This unique volume gathers Weber's writings on a broad array of themes, from the nature of work, to the political culture of democracy, to the uniqueness of the West, to the character of the family and race relations, to the role of science and the fate of ethical action in the modern world. Gathers Weber’s writings in a comprehensive collection, organized by topic. Rejuvenates a central, pivotal theme of Weberian thought: "How do we live?" and "How can we live in (...) the industrial society?” Connects Weber’s writings to contemporary issues through modern essays and editorial introductions. (shrink)

Stephen Houlgate is one of the leading Hegel scholars of the English-speaking world. In this interview he explains how he became a “Hegelian” while studying in Cambridge, and he offers a fundamental profile of his account of Hegel. The interview addresses the following questions: Why does Houlgate consider Hegel’s philosophy to be the “consummate critical philosophy”? What are the main barriers to a proper access to Hegel’s thought? Why is logic as dialectical logic still indispensable for philosophical thought? And finally, (...) what can both analytical and “continental” philosophers learn from Hegel? (shrink)

RESUMEN Largamente desatendida o malinterpretada, la noción de caos en la filosofía de Nietzsche es una pieza constitutiva de la particular concepción del ser que este autor habría dejado apenas esbozada. El artículo se propone elaborar este concepto en la obra nietzscheana, siguiendo algunas de las metáforas que lo iluminan. Desde allí se busca plantear los rasgos centrales de una ontologia del caos, de sesgo no metafísico, que, al afirmar el carácter acontecimental de la realidad, puede verse como precursora de (...) la ontología hermenéutica contemporánea. ABSTRACT The notion of chaos, which has long been neglected or misinterpreted, is a constitutive element of a peculiar conception of being that the philosopher only had time to outline. The objective of this article is to elaborate on this concept in Nietzschean philosophy, guided by some of the metaphors that shed light on it. This serves as the basis to set forth the main characteristics of a non-metaphysical ontology of chaos that asserts the eventful nature of reality and can thus be seen as a precursor of contemporary hermeneutic ontology. (shrink)

This paper explores the influence of social categories on the perceived trade-off between a relatively bad but equal distribution of resources between two parties and a profit maximizing yet unequal one. Studies 1 and 2 showed that people prefer to maximize profits when interacting within their social category, but chose not to maximize individual and joint profits when interacting across social categories. Study 3 demonstrated that outside observers, who were not members of the focal social categories, also were less likely (...) to maximize profits when resources were distributed across social category lines. Study 4 showed that the transaction utility of maximizing profits required greater compensation when resources were distributed across, in contrast to within social categories. We discuss the ethical implications of these decision making biases in the context of organizations. (shrink)

There are universals of language; but is it also true, as the target article claims, that there are universals of reading? We believe there are no such universals, and invite others to refute our claim by providing a list of some universals of reading. If there are no universals of reading, there cannot be a universal model of reading.

The self‐teaching hypothesis describes how children progress toward skilled sight‐word reading. It proposes that children do this via phonological recoding with assistance from contextual cues, to identify the target pronunciation for a novel letter string, and in so doing create an opportunity to self‐teach new orthographic knowledge. We present a new computational implementation of self‐teaching within the dual‐route cascaded (DRC) model of reading aloud, and we explore how decoding and contextual cues can work together to enable accurate self‐teaching under a (...) variety of circumstances. The new model (ST‐DRC) uses DRC’s sublexical route and the interactivity between the lexical and sublexical routes to simulate phonological recoding. Known spoken words are activated in response to novel printed words, triggering an opportunity for orthographic learning, which is the basis for skilled sight‐word reading. ST‐DRC also includes new computational mechanisms for simulating how contextual information aids word identification, and it demonstrates how partial decoding and ambiguous context interact to achieve irregular‐word learning. Beyond modeling orthographic learning and self‐teaching, ST‐DRC’s performance suggests new avenues for empirical research on how difficult word classes such as homographs and potentiophones are learned. (shrink)

Rather than mourn what this country lacks from a safe critical distance, Muecke and Pam aim to strengthen its connections with their art, making words and images move as they travel this unique country.

