Composed more than 2,000 years ago during a turbulent period of Chinese history, the Dao de jing set forth an alternative vision of reality in a world torn apart by violence and betrayal. Daoism, as this subtle but enduring philosophy came to be known, offers a comprehensive view of experience grounded in a full understanding of the wonders hidden in the ordinary. Now in this luminous new translation, based on the recently discovered ancient bamboo scrolls, China scholars Roger T. Ames (...) and David L. Hall bring the timeless wisdom of the Dao de jing into our contemporary world. Though attributed to Laozi, “the Old Master,” the Dao de jing is, in fact, of unknown authorship and may well have originated in an oral tradition four hundred years before the time of Christ. Eschewing philosophical dogma, the Dao de jing set forth a series of maxims that outlined a new perspective on reality and invited readers to embark on a regimen of self-cultivation. In the Daoist world view, each particular element in our experience sends out an endless series of ripples throughout the cosmos. The unstated goal of the Dao de jing is self-transformation–the attainment of personal excellence that flows from the world and back into it. Responding to the teachings of Confucius, the Dao de jing revitalizes moral behavior by recommending a spontaneity made possible by the cultivated “habits” of the individual. In this elegant volume, Ames and Hall feature the original Chinese texts of the Dao de jing and translate them into crisp, chiseled English that reads like poetry. Each of the eighty-one brief chapters is followed by clear, thought-provoking commentary exploring the layers of meaning in the text. The book’s extensive introduction is a model of accessible scholarship in which Ames and Hall consider the origin of the text, place the emergence of Daoist philosophy in its historical and political context, and outline its central tenets. The Dao de jing is a work of timeless wisdom and beauty, as vital today as it was in ancient China. This new version will stand as both a compelling introduction to the complexities of Daoist thought and as the classic modern English translation. (shrink)
Among the many philosophers who hold that causal facts1 are to be explained in terms of—or more ambitiously, shown to reduce to—facts about what happens, together with facts about the fundamental laws that govern what happens, the clear favorite is an approach that sees counterfactual dependence as the key to such explanation or reduction. The paradigm examples of causation, so advocates of this approach tell us, are examples in which events c and e—the cause and its effect—both occur, but: had (...) c not occurred, e would not have occurred either. From this starting point ideas proliferate in a vast profusion. But the remarkable disparity among these ideas should not obscure their common foundation. Neither should the diversity of opinion about the prospects for a philosophical analysis of causation obscure their importance. For even those philosophers who see these prospects as dim—perhaps because they suffer post-Quinean queasiness at the thought of any analysis of any concept of interest—can often be heard to say such things as that causal relations among events are somehow “a matter of” the patterns of counterfactual dependence to be found in them. It was not always so. Thirty-odd years ago, so-called “regularity” analyses (so-called, presumably, because they traced back to Hume’s well-known analysis of causation as constant conjunction) ruled the day, with Mackie’s Cement of the Universe embodying a classic statement. But they fell on hard times, both because of internal problems—which we will review in due course—and because dramatic improvements in philosophical understanding of counterfactuals made possible the emergence of a serious and potent rival: a counterfactual analysis of causation resting on foundations firm enough to be repel the kind of philosophical suspicion that had formerly warranted dismissal.. (shrink)
