Metaphysics is sensitive to the conceptual tools we choose to articulate metaphysical problems. Those tools are a lens through which we view metaphysical problems; the same problems look different when we change the lens. There has recently been a shift to "postmodal" conceptual tools: concepts of ground, essence, and fundamentality. This shift transforms the debate over structuralism in the metaphysics of science and philosophy of mathematics. Structuralist theses say that patterns are "prior" to the nodes in the patterns. In modal (...) terms this would mean that the nodes cannot vary independently of the pattern. But its postmodal meaning is unclear. Does it mean, e.g., that a fundamental account of reality somehow speaks only of patterns? What would that mean? Three structuralist positions are examined through a postmodal lens: nomic/causal/dispositional essentialism, structuralism about individuals (e.g., structural realism, e.g., ante rem mathematical structuralism), comparativism about quantities. The question of when theories are equivalent, and how that impacts the debate over structuralism, is also discussed. (shrink)

What accounts for the prestige of quantitative methods? The usual answer is that quantification is desirable in social investigation as a result of its successes in science. Trust in Numbers questions whether such success in the study of stars, molecules, or cells should be an attractive model for research on human societies, and examines why the natural sciences are highly quantitative in the first place. Theodore Porter argues that a better understanding of the attractions of quantification in business, government, and (...) social research brings a fresh perspective to its role in psychology, physics, and medicine. Quantitative rigor is not inherent in science but arises from political and social pressures, and objectivity derives its impetus from cultural contexts. In a new preface, the author sheds light on the current infatuation with quantitative methods, particularly at the intersection of science and bureaucracy. (shrink)

The correspondence between the philosopher Theodor W. Adorno and his politically active graduate student Elisabeth Lenk offers fresh insights into both Adorno's view of surrealism and its relation to the student uprisings of 1960s France and Germany. Written between 1962, when Lenk moved to Paris and persuaded an initially reluctant Adorno to supervise her sociology dissertation on the surrealists, and Adorno's death in 1969, these letters reveal a surprisingly tender side of the distinguished professor. The correspondence is accompanied by (...) a selection of documents that bring additional depth and context to the letters and their engagement with the art and politics of the period. Filling in the background of Adorno and Lenk's lively exchange, the volume includes new translations of classic essays by Walter Benjamin ("Surrealism: Last Snapshot of the European Intelligentsia") and Adorno ("Surrealism Reconsidered"), along with a collection of short prose readings by Adorno and the writer-scholar Carl Dreyfus and three original essays by Lenk: her afterword to Paris Peasant by Louis Aragon, her Introduction to the German edition of Charles Fourier's The Theory of the Four Movements and the General Destinies, and her incisive essay "Critical Theory and Surreal Practice." An Introduction by Lenk's student, the contemporary writer and critic Rita Bischof, points to the continuing challenge of surrealist politics. This remarkable body of correspondence appears here in English for the first time, as do Adorno and Dreyfus's surrealist readings and the essays by Lenk. Together, they provide a rich mine of critical material for reassessing the significance of the surrealist movement and its successors. (shrink)

In einem Brief nennt Adorno die "Negative Dialektik" kurz nach ihrem Erscheinen unter seinen Schriften "das philosophische Hauptwerk, wenn ich so sagen darf“. Dieser herausgehobenen Bedeutung, die das Werk für Adorno hatte, entspricht nicht nur die lange Zeit, die er mit der Abfassung des Buchs beschäftigt war, sondern auch die lange Geschichte, die ihre zentralen Motive in seinem Denken haben. Philosophische Begriffsklärung, die Arbeit an "Begriff und Kategorien“ einer negativen Dialektik, versteht Adorno dabei als dialektischen Übergang in inhaltliches Denken – (...) und so betreibt er sie auch hier. Das hat Konsequenzen für die Form des kooperativen Kommentars, der in diesem Band versucht wird. Adornos "Negative Dialektik" zu kommentieren, kann nur in dem Bewußtsein der unüberbrückbaren Kluft gelingen, die den Kommentar von diesem Text trennt. (shrink)

This brief, affordable text helps students to think critically, using examples from the weird claims and beliefs that abound in our culture to demonstrate the sound evaluation of any claim. It explains step-by-step how to sort through reasons, evaluate evidence, and tell when a claim is likely to be true. The emphasis is neither on debunking nor on advocating specific assertions, but on explaining principles of critical thinking that enable readers to evaluate claims for themselves. The authors focus on types (...) of logical arguments and proofs, making How to Think about Weird Things a versatile supplement for logic, critical thinking, philosophy of science, or any other science appreciation courses. (shrink)

