Paul S McDonald - Profile on Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Paul S McDonald

History of the Human Sciences, 2000

This article examines some of the phenomenological features in Lev Vygotsky’s mature psychologica... more This article examines some of the phenomenological features in Lev Vygotsky’s mature psychological theory, especially in Thinking and Speech and The Current Crisis in Psychology. It traces the complex literary and philosophical influences in 1920s Moscow on Vygotsky’s thought, through Gustav Shpet’s seminars on Husserl and the inner form of the word, Chelpanov’s seminars on phenomenology, Bakhtin’s theory of the production of inner speech, and the theoretical insights of the early Gestalt psychologists. It begins with an exposition of two central Husserlian schemas: part-whole theory and the thesis of the naïve standpoint, both of which Vygotsky was clearly familiar with. This is followed by an account of the reception of phenomenology in early Soviet Russia. The article’s central sections are concerned with a careful unpacking and critique of Vygotsky’s employment of Husserlian method and analysis in his later doctrine of the ‘inner plane of speech’, his use of part-whole theory, a...

Kenelm Digby's major philosophical work, Two Treatises: Of Bodies and of Man’s Soul, first publis... more Kenelm Digby's major philosophical work, Two Treatises: Of Bodies and of Man’s Soul, first published in 1644 is the first comprehensive philosophical work in the English language – something that is not well recognized at all. In this huge work he discussed at some length every major theme we would recognize today as falling under the study of philosophy: elements, matter, mechanism, motion and causation, as well as sensation, perception, memory, imagination, intellect, reason, and immortality. Digby’s Two Treatises “shares with Descartes’ Principles of Philosophy the honor of being the first fully considered attempt at a mechanistic system. The fact that it was written in English can only have enhanced its importance among contemporary English thinkers.” The Introduction examines all of these issues in detail, situating them within the major debates of his era.

The principal contention here is that Nietzsche knew far more about the historical Zarathustra th... more The principal contention here is that Nietzsche knew far more about the historical Zarathustra than any of his contemporaries and that the dominant themes in Thus Spoke Zarathustra are modeled on the archaic Avestan texts of the Gathas, the “songs” attributed to an ancient Iranian prophet (c.1000 BCE). By 1883-87, Nietzsche had an informed, scholarly knowledge of the Zend-Avesta texts, recently available in German with several good commentaries, and deployed that understanding with careful intent, though through obscure imagery, in his visionary book.

Phainomena XXII/84-85 (June 2013)

The moral and/or juridical arguments for abolishing the death penalty as it now stands succeed to... more The moral and/or juridical arguments for abolishing the death penalty as it now stands succeed to some degree because the moral and/or juridical arguments for the death penalty are weak. Such arguments only have to show that the currently cited grounds for upholding the death penalty fail to meet the rationales and criteria that their adherents advance. However, arguments for or against the death penalty appeal to moral principles which are not neutral with regard to metaphysical issues; moral assertions come with ontological and epistemic commitments. No argument about equity or fairness or justice can be made without premises which express what kinds of things there are, what one can be said to know, and what an agent is free to do. This paper explores a different approach to the merits of the death penalty based on Leibniz’s metaphysical principles: monads’ phenomenal expression, pre-established harmony, super-essentialism, individuals’ inner programs, and moral agents’ freedom to act like “little gods”. This paper presents Leibniz’s picture of an individual who freely chooses to contribute to the moral pessimum (the worst compossible state-of-affairs) and the compensatory scheme that requires an effort by a community of rational agents to redress the overall balance of moral good. On this view, there is a positive requirement for the benefit of a community of minds to invoke the death penalty for a murderer whose individual concept contributes to the pessimum, and whose continued life retards efforts to achieve an optimum state where moral good outweighs moral evil.

“Philosophical Conversion”

The publication in 1900 of Edmund Husserl's Logical Investigations (second edition 1913, third ed... more The publication in 1900 of Edmund Husserl's Logical Investigations (second edition 1913, third edition 1920) exerted a profound influence in a number of academic disciplines during the period 1900 to 1915 and just after the First World War. Recent studies have demonstrated the impact of Husserl's project on the inception of the structural model in linguistics and the categorisation of perceptual structures in Gestalt Psychology. The present study looks closely at the articulation of a novel theory of individual psychological development proposed in several later works by Lev Vygotsky , one of the great pioneer Soviet psychologists. Vygotsky attempted to demonstrate that the development of human cognition could best be explained through the dynamic interaction of two processes: the internalization of external particulars and the deployment of symbolic statements through 'inner speech'. In addition to a language of thought, humans have a language for thought, and this is a cognitive and behavioural control language.

