Eines der wichtigsten Probleme in der Leibniz-Arnauld-Korrespondenz betrifft Gottes Freiheit, individuelle Substanzen nach seinem Willen zu erschaffen. Arnauld äußert sich besorgt darüber, daß Leibniz 'Theorie der vollständigen Begriffe in dieser Hinsicht keinen Raum für Gottes Freiheit zu lassen scheint. Ich behaupte, daß Leibniz Arnauld eine zweigeteilte Antwort anbietet, deren zweiter Zweig bislang unterschätzt worden ist. Ich werde zeigen, daß Leibniz' Unterscheidung zwischen primären und sekundären Entscheidungen Gottes von wesentlicher Bedeutung ist für den zweiten Zweig seiner Antwort an Arnauld. Außerdem kann (...) diese Unterscheidung helfen, Leibniz' Lehre von der unendlichen Analyse zu verstehen und zudem verdeutlichen, inwiefern nach Leibniz' Ansicht Gott nun in der Lage ist, individuelle Substanzen begrifflich getrennt voneinander zu betrachten - was eine Schwierigkeit zu sein scheint, wenn von der Theorie vollständiger Begriffe ausgegangen wird. (shrink)

Many people find the notion of blending humans and nonhumans together to create animals whose brains are composed entirely of human brain cells disturbing. I argue that these moral qualms lack adequate justification. I consider a number of reasons for objecting to the creation of such chimeras and argue that none of these reasons withstand scrutiny. I argue that the only plausible objections to these chimeras would require that they possess morally significant properties that would be lacked by similar, non-chimeric (...) animals, but that there is no good reason to think this would be the case. (shrink)

Part of the kalam cosmological argument draws upon the claim that an actual infinite cannot exist. Classical theists also maintain both that some individuals will earn eternal life and that God infallibly foreknows the future. The claim that these latter two theses do not require that an actual infinite exists because God possesses an intuitive, rather than propositional intellect, is examined and rejected. Although the future is potential, rather than actual, classical theism requires that the future be, in a sense, (...) actually infinite. (shrink)

This book contains translations of four of Leibniz’s writings on China: Preface to the Novissima Sinica, On the Civil Cult of Confucius, Remarks on Chinese Rites and Religion, and Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese. Cook and Rosemont have included a splendid introduction to the collection, which describes the historical and theological background of Leibniz’s China writings, placing them in a context of debate over whether or not existing philosophical and cultural traditions could be reconciled with Christian theology. (...) In the main, this is the topic addressed by all the essays translated here. Leibniz takes the position that there is something of the truth in Chinese intellectual traditions, and thus it should not be too difficult for missionaries from the West to instruct Chinese literati, and help them to see that, with the exception of the special revelation found only in Christianity, their own traditions have always contained the seeds of theism within them. At times Leibniz is even charitable enough to suggest that certain concepts found in Chinese philosophy are similar in spirit to concepts found in his own philosophy. Leibniz professes great admiration for Chinese culture and philosophy, even going so far as to claim that in many respects, the Chinese had the upper hand over the West. (shrink)

This book contains translations of four of Leibniz’s writings on China: Preface to the Novissima Sinica, On the Civil Cult of Confucius, Remarks on Chinese Rites and Religion, and Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese. Cook and Rosemont have included a splendid introduction to the collection, which describes the historical and theological background of Leibniz’s China writings, placing them in a context of debate over whether or not existing philosophical and cultural traditions could be reconciled with Christian theology. (...) In the main, this is the topic addressed by all the essays translated here. Leibniz takes the position that there is something of the truth in Chinese intellectual traditions, and thus it should not be too difficult for missionaries from the West to instruct Chinese literati, and help them to see that, with the exception of the special revelation found only in Christianity, their own traditions have always contained the seeds of theism within them. At times Leibniz is even charitable enough to suggest that certain concepts found in Chinese philosophy are similar in spirit to concepts found in his own philosophy. Leibniz professes great admiration for Chinese culture and philosophy, even going so far as to claim that in many respects, the Chinese had the upper hand over the West. (shrink)

