b>. The current essay introduces the guidance theory of representation, according to which the content and intentionality of representations can be accounted for in terms of the way they provide guidance for action. The guidance theory offers a way of fixing representational content that gives the causal and evolutionary history of the subject only an indirect (non-necessary) role, and an account of representational error, based on failure of action, that does not rely on any such notions as proper functions, ideal (...) conditions, or normal circumstances. Moreover, because the notion of error is defined in terms of failure of action, the guidance theory meets the. (shrink)
Feminist philosophy of religion as a subject of study has developed in recent years because of the identification and exposure of explicit sexism in much of the traditional philosophical thinking about religion. This struggle with a discipline shaped almost exclusively by men has led feminist philosophers to redress the problematic biases of gender, race, class and sexual orientation of the subject. Anderson and Clack bring together new and key writings on the core topics and approaches to this growing field. (...) Each essay exhibits a distinctive theoretical approach and appropriate insights from the fields of literature, theology, philosophy, gender and cultural studies. Beginning with a general introduction, part one explores important approaches to the feminist philosophy of religion, including psychoanalytic, poststructualist, postmetaphysical, and epistemological frameworks. In part two the authors survey significant topics including questions of divinity, embodiment, autonomy and spirituality, and religious practice. Supported by explanatory prefaces and an extensive bibliography which is organized thematically, Feminist Philosophy of Religion is an important resource for this new area of study. (shrink)
For the least the last 10 years, there has been growing interest in, and grow- ing evidence for, the intimate relations between more abstract or higher order cognition—such as reasoning, planning, and language use—and the more con- crete, immediate, or lower order operations of the perceptual and motor sys- tems that support seeing, feeling, moving, and manipulating. A sub-field of the larger research program in embodied cognition (Clark, 1997, 1998; Wilson, 2001; Anderson, 2003, 2007d, 2008; Gibbs, 2006), this work (...) has generally pro- ceeded under the banner of grounded cognition, and works to support the claim that thinking is inherently tied to—grounded in—perceiving and acting. Thus, Glenberg and Kaschak (2002) discuss “grounding language in action”; Gallese and Lakoff (2005) argue that concepts are “grounded in the sensory–motor sys- tem;” and Barsalou (1999) at various times talks of “grounding cognition in perception,” “grounding conceptual knowledge in modality-specific systems” (Barsalou et al., 2003), and most recently simply of “grounded cognition” (Barsalou, 2008). (shrink)
In this engaging book, Douglas Anderson begins with the assumption that philosophy—the Greek love of wisdom—is alive and well in American culture. At the same time, professional philosophy remains relatively invisible. Anderson traverses American life to find places in the wider culture where professional philosophy in the distinctively American tradition can strike up a conversation. How might American philosophers talk to us about our religious experience, or political engagement, or literature—or even, popular music? Anderson’s second aim is (...) to find places where philosophy happens in nonprofessional guises—cultural places such as country music, rock’n roll, and Beat literature. He not only enlarges the tradition of American philosophers such as John Dewey and William James by examining lesser-known figures such as Henry Bugbee and Thomas Davidson, but finds the theme and ideas of American philosophy in some unexpected places, such as the music of Hank Williams, Tammy Wynette, and Bruce Springsteen, and the writingsof Jack Kerouac.The idea of “philosophy Americana” trades on the emergent genre of “music Americana,” rooted in traditional themes and styles yet engaging our present experiences. The music is “popular” but not thoroughly driven by economic considerations, and Anderson seeks out an analogous role for philosophical practice, where philosophy and popular culture are co-adventurers in the life of ideas. Philosophy Americana takes seriously Emerson’s quest for the extraordinary in the ordinary and James’s belief that popular philosophy can still be philosophy. (shrink)
"The question for me is how can the human mind occur in the physical universe? We now know that the world is governed by physics. We now understand the way biology nestles comfortably within that. The issue is how will the mind do that as well?" Alan Newell, 4 December 1991, Carnegie Mellon University -/- The argument John Anderson gives in this book was inspired by the passage above, from the last lecture by one of the pioneers of cognitive (...) science. Alan Newell describes what, for him, is the pivotal question of scientific inquiry, and Anderson gives an answer that is emerging from the study of brain and behaviour. -/- Humans share the same basic cognitive architecture with all primates, but they have evolved abilities to exercise abstract control over cognition and process more complex relational patterns. The human cognitive architecture consists of a set of largely independent modules associated with different brain regions. This book discusses in detail how these various modules can combine to produce behaviors as varied as driving a car and solving an algebraic equation, but focuses principally on two of the modules: the declarative and procedural. The declarative module involves a memory system that, moment by moment, attempts to give each person the most appropriate possible window into his or her past. The procedural module involves a central system that strives to develop a set of productions that will enable the most adaptive response from any state of the modules. Newell argued that the answer to his question must take the form of a cognitive architecture, and Anderson organizes his answer around the ACT-R architecture, but broadens it by bringing in research from all areas of cognitive science, including how recent work in brain imaging maps onto the cognitive architecture. (shrink)
