The volume introduces the central themes in and the main figures of Japanese Buddhist philosophy. It will have two sections, one that discusses general topics relevant to Japanese Buddhist philosophy and one that reads the work of the main Japanese Buddhist philosophers in the context of comparative philosophy. It combines basic information with cutting edge scholarship considering recent publications in Japanese, Chinese, English, and other European languages. As such, it will be an invaluable tool for professors teaching courses in Asian (...) and global philosophy, undergraduate and graduate students, as well as the people generally interested in philosophy and/or Buddhism. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky is responsible for creating the field of research on grammatical theory in its present form, and he has also been material in providing frameworks for syntactic analysis, from early transformational grammar to current implementations of the minimalist program. Against the background of these syntactic frameworks, a huge number of constraints on grammatical dependencies have been proposed over the years. Constraints initially suggested by Chomsky have a more troubled history, in the sense that they have variously been claimed to (...) be empirically falsified, considered conceptually flawed, or simply consigned to oblivion. This chapter aims to argue that some of the constraints arguably belonging to this latter group can, upon closer scrutiny, in fact be shown to be at the heart of current syntactic theory, and qualify as “good”, whereas this does not necessarily hold for constraints in the former group. (shrink)

This book deals with Johann Heinrich Lamberts epistemological foundation of scientific knowledge and with his linear diagrams of logical reasoning.

This Open Access volume is based on the 'Early Carnap in Context’ workshop that took place in Konstanz in 2017 and looks at Rudolf Carnap’s philosophy, documented in his recently released diaries, from a combination of historical, cultural and philosophical perspectives. It enables further evaluation of the diaries and traces newly found interrelationships and their systematic definition. From a cultural and historical point of view, Logical Empiricism and Carnap’s pivotal opus, The Logical Structure of the World, did not evolve in (...) a vacuum. This applies equally in a history of philosophy context as well as under consideration of contemporary historical and cultural influences such as the socio-cultural setting in Vienna and Prague, the correlation between Logical Empiricism and Bauhaus modernism, the connection to the Life Reform Movement or the Youth Movement with its own life philosophy. Pursuing Carnap’s progression on a micro level of history and referring the results back to Carnap’s philosophy is now facilitated by recent access to his Diaries from 1908–1935. These shorthand records, reading lists, travel reports and notes constitute a valuable source for the research of networks and social movements which left their mark on him. (shrink)

It has been argued by Clayton Littlejohn that cases of insufficient evidence provide an argument against evidentialism. He distinguishes between evidential reasons and norm-reasons, but this distinction can be accepted by evidentialists, as we argue. Furthermore, evidentialists can acknowledge the existence of norm-reasons stemming from an epistemic norm, like the norm that one should not believe a proposition if one has only insufficient evidence for it. An alternative interpretation of evidentialism according to which it rejects the existence of norm-reasons is (...) also presented. Therefore, no reason to reject evidentialism arises in this context. (shrink)

Practical reasoning is a process of reasoning that concludes in an intention. One example is reasoning from intending an end to intending what you believe is a necessary means: 'I will leave the next buoy to port; in order to do that I must tack; so I'll tack', where the first and third sentences express intentions and the second sentence a belief. This sort of practical reasoning is supported by a valid logical derivation, and therefore seems uncontrovertible. A more contentious (...) example is normative practical reasoning of the form 'I ought to φ, so I'll φ', where 'I ought to φ' expresses a normative belief and 'I'll φ' an intention. This has at least some characteristics of reasoning, but there are also grounds for doubting that it is genuine reasoning. One objection is that it seems inappropriate to derive an intention to φ from a belief that you ought to φ, rather than a belief that you ought to intend to φ. Another is that you may not be able to go through this putative process of reasoning, and this inability might disqualify it from being reasoning. A third objection is that it violates the Humean doctrine that reason alone cannot motivate any action of the will. This paper investigates these objections. (shrink)

