"Die... Vortrèage wurden anlèasslich der Veranstaltungen zum fèunfhundertjèahrigen Jubilèaum der Universitèat Tèubingen in der Vortragsreihe 'Geschichte und Zukunft' des Fachbereichs Geschichte im Sommersemester 1977 gehalten.".

Since last year, major initiatives have been undertaken by the chair of theoretical philosophy at the University of Tübingen in order to enhance the reception of analytic metaphysics in the European landscape. Here we review the 2013 summer workshop, intended to be the first of an annual series, on “Existence, Truth and Fundamentality”, the invited speakers being Graham Priest (Melbourne), Stephan Leuenberger (Glasgow), Dan López de Sa (Barcelona), Francesco Berto (Aberdeen), Friederike Moltmann (Paris – Pantheon Sorbonne) and Jason Turner (Leeds). (...) The workshop’s scope is fairly large, focusing on three different aspects of contemporary research in metaphysics. However, the underlying idea of organizers Thomas Sattig and Alessandro Torza consisted in exploring their interconnections and even new areas which possibly share the same problem spectrum. Also, they thought of bringing together both young and senior protagonists of the contemporary debate. In this sense, the main thread followed by the speakers consisted in enquiring the ideas of fundamentality, dependence and grounding with respect to ontology (Berto, López de Sa, Turner) and the truthmaking debate (Priest, Moltmann, Leuenberger), thus pretty much in line with some latest tendencies in metaphysics, such as, prima inter paria, the works of Kit Fine. When we say that something is more fundamental than something else, we move into a non-conventional (for the standards of 20 th century philosophy) metodological framework, hardly focusing on the question about what there is, and rather tackling the issue of how fundamentally there is what there is, or how the existence of something is required as a ground for the existence of other things. Here is how Jonathan Schaffer explains the methodological transition in his influential “On What Grounds What” (2009): -/- Among the many assumptions Quine and Carnap share is that metaphysical questions are existence questions, such as whether numbers exist. They only disagree on the further issue of whether such questions are meaningful (at least as the metaphysician might pose them). But why think that metaphysical questions are existence question of this sort? Return to Aristotle’s Metaphysics. There are virtually no existence question posed. The whole discussion is about substances (fundamental units of being). At one point Aristotle pauses to ask if numbers exist, and his answer is a brief and dismissive yes. [. . . ] For Aristotle, the question about numbers is whether they are transcendent substances or grounded in concreta. The question is not whether numbers exist, but how. (Schaffer, 2009, p. 347) -/- The conference opened with Graham Priest’s intriguing and peculiar review of Buddhist cornerstone “The Fundamental Verses of the Middle Way” (Mūlamadhyakamakārikā) by Nāgārjuna (ca. 150-ca. 250 AD), seen as a unrecognized forerunner of multi-valued semantics and dialetheism. Priest shows that Nagarjuna’s thought indeed has valuable analytic grip (contrary to the traditional mystical dismiss of his works altogether) and is even in accord to some formal schemas rejecting both the laws of excluded middle and non-contradiction. Dan López de Sa was interested in the topic of grounding, raising concerns about how to explain the kind of “reality” exemplified by what is not fundamental, but rather derivative on something else. He proposes a conceptual and non-primitive analysis of grounding as linked to fundamentality and derivation, and argues that the view can be advocated along with the acceptance that at least something is not fundamental. Subsequently, he illustrates an impressive range of applications linked to contemporary debates in meta-ontology, truthmaking and philosophy of time. Stephan Leuenberger discussed a semantics for “total logic”, a variant of first order logic which is claimed to have several applications with respect to the issue of excluding negative existentials from the scope of theories accounting for a given ’totality’ of facts. For example, materialism is the claim that everything there is can be traced back to physical facts or to truth implied by those facts. What about the claim that “There are no angels”? According to Leuenberger, ordinary logic falls prey of modal arguments (if it is possible that there are angels, by modus tollens, that it is not metaphysically necessary that everything there is is physical). So, there is space for the introduction of a new operator, the totality operator, claiming of what enters its scope that “that’s the whole truth”. Consequently, total logic’s semantics tackles David Chalmers’ well-known conceivability-based argument in favour of zombie’s (subjects producing behaviour but experiencing no qualia) possible existence. Friederike Moltmann presented a massive array of natural language-based examples on the role played by case-constructions, such as “it is the case that Caesar crossed the Rubicon”, “the case of the stolen statue”, “the case in which it might rain”, and so forth. She suggests that we should take surface phenomena of our language very seriously with regard to the determination of ontological categories and truth-makers. Cases are provided by many natural languages with their own existence predicates (“to occur” and “to present itself ”), and these do not apply to other kind of entities, such as objects and events. Trying to derive a substantive thesis on their nature, she claims that they are filtered entities, a structure taking into account some features of the corresponding objects and events and preserving their relational pattern. Jason Turner discussed meta-ontological concerns against the claim that ontological debates are defective. Analysed the structure of a metaphysical theory and identified two different forms of defectiveness that can occur in ontological questions, the defection from without and the defection from within, the author provided an original solution in order to avoid such difficulties. He argued thus in favor of a logical constancy, a translation principle thanks to it would be possible reconceive an ontological defection. Lastly, Francesco Berto’s talk closed the workshop with a sagacious discussion of meinongian quantification. He substains that Meinongians and Quineans experience no conceptual equivocation. Even if the former claims that “There are things that do not exist”, something that the latter contrasts with the interpretation of existential quantifiers as all-including, they still rely upon the same concept of “existence” and they understand each other when they are outside the ontology room, so that it cannot be that they lack competence. Subsequently, Berto deals with the objection that Meinongians commit analytic falsehood in separating the meaning of “to be” from that of “exists”. The Quinean has no independent evidence for analytic equivalence aside from her emphatic stress on the “is” in “there is”. Meinongians, however, can retort to linguistic considerations and claim that existence predicates display fairly different functions. -/- As for what regards our internal division of the “philosophical labor”, Fabio Ceravolo reviewed Moltmann and Berto’s talks; whereas Mattia Cozzi took care of Priest’s and Leuenberger’s, and Mattia Sorgon of those given by López de Sa and Turner. Conclusively, we would like to thank Thomas Sattig and Alessandro Torza for all of their organizational efforts and the kind welcome they reserved to us. We hope we will have further opportunities to collaborate with Tübingen in supporting similarly innovative and valiant european initiatives. (shrink)

