The creation and consolidation of a memory can rest on the integration of any number of disparate features and contexts. How is it that these bind together to form a coherent memory? This book offers an unrivalled overview of one of the most debated hotspots of modern memory research: binding, and will instigate innovative and pioneering ideas for future research.

The article discusses the connection between theory formation and historical research in the study of religion. It presupposes that the study of religion is conceived of as an empirical discipline. The empirical basis of theories is provided primarily by historical research, including research in the very recent past, that is, the present time. Research in the history of religions, therefore, is an indispensable part of the study of religion. However, in recent discussions on the methods, aims, and theoretical presuppositions of (...) the discipline, research in the history of religions largely is ignored. To shed some light on this blind spot, the article builds on the philosophy of science of Critical Realism. While the first part deals with the role of historical research in theoretical discourses of the discipline, the second part explains fundamental ontological and epistemological positions of Critical Realism and their implications for empirical research. On this basis, some methodological problems of theory formation in the study of religion are discussed in the third part. In particular, it is argued that it is impossible to validate empirically theories of religion that aim to explain what religion is. The concluding part sketches ways of theory formation in the study of religion that does not take religion as the explanandum but as the theoretical perspective that guides research. (shrink)

The Rev’d Roland Allen’s grandson ventures to speculate on the attitudes his grandfather might be expected to have adopted regarding several of today’s controversial issues. After rehearsing briefly Roland’s published and unpublished work, Hubert Allen reviews, both on the basis of Roland’s expressed opinions and by inference from remarks made by him or by members of his immediate family, how he believes his grandfather would have reacted to six matters of current or recent controversy, namely: Modern Translations of the (...) Bible, The Role of Women in the Church, Homosexuality, Ecumenism, Inter-Faith Dialogue, and the proposed Anglican Covenant. (shrink)

The ArgumentDevelopments in theoretical physics, even when they are revolutionary for physics, usually donotenter public awareness. The reaction to the special relativity theory is one of the few exceptions. The conceptual changes brought by special relativity to our notions of space and time, induced a lively debate not only within intellectual circles but in many strata of the educated middle class. In this article, I focus on a particular moment of public reaction to special and general relativity theory and to (...) its creator Albert Einstein. I try to paint a picture of the anti-Einstein campaign in Germany of 1920, with finer brush strokes than those applied previously by others. My aim is to embed the campaign into the cultural and political climate of the Weimar republic. Without leaving the realm of physics only a superficial understanding of what happened seems possible. My thesis is that the anti-Einstein-campaign was organized, and the physicists involved in it used, mainly in order to rally support for one of the German right-wing parties, the Deutschnationale Volkspartei. (shrink)

A Critique of Artificial Reason Hubert L. Dreyfus . HUBERT L. DREYFUS What Computers Still Can't Do Thi s One XZKQ-GSY-8KDG What. WHAT COMPUTERS STILL CAN'T DO Front Cover.

Because Bertrand Russell adopted much of the logical symbolism of Peano, because Russell always had a high regard for the great Italian mathematician, and because Russell held the logicist thesis so strongly, many English-speaking mathematicians have been led to classify Peano as a logicist, or at least as a forerunner of the logicist school. An attempt is made here to deny this by showing that Peano's primary interest was in axiomatics, that he never used the mathematical logic developed by him (...) for the reduction of mathematical concepts to logical concepts, and that, instead, he denied the validity of such a reduction. (shrink)

Von philologischer Nüchternheit und humanistischem Engagement... Der Band dokumentiert exemplarisch die Verbindung von Altertumswissenschaft und moderner Kulturwissenschaft auf hohem philologischem und kritisch reflektierendem Niveau.

For Descartes, knowledge exists as ideas in the mind that represent the world. In a radical critique, Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor argue that knowledge consists of much more than the representations we formulate in our minds. They affirm our direct contact with reality—both the physical and the social world—and our shared understanding of it.