This paper explores the influence of social categories on the perceived trade-off between a relatively bad but equal distribution of resources between two parties and a profit maximizing yet unequal one. Studies 1 and 2 showed that people prefer to maximize profits when interacting within their social category, but chose not to maximize individual and joint profits when interacting across social categories. Study 3 demonstrated that outside observers, who were not members of the focal social categories, also were less likely (...) to maximize profits when resources were distributed across social category lines. Study 4 showed that the transaction utility of maximizing profits required greater compensation when resources were distributed across, in contrast to within social categories. We discuss the ethical implications of these decision making biases in the context of organizations. (shrink)

This book gathers six trenchant new analyses of the idea of the person as raised by the German philosopher and social theorist Max Scheler (1874–1928). The issues raised in the volume are both timely and perennial, from considerations of postmodernity, phenomenology, and metaphysics, to sharp-edged comparisons with other thinkers, including Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger, Emmanuel Levinas, Eric Voegelin, Richard Rorty, and Hannah Arendt.

The problem of the nature of values and the relation between values and rationality is one of the defining issues of twentieth-century thought and Max Weber was one of the defining figures in the debate. In this book, Turner and Factor consider the development of the dispute over Max Weber's contribution to this discourse, by showing how Weber's views have been used, revised and adapted in new contexts. The story of the dispute is itself fascinating, for it cuts across the (...) major political and intellectual currents of the twentieth century, from positivism, pragmatism and value-free social science, through the philosophy of Jaspers and Heidegger, to Critical Theory and the revival of Natural Right and Natural Law. As Weber's ideas were imported to Britain and America, they found new formulations and new adherents and critics and became absorbed into different traditions and new issues. This book was first published in 1984. (shrink)

In the last decade, reading research has seen a paradigmatic shift. A new wave of computational models of orthographic processing that offer various forms of noisy position or context-sensitive coding have revolutionized the field of visual word recognition. The influx of such models stems mainly from consistent findings, coming mostly from European languages, regarding an apparent insensitivity of skilled readers to letter order. Underlying the current revolution is the theoretical assumption that the insensitivity of readers to letter order reflects the (...) special way in which the human brain encodes the position of letters in printed words. The present article discusses the theoretical shortcomings and misconceptions of this approach to visual word recognition. A systematic review of data obtained from a variety of languages demonstrates that letter-order insensitivity is neither a general property of the cognitive system nor a property of the brain in encoding letters. Rather, it is a variant and idiosyncratic characteristic of some languages, mostly European, reflecting a strategy of optimizing encoding resources, given the specific structure of words. Since the main goal of reading research is to develop theories that describe the fundamental and invariant phenomena of reading across orthographies, an alternative approach to model visual word recognition is offered. The dimensions of a possible universal model of reading, which outlines the common cognitive operations involved in orthographic processing in all writing systems, are discussed. (shrink)

Heinrich Schenker: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography concerning both the nature of primary sources related to the composer and the scope and significance of the secondary sources which deal with him, his compositions, and his influence as a composer and theorist.

Martin Heidegger cited him as “the most potent philosophical power... in all of contemporary philosophy.” Ortega y Gasset called him “the first man of genius, the Adam of the new Paradise.” Writing at a crucial time in intellectual history, his influence has extended to persons as diverse as Dietrich von Hildebrand, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Karol Wojtyla, Jurgen Habermas, Ernst Bloch, and members of the generation of thinkers that developed in the German universities during the Weimar years. Despite this far-reaching impact, the (...) social theory and philosophy of Max Scheler have never been examined for the significance of their political thought. This book opens the possibility of deriving a contemporary political theory from Scheler’s philosophy and social theory, based on his understanding of the person, the community, and the significant new directions these elements suggest. Standing at some distance from modern liberalism, conservatism, and Marxism, both in their bourgeois and Enlightenment varieties, Scheler’s personalism has its roots in the rich admixture of life philosophy and phenomenology that gave rise to Martin Heidegger’s early philosophy. It is a philosophical anthropology founded on Scheler’s own realist phenomenology, sociology of knowledge, and non-formal ethics. The book considers Scheler’s many works and includes translations and reviews of unpublished materials. It includes an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary name sources. (shrink)

Few of Stephen Jay Gould’s accomplishments in evolutionary biology have received more attention than his hierarchical theory of evolution, which postulates a causal discontinuity between micro- and macroevolutionary events. But Gould’s hierarchical theory was his second attempt to supply a theoretical framework for macroevolutionary studies—and one he did not inaugurate until the mid-1970s. In this paper, I examine Gould’s first attempt: a proposed fusion of theoretical morphology, multivariate biometry and the experimental study of adaptation in fossils. This early “macroevolutionary synthesis” (...) was predicated on the notion that parallelism and convergence dominate the history of higher taxa, and moreover, that they can be explained in terms of adaptation leading to mechanical improvement. In this paper, I explore the origins and contents of Gould’s first macroevolutionary synthesis, as well as the reasons for its downfall. In addition, I consider how various developments during the mid-1970s led Gould to identify hierarchy and constraint as the leading themes of macroevolutionary studies—and adaptation as a macroevolutionary red herring. (shrink)

