I. THE TASK OF DOGMATICS As a theological discipline dogmatics is the scientific self- examination of the Christian Church with respect to the content of ...

In this article I offer an opinionated overview of the central elements of Kant’s philosophical methodology during the critical period. I begin with a brief characterization of how Kant conceives of the aims of human inquiry – focusing on the idea that inquiry ideally aims at not just cognition (Erkenntnis), but also the more demanding cognitive achievements that Kant labels insight (Einsehen) and comprehension (Begreifen). Then I explore the implications of this picture for philosophy — emphasizing Kant’s distinction between critical (...) and doctrinal phases of philosophical inquiry, with the first of these playing both a negative and a positive role with respect to the second. Then, I will argue that this positive role is possible, according to Kant, only insofar as philosophy follows what I call a “capacities-first” methodology – that is, one that treats basic cognitive capacities (such as reason) and their self-conscious activities as fundamental (in both a cognitive sense and in an explanatory sense) for the sort of philosophy human beings are capable of. It is this methodology, I will argue, that allows Kant to introduce the first principles that philosophy in its doctrinal phase requires in a manner that is neither arbitrary nor (at least obviously) incompatible with Kant’s own critical restrictions on cognition. I conclude by discussing some of the implications of this methodological picture – including the methodological significance of self-consciousness and regressive or “transcendental” arguments, Kant’s distinction between analytic and synthetic methods in philosophy, and Kant’s conception of reason as autonomous. (shrink)

Muss Philosophie immer eine bierernste Angelegenheit sein? Einer, der das vehement bestritten hat, war der griechische Denker Diogenes, jener berühmte Tonnen-Philosoph, der bis heute als eine der schillerndsten und originellsten Gestalten des Altertums gilt. Seine Gesellschaftskritik lebte er mit einer nachgerade schockierenden Konsequenz vor. Seine Forderung: nicht mehr und nicht weniger als der konsequente Ausstieg aus der Zivilisation. Karl-Wilhelm Weeber stellt in diesem locker geschriebenen Band den scharfzüngigen, schlagfertigen und respektlosen Philosophen und seine Ideenwelt vor.

Várias tentativas foram feitas pelos teóricos da referência direta para acomodar o dado intuitivo da opacidade referencial— a não ocorrência de substituição mútua salva veritate de nomes próprios co-referenciais nas orações subordinadas, precedidas por ‘que’, nas orações em que se atribuem atitudes proposicionais. A teoria defendida por Nathan Salmon, em seu livro de 1986 Frege’s Puzzle , é provavelmente a versão mais bem elaborada daquilo a que adiante nos referimos como ‘a Teoria Implicativa’. Salmon sustenta que a opacidade referencial é (...) uma ilusão decorrente de nossa incapacidade de distinguir o conteúdo semântico de atribuições de crenças das suas ‘partilhas pragmáticas’, como Salmon as chama. Lamentavelmente, seu trabalho deixa de todo misterioso o mecanismo rotineiro de produção de tais partilhas pragmáticas. Salmon limita-se a sugerir vagamente que estão envolvidas implicaturas conversacionais griceanas. Minha tese central neste artigo é a de que Salmon está equivocado, visto que as partilhas pragmáticas necessárias à sua teoria não satisfazem o critério de cancelabilidade , o que deveria ocorrer sempre que estamos às voltas com uma genuína implicatura conversacional. O argumento apresentado, até onde o saibamos, é inteiramente original. DOI:10.5007/1808-1711.2010v14n3p405. (shrink)

Several attempts have been made by direct reference theorists to accommodate the intuitive datum of referential opacity—the failure of co-referential proper names to substitute salva veritate for one another within the embedded ‘that’-clauses of attitude ascription sentences. The theory advocated by Nathan Salmon in his 1986 book Frege’s Puzzle is probably the best worked out version of what is referred to below as ‘The Implicature Theory’. Salmon claims that referential opacity is an illusion brought about by our failure to distinguish (...) the semantic content of attitude ascriptions from their ‘pragmatic impartations’, as Salmon calls them. Regrettably, his work leaves it entirely mysterious how the relevant pragmatic impartations are routinely conveyed. Salmon vaguely suggests that Gricean conversational implicatures are involved. My central claim in this paper is that Salmon is mistaken, since the pragmatic impartations required by his theory do not satisfy the criterion of cancelability, which is met whenever a genuine conversational implicature occurs. The argument in question is, to the best of my knowledge, original with me. (shrink)

Zeigt, wie der äTonnenphilosophä in einer unsicheren Zeit eine auch heute noch gültige Überlebensphilosophie für das Individuum entwickelte und praktizierte.

