism, and their aftermath, David Ingram Volume 6: Poststructuralism and critical theory’s second generation (edited by Alan D. Schrift) Introduction, Alan D. Schrift French Nietzscheanism, Alan D. Schrift Louis Althusser, Warren Montag Michel Foucault, Timothy O’Leary Gilles Deleuze, Daniel W. Smith Jacques Derrida, Samir Haddad Jean-François Lyotard, James Williams Pierre Vourdieu and the practice of philosophy, Derek Robbins Michel Serres, David F. Bell Jürgen Habermas, Christopher F. Zurn Second generation critical theory, James Swindal Gadamer, Ricoeur, and the legacy of phenomenology, Wayne J. Froman The linguistic turn in continental philosophy, Claire Colebrook Psychoanalysis and desire, Rosi Braidotti and Alan D. Schrift Luce Irigaray, Mary Beth Mader Cixous, Kristeva, and Le Dœuff: three “French feminists,” Sara Heinämaa Deconstruction and the Yale school of literary theory, Jeffrey T. Nealon Rorty among the continentals, David R. Hiley Volume 7: After poststructuralism: transitions and transformations (edited by Rosi Braidotti) Introduction, Rosi Braidotti Postmodernism, Simon Malpas German philosophy after 1980: themes out of school, Dieter Thomä The structuralist legacy, Patrice Maniglier Italian philosophy between 1980 and 1995, Silvia Benso and Brian Schroeder Continental philosophy in the Czech Republic, Josef Fulka, Jr. Third generation critical theory: Benhabib, Fraser, and Honneth, Amy Allen French and Italian Spinozism, Simon Duffy Radical democracy, Lasse Thomassen Cultural and postcolonial studies, Iain Chambers The “ethical turn” in continental philosophy in the 1980s, Robert Eaglestone Feminist philosophy: coming of age, Rosi Braidotti Continental philosophy of religion, Bruce Ellis Benson The performative turn and the emergence of post-analytic philosophy, José Medina Out of bounds: philosophy in an age of transition, Judith Butler and Rosi Braidotti Volume 8: Emerging trends in continental philosophy (edited by Todd May) Introduction, Todd May Rethinking gender: Judith Butler and Feminist philosophy, Gayle Salamon Recent developments in aesthetics: Badiou, Rancière, and their interlocutors, Gabriel Rockhill Rethinking Marxism, Emily Zakin Thinking the event: Alain Badiou’s philosophy and the task of critical theory, Bruno Bosteels Rethinking Anglo-American philosophy: the Neo-Kantianism of Davidson, McDowell, and Brandom, John Fennell Rethinking science as science studies: Latour, Stengers, Prigogine, Dorothea Olkowski European citizenship: a postnationalist perspective, Rosi Braidotti Postcolonialism, postorientalism, postoccidentalism: the past that never went away and the future that never arrived, Eduardo Mendieta Continental philosophy and the environment, Jonathan Maskit Rethinking the new world order: responses to globalization/American hegemony, Todd May Source: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/H/bo10462669.html
    • A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY (COPLESTON)
      A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY (COPLESTON)
      25/ 09/ 2021
      A History of Philosophy is a history of Western philosophy written by the English Jesuit priest Frederick Charles Copleston originally published in nine volumes between 1946 and 1975. As is noted by The Encyclopedia Britannica, the work became a "standard introductory philosophy text for thousands of university students, particularly in its U.S. paperback edition." Since 2003 it has been marketed as an eleven volume work with two previously published other works by Copleston being added to the series. Overview The work provides extensive coverage of Western philosophy from the Pre-Socratics through to John Dewey, Bertrand Russell, George Edward Moore, Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Originally conceived as a three volume work covering ancient, medieval and modern philosophy, and written to serve as a textbook for use in Catholic ecclesiastical seminaries, the work grew into nine volumes published between 1946 and 1975 and to become a standard work of reference for philosophers and philosophy students that was noted for its objectivity. A tenth and eleventh volume were added to the series in 2003 (after Copleston's death in 1994) by Continuum (which later became an imprint of Bloomsbury). The tenth volume Russian Philosophy had previously appeared as Philosophy in Russia in 1986. The eleventh volume Logical Positivism and Existentialism had previously appeared as the revised 1972 edition of Contemporary Philosophy (an essay collection first published in 1956). The series has been translated into Italian, French, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Romanian, Polish and Persian. Volume summaries The following is a summary of details (not a full table of contents) for the eleven volumes: Volume 1: Greece and Rome Originally published in 1946, this volume covers: Pre-Socratic philosophy The Socratic period Plato Aristotle Post-Aristotelian philosophy As with others in the series, this volume would be made available