Kant’s admission of a “gap” in the philosophical system of criticism, which his unpublished project of the “Transition from the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science to Physics” would have been meant to fill, has been the object of controversy among scholars. This article reconsiders the problem by connecting the manuscripts with the operation of “exhibition” of concepts, which already had a systematic role in the 1780s, concluding that the new project was intended to provide not a reform, but a necessary (...) complement of previous works. In the final section Kant’s new awareness of this problem in the 1790s is connected to the contemporary reception of criticism. This context provides more evidence supporting the main argument of the article about the inner development of Kant’s thought. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that the interpretation of Kant's a priori in Marburg neo-Kantianism involved a historiographical problem concerning the Platonic interpretation of the history of exact sci...

In the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, Elucidated by Dreams of Metaphysics (1766), Kant remarks that Stahl, with his admission of immaterial forces for the explanation of organisms, was “closer to the truth than Hoffmann and Boerhaave, to name but a few,” although the latter adopted a “more philosophical method.” This puzzling statement is very significant for the understanding of Kant’s reception of animism, as it documents Kant’s reaction to the issues raised by the Leibniz-Stahl controversy and his striking preference for (...) Stahl’s nonmechanistic account of organisms. Kant agrees with Stahl that organisms suggest the existence of immaterial thinking beings, but at the same time, the example of this speculative hypothesis leads him to question the explanatory power of metaphysical hypotheses in natural philosophy in general, as well as the possibility of empirically distinguishing among different hypotheses, such as monadology, materialism, and hylozoism. After the analysis of Kant’s skeptical conclusions in the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, I discuss how this earlier connection of medicine, life sciences, and metaphysics leaves traces in Kant’s later work, by analyzing Kant’s discussion of Samuel Sömmering’s claim that matter “can be animated” in On the Organ of the Soul (1796) and the preliminary drafts for this essay. (shrink)

In his article La fin de la matière (1906) Henri Poincaré reported that according to many physicists “matter does not exist”, but he immediately added: “this discovery is not conclusive”. This caution was not shared by many philosophers, who swiftly saluted both special and general relativity as the sources of a new conception of physical objects. In my talk I will focus on Marburg neo-Kantianism (Cohen, Natorp and Cassirer) with its characteristic thesis of a progressive “dissolution” of matter modern physics, (...) culminating in relativity. I will point out that this view predated Einstein’s discoveries and was rooted in a long epistemological tradition starting with Leibniz and Kant. Indeed, the neo-Kantian philosophers argued that this view was an originally Platonic insight that modern physics (and Einstein’s relativity in particular) eventually confirmed. I will show that this historical-philosophical perspective influenced the reception of relativity and left open a number of epistemological and scientific problems. (shrink)

This volume emphasizes the diversity and fruitfulness of early modern mechanism as a program, as a concept, as a model. Mechanistic study of the living body but also of the mind and mental processes are examined in careful historical focus, dealing with figures ranging from the first-rank (Bacon, Descartes, Spinoza, Cudworth, Gassendi, Locke, Leibniz, Kant) to less well-known individuals (Scaliger, Martini) or prominent natural philosophers who have been neglected in recent years (Willis, Steno, etc.). The volume moves from early modern (...) medicine and physiology to late Enlightenment and even early 19th-century psychology, always maintaining a conceptual focus. It is a contribution to a newly active field in the history and philosophy of early modern life science. It is of interest to scholars studying the history of medicine and the development of mechanistic theories. (shrink)

Kant elaborated his dynamical theory of matter in two quite different systematic accounts, the first in the Monadologia physica, the second in the Dynamics chapter of the Metaphysische Anfangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft. In this paper I investigate the transition from the monadological to the “continuum” dynamical theory of matter, whose exact timing and motives are not explicitly clarified in Kant’s writings. I locate Kant’s turn around the middle 1760s, presenting Kant’s abandonment of his own physical monadology as a way out of (...) controversies about monads and materialism which characterized the German intellectual world of his time. Among the results of this crucial modification in matter theory stands out the new interpretation of Newtonian forces in the critical writings, which is not only relevant for Kant’s account of physics, but also plays a major exemplary role for his critical theory of knowledge. (shrink)

