Nachdruck der Originalausgabe aus dem Jahr 1914.

This is a book about infinity, specifically the infinity of numbers and sequences. Amazing properties arise, for instance, some kinds of infinity are argued to be greater than others. Along the way the author will demonstrate how infinity can be made to create beautiful 'art', guided by the development of underlying mathematics. This book will provide a fascinating read for anyone interested in number theory, infinity, math art, and/or generative art, and could be used a valuable supplement to any course (...) on these topics. (shrink)

In Scepticism and Naturalism Strawson characterized his position as a form of naturalism. Not even in that work, however, did he subscribe to any standardly recognized types of naturalism (ontological, epistemological, meta-philosophical). Strawson’s naturalism, as far as it goes, is anthropological instead of scientific, and descriptive rather than revisionary. It insists that central features of our common-sense conceptual scheme are part of our human nature and therefore immune to naturalization by either reduction or elimination. My contribution explores both strengths and (...) weaknesses of this position. It discusses the ‘relativizing move’ that insists on the legitimacy of both the ‘participant’ or ‘involved’ perspective of everyday life vs. the ‘objective’ or ‘detached’ of science as well as Strawson’s ‘relaxed realism’. It ends with a defence of the general idea of anthropological naturalism. In spite of problems concerning details of execution, this approach is more sober, realistic and illuminating than mainstream naturalisms. (shrink)

Rahat Naqvi and Hans Smits' edited collection, "Thinking about and Enacting Curriculum in 'Frames of War'" is centered on the theme of how the current global order creates precarious conditions for human life. The contributors respond to the challenges Judith Butler posed about the fragility of life and questions about how we apprehend, and take up ethically, our responsibilities for those who are considered "Other." The overarching objective of the book is the meaning of a call to ethics, and (...) how discussion of framing and frames is a provocation to think about our responsibilities as curriculum scholars and practitioners"-- Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Heidegger's Crisis shows not only how the Nazis exploited philosophical ideas and used philosophers to gain public acceptance, but also how German philosophers played into the hands of the Nazis. Hans Sluga describes the growth, from World War I onward, of a powerful right-wing movement in German philosophy, in which nationalistic, antisemitic, and antidemocratic ideas flourished.

Rethinking politics in a new vocabulary, Hans Sluga challenges the firmly held assumption that there exists a single common good which politics is meant to realize. He argues that politics is not a natural but a historical phenomenon, and not a single thing but a multiplicity of political forms and values only loosely related. He contrasts two traditions in political philosophy: a 'normative theorizing' that extends from Plato to John Rawls and a newer 'diagnostic practice' that emerged with Marx (...) and Nietzsche and has found its three most prominent twentieth-century practitioners in Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, and Michel Foucault. He then examines the sources of diagnostic political thinking, analyzes its achievements, and offers a critical assessment of its limitations. His important book will be of interest to a wide range of upper-level students and scholars in political philosophy, political theory, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

Albert approaches critical rationalism as an alternative to other philosophical standpoints dominant in Germany: the conceptions of the Frankfurt School, hermeneutical thinking as represented by Gadamer, analytic philosophy, and logical empiricism. The author's purpose is to find a way out of the foundationalism of classical philosophy without falling back on the skeptical views so prevalent in today's philosophical thinking. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the (...) distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Wittgenstein's remarks about family resemblance in the Philosophical Investigations should not be construed as implying a comprehensive theory of universals. They possess, rather, a defensive function in his exposition. The remarks allow one, nevertheless, to draw certain general conclusions about how Wittgenstein thought about concepts. Reflection on the notion of family resemblance reveals that kinship and similarity considerations intersect in it in a problematic fashion.

The Aristotelian square of oppositions is a well-known diagram in logic and linguistics. In recent years, several extensions of the square have been discovered. However, these extensions have failed to become as widely known as the square. In this paper we argue that there is indeed a fundamental difference between the square and its extensions, viz., a difference in informativity. To do this, we distinguish between concrete Aristotelian diagrams and, on a more abstract level, the Aristotelian geometry. We then introduce (...) two new logical geometries, and develop a formal, well-motivated account of their informativity. This enables us to show that the square is strictly more informative than many of the more complex diagrams. (shrink)

The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere is a key contribution to political philosophy, media history, democratic theory and political economy – published almost 60 years ago – that left a deep imprint on the process of democratic consolidation of the Federal Republic of Germany. At the same time, the Habermasian model of the public sphere was used to test out the possibilities of democratisation beyond the nation-state. The theory of the public sphere was, however, mainly discussed as a contribution (...) to normative political theory and, as such, the applicability of its normative standards remained contested. In this article, I focus instead on a second sociological reading of Habermas’ theory of the public sphere as an exploration of the cognitive foundations of modern society. The relevance of this approach can be shown in an exemplary way by discussing the functioning of publicity, which, by creating social visibility and facilitating public opinion formation, on the one hand, provides the knowledge base of a shared social world and, on the other hand, becomes the main driver of social change through critical self-reflection. The article goes on to take a look at recent public sphere transformations in the context of digitalisation and globalisation, and argues that public sphere principles are both undermined and gain new relevance when facing the challenges of new and digital media. (shrink)