by Image Books (Doubleday) in two parts, the first ending with Plato, the second beginning with Aristotle. Gerard J. Hughes reports that in later years Copleston thought the first volume "deplorable" and wished that he had had the time to rewrite it. Volume 2: Augustine to Scotus Originally published in 1950, this volume, which has also borne the subtitle Medieval Philosophy, covers: Pre-mediaeval Influences (including St. Augustine) The Carolingian Renaissance The Tenth, Eleventh, and Twelfth Centuries Islamic and Jewish Philosophy The Thirteenth Century (including St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas and Duns Scotus) Copleston also produced a work on Medieval Philosophy (1952) which, revised and expanded, became A History of Medieval Philosophy (1972). This work covered some of the same subjects as the second and third volumes of his History. Copleston would also write Aquinas (1955) expanding on his treatment of the thinker in volume 2. Volume 3: Ockham to Suarez Originally published in 1953, this volume which has also borne the subtitle Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy, covers: The Fourteenth Century (including William of Ockham) Philosophy of the Renaissance (including Francis Bacon) Scholasticism of the Renaissance (including Francisco Suárez) Copleston also produced a work on Medieval Philosophy (1952) which, revised and expanded, became A History of Medieval Philosophy (1972). This work covered some of the same subjects as the second and third volumes of his History. Volume 4: Descartes to Leibniz Originally published in 1958, this volume, which has also borne the subtitle The Rationalists, covers: René Descartes Blaise Pascal Nicolas Malebranche Baruch Spinoza Gottfried Leibniz Volume 5: Hobbes to Hume Originally published in 1959, this volume, which has also borne the subtitle British Philosophy, covers: Thomas Hobbes John Locke Isaac Newton George Berkeley David Hume Volume 6: Wolff to Kant Originally published in 1960, this volume, which has also borne the subtitle The Enlightenment, covers: The French Enlightenment (including Jean-Jacques Rousseau) The German Enlightenment The Rise of the Philosophy of History (including Giambattista Vico and Voltaire) Christian Wolff Immanuel Kant Volume 7: Fichte to Nietzsche Originally published in 1963, this volume, which has also borne the subtitle 18th and 19th Century German Philosophy, covers: Johann Gottlieb Fichte Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling Friedrich Schleiermacher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Arthur Schopenhauer The Transformation of Idealism (including Ludwig Feuerbach and Max Stirner) Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Søren Kierkegaard Neo-Kantianism Friedrich Nietzsche Copleston also wrote separate works on two of the philosophers treated in this volume: Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosopher of Culture (1942), a work expanded in 1975, and Arthur Schopenhauer: Philosopher of Pessimism (1946). He was also interviewed by Bryan Magee on Schopenhauer for BBC Television in 1987. Volume 8: Bentham to Russell Originally published in 1966,this volume, which has also borne the subtitle Utilitarianism to Early Analytic Philosophy, covers: British Empiricism (including John Stuart Mill and Herbert Spencer) The Idealist Movement in Great Britain (including Francis Herbert Bradley and Bernard Bosanquet) Idealism in America (including Josiah Royce) The Pragmatist Movement (including Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey) The Revolt Against Idealism (including George Edward Moore and Bertrand Russell) Volume 9: Maine de Biran to Sartre Originally published in 1975, this volume which has also borne the subtitle 19th and 20th Century French Philosophy covers: From the French Revolution to Auguste Comte (including Maine de Biran) From Auguste Comte to Henri Bergson From Henri Bergson to Jean-Paul Sartre (including Maurice Merleau-Ponty) Volume 10: Russian Philosophy Though (according to Gerard J. Hughes) a tenth volume of History on Russian philosophy had once been projected, Copleston's work in this area resulted in two books not part of that series: Philosophy in Russia (1986) and Russian Religious Philosophy (1988). The former book (which the original publishers had claimed could "reasonably be regarded as a companion volume to the series”) was added as Volume 10 by Continuum in 2003 (though it also continued to be sold under its original title to libraries as of 2019). Ivan Kireevsky, Peter Lavrov, and other Russian philosophers Philosophy in Dostoevsky and Tolstoy Religion and Philosophy: Vladimir Solovyov Plekhanov, Bogdanov, Lenin and Marxism Nikolai Berdyaev and other philosophers in exile Volume 11: Logical Positivism and Existentialism Included, from 2003, as Volume 11 in the Continuum edition, Logical Positivism and Existentialism is a collection of essays which (barring a first chapter rewritten for a 1972 republishing) had all been published in Copleston's Contemporary