“Husserl’s Preemptive Responses to Existentialist Critiques”,

“Current Approaches to Phenomenology”

was one of the first thinkers to seriously consider the cognitive processes involved in the human... more was one of the first thinkers to seriously consider the cognitive processes involved in the human experience of moving through space, and hence of coming to know the fullness of solid objects. Husserl was deeply dissatisfied with the clichéd philosophical model of visual perception in which an immobile perceiver fronted an array of objects, a spectator observing things in a gallery. In his 1907 Lectures on Thing and Space, Husserl accomplished a meticulous reconstruction of the experience of a concrete object in three-dimensional space from the constitution of layered strata of a two-dimensional visual field, coupled with the orchestration of bodily movements. In these lectures Husserl articulated a number of profound ideas about the genesis of an inner-spatial world, ones which are amazingly modern and which are in "perfect agreement with the present scientific results of visual cognition". During these same years (1908-10), the Cubists artistically accomplished the same sort of thing by working in the opposite direction: the two-dimensional representation of a thing in space by way of interlinked partial aspects of a unified object as it would be perceived through bodily movement. The pre-historic, preempirical setting which Picasso discerns beneath the overlay of a neutral, idealized perspective and proportion is comparable to the pre-theoretical, pre-reflective lifeworld which Husserl posits as the necessary desideratum of the natural scientific model. This paper examines in detail the extraordinary correspondences between the Husserlian theme of an inner-spatial constitution and the Cubists' attempts to render the multi-faceted solidity of a concrete object within the canvas plane.

This paper argues that efforts to understand historically remote patterns of thought are driven a... more This paper argues that efforts to understand historically remote patterns of thought are driven away from their original meaning if the investigation focuses on reconstruction of concepts. It is simply not appropriate to be looking for an archaic concept of soul, name or dream, for example, when considering the earliest documents which attest to their writers' (and others') belief about certain types of phenomena. Not only does the historian often have great difficulties in identifying and explaining relevant concepts across vast stretches of time, it may be misleading to look for anything like a concept at all. The basic meaning of 'concept' is an idea that can be applied to many 'objects', an idea that is universal across a type, and not particular to an instance or token; it is abstract in its intension, i.e. it signifies an object-class in virtue of common features; and general in its extension, i.e. it can pick out numerous particulars that satisfy conditions for class-inclusion. On the Kantian view, a concept is a product of the understanding operating on empirical content supplied by the sensory faculties. Thus a single empirical concept (as opposed to an apriori, categorical concept) has a stable meaning associated with its object-class's essential properties. The concept is a unity of rule that determines all that is manifold in sensory intuition of objects and limits it to conditions that make possible a conformity to type. 1 With regard to archaic patterns of thought, my thesis is not that different thinkers (or writers) across vast stretches of time had different ideas about mind, soul and spirit, for example -that is true, but trivial. The concept of mind in the Stoics is different than the concept of mind in Aristotle, and different than the concept of mind in Plato; each gives their own account of the nature and functions of nous. In the contemporary arena, there is much disagreement about the concept of consciousness: what

Francis Bacon offers two accounts of the nature and function of the human mind: one is a medicalp... more Francis Bacon offers two accounts of the nature and function of the human mind: one is a medicalphysical account of the composition and operation of spirits specific to human beings, the other is a behavioral account of the character and activities of individual persons. The medical-physical account is a run-of-the-mill version of the late Renaissance model of elemental constituents and humoral temperaments. The other, less well known behavioral account represents an unusual position in early modern philosophy. This theory espouses a form of behavioral psychology according to which (a) supposed mental properties are "hidden forms" best described in dispositional terms, (b) the true character of an individual can be discovered in his observable behavior, and (c) an "informed" understanding of these properties permits the prediction and control of human behavior. Both of Bacon's theories of human nature fall under his general notion of systematic science: his medical-physical theory of vital spirits is theoretical natural philosophy and his behavioral theory of disposition and expression is operative natural philosophy. Since natural philosophy as a whole is "the inquiry of causes and the production of effects", knowledge of human nature falls under the same two-part definition. It is an inquisition of forms which pertains to the patterns of minute motions in the vital spirits and the production of effects which pertains both to the way these hidden motions produce behavioral effects and to the way in which a skillful agent is able to produce desired effects in other persons' behavior.