The central aim of this paper is to present a Boolean algebraic approach to the classical Aristotelian Relations of Opposition, namely Contradiction and (Sub)contrariety, and to provide a 3D visualisation of those relations based on the geometrical properties of Platonic and Archimedean solids. In the first part we start from the standard Generalized Quantifier analysis of expressions for comparative quantification to build the Comparative Quantifier Algebra CQA. The underlying scalar structure allows us to define the Aristotelian relations in Boolean terms (...) and to propose a 3D visualisation by transforming a cube into an octahedron. In part two, the architecture of the CQA is shown to carry over, both to the classical quantifiers of Predicate Calculus and to the modal operators—which are given a Generalized Quantifier style re-interpretation. In this way we provide an algebraic foundation for Blanché’s Aristotelian hexagon as well as a 3D alternative to his 2D star-like visualisation. In a final part, a richer scalar structure is argued to underly the realm of Modality, thus generalizing the 3D algebra with eight (2 3 ) operators to a 4D algebra with sixteen (2 4 ) operators. The visual representation of the latter structure involves a transformation of the hypercube to a rhombic dodecahedron. The resulting 3D visualisation allows a straightforward embedding, not only of the classical Blanché star of Aristotelian relations or the paracomplete and paraconsistent stars of Béziau (Log Investig 10, 218–232, 2003) but also of three additional isomorphic Aristotelian constellations. (shrink)

The concept of fairness as mutual advantage has been developed in the tradition of social contract theory. In this framework society is seen as an enterprise that coordinates the activities of its members in order to advance their interests. All acceptable social rules are in the interest of each member of society. Rules are agreed unanimously – no rules can be enforced against the interest of someone. It is assumed that individuals are basically self-interested and rational. Radical libertarianism claims that (...) individuals do not have to accept any a priori constraints on their behavior. “Libertarianism focuses on negative freedom”. (shrink)

Eric Voegelin (1901-1985) zahlt zu den prominentesten Vertretern einer neoklassischen politischen Philosophie im 20. Jahrhundert. Wesentliche Grundlagen seiner politischen Theorie entwickelt Voegelin in der Auseinandersetzung mit der staatstheoretischen Debatte der 1920er- und 1930er-Jahre und im Versuch der Grundlegung einer "Staatslehre als Geisteswissenschaft". Im weiteren Verlauf seiner theoretischen Arbeit erscheint ihm der Begriff des Staates als politiktheoretische Fundamentalkategorie aber zunehmend fragwurdig. Im Sinne der Leitfrage der Reihe Staatsverstandnisse, was sich den Ideen von Staatsdenkern fur ein zeitgemasses Verstandnis des Staates entnehmen lasst, (...) erweist sich Voegelins Beitrag als das zunachst staatstheoretisch inspirierte Projekt einer Dekonstruktion des Staatsbegriffs und der Entfaltung ihrer theoretischen Konsequenzen - von der Herausarbeitung der im Staatsbegriff enthaltenen, aber verschleierten Verhaltnisbestimmung zwischen Politik und Religion bis hin zum Entwurf einer politischen Theorie als "Ordnungswissenschaft". Mit Beitragen von: Barry Cooper, Daiane Eccel, Jurgen Gebhardt, Bruno Godefroy, Michael Henkel, Manfred Henningsen, Oliver Lembcke, Matthias Riedl, Tilo Schabert, Christian Schwaabe, Hans-Jorg Sigwart, Klaus Vondung. (shrink)

Dass deutsche Ärzte während des Nationalsozialismus hunderttausende Menschen zwangsweise sterilisieren halfen und viele zehntausend Psychiatriepatienten und Anstaltsbewohner töteten, bleibt bis heute verstörend. Solche Verbrechen waren nur möglich, weil, neben politischen und gesellschaftlichen Bedingungen, Komplexität vereinfachende Ideologien auf einer Massenebene an individuelle regressive Abwehrstrukturen der Täter anknüpften. In der Psychiatrie des NS entfaltete sich das destruktive Potential der kollektiv geteilten Phantasmen von Reinheit und Nation. Anhand von historischen Kreuzungspunkten lässt sich zeigen, dass sozialpsychologische Dynamiken und gesellschaftliche Prozesse sich wechselseitig radikalisierten. Diese (...) Radikalisierungsprozesse werden an drei Wegmarken aufgezeigt: 1933, als das Zwangssterilisationsgesetz verabschiedet wurde, 1942, als die zentrale Vernichtungsaktion gegen psychisch kranke Menschen in dezentraler Weise fortgesetzt wurde, und 1947, als die zaghaften Versuche der Aufklärung in bleiernes Schweigen übergingen. Dabei wird u.a. auf die Schriften von Annemarie Wettley zurückgegriffen, die sich als eine der wenigen mit ihren Taten auseinanderzusetzen versuchte. (shrink)

In 1514 at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Leipzig, a quodlibetical disputation took place. About 60 persons participated in the disputation. A handwritten record of this event has been preserved. A thorough analysis of these texts gives us a wealth of information with regard to the themes, positions, and tendencies of thinking during that period of time. The scholars at Leipzig University made an attempt at reconciling their philosophical interests with the claim to spiritual hegemony on the (...) part of theology and the church. This aspect is remarkable if one thinks of the famous papal bull Apostolici Regiminis, promulgated in the year 1513. The attached appendix lists the topics and the names of the participants of the disputation according to the record. (shrink)

The generation and use of 3D images and visualizations through remote sensing, Building Information Modeling, and Augmented Reality technologies, have come to play a significant role in construction engineering practice. Although these technologies are promising, their potential can be misjudged when potential end-users are unaware of key assumptions that were made by developers. Realistic expectations require insights into the ways in which these technologies transform input collected into 3D visualizations and how these visualizations are possibly used on construction sites. This (...) study’s objective is hence to explore the form of technological mediation that the generation and use of 3D images and visualizations provide between a human and objects, or aspects of these objects, that would otherwise be largely imperceptible to professionals in construction practice. We show that algorithms pre- and post-process data through their technological selectivities, which function as mediators. Double mediations of augmented and engaged relationships play a dominant role in the use of 3D images and visualizations and enhance the situational awareness of professionals in construction practice. This is the first study that applies this perspective to increase the understanding of the mediating role of 3D images and visualizations in construction practice. (shrink)