Cet article consiste en une étude des différentes occurrences de l’expression « philosophie première » dans le corpus aristotélicien. Une interprétation devenue courante, soutenue en particulier par A. Mansion, veut que « philosophie première » renvoie toujours à la science théologique de Métaphysique E 1. On cherche au contraire à montrer que l’expression couvre en réalité une grande partie des objets traités par l’ensemble de la Métaphysique, parmi lesquels, par exemple, l’étude de la forme comme substance première, l’examen des axiomes, (...) la réfutation des Idées. Pour ce faire, on s’intéresse à la fonction argumentative de l’expression dans ses contextes d’apparition, en montrant qu’elle sert quasi systématiquement à indiquer les limites de la physique. L’expression « philosophie première » a ainsi un sens architectonique et une fonction de démarcation. La pluralité des objets qu’elle recouvre, cependant, n’entraîne pas sa dispersion entre plusieurs sciences mais en fait un concept englobant. Il est donc légitime de se servir de l’expression pour poser la question de l’unité de la science recherchée par Aristote. (shrink)

I have stressed here and elsewhere that perspective cannot and need not claim to represent the world "as we see it." The perceptual constancies which make us underrate the degree of objective diminutions with distance, it turns out, constitute only one of the factors refuting this claim. The selectivity of vision can now be seen to be another. There are many ways of "seeing the world," but obviously the claim would have to relate to the "snapshot vision" of the stationary (...) single eye. To ask, as it has so often been asked, whether this eye sees the world in the form of a hollow sphere or of a projection plane makes little sense, for it sees neither. The one point in focus can hardly be said to be either curved or flat, and the remainder of the field of vision is too indistinct to permit a decision. True, we can shift the point of focus at will, but in doing so we lose the previous perception, and all that remains is its memory. Can we, and do we, compare the exact extension of these changing percepts in scanning a row of columns extended at right angles from the central line of vision—to mention the most recalcitrant of the posers of perspectival theory?1 I very much doubt it. The question refers to the convenient choice of projection planes, not to the experience of vision.· 1. I now prefer this formulation to my somewhat laboured discussion in Art and Illusion, chap. 8, sec. 4.E.H. Gombrich was director of the Warburg Institute and Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition at the University of London from 1959 to 1976. His many influential works include The Story of Art, Art and Illusion, Meditations on a Hobby Horse, The Sense of Order, and Ideals and Idols. An early version of "Standards of Truth" was presented at Swarthmore College in October 1976 at a symposium to mark the retirement of Professor Hans Wallach. His contributions to Critical Inquiry include "The Museum: Past, Present, and Future" , "Notes and Exchanges" , and, with Quentin Bell, "Canons and Values in the Visual Arts: A Correspondence". (shrink)

Certain scarce resources seem indivisible, unlike, e.g., land and cattle. But some such resources can be, and have been, turned into private property. In offshore fishing grounds, individual tranferable quotas have been issued to fishing firms that have, as a result, become custodians of fish stocks in those grounds. In the eel fishery on the Danish coast owners of farms by the coast had traditional rights to lay eeltraps leasing those rights out to professional fishermen. In the 1920’s in the (...) U.S., individual firms were gradually being granted, by court decision, exclusive broadcasting rights in a certain area and on a certain frequency. Grazing rights in Iceland were, from the beginning, allocated by quotas belonging to individual farmers. Fishing rights in Icelandic salmon rivers were also alocated by tradition to individual farmers.Certaines ressources rares semblent être indivisibles, contrairement à la terre et aux bovins par exemple. Mais de telles ressources peuvent devenir, et sont devenues, des biens privés. Dans le domaine des zones de pêche offshore, des quotas individuels transférables ont étés accordés aux entreprises de pêche qui sont devenues les gardiennes des stocks de poissons dans ces zones. Dans les pêcheries d’anguilles sur les côtes danoises, les propriétaires des fermes côtières avaient traditionnellement des droits pour poser des pièges et pouvaient louer ces droits à des pêcheurs professionnels. Dans les années 20 aux Etats Unis, des décisions de justice ont graduellement accordé à des entreprises individuelles des droits exclusifs de radiodiffusion sur certaines zones et sur certaines fréquences. Les droits de pâturage en Islande furent originellement alloués par quotas à des fermiers individuels. Les droits de pêche dans les rivières peuplées de saumons en Islande furent aussi alloués de manière traditionnelle à des fermiers individuels. (shrink)

