tomreading

Category: Philosophy

  • “Knowledge: ‘Its Scope and Limits’” Bertrand Russell (TRM’s notes)

    Knowledge: ‘Its Scope and Limits’  Bertrand Russell –    In describing the world, “subjectivity” is a vice. –    Kant spoke of himself as having affected a “Copernican Revolution”, but he would have been more accurate if he had spoken of a “Ptolemaic counter-revolution”, since he put man back at the center from which Copernicus had dethroned…

  • Plato: Socrates’ Last Days (TRM’s notes)

    Socrates’ Last Days Socratic What is “to know”? How does one test knowledge? “Virtue is knowledge” “How is it best for things to be arranged”? Both piety and justice Moral knowledge Correct conduct Religious traditions power to discriminate between right and wrong both in theological belief and in action Argument Prosecution Millets …For he knows…

  • Notes from Freud’s “The Interpretation of Dreams”

    Notes from Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams The Scientific Literature Dealing With the Problems of Dreams There is a psychological technique which makes it possible to interpret dreams Revelations from gods and daemons Foretell the future Attitude towards divination in general Two works of Aristotle which deal with dreams Daemonic, since nature is daemonic and…

  • Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy by Bertrand Russell (TRM Notes)

     Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy by Bertrand Russell 1) extension/intension “the traits by which Swift delineates the”Yahoos” class of classes bundle of bundles converse domain reflexive/symmetrical/transitive/similarity -class of fathers >what it is to be a father of somebody -the class of fathers will be all those who are somebody’s father Finitude & mathematical induction successor how…

  • Birth of Tragedy ‘Out of the Spirit of Music” by F. Nietzsche (TRM’s notes)

    Birth of Tragedy  ‘Out of the Spirit of Music”  by F. Nietzsche Introduction sui generis a weird hybrid perspicacious Schopenhauer’s pessimistic world view Tristan and Isolde a mystical almost maenadic soul Appoline and the Dionysiac Rausch wisdom of Silenus the illusion of illusions sublime comedy turgitities knowledge (wissenschaft) was preferred to wisdom(weisheit) simulacrum Aristen –Metaphysic…

  • notes: The World as Will and Representation Book I by Arthur Schopenhauer(TRM’s notes)

    The World as Will and Representation Schopenhauer Book I  The world is my representation: this is a truth valid with reference to every living and knowing being, although man alone can bring it into reflective, abstract consciousness. The world is representation. ….sages of India …. the fundamental tenet of the Vedanta school consisted not in…

  • ‘Wisdom of the West’ by Russell (notes byTRM)

    Wisdom of the West             by Bertrand Russell Intro: aim is > further inquiry > History of Western Philosophy Prologue philosophy? asking questions a speck of dust or Hamlet – or a combination exploratory process Before Socrates Greeks – curiosity Thales of Miletus  6th century BC Egypt and Mesopotamia > Crete – Knossos Ionians 2000 BC-…

  • History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell: Book One – Ancient Philosophy (TRM ‘s notes)

    History of Western Philosophy    by  Bertrand Russell       Book One Ancient Philosophy     Chapter 1 The Rise of Greek Civilization In all history, nothing is so surprising or so difficult to account for as the sudden rise of civilization in Greece –          earlier civilizations in both Egypt and Mesopotamia –…

  • Book Two: Russell’s History of Western Philosophy: Catholic Philosophy (TRM notes)

    Book Two Catholic Philosophy  chpt I p. –         Catholic philosophy from Augustine to Renaissance –         Built on a ‘creed’ but also a sacred history –         The Church – a social institution –         A.D. 400 – 1400 –         Power and wealth achieved by its creed –         The great majority convinced –         Church had to fight old…