In view of the subsequent career of the leading Lutheran theologian Paul Althaus, the student letters reproduced here obtain considerable biographical weight: 1913 doctorate in Göttingen, 1914 habilitated and a privatdozent, during the war an volunteer orderly, then a hospital and provincial pastor in Lodz, 1919–1924 Professor in Rostock, 1924–1966 Professor of systematic theology and New Testament exegesis in Erlangen. Althaus' letters shed light on the family and confessional traditions in which he originated, just as they do on his connections (...) with a fervent church as well as a national and patriotic life. In addition, they illustrate the outstanding powers of observation and formulation as well as the intelligence and wide interests of the young student, all qualities of importance for his later career. In addition, the student letters of the 18–19 year old Paul Althaus describe the conditions of studying in Tübingen a hundred years ago. The professors then instructing there, among them, especially Adolf Schlatter, are also vividly described in their various roles, just as the letters richly narrate aspects of the general conduct of studies, life in fraternities – Althaus was active in the Nicaren, a non-duelling Christian association – as well as the many student rambles through the woods. (shrink)

The following essay aims not only to answer whether Friedrich Schelling’s philosophy lived on in Catholic Tübingen, but also to clarify what aspects of Schelling’s corpus were received and which were set aside. Below it is my claim that Tübingen theologians incorporated insights from Schelling’s early, Idealist philosophy, as well as his late, post-Idealist philosophy. The two theologians most extensively involved in this project were Johann Sebastian Drey and Johannes Kuhn. Most important for Tübingen was the possibility that Schelling could (...) bridge historical truths into scientific ideals. Tübingen incorporated these ideas, taken directly from Schelling, without ingesting his entire system, early or late, especially his ideas about the nature of God and the relationship between God and the world. Their reception of Schelling was careful and deliberate, and by being so, they provided a model for theological engagement with modern ideas. (shrink)

The article starts by observing a parallel between the identification of Christ's humanity and universal human nature, for which Harnack repudiates some church fathers, and David Strauss' claim, in his Life of Jesus, that the subject of the Incarnation must be all humanity. It is argued that this oppositional stance is indicative of fundamental philosophical and theological differences between the Tübingen School and the Ritschl School. Those differences, however, are then explained as emerging from what is ultimately a common project (...) of a radical form of historical theology. This project, it is argued, Ritschl took over from Baur while correcting it in crucial ways. Taken together, the two central theological schools of the 19th century thus illustrate the potential and the limits of christian theology within the historicist paradigm. (shrink)

Collected writings on Plato’s unwritten teachings.

_Collected writings on Plato’s unwritten teachings._.

