I discuss, in the first part, Chisholm's definition of the self-presenting. I argue that the psychological pre-conditions that Chisholm imposes on his epistemic notions cause difficulties for the definition and suggest that there may be a further difficulty when one considers the definition in the light of what Chisholm says about the KK principle. I try, in the second part, to elucidate the relation that a person has to propositions that are self-presenting to him, and I consider Chisholm's views on (...) the same matter. (shrink)

I discuss, in the first part, Chisholm's definition of the self-presenting. I argue that the psychological pre-conditions that Chisholm imposes on his epistemic notions cause difficulties for the definition and suggest that there may be a further difficulty when one considers the definition in the light of what Chisholm says about the KK principle. I try, in the second part, to elucidate the relation that a person has to propositions that are self-presenting to him, and I consider Chisholm's views on (...) the same matter. (shrink)

In this essay, I discuss some of the important logical principles governing the concepts of knowledge, certainty and probability. In the first section, I suggest a series of definitions of epistemic terms, employing as primitive the locution ?p is epistemi?cally possible to S? In the second section, I develop an epistemic concept of probability and compare it to the concepts of certainty and knowledge. In the third section, I relate the epistemic concepts of certainty and probability to the quantifiers of (...) traditional logic and to a non?episteznic concept of probability. I conclude by noting similarities and differences between the two concepts of probability. (shrink)

In the 19th century, "Psychophysical Parallelism" was the most popular solution of the mind-body problem among physiologists, psychologists and philosophers. (This is not to be mixed up with Leibnizian and other cases of "Cartesian" parallelism.) The fate of this non-Cartesian view, as founded by Gustav Theodor Fechner, is reviewed. It is shown that Feigl's "identity theory" eventually goes back to Alois Riehl who promoted a hybrid version of psychophysical parallelism and Kantian mind-body theory which was taken up by Feigl's teacher (...) Moritz Schlick. (shrink)

The hundred years covered by this book, from the death of Hegel to the establishment of the Third Reich, is often regarded as the heyday of German philosophy, of metaphysics in the grand style and of what J. S. Mill characterised as 'the German or a priori view of human knowledge'. Yet apart from selective attention to individual figures, such as Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Husserl or Heidegger, little is known by English-speaking philosophers of most of the animating concerns and continuing traditions (...) of German philosophy of the time. This book sets out to present a detailed history of the period, adopting a thematic approach which emphasises the more distinctive German approach. It is hoped that the growing but piecemeal interest in German philosophy will be both stimulated and consolidated by this book, which should also interest individuals working in related areas such as the history of ideas, religious studies and the history of science. (shrink)

This volume consists of a collection of articles published by Spencer in leading Victorian periodicals, such as The Westminster Review, The Fortnightly Review and Mind. The wide range of subjects explored includes science, philosophy, aesthetics, ethics, psychology and politics.

Herbert Clark argues that language use is more than the sum of a speaker speaking and a listener listening. It is the joint action that emerges when speakers and listeners, writers and readers perform their individual actions in coordination, as ensembles. In contrast to work within the cognitive sciences, which has seen language use as an individual process, and to work within the social sciences, which has seen it as a social process, the author argues strongly that language use (...) embodies both individual and social processes. (shrink)

Karl Popper is one of the greatest and most influential philosophers of the twentieth century. Originally published in German in 2000, Herbert Keuth's book is a systematic exposition of Popper's philosophy covering the philosophy of science (Part 1); social philosophy (Part 2); and metaphysics (Part 3). More comprehensive than any current introduction to Popper, it is suitable for courses in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of social science.

The book contains the first systematic study of the ontology and metaphysics of Gustav Bergmann, tracing their development from early (1940s) criticisms of Carnap’s semantical theories in Introduction to Semantics, to their culmination in his 1992 _New Foundations of Ontology_. This involves a detailed study of the implicit metaphysical doctrines in Carnap’s important, but long neglected, 1942 book and their connection to his influential views on reference, truth and modality, (including, contrary to current opinion, Carnap’s initiating the development of predicate (...) modal logic) that culminated in _Meaning and Necessity_. In dealing with various fundamental issues in ontology and metaphysics, the book discusses relevant views of major philosophers, such as Russell, Moore, Bradley, Wittgenstein, Meinong, Brentano, Husserl, Broad, McTaggart, and Quine, and of contemporary and recent figures, including D. M. Armstrong, D. Lewis, S. Kripke, J. Searle, W. Sellars, D. Davidson, J. J. C. Smart, and H. Feigl. Building on the critical studies of Bergmann, Carnap and such other philosophers, the author argues for a form of Logical Realism derived from important, but long misunderstood and ignored, aspects of Russell’s theories of descriptions, reference and truth. (shrink)

With a new chapter This new edition of Herbert Fingarette's classic study in philosophical psychology now includes a provocative recent essay on the topic by ...

The struggle against liberalism in the totalitarian view of the state.--The concept of essence.--The affirmative character of culture.--Philosophy and critical theory.--On hedonism.--Industrialization and capitalism in the work of Max Weber.--Love mystified; a critique of Norman O. Brown and a reply to Herbert Marcuse by Norman O. Brown.--Aggressiveness in advanced industrial society.

Ludwig Büchner wrote one of the most popular and polemical books of the strong materialist movement in the later nineteenth-century Germany, his Kraft und Stoff (Force and Matter) (1855). He tried to develop a comprehensive worldview, which was based solely on the findings of empirical science and did not take refuge in religion or any other transcendent categories in explaining nature and its development, including human beings. When Büchner tried to expose the backwardness of traditional philosophical and religious views in (...) scientific matters, his arguments had some force, but the positive part of his programme was not free of superficiality and naivety. Büchner’s writings helped to strengthen progressive and rational traditions inside and outside philosophy, but they can also serve as the prime example of the uncritical nineteenth- century belief in science’s capacity to redeem humankind from all evil. (shrink)