This book contains translations of four of Leibniz’s writings on China: Preface to the Novissima Sinica, On the Civil Cult of Confucius, Remarks on Chinese Rites and Religion, and Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese. Cook and Rosemont have included a splendid introduction to the collection, which describes the historical and theological background of Leibniz’s China writings, placing them in a context of debate over whether or not existing philosophical and cultural traditions could be reconciled with Christian theology. (...) In the main, this is the topic addressed by all the essays translated here. Leibniz takes the position that there is something of the truth in Chinese intellectual traditions, and thus it should not be too difficult for missionaries from the West to instruct Chinese literati, and help them to see that, with the exception of the special revelation found only in Christianity, their own traditions have always contained the seeds of theism within them. At times Leibniz is even charitable enough to suggest that certain concepts found in Chinese philosophy are similar in spirit to concepts found in his own philosophy. Leibniz professes great admiration for Chinese culture and philosophy, even going so far as to claim that in many respects, the Chinese had the upper hand over the West. (shrink)

The statement “Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth” seems true in Jane Austin’s Pride and Prejudice (even though it may not actually appear in the text) while the statement “Mr. Darcy is a detective” seems false. One explanation for this intuition is that when we read or talk about fictional stories, we implicitly employ the fictional operator “It is fictional that” or “It is part of the story that.” “It is fictional that Mr. Darcy proposes to Elizabeth” expresses a true proposition (...) while “It is fictional that Mr. Darcy is a detective” does not. Fictive statements can be abbreviated as “In F, P”. Determining what statements are fictionally true in a story requires providing truth conditions for statements of the form “In F, P.” This paper proposes an analysis of truth in fiction and examines the notion of make-believe. (shrink)

It is a classical result of Mortimer that $L^2$ , first-order logic with two variables, is decidable for satisfiability. We show that going beyond $L^2$ by adding any one of the following leads to an undecidable logic:– very weak forms of recursion, viz.¶(i) transitive closure operations¶(ii) (restricted) monadic fixed-point operations¶– weak access to cardinalities, through the Härtig (or equicardinality) quantifier¶– a choice construct known as Hilbert's $\epsilon$ -operator.In fact all these extensions of $L^2$ prove to be undecidable both for satisfiability, (...) and for satisfiability in finite structures. Moreover most of them are hard for $\Sigma^1_1$ , the first level of the analytical hierachy, and thus have a much higher degree of undecidability than first-order logic. (shrink)

Als Gegenbewegung gegen die spekulativen Höhenflüge des Idealismus einerseits, und den von vielen als philosophisch unbefriedigend empfundenen Positivismus andererseits entwickelte sich in Deutschland ab der 2. Hälfte des 19. Jh.s eine Bewegung »Zurück zu Kant!« – der Neukantianismus. In der deutschen Rechtsphilosophie wird häufig auf ihn Bezug genommen, ohne dass immer klar wäre, worin genau das spezifisch neukantianische Element einer bestimmten Position liegen soll. Der bekannteste Impulsgeber des Neukantianismus war Otto Liebmann, der in seinem mit jugendlichem Enthusiasmus geschriebenen Buch (...) Kant und die Epigonen die zeitgenössische Philosophie kritisch durchmusterte und jedes Kapitel mit der Mahnung »Also muss auf Kant zurückgegangen werden!« abschloss. (shrink)

Si l'éthique formulée par Hans Jonas constitue un progrès de la conscience morale, qui peut ainsi s'armer pour répondre aux défis posés par la technique contemporaine, elle court cependant le risque de s'énoncer au détriment de l'impératif de progrès et de justice. C'est cette inquiétude qui conduit à instaurer ici un dialogue entre l'éthique de la discussion de Karl- Otto Apel et l'impératif de responsabilité de Hans Jonas. Nous présentons l'éthique de Jonas, les objections que lui adresse Apel, les (...) réponses possibles à la lecture réductrice qu'il fait de la pensée jonassienne, tout en maintenant ce en quoi l'éthique de la discussion pourrait consolider les perspectives juridico-politiques envisagées par Jonas. While the ethics formulated by Hans Jonas shows a progress in moral consciousness, which can thus respond to challenges raised by contemporary technology, it nonetheless runs the risk of prevailing over the imperatives of progress and justice. Hence our efforts here to establish a dialogue between the ethics of discussion of Karl- Otto Apel and Hans Jonas ' imperative of responsibility. We introduce the ethics of Jonas, the objections raised by Apel, possible answers to the reductive reading of the latter, all the while keeping in mind all the elements that, in the ethics of discussion, could strengthen the legal and political aspects of Hans Jonas ' thought. (shrink)

