RésuméLe saint — phénomène religieux universel — est compris comme un personnage à travers lequel un Absolu se manifeste au sein du relatif: le saint représente le fondement transcendant d'une société. Ce fait détermine ses relations avec la dernière: libéré des contraintes habituelles d'ordre transactionnel qui régissent la société, le saint en assure l'équilibre en intervenant comme arbitre lors de conflits graves — en particulier en période de crise —, ou comme directeur des consciences. En faisant de lui un objet (...) de vénération et en l'utilisant comme référence et justification ultimes de sa propre existence, la société essaie de l'intégrer dans ses structures. Toutefois, la dimension d'Absolu demeurent irréductible au relatif, la présence du saint conduit immanquablement à l'élaboration de diverses théories concernant l'existence de deux niveaux de vérité.SummaryThe saint is understood as a universal phenomenon in religion and defined as a person through which absolute Reality manifests itself in the midst of relative reality: the saint represents the transcendental foundation of society. Standing outside and above the constraints deriving from the transactional pattern of social life, the saint acts as an arbiter in cases of major conflicts and as a spiritual guide, and thus assures harmony and peace among the members of society. Society tries to get possession of the saint by making him an object of veneration and by considering him as the ultimate reference and justification of its existence. However, absolute Reality being forever irreducible to relative reality, the saint's presence leads inevitably to the elaboration of theories concerning two levels of truth.ZusammenfassungDer “Heilige” ist ein universelles religiöses Phänomen; er kann definiert werden als ein Mensch, in welchem sich das Absolute innerhalb des Relativen manifestiert: der Heilige repräsentiert die transzendente Grundlage einer Gesellschaft. Diese Tat‐sache bestimmt seine Beziehungen zu der letzteren: der Heilige ist befreit von den transaktionellen Zwängen, die das Gesellschaftsleben beherrschen und ist dadurch befähigt, in schwierigen Konfliktsfällen als Schiedsrichter zu wirken , sowie als geistlicher Führer zu amten. Indem die Gesellschaft ihm ihre Verehrung darbringt und ihn als letzte Begründung und Rechtfertigung ihrer Existenz betrachtet, versucht sie, ihn in ihre Strukturen hereinzuholen. Da indessen das Absolute nie im Relativen aufgeht, führt das Dasein des Heiligen unweigerlich zur Aus‐bildung verschiedener Theorien hinsichtlich der Existenz einer doppelten Wahrheit. (shrink)

This paper examines Aquinas’s epistemological treatment of the disembodied soul in order to reveal (1) its relationship to the person it once was, and (2) the nature and extent of its self-knowledge. I argue first that disembodiment entails not only loss of personhood, but severe restriction of one’s concept of self. Consequently, individual self-consciousness is minimized. By contrast, I argue that the soul’s knowledge of its nature is likely to be realized more perfectly in the separated state, not so much (...) because of freedom from the body as the infusion of pure intelligibles. Thus, the roles of these two types of self-knowledge (particular and universal) are reversed from the case of the embodied soul, where self-consciousness is an effortless concomitant to thought and self-knowledge requires a painstaking labor. I conclude by wondering whether the cognition enjoyed in the separated state has some utility for the soul’s future, re-embodied existence. (shrink)

There is a phenomenon which has from of old and in a peculiar degree attracted the attention of social philosophers and practical economists, the fact of certain commodities (these being in advanced civilizations coined pieces of gold and silver, together subsequently with documents representing those coins) becoming universally acceptable media of exchange. It is obvious even to the most ordinary intelligence, that a commodity should be given up by its owner in exchange for another more useful to him. But (...) that every economic unit in a nation should be ready to exchange his goods for little metal disks apparently useless as such, or for documents representing the latter, is a procedure so opposed to the ordinary course of things, that we cannot well wonder if even a distinguished thinker like Savigny finds it downright 'mysterious.' It must not be supposed that the form of coin, or document, employed as current money, constitutes the enigma in this phenomenon. We may look away from these forms and go back to earlier stages of economic development, or indeed to what still obtains in countries here and there, where we find the precious metals in a uncoined state serving as the medium of exchange, and even certain other commodities, cattle, skins, cubes of tea, slabs of salt, cowrie shells, etc.; still we are confronted by this phenomenon, still we have to explain why it is that the economic man is ready to accept a certain kind of commodity, even if he does not need it, or if his need of it is already supplied, in exchange for all the goods he has brought to market, while it is none the less what he needs that he consults in the first instance, with respect to the goods he intends to acquire in the course of his transactions. And hence there runs, from the first essays of reflective contemplation of a social phenomena down to our own times, an uninterrupted chain of disquisitions upon the nature and specific qualities of money in its relation to all that constitutes traffic.. (shrink)

This paper examines Aquinas’s epistemological treatment of the disembodied soul in order to reveal (1) its relationship to the person it once was, and (2) the nature and extent of its self-knowledge. I argue first that disembodiment entails not only loss of personhood, but severe restriction of one’s concept of self. Consequently, individual self-consciousness is minimized. By contrast, I argue that the soul’s knowledge of its nature is likely to be realized more perfectly in the separated state, not so much (...) because of freedom from the body as the infusion of pure intelligibles. Thus, the roles of these two types of self-knowledge (particular and universal) are reversed from the case of the embodied soul, where self-consciousness is an effortless concomitant to thought and self-knowledge requires a painstaking labor. I conclude by wondering whether the cognition enjoyed in the separated state has some utility for the soul’s future, re-embodied existence. (shrink)

Traditional just war doctrine holds that political leaders are morally responsible for the decision to initiate war, while individual soldiers should be judged solely by their conduct in war. According to this view, soldiers fighting in an unjust war of aggression and soldiers on the opposing side seeking to defend their country are morally equal as long as each obeys the rules of combat. Revisionist scholars, however, maintain that soldiers who fight for an unjust cause bear at least some responsibility (...) for advancing an immoral end, even if they otherwise fight ethically. This article examines the attitudes of the American public regarding the moral equality of combatants. Utilizing an original survey experiment, we find that the public's moral reasoning is generally more consistent with that of the revisionists than with traditional just war theory. Americans in our study judged soldiers who participate in unjust wars as less ethical than soldiers in just wars, even when their battlefield conduct is identical, and a large proportion supported harsh punishments for soldiers simply for participating in unjust wars. We also find, however, that much of the American public is willing to extend the moral license of just cause significantly further than revisionist scholars advocate: half of the Americans in our survey were willing to allow an unambiguous war crime—a massacre of innocent women and children—to go unpunished when the act was committed by soldiers fighting for a just cause. Our findings suggest that incorporation of revisionist principles into the laws of war would reinforce dangerous moral intuitions encouraging the killing of civilians. (shrink)

