Noel Boulting - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Noel Boulting

Process Studies

In the present article, four views of the relationship between time and eternality are explored. ... more In the present article, four views of the relationship between time and eternality are explored. The relevant thinkers examined include Plato, Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, Donald Sherburne, Norman Malcolm, and Lee Smolin.

Process Studies

This article explores the relationship between three elements—personality, character, and script—... more This article explores the relationship between three elements—personality, character, and script—to interpret the idea of someone's identity. A common way to deal with this relationship is in terms of a duality, but a tripartite analysis works better. The article relies heavily on the thought of Charles Hartshorne, with the aid of Simone Weil and Charles Sanders Peirce.

Philosophy in the Contemporary World

By employing Peirce’s semiotics, Totalitarianism is distinguished indexically from forms of Dicta... more By employing Peirce’s semiotics, Totalitarianism is distinguished indexically from forms of Dictatorship and Authoritarianism. The former can be cast, as Arendt argued, to initiate a project for world domination dispensing with any sense of Authoritarianism in forwarding some purely fictitious conception where violence is manifested in terror. Alternatively, distortion of intellectual activity may issue within Populism so that the rule of Demagogy emerges initiating Despotism or a form of Dictatorship – either Commissarial or Sovereign form – where lawless violence is sustained by secret police inducing fear but not terror. In the case of Authoritarianism induced iconically in a populace, violence may be tolerated accompanying either lawmaking or lawpreserving, both to be separated from Benjamin’s sense of pure violence. The latter – whether humanistically or spiritually understood – transcends both utilitarianism and sheer arbitrariness.

Process Studies

This article is prompted by some ideas from Robert S. Brumbaugh and Alfred North Whitehead, in pa... more This article is prompted by some ideas from Robert S. Brumbaugh and Alfred North Whitehead, in particular. Four different views of experienced time are considered as well as four different conceptions of the practice of life that are the implications of these views of time. Further, four different famous works of literature are considered in the effort to understand these views of time and their implications for the practice of life.

Ultimate Reality and Meaning

Philosophy and Theology, 2008

Process studies, 2021

This article explores the relationship between "the God of religion" and "the God ... more This article explores the relationship between "the God of religion" and "the God of philosophy" via four key concepts: existence, actuality, reality, and mystical experience. The exploration of these key concepts relies heavily on the thought of Charles Hartshorne, but it also relies on crucial insights from Charles Sanders Peirce and Simone Weil.

Acknowledgements Introduction 1. On Using the Term 'Science' 2. Making Sense of Science a... more Acknowledgements Introduction 1. On Using the Term 'Science' 2. Making Sense of Science and Technology 3. The Status of Works of Art 4. Art in Society 5. Within the Interpretative Process 6. The Problem of Reification Appendix: Objections to the Iconic Conception of Artworks Bibliography Index

Philosophica: International Journal for the History of Philosophy

Ladyman and Ross’s Every Thing Must Go is a challenging text. In order to ascertain its significa... more Ladyman and Ross’s Every Thing Must Go is a challenging text. In order to ascertain its significance, attention will be focused on their idea of Scale Relative Ontology. To do this their conception of Ontic Structural Realism will require elucidation. Its implications for Scale Relative Ontology will be explored before considering the way Scale Relative Ontology can be cast through three possible dimensions: the cosmological, the ordinary middle-sized, and scientific perspectives. In exploring the latter perspective, and applying insights derived from Peirce’s philosophy, their defence of Scientism will then be considered. In this way three different senses can be distinguished through which this doctrine can be presented, before examining what kind of Scientism they advocate and thereby its adequacy.

Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication

Language can be cast through words and images where truth claims are thought to lie. They may be ... more Language can be cast through words and images where truth claims are thought to lie. They may be either embodied within language or indicate what transcends it. Yet expression is formed through the spoken, written words or images. But what about the imagistic: words doing the work of an image without employing the visual? To grasp how the latter has emerged, the shift in authority from the spoken to the written word will be undertaken. The importance of the shift from the written word to the image can be illustrated in the case of the Renaissance, for example, where the image in the book legitimated, the word. Today the word merely amplifies or justifies the image, located on a screen! From that development the imagistic has evolved raising the problem of its authority and thereby the issue of a concern for truth.