The Bhagavata Purana is one of the most important, central and popular scriptures of Hinduism. A medieval Sanskrit text, its influence as a religious book has been comparable only to that of the great Hindu epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. Ithamar Theodor here offers the first analysis for twenty years of the Bhagavata Purana often called the (Fifth Veda) and its different layers of meaning. He addresses its lyrical meditations on the activities of Krishna (avatar of Lord Vishnu), (...) the central place it affords to the doctrine of bhakti religious devotion and its treatment of older Vedic traditions of knowledge. At the same time he places this subtle, poetical book within the context of the wider Hindu scriptures and the other Puranas, including the similar but less grand and significant Vishnu Purana. The author argues that the Bhagavata Purana is a unique work which represents the meeting place of two great orthodox Hindu traditions, the Vedic Upanishadic and the Aesthetic. As such, it is one of India's greatest theological treatises. This book illuminates its character and continuing significance. (shrink)

Notes to Literature is a collection of the great social theorist Theodor W. Adorno’s essays on such writers as Mann, Bloch, Hölderlin, Siegfried Kracauer, Goethe, Benjamin, and Stefan George. It also includes his reflections on a variety of subjects, such as literary titles, the physical qualities of books, political commitment in literature, the light-hearted and the serious in art, and the use of foreign words in writing. This edition presents this classic work in full in a single volume, with (...) a new introduction by Paul Kottman. (shrink)

Hofstadter [1979, 2007] offered a novel Gödelian proposal which purported to reconcile the apparently contradictory theses that (1) we can talk, in a non-trivial way, of mental causation being a real phenomenon and that (2) mental activity is ultimately grounded in low-level rule-governed neural processes. In this paper, we critically investigate Hofstadter’s analogical appeals to Gödel’s [1931] First Incompleteness Theorem, whose “diagonal” proof supposedly contains the key ideas required for understanding both consciousness and mental causation. We maintain that bringing sophisticated (...) results from Mathematical Logic into play cannot furnish insights which would otherwise be unavailable. Lastly, we conclude that there are simply too many weighty details left unfilled in Hofstadter’s proposal. These really need to be fleshed out before we can even hope to say that our understanding of classical mind-body problems has been advanced through metamathematical parallels with Gödel’s work. (shrink)

The philosophically rich David Bowie is an artist of wide and continuing influence. The theatrical antics of Bowie ushered in a new rock aesthetic, but there is much more to Bowie than mere spectacle. The visual belies the increasing depths of his concerns, even at his lowest personal moments. We never know what lies in store in a Bowie song, for there is no point in his nearly 30 albums at which one can say, "That's typical Bowie!" Who else has (...) combined techno and hard rock, switched to R&B love songs (with accompanying gospel) to funk to jazz-rock fusion and back again? Among the topics explored inDavid Bowie and Philosophy are the nature of Bowie as an institution and a cult; Bowie's work in many platforms, including movies and TV; Bowie's spanning of low and high art; his relation to Andy Warhol; the influence of Buddhism and Kabuki theater; the recurring theme of Bowie as a space alien; the dystopian element in Bowie's thinking; the role of fashion in Bowie's creativity; the aesthetics of theatrical rock and glam rock; and Bowie's public identification with bisexuality and hisinfluence within the LGBTQ community. (shrink)

Ideas for integrating AI into politics are now emerging and advancing at accelerating pace. This chapter highlights a few different varieties and show how they reflect different assumptions about the value of democracy. We cannot make informed decisions about which, if any, proposals to pursue without further reflection on what makes democracy valuable and how current conditions fail to fully realize it. Recent advances in political philosophy provide some guidance but leave important questions open. If AI advances to a state (...) where it can secure superior political outcomes, leading perspectives in political philosophy suggest that democracy may become obsolete. If we find this suggestion troubling, we need to put the case for democracy on stronger foundations. (shrink)

Traditional debate on the metaphysics of gender has been a contrast of essentialist and social-constructionist positions. The standard reaction to this opposition is that neither position alone has the theoretical resources required to satisfy an equitable politics. This has caused a number of theorists to suggest ways in which gender is unified on the basis of social rather than biological characteristics but is “real” or “objective” nonetheless – a position I term social objectivism. This essay begins by making explicit the (...) motivations for, and central assumptions of, social objectivism. I then propose that gender is better understood as a real kind with a historical essence, analogous to the biologist’s claim that species are historical entities. I argue that this proposal achieves a better solution to the problems that motivate social objectivism. Moreover, the account is consistent with a post-positivist understanding of the classificatory practices employed within the natural and social sciences. (shrink)

The following is the transcript of a lecture taken in shorthand by Hans-Georg Backhaus. The transcript was originally published as an appendix in Hans-Georg Backhaus, Dialektik der Wertform. Untersuchungen zur marxschen Ökonomiekritik, a complete translation of which is forthcoming in the Historical Materialism book series.