In recent decades, English has become the uncontestable lingua franca of philosophy of science and of most other areas of philosophy and of the humanities. To have a lingua franca produces enormous benefits for the entire scientific community. The price for those benefits, however, is paid almost exclusively by non-native speakers of English. Section 1 identifies three asymmetries that individual NoNES researchers encounter: ‘publication asymmetry’, ‘resources asymmetry’, and ‘team asymmetry’. Section 2 deals with ‘globalized parochialism asymmetry’: thanks to English being (...) a lingua franca, a special perspective, mostly US and British, is being globalized and is replacing European topics and approaches. This has serious consequences for history of philosophy as well as for philosophical theory: thinkers of the past tend to be dealt with on the global level at best only if and insofar they are translated into English. Similarly, the theoretical agenda of globalized philosophy of scien... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Encounter with Enlightenment: A Study of Japanese EthicsGereon KopfEncounter with Enlightenment: A Study of Japanese Ethics. By Robert E. Carter. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001. Pp. 258.Ever since Robert Carter mentioned the topic of his latest work to me a few years ago, I have been looking forward to reading it. It has been worth the wait. In Encounter with Enlightenment, Carter evokes a plethora (...) of religious and philosophical traditions within Japanese intellectual history to counter forcefully the prejudice, perpetuated far too long on both sides of the Pacific, that Japan does not have an ethics. More precisely, Carter chooses as his main counterfoil and methodological hook Arthur Danto's contention that "the West has nothing to learn from the East, ethically speaking at least." Carter proceeds to challenge the two basic assumptions of Danto's argument: the belief evoking a fundamental if not essential difference between "East" and "West" on the one side, and the assumption that worldviews are static and "unable to undergo modification in the light of encounters with 'alien representations,"' (p. 7) on the other. He does so by marking the supposed difference between "East" and "West" as one in tendency rather than in essence, by indicating the transitions that encounters between traditions engender and by tracing ethical theories and practices in the various intellectual traditions in Japan in direct application to the more fundamental ethical questions humanity faces at the beginning of the twenty-first century.Setting up the perceived differences between "East" and "West" as cultural representations open to transformation rather than as irreconcilable, static world-views, Carter takes an interesting stance. In one sense, he echoes much of recent scholarship, which has criticized orientalism for, to use J. J. Clarke's words, setting up "East" and "West" as "quasi-entities" separated by a "glass curtain," which deludes the onlooker into believing that direct understanding of a foreign culture is possible without actually entering it. Clarke's terminology of the "glass curtain" brings out the paradox underlying the orientalist position, which postulates a radical difference between one's own culture and that of the other without, at the same time, recognizing that this very position implies knowledge of that which is presumably so absolutely different. Carter does not fall into this trap. On the contrary, he takes pains to point out the generalizations in his argument and to add consistently that every generalization has its counterexamples and thus indicates nothing but a cultural mainstream. Using his own experience, Carter makes sure that the reader understands that he talks about tendencies within and not essences of intellectual traditions, about cultural ideals and not uniform realities. He thus slowly [End Page 411] chips away bit by bit at cultural stereotypes perpetuated by word of mouth, travel reports, and academic discourse over the centuries.However, it is not clear to me how far Carter is willing to take his challenge to the orientalist dichotomy and the deconstruction of stereotypes without which the goals he envisions cannot be accomplished. I wholeheartedly support Carter in his project to break out of the incompatibility thesis proposed by the orientalist discourse and, at least as far as ethics is concerned, by Danto. It is important to reject the talk of cultural essences in order to allow for cultural exchange and to break down the artificially constructed barriers between cultures. A further benefit of Carter's study is not only that it shows what the former colonial powers from Europe and North America can learn from the traditions of the countries they colonized—or, as in the case of Japan, tried to colonize not too long ago—but that it also complements the traditional European curricula by including the philosophical and ethical traditions of, for example, East Asia. But to accomplish this, I think the use of terminology of ethical or cultural ideals, which Carter uses for the most part in his argument, might be more fruitful than his occasional evocation of a "Japanese character," which could easily be interpreted to reinforce Danto's prejudice rather than to undercut it.Carter's second main point—proposing that cultural encounters transform rather than alienate—is... (shrink)

Applies Dogen Kigen's religious philosophy and the philosophy of Nishida Kitaro to the philosophical problem of personal identity, probing the applicability of the concept of non-self to the philosophical problems of selfhood, otherness, and temporality which culminate in the conundrum of personal identity.

