Logicians have often suggested that the use of Euler-type diagrams has influenced the idea of the quantification of the predicate. This is mainly due to the fact that Euler-type diagrams display more information than is required in traditional syllogistics. The paper supports this argument and extends it by a further step: Euler-type diagrams not only illustrate the quantification of the predicate, but also solve problems of traditional proof theory, which prevented an overall quantification of the predicate. Thus, Euler-type diagrams can (...) be called the natural basis of syllogistic reasoning and can even go beyond. In the paper, these arguments are presented in connection with the book Nucleus Logicae Weisaniae by Johann Christian Lange from 1712. (shrink)

I am aware of the rain outside, but only in virtue of looking at a weather report. I am aware of my friend, but only because I hear her voice through my phone. Thus, there are some things that I’m aware of, but only indirectly. Many philosophers believe that there are also some things of which I am directly aware. The most plausible candidates are experiences such as pains, tickles, visual sensations, etc. In fact, the philosophical consensus seems to be (...) that experiences are the only plausible candidates for acquaintance. But I will argue that we are also acquainted with ourselves. After outlining what it means to be acquainted with oneself, I will introduce, develop, and defend a commonly used test for acquaintance. Then I will apply this test to us and show that we pass. I will consider various objections to my argument. But ultimately I will conclude that we can be, and often are, acquainted with ourselves. (shrink)

The Author of "The Alternative" is indebted to Mr. Henry Sidgwick for the following opinion of the work communicated in a letter to the Editor: "I have had an unexpected interim of enforced cessation from my work, which I have employed in reading about half the proof-sheets you sent me. Without reading any more - which for the present I have not time to do - I feel no doubt that the book deserves the attention of all students of philosophy, (...) from the amount of vigorous, precise, and independent thinking that it contains - thinking which appears to me generally consistent so far as it has been completely developed, though at some important points the work of definition and analysis does not seem to me to have been carried far enough. I also find the terse forcible individuality of the style attractive on the whole, though I cannot but wish that the Author had somewhat restrained his impulse to innovate in technical terminology.". (shrink)

Both through his own work and that of his students, Franz Clemens Brentano had an often underappreciated influence on the course of 20 th - and 21 st -century philosophy. _The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School_ offers full coverage of Brentano’s philosophy and his influence. It contains 38 brand-new essays from an international team of experts that offer a comprehensive view of Brentano’s central research areas—philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and value theory—as well as of the principal (...) figures shaped by Brentano’s school of thought. A General Introduction serves as an overview of Brentano and the contents of the volume and three separate bibliographies point students and researchers on to further avenues of inquiry. Systematic and detailed, _The Routledge Handbook of Franz Brentano and the Brentano School_ provides readers with a valuable reference to Brentano’s work, and to his lasting importance in the history of philosophy and in contemporary debates. (shrink)

Recent proposals for a return to introspective methods make it necessary to review the central problems that led psychologists to abandon those methods as sources of scientific data in the early twentieth century. These problems and other related challenges to verbal reports collected during the cognitive revolution during the 1960s and 1970s were discussed in Ericsson and Simon's proposal for a theoretically motivated procedure to elicit valid and non- reactive concurrent verbalization of thoughts while subjects were performing tasks. The same (...) proposal explains why other verbal reports, such as introspections, detailed descriptions or explanations, require additional cognitive activity that often leads to reactivity and invalid reports. Finally, a new proposal is sketched for how the generation of introspective reports might be incorporated within a framework for non-reactive and valid verbalization of thoughts. (shrink)