To give an account of intentionality in terms of the concepts and methods of natural science has been considered as a crucial step towards a naturalization of mental phenomena in general, and as such it has been pursued by a large number of naturalist philosophers and cognitive scientists. Starting from the late 1960s the problem has been addressed in very different, reductionist and antireductionist ways . The development of these philosophical programs has benefited from the contemporary technical and theoretical progresses (...) of neuroscience, and leading scientists such as Changeux, Edelman and Damasio have presented articulated proposals of naturalization of intentionality . A common element of philosophical investigations turns out to be the reference to a still undeveloped neuroscientific theory. This reference belongs to the legacy of early XXth century anti-metaphysical “scientific philosophy”. In spite of this dominant philosophical approach, neuroscientists present their pioneering researches on intentionality with the help of metaphysical frameworks of the past, including Aristotelianism, materialism, emergentism and Spinozism. The final section of the paper examines this peculiar “paradox” of naturalization programs, by considering some critical exchanges about the neurobiological approach and by reviewing the role of metaphysical paradigms for different approaches to this issue. (shrink)

ArgumentIn this paper I present an interpretation of du Bois-Reymond’s thesis on the impossibility of a scientific explanation of consciousness and of its present importance. I reconsider du Bois-Reymond’s speech “On the limits of natural science” in the context of nineteenth-century German philosophy and neurophysiology, pointing out connections and analogies with contemporary arguments on the “hard problem of consciousness.” Du Bois-Reymond’s position turns out to be grounded on an epistemological argument and characterized by a metaphysical skepticism, motivated by the unfruitful (...) speculative tendency of contemporary German philosophy and natural science. In the final sections, I show how contemporary research can benefit from a reconsideration of this position and its context of emergence, which is a good vantage point to trace open problems in consciousness studies back to their historical development. (shrink)

Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of "multitude" is a far better tool to analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of "people." Globalization is forcing us to rethink some of the categories—such as "the people"—that traditionally have been associated with the now eroding state. Italian political thinker Paolo Virno argues that the category of "multitude," elaborated by Spinoza and for the most part left fallow since the seventeenth century, is a far better tool to (...) analyze contemporary issues than the Hobbesian concept of "people," favored by classical political philosophy. Hobbes, who detested the notion of multitude, defined it as shunning political unity, resisting authority, and never entering into lasting agreements. "When they rebel against the state," Hobbes wrote, "the citizens are the multitude against the people." But the multitude isn't just a negative notion, it is a rich concept that allows us to examine anew plural experiences and forms of nonrepresentative democracy. Drawing from philosophy of language, political economics, and ethics, Virno shows that being foreign, "not-feeling-at-home-anywhere," is a condition that forces the multitude to place its trust in the intellect. In conclusion, Virno suggests that the metamorphosis of the social systems in the West during the last twenty years is leading to a paradoxical "Communism of the Capital.". (shrink)

The philosophical analysis of mathematical explanations concerns itself with two different, although connected, areas of investigation. The first area addresses the problem of whether mathematics can play an explanatory role in the natural and social sciences. The second deals with the problem of whether mathematical explanations occur within mathematics itself. Accordingly, this entry surveys the contributions to both areas, it shows their relevance to the history of philosophy and science, it articulates their connection, and points to the philosophical pay-offs to (...) be expected by deepening our understanding of the topic. (shrink)

The temporality of intentions and actions in situations of social interaction can sometimes be paradoxical. I argue that in these situations it may sometimes be possible to conceive of individual acts that can, in a strong sense, be intended retroactively. This could happen when the relational patterns in social interaction literally alter the virtual structure of a participant's past corporeal intentions resulting in an odd experience of having intended something all along without knowing it. I propose that this possibility should (...) be interpreted as more than just a narrowly epistemic phenomenon. Examining this claim involves clarifying the enactive perspective on intentionality, which I do here. The enactive approach rejects the model of a causal relation between intention and action for one of an intrinsic qualitative relation between the two as facets of sense-making. I develop this idea and compare it with Merleau-Ponty's Fundierung model of the mutual relation between corporeal and reflexive intentionality to show that co-regulated moves/affections during social interaction may modulate both arcs of this relation, creating the possibility of a re-signification that alters not the actuality but the virtual tendencies that preceded the social act. (shrink)

This paper explores the epistemology of extrapolation from model organisms to humans in molecular medicine. We take into account two common views on the issue, the homology view and the disanalogy view. In response to both interpretations, we argue that the foundational basis of extrapolations cannot simply be provided by homology and that relevant disanalogies can, thanks to the techniques of molecular biology, be experimentally controlled and exploited to allow useful and reliable extrapolations. The case of "humanised mice" in the (...) context of cancer stem cell research provides evidence of how animal models can be construed to approximate bona fide causal analogue models of human diseases. To supplement this view we show how the epistemology of model organisms needs to take into account the engineering side of molecular medicine. Model organisms are often manipulated to create analogies or remove disanalogies with the target system. We maintain that highlighting this feature is fundamental to explain what warrants extrapolation in the search for the molecular causes of disease. (shrink)