Max Weber, German economist, historian, sociologist, methodologist, and political thinker, is of philosophical significance for his attempted reconciliation of historical relativism with the possibility of a causal social science; his notion of a verstehende sociology; his formulation, use and epistemic account of the concept of ‘ideal types’; his views on the rational irreconcilability of ultimate value choices, and particularly his formulation of the implications for ethical political action of the conflict between ethics of conviction and ethics of responsibility; and his (...) sociological account of the causes and uniqueness of the western rationalization of life. These topics are closely related: Weber argued that the explanatory interests of the historian and social scientist vary historically and that the objects of their interest were constituted in terms of cultural points of view, and that consequently their categories are ultimately rooted in evaluations, and hence subjective. But he also argued that social science cannot dispense with causality, and that once the categories were chosen, judgments of causality were objective. The explanatory interests of the sociologist, as he defined sociology, were in understanding intentional action causally, but in terms of categories that were culturally significant, such as ‘rational action’. Much of his influence flowed from his formulation of the cultural situation of the day, especially the idea that the fate of the time was to recognize that evaluations were inescapably subjective and that the world had no inherent ‘meaning’. The existential implications of this novel situation for politics and learning were strikingly formulated by him: science could not tell us how to live; politics was as a choice between warring Gods. Weber’s scholarly work and his politics served as a model for Karl Jaspers, and a subject of criticism and analysis for other philosophers, such as Karl Löwith, Max Scheler, and the Frankfurt School. (shrink)

We propose as a UCGIS research priority the topic of “Ontological Foundations for Geographic Information.” Under this umbrella we unify several interrelated research subfields, each of which deals with different perspectives on geospatial ontologies and their roles in geographic information science. While each of these subfields could be addressed separately, we believe it is important to address ontological research in a unitary, systematic fashion, embracing conceptual issues concerning what would be required to establish an exhaustive ontology of the geospatial domain, (...) issues relating to the choice of appropriate methods for formalizing ontologies, and considerations regarding the design of ontology-driven information systems. This integrated approach is necessary, because there is a strong dependency between the methods used to specify an ontology, and the conceptual richness, robustness and tractability of the ontology itself. Likewise, information system implementations are needed as testbeds of the usefulness of every aspect of an exhaustive ontology of the geospatial domain. None of the current UCGIS research priorities provides such an integrative perspective, and therefore the topic of “Ontological Foundations for Geographic Information Science” is unique. (shrink)

The aim of this study is to use a commognitive responsibility framework to visualize responsibility shift in collaborative problem solving during computer-supported one-to-one tutoring. Commognitive responsibility shift means that individuals’ cognitive responsibility shift can be reflected by the discourse in communication. For our sample, we chose a 15-year-old Chinese boy and his mathematics teacher with 6 years of teaching experience, both of whom have experienced computer-supported learning and teaching mathematics, respectively. We collected four tutoring videos online, and a 45-min interview (...) video from the teacher. We found that the third type of commognitive responsibility shift in both the teacher’s and student’s CPS behavior online is not only teacher–student comparison but also alternating-led, which includes teacher–student-led and student–teacher-led. (shrink)

This book investigates civilizations through the works of Max Weber. Articulating his sociology in a manner that provides clear guidelines for the systematic investigation of civilizations, the volume focuses upon his 'big picture' themes: his comparative-historical methodology and his causal explanations for the singular sources, contours, and trajectories of civilizations. Through detailed interpretations of Weber's wide-scope and configurational analysis of the West's unique development from Antiquity to the Modern era, his forceful comparisons to the discrete pathways taken by China and (...) India, and his careful demarcation of the 'particular rationalism' of several civilizations, the author examines Weber's stark opposition to organic holism, mono-causal procedures, and structural presuppositions. As such, this study masterfully conveys his contextual and multi-causal mode of analysis rooted in a tight interweaving of the present with the past. Weber's research strategies also emphasize both the 'subjective meanings' of actors East and West and the deep cultural and long-range origins of their salient groups. In this way, social scientists pursuing a cross-civilizational agenda will be able to discover Weberian 'interpretive understanding' procedures for empirical investigations. Max Weber's Sociology of Civilizations: A Reconstruction will contribute decisively and significantly to the now-essential field of civilizational analysis, and will appeal to comparative sociologists and historians, as well as to social theorists of all persuasions. (shrink)

