Papers by Joseph Cosgrove
This paper evaluates Simone Weil\u27s philosophy and theology of science from the perspective of ... more This paper evaluates Simone Weil\u27s philosophy and theology of science from the perspective of an historical phenomenology of science
Routledge eBooks, Mar 18, 2015
This essay is a contribution to the historical phenomenology of science, taking as its point of d... more This essay is a contribution to the historical phenomenology of science, taking as its point of departure husserl's later philosophy of science and Jacob klein's seminal work on the emergence of the symbolic conception of number in european mathematics during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. since neither husserl nor klein applied their ideas to actual theories of modern mathematical physics, this essay attempts to do so through a case study of the concept of "spacetime." in §1, i sketch klein's account of the emergence of the symbolic conception of number, beginning with Vieta in the late sixteenth century. in §2, through a series of historical illustrations, i show how the principal impediment to assimilating the new symbolic algebra to mathematical physics, namely, the dimensionless character of symbolic number, is overcome via the translation of the traditional language of ratio and proportion into the symbolic language of equations. in § §3-4, i critically examine the concept of "minkowski spacetime," specifically, the purported analogy between the Pythagorean distance formula and the minkowski "spacetime interval." finally, in §5, i address the question of whether the concept of minkowski spacetime is, as generally assumed, indispensable to einstein's general theory of relativity.
Review of Metaphysics, 2016
HASSING, Richard. Cartesian Psychophysics and the Whole Nature of Man: On Descartes' Passions... more HASSING, Richard. Cartesian Psychophysics and the Whole Nature of Man: On Descartes' Passions of the Soul. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2015. xvi + 229 pp. Cloth, $90.00--Richard Hassing's monograph is to my knowledge the first full-length study of Descartes's Passions of the Soul. Adverting in a final appendix to two primary schools of Cartesian scholarship, one focusing on Descartes the metaphysician (substance dualism, proofs for God, and the like) and the other on Descartes as "principally concerned with mathematical physics and a distinctly modern conception of the self," Hassing himself belongs unabashedly to the latter (minority) camp. With specific respect to mathematical physics, though, while there is still a school of history and philosophy of science that regards Descartes the philosopher as a kind of metaphysical interloper on the more genuinely empirical Galilean-Newtonian trajectory of seventeenth-century science, Descartes is nevertheless gener...
The Review of Politics, 2009
wrestled with the problem of authority throughout her career, not only in connection with her pol... more wrestled with the problem of authority throughout her career, not only in connection with her political philosophy but also in her writings on religion, science, education, and related subjects. After 1937 the theme of authority acquires a more distinctive profile, as Weil's thought becomes increasingly focused on religion, specifically the necessity of absolute obedience to God. A book-length treatment of Weil's reflections on authority is, therefore, certainly warranted by the prominence of the theme in her work. Desmond Avery's book starts with three introductory chapters (part 1) on the general concept of authority and its relation to Weil's biography and to her later theological reflections. Its remaining six chapters guide us through the principal areas of Weil's thought (religion, politics, science, work, justice, and education), with the aim of showing how Weil's attempt to come to terms with the concept of authority animates her reflections in these areas. Each chapter is correlated to one of the petitions of the Lord's Prayer (following Weil's meditation, "Concerning the Our Father"). In part 1, Avery demonstrates how the tension between the human need for autonomy, especially autonomy of thought, on the one hand, and the need for something to which one can give oneself unconditionally on the other, determines the problem of authority for Weil. He identifies three forms of authority (political, spiritual, and practical) in chapter one, and highlights not only the ways in which they come into inevitable conflict with one another, but also the tension between autonomy and obedience that arises within each form. The chapter on religion contains an interesting discussion of the way in which Weil's sense of personal susceptibility to collective feelings (the "herd instinct," as she called it, or Plato's "great beast") colored her thought on authority and led her to be perhaps unduly suspicious of any form of authority grounded in large-scale social organization. Avery cites Weil's well-known admission to Father Perrin that were she to encounter a group of young people singing Nazi songs in chorus, a part of her soul would immediately become Nazi (62). Yet at the same time, Avery notes, Weil clearly saw, most notably in her political treatise The Need for Roots, the necessity for human beings to be grounded in genuine communities, with the concomitant requirement for some form of communal authority. Avery suggests that "a reading of St. Augustine's City of God might have helped her resolve these difficulties," but he unfortunately drops the prescription immediately without any discussion of what such an Augustinian resolution might be.
