Ein anschauliches Porträt des jüdischen Religionsphilosophen - Eine prägnante Darstellung des facettenreichen Lebens und Wirkens Martins Bubers Gerhard Wehr legt hier eine umfassende Darstellung von Leben, Werk und Wirkung Martin Bubers vor. Darin beschreibt er nicht nur den großen Religionsphilosophen und genialen Bibelübersetzer, sondern auch den Anthropologen, der das dialogische Prinzip formulierte, den Vermittler der chassidischen Botschaft, dessen jüdischer Humanismus zwischen Ost und West zu vermitteln suchte und als konkrete Utopie auch für eine israelisch-arabische Völkerverständigung gemeint war. Eine differenzierte Darstellung (...) des jüdischen Religionsphilosophen und zugleich ein anschauliches Stück deutscher und jüdischer Geistesgeschichte. (shrink)

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) (151 E-152C); as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils (152C-160D). Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken. (shrink)

Both patched versions of the Bostrom/Kulczycki simulation argument contain serious objective errors, discovered while attempting to formalize them in predicate logic. The English glosses of both versions involve badly misleading meanings of vague magnitude terms, which their impressiveness benefits from. We fix the errors, prove optimal versions of the arguments, and argue that both are much less impressive than they originally appeared. Finally, we provide a guide for readers to evaluate the simulation argument for themselves, using well-justified settings of the (...) argument parameters that have simple, accurate statements in English, which are easier to understand and critique than the statements in the original paper. (shrink)

In this paper I want to do the following things. First I want to show that in the part of the Theaetetus where the relationship between knowledge and perception is examined, the concept of knowledge that is in question is very clearly characterized. We are left in no doubt as to what is to count as knowing. Secondly I want to unravel in some detail the case that Socrates puts on Protagoras’ behalf where he draws on what Protagoras actually wrote (...) ; as opposed to what he may have taught secretly to his pupils. Thirdly I wish to argue that if we let the dialogue speak for itself, it is manifest that this case put up on Protagoras’ behalf at 151 E-152C is not overthrown; it is not even shaken.In that part of the dialogue where the question is under examination whether or not knowledge and perception are the same, Socrates uses an idealized concept of knowledge. That is, he restricts the use of the word by setting down what he will consider to be the essential characteristics of knowledge, the sufficient and necessary conditions of its being instantiated. An excellent piece of philosophical procedure. (shrink)

Because anticipated and retrospective regret play important roles in practical deliberation and motivation, better understanding them can illuminate the contours of human agency. However, the possibility of self-ignorance and the fact that we change over time can make regret—especially anticipatory regret—not only a poor predictor of where the agent will be in the future but also an unreliable indicator of where the agent stands. Granting these, this paper examines the way in which prospective and, particularly, retrospective regret can nevertheless yield (...) important insight into the sorts of creatures we are, both generally and individually. The experience of retrospective regret can show a person she values something in a way she did not know or that she is (or was) a different person than she had thought, insights which can factor into forward-looking, or prospective, deliberation. Such instances of revelatory regret reveal something to the agent about herself as agent. I examine two cases of agential self-ignorance. In the first, the experience of regret reveals what the agent values, not only to others but even to the agent himself. In the second, the agent anticipates experiencing regret for an action but does not experience the regret, suggesting that the agent did not value the rejected alternative in the way she thought. Anticipatory regret is forward-looking and can play an important role in practical deliberation. But insofar as anticipatory regret flows from one’s imperfect judgment and prospection about oneself, retrospective regret can be an important corrective in helping the agent understand her own standpoint. (shrink)

[Heft 1] Dikaiarchos.--[Heft 2] Aristoxenos.--[Heft 3] Klearchos.--[Heft 4] Demetrios von Phaleron.--[Heft 5] Straton von Lampsakos.--[Heft 6] Lykon und Ariston von Keos.--[Heft 7] Herakleides Pontikos.--[Heft 8] Eudemos von Rhodos.--[Heft 9] Phainias von Eresos. Chamaileon. Praxiphanes.--[Heft 10] Hieronymos von Rhodos.