Philosophy (1956). It covers Logical positivism and Existentialism. Reception and legacy Reviewing the first volume in 1947, George Boas remarked that: "None of [Copleston's Thomistic] interpretations will do much harm to the reader of this very scholarly book. Most of them are put in parentheses, as if they were inserted to warn the seminarists that they must not be taken in by the pagans. They could be removed, and a history of ancient philosophy ad usum infidelium would result which would be head and shoulders above the usual histories. [...] He obviously knows the ancient literature well and, if he had not felt himself obliged to be a modern Eusebius, he had the knowledge to write a genuine history. On the other hand, he is too given to periodizing and generalizing. [...] One can have but the highest praise for Father Copleston's erudition; it is too bad that he could not have put it into writing a really original study of ancient philosophical ideas." Regarding the objectivity of the work, Martin Gardner, echoing remarks he had made previously, noted: "The Jesuit priest Frederick Copleston wrote a marvelous multi-volume history of philosophy. I have no inkling of what he believed about any Catholic doctrine." Reviewing 1986's Philosophy in Russia (sold, from 2003, as of the tenth volume of the Continuum edition) Geoffrey A. Hosking noted that the author was "as fair to the atheist and socialist thinkers as he is to the religious ones, with whom, as a member of the Society of Jesus, he is presumably more in sympathy." And said that overall it was "a magisterially competent survey." But, he concluded: "I confess, though, to being slightly disappointed that Copleston's enormous experience did not generate a few more original insights, and in particular did not provoke him into examining the most important of all the practical questions that Russian philosophy poses." Writing in 2017, philosopher Christia Mercer credited the work as "a hugely ambitious and admirably clear study" but remarked that although the author includes "mystics like Master Eckhart (1260-1328) and prominent Jesuit scholastics like Francisco Suárez (1548–1617), he entirely ignores the richly philosophical spiritual writings of even the most prominent late medieval women, reducing the entirety of philosophy to a series of great men, each responding to the ones who went before." Philosopher and theologian Benedict M. Ashley compared A History of Philosophy to some of the most famous histories of philosophy as follows: "Some histories of philosophy, like the admirable one of Frederick Copleston, only attempt to give an accurate account of various philosophies in their general historical setting. Others, like Bertrand Russell in his absurd History of Western Philosophy or Etienne Gilson in his brilliant The Unity of Philosophical Experience proffer an argument for a particular philosophical position." The Washington Post: "Copleston's account of western philosophy has long been a standard reference, most familiar to students as a series of slender rack-sized paperbacks. Copleston writes with welcome clarity, but without the slight dumbing down of Will Durant's engaging Story of Philosophy or the biases of Bertrand Russell's provocative History of Western Philosophy. In other words, Copleston's volumes are still the place to start for anyone interested in following man's speculations about himself and his world." Gerard J. Hughes in The New Catholic Encyclopedia, described the work as "a model of clarity, objectivity, and scholarly accuracy, unsurpassed in its accessibility and balance." The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the Jesuits: "[A] monumental nine-volume [history][...] published between 1946 and 1974, for which [Copleston] would receive wide-spread acclaim. Described by The Times of London as “the best all-round history of philosophical thinking from the pre-Socratics to Sartre” (April 2, 1994), Copleston's history became renowned for the erudition of its scholarship, the comprehensive scope of its content, and the relatively objective position from which it was written." The Review of Metaphysics: "(The) best known historian of philosophy in the English speaking world, and a man to whom many are indebted." Jon Cameron (University of Aberdeen): "To this day Copleston's history remains a monumental achievement and stays true to the authors it discusses being very much a work in exposition." As of September 1979, The Washington Post reported that: "best-selling multi-volume work, Frederick Copleston's "[A] History of Philosophy" (nine parts, 17 volumes) has collectively sold 1.6 million copies." Editions Copleston, Frederick (2003). A History of Philosophy Vols 1-11. Great Britain: Continuum. ISBN 978-0826469489. Copleston, Frederick (1962–1975). A History of Philosophy. New York, USA: Image Books (Doubleday). Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Philosophy_(Copleston)#Editions. As a popular article, all references in the original post in wikipedia were removed. 