Newell (1980; 1990) proposed that cognitive theories be developed in an effort to satisfy multiple criteria and to avoid theoretical myopia. He provided two overlapping lists of 13 criteria that the human cognitive architecture would have to satisfy in order to be functional. We have distilled these into 12 criteria: flexible behavior, real-time performance, adaptive behavior, vast knowledge base, dynamic behavior, knowledge integration, natural language, learning, development, evolution, and brain realization. There would be greater theoretical progress if we evaluated theories (...) by a broad set of criteria such as these and attended to the weaknesses such evaluations revealed. To illustrate how theories can be evaluated we apply these criteria to both classical connectionism (McClelland & Rumelhart 1986; Rumelhart & McClelland 1986b) and the ACT-R theory (Anderson & Lebiere 1998). The strengths of classical connectionism on this test derive from its intense effort in addressing empirical phenomena in such domains as language and cognitive development. Its weaknesses derive from its failure to acknowledge a symbolic level to thought. In contrast, ACT-R includes both symbolic and subsymbolic components. The strengths of the ACT-R theory derive from its tight integration of the symbolic component with the subsymbolic component. Its weaknesses largely derive from its failure, as yet, to adequately engage in intensive analyses of issues related to certain criteria on Newell's list. Key Words: cognitive architecture; connectionism; hybrid systems; language; learning; symbolic systems. (shrink)
How do the ways we argue represent a practical philosophy or a way of life? Are concepts of character and ethos pertinent to our understanding of academic debate? In this book, Amanda Anderson analyzes arguments in literary, cultural, and political theory, with special attention to the ways in which theorists understand ideals of critical distance, forms of subjective experience, and the determinants of belief and practice. Drawing on the resources of the liberal and rationalist tradition, Anderson interrogates the (...) limits of identity politics and poststructuralism while holding to the importance of theory as a form of life. Considering high-profile trends as well as less noted patterns of argument, The Way We Argue Now addresses work in feminism, new historicism, queer theory, postcolonialism, cosmopolitanism, pragmatism, and proceduralism. The essays brought together here--lucid, precise, rigorously argued--combine pointed critique with an appreciative assessment of the productive internal contests and creative developments across these influential bodies of thought. Ultimately, The Way We Argue Now promotes a revitalized culture of argument through a richer understanding of the ways critical reason is practiced at the individual, collective, and institutional levels. Bringing to the fore the complexities of academic debate while shifting the terms by which we assess the continued influence of theory, it will appeal to readers interested in political theory, literary studies, cultural studies, gender studies, and the place of academic culture in society and politics. (shrink)
Verbin, N., Divinely abused: a philosophical perspective on Job and his kin Content Type Journal Article DOI 10.1007/s11153-010-9262-5 Authors A. K. Anderson, Department of Religion, Wofford College, 429 N. Church St., Spartanburg, SC 29303, USA Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047.
Part of understanding the functional organization of the brain is understanding how it evolved. This talk presents evidence suggesting that while the brain may have originally emerged as an organ with functionally dedicated regions, the creative re-use of these regions has played a significant role in its evolutionary development. This would parallel the evolution of other capabilities wherein existing structures, evolved for other purposes, are re-used and built upon in the course of continuing evolutionary development (“exaptation”: Gould & Vrba 1982). (...) There is psychological support for exaptation in cognition (e.g. Cosmides 1989), theoretical reason to expect it (Anderson 2003; in press-a; in press-b) and neuroanatomic evidence that the brain evolved by preserving, extending, and combining existing network components, rather than by generating complex structures de novo (Sporns & Kötter 2004). However, there has been little evidence that integrates these perspectives, bringing such an account of the evolution of cognitive function into the realm of cognitive neuroscience (although see, e.g., Barsalou 1999). (shrink)
'With this scheme, John Anderson joins a very distinguished line of philosophers who have presented us with a set of categories. We have first Plato (the doctrine of Highest Kinds in his dialogue The Sophist), then Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and Samuel Alexander.' - D. M. Armstrong, from the introduction. Space, Time and the Categories presents a unique record of personal influence and inspiration over three generations of philosophers in Australia, England and Scotland. This work is a vitally important text (...) in the history of the development of realist philosophy in Australian universities. With an introduction by Emeritus Professor D M Armstrong whose own student notes are the basis for the text used, this book brings together three of the major figures in the history of Australian philosophy. (shrink)
In barely the space of one generation, Athens was transformed from a conventional city-state into something completely new--a region-state on a scale previously unthinkable. This book sets out to answer a seemingly simple question: How and when did the Athenian state attain the anomalous size that gave it such influence in Greek politics and culture in the classical period? Many scholars argue that Athens's incorporation of Attica was a gradual development, largely completed some two hundred years before the classical era. (...)Anderson, however, suggests that it is not until the late sixth century that we see the first systematic attempts by the Athenian polis to integrate all of Attica. Anderson first takes issue with the prevailing view of Cleisthenes' landmark political reforms of 508-7 b.c., arguing that they were animated by a more comprehensive vision of regional political community in Attica. The Athenians' strengthened the state by establishing institutional mechanisms that would allow inhabitants of the Attic periphery to participate as never before in the life of the center. The creation of a suitable physical setting for the new order was accompanied by religious, military, and symbolic innovations. Regional participation in Athenian affairs was stimulated by encouraging the Attic populace to imagine themselves, for the first time ever, as members of a single, like-minded, self-governing political community. Greg Anderson is Assistant Professor of Classics and History, University of Illinois at Chicago. (shrink)