Prolog -- Eros : auf dem Weg zur Erkenntnis -- Liebe als einheitsstiftende Macht -- Das tragische Chorspiel der Hellenen und ihre Imaginationen von Liebe -- Narkissos : die unstillbare Selbstliebe und das Spiegelmotiv -- Gnosis als erlösende Erkenntnis der Liebe -- Liebe in der kontemplativen Metaphysik Plotins -- Das Eine und das Viele -- Kontemplation und Liebe : das Mysterium Sacrum -- Sensorisches und Imaginatives : Weisen der Vergeistigung der Liebe -- Mystische Liebe : Gott-Leiden und Gott-Lieben in der (...) "Rheinischen Mystik" (Eckhart, Tauler, Seuse, Ruusbroec) -- Figurationen der Liebe auf den Brettern, die "die Welt bedeuten" (Wissen, Macht, Liebe, Tod) -- Amor fati : die Liebe zum Schicksal -- Die Liebe auf der Bühne des Theatrum Mundi -- Reflexionen und Mythopoetik der Liebe : philosophisch, theologisch, poetisch -- Liebe in der Theologie des Alten Bundes -- Liebe in der Theologie des Neuen Bundes. (shrink)

Originally published on the eve of the 1848 European revolutions, The Communist Manifesto is a condensed and incisive account of the worldview Marx and Engels developed during their hectic intellectual and political collaboration. Formulating the principles of dialectical materialism, they believed that labor creates wealth, hence capitalism is exploitive and antithetical to freedom. -/- This new edition includes an extensive introduction by Gareth Stedman Jones, Britain's leading expert on Marx and Marxism, providing a complete course for students of The Communist (...) Manifesto, and demonstrating not only the historical importance of the text, but also its place in the world today. (shrink)

Physical and chemical processes may act upon the mind; and when we are writing a difficult letter, our mind acts upon our body and, through a chain of physical...

Wissen und Moral sind die zentralen Leitkonzepte padagogischen Handelns. In Zeiten des 'postmodernen' Pluralismus verlieren sie jedoch zunehmend ihre Orientierungsfunktion. Bei der Analyse der Erscheinungsformen und Auswirkungen des Pluralismus gilt es, die Aufgabenstellung der Allgemeinen Padagogik neu zu bestimmen. Im Rahmen dieser Untersuchung wird dies unter Bezug auf sozialphanomenologische und wissenssoziologische Erkenntnisse vorgenommen.".

Neste trabalho, pretendemos avaliar criticamente algumas das teses de John McDowellsobre a natureza da virtude, tal como expostas em seu artigo “Virtue and Reason” e, ao fazê-lo,expor algumas de suas limitações. Mais especificamente, tratarei o que vejo como problemas emsua apresentação da virtude como uma forma de conhecimento, e sua proposta – corporificada natese da unidade das virtudes – de que as virtudes comumente reconhecidas deveriam ser vistascomo manifestações parciais da virtude enquanto tal. Também enfocarei a assertiva de McDowellde que (...) o conhecimento que constitui a virtude não pode ser visto como tendo um conteúdoproposicional que se preste a uma codificação em princípios de conduta – a tese de nãocodificabilidade– e a relação da postura pessoal de McDowell com a empreitada mais ampla daética de virtudes. (shrink)

