The Turkish translation of Sein und Zeit has not yet been completed. Therefore it is not the subject of this paper whether or not Heidegger’s opus magnum can possibly be übersetzt, übertragen, or deutend dargestellt in an entirely different language such as Turkish. What is going to be discussed, instead, are the ways in which Heidegger can be presented by using the authentic capabilities of Turkish; the different alternatives of such a presentation; the notions and contexts that those alternatives would (...) materialize in the mind of a person who speaks and thinks in Turkish; and, finally, the extent to which those materialized concepts match the objectives that Heidegger had in mind. It is interesting, for that reason, that, for example, varlik does not always mean varlik in Turkish, while Sein always does mean Sein in German. (shrink)

The Turkish translation of Sein und Zeit has not yet been completed. Therefore it is not the subject of this paper whether or not Heidegger’s opus magnum can possibly be übersetzt, übertragen, or deutend dargestellt in an entirely different language such as Turkish. What is going to be discussed, instead, are the ways in which Heidegger can be presented by using the authentic capabilities of Turkish; the different alternatives of such a presentation; the notions and contexts that those alternatives would (...) materialize in the mind of a person who speaks and thinks in Turkish; and, finally, the extent to which those materialized concepts match the objectives that Heidegger had in mind. It is interesting, for that reason, that, for example, varlik does not always mean varlik in Turkish, while Sein always does mean Sein in German. (shrink)

The intuition that consciousness is hard to explain may fade away as empirically adequate theories of consciousness develop. We review socio-historical factors that account for why, as a field, the neuroscience of consciousness has not been particularly successful at developing empirically adequate theories. Based on this we argue that the meta-problem may be a self-fulfilling prophecy, created in part because we inadvertently focused too much on the so-called 'hard problem', limiting scientific progress.

First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The de minimis principle states that some risks are so trivial that they can be ignored or treated categorically differently from non-trivial risks. Lundgren and Stefánsson criticize the de minimis principle, arguing that it either has to be applied locally or globally and that problems arise whichever application is chosen. Aven and Seif respond to Lundgren and Stefánsson’s argument and defend the de minimis principle as a “meaningful and useful perspective for handling risk in practice.” The response highlights some aspects (...) of the argument in Lundgren and Stefánsson that needs clarification, which is what we do in this note. (shrink)

In the Platonic work Alcibiades I, a divinely guided Socrates adopts the guise of a lover in order to divert Alcibiades from an unthinking political career. The contributors to this carefully focussed volume cover aspects of the background to the work; its arguments and the philosophical issues it raises; its relationship to other Platonic texts, and its subsequent history up to the time of the Neoplatonists. Despite its ancient prominence, the authorship of Alcibiades I is still unsettled; the essays and (...) two appendices, one historical and one stylometric, come together to suggest answers to this tantalising question. (shrink)

Poverty violates fundamental human values through its impact on individuals and on human environments, and it goes against the core values of democratic societies. Drawing on numerous scientific studies as well as his own experience witnessing the systematic poverty in his home country of South Africa, H. P. P. [Hennie] Lötter presents a holistic profile of poverty and its effects on human lives all the while accounting for the complexity of each individual case. He argues that shared ethical values must (...) guide the planning and distribution of aid and that our society must reevaluate our notions of justice and reimagine the role of the state in order to enable collective human responsibility for poverty’s successful eradication. (shrink)

Descartes, René, 1596-1650; Modern philosophy.

Open peer commentary on the article “The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and its Criticisms” by Hugo Cadenas & Marcelo Arnold. Upshot: Cadenas and Arnold contribute towards a better understanding of what is at stake in the long debate concerning the applicability of Maturana’s autopoiesis concept to social systems. However, their target article has two shortcomings: it does not provide a deeper understanding of the reasons why Luhmann’s adoption of the autopoiesis concept has proved to be sterile after decades of debate; (...) and their historic account does not integrate recent developments that need to be highlighted to improve interdisciplinary research. (shrink)

Teachers and Texts in the Ancient World presents a comprehensive and accessible survey of religious and philosophical teaching and classroom practices in the ancient world. Snyder synthesizes a wide range of ancient evidence and modern scholarship to address such questions as how the literary practices of Jews and Christians compared to the literary practices of the philosophical schools and whether Christians were particularly noteworthy for their attachment to scripture.

The relative neglect of Greek commentary by modern Aristotelian scholarship could be justified, if only the neglectors had sufficient knowledge of the material they disdain. The curt dismissal of ancient views on the active intellect by W. D. Ross is perhaps a paradigm case of misplaced condemnation, for he evidently failed to take account of what their authors were about. It would be open to those who wish to discount these commentators to argue that they were, to a greater or (...) lesser extent, influenced by their Neoplatonism, and that this impairs their judgment on Aristotelian problems. But that would not be sufficient ground for total neglect: it merely indicates the need for careful utilization. One might go so far as to ask whether it is not perfectly possible for a commentator who happened to be a Neoplatonist to offer straightforward and reasonably unbiased commentary on Aristotle. Even if the answer to that question were negative, is it not likely that such Neoplatonic views as he read into Aristotle would at least be slanted towards Aristotelianism? (shrink)

I summarize Jaegwon Kim's (2001/5) paper on the detrimental affect 'mental causation' has on physicalism.