O texto procura reconstruir os principais momentos da crítica de Schelling à chamada teologia ortodoxa de Tübingen. Em sua correspondência com Hegel, bem como em seus textos de juventude, Schelling procura mostrar ao amigo por que essa sua crítica à teologia se liga ao fato de ele ter “se tornado um espinosista”, o que insere o debate na chamada querela do panteísmo, iniciada pelo livro de Jacobi sobre Espinosa. Embora, em sua maior parte, siga o caminho de Fichte na interpretação (...) da obra de Jacobi, Schelling ousa ir além do autor da Doutrina-da-ciência ao igualar Deus ao eu absoluto. (shrink)

This volume contains finalized versions of papers presented at an international workshop on extensions of logic programming, held at the Seminar for Natural Language Systems at the University of Tübingen in December 1989. Several recent extensions of definite Horn clause programming, especially those with a proof-theoretic background, have much in common. One common thread is a new emphasis on hypothetical reasoning, which is typically inspired by Gentzen-style sequent or natural deduction systems. This is not only of theoretical significance, but also (...) bears upon computational issues. It was one purpose of the workshop to bring some of these recent developments together. The volume covers topics such as the languages Lambda-Prolog, N-Prolog, and GCLA, the relationship between logic programming and functional programming, and the relationship between extensions of logic programming and automated theorem proving. It contains the results of the first conference concentrating on proof-theoretic approaches to logic programming. (shrink)

O tema deste artigo é um texto apócrifo de W. G. Sebald, o ensaio "Europäische Peripherien" [Periferias Europeias], baseado em uma palestra proferida em fevereiro de 1992, em Tübingen. Esse ensaio ocupa um lugar especial na obra de Sebald, pois nele o autor se expressa mais resolutamente do que em qualquer outra ocasião sobre questões políticas, no que diz respeito tanto ao processo de unificação europeia quanto aos problemas fundamentais das sociedades ocidentais na transição para o século XXI. A partir (...) de uma leitura mais atenta, chego à conclusão de que esse ensaio, supostamente secundário, revela-se um importante pilar para reconstruir a interpretação profundamente melancólica que Sebald faz da história com base no conceito de uma “história natural da destruição”. Ao mesmo tempo, “Europäische Peripherien” permite reconhecer a importância de Mutation der Menschheit [Mutação da Humanidade], de Pierre Bertaux, como influência fundamental, até então não reconhecida, para o desenvolvimento da obra de Sebald.Palavras-chave: W.G. Sebald. Europa. “História natural da destruição”. Pierre Bertaux. AbstractThis article discusses the essay "Europäische Peripherien", a hitherto overlooked text by W.G. Sebald based on a lecture given in Tübingen in February 1992. The essay occupies a special position in Sebald's oeuvre, as the author positions himself more pronouncedly than anywhere else on political issues, both with regard to the process of European unification and to fundamental challenges of Western societies in the transition to the twenty-first century. In my close reading the supposedly insignificant essay proves to be an important text for a reconstruction of Sebald's deeply melancholic view of history as expressed in the concept of a "natural history of destruction". At the same time, "European Peripheries" allows us to acknowledge the importance of Pierre Bertaux’ Mutation der Menschheit as an undiscovered influence on the development of Sebald's oeuvre.Keywords: W.G. Sebald. Europa. “Natural history of destruction”. Pierre Bertaux. ORCIDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-4825-1912. (shrink)

L'hégélianisme est la philosophie de la réconciliation (Versöhnung) la plus radicale qui soit. A partir de l'étude du Fragment de Tübingen, il s'agit de mieux comprendre comment Hegel s'est engagé, dès ses plus jeunes années, dans une pensée de la réconciliation, et en quoi, cependant, la réconciliation de la jeunesse diffère de celle de la maturité. Cet article soutient que Hegel, à Tübingen, se concentre avant tout sur l'intérêt et la difficulté de ce qu'il croit être le véritable sens de (...) la réconciliation mise en œuvre, au même moment, par les révolutionnaires français. Une religion sensible et une religion populaire (Volksreligion), la critique de la philosophie des Lumières et de la religion chrétienne, le modèle de la belle et pieuse cité grecque, une pensée du lien et de la conciliation, le sens du destin, tels sont quelques-uns des thèmes successivement abordés par Hegel. Enfin, nous verrons que la question de l'immédiateté distingue clairement la jeunesse de la maturité, et peut apparaître comme l'un des nœuds de la passion hégélienne pour la réconciliation. Hegel was the most radical thinker of reconciliation (Versöhnung). Based on a study of the Tübingen Fragment, this article purports to clarify how the young Hegel engaged a thinking of reconciliation and how this early version of reconciliation differed from the one he later developed. The author of the present article wants to argue that during his Tübingen years Hegel explored what he viewed as the true meaning of reconciliation as implemented by the French revolutionaries in order to bring out both its novelty and its complexity. Hegel engaged in turn the themes of sentivive religion and popular religion (Volksreligion), the criticism of the philosophy of the Enlightenment and of the Christian religion, the model of the beautiful worshipping Greek city, a thinking of the communal tie and of conciliation and the meaning of fate. Finally this paper looks at the question of immediacy: how young Hegel's view of it sharply differs from the one he was to take later in life and how it can therefore be seen as one of the critical knots of the Hegelian passion for reconciliation. (shrink)