This essay examines the role of data and program?code archives in making economic research ?replicable.? Replication of published results is recognized as an essential part of the scientific method. Yet, historically, both the ?demand for? and ?supply of? replicable results in economics has been minimal. ?Respect for the scientific method? is not sufficient to motivate either economists or editors of professional journals to ensure the replicability of published results. We enumerate the costs and benefits of mandatory data and code archives, (...) and argue that the benefits far exceed the costs. Progress has been made since the gloomy assessment of Dewald, Thursby and Anderson some 20 years ago in the American Economic Review, but much remains to be done before empirical economics ceases to be a ?dismal science? when judged by the replicability of its published results. (shrink)
The Saami assert that "to move on is better than to stay put" (jot'tit lea buorit go orrot). The senior (in more ways than one) author, Myrdene Anderson, found as a Saami ethnographer that her life history resonated well with this Saami philosophy. In addition, Anderson had adopted from her own heritage the adage that "one can't hit a moving target". The Saami would also be comfortable with that formula. Together, one might minimally collapse and paraphrase both adages (...) as: "a rolling agent invests in the moment". Devika Chawla, the junior author, interrogates Anderson in nuancing this philosophy. To what degree is our research overdetermined and underdetermined by such factors as life history, culture, personality, and narrative reflections? The inquiry proceeds to unpack the opacities and transparencies in semiosic constructions. (shrink)
Heikki Ikäheimo and Arto Laitinen (eds), Recognition and Social Ontology Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 134-137 Authors Sybol Cook Anderson, St. Mary's College of Maryland, USA Journal Critical Horizons: A Journal of Philosophy & Social Theory Online ISSN 1568-5160 Print ISSN 1440-9917 Journal Volume Volume 13 Journal Issue Volume 13, Number 1 / 2012.
In this book Deland S. Anderson traces the origin of the idea, "God is dead," in the philosophy of G.W.F. Hegel. Focusing on issues of language, life, and learning, Anderson presents an integrated perspective on the death of God in Hegel's philosophy as it emerged in the early years at Jena. He argues that Hegel's pronouncement of the death of God was the beginning of his radically innovative system of speculative discourse, which revolutionized not only philosophy byt the (...) wider culture as well. (shrink)
Metaphysics and language: Quine, W. V. O. On the individuation of attributes. Körner, S. On some relations between logic and metaphysics. Marcus, R. B. Does the principle of substitutivity rest on a mistake? Van Fraassen, B. C. Platonism's pyrrhic victory. Martin, R. M. On some prepositional relations. Kearns, J. T. Sentences and propositions.--Basic and combinatorial logic: Orgass, R. J. Extended basic logic and ordinal numbers. Curry, H. B. Representation of Markov algorithms by combinators.--Implication and consistency: Anderson, A. R. Fitch (...) on consistency. Belnap, N. D., Jr. Grammatical propaedeutic. Thomason, R. H. Decidability in the logic of conditionals. Myhill, J. Levels of implication.--Deontic, epistemic, and erotetic logic: Bacon, J. Belief as relative knowledge. Wu, K. J. Believing and disbelieving. Kordig, C. R. Relativized deontic modalities. Harrah, D. A system for erotetic sentences. (shrink)
I assess some of the ways in which Santayana takes philosophy to be a personal, poetic endeavor. In doing so, I also suggest that in some ways his work in the realm of spirit is more of a philosophy of the personal than much of the work of the American pragmatists.
In 1828, G. W. F. Hegel published a critical review of Johann Georg Hamann, a retrospective of the life and works of one of Germany’s most enigmatic and challenging thinkers and writers. While Hegel’s review had enjoyed a central place in Hamann studies since its appearance, Hegel on Hamann is the first English translation of the important work. Philosophers, theologians, and literary critics welcome Anderson’s stunning translation since Hamann is gaining renewed attention, not only as a key figure (...) of German intellectual history, but also as an early forerunner of postmodern thought. Relationships between Enlightenment, Counter Enlightenment, and Idealism come to the fore as Hegel reflects on Hamann’s critiques of his contemporaries Immanuel Kant, Moses Mendelssohn, J. G. Herder, and F. H. Jacobi. Hegel on Hamann also includes an introduction to Hegel’s review by Anderson, as well as an essay on the role of friendship in Hamann’s life, in Hegel’s thought, and in German intellectual culture more broadly. Rounding out the volume are its extensive annotations and bibliography, which facilitate further study of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophy in English and German. This book is essential both for readers of Hegel or Hamann and for those interested in the history of German thought, the philosophy of religion, language and hermeneutics, or friendship as a philosophical category. (shrink)
Certain critics, e.g. Manfred Frank and Hans-Herbert Kögler, claim that Hans-Georg Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics reduces the individual subject to a mere instrument of history and tradition, the latter reproducing themselves through the subject. However, Gadamer also emphasizes the active role of the subject in shaping and creating history and tradition. In this article I argue that the critics mistakenly emphasize a one-sided conception of history. By incorporating both active and passive aspects of the subject, Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics provides the (...) means by which the individual may be conceived more aptly in an interdependent, dialectical relation to their corresponding historical, cultural, and social context. (shrink)
An international team of contributors explore contemporary insights into the work of Georg Lukacs in political theory, aesthetics, ethics and social and ...
