Robert J. Roecklein's Books

Plato versus Parmenides

The Debate over Coming-into-Being in Greek Philosophy

By: Robert J. Roecklein

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Plato versus Parmenides

The Debate over Coming-into-Being in Greek Philosophy

By: Robert J. Roecklein

The issue of coming into being in Greek philosophy is investigated mostly by specialists in language analysis and philological science. Plato versus Parmenides, Robert J. Roecklein brings to the fore Plato's refutation of Parmenides' argument in his famous dialogue by that name. Roecklein offers an unprecedented exposition of the dialogue the Parmenides, and seeks to illuminate a political dimension in Parmenides' early formulations of the challenges made to the reality of coming into being in nature.

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212

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Lexington Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0739150790

ISBN 13

9780739150795

Locke, Hume, and the Treacherous Logos of Atomism

The Eclipse of Democratic Values in the Early Modern Period

By: Robert J. Roecklein

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Locke, Hume, and the Treacherous Logos of Atomism

The Eclipse of Democratic Values in the Early Modern Period

By: Robert J. Roecklein

Modern Philosophy, Philosophy of Physics, Philosophy of language, Neurobiology, Philosophy of Perception, Modern Political Philosophy—all share a common philosophical foundation: atomism. The theory of atomism that is developed in the writing of Einstein, Bohr, Schrodinger, and Reichenbach shares the same metaphysical roots as the atomism of Gottlob Frege, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Bertrand Russell. These atomisms share the same foundation as the one developed by John Locke and David Hume. Until now, the full philosophic history, and metaphysical foundations of this theory of atomism have not been presented. Atomist theory not only contains cultural premises of great significance for the fate of public opinion, but it is also an eminently political doctrine, incompatible with the most modest degree of democracy. The atomist theory happens to be false. In this case, the truth does matter.

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271

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Lexington Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1498509827

ISBN 13

9781498509824

Politicized Physics in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy

Essays on Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza

By: Robert J. Roecklein

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Politicized Physics in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy

Essays on Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza

By: Robert J. Roecklein

In the origins of Western philosophical thought, doctrines of physics intertwined with the debate between political philosophers. It is for this reason that Plato devoted his dialogues Theatetus and Parmenides to investigating and meeting the arguments of his principal philosophical adversaries. The doctrine of atomism, which developed under the influence of Parmenides’ philosophy, is one that Plato refutes directly. In the modern era of philosophy and science, a revived doctrine of atomism has been treated as apolitical. Atomistic postulates lay at the root of the doctrines of Early Modern philosophers and exert a great influence upon cultural and political teachings. In order to understand Early Modern Philosophy, therefore, and especially in order to examine Early Modern political science, one must address the atomistic theory of body which lies at the root of Early Modern metaphysics. In the metaphysical domain, or in the domain of natural philosophy, the Early Modern philosophers radically reduce the role that ordinary opinion may play in political and cultural life. The majestic declarations concerning the rights of man, and the gospel of utility characteristic of the political domain of Early Modernity, therefore conceal a shrunken influence fated for the demos in the new politics. In order to take the measure of the new political science, it is necessary to take the measure of the revived doctrines of atomism. If these doctrines can be disproved, by reviving Plato’s critique, we will be able to take a critical look at the political doctrines that lie upon the foundations of the politicized atomism.

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267

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Lexington Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0739188542

ISBN 13

9780739188545

Kant’s Philosophy and the Momentum of Modernity

The Metaphysics of Fact Determination

By: Robert J. Roecklein

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Kant’s Philosophy and the Momentum of Modernity

The Metaphysics of Fact Determination

By: Robert J. Roecklein

This book is both a careful study of Immanuel Kant’s work and the context of that work in the movement known as early modern philosophy. The chief interest of the author concerns the philosophy of perception that is manifest in Kant’s doctrines of the transcendental aesthetic and the concept of phenomena. Philosophy bears a crucial relationship to the public in terms of the evidence that it identifies as original and binding. In the early modern period, philosophy repudiated its dependence on ordinary perception, and on language as ordinarily used, in the setting forth of its own authority. This historiographical fact is presently of immense interest, as public discourse finds itself rudderless and without agreed upon common facts for deliberation to settle on. It was not the view of the ancient Greeks that philosophy could so emancipate itself from the perception of common facts as the original evidence for higher investigations. The Early Modern era, beginning with Bacon but now more furiously in the work of Kant, has anchored a general indictment of ordinary perception in a remnant of natural philosophy. Human beings, in Kant’s philosophy, are not capable of knowing what objects, external objects, are in themselves. We may only know what are called "appearances," and Kant refers to these appearances as phenomena. Yet this claim is complicated by the a priori knowledge which Kant claims to possess as regards these phenomena: that they must all be eternal substances. The book freely moves back and forth between Greek antiquity and the Early Modern period to illustrate the full nature of the rupture on this ground of the metaphysics of fact determination. For Aristotle, the founder of the theory of substance, substances are just the perishable bodies commonly perceived. Kant’s phenomena, which claims to embody what appears to the generality of the human race, cannot be that, for the human race does not perceive eternal objects.