Abstract. This paper argues that efforts to understand historically remote patterns of thought ar... more Abstract. This paper argues that efforts to understand historically remote patterns of thought are driven away from their original meaning if the investigation focuses on reconstruction of concepts, instead of cognitive ‘complexes’. My paper draws on research by Jan Assmann, Jean-Jacques Glassner, Keimpe Algra, Alex Purves, Nicholas Wyatt, and others on the cultures of Ancient Greece, Israel, Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Etruria through comparative analyses of the semantic fields of spatial and temporal terms, and how these terms are shaped by their relation to the sphere of the sacred. It shows that there are three super-ordinate timeframes - the cyclical, the linear and the static - each of which is composed of lower-order cycles (days, lunar months, and seasons). These timeframes reflect their cultures’ ideas about the nature, scope and power of the gods, and structure the common point-of-view about the present, the past and eternity. There are also super-ordinate spatial frames which reflect their cultures’ ideas about the heavens and which structure both the sacred precinct and the profane field of action and exchange. Close analysis of texts that use words such as eternity, forever, past, present, and future, for example, do not reveal that there is anything like a general abstract concept of time in virtue of which some thing or event can be said to be in time or to have its own time. Archaic patterns of thought do not differ from our “modern” patterns in having different concepts, but in not having anything like concepts at all.

Books by Paul S McDonald

Alternative Books, 2021

Investigations into the earliest stages of philosophy usually begin with the Pre-Socratics in the... more Investigations into the earliest stages of philosophy usually begin with the Pre-Socratics in the 8th-7th C. BCE. But there is a wealth of documents in other traditions from the Archaic Period (c. 1500-750BCE), which provide ample evidence for the use of central philosophical ideas, such as knowledge, ‘science’, divination, space and time, the three-part soul, the human body, God’s nature, archetypal words for cognition, and so forth. This book examines relevant texts from Ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, Biblical Hebrew, Homeric Greek, and others in order to extract underlying ideas significant for philosophical reflection. Our analyses do indeed show that their appearance is “incidental, unsystematic and pre-philosophical”, as one critic said, but they are very much relevant to the earliest stages in the history of philosophy. Although there are scholarly studies of culture-specific fields with regard to some of these topics, there has been no comprehensive work devoted to an in-depth comparative discussion of these interrelated ideas across multiple cultural-religious sources.

Psychê: Dzieje pojecia, Dociekania o duszy,, 2019

The new Polish translation of my 2003 book, History of the Concept of Mind, has just been publish... more The new Polish translation of my 2003 book, History of the Concept of Mind, has just been published by Kronos, January 2019.
Psychê: Dzieje pojecia. Dociekania o duszy, umyśle i duchu od Homera do Hume’a.
przełożył Ireneusz Kania, wstępem opatrzył Andrzej Serafin.
Biblioteka Kwartalnika, Fundacja Augusta hr. Cieszkowskiego. Warszawa 2019

Dzieje pojęć umysłu i duszy to złożona i splątana sieć rozmaitych ścieżek, a każda z nich najeżona jest przeszkodami; niektóre wiodą donikąd, inne zwodzą już od samego początku albo biegną w ukryciu, jeszcze inne zawracają w stare myślowe koleiny lub wyrywają się w przód w pogoni za jakimiś chimerami. Założycielskim mitem filozofii zachodniej jest przypowieść Platona o tym, że Sokrates nie umarł. Czym zatem jest to, co z człowieka nie umiera? Tradycja grecka nazywa to psychē, duszą. O duszy mówi się jednak wielorako – hē psychē legetai pollachōs – by sparafrazować Arystotelesa. Niemniej to ciągle jedna i ta sama dusza. Czym jest ona w istocie, skoro tak wielorako się jawi? Czym jest to, co nas boli, gdy idziemy do tego, który potrafi ją uleczyć, do terapeuty psychē? Jakiej odwagi wymaga od nas uznanie, że coś jej dolega; a nawet samo uznanie, że ona w ogóle jest. Czy jednak jesteśmy w stanie wyzwolić się z przesądów naszej epoki na temat duszy? Jak myśleć o duszy, gdy obwieszczono nam już śmierć Boga i śmierć człowieka? Nowoczesna psychologia, w dużej mierze wywodząca się z amerykańskiej tradycji behawioralnej, bierze klasyczną teologię i antropologię w nawias, by zacząć badanie duszy niejako od nowa. Zachowujemy się niczym dzieci, które na nowo odkrywają świat. Tradycyjne wyobrażenia duszy wydają nam się oderwane od naszego doświadczenia, są niezrozumiałe, urojone, mityczne. Historia psychologii zaczyna się dla nas pod koniec XIX wieku, od psychologii naukowej Wundta, jak gdyby wcześniejsza nauką nie była.

