Human cooperation is highly unusual. We live in large groups composed mostly of non-relatives. Evolutionists have proposed a number of explanations for this pattern, including cultural group selection and extensions of more general processes such as reciprocity, kin selection, and multi-level selection acting on genes. Evolutionary processes are consilient; they affect several different empirical domains, such as patterns of behavior and the proximal drivers of that behavior. In this target article, we sketch the evidence from five domains that bear on (...) the explanatory adequacy of cultural group selection and competing hypotheses to explain human cooperation. Does cultural transmission constitute an inheritance system that can evolve in a Darwinian fashion? Are the norms that underpin institutions among the cultural traits so transmitted? Do we observe sufficient variation at the level of groups of considerable size for group selection to be a plausible process? Do human groups compete, and do success and failure in competition depend upon cultural variation? Do we observe adaptations for cooperation in humans that most plausibly arose by cultural group selection? If the answer to one of these questions is “no,” then we must look to other hypotheses. We present evidence, including quantitative evidence, that the answer to all of the questions is “yes” and argue that we must take the cultural group selection hypothesis seriously. If culturally transmitted systems of rules that limit individual deviance organize cooperation in human societies, then it is not clear that any extant alternative to cultural group selection can be a complete explanation. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

In this innovative book, Gloria Frost reconstructs and analyses Aquinas's theories on efficient causation and causal powers, focusing specifically on natural causal powers and efficient causation in nature. Frost presents each element of Aquinas's theories one by one, comparing them with other theories, as well as examining the philosophical and interpretive ambiguities in Aquinas's thought and proposing fresh solutions to conceptual difficulties. Her discussion includes explanations of Aquinas's technical scholastic terminology in jargon-free prose, as well as background on (...) medieval scientific views - including ordinary language explanations of the medieval physical theories which Aquinas assumed in formulating his views on causation and causal powers. The resulting volume is a rich exploration of a central philosophical topic in medieval philosophy and beyond, and will be valuable especially for scholars and advanced students working on Aquinas and on medieval natural philosophy. (shrink)

Written in political exile during the Second World War and first published in 1945, Karl Popper's The Open Society and Its Enemiesis one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. Hailed by Bertrand Russell as a 'vigorous and profound defence of democracy', its now legendary attack on the philosophies of Plato, Hegel and Marx exposed the dangers inherent in centrally planned political systems. Popper's highly accessible style, his erudite and lucid explanations of the thought of great philosophers (...) and the recent resurgence of totalitarian regimes around the world are just three of the reasons for the enduring popularity of The Open Society and Its Enemies, and for why it demands to be read both today and in years to come. This is the second of two volumes of The Open Society and Its Enemies. (shrink)

Karl Raimund Poppers (1902-1994) Hauptwerk, die Logik der Forschung (1934), gilt als Grundlagenwerk des kritischen Rationalismus. Der kritische Rationalismus zeigt, warum unser Wissen fehlbar ist und versteht den Erkenntnisfortschritt als Resultat von Hypothesenbildung und -widerlegung. Der Sammelband orientiert sich an der Gliederung der Logik der Forschung. Seine Beiträge kommentieren die jeweiligen Themen nach aktueller Forschungslage.

Karl Jaspers gehört zu den Ziehvätern der Psychopathologie, einer der Grundlagenwissenschaften der Psychiatrie. In diesem Zusammenhang wird gemeinhin auf sein systematisches Lehrbuch verwiesen, die Allgemeine Psychopathologie von 1913. Die wesentlichen Züge seiner Methodologie und den Gegenstand der neuen Wissenschaft fixierte Jaspers jedoch schon in den hier versammelten Arbeiten, die zwischen 1909 und 1913 erschienen: Seine Kritik am dominanten Reduktionismus und an der damals noch jungen Psychoanalyse sind in diesen Texten bereits gültig formuliert, ebenso - und nicht zuletzt - die (...) Dichotomie zwischen Erklären und Verstehen. Neben der Dissertation “Heimweh und Verbrechen” enthält der vorliegende Band unter anderem den bahnbrechenden und wirkungsvollen Aufsatz “Die phänomenologische Forschungsrichtung in der Psychiatrie” sowie die bis heute kontrovers diskutierte Abhandlung “Kausale und 'verständliche' Zusammenhänge zwischen Schicksal und Psychose bei der Dementia praecox (Schizophrenie)”. Der Kommentar verortet die einzelnen Beiträge sowohl im wissenschaftshistorischen als auch im werkgeschichtlichen Kontext. (Quelle: buchhandel.de). (shrink)

