This paper provides a historical reevaluation of the originality and implications of Avempace's critique of Aristotle's causal explanation of the motion of projectiles. It also offers a serious revision of the place which has usually been assigned to Avempace in the history of science. The views regarding projectiles defended in Avempace's Arabic commentary are in sharp opposition to the anti-Aristotelian Avempace that was known in the Medieval West through Averroes. Avempace's commentary reveals only a moderate critic of Aristotle, a critic (...) who did not, in any case, break with the master, and who, therefore, did not even go as far as Philoponus in creating a new and more profound theory of projectile motion. (shrink)

Our great leader and mentor Chairman Mao repeatedly taught us that we must build China into a modern socialist power in a comparatively short period. In accordance with Chairman Mao's instructions at the Third and Fourth National People's Congresses, our respected and beloved Premier Chou called for building China into a socialist power before the end of the century, which would mean implementing the modernization of agriculture, industry, national defense, science and technology in order to put our national economy among (...) those of the advanced countries in the world. He pointed out that we must break through the barrier to the modernization of science and technology to ensure the modernization of agriculture, industry and national defense. Obviously, without modern science and technology, there would be no modern agriculture, industry or national defense. According to Chairman Mao's teaching that "theory should be in the vanguard of practice," Premier Chou specifically pointed out, "Natural science researchers should link research with practice and enable the research work to head up production and construction." His directive expounded the dialectical relations between natural science and the practice of production and emphasized the impetus given by natural science to production. With the criminal aims of usurping the Party, seizing power, and restoring capitalism, the "Gang of Four," the root of all evils, openly acted against Chairman Mao's consistent teachings, slandered Premier Chou's directive as "revisionism" and the "theory that science determines everything," and minimized and denied the role of natural science in socialist construction. In areas and organizations where the "Gang of Four" seized the Party and political power, scientific research programs were discarded, the scientific research force was dismantled, people's thought was confused, and our task of socialist construction was seriously damaged. In order to accelerate the modernization of science and technology and improve scientific research work, we should make sweeping criticisms of the fallacies spread by the "Gang of Four," clarify the thought confused by it, rectify the theories with which it tampered, and offset the damage caused by it. (shrink)

In this paper I put forward a thesis regarding the anatomy of “cultural evolution”, in particular the way the “cultural” transmission of behavioral patterns came to piggyback, through us humans, on the transmission effected by genetic evolution. I claim that what grounds and supports this new kind of transmission is a complex behavioral “meta-pattern” that makes it possible to grasp a pattern as something that “ought to be”, i.e. that transforms the pattern into what we can call a rule. (Here (...) I draw especially on the philosophical insights of Wilfrid Sellars.) In this way I interlink empirical research done in evolution theory with some more speculative philosophical theories, thus shedding new light on the former and adding an empirical footing to the latter. (shrink)

This paper aims to shed light on an underexplored aspect of Gilbert Ryle’s interest in the notion of “knowing-how”. It is argued that in addition to his motive of discounting a certain theory of mind, his interest in the notion also stemmed (and perhaps stemmed more deeply) from two ethical interests: one concerning his own life as a philosopher and whether the philosopher has any meaningful task, and one concerning the ancient issue of whether virtue is a kind of (...) knowledge. It is argued that Ryle saw know-how as crucial in both respects and, also, that he continued to be interested in these ethical issues throughout his career. (shrink)

This article discusses the way in which a group of contemporary cultural theorists in whose work we see a “new materialism” (a term coined by Braidotti and DeLanda) at work constitutes a philosophy of difference by traversing the dualisms that form the backbone of modernist thought. Continuing the ideas of Lyotard and Deleuze they have set themselves to a rewriting of all possible forms of emancipation that are to be found. This rewriting exercise involves a movement in thought that, in (...) the words of Bergson, can be termed “pushing dualism to an extreme.” By this movement, Deleuze has stated, “difference is pushed to the limit,” that is, using Colebrook’s words, “difference is shown differing.” The article addresses the ways in which modernity’s dualisms (structured by a negative relation between terms) are traversed, and how a new conceptualization, and ontology , of difference (structured by an affirmative relation) comes to be constituted along the way. New materialism leaves behind all prioritizations (implicitly) involved in modern dualist thinking since a difference structured by affirmation does not work with predetermined relations (e.g., between mind and body) nor does it involve a (counter-)hierarchy between terms. The article makes explicit the methodology of the current-day rise of non-dualist thought, both in terms of its non-classificatory mode of (Deleuzian) thinking and in terms of the theory of the time of thought thus effectuated (Lyotard’s notion of ‘rewriting modernity’ is not a post-modernism). Throughout the article we will engage with an example in order to demonstrate the ontology that is being practiced following this methodology: How does a new (feminist) materialism traverse the sexual dualisms that structure modernist (feminist) thinking? This example also shows how a feminist post-modernism (found in the canonical work of Butler) has remained dualist, and what makes new materialism “new.” Freed from a dualist methodology, the modernist emancipatory project comes to full fruition in new materialism. (shrink)