We investigate whether ordinary quantification over objects is an extensional phenomenon, or rather creates non-extensional contexts; each claim having been propounded by prominent philosophers. It turns out that the question only makes sense relative to a background theory of syntax and semantics (here called a grammar) that goes well beyond the inductive definition of formulas and the recursive definition of satisfaction. Two schemas for building quantificational grammars are developed, one that invariably constructs extensional grammars (in which quantification, in particular, thus (...) behaves extensionally) and another that only generates non-extensional grammars (and in which quantification is responsible for the failure of extensionality). We then ask whether there are reasons to favor one of these grammar schemas over the other, and examine an argument according to which the proper formalization of deictic utterances requires adoption of non-extensional grammars. (shrink)

My discussion addresses the differences between analytic and continental philosophy concerning the use of logic and exact reasoning in philosophical practice. These differences are mainly examined in the light of the controversial dominance of Hegel's concept of logic (and theory of concept) in twentieth-century continental philosophy. The inquiry is developed in two parts. In the first (Sections 1-2), I indicate some aspects of the analytic-continental divide, pointing to the role that the topic 'logic and philosophy' plays in it. In the (...) second part (Sections 3-6), I give a short account of the views of logic which are typical of the three main trends of continental philosophy (see Table 1). I also suggest how, with the aid of some typical analytical devices, some continental 'anti-logical' attitudes may be corrected, on their own terms. (shrink)

This study blends together ethical philosophy, neurocognitive-evolutionary studies, and literary theory to explore how imaginative discourse addresses a distinctively human deep sociality, and by doing so helps shape cultural and literary history. Deep sociality, arising from an improbable evolutionary history, both entwines and leaves non-reconciled what is felt to be significant for us and what ethical sense seems to call us to acknowledge as significant, independent of ourselves. Ethical Sense and Literary Significance connects literary and cultural history without reducing the (...) literary to a mere expression of something else. It argues that affective differences between non-egocentric and egocentric registers of significance are integral to the bioculturally evolved deep sociality that verbal art addresses-often in unsettling and socially critical ways. Much imaginative discourse, in early societies as well as recent ones, brings ethical sense and literary significance together in ways that reveal their intricate but non-harmonized internal entwinement. Drawing on contemporary scholarship in the humanities and sciences, Donald R. Wehrs explores the implications of interdisciplinary approaches to topics central to a wide range of fields beyond literary studies, including neuroscience, anthropology, phenomenological philosophy, comparative history, and social psychology. (shrink)

Levinas and Twentieth-Century Literature considers how the work of the century’s most original ethical thinker may reshape understandings of modernism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, feminism, gender studies, and globalism. Tracing how modernist technique and anti-totalizing ethics enter into relations that, by the turn of the twenty-first century, not only revitalize diverse national literatures but also produce post-national, migrant, or hybrid literatures, the collection illuminates the ethical within literature while disclosing the literary contexts of Levinasian ethics.

Hermes on Two Wheels shows the dynamic world of the bicycle messenger through a sociological lens, based on a five-year participant observation study. Beginning with the experiences of messengers themselves and moving to describe the structural settings of those experiences, the research shows how messengers work within a political-economic system that devalues semi-skilled labor and strips people of emotional fulfillment. The voluntary risk-taking of messengers becomes a means of achieving such emotional fulfillment as well as making a living, while their (...) stylistic expressions pay dividends in cultural scrip rather than money. Through their work, messengers help to reproduce and maintain the structures of society while also constructing a vibrant, rebellious, politicized subculture that has come to represent the new urban hipster, an image continually under threat of co-optation. (shrink)

The third section considers the relevance of Levinas's work for reassessments of the realist novel through essays on Austen, Dickens, and George Eliot.