    • THE ROUTLEDGE GUIDES TO THE GREAT BOOKS
      THE ROUTLEDGE GUIDES TO THE GREAT BOOKS
      23/ 09/ 2021
      The Routledge Guides to the Great Books provide ideal introductions to the texts which have shaped Western Civilization. The Guidebooks explore the arguments and ideas contained in the most influential works from some of the most brilliant thinkers who have ever lived, from Aristotle to Marx and Newton to Wollstonecraft. Each Guidebook opens with a short introduction to the author of the great book and the context within which they were working and concludes with an examination of the lasting significance of the book. The Routledge Guides to the Great Books will therefore provide students everywhere with complete introductions to the most significant books of all time. This series is complementary to Routledge Philosophy Guidebooks.  Ancient and Middle Age The Routledge Guidebook to The New Testament (Kinh thánh Tân ước) The Routledge Guidebook to Plato's Republic (Cộng hòa của Plato) The Routledge Guidebook to Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (Đạo đức học cho Nicomachus của Aristotle) The Routledge Guidebook to Augustine's Confessions (Tự thú của Augustine) The Routledge Guidebook to Aquinas' Summa Theologiae (Tổng luận thần học của Thomas Aquinas) Early Modern Age The Routledge Guidebook to Machiavelli's The Prince (Quân vương của Machiavelli) The Routledge Guidebook to Galileo's Dialogue (Đối thoại của Galileo) The Routledge Guidebook to Hobbes' Leviathan (Leviathan của Hobbes) The Routledge Guidebook to Descartes' Meditations (Những suy niệm của Descartes) The Routledge Guidebook to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Tiểu luận về giác tính con người của Locke) The Routledge Guidebook to Berkeley’s Three Dialogues (Ba đối thoại của Berkeley) The Routledge Guidebook to Smith's Wealth of Nations (Của cải của các dân tộc của Adam Smith) The Routledge Guidebook to Mill's On Liberty (Bàn về tự do của Mill) The Routledge Guidebook to Paine's Rights of Man (Quyền con người của Thomas Paine) The Routledge Guidebook to Thoreau's Civil Disobedience (Sự bất tuân dân sự của Thoreau) The Routledge Guidebook to Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (Biện hộ cho quyền phụ nữ của Wollstonecraft) The Routledge Guidebook to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit (Hiện tượng học tinh thần của Hegel) The Routledge Guidebook to Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (Kính sợ và run rẩy của Kierkegaard) The Routledge Guidebook to James’s Principles of Psychology (Những nguyên lý tâm lý học của James) 20th century The Routledge Guidebook to Moore's Principia Ethica (Principia Ethica của Moore) The Routledge Guidebook to Einstein's Relativity (Thuyết tương đối của Einstein) The Routledge Guidebook to Gramsci's Prison Notebooks (Những ghi chép trong tù của Gramsci) The Routledge Guidebook to Heidegger's Being and Time (Tồn tại và thời gian của Heidegger) The Routledge Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (Những khảo sát mang tính triết học của Wittgenstein) The Routledge Guidebook to Rawls’ A Theory of Justice (Lý thuyết công lý của Rawls) The Routledge Guidebook to Foucault's The History of Sexuality (Lịch sử tính dục của Foucault) For more information, please go to: https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-Guides-to-the-Great-Books/book-series/RGGB?pd=published,forthcoming&pg=3&pp=12&so=pub&view=list
    • ROUTLEDGE PHILOSOPHY GUIDEBOOKS
      ROUTLEDGE PHILOSOPHY GUIDEBOOKS
      19/ 09/ 2021
