Anscombe guides us through the Tractatus and, thereby, Wittgenstein's early philosophy as a whole. She shows in particular how his arguments developed out of the discussions of Russell and Frege. This reprint is of the fourth, corrected edition.

Intention is one of the masterworks of twentieth-century philosophy in English. First published in 1957, it has acquired the status of a modern philosophical classic. The book attempts to show in detail that the natural and widely accepted picture of what we mean by an intention gives rise to insoluble problems and must be abandoned. This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

The intentionality of sensation -- The first person -- Substance -- The subjectivity of sensation -- Events in the mind -- Comments on Professor R.L. Gregory's paper on perception -- On sensations of position -- Intention -- Pretending -- On the grammar of "Enjoy" -- The reality of the past -- Memory, "experience," and causation -- Causality and determination -- Times, beginnings, and causes -- Soft determinism -- Causality and extensionality -- Before and after -- Subjunctive conditionals -- "Under a (...) description" -- Analysis competition--tenth problem -- A reply to Mr. C.S. Lewis's argument that "naturalism" is self-refuting. (shrink)

I IT is often declared or evidently assumed that causality is some kind of necessary connexion, or alternatively, that being caused is — non-trivially ...

One of our most distinguished intellectual historians gives us a brilliant revisionist history. The Roads to Modernity reclaims the Enlightenment–an extraordinary time bursting with new ideas about the human condition in the realms of politics, society, and religion–from historians who have downgraded its importance and from scholars who have given preeminence to the Enlightenment in France over concurrent movements in England and America. Contrasting the Enlightenments in the three nations, Gertrude Himmelfarb demonstrates the primacy of the British and the (...) wisdom and foresight of thinkers such as Adam Smith, David Hume, Thomas Paine, the Earl of Shaftesbury, Edward Gibbon, and Edmund Burke, who established its unique character and historic importance. It is this Enlightenment, she argues, that created a moral and social philosophy–humane, compassionate, and realistic–that still resonates strongly today, in America perhaps even more so than in Europe. This is an illuminating contribution to the history of ideas. (shrink)

-- v. 2. Metaphysics and the philosophy of mind.

The debate on the foundations of knowledge and meaning has gained particular attention in recent philosophical discourse. A number of commentators, including Richard Rorty, have categorized leading contemporary philosophers such as Wittgenstein as being 'anti-foundationalist". In this comprehensive analysis of Wittgenstein's concept of the form of life and its implications, Professor Conway takes issue with this characterization of Wittgenstein. Instead, the author interprets Wittgenstein as continuing the discussion of foundations, while radically transforming the very understanding of foundations.

Based on a framework that distinguishes several types, roles and functions of values in science, we discuss legitimate applications of values in the validation of computer simulations. We argue that, first, epistemic values, such as empirical accuracy and coherence with background knowledge, have the role to assess the credibility of simulation results, whereas, second, cognitive values, such as comprehensiveness of a conceptual model or easy handling of a numerical model, have the role to assess the usefulness of a model for (...) investigating a hypothesis. In both roles, values perform what we call first-order functions. In addition, cogni¬tive values may also serve an auxiliary function by facilitating the assessment of credibility. As for a third type of values, i.e. social values, their legitimate role consists in specifying and weighing epistemic and cognitive values with respect to practical uses of a simulation, which is considered a second-order function. Rational intersubjective agreement on how to specify and weigh the different values is supposed to ensure objectivity in simulation validation. (shrink)

The social novel ought not to be confused with didacticism in literature and ought not to be expected to provide prescriptions for the cure of social ills. Neither should it necessarily be viewed as ephemeral. After examining justifications of the social novel offered by William Dean Howells (in the 1880s) and Jonathan Franzen (in the 1990s), the author explores the way in which social novels alter perceptions and responses at levels of sensibility that are not usually susceptible to rational argument, (...) push back moral horizons, contribute to the creation of social conscience, and expose the complexity and contextuality of moral discernment. As a concrete example, Howells's 1889 novel "A Hazard of New Fortunes" is analyzed (and defended against its detractors) in terms of its sophisticated treatment of the dilemmas that arise from a recognition of personal complicity in structural sin, its disclosure of the context-indexed evolution of values, and its attention to the importance and fragility of social trust. (shrink)

Parmenides, mystery and contradiction -- The early theory of forms -- The new theory of forms -- Understanding proofs : Meno, 85d₉-86c₂, continued -- Aristotle and the sea battle -- The principle of individuation -- Thought and action in Aristotle -- Necessity and truth -- Hume and Julius Caesar -- "Whatever has a beginning of existence must have a cause" : Hume's argument exposed -- Will and emotion -- Retraction -- The question of linguistic idealism.

