Este artigo visa apresentar uma taxonomia original dos argumentos mais difundidos contra o Princípio de Identidade dos Indiscerníveis ao longo da história da Filosofia, mas focando em versões defendidas no século XX e XXI; bem como uma taxonomia das respostas mais efetivas para esses argumentos usados no início do século XXI com uma breve avaliação sobre quais são as mais efetivas para cada argumento de ataque. O leitor também encontrará uma bibliografia atualizada sobre os debates envolvendo esses argumentos e contra-argumentos (...) nas seções correspondentes. Palavras-chave: identidade; indiscernibilidade; Princípio de Identidade dos Indiscerníveis; concebilidade. (shrink)

This book traces the intellectual revolution initiated by Thales in the sixth century BC to its culmination in the metaphysics of Parmenides.

This book traces the intellectual revolution initiated by Thales in the sixth century BC to its culmination in the metaphysics of Parmenides.

Popper proposes a technical concept of 'verisimilitude' as a test of the progressiveness of scientific theories. The paper attempts to show its uselessness and inapplicability on mathematical and practical grounds, As well as raising doubts about the value of any such attempt to give a mechanical test of scientific progress.

This book traces the intellectual revolution initiated by Thales in the sixth century BC to its culmination in the metaphysics of Parmenides.

This work provides a text and an extended study of those fragments of Heraclitus' philosophical utterances whose subject is the world as a whole rather than man and his part in it. Professor Kirk discusses fully the fragments which he finds genuine and treats in passing others that were generally accepted as genuine but here considered paraphrased or spurious. In securing his text, Professor Kirk has taken into account all the ancient testimonies, and in his critical work he attached particular (...) importance to the context in which each fragment is set. To each he gives a selective apparatus, a literal translation and and an extended commentary in which problems of textual and philosophical criticism are discussed. Ancient accounts of Heraclitus were inadequate and misleading, and as Kirk wrote, understanding was often hindered by excessive dogmatism and a selective use of the fragments. Professor Kirk's method is critical and objective, and his 1954 work marks a significant advance in the study of Presocratic thought. (shrink)

Philosophical anthropologist Mircea Eliade once said that "the union of opposites" is a basic category of archaic ontology and comparative world religions. In this paper I develop the theory of contrariety or opposition as a prime focus for East/West comparative philosophy. The paper considers especially Nishida Kitaro's later works and the complex phrase "zettai mujuntekijikodbitsu," variously translated by Schinzinger as "absolute contradictory self-identity," "the self-identity of absolute contradictories," or more simply as "oneness" or "unity" of opposites.

Professor Peter Bodunrin's paper ‘The Question of African Philosophy’ 161–179) has, as it were, become the first question for most African scholars, teachers or students, starting a course in African philosophy. In most of the discussions, the controversy over what constitutes an African philosophy tends to dominate, sometimes so much that it forms almost the entire content of the course.

The article focuses on the concept of the state in the works of the German sociologist M. Weber and his contemporary, the anarchist G. Landauer. Specifically, it is commonly thought that Weber has a unique interpretation of the state, its nature, and inalienable characteristics. This Weberian approach did not fit into any of the traditions that existed at that time in Germany (for example, represented by H. Kelsen, G. Jellinek, and O. von Gierke). However, the author of the article tries (...) to demonstrate that three main Weberian aspects of the state — 1) the monopoly on legitimate physical violence, 2) the relationship of domination, which is accompanied by a minimum desire to obey, and 3) the chance for the regular reproducibility of these relationships — are consonant with Landauer’s concept of the state. This discovered conceptual affinity allows one to look at Weber’s sociology from new angles, without being impacted by the personal beliefs of the German scientist, who very critically treated anarchism as a socio-political movement. In the final section of the paper, the author discusses the modern project of “anarchist sociology”, which also uses Weberian methodology. The paper argues that “anarchist sociology” might be a promising social science with ts unique vision of several key sociological topics, such as domination, power, or social inequality. (shrink)

The most searching elaboration of the detective image of the historian has come from the pen of R. G. Collingwood. His short detective story "Who Killed John Doe?" implied that, in spite of the often tentative nature of the question-answer process in a successful historical investigation, the pieces of the puzzle fit together and their coherence becomes self-evident. The predominance of physical evidence in Collingwood's detective story had its counterpart in his research on Hadrian's Wall. In examining the questions raised (...) by his investigations, and distinguishing between direct and circumstantial evidence, Collingwood was able to formulate a comprehensive theory concerning the date of the Wall's construction, the purpose of the Wall, the date of the related turf wall at Birdoswald, the chronological position of the fourteen forts along the Wall, and the role and date of the Vallum following the Walls' course. The pattern of research into the mysteries of Hadrian's Wall has hardly conformed to the linear, step-by-step schema of Collingwood's logic of question and answer. As with much detective work, it has embodied its share of informed guesswork, mistaken inference, false leads, and fortuitous revelations. (shrink)

Hereditary structural completeness is established for a range of substructural logics, mainly without the weakening rule, including fragments of various relevant or many-valued logics. Also, structural completeness is disproved for a range of systems, settling some previously open questions.