In the World Library of Psychologists series, international experts themselves present career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, and their major practical theoretical contributions. Elizabeth Valentine has an international reputation as an eminent scholar and pioneer in the field of philosophy and history of psychology. This selection brings together some of her best work over the last thirty years. A specially written introduction gives an overview of her (...) career and contextualises the selection in relation to changes in the field during this time. The first section on 'Philosophy' covers work on different theoretical approaches to psychology, introspection and the study of consciousness, the mind-body problem, and different types of explanation in psychology including reductionism. The second section, 'From Philosophy to History', includes work on the philosophical psychologists G. F. Stout and James Sully, among others. The third section on 'History' covers Valentine's more recent historical work on the development of psychology in London – both institutional and biographical – and includes accounts of both Bedford College and University College, and the role of pioneer women psychologists. The book enables the reader to trace developments in the philosophy and history of psychology over the last thirty years. It will appeal to anyone with interests in these areas as well as being an invaluable resource for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in conceptual and historical issues. (shrink)

Crosslinguistically, the same modal words can be used to express a wide range of interpretations. This crosslinguistic trend supports a Kratzerian analysis, where each modal has a core lexical entry and where the difference between an epistemic and a root interpretation is contextually determined. A long-standing problem for such a unified account is the equally robust crosslinguistic correlation between a modal’s interpretation and its syntactic behavior: epistemics scope high (in particular higher than tense and aspect) and roots low, a fact (...) which has led to proposals that hardwire different syntactic positions for epistemics and roots (cf. Cinque’s hierarchy). This paper argues that the range of interpretations a modal receives is even more restricted: a modal must be keyed to certain time-individual pairs, but not others. I show that this can be captured straightforwardly by minimally modifying the Kratzerian account: modals are relative to an event—rather than a world—of evaluation, which readily provides a time (the event’s running time) and (an) individual(s) (the event’s participants). I propose that this event relativity of modals can in turn explain the correlation between type of interpretation and syntactic position, without stipulation of an interpretation-specific height for modals. (shrink)

The Swedish Jewish historian Hugo Valentin (1888–1963) founded the field of Swedish Jewish history in the 1920s. Valentin was also a prominent and public figure in Swedish Jewish affairs, as a writer, Zionist and refugee activist. This article focuses on Valentin’s analysis of antisemitism, from the 1920s to the early 1950s. It pays equal attention to the continuity and change of his writings on the topic, analysed in relation to such political contexts as the ‘Jewish question’, Zionism (...) and anti-Nazi responses, and advances within scholarly research on antisemitism. It shows that Valen­tin staked out a new approach to the topic of antisemitism, in which Jewish characteristics and the so-called Jewish question, while not completely absent, were placed within parentheses. Instead, he presented antisemitism and individual antisemites as problems in their own right, which, given Nazi German expansionism and the outbreak of the Second World War, seemed to be a greater and more urgent issue than whatever questions might have pertained to Jews and their place in modern society. (shrink)

This paper discusses the interaction of aspect and modality, and focuses on the puzzling implicative effect that arises when perfective aspect appears on certain modals: perfective somehow seems to force the proposition expressed by the complement of the modal to hold in the actual world, and not merely in some possible world. I show that this puzzling behavior, originally discussed in Bhatt (1999, Covert modality in non-finite contexts) for the ability modal, extends to all modal auxiliaries with a circumstantial modal (...) base (i.e., root modals ), while epistemic interpretations of the same modals are immune to the effect. I propose that implicative readings are contingent on the relative position of the modal w.r.t. aspect: when aspect scopes over the modal (as I argue is the case for root modals), it forces an actual event, thereby yielding an implicative reading. When a modal element scopes over aspect, no actual event is forced. This happens (i) with epistemics, which structurally appear above tense and aspect; (ii) with imperfective on a root modal: imperfective brings in an additional layer of modality, itself responsible for removing the necessity for an actual event. This proposal enables us to solve the puzzle while maintaining a standardized semantics for aspects and modals. (shrink)

How do children learn the meanings of propositional attitude verbs? We argue that children use information contained in both syntactic distribution and pragmatic function to zero in on the appropriate meanings. Specifically, we identify a potentially universal link between semantic subclasses of attitude verbs, their syntactic distribution and the kinds of indirect speech acts they can be used to perform. As a result, children can use the syntax as evidence about the meaning, which in turn constrains the kinds of pragmatic (...) enrichments they do and do not make in understanding these verbs in conversation. (shrink)

