According to standard assumptions in semantics, ordinary users of a language have implicit beliefs about the truth-conditions of sentences in that language, and they often agree on those beliefs. For example, it is assumed that if Anna and John are both competent users of English and the former utters ‘grass is green’ in conversation with the latter, they will both believe that that sentence is true if and only if grass is green. These assumptions play an important role (...) in an intuitively compelling picture of communication, according to which successful communication through literal assertoric utterances is normally effected thanks to our shared beliefs about the truth-conditions of the sentences uttered in the course of the conversation. Against these standard assumptions, this paper argues that the participants in a conversation rarely have the same beliefs about the truth-conditions of the sentences involved in a linguistic interaction. More precisely, it argues for Variance, the thesis that nearly every utterance is such that there is no proposition which more than one language user believes to be that utterance’s truth-conditional content. If Variance is true, we must reject the standard picture of communication. Towards the end of the paper I identify three ways in which ordinary conversations can be communication-like despite the truth of Variance and argue that the most natural amendments to the standard picture fail to explain them. (shrink)

Er ist wie Günter Grass, Martin Walser und Joseph Ratzinger 1927 geboren, Zeitgenosse von Habermas und Enzensberger und sein Leben verlief so spannend wie kein zweites seiner Generation. Die Mutter war Tänzerin bei Mary Wigman, sein Vater Kunsthistoriker. Seine Eltern waren links, atheistisch und lebten in der Berliner Bohème der Zwanziger Jahre. 1942, nach dem Tod seiner Mutter, wird der Vater zum katholischen Priester geweiht. 1944 ist Spaemann bei einem Bauer untergetaucht, er ist Deserteur im eigenen Land. Entdeckt (...) man ihn jetzt, wird er sofort erschossen. Heute ist Robert Spaemann der bedeutendste konservative Philosoph im In und Ausland. In einem langen Gespräch mit Stephan Sattler resümiert er sein Leben, ganz unter der Maxime der Suche nach dem, "was in Wahrheit ist". Spaemann ist der bedeutendste konservative Philosoph im In- und Ausland und bekennender Gegner der Nutzung der Atomkraft und der Genmanipulation. (shrink)

Few words in both everyday parlance and theoretical discourse have been as rhapsodically defended or as fervently resisted as "experience." Yet, to date, there have been no comprehensive studies of how the concept of experience has evolved over time and why so many thinkers in so many different traditions have been compelled to understand it. _Songs of Experience _is a remarkable history of Western ideas about the nature of human experience written by one of our best-known intellectual historians. With its (...) sweeping historical reach and lucid comparative analysis—qualities that have made Martin Jay's previous books so distinctive and so successful—_Songs of Experience _explores Western discourse from the sixteenth century to the present, asking why the concept of experience has been such a magnet for controversy. Resisting any single overarching narrative, Jay discovers themes and patterns that transcend individuals and particular schools of thought and illuminate the entire spectrum of intellectual history. As he explores the manifold contexts for understanding experience—epistemological, religious, aesthetic, political, and historical—Jay engages an exceptionally broad range of European and American traditions and thinkers from the American pragmatists and British Marxist humanists to the Frankfurt School and the French poststructuralists, and he delves into the thought of individual philosophers as well, including Montaigne, Bacon, Locke, Hume and Kant, Oakeshott, Collingwood, and Ankersmit. Provocative, engaging, erudite, this key work will be an essential source for anyone who joins the ongoing debate about the material, linguistic, cultural, and theoretical meaning of "experience" in modern cultures. (shrink)

In this analytically oriented work, Peterson articulates and defends five moral principles for addressing ethical issues related to new and existing technologies: the cost-benefit principle, the precautionary principle, the sustainability principle, the autonomy principle, and the fairness principle.

He then argues that (1), (2) and (3) constitute an inconsistent triad as follows (1991, p. 15): Suppose (1) that Oscar knows a priori that he is thinking that water is wet. Then by (2), Oscar can simply deduce E, using premisses that are knowable a priori, including the premiss that he is thinking that water is wet. Since Oscar can deduce E from premisses that are knowable a priori, Oscar can know E itself a priori. But this contradicts (3), (...) the assumption that E cannot be known a priori. Hence (1), (2), and (3) are inconsistent. McKinsey’s conclusion is that ‘anti-individualism is inconsistent with privileged access’ (ibid.). (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate a _prima facie_ tension between our commonsense conception of ourselves as thinkers and the connectionist programme for modelling cognitive processes. The language of thought hypothesis plays a pivotal role. The connectionist paradigm is opposed to the language of thought; and there is an argument for the language of thought that draws on features of the commonsense scheme of thoughts, concepts, and inference. Most of the paper (Sections 3-7) is taken up with the (...) argument for the language of thought hypothesis. The argument for an opposition between connectionism and the language of thought comes towards the end (Section 8), along with some discussion of the potential eliminativist consequences (Sections 9 and. (shrink)