The field of neuroimaging has reached a watershed. Brain imaging research has been the source of many advances in cognitive neuroscience and cognitive science over the last decade, but recent critiques and emerging trends are raising foundational issues of methodology, measurement, and theory. Indeed, concerns over interpretation of brain maps have created serious controversies in social neuroscience, and, more important, point to a larger set of issues that lie at the heart of the entire brain mapping enterprise. In this volume, (...) leading scholars -- neuroimagers and philosophers of mind -- reexamine these central issues and explore current controversies that have arisen in cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, computer science, and signal processing. The contributors address both statistical and dynamical analysis and modeling of neuroimaging data and interpretation, discussing localization, modularity, and neuroimagers' tacit assumptions about how these two phenomena are related; controversies over correlation of fMRI data and social attributions ; and the standard inferential design approach in neuroimaging. Finally, the contributors take a more philosophical perspective, considering the nature of measurement in brain imaging, and offer a framework for novel neuroimaging data structures. Contributors: William Bechtel, Bharat Biswal, Matthew Brett, Martin Bunzl, Max Coltheart, Karl J. Friston, Joy J. Geng, Clark Glymour, Kalanit Grill-Spector, Stephen José Hanson, Trevor Harley, Gilbert Harman, James V. Haxby, Rik N. Henson, Nancy Kanwisher, Colin Klein, Richard Loosemore, Sébastien Meriaux, Chris Mole, Jeanette A. Mumford, Russell A. Poldrack, Jean-Baptiste Poline, Richard C. Richardson, Alexis Roche, Adina L. Roskies, Pia Rotshtein, Rebecca Saxe, Philipp Sterzer, Bertrand Thirion, Edward Vul The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

For more than 100 years, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism has set the parameters for the debate over the origins of modern capitalism. Now more timely and thought-provoking than ever, this esteemed classic of twentieth-century social science examines the deep cultural "frame of mind" that influences work life to this day in northern America and Western Europe. Stephen Kalberg's internationally acclaimed translation captures the essence of Weber's style as well as the subtlety of his descriptions and causal (...) arguments. Now, for the first time in one volume, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism with Other Writings on the Rise of the West integrates Weber's exploration of the spirit of capitalism's origins with his larger project: a multi-causal analysis of the West's distinctiveness and its sources. Weber's texts present wide-ranging discussions on the Western city, state, forms of rulership and law, and modes of economic innovation. Moreover, in many selections Weber offers in-depth and insightful comparisons to China and India. Readings on the "economic ethics" of Confucianism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, and Catholicism further illuminate the distinct qualities of the West's trajectory and its diverse causes. A separate section examines the long-range influence of the ascetic Protestant sects and churches on American society.To draw readers into the material, this engaging volume includes extended introductions by the editor, many new translations, a chronology of Weber's life, an expanded glossary and bibliography, and numerous clarifying endnotes. In addition, Kalberg addresses a variety of debates concerning the central elements of contemporary life. Ideal for courses in sociology, anthropology, political science, history, international relations, and economics, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism with Other Writings on the Rise of the West is an essential resource for anyone seeking to understand the origins and endurance of the modern West. (shrink)

Stephen Turner has explored the ongms of social science in this pioneering study of two nineteenth century themes: the search for laws of human social behavior, and the accumulation and analysis of the facts of such behavior through statistical inquiry. The disputes were vigorously argued; they were over questions of method, criteria of explanation, interpretations of probability, understandings of causation as such and of historical causation in particular, and time and again over the ways of using a natural science model. (...) From his careful elucidation of John Stuart Mill's proposals for the methodology of the social sciences on to his original analysis of the methodological claims and practices of Emile Durkheim and Max Weber, Turner has beautifully traced the conflict between statistical sociology and a science offactual description on the one side, and causal laws and a science of nomological explanation on the other. We see the works of Comte and Quetelet, the critical observations of Herschel, Buckle, Venn and Whewell, and the tough scepticism of Pearson, all of these as essential to the works of the classical founders of sociology. With Durkheim's essay on Suicide and Weber's monograph on The Protestant Ethic, Turner provides both philosophical analysis to demonstrate the continuing puzzles over cause and probability and also a perceptive and wry account of just how the puzzles of our late twentieth century are of a piece with theirs. The terms are still familiar: reasons vs. (shrink)