A novel theoretical framework for an embodied, non-representational approach to language that extends and deepens enactive theory, bridging the gap between sensorimotor skills and language. -/- Linguistic Bodies offers a fully embodied and fully social treatment of human language without positing mental representations. The authors present the first coherent, overarching theory that connects dynamical explanations of action and perception with language. Arguing from the assumption of a deep continuity between life and mind, they show that this continuity extends to language. (...) Expanding and deepening enactive theory, they offer a constitutive account of language and the co-emergent phenomena of personhood, reflexivity, social normativity, and ideality. Language, they argue, is not something we add to a range of existing cognitive capacities but a new way of being embodied. Each of us is a linguistic body in a community of other linguistic bodies. The book describes three distinct yet entangled kinds of human embodiment, organic, sensorimotor, and intersubjective; it traces the emergence of linguistic sensitivities and introduces the novel concept of linguistic bodies; and it explores the implications of living as linguistic bodies in perpetual becoming, applying the concept of linguistic bodies to questions of language acquisition, parenting, autism, grammar, symbol, narrative, and gesture, and to such ethical concerns as microaggression, institutional speech, and pedagogy. (shrink)

Christ as symbol in Kant¿s religion -- Hegel's conception of God -- The reality of religion in Hegel's idealist metaphysics -- Hegel's version of the ontological argument for the existence of God -- The trinity and the I -- The death of God and recognition of the self -- Beyond subjectivism -- The relevance of Hegel's philosophy of religion today.

Summary This article presents three hitherto unpublished letters by Frank Plumpton Ramsey on the foundations of mathematics with commentary. One of the letters was sent to Abraham Fraenkel and the other two letters to Heinrich Behmann. The transcription of the letters is preceded by an account that details the extent of Ramsey's known contacts with mathematical logicians on the Continent.

The literature on indicative conditionals contains two appealing views. The first is the selectional view: on this view, conditionals operate by selecting a single possibility, which is used to evaluate the consequent. The second is the informational view: on this view, conditionals don’t express propositions, but rather impose constraints on information states of speakers. Both views are supported by strong arguments, but they are incompatible on their standard formulations. Hence it appears that we have to choose between mutually exclusive options. (...) But the options are not exclusive. This paper develops a theory of the semantics and assertability of conditionals that is both selectional and informational. The theory vindicates the signature inferences of both selectional and informational theories, including so-called Conditionals Excluded Middle and principles about the interplay between conditionals and ‘might’. It also predicts some interesting and puzzling facts about the assertion of conditionals. (shrink)

Le but de cet ouvrage est de montrer la teneur philosophique unitaire de la pensée critique de Diderot par delà le caractère éclaté et dispersé de son œuvre. Diderot philosophe est présenté comme un penseur critique et systématique, c'est-à-dire un philosophe dont la réflexion, d'une part, s'inscrit dans le cadre du courant de pensée moderne qui vise à dépasser les perspectives du « premier regard géomètre de la raison », celui de Descartes, de Malebranche et des post-cartésiens. D'autre part, elle (...) atteint un « second regard critique », plus profond, jeté sur le monde de la nature et surtout, sur lui-même (une philosophie de l'aperception : Spinoza, Wolff, les Moralistes anglais et Kant), qui se rattache intimement à un matérialisme biologique tout à fait original, issu de la confrontation de Diderot avec les naturalistes et les médecins de son temps. C'est ce matérialisme élaboré dans l'usine encyclopédique qui met en cause la notion clé d'« individualité naturelle » (jouée en couplet avec une « communauté du désir ») - néologisme dont Le Neveu de Rameau et Le Rêve de D'Alembert développeront les tenants et les aboutissants philosophiques -, et qui témoigne de la nouveauté d'approche propre à cette philosophie, à l'intérieur de la pensée des Lumières européennes. Avec Diderot, c'est une nouvelle figure historique de la philosophie elle-même - celle de la subjectivité individuelle complexe, uni-totalité de penser-sentir-agir - qui monte sur la scène de la modernité, comme étant la substance première, incontournable et insaisissable, de la pensée critique de nos jours. (shrink)