A property, F, is maximal iff, roughly, large parts of an F are not themselves Fs.' Maximality makes trouble for a recent analysis of intrinsicality by Rae Langton and David Lewis.

Adorno’s lectures on ontology and dialectics from 1960–61 comprise his most sustained and systematic analysis of Heidegger’s philosophy. They also represent a continuation of a project that he shared with Walter Benjamin – ‘to demolish Heidegger’. Following the publication of the latter’s magnum opus Being and Time, and long before his notorious endorsement of Nazism at Freiburg University, both Adorno and Benjamin had already rejected Heidegger’s fundamental ontology. After his return to Germany from his exile in the United States, Adorno (...) became Heidegger’s principal intellectual adversary, engaging more intensively with his work than with that of any other contemporary philosopher. Adorno regarded Heidegger as an extremely limited thinker and for that reason all the more dangerous. In these lectures, he highlights Heidegger’s increasing fixation with the concept of ontology to show that the doctrine of being can only truly be understood through a process of dialectical thinking. Rather than exploiting overt political denunciation, Adorno deftly highlights the connections between Heidegger’s philosophy and his political views and, in doing so, offers an alternative plea for enlightenment and rationality. These seminal lectures, in which Adorno dissects the thought of one of the most influential twentieth-century philosophers, will appeal to students and scholars in philosophy and critical theory and throughout the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

This short article aims to strengthen Hume's case against the rationality of believing in religious miracles by incorporating certain lessons borrowed from the growing literature on the history and psychology of magic tricks.

According to four dimensionalism, the material world is divided into momentary stages. In a four-dimensional world, which objects are the ordinary things, the things we normally name and quantify over? Aggregates of stages, according to most four-dimensionalists, but according to stage theorists (or exdurantists), ordinary objects are instead to be identified with the stages themselves. (A temporal counterpart theoretic account of de re temporal predication is then given.) This paper argues that a stage theorist is best positioned to accept David (...) Lewis's argument from temporary intrinsics for four-dimensionalism, since stage theorists are the only four-dimensionalists who attribute monadic temporary intrinsic properties to ordinary things. (shrink)

Translator's Introduction to Günter Figal's Objectivity: The Hermeneutical and Philosophy.

The key idea given in Eminem's defense is that viewers who were upset were simply not understanding the nature of his performance. Implicitly, his defense admits that lip‐synching would be a fraudulent performance. However, the defense reclassifies these performances as genuine but flawed, ones in which he sometimes went silent when he should have been “doubling” the prerecorded vocal. Basically, Eminem's Saturday Night Live (SNL) presentations of “Mosh” and “Bezerk” are Andy Kaufman's “Mighty Mouse” piece minus the frame that raises (...) the philosophical issues. Offering no larger frame and no indication of more complex intentions, Eminem's SNL performances of “Mosh” and “Bezerk” offer the audience little or nothing to appreciate. Depending on what a reader thinks he intended to do, he either did not give a live performance, or he gave a bad live performance. Kaufman, in contrast, used lip‐synching to give a great live performance. (shrink)

pt. 1. Ius naturae generale (editio 2. emendata. 1906) -- pt. 2. Ius naturae speciale.

Optimal foraging theory has been criticized for underestimating patch exploitation time. However, proper modeling of costs not only answers these criticisms, but it also explains apparently irrational behaviors like the sunk-cost effect. When a forager is sure to experience high initial costs repeatedly, the forager should devote more time to exploitation than searching in order to minimize the accumulation of said costs. Thus, increased recognition or reconnaissance costs lead to increased exploitation times in order to reduce the frequency of future (...) costs, and this result can be used to explain paradoxical human preference for higher costs. In fact, this result also provides an explanation for how continuing a very costly task indefinitely provides the optimal long-term rate of gain; the entry cost of each new task is so great that the forager avoids ever returning to search. In general, apparently irrational decisions may be optimal when considering the lifetime of a forager within a larger system. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Human Needs Animal Desires The Good Life.

This chapter contains sections titled: Notes.

Estruturalmente, este volume está composto por três textos de diferentes tamanhos - a tese de habilitação ao ensino superior na Universidade de Frankfurt am Main, elaborada nos anos 29 e 30, depois retrabalhada e publicada no início de 1933, com sete capítulos, com os parágrafos longos que caracterizam o estilo predominante de Adorno, numa análise globalizante da obra do pensador de Copenhague, e em seguida dois anexos; um de 1940, composto como conferência para teólogos e filósofos do círculo americano de (...) Paul Tillich, e outro já da última década de vida de Adorno, a partir de um discurso comemorativo ao sesquicentenário do nascimento de Kierkegaard. (shrink)