HJ EIKMEYER AND H. RIESER Word Semantics from Different Points of View. An Introduction to the Present Volume /. Possible Worlds Possible worlds have turned ...

In this philosophically sophisticated and historically significant work, John H. Zammito reconstructs Kant's composition of The Critique of Judgment and reveals that it underwent three major transformations before publication. He shows that Kant not only made his "cognitive" turn, expanding the project from a "Critique of Taste" to a Critique of Judgment but he also made an "ethical" turn. This "ethical" turn was provoked by controversies in German philosophical and religious culture, in particular the writings of Johann Herder and the (...) Sturm und Drang movement in art and science, as well as the related pantheism controversy. Such topicality made the Third Critique pivotal in creating a "Kantian" movement in the 1790s, leading directly to German Idealism and Romanticism. The austerity and grandeur of Kant's philosophical writings sometimes make it hard to recognize them as the products of a historical individual situated in the particular constellation of his time and society. Here Kant emerges as a concrete historical figure struggling to preserve the achievements of cosmopolitan Aufkl-rung against challenges in natural science, religion, and politics in the late 1780s. More specifically Zammito suggests that Kant's Third Critique was animated throughout by a fierce personal rivalry with Herder and by a strong commitment to traditional Christian ideas of God and human moral freedom. "A work of extraordinary erudition. Zammito's study is both comprehensive and novel, connecting Kant's work with the aesthetic and religious controversies of the late eighteenth century. He seems to have read everything. I know of no comparable historical study of Kant's Third Critique."-Arnulf Zweig, translator and editor of Kant's ;IPhilosophical Correspondence, 1759-1799;X "An intricate, subtle, and exciting explanation of how Kant's thinking developed and adjusted to new challenges over the decade from the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason to the appearance of the Critique of Judgment. "--John W. Burbidge, Review of Metaphysics "There has been for a long time a serious gap in English commentary on Kant's Critique of Judgment Zammito's book finally fills it. All students and scholars of Kant will want to consult it."--Frederick Beiser, Times Literary Supplement. (shrink)

Introduction: Platonic dramatology -- The political and philosophical problems. Using pre-Socratic philosophy to support political reform: the Athenian stranger ; Plato's Parmenides: Parmenides' critique of Socrates and Plato's critique of Parmenides ; Becoming Socrates ; Socrates interrogates his contemporaries about the noble and good -- Paradigms of philosophy. Socrates' positive teaching ; Timaeus-Critias: completing or challenging Socratic political philosophy? ; Socratic practice -- The trial and death of Socrates. The limits of human intelligence ; The Eleatic challenge ; The trial (...) and death of Socrates -- Conclusion: Why Plato made Socrates his hero. (shrink)

In 'Een handvol filosofen' staan de filosofen centraal die sinds de oprichting van de Vrije Universiteit in 1880 aan deze instelling verbonden zijn geweest. Het gaat hierbij niet alleen om de inhoud van hun werk, maar ook om de personen zelf. Er waren filosofiedocenten die zich met de universiteit identificeerden en zich volledig konden ontplooien. Er waren er echter ook voor wie dit niet gold, die geïsoleerd of in gewetensnood raakten. Veel filosofiestudenten waren actief betrokken bij wat er in hun (...) faculteit gebeurde. Zij namen initiatieven, protesteerden soms tegen de gang van zaken en kozen partij in conflictsituaties. Sinds het eind van de jaren zestig van de twintigste eeuw verloor de Vrije Universiteit geleidelijk haar christelijk karakter. Tegenwoordig werken alle stafleden vanuit hun eigen motivatie mee aan een hoofdzakelijk seculier geworden universiteit, die ruimte biedt voor religieuze en levensbeschouwelijke diversiteit. (shrink)