The Review of Metaphysics, Sep 1, 2007
This essay is a contribution to the historical phenomenology of science, taking as its point of d... more This essay is a contribution to the historical phenomenology of science, taking as its point of departure husserl's later philosophy of science and Jacob klein's seminal work on the emergence of the symbolic conception of number in european mathematics during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. since neither husserl nor klein applied their ideas to actual theories of modern mathematical physics, this essay attempts to do so through a case study of the concept of "spacetime." in §1, i sketch klein's account of the emergence of the symbolic conception of number, beginning with Vieta in the late sixteenth century. in §2, through a series of historical illustrations, i show how the principal impediment to assimilating the new symbolic algebra to mathematical physics, namely, the dimensionless character of symbolic number, is overcome via the translation of the traditional language of ratio and proportion into the symbolic language of equations. in § §3-4, i critically examine the concept of "minkowski spacetime," specifically, the purported analogy between the Pythagorean distance formula and the minkowski "spacetime interval." finally, in §5, i address the question of whether the concept of minkowski spacetime is, as generally assumed, indispensable to einstein's general theory of relativity.
Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, 2008
History of Philosophy Quarterly, 2004
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, 2007
Zygon, 2008
Simone Weil is widely recognized today as one of the profound religious thinkers of the twentieth... more Simone Weil is widely recognized today as one of the profound religious thinkers of the twentieth century. Yet while her interpretation of natural science is critical to Weil's overall understanding of religious faith, her writings on science have received little attention compared with her more overtly theological writings. The present essay, which builds on Vance Morgan's Weaving the World: Simone Weil on Science, Necessity, and Love (2005), critically examines Weil's interpretation of the history of science. Weil believed that mathematical science, for the ancient Pythagoreans a mystical expression of the love of God, had in the modern period degenerated into a kind of reification of method that confuses the means of representing nature with nature itself. Beginning with classical (Newtonian) science's representation of nature as a machine, and even more so with the subsequent assimilation of symbolic algebra as the principal language of mathematical physics, modern science according to Weil trades genuine insight into the order of the world for symbolic manipulation yielding mere predictive success and technological domination of nature. I show that Weil's expressed desire to revive a Pythagorean scientific approach, inspired by the “mysterious complicity” in nature between brute necessity and love, must be recast in view of the intrinsically symbolic character of modern mathematical science. I argue further that a genuinely mystical attitude toward nature is nascent within symbolic mathematical science itself.
This essay is a contribution to the historical phenomenology of science, taking as its point of d... more This essay is a contribution to the historical phenomenology of science, taking as its point of departure husserl's later philosophy of science and Jacob klein's seminal work on the emergence of the symbolic conception of number in european mathematics during the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. since neither husserl nor klein applied their ideas to actual theories of modern mathematical physics, this essay attempts to do so through a case study of the concept of "spacetime." in §1, i sketch klein's account of the emergence of the symbolic conception of number, beginning with Vieta in the late sixteenth century. in §2, through a series of historical illustrations, i show how the principal impediment to assimilating the new symbolic algebra to mathematical physics, namely, the dimensionless character of symbolic number, is overcome via the translation of the traditional language of ratio and proportion into the symbolic language of equations. in § §3-4, i critically examine the concept of "minkowski spacetime," specifically, the purported analogy between the Pythagorean distance formula and the minkowski "spacetime interval." finally, in §5, i address the question of whether the concept of minkowski spacetime is, as generally assumed, indispensable to einstein's general theory of relativity.
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Papers by Joseph Cosgrove