Author: Laura Reagan

This author has written 148 articles
Read more about the article Quentin Skinner Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes
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Quentin Skinner Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes

Finally, there is the still more rhetorically minded view associated with Renaissance humanism: that our watchword ought to be audi alteram partem, always listen to the other side. This commitment stems from the belief that, in moral and political debate, it will always be possible to speak in utramque partem, and will never be possible to couch our moral or political theories in deductive form. The approprate model will always be that of a dialogue, the appropriate stance a willingness to negotiate over rival intuitions concerning the applicability of evaluative terms. We must strive to reaching understanding and resolve disputes in a conversational way. p. 15-16

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Read more about the article Cicero On the Commonwealth and On the Laws
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Cicero On the Commonwealth and On the Laws

At this point you will see the political circle turning; you should learn to recognize its natural motion and circuit from the very beginning. This is the essential element of civic prudence (the topic of our entire discussion); to see the paths and turns of commonwealths, so that when you know in what direction any action tends, you can hold it back or anticipate it. Book 2 p.47

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Read more about the article Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations
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Wittgenstein Philosophical Investigations

The thoughts that I publish in what follows are the precipitate of philosophical investigations which have occupied me for the last sixteen years. They concern many subjects: the concepts of meaning, of understanding, of a proposition and sentence, of logic, the foundations of mathematics, states of consciousness, and other things. I have written down all these thoughts as remarks, short paragraphs, sometimes in longer chains about the same subject, sometimes jumping, in a sudden change, from one area to another. -- Originally it was my intention to bring all this together in a book whose form I thought of differently at different times. But it seemed to me essential that in the book the thoughts should proceed from one subject to another in natural, smooth sequence. After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results together into such a whole, I realized that I should never succeed. The best that I could write would never be more than philosophical remarks; my thoughts soon grew feeble if I tried to force them along a single track against their natural inclination. --- And this was, of course, connected with the very nature of the investigation. For it compels us to travel criss-cross in every direction over a wide field of thought. -- The philosophical remarks in this book are, as it were, a number of sketches of landscapes which were made in the course of these long and meandering journeys.

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Read more about the article Wittgenstein Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
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Wittgenstein Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

The book deals with the problems of philosophy and shows, as I believe, that the method of formulating these problems rests on the misunderstanding of the logic of our language. Its whole meaning could be summed up somewhat as follows: What can be said at all can be said clearly; and whereof one cannot speak thereof one must be silent. The book will, therefore, draw a limit to thinking, or rather not to thinking, but to the expression of thoughts; for, in order to draw a limit to thinking we should have to be able to think both sides of this limit (we should therefore have to be able to think what cannot be thought). The limit can, therefore, only be drawn in language and what lies on the other side of the limit will be simply nonsense.

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Read more about the article Heidegger On Nietzsche
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Heidegger On Nietzsche

Not only must the thought emerge out of the creative moment of decision in some given individual, but as a thought that pertains to life itself it must also be a historical decision -- a crisis. p.154 continued p. 155 This plan culminates in a fifth point entitled "The doctrine of eternal return as hammer in the hand of the most powerful man. Wherever the thought of thoughts is indeed thought, that is to say, is incorporated, it conducts the thinker to supreme decisions in such a way that he expands beyond himself, thus attaining power over himself and willing himself. In this way such a man is as will to power.

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Read more about the article Heidegger Being and Time
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Heidegger Being and Time

"Läßt sich die Zeit selbst als Horizont des Seins offenbaren? Ist die Zeit selbst der Modus der Zeitlichkeit, oder ist diese nur ein Modus der Zeit? Ist die Zeit selbst das Ziel des Entwurfs, oder ist sie nur der Horizont des Seins? Welcher Art ist dieser Unterschied zwischen Sein und Zeit? Die Untersuchung ist auf dem Wege — wohin?"

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Read more about the article John Stuart Mill On Liberty
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John Stuart Mill On Liberty

The subject of this Essay is ... Civil, or Social Liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual. A question seldom stated, and hardly ever discussed, in general terms, but which profoundly influences the practical controversies of the age by its latent presence, and is likely soon to make itself recognised as the vital question of the future. It is so far from being new, that in a certain sense, it has divided mankind, almost from the remotest ages; but in the stage of progress into which the more civilised portions of the species have now[Pg 2] entered, it presents itself under new conditions, and requires a different and more fundamental treatment. The struggle between Liberty and Authority is the most conspicuous feature in the portions of history with which we are earliest familiar, particularly in that of Greece, Rome, and England.

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Read more about the article John Rawls Theory of Justice
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John Rawls Theory of Justice

If men’s inclination to self-interest makes their vigilance against one another necessary, their public sense of justice makes their secure association together possible. Among individuals with disparate aims and purposes a shared conception of justice establishes the bonds of civic friendship; the general desire for justice limits the pursuit of other ends. One may think of a public conception of justice as constituting the fundamental charter of a well-ordered human association. Existing societies are of course seldom well-ordered in this sense, for what is just and unjust is usually in dispute. Men disagree about which principles should define the basic terms of their association. Yet we may still say, despite this disagreement, that they each have a conception of justice. That is, they understand the need for, and they are prepared to affirm, a characteristic set of principles for assigning basic rights and duties and for determining what they take to be the proper distribution of the benefits and burdens of social cooperation.

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