H.B.G. Casimir's life, interests and works are intertwined with the important developments that have taken place in physics during this century. This book was compiled by his friends and admirers in honour of his 80th birthday and concentrates mainly on Casimir's achievements in the field of physics, though without ignoring the peripheral areas of the history and philosophy of physics in which he was greatly interested. The book is divided into four parts. Part I describes Casimir's teachers, (...) Ehrenfest, Bohr and Pauli, and will be of general interest due to the key role which these physicists played in modern developments. The articles do give new facts and provide new insights into the history of modern physics. Part II consists of essays on recent developments in various areas of physics in which Casimir has taken an active interest, such as the modern concept of time, statistical foundations of electrodynamic theory and field theory. The subjects covered in Part III have been selected because of Casimir's efforts in the industrial research area of physics. They cover past, present and future expectations in research. (shrink)

This collection of original essays examines the relationship between women and religion in the history of political thought broadly conceived. This theme is a remarkably revealing lens through which to view the Western philosophical and poetical traditions that have culminated in secular and egalitarian modern society. The essays also give highly analytical accounts of the manifold and intricate relationships between religion, family and public life in the history of political thought, and the various ways in which these relationships have manifested (...) themselves in pagan, Jewish, Christian and post-Christian settings. (shrink)

Book Information The Weight of Finitude: On the Philosophical Question of God. By Ludwig Heyde. State University of New York Press. Albany. 1999. Pp. 177 + xviii. Paperback, US$17.95.

Joachim Schulte’s introduction provides a distinctive and masterful account of the full range of Wittgenstein’s thought. It is concise but not compressed, substantive but not overloaded with developmental or technical detail, informed by the latest scholarship but not pedantic. Beginners will find it accessible and seasoned students of Wittgenstein will appreciate it for the illuminating overview it provides.

Breda, H. L. v. Laudatio für Ludwig Landgreb und Eugen Fink.--Farber, M. The goal of a complete philosophy of experience.--Sinha, D. Phenomenology.--Biemel, W. Reflexionen zur Lebenswelt-Thematik.--Cho, K. K. Über das Bekannte oder nachdenkliches zum Problem der Vorstruktur.--Fink, E. Weltbezug und Seinsverständnis.--Gurwitsch, A. On the systematic unity of the sciences.--Patocka, M. J. Zur ältesten Systematik der Seelenlehre.--Volkmann-Schluck, K.-H. Das Ethos der Demokratie.--Brand, G. Zur mythologischen Rationalität der Praxis.--Pažanin, A. Das Problem der Geschichte bei Husserl, Hegel und Marx.--Groothoff, H.-H. Phänomenologie und (...) Pädagogik. (shrink)

Geleltwort, von L. Landgrebe.--Geschichte und Ünderliefreung, von G. Miyake.--Wahrhelt und Schn̈heit, von K. H. Volkmann-Schluck,--Georg Büchner: Das endlose Drama, von . G. Baumann.--Die Lehre von der Vergangenheit der Kunst, von, J. Patǒcka.--Der Sinn der künstlerischen Revolte, von D. Pejović.--Das problem der Konkretisierung der Transzendentalität, von E. Heintel.--Ontologische Erfahrung. von J. Lohmann.--Philosophie in Orient und Okzident, von S. Moser.--.

In A General View of Positivism French philosopher Auguste Comte gives an overview of his social philosophy known as Positivism. Comte, credited with coining the term 'sociology' and one of the first to argue for it as a science, is concerned with reform, progress and the problem of social order in society. In this English edition of the work, published in 1865, he addresses the practical problems of implementing his philosophy or doctrine, as he also refers to Positivism, into society. (...) He believes that society evolves through a series of stages that are ruled by social laws and culminate in a superior form of social life. During this reorganisation of society, which will find its greatest supporters among women and the working class, a 'new moral power' will emerge. Under the motto 'love, order and progress' Comte wishes humanism to replace organised religion as the object of spiritual worship. (shrink)

In the two related works in this volume, Bentham offers a detailed critique of William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England. He provides important refelctions on the nature of law, and more particularly on the nature of customary and statute law, and on judicial interpretation.

Tragic allusions to contemporary events are not, as a rule, taken on trust, but the Eumenides of Aeschylus provides three notable exceptions. The view that the Athenian-Argive alliance of 462 B.C. is reflected in Eum. 287–91, 667–73, anc^ 762–74 has won wide acceptance, although no systematic theory of the relation between the drama and the historical context has yet been advanced. If demonstration in detail has been wanting, the view seems to be supported by three general considerations. In the first (...) place, the emphasis put on the dramatic declaration of friendship exceeds the requirements of the plot: the acquittal of Orestes rather than his gesture of gratitude to Athens is the natural climax of this part of the drama, 1–777, and yet the gesture has been considered important enough to be heralded twice before it is actually made in 762–74. Secondly, Orestes' declaration is not limited in duration but binding on his successors in perpetuity; it seems, therefore, to have been deliberately formulated in order to react upon historical fact. Thirdly, in instituting the Council of the Areopagus and dwelling upon the importance of its constitutional function , Aeschylus seems to have gone out of his way to pass judgement of some sort on the recent reforms of Ephialtes and Pericles; the theory that he has also appreciated their foreign policy on the tragic stage is thus relieved of some of the obvious practical objections and made inherently more plausible. (shrink)