Overview * Part I: Introduction * Philip Appleman, Darwin: On Changing the Mind * Part II: Darwin’s Life * Ernst Mayr, Who Is Darwin? * Part III: Scientific Thought: Just before Darwin * Sir Gavin de Beer, Biology before the Beagle * Thomas Robert Malthus, An Essay on the Principle of Population * William Paley, Natural Theology * Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet Lamarck, Zoological Philisophy * Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology * John Herschell, The Study of Natural Philosophy (...) * William Whewell, Astronomy and General Physics Considered with Reference to Natural Theology * Alfred Russel Wallace, On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type * Part IV: Selections from Darwin’s Work * The Voyage of the Beagle * o Chapter I. St. Jago-Cape de Verd Island o Chapter XVII. Galapagos Archipelago * On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; and On the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection * o I. Extract from an unpublished Work on Species, by C. Darwin, Esq.... o II.of Letter from C. Darwin, Esq., to Prof. Asa Gray, Boston, U.S., dated Down, September 5th, 1857 * An Historical Sketch of the Progress of Opinion on the Origin of Species, previously to the : Publication of This Work The Origin of Species * o Introduction o Chapter I. Variation under Domestication o Chapter II. Variation under Nature o Chapter III. Struggle for Existence o Chapter IV. Natural Selection o Chapter VI. Difficulties on Theory o Chapter IX. On the Imperfections of the Geological Record o Chapter XIII. Mutual Affinities of Organic Beings: Morphology: Embryology: Rudimentary Organs o Chapter XIV. Recapitulation and Conclusion * The Descent of Man * o Introduction o Chapter I. The Evidence of the Descent of Man from Some Lower Form o Chapter II. On the Manner of Development of Man from Some Lower Form o Chapter III. Comparison of the Mental Powers of Man and the Lower Animals o Chapter VI. On the Affinities and Genealogy of Man o Chapter VIII. Principles of Sexual Selection o Chapter XIX. Secondary Sexual Characters of Man o Chapter XX. Secondary Sexual Characters of Man-continued o Chapter XXI. General Summary and Conclusion * Part V: Darwin’s Influence on Science * THE VICTORIAN OPPOSITION TO DARWIN * o David L. Hull, Darwin and His Critics o Adam Sedgwick, Objections to Mr. Darwin’s Theory of the Origin of Species o Sir Richard Owen, Darwin on the Origin of Species o Fleeming Jenkin, Review of the Origin of Species * VICTORIAN SUPPORTERS OF DARWIN * o Joseph Dalton Hooker, Flora Tasmaniae o Thomas Henry Huxley, On the Relations of Man to the Lowe Animals o Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology o Alfred Russel Wallace, The Debt of Science to Darwin * DARWIN AND THE SHAPING OF MODERN SCIENCE * o Scientific Method in Evolution o National Academy of Sciences, Evolution and the Nature of Science o Richard Dawkins, Explaining the Very Improbable o Lewis Thomas, On the Uncertainty of Science o Noretta Koetge, Postmodernisms and the Problem of Scientific Literary o Richard Dawkins, Science and Sensibility o The Neo-Darwinian Synthesis o Peter Bowler, The Evolutionary Synthesis o The Human Genealogy o Adam Kuper, The Chosen Primate o Ian Tattersall, Out of Africa Again... and Again? o Stephen Jay Gould, The Human Difference o Punctuated Equilibrium o Stephen Jay Gould, [On Punctuated Equilibrium] o Niles Eldredge, The Great Stasis Debate o Rethinking Taxonomy o Kevin Padian, Darwin’s Views of Classification o David L. Hull, Cladistic Analysis o Kevin Padian and Luis M. Chiappe, Cladistics in Action: The Origin of Birds and Their Flight o Evolution as Observable Fact o James L. Gould and William T. Keeton with Carol Grant Gould, How Natural Selection Operates o Peter r. Grant, Natural Selection and Darwin’s Finches o John A. Endler, Natural Selection in the Wild * Part VI: Darwinian Patterns in Social Thought * COMPETITION AND COOPERATION * o Richard Hofstadter, The Vogue of Spencer o Andrew Carnegie, The Gospel of Wealth o Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid o Martin A. Nowak, Robert M. May, and Karl Sigmund, The Arithmetics of Mutual Help * NATURE AND NURTURE * o Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis o Stephen Jay Gould, Biological Potentiality vs. Biological Determination o Barbara Ehrenreich and Janet McIntosh, The New Creationism: Biology under Attack * EVOLUTION AND GENDER * o Elizabeth Cady Stanton, The Woman’s Bible o Nancy Makepeace Tanner, On Becoming Human o Evelleen Richards, Darwin and the Descent of Woman o James Eli Adams, Woman Red in Tooth and Claw * EVOLUTION AND OTHER DISCIPLINES * o Edward O. Wilson, [On Consilience] o Randolph H. Nesse and George C. Williams, Evolution and the Origin of Disease o Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works o Steve Jones, The Set within the Skull * Part VII: Darwinian Influences in Philosophy and Ethics * John Dewey, The Influence of Darwin on Philosophy * Daniel C. Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea: Natural Selection as an Algorithmic Process * Michael Ruse Darwinian Epistemology * Thomas Henry Huxley, Evolution and Ethics * Julian Huxley, Evolutionary Ethics * Michael Ruse and Edward O. Wilson, The Evolution of Ethics * Frans de Waal, Good Natured: The Origin of Right and Wrong in Humans and Other Animals * Matt Ridley, The Origins of Virtue * Part VIII: Evolutionary Theory and Religious Theory * MAINSTREAM RELIGIOUS SUPPORT FOR EVOLUTION * o Pope John Paul II, Message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences o Central Conference of American Rabbis, On Creationism in School Textbooks o United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., Evolution and Creationsim o The Lutheran World Federation, [Statement on Evolution] o The General Convention of the Episcopal Church, Resolution on Evolutionism and Creationism o Unitariuan Universalist Association, Resolution Opposing "Scientific Creationism" * FUNDAMENTALIST CREATIONISM * o Eugene C. Scott, Antievolution and Creationism in the United States o The Scopes Trial o Thomas McIver, Orthodox Jewish Creationists o Harun Yahya, [Islamic Creationism] o Seami Srila Prabhupada, [A Hare Krishna on Darwinian Evolution] o Institute for Creation Research, Tenets of Creationism o Henry M. Morris, Scientific Creationism o Thomas J. Wheeler, Review of Morris o Richard D. Sjolund and Betty McCollister, Evolution at the Grass Roots o Richard D. Sjolund, [Creationism versus Biotechnology] o Betty McCollister, [The Politics of Creationism] o Molleen Matsumara, What Do Christians Really Believe about Evolution? o National Center for Science Education, Seven Significant Court Decisions Regarding Evolution/Creation Issues * PERSONAL INCREDULITY AND ANTIEVOLUTIONISM * o Richard Dawkins, [The Argument from Personal Incredulity] o Phillip E. Johnson, Darwin on Trial o Eugenie C. Scott, Review of Johnson o Michael Behe, Darwin’s Black Box o Robert Dorit, Review of Behe o Michael Ruse, Darwin’s New Critics on Trial * SCIENTISTS’ OPPOSITION TO CREATIONISM * o American Association for the Advancement of Science, Forced Teaching of Creationist Beliefs in Public School Science Education o American Institute of Biological Sciences, Resolution Oposing Creationism in Science Courses o National Association of Biology Teachers, Statement on Teaching Evolution o National Academy of Sciences, Frequently Asked Questions about Evolution and the Nature of Science * FUNDAMENTALIST CREATIONISM AND THE VALUE OF SATIRE * o Michael Shermer, Genesis Revisted: A Scientific Creation Story o Philip Appleman, Darwin’s Ark * Part IX: Darwin and the Literary Mind * DARWIN’S LITERARY SENSIBILITY * o Charles Darwin, Autobiography o L. Robert Stevens, Darwin’s Humane Reading o George Levine, Darwin and Pain: Why Science Made Shakespeare Nauseating o Gillian Beer, Darwin’s Plots * DARWIN’S INFLUENCE ON LITERATURE * o Lionel Stevenson, Darwin among the Poets o George Levine, Darwin among the Novelists o Joseph Wood Krutch, The Tragic Fallacy o Herbert J. Muller, Modern Tragedy o Philip Appleman, Darwin-Sightings in Recent Literature. (shrink)