The essay discusses the philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel’s theorizing about the individual. Whereas it is typically within the context of the modern metropolis and the mature money economy that Simmel’s ideas have been discussed in the secondary literature, I render those ideas in another light by addressing the ontological and existential issues crucial to his conception of the individual. In Simmel, the individual is divided between the “what” and the “who,” between the qualities which make one something individual (...) and one’s non-repeatable and finite existence which makes one someone singular. I argue that whereas the first dimension can be understood sociologically, in terms of social relations, the latter is not accessible to sociology as such, but must be treated philosophically. Therefore, if we wish to address this duality that lies at the heart of individuality, a “philosophical turn” for sociology is called for. (shrink)
Little is known of Edmund Husserl's direct encounter with Georg Cantor's ideas on Platonic idealism and the abstraction of number concepts during the late 19th century, when Husserl's philosophical orientation changed considerably and definitely. Closely analyzing and comparing the two men's writings during that important time in their intellectual careers, I describe the crucial shift in Husserl's views on psychologism and metaphysical idealism as it relates to Cantor's philosophy of arithmetic. I thus establish connections between their ideas which have (...) been until now been virtually unsuspected and contribute to a better understanding of the development of Husserl's thought and of the philosophical and metaphysical ideas within which Cantor chose to frame his theories. (shrink)
Few have entertained the idea that Georg Cantor, the creator of set theory, might have influenced Edmund Husserl, the founder of the phenomenological movement. Yet an exchange of ideas took place between them when Cantor was at the height of his creative powers and Husserl in the throes of an intellectual struggle during which his ideas were particularly malleable and changed considerably and definitively. Here their writings are examined to show how Husserl's and Cantor's ideas overlapped and crisscrossed in (...) the areas of philosophy and mathematics, arithmetization, abstraction, consciousness and pure logic, psychologism, metaphysical idealism, new numbers, and sets and manifolds. (shrink)
Quine has argued that modal logic began with the sin of confusing use and mention. Anderson and Belnap, on the other hand, have offered us a way out through a strategy of nominalization. This paper reviews the history of Lewis’s early work in modal logic, and then proves some results about the system in which “ A is necessary” is intepreted as “ A is a classical tautology.”.
Anderson-like ontological proofs, studied in this paper, employ contingent identity, free principles of quantification of the 1st order variables and classical principles of quantification of the 2nd order variables. All these theories are strongly complete wrt. classes of modal structures containing families of world-varying objectual domains of the 1st order and constant conceptual domains of the 2nd order. In such structures, terms of the 1st order receive only rigid extensions, which are elements of the union of all 1st order (...) domains. Terms of the 2nd order receive extensions and intensions. Given a family of preselected world-varying objectual domains of the 2nd order, non-rigid extensions of the 2nd order terms belong always to a preselected domain connected with a given world. Rigid intensions of the 2nd order terms are chosen from among members of a conceptual domain of the 2nd order, which is the set of all functions from the set of worlds to the union of all 2nd order preselected domains such that values of these functions at a given world belong to a preselected domain connected with this world. (shrink)
Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Societies , Marcel Mauss describes an archaic mode of human relations, the gift, whose analysis allows us to specify the reasons for our daily exchanges. Georg Simmel considers the same demands from the starting-point of Wechselwirkung (effects of reciprocity), which contains the properties of all human relations. Their research is based on the following question: Is society possible? The authors examine this question based on notions of sacrifice, reciprocity, and duration, which allow (...) them to isolate three conditions necessary for the existence of human relations: the personalization of, the commitment to, and the duration of this bond. Although it does not qualify as a response to the question asked above, the human relation appears as the inevitable question of sociological reasoning, able to stimulate and open new research perspectives. Key Words: anthropology • duration • exchange theory • human relations • Marcel Mauss • philosophy • reciprocity • sacrifice • Georg Simmel • sociology. (shrink)
This paper is concerned with the influence that the set theory of Georg Cantor (1845?1918) bore upon the mathematical logic of Bertrand Russell (1872?1970). In some respects the influence is positive, and stems directly from Cantor's writings or through intermediary figures such as Peano; but in various ways negative influence is evident, for Russell adopted alternative views about the form and foundations of set theory. After an opening biographical section, six sections compare and contrast their views on matters of (...) common interest; irrational numbers, infinitesimals, cardinal and ordinal numbers, the axiom of infinity, the paradoxes, and the axioms of choice. Two further sections compare the two men over more general questions: the role of logic and the philosophy of mathematics. In a final section I draw some conclusions. (shrink)
An argument that Pamela Sue Andersonâs critique of Irigaray commits her to a version of the Ideal Observer Theory, a theory Anderson rejects. This paper was delivered in the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God.