In the first part of the paper, I discuss Benatar’s asymmetry argument for the claim that it would have been better for each of us to have never lived at all. In contrast to other commentators, I will argue that there is a way of interpreting the premises of his argument which makes all of them come out true. (This will require one departure from Benatar’s own presentation.) Once we see why the premises are true, we will, however, also realise (...) that the argument trades on an ambiguity that renders it invalid. In the second part of the paper, I consider whether discussions of how best to implement the anti-natalist conclusion crosses a moral barrier. I ask whether we can, independently of any philosophical argument, raise a legitimate moral objection to discussions of how best to end all life on earth. I discuss three views concerning the role of our pre-philosophical views and attitudes in philosophical debates: the external view according to which these attitudes set moral barriers to the content of philosophical debate whilst themselves standing outside this debate; the internal view according to which our intuitions are part of the material for philosophical reflection and play no further role; and the intermediate view according to which our pre-reflective views and attitudes, without themselves requiring philosophical validation, can play an important role when it comes to issues regarding the implementation of philosophical claims. (shrink)

In the first section of this paper I draw, on a purely conceptual level, a distinction between two kinds of reasons: content-related and attitude-related reasons. The established view is that, in the case of the attitude of believing something, there are no attitude-related reasons. I look at some arguments intended to establish this claim in the second section with an eye to whether these argument could be generalized to cover the case of preferences as well. In the third section I (...) argue against such generalizations and present a case in favour of accepting attitude-related reasons for preferences. In the fourth section I present an objection to which I react in the fifth section where I try to strengthen my case for attitude-related reasons for preferences. Finally, I discuss and reject criticisms raised by two opponents of the view defended here. (shrink)

Im Zentrum dieses Bandes stehen die Beiträge einer Tagung, die im Oktober 2017 an der Universität Konstanz stattgefunden hat. Thema der Tagung war ein den historischen Kontext einbeziehender Blick auf den frühen Rudolf Carnap, vom Ende des Ersten Weltkriegs bis zur Emigration Ende 1935. Der 1891 in Ronsdorf bei Wuppertal geborene Rudolf Carnap entschloss sich erst relativ spät zu einer Karriere als akademischer Philosoph, nämlich 1920, nachdem er sein durch den Krieg unterbrochenes Studium der Physik und Philosophie in Jena und (...) Freiburg abgeschlossen und kurze Zeit überlegt hatte, als Lehrer in der Schulreform-Bewegung zu arbeiten. Es folgte die philosophische Promotion im Jahr 1921, bei Bruno Bauch in Jena, mit einer Doktorarbeit zum Raumproblem. 1923 organisierte Carnap, gemeinsam mit Hans Reichenbach und anderen, eine für die Entstehung des Logischen Empirismus bedeutsame kleine Tagung in Erlangen. Auf Einladung von Moritz Schlick habilitierte er sich 1926 an der Universität Wien und verbrachte die Zeit bis 1931 zumindest teilweise in Wien, als eines der Kernmitglieder des Wiener Kreises um Moritz Schlick. Seine Habilitationsschrift erschien 1928 unter dem Titel Der logische Aufbau der Welt (hier immer Aufbau). 1931 folgte Carnap einem Ruf an die Deutsche Universität Prag. In den darauffolgenden Jahren blieb aber der enge Kontakt mit Wien und dem Wiener Kreis erhalten. Carnaps hauptsächliche Arbeit in dieser Zeit war seinem zweiten großen Buchprojekt gewidmet, der 1934 publizierten Logischen Syntax der Sprache. Daneben verfasste Carnap in seiner Zeit in Wien und Prag auch zahlreiche Aufsätze, zu unterschiedlichen Aspekten der Logik, der Metaphysikkritik und der Wissenschaftstheorie. Er war Mitautor des Manifests Wissenschaftliche Weltauffassung: Der Wiener Kreis und nahm regen Anteil an den zahlreichen wissenschaftlichen Aktivitäten des Logischen Empirismus, von der Gründung der Zeitschrift Erkenntnis bis hin zum Projekt einer Enzyklopädie der Einheitswissenschaft. Spätestens ab 1933 musste Carnap jedoch feststellen, dass an eine weitere wissenschaftliche Karriere in dem von Faschismus und Nationalsozialismus geprägten politischen Klima in Kontinentaleuropa nicht zu denken war. Er strebte deshalb die Emigration ins englischsprachige Ausland an, die schließlich Ende 1935 gelang, als Carnap ein Angebot von der Universität Chicago erhielt. Obwohl Carnap nur den kleineren Teil der in diesem Band abgedeckten eineinhalb Jahrzehnte in Wien verbracht hat, widmet sich der Großteil der hier versammelten Beiträge schwerpunktmäßig der für Carnaps philosophische Karriere zentralen Wiener Zeit. (shrink)

The short answer to this question is a firm and unambiguous “yes and no”. The long answer will take the whole talk. Indeed, it could easily take an entire book. It is therefore unavoidable to take recourse here and there to simplifying shortcuts and polemical exaggerations, in order to get the message clear.