This article discusses the way in which a group of contemporary cultural theorists in whose work we see a “new materialism” (a term coined by Braidotti and DeLanda) at work constitutes a philosophy of difference by traversing the dualisms that form the backbone of modernist thought. Continuing the ideas of Lyotard and Deleuze they have set themselves to a rewriting of all possible forms of emancipation that are to be found. This rewriting exercise involves a movement in thought that, in (...) the words of Bergson, can be termed “pushing dualism to an extreme.” By this movement, Deleuze has stated, “difference is pushed to the limit,” that is, using Colebrook’s words, “difference is shown differing.” The article addresses the ways in which modernity’s dualisms (structured by a negative relation between terms) are traversed, and how a new conceptualization, and ontology, of difference (structured by an affirmative relation) comes to be constituted along the way. New materialism leaves behind all prioritizations (implicitly) involved in modern dualist thinking since a difference structured by affirmation does not work with predetermined relations (e.g., between mind and body) nor does it involve a (counter-)hierarchy between terms. The article makes explicit the methodology of the current-day rise of non-dualist thought, both in terms of its non-classificatory mode of (Deleuzian) thinking and in terms of the theory of the time of thought thus effectuated (Lyotard’s notion of ‘rewriting modernity’ is not a post-modernism). Throughout the article we will engage with an example in order to demonstrate the ontology that is being practiced following this methodology: How does a new (feminist) materialism traverse the sexual dualisms that structure modernist (feminist) thinking? This example also shows how a feminist post-modernism (found in the canonical work of Butler) has remained dualist, and what makes new materialism “new.” Freed from a dualist methodology, the modernist emancipatory project comes to full fruition in new materialism. (shrink)

Critical Theory constitutes one of the major intellectual traditions of the twentieth century, and is centrally important for philosophy, political theory, aesthetics and theory of art, the study of modern European literatures and music, the history of ideas, sociology, psychology, and cultural studies. In this volume an international team of distinguished contributors examines the major figures in Critical Theory, including Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Benjamin, and Habermas, as well as lesser known but important thinkers such as Pollock (...) and Neumann. The volume surveys the shared philosophical concerns that have given impetus to Critical Theory throughout its history, while at the same time showing the diversity among its proponents that contributes so much to its richness as a philosophical school. The result is an illuminating overview of the entire history of Critical Theory in the twentieth century, an examination of its central conceptual concerns, and an in-depth discussion of its future prospects. (shrink)

Where does the impetus towards ethical theory come from? What drives humans to make values explicit, consistent, and discursively justifiable? This paper situates the demand for ethical theory in human life by identifying the practical needs that give rise to it. Such a practical derivation puts the demand in its place: while finding a home for it in the public decision-making of modern societies, it also imposes limitations on the demand by presenting it as scalable and context-sensitive. (...) This differentiates strong forms of the demand calling for theory from weaker forms calling for less, and contexts where it has a place from contexts where it is out of place. In light of this, subjecting personal deliberation to the demand turns out to involve a trade-off. (shrink)

Sceptics of an Africanisation of education have often lambasted its proponents for re-inventing something that has very little, if any, role to play in contemporary African society. The contributors to this issue hold a different view and, through the papers included in this issue, arguments are proffered in defence of an Africanisation of education on the African continent, particularly through the notion of ubuntu.Since the 1960s, Africana philosophy as an instance of Africanisation has emerged as a ‘gathering’ notion for philosophical (...) endeavours practised by professional philosophers and intellectuals, either of African descent, including those living in the diaspora, or those of non-African descent but who are devoted to matters pertaining to African and African-descended individuals and communities (Outlaw, 2004, p. 90). These philosophical endeavours mostly relate to a ‘critical analysis and reflective evaluation of the evidence and reasoning’ that constitute the beliefs, customs, values, traditions, oral literature (parables, proverbs, poetry, songs and myth), languages and histories of African and African-descended peoples (Hallen, 2004, p. 105). The articles presented at this symposium analytically explore ideas and practices central to Africana philosophy, their underlying rationales, and how these forms of philosophical inquiry can potentially engender defensible educative relationships. (shrink)

The impetus for this volume developed from the 1982 University of Western Ontario Learnability Workshop, which was organized by the editors and sponsored by that University's Department of Philosophy and the Centre for Cognitive Science. The volume e~plores the import of learnability theory for contemporary linguistic theory, focusing on foundational learning-theoretic issues associated with the parametrized Government-Binding framework. Written by prominent re searchers in the field, all but two of the eight contributions are pre viously unpublished. The (...) editor's introduction provides an overview that interrelates the separate papers and elucidates the foundational issues addressed by the volume. Osherson, Stob, and Weinstein's "Learning Theory and Natural Language" first appeared in Cognition ; Matthews's "The Plausi bility of Rationalism" was published in the Journal of Philosophy. The editors would like to thank the publishers for permission to reprint these papers. Mr. Marin Marinov assisted with the preparation of the indices for the volume. VB ROBERT 1. MATTHEWS INTRODUCTION: LEARNABILITY AND LINGUISTIC THEORY 1. INTRODUCTION Formal learning theory, as the name suggests, studies the learnability of different classes of formal objects under different formal models of learning. The specification of such a model, which specifies a learning environment, a learn ing strategy, and a criterion for successful learning, determines a class of formal objects, namely, the class that can be acquired to the level of the specified success criterion by a learner implementing the specified strategy in the specified enviroment. (shrink)