Ukrainian and Yugoslav Orthodox clergy may often be able to meet at various international religious forums and celebrations held in Ukraine, Yugoslavia, and other countries. Here communication was established between them, which complemented the general tradition of international cooperation of the Ukrainian and Yugoslav public.In recent years, there has been a revival in various forms of relations between the Orthodox Churches of the Slavic countries. This actualizes the study of the history of these relations, the recognition in it of the (...) positive that could carry out a diverse form of night inter-church visitors, the search for ways to unite world Orthodoxy. The study of the directions of inter-church relations indicated by us is necessary because they have in fact fallen out of the field of view of domestic historical science. Only a few works of Ukrainian scientists indirectly address this issue.Thus, OV Pavlyuchenko considers the relations of the Serbian Metropolitan Mykhailo with the Orthodox circles of Ukraine. However, chronologically, his research covers the period only at the end of the XIX century. Thoroughly studying the history of all Orthodox churches, ON Sagan in his study also invites to the interaction of the Ukrainian and Yugoslav Orthodox communities. But, like the previous researcher, ON Sagan mainly deals with issues that took place in the nineteenth century. Various aspects of the history of the Serbian Orthodox Church are also presented in the services of domestic and foreign researchers: EM Chaltseva, KE Skurat, M.N. Bessonova, R. Roberson and others. Their work helps to reveal the influence of other facts from the history of the Serbian PC on the international activities of the Yugoslav Orthodox clergy.Due to the limited research work, our conclusions are based on extensive archival material, which is still little applied to the scientific department. The analysis of archival documents allowed us to trace the interest and needs the sphere of cooperation of the Ukrainian and Yugoslav peoples, who represent a significant part of the Orthodox world, which in general forms our new study. (shrink)

Kant says patently conflicting things about infinity and our grasp of it. Infinite space is a good case in point. In his solution to the First Antinomy, he denies that we can grasp the spatial universe as infinite, and therefore that this universe can be infinite; while in the Aesthetic he says just the opposite: ‘Space is represented as a given infinite magnitude’. And he rests these upon consistently opposite grounds. In the Antinomy we are told that we (...) can have no intuitive grasp of an infinite space, and in the Aesthetic he says that our grasp of infinite space is precisely intuitive. (shrink)

The overarching aim of this article is to scrutinize how severity can work as a qualifier for the moral impetus of malady. While there is agreement that malady is of negative value, there is disagreement about precisely how this is so. Nevertheless, alleviating disease, injury, and associated suffering is almost universally considered good. Furthermore, the strength of a diseased person’s moral claims for our attention and efforts will inevitably vary. This article starts by reflecting on what kind of moral impetus (...) malady incites. We then analyze how severity may qualify this impetus. We do so by discussing the relationship between severity and need, well-being and disvalue, death, urgency, rule of rescue, and distributive justice. We then summarize our thoughts about severity as a moral qualifier. We conclude that severity is, and should continue to be seen, as a morally significant concept that deserves continued attention in the future. (shrink)

The current state of Orthodoxy in Ukraine, as well as all of Universal Orthodoxy, is characterized by the presence of significant problems of a systemic nature, the failure of which or their neglect leads to a further deepening of the crisis of the denomination. The emergence of these problems is of historical nature because they have arisen over a considerable period of time and have been linked to the political, economic and spiritual features of the development of Orthodoxy in (...) one or another area of its spread. (shrink)

Historically, many have seen the intelligibility of the physical universe as showing that it is somehow ultimately dependent upon conscious intelligent pre-existing being – ‘God’. Today, however, many believe that modern advances in our scientific understanding of the origins and nature of the universe, and of the conscious intelligent beings it contains, render God, as Laplace said, an ‘unnecessary hypothesis’. This article considers whether the findings of modern science do indeed diminish the plausibility of belief in a (...) creator God. Or, on the contrary, whether there are features of current scientific understanding which may reasonably be thought to support the belief that conscious intelligent being pre-existed the physical universe and caused it to be. In short: can science reasonably be thought to support the view that consciousness created the physical universe rather than that the physical universe created consciousness? (shrink)

Historically, many have seen the intelligibility of the physical universe as showing that it is somehow ultimately dependent upon conscious intelligent pre-existing being – ‘God’. Today, however, many believe that modern advances in our scientific understanding of the origins and nature of the universe, and of the conscious intelligent beings it contains, render God, as Laplace said, an ‘unnecessary hypothesis’. This article considers whether the findings of modern science do indeed diminish the plausibility of belief in a (...) creator God. Or, on the contrary, whether there are features of current scientific understanding which may reasonably be thought to support the belief that conscious intelligent being pre-existed the physical universe and caused it to be. In short: can science reasonably be thought to support the view that consciousness created the physical universe rather than that the physical universe created consciousness? (shrink)

Historically, many have seen the intelligibility of the physical universe as showing that it is somehow ultimately dependent upon conscious intelligent pre‐existing being – ‘God’. Today, however, many believe that modern advances in our scientific understanding of the origins and nature of the universe, and of the conscious intelligent beings it contains, render God, as Laplace said, an ‘unnecessary hypothesis’. This article considers whether the findings of modern science do indeed diminish the plausibility of belief in a (...) creator God. Or, on the contrary, whether there are features of current scientific understanding which may reasonably be thought to support the belief that conscious intelligent being pre‐existed the physical universe and caused it to be. In short: can science reasonably be thought to support the view that consciousness created the physical universe rather than that the physical universe created consciousness? (shrink)

Written in the late 1950s at the height of popular fascination with UFO's, _Flying Saucers_ is the great psychologist's brilliantly prescient meditation on the phenomenon that gripped the world. A self-confessed sceptic in such matters, Jung was nevertheless intrigued, not so much by their reality or unreality, but by their psychic aspect. He saw flying saucers as a modern myth in the making, to be passed down the generations just as we have received such myths from our ancestors. In this (...) wonderful and enlightening book Jung sees UFO's as 'visionary rumours', the centre of a quasi-religious cult and carriers of our technological and salvationist fantasies. 40 years later, with entire religions based on the writings of science fiction authors, it is remarkable to see just how right he has proved to be. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim, and others, have recently posed a powerful challenge to both emergentism and nom-reductive physicalism by providing arguments that these positions are committed to an untenable combination of both ‘upward’ and ‘dounward’ determination. In section 1, I illuminate how the nature of the realization relation underlies such skeptical arguments However, in section 2, I suggest that such conclusions involve a confusion between the implications of physicalism and those of a related thesis the ‘Completeness of Physics' (Co?) I show that (...) the truth of CoP poses a very serious obstacle to realized properties being efficacious in a physicalist universe and suggest that abandoning CoP offers hope for defending non-reductive physicalism. I then formulate a schema for a physicalist metaphysics, in section 3, which rejects CoP. This scenario is one where microphysical properties have a few conditional powers that they contribute to individuals when they realize certain properties In such a situation, I argue, though physicalism holds true there is still plausibly both ‘upward’ and ‘downward’ determination, where the latter is crucially an underappreciated form of determination I temn 'non- causal'. Ultimately, I conclude that this metaphysical schema offers a coherent account of Strongly emergent properties that preserves the truth of NRP albeit, in a form that is purged of any commitment to CoP. Finally, in section: 4, I carefully explore which of Kim's assumptions and arguments this metaphysics undermines. (shrink)