In this article, I set out Suárez's conception of the demon's obstinacy. For Suárez, the demons’ obstinacy is a divine punishment. It is the result of the free and awful choice to turn away from God that the demons have decided to make, the main consequence of which is the loss of the freedom to will and to do the good. Taking up Aquinas’s conception, Suárez considers that the demonic nature is irredeemably corrupt and obstinate in evil. Demons are provided (...) only with a miserable freedom, consisting of the possibility to choose between different evils. Perpetually sinful and eternally constrained to remain so, they are condemned to wretchedness, to complacency in evil, and to the unremitting torments of hell. (shrink)

In the mid-1970s, the fascist-leaning dictatorships in Spain (1939–1977) and Portugal (1933–1974) fell. Closely linked to the 1973 oil crisis, debates over energy and technology policies became very prominent during the ensuing political redefinition of both countries. Two decades after the first international agreements between the Iberian regimes and the United States for the development of nuclear programs, a myriad of movements of social resistance to nuclear technology emerged in dialogue with anti-nuclear organizations in other European countries. Fun and playfulness (...) have been used for top–down popularization and banalization of nuclear technologies since the 1950s, but here pleasant forms of resistance also played a central role in contesting national energy plans, expert discourses, and vested interests. This article explores what we call “anti-nuclear fun,” the use of amusement, play, and humor as political and epistemic tools to familiarize society with the exceptional and daily risks of the “peaceful atom.”. (shrink)

This article covers Valentin Asmus’s first book Dialectical Materialism and Logic and response thereto among émigré and Soviet intellectuals. The interest in Asmus’s first book is not only related to the demonstration of his ideas. It records and discusses the main problems that emerged in early Soviet theory of cognition, and reveals the existence of a latent Hegelian trend within it. Asmus presents the dialectical method by situating it within the development of philosophical ideas from Hegel to Marx. The (...) article particularly focuses on the perception of Asmus’s book “on the two shores,” on the discussion of philosophy’s subject and method. Lenin’s name, featured in the book’s title, turns out to be essentially absent from the study itself. Asmus argues that only thinking taken in its dialectical development can be the true subject of philosophy (30 years later, Evald Ilyenkov would assume this stance as well). The second part of the article considers critical responses to Asmus’s first books in both émigré and Soviet press. (shrink)

Im diesem Aufsatz nehme ich die Popularität des Verantwortungsbegriffs in der Alltagssprache zum Anlass, um seinem Verhältnis zum Pflichtbegriff auf den Grund zu gehen. Dabei unterziehe ich den Verantwortungsbegriff zunächst einer allgemeinen Analyse. Anschließend diskutiere ich in Gestalt von Indeterminismus, Amoralismus und Interaktionismus drei Modi der missbräuchlichen Verwendung dieses Begriffs. Dabei handelt es sich jedoch bei genauerer Betrachtung um allgemeine rhetorische Verschleierungsstrategien, die nicht an die Verwendung des Verantwortungsbegriffs gebunden sind, sondern in der kommunikativen Bezugnahme auf moralische Forderungen generell auftreten (...) können. Dies verdeutlicht auch die anschließende Analyse des Pflichtbegriffs, der einige grundlegende Ähnlichkeiten zum Verantwortungsbegriff aufweist. Ex negativo zeigt sich so jedoch, wie ein nicht missbräuchlicher Rekurs auf beide philosophischen Grundbegriffe möglich ist. Darüber hinaus werden auch die Unterschiede dieser Termini deutlich. Der Pflichtbegriff ist trotz einiger wesentlicher Gemeinsamkeiten weniger vielseitig als der Verantwortungsbegriff und daher zumindest in der Auseinandersetzung mit einigen Themen der praktischen Philosophie weniger gut als Grundbegriff geeignet. Gleichwohl zeigt sich, dass die Frage „Verantwortung oder Pflicht?“ uns vor eine falsche Alternative stellt, wenn sie im ausschließenden Sinn verstanden wird. (shrink)

