In the following essay the author examines those aspects of the evolution of the concept of psyche from Homer to Aristotle that show striking dissimilarities with our modern understanding of the soul/mind. In this analysis, the author gives more room to the problem of the Homeric soul-words, for Homer's picture of the soul seems to be especially challenging for our conceptual schemes. The guiding suspicion during this study is that there is a temptation for modern students of this subject to (...) suppose a greater continuity between their understanding of what it is to be a soul or mind and ancient thinkers' grasp of the same experiential field than is warranted by available textual evidence. The article focuses on some of the astonishing features of the concept of psyche from Homer to Aristotle--features that are, hopefully, able to reconstruct in spite of the assimilating force of the authors' prejudices. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

Celem pracy jest omówienie rozwoju koncepcji na temat roli logiki formalnej z punktu widzenia filozofii marksistowskiej. Można zaryzykować twierdzenie, że ogólnie biorąc, każdy system filozoficzny "zmusza" wyznawców lub zwolenników do określania pozycji w odniesieniu do innych nauk. Jeśli zaś idzie o stosunek filozofii marksistowskiej do logiki formalnej to w ostatnim półwieczu znaleźć można aż trzy koncepcje na ten temat. I tak, w latach dwudziestych i trzydziestych logika formalna uważana była przez marksistów za teoretyczny wyraz antydialektycznego sposobu myśli burżuazyjnej. Kolejny okres (...) - lata pięćdziesiąte i sześćdziesiąte to okres godzenia logiki formalnej i dialektyki i wreszcie w latach sześćdziesiątych i siedemdziesiątych zdecydowano się na odseparowanie tych dwóch rzeczy. (shrink)

Autor przeciwstawia się rozpowszechnionym w literaturze marksistowskiej poglądom, że prawa myślenia są tożsame z myślowym wyrażeniem praw. W związku z tym krytykuje tezę o jedności dialektyki, logiki i teorii poznania. Jego zdaniem specyficzne prawa myślenia istnieją równie obiektywnie jak prawa przyrody i społeczeństwa, regulując procesy myślowe niezależnie od wiedzy o nich. Należy więc wyraźnie odróżniać istnienie obiektywnych praw, zarówno specyficznych dla poszczególnych sfer rzeczywistości, jak też uniwersalnych (do tych należy prawa dialektyki) od powstałego w wyniku poznania ich myślowego wyrazu.

Автор пытается защищать и систематизировать ленинские утверкдения теории отражения, которую хочет охватить в единый комплекс тезисов и теоретических понятий. Эта теория выражает идею, что материальный мир существует независимо от познающего субъект, а познание субъектом этого мира является верным отражением в человеческом разуме. Подлинность этого познания подтверждена обцзтвенно-исторической практикой человечества. Только как целостность взаимосвязанных утверждений, касающихся реальности существования реального Оыта и его познания, ленинская теория отражения может быть филосовской Теорией, являющейся составной частью диалектического материализма.

Hume's Reception in Early America: Expanded Edition brings together the original American responses to one of Britain's greatest men of letters, David Hume. Now available as a single volume paperback, this new edition includes updated further readings suggestions and dozens of additional primary sources gathered together in a completely new concluding section. From complete pamphlets and booklets, to poems, reviews, and letters, to extracts from newspapers, religious magazines and literary and political journals, this book's contents come from a wide variety (...) of sources published in colonial America and the early United States between 1758 and 1850. As well as classics by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, it contains scores of unknown and hard-to-locate items, many of which have not been reprinted since their original publication. These responses are divided into four parts covering Hume's Essays; his Philosophical Writings; his History of England; and his Character and Death. Each of those parts has a separate introductory essay, and every selection is introduced by a short headnote that sets the piece in its historical context and provides bibliographical references. Packed with new insights into Hume and American thought and culture, Hume's Reception in Early America reveals the relevance and impact of Hume on American political, philosophical, historical, religious, and aesthetic debates. (shrink)

Biological evolution is a complex blend of ever changing structural stability, variability and emergence of new phe- notypes, niches, ecosystems. We wish to argue that the evo- lution of life marks the end of a physics world view of law entailed dynamics. Our considerations depend upon dis- cussing the variability of the very ”contexts of life”: the in- teractions between organisms, biological niches and ecosys- tems. These are ever changing, intrinsically indeterminate and even unprestatable: we do not know ahead of (...) time the ”niches” which constitute the boundary conditions on selec- tion. More generally, by the mathematical unprestatability of the ”phase space”, no laws of mo- tion can be formulated for evolution. We call this radical emergence, from life to life. The purpose of this paper is the integration of variation and diversity in a sound concep- tual frame and situate unpredictability at a novel theoretical level, that of the very phase space. Our argument will be carried on in close comparisons with physics and the mathematical constructions of phase spaces in that discipline. The role of symmetries as invariant preserving transformations will allow us to under- stand the nature of physical phase spaces and to stress the differences required for a sound biological theoretizing. In this frame, we discuss the novel notion of ”enablement”. Life lives in a web of enablement and radical emergence. This will restrict causal analyses to differential cases. Mutations or other causal differ- ences will allow us to stress that ”non conservation princi- ples” are at the core of evolution, in contrast to physical dynamics, largely based on conservation principles as sym- metries. Critical transitions, the main locus of symmetry changes in physics, will be discussed, and lead to ”extended criticality” as a conceptual frame for a better understanding of the living state of matter. (shrink)

This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

Editor James Fetzer presents an analytical and historical introduction and a comprehensive bibliography together with selections of many of Carl G. Hempel's most important studies to give students and scholars an ideal opportunity to appreciate the enduring contributions of one of the most influential philosophers of science of the 20th century.

This entirely new work guides the reader through the most basic systems of modal propositional logic up to systems of modal predicate with identity, dealing with both technical developments and discussing philosophical applications.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Each title in the "Key Issues" series aims to set the work in its historical context. In this collection of contemporary responses to "Leviathan", attention is focused on its critics who attacked Hobbes's moral, political and religious ideas in a series of pamphlets and short books.