L'article s'attaque aux racines mêmes du « mystère platonicien » en partant du constat de son caractère proprement « inexplicable »: qu'un auteur, dont on possède l'ensemble de l'œuvre écrite autorise des lectures, non seulement diverses, ce qui est légitime, mais également contradictoires, n'a aucun sens. L'article indique brièvement les éléments qui expliquent cette situation paradoxale et met en valeur les contributions de l'École de Tübingen (Krämer, Gaiser), qui insistent sur les « auto-témoignages » de Platon et sur la tradition (...) indirecte en vue d'une compréhension tout à fait nouvelle de Platon. L'auteur tente ensuite de dissiper quelques-unes des équivoques les plus graves qui grèvent le débat qu'elles ont suscité. L'article expose les analyses de Reale, qui éclairent d'un jour nouveau la valeur paradigmatique de cette nouvelle position, et l'apport de Szlezák, qui produit l'analyse des techniques d'écriture employées par Platon. Les commentaires de Movia et de Migliori prouvent finalement la puissance herméneutique du « nouveau paradigme » et apportent une série d'approfondissements explicatifs, surtout au sujet de la dialectique. The article tackles the roots of the « Plato mystery », beginning with its « inexplicable » existence. It is a nonsensical that an author, whose written corpus we possess, is not only open to different valid interpretations, but even to contradictory ones. After pointing out the elements behind this paradoxical situation, the contributions of the Tübingen school (Krämer, Gaiser) that enhance Plato's own testimony and the indirect tradition in respect of a renewed Platonic comprehension, are underlined. The author then attempts to eliminate some of the major misunderstandings which blocked the previous debate. The article exposes Reale's analysis, who clarifies the paradigmatic value of the new proposal, and the Szlezák's contribution, who threats the analysis of the writing techniques of Plato. Finally Movia's and Migliori's commentaries verify the hermeneutical capabilities of the « new paradigma » and bring a set of thorough examination of the dialectic mainly. (shrink)

Résumé — L’hégélianisme est la philosophie de la réconciliation la plus radicale qui soit. À partir de l’étude du Fragment de Tübingen, il s’agit de mieux comprendre comment Hegel s’est engagé, dès ses plus jeunes années, dans une pensée de la réconciliation, et en quoi, cependant, la réconciliation de la jeunesse diffère de celle de la maturité. Cet article soutient que Hegel, à Tübingen, se concentre avant tout sur l’intérêt et la difficulté de ce qu’il croit être le véritable sens (...) de la réconciliation mise en œuvre, au même moment, par les révolutionnaires français. Une religion sensible et une religion populaire , la critique de la philosophie des Lumières et de la religion chrétienne, le modèle de la belle et pieuse cité grecque, une pensée du lien et de la conciliation, le sens du destin, tels sont quelques-uns des thèmes successivement abordés par Hegel. Enfin, nous verrons que la question de l’immédiateté distingue clairement la jeunesse de la maturité, et peut apparaître comme l’un des nœuds de la passion hégélienne pour la réconciliation.— Hegel was the most radical thinker of reconciliation . Based on a study of the Tübingen Fragment, this article purports to clarify how the young Hegel engaged a thinking of reconciliation and how this early version of reconciliation differed from the one he later developed. The author of the present article wants to argue that during his Tübingen years Hegel explored what he viewed as the true meaning of reconciliation as implemented by the French revolutionaries in order to bring out both its novelty and its complexity. Hegel engaged in turn the themes of sentivive religion and popular religion , the criticism of the philosophy of the Enlightenment and of the Christian religion, the model of the beautiful worshipping Greek city, a thinking of the communal tie and of conciliation and the meaning of fate. Finally this paper looks at the question of immediacy : how young Hegel’s view of it sharply differs from the one he was to take later in life and how it can therefore be seen as one of the critical knots of the Hegelian passion for reconciliation. (shrink)

Trotz der Hinweise an wichtigen Stellen in Kants Schriften richtet die Kantforschung ihre Aufmerksamkeit nur selten auf die Jahrhunderte währende Tradition der Kasuistik und den Begriff des Gewissens, der in ihrem Rahmen ausgearbeitet wird. Eingehend untersucht wird in diesem Buch insbesondere der Zeitabschnitt von Pascals "Briefen in die Provinz" bis zu Kants eigener Kritik des Probabilismus und seinem Entwurf einer Kasuistik als Teil der ethischen Methodenlehre.