Wer bin ich, wenn nicht mein Gehirn? Das menschliche Gehirn ist eine besonders eindrucksvolle Blüte am Baum der biologischen Vielfalt. Dieser Stammbaum hat seine Äste in der Welt entwickelt und ist mit seinen Wurzeln tief in der Natur verankert. Wer aber erkennt die Gesetze der Natur und beobachtet die wundersame Entwicklung des Lebendigen, wenn nicht das Gehirn selbst? Bei dieser Spiegelung des Gehirns in der Welt und der Welt im Gehirn schließt sich ein Kreis, in dem Geist und Stoff nicht (...) mehr als unvereinbare Elemente erscheinen. Im Mittelpunkt der philosophisch-naturwissenschaftlichen Gedanken von Valentin Braitenberg steht der Begriff der Information, der in der Form der Lebewesen als ein Wissen über die Welt aufscheint. Ein geistreicher Fundus für alle, die Lust haben, unsere Existenz in dieser Welt zu verstehen, wie Forscher, Mediziner, Philosophen... Die italienische Ausgabe dieses Buches, "L'immagine del mondo nella testa", wurde mit dem renommierten italienischen Medienpreis "Premio Galileo 2000"L'immagine del mondo nella testa", wurde mit dem renommierten italienischen Medienpreis "Premio Galileo 2000" für das Jahr 2009 ausgezeichnet. Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Valentin Braitenberg, Hirnforscher, war u.a. Direktor am Max-Planck-Institut für biologische Kybernetik in Tübingen und Honorarprofessor an den Universitäten Tübingen und Freiburg. Braitenberg bringt das Kunststück fertig, kurzweilig viele Fragen auf amüsante und ebenso intelligente Weise anzureißen und damit den Leser selbst zu befähigen, darüber zu meditieren, wie das Bild der Welt in dessen eigenen Kopf kommt. Gerade in einer Zeit, in der Meditation gerne als gedankenloses Singen von Mantras missverstanden wird, gereichen die cartesianischen Meditationen à la Braitenberg jedem denkenden Menschen zu einem ganz privaten Vergnügen der besonderen Art. (shrink)

Interview of Katrin Flikschuh, Rainer Forst and Darrel Moellendorf by Valentin Beck and Julian Culp for Global Justice: Theory Practice Rhetoric.

‘Institution’ as a concept has a particular resonance in the collaborative work of Deleuze and Guattari. Looking at institutional psychotherapy and the way in which it traverses the works of Deleuze and Guattari, this article will attempt to offer some ways that the concept of institution can be put to work. To do so, it will begin with two statements about institutional psychotherapy made by the psychiatrist Jean Oury: ‘Institutional psychotherapy is perhaps the putting in place of all kinds of (...) means to struggle, each day, against all that might make the whole of the “collective” topple over towards a segregative or concentrationary structure’, and ‘The establishment is a building and a contract agreed with the State, a price per day. The institution, when it exists, is a labour, a strategy to avoid a whole load of people fermenting, like a jar of jam with a poorly closed lid.’ These statements will open the door to a deeper exploration of what an institution can do and how it was activated in Guattari’s clinical practice and in the collaborative philosophy developed with Deleuze. (shrink)

In this article, I critically reassess Iris Marion Young's late works, which centre on the distinction between liability and social connection responsibility. I concur with Young's diagnosis that structural injustices call for a new conception of responsibility, but I reject several core assumptions that underpin her distinction between two models and argue for a different way of conceptualising responsibility to address structural injustices. I show that Young's categorical separation of guilt and responsibility is not supported by the writings of Hannah (...) Arendt, which Young draws on, and that it is also untenable on independent systematic grounds. Furthermore, I argue that several of Young's other criteria fail to clearly demarcate two distinct phenomena. I therefore propose to transcend Young's distinction between two models in favour of a related, but conceptually different distinction between two forms of responsibility: interactional and structural. Embracing this terminology facilitates the conceptualisation of the general features of responsibility that are shared by both forms, including their retrospective and prospective time-direction and their applicability to individual, joint and group agency. The distinction between interactional and structural responsibility also yields a more compelling general account of the role of background structures, and of blame within ascriptions of political responsibility. (shrink)

John Berry, a risk manager for a U.S.-based pharmaceutical firm (Best Co.), is assigned additional responsibilities when his territory is expanded to include the South America region. When an employee in one of Best Co.’s South American manufacturing facilities dies in a work-related incident, John must determine an appropriate response. In a business context that is increasingly global, ethical decisions are further complicated by cultural differences. This case considers thefactors influencing John as he weighs his options on how to resolve (...) this incident. The case further considers how cultural differences coupled with John’s limited cross-cultural sensitivities and personal viewpoint might inevitably skew his judgment. San Luis, the disguised name for this South American locale, is less litigious than John’s home country, the U.S. In light of these differences, the case raises a number of ethical questions. For example, how should an international corporation compensate an employee’s family for the employee’s work-related death – if at all? Are John’s own cultural limitations preventing him from doing the right thing? (shrink)