Cartwright’s self-proclaimed philosophical heritage includes Aristotle and Otto Neurath. Her Aristotelianism includes the view that the aim of science is the identification of the capacities of things in nature. From Neurath she takes a “patchwork” view of theories according to which theories do not fit into an unified whole in which higher-order sciences reduce, in some way, to lower-order sciences. Instead, theories work for particular kinds of phenomena and there is no guarantee that any theory will work outside of (...) those situations for which it was constructed. Cartwright maintains that theories and laws may provide true descriptions of the world, but no one theory or set of laws is universal. She argues that, since laws and theories are not universal, all laws are ceteris paribus. The achievement of science does not rest on knowledge of laws, but knowledge of the capacities that the things in the world possess. (shrink)

Was sind wir? Wie immer man sich zu dieser Frage stellt, eines scheint offenkundig: Wir sind Tiere, genauer gesagt: menschliche Tiere, Mitglieder der Art Homo sapiens. Dabei mag es überraschen, daß viele Philosophen diese vermeintlich banale Tatsache abstreiten. Plato, Augustinus, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant und Hegel, um nur einige herausragende zu nennen, waren alle der Meinung, wir seien keine Tiere. Es mag zwar sein, daß unsere Körper Tiere sind. Doch sind wir nicht mit unseren Körpern gleichzusetzen. Wir sind etwas (...) anderes als Tiere. Kaum anderer Meinung sind Denker nicht-westlicher Traditionen. Und rund neun von zehn Philosophen, die heutzutage über Probleme der personalen Identität nachdenken, vertreten Ansichten, die ausschließen, daß wir Tiere sind. (shrink)

Die vorliegenden Bande folgen dem gefeierten Heidegger- und Hegelkenner Otto Poggeler in seinen Fragestellungen uber die Beziehung zwischen Philosophie und Poesie. In 36 Beitragen werden Funktion und Form der Philosophie, Asthetik und Politik im deutschen Idealismus, die Einheit von Denken und Poesie bei Heidegger und die philosophische Dimension der Poesie diskutiert. - Der erste Band behandelt die Moglichkeit von Philosophie nach der Entdeckung der Geschichtlichkeit von menschlichem Wissen durch die hermeneutische Philosophie. Der zweite Band fuhrt diese Diskussion fort und (...) entwickelt die Beziehung zwischen Poggeler und Heidegger und dessen Kommentatoren und Gegnern. Hier wird das Verhaltnis von Philosophie und Poesie auch aus Sicht der Kunst verhandelt. - Mit Beitragen u.a. von Gadamer, Apel, Siep, Tilliette, Dusing und Lucas bieten die Bande in ihrer Reichhaltigkeit geradezu ein philosophisches Forum zum Thema Asthetik. (shrink)

The Warburg Institute, founded in the 1920s in Hamburg by art and cultural historian Aby Warburg, is a pioneering institution that has greatly shaped the fields of art, myth, religion, medicine, philosophy, and intellectual history. When, in 1933, the institute was moved to London to escape the Nazis, its research and legacy were protected and further developed by a network of researchers dispersed throughout the UK, the US, and Canada. The first interdisciplinary study of the Warburg network as an arena (...) of intellectual transmission, transformation, and exchange, this volume reveals the dynamics, agencies, and actors at play in the development of the Warburg Institute's program and output, with a specific focus on the role of Raymond Klibansky in the institute's major ventures. Among these collective projects of the institute are the famous Saturn and Melancholy, which blends art history with philosophical and cultural history, and the Latin and Arabic Corpus Platonicum Medii Aevi series, which contributed to research on the continuity of Platonic thought. Consulting published and unpublished sources including correspondences, memories, and diaries of affiliated scholars, the essays explore the history of the Warburg Library as a vital cultural institution and the personal and intellectual relationships of the researchers devoted to it. From Hamburg to London to Montreal, Raymond Klibansky and the Warburg Library Network takes readers on a journey into more than forty years of intellectual life at one of the most prestigious cultural research institutes. Contributors include Philippe Despoix, Georges Leroux, Eric Méchoulan, Elisabeth Otto, Elizabeth Sears, Davide Stimilli, Jillian Tomm, Martin Treml, Jean-Philippe Uzel, Regina Weber, Claudia Wedepohl, and Graham Whitaker. (shrink)

