This ambitious work reclassifies and restructures the history of ideas and the philosophy of culture through a wide-ranging and novel use of the idea of the organon. It does so by radically revising standard interpretations and theories of all branches of philosophy, and by providing an intellectual and philosophical foundation for the new organon of the cultural sciences. Furthermore, the seeded idea that saw its growth in the form of this book is the unshakable conviction that the only way by (...) which a new apparatus of philosophy, an organon, could be created is by harking back to the vast sources of imagination, inspiration and mimÄ"sis. This entire study is based on the notion that metaphysics, insofar as it is concerned with the world in its entirety and with human beingâ (TM)s existence and thought, should provide the foundation for the organon of cultural sciences, based on symbolic forms. Given that the colossal amount of information and knowledge of philosophy, arts, humanities, logic, mathematics, social sciences and natural sciences cannot be comprised, analyzed and comprehended per se, it is the organonâ (TM)s objective to extract the main principles, ideas, postulates, theorems and theories of the cultural sciences, and, subsequently, to shape and restructure them as symbolic forms. Since all these principles are grounded on Becomingâ "which is not a stable or fixed entity such as Being, substance or thingâ "the symbolic forms preserve and change, elevate and further the organon of the cultural sciences, via a critical-dialectical process. (shrink)

In this paper I propose to examine a mythical character that has a tremendous influence on the debate over the new Israeli-Jewish identity. The paper argues that the Wandering/Eternal Jew, aside from its intrinsic importance for Jewish History, functions as a mechanism through which the opposition with the Sabra is maintained in Israeli society. Present time history textbooks try to capture only those aspects of Israeli history relevant for modern contemporary society and culture, for the great majority of scholars the (...) myth of the Eternal Jew being a grotesque falsification. Despite this though, the character of the Eternal relates to different aspects of the identity- problems raised by the opposition Jewish versus Israeli and can be absolutely relevant in this sense. (shrink)

A comprehensive definition of the phenomenon called "life" led to the addition of many dimensions to the natural sciences, and especially the conscious mental dimension. Historical attention is paid not only to those employing the natural philosophical paradigms, but also to evolutionary theories and to the Kantian teleological philosophy. The belief that science can solve the riddle of life is a category of purposal thinking. A revised version of critical teleology is essential for comprehension of life.

Ongoing political, military and social violence gives the impression that liberal ideas of freedom, democracy and multicultural society do not serve as a barrier to the shedding of blood. This paper shows that recognizing the way powerful interests color our conceptions of truth and value and need not automatically result in a purge of all existing social-political categories. Consequently, the paper addresses many of the ambiguities that a critique of ideology and values tends to evoke, paying special attention to the (...) prevailing explanations of world power, violence and world peace in our contemporary reality, especially in the fields of sociology and ideology. The significance of several factors in the American Weltanschauung that have a major impact on life today have been examined. (shrink)

This article examines some of the epis- temological and socio-political issues that have emerged in the context of reflecting on the relationship between the Israeli left and messianic ideology. The old messianic vision finds its materialization in the revolutionary idea of establishing a new order, an order that includes all Jewish political, social, economic and religious spheres of life. The Israeli left tried to deal with and create coalitions with Jewish messianism even though its leaders pretended to be committed to (...) a post-colonial ideology as well as to fundamental elements of classical Marxist ideology. The on-going crisis of the Israeli left demonstrates the need to reinvent socialism in the spirit of liberal democratic ideals as an old-new answer to the problems that torment Israeli society today. (shrink)

This ambitious work reclassifies and restructures the history of ideas and the philosophy of culture through a wide-ranging and novel use of the idea of the organon. It does so by radically revising standard interpretations and theories of all branches of philosophy, and by providing an intellectual and philosophical foundation for the new organon of the cultural sciences. The seeded idea that saw its growth in the form of this book is the unshakable conviction that the only way by which (...) a new apparatus of philosophy, an organon, could be created is by harking back to the vast sources of imagination, inspiration and mimesis. This study is based on the notion that metaphysics, insofar as it is concerned with the world in its entirety and with human being's existence and thought, should provide the foundation for the organon of cultural sciences, based on symbolic forms. Given that the colossal amount of information and knowledge of philosophy, arts, humanities, logic, mathematics, social sciences and natural sciences cannot be comprised, analyzed and comprehended per se, it is the organon's objective to extract the main principles, ideas, postulates, theorems and theories of the cultural sciences, and, subsequently, to shape and restructure them as symbolic forms. Since all these principles are grounded on Becoming - which is not a stable or fixed entity such as Being, substance or thing - the symbolic forms preserve and change, elevate and further the organon of the cultural sciences, via a critical-dialectical process. (shrink)

