David Proud

University of Liverpool, Irish Studies, MRes student

The University of Sheffield, Department of Philosophy, Graduate Student

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I am a British philosopher currently pursuing a PhD at the Institute of Irish Studies, University of Liverpool, on Hegel and James Joyce.
Address: Huddersfield, Kirklees, United Kingdom

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Papers by David Proud

The idea of conscience in the mysticism of Richard Rolle and Hegel’s philosophy

Шаги, Dec 31, 2022

A Logical Deduction of Particular Spirit

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An analysis of the peculiarities of the moral teachings of Confucius, which retains its influence... more An analysis of the peculiarities of the moral teachings of Confucius, which retains its influence in much of Chinese society today, reveals the central importance that it bestows on the notion of reciprocity; and the Confucian formulation of one particular rule, 'what you don't desire for yourself, do not desire for others', differs significantly from the so-called golden rule for moral guidance, expressed in the Christian gospels: 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you' (Matthew 7:9-12 and Luke 6:27-31). Both of these central tenets in the philosophy of Confucius, in particular the notion of reciprocity, resurface centuries later in the philosophy of Hegel, revealing some interesting similarities and connections between what otherwise may appear to be two very disparate philosophies. Keywords: Confucius' moral philosophy, the golden rule of morality, reciprocity, Hegel's moral philosophy and philosophy of history.

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Encountering Anonymous Adversity: An Analysis of, and a Proposed Solution to, the Puzzle of

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The Historicity of Self-Constitution in Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook – A Hegelian Critical Reading

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The Representation of Freedom in Henry James’s In the Cage – An Existential Phenomenological Critical Analysis

In the Cage is the tale of a London telegraphist surrendering "to a certain expansion of her cons... more In the Cage is the tale of a London telegraphist surrendering "to a certain expansion of her consciousness", 1 and given that, as Labrie has pointed out, Henry James vies consciousness as "a highly active process of development, rather than a passive climate of awareness", 2 in place of an interpretation of the telegraphist"s situation as one of entrapment, by technology, or her own imaginative fantasies, I propose instead that the story is to be read as representing the telegraphist"s freedom with her cage. James"s narrative relates the story through her consciousness, and a suitable method for establishing my proposition, as I explore her psychology by careful attention to the representation of her consciousness in the text, is existential phenomenology.

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Nietzsche’s ‘Vita Femina’ and the Female Body in the ‘Calypso’, ‘Sirens’, ‘Nausicaa’, ‘Circe’, and ‘Penelope’ episodes of James Joyce’s Ulysses.

described Ulysses as the "epic of the human body", whereby, as Ellmann has said, it "strives to u... more described Ulysses as the "epic of the human body", whereby, as Ellmann has said, it "strives to unite word and flesh". 1 But Joyce"s essential break with the conventional narrative of the nineteenth century involved a break with the underlying assumption of that narrative, that there was a reliable and enduring relationship between language and reality.

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The Reality and Unreality of Time - an Existential Phenomenological Analysis

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime', wrote John Donne, 'Nor hours, days, months, which a... more Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime', wrote John Donne, 'Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time'; 1 that is, they are the divisions of time imposed upon a reality in itself timeless 2 and known only to an omniscient spectator, God, that can see past, present and future, all at once. 3 But when Macbeth is deliberating on a murder he is about to commit, he proclaims: 'but this blow/Might be the be-all and the end-all! -here,/But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,/We'd jump the life to come'. 4 The image now is of time as a narrow sandbar, the present, between two boundless oceans, the past and the future. 5 Such poetic conceits raise two concerns about the nature of time; how time appears, and what it is. For Macbeth, the temporal order is real enough; we do fear future time, if only because our own deaths await us there. And time as it appears is not illusory for Donne, because whatever it is it can be measured, though the temporal order still belongs to the world of appearance. But is there really such a thing as time? McTaggart thought not, while acknowledging that it 'doubtless seems highly paradoxical to assert that Time is unreal, and that all statements which involve its reality are erroneous '. 6 In this essay, rather than denying the reality of time, thus reducing poetry to idle prattle, I argue for a theory of time that is paradoxical, that time is both real and not real, because time 1 'The Sun Rising ', in John Donne, The Complete English Poems (London: Penguin, 1996), p. 80. 2 Timeless in that the passage of time is an illusion, although illusions are themselves temporal; but timeless can mean without change; ideal (mathematical) objects are thus timeless.

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On The Imaginary Power of Liberation – an Existential Phenomenological Analysis

Implicit in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre on the imaginary is a conviction that any psychology... more Implicit in the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre on the imaginary is a conviction that any psychology must apprehend the human 'in situation', 1 its methodology grounded in a general principle of inquiry that has an overt practicality, rather than in a conception of human reality that has been, as Sartre claims, 'described and fixed by an intuition a priori'. 2 Such a conviction underlies this phenomenological analysis 3 of the Sartrean thesis that 'every concrete and real situation of consciousness in the world is pregnant with the imaginary in so far as it is always presented as a surpassing of the real'; 4 my purpose being to reveal, from the way the imaginary is thus shown to function in consciousness, a paradox at the heart of this thesis.

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Toward The Idea of the Absolute: A Critical Assessment of Hegel’s Relationship to Spinoza.

In giving a critical assessment of Hegel's relationship to Spinoza it is to be remembered that He... more In giving a critical assessment of Hegel's relationship to Spinoza it is to be remembered that Hegel was not so much concerned with refuting another philosopher's ideas, for 'each [philosophy] in turn… [is] the one true philosophy', and 'philosophy is the totality of [its] forms,…where all principles are preserved' and contribute to the 'one truth' 1 But then a question arises. Is Hegel interpreting Spinoza's system to suit his own purposes? For Hegel claimed that 'in every other science the subject matter and the scientific method are distinguished from each other', 2 and the purpose of his philosophical system is that they should coincide, the subject matter of philosophy being thought or reason. But Spinoza's ultimate aim with his philosophy was to ascertain whether there is some real good, whether there is 'anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable [him] to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness', 3 his concern primarily being with whatever leads us 'to the knowledge of the human mind and its highest blessedness'. 4 That is, he was not solely concerned with understanding, he also wanted to know how to act.

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‘Misadventured Piteous Overthrows’ – Chance, Tragic Spirit, and Romeo and Juliet

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Re enchanting the World Hegels Idea of Nature and J G Ballards The Drowned World and The Drought

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The Free Will Problem

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Drafts by David Proud

The Recollection of Spiritual Forms in James Joyce's 'Finnegans Wake'

Scientific cognition… demands surrender to the life of the object, or, what amounts to the same t... more

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A Logical Deduction of Particular Spirit

The subject matter of the philosophy of nature is universals as they are instantiated in natural ... more The subject matter of the philosophy of nature is universals as they are instantiated in natural events and objects. The methodology of the philosophy of nature differs from that of natural science in that the latter seeks to explain natural events and objects by the principle of causation, the former by logical deduction of the universals of which they are instances. Such instances are thereby rendered intelligible. The most abstract universal instantiated in nature is empty space, pure externality. As an abstract universal it has to be given some content through negation, and space is negated, and thus given content, by time. For time and space to be unified there must be motion, for which there must be matter; which is the concrete result of the negation of space by time. Matter manifests itself as gravity, which exhibits a principle of unity, or subjectivity. Through the power of negation a rational deduction can get out of pure externality into an identity of a particular objective thing, which is thereby made intelligible; and from thence to a mechanical material universe. I end by suggesting a way out of the externality of a mechanical material universe into an identity of a particular subjective thing, thereby making it intelligible. I suggest that this can be accomplished by switching from a rational deduction to an imaginative one.

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