Laurence Goldstein gives a straightforward and lively account of some of the central themes of Wittgenstein's writings on meaning, mind, and mathematics.

In die Geschichte sind Franz Josef Graf von Thun (1734-1801) und seine Frau Wilhelmine (1744-1800) als Gonner des Geniemusikers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart eingegangen. Der "sonderbare Cavalier", wie er von Mozart genannt wurde, war seinen Zeitgenossen eher als Geisterbeschworer und Magnetiseur, denn als Musikliebhaber und Schriftsteller bekannt. Erst 2009 tauchte im Familienarchiv Thun-Hohenstein das Manuskript der umfangreichen esoterischen Enzyklopadie auf, in der Graf von Thun seine Ansichten uber den Menschen, uber das Weltall und uber die Franzosische Revolution darlegt. Ivo Cerman stellt (...) hier die Philosophie des Grafen vor dem Hintergrund des Illuminismus des 18. Jahrhunderts vor und ediert die wichtigsten Artikel seiner esoterischen Enzyklopadie. Auf der Grundlage dieser gerade entdeckten wichtigen Quelle kann die Frage nach dem Verhaltnis zwischen Aufklarung und Illuminismus neu beantwortet werden. (shrink)

This paper develops a question-sensitive theory of intention. We show that this theory explains some puzzling closure properties of intention. In particular, it can be used to explain why one is rationally required to intend the means to one’s ends, even though one is not rationally required to intend all the foreseen consequences of one’s intended actions. It also explains why rational intention is not always closed under logical implication, and why one can only intend outcomes that one believes to (...) be under one’s control. (shrink)

The Kosovo conflict -- The Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- The conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The article discusses the reception of Grotius by Catholic lawyers at the university of Prague. It focuses on the Grotius commentary by Nicolaus Ignaz Königsmann, which was meant as a response to the discussion of Central European Catholic lawyers on questions of toleration and permissions in law. I argue that Königsmann agreed with Grotius because his conception could be combined with the Catholic belief in free will and dictamen sanae rationis. He grounded natural law in rational human nature and rejected (...) attempts to derive natural law from the highest principle. (shrink)

Goldstein invites the philosophical beginner to think hard about issues ranging from patriotism and racism to artificial intelligence and the mind, from love and fidelity to free will and mortality, taking an interdisciplinary approach.

Jeder weiss, dass er sterben muss. Er weiss nur nicht wann. Wüsste er es, er könnte den Tod nicht mehr aus seinem Leben verdrängen. Dieses Buch geht von einer utopischen Situation aus: Durch eine gentechnische Analyse wird bei jedem Menschen gleich nach seiner Geburt festgestellt, wann sein "Endtag", also sein Todestag, sein wird. Frühere Todesfälle gibt es nur bei Unfall oder Mord, spätere nie. Das Wissen um den Endtag verändert das Leben jedes