The nanomedicine field is fast evolving toward complex, “active,” and interactive formulations. Like many emerging technologies, nanomedicine raises questions of how human subjects research (HSR) should be conducted and the adequacy of current oversight, as well as how to integrate concerns over occupational, bystander, and environmental exposures. The history of oversight for HSR investigating emerging technologies is a patchwork quilt without systematic justification of when ordinary oversight for HSR is enough versus when added oversight is warranted. Nanomedicine HSR provides an (...) occasion to think systematically about appropriate oversight, especially early in the evolution of a technology, when hazard and risk information may remain incomplete. This paper presents the consensus recommendations of a multidisciplinary, NIH-funded project group, to ensure a science-based and ethically informed approach to HSR issues in nanomedicine, and to integrate HSR analysis with analysis of occupational, bystander, and environmental concerns. We recommend creating two bodies, an interagency Human Subjects Research in Nanomedicine (HSR/N) Working Group and a Secretary's Advisory Committee on Nanomedicine (SAC/N). HSR/N and SAC/N should perform 3 primary functions: (1) analysis of the attributes and subsets of nanomedicine interventions that raise HSR challenges and current gaps in oversight; (2) providing advice to relevant agencies and institutional bodies on the HSR issues, as well as federal and federal-institutional coordination; and (3) gathering and analyzing information on HSR issues as they emerge in nanomedicine. HSR/N and SAC/N will create a home for HSR analysis and coordination in DHHS (the key agency for relevant HSR oversight), optimize federal and institutional approaches, and allow HSR review to evolve with greater knowledge about nanomedicine interventions and greater clarity about attributes of concern. (shrink)
On his deathbed, Wittgenstein is reported to have said, upon hearing that his friends were coming for a visit, “Tell them I've had a wonderful life.” Malcolm found this puzzling, given that Wittgenstein seemed to be fiercely unhappy. I find my way into these words against the backdrop of the Hollywood film It's a Wonderful Life and Wittgenstein's famous remark, to wit, “Man has to awaken to wonder . . . Science is a way of sending him to sleep again.” (...) Along the way I discuss Plato's praise of wonder, Nietzsche's attack on science, and Kierkegaard's remark about finding the sublime in the pedestrian. I conclude that Wittgenstein did have a wonderful life insofar as he was fully awake to wonder, what I call the wonder of our words. (shrink)
However much the Catholic Church may wish to free the peoples of the world from the excessive atheistic rationalism of the Englihtenment that has pitted science against religion, it is still in most other ways solidly on the side of modernity.Centesimus Annus endorses aform of democracy, akind of capitalism, asort of technological development, all of which are strongly undergirded by a resolute belief in human beings as rights-bearing individuals possessed of individual autonomy and a legitimate appetite for private property. The (...) themes of liberal democracy, capitalist free enterprise, and the proliferation of rational technologies form the common focus of both the Enlightenment and Anti-Enlightenment sensibilities.From a Chinese perspective, these culturally alien themes are viewed with suspicion. The Chinese are increasingly troubled by the corrosive effects upon their culture and social fabric associated with and embedded in the modernizing impulse. But, for a variety of reasons, it certainly seems that China will have little choice but to accommodate modernity in some sense, whatever the risks. The serious question is: Will China remainChinese under the conditions of modernization? (shrink)
The interactivist approach to development generates a framework of types of constraints on what can be constructed. The four constraint types are based on: (1) what the constructed systems are about; (2) the representational relationship itself; (3) the nature of the systems being constructed; and (4) the process of construction itself. We give illustrations of each constraint type. Any developmental theory needs to acknowledge all four types of constraint; however, some current theories conflate different types of constraint, or rely on (...) a single constraint type to explicate development. Such theories will be inherently unable to explain important aspects of development. (shrink)
