This collection of revised and new essays argues that biology is an autonomous science rather than a branch of the physical sciences. Ernst Mayr, widely considered the most eminent evolutionary biologist of the 20th century, offers insights on the history of evolutionary thought, critiques the conditions of philosophy to the science of biology, and comments on several of the major developments in evolutionary theory. Notably, Mayr explains that Darwin's theory of evolution is actually five separate theories, each with its (...) own history, trajectory and impact. Ernst Mayr, commonly referred to as the "Darwin of the 20th century" and listed as one of the top 100 scientists of all-time, is Professor Emeritus at Harvard University. What Makes Biology Unique is the 25th book he has written during his long and prolific career. His recent books include This is Biology: The Science of the Living World (Belknap Press, 1997) and What Evolution Is (Basic Books, 2002). (shrink)

Bloch's The Spirit of Utopia, here presented for the first time in English translation, is one of the great historic books from the beginning of the twentieth-century. A peculiar amalgam of biblical, Marxist, and Expressionist turns, drawing on both Hegel and Schopenhauer for the groundwork of its metaphysics of music, but consistently interpreting the cultural legacy in the light of a certain Marxism, The Spirit of Utopia is a unique attempt to rethink the history of Western civilizations as a process (...) of revolutionary disruptions and to reread the artworks, religions, and philosophies of this tradition as incentives to continue disrupting. The first part concerns a mode of 'self-encounter' which presents itself in the history of music from Mozart through Mahler as an encounter with the problem of a community to come. The second part is entitled 'Karl Marx, Death and the Apocalypse'. (shrink)

The ability to recognise others’ emotions from nonverbal cues is measured with performance-based tests and has many positive correlates. Although researchers have...

Ernst Cassirer occupies a unique space in Twentieth-century philosophy. A great liberal humanist, his multi-faceted work spans the history of philosophy, the philosophy of science, intellectual history, aesthetics, epistemology, the study of language and myth, and more. Cassirer's thought also anticipates the renewed interest in the origins of analytic and continental philosophy in the Twentieth Century and the divergent paths taken by the 'logicist' and existential traditions, epitomised by his now legendary debate in 1929 with the philosopher Martin Heidegger, (...) over the question "What is the Human Being?" The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is Cassirer's most important work. It was first published in German in 1923, the third and final volume appearing in 1929. In it Cassirer presents a radical new philosophical worldview - at once rich, creative and controversial - of human beings as fundamentally "symbolic animals," placing signs and systems of expression between themselves and the world. This major new translation of all three volumes, the first for over fifty years, brings Cassirer's magnum opus to a new generation of students and scholars. Taken together, the three volumes of The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms are a vital treatise on human beings as symbolic animals and a monumental expression of neo-Kantian thought. Correcting important errors in previous English editions, this translation reflects the contributions of significant advances in Cassirer scholarship over the last twenty to thirty years. Each volume includes a new introduction and translator's notes by S. G. Lofts, a foreword by Peter Gordon, a glossary of key terms, and a thorough index. (shrink)

In this book the author analyzes the work of physicists, mathematicians, biologists, historians, and philosophers in order to discover the principles that underlie their various ways of knowing and in terms of which they describe the ...

While visiting a friend's family in Cornwall during the traditional May Day celebrations, eighteen-year-old Laura becomes involved in an old family mystery concerning the disappearance of ancient heirlooms.

Wer hat sich nicht schon gefragt, was es mit unseren moralischen Überzeugungen auf sich hat: Spiegeln diese die Wahrheit in Sachen Moral wieder? Gibt es eine solche Wahrheit überhaupt? Oder sind moralische Überzeugungen eher das Produkt unserer Interessen und Neigungen, Ausdruck unserer Wünsche oder Mittel der Machtausübung, das bloße Ergebnis unserer Erziehung, unseres sozialen Umfelds oder gar eine List der Evolution? Ist es eine Illusion, wenn man glaubt, echte moralische Erkenntnisse gewinnen zu können? Kurzum: Kann die Moral Objektivität beanspruchen? Die (...) vorliegende Arbeit versucht, eine Antwort auf diese zentrale Frage der Metaethik zu geben. Dazu wird zunächst gezeigt, dass uns der Status der Moral ein Rätsel ist, weil wir dazu neigen, drei Thesen für wahr zu halten, die nicht zugleich wahr sein können. Die drei prinzipiell möglichen Strategien zur Auflösung dieses Trilemmas geraten jedoch in Schwierigkeiten, weil es bisher nicht gelungen ist, ein passendes Vergleichsobjekt für die Moral zu finden. In dieser Arbeit wird dafür argumentiert, dass die Moral in genau der gleichen Weise wie die Wissenschaft Objektivität beanspruchen kann. (shrink)

