The Epistemology of Humanism

1996 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 127-152
Author(s):  
Burkhard Mojsisch
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Medieval Philosophy ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
The Mind

Abstract This essay explores the interconnections among the humanistic epistemological theories of Ficino, Pomponazzi and Cusanus apparent in the context of their reception of ancient Greek and medieval philosophy, especially Plato's Theaetetus and Aristotle's De anima. It shows that preceding the opposition between the (Neo-)Platonic scheme of knowledge favored by Ficino and the Aristotelian account of the intellect championed by Pomponazzi, Cusanus attempted to articulate the nature of the mind (mens) as such which all modes of knowledge presuppose. Central to this project is his work De coniecturis with its theory of the unity of the divine, reason, the understanding and the body, by means of which Cusanus undertook to show how all modes of knowledge are immanent in the mind even as knowledge itself is a process. Concluding critical remarks expound upon the principal significance for knowledge of the thought of nothing, which fundamentally defines the relation to self and other and therewith the horizon of the possible truth of knowledge.

scholarly journals Cerebral localization of the mind and higher functions The beginnings

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 321-325 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eliasz Engelhardt
Keyword(s):  
Nervous Tissue ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Mental Functions ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Cerebral Localization ◽  
Ancient Times ◽  
Higher Mental Functions ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Brain

Abstract The debates about the mind and its higher functions, and attempts to locate them in the body, have represented a subject of interest of innumerable sages since ancient times. The doubt concerning the part of the body that housed these functions, the heart (cardiocentric doctrine) or the brain (cephalocentric doctrine), drove the search. The Egyptians, millennia ago, held a cardiocentric view. A very long time later, ancient Greek scholars took up the theme anew, but remained undecided between the heart and the brain, a controversy that lasted for centuries. The cephalocentric view prevailed, and a new inquiry ensued about the location of these functions within the brain, the ventricles or the nervous tissue, which also continued for centuries. The latter localization, although initially inaccurate, gained traction. However, it represented only a beginning, as further studies in the centuries that followed revealed more precise definitions and localizations of the higher mental functions.

Materialism in Ancient Greek Philosophy and in the Writings of the Young Marx

2000 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tony Burns
Keyword(s):  
Human Mind ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Other ◽  
De Anima ◽  
Greek Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Ancient Greek Philosophy ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractWhat is the young Marx's attitude towards questions of psychology? More precisely, what is his attitude towards the human mind and its relationship to the body? To deal adequately with this issue requires a consideration of the relationship between Marx and Feuerbach. It also requires some discussion of the thought of Aristotle. For the views of Feuerbach and the young Marx are (in some respects) not at all original. Rather, they represent a continuation of a long tradition which derives ultimately from ancient Greek philosophy, and especially from the philosophy of Aristotle. As is well known, Aristotle's thought with respect to questions of psychology are mostly presented, by way of a critique of the doctrines of the other philosophers of his day, in his De Anima. W.H. Walsh has made the perceptive observation that Aristotle's views might be seen as an attempt to develop a third approach which avoids the pitfalls usually associated with the idealism of Plato, on the one hand, and the materialism of Democritus on the other. It might be argued that there is an analogy between the situation in which Aristotle found himself in relation to the idealists and materialists of his own day and that which confronted Marx in the very early 1840s. For, like Aristotle, Marx also might be seen as attempting to develop such a third approach. The difference is simply that, in the case of Marx, the idealism in question is that of Hegel rather than that of Plato, and the materialism is the ‘mechanical materialism’ of the eighteenth century rather than that of Democritus. This obvious parallel might well explain why Marx took such a great interest in Aristotle's De Anima both during and shortly after doing the preparatory work for his doctoral dissertation – the subject matter of which, of course, is precisely the materialist philosophy of the ancient Greek atomists Democritus and Epicurus.

The Role of Irony in Xenophon’s Dialogue of Socrates with Theodote

2018 ◽  
pp. 31-35
Author(s):  
Richard A. Berg
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
Ancient Greek ◽  
Social Conventions ◽  
High Ranking ◽  
The Mind ◽  
At Home

In his Memoirs of Socrates at 3.11 Xenophon reports a dialogue of Socrates with Theodote, a high-ranking prostitute, which looks to be unique in the ancient Greek canon in representing a philosophical exchange of ideas between a man and woman. But what are we to make of the dialogue between them? The mere occurrence of the dialogue alone is surely not enough to make Xenophon’s Socrates out to be a feminist. In the attempt to understand the exchange between them I argue it is important to note that Theodote’s offer for Socrates to cross the line from the mind to the body makes literal and commercial sense, while Socrates’ description of his male followers as “girlfriends” does neither. Moreover, the biting irony of the dialogue’s conclusion suggests that he would not have wanted her to join his male followers, thus breaking with their established women-stay-at- home social conventions. Xenophon’s Theodote dialogue, I conclude, emphatically does not make Socrates out to be a feminist, at least not in the sense of being willing to accept female followers.

Burnout of the Mind – Burnout of the Body?

2018 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 30-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Traunmüller ◽  
Kerstin Gaisbachgrabner ◽  
Helmut Karl Lackner ◽  
Andreas R. Schwerdtfeger
Keyword(s):  
Blood Pressure ◽  
Allostatic Load ◽  
Maslach Burnout Inventory ◽  
The Body ◽  
Lower Percentage ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Urinary Catecholamines ◽  
Morning Cortisol ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Cortisol Increase

Abstract. In the present paper we investigate whether patients with a clinical diagnosis of burnout show physiological signs of burden across multiple physiological systems referred to as allostatic load (AL). Measures of the sympathetic-adrenergic-medullary (SAM) axis and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis were assessed. We examined patients who had been diagnosed with burnout by their physicians (n = 32) and were also identified as burnout patients based on their score in the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey (MBI-GS) and compared them with a nonclinical control group (n = 19) with regard to indicators of allostatic load (i.e., ambulatory ECG, nocturnal urinary catecholamines, salivary morning cortisol secretion, blood pressure, and waist-to-hip ratio [WHR]). Contrary to expectations, a higher AL index suggesting elevated load in several of the parameters of the HPA and SAM axes was found in the control group but not in the burnout group. The control group showed higher norepinephrine values, higher blood pressure, higher WHR, higher sympathovagal balance, and lower percentage of cortisol increase within the first hour after awakening as compared to the patient group. Burnout was not associated with AL. Results seem to indicate a discrepancy between self-reported burnout symptoms and psychobiological load.

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