In the wake of the Scientific Revolution, the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries saw the complete demolition of traditional structures of authority, scientific thought, and belief by the new philosophy and the philosophes, including Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau. The Radical Enlightenment played a part in this revolutionary process, which effectively overthrew all justification for monarchy, aristocracy, and ecclesiastical power, as well as man's dominance over woman, theological dominance of education, and slavery. Despite the present day interest in the revolutions of (...) the eighteenth century, the origins and rise of the Radical Enlightenment have received limited scholarly attention. The greatest obstacle to the movement finding its proper place in modern historical writing is its international scope: the Racial Enlightenment was not French, British, German, Italian, Jewish or Dutch, but all of these at the same time. In this wide-ranging volume, Jonathan Israel offers a novel interpretation of the Radical Enlightenment down to La Mettie and Diderot, two of its key exponents. Particular emphasis is placed on the pivotal role of Spinoza and the widespread underground international philosophical movement known before 1750 as Spinozism. (shrink)

Kaplan says that monsters violate Principle 2 of his theory. Principle 2 is that indexicals, pure and demonstrative alike, are directly referential. In providing this explanation of there being no monsters, Kaplan feels his theory has an advantage over double-indexing theories like Kamp’s or Segerberg’s (or Stalnaker’s), which either embrace monsters or avoid them only by ad hoc stipulation, in the sharp conceptual distinction it draws between circumstances of evaluation and contexts of utterance. We shall argue that Kaplan’s prohibition is (...) also essentially stipulative, and that it is too general. The main difference between ourselves and Kaplan is that the basic carriers of a truth-value is a sentence-in-a-context; our account is utterance-based. (shrink)

The concept of potential plays a prominent role in the thinking of parents, educators and planners the world over. Although this concept accurately reflects central features of human nature, its current use perpetuates traditional myths of fixity, harmony and value, calculated to cause untold mischief in social and educational practice. First published in 1985, Israel Scheffler's book aims to demythologise the concept of potential. He shows its roots in genuine aspects of human nature, but at the same time frees (...) it from outworn philosophical myths by means of analytical reconstruction - thereby improving both its theoretical and its practical applicability. The book concludes with an interpretation of policy-making in education, and reflections on the ideal education of a policy-maker. It emphasises human symbolism, choice, temporal continuity, and self-determination as indispensible elements of any adequate philosophy of education. _Of Human Potential _will be of interest to a broad range of philosophers, educators and social scientists. (shrink)

Examining a broad range of issues - from computers in school to math education, from metaphor to morality - these essays are unified by Scheffler's conviction ...

Draft Chapter for Chinese Philosophy and Its Thinkers: From Ancient Times to the Present Day .

1. Caput praeliminare. Ontologia. Theologia naturalis -- 2. Cosmologia. Psychologia.

Om samfundsudviklingen i Sverige med udgangspunkt i aktuel forskning inden for sociologi, nationaløkonomi og statsvidenskab, og samtidig et stridsskrift mod nyliberalismen.

Au cours du dernier siècle, l'investigation empirique a été bouleversée par le développement de nouveaux instruments et par la possibilité de traiter numériquement les données. Cet ouvrage entreprend d'adapter la notion classique d'observation scientifique à ces nouvelles pratiques.

Nie Bao 聶豹 (1487-1563) was a Neo-Confucian philosopher and scholar-official of sixteenth-century Ming China. In his Ming ru xue an 明儒學案 (Case studies of Ming Confucians), Huang Zongxi 黃宗羲placed him in the Jiangxi (Jiangyou 江右) group of Wang Yangming followers. The goal of this article is to provide a sketch of Nie Bao’s political trajectory and intellectual development from his early years until he was imprisoned in 1547, as well as translation of important documents pertaining to that trajectory and development. (...) By the time of his imprisonment, Nie Bao had articulated the essential elements of his philosophy of realizing centeredness and returning to silence, and with that, his own unique interpretation of the meaning of the extension of the innate knowledge of the good. -/- 第二十一届明史國際學術研討會 論文匯編 Proceedings of the Twenty-First International Conference of the Chinese Ming History Society. (shrink)

Objectivity Under Attack: a fundamental feature of science is its ideal of objectivity, an ideal that subjects ...

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Problems of pragmatism and pragmatic responses Peirce's theory of belief, doubt, and inquiry Peirce's comparison of methods Difficulties in Peirce's treatment An epistemological interpretation The primacy of method.

This chapter contains sections titled: Emotions in the service of cognition Cognitive emotions.

The prelims comprise: Half‐Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents Preface Acknowledgments.

This chapter contains sections titled: Beliefs Access to truth Cogito ergo sum Mathematical certainty Classical logic C. I. Lewis' empiricism Access as a metaphor J. F. Fries and K. Popper Voluntarism and linearity One‐way justification Beginning in the middle Justification, contextual and comparative Justification in the empirical sciences Circularity versus linearity Democratic controls Interactionism.

This chapter contains sections titled: Allergy to absolute truth Provisionality and truth Truth versus verification Truth and fixity Transparency, Tarski, and Carnap Truth and certainty Sentences as truth candidates Theoretical terms Varieties of instrumentalism Pragmatism and instrumentalism Systems, simplicity, reduction Crises in science Reduction and expansion.