We generalize and extend the class of Sahlqvist formulae in arbitrary polyadic modal languages, to the class of so called inductive formulae. To introduce them we use a representation of modal polyadic languages in a combinatorial style and thus, in particular, develop what we believe to be a better syntactic approach to elementary canonical formulae altogether. By generalizing the method of minimal valuations à la Sahlqvist–van Benthem and the topological approach of Sambin and Vaccaro we prove that all inductive formulae (...) are elementary canonical and thus extend Sahlqvist’s theorem over them. In particular, we give a simple example of an inductive formula which is not frame-equivalent to any Sahlqvist formula. Then, after a deeper analysis of the inductive formulae as set-theoretic operators in descriptive and Kripke frames, we establish a somewhat stronger model-theoretic characterization of these formulae in terms of a suitable equivalence to syntactically simpler formulae in the extension of the language with reversive modalities. Lastly, we study and characterize the elementary canonical formulae in reversive languages with nominals, where the relevant notion of persistence is with respect to discrete frames. (shrink)

We introduce and study hierarchies of extensions of the propositional modal and temporal languages with pairs of new syntactic devices: point of reference-reference pointer which enable semantic references to be made within a formula. We propose three different but equivalent semantics for the extended languages, discuss and compare their expressiveness. The languages with reference pointers are shown to have great expressive power (especially when their frugal syntax is taken into account), perspicuous semantics, and simple deductive systems. For instance, Kamp's and (...) Stavi's temporal operators, as well as nominals (names, clock variables), are definable in them. Universal validity in these languages is proved undecidable. The basic modal and temporal logics with reference pointers are uniformly axiomatized and a strong completeness theorem is proved for them and extended to some classes of their extensions. (shrink)

Complete deductive systems are constructed for the non-valid (refutable) formulae and sequents of some propositional modal logics. Thus, complete syntactic characterizations in the sense of Lukasiewicz are established for these logics and, in particular, purely syntactic decision procedures for them are obtained. The paper also contains some historical remarks and a general discussion on refutation systems.

This special issue is a result of The Bucharest Colloquium in Analytic Philosophy dedicated to Frege's philosophy of mathematics and language. It was held at the Research Center for Logic, H...

The author of the monograph is a Candidate of Culturology, Associate Professor of Tyumen State University. The monograph tests approaches to the understanding of the essence of Hobbes’s and Locke’s ideas about miracles that are more flexible than a formational-evolutionist approach. The monograph presents the main characteristics of these ideas as Christian philosophical ones, shows their general Christian direction and the historiographic perspective of studying these ideas primarily in line with Christian philosophy. The monograph is intended for experts in the (...) history of philosophy, the history of ideas, theology, religious studies, historical anthropology, as well as for those interested in the problems of historical-philosophical knowledge. Автор монографии – кандидат культурологии, доцент Тюменского государственного университета. В монографии апробируются более гибкие подходы к пониманию сущности идей Гоббса и Локка о чудесах по сравнению с формационно-эволюционистским подходом. Представлены основные характеристики идей Гоббса и Локка о чудесах как христианских философских идей. Показана общехристианская направленность идей Гоббса и Локка о чудесах и историографическая перспективность изучения этих идей в первую очередь как христианских философских идей. Монография рассчитана на специалистов в области истории философии, истории идей, теологии, религиоведения, исторической антропологии, а также на всех, кто интересуется проблемами историко-философского знания. (shrink)

Cet article propose une réflexion sur l’approche biographique en sociologie, centrée sur le concept de « bifurcation » étudié ici dans le registre des interdépendances et des interactions entre parcours professionnels et histoires de santé. Après avoir brièvement rappelé les principales caractéristiques du matériau biographique et, simultanément, les principaux problèmes qu’il pose à l’analyse, le texte souligne certaines spécificités de l’articulation sociale et biographique entre santé et travail. Il propose ensuite une définition opératoire de la notion de « bifurcation » (...) et la met à l’épreuve de quelques exemples issus d’un corpus d’entretiens. Cette analyse permet de montrer en quoi l’approche sous l’angle des bifurcations se révèle fructueuse pour mieux comprendre certaines formes de changements à l’échelle des parcours de vie et leurs mises en intrigue par les acteurs concernés.This paper proposes a contribution to the reflexion about biographical approach in sociology. It is focused on the concept of « turning point » , applied to the interdependences and interactions between work and health in the biographical course. The paper describes the main characteristics of the biographical material and, at the same time, the difficulties of its analysis. Then it underlines the specificities of the social and biographical interweaving between work and health, and proposes to confront the concept of « bifurcation » with several cases drawn from a corpus of interviews. This analysis shows that the concept of « bifurcation » can be useful to describe some kinds of changes in the biographical courses, and to understand their meanings for the actors. (shrink)