George Molnar came to see that the solution to a number of the problems of contemporary philosophy lay in the development of an alternative to Hume's metaphysics. This alternative would have real causal powers at its centre. Molnar set about developing a thorough account of powers that might persuade those who remained, perhaps unknowingly, in the grip of Humean assumptions. He succeeded in producing something both highly focused and at the same time wide-ranging. He showed both that (...) the notion of a power was central and that it could serve to dispel a number of long-standing philosophical problems.Molnar's account of powers is as realist as any that has so far appeared. He shows that dispositions are as real as any other properties. Specifically, they do not depend for their existence on their manifestations. Nevertheless, they are directed towards such manifestations. Molnar thus appropriates the notion of intentionality, from Brentano, and argues that it is the essential characteristic of powers. He offers a persuasive case for there being some basic and ungrounded powers, thus ruling out the reducibility of the dispositional to the non-dispositional. However, he does allow that there are non-power properties as well as power properties. In this respect, his final position is dualistic.This is contemporary metaphysics of the highest quality. It is a work that was almost complete when its author died. It has been edited for publication by another specialist in the subject, Stephen Mumford, who has also provided an introduction that will allow non-specialists to become acquainted with the issues. David Armstrong, one of the greatest living metaphysicians and personal friend of George Molnar, has provided a Foreword. (shrink)

This chapter gives a broad description of the nature of properties and explains the foundations of metaphysics. It provides general statements about properties and how they describe parts of a metaphysical environment. These properties are used to develop the theory of causal powers. The chapter also attempts to address the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ of nominalism and realism, including selective realism and its properties. The chapter also introduces conceptual distinctions such as derivative-basic, first-order-higher-order, simple-complex, essential-necessary-accidental, extrinsic-intrinsic, and transferable-non-transferrable. Secondary definitions are (...) also given. (shrink)

This introductory chapter discusses the purposes for the creation of this book and briefly tells about the nature of metaphysics and the questions it tries to answer. It sheds light on the debate to which the late George Molnar was contributing and trying to answer, and shows in detail the background to the works of Molnar and Powers. The chapter also gives an account of the most controversial claims of the book. Lastly, the chapter explains the history (...) of the unfinished manuscript and indicates the principles used to reach its current state. (shrink)

Sydney Shoemaker’s causal theory of properties is an important starting place for some contemporary metaphysical perspectives concerning the nature of properties. In this paper, I discuss the causal and intrinsic criteria that Shoemaker stipulates for the identity of genuine properties and relations, and address George Molnar’s criticism that holding both criteria presents an unbridgeable hypothesis in the causal theory of properties. The causal criterion requires that properties and relations contribute to the causal powers of objects if they are (...) to be deemed genuine rather than ‘mere-Cambridge’. The intrinsic criterion requires that all genuine properties and relations be intrinsic. Molnar’s S-property argument says that these criteria conflict if one considers extrinsic spatiotemporal properties and relations to contribute causally. In this paper, I argue that a solution to the contradiction that Molnar identifies involves a denial of discreteness between objects, leading to a power holist perspective and a resulting deflationary account of intrinsicality. (shrink)

U clanku autori se bave militantnim potencijalom koncepta avangarde. Pojavljujuci se u politici i umetnosti u prvoj polovini 19. veka i nastojeci da unisti gotovo celokupnu tradiciju 'burzoaskog' prosvetiteljstva, politicka i umetnicka avangarda nikada nije bila sposobna da se oslobodi svojih korena u vojnickom nacinu razmisljanja. Njena prava sustina je lezala u stvaranju bojnih polja u svakoj oblasti javnog zivota gde je postojala sansa da se unisti gradjansko drustvo - njegova politika, njegova umetnost, njegov nacin razmisljanja, njegova civilizacija. U ime (...) jos necuvene slobode, ona je sirila nasilje i sejala totalitarino seme po sprzenoj zemlji. A na kraju je nisu pobedili njeni mnogobrojni neprijatelji zato jer je postala zrtva vlastite destruktivnosti. (shrink)

U clanku autori se bave militantnim potencijalom koncepta avangarde. Pojavljujuci se u politici i umetnosti u prvoj polovini 19. veka i nastojeci da unisti gotovo celokupnu tradiciju 'burzoaskog' prosvetiteljstva, politicka i umetnicka avangarda nikada nije bila sposobna da se oslobodi svojih korena u vojnickom nacinu razmisljanja. Njena prava sustina je lezala u stvaranju bojnih polja u svakoj oblasti javnog zivota gde je postojala sansa da se unisti gradjansko drustvo - njegova politika, njegova umetnost, njegov nacin razmisljanja, njegova civilizacija. U ime (...) jos necuvene slobode, ona je sirila nasilje i sejala totalitarino seme po sprzenoj zemlji. A na kraju je nisu pobedili njeni mnogobrojni neprijatelji zato jer je postala zrtva vlastite destruktivnosti. (shrink)