This chapter contains sections titled: Philosophies of truth Operationism and truth Version‐dependence Differences among scientifically oriented philosophers Monism, pluralism, plurealism Realism versus irrealism A theory of everything The status of ethics Emotive theories; Ayer and Stevenson Moore's ethical intuitionism Dewey and ethical naturalism Symbol, reference, and ritual.

The paper includes a series of letters exchanged between the author and the late Professor Feyerabend, concerning the best "method" for military intelligence, as a test case for the role of conceptual frameworks in philosophy of science. The letters deal with issues like: Is it possible to make an intelligence estimate without a conceptual framework? Does such a framework have any 'positive' role? If so, how should a conceptual framework in intelligence be built? What risks lurk within it? Is it (...) possible to indicate methods for intelligence estimates which are 'better' and more 'successful' than others? (shrink)

Brutus wanted to kill Caesar. He believed that Caesar was an ordinary mortal, and that, given this, stabbing him (by which we mean plunging a knife into his heart) was a way of killing him. He thought that he could stab Caesar, for he remembered that he had a knife and saw that Caesar was standing next to him on his left, in the Forum. So Brutus was motivated to stab the man to his left. He did so, thereby killing (...) Caesar. (shrink)

Israel Gottlieb Canz’ im Jahre 1742 erschienene Theologia naturalis thetico-polemica ist die erste von drei Abhandlungen dieses Autors über natürliche Theologie. Diese ist bei ihm als eine Art Vorbereitung für die „theologia sublimior“ (die geoffenbarte Theologie) zu verstehen. Die Theologia naturalis hat bei Canz als eine theologia thetica eine darlegende und beweisende Funktion. Dahinter steht eine programmatische These, nämlich dass sie als alleinige Erlöserin des Menschen von seinen Sünden nicht ausreicht. Vielmehr soll durch sie die Notwendigkeit des Weges zur (...) Versöhnung aufgezeigt werden; den Weg selber zu erforschen steht ihr nicht zu. Canz’ natürliche Theologie ist auch eine theologia polemica. Gleich in der Praefatio präzisiert der Verfasser, dass er die Systeme der Gegner, ihre Argumente usw. darlegen und sie analysieren und diskutieren werde. Dies erfolgt aber im Hinblick auf den eigenen Diskurs bzw. im Ausgang von diesem, der sich in Konformität mit der geoffenbarten Theologie weiß. Canz gehört zur ersten Generation „Wolffscher Theologen“, bewahrt sich aber eine gewisse Unabhängigkeit gegenüber Topoi der Wolffschen Philosophie und geht durchaus eigene Wege. Dies im Einzelnen nachzuweisen, gehört zu den zahlreichen Forschungsdesideraten im Hinblick auf die Philosophie des 18. Jahrhunderts. Israel Gottlieb Canz’s Theologia naturalis thetico-polemica, published in 1742 is the first of three works by this author on natural theology, which in his case should be understood as a kind of preparation for the ‘theologia sublimior’ (revealed theology). In Canz’s work, theologia naturalis has the expository and substantiating function of a theologia thetica. Behind this stands a programmatic thesis, namely that theology alone is not sufficient to redeem mankind from its sins. Instead, the necessity of a path to reconciliation must be demonstrated; it is not the role of theology itself to seek that path. Canz’s natural theology is also a theologia polemica. In the preface the author states that he will explain, analyse and discuss his opponents’ systems, arguments etc. However, he does this with reference to his own discourse, or rather taking that discourse, which is recognised as conforming with revealed theology, as a starting point. Canz belongs to the first generation of ‘Wolffian theologians’, but retains a certain independence from the topoi of Wolffian philosophy and follows paths which are entirely his own. A detailed examination of these is one of the many desiderata for researchers engaging with the philosophy of the 18th century. (shrink)

RESUMO:A réplica rousseauniana a d’Alembert, autor do verbete Genebra da Enciclopédia, foi batizada como Carta sobre os espetáculos, em respeito ao tema nela tratado após os dez primeiros parágrafos, os quais abordam explicitamente o tema da intolerância religiosa. Contudo, o presente artigo apresenta, sob a perspectiva de uma moral da tolerância que não se resume às questões religiosas, a defesa de que a Carta a d’Alembert é uma integral e avançada Carta sobre a Tolerância, por contemplar, além do discurso iluminista (...) de recusa à inquirição ou inspeção da fé alheia em matéria de religião, uma atualizada recusa multiculturalista ao etnocentrismo. ABSTRACT:Rousseau’s letter to d’Alembert, author of the Encyclopedia entry on Geneva, is known as the Letter on Spectacles. The title subject is dealt with after the letter’s first ten paragraphs, which explicitly address the issue of religious intolerance. The present article presents, from a perspective of a moral tolerance that is not limited to religious affairs, the argument that the letter to d’Alembert is a comprehensive and advanced Letter on Tolerance. In addition to its Enlightenment discourse of refusal of inquiry or inspection of the faith of others on religious matters, the letter contains an up-to-date multiculturalist rejection of ethnocentrism. (shrink)