Many people are worried about the harmful effects of climate change but nevertheless enjoy some activities that contribute to the emission of greenhouse gas (driving, flying, eating meat, etc.), the main cause of climate change. How should such people make choices between engaging in and refraining from enjoyable greenhouse-gas-emitting activities? In this chapter, we look at the answer provided by decision theory. Some scholars think that the right answer is given by interactive decision theory, or game theory; and moreover think (...) that since private climate decisions are instances of the prisoner’s dilemma, one rationally should engage in these activities provided that one enjoys them. Others think that the right answer is given by expected utility theory, the best-known version of individual decision theory under risk and uncertainty. In this chapter, we review these different answers, with a special focus on the latter answer and the debate it has generated. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:142 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Das literarische und kiinstlerische Werk. By Rudolf Steiner. Eine bibliographische Uebersicht, 1961. (Dornaeh: 1961. Pp. 277.) This is a complete list of the writings, lectures, and artistic creations of the founder of Anthroposophy, Dr. Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). It is, in addition, a description of the Temple of Anthroposophy, the "Goetheanum" in Dornach built after the ideas of Steiner, of his "mystery-plays," of his ideas on (...) "eurhythmy," of his designs of furnishings for the "Goetheanum," of his sculptural suggestions, etc. Thus, the booklet encompasses the whole life-work of Steiner and was published in 1961 at the 100th anniversary of his birth. It is prefaced by a biographical sketch based on Steiner's "Autobiography." Rudolf Steiner was the son of a railway employer from Lower Austria. He studied first in technical high schools (Realschule) in the neighborhood of the Austrian capital and then in the Technical University of u In the high school, he was already most impressed by the study of geometry and arithmetic because they seemed to show that there is an independent realm of thought not connected with the world of senses. This conviction led him to a lifelong search for a spiritual world beyond and above the visible world. While this impulse was rather scientific than religious, it led him also into the theosophical movement, then headed by Mrs. Annie Besant in London. But this connection was broken when Mrs. Besant wanted to appoint a young Hindu to be a reincarnation of Christ. This was unacceptable to Steiner and he founded the independent anthroposophical movement in Germany where he spent most of his life writing, teaching, and lecturing. His first writings were commentaries to the work~ of Goethe oa natural sciences. Goethe thus became the "heros eponymus" of Anthroposophy. In 1913, Steiner started to build the Temple of Anthroposophy at Dornaeh (Switzerland) which he called "Goetheanum." This temple, the details of the structure, its style, its furniture were supposed to be symbolical of.the ideas contained in Anthroposophy. In a cycle of lectures entitled "What was the purpose of the Goetheanum?" and "What is the purpose of Anthroposophy?" he states that this aim was the "exaltation of the human cognitive power into imagination, inspiration, and intuition." The results of this exaltation were a somewhat complicated and phantastic mysticism. The Goetheanum, which, for symbolical reasons, was built of wood, burned to the ground in 1922. Starting in 1924, it was replaced by a building in concrete. Steiner did not live to see the reconstructed Temple because he died in 1925. Steiner tried to invent new forms of art in his Goetheanum, new forms of dramatic poetry in his mystery-plays, and new forms of a spiritualized symbolic dance in his "eurhythmy." His life-work is prodigious. Apart from his writings he gave some 6,000 lectures. MAx RIESER New York City Gegenw~rtiges und Vergangenes im Menschengeiste. By Rudolf Steiner. (Dornach: 1962. Pp. 308.) This is a new printing in the framework of the Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner of twelve lectures given during World War I in Berlin in 1916. These lectures are historically interesting since they refer to contemporary publications in Germany and Austria, but they also offer in nuce the main elements of "Anthroposophy" in the form of an anthroposophical anthropology and also of an anthroposophical philosophy of cosmic and human history. The whole is based on the assumption of the existence of a spiritual world paralleling the physical world. This anthropology is aimed at the refutation of the materialistic conceptions based on the natural sciences of that time. Steiner thinks that a man built according to the ideas of the natural sciences would not be a living being but a sort of "homunculus," i.e., an automaton. Apart from the physical body, man has an "ethereal body," an "astral body," and an "Ego." These three entities do not die a physical death. In addition they represent the world of animals, of plants, and of minerals, respectively, incorporated in man. There are also different epochs of human development in which the relationship of the spiritual parts of the human being were not related to each other in the same... (shrink)