Delphic Podcast by Michael R D James

Nietzsche and the nihilstic force of the will to power  and Collingwoods thesis that almost anything can be counted as historical evidence for anything sets the relativistic scene for Ricoeurs reflections. The categorical powers of understanding, judgement and reasoning are marginalised and called into question during Ricoeurs sceptical exploration of  the trans-scientiifc discipline of History. h...

The Work of remembering is not  a work of the imagination but involves memory understanding, judgement and reasoning. Non Historical narratives may use the power of imagination to a greater degree when communicating aesthetic ideas of the artist via their works of art but here too there is a distinct presence of imperatively driven  rational judgements. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

The civilising process is discussed in relation to modern relativising ideas and connected to a "rationalising process" rather than categorical rationality of the kind we encounter in the works of Aristotle and Kant. The Aristotelian "actualisation process, whilst not related to "mentalities" as characterised in Ricouers account is however related to the development of pow...

Augustine asks the aporetic question "What is Time?", rejects the Aristotelian account that refers to external motion and insists instead upon some sort of "distention" of the soul.  Historical documents are constructed in a context of explanation/justification and occur in a community of critics who are testing the veracity of these documents in accordance with a number of dif...

The school of inwardness was created by the thought of St Augustine, Descartes Hoobes, Locke and a number of 20th century Analytical Philosophers seeking to escape the "idealism" of Hegels Phenomenology as well as the Phenomeologists of the 20th century seeking to restore the work of Hegel to a prominent place in the History of Philosophy. The Later work of Wittgenstein, criticising his...

Memory has an aspect of something happening to one when one has learned something but it also has a more active aspect which Freud referred to as the "work of remembering" in his work with his patients suffering from various pathological conditions. Lockes attempt to epistemologise memory by making it a psychological part of the identity of a man reduces the wider focus of thinkers like...

The Angel of History confronts the  growing volume of debris of our modern era in the spirit of T S Eliots "Waste Land". Hannah Arendts voice of discontent is echoed by her lover Benjamin who commits suicide because the Marxist vision has disappointed and the Nazis are closing in on him. Ricoeur argues that it is the duty of human psuché to remember crimes committed against humanity. htt...

The Identity of a human is of course connected to the particular memories that human possesses but memory as such is not a part of the unique essence of being human since some animals aslo have memories. Augustines conception of Time is invoked by the phenomenologists as a competing account to those accounts we find in Aristotelian Hylomorphic and Kantian Critical Philosophy. Narrative and time ar...

Refiguring Time may be what Historical writing is doing to everyday experience but it retains the before-after structure necessary to be subject to the principles of noncontradiction and sufficient reason. The facts of History are not, then, a matter of interpretation but rather amongst the necessary conditions of the knowledge bearing activity of History. The Kingdom of Ends postulated by Kant is...

Marx turned Hegel on his head with his economic/sociological theory that eschewed all froms of abstraction. Kants Critical Philosophy experienced the same fate at the hands of Hegel in a period of History characterised by extreme "change". Aristotle, we know provided us with a theory of change that did not leave us in a suspended state of ambiguity which it can be argued was the case aft...

Wittgensteins account of the use of language rests upon instinct and action rather than on sensory powers. Ricoeurs insistence upon the "suspicious reader" and  "interpretation"  erode the trust placed in the beliefs that form a part of the construction and appreciation of historical texts. Beliefs such as "the earth has existed for a long period of time" are conditio...

Kants aesthetics manifests traces of Aristotelian  hylomorphic ideas which assist in the analysis of narrative works of art. The author uses forms, principles and aesthetic ideas in his imitations of reality to manifest the "Form of the Good".  The form of universality of the productive work of art is similar to that of the productive speech of the politician who uses rhetoric to "p...

Bertellis essay on Aristotle and History confirms the view that Aristotles hylomorphic Philosophy would include historiography as an area of knowledge. An area that ought not to be reduced to some inner operation of thought but rather to an chronology of facts regulated by principles. Customs and Traditions are both described and explained in History as part of its moral mission http://michaelrdja...

Phenomenological "imaginative variations" in the context of action can violate the principle of noncontradiction in the case of problematic actions such as committing suicide but this does not compromise the Aristotelain "before-after structure of time since this kind of contradiction is that of using ones life to take ones life. Narrative structures are imitations which Historical...

Historical traces in the form of historical documents are conceptual transfigurations of significant experienced events of magnitude that affect the weals and woes of the polis. Heidegger focuses upon the future and the humanistic quality of Care in Being and Time. Traces must for him relate in some important way to Care. The Historical document is one form of trace and the Greek Temple standing o...

Inner time consciousness as conceived of phenomenologically would not meet the criteria of Aristotelian  or Kantian accounts which would differ depending upon whether the contexts were theoretical or practical. Heideggers account of Care for origins and ends being involved in Daseins adventure in relation to Being is  a more complex account but not without its own difficulties http://michaelrdjame...

Kant is accused of embracing an epistomological ontology when it is clear that he is highly critical of such positions , wishing to insist upon the importance of practical reasoning and the good will in all characterisations of human psuché. Newtons concept of mathematical absolute time is criticized on Kantian grounds. Husserls account is tied to the sensory power of perception and a conception o...

The Time of the Soul and the Time of the Cosmos are interrelated perhaps because of the object relatedness of the experience of human psuché. Aristotles definition of Time and Kants characterisation of the experience of time in the case of a boat sailing downstream are also closely related. Both emphasise the sensible character of our minds. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

The modern novel shatters the ordinary experience of time Ricoeur argues citing three literary examples to support his case. We argue that there is indeed an analagous strcture to the time as represented in the novel and our lived time.  http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

Heideggers concepts of Being -in-the-World, Dasein, the ready-to-hand, and present-at-hand are discussed in relation to Analytic Philosophy. Aristotle is wrongly accused of an "analytic" view of logos. Aletheia is connected by Hedegger with the assertive function of a judgement but not elaborated upon in any detail. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

Linguistic Structuralism and Sociology  is evoked by Ricoeur in order to analyse the essence of narrative. This, we argue, fails to recognise the extent to which narratives are imperative-driven activities , trans-scientific in their nature, constituted of two different kinds of sciences---practical and theoretical. A work of Art, too is trans-scientific and an imperative driven enterprise. http:/...

Modern Art is subjected to a phenomenological investigation and Ricoeur claims that the narrative form has changed significantly during the modern era, manifesting a loss of the organising characteristic of a "plot". Aristotle saw the plot as a "form" organising the matter of character, thought and action. http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast

Rucoeur seeks to show the differences between narrative and historical phenomena in order to resist the application of rational models such as the nomological deductive model to narrative and historical texts. The Globalisation process has an important ethical component manifested in its telos of Cosmopolitanism which Kant claims is an important ethical characteristic of the kingdom of ends that l...

The nomological-deductive model certainly suffices to characterise the judicial legal processes of a court event. Law, evidence and judgement are tied logically together. The difference is that we are encountering here practical reasoning in the ought-system of concepts which is to be contrasted with Laws, evidence and judgemets in the theoretical contexts of natural science.  Analytical Philosoph...

Historical versus poetic narratives. Contrast between the linear causes for "events" and the more conceptually mediated explanations which occur in the form of "reasons for actions". Hempels positivistic covering law model as applied to historical events and causes is criticised.  http://michaelrdjames.org Delphic Podcast