Die Frage, wie sich Aussagen uber Fahigkeiten von Personen zu Aussagen uber Moglichkeiten von Zustanden in der Welt verhalten, ist fur unser menschliches Selbstverstandnis zentral. Der vorliegende Band versammelt unter dieser Frage durchweg Originalbeitrage in historisch-systematischer Absicht; sie behandeln die Geschichte der Metaphysik und Ontologie von Parmenides bis Heidegger.INHALT: VORWORT - Klaus Jacobi: Das Konnen und die Moglichkeiten. Potentialitat und Possibilitat - Mischa von Perger: Moglichkeit, Parmenideisch - Ulrich Nortmann: 'Das Saatkorn ist dem Vermogen nach eine Pflanze'. Uber ontologische und (...) logische Aspekte Aristotelischer Moglichkeitssatze - Sang-Jin Kang: Anselm und die modallogische Betrachtung der gottlichen Notwendigkeit - Michael Astroh: Petrus Abaelardus on Modalities de re and de dicto - Christopher Martin: Peter Abaelard on Modality. Some Possibilities and Some Puzzles - Allan Back: Avicenna and Averroes: Modality and Theology - Seung-Chan (Elias) Park: Die Differenz von personlicher und unpersonlicher Moglichkeit bei Thomas von Aquin - Charles Lohr: 'Art' and Possibility: The Rule Concerning Possibility in the Ars lulliana - Peter King: Duns Scotus on Possibilities, Powers, and the Possible - Matthias Kaufmann: Gottes Allmacht und die Wahrheit modaler Satze. Potentialitat und Possibilitat bei Wilhelm von Ockham - Simo Knuuttila: On the History of Theory of Modality as Alternativeness - Stephan Meier-Oeser: Potentia versus Possibilitas? Posse! Zur cusanischen Konzeption der Moglichkeit - Dominik Perler: Cartesische Moglichkeiten - Hans Poser: Leibniz'sche Handlungsmodi zwischen Ontologie und Deontologie - Wilhelm Metz: Der transzendentale Moglichkeitsbegriff bei Kant und Fichte - Rainer Marten: Heidegger: Die eigenste eigentliche Moglichkeit - Tilman Borsche: Moglichkeiten des Seins, Moglichkeiten des Denkens - Thomas Buchheim: Zwischen Antinomie und Kompatibilitat: Versuch uber die naturliche Einbettung unserer Handlungsfreiheit - Kuno Lorenz: Dynamis und Energeia. Zur Aktualitat eines begrifflichen Werkzeugs von Aristoteles. (shrink)

Technik bestimmt auf die mannigfaltigste Weise unser Leben und Zusammenleben. Obgleich sie von Platon und Aristoteles bis in das zwanzigste Jahrhundert in Einzelaspekten betrachtet worden ist, wurde sie erst in den letzten Jahrzehnten zu einem eigenständigen Gegenstand der Philosophie. Dennoch werden ihre philosophischen Probleme immer noch eher beiläufig behandelt. So geht es um die Klärung ganz zentraler und herausfordernder Aufgaben – von der menschlichen Schöpferkraft über eine Klärung, was ein technisches Artefakt ist, zum technischen Wissen, in all diesen Elementen verknüpft (...) mit dem Verantwortungsproblem. Das Ziel ist eine Darstellung dieser faszinierenden philosophischen Fragen vor dem Hintergrund der Tradition. (shrink)

This volume offers a collection of in-depth explorations of pragmatism as a framework for discussions in philosophy of science and metaphysics. Each chapter involves explicit reflection on what it means to be pragmatist, and how to use pragmatism as a guiding framework in addressing topics such as realism, unification, fundamentality, truth, laws, reduction, and more. -/- .

كتاب بحصي يتناول الصراع بين الصوفية والسلفية ويتناول قصة حياة الحلاج وابن الفارض والسهروردي ودواوينهم ويتناول الحب الإلهي عند الصوفية.

"First published by Oxford University Press, 1916."--Title page verso.

An English language translation accompanies the original Greek text of Aristotle's book about the nature of the state, constitutions, revolutions, democracy, and oligarchy.

This is the first complete, one-volume English translation of the ancient Chinese text Xunzi, one of the most extensive, sophisticated, and elegant works in the tradition of Confucian thought. Through essays, poetry, dialogues, and anecdotes, the Xunzi articulates a Confucian perspective on ethics, politics, warfare, language, psychology, human nature, ritual, and music, among other topics. Aimed at general readers and students of Chinese thought, Eric Hutton’s translation makes the full text of this important work more accessible in English than ever (...) before. Named for its purported author, the Xunzi has long been neglected compared to works such as the Analects of Confucius and the Mencius. Yet interest in the Xunzi has grown in recent decades, and the text presents a much more systematic vision of the Confucian ideal than the fragmented sayings of Confucius and Mencius. In one famous, explicit contrast to them, the Xunzi argues that human nature is bad. However, it also allows that people can become good through rituals and institutions established by earlier sages. Indeed, the main purpose of the Xunzi is to urge people to become as good as possible, both for their own sakes and for the sake of peace and order in the world. In this edition, key terms are consistently translated to aid understanding and line numbers are provided for easy reference. Other features include a concise introduction, a timeline of early Chinese history, a list of important names and terms, cross-references, brief explanatory notes, a bibliography, and an index. (shrink)