This essay takes up the question of what "agape" intends for the neighbor. Though material welfare and freedom have been adequately emphasized in recent Christian ethics, the God-relation has not. Drawing on T. S. Eliot, Abraham Heschel, Kenneth E. Kirk, and Max Scheler in particular, the case is made for a retrieval of the Augustinian assumption that the service of the most lasting significance for the neighbor is the restoration of the divine-human encounter that issues in true happiness. Criticism is (...) directed at efforts to understand "agape" within the limiting terms of modern secular frameworks. (shrink)

This book addressees a timely and fundamental problematic: the gap between the aims that people attempt to realize democratically and the law and administrative practices that actually result. The chapters explain the realities that administration poses for democratic theory. Topics include the political value of accountability, the antinomic character of political values, the relation between ultimate ends and the intermediate ends that are sought by constitutions, and a reconsideration of the meaning of the rule of law itself. The essays are (...) inspired by the demystifying realism of Max Weber and Hans Kelsen, including explications of their views on law, constitutions, and the rule of law. The book will be of interest to social and political theorists, philosophers of law, and legal theorists, and for discussions of democratic theory, the administrative state, constitutionalism, and justice, as well as to readers of Weber and Kelsen. (shrink)

An analysis of the manner in which believers' "relations to the supernatural" influence and even rationalize their action is central to Weber's sociology as a whole as well as his analysis of the development of modern capitalism and to his sociology of religion. Yet Weber never systematically presents the highly differentiated analytic course followed by the "rationalization of action" in the life-sphere of religion to the "methodical rational way of life." This study reconstructs this meandering route. In doing so, it (...) emphasizes the ways in which action, according to Weber, is altered as believers alter their mode of interacting with the supernatural. A sharp distinction between the merely cognitive and ideational influence upon action of "world views" and the influence of "salvation paths" is held to throughout. Because they place "psychological premiums" upon action, the latter are seen to be of far greater importance for the rationalization of action. Most salvation paths, however, and despite the explanations they offer for injustice, fail to introduce the enduring "religious mood" and to rationalize action radically. Those few salvation paths that do so articulate an acute tension between the world view and human suffering, yet "virtuoso religious qualifications" must also be present if the methodical rational way of life is to arise. Throughout, the analyses by Tenbruck, Schluchter, and Habermas are critiqued as incomplete and misleading. (shrink)

ArgumentThis paper builds on a neglected philosophical idea,Evidenz. Max Weber used it in his discussion ofVerstehen, as the goal of understanding either action or such things as logic. It was formulated differently by Franz Brentano, but with a novel twist: thatanyonewho understood something would see the thing to be understood as self-evident, not something dependent on inference, argument, or reasoning. The only way one could take something as evident in this sense is by being able to treat other people as (...) having the same responses – by empathy with them, in the weak sense of following their thought. Brentano's philosophical claim is that without some stopping point at what is self-evident, justifications fall into infinite regress. This is radically opposed to much of conventional philosophy. The usual solutions to the regress problem rely on problematic claims about the supposed hidden transcendental structure behind reasoning. In contrast, empathy is a genuine natural phenomenon and a better explanation for the actual phenomenon of making sense of the reasoning of others. What is evident to all who are capable of understanding is an empirically-defined subset of this class. (shrink)

Max Weber is indubitably one of the very greatest figures in the history of the social sciences, the source of seminal concepts like 'the Protestant Ethic', 'charisma' and the idea of historical processes of 'rationalization'. But, like his great forebears Adam Smith and Karl Marx, Weber's work always resists easy categorisation. Prominent as a founding father of sociology, Weber has been a major influence in the study of ancient history, religion, economics, law and, more recently, cultural studies. This Cambridge Companion (...) provides an authoritative introduction to the major facets of his thought, including several which have hitherto been neglected. A distinguished international team of contributors examines some of the major controversies that have erupted over Weber's specialized work, and shows how the issues have developed since he wrote. The articles demonstrate Weber's impact on a variety of research areas. (shrink)