This essay explores the development of Simone Weil's conception of obedience across religious, political, and ethical contexts. By bringing together these strands of Weil's thought, it aims to illuminate some important connections in her treatment of obedience throughout these diverse topics. The author argues that Weil's political treatment of obedience is deeply influenced by ideas in Christian thought, and that this account is situated within an understanding of obedience in the natural world which is itself ethically loaded. Hence it is (...) suggested that Weil's account of obedience has something to offer philosophy today: namely, a conception of obedience which recognises the practical and ethical need for obeying others, but which is distinct from the mere submission to power. (shrink)

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) calls for medical practitioners to “integrate” our best available evidence into clinical practice. A significant amount of the literature on EBM takes this integration to be unproblematic, focusing on questions like how to interpret evidence and engage with patient values, rather than critically looking at how these features of EBM can be implemented together. Other authors have also commented on this gap in the literature, for example, identifying the lack of clarity about how patient preferences and evidence (...) from trials is supposed to be integrated in practice. In this paper, I look at this issue from an epistemological perspective, (looking at how different types of knowledge in EBM can be used to make sounds judgements). In particular, I introduce an epistemological issue for this integration problem, which I call the epistemic integration problem. This is essentially the problem of how we can use information that is both general (eg, about a population sample) and descriptive (eg, about what expected outcomes are) to reach clinical judgements that are individualized (applying to a particular patient) and normative (about what is best for their health). (shrink)

New Materialisms brings into focus and explains the significance of the innovative materialist critiques that are emerging across the social sciences and humanities. By gathering essays that exemplify the new thinking about matter and processes of materialization, this important collection shows how scholars are reworking older materialist traditions, contemporary theoretical debates, and advances in scientific knowledge to address pressing ethical and political challenges. In the introduction, Diana Coole and Samantha Frost highlight common themes among the distinctive critical projects that (...) comprise the new materialisms. The continuities they discern include a posthumanist conception of matter as lively or exhibiting agency, and a reengagement with both the material realities of everyday life and broader geopolitical and socioeconomic structures. Coole and Frost argue that contemporary economic, environmental, geopolitical, and technological developments demand new accounts of nature, agency, and social and political relationships; modes of inquiry that privilege consciousness and subjectivity are not adequate to the task. New materialist philosophies are needed to do justice to the complexities of twenty-first-century biopolitics and political economy, because they raise fundamental questions about the place of embodied humans in a material world and the ways that we produce, reproduce, and consume our material environment. Contributors Sara Ahmed Jane Bennett Rosi Braidotti Pheng Cheah Rey Chow William E. Connolly Diana Coole Jason Edwards Samantha Frost Elizabeth Grosz Sonia Kruks Melissa A. Orlie. (shrink)

Iris Murdoch was a philosopher and novelist who wrote extensively on the themes of love, goodness, religion, and morality. In this article, we explore her notion of ‘moral vision’; the idea that morality is not just about how we act and make choices, but how we see the world in a much broader sense.