The story of Einstein's struggle to create a general theory of relativity, and his early discontentment with the final form of the theory , is well known in broad outline. Thanks to the work of John Norton and others, much of the fine detail of the story is also now known. One aspect of Einstein's work in this period has, however, been relatively neglected: Einstein's commitment to Mach's ideas on inertia, and the influence this commitment had on Einstein's work (...) on general relativity from 1907 to 1918. In this paper published writings and archival material are examined, to try to reconstruct the details of Einstein's thinking about inertia and gravitation, and the role that Mach's ideas played in Einstein's crucial work on the general theory. By the end, a clear picture of Einstein's conceptions of Mach's ideas on inertia, and their philosophical motivations, will emerge. Several surprising conclusions also emerge: Einstein's desire for a Machian gravitation theory was the central force driving his work from 1912 to 1915, keeping him going despite numerous frustrating setbacks; Einstein's continued commitment to Mach's ideas in 1916–1917 kept him at work trying various strategies of modification of the field equations, in order to exclude anti-Machian solutions ; and as late as early 1918, Einstein was ready to call the whole General Theory a failure if no way of squaring it with Mach's ideas on inertia could be found. But by 1920 Einstein advocated a view that granted spacetime independent existence with physical qualities of its own, a complete break with his earlier Machian views. (shrink)

Kant says patently conflicting things about infinity and our grasp of it. Infinite space is a good case in point. In his solution to the First Antinomy, he denies that we can grasp the spatial universe as infinite, and therefore that this universe can be infinite; while in the Aesthetic he says just the opposite: ‘Space is represented as a given infinite magnitude’ (A25/B39). And he rests these upon consistently opposite grounds. In the Antinomy we are told that (...) we can have no intuitive grasp of an infinite space, and in the Aesthetic he says that our grasp of infinite space is precisely intuitive. (shrink)

Simon Peter undergoes a considerable development from his first introduction in the Gospel of Mark to later narratives, where he gains remarkable miraculous abilities. In Mark, he witnesses Jesus performing numerous miracles without himself being named as the performer of a single one, but in Matthew’s Gospel Peter walks on water (Matt 14:22–33), in Acts he heals two paralytics and raises a woman from the dead (Acts 3:1–10; 9:32–42), and in the fourth-century Latin Acts of Peter, also known as (...) Actus Vercellenses, he makes a dog speak (Acts Pet. 9.9–15), miraculously restores a shattered marble statue (11.8–23) and revives several people from the dead (27.1–11; 28.63–66). This article examines how Peter’s various miracles contribute to their respective stories, analyses how they reflect the needs of their respective authors, and discusses what they tell us about the use of genre in the narrative tradition about the apostle Peter and his miracles. (shrink)

DOES GOD HAVE A FUTURE? A learning tool for those who wonder about the existence of God, this book offers images of God as androgynous parent, authoritative teacher, liberator, & partner. The author, Carl M. Schmitthausler, has provided compelling images of the still-evolving God. CREATED CREATOR is a "must-read" for those concerned with personal spiritual growth, religious diversity, civility & personal virtues. The author, Carl M. Schmitthausler, traces various God-images of mainline religious systems using extensive quotes from prominent (...) philosophers & theologians. He presents the search for God's true identity as an almost universal human quest. However, unlike writers who question the existence of God, Dr. Schmitthausler suggests that, although God exists in the minds of people of faith, God remains essentially unknowable. "Questions to Ponder" which follow each chapter are guides for self-examination of spiritual beliefs & attitudes helpful for either individual or adult class study. The author says that whether humans need God to reduce the ambiguities of life is not the issue. Our real need is to rethink God's nature, to free God from traditional constraints, especially human traits & characteristics. Readers are urged to accept a more complex God evolving along with more complex cultures. Alpha * Omega Publishers of Lincoln, 811 Mulder Dr., Lincoln, NE 68510. 402-483-0314. (shrink)

In his paper entitled “Ethics and the Funding of Research and Development at Universities”1 Spier examines some of the potential problems of the relationship between 1) corporate sponsors of research and 2) the universities (and faculty) that receive that funding. Citing “He who pays the piper, calls the tune,” Spier suggests that a better way of funding research would be to “set up a dedicated publicly sponsored research establishment” with the stated goal of achieving particular technical or engineering objectives. (Spier (...) cited the successful Animal Virus Research of the UK as an example). Spier states that researchers at these establishments are “not subjected to the triple requirement to teach, research and administer as are university members, so they do not have to face the same ethical challenges of the academics.” This paper will examine the stated dangers of public/corporate research partnerships and whether the proposed alternative shares equally troubling ethical issues. (shrink)

In this article I discuss the role of the immigrant in Swedish society and especially how such a role is construed through what I call the myth of schooling, that is, the normalization of an arbitrary distribution of wealth and power. I relate this myth to the idea of consensual democracy as it is expressed through an implicit idea of what it means to be Swedish. I not only critique the processes through which immigrants are discriminated against or excluded from (...) Swedish society but also try to shift the understanding of the conditions under which such exclusion is possible in the first place. Being Swedish is that which the immigrant is not. What I argue and give examples of is that the ‘no name’ immigrant becomes a possibility for democracy to happen when he or she claims his or her presence in the demos, in such a way as to make evident a split in the self‐understanding of a purely consensual Swedish democracy. In the article I argue that what is needed in order to go beyond the myth of schooling, is a pedagogy of dissensus contesting the normalizing of an unequal social order by making it contingent. (shrink)

This article will examine the consequences of highlighting ‘subject and difference’ in one of the curriculum theories that has been inspired by postmodernism. The term postmodernism is here first and foremost meant to signify the attempt to combine politics and morality with epistemology in accordance with Levinas, Lyotard and Bauman. The article will highlight some themes that need to be developed further for a postmodernism-inspired curriculum theory. A starting-point is a critique of the type of curriculum theory which has its (...) base in the new sociology of education . From this critique, focused on universal claims, the Habermasian-inspired universalism is quickly and critically dropped and left behind, and another form of reasoning is embarked upon. The latter is inspired by a ‘minotarian politics’ concept and tries to dissolve universalism as a prerequisite for critical conversations. With this background and with the help of Levinas, the article sets out to talk about ‘difference’ without reduction to the Same and finally suggest a direction for a postmodern curriculum theory with a ‘normative’ focus on knowledge. (shrink)