Aristotle's theory of human action is an impressive achievement that has served philosophy well for more than two thousand years. In every philosophical era it is explored anew--and with great profit. As a contribution to contemporary efforts in this regard, the present dissertation aims to lay out, lucidly and in detail, the various components of Aristotle's action theory. ;Since actions, according to Aristotle, constitute a sub-class of "the voluntary", the dissertation begins by examining Aristotle's account of voluntary activities. (...) It discusses the chief characteristics shared by all such activities, and compares the Nicomachean and Eudemian accounts. ;Perception is examined next, because percepts and their lingering traces , according to Aristotle, are the triggers of desire. And desire provides the impetus for animal behavior and human action. Aristotle's analysis assumes a rich array of desire-types, including appetites, passions, emotions, and wishes, all of which are analyzed in the dissertation. ;The keys to adult human action--distinguishing it from animal and child behavior--are deliberation, "choice" and the so-called "practical syllogism". The dissertation examines these in some detail and produces a model of the practical syllogism. ;Once the practical syllogism has been examined, the dissertation considers the question of whether Aristotle's theory of action provides a successful resolution of the so-called "problem of free will". It is argued that Aristotle--despite common misconceptions to the contrary--was aware of the problem and had a promising philosophical basis for its solution. (shrink)

What Kompridis admirably describes as the transformative power of disclosing critique should be incorporated into a renewed model of critical theory. At the same time, disclosing critique should be regarded as supplementing, rather than supplanting, those normative forms of analysis and reflection that remain rooted in experiences of social suffering, which are precisely what continue to give critical theory its normative ground and theoretical impetus. In this way, we could agree with Kompridis that practicing world-disclosing critique, and (...) thereby retrieving the aesthetic critique of modernity, will ensure that critical theory continues to have a future worthy of its past. Adapted from the source document. (shrink)

W. V. Quine was the most important naturalistic philosopher of the twentieth century and a major impetus for the recent resurgence of the view that empirical science is our best avenue to knowledge. His views, however, have not been well understood. Critics charge that Quine’s naturalized epistemology is circular and that it cannot be normative. Yet, such criticisms stem from a cluster of fundamental traditional assumptions regarding language, theory, and the knowing subject – the very presuppositions that Quine (...) is at pains to reject. Through investigation of Quine’s views regarding language, knowledge, and reality, the author offers a new interpretation of Quine’s naturalism. The naturalism/antinaturalism debate can be advanced only by acknowledging and critiquing the substantial theoretical commitments implicit in the traditional view. Gregory argues that the responses to the circularity and non-normativity objections do just that. His analysis further reveals that Quine’s departure from the tradition penetrates the conception of the knowing subject, and he thus offers a new and engaging defence of Quine’s naturalism. (shrink)

In dominant discourses, migrants are mostly perceived as either victims or villains but rarely as political subjects and democratic constituents. Challenging this view, the aim of the article is to rethink democracy with respect to migration struggles. I argue that movements of migration are not only consistent with democracy but also provide a decisive impetus for actualizing democratic principles in the context of debates about the crisis of representation and post-democracy. Drawing on the work of Jacques Rancière, Étienne Balibar (...) and Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, I develop a theory of radical democracy as practice, which, starting from the proposed notion of ‘democratic difference’, goes beyond the fixation on democratic regimes and focuses on contentious practices of enacting democratic principles. I articulate these theoretical concepts by analysing how refugees in Germany have managed to break out of a marginalized position and have challenged their denial of rights through a protest march. (shrink)

In this paper we explore the sustained and multifaceted attempt of Jürgen Habermas to reconstruct Kant's theory of cosmopolitan right for our own times. In a series of articles written in the post‐1989 period, Habermas has argued that the challenge posed both by the catastrophes of the twentieth century, and by social forces of globalization, has given new impetus to the idea of cosmopolitan justice that Kant first expressed. He recognizes that today we cannot simply repeat Kant's eighteenth‐century (...) vision: that if we are to grapple with the complexities of present‐day problems, it is necessary to iron out certain inconsistencies in Kant's thinking, radicalize it where its break from the old order of nation‐states is incomplete, socialize it so as to draw out the connections between perpetual peace and social justice, and modernize it so as to comprehend the “differences both in global situation and conceptual framework that now separate us from him.”1 His basic intuition, however, is that Kant's idea of cosmopolitan right is as relevant to our times as it was to Kant's own. If it was Kant's achievement to formulate the idea of cosmopolitanism in a modern philosophical form, Habermas takes up the challenge posed by Karl‐Otto Apel: to “think with Kant against Kant” in reconstructing this idea. What follows is a critical assessment of Habermas's response to this challenge. We focus here on the dilemmas he faces in grounding his normative commitment to cosmopolitan politics and in reconciling his cosmopolitanism with the national framework in which he developed his ideas of constitutional patriotism and deliberative democracy. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt is often--but somehow not unfailingly--credited, together with Alasdair MacIntyre, Paul Ricoeur and Charles Taylor, as being one of the central voices in the philosophical turn to the concept of narrative of a generation or more ago. Some have even cited her 1958 The Human Condition as providing a particular impetus for later accounts of narrative. This essay examines what contemporary philosophical accounts of narrative might still owe Arendt, exploring her approach to narrative in theory as well (...) as practice. The first part looks at Arendt's use of philosophical sources from the tradition--Aristotle, Augustine and Hegel--with an eye to how her appropriation of these figures differs from that of contemporary philosophers of narrative. Three of Arendt's typically bold and rich claims about narrative action emerge as important: the notion of action as revealing an agent's own daimon: the condition that such action be revealable within a world or shared public space which has resilience yet vulnerability; and the potential for agents revealed within such a world to discover some form of narrative rebirth in their efforts at storytelling. The second section examines the extent to which Arendt herself allowed those claims to be tested and thought through in her own attempts (in Men in Dark Times, Rahel Varnhagen and elsewhere) at constructing biographical narratives. (shrink)