U clanku autori ispituju tri pozicije u estetickoj raspravi o uzvisenom koja se vodila u 18. veku - Edmunda Berka, Imanuela Kanta i Fridriha Silera. Oni takodje pokusavaju da rekonstruisu politicku pozadinu svake od ovih teorijskih pozicija: starorezimski konzervativizam, republikanski liberalizam i romanticarsku zudnju za 'trecim putem'. Najsofisticiraniju i najzreliju teoriju uzvisenog pronalaze u Silerovim estetickim delima, pogotovo u onima koja su usledila nakon njegovog razocarenja u Francusku revoluciju i u kojima su najtemeljnije razmatrani odnosi izmedju uzvisenog i paradoksa istorijskog (...) nasilja. (shrink)

In this article the authors are reconstructing the dichotomies which the young Theodor Adorno was trying to detect in the music of the bourgeois epoch and personify in two antipodes - Franz Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven. Although already a devotee of Arnold Sch?nberg and the 20th century music avantgardism, Adorno was, in his works prior to his exile from Germany, intensively dealing with Schubert and his opposition towards Beethoven. While Beethoven was a bold and progressive revolutionary, fascinated by the?practical (...) reason? and the mission to rise up and reach the stars, Schubert wanted none of it. Instead, he was looking backwards, to primordial nature and the possibility of man to participate in its mythic cycles of death and regeneration. The lack of synthesis between this two opposing tendencies in the music of early bourgeois epoch lead to the?negative dialectics? of Sch?nberg and 20th century music avantgardism and to the final separation of Beethovenian musical progress and Schubertian musical mimesis. (shrink)

Autorka u clanku rekonstruise kompleksnu sliku Franca Suberta koju je stvorio Teodor Adorno u nekoliko osvrta na ovog kompozitora, a najvise u clanku?Subert? iz 1928. Adorno je te, 1928. godine doziveo Suberta kao tragicnog kompozitora cija muzika obitava u oblasti htonskih bogova, a da ipak otkriva radost?putujuceg naroda, opsenara i cudotvoraca?. Ipak, nije objasnio kako ova radost moze da prezivi u paklenim pejsazima Subertove htonske muzike. Tek kasnije Adorno je bio spreman da u Subertu prepozna, zahvaljujuci njegovom?habitusu?, i kafanskog sviraca, (...) ne pominjuci vise?putujuci narod, opsenare i cudotvorce?. Te dve predstave Suberta-Subert kao osluskivac htonskih bogova i Subert kao kafanski svirac-pokazale su se kao zanimljiv par vredan dalje teorijske elaboracije koju Adorno, nazalost, nikada nije sproveo. PR Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177019: Identiteti srpske muzike u svetskom kulturnom kontekstu. (shrink)

In this article the authors are reconstructing the dichotomies which the young Theodor Adorno was trying to detect in the music of the bourgeois epoch and personify in two antipodes - Franz Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven. Although already a devotee of Arnold Sch?nberg and the 20th century music avantgardism, Adorno was, in his works prior to his exile from Germany, intensively dealing with Schubert and his opposition towards Beethoven. While Beethoven was a bold and progressive revolutionary, fascinated by the?practical (...) reason? and the mission to rise up and reach the stars, Schubert wanted none of it. Instead, he was looking backwards, to primordial nature and the possibility of man to participate in its mythic cycles of death and regeneration. The lack of synthesis between this two opposing tendencies in the music of early bourgeois epoch lead to the?negative dialectics? of Sch?nberg and 20th century music avantgardism and to the final separation of Beethovenian musical progress and Schubertian musical mimesis. (shrink)

Today there is a great deal of discussion about human rights. We speak of them in reference to totalitarian regimes but also in reference to Western democracies, which is a sign, it seems, of a reconsideration of the legitimacy of the power of the State and the conception of law on which this legitimacy rests. However, we had thought this question had been settled for a long time, at least in democratic countries: a legitimate government is one elected by the (...) people, whose sovereign will it expresses through elected representatives, retained or replaced periodically, who make the laws. In other words, the people are sovereign, and the exercise of this sovereignty is governed by a constitution, according to laws that permit the legitimacy of the State (Rechtsstaat) to be expressed concretely. The doubts that arise concerning human rights in many areas of the world would thus be signs of either a rupture between the sovereign people and the executive or legislative power, to which the people delegate the care of their interests and will, or of a resignation of the popular will, reduced to the condition of a sort of do-nothing king, doubting his own legitimacy and handing his power over to his clerks. In both cases, there is a crisis of confidence and perhaps more: a fundamental skepticism toward the very notion of legitimacy as it is usually presented, that is, as the expression of the will of the people: a capricious will, sometimes docile and sometimes rebellious, of an amorphous sovereign (rex otiosus) that it is difficult to identify in the features of its representatives, (congress, parliament or national assembly) or in the form of a ballot. In any case, the citizen, holder of a small particle of popular sovereignty, feels alienated from the State and its institutions, contrary to what we find in texts before the 18th century, when institutions were surrounded by an apparent, if not always sincere, respect and when the social hierarchy was accepted as a matter of fact. (shrink)