First?year students are still failing at an alarming rate. This is an international issue that universities face and there is currently no clear indication of the cause of the problem as universities move from being elite to providing mass education. This article examines the possible correlation between students? high school performance and first?year performance. The focus is primarily on the students? performance in mathematics and English. National Senior Certificate results as well as academic and mathematics competency results are used (...) to determine any correlations and therefore any predictors. The research is done to determine whether these results are a true reflection of a student?s performance and can be used as selection criteria. The results were disappointing since no correlation was found between students? high school performance and first?year performance. There is an indication, however, that the competency results might be an indicator. The results imply that more research is needed and that the current selection criteria are either not valid or need to be adjusted. (shrink)

While David Hume explicitly elaborated on the development of a modern commercial society in the Political Discourses and the History of England, it is more difficult to discern whether Hume had a specific time period or societal transformation in mind when he laid out his political philosophy in A Treatise of Human Nature. In the Treatise, Hume unambiguously states that he did not believe in the existence of a pre-social stage of human development—he considered such elaborations mere philosophical fiction. (...) The lack of an abrupt demarcation between the pre-social and the social in Hume's thought makes his political philosophy incongruent with an original contract or a first social formation. In this sense, Hume's social theory might be considered a foundational theory for all human coexistence and the Treatise would thus read as an ahistorical text. However, it is plausible that Hume was instead providing a discussion of a particular historical transformation—that of commercial modernization—by emphasizing the construction of a new set of social institutions and ignoring or downplaying the social forms that came before. This paper challenges the ahistorical interpretations and suggests that Hume was indeed providing a philosophical elaboration of the. (shrink)

The principle of proportionate causality is often cited as a cause for concern that Thomistic metaphysics may be irreconcilable with a theory of biological evolution. St. Thomas does hold that for the generation of what he calls perfect animals, a generator of the same species is required. This study clarifies what the proportionate causes of generated organisms are for Thomas, examining his views about spontaneous generation, reproductive generation, and hybridization, while also articulating the roles of both the heavenly bodies and (...) their separate movers as universal causes of generation. This study establishes that Thomas’s assertion of the need for a univocal generator for perfect animals is grounded not in the principle of proportionate causality, but rather in physical and biological doctrines received from Aristotle and in a causal principle that seems reconcilable with biological evolution, namely, that a remote universal cause requires more mediating causes to produce more powerful effects. (shrink)

Recent discussions on the use of metaphor have centered on how it may be used in a way that has been said to require mandatory attention to the fact that it is metaphorical, resulting in what has come to be known as deliberate metaphor (CitationSteen, 2008). While metaphor deliberateness and conventionality/novelty are conceptually distinct, associations are likely to exist in practice. This article focuses on the deliberate use of conventional metaphor in images, by way of examining the use of animate (...) and anthropomorphic metaphors in an instance of corporate branding discourse (i.e., the prospectuses of Singapore's corporatized universities). Through our analysis, we show that deliberate conventional metaphor serves to reinforce particular conceptualizations rather than effect radical conceptual change. Moreover, we discuss visual and multimodal metaphor as deliberate if used in carefully crafted texts and draw on the notion of an image's connotative meaning to point out how such deliberateness can be further accentuated. The article concludes by discussing some implications for how the degree of conventionality is likely to have an effect on how deliberate metaphor achieves its key objective of changing addressees’ concepts of a particular Target. (shrink)

It has often been recommended that the differing probability distributions of a group of experts should be reconciled in such a way as to preserve each instance of independence common to all of their distributions. When probability pooling is subject to a universal domain condition, along with state-wise aggregation, there are severe limitations on implementing this recommendation. In particular, when the individuals are epistemic peers whose probability assessments are to be accorded equal weight, universal preservation of independence is, with a (...) few exceptions, impossible. Under more reasonable restrictions on pooling, however, there is a natural method of preserving the independence of any fixed finite family of countable partitions, and hence of any fixed finite family of discrete random variables. (shrink)

Following the lead of Nietzsche, several post-modern philosophers challenge the Western notion of rationality and its representational model of thought and embrace the Dionysian element in Nietzsche's philosophy, which can take the form of embracing madness (Foucault), desire (Deleuze and Guattari), or carnival (Kristeva). This paper will place Radhakrishnan into the context of a hermeneutical dialogue with these figures from post-modern philosophy, and it will attempt to address the issue of the post-modem attack on rationality by these post-modern philosophers by (...) comparing their concept of rationality with that espoused by Radhakrishnan. It will also be demonstrated that for Radhakrishnan reason supplies conceptual clarity, is subordinate to intuition, and justifies the validity of intuition which transcends reason. It will be argued that Radhakrishnan agrees with the post-modernist that reason is not universal, but he does not share their radical scepticism as his philosophy seeks wholeness, unity, order, and rationality in conjunction with intuition in contrast to the choice of these post-modernist for diversity, difference, and chaos, and madness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 130-131 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future The Invention of Dionysus: An Essay on 'The Birth of Tragedy.' James I. Porter. Nietzsche and the Philology of the Future. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 449. Cloth, $60.00. Paper, $19.95. James I. Porter. The Invention of Dionysus: An Essay on 'The Birth of (...) Tragedy.' Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 224. Cloth, $45.00. Paper, $16.95. Every year an astonishing number of books are published on Nietzsche. Here are two more from a single author. James I. Porter's thesis--in both of them--is that "The Birth of Tragedy does not mark a break in Nietzsche's thinking, whether away from his philological understanding of antiquity or toward... emancipation from metaphysics" (Philology of the Future, 2). Perhaps to lend drama to his case, he assumes an unwarranted degree of unanimity among those who see a break between the philological writings of the young Nietzsche and the philosophical ones written later. But Porter's elaboration of his own thesis is quite persuasive nonetheless. He shows that essential tenets of Nietzsche's later philosophy can be found in his early philological writings, and that Nietzsche's interpretations of the ancient Greeks were as ambiguous, "mythological," and self-critical as his later books. In this way, Porter extensively reinterprets Nietzsche's early writing.The Invention of Dionysus is the shorter and more closely argued of the two books. Here Porter attempts to show that in The Birth of Tragedy Nietzsche both began his exposé of the fictional nature of all metaphysics and recognized that metaphysics would forever haunt the human mind. Porter asserts--more forcefully than earlier authors--that Nietzsche was decisively influenced by Friedrich Albert Lange in this; indeed he ascribes much of what is thought most characteristic of Nietzsche's philosophy to Lange! But what Porter takes away from Nietzsche and awards to Lange in originality, he returns to Nietzsche in subtlety.Porter contends that throughout his career Nietzsche defended an "embattled position" (18), attempting to preserve both appearance and metaphysics as necessary dimensions of human consciousness. This is perhaps Porter's contribution: to assert that Nietzsche never thought he had abolished metaphysics in favor of appearance, as so many writers have claimed. According to Porter, Nietzsche understood in The Birth of Tragedy and throughout his career that metaphysics could never be abolished; that the act of trying to abolish metaphysics is itself inevitably metaphysical, and that any philosophy of appearances including his own must also be metaphysical. Porter characterizes Nietzsche's rhetorical stance as "mythological."Porter quotes a passage from The Birth of Tragedy to show that Nietzsche was both eager to reveal the mythological status of Greek metaphysics, and fully aware that his own efforts to reveal it were mythological as well: "It is the fate of every myth to creep by degrees into the narrow limits of some alleged historical reality, and to be treated by some later generation as a unique fact with historical claims"(45). So if readers take Nietzsche's arguments at face value, that is understandable; but it does not make them any less mythological. According to Porter, this stance gives the lie to claims that The Birth of Tragedy was "still" metaphysical. And it should establish that from the first Nietzsche had a more subtle view of his project than previously acknowledged.Porter makes this enduring mythological stance the central issue for interpreting Nietzsche's oeuvre. Interesting as this is, it makes Nietzsche out to be impossibly consistent and prescient about his later writing. And it leaves him an oddly disembodied thinker--quite contrary to his own understanding of the philosophical career. The obvious contortions [End Page 130] in Nietzsche's early writing--rooted in his attempt to be true to his own best insights while maintaining a strenuous discipleship to Richard Wagner--are entirely glossed over. While this might be... (shrink)