Leading biologists and philosophers of biology discuss the basic theories and concepts of biology and their connections with ethics, economics, and psychology, providing a remarkably unified report on the “state of the art” in the philosophy of biology.

Few people, if any, still argue that science in all its aspects is a value-free endeavor. At the very least, values affect decisions about the choice of research problems to investigate and the uses to which the results of research are applied. But what about the actual doing of science? -/- As Science, Values, and Objectivity reveals, the connections and interactions between values and science are quite complex. The essays in this volume identify the crucial values that play a role (...) in science, distinguish some of the criteria that can be used for value identification, and elaborate the conditions for warranting certain values as necessary or central to the very activity of scientific research. -/- Recently, social constructivists have taken the presence of values within the scientific model to question the basis of objectivity. However, the contributors to <I>Science, Values, and Objectivity</I> recognize that such acknowledgment of the role of values does not negate the fact that objects exist in the world. Objects have the power to constrain our actions and thoughts, though the norms for these thoughts lie in the public, social world. -/- Values may be decried or defended, praised or blamed, but in a world that strives for a modicum of reason, values, too, must be reasoned. Critical assessment of the values that play a role in scientific research is as much a part of doing good science as interpreting data. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Heidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences on His WorkGereon KopfHeidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences on His Work. By Reinhard May. Translated with a complementary essay by Graham Parkes. London and New York:Routledge, 1996. Pp. xviii + 121.Reinhard May's Ex Oriente Lux: Heidegger's Werk Unter Ostasiatischen Einfluss (1989), translated into English by Graham Parkes as Heidegger's Hidden Sources: East Asian Influences on His Work, makes a significant contribution (...) to the growing body of work that explores the intellectual connections between early twentieth-century German philosophers and Chinese classical texts on the one side and contemporary Japanese philosophers on the other. In particular, May explores similarities [End Page 122] between the work of Martin Heidegger and contemporary translations of Taoist writings available to and known by Heidegger such as Martin Buber's Reden und Gleichnisse des Tschuang-Tse (1910), Richard Wilhelm's Laotse: Tao te King: Das Buch des Alten vom Sinn und Leben (1911), Jan Ulenbrook's Lao Tse: Tao te King: Das Buch vom Rechten Weg and von der rechten Gesinnung (1980), and Paul Shih-yi Hsiao's translation of the Tao te Ching. Hsiao himself describes the latter project in his "Heidegger and our Translation of the Tao te Ching," which was published in Graham Parkes' Heidegger and Asian Thought (1987). On the basis of this comparative reading, May argues that Heidegger's essay "Aus einem Gespräch von der Sprache," published in Unterwegs zur Sprache (1953/1954), constitutes a fictionalization of the conversation he had with the Japanese Germanist Tezuka Tomio and, ultimately, a confession of his indebtedness to Chinese and Japanese philosophy.May's argument evolves in four steps. In chapter 1, he establishes Heidegger's familiarity with the above-cited German translations of the Laozi and the Zhuangzi as well as with the fundamental Taoist concepts. May cites Heidegger's correspondence with Hsiao on their collaborative translation of the Laozi as well as commentaries by Heinrich Wiegand Petzet and Otto Pöggeler, who document Heidegger's familiarity with the translations by Buber and Ulenbrook, and thus establishes Hei-degger's knowledge of fundamental Taoist ideas and writings.In his second chapter, May reads Heidegger's "Aus einem Gespräch von der Sprache" in light of Tezuka's own account of their conversation and concludes that Heidegger poetically constructs his version in order to support his own philosophy and, ultimately, as May argues in chapter 5, to confess his intellectual debt to the Japanese philosophical tradition. May suggests that a note at the end of Unterwegs zur Sprache, which claims that the conversation that "has remained unpublished for some time, originates in 1953/4, and was occasioned by a visit from Professor Tezuka of the Imperial University in Tokyo" (p. 14), is "clearly incomplete and inaccurate" (p. 14). In addition, May cites discrepancies between the accounts of Heidegger and Tezuka with regard to crucial aspects of their conversation: while Tezuka observes "that the kind of indefiniteness conveyed by this film [Rashmon] concerning our knowledge of reality may have intrigued Heidegger as an East Asian phenomenon," Heidegger makes his Japanese interlocutor say that "[w]e Japanese are not disconcerted when a conversation leaves indefinite [im Unbestimmten] what is really meant" (p. 14). Similar discrepancies can be observed in their accounts of passages dealing with the Japanese rendition of the Heart Sūtra's shiki soku ze kū and the Japanese word kotoba. Tezuka's own report furthermore emphasizes Hei-degger's tendency to force similarities, as in the case of Heidegger's rendition of kotoba as Ding. Confronted with these "indications," May concludes that Heidegger did not report a conversation but rather presented a fictionalized conversation in such a way as to enable the readers to mistake it for the historical record.In chapter 3, May meticulously identifies similarities between Heidegger's work and the German translations of the Laozi and Zhuangzi to which Heidegger had access. Thus Heidegger paraphrases von Strauss' observation "that one is only [End Page 123] through the other" as "the Other to it [Being] is simply Nothing"; "Being and Nothing are not given beside one another. Each uses itself on behalf of... (shrink)