Ultimate Reality and Meaning

INTRODUCTION No sooner is the word 'polymath' uttered than we realize our temporal distance from ... more INTRODUCTION No sooner is the word 'polymath' uttered than we realize our temporal distance from a more leisured world in which it could be applied. Edward Bulloughborn on March 28th, Easter Sunday, 1880 in Thun, Switzerland, of a German mother and a Lancashire fatherbelonged to such a world, and his early upbringing and continental education prepared him to be 'a man of unusually wide culture in a variety of subjects' (Bennet, 1934, p. 25). Subsequent to an aristocratic schooling at the Vitzthum Gymnasium in Dresden, he obtained, in 1902, his Cambridge degree in French, German and Italian with first class honours. Out of a specialization in these foreign languages and in Russian too, he originated a course which developed his linguistic and literary interests into wider 'perspectives' on civilization. It also condemned those specialist senior members of the University who were suspicious of such a new discipline. Its lectures provided him with the content necessary for his private publication 'The Modem Conception of Aesthetics' (Bullough, 1957, ch. 1). This publication in 1907 illuminated his future career with a lamp of protest against the darkness provided by an 'inhuman specialization' and 'an intellectual life divorced from actualities,' typifying what one biographer referred to as characteristic of a 'Germanic' mind (Evennett, 1934, p. 135), yet with which Bullough seemed to have to contend at Cambridge University itself. So it is not surprising to find him in that publication, trying to justify aesthetics, studies regarded doubtfully at the time, as he battled against such popular objections as 'Aesthetics is altogether a highly impractical study,' 'Aesthetics is impossible of exemplification theoretically' or that 'Aesthetics lacks a consensus of opinion in relation to matters of Art and Beauty,' objections which are still raised in the philistinism of our own time. 2. PUBLIC ACTIVITIES One of the most successful of Bullough's activities was pursued in the Cambridge School of Architectural Studies as its sheet anchor and a tactful secretary from 1909. He became a fellow of Gonville and Caius College in 1912, the year in which he published 201

Ultimate Reality and Meaning

Let us begin this study of Giambattista Vico with hermeneutics, the art of interpretation. Storie... more Let us begin this study of Giambattista Vico with hermeneutics, the art of interpretation. Stories, whether historical or imaginative, are taken to be fictions; they are simply not true. And we all know what the truth is: literally, correspondence with what is the case. How, then, is the modern reader to interpret the following story displaying the life of a writer, written by himself, which does not accord strictly with the facts? Giambattista Vico was born in Naples in the year 1670 of upright parents who left a good name after them. His father was of a cheerful disposition, his mother of a quite melancholic temper; both contributed to the character of their child. He was a boy of high spirits and impatient of rest; but at the age of seven he fell head first from the top of a ladder to the floor below, and remained a good five hours without motion or consciousness. The right side of the cranium was fractured, but the skin was not broken. The fracture gave rise to a large tumour, and the child suffered much loss of blood from the many deep lancings. The surgeon, indeed, observing the broken cranium and considering the long period of unconsciousness, predicted that he would either die of it or grow up stolid. However by God's grace neither part of his prediction came true, but as a result of this mischance he grew up with a melancholy and irritable temperament such as belongs to men of ingenuity and depth, who, thanks to the one, are quick as lightning in perception, and thanks to the other, take no pleasure in verbal cleverness or falsehood (Vico 1975, p. 111).

Ultimate Reality and Meaning

Cornelius convinced Horkheimer of the need to eliminate abstract philosophical issues and replace... more Cornelius convinced Horkheimer of the need to eliminate abstract philosophical issues and replace them with clarifying, epistemologically, questions related to our knowledge of the world along Kantian lines (Schmidt 1993, pp. 26-7). As he put it later in an essay entitled 'Metaphysics', written between 1926 and 1931 in Dawn and Decline (Horkheimer 1978B), metaphysics can indeed provide 'insight into the true nature of things.