We argue that many evolved biases produced through selective forces described by error management theory are likely to entail misbeliefs. We illustrate our argument with the male sexual overperception bias. A misbelief could create motivational impetus for courtship, overcome the inhibiting effects of anxiety about rejection, and in some cases transform an initially sexually uninterested woman into an interested one.

Originally, the expression “Teichmüller theory” referred to the theory that Oswald Teichmüller developed on deformations and on moduli spaces of marked Riemann surfaces. This theory is not an isolated field in mathematics. At different stages of its development, it received strong impetuses from analysis, geometry, and algebraic topology, and it had a major impact on other fields, including low-dimensional topology, algebraic topology, hyperbolic geometry, geometric group theory, representations of discrete groups in Lie groups, symplectic geometry, topological (...) quantum field theory, theoretical physics, and there are certainly others. Of course, the impacts on these various fields are not equally important, but in some cases (namely, low-dimensional topology, algebraic geometry, and physics) the impact was crucial. At the same time, Teichmüller theory established important connections between the fields mentioned. This, in part, is a consequence of the diversity and the richness of the structure that Teichmüller space itself carries. From a more subjective point of view, the result of pondering on these connections and applications demonstrates the unity of mathematics. The aim of this paper is to survey the origin of Teichmüller theory and the development of its early major ideas. (shrink)

Although people establish norms that enable them to live together, some of these have to be coupled with a system of enforcement. This conforms to broad social contract theory and can also be applied to the international sphere. The international community is also based on a system of norms. However, unlike the domestic context, there is no overreaching authority to direct states on what they should do. Rather it is left to states themselves to police this framework. However, this (...) has resulted in one of the conditions envisaged by social contract theorists, namely a stasis between the command order and the state of nature. This may explain, for instance, the indifference to some modern human rights violations. Hence the current system of International law, with its insistence on the Westphalian principle of equality of states has caused a substantial fracture in the enforcement of international law, particularly when it comes to serious human rights breaches, and caused something akin to the state of nature envisaged by social contract theorists. While it may be practically impossible to provide a command system in the international sphere similar to the one in the domestic life, there is some hope that a revised deontological ethic founded on global integration may provide one impetus for change. (shrink)

Some 60 years separate us from Theodor W. Adorno’s “Theory of pseudo-culture.” Yet Adorno’s analysis might never have been as pertinent and as compelling as it is in the present moment. The dawn of the “post-truth” era, and the persistent impact of the culture industry on human sensibility and capacity for critical self-reflection, call for a return to Adorno’s critical theorisation of pseudo-culture. This paper revisits Adorno’s assessment of pseudo-culture and proposes a reconstruction of some of his most compelling (...) arguments on the subject in light of the present socio-historical circumstances. The paper starts with a concise discussion of the notions of Kultur, Bildung and Halbbildung in relation to Adorno’s thought. It then discusses the effects of pseudo-culture on human experience by looking into the role of opinions—in particular, what Adorno terms “delusional” opinions—in contemporary late capitalist reality. Finally, the paper ends with a juxtaposition of the barbarism of the banal and neoteric barbarism. I argue that, whereas the former stuns culture and impels it to regress to a state of pseudo-culture, the latter gives it new impetus by opening up new theoretical and practical paths. (shrink)

1. A new wave of subjectivism in the theory of pictorial art began around forty years ago; and since then it has gathered pace in tandem with changing fashions in the philosophy of mind. The initial impetus was provided by the publication of Ernst Gombrich’s 1956 Mellon Lectures, Art and Illusion.1 In this book, and in many subsequent articles and lectures which elaborate its theme, Gombrich argues that the development of Western art – essentially the art of ancient (...) Greece and the art of Western Europe from Giotto to Cezanne – consists in a series of discoveries about the nature of visual perception, and the means by which the effect of visible objects on our senses can be simulated. ‘What may make a painting like a distant view through a window’ he writes, ‘is not the fact that the two can be as indistinguishable as is a facsimile from the original: it is the similarity between the mental activities both can arouse.’ And in another place: ‘The goal which the artist seeks with such self-critical persistence is … a psychological effect.’2 These remarks are concerned with a specific artistic tradition, and with specific pictorial devices, such as foreshortening and shading, which I shall not write about here. But Gombrich’s work launched a search for a general theory of depiction based on the same approach. The search intensified in the wake of Nelson Goodman’s Languages of Art, which persuaded most of its readers that the resemblance theory of depiction could not be made to work, but did not provide a plausible alternative to it. Today there is broad agreement among philosophers that the nature of pictorial art cannot be explained by analysing the relationship between the marks on the surface of a picture and the kinds of objects that they represent. The consensus is that it can only be explained by defining the psychological effect that these marks produce.3 Today, the two most influential theories of depiction that are guided by this general idea are Richard Wollheim’s and Christopher Peacocke’s.. (shrink)