This paper is a critique of the theory of meaning in art and religion that Michael Polanyi developed in his last work entitled Meaning. After giving a brief summary of Polanyi’s theory of art, I raise two serious difficulties, not with the theory itself, but with the claims Polanyi makes about the relation of meaning in art to science and religion. Regarding the first difficulty, I argue that Polanyi betrays an earlier insight when in Meaning he attempts to dissociate meaning (...) in art from meaning in science; instead I argue that both science and art are aesthetic enterprises. Regarding the second, I argue that Polanyi’s account of religion is an aesthetic reduction, that meaning in religion, at least in the Western tradition, is not so much an aesthetic as it is an existential matter. (shrink)
I argue here that Kierkegaardian faith is essentially, albeit paradoxically, worldly---that Kierkegaardian faith is a form of world-affirmation. A correlate of this claim is that faithlessness of any kind is ultimately a form of aesthetic resignation grounded in a deep seated world-alienation. The paradox of faith’s worldliness is found in the fact that, for Kierkegaard, faith both excludes and includes resignation in itself. I make sense of this paradox by appealing to Kierkegaard’s idea of “an annulled possibility,” and conclude that (...) faith’s love of the world is an affirmation via a double negation. (shrink)
Polanyi’s claim that a wholly tacit knowledge is possible is contested. Polanyi’s praise for the tacit, and his critique of the ideal of total explicitness, harbors a threat of Romanticism, which, in turn, may become a threat to the value of the explicit itself, and ultimately a political threat, something that Heidegger’s anti-Enlightenment philosophy and political life manifested all too dramatically. Polanyians must not lose sight of the primacy of the explicit for personal existence, something that Polanyi’s work need not (...) undermine, and indeed, that has the resources to affirm and support. (shrink)
Bovens (2010) points out that there is a structural analogy between the Judy Benjamin problem (JB) and the Sleeping Beauty problem (SB). On grounds of this structural analogy, he argues that both should receive the same solution, viz. the posterior probability of the eastern region of the matrix in Table 1 should equal 1/3. Hence, P*(Red) = 1/3 in the JB and P*(Heads) = 1/3 in the SB. Bovens’s argument rests on a standard error in implementing Bayesian updating, which is (...) spelled out in Shafer 1985. When we are informed of some proposition, we do not only learn the proposition in question, but also that we have learned the proposition as one of the many propositions that we might have learned. The information is generated by a protocol, which determines the various propositions that we might learn. We should then update not on the proposition in question, but rather on the fact that we learned this proposition as one of the many propositions that we might have learned. A well-known application of this insight is the Monty Hall problem (MH) as Speed (1985: 276) points out in a discussion of Shafer 1985. As an illustration, let us apply Shafer’s insight to the MH. In the MH, the contestant in a game show learns that there is a goat behind two of three doors X, Y and Z and a car behind one door. She is asked to pick one of the three doors. The contestant picks door X. Monty will then open one of the remaining doors, which he knows to have a goat behind it. Suppose Monty opens door Y. The contestant is then asked whether she wants to …. (shrink)
Composed more than 2,000 years ago during a turbulent period of Chinese history, the Dao de jing set forth an alternative vision of reality in a world torn apart by violence and betrayal. Daoism, as this subtle but enduring philosophy came to be known, offers a comprehensive view of experience grounded in a full understanding of the wonders hidden in the ordinary. Now in this luminous new translation, based on the recently discovered ancient bamboo scrolls, China scholars Roger T. Ames (...) and David L. Hall bring the timeless wisdom of the Dao de jing into our contemporary world. Though attributed to Laozi, “the Old Master,” the Dao de jing is, in fact, of unknown authorship and may well have originated in an oral tradition four hundred years before the time of Christ. Eschewing philosophical dogma, the Dao de jing set forth a series of maxims that outlined a new perspective on reality and invited readers to embark on a regimen of self-cultivation. In the Daoist world view, each particular element in our experience sends out an endless series of ripples throughout the cosmos. The unstated goal of