Idealist philosopher Georg Hegel defied the traditional epistemological distinction of objective from subjective and developed his own dialectical alternative. Remarkable for its breadth and profundity, this work combines aspects of psychology, logic, moral philosophy, and history to form a comprehensive view that encompasses all forms of civilization. Its three divisions consist of the subjective mind (dealing with anthropology and psychology), the objective mind (concerning philosophical issues of law and morals), and the absolute mind (covering fine arts, religion, and philosophy). Wide-ranging (...) in its influence, this survey of the evolution of consciousness is essential reading for all students of philosophy and history. (shrink)

The topic of a priori knowledge is approached through the theory of evidence. A shortcoming in traditional formulations of moderate rationalism and moderate empiricism is that they fail to explain why rational intuition and phenomenal experience count as basic sources of evidence. This explanatory gap is filled by modal reliabilism -- the theory that there is a qualified modal tie between basic sources of evidence and the truth. This tie to the truth is then explained by the theory of concept (...) possession: this tie is a consequence of what, by definition, it is to possess (i.e., to understand) one’s concepts. A corollary of the overall account is that the a priori disciplines (logic, mathematics, philosophy) can be largely autonomous from the empirical sciences. (shrink)

This important new work surveys the source and ramifications of the famed Nuremburg Code -- recognized around the world as one of the cornerstones of modern bioethics.

TRANSLATORS PREFACE THE PRESENT TRANSLATION OF GEORG SIMMEL'S Schopen- hauer und Nietzsche: Ein Vortragszyklus (1907), ...

"This book is a sorely needed corrective. Animal Spirits is an important--maybe even a decisive--contribution at a difficult juncture in macroeconomic theory.

touch 27 Thirrdly, the straining of the eye 28 The occasions which suggest distance have in their own nature no relation to it 29 A difficult case proposed by Dr. Barrow as repugnant to all the known theories 30 This case contradicts a ...

Functionalism would be mistaken if there existed a system of deviant relations (an “anti-mind”) that had the same functional roles as the standard mental relations. In this paper such a system is constructed, using “Quinean transformations” of the sort associated with Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of translation. For example, a mapping m from particularistic propositions (e.g., that there exists a rabbit) to universalistic propositions (that rabbithood is manifested). Using m, a deviant relation thinking* is defined: x thinks* p iff (...) x thinks m(p). Such deviant relations satisfy the commonly discussed functionalist psychological principles. Finally, a more complicated system of deviant relations is constructed, one satisfying sophisticated principles dealing with the self-conscious rational mind. (shrink)

The description for this book, Desert, will be forthcoming.

George Berkeley (1685-1753) is the superstar of Irish Philosophy. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1700 and became a fellow in 1707. In 1724 he resigned his Fellowship to become Dean of Derry, and in 1734 he was made Bishop of Cloyne. He settled in Oxford in 1752 and died the following year. The work of George Berkeley is marked by its diversity and range. His writings take in such topics as mathematics, psychology, politics, health, economics, deism and (...) education, as well as that with which he is most associated - philosophy. Whatever topic he dealt with, his grasp of the subject matter was always impressive and his criticisms of his contemporaries often acute. Among the most noteable of the British Empiricists, he took his starting point from Locke's new 'way of ideas', but he rejected abstract ideas and the possibility of real existence outside perception. It is for this doctrine that he is most known - that there is no such thing as matter, and that things are collections of ideas which can exist only in our minds and only for so long as they are perceived. This philosophy, summed up in his phrase 'to be is to be perceived', he termed 'immaterialism'. A.C. Fraser's collection includes a series of what were previously unpublished notes by Berkeley on all the main topics of his philosophy. This, the 1901 edition, was the first complete edition of his works. (shrink)

The idea of nature in medical theory and practice -- Diseases -- Health: popular concept and philosophical question -- Is a pedagogy of healing possible? -- The problem of regulation in the organism and in society.

Berkeley's Idealism both advances Berkeley scholarship and serves as a useful guide for teachers and students.