Nature Loves to Hide: An Alternative History of Philosophy, 2018

An alternative history of philosophy has endured as a shadowy parallel to standard histories of p... more An alternative history of philosophy has endured as a shadowy parallel to standard histories of philosophy, although it shares many of the same themes: about God, about humans, and about the natural world. The alternative tradition has its own founding texts in the late ancient Hermetica, from whence flowed three broad streams of thought, alchemy, astrology, and magic (sometimes the Kabbalah). Paul MacDonald’s new book is not a survey of esoteric doctrines; it is not a history of something different than philosophy, it is a different history of philosophy. These thinkers’ attitude toward philosophy is not one of detached speculation but of active engagement, even intervention. This different history finds its origins in the late ancient milieu of the Hermetica, Graeco-Egyptian Alchemy, the Chaldean Oracles, Gnostic and Manichaean Scriptures; its passage through the Arabic world and reappearance in the European Middle Ages; in the Renaissance with Rabelais, Paracelsus, Agrippa, Ficino, and Bruno; and in the early modern period with John Dee, Robert Fludd, Jacob Böhme, Thomas Browne, Kenelm Digby, J. B. van Helmont, and Isaac Newton. In the 18th-19th centuries it considers Berkeley’s Siris, Emanuel Swedenborg, Hegel, von Baader, and great Romantics such as Novalis, Goethe, S. T. Coleridge, E. A. Poe, as well as Nietzsche; and in the 20th C. it turns to great modernist literature of Fernando Pessoa, Robert Musil, Ernst Bloch, and Philip K. Dick.

Languages of Intentionality: A Dialogue Between Two Traditions on Consciousness (Bloomsbury, 2012)

Intentionality - the relationship between conscious states and their objects - is one of the most... more Intentionality - the relationship between conscious states and their objects - is one of the most discussed topics in contemporary debates in philosophy of mind, cognitive neuroscience and the study of consciousness. Long a foundational concept in Phenomenology, it has also received considerable coverage in the writings of analytic-empirical philosophers. This book is the first study to offer an impartial, well-informed assessment of the two traditions' approaches through an in-depth investigation of the principal thinkers' ideas, so that their positions emerge side-by-side, converging and diverging on certain shared themes. Beginning with a historical discussion of the development of the term in the work of Continental thinkers in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the book considers the work
of Brentano and Husserl and subsequent existentialist critiques. From
there, it explores how empirical-analytic philosophers took up the topic, drawn as they were to materialist and computer models of the mind. Finally MacDonald presents a new 'hybrid' account of intentionality that will be a crucial work for scholars working on consciousness and the mind.

“'Paul S. MacDonald has written a beautifully clear, deeply well-informed, and up-to-date critical history of the puzzling but immensely important notion of intentionality. He seamlessly integrates discussion of phenomenological and analytical approaches to the topic, demonstrating their many points of contact. This book will not only be extremely useful to students of philosophy and their teachers as a core text on the subject, but also makes illuminating reading for professional philosophers.'” –
E. J. Lowe, Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, UK.,

“'Philosophical analyses of the problems of consciousness, as well as accounts of what the problems are, remains divided between the approaches one finds in analytic-empirical as opposed to continental philosophy.Knowledgeable yet accessible, lively, opinionated and well-argued--those on either side of the divide will find this book useful not only to better understanding the other's positions, but possibly their own as well. More than that, this book is filled with substantive insights that constitute a positive, refreshing, and readable contribution to the study of consciousness.'” – Michael Levine, Professor of Philosophy at The University of Western Australia, Australia

History of the Human Sciences, 2000

Phainomena XXII/84-85 (June 2013)

“Philosophical Conversion”

“Husserl’s Preemptive Responses to Existentialist Critiques”,

“Current Approaches to Phenomenology”

Alternative Books, 2021

Psychê: Dzieje pojecia, Dociekania o duszy,, 2019

Nature Loves to Hide: An Alternative History of Philosophy, 2018

Languages of Intentionality: A Dialogue Between Two Traditions on Consciousness (Bloomsbury, 2012)