During the first months of 1887, while completing the drafts of his Mitteilungen zur Lehre vom Transfiniten, Georg Cantor maintained a continuous correspondence with Benno Kerry. Their exchange essentially concerned two main topics in the philosophy of mathematics, namely, (a) the concept of natural number and (b) the infinitesimals. Cantor's and Kerry's positions turned out to be irreconcilable, mostly because of Kerry's irremediably psychologistic outlook, according to Cantor at least. In this study, I will examine and reconstruct the main (...) points in the discussion around (a) and (b) and stress some interesting aspects of the philosophical and mathematical thought of Benno Kerry. (shrink)
A well-known Hungarian philosopher, politician, literary and art theorist Georg Lukacs was a notable figure of philosophical thought in XX century. Although he was interested in many problems philosophical-aesthetical matter is the main one in all his works. The problem of human alienation from social forms is outlined in his numerous literary, philosophical, aesthetical works of pre- and post- Marxian periods. The concept of philosophical-aesthetical grounds for overcoming human alienation has been developed in his art from romantic feeling of (...) existential tragedy through the utopian expectancy of “aesthetic ideal” realization to the reliance on being conscious of individual blood nature through dialectic penetration of subjectivity and objectivity in the process of aesthetical perception. Thus he has the unaltered point of view that the art is a particular opposed to alien human nature sphere of being which allows taking away the dual principle of alien forms of human being and its essence. (shrink)
Before I come to Professor Anderson’s objections to the argument in question, I should like to clarify just a few points. The argument that I presented is taken immediately from Mortimer Adler’s presentation of it, so let us call it ‘Adler’s Argument,’ though in fact its origins go all the way back to Aristotle. My reading of Adler’s presentation of the argument was that he gave it in two different forms, one categorical, the other hypothetical. Both forms of the (...) argument, of course, have effectively the same conclusion, which is, in the case of its categorical version, that “concepts are not physical beings” [proposition 3 for Professor Anderson] and, in the case of its hypothetical version, that “A concept is not an act of a bodily organ” [proposition 6 for Professor Anderson]. Now Adler concludes immediately from propositions 3/6 that “the power of conceptual thought is an immaterial power.” I argued in my original article that it was not obvious that this proposition was equivalent to propositions 3/6 and so I presented an additional argument to the bridge the gap [propositions a, b, c and d for Professor Anderson]. Let us call this ‘Casey’s Addendum.’. (shrink)
The aim of this paper is to prove strong completeness theorems for several Anderson-like variants of Gödels theory wrt. classes of modal structures, in which: (i). 1st order terms order receive only rigid extensions in the constant objectual 1st order domain; (ii). 2nd order terms receive non-rigid extensions in preselected world-relative objectual domains of 2nd order and rigid intensions in the constant conceptual 2nd order domain.
This book outlines the realist and pluralist philosophy of John Anderson, Australia's most original thinker. His teaching at Sydney University and his arti6es have deeply influenced Australian intellectual life. Several main themes run through his work, but Anderson never gave an overall account of his views. This is remedied here: exhibiting the range of Anderson's thought from logic, epistemology and theory of mind, to language and social theory, this volume sketches realism as a systematic philosophical position, while (...) showing something of the history of ideas in Australia. (shrink)
Fifteen essays examine the work of German philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer to provide feminist interpretations of his views on science, language, history, ...
The Anderson-Friedman absolute objects project is reviewed. The Jones-Geroch dust 4-velocity counterexample is resolved by eliminating irrelevant structure. Torretti's example involving constant curvature spaces is shown to have an absolute object on Anderson's analysis. The previously neglected threat of an absolute object from an orthonormal tetrad used for coupling spinors to gravity appears resolvable by eliminating irrelevant fields and using a modified spinor formalism. However, given Anderson's definition, GTR itself has an absolute object (as Robert Geroch has (...) observed recently): a change of variables to a conformal metric density and a scalar density shows that the latter is absolute. (shrink)
: The subject of this paper is Georg Ernst Stahl's (1659-1734) reflections on epilepsy. In the German physician's work, the concept of disease is stratified: it is the morbid idea which causes dysfunctions in the animal economy, as well as irregular motion, overabundance and ultimately an alteration of the corporeal humours. In particular, epilepsy is an affection deriving from an altered functioning of the bodily motions, caused by abnormal blood flow, intestinal worms, anatomical defects, foreign bodies, and the passions (...) of the soul. While a certain medical tradition attributed a nervous origin to epilepsy, Stahl, giving it a humoural genesis, openly shows the theoretical premises on which his physiology rests. So, Stahlian physiology appears to be a non-mechanistic, teleological-inspired, hydraulicism. (shrink)
James A. Anderson and Charles Weijer take the wage payment model proposed by Neil Dickert and Christine Grady and extend the analogy of research participation to unskilled wage labor to include just working conditions. Although noble in its intentions, this moral extension generates unsavory outcomes. Most notably, Anderson and Weijer distinguish between two types of research subjects: occasional and professional. The latter, in this case, receives benefits beyond the moral minima in the form of “the right to meaningful (...) work.” The problem is that meaningful work can itself be a form of inducement, and consequently, may in fact increase the incidence of inducement contrary to the intentions of the wage payment model. (shrink)