The research described in this paper was designed to identify the factors that influence the importance small-scale farmers place on different marketing channels of short food supply chains. The focus concerns two entirely different types of market that are present in the bigger cities in Hungary: ‘conventional’ markets where there are no restrictions on locality but the farmer-market relationship is based on binding contracts, and newly-emergent farmers’ markets at which only local growers can sell ad hoc, using their own portable (...) facilities. Results are based on a survey that was conducted in 2013 among 156 Hungarian market oriented farmer-vendors at different types of market and confirm that different markets are visited by different types of farmers. Farmers who favour conventional markets are typically less educated, operate on smaller scales and are more committed to their chosen markets via long-term contracts. The preference for farmers’ markets is stronger with farmers who are more open to cooperation, have specific investment plans for developing their farms and among those who are specifically looking to directly interact with their customers to avoid middlemen. The relevance of the findings is highlighted by the ongoing Short Food Supply Chain Thematic Sub-programme in the present European Union financing period; farmers’ profiles in any given marketing channel must be understood if short food supply chains are to be effectively promoted. Different types of small-scale farmers will benefit from different supporting frameworks, interventions, and initiatives. (shrink)

Purpose of the article is to present the way of application of methodology of environmental metrics within the total environmental assessment framework. An inevitable part of sustainable development initiatives is sustainable measurement metrics. This kind of metrics is being represented by three sets of indicators: Environmental, Social and Economic. Sustainability measurement metrics tends to measure environmental safety, social responsibility and economic efficiency. Studying behaviour of companies in sustainability measurement metrics application, using another scientific method is well welcomed. Methods used in (...) article are synthesis, analysis, deduction and comparative analysis. We are synthesizing those methods in a presented model which examines quality of environmental improvements across departments of selected organization. In other words, the model is able to quantify an extent how individual managerial decision contributed towards overall improvement in environmental performance of whole organization. Model works with and additive elements. In order to derive results using multiplicative elements, we are using logarithmic method in a model. Scientific aim of the article is to synthesize scientific methods aimed at environmental performance measurement into unified and universal model usable by managements of small and medium-sized enterprises. The background of this mission is to ensure that environmental performance will be correctly reported, data delivered by various companies will be benchmarkable and consequently, Corporate Social Responsibility concepts worked out by individual organizations will be trustable. In the article, we are discovering that use of proposed universal model has marketable outcomes. Thanks to an existence of thriving markets valuating triple bottom line of sustainability, results delivered by the model helped to a company PintInox, S. p. A. to succeed at such kind of market. Conclusions the article delivers are pointing out an importance of interdisciplinary cooperation within field of sustainable development. (shrink)

Georges Sorel's Study on Vico is a revelatory document of the depths and stakes of French social thought at the end of the 19th century. What brought Sorel to the 18th century Neapolitan theorist of history? Acute awareness of the limitations of Marxist thought in his day, a profound concern with the material underpinnings of language, law, and culture, and the imperative to understand the possibilities of revolutionary change. We find here a different Sorel, one who speaks in surprising ways (...) to the 21st century. The translation is accompanied by an introduction and by a set of notes which situate the text both in Sorel's overall intellectual trajectory and in the fin de siècle debates from which it emerged. (shrink)

As COVID-19 emerged as a phenomenon of the total environment, and despite the intertwined and complex relationships that make humanity an organic part of the Bio- and Geospheres, the majority of our responses to it have been corrective in character, with few or no consideration for unintended consequences which bring about further vulnerability to unanticipated global events. Tackling COVID-19 entails a systemic and precautionary approach to human-nature relations, which we frame as regaining diversity in the Geo-, Bio-, and Anthropospheres. Its (...) implementation requires nothing short of an overhaul in the way we interact with and build knowledge from natural and social environments. Hence, we discuss the urgency of shifting from current to precautionary approaches to COVID-19 and look, through the lens of diversity, at the anticipated benefits in four systems crucially affecting and affected by the pandemic: health, land, knowledge and innovation. Our reflections offer a glimpse of the sort of changes needed, from pursuing planetary health and creating more harmonious forms of land use to providing a multi-level platform for other ways of knowing/understanding and turning innovation into a source of global public goods. These exemplary initiatives introduce and solidify systemic thinking in policymaking and move priorities from reaction-based strategies to precautionary frameworks. (shrink)

What drives much of the current philosophical interest in the idea of group cognition is its appeal to the manifestation of psychological properties—understood broadly to include states, processes, and dispositions—that are in some important yet elusive sense emergent with respect to the minds of individual group members. Our goal in this paper is to address a set of related, conditional questions: If human mentality is real yet emergent in a modest metaphysical sense only, then: (i) What would it mean for (...) a group to have emergent cognitive states? (ii) Is this even a metaphysically coherent view? (iii) Relative to which notion of emergence do we have reason to believe that certain groups in fact have emergent cognitive states? We shall argue that evidence from a wide variety of social science domains makes it plausible that there are group cognitive states and processes no less metaphysically emergent than human cognitive (and other special science) states and processes. (shrink)