Ultimate Reality and Meaning

as a result of hearing of the imminent sailing of the Spanish Armada! Son of 'a clerk of hol... more 254) as a result of hearing of the imminent sailing of the Spanish Armada! Son of 'a clerk of holy orders'-who fled to London after being excommunicated and engaging in a public feud-Thomas junior was educated at local schools and by Robert Latimer, an Oxford University graduate, to achieve high standards in-Greek and Latin. He presented a translation of Euripedes 's Medea to his teacher before entering Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1603, following there his own curriculum rather than scholastic learning. After earning his B.A. in 1608, he was appointed tutor to Lord Cavendish of Hardwick's son, who became, in 1618, the Earl of Devonshire (Rogow 1986, pp. 17, 24, 29, 36-7). During the first period of his intellectual development (1620-30), he visited the continent twice, travelling on the second occasion as tutor to the son of Sir Gervais Clifton between 1629 and 1630, following his departure from employment with the Cavendish family on the death of his former pupil in •1628. But it was during this earlier Cavendish period, 'Where I most pleasantly my Days did spend', when he • may have written Three Discourses (Hobbes 1994, p. 256). These Discourses of 1620, in a collection entitled Horae Subsecivae, preceded a poem called De Mirabilis bus Pecci, celebrating, in 1627, the joys of living adjacent to the Derbyshire countryside. Three Discourses focuses on the issue developed in the Dedication 'To The Readers' and Introduction to his The History of Thucydides of 1627. Of its style, Ben Jonson judged that, within the context of war and civil strife, Hobbes discussed how to sustain a secular constituency for political power, based on the lessons learned from ancient Greek history, and this despite his dissatisfaction with Aristotelianism (Saxonhouse 1995, •p. 124). This interest probably increased Hobbes's contact.with Francis Bacon, who was in retirement. Philosophically speaking, Hobbes's interest in history is abandoned during his 'Deductivism' period (1631-46) with the publication of his A Short Tract on First Principles, which is sometimes called The Little Treatise. Composed between 1630 and 1638, it may have followed his discovery of Euclid's geometry during his This motion, in which consisteth pleasure •or pain, is also a solicitation or provocation either to draw near to the thing that pleaseth, or to retire from the thing that displeaseth. And this solicitation is the endeavour or internal •beginning of animal motion, which when the object delighteth, is called APPETITE; when it displeaseth, it is called AVERSION, in respect of the displeasure present; but in respect of the displeasure expected FEAR. So that pleasure, love and appetite, which is also called desire•, are divers names for divers considerations of the same thing. (EL 1.7 .2)

Process Studies

Philosophy in the Contemporary World

Process Studies

Ultimate Reality and Meaning

Philosophy and Theology, 2008

Process studies, 2021

Philosophica: International Journal for the History of Philosophy

Empedocles: European Journal for the Philosophy of Communication

Ultimate Reality and Meaning

as a result of hearing of the imminent sailing of the Spanish Armada! Son of 'a clerk of hol... more 254) as a result of hearing of the imminent sailing of the Spanish Armada! Son of 'a clerk of holy orders'-who fled to London after being excommunicated and engaging in a public feud-Thomas junior was educated at local schools and by Robert Latimer, an Oxford University graduate, to achieve high standards in-Greek and Latin. He presented a translation of Euripedes 's Medea to his teacher before entering Magdalen Hall, Oxford, in 1603, following there his own curriculum rather than scholastic learning. After earning his B.A. in 1608, he was appointed tutor to Lord Cavendish of Hardwick's son, who became, in 1618, the Earl of Devonshire (Rogow 1986, pp. 17, 24, 29, 36-7). During the first period of his intellectual development (1620-30), he visited the continent twice, travelling on the second occasion as tutor to the son of Sir Gervais Clifton between 1629 and 1630, following his departure from employment with the Cavendish family on the death of his former pupil in •1628. But it was during this earlier Cavendish period, 'Where I most pleasantly my Days did spend', when he • may have written Three Discourses (Hobbes 1994, p. 256). These Discourses of 1620, in a collection entitled Horae Subsecivae, preceded a poem called De Mirabilis bus Pecci, celebrating, in 1627, the joys of living adjacent to the Derbyshire countryside. Three Discourses focuses on the issue developed in the Dedication 'To The Readers' and Introduction to his The History of Thucydides of 1627. Of its style, Ben Jonson judged that, within the context of war and civil strife, Hobbes discussed how to sustain a secular constituency for political power, based on the lessons learned from ancient Greek history, and this despite his dissatisfaction with Aristotelianism (Saxonhouse 1995, •p. 124). This interest probably increased Hobbes's contact.with Francis Bacon, who was in retirement. Philosophically speaking, Hobbes's interest in history is abandoned during his 'Deductivism' period (1631-46) with the publication of his A Short Tract on First Principles, which is sometimes called The Little Treatise. Composed between 1630 and 1638, it may have followed his discovery of Euclid's geometry during his This motion, in which consisteth pleasure •or pain, is also a solicitation or provocation either to draw near to the thing that pleaseth, or to retire from the thing that displeaseth. And this solicitation is the endeavour or internal •beginning of animal motion, which when the object delighteth, is called APPETITE; when it displeaseth, it is called AVERSION, in respect of the displeasure present; but in respect of the displeasure expected FEAR. So that pleasure, love and appetite, which is also called desire•, are divers names for divers considerations of the same thing. (EL 1.7 .2)