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Page Count

425

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield

Published Date

ISBN 10

1498571409

ISBN 13

9781498571401

Machiavelli and Epicureanism

An Investigation into the Origins of Early Modern Political Thought

By: Robert J. Roecklein

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Machiavelli and Epicureanism

An Investigation into the Origins of Early Modern Political Thought

By: Robert J. Roecklein

This book investigates the influence of Epicurean physics on the argument developed in Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy. Towards this end, the full philosophical history and origins of atomist philosophy are investigated during the first three chapters. Plato’s critique of the atomist philosophy, from his dialogue the Parmenides, is a part of that investigation. In fact, Plato provides a refutation of the atomist philosophy in the Parmenides. A significant amount of scholarship has been accomplished that demonstrates the currents of Lucretian atomism in Machiavelli’s Florence. Evidence is supplied as to Machiavelli’s exposure to the Lucretian text, and the book then proceeds to investigate the transformational arguments of the Discourses On Livy itself. Machiavelli’s Discourses are saturated with terminology that is borrowed from physics: ‘materia’ (Matter), ‘corpo’ (body), ‘forma’ (form), ‘accidente’ (accident). English translators have usually employed some theory as to which tradition of physics Machiavelli is relying upon, in order to conduct their translations. By borrowing the terminology of Lucretian physics, Machiavelli becomes able to conceive of the people in a political society as something less than human: as ‘matter’ or materia without form. In my analysis of Machiavelli’s deployment of the concepts from Lucretian physics, it is attempted to unveil the brutality that is inherent in Machiavelli’s new definitions of the elements of politics, and the general hostility of his political science to the Aristotelian concept of the human being as political animal. The classical physics of Aristotle, which Machiavelli has rejected for a model, indicates the forward looking momentum of natural beings. For Aristotle, nature intends human political society as the arena for human fulfillment. In Aristotelian physics, nature aims at an end in generation, i.e. at a culmination of the natural being in its proper condition of excellence. For human beings, this is justice, the quality of relationships that makes happiness possible. In Machiavelli, a new politicized physics is revealed. In Machiavelli’s model, the human beings of formed matter are repeatedly sent, through new institutions and methods of government, ‘back to their beginnings’, i.e. to a condition of isolation, destitution, injury, and pain. The last chapter of the book concludes with an examination of the particular institutions and methods that Machiavelli holds out to us for employment, if his new vision of a republic is to be realized.

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227

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Lexington Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0739177117

ISBN 13

9780739177112

Politicized Physics in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy

Essays on Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza

By: Robert J. Roecklein

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Politicized Physics in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy

Essays on Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza

By: Robert J. Roecklein

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Page Count

267

Publisher

Lexington Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0739188542

ISBN 13

9780739188545

Locke, Hume, and the Treacherous Logos of Atomism

The Eclipse of Democratic Values in the Early Modern Period

By: Robert J. Roecklein

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Locke, Hume, and the Treacherous Logos of Atomism

The Eclipse of Democratic Values in the Early Modern Period

By: Robert J. Roecklein

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

271

Publisher

Lexington Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

1498509827

ISBN 13

9781498509824

Book's by Robert J. Roecklein

Plato versus Parmenides

Plato versus Parmenides

Locke, Hume, and the Treacherous Logos of Atomism

Locke, Hume, and the Treacherous Logos of Atomism

Politicized Physics in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy

Politicized Physics in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy

Kant’s Philosophy and the Momentum of Modernity

Kant’s Philosophy and the Momentum of Modernity

Machiavelli and Epicureanism

Machiavelli and Epicureanism

Politicized Physics in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy

Politicized Physics in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy

Locke, Hume, and the Treacherous Logos of Atomism

Locke, Hume, and the Treacherous Logos of Atomism

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