Taking as our starting point Plato'smetaphor of the doctor as philosopher we reflect on some aspects of the epistemological status of medicine. The framework to this paper is the hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer which shows the paradoxical nature of Western medicine in choosing the body-object as its investigative starting point, while in actual fact dealing with subjects. Gadamer proposes a model of medicine as the art of understanding and dialogue, which is capable of bringing together its various constituent parts, (...) i.e. knowledge, knowing how to do and knowing how to be, in medical practice and in the physician'straining. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the dyadic figure of the physician as Platonic master of the living totality and wounded healer, capable of activating the patient'sself-healing capacity. (shrink)
Douglas R. Anderson's Philosophy Americana reads like a series of rescue attempts: an attempt to rescue academic teaching from institutional and bureaucratic logic; to rescue philosophers such as Bugbee and Royce from their pragmatist critics; to rescue the pragmatists themselves from their would-be champions among the postmodernists; to (in a related move) save Emerson from Cavell; to save country music from the charge that it is either politically retrograde or an experiential dead-end; and to save Kerouac and the Beats (...) from the charge of nihilism or its more enjoyable cousin, hedonism. Anderson connects his chapters through a common theme: the centrality of failure and loss to American culture and the need to both be at home in/with it and to move beyond its self-limiting aspects. Though this rubric may provide us with a clue as to Anderson's temperament as a writer it does not finally provide an adequate frame for the book, which reads more like a book of related essays than... (shrink)
Las criticas a la filosofia moderna, vertidas desde el pensamiento actual, son sobradamente conocidas. Algunas de ellas han querido hacer realidad un proyecto de destrucciön radical. Ahora bien, tal destrucciön solo resultarä verdaderamente eficaz si, como de hecho estä sucediendo, va seguida de propuestas alternativas que se atengan de manera mäs adecuada a la realidad humana y a la estricta tarea de la filosofia. En esta Hnea de contribucion positiva se encuentra, a mi juicio, la particular aportaciön de la hermeneutica (...) filosöfica contemporänea, encaminada a la rehabilitaciön de la razön practica. En esta ponencia se harä menciön especial a la comprensiön de Hans-Georg Gadamer, el pensador alemän fallecido en 2002, que tan decididamente ha marcado el curso de la filosofia actual.Tal rehabilitaciön parece un paso necesario en el camino conducente a una comprensiön mäs acertada de la tarea filosöfica y de su objeto. El reconocimiento de algunos aspectos de la razön, tales como la flnitud o su caräcter situacional, puede contribuir a una vision mäs ajustada de su esencia y posibilidades. Elimina, ademäs, el peligroso riesgo que supone la pretension de lo absolute* e incondicionado. Admitir lo que podriamos denominar los Umites de la razön no significa ineurrir en posiciones relativistas ni eseepticas; constituye, tan solo, un necesario ejercicio de atenimiento a lo real. (shrink)
This article is about the history of logic in Australia. Douglas Gasking (1911?1994) undertook to translate the logical terminology of John Anderson (1893?1962) into that of Ludwig Wittgenstein's (1921) Tractatus. At the time Gilbert Ryle (1900?1976), and more recently David Armstrong, recommended the result to students; but it is reasonable to have misgivings about Gasking as a guide to either Anderson or Wittgenstein. The historical interest of the debate Gasking initiated is that it yielded surprisingly little information about (...)Anderson's traditional (syllogistic or Aristotelian) logic and its relation to classical (first-order predicate or Russellian) logic, the ostensible topic; but the materials now exist to interpret Anderson's logic in classical logic, possibly as an algebra of classes. This would be of little interest to contemporary logicians, but it might shed some light on Anderson's philosophy. (shrink)
In this paper, I reflect on a number of issues raised in Kevin Carnahan’s “Religion, and not just Religious Reasons, in the Public Square: A Consideration of Robert Audi’s and Nicholas Wolterstorff’s Religion in the Public Square” and Eric A. Anderson’s “Religiously Conservative Citizens and the Ideal of Conscientious Engagement: A Comment on Wolterstorff and Eberle.” In response to Carnahan, I argue that recent discussions of the proper public role of religious reason do not depend on an objectionable conception (...) of religion. I also respond to Anderson's concern that my “ideal of conscientious engagement” is an insufficiently robust alternative to public reason liberalism. (shrink)
This collection of essays presents a systematic and up-to-date survey of the main aspects of Georg Henrik von Wright's philosophy, tracing the general ...
Dany Rodier | : Cet article propose une analyse détaillée des considérations de Hans-Georg Gadamer sur l’herméneutique théologique proprement dite. Pensée dans et pour la foi chrétienne, la conception de l’herméneutique théologique qu’il met en avant se veut essentiellement une herméneutique du texte biblique. Les réflexions de Gadamer sur ce thème nous conduisent cependant tout droit dans sa théorie de la littérature. La question directrice devient celle de la nature du texte religieux (entendons : du texte biblique, reçu en (...) son unité canonique) en tant que texte éminent, dont la structure singulière est mise en relief au moyen d’une éclairante comparaison avec les textes poétique, philosophie et juridique. L’Écriture, en tant qu’elle répond à la structure textuelle de la promesse, exige du lecteur une forme particulière d’appropriation qui trouve sa réalisation exemplaire dans la prédication. Toutefois, contre une lecture (Ommen, Eberhard, etc.) qui insiste sur la discontinuité de l’herméneutique théologique de Gadamer avec sa propre oeuvre philosophique, je soutiens la thèse de leur foncière cohérence. | : This paper offers a detailed analysis of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s considerations on theological hermeneutics proper. Thought within and for the Christian faith, the conception of theological hermeneutics he puts forward is mainly understood as a hermeneutics of the biblical text. However, Gadamer’s reflections on this theme bring us straight to his theory of literature. The guiding question becomes that about the nature of the religious text (meaning : the biblical text, received in its canonical unity) as eminent text, which peculiar structure is thrown into relief through an enlightening comparison with the poetical, the philosophical and the legal text. The Scripture, in that it has the textual structure of a promise, requires from the reader a particular form of appropriation, which finds its exemplary fulfillment in preaching. Against a reading that emphasizes discontinuity between Gadamer’s theological hermeneutics and his own philosophical work (Ommen, Eberhard, etc.) I defend the thesis of their fundamental coherence. (shrink)