the Dao de jing is self-transformation–the attainment of personal excellence that flows from the world and back into it. Responding to the teachings of Confucius, the Dao de jing revitalizes moral behavior by recommending a spontaneity made possible by the cultivated “habits” of the individual. In this elegant volume, Ames and Hall feature the original Chinese texts of the Dao de jing and translate them into crisp, chiseled English that reads like poetry. Each of the eighty-one brief chapters is followed by clear, thought-provoking commentary exploring the layers of meaning in the text. The book’s extensive introduction is a model of accessible scholarship in which Ames and Hall consider the origin of the text, place the emergence of Daoist philosophy in its historical and political context, and outline its central tenets. The Dao de jing is a work of timeless wisdom and beauty, as vital today as it was in ancient China. This new version will stand as both a compelling introduction to the complexities of Daoist thought and as the classic modern English translation. (shrink)
Peut-être que je devrais commencer par cette scène. Je me retrouve avec des inconnus dans le grand hall intérieur d’un bâtiment aux aspects brutalistes. En face de nous se situe l’autre partie de la construction, rendue visible par de longues baies vitrées, et où réside une famille. Lorsqu’à l’automne 2010, je suis en ce lieu, à attendre pour la première fois ce qui est clairement mis en scène comme une apparition, je connais bien les différents acteurs par des livres (...) et des films, je n’ai pa.. (shrink)
The early twentieth century witnessed a shift in the way philosophers of science thought about traditional 'problems of induction'. Keynes championed the idea that Hume's Problem was not a problem about causation (which had been the traditional reading of Hume) but rather a problem about induction. Moreover, Keynes (and later Nicod) viewed such problems as having both logical and epistemological components. Hempel picked up where Keynes and Nicod left off, by formulating a rigorous formal theory of inductive logic. This spawned (...) a new branch of philosophy of science called confirmation theory. Hempel's theory of confirmation was based on a few very simple (and seemingly plausible) assumptions about (instantial) 'inductive-logical support'. However, as Hempel himself was keenly aware, even such simple and seemingly plausible assumptions give rise to various puzzles and paradoxes. The two most famous paradoxes of confirmation were discovered by Hempel and Goodman. This article discusses Hempel's paradox (which is known as 'the' paradox of confirmation, since it was discovered first). However, many of the historical developments surrounding Hempel's paradox (also known as the 'raven paradox') are also crucial for understanding Goodman's later ('grue') paradox. Author Recommends: Branden Fitelson, 'The Paradox of Confirmation', Philosophy Compass 1/1 (2006): 95–113, doi: [DOI link]. In this article, I explain how the inconsistency between Hempel's intuitive resolution and his official theory of confirmation affects the historical dialectic about the paradox and how it illuminates the nature of confirmation. After the survey, I argue that Hempel's intuitions about the paradox of confirmation were basically correct, and that it is his theory that should be rejected, in favor of a (broadly) Bayesian account of confirmation. C. G. Hempel, 'Studies in the Logic of Confirmation' (I and II), Mind 54 (1945): 1–26, 97–121, dois: [DOI link]; [DOI link]. This is the locus classicus of traditional (instantial) confirmation theory. It is here that original motivations for, traditional approaches to, and paradoxes of confirmation are discussed in depth for the first time, under the rubric 'confirmation theory'. Hempel's discussion (which picks up where Keynes and Nicod left off) is chock full of crucial historical, logical, and epistemological insights. J. M. Keynes, A Treatise on Probability (London: Macmillan, 1921). Keynes does not get enough credit in this context. But, basically, chapters 18 to 23 of this classic book planted the seeds for almost all of modern confirmation theory. Nicod and Hempel (as well as Hosiasson-Lindenbaum, Carnap, and others) were, basically, just picking-up where Keynes left off. J. Nicod, The Logical Problem of Induction (1923), reprinted in Foundations of Geometry and Induction (London: Routledge, 