Tragic allusions to contemporary events are not, as a rule, taken on trust, but the Eumenides of Aeschylus provides three notable exceptions. The view that the Athenian-Argive alliance of 462 B.C. is reflected in Eum. 287–91, 667–73, anc^ 762–74 has won wide acceptance, although no systematic theory of the relation between the drama and the historical context has yet been advanced. If demonstration in detail has been wanting, the view seems to be supported by three general considerations. In the first (...) place, the emphasis put on the dramatic declaration of friendship exceeds the requirements of the plot: the acquittal of Orestes rather than his gesture of gratitude to Athens is the natural climax of this part of the drama, 1–777, and yet the gesture has been considered important enough to be heralded twice before it is actually made in 762–74. Secondly, Orestes' declaration is not limited in duration but binding on his successors in perpetuity; it seems, therefore, to have been deliberately formulated in order to react upon historical fact. Thirdly, in instituting the Council of the Areopagus and dwelling upon the importance of its constitutional function, Aeschylus seems to have gone out of his way to pass judgement of some sort on the recent reforms of Ephialtes and Pericles; the theory that he has also appreciated their foreign policy on the tragic stage is thus relieved of some of the obvious practical objections and made inherently more plausible. (shrink)

This anthology collects readings from important nineteenth and early twentieth century figures who contributed to the philosophy of science before that discipline emerged in the last 40 years as an area of study in its own right. It begins with a seldom-read selection by Kant ) and ends with a selection from Bridgman's The Logic of Modern Physics. Each selection is preceded by a three-page biography of the author together with a bibliography of his major writings and some writings on (...) his work. Many familiar names appear, e.g., Mill, Mach, Pearson, Hertz, Poincare, Peirce, Duhem, Russell, Whitehead, and Campbell. But there are others represented whose actual writings are not so familiar to many students of the philosophy of science, e.g., J. F. W. Herschel, William Whewell, Hermann Von Helmholtz, J. B. Stallo, Emile Boutroux and William Ostwald. With the exception of Stallo, the writings of these figures have been long out of print. In one case, a selection from Ludwig Boltzmann on the nature of mechanics, the editor has translated the selected passage into English expressly for this volume. A wide range of topics are considered in the readings: physical laws, theories, induction, observation, space, time, and others; but, as the nature of the case requires, the focus of attention is on classical science. For this reason most existing courses in the philosophy of science could use this collection only as a supplementary text. But it would function well in such a role. Moreover, specialized courses in the history of philosophical thinking about science will find it very useful.--R. H. K. (shrink)

In this critical assessment of postmodernism, philosopher Jerry H. Gill points out that, however insightful the critiques of the postmodernists, they did little or nothing to offer constructive approaches to overcoming the impasse that their criticism of modernism created. Gill turns to an earlier generation of twentieth-century philosophers who anticipated later postmodern trends but offered alternative approaches to the dilemmas of modernism regarding the nature of reality, knowledge, and language. In four major chapters, Gill shows how Alfred North Whitehead, (...) class='Hi'>Ludwig Wittgenstein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Michael Polanyi reinterpreted reality, meaning, the mind-body problem, and knowledge in refreshingly new ways. Essentially, these four thinkers provide us with a deeper understanding of postmodernism by viewing the nature of reality as interactive and open-ended, meaning as contextual and functional, the role of the body as integral and axial, and knowledge as dynamic and tacit. To tie together the main themes of his study, Gill concludes with a brief analysis of the key insights offered by J. L. Austin, especially his "linguistic phenomenology.". (shrink)

My object in this paper is to suggest a few reflections on some themes in Bentham's work which others as well as I have noted, without perhaps developing them as fully as might with advantage be done. There will be nothing like full development in the limited compass of what is said here, but what is said may at least indicate possible directions for further exploration. The greater part of the paper will be concerned with the notion of natural authority; (...) but I want to begin by taking a broader, though no doubt rather superficial, view of the role in Bentham's thinking of the concepts of ‘nature’ and ‘the natural’. (shrink)

The object of this article is to examine, with the work of Jeremy Bentham as the principal example, one strand in the complex pattern of European social theory during the second half of the eighteenth century. This was of course the period not only of the American and French revolutions, but of the culmination of the movements of thought constituting what we know as the Enlightenment. Like all great historical episodes, the Enlightenment was both the fulfilment of long-established processes and (...) the inauguration of new processes of which the fulfilment lay in the future. Thus the seminal ideas of seventeenth-century rationalism realized and perhaps exhausted their potentialities in the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. The ideas with which this article is concerned, however—conveniently grouped and labelled as the ideas of utilitarianism—only began to achieve systematic development in these later decades of the eighteenth century. Within that period—during the first half and more of Bentham's long life—attempts to apply those ideas to the solution of social problems met largely with failure and frustration. Yet unrealized potentialities remained, the realization of which was reserved for a time when the world of the philosophes no longer existed. The movements for social and political reform which have played so large a part in modern history since the French Revolution may be judged in widely differing ways; but whatever the verdict, these movements surely cannot be understood without due consideration of that part of their origins which lies in eighteenth-century utilitarianism. (shrink)

One of the earliest and best-known of Bentham's works, the Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation sets out a profound and innovative philosophical argument. This definitive edition includes both the late H. L. A. Hart's classic essay on the work and a new introduction by F. Rosen.