Cartesian scepticism poses the question of how we can justify our belief that other humans experience consciousness in the same way that we do. Wittgenstein’s response to this scepticism is one that does not seek to resolve the problem by providing a sound argument against the Cartesian sceptic. Rather, he provides a method of philosophical inquiry which enables us to move past this and continue our inquiry without the possibility of solipsism arising as a philosophical problem in the first place. (...) In this paper, I propose that Wittgenstein’s method of dismissing the Cartesian sceptic can also be applied to the problems posed by the ‘moral sceptic’, who denies the truth of all ethical or moral claims. I will argue that in the same way Wittgenstein’s focus on public language enables us to dismiss the traditional problem of other minds, a focus on public moral practices or language-games also enables us to dismiss the idea that moral claims are always ‘meaningless’, ‘false’ or ‘nonsensical’. On this account, the moral sceptic is misguided in much the same way as the solipsist who implicitly admits the existence of other minds in her practices. The moral sceptic who still engages in moral activities also implicitly admits the existence of meaningful moral positions. Wittgenstein’s dismissal of the Cartesian sceptic, as I understand it, can be broadly divided into two parts. The first part is an account of language acquisition. This part outlines how we might come to see other humans as conscious, thinking, feeling beings from a causal perspective. This suggests that we can arrive at an understanding of other minds as a primary perception itself - without needing to posit this perception as a kind of deductive or inductive hypothesis. Secondly, we can see how this relates to an epistemic model of language. This focuses on the role of language as something which consists of rule-governed activities, where the existence of other minds is embedded in our understanding of the world as a kind of grammatical rule, rather than an observational hypothesis. From both these arguments the Cartesian sceptic is,, irrelevant to some forms of philosophical inquiry. This is because the sceptic takes the existence of other minds to be a rational hypothesis/inference when it is not. I suggest that this approach can be applied to moral scepticism if we take certain normative claims as grammatical dispositions, rather than rational or metaphysical propositions. Hence, the moral sceptic who offers a rational or logical critique of these moral foundations is not necessarily saying anything relevant to our practices – the moral stances which they refute as rationally meaningless were never based on purely rational or logical hypotheses in the first place. (shrink)

La educación en línea forzada por la pandemia del 2020, puede ser un trampolín de oportunidades para la inclusión de personas con discapacidad visual gracias a las tecnologías de asistencia; o bien, las puede dejar fuera por el analfabetismo que existe en la sociedad con respecto a dónde encontrar y cómo usar dichas tecnologías de asistencia para favorecer la inclusión de este colectivo. Por ello, es de vital importancia implementar tecnologías de asistencia y metodologías didácticas innovadoras, que permitan aprendizajes significativos (...) y generen motivación en los estudiantes con discapacidad visual para participar de manera más proactiva. El juego y la formación aleatoria de equipos que permiten las plataformas potencializa la capacidad adaptativa de estos estudiantes en la comunidad educativa, al tiempo que se ejerce el derecho a la accesibilidad mediante la información en múltiples formatos de diseño universal para el aprendizaje. En este ensayo la autora, quien conduce una sala tiflotécnica en una universidad politécnica, discute el tipo de tecnologías digitales que coadyuvan a eliminar barreras al aprendizaje de personas con discapacidad visual, colectivo al que ella misma pertenece, con el propósito que se puedan generar el tipo de escenarios educativos que requieren. (shrink)

Described by the philosopher A.J. Ayer as a work of 'great originality and power', this book revolutionized contemporary thinking on science and knowledge. Ideas such as the now legendary doctrine of 'falsificationism' electrified the scientific community, influencing even working scientists, as well as post-war philosophy. This astonishing work ranks alongside _The Open Society and Its Enemies_ as one of Popper's most enduring books and contains insights and arguments that demand to be read to this day.

Originally published as L'Islam et l'occident, 2006. Translated by Teresa Lavender Fagan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. xxii + 114 pp. Hardback, $19.99.

First published in French, Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (1847) was composed during his years in Brussels, when he was developing his economic views and, through confrontations with the chief leaders of the working-class movement, establishing his intellectual standing. In this classic work, which laid the foundation of ideas later developed in Capital, Marx polemicized against then premier French socialist, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Proudhon wanted to unite the best features of such contraries as competition and monopoly. He hoped to save the (...) good features of economic institutions while eliminating the bad. Marx, however, declared that no equilibrium was possible between the antagonisms in any given economic system. Social structures were transient historical forms determined by the productive forces: "The handmill gives you society with the feudal lord; the stream mill, society with the industrial capitalist.". (shrink)

This article argues the following points. The Hobbesian hypothesis, which we define as the claim that all people are better off under state authority than they would be outside of it, is an empirical claim about all stateless societies. It is an essential premise in most contractarian justifications of government sovereignty. Many small-scale societies are stateless. Anthropological evidence from them provides sufficient reason to doubt the truth of the hypothesis, if not to reject it entirely. Therefore, contractarian theory has not (...) done what it claims to do: it has not justified state sovereignty to each person subject to it by demonstrating that they benefit from that authority. To be justified in contractarian terms, states have to do something to improve the living standards of disadvantaged people under their rule. (shrink)