2000). Nicod's essay expands upon Keynes's work. Nicod is the first to use the term 'confirmation', in connection with a relation of 'inductive-logical support'. Nicod endorses several key confirmation-theoretic principles (which were already advanced by Keynes). In the hands of Hempel, Nicod's work later becomes an important historical foil. J. Hosiasson–Lindenbaum, 'On Confirmation', Journal of Symbolic Logic 5 (1940): 133–48. This essay contains most (if not all) of the basic ingredients of the 'Bayesian' approaches to the paradox of confirmation that appeared later. It also sheds much light on an important dispute between Keynes and Nicod concerning one of the claims Keynes makes (in his Treatise) about 'long-run convergence' in certain (instantial) confirmation-theoretic problems. This paper also contains one of the earliest rigorous axiomatizations of conditional (subjective or logical) probability. R. Carnap, Logical Foundations of Probability (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1950). This is Carnap's encyclopaedic work on inductive logic and probability. There is a tremendous amount of wisdom in here. For present purposes, the sections on Hempel's theory of confirmation (in contrast to probabilistic approaches to confirmation, such as Hosiasson–Lindenbaum's and Carnap's) are probably most important and salient (see §§87–8). I. J. Good, 'The Paradox of Confirmation', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 11 (1960): 145–9. C. Chihara, 'Quine and the Confirmational Paradoxes', in Midwest Studies in Philosophy. Vol. 6: The Foundations of Analytic Philosophy, eds. Peter A. French, Theodore E. Uehling, Jr., and Howard K. Wettstein (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 1981), 425–52. J. Earman, Bayes or Bust: A Critical Examination of Bayesian Confirmation Theory (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), specifically: pp. 63–73. R. M. Royall, Statistical Evidence: A Likelihood Paradigm (New York, NY: Chapman & Hall, 1997), specifically: the Appendix on 'The Paradox of the Ravens'. C. McKenzie and L. Mikkelsen, 'The Psychological Side of Hempel's Paradox of Confirmation', Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 7 (2000): 360–6. P. Maher, 'Probability Captures the Logic of Scientific Confirmation', in Contemporary Debates in the Philosophy of Science, ed. Christopher Hitchcock (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 69–93. P. Vranas, 'Hempel's Raven Paradox: A Lacuna in the Standard Bayesian Solution', British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 55 (2004): 545–60. This is a list of seven of my favourite papers on the paradox of confirmation, since 1950 (listed in chronological order). Most of these are coming from a broadly 'Bayesian' perspective. In particular, I recommend Vranas as a good starting point here. Online Materials: http://fitelson.org/probability/ Probability & Induction (PHIL 148, UC-Berkeley, Spring 2008) This is the Web site for an undergraduate course on probability and induction that I taught at UC-Berkeley in Spring 2008. Much of the course focuses on confirmation theory (including the paradoxes of confirmation). There are many links there to lecture notes, papers, books and other salient online resources. http://fitelson.org/confirmation/ Confirmation (graduate seminar, UC-Berkeley, Fall 2007) This is the Web site for a graduate seminar on confirmation that I taught at UC-Berkeley in Fall 2007. This seminar is a historical trace of induction/confirmation, from Aristotle to Goodman (mostly, focusing on the 20th century and the paradoxes of confirmation). Sample Syllabus: See the online syllabi for Confirmation and/or Probability & Induction (above). Note: those online syllabi contain electronic copies of many of the salient readings. (shrink)
Primary Works -/- Hume, David(1997) An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, from Philosophical Classics from Plato to Nietzsche, Ed. By Forrest E. Baired & Walter Kaufmann, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey. -/- ___________ (1978) A Treatise of Human Nature, Edited by L.A. Selby-Bigge Oxford University Press, London. -/- :___________( 2006) The Understanding(Treatise :Book I), Ed. by Bennettt, Jonathan , The, Radical Academy, -/- Link:http;//www.earlymoderntexts.com/pdf/humebig.pdf.Citation:20-10-2006 -/- Flew, Antony(1962) Hume on Human Nature and the Understanding, Edi. ,Collier Books, New York.
