Book XIII is tricky; it is often skipped when people teach Augustine. He is trying to read the opening verses of Genesis in several ways simultaneously. First, to stress the utter dependence of all of creation upon God; second, to integrate into Christianity the basic metaphysics of Plato and Plotinus; third, as a metaphorically compressed history of the church and its organisation. So, creation occurs in two steams -- the spiritual and the corporeal (XIII.2) -- and in each stream in three phases -- original creation, conversion, and formation. The original creation is of that which is formless (shapeless as you translate it); conversion is when the first creation 'hears' the Word of God (that is, it returns to the call of its creator; this is passive for the corporeal, but active for the spiritual); formation is the result. The primary concern of Book XIII is spiritual creation; whereas corporeal creation is dealt with more fully in Book XII. The first phase of corporeal creation is unformed matter, the...

Interesting question, thanks! A word used in a deviant way would only have meaning if those who listen or read understand it. For example, I sometimes get confused in casual conversation and come out with a spoonerism -- a mixed up word. Usually, though, my wife understands what I mean anyway, by interpolating from a shared context. A new word, or a new meaning of a word, might gradually come to be accepted usage more widely. Slang words, in particular, tend to get picked up rapidly in this way. Let us say that the 'correct' meaning and usage of a word is determined by the dictionaries. But a modern dictionary is itself only a reflection of broad usage by speakers and writers. We have to go back quite a way in time to find a dictionary that sets out to adjudicate meanings, rather than simply record or describe them. So, the 'official' meaning of word comes about because of common usage. If enough people use a slang word, it ends up in the dictionary. Dictionaries tend to be a conservative force in...

Lots of things should be said to exist, even though they are not material entities (like raindrops) nor energy forms (like sunlight). We're happy to talk about numbers or abstract concepts as existing, for example, and likewise dreams, or things that happened in the past. We might provisionally say that X exists if it were to matter in some way if someone asserted that X did not exist. (This is a pragmatist definition. I'm not endorsing it so much as finding it useful.) If someone said that you DID NOT have the dream last night you say you had, then that would matter, because they would be saying you are lying; if someone says that we have no concept of causation (Hume), then that matters because whole bits of philosophy, and maybe physics too, become valid or invalid. An optical illusion exists because its happening matters to the person experiencing it. (So, even an atheist would have to admit that God existed, because it matters so much to so many that he does; however, the atheist would assert...

If one thought that the only true goal of philosophy was to describe, as precisely and accurately as possible, using the very latest scientific findings, the nature of the universe or of the human mind, then indeed there would be no need to read the 'classics' of philosophy. In that case, however, I wonder whether one needs philosophy at all, since what was just described is not in essence different from physics or psychology themselves. So, there would also be little point in reading contemporary philosophy. Within the history of philosophy, of course, many have seen their work, or a substantial part of it, in just this way, in part because science and philosophy had not yet fully branched off from one another. Very often, these were first class scientific minds (Aristotle or Leibniz, for example). But their primary interest today is not as scientists. Here are the main ways that I try to 'sell' my students on reading the history of philosophy: 1. The philosopher is not there to tell us...

Please see question 5488.

'Ideology' is used in a number of difference senses. However, whether within political philosophy, or philosophical sociology, 'ideology' is distinguished from having views, by the extent to which we recognise the possibility of other views. So, suppose I think abortion is immoral. Now, what do I think of someone whose moral views permit abortion? Either, I could believe them to be mad, deceived or perverse. In any case, they are wrong and that's the end of it. Or, although I doubt it strongly, I could think that they might have a point -- that is, it is not in principle impossible that their view is has some merit. In other words, a convenient definition of 'ideology' is that it is a view that excludes the possibility of rational discussion or debate. Ideology may also tend to be 'unconscious', so much a part of one's world view that it isn't even noticed. Indeed, because it is not available for enquiry, there is no need for me to be aware of ideology.

What exactly are meant by the 'natural processes of growth'? I ask because it doesn't seem to me that this is obvious even with respect to trees, much less human beings. Let me give a tree-based example: an apple tree, which I can in fact see through my window right now. My understanding of the science of horticulture is pretty poor, but let us suppose that an apple tree can allowed to grow large but then it tends to die more quickly OR it can be trained so as to be quite stunted, and yet produce lots of fruit, and live for decades. Which is more 'natural'? The first involves less human interference, to be sure; but the second accords with concepts of long life and 'fruitfulness' (reproduction). My purpose here is simply to argue that we are not working with a clear-cut account of what 'natural processes of growth' are. In fact, some of the criteria we might want to use here are just straight-forwardly cultural: the move from formal garden design in the 18th Century, to a more 'wild' style in the 19th,...

I really dislike doing this, but variations on your questions have been asked before, and some good answers put up. Please see: http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/3587 Other questions and answers pertain to your broader question, which is not about works of fiction, but about 'speakers and writers' more generally. But I'll add, re your nicely absurd J. K. Rowling interpretation, that even this would have SOME bearing on how we read the Harry Potter books. We might suspect that Rowling was clinically insane, and scour the books for further evidence; we might suspect that she was a prankster, and again scour the books looking for meta-fictional jokes; we might suspect she was writing a time-travelling cyborg novel and looking to promote it, and again we might then return to Harry Potter using it to help us imagine what the new novel would be like. The point is, the author clearly has some connection to the book(s). Either, then, we ENTIRELY discount the author when...

Thank you for your question. Without a doubt, if you told David Hume that 'I am going to be tortured' he would respond 'For goodness sake, run!' The question is, then: is this response incompatible with his philosophical analysis of the concept of substance? I think we need to distinguish two ways of thinking about 'substance'. The first is substance as metaphysical, as something that exists permanently, without even the possibility of change, as the 'bearer' of properties (Hume has Descartes and Leibniz particularly in mind). The second is a pragmatic sense of substance, as our sense of the identity of things (including ourselves) across time. By pragmatic, I mean that for certain purposes we think of things as basically unchanging, while for other purposes we think of things as not unchanging. For example, if I buy a new car, I consider it unchanging for the purposes of driving every day, staying the same size, staying the same shape and colour. If, however, after a year I tried to return it to the...

You are looking for aphorism 243 from Daybreak .Roughly, the mirror is the intellect, the 'things' the world. Nietzsche is making a double point. First, the neo-Kantian idea that all knowledge is mediated, including knowledge of the mediating activity itself. Second, a historical point about broad moves from certain necessary failures within natural science (investigation of things) leading inevitably to a focus on psychological science (investigation of the mirror) and because of necessary failures, back again.