In my response to Kevin Carnahan, I explain the concept of religion that I have been working with in my writings on the place of religious reasons in public political discourse. While acknowledging that religion is often privatized, my concern has been with religion as a way of life. It is religion so understood that raises the most serious issues concerning the role of religion in public discourse. In my response to Erik A. Anderson, I go beyond what I (...) have previously said about the role of religious reasons in public discourse. As an alternative to Rawlsian public reason, I argue that the essence of liberal democracy is that every citizen is to have equal political voice. I go on to consider what it is to exercise one’s equal political voice as a moral engagement. (shrink)
Why these lectures? -- Hegel between the ancients and the moderns -- Divisions and topics in philosophy of subjective spirit -- Anthropology : slumbering spirit -- Animal magnetism and clairvoyance -- Dementia -- Phenomenology of spirit -- Reciprocal recognition, spirit, and the concept of right -- Recognition and self-actualization -- Psychology : theoretical spirit -- Spirit for itself : from the found to the posited -- Imagination, sign, memory -- Mechanical memory and transcendental deduction -- Psychology : practical spirit : (...) the synthesis of Kant and Aristotle -- The formalism of the psychology -- Unresolved issues : the unity of the philosophy of spirit -- Notes on the text and translation -- Introduction -- Anthropology -- Natural soul -- The dreaming soul -- Sentience -- Self-feeling -- Habit -- Actual soul -- Phenomenology of spirit -- Consciousness as such -- Self-consciousness -- Reason -- Psychology -- Theoretical spirit -- Intuition -- Representation -- Thought -- Practical spirit. (shrink)
Against the background of the recent debate on the atlantic republican tradition initiated by John G. Pocock and Quentin Skinner the essay tries to reconstruct the republican discourse in the German Empire of the 1790s. It claims that we find there the innovation of a cosmopolitan republicanism which becomes radicalized on its way from Kant to Schlegel, and that Georg Forster is the decisive catalyst for this radicalization.
The medical journal Medicinische Reform. Eine Wochenschrift edited by Rudolf Virchow and Rudolf Leubuscher in Berlin from July 1848 to June 1849 was in spite of its short life-time one of the most important and influential periodicals during the time of German revolution and medical reforms in the middle of the 19th century. The paper gives a view of the history of edition of this ephemeral but outstanding journal as an essential source for our knowledge of the development of social (...) medicine in Germany. Moreover it can be seen as an example for a new kind of modern scientific journals. Printing the Medicinische Reform through the years of revolution in 1848/49 was on the merits of the publishing house of Georg Reimer. In 1849 Virchow himself stopped editing the paper. Several reprints show the importance of the periodical for the history of siences (1879 Berlin, partial by Virchow; 1975 Hildesheim; 1983 Berlin). The article ends with a first complete publication of the correspondence between Virchow and Reimer about the weekly Medicinische Reform. (shrink)
In a recent article in this journal, Robert Anderson criticizes my position in the Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 2004, whereinI argued for the justification of certain kinds of actions even though they involve the killing of innocents. He does not adequately assess the salient features of thekinds of cases I was defending, and he ignores my use of Philippa Foot’s distinction between the demands of justice and charity in characterizing the morally relevant principles involved in such (...) cases. I argued that the actions involving the killing of the innocent as a side effect in such cases is not the kind of killing which justice prohibits because in such cases there is both no one who is killed unjustly and yet there are lives which charity clearly demands that we save. In this paper, I respond to Anderson’s criticism of my 2004 paper. (shrink)
In a recent discussion, Susan Anderson argues that Alvin Plantinga’s version of the Free Will Defense has not shown that the existence of God is neither precluded nor rendered improbable by the existence of evil. She grants Plantinga that God cannot control free actions and that only free actions have moral worth but denies that this entails that God cannot insure a world containing only moral good. God could do so, she argues, simply by taking away the freedom of (...) persons when he foresees they would sin if allowed to act freely. Anderson also believes that Plantinga must assume that God is a benevolent being who attempts to bring about the greatest net good if he is to justify the evil we experience, both she argues that such an assumption is dubious. I argue that both of these arguments contain fundamental misinterpretations of Plantinga’s Free Will Defense and, accordingly, that neither presents a serious objection to it. (shrink)
RMO -> is the result of adding the ‘mingle principle’ (viz. A-> (A -> A)) to Anderson and Belnap’s implicative logic of relevance R->. The aim of this paper is to provide all possible axiomatizations with independent axioms of RMO -> formulable with Anderson and Belnap’s list extended with three characteristic minglish principles.