Há sérios problemas, contudo, no que concerne à caracterizaçáo da noçáo de sentido fregeano. Por vezes, Frege sugere que o sentido de um nome próprio é dado por uma descriçáo definida associada, cujo conteúdo individua a referência do nome em questáo. Por sua vez, Bertrand Russell rejeita expressamente o sentido fregeano, e, ao mesmo tempo, afirma que nomes próprios comuns revelam-se, quando analisados, como descrições definidas disfarçadas. Essa posiçáo, hoje conhecida como descritivismo , foi atribuída, por Saul Kripke, entre outros, (...) a Frege e Russell, a despeito de suas posturas teóricas diversas. Infelizmente, os paradoxos da referência também sáo espinhosos para as teorias de referência direta. Neste artigo, fazemos um sumário das dificuldades para ambos os lados da disputa e apresentamos uma defesa da interpretaçáo náo-fregeana do sentido de Michael Devitt, a qual evita os problemas do descritivismo mas rejeita a referência direta. Faz-se um uso crucial da teoria histórico-causal, que náo temos razáo para abandonar. (shrink)

_Conjectures and Refutations_ is one of Karl Popper's most wide-ranging and popular works, notable not only for its acute insight into the way scientific knowledge grows, but also for applying those insights to politics and to history. It provides one of the clearest and most accessible statements of the fundamental idea that guided his work: not only our knowledge, but our aims and our standards, grow through an unending process of trial and error.

_Conjectures and Refutations_ is one of Karl Popper's most wide-ranging and popular works, notable not only for its acute insight into the way scientific knowledge grows, but also for applying those insights to politics and to history. It provides one of the clearest and most accessible statements of the fundamental idea that guided his work: not only our knowledge, but our aims and our standards, grow through an unending process of trial and error.

The way in which knowledge progresses, and especially our scientific knowledge, is by unjustified anticipations, by guesses, by tentative solutions to our problems, by conjectures. These conjectures are controlled by criticism: that is, by attempted refutations, which include severely critical tests. They may survive these tests; but they can never be positively justified: they can neither be established as certainly true nor even as 'probable'. Criticism of our conjectures is of decisive importance: by bringing out our mistakes it makes us (...) understand the difficulties of the problems which we try to solve. This is how we become better acquainted with our problem, and able to propose more mature solutions: the very refutation of a theory - that is, of a tentative solution to our problem - is always a step forward that takes us nearer the truth. And this is how we can learn from our mistakes. As we learn from our mistakes our knowledge grows, even though we may never know - that is, know for certain. Since our knowledge can grow, there can be no reason here for despair of reason. And since we can never know for certain, the can be no authority here for any claim to authority, for conceit over our knowledge, or for smugness. The essays and lectures of which this book is composed apply this thesis to many topics, ranging from problems of the philosophy and history of the physical and social sciences to historical and political problems. (shrink)

Marx and Engels's Communist Manifesto has become one of the world’s most influential political tracts since its original 1848 publication. Part of the Rethinking the Western Tradition series, this edition of the Manifesto features an extensive introduction by Jeffrey C. Isaac, and essays by Vladimir Tismaneanu, Steven Lukes, Saskia Sassen, and Stephen Eric Bronner, each well known for their writing on questions central to the Manifesto and the history of Marxism. These essays address the Manifesto's historical background, its impact on (...) the development of twentieth-century Communism, its strengths and weaknesses as a form of ethical critique, and its relevance in the post-1989, post-Cold War world. This edition also includes much ancillary material, including the many Prefaces published in the lifetimes of Marx and Engels, and Engels's "Principles of Communism.". (shrink)

Described by the philosopher A.J. Ayer as a work of 'great originality and power', this book revolutionized contemporary thinking on science and knowledge. Ideas such as the now legendary doctrine of 'falsificationism' electrified the scientific community, influencing even working scientists, as well as post-war philosophy. This astonishing work ranks alongside _The Open Society and Its Enemies_ as one of Popper's most enduring books and contains insights and arguments that demand to be read to this day.