Significant criticisms have been raised regarding the ethical and psychological basis of living wills. Various solutions to address these criticisms have been advanced, such as the use of surrogate decision makers alone or data science‐driven algorithms. These proposals share a fundamental weakness: they focus on resolving the problems of living wills, and, in the process, lose sight of the underlying ethical principle of advance care planning, autonomy. By suggesting that the same sweeping solutions, without opportunities for choice, be applied to (...) all, individual patients are treated as population‐level groups—as a theoretical patient who represents a population, not the specific patient crafting his or her individualized future care plans. Instead, advance care planning can be improved through a multimodal approach that both mitigates cognitive biases and allows for customization of the decision‐making process by allowing for the incorporation of a variety of methods of advance care planning. (shrink)

Die erste systematische Schrift, die Ernst Cassirer veröffentlicht hat, ist das Buch »Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff« von 1910, in dem er sich mit dem Problem der mathematischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung auseinandersetzt. Als »Faktum« legte er den damaligen Stand der Wissenschaft zugrunde, der das klassische System der Physik noch als unbestritten galt. Mit den Fortschritten der Wissenschaften, in diesem Fall der Entwicklung der theoretischen Physik, muss die Erkenntniskritik Schritt halten. Und so drängten sich im Laufe der Zeit neue Fragen auf, die (...) der philosophischen Behandlung bedurften. Aus dieser Motivation heraus veröffentlichte Cassirer 1920 die Schrift »Zur Einsteinschen Relativitätstheorie« (ECW Bd. 10), in der er sich mit der Um- und Neubildung der modernen Physik durch die allgemeine und spezielle Relativitätstheorie beschäftigt. Um dem philosophischen Ideal der methodischen Analyse und erkenntniskritischen Grundlegung gerecht zu werden, ergab sich jedoch die Notwendigkeit, auch die Auswirkungen der Quantentheorie in die Reflexion mit einzubeziehen. Den historischen Ursachen und systematischen Gründen der Sprengkraft, die die Quantentheorie auf dem ganzen Gebiet der Physik entwickelte, geht Cassirer in der Schrift »Determinismus und Indeterminismus in der modernen Physik« nach, die er 1936 abschließt. (shrink)

concepts like numbers or time are thought to be represented in the more concrete domain of space and the sensorimotor system. For example, thinking of past or future events has a physical manifestation in backward or forward body sway, respectively. In the present study, we investigated the reverse effect: can passive whole-body motion influence the processing of temporal information? Participants were asked to categorize verbal stimuli to the concepts future or past while they were displaced forward and backward , or (...) upward and downward . The results showed that future related verbal stimuli were categorized faster during forward as compared to backward motion. This finding supports the view that temporal events are represented along a mental time line and that the sensorimotor system is linked to that representation. We showed that body motion is not just an epiphenomenon of temporal thoughts. Passive whole-body motion can influence higher-order temporal cognition. (shrink)

Als ich meine Schrift "Zur Einsteinschen Relativitätstheorie" veröffentlichte, fanden sich viele Kritiker, die mir in den Schlußfolgerungen, die ich aus der Entwicklung der neuen Physik gezogen hatte, zwar zustimmten, die aber an diese Zustimmung die Frage knüpften, ob ich, als "Neu-Kantianer", derartige Folgerungen hätte ziehen dürfen. Die vorliegende Schrift ["Determinismus und Indeterminismus in der modernen Physik"] wird vielleicht in noch weit höherem Grade solchen Fragen und Zweifeln ausgesetzt sein. Aber ich glaube, daß derartige Einwände das Wesen und die historische Tendenz (...) des "Neukantianismus", wie er von den Begründern der "Marburger Schule", von Hermann Cohen und Paul Natorp verstanden worden ist, verkennen. Natorp hat in einem Aufsatz "Kant und die Marburger Schule" ausdrücklich erklärt, daß es niemals die Meinung der "Marburger Schule" gewesen sei, an den Lehrsätzen Kants unbedingt festhalten zu sollen oder zu wollen. "Die Rede von einem orthodoxen Kantianismus"- so betont er - "war niemals begründet; sie hat mit der Weiterentwicklung der Schule auch jeden fernsten Schein von Berechtigung verloren" [Auszug aus dem Buch]. (shrink)

1.t. Die Sprache. --2.t. Das mythische Denken. --3.t. Phänomenologie der Erkenntnis.

Published just after the Second World War, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages is a sweeping exploration of the remarkable continuity of European literature across time and place, from the classical era up to the early nineteenth century, and from the Italian peninsula to the British Isles. In what T. S. Eliot called a "magnificent" book, Ernst Robert Curtius establishes medieval Latin literature as the vital transition between the literature of antiquity and the vernacular literatures of later centuries. (...) The result is nothing less than a masterful synthesis of European literature from Homer to Goethe. European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages is a monumental work of literary scholarship. In a new introduction, Colin Burrow provides critical insights into Curtius's life and ideas and highlights the distinctive importance of this wonderful book. (shrink)

An 'Essay on man' is an original synthesis of contemporary knowledge, a unique interpretation of the intellectual crisis of our time, and a brilliant vindication of manís ability to resolve human problems by the courageous use of his mind.