This book examines why individuals and communities invest heavily in their religious life through multi-disciplinary perspectives. It pursues philosophical, psychological, deep time historical and adaptive answers to this question. Religion is a profoundly puzzling phenomenon from an evolutionary perspective. Commitment to religions are typically expensive, and most of the beliefs that motivate them cannot be true (since religious belief systems are inconsistent with one another). Yet some form of religion seems to be universal and resilient in historically known cultures – (...) though not, if archaeology is to be trusted, in human communities early in the evolution of our species. We have collectively invented religion over about the last 100,000 years. Stemming from an interdisciplinary workshop, this book grapples with these challenges and features diverse contributions: some offer evolutionary and historical analyses, identifying hidden adaptive benefits to religion independent of the veracity of religious belief. Others see connections between religious commitment and commitment to the social norms that make cooperative life possible and explore aspects of human psychology that make religious belief tempting. Broad in scope and theoretically ambitious, Religion and Its Evolution: Signals, Norms and Secret Histories will be a key resource for scholars and researchers of religious studies, sciences of religion, psychology, anthropology, the cultural evolution of religion and the sociology of religion. This book was originally published as a special issue of Religion, Brain & Behavior. (shrink)

As the two comprehensive humanistic disciplines, philosophy and history have a complex interface. By ‘comprehensive’, I mean that only philosophy and history have the prerogative of being immediately and justifiably relevant to all domains of human endeavor. Thus, there is the history and philosophy of mathematics, the history and philosophy of art, the history and philosophy of religion, the history and philosophy of politics, not to mention the history of philosophy, the philosophy of history, and, in qualified senses, the (...) history of history and the philosophy of philosophy. History is always immediately relevant to human endeavor because the latter aims at a coherence beyond simple behavior, yet necessarily leaves a spatio-temporal trace; philosophy is always immediately relevant because all forms of human endeavor have their primary principles—noetic, ethical, and metaphysical. Philosophy and history are necessarily interconnected not only because both are themselves human endeavors, but also because history’s orientation about coherence and philosophy’s about primacy both face, at a fundamental level, the dialectic of universal and particular induced by the hunt for intelligibility. The two are therefore led to quarrel about which really is the magistra vitæ, for both hope to be wise, i.e., intelligent and accomplished, about τἀνθρώπινα, the human things. (shrink)

The central problem about the relationship between categories and the real order can be stated very simply: the purpose of categorial predication is to yield a set of necessary truths about things within the world, but the universality of these same truths sometimes seems to subordinate the particularity of the real order to the generality of conceptual understanding. As a result, an apparent conflict arises between the real and the logical orders which quite naturally raises a question about how these (...) two separate realms are to be related. In this paper I will examine this question in typically Aristotelian terms, first by discussing a small cluster of passages in Wilfrid Sellars’s challenging paper about Aristotle’s metaphysics, and then by offering my own interpretation of Aristotle’s position about the issue in question. My fundamental purpose in doing this is to establish an intelligible relationship between categories and the real order and to do so by exploring the logical space between an individual thing and the question “What is it?” I am convinced that within this space form and content meet and that we can at least begin to answer our original question about the real and the logical orders by exploring their interconnection. (shrink)

This article investigates the media lives of a particular class taxonomy in the Swedish press from 1945 to 1976. Invented by the Central Bureau of Statistics in 1911, the ‘social group division’ system was abandoned in the early post-war period. Around the same time, however, it gained popularity in Swedish culture and political debate. While earlier research has noted that such bureaucratic class taxonomies – as in several other Western countries – conditioned how actors understood and created new knowledge (...) about the population, this process of wider circulation remains understudied. Using insights from literature on ‘the social life of methods’ and the history of knowledge, which underline that knowledge is transformed by and transforms the contexts it circulates in, I show that print media was an arena for circulating and producing new meaning around class taxonomies. Although editorials shunned the social group division for incorrectly representing Swedish society and creating artificial class boundaries, journalists used the taxonomy to explain social structures. Furthermore, by interviewing ‘typical’ members of the different social groups, journalists made the system relatable and personal for their readers. In this context, the social groups were imagined as cultural communities, sharing cultural behaviours and preferences. Lastly, I analyse usages of the social group division in letters to the editor, which reveal that people felt they were being classified and wanted to offer their views of society, using the taxonomy in ways the experts had not intended. This study thereby contributes to the history of social taxonomies and class languages in the post-war period. (shrink)

In his newly reissued and revised book, the philosopher Ian Dearden at- tempts a critical inquiry into a philosophical position he calls “nonsensi- calism,” which he takes to correspond to the view “that it is possible to be mistaken in thinking one means anything by what one says”.1 He holds that an unexamined assumption to this effect is implicit in a large swathe of philosophical work dating from a period stretching throughout most of the 20th century, thanks to the (...) widespread tendency of philosophers to accuse each other of talk- ing nonsense. This is, according to the author of the book, most visible in the earlier and later philosophical writings of Wittgenstein, in logical pos- itivism, and in representatives of the Oxford-based “ordinary language” philosophy movement, as well as in the writings of many of those subse- quently writing under the influence of these. Dearden coins a special term to refer to the sort of error that philosophers are accusing each other of having committed: he calls such cases of error “illusions of meaning.”. (shrink)

Several years ago, the University of Minnesota hosted a lecture by Alan Milstein, a Philadelphia attorney specializing in clinical trial litigation. Milstein, who does not mince words, insisted on calling research studies “experiments.” “Don't call it a study,” Milstein said. “Don't call it a clinical trial. Call it what it is. It's an experiment.” Milstein's comments made me wonder: when was the last time I heard an ongoing research study described as a “human experiment”? The phrase is now almost always (...) associated with abuses. Asking a prospective subject to sign up for a medical experiment would probably get roughly the same response as asking him or her to sign up for a police interrogation. It wasn't always this way. In the early days of American bioethics, scholars used the word “experimentation” in the same neutral way that they later began to use “research study” and “clinical trial.”. (shrink)