In this paper we explore the sustained and multifaceted attempt of Jürgen Habermas to reconstruct Kant's theory of cosmopolitan right for our own times. In a series of articles written in the post‐1989 period, Habermas has argued that the challenge posed both by the catastrophes of the twentieth century, and by social forces of globalization, has given new impetus to the idea of cosmopolitan justice that Kant first expressed. He recognizes that today we cannot simply repeat Kant's eighteenth‐century (...) vision: that if we are to grapple with the complexities of present‐day problems, it is necessary to iron out certain inconsistencies in Kant's thinking, radicalize it where its break from the old order of nation‐states is incomplete, socialize it so as to draw out the connections between perpetual peace and social justice, and modernize it so as to comprehend the “differences both in global situation and conceptual framework that now separate us from him.”1 His basic intuition, however, is that Kant's idea of cosmopolitan right is as relevant to our times as it was to Kant's own. If it was Kant's achievement to formulate the idea of cosmopolitanism in a modern philosophical form, Habermas takes up the challenge posed by Karl‐Otto Apel: to “think with Kant against Kant” in reconstructing this idea. What follows is a critical assessment of Habermas's response to this challenge. We focus here on the dilemmas he faces in grounding his normative commitment to cosmopolitan politics and in reconciling his cosmopolitanism with the national framework in which he developed his ideas of constitutional patriotism and deliberative democracy. (shrink)

Drawing upon in-depth analyses of Lev Vygotsky’s theories of early childhood and investigating the ways in which his ideas are reflected in contemporary educational settings, this book brings into sharp relief the numerous opportunities for preschool learning and development afforded by Vygotskian approaches. Discussion of recent developments in the understanding and implementation of Vygotsky’s ideas in Western and Russian contexts facilitates comparison, and provides readers with fresh impetus to integrate elements into their own practice. Chapters are clearly structured and (...) address the multitude of aspects touched upon by Vygotsky, including cognitive development, communication and interaction, play, literacy and the quality of preschool settings. Providing a comprehensive exploration of current stances on Vygotsky's ideas in diverse cultural-historical contexts, Vygotsky's Theory in Early Childhood Education and Research will be of interest to researchers, practitioners, educators and politicians involved in early years education. (shrink)

Philosophers have never shied away from interrogating the nature of our obligations beyond borders. From Hobbes to the international lawyers Grotius, Pufendorf, Vattel, and of course Kant, modern philosophy has always attempted to define the nature and shape of a just international order, and the types of mutual obligations members of different political communities might share. In today's hyper-connected world, these issues are more important than ever and have been an impetus to a political theory with global scope (...) and aspirations. Global Political Theory offers a comprehensive and cutting-edge introduction to the moral aspects of global politics today. It addresses foundational aspects of global political theory such as the nature of human rights, the types of distributive obligations that we have toward distant others, the relationship between just war theory and global distributive justice, and the legitimacy of international law and global governance institutions. In addition, it features analyses of key applied moral debates in global politics, including the ethical aspects of climate change, the moral issues raised by the mobility of financial capital, the justness of different international trade regimes, and the implications of natural resource ownership for human welfare and democratic political rule. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, this accessible and lively book will be essential reading for students and teachers of political theory, philosophy and international relations. (shrink)

When John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice was published in 1971, it brought a strong, inspiring, and refreshing creative impetus in Anglo-Saxon philosophy. Since then, Rawls’ work has been criticized on several grounds, mainly related to its Kantian formalism. However, ideas and theories are not born and do not exist in a social and political vacuum. Read in different historical contexts they can reveal new meanings and deliver specific messages, which are tailored to specific audiences and political cultures. (...) I argue in my paper that, reflecting this reality and my own life experience, Rawls’ conception of justice and of a well-ordered society always remains actual. An important part of this actuality is revealed in the manner in which the theory inspired Romanian society in its post-communist search for models of citizenship. It is also revealed by the message it delivers to today’s divided and polarized societies, where solidarity has been corroded by neoliberalism and a sense of fairness and reasonableness has been weakened by an increasingly noxious agonistic spirit. (shrink)