My original dilemma claimed that the transcendental argument for God’s existence is either superfluous (if the goal is to establish the actual existence of God) or inadequate (if the goal is to establish the necessary existence of God). In this rejoinder to James Anderson, I begin by noting some important points of agreement. I then clarify the differences between pattern-I, pattern-II, and pattern-III theistic arguments. I comment on each of Anderson’s three proposed lines of response and defend by (...) original dilemma, on the assumption that TAG is formulated as a pattern-II argument. (shrink)
O espanto causado pelo “simples” existir guina agora rumo à compreensão e não mais ao conhecimento, conceito carregado pela tradição filosófica que parece não mais responder às questões de nossa época. A busca por este novo tipo de saber nada mais é do que a ânsia por lidarmos com nossas questões próprias no cotidiano, sendo no mundo com outros. Assim, a filosofia de Hans-Georg Gadamer se desenvolve em suas bases hermeneutas e fenomenológicas, buscando a compreensão de uma ontologia que (...) perpassa a vida prática. O presente artigo se compromete com a estrutura basilar necessária para a compreensão de sua hermenêutica filosófica e dos principais conceitos que compõem sua intrincada conjuntura, da qual devemos nos apropriar para que tenhamos novos horizontes de sentido abertos mediante nossas pretensões. A explicitação dessa estrutura no texto, como veremos, será a própria explicitação da fusão de horizontes (conceito fundamental para se compreender Gadamer), o que nos direciona à um novo âmbito de investigações no limiar ético-ontológico. (shrink)
Some theorists argue that rather than advocating a principle of educational equality as a component of a theory of justice in education, egalitarians should adopt a principle of educational adequacy. This paper looks at two recent attempts to show that adequacy, not equality, constitutes justice in education. It responds to the criticisms of equality by claiming that they are either unsuccessful or merely show that other values are also important, not that equality is not important. It also argues that a (...) principle of educational adequacy cannot be all there is to justice in education. (shrink)
In 1885, Georg Cantor published his review of Gottlob Frege's Grundlagen der Arithmetik . In this essay, we provide its first English translation together with an introductory note. We also provide a translation of a note by Ernst Zermelo on Cantor's review, and a new translation of Frege's brief response to Cantor. In recent years, it has become philosophical folklore that Cantor's 1885 review of Frege's Grundlagen already contained a warning to Frege. This warning is said to concern the (...) defectiveness of Frege's notion of extension. The exact scope of such speculations varies and sometimes extends as far as crediting Cantor with an early hunch of the paradoxical nature of Frege's notion of extension. William Tait goes even further and deems Frege 'reckless' for having missed Cantor's explicit warning regarding the notion of extension. As such, Cantor's purported inkling would have predated the discovery of the Russell-Zermelo paradox by almost two decades. In our introductory essay, we discuss this alleged implicit (or even explicit) warning, separating two issues: first, whether the most natural reading of Cantor's criticism provides an indication that the notion of extension is defective; second, whether there are other ways of understanding Cantor that support such an interpretation and can serve as a precisification of Cantor's presumed warning. (shrink)
Gadamer sought to distinguish his philosophical hermeneutics from theologically driven hermeneutics. Perhaps because of that, even though he has influenced contemporary theological hermeneutics, he has very little to say about theology or religion. What he does say about religion is drawn from a reductive interpretation of religion as myths meant that posit something transcendent to help us cope with our awareness of our death. Here I explain why he thought Christianity was such a paradoxical religion, how his views might be (...) useful for philosophers of religion and how they have been useful for theologians. I end with a critical discussion of Nicholas Wolterstorff's interpretation of Gadamer's views. (shrink)
In his 1972 essay “The Incapacity for Conversation” (“Die Unfähigkeit zum Gespräch”) Gadamer takes up the question of whether changes in society have made it such that we are losing our ability to participate in dialogue. By the end of the essay he argues that this is not the case and that the claim that someone is incapable of dialogue is merely an excuse for not listening to the other person. Over the course of the essay Gadamer provides a clarification (...) of what exactly counts as a conversation and of how conversation is connected to friendship. (shrink)
The article shows the affinity of Simmel's formal sociology with Husserl's notion of eidetic science. This thesis is demonstrated by the corroboration of Simmel's revision of neo-Kantian epistemology for sociology with Husserl's phenomenology, and the parallel discussion of Simmel and Husserl concerning cognitive levels and exact and morphological eide. Simmel's analysis of dyads is explored as an exemplar of his eidetic insights. An important consequence of this demonstration is the vindication establishing the scientific legitimacy of Simmel's methodology regarding the sociology (...) of the forms of association. Woven throughout is discussion concerning the doctrine of the complementarity of eidetic and empirical science. Simmel's methodology is shown to have been ahead of its time through conjoining these two modes of scientific investigation. (shrink)
I. EITHER-OR? NEITHER! The main features of the Enlightenment were the same everywhere: the autonomy of reason, the solidarity of intellectual culture, ...
John McDowell claims that the propositional attitudes, and our conceptual abilities in general, are not appropriate topics for inquiry of the sort that is done in natural science. He characterizes the natural sciences as making phenomena intelligible in terms of their place in the realm of laws of nature. He claims that this way of making phenomena intelligible contrasts crucially with essential features of our understanding of propositional attitudes and conceptual abilities. In this article I show that scientific work of (...) the sort McDowell claims cannot be done is in fact being done, and that this work presents strong evidence that there are psychological laws. The research I discuss is that by the psychologist Norman H. Anderson and his colleagues. I also argue that the considerations McDowell presents in defense of his claims do not constitute a significant challenge to the research that Anderson and his colleagues have done. It will be noted in the article that Anderson's work is relevant not just to McDowell's writings, but also to several much discussed issues in philosophy of cognitive science: the above two issues of whether there can be a science of ordinary psychological phenomena, higher cognition, comparable to that of the natural sciences and whether such a science would present laws, and also the issue of whether in such a science, and its laws, notions of folk psychology would play crucial constitutive roles. Anderson's work presents strong grounds for affirmative answers to all of these questions. (shrink)