W. Norris Clarke's metaphysics of the universe as a journey rests on six major positions: the unrestricted dynamism of the mind, the primacy of the act of existence, the participation structure of reality, and the person, considered as both the starting point of philosophy and the source of the categories needed for a flexible contemporary metaphysics. Reflecting on his conscious life and the universe around him, the finite person mounts by a two-fold path to its Infinite source, who, (...) though immutable in His natural being, is mutable in the intentional being of His personal knowledge and love. The personal God is the efficient cause from whom the universe comes and the final cause to whom it returns.Less optimistic than Norris Clarke, John Caputo wonders about his metaphysics of the person. In a hermeneutical interpretation of the human face, the person through whom Being "sounds" discloses an ambiguous Being that both reveals and conceals itself. Far from grounding a casual ascent to God, hermeneutical phenomenology allows us no more than the right to interpret the world and its transcendent source through our own free decision.Although impressed by Norris Clarke's attempt to introduce mutability into God, Lewis Ford still finds Clarke's Thomistic God unacceptable. As a Whiteheadian, he proposes in place of Thomas' God, whose perfection consists in static unity, a God whose perfection consists in a never-ending process of unification. John Smith argues against the traditional dichotomy made between the ontological and cosmological arguments. Rather than opposed methods of proving God's existence, they should be taken as complementary journeys to the divine presence which discloses itself, although diversely, in the soul and in the world. There are parallels between Smith's historical study of two arguments and Clarke's two-fold path to God. Yet Smith is critical of Thomas' cosmological journey to God and does not share Clarke's confidence in its validity. Significant studies in their own right, the three essays as a group challenge Clarke's whole metaphysics of the universe as a journey. Meeting the challenge, Clarke clarifies and refines his own thought.An account of Clarke's philosophy by Gerald A. McCool, S.J. preceds this unified and stimulating philosophical discussion. (shrink)

The West German positivist dispute in the 1960s is well known and thoroughly studied. At about the same time positivist disputes also took place in two Scandinavian countries: one in Norway and one in Sweden. What did the front lines in the debate look like in the three countries? What was the outcome of the different disputes? The main focus in the article is on the Swedish case, but some comparative perspectives relating to the three disputes will also be presented. (...) The Swedish positivist dispute originated with Gerard Radnitzky’s doctoral dissertation in theory of science, defended at the University of Gothenburg in May 1968, Contemporary Schools of Metascience (2 volumes). The dissertation caused a stir of controversy. It meant a challenge to the Swedish philsophical establishment because it leaned heavily on continental philosophers such as Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas, who at the time were more or less unknown in Sweden. The controversy was continuated in the following years, most notably in the leftist journal Häften för kritiska studier (Notebooks for Critical Studies). (shrink)

Between the two World Wars, Jørgen Jørgensen was a central figure in Danish philosophy and internationally recognized, as his teacher Harald Høffding had been before World War 1. When in the late 1920s Jørgensen established contact with the movement that would later be called logical positivism, he found a group of philosophers of his own age who advocated empiricism, the tools of formal logic and the Unity of Science, and who shared his anti-metaphysical approach to philosophy. He became one of (...) the movement’s organizers and wrote its history, but he was only for a short period influenced by especially Rudolf Carnap’s philosophy of logic. Although Jørgensen was never an uncritical member of the movement, he is often considered as a central representative of logical positivism in Scandinavia. (shrink)

This dissertation takes up the project of showing that, in the context of the general theory of relativity , spacetime relationism is not a refuted or hopeless view, as many in the recent literature have maintained . Most of the challenges to the relationist view in General Relativity can be satisfactorily answered; in addition, the opposing absolutist and substantivalist views of spacetime can be shown to be problematic. The crucial burden for relationists concerned with GTR is to show that the (...) realistic cosmological models, i.e. those that may be roughly accurate representations of our universe, satisfy Mach's ideas about the origin of inertia. This dissertation clears the way for and begins such a demonstration. ;After a brief discussion of the problem of the nature of spacetime and its history in the Introduction, chapters 2 and 3 provide conceptual analysis and criticism of contemporary philosophical arguments about relationism, absolutism, and particularly substantivalism. The current best arguments in favor of substantivalism are shown to be flawed, with the exception of the argument from inertial and metrical structure; and on this issue, it is shown that both relationism and substantivalism need to argue for modifications of GTR in order to have a non-trivial explanation of inertial and metrical structure. For relationists, a Machian account of the origin of inertia in some models of GTR is required. Chapter 4 demonstrates that such a Machian account is equivalent to the demand for a truly general relativity of motion. Chapter 5 explores the history of Einstein's commitment to Mach's ideas in his work on GTR. Through an examination of the history of Einstein's attempts to impose Machian constraints on the models of General Relativity, further insight into the nature of this problem is obtained, as are reasons to believe that the project is by no means hopeless. (shrink)

In his newly reissued and revised book, the philosopher Ian Dearden at- tempts a critical inquiry into a philosophical position he calls “nonsensi- calism,” which he takes to correspond to the view “that it is possible to be mistaken in thinking one means anything by what one says”.1 He holds that an unexamined assumption to this effect is implicit in a large swathe of philosophical work dating from a period stretching throughout most of the 20th century, thanks to the (...) widespread tendency of philosophers to accuse each other of talk- ing nonsense. This is, according to the author of the book, most visible in the earlier and later philosophical writings of Wittgenstein, in logical pos- itivism, and in representatives of the Oxford-based “ordinary language” philosophy movement, as well as in the writings of many of those subse- quently writing under the influence of these. Dearden coins a special term to refer to the sort of error that philosophers are accusing each other of having committed: he calls such cases of error “illusions of meaning.”. (shrink)

"Ludwig Wittgenstein's brief Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus is one of the most important philosophical works of the Twentieth Century, yet it offers little orientation for the reader. The first-time reader is left wondering what it could be about, and the scholar is left with little guidance for interpretation. In Tractatus in Context, James C. Klagge presents the vital background necessary for appreciating Wittgenstein's gnomic masterpiece. Tractatus in Context contains the early reactions to the Tractatus, including the initial reviews written in 1922-1924. And (...) while we can't talk with Wittgenstein, we can do the next best thing-hear what he had to say about the Tractatus. Klagge thus presents what Wittgenstein thought about germane issues leading up to his writing the book, in discussions and correspondence with others about his ideas, and what he had to say about the Tractatus after it was written-in letters, lectures and conversations. It offers, you might say, Wittgenstein's own commentary on the book. Key Features: Illuminates what is at stake in the Tractatus, by providing the views of others that engaged Wittgenstein as he was writing it. Includes Wittgenstein's earlier thoughts on ideas in the book as recorded in his notebooks, letters, and conversations as well as his later, retrospective comments on those ideas. Draws on new or little-known sources, such as Wittgenstein's coded notebooks, Hermine's notes, Frege's letters, Hänsel's diary, Ramsey's notes, and Skinner's dictations. Draws connections between the background context and specific passages in the Tractatus, using a proposition-by-proposition commentary"--. (shrink)