This is an introduction to the English translation of Hogo Dingler's (1881-1954) grounsbreaking paper "Methodik statt Erkenntnistheorie und Wissenschaftslehre". Dingler is the founder of operationalism in physics and relatively little know in the Anglophone world.

After sketching my own solution to the Value of Knowledge Problem, which argues for a deontological understanding of justification and understands the value of knowing interesting propositions by the value we place on believing as we ought to believe, I discuss Alvin Goldman's and Erik Olsson's recent attempts to explain the value of knowledge within the framework of their reliabilist epistemology.

This open access book examines the many contributions of Paul Lorenzen, an outstanding philosopher from the latter half of the 20th century. It features papers focused on integrating Lorenzen's original approach into the history of logic and mathematics. The papers also explore how practitioners can implement Lorenzen’s systematical ideas in today’s debates on proof-theoretic semantics, databank management, and stochastics. Coverage details key contributions of Lorenzen to constructive mathematics, Lorenzen’s work on lattice-groups and divisibility theory, and modern set theory and Lorenzen’s (...) critique of actual infinity. The contributors also look at the main problem of Grundlagenforschung and Lorenzen’s consistency proof and Hilbert’s larger program. In addition, the papers offer a constructive examination of a Russell-style Ramified Type Theory and a way out of the circularity puzzle within the operative justification of logic and mathematics. Paul Lorenzen's name is associated with the Erlangen School of Methodical Constructivism, of which the approach in linguistic philosophy and philosophy of science determined philosophical discussions especially in Germany in the 1960s and 1970s. This volume features 10 papers from a meeting that took place at the University of Konstanz. (shrink)

This article shows that those texts, attributed to Ernst Mach, that reject relativity theory are posthumous forgeries.

This volume honors and examines the founders of the philosophy of logical empiricism. Historical and interpretive essays clarify the scientific philosophies of Carnap, Reichenbach, Hempel, Kant, and others, while exploring the main topics of logical empiricist philosophy of science.

Das Thema dieser Überlegungen ist die deutsche Philosophie und sind deutsche Philoso­phen im Nationalsozialismus. (Für unsere politisch korrekten Ohrenspitzer(innen): es war keine Frau dabei.)1 Vorweg sei gesagt, verbrecherische Schurken finden wir unter ihnen nicht, anders als bei z. B. Juristen und Medizinern. ,,Auschwitz" wurde nicht von Philoso­phen betrieben. Die Praxisferne der Philosophie hat manchmal eben auch Vorteile. Teil I beschäftigt sich mit Philosophie und Philosophen im „Dritten Reich" im allgemei­nen. Teil II stellt eine Fallstudie (Oskar Becker) vor, während der dritte (...) Teil ansatzweise eine noch skizzenhafte und vielleicht kontroverse Antwort auf die Frage versucht, welche philosophischen Umstände es begünstigt haben, daß Philosophen zu Naziphilosophen wurden, und welche dies vielleicht eher verhindert haben. (shrink)

Michael Ende’s bestseller/The Neverending Story/is set in a magical world called “Fantastica”. In Fantastica, there are heroes and villains, just as in the world of universities and academies. There is even an entity, or better: a non-entity of shaky existence, das Nichts, the Nothingness – loved by some philosophers like Martin Heidegger. In Fantastica Nothingness is able to create trouble and destruction. The same is true in the land of academic history and philosophy of science – let us call it (...) “HOPOSia”. In HOPOSia, particularly in its Anglophone provinces, Nothingness of knowledge and information has succeeded in building up strong opinions about the topic “Mach and Relativity”, and has created confusion and disinformation. However, you may slightly relax; our story in HOPOSia is less cruel so far and more peaceful than what happens in Fantastica. Sometimes it has even entertaining aspects. There are similarities, though: If there had not been lies and manipulation of believes, our story would have ended years ago. It went on instead and will possibly do so forever. (shrink)

If our mental attitudes were reasons, we could bootstrap anything into rationality simply by acquiring these mental attitudes. This, it has been argued, shows that mental attitudes cannot be reasons. In this paper, I focus on John Broome’s development of the bootstrapping objection. I distinguish various versions of this objection and I argue that the bootstrapping objection to mind-based accounts of reasons fails in all its versions.

