I'm not sure what Aristotle would say, but I note that many contemporary thinkers see nothing wrong with thinking that the matter that constitutes our brains and nervous systems is the "that out of which" our mental states are created. (If you want to know more about some of the extremely interesting contemporary work done on this and related topics, this encyclopedia entry on supervenience is a good place to start: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/supervenience/ .) If those contemporary philosophers are right that, say, physical brain matter can cause immaterial thoughts, is it any more mysterious to say that the various components of a electronic storage device are the "that out of which" a computer file is created? Indeed, I think your example may be a lot less mysterious than mine. I note that you used scare quotes when attributing a non-physical ontological status to the computer file. Is it really the case that the information we store on physical electronic media has a non-physical...

There are many ways to answer this question, and hopefully panelists with specialized knowledge of Wittgenstein and the history of 20th Century philosophy will chime in with more specific details. From my position as an interested reader of Wittgenstein, two things stand out: (1) the beauty and blazingly-hot insight of his Tractarian system, and especially his version of the picture theory of meaning and his use of the concept of logical form; (2) the thorough-going critique of his own earlier views in the Investigations and other works. So, I disagree that Wittgenstein's writing is marked by vagueness -- his writing style is eccentric, to be sure, but I consider it really engaging and insightful, and I consider the Tractatus one of the greatest systematic works of philosophy of the 20th Century. In addition, I find Wittgenstein's willingness to critique himself and revise his views so forcefully--and also with so much insight--to symbolize an aspect of philosophical inquiry that I value...

Other historical figures who write on these themes are Plato,Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Kant, and Mill. Many of thesethinkers discussed together in intriguing ways private property rightsand the value of work, and I think that Marx's arguments bearinteresting relations to, for example, Locke's and Hegel's views onthat. After Marx, Dewey and Arendt wrote on the large theme you nameas do many contemporary philosophers working in the fields of politicalphilosophy, feminist philosophy, business ethics, and environmentalethics -- probably any large-scale anthology of recent work in thosefields will include some relevant material. Marx's views aren't discussed as much these days as they were, say, in the late 1970s and 1980s whenGerry Cohen, John Roemer, Tom Bottomore, Alexander Callinicos, andothers did much high-quality work in what was sometimes called"analytical Marxism." Those folks' critical work includes usefuldiscussions of how Marx's ideas on work relate to work earlier in...

A most interesting question from long ago, and two good answers! I don't know if you are interested in a more detailed response, but in case you are I'll add some more details. Please ignore if this is too much for your interests, and please understand that, as both Sean's and Douglas's responses make clear, this is difficult exegetical territory and so different critics will have different takes on this fascinating topic. First, here's my gloss on 'intuition,' drawing upon two passages on Kant's First Critique, one of which Sean quoted above: [A19/B33] Intuitions are one of two sorts of representations which we syn­thesize to form experience; they are connected with the sensibil­ity (concepts are the other sort of representation; they are con­nected with the understanding). Through intuitions, "objects are given to us by means of sensibility". Intuitions rest on "affectations": objects affect our mind in certain ways in which we are "receptive"; in us are produced "sensations" and thereby we ...

I think the short answer is that Kant's transcendental idealism and empirical realism does not imply the each of us "structures reality" at the very moment we perceive objects and events in the world because one part of what it means to assert the empirical reality of the spatial and temporal world we experience and within is that all of us live together in a single world whose existence and structure is not dependent on acts of our minds. This is part of what Kant has in mind when he argues that his transcendental idealism should not be interpreted as empirical idealism – he accepts empirical realism and argues that transcendental idealism is needed to explain how it is possible for us to experience the empirically real world. To be sure, each of the Kantian claims and assertions that you discuss raises exegetical and philosophical puzzles and there are also interesting puzzles about how these various strands of Kant's thought fit together and about how Kant's thought on these topics changes over the...

As Richard suggests, the success or failure of arguments of this sort depends on the success or failure of arguments about the nature of the content of our beliefs and other thoughts. So, for example, in his later writings Davidson made clear that his account of (as he called it) the veridicality of belief--his account of why by their very nature the vast majority of our beliefs must be true--depends on his defense of a version of a doctrine that philosophers call "externalism," and which asserts that the content of our beliefs and other thoughts is (in part) determined by the very external objects those thoughts purport to be about. If this view of the content of our beliefs is correct, then the thought that the world might be completely different from what we perceive it and believe it to be would be mistaken in a rather strong sense: despite appearances, massive error of that would turn out to be unintelligible. Understanding whether or not any one view of content is correct is a...

One reading strategy that was taught to me when I first began studying philosophy as an undergraduate, and which has served me well since, is to read slowly enough that you can paraphrase the key point of each paragraph or other "chunk" of text -- the idea is not to rush ahead until you have had time to understand and think hard about what you have already read. If you do this, you will never read quickly -- but this style of slow careful attention is a great way to engage well in a philosophical text, a mathematical proof, or a complex poem. In my experience, reading Derrida in this way is more constructie than skimming his texts quickly. Finally, the way you are "supposed" to read any text depends on your own goals -- this slow, laborious strategy is best for texts that you have already decided are worth serious investments of your time and attention. So, I recommend it in this case only if you have alerady decided that engaging intensively in one of Derrida's text is worth it to you.

I don't know what your lecturer had in mind, but I too have heard several varations on this theme from students and colleagues. Tomy mind, the strongest reason to assert something like this goes asfollows: "Marx underestimated the extent to which capitalism could'grow around' the internal contradictions he describes and alsounderestimated the extent to which capitalism could co-opt the forcesthat he thought would drive its overthrow." This style ofresponse leaves open the possibility of substantive academic dialogueabout the strengths of Marxism while acknowledging some importantweaknesses. On this line, a living Marx would revise his theories insignficant ways and so would eschew "classical" Marxism for an"improved" version. A weaker argument goes something like:"History has proven Marx wrong, so if Marx were alive today and hadhalf a brain he would never be a Marxist." This sort of answer gesturestoward some possible problems with Marxism, but not in a manner thatallows for much...