A critical examination of the philosophical theories of Fritz Mauthner. Mauthner was a prolific writer with diverse intellectual interests, but he was preoccupied with developing a comprehensive philosophy or 'critique' of language which would help resolve a whole range of persistent and controversial philosophical problems. In pursuit of this aim Mauthner pioneered a view of language which has had a very wide circulation in the twentieth century - namely that the analysis and understanding of language, particularly ordinary language, is the (...) philosophers most important task. Mauthner was very much an outsider from the German academic establishment and has little sympathy with the increasingly influential phenomenology of the time. In this thorough and authoritative study, Gershon Weiler locates his ideas in their proper historical tradition and urges that their originality now be recognised and their interest reconsidered. (shrink)

In a philosophical paper the point one wishes to make should be stated at the very outset. And in dealing with a problem which is as controversial as religion, the bias should be confessed before any points are made. I want to conform at once to both these requirements. I want to discuss beliefs, ordinary beliefs but mainly religious ones, for the expression of which, oddly enough, we use the same word. “Belief” and “Faith” are admittedly different in English, but (...) many languages possess only one word for these and further I shall try to show that even in English the difference is not very great and that they have, if not the same, at least a very similar logical grammar. The point of my argument is that beliefs can be discussed rationally and that they should be so discussed. Religious arguments have been going on for a very long time, and I find it incredible that people of immense intellectual qualities, who devoted their time and energy to these discussions, have been working under a simple delusion, not understanding the very nature of the thing they were doing. (shrink)

Professor J. W. N. Watkins argues in his Hobbes' System of Ideas that Hobbes' theory of moral predicates must be interpreted in terms of Austinian performatives. In this paper I shall argue two points. First, that Watkins' thesis is false. Second, that Hobbes' own doctrine, which asserts that things are made good or just by being declared to be so by the sovereign, is inconsistent. Watkins begins with brief exposition of Hobbes' theory of moral language as stated in the Leviathan (...) . But whatsoever is the object of any mans Appetite or Desire; that is if, which he for his part calleth Good : And the object of his Hate, and Aversion, Evill ; And of his Contempt, Vile and Inconsiderable . For these words of Good, Evill, and Contemptible, are ever used with relation to the person that useth them: There being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor any common Rule of Good and Evill, to be taken from the nature of the objects themselves; but from the Person of the man or, from the Person that representeth it; or from an Arbitrator or Judge, whom men disagreeing shall by consent set up, and make his sentence the Rule thereof. (shrink)

Bergman's view on the History of philosophy can be characterised as a heuristic doctrine which helps the philosophical pedagogue. Some problems arising from Bergman's religious way of thinking are revealed as underpinning the objections to it, as there are: the multiplicity of systems, the possibility of acquiring final truth, etc. In spite of these objections Bergman's ideas can be maintianed as a very efficient means for a teacher of academic philosophy.

In addition to his critique of language, Mauthner wrote a four-volume History of Atheism. A radical skeptical empiricist, Mauthner held that there were no historical laws; yet there could be a craft of historical writing. Applying his idea that thinking and speaking are identical, Mauthner sought to show that the history of atheism is the gradual realization that "God" is only a word. However, the book appears to resemble the historiography of ideas ii la Hegel more than Mauthner's theories should (...) allow. This appearance is deceptive; Mauthner's History is not a true history of the development of an idea, but rather a personal recreation of the past, allowed by Mauthner's skeptical view of scientific methodology. (shrink)

Can Humpty Dumpty be seriously taken as expounding and exemplifying a possible attitude to language? Mr. Tennessen has taken the view that this is so. It is argued here that (a) his view bears close resemblance to some recent criticisms of Wittgenstein's theory of language-games, (b) that while Tennessen's descriptive statements about the expansion of language are mostly correct, (c) his constituting this as a vindication of the Humpty Dumpty attitude is wrong. One of Tennessen's examples is analysed and his (...) account of it is shown to be faulty. (shrink)