Force Fields collects the recent essays of Martin Jay, an intellectual historian and cultural critic internationally known for his extensive work on the history of Western Marxism and the intellectual migration from Germany to America.

Over the years, the list of intellectuals who collaborated with the Nazis and their allies has gotten longer. Celebrated philosophers like Martin Heidegger and Paul de Man, celebrated novelists like Alain Robbe-Grillet and, more recently, Günter Grass have been placed on that list. The latter two authors put themselves on that list by publishing their memoirs.1 The nature of the misdeeds during the Nazi era ranged from carrying a Nazi party card and giving pro-Nazi lectures (Heidegger), to working (...) in an armament factory in Nazi Germany (Robbe-Grillet), to joining the SS elite corps (Grass), to contributing tendentious articles in the…. (shrink)

There is widespread concern that the nature of mass politics changed during the late twentieth century, and indeed changed largely for the worse, in most post-industrial societies. The standard arguments are familiar and widely rehearsed. You can hear them echoed everyday, whether in simple or sophisticated versions, in the press, scattered in political speeches, and published in academe. Some arguments are cast in strictly empirical terms, but many popular accounts have strongly normative overtones.The intellectual roots lie in the classics of (...) political sociology from the late 1950s and mid-1960s, captured perhaps just as the era of traditional party campaigns was passing, notably the work of Maurice Duverger on mass-branch political parties and Stein Rokkan and Seymour Martin Lipset on social cleavages and electoral behaviour.The standard view emphasizes the consequences of the significant shift from direct party-oriented linkages between citizens and the state towards indirect media-oriented linkages in representative democracies. In the traditional model of election campaigns that characterized the ‘golden age’ of West European party politics, running from the expansion of the mass franchise in the late nineteenth century until at least the mid-twentieth century, party loyalists characteristically selected parliamentary representatives based on long-standing social cleavages and stable ideological cues.The core cleavages of class, religion, region, and language gave a collective meaning to party support and united people with shared identities and social roots who strived for broadly similar political ideals. As illustrated in Figure 1, in traditional campaigns political leaders communicated with grass-roots party loyalists via elected representatives and core party activists, using direct face-to-face channels of persuasion, organization and mobilization, such as local meetings, party newsletters, candidate pamphlets, doorstep canvassing, and town-hall speeches, supplemented by partisan newspapers.Collective organizations and traditional interest groups such as unions and churches, local cooperatives, community groups, and workers’ clubs, mobilized many citizens at the margins of political power and linked their interests to political parties. Support by party loyalists was regarded as a sign of trust in the ability of elected leaders to translate their programmatic principles into concrete policy actions. (shrink)

In these essays, written between 1909 and 1954 and first published as a collection in 1957, the eminent philosopher relates the "I-Thou" dialogue to such varied fields as religion, social thought, philosophy, myth, drama, literature, and art. Buber thus responds to the crises and challenges of the 20th century and enables the reader to follow his lifelong struggles toward "authentic existence.".

Přednáška poukazuje na roli O. Marquarda v úvahách o poválečném němectví. Jeho studie Obtíže s filosofií dějin je představena jako cenné vodítko, které napomáhá lépe charakterizovat hlavní rysy reflexe němectví a současně nastiňuje východisko ze slepých uliček, do nichž se toto téma dostává v literárních i neliterárních textech. Marquardem nastíněný střet mezi filosofií dějin a antropologií, který u něho vyústil do skeptického postoje, je v této studii analogicky přenášen mimo filosofii. Vypovídá o opakujících se rozporech mezi německými historiky a rovněž (...) umožňuje výstižně popsat proměny úvah o němectví v díle německých literátů – Marquardových vrstevníků -, jako jsou Martin Walser, Günter Grass nebo H. M. Enzensberger. (shrink)

The lecture focuses on the role of O. Marquard in the discussions on post-war Germany. His study The Difficulties with Philosophy of History is introduced as a valuable guide to the characterization of the main features of the reflection of German identity and it outlines the ways to the resolution of a stalemate that this theme has reached in both literary and non-literary texts. In this study, the clash between philosophy of history and anthropology, which Marquard outlined and which resulted (...) in his sceptical stance, is applied outside philosophy. It describes repeated conflicts between German historians and enables an apt characterization of the changes in the discussions on German identity in the works of German authors – Marquard’s contemporaries – such as Martin Walser, Günter Grass or H. M. Enzensberger. (shrink)

The text of Martin Heidegger's 1930-1931 lecture course on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit contains some of Heidegger's most crucial statements about temporality, ontological difference and dialectic, and being and time in Hegel.