Ernst Cassirer occupies a unique space in Twentieth-century philosophy. A great liberal humanist, his multi-faceted work spans the history of philosophy, the philosophy of science, intellectual history, aesthetics, epistemology, the study of language and myth, and more. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms is Cassirer's most important work. It was first published in German in 1923, the third and final volume appearing in 1929. In it Cassirer presents a radical new philosophical worldview - at once rich, creative and controversial - (...) of human beings as fundamentally "symbolic animals," placing signs and systems of expression between themselves and the world. This major new translation, the first for over fifty years, brings Cassirer's magnum opus to a new generation of students and scholars. Volume 1: Language is a fascinating examination of arguably the most fundamental of these systems of expression: human language. Cassirer traces the problem of language and expression far back in the history of philosophy, considering the work of the early Greek rationalists. He then examines the later empiricist tradition, up to the romantic tradition in the nineteenth century tackling fundamental questions about representation, signification and expression as well as language and conceptual thought in mathematics and science. Correcting important errors in previous English editions, this translation reflects the contributions of significant advances in Cassirer scholarship over the last twenty to thirty years. Each volume includes a new introduction and translator's notes by S. G. Lofts, a foreword by Peter Gordon, a glossary of key terms, and a thorough index. (shrink)

Text: Reproduktion der 2. Ausgabe Berlin 1924. - Eine gänzlich andere, eine fundamental neue Form der Beziehung des Besonderen aufs Allgemeine waltet in Goethes Naturbetrachtung, die von dem Urphänomen des Lebens ihren Ausgang nimmt. Darin zwar stimmt diese Betrachtung mit der wissenschaftlichen Physik überein, dass auch in ihr der Wert und die Kraft des Allgemeinen rückhaltlos anerkannt wird. Das Vergängliche, das zeitlich Wandelbare und Verfließende wird zum Gleichnis. Die morphologische Erkenntnis der Gestalten und des Gestaltenwandels, wie Goethe sie versteht, geht (...) niemals im Sinnlich-Einzelnen oder in einem Analogon des Sinnlich-Einzelnen auf. [Auszug aus dem Buch]. (shrink)

In this contribution, an overview of the distinct ways in which the interplay between knowledge, values, and beliefs took shape in the South African context since 1948 is offered. This is framed against the background of the paleontological significance of South Africa and an appreciation of indigenous knowledge systems, but also of the ideological distortion of knowledge and education during the apartheid era through the legacy of neo-Calvinism. The overview includes references to discourse on human rationality, on the use of (...) social sciences in theological reflection, on the teaching of evolution in public schools, on science and religion, and on religion and ecology. The essay concludes with a survey of some of the major voices regarding the interface between religion and science in South Africa. (shrink)

A great contemporary German philosopher attacks the explosive problem of political myth in our day, and reveals how the myth of the state evolved from primitive times to prepare the way for the rise of the modern totalitarian state. "A brilliant survey of some of the major texts in the history of political theory."—Kenneth Burke, _The Nation._.

Die Cassirer-Forschungen erscheinen parallel zu den Editionen der Werke und des Nachlasses Ernst Cassirers. Sie sind ein Forum für die Vorstellung und Diskussion von Arbeiten, die sich entweder unmittelbar auf das Werk Cassirers beziehen oder sich mit Themen beschäftigen, die von ihm in einer spezifischen Weise formuliert und angeregt worden sind.

“Art is necessary in order that man should be able to recognize and change the world. But art is also necessary by virtue of the magic inherent in it.”—Ernst Fischer Reissued with an introduction by John Berger, The Necessity of Art is a beautifully written meditation on art’s importance in viewing the world in which we live. In this wide-ranging and erudite exploration of literary and fine art, Fischer looks at the relationship between the creative imagination and social reality, (...) arguing that truthful art must both reflect existence in all its flaws and imperfections, and help show how change and improvement might be brought about. With his emphasis on the individual’s need to engage with society, his rejection of rampant consumerism and hypertechnology, and his indomitable optimism, this radical, affirmative and humane vision of the artistic endeavor remains as timely today as when it was first published sixty years ago. (shrink)

Our paper offers a contribution to the growing literature on the sociology of innovation rather than the still dominant economic theory of innovation. We suggest that innovation first and foremost represents a process of cognitive displacement whereby existing metaphorical frameworks are reconstituted to account for new phenomena in a process that changes both the metaphor’s and the new phenomenon’s compositions. We suggest that integral to this process is knowledgeability, or a bundle of social and cognitive competencies that emerge as one (...) of the main prerequisites for innovative thinking. We conclude by examining the most important social and cognitive competencies that structure the possibilities for invention and innovation in the contemporary knowledge economy. (shrink)

Translated by James Gutmann, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and John Herman Randall, Jr. Originally published in 1945. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of (...) books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)