479 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:3 JULY 1996 Sandra B. Rosenthal. Charles Peirce's Pragmatic Pluralism. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994. Pp. xi + 177. Board, $16.95. Sandra Rosenthal's Charles Peirce's Pragmatic Pluralism represents a sustained discus- sion of those aspects of Peirce's philosophy that suggest that he was a philosophical pluralist. The book contains a complex, intricate, and extremely well documented exhibition of how the uniqueness of Peirce's thought places him beyond traditional views labeled as (...) phenomenalist, idealist, and realist. The kind of pluralism -- not nominalistic, but "pragmatic pluralism"--underlying Peirce's thought, however, is not a relativistic anti-foundationalism; it affirms nonarhitrary epistemological and metaphysical commitments. The first chapter examines Peirce's conceptions of world, truth, and science. The actual world is a system of facts that must be understood in terms of perceptual and.. (shrink)

The seemingly endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have renewed the age-old debate over what constitutes military victory. Will the withdrawal of troops from Iraq and Afghanistan be seen as a sign of victory or defeat? Although the nature of warfare has changed dramatically since Clausewitz's On War was first written, this selection from his classic work remains an invaluable source of insight for understanding what it means to achieve victory in war and how to recognize defeat. Princeton Shorts are (...) brief selections excerpted from influential Princeton University Press publications produced exclusively in eBook format. They are selected with the firm belief that while the original work remains an important and enduring product, sometimes we can all benefit from a quick take on a topic worthy of a longer book. In a world where every second counts, how better to stay up-to speed on current events and digest the kernels of wisdom found in the great works of the past? Princeton Shorts enables you to be an instant expert in a world where information is everywhere but quality is at a premium. On Victory and Defeat does just that. (shrink)

This book amounts to a set of prolegomena to any future metaphysics of the self that might qualify as a science. It seeks to locate the traditional concerns of what is now called "virtue ethics" within the naturalistic parameters of contemporary evolutionary biology, not so much by arguing that those parameters are the necessary ones or the only ones available but by considering what ethical intuitions can be maintained on their hypothesis. Within what the author calls "naturalistic brackets" he proceeds (...) to explore "what would become of ethics if we had no higher ideal to pursue than our own natural health". Those who have already found philosophical stimulation in such writers as Konrad Lorenz, E. O. Wilson, and Mary Midgley, for example, will welcome what amounts to a bridge between a contemporary scientific idiom and the traditional philosophical idioms of Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Hobbes, and Nietzsche. The chief question might be put: How can we make intelligible the nobility of virtue, once we have eschewed all transcendent consolation? The author's positive, optimistic answer requires a careful analysis of the notion of health, both bodily and mental, and a great deal of conceptual sophistication in order to avoid the various pitfalls of reductionist and scientistic thinking. One of the book's striking successes is just how sensibly its author negotiates those potential traps, deftly finding his own clear path through the sorts of debates that have for some time now typically been used to upset or derail metaphysical inquiry: nature vs. nurture, essence vs. freedom, univocity vs. language games, universality vs. contingency. There are no simplistic, irritating either/ors here. Furthermore, the book's "transformational, therapeutic vision of ethics is something very different from the justification of rules of correct behavior that we now think of as moral philosophy". Deontologists will find little comfort in this timely return to exploring the continuities between nature and the good. (shrink)

Until quite recently, mind-body dualism has been regarded with deep suspicion by both philosophers and scientists. This has largely been due to the widespread identification of dualism in general with one particular version of it: the interactionist substance dualism of Réné Descartes. This traditional form of dualism has, ever since its first formulation in the seventeenth century, attracted numerous philosophical objections and is now almost universally rejected in scientific circles as empirically inadequate. During the last few years, however, renewed attention (...) has begun to be paid to the dualistic point of view, as a result of increasing discontent with the prevailing materialism and reductionism of contemporary scientific and philosophical thought. Awareness has grown that dualism need not be restricted to its traditional form and that other varieties of dualism are not subject to the difficulties commonly raised against Descartes' own version of it. -/- Interest in these alternative versions of dualism is growing fast today, because it seems that they are capable of capturing deep-seated philosophical intuitions, while also being fully consistent with the methodological assumptions and empirical findings of modern scientific work on the human mind and brain. The object of this book is to provide philosophers, scientists, their students, and the wider general public with an up-to-date overview of current developments in dualistic conceptions of the mind in contemporary philosophy and science. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Chaos and LiteratureCarl Matheson and Evan KirchhoffIChaos theory was the intellectual darling of pop-science writers of the late 1980s. 1 In their eyes, it would provide a new paradigm by which to describe the world, one that liberated scientists from clockwork determinism—or, alternatively, from incomprehensible randomness. In an introductory textbook of the period, Robert Devaney called chaos theory “the third great scientific revolution of the 20th century, along (...) with relativity and quantum mechanics.” Similar attitudes propagated into philosophy; for example, Stephen Kellert argued that an acceptance of chaos theory would involve a reconfiguration of scientific methodology. 2It was in the domain of literary theory, however, that chaos found its most enthusiastic reception in the humanities, and the enthusiasm lives on. Many literary theorists display no hesitation in touting the supposedly revolutionary implications of chaos science. Katherine Hayles, the chief among them, argues that because the concept of order has undergone a “radical reevaluation” in recent decades, “textuality is conceived in new ways within critical theory and literature, and new kinds of phenomena are coming to the fore within an emerging field known as the science of chaos” (CO, p. 1). She infers that the new “paradigm of orderly disorder” (CB, p. xiii) represented by chaos theory signifies a conceptual revolution in modern culture as a whole. 3 She attempts to establish a parallel between chaos theory and various poststructuralist philosophical positions, including those of Derrida and Foucault, claiming that this new paradigm “may well prove to be as important to the second half of the century as the field concept was to [End Page 28] the first half” (CB, p. xiii), and that chaos may soon be “on a par with evolution, relativity, and quantum mechanics in its impact on the culture” (CO, p. 4). Other theorists make claims for the interpretive power of chaos; according to William Demastes, “chaos theory can help in comprehending several paths that the theatre has followed since the inception of postmodernism” (p. 242). 4 By a conservative estimate, over fifty papers have been published which link chaos theory to literature or literary theory. Clearly, the idea that chaos theory has application outside of science is not restricted to one or two over-eager humanists.In this essay, we wish to address some of the claims which concern the relationship between chaos science and the study of literature. Three such claims are:a. There are significant similarities between the science of chaos, contemporary literary theory, and/or philosophy.b. We can trace a common etiology for chaos theory and poststructuralist criticism. The two are so intimately related that they are really different formulations of a common claim, as filtered through two different fields.c. The science of chaos can help us interpret and understand specific literary works, and perhaps contemporary literature in general.However, before assessing the relationship between chaos and literature, we will briefly introduce chaos theory itself and demonstrate that even a minimal understanding is sufficient to undercut the supposed revolutionary significance of chaos theory. 5IIChaotic systems are deterministic: an exact description of a system at any given time, together with the laws of nature that apply to it, will entail the entire future behavior of the system. In this sense, chaotic systems form a subclass of classical systems (and are to be distinguished from quantum systems, which are indeterministic). However, chaotic systems differ from the systems studied throughout most of the history of science in two major ways. First, the differential equations used to model them are nonlinear, while the history of mathematical physics is largely devoted to a treatment of linear differential equations. Technical issues aside, the ramifications of nonlinearity are: (i) equations which are impossible to solve using the general strategies designed for [End Page 29] linear equations; and consequently (ii) the need for solutions by methods of numerical approximation, generally performed on a computer. Second, chaotic systems exhibit a feature known as “sensitive dependence”—or, more colorfully, as “the butterfly effect,” a figure of speech intended to evoke the worry that our long-term forecasts of the weather can be hopelessly disrupted by the atmospheric fluctuations due to a single butterfly... (shrink)