This book is the first to provide a sustained, coherent analysis of Foucault's work as a whole. To demonstrate the sense in which Foucault's work is beyond structuralism and hermeneutics, the authors unfold a careful, analytical exposition of his oeuvre. They argue that during the of Foucault's work became a sustained and largely successful effort to develop a new method - "interpretative analytics" - capable of explaining both the logic of structuralism's claim to be an objective science and the apparent (...) validity of the hermeneutical counterclaim that the human sciences can proceed only by understanding the deepest meaning of the subject and his tradition. (shrink)

It is generally argued that if the wave-function in the de Broglie–Bohm theory is a physical field, it must be a field in configuration space. Nevertheless, it is possible to interpret the wave-function as a multi-field in three-dimensional space. This approach hasn’t received the attention yet it really deserves. The aim of this paper is threefold: first, we show that the wave-function is naturally and straightforwardly construed as a multi-field; second, we show why this interpretation is superior to other interpretations (...) discussed in the literature; third, we clarify common misconceptions. (shrink)

Ethics, in the sense of a recognized branch of inquiry, reputedly began with Socrates and the Sophists, at least for the western world. Ethics, understood as a set of moral standards, traditionalized by maxims and admonitions, has existed in human cultures from so early a time that it would be hazardous indeed to conjecture the date of its probable origin. The "Hopi Ethics" which Mr. Brandt has studied is obviously that of this second sense, whereas his own study, at least (...) insofar as it is a "theoretical analysis" and goes beyond mere description, is "ethics" in the first sense. That the Hopi Indians were somewhat astonished and perplexed by Mr. Brandt's line of inquiry is indicated by some of their quoted remarks, such as their mention of the "hard questions" being put to them, and their amazement at the suggestion of the possibility that "there is no right answer to ethical questions." One gathers, thus, that while the problem of ethical relativism was of high concern to Mr. Brandt, such an idea was nigh unthinkable to the Hopi. (shrink)

The late Benjamin L. Whorf proposed "that the linguistic system of each language is not merely a reproducing instrument for voicing ideas but rather is itself the shaper of ideas, the program and guide for the individual's mental activity, for his analysis of impressions, for his synthesis of his mental stock in trade". Whorf went further, maintaining that each language conceals a hidden metaphysics, and that this metaphysics has a profound influence on normal behavior patterns. Whorf was a disciple of (...) the late Edward Sapir, who earlier but more reservedly suggested the thesis of linguistic influence on thought and action. Whorf, in his enthusiasm, tended toward the extreme view that thought worlds rest on language to such an extent that they defy ultimate translation from one language to another. Even an individual equally versed in two languages could only sense the presence of the basic linguistic difference, but could never verbalize it completely in either language. Such a thesis is called "the linguistic relativity principle" by Franklin Fearing. Joseph Greenberg, on the other hand, though shying away from "absolutes" of translatable meaning, sees the end of scientific linguistics unless some common experience is assumed to be expressible between languages. The ablest solution to this problem appears to be the one proposed by Stanley Newman in a technique of translation through "multiple equivalents". In one place in the discussions, he explains it as follows. (shrink)

This book focuses on two primary concerns, language and philosophical thinking. The first part of the book examines the ways that language, particularly the English language, shapes and channels our thoughts. The second part considers the three basic processes in concept formation: abstracting, imagining and generalizing. Lastly, the rational process itself is examined, looking at definition, rational inquiry and philosophical system building. First published in 1967, this edition is a reprint of the 1972 enlarged edition published by University of New (...) Mexico Press. (shrink)

This book focuses on two primary concerns, language and philosophical thinking. The first part of the book examines the ways that language, particularly the English language, shapes and channels our thoughts. The second part considers the three basic processes in concept formation: abstracting, imagining and generalizing. Lastly, the rational process itself is examined, looking at definition, rational inquiry and philosophical system building. First published in 1967, this edition is a reprint of the 1972 enlarged edition published by University of New (...) Mexico Press. (shrink)

Le propos de cet article est de revenir sur un présupposé « écologique » assez évident de la clinique médicale, mais qu’on tend à ne plus prendre au sérieux lorsqu’on se laisse obnubiler par les capacités d’objectivation des sciences et surtout les projets philosophiques de naturalisation qui s’en réclament. Réactivant notamment l’héritage de Georges Canguilhem et de la phénoménologie clinique, nous rappelons la profonde ambiguïté sémantique des concepts de santé et de maladie, afin d’indiquer le champ légitime de leur application (...) et de montrer qu’ils ne sont pas indépendants des rapports de pouvoir inhérents à toute existence sociale. (shrink)