History of the Concept of Mind: Speculations about Soul, Mind and Spirit from Homer to Hume (Ashgate, 2003)

In the 20th century theorists of mind were almost exclusively concerned with various versions of ... more In the 20th century theorists of mind were almost exclusively concerned with various versions of the materialist thesis, but prior to current debates accounts of soul and mind reveal an extraordinary richness and complexity which bear careful and impartial investigation. This book is the first single-authored, comprehensive work to examine the historical, linguistic and conceptual issues involved in exploring the basic features of the human mind - from its most remote origins to the beginning of the modern period. MacDonald traces the development of an armature of psychical concepts from the Old Testament and Homer's works to the 18th century advocacy of an empirical science of the mind. Along the way, detailed attention is paid to the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Epicurus, before turning to look at the New Testament, Neoplatonism, Augustine, Medieval Islam, Aquinas and Dante. Treatment of Renaissance theories is followed by an unusual (perhaps unique) chapter on the words "soul" and "mind" in English literature from Chaucer to Shakespeare; the story then rejoins the mainstream with analyses of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Chapter-focused bibliographies.

History of the Concept of Mind vol. 2: The Heterodox and Occult Tradition (Ashgate, 2007)

Exploring the 'roads less travelled', MacDonald continues his monumental essay in the history of ... more Exploring the 'roads less travelled', MacDonald continues his monumental essay in the history of ideas. The history of heterodox ideas about the concept of mind takes the reader from the earliest records about human nature in Ancient Egypt, the Ancient Near East, and the Zoroastrian religion, through the secret teachings in the Hermetic and Gnostic scriptures, and into the transformation of ideas about the mind, soul and spirit in the late antique and early medieval epochs. These transitions include discussion of the influence of Central Asian shamanism, Manichean ideas about the soul in light and darkness, and Neoplatonic theurgy, 'working-on-god-within'. Sections on the medieval period are concerned with the rediscovery of magical practices and occult doctrines from Roger Bacon to Francis Bacon, the adaptation of Neoplatonic and esoteric ideas in the medieval Christian mystics, and the survival of these ideas mixed with natural science in the works of von Helmont, Leibniz and Goethe. The book concludes with an investigation of the many forms of dualism in accounts of the human mind and soul, and the concept of dual-life which underpins our aspiration to understand how humans could have an immortal nature like the gods.

"This new volume adds to the complexity and subtlety of Macdonald’s story, and hence has philosophical relevance... I must highly recommend this book, for I have been fascinated by it ever since I received it. ... The book is unique, so it is not as though some other author has done a better job of imposing narrative on this vast array of near-impregnable literature."
James Tartaglia, Brit. Journal Hist. Phil., 2009

Descartes and Husserl: The Philosophical Project of Radical Beginnings (SUNY Press, 2000)

This book explores the profound influence of Descartes' philosophy on Husserl's project for pheno... more This book explores the profound influence of Descartes' philosophy on Husserl's project for phenomenology. Husserl often cited Descartes as his "spiritual mentor" and the systematic doubt of the Meditations became one of the principal points of departure for beginning phenomenological investigations. However, there is an over-arching parallel between their respective philosophical enterprises which only an intimate and informed knowledge of both Descartes' and Husserl's texts can demonstrate. This convergence in their vision of a radically new beginning for philosophy often comes to the surface in unexpected places, where Husserl creatively mistakes Descartes' discoveries. Husserl remarked that Descartes had remained too true to the original skeptical impetus and not radical enough in his overthrow of that position. The author's research shows that Husserl remained far truer to Cartesianism, precisely in those places where the influence is deeply buried, and less radical than a faithful reading of Descartes' project according to the order of reasons would reveal. Since Husserl's influence on twentieth-century continental philosophers has been so well remarked, this work uncovers the legitimacy of their assessment of his Cartesian point of departure.

"This is the first book-length study I know of addressing the interrelation between Husserlian phenomenology and Descartes. It is thus an inaugural or pioneering work. It also treats issues that are important in their own right, such as the question of the philosophical status of intuition. I value the author's exacting and wide-ranging scholarship, and the fact that he addresses the entire Cartesian corpus, with careful attention to the Rules --not just the Meditations. His treatment of the issues is lucid and often insightful; and one can genuinely learn something from this book." --Veronique M. Foti, Pennsylvania State University