      Routledge Philosophy GuideBooks painlessly introduce students to the classic works of philosophy. Each GuideBook considers a major philosopher and a key area of their philosophy by focusing upon an important text – situating the philosopher and the work in a historical context, considering the text in question and assessing the philosopher’s contribution to contemporary thought. These books are excellent readings for the first and second year students who would like to study each philosophical text in Western philosophy canon. To help first-time readers, we classify them into major periods and philosophical schools. Unfortunately, none of these books has been translated into Vietnamese yet.  Ancient Philosophy (Triết học cổ đại) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Plato and the Trial of Socrates (Plato và phiên tòa xử Socrates) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Plato 's Republic (Cộng hòa của Plato) Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle and the Poetics (Aristotle và thi pháp) Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Aristotle and the Politics (Aristotle và chính trị luận) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Aristotle and the Metaphysics (Aristotle và siêu hình học) Early Modern Philosophy (Triết học hiện đại sơ kì) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Locke on Government (Locke bàn về chính quyền) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Berkeley and the Principles of Human Knowledge (Berkeley và Những nguyên lý về tri thức con người) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Hume on Religion (Hume bàn về tôn giáo) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Hume on Knowledge (Hume bàn về tri thức) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Hume on Morality (Hume bàn về luân lý) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Mill on Utilitarianism (Mill và Thuyết công lợi) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Descartes 's Meditations (Những suy niệm của Descartes) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Spinoza on Politics (Spinoza bàn về chính trị) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Spinoza and the Ethics (Spinoza và Đạo đức học) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Leibniz and the Monadology (Leibniz và Đơn tử luận) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Rousseau and the Social Contract (Rousseau và Khế ước xã hội) German Idealism (Chủ nghĩa duy tâm Đức) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason (Kant và Phê phán lý tính thuần túy) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant on Morals (Kant bàn về luân lý) Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kant on Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason (Kant và Tôn giáo bên trong phạm vi của lý tính thuần túy) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kant on Judgment (Kant bàn về phán đoán) Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hegel on History (Hegel bàn về lịch sử) Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hegel 's Phenomenology of Spirit (Hiện tượng học tinh thần của Hegel) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Hegel and the Philosophy of Right (Hegel và Triết học pháp quyền) Analytic Philosophy (Triết học phân tích) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Frege on Sense and Reference (Frege bàn về Ý nghĩa và sở chỉ) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Wittgenstein and the Tractatus (Wittgenstein và Tractatus) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Wittgenstein 's Philosophical Investigations (Những khảo sát mang tính triết học của Wittgenstein) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Wittgenstein and On Certainty (Wittgenstein và Về sự chắc chắn)  Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Anscombe's Intention (Ý định của Anscombe)  Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Kripke and Naming and Necessity (Kripke và Gọi tên và tính tất yếu) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Rorty and the Mirror of Nature (Rorty và tấm gương tự nhiên) Continental Philosophy (Triết học lục địa) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Nietzsche on Art (Nietzsche bàn về nghệ thuật) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Nietzsche on Morality (Nietzsche bàn về luân lí) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Husserl and the Cartesian Meditations (Husserl và Những suy niệm kiểu Descartes) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Heidegger and Being and Time (Heidegger và Tồn tại và thời gian) Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to the Later Heidegger (Heidegger hậu kì) Routledge Philosophy GuideBook to Merleau-Ponty and Phenomenology of Perception (Merleau-Ponty và Hiện tượng luận tri giác) Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Derrida on Deconstruction (Derrida bàn về giải cấu) For more information, please go to: https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Philosophy-GuideBooks/book-series/SE0129?pd=published,forthcoming&pg=1&pp=12&so=pub&view=grid