Relativism is central to the social sciences for the simple reason that customs and morals are diverse, and explaining this diversity is one of its major tasks. The explanations have relativistic implications, but they vary according to the type of explanation. In the nineteenth century evolutionary explanations dominated: differences were relative to stages. The social determination of ideas followed from these accounts, but could be logically separated from them. In the twentieth century, accounts based on the culture concept, understood loosely (...) in neo-Kantian terms as a matter of different shared presuppositions, dominated. This conception informed a relativistic methodological approach to history and disciplinary differences, exemplified in the methodological writings of Max Weber, where they were related to values. This was more radical, in the sense that there was no further explanation of the presuppositions. They simply differed. As this conception was expanded into the epistemic realm, it became even more radical, by being applied to science itself. The “Strong Programme in the sociology of science” observed a principle of symmetry, which held that true and false scientific beliefs needed to be explained using the same explanatory tools. In each of these cases problems of reflexivity and self-undermining played a role. (shrink)

Often, when there is a reason for you to do something, it is the kind of thing to motivate you to do it. For example, if Max and Caroline are deciding whether to go to the Alcove for dinner, Caroline might mention as a reason in favor, the fact that the Alcove serves onion rings the size of doughnuts, and Max might mention as a reason against, the fact that it is so difficult to get parking there this time of (...) day. It is some sign—perhaps not a perfect sign, but some sign—that each of these really is a reason, that Max and Caroline feel the tug in each direction. Mention of the Alcove's onion rings makes them feel to at least some degree inclined to go, and mention of the parking arrangements makes them feel to at least some degree inclined not to. According to some philosophers, reasons for action always bear some relation like this to motivation. This idea is variously known as ‘ reasons internalism’, ‘internalism about reasons ’, or ‘the internal reasons theory’. According to other philosophers, not all reasons are related to motivation in any of the ways internalists say. This idea is known as ‘ reasons externalism’ or ‘externalism about reasons ’. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Chris Haufe paints a provocative portrait of the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. His principal aim is to resolve a “paradox” arising from a prima facie inconsistent pair of commitments: Gould believed that the biological facts could have been otherwise, and Gould believed that there are evolutionary laws. In order to resolve this paradox, Haufe makes two substantive claims: Gould was aware of the challenges that the Replay Thesis posed for a law-centered science of evolution, even (...) early in his career, and Gould endeavored to meet these challenges by deploying the “species-as-particles approach.” In this paper, I put pressure on both of these claims. By examining the goals and methods of Gould’s first “nomothetic research program,” the science of form, I show that it does not fit the picture of nomothetic science that Haufe illustrates. Additionally, I show that no straightforward connection exists between Gould’s understanding of contingency and his adoption of the species-as-particles approach. I propose that Gould’s career can be usefully split into three periods, each of which employed a distinct strategy for establishing distinctively paleontological contributions to evolutionary theory. (shrink)

Max Weber is widely regarded as the greatest figure in the history of the social sciences, and like Karl Marx or Adam Smith, who might be regarded as rivals to this title, Weber was much more than a disciplinary scholar. There is a demotic Weber, whose ideas have passed into common currency; a students' Weber, who is a founding figure of sociology or the theorist of modernity; a scholar's Weber, who is the creator of core ideas that have influenced the (...) development of various specialties and whose specialized writings are is still debated within these specialties; a canonical “Weber ” who is the subject of a scholarly industry, and, so to speak, a “deep ” Weber, who has been the subject of the serious and continued reflection of several of the greatest intellectual figures of the century. Unlike Smith and Marx, there is no “ideological Weber ”: no one has turned Weber's thought directly into a political world view and set of policy recipes for the consumption of the general public. But there is a very important “political Weber ” whose account of the morality of political life has influenced many politicians and political thinkers and remain central to questions about the nature of political responsibility. (shrink)

This article is a critical review of Stephen Schiffer’s monograph The Things We Mean . The text discusses some novel contributions made by Schiffer to the philosophy of meaning, in particular, Schiffer’s proposal for the reification of certain abstract entities and the application of his argument to the philosophical problem of vagueness in natural language. Special attention is paid both to Schiffer’s ingenious use of the notion of conservative extension , here employed as a criterion for distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate (...) reifications and to Schiffer’s notion of vague partial belief and its relation to standard partial belief. Schiffer’s particular understanding of vagueness and its relation to the sorites paradox is also considered, with some remarks made concerning the relationship between these related philosophical problems and human perception. Key Words: meaning • vagueness • sorites • perception • conservative extension • fictional entities. (shrink)