Causation is a deeply intuitive and familiar relation, gripped powerfully by common sense. Or so it seems. But as is typical in philosophy, deep intuitive familiarity has not led to any philosophical account of causation that is at once clean, precise, and widely agreed upon. Not for lack of trying: the last 30 years or so have seen dozens of attempts to provide such an account, and the pace of development is, if anything, accelerating. (See Collins, Hall and Paul (...) 2003a for a comprehensive sampling of the latest work.) It is safe to say that none has yet succeeded. It is also safe to say that the effort put into their development has yielded a wealth of insights into causation. And it is, arguably, from the study of causal preemption—cases that feature multiple competing candidates for the title of “cause” of some given effect—that the greatest such wealth has flowed. These cases come in a number of varieties: so-called early and late preemption, symmetric overdetermination, and trumping preemption. Collectively, they place extremely severe constraints on any philosophical account of causation that can successfully handle them. One of the lessons they have to teach, then, is a lesson about the form that a successful analysis of causation must have. There is a deeper lesson, a lesson about the nature of causation itself, or if you like, about the workings of our causal concept. It emerges from close study of the struggles that extant accounts face in trying to provide even remotely attractive treatments of causal preemption. It is this: There appears to be a significant and perhaps intractable tension between one strand in our thinking about causation—a strand that emphasizes the need for causes to be connected to their effects via intervening processes with the right intrinsic character—and another—one that emphasizes the claim that effects in some sense depend on their causes. By the end of this essay, this tension will be vividly apparent.. (shrink)
McDonough Hall, Room 508, 600 New Jersey Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20001, USA; Email: gostin{at}law.georgetown.edu ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> Abstract As a consequence of rapid globalization, the need for a coherent system of global health law and governance has never been greater. This article explores the health hazards posed by contemporary globalization on human health and the consequent urgent need for global health law to facilitate effective multilateral cooperation in advancing the health of (...) populations equitably. It sets forth the first definition of the emerging field of "global health law." After explicating the central features identified in the definition, the article examines the "grand challenges" to reaching the full potential of global health law to advance human health in just and effective ways. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)
The Monty Hall Problem (MHP), a process of two-stage decision making, was presented in atypical form via a custom software game. Differing from the normal three-box MHP, the game added one additional box on-screen for each game—culminating on game 23 with 25 on-screen boxes to initially choose from. A total of 108 participants played 23 games (trials) in one of four conditions; (1) “Vanish” condition—all non-winning boxes totally removed from the screen; (2) “Empty” condition—all non-winning boxes remain on-screen, but (...) with an “empty” label on them; (3) “Steroids” condition—all non-winning boxes removed from the screen, with initially chosen box becoming 25% larger; (4) “Steroids2” condition—all non-winning boxes removed from the screen, box not currently chosen becomes 25% larger. Results indicate second-stage on-screen presence of boxes influences switching; with their absence having the opposite effect. Size manipulation appears to elicit demand characteristics resulting in indeterminate influence. (shrink)
This paper argues that the increasingly dominant new mechanistic approach to scientific explanation, as developed to date, does not shed new light on explanatory practice. First, I systematize the explanatory account, one according to which explanations are mechanistic models that satisfy three desiderata: 1) they must represent causal relations, 2) describe the proper parts, and 3) depict the system at the right ‘level.’ Then I argue that even the most promising attempts to flesh out these constraints have fallen far short. (...) Finally, I offer a diagnosis of the mechanistic project, locating a common source of both its virtues and shortcomings. (shrink)