I give a revision (“reload”) of an earlier paper on logico-empiricism’s philosophy of biology by checking its central theses against the background of the international conferences of Prague (1934), Paris (1935), and Copenhagen (1936), so important for the development of logical empiricism and its spread in the western world. My theses are that logical empiricism did not contribute in the same way to the development of philosophy of biology, as it did e.g. to the development of philosophy of mathematics or (...) physics. The reasons for this failure were: (1) logical empiricists were unexperienced in biological science. (2) They concentrated on an unproductive ('ideological') framework (anti-vitalism, reduction) that they took to be philosophy of biology. (3) This prevented them from dealing with actual problems of biological science. Between the various sections of the paper, I insert “intermezzos” that present several conference participants in a wider historical context (Great War, persecution, language). (shrink)

The fact that we ought to prefer what is comparatively more likely to be good, I argue, does, contrary to consequentialism, not rest on any evaluative facts. It is, in this sense, a deontological requirement. As such it is the basis of our valuing those things which are in accordance with it. We value acting (and believing) well, i.e. we value acting (and believing) as we ought to act (and to believe). In this way, despite the fact that our interest (...) in justification depends on our interest in truth, we value believing with justification on non-instrumental grounds. A deontological understanding of justification, thus, solves the Value of Knowledge Problem. (shrink)

John Greco claims that knowledge is a kind of achievement. The value achievements have (as such) shows, according to Greco, why knowledge is better than mere true belief. I argue that, for a variety of reasons, it is not always good to know. Furthermore, it is wrong to think that achievements are always good – think of achieving what is bad. Greco is mistaken twice; this leaves the idea that knowledge is a kind of achievement intact.

This paper discusses ethical problems of genetic engineering.

The Euro-American philosophical traditions offer two extreme positions to the problem of identity over time: G. W. Leibniz' essentialism and Derek Parfit's reductionism. A third alternative conception of personal identity is presented here, more appropriately named personal nonduality, which is based on Nishida Kitarō's conception of personal unity as nonrelative contradictory self-identity.

Grünbaum's three chief fields of research were space-time philosophy, the methodological credentials of psychoanalysis, and reasons given in favor of the existence of God. Grünbaum defended the so-called conventionality thesis of physical geometry. He partially followed Hans Reichenbach in this respect but developed a new ontological argument for the conventionality claim in addition. In addressing the physical basis of the direction of time, Grünbaum advocated that there is a physical basis for the distinction between the past and the future, but (...) no such basis for the idea of a ‘present’ moving through time. His main claim in scrutinizing Freud’s theory methodologically was that supporting the causal claims Freud made would have required data that go beyond the clinical setting. Finally, Grünbaum worked on the philosophy of religion and set out to undermine arguments for the existence of God. (shrink)

Wynn's claims are, in principle, entirely reasonable; although, as always, the devil is in the details. With respect to Wynn's discussion of the cultural evolution of artifactual symmetry, we provide a few more arguments for the utility of mirror symmetry and extend the enquiry into the tacit and explicit processing of natural and artifactual symmetry.

Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach was born 18 February 1838 in the Moravian village of Chrlice (near Brno), at that time part of the Austrian Monarchy, now the Czech Republic, and died 19 February 1916 in Vaterstetten (near Munich). He enjoyed a very successful career as an experimental physicist (the unit for the velocity of sound has been named after him). His importance for the philosophy of science derives mainly from his “historico‐critical” writings (Mach 1872, 1883, 1896b, 1921). Mach studied (...) mathematics and physics at the University of Vienna (1855–60, doctorate in physics 1860, his “Habilitation” (i.e., qualification to become a university professor) 1861) and his subsequent work was in the physiology of the senses. In 1864 he became professor first of mathematics and then (1866) of physics at Graz University; from 1867 to 1895 he was professor of experimental physics at Prague University; and in 1895 he took a chair in “Philosophy, especially the History and Theory of the Inductive Sciences” at Vienna University. In 1898 a stroke ended Mach's university teaching, but he was able to continue scientific work to a certain degree. (shrink)