Early work from a leader in analytic philosophy From Parmenides to Wittgenstein, Volume 1: Collected Philosophical Papers is part of a multi-volume publication of G.E.M. Anscombe's collected works. Writing on philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, philosophy of language, and philosophical logic, Anscombe is known as one of analytical Thomisms's most prominent figures. This collection includes her writing on the work of her teacher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, with whom she worked closely as co-editor and translator.

Among the fragments published in Zettel, one finds one of Wittgenstein's most enigmatic comments. In entry 455, he states that "the philosopher is not a citizen of any community of ideas. That is what makes him into a philosopher". The apparent incongruity between this entry and the thrust of Wittgenstein's later works initially draws one's attention, but the passage sustains interest because it is situated at the nexus of issues addressed in current philosophical debate regarding cultural pluralism. This paper attempts (...) to make sense of the Zettel fragment in the contexts of both Wittgenstein's own analysis and such debate. It argues that the post-Enlightenment philosopher's role entails a cosmopolitan point of view with promotes both the recognition of citizens' embeddedness in a cultural tradition and the need for a critical distancing from that tradition, occasioned by an awareness of cultural pluralism. (shrink)

Die Entwicklungsgeschichte des Lebens in all ihrer Lückenhaftigkeit läßt doch schon ersehen, wie sich der Intellekt kraft ununterbrochenen Fortschritts in aufsteigender Linie, über die Reihe der Wirbeltiere hin bis zum Menschen, herausgebildet hat. Sie zeigt uns in der Fähigkeit des Verstehens einen Ausläufer der Fähigkeit des Handelns, eine immer schärfere, immer mehrgliedrigere, immer geschmeidigere Anpassung des Lebewesens an die gegebenen Existenzbedingungen. Woraus zu folgern wäre, daß unser Intellekt im engeren Sinn des Worts dazu bestimmt sei, die vollkommene Verwebung unseres Körpers (...) in seine Umgebung zu sichern, die Beziehungen der äußeren Dinge aufeinander vorzustellen, kurz: dazu, die Materie zu denken. Und tatsächlich wird dies einer der Schlüsse unserer Arbeit sein. (shrink)

Wie kann es sein, dass im Dunkel bleibt, wer Cyberangriffe lanciert und wessen Kampfdrohnen ganze Länder verwüsten? Band 2 der »Ethik im Drohnenzeitalter« erörtert die Konturen einer Weltgesellschaft, die sich auf die neue Realität des ubiquitären Rechners eingestellt hat. Dies erfordert neue Leitunterscheidungen, z.B. die zwischen News und Fake-News oder ob Codes und Programme für Grenzen sensibilisieren oder desensibilisieren. Angesichts der Entwicklung, dass der soziale Wandel in eine Spirale kommunikationstechnischer Selbstbeschleunigung gerät, gilt es, eine globalisierungstaugliche Ethik zu entwickeln, die dafür (...) sorgt, dass der Einzelne nicht übergangen, sondern gewürdigt wird. (shrink)

Cognitive values like simplicity, broad scope, and easy handling are properties of a scientific representation that result from the idealization which is involved in the construction of a representation. These properties may facilitate the application of epistemic values to credibility assessments, which provides a rationale for assigning an auxiliary function to cognitive values. In this paper, I defend a further rationale for cognitive values which consists in the assessment of the usefulness of a representation. Usefulness includes the relevance of a (...) representation regarding the investigation of a given problem and its practicability for the users. This rationale builds on the claim that any evaluation of scientific representations should pursue two aims: providing information about their credibility and providing information about their usefulness. Cognitive values relating to the usefulness of a representation and epistemic values relating to its credibility both perform a first-order function. Cognitive values are abstract, and several values with first-order functions may conflict in their application. Thus, in order for cognitive values to account for the sort of problem that is to be investigated by means of a representation, they need to be appropriately specified and weighed. Comprehensiveness, complexity, high resolution, and easy handling, for instance, may be required in a first-order function for model-based prediction of regional climate impacts but not for explaining how the global climate system works. Specifying and weighing cognitive and epistemic values relative to a given problem is a legitimate second-order function of social values. (shrink)

Chater & Loewenstein (C&L) ignore the long history by which social scientists have developed more nuanced and ultimately more helpful ways to understand the relationship between persons and situations. This tradition is reflected and advanced in a large literature on “wise” social–psychological or mindset interventions, which C&L do not discuss yet mischaracterize.

Elizabeth Anscombe is among the most distinguished and original philosophers alive today. Her work has ranged over many areas of philosophy, including metaphysics, ethics, the philosophy of mind and action, and the philosophy of religion. In each of these areas she has made seminal contributions. The essays in this book reflect the breadth of her interests and the esteem in which she is held by her colleagues. The distinguished contributors include Michael Dunnett, Nancy Cartwright, Peter Geach and Philippa Foot; and (...) Professor Anscombe's essay 'Making True' is published here for the first time. (shrink)