This book explores the main stages and key concepts in the development of Kant's critical philosophy, from the early 1760s to the 1790s. Karl Ameriks provides a detailed and concise account of the main ways in which the later critical works provide a plausible defense of the conception of humanity's fundamental end that Kant turned to after reading Rousseau in the 1760s. Separate essays are devoted to each of the three Critiques, as well as to earlier notes and lectures (...) and several of Kant's later writings on history and religion. A final section devotes three chapters to post-Kantian developments in German Romanticism, accounts of tragedy up through Nietzsche, and contemporary philosophy. The theme of an elliptical path is shown to be relevant to these writers as well as to many aspects of Kant's own life and work. The topics of the book include fundamental issues in epistemology and metaphysics, with a new defense of the Amerik's 'moderate' interpretation of transcendental idealism. (shrink)

This chapter suggests how certain problematic claims of pantheism might be made more intelligible. It shows, first, that some pantheistic God-talk is comparable to talk involving mass terms; treating “God” as a mass term affords us a way of understanding, for example, how parts can seemingly be identified with the wholes of which they are the parts, as per the claim that “God is everything and everything is God”. This chapter then goes on to describe a contemporary variant of panpsychism, (...) a variant speculatively predicated on the affinity between intentional states and causal dispositions. This allows for a conception of the world as God’s brain, cashed out in terms of a “panintentionalism” that admits of various organizational possibilities for causal dispositional states, comparable to the organization of intentional states in human brains. (shrink)

Nicht Themen, Schulen und Epochen, sondern der philosophierende Mensch steht im Zentrum von Jaspers' Philosophiegeschichte. Und dazu zahlen nicht nur Platon und Kant, sondern eben auch Jesus und - aus der auaereuropaischen Philosophie - Buddha und Konfuzius. Dieser interkulturelle Ansatz setzt sich in der Behandlung der Metaphysik fort. So portratiert Jaspers neben Plotin und Spinoza auch Laotse und Nagarjuna. Unter Berucksichtigung der im Jaspers-Nachlass vorliegenden Originalmanuskripte erscheint der Text hier in einer um zahlreiche Abschreibfehler bereinigten Form. Im Stellenkommentar werden samtliche (...) Zitate nachgewiesen; hierauf hatte Jaspers bewusst verzichtet, dies spater aber bedauert. Auaerdem sind im Kommentar ausgewahlte Textpassagen des Manuskripts vermerkt, die Jaspers aus Platzgrunden streichen musste. Das kurze "Foreword for the American Reader", das Jaspers 1960 fur die von Hannah Arendt herausgegebene englische Ubersetzung verfasste, wird hier erstmals im deutschen Original publiziert. (shrink)

In this article I offer an opinionated overview of the central elements of Kant’s philosophical methodology during the critical period. I begin with a brief characterization of how Kant conceives of the aims of human inquiry – focusing on the idea that inquiry ideally aims at not just cognition (Erkenntnis), but also the more demanding cognitive achievements that Kant labels insight (Einsehen) and comprehension (Begreifen). Then I explore the implications of this picture for philosophy — emphasizing Kant’s distinction between critical (...) and doctrinal phases of philosophical inquiry, with the first of these playing both a negative and a positive role with respect to the second. Then, I will argue that this positive role is possible, according to Kant, only insofar as philosophy follows what I call a “capacities-first” methodology – that is, one that treats basic cognitive capacities (such as reason) and their self-conscious activities as fundamental (in both a cognitive sense and in an explanatory sense) for the sort of philosophy human beings are capable of. It is this methodology, I will argue, that allows Kant to introduce the first principles that philosophy in its doctrinal phase requires in a manner that is neither arbitrary nor (at least obviously) incompatible with Kant’s own critical restrictions on cognition. I conclude by discussing some of the implications of this methodological picture – including the methodological significance of self-consciousness and regressive or “transcendental” arguments, Kant’s distinction between analytic and synthetic methods in philosophy, and Kant’s conception of reason as autonomous. (shrink)