    • WESTERN PHILOSOPHY SECTION IN VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION SERIES
      WESTERN PHILOSOPHY SECTION IN VERY SHORT INTRODUCTION SERIES
      15/ 09/ 2021
      Very Short Introduction series published by Oxford Univeristy Press consists of hundreds of titles on various topics. Short and small books of 150-200 pages are perfect ways for readers to learn any new topics. The authors masterly combine data, analysis, conceptions, and new ideas to write on difficult and interesting topics in easy-to-read manner. The Western Philosophy section has been published, since 2000, more than 80 titles which can be classified as follows: Introduction to individual philosophers (25 titles): from Socrates, Plato, Aristotle through Hobbes, Montaigne, Descartes, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche to Russell, Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Camus, Foucault, Derrida, and Habermas. Introduction to history of Western Philosophy (17 titles): pre-Socratic philosophy, ancient philosophy, medieval philosophy, analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, existentialism, French philosophy, and German philosophy. Also to philosophy schools such as scepticism, Stoicism, Epicureanism, utilitarianism, critical theory, postmodernism, and poststructuralism.  Introduction to Philosophy disciplines (14 titles): metaphysics, ethics, logic, aesthetics, political philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, philosophy of biology, philosophy of physics, hermeneutics. Introduction to topics (17 titles): beauty, conscience, causality, faith, love, animal rights, free speech, knowledge, meaning of life, objectivity, thought, trust etc.   Introduction to other topics (6 titles): Indian philosophy, philosophy in Islamic world etc. The Western Philosophy section covers comprehensively almost all major figures in Western philosophy from ancient to modern time. It also introduces most of main schools and periods in history of Western philosophy. The traditional disciplines in Western philosophy are included adequately as well. The outstanding feature of this series is to touch on various important contemporary topics in philosophy debates nowadays. Titles in philosophy section has been translated into Vietnamese include: Triết học by Edward Craig (translated by Phạm Kiều Tùng, Nxb Tri thức, 2010) Karl Marx by Peter Singer (translated by Đinh Hồng Phúc and Cù Ngọc Phương , Nxb Tri thức, 2011) Machiavelli by Quentin Skinner (translated by Quế Sơn, nxb Đà Nẵng, 2020) Chủ nghĩa vô thần: dẫn nhập ngắn by Julian Baggini (translated by Thùy Dương, Nxb Tri thức, 2020) Dẫn luận về Schopenhauer by Christopher Janaway (translated by Trịnh Huy Hóa, Nxb Hồng đức, 2017) Dẫn luận về Nietzsche by Michael Tanner (translated by Trịnh Huy Hóa, Nxb Hồng Đức, 2017) Dẫn luận về Kierkegaard by Patrick Gardiner (translated by Thái An, Nxb Hồng Đức, 2017) Dẫn luận về Foucault by Gary Gutting (translated by Thái An and Trịnh Huy Hóa, Nxb Hồng Đức, 2017) Dẫn luận đề Cái đẹp by Roger Scruton (translated by Thái An, Nxb Hồng Đức, 2016) Dẫn luận về Tư duy by Tim Bayne (translated by Nguyễn Tiến Văn, Nxb Hồng Đức, 2016) Dẫn luận về Tình yêu by Ronald de Sousa (translated by Thái An, Nxb Hồng Đức, 2016) Quan hệ nhân quả: dẫn luận ngắn by Stephen Mumford and Rani Lill Anjum (translated by Hoàng Phú Phương, Nxb tổng hợp tphcm, 2018) Chủ nghĩa hiện sinh: dẫn luận ngắn by Thomas Flynn (translated by Đinh Hồng Phúc, Nxb tổng hợp tphcm, 2018) Logic học: dẫn luận ngắn by Graham Priest (translated by Nguyễn Văn Sướng, Nxb tổng hợp tphcm, 2018 For more information, please refer to: https://www.veryshortintroductions.com/browse?t0=VSIO_SUBJECTS%3AAHU02720  
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