This is a thesis in formal semantics. It consists of two parts corresponding to the distinction, due to Richard Montague, between universal grammar and specific semantic theories. The first part concerns universal grammar and is intended to provide a precise and unified conceptual framework within which different theories of formal semantics can be represented and compared. ;The second part of the thesis is concerned with intensional logic, i.e., with the logical analysis of discourse involving so called oblique contexts. These contexts (...) are characterized by the apparent failure of certain classically valid principles of substitutivity. Two kinds of reactions among logicians to the appearance of oblique contexts in natural languages are distinguished: (1) the intensional point of view, according to which oblique contexts are seen as genuine counterexamples to classical logic and to the related semantical principle of extensionality: the principle that the denotation of an expression is a function of the denotations of its parts; and (2) the extensional point of view, according to which the conflict between oblique contexts and classical logic is only apparent. The extensional point of view therefore calls for analyses of oblique contexts that preserve the laws of classical logic and the principle of extensionality. In this thesis, we are concerned with the precise formulation of and comparison between different programs for the formal semantic representation of oblique contexts. In Chapter 5, we are concerned with Church's program of representing oblique contexts within a formal language whose semantics is fully extensional and based on Frege's distinction between sense and denotation. The ambiguity between the "direct" and "indirect" denotation of an expression A is avoided by letting A be replaced in oblique contexts by an expression which denotes A's ordinary sense. We provide a possible-worlds semantics for a version of Church's formal language with the following features: (i) Objectual quantification into oblique constructions is accounted for. The treatment of quantification requires for each entity x an essence of x, by which we mean a sense which determines x in those worlds in which x exists and is undefined in all other worlds. (ii) The variables range over actually existing entities only. It is allowed that entities of certain types are contingent, i.e., the same entity may exist in one world and fail to exist in other worlds. (iii) In order to combine a proper treatment of the cross-world identification of functions with varying domains, partial functions are allowed. (iv) Senses are allowed to be partially defined. For example, the sense of a proper name is undefined in a world in which the denotation of the name does not exist. (v) Senses of functions from objects of type a to objects of type b are identified with functions from senses of objects of type a to senses of objects of type b. In Chapters 6 and 7, we pursue the Russellian Alternative in intensional semantics, where a sense/denotation distinction is avoided. Apparent failures of substitutivity principles for singular terms are explained along the lines of Russell's theory of definite descriptions. Failures of substitutivity of coextensional sentences and predicates are explained by Russell's doctrine that sentences and predicate denote propositions and propositional functions , respectively. Russellian semantics is fully extensional in the sense that the Russellian denotation of a designator is a function of the Russellian denotations of its parts. In Chapter 6, a theory of Russellian propositions is developed within set theory. This theory is then applied in Chapter 7 to the task of providing a set-theoretic semantics for Russellian type theory. (shrink)

In Homer’s account of the adventurous journey of Odysseus, the song of the sirens was so appealing and tempting that it lured sailors to their deaths. Warned by the goddess Kirke, Odysseus overcame the trap by plugging his crew’s ears with wax. An archaeo-acoustical research expedition undertaken by members of Humboldt University Berlin made sound propagation experiments at the supposedly historical scene at the Galli Islands where it’s said that the sirens originally sung. At the site we broadcasted both synthetic (...) signals and natural voices via loudspeakers in the direction Odysseus most probably should have approached the Siren’s island. Subjective listening as well as objective acoustic analysis of the recorded signals revealed evidence for a combination of site-specific acoustic effects, which may explain the nature and origin of the song of the sirens in Homer. The local arrangement of the three islands deforms the acoustic signals by amplification and by changes in timbre. Two female singers from the Berlin State Opera were asked to sing differently pitched musical intervals to be tested in the Li Galli environment. The experiment evinced that the first overtones would be merged by the echo of the rocks; yet when singing pure thirds and less consonant intervals, which yield higher orders in the overtone series, the voices appear recognisable as being two. As a result, and particularly because Homer stresses the number of exactly two sirens several times, the evidence of our research supports the musicological theory for a rather early existence of enharmonic tunings and most prominently a two-part polyphonic singing of Greek songs. Given that the rocky formation of the Galli Islands most likely didn’t change during the geological tick of just 2,700 years, we conclude that there has been a real acoustic basis for the myth reported by Homer and that a “song of the Sirens”, most probably based on natural voices, was transformed by the particular acoustic conditions of the landscape in such a way that signals were amplified and sent out in one concrete direction. Based on these results, we continue to discuss further leading acoustic theories that offer new insights into the mythology and which were essential to motivate our expedition in the first place. After all, the question remains open what kind of beings the first emitters of the song might have been. (shrink)

This is the first comprehensive study for nearly 200 years of what remains of the writings of the Presocratic philosopher Philolaus of Croton. These fragments are crucial to our understanding of one of the most influential schools of ancient philosophy, the Pythagoreans; they also show close ties with the main lines of development of Presocratic thought, and represent a significant response to thinkers such as Parmenides and Anaxagoras. Professor Huffman presents the fragments and testimonia with accompanying translations and introductory chapters (...) and interpretive commentary. He not only produces further argument for the authenticity of much that used to be neglected, but also undertakes a critique of Aristotle's testimony, opening the way for a quite new reading of fifth-century Pythagoreanism in general and of Philolaus in particular. Philolaus is revealed as a serious natural philosopher. (shrink)

For the greater part of the last 50 years, it has been common for philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists to invoke the notion of realization in discussing the relationship between the mind and the brain. In traditional philosophy of mind, mental states are said to be realized, instantiated, or implemented in brain states. Artificial intelligence is sometimes described as the attempt either to model or to actually construct systems that realize some of the same psychological abilities that we and (...) other living creatures possess. The claim that specific psychological. (shrink)