A close investigation of Wittgenstein’s MS 104, which contains the so-called Prototractatus, has shown that the manuscript originally contained an additional folio that was later cut out and is now missing. The content of this missing folio could be partly reconstructed by a faint inverse imprint that it has left behind on page 2. The paper discusses the consequences of this discovery for the interpretation of the beginning and early formation of the Prototractatus, including the introduction and role of the (...) numbering system. The paper also provides a transcription of the deepest visible textual layers of the first conception of the picture theory. (shrink)

Martin Empson draws on a Marxist understanding of history to grapple with the contradictory potential of our relationship with our environment. In so doing he shows that human action is key, both to the destruction of nature and to the possibility of a sustainable solution to the ecological crises of the 21st century.

Externalism about some mental property, M, is the thesis that whether a person (or other physical being) has M depends, not only on conditions inside the person.

This critical interpretation shows Derridian thought to be permeated by a semiology that reduces all meaning to the signification of signs thus challenging the philosophy of deconstruction at its roots.

In these essays, written between 1909 and 1954 and first published as a collection in 1957, the eminent philosopher relates the "I-Thou" dialogue to such varied fields as religion, social thought, philosophy, myth, drama, literature, and art. Buber thus responds to the crises and challenges of the 20th century and enables the reader to follow his lifelong struggles toward "authentic existence.".

La morale n'est pas seulement affaire de raison. Elle engage aussi l'imagination. Tout ce qui compte moralement dans une situation ne se donne pas d'emblee, au premier coup d'oeil. Pour percevoir ce qui importe, il faut changer de perspective, recadrer la situation ou la comparer avec des alternatives contrefactuelles. L'imagination nous permet ainsi de voir les choses autrement et d'elargir notre perception morale. Elle enrichit notre connaissance, comme le montre encore le recours aux experiences de pensee. Quels sont les mecanismes (...) psychologiques a l'oeuvre? Comment en tenir compte dans nos deliberations? Martin Gibert propose de repenser le role de l'imagination en morale a la lumiere des recherches les plus recentes en ethique et en psychologie. (shrink)

Change and anger are in the air. “We are the 99%,” “black lives matter,” and “love is love” have become part of the lexicon. Previously unquestioned institutions (police, military, the NSA) are under scrutiny. Heat waves, floods, and earthquakes seem to be increasing. Could there be a silver lining? William Martin turns to the Tao Te Ching and finds that while Taoism is known for its quiet, enigmatic wisdom, the Tao can also have the cleansing force of a rushing (...) river. Martin elucidates these revolutionary messages condemning power seeking and greed. He emphasizes that humans have a “Te” that can help them heal the planet; shows how Taoism’s “simplicity” can be subversive and its flexibility a potent force; and reassures us that “When injustice is the rule, justice lies in wait.” Provocative and stirring, Martin’s Tao flows within and through those who ride the waves of anger and frustration, “and gently guides [them] to true freedom.”. (shrink)

This essay begins with some observations concerning the interaction between nature and art. Relying on these reflections, in the second part experience of landscape will be interpreted as a model for the human stance within the natural as well as the historical world. In the third part some consequences for an ethics and politics of saving the conditions for individual as well as social well-being will be drawn.

Does Farmer Field really know his prize cow, Daisy, is in the field? When is an unexpected exam not wholly unexpected? Are all bachelors unmarried? Martin Cohen's _101 Philosophy Problems, Fourth Edition_ introduces philosophy in an entertaining but informative and stimulating way. Using philosophical puzzles, conundrums and paradoxes he skilfully unwraps some of the mysteries of the subject, from what we know - or think we know - to brainteasing thought experiments about ethics, science and the nature of the (...) mind. For the _Fourth Edition_ there are many new problems, including Maxwell's Moving Magnets, Einstein Changes Train Times, and Zeno's Paradox of Place; as well as two brand new sections including puzzles such as Lorenz's Waterywheel, and the Battle for Fractal Farm, and perplexing ethical dilemmas. The book has been extensively revised to bring it up to date with new developments in philosophy and society. With an updated glossary of helpful terms and possible solutions to the problems at the end of the book, _101 Philosophy Problems_ is essential reading for anyone coming to philosophy for the first time. (shrink)

Natural languages are vehicles of information, arguably the most important, certainly the most ubiquitous that humans possess. Our everyday interactions with the world, with each other and with ourselves depend on them. And even where in the specialised contexts of science we use dedicated formalisms to convey information, their use is embedded in natural language.1..