: The essay explores how C. S. Peirce, especially in his mature thought, addressed the question of meaning. It underscores how he not only took meaning to be at bottom a function of our habits but also how he conceived these habits themselves to be functions of the histories in which they originate and operate. Hence, what I propose here is this: One of the most fruitful ways to interpret Peirce's own contribution to this question is to see his efforts (...) as carrying forward the impetus intensified by Hegel and Darwin's emphasis on temporality and historicity.In Part One of this paper , I suggest how Peirce approaches the question of meaning primarily in reference to what I call the drama of self-correction. Moreover, his approach is explicitly related to his pragmatism, semeiotic , and phenomenological doctrine of categories. Finally, the historical development of his own reflections on this question is taken to provide a basis for an historicist interpretation of his mature position. In Part Two , I propose that the metaphor of a route provides a corrective to the excessively formal and indeed formalistic interpretations of Peirce's theory of signs still dominating the discussion of this theory. Routes are understood here not as antecedently fixed paths, but as historically emergent and alterable trajectories defined by the movements of travelers. In conjunction with this emphasis I explore several distinct senses in which both beliefs and signs are what agents go on. Such reflections are articulated for the purpose of facilitating a deeper understand of not only what Peirce meant by meaning but also what we might mean by this elusive term.Key-words: Meaning. Sign. Interpretant. History . Pragmatism . Evolutionism. Intuition. Self-correction .Resumo: O ensaio explora como C. S. Peirce, particularmente em seu pensamento maduro, abordou a questão do significado. Ressalta como ele não apenas tomou significado como, basicamente, uma função de nossos hábitos, mas também como ele concebeu esses próprios hábitos como funções das histórias nas quais se originam e operam. Assim, o que proponho aqui é o seguinte: Uma das formas mais fecundas de interpretar a própria contribuição de Peirce a essa questão é ver seus esforços como levando adiante o ímpeto intensificado pela ênfase dada por Hegel e Darwin à temporalidade e à historicidade.Na Primeira Parte deste trabalho , sugiro como Peirce aborda a questão do significado principalmente em referência ao que eu chamo de drama da autocorreção. Ademais, sua abordagem está explicitamente relacionada ao seu pragmatismo, a sua semiótica e sua doutrina fenomenológica das categorias. Finalmente, o desenvolvimento histórico das suas reflexões sobre essa questão é considerado como base para uma interpretação historicista de sua posição madura. Na Segunda Parte , proponho que a metáfora de um caminho proporciona uma correção às interpretações excessivamente formais, e, até mesmo, formalísticas, da teoria dos signos de Peirce que ainda dominam a discussão dessa teoria. Os caminhos devem ser entendidos aqui não como rotas pré-fixadas, e sim como trajetórias historicamente emergentes e alteráveis, definidas pelos movimentos dos viajantes. Juntamente com a ênfase, exploro alguns sentidos distintos, nos quais tanto as crenças como os signos são aquilo em que os agentes se fundamentam. Essas reflexões são articuladas com a finalidade de facilitar um entendimento mais profundo não só do que Peirce quis dizer com significado, mas também o que nós queremos dizer com esse termo indefinido.Palavras-chave: Significado. Signo. Interpretante. História . Pragmatismo . Evolucionismo. Intuição. Autocorreção. (shrink)

Dr. Wilson explores how Kant 's views of marriage are really developmental and how he foresees marriage evolving to become more egalitarian under the impetus of unsociable-sociability.

Descriptions of battles in ancient authors are not mirrors of reality, however dim and badly cracked, but are a form of literary production in which the real events depicted are filtered through the literary, intellectual, and cultural assumptions of the author. By comparing the battle descriptions of Julius Caesar to those of Xenophon and Polybius this paper attempts to place those battle descriptions in their intellectual and cultural context. Here Caesar appears as a military intellectual engaged in controversies with experts (...) in the Greek tradition of military theory-rejecting materialist strains of Greek thinking-and also as a Roman soldier whose military experience and cultural conceptions about how battles work could not be fully accommodated by Greek models. Caesar adapts from the Greeks an intellectual model of tactics based on physical metaphors, but adjusts Greek theory to Roman experience: Caesar's tactical physics ramifies from the crash-impetus-of the legionary charge rather than the push of the phalanx. Caesar also adapts from the Greeks a simplifying model of military psychology, adjusting a Greek binary scheme of morale into a three-level model to accommodate a Roman military ethos of steadiness in combat. Greek military thinking downplayed the role in battle of innate differences in courage between armies or nations, concentrating instead on tactics and stratagems; Roman culture encouraged Caesar to reject this dismissive view and elaborate a detailed understanding of the role of courage-virtus-in the mechanics of battle. The prominence of virtus in Caesar's battle descriptions illustrates its survival as an important Roman cultural norm and tempts speculation as to its historical consequences. Attempts to reconstruct ancient battles must take into account the cultural and intellectual traditions which guide ancient battle descriptions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 113 phers); nevertheless, I feel that the book would have been more effective pedagogically had they devoted more attention to them than they have. As a specific recommendation, I would suggest several short introductions at strategic places in the text devoted to a brief resum~ of the historical setting in which the philosophers to be discussed found themselves. Once again I should emphasize that, despite the criticisms (...) I have made, I think the book to be an excellent piece of work, which should prove quite successful as an undergraduate text in the history of philosophy. OLIVER JOHNSON University of California, Riverside Plato's Theory of Knowledge. By Norman Gulley. (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd.; New York: Barnes & Noble Inc. Pp. viii ~ 203.) Mr. Gulley gives an account of the development of Plato's theory of knowledge. The impetus to this development he finds in an inconsistency that underlies the attempt to combine an a priori method of analysis with a theory of knowledge based on the doctrines of recollection and the archetype-copy relation of Forms and sensibles. Only in the last chapter, "Mathematical Knowledge," does he suggest a theory of the relation of a priori to empirical knowledge which he thinks might have satisfied Plato. The major part of the work, the first three chapters, concerns the conflicts and readjustments occasioned by the underlying inconsistency. I shall discuss these chapters in terms of a few central points. In chapter I, GuUey attempts to get at the basis of the theoretical difficulties. He points out that Plato first considers philosophic method as independent of the theory of Forms and the theory of recollection (pp. 40 f). In the Meno it is a method of analysis, which is a forerunner of the Phaedo's method of hypothesis, of which the dialectical method is a further development. It is an a priori method. But the theories, which are first hypotheses examined by the method (Phaedo), become later "presuppositions for the effective practice of the method," as, for example, in the Republic. In "recollection" there is an intimate connection between Forms and sensiblcs, but in knowledge there is complete separation. This is what Gulley considers to be the source of the major difficulties. Since I do not find these difficulties, I shall concentrate on their exposition. Gulley notes in the Phaedo two meanings of "giving an account": (1) in terms of a method of propositional analysis; (2) in terms of participation of sensibles in Forms. His explanation of the first offers no difficulties, but of the second there are serious problems. His explication of the second is as follows: To "give an account" is "to explain one's possession of a Form by showing that it is necessarily implied by that judgment of the 'deficiency' of sensible characters which arises as soon as they are recognized" (p. 40). His argument for this interpretation is as follows: "... if to know a Form brings with it the ability 'to give an account', and if to know a Form is to be reminded of it by the sensibles which resemble it (74 b-c), the 'giving of an account' must be explicable within the conception of 'knowledge' implied in the use of the term in 74 b-c" (p. 46). He assumes that Plato is at least consistent. Now in 74 b-c Simmias agrees with Socrates that we have knowledge of equality "in and by itself" and that such things as equal logs and stones "lead us to conceive" of it. Only "recollection," not the preexistent knowledge of Forms is in question here. Since it is assumed that knowledge implies the ability to give an account of what is known, then this instance of knowledge, which occurs in conjunction with perception, implies a similar ability. But one cannot infer from this that the discussion of equality as Plato has discussed it, which is a discussion of it as an example of recollection, is the same thing as the giving an account of equality itself, much less that it is "the only type of account possible" within the theory of Forms. That it is the only possible type is in fact contradicted by the assumption of pre... (shrink)