la82 12.00 Normal 0 21 false false false PT-BR X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Tabela normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;} Algumas passagens bastante controversas dos Fundamentos da Metafísica dos Costumes sáo comumente interpretados como se Kant propusesse a tese de que as ações náo podem ter qualquer valor moral quando estiverem acompanhadas de inclinações ( Neigungen ) favoráveis a (...) tais ações. O que resulta dessa interpretaçáo é uma retrato de Kant como um severo defensor de uma moralidade em que sentimentos de compaixáo e assemelhados nada acrescentam ao valor moral de uma açáo, e em vez disso, o solapam. Neste artigo, sustento que tal interpretaçáo náo é apoiada pela evidência textual. Além disso, discuto tentativas feitas por diversos autores no sentido de mostrar que as inclinações favoráveis sáo na verdade compatíveis com a argumentaçáo de Kant nos Fundamentos e defendo uma versáo em particular da tese da compatibilidade. (shrink)

In his 1982 book Wittgenstein On Rules and Private Language, Saul Kripke maintains that Wittgenstein´s rule following considerations land us with a skeptical argument about meaning. This essay contains a short exposition of Kripke´s argument. In addition, I hold, both on textual grounds and by an appeal to some select secondary literature, that Wittgenstein offered no such skeptical argument in the Philosophical Investigations . Although Wittgenstein certainly repudiates a view of meaning based on temporally located mental states, it does not (...) follow that there can be no meaning-grounding facts of other sorts. Although it is true that mental states, viewed atomistically, offer no sure foundation for meaning, I argue that it need not follow, pace Kripke, that no facts about an individual´s past mental life can ever make it clear that he meant ‘plus’ rather than ‘quus’ while performing any addition. For the individual´s past mental life is indeed relevant to meaning when considered in its unfolding in time. The essay further contains explorations on the very nature of the practice of following a rule and ends with a discussion of the solitary rule follower. (shrink)

If one formulates Helmholtz's ideas about perception in terms of modern-day theories one arrives at a model of perceptual inference and learning that can explain a remarkable range of neurobiological facts. Using constructs from statistical physics it can be shown that the problems of inferring what cause our sensory inputs and learning causal regularities in the sensorium can be resolved using exactly the same principles. Furthermore, inference and learning can proceed in a biologically plausible fashion. The ensuing scheme rests on (...) Empirical Bayes and hierarchical models of how sensory information is generated. The use of hierarchical models enables the brain to construct prior expectations in a dynamic and context-sensitive fashion. This scheme provides a principled way to understand many aspects of the brain's organisation and responses. In this paper, we suggest that these perceptual processes are just one emergent property of systems that conform to a free-energy principle. The free-energy considered here represents a bound on the surprise inherent in any exchange with the environment, under expectations encoded by its state or configuration. A system can minimise free-energy by changing its configuration to change the way it samples the environment, or to change its expectations. These changes correspond to action and perception, respectively, and lead to an adaptive exchange with the environment that is characteristic of biological systems. This treatment implies that the system's state and structure encode an implicit and probabilistic model of the environment. We will look at models entailed by the brain and how minimisation of free-energy can explain its dynamics and structure. (shrink)

If one formulates Helmholtz’s ideas about perception in terms of modern-day theories one arrives at a model of perceptual inference and learning that can explain a remarkable range of neurobiological facts. Using constructs from statistical physics it can be shown that the problems of inferring what cause our sensory inputs and learning causal regularities in the sensorium can be resolved using exactly the same principles. Furthermore, inference and learning can proceed in a biologically plausible fashion. The ensuing scheme rests on (...) Empirical Bayes and hierarchical models of how sensory information is generated. The use of hierarchical models enables the brain to construct prior expectations in a dynamic and context-sensitive fashion. This scheme provides a principled way to understand many aspects of the brain’s organisation and responses. In this paper, we suggest that these perceptual processes are just one emergent property of systems that conform to a free-energy principle. The free-energy considered here represents a bound on the surprise inherent in any exchange with the environment, under expectations encoded by its state or configuration. A system can minimise free-energy by changing its configuration to change the way it samples the environment, or to change its expectations. These changes correspond to action and perception, respectively, and lead to an adaptive exchange with the environment that is characteristic of biological systems. This treatment implies that the system’s state and structure encode an implicit and probabilistic model of the environment. We will look at models entailed by the brain and how minimisation of free-energy can explain its dynamics and structure. (shrink)