The Tree of Life has traditionally been understood to represent the history of species lineages. However, recently researchers have suggested that it might be better interpreted as representing the history of cellular lineages, sometimes called the Tree of Cells. This paper examines and evaluates reasons offered against this cellular interpretation of the Tree of Life. It argues that some such reasons are bad reasons, based either on a false attribution of essentialism, on a misunderstanding of the problem of lineage identity, (...) or on a limited view of scientific representation. I suggest that debate about the Tree of Cells and other successors to the traditional Tree of Life should be formulated in terms of the purposes these representations may serve. In pursuing this strategy, we see that the Tree of Cells cannot serve one purpose suggested for it: as an explanation for the hierarchical nature of taxonomy. We then explore whether, instead, the tree may play an important role in the dynamic modeling of evolution. As highly-integrated complex systems, cells may influence which lineage components can successfully transfer into them and how they change once integrated. Only if they do in fact have a substantial role to play in this process might the Tree of Cells have some claim to be the Tree of Life. (shrink)
The interventionist account of causal explanation, in the version presented by Jim Woodward (2003), has been recently claimed capable of buttressing the widely felt—though poorly understood—hunch that high-level, relatively abstract explanations, of the sort provided by sciences like biology, psychology and economics, are in some cases explanatorily optimal. It is the aim of this paper to show that this is mistaken. Due to a lack of effective constraints on the causal variables at the heart of the interventionist causal-explanatory scheme, as (...) presently formulated it is either unable to prefer high-level explanations to low, or systematically overshoots, recommending explanations at so high of a level as to be virtually vacuous. (shrink)
En raison du rôle changeant qu’il joue dans les différents ouvrages de Husserl, le concept de Mannigfaltigkeit afait l’objet de nombreuses interprétations. La présence de ce terme a notamment induit en erreur plusieurs commentateurs, qui ont cru en déterminer l’origine dans les années de Halle, à l’époque où Husserl, ami et collègue de Cantor, rédigeait la Philosophie de l’arithmétique. Mais force est de constater qu’à cette époque Husserl s’était déjà ouvertement éloigné de la définition cantorienne de Mannigfaltigkeit en s’approchant plutôt (...) de Riemann, comme le montrent les nombreuses études et leçons qui lui sont consacrées. La Mannigfaltigkeitslehre de Husserl semble donc plus proche de la topologie que de la théorie des ensembles de Cantor. Ainsi, dans les Prolégomènes, Husserl introduit l’idée d’une Mannigfaltigkeitslehre pure en tant qu’entreprise méta-théorique dont le but est d’étudier les relations entre théories, à savoir la manière par laquelle une théorie est dérivée ou fondée à partir d’une autre. Dès lors, lorsque Husserl affirme que le meilleur exemple d’une telle théorie pure des multiplicités se trouve dans les mathématiques, cela risque donc de prêter à confusion. En effet, la théorie pure des théories ne saurait être simplement identifiée aux mathématiques qui relèvent de la topologie, mais considérée en tant que mathesis universalis. Bien qu’une telle position ne fût sans doute pas entièrement claire en 1900-01, Husserl ne tardera pas à relier explicitement théorie des multiplicités et mathesis universalis.En ce sens, la mathesis universalis, théorie des théories en général, est une discipline formelle, apriori et analytique qui a pour but l’analyse des catégories sémantiques suprêmes et des catégories d’objets qui leur sont corrélées. Dans cet article j’essayerai de comprendre le développement de la notion de Mannigfaltigkeit au sein de la pensée de Husserl (de ses débuts mathématiques jusqu’au rôle central qu’elle jouera plus tard) à partir de l’arrière-fond et du contexte mathématique du développement de la philosophie de Husserl lui-même. (shrink)
On nous a habitué, dans les études husserliennes, à traiter de la ques tion du rapport de la phénoménologie des Recherches logiques à Brentano dans la perspective de la critique que Husserl adresse à la théorie immanen tiste de l’intentionnalité dans cet ouvrage*. Mais cette perspective laisse dans l’ombre un enjeu fondamental de la question qui sous-tend les discussions de Husserl dans la § 15 de la cinquième Recherche et dans l’Appendice au deuxième volume de l’ouvrage, à savoir ce que (...) j’appellerai par commodité la thèse du caractère coextensif de la conscience, de l’inten tionnalité et de la pensée. Je voudrais montrer que la critique que Husserl adresse à cette thèse s’appuie sur la distinction introduite dans ses premiers travaux à Halle entre les actes et les contenus sensibles ou contenus pri maires, plus précisément entre deux classes au sein de l’expérience sensible, la première correspondant aux phénomènes psychiques de Brentano, l’autre, qui n’est pas intention nelle, correspond à ce qu’il est maintenant convenu d’appeler la conscience ou l’expérience phénoménale. Pour ce faire, j’exami nerai la critique de la théorie de la perception de Brentano (uniquement celle de sa Psychologie de 1874) dans la première édition des Recherches logiques ainsi que dans un traité sur la perception publié récemment sous le titre de « Abhandlung über Wahrnehmung von 1898 » qui était vraisemblablement destiné à la deuxième série des Re cherches logiques. (shrink)
