Paul Edwards (philosopher)
Paul Edwards | |
---|---|
Born | Encyclopedia of Philosophy | September 2, 1923
Paul Edwards (September 2, 1923 – December 9, 2004) was an Austrian-American moral
Life and career
Edwards was born Paul Eisenstein in
He was awarded a scholarship to study in England in 1947, but on his way there, he stopped in New York and ended up staying there for the rest of his life, apart from a brief period teaching at the
Edwards was characterized by Michael Wreen as "mixed one part analytic philosopher to one part philosophe" with "a deep respect for science and common sense." His considerable influence on moral philosophy came from two works he edited, a very widely used introductory anthology he co-edited with Arthur Pap, A Modern Introduction to Philosophy (1957, 1965, 1973) and the Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967), an eight-volume "massive Enlightenment work with notable analytic sensibility."[4]
He was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto.[5]
Philosopher
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Edwards was editor-in-chief of Macmillan's
Reincarnation
Edwards was highly skeptical of claims regarding reincarnation.[8] He was the author of the book Reincarnation: A Critical Examination (1996), which is notable for criticizing the cases collected by Ian Stevenson. The book has received positive reviews from academics.[9][10] Barry Beyerstein wrote that "Skeptics who follow my recommendation and read Reincarnation: A Critical Examination will derive much ammunition for arguing not only with reincarnationists but with 'near-death experience' aficionados and afterlife enthusiasts of other stripes as well."[11] Philosopher and parapsychologist Stephen E. Braude criticized the arguments presented in Edwards's book, saying, "Apparently Edwards did not realize that his condescending and allegedly hard-nosed attack on reincarnationists was as deeply (and inevitably) metaphysical as the view he opposed."[12]
Wilhelm Reich
Edwards said that when he arrived in New York in 1947 Wilhelm Reich was "the talk of the town" and that for years he and his friends regarded Reich as "something akin to a messiah": "There was ... a widespread feeling that Reich had an original and penetrating insight into the troubles of the human race."[13] Twenty years later, as editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edwards wrote an article about Reich, comprising 11 pages as compared to the four devoted to Sigmund Freud. He pointed out what is of interest to philosophers in Reich: his views concerning the origin of religious and metaphysical needs, the relation between the individual and society and the possibility of social progress, and, above all, the implications of his psychiatry for certain aspects of the mind-body problem. An abridged version of the article appeared in the Encyclopedia of Unbelief (ed. Gordon Stein, 1985).
Edwards omitted Reich's orgone therapy from the Encyclopedia article because, he said, "it is of no philosophical interest." However, in a BBC interview he said somewhat more: "I concede that Reich had no real competence as a physicist... At the same time I am quite convinced that the orgone theory cannot be complete nonsense. For a number of years, largely out of curiosity, I sat in an orgone accumulator once a day."[13]
Works
Books
- (1949). Bertrand Russell's Doubts About Induction
- (1950). The Logic of Moral Discourse
- (1957). A Modern Introduction to Philosophy; Readings from Classical and Contemporary Sources. (co-editor, with Arthur Pap; 2nd. ed. 1965; 3rd. ed. 1973)
- (1958). Hard and Soft Determinism
- (1959). The Cosmological Argument
- (1966). Ethics and Language
- (1967). Atheism
- (1967). Encyclopedia of Philosophy(8 vols), editor-in-chief
- (1969). Ethics and Atheism
- (1970). Buber and Buberism
- (1979). Heidegger on Death
- (1989). Voltaire, Selections, edited, with introduction, notes, and annotated bibliography by P.E.
- (1991). Immortality
- (2001). Reincarnation: A Critical Examination
- (2004). Heidegger's Confusions
- (2009). God and the Philosophers (posthumous)
Selected articles
- (1971). "Kierkegaard and the 'Truth' of Christianity", Philosophy: The Journal for the Royal Institute of Philosophy, Cambridge Journals
- (1986–1987). "The Case Against Reincarnation", Free Inquiry, four-part series.
See also
References
- ^ a b c Wreen, Michael. "Paul Edwards, 1923–2004", Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 78, No. 5 (May, 2005), pp. 166-168.
- ^ a b Bayot, Jennifer. Edwards' obituary at wasm.us "Paul Edwards, Professor and Editor of Philosophy, dies at 81" Archived 2013-03-13 at the Wayback Machine, The New York Times, December 16, 2004.
- ^ a b c Singer, Peter. "Philosopher insisted on clarity and rigour," The Age (Melbourne), January 14, 2005.
- ^ Wreen, Michael. "Edwards, Paul," in Ted Honderich (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press, 1955, p. 220.
- ^ "Humanist Manifesto II". American Humanist Association. Retrieved October 8, 2012.
- ^ "Tim Madigan remembers Paul Edwards (1923–2004)" Archived 2012-01-19 at the Wayback Machine. In: The Bertrand Russell Society Quarterly, Issue Nr. 127, August 2005.
- ^ Edwards, Paul. (1971). Kierkegaard and the 'Truth' of Christianity. Philosophy, 46, pp 89-108. doi:10.1017/S0031819100017150.
- ISBN 0-7618-1067-6"Edwards catalogs common sense objections which have been made against reincarnation. 1) How does a soul exist between bodies? 2) Tertullian's objection: If there is reincarnation, why are not babies born with the mental abilities of adults? 3) Reincarnation claims an infinite series of prior incarnations. Evolution teaches that there was a time when humans did not yet exist. So reincarnation is inconsistent with modern science. 4) If there is reincarnation, then what is happening when the population increases? 5) If there is reincarnation, then why do so few, if any people, remember past lives?... To answer these objections believers in reincarnation must accept additional assumptions... Acceptance of these silly assumptions, Edwards says, amounts to a crucifixion of one's intellect."
- ^ Dilley, Frank. B. (1997). Reincarnation: A Critical Examination by Paul Edwards. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. Vol. 42, No. 1. pp. 61-63.
- Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies18: 187-188. "Why should Edwards spend time on such arguments when, to rationalists, they are patently absurd or without empirical foundation? Because there is widespread belief in them... The book is salutary in revealing the persistence of nonsense and the persisting need for education, logic and good sense."
- ^ "A Cogent Consideration of the Case for Karma (and Reincarnation) - CSI". www.csicop.org. Retrieved 2017-03-20.
- S2CID 147059411.
- ^ a b Edwards, Paul. "The Greatness of Wilhelm Reich," The Humanist, March/April 1974, reproduced in Charles A. Garfield (ed.). Rediscovery of the Body. A Psychosomatic View of Life and Death.Dell 1977, pp. 41-50.