This incisive book deals with the use of the criminal law to enforce morality, in particular sexual morality, a subject of particular interest and importance since the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957. Professor Hart first considers John Stuart Mill's famous declaration: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community is to prevent harm to others." During the last hundred years this doctrine has twice been sharply challenged by two great (...) lawyers: Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, the great Victorian judge and historian of the common law, and Lord Devlin, who both argue that the use of the criminal law to enforce morality is justified. The author examines their arguments in some detail, and sets out to demonstrate that they fail to recognize distinction of vital importance for legal and political theory, and that they espouse a conception of the function of legal punishment that few would now share. (shrink)

The concept of similarity is used to exemplify in what way Wolff conveys a new content to a traditional concept. Similarity functions in his system as a link between a priori ontology and a posteriori knowledge, because it is similarity on which relies Wolff's theory of abstraction, his doctrine of order (which also includes the concepts of perfection, of space and time) and even his characterization of human faculties of knowing (e.g. expectation of similar events, wit and penetration).

Leibniz wrote more than 60 proposals, concepts, and outlines for academies for Holland, Germany, Austria and Russia. Unlike the academies in Paris, London or Rome he intended a narrow connection of theoria and praxis. This should be achieved by his Scientia generalis as a theoretical unification, whereas the aim consisted in a universal Harmony.

Analogy as a scientific method has been criticized during the last decades; only for heuristic purposes it has been accepted. On the other side especially proportional analogies have a long tradition in European thought since Plato and Aristotle, for, as Aristotle puts it, analogies allow a connection between different and unbridgeable ontological areas. As examples for such connections the analogia entis of Thomas of Aquino and the Kantian Analogies of Experience are discussed. They give us hints for a new view (...) of analogies, which during the Middle Ages were not only of heuristic value, but were accepted as a proof: Analogies do not only produce hypotheses, moreover, they build up new views of the world, they are the background of paradigms, for they create structures by introducing similarities and proportions. (shrink)

A classic exposition of Kant's ethical thought.

Engelhardt invites readers to understand what it means to live in a world after God, where questions of sin and virtue have been replaced with life-and-death-style choices. After God provides a dark prophetic vision. But there is still hope. As Engelhardt argues, In this culture, children now grow up apart from and defended against a recognition of the God Who lives. They are nurtured in a social fabric that is structured so as to avoid a recognition of, much less an (...) encounter with, God. Nevertheless... a traditional Christianity has endured, even though its morality and bioethics have become ever more strongly counter-cultural. The source of this traditional Christian otherness over against the surrounding post-theistic culture lies in the origins of Christianity itself, in the Christianity of the Apostles and the Fathers, namely, in Orthodox Christianity. Against the tenor of the times, disregarding the animus to set traditional Christianity aside, and despite heretics prominent within its fold, Orthodox Christianity remains a light in a world after God. --! From back cover. (shrink)

Mit dem Konzept des kategorialen Rahmens hat Stephan Körner eine Möglichkeit geschaffen, metaphysische Systeme zu vergleichen. Da kein metaphysisches System auf Modalbegriffe verzichten kann, wird in der vorliegenden Arbeit am Beispiel der Kritik Kants an der Wolffschen Schule gezeigt, daß Körners Konzept zu ergänzen ist um die jeweilige modale Kennzeichnung auf den Ebenen der ontologischen, logischen und epistemischen Modalitäten. So muß die Kantische Kopernikanische Wende als eine Kritik an der Wolffschen Modaltheorie gesehen werden, verbunden mit dem Entwurf einer eigenen Modalkonzeption, (...) die als neue Elemente erstens die Begründung der ontologischen Modalitäten auf epistemische statt auf logische Modalitäten und zweitens die Einführung der Wirklichkeit als gleichberechtigten Modus enthält. Der Weg dieser Kritik führt über eine Verwerfung des Wolffschen complementum possibilitatis und des ontologischen Gottesbeweises und zeigt, wie schrittweise eine Reflexion auf die Möglichkeit der Erkenntnis zu einer Umkehr des tradierten modaltheoretischen Begründungszusammenhangs führt. (shrink)