Karl Pfeifer attempts to present a coherent view of panentheism that eschews Pickwickian senses of “in” and aligns itself with, and builds upon, familiar diagrammed portrayals of panentheism. The account is accordingly spatial-locative and moreover accepts the proposal of R.T. Mullins that absolute space and time be regarded as attributes of God. In addition, however, it argues that a substantive parthood relation between the world and God is required. Pfeifer’s preferred version of panpsychism, viz. panintentionalism, is thrown into the (...) mix as an optional add-on. On this account, God is conceived of as a “spiritual field” whose nature can be made more intelligible by regarding “God” as having a mass-noun sense in some contexts. Pfeifer closes with the suggestion that we look to topology and mereology for further development of the position outlined in his paper. (shrink)

With respect to the topic of “powers and abilities,” most readers will associate David Hume with his multi-pronged critique of traditional attempts to make robust explanatory use of those notions in a philosophical or scientific context. But Hume’s own philosophy is also structured around the attribution to human beings of a variety of basic faculties or mental powers – such as the reason and the imagination, or the various powers involved in Hume’s account of im- pressions of reflection and the (...) passions. Indeed, there is a clear case to be made that, despite his deflationary account of our concept of power, Hume continues to treat certain basic powers or faculties as forming the explanatory bedrock for his new “science of man”. In this essay, I will discuss how this apparent conflict between the “critical” (if not outright skeptical) and “constructive” aspects of Hume’s discussion of powers and abilities is best resolved – with special attention to the question of how this illuminates Hume’s place in the development of early modern conceptions of the proper method for philosophy. (shrink)

Karl Hahn, Jahrgang 1937, war bis zu seiner Emeritierung im Jahr 2003 Professor für Politische Theorie und Ideengeschichte an der Westfälischen Wilhelms-Universität Münster. Hierbei hat er die Klassiker der abendländischen Geistesgeschichte nicht in einem kanonisch-schematischen Profil gelehrt, sondern die jeweiligen Themen und Theoreme mit lebensfüllender Leidenschaft vermittelt. Seine Vorlesungen und Seminare an der Universität zeugen, wie auch seine Vorträge und Tagungsbeiträge, von einem streitbaren Geist, der stets auch um die aktualisierende Bezugnahme bemüht war. Stets hat er pointiert Stellung bezogen, (...) auch gegen den Mainstream des Faches, das er kritisch hinterfragt hat. Ob Platon, Fichte oder auch Simone Weil: Bei Karl Hahn stehen philosophische Überlegungen für eine Suche nach der Vollendung des Daseins in seinen unendlich vielen und offenen Aussagemöglichkeiten. Hahns großes Lebensthema war und ist hierbei das tragische Element des menschlichen Wesens, dessen Kleinheit und Begrenztheit angesichts der großen Fragen der menschlichen Existenz. Das hat er seinen Studierenden mit auf den Weg gegeben. Und auch den Kolleginnen und Kollegen, die bereit waren, zuzuhören. Mit dem vorliegenden Band wird der Wissenschaftler zum Anlass seines 80. Geburtstages geehrt, der seine Verdienste nicht in der flüchtigen Wertschätzung des Feuilletons, sondern grundsätzlich im Diskurs der Seminarräume und Kongressveranstaltungen erworben hat. (shrink)

Kunsthandelaar Karl Stimm schenkt op een verfrissende manier aandacht aan beschouwingen over Archeologica & Oude kunst. Hij benoemt onder andere de bedreigingen van het cultureel erfgoed, het belang van metaaldetectoramateurs en de moeilijke tijden die zijn aangebroken voor verzamelaars. Met dit boek wil de auteur bruggen bouwen tussen wetenschappers, musea, verzamelaars en handelaren, erfgoedcommissies en de autoriteiten. Slaagt Stimm erin het onmogelijke te verwezenlijken? De vereenzelviging van object en mens."--Publisher information.

Begegnung des Verlegers mit Karl Jaspers, von K. Piper.-Philosophische Autobiographie, von K. Jaspers.- Jaspers und der Staat, von D. Sternberger.- Jaspers als geschichtlicher Denker, von G. Mann.- Jaspers in Frankreich, von J. Hersch.- Karl Jaspers und die italienische Philosophie, von L. Quattrocchi.- Die Philosophie von Karl Jaspers in Japan, von F. Hashimoto.-Karl Jaspers und der Rundfunk, von P. Meyer-Gutzwiller.- Karl Jasper's Lebensdaten.- Bibliographie der Werke und Schriften, von H. Saner [p.[173] -[216]].