As a distinctive voice in the current philosophy of technology, postphenomenology elucidates various ways of how technologies “shape” both the world and humans in it. Distancing itself from more speculative approaches, postphenomenology advocates the so-called empirical turn in philosophy of technology: It focuses on diverse effects of particular technologies instead of speculating on the essence of technology and its general impact. Critics of postphenomenology argue that by turning to particularities and emphasizing that technologies are always open to different uses and (...) interpretations, postphenomenology becomes unable to realize how profoundly technology determines our being in the world. Seeking to evaluate the postphenomenological ability to radically reflect on the human being conditioned by technology, I discuss the two most pertinent criticisms of postphenomenology: an “existential” one by Robert C. Scharff and an “ontological” one by Jochem Zwier, Vincent Blok, and Pieter Lemmens. Assessing the ontological alternative, I point to incapacity of Heidegger’s concept of Enframing to do justice to material technologies. Simultaneously, I acknowledge the necessity of speculating on technology as transcending concrete technologies. Such speculating would be instrumental in reviving Ihde’s idea of non-neutrality of technology in its full philosophical potency. (shrink)

The Historical Dictionary of Philosophy, the _Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie,_ is distinguished by its particular presentation of philosophical terms, ideas and concepts. Rather than providing mere defintions or descriptive and analytical explanantions the _HWPh_ strictly applies the critical method of history of concepts developed by the eminent German scholar and philosopher Joachim Ritter. By means of precise and detailed references it documents the origin, first occurrence, the historical evolution and the changes of meaning of each concept, from Ancient Greek (...) to contemporary philosophy. For the reader this presentation is of unique value: it makes traceable the importance of terms and concepts at certain periods or for a particular philosopher, as well as its changes and development of meaning. (shrink)

Ultraviolet radiation is generally considered to have been discovered by Johann Wilhelm Ritter in 1801. In this article, we study the reception of Ritter’s experiment during the first decade after the event—Ritter’s remaining lifetime. Drawing on the attributional model of discovery, we are interested in whether the German physicists and chemists granted Ritter’s observation the status of a discovery and, if so, of what. Two things are remarkable concerning the early reception, and both have to do (...) more with neglect than with reception. Firstly, Ritter’s observation was sometimes accepted as a fact but, with the exception of C. J. B. Karsten’s theory of invisible light, it played almost no role in the lively debate about the nature of heat and light. We argue that it was the prevalent discourse based on the metaphysics of Stoffe that prevented a broader reception of Ritter’s invisible rays, not the fact that Ritter himself made his findings a part of his Naturphilosophie. Secondly, with the exception of C. E. Wünsch’s experiments on the visual spectrum, there was no experimental examination of the experiment. We argue that theorizing about ontological systems was more common than experimenting, because, given its social and institutional situation, this was the appropriate way of contributing to physics. Consequently, it was less clear in 1810 than in 1801 what, if anything, had been discovered by Ritter.Keywords: Johann Wilhelm Ritter; Carl Johann Bernhard Karsten; Christian Ernst Wünsch; Ultraviolet radiation; Conceptions of heat and light. (shrink)

The current debate over aesthetic testimony typically focuses on cases of doxastic repetition — where, when an agent, on receiving aesthetic testimony that p, acquires the belief that p without qualification. I suggest that we broaden the set of cases under consideration. I consider a number of cases of action from testimony, including reconsidering a disliked album based on testimony, and choosing an artistic educational institution from testimony. But this cannot simply be explained by supposing that testimony is usable for (...) action, but unusable for doxastic repetition. I consider a new asymmetry in the usability aesthetic testimony. Consider the following cases: we seem unwilling to accept somebody hanging a painting in their bedroom based merely on testimony, but entirely willing to accept hanging a painting in a museum based merely on testimony. The switch in intuitive acceptability seems to track, in some complicated way, the line between public life and private life. These new cases weigh against a number of standing theories of aesthetic testimony. I suggest that we look further afield, and that something like a sensibility theory, in the style of John McDowell and David Wiggins, will prove to be the best fit for our intuitions for the usability of aesthetic testimony. I propose the following explanation for the new asymmetry: we are willing to accept testimony about whether a work merits being found beautiful; but we are unwilling to accept testimony about whether something actually is beautiful. (shrink)

Metaphysicians speak of laws of nature in terms of necessity and universality; scientists, in terms of symmetry and invariance. In this book van Fraassen argues that no metaphysical account of laws can succeed. He analyzes and rejects the arguments that there are laws of nature, or that we must believe there are, and argues that we should disregard the idea of law as an adequate clue to science. After exploring what this means for general epistemology, the author develops the empiricist (...) view of science as a construction of models to represent the phenomena. (shrink)

The following article is an excerpt from Professor Gerhard Ritter's contribution to a Symposium on the origins and methods of National Socialism. This Symposium, whose publication in English translation is forthcoming, was organised under the auspices of the International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies. The International Council for Philosophy and Humanistic Studies has assured complete freedom of expression to all participants while obviously not endorsing any of the opinions expressed in the Symposium.In presenting the material of this Symposium (...) the publishers wish to make it clear that the opinions expressed are those of the authors themselves and do not represent the policy of Intercultural Publications or the views of its personnel. (shrink)

De Interpretatione is among Aristotle's most influential and widely read writings; C. W. A. Whitaker presents the first systematic study of this work, and offers a radical new view of its aims, its structure, and its place in Aristotle's system. He shows that De Interpretatione is not a disjointed essay on ill-connected subjects, as traditionally thought, but a highly organized and systematic treatise on logic, argument, and dialectic.

In this dialogue Plato shows the pretensions of the leading sophist, Protagoras, challenged by the critical arguments of Socrates. The dialogue broadens out to consider the nature of the good life and the role of intellect and pleasure.

What is empiricism and what could it be? Bas C. van Fraassen, one of the world’s foremost contributors to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, here undertakes a fresh consideration of these questions and offers a program for renewal of the empiricist tradition. The empiricist tradition is not and could not be defined by common doctrines, but embodies a certain stance in philosophy, van Fraassen says. This stance is displayed first of all in a searing, recurrent critique of metaphysics, (...) and second in a focus on experience that requires a voluntarist view of belief and opinion._ _Van Fraassen focuses on the philosophical problems of scientific and conceptual revolutions and on the not unrelated ruptures between religious and secular ways of seeing or conceiving of ourselves. He explores what it is to be or not be secular and points the way toward a new relationship between secularism and science within philosophy. (shrink)

What is empiricism and what could it be? Bas . van Fraassen, one of the world’s foremost contributors to philosophical logic and the philosophy of science, here undertakes a fresh consideration of these questions and offers a program for renewal of the empiricist tradition. The empiricist tradition is not and could not be defined by common doctrines, but embodies a certain stance in philosophy, van Fraassen says. This stance is displayed first of all in a searing, recurrent critique of metaphysics, (...) and secondly in a focus on experience that requires a voluntarist view of belief and opinion. Van Fraassen focuses on the philosophical problems of scientific and conceptual revolutions and on the not unrelated ruptures between religious and secular ways of seeing or conceiving of ourselves. He explores what it is to be or not be secular and points the way toward a new relationship between secularism and science within philosophy. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s Whewell’s Court Lectures contains previously unpublished notes from lectures given by Ludwig Wittgenstein between 1938 and 1941. The volume offers new insight into the development of Wittgenstein’s thought and includes some of the finest examples of Wittgenstein’s lectures in regard to both content and reliability.