In Section IV above we start with texts whose prima facie import speaks so strongly for the Identity Thesis that any interpretation which stops short of it looks like a shabby, timorous, thesis-saving move. What else could Socrates mean when he declares with such conviction that ‘no evil’ can come to a good man (T19), that his prosecutors ‘could not harm’ him (T16(a)), that if a man has not been made more unjust he has not been harmed (T20), that ‘all (...) of happiness is in culture and justice’ (T16(a)), that living well is ‘the same’ as living justly (T15)? But then doubts begin to creep in. Recalling that inflation of the quantifier is normal and innocuous in common speech (“that job means everything to him, he'll do anything to get it, will stick at nothing ”) we ask if there is really no chance at all that ‘no evil’ in T19, ‘not harmed’ in T20 might be meant in the same way? The shift from ‘no harm’ at T16(a) to ‘no great harm’ at T16(b), once noticed, strengthens the doubt. It gets further impetus in T21(b) when to explain how ‘all of happiness is in culture and justice’ he depicts a relation (that recurs more elaborately in T22) which, though still enormously strong, is not quite as strong as would be required by identity. The doubt seeps into T15 when we note that current usage did allow just that relation as a respectable use of ‘the same’. At that point we begin to wonder if resort to the Identity Thesis might not be just a first approximation to a subtler, more finely nuanced, doctrine which would give Socrates as sound a foundation for what we know he wants to maintain at all costs - the Sovereignty of Virtue - without obliterating the eudaemonic value of everything else in his world. We cast about for a credible model of such a relation of virtue to happiness and hit on that multicomponent pattern sketched on p. 9 above. We ascertain that this will afford a comprehensively coherent eudaemonist theory of rational action, while its rival would not, and will fit perfectly a flock of texts in Section V which the latter will not fit at all. Are we not entitled to conclude that this is our best guide to the true relation of virtue to happiness in Socrates' thought - the one for which he would have declared if he had formulated explicitly those two alternative theses and made a reasoned choice between them? (shrink)

This article will provide an illustration of Max Weber’s theory of rationalization with a specific impetus on its interdependency with the development of capitalism. Following Horkheimer, I shall critically draw on Weber to outline a theory of human freedom, showing that rationalization not only implies economic and social liberation but entails a totalizing tendency that invades all spheres of socio-political life including people’s mental infrastructure. This mental colonization can be framed as a process of substituting value rationality (...) with instrumental rationality. I will claim that this substitution can be understood as an impediment for human freedom. Following contemporary theories of action, I will show the centrality of value orientation for understanding human freedom. Therefore, I propose a critical theory of freedom that centers value rational action as realization of freedom and can be understood as emancipative. (shrink)

A historically feminized profession, education in North America remains remarkably unaffected by feminism, with the notable exception of pedagogy and its impact on curriculum. The purpose of this paper is to describe characteristics of feminism that render it particularly useful and appropriate for developing potentialities in education and music education. As a set of flexible methodological tools informed by Gilles Deleuze's notions of philosophy and art, I argue feminism may contribute to education's becoming more efficacious, reflexive, and reflective of the (...) values of its participants. Its impetus involves ‘feminist imperative(s)’ to help in the sense articulated by Elizabeth Grosz: to provoke thought, challenge, and problematize. (shrink)

