Indeterminacy and Intelligibility

By Brian John Martine

Subjects: Philosophy
Series: SUNY series in Systematic Philosophy
Paperback : 9780791411742, 119 pages, September 1992
Hardcover : 9780791411735, 119 pages, September 1992

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Table of contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Relations, Indeterminacy, and Intelligibility

 

i. Things in Relation
ii. Indeterminacy and Interpretation
iii. Determinacy and Intelligibility
iv. The Contemporary Landscape

 

2. Determinations, Boundaries, and Determinacy

 

i. Indeterminacy and Boundaries
ii. Boundaries in Direct Experience
iii. Determinacy I
iv. Interlude
v. Determinacy II
vi. Boundaries and Determinacy
vii. The Unbounded

 

3. Being, Not-Being, and the Otherness of Otherness

 

i. The Reflective Remove
ii. Being and Boundaries

 

a. Being and Nothing
b. Being and Thought
c. Being and Movement

 

iii. Being, Otherness, and Indeterminacy

 

a. Not-Being and Thought
b. The Otherness of Otherness

 

iv. Making-Determinate and Indeterminacy

 

4. Beginnings, Ends, and Indeterminacy

 

i. Modern Beginnings
ii. Determinacy and Dichotomies
iii. The Ordinary Experience of Indeterminacy

 

Index

Description

As the argument of Indeterminacy and Intelligibility develops, Martine shows that indeterminacy in our experience in logically bound to the determinate dimensions of thought and practice. Continuing the investigation that began in his earlier book Individuals and Individuality, the author draws concrete experience together with abstract reflection to reveal the ontological relation between determinacy and indeterminacy that lies at the very core of our drive to understand.

Brian John Martine is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He is the author of Individuals and Individuality, also published by SUNY Press.

Reviews

"This book is superb: it shows the absolute relation between the determinate and indeterminancy by laying bare the categorial ties that bind these concepts together And it does so by using eminent thinkers in the history of philosophy: Parmenides, Plato, and Descartes. An important contribution to the post-modern debate. " — Joseph Grange, University of Southern Maine

"The major strength of the book is the careful, clear style in which Martine addresses the philosophical predilection to think of all intelligibility in terms of determinacy. He uncovers the place of indeterminacy in our struggle for intelligibility. He does so very nicely: on the one hand there is a strong emphasis on the analysis of basic categories; on the other, Martine avoids empty abstraction by grounding the analysis on a rich phenomenological sense of the appearance of things into determinate intelligibility. " — William Desmond, Loyola University

"It addresses a timely and important topic in a clear and engaging manner. It is, in my judgment, a model of clarity and honest reflection about a cluster of crucial philosophical issues, issues confronted in a fashion by ancient Greek philosophers, modern European thinkers, and contemporary figures of the most diverse sort. If more works in philosophy were this clearly written, honestly executed, and self-critically argued, we would perhaps hear far less about the 'end of philosophy. '" — Vincent Colapietro, Fordham University