Continuum Philosophical Insight
Philosophical Consulting and Education
What is a habit? Hearing the term, we think of: addictions (cigarettes, heroin, cocaine, masturbation), tendencies (leaning to the left in our chairs, putting one’s head in the right hand when bored, looking inappropriately at people we find attractive), or patterns (coffee in the morning, television in the evening, hygiene before bed). In every habit, …
In the first part of a new on-going series—a project of retrieval which brings Scholasticism to a living import for today—I am going to ask about the relationship between distinction and understanding. This falls into a broader consideration of philosophical method. Because philosophy is a science of “common reason”—i.e., it needs no other instrument than …
Continue reading "Scholastic Retrieve [1] – Philosophical Science: Congruence"
When Wilhelm Wundt distinguished the study of psychology from philosophy and biology in the late 19th century, he was filling a void: both philosophical and biological treatments had failed in their treatment of the human psyche and a new approach seemed not only warranted, but necessary. Philosophy had, for the most part, remained in an …
Continue reading "Thoughts on Being Human [4] – Cognitive Faculties"
What are the signs of our times? That is: what signifies our here-and-now moment? Screaming politicians? Angry mobs? Memes? The ubiquity of networked technologies? It is always hard to tell, from within a moment, what signifies the intelligibility of that moment; understanding precisely where we are requires spending time to find points of reference. Every …
Continue reading "Thoughts on Being Human [3] – Signs of Our Times"
In his highly-quotable, rarely understood and seminal work, Understanding Media, Marshall McLuhan distinguishes early on between what he calls "hot" and "cold" media, which are, respectively "high" and "low" definition. A hot, high-definition medium is low in participation, while the colder and the lower-definition a medium is, the deeper our participation in it must be: that …
As a Research Fellow with the Center for the Study of Digital Life, my main project has been to explore the connections of the faculty psychology originated by Aristotle's Περὶ ψυχῆς (transliterated: Peri psuche; in Latin: De anima; in English: On the Soul) and carried into the medieval tradition, especially as found in Thomas Aquinas and …
And why is it such a problem? One of the most serious and extensive controversies of the Latin Age of philosophy was that of universals. The Greek philosophy of antiquity, and its transmission into the Latin Age by Boethius and through the Islamic tradition, had long discussed the question of whether the way in which …
