John Niemeyer Findlay

John Niemeyer Findlay, known as JN Findlay, ( born November 25, 1903 in Pretoria, † 27 September 1987) was a South African philosopher. Findlay was a member of the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the scientific advisory board of the journal Dionysius. According to him, a chair for a visiting professor at Boston University and the biennial award granted to the Metaphysical Society of America for the best newcomer named in the field of metaphysics.

  • 3.1 monographs and anthologies
  • 3.2 Papers

Academic Career

Findlay studied Classical Studies and Philosophy, first at the University of Pretoria, and finally from 1924 to 1926 as a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford. A doctoral studies at Ernst Mally at the University of Graz in 1933, he joined with the doctor from. Findlay was a professor of philosophy at the University of Pretoria and the University of Otago in New Zealand, at Rhodes University in Grahamstown, at the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg, at King's College in Newcastle upon Tyne and at King's College London. After the retirement of his London Chair and a year at the University of Texas at Austin Findlay taught another 20 years, first as Clark Professor of Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy at Yale University ( 1967-1972 ) and then as a professor and as Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy at Boston University ( 1972-1987 ).

Work

Rational mysticism

Against the trend of analytical philosophy and naturalism and the philosophy of natural language Findlay took a phenomenological position, made ​​himself strong for a neo - Hegelianism and written by Theosophy, Buddhism, Neo-Platonism and idealism permeated works. In his works from the 60s of the 20th century, including two series of Gifford Lectures, Findlay developed a " rational mysticism ", pursuant to which: philosophical problems of the relationship between individual thing and general concept, body and spirit, knowledge, and external world of solipsism, the bring free will and determinism, of purpose and causal cause, justice and morality, etc. basic experiences of deep contradictions but absurdities and expressed. Findlay concludes that it is necessary to higher spheres ( " latitudes " ) to accept, which can fade the individuality and categorical differences as well as the physical boundaries of the objects so that they disappear at the highest level. This level identifies Findlay with Hegel's idea of the absolute.

Edmund Husserl

Findlay translated Husserl's Logical Investigations into English. He thought she was Husserl's most important work, since it constitutes a stage of development of phenomenology, in which the phenomenological reduction ( " epoché " ) has not yet become the basis of a philosophical system, but makes a subjectivist position. For Findlay presents the work represents a culmination of philosophy because it is superior to both the reductionist naturalism in the ontology and the philosophy of natural language in epistemology and philosophy of consciousness.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Findlay was closest followers, but then a sharp critic of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Findlay rejected all attempts to Wittgenstein's theory of meaning. Against the use theory of meaning, as it was represented by Wittgenstein in his later years and his students, he argued that an examination of the meaning of a sign without consideration of conceptual content and supported ideas, implication and syntax must remain inadequate, and that the meaning of linguistic signs presupposes that contents of consciousness and states of affairs in the world are given independently of them.

Publications

Monographs and anthologies

  • Meinong 's Theory of Objects, Oxford University Press, 1933; 2nd ed as Meinong 's Theory of Objects and Values, 1963
  • Hegel: A Re -examination, London: Allen & Unwin / New York: Macmillan, 1958
  • Values ​​and Intentions, London: Allen & Unwin, 1961
  • Language, Mind and Value, London: Allen & Unwin / New York: Humanities Press, 1963
  • The Discipline of the Cave, London: Allen & Unwin / New York: Humanities Press, 1966 ( Gifford Lectures 1964-1965 online)
  • The Transcendence of the Cave, London: Allen & Unwin / New York: Humanities Press, 1967 ( Gifford Lectures 1965-1966 online)
  • Axiological Ethics, London: Macmillan, 1970
  • Ascent to the Absolute, London: Allen & Unwin / New York: Humanities Press, 1970
  • Psyche and Cerebrum, Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1972
  • Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul / New York: Humanities Press, 1974
  • Plato and Platonism, New York: New York Times Book Co., 1976
  • Kant and the Transcendental Object, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981
  • Wittgenstein: A Critique, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984

Papers

  • "Time: A Treatment of Some Puzzles", Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy, Vol 19, Issue 13 ( December 1941): 216-235.
  • " Morality by Convention ", Mind, Vol 33, No. 210 (1944): 142-169
  • " Can God's Existence Be Disproved? ", Mind, Vol 37, No. 226 (1948): 176-183; reprinted with discussion in Flew, A. and MacIntyre, AC, (eds. ), New Essays in Philosophical Theology, New York: Macmillan, 1955 online
  • " Linguistic Approach to Psychophysics ", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1949-1950
  • "The Justification of Attitudes", Mind, Vol 43, No. 250 (1954): 145-161
  • "Use, Usage and Meaning", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, Vol 35 (1961 ), pp. 223-242 (PDF)
  • " Foreword ", in Hegel 's Logic, Being Part One of The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences ( 1830), Clarendon Press, 1975. ISBN 978-0-19-824512-4 online
  • "Analysis of the Text ," in Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford University Press, 1977: 495-592. ISBN 978-0-19-824597-1 online
  • " The Myths of Plato ," Dionysius, Volume II ( 1978): 19-34
September 27 Newcastle University Analytic philosophy Antony Flew Alasdair MacIntyre Gilbert Ryle Integrated Authority File
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