Abstract:In this article, I argue that even if one can justify the initial impetus to want to deconstruct a literary or philosophical text, this does not make it possible in practice. To this end, I engage with relevant aspects of Jacques Derrida's thought, examining the motivations and purpose behind wanting to carry out a deconstruction, to then offer a pragmatic critique of the idea one might ever be able to do so. I base my argument on various factors, including (...) deconstruction's nonmethodological nature and the challenges involved in adjudicating a given deconstructive reading a success or failure, among other considerations. (shrink)

Since the late 1960s, Roger Penrose has had the ambition to develop a new theory that rethinks the foundations of quantum mechanics. His twistor theory aims to carry out this difficult task. Although today the theory is still in development, it is no less true that it is finding more and more followers and its results are beginning to seem not as far-fetched as initially believed. The goal is still far away, but his impetus for wanting (...) to change things is still valid. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Cornelius Castoriadis is one of the most important democratic thinkers in the second half of the twentieth century, and his theory of autonomy and the self-instituted character of society are fundamental to many post-Marxist theories of democracy. The role of the council system in Castoriadis' work, though, has rarely been investigated, and his analysis of the twentieth century workers' councils of has seldom been connected to his important concepts of autonomy and the instituting power. The article remedies this (...) lack of engagement with Castoriadis' analysis of the council system and argues that the emergence of workers' councils in Castoriadis' own lifetime, during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, provided a crucial impetus for his formulation of a theory of autonomy. Moreover, the article argues that the role of the council system in Castoriadis' work provides a privileged vantage point in order to nuance the critique – voiced by for example Jürgen Habermas and Claude Lefort – that Castoriadis exclusively valorise constituent politics without properly appreciating the importance of ordinary politics. Contrary to this interpretation, the article demonstrates how Castoriadis look to the councils to understand how democratic politics entails both freedom to act anew and the need for institutional structure. (shrink)

This essay focuses on an issue arising from within an anti-essentialist perspective on sexual identity: how is it possible to explain the political impetus inhering in a category such as 'woman' without having recourse to a set of positive properties that would somehow fix her identity in advance? I examine how a particular theoretical outlook, social postmodernism, attempts to address this issue, and argue that, ultimately, social postmodernism generates its own impasse which I call social foundationalism - an impasse (...) which is structurally similar to biological foundationalism. I invoke discourse -theoretic concepts to introduce the psychoanalytic categories of master signifier and symbolic identification. This is done in order to suggest how Lacanian psychoanalysis permits us to theorize sexual difference in a way that avoids both biological foundationalism and social foundationalism. Key Words: discourse theory • identification • identity • Lacan • poststructuralism • psychoanalysis • sexual difference • social postmodernism. (shrink)

The ‘Animal Question’ has occupied Western philosophy for more than a decade now. Whether inspired by the rising urgency of the problem of violence towards and exploitation of nonhuman animals perpetuated by science, technology and culture broadly speaking, or by an enthralment with otherness, an increasing number of theorists engage with the concepts of the animal and human–nonhuman relations. These notions become an incessant impetus for creative and critical inquiry and the exploration of philosophical, political, ethical and artistic thinking. (...) What, however, needs to be asked in the first place is: how can we, as humans, relate to the nonhuman, and more specifically, to nonhuman animals ethically? Is it possible at all? The question of ethics is one of the main driving forces behind The Animal Catalyst: Towards Ahuman Theory, edited by Patricia MacCormack. (shrink)

Context: Constructivist approaches to cognition have mostly been descriptive, and now face the challenge of specifying the mechanisms that may support the acquisition of knowledge. Departing from cognitivism, however, requires the development of a new functional framework that will support causal, powerful and goal-directed behavior in the context of the interaction between the organism and the environment. Problem: The properties affecting the computational power of this interaction are, however, unclear, and may include partial information from the environment, exploration, distributed processing (...) and aggregation of information, emergence of knowledge and directedness towards relevant information. Method: We posit that one path towards such a framework may be grounded in these properties, supported by dynamical systems. To assess this hypothesis, we describe computational models inspired from swarm intelligence, which we use as a metaphor to explore the practical implications of the properties highlighted. Results: Our results demonstrate that these properties may serve as the basis for complex operations, yielding the elaboration of knowledge and goal-directed behavior. Implications: This work highlights aspects of interaction that we believe ought to be taken into account when characterizing the possible mechanisms underlying cognition. The scope of the models we describe cannot go beyond that of a metaphor, however, and future work, theoretical and experimental, is required for further insight into the functional role of interaction with the environment for the elaboration of complex behavior. Constructivist content: Inspiration for this work stems from the constructivist impetus to account for knowledge acquisition based on interaction. (shrink)

At the Boundaries of Law provides a series of non-technical, interdisciplinary explorations into the nature and effects of legal regulation on women's lives. These essays provide a balance to earlier feminist work which stressed formal equality and disallowed discussion of differences. In questioning the concepts of legal thought, these feminists aim to provide an impetus for some long overdue rethinking not only among lawyers, but among social observers, critics, and scholars as well. The book offers a challenge to much (...) of the mainstream literature, thought and methodology in law and the social sciences. (shrink)