Celebrations of the second centenary of Hegel's birth have already begun, and more are planned. The Sixteenth Annual Wheaton College Philosophy Conference, "The Philosophy of Hegel on the 200th Anniversary of His Birth", was held November 6th and 7th at Wheaton, Illinois. Errol Harris of Northwestern delivered the Keynote lecture titled "The Importance of Hegel Today". Other papers read included "Hegel's Dialectic" by William Young of the University of Rhode Island; "Hegel and Contemporary Theology" by Merold Westphal of Yale; "Hegel (...) and the Existentialists on the Nature of the Self" by John C. Pageler of Wheaton College, and "Hegel, Marcuse, and the New Left" by Bernard Zylstra, Institute of Christian Studies, Toronto. * * * The Toronto Chapter of the Conference on Political Thought will sponsor a Symposium on "Hegel's Social and Political Thought" early next May. Interested persons are advised to contact Professor H.S. Harris, Department of Philosophy, Glendon College, York University, Toronto 12, Ontario, Canada. * * *Marquette University will conduct a major international symposium early in June, 1970, devoted to the intellectual legacy of Hegel. Preliminary plans call for a four day conference covering Hegel's influence in social and political philosophy and theory, his influence in philosophy of religion end theology, his influence in philosophy and theory of history, and current and projected efforts in editing and translating his writings. Principal participants include Shlomo Avineri of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Jean-Yves Calvez of L'Institut d'Etudes politiques de Paris; Emile Fackenheim of the University of Toronto; J.N. Findlay and Kenley Dove of Yale; Eric Well of L'Universite de Lille; Otto Pöggeler, Director of the Hegel-Archiv; James Doull of Dalhousie University ; Kenneth Schmitz of the Catholic University, and others. The unique format for the program is designed to permit maximum participation and discussion, and the Proceedings will be published. The Owl will give full details in the Winter or Spring issue. Interested persons should contact either Professor Joseph O'Malley or Professor Lee C. Rice, Co-Directors, Department of Philosophy. Marquette University, 62/north 13th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233, * * * A World Hegel Congress is to be held in Berlin in August, 1970, under the auspices of the Internationale Hegel Gesellschaft. More on this will also be provided in forthcoming issues of The 0wl of Minerva. (shrink)

During the first week of June 1970, Marquette University sponsored a symposium to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of Hegel’s birth. For many of us who attended the symposium, it was a memorable week. It was among the very best meetings that I have ever attended - the very model of what civilized speech can be. The symposium was beautifully organized by our hosts at Marquette. A rare group of international scholars were invited to participate. In addition to Hegel scholars (...) from the United States and Canada, Otto Pöggeler from Germany, Eric Weil and Jean-Yves Calvez from France, David McLellan from England, Nathan Rotenstreich and Shlomo Avineri from Israel were present. Papers were distributed to all participants, and there was plenty of opportunity for formal and informal discussion. But what made the symposium so unusual was the spirit that pervaded it. There was a collective sense that we were on the threshold of a new era of Hegel scholarship in the Anglo-Saxon world. As Frederick G. Weiss reported in his “Critical Survey of Hegel Scholarship in English: 1962–69,” there was already clear evidence of a renaissance of serious interest in Hegel. If we consider the works bearing on Hegel that have been published since 1970, the evidence is now overwhelming. (shrink)

Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) was one of the most original philosophers of our time, working throughout his life to account for the endemic political violence of the twentieth century, in an effort variously referred to as a philosophy of politics, history, or consciousness. Drawing from the University of Missouri Press's thirty-four-volume edition of his collected works, Charles Embry and Glenn Hughes have assembled a selection of Voegelin's representative writings, satisfying the need for a single volume that can serve as a (...) general introduction to his philosophy. The selection demonstrates the range and creativity of Voegelin's thought, including writings that show his thinking as it developed historically in his long search for order in human society. (shrink)

On the centennial of the death of William James (1842-1910), I approached faculty members at eighteen major theological centers of learning requesting them to identify the twelve most important books in the field of the psychology of religion written between James' 1902 classic The Varieties of Religious Experience up to Peter Homan's 1970 Theology After Freud. The request was for each faculty member (by agreement to remain anonymous) to identify the twelve books during that time period (1902-1970) which, in their (...) opinion, constituted major contributions to the development of the discipline of psychology of religion. By mutual agreement, James was credited with being the purported founder of the psychology of religion and Homans the quintessential culmination of the discipline's respectability. Though obviously subjective, the survey did register a consensus of scholars teaching in the field and what follows is a critical assessment of the merits of those books which they selected. (shrink)

v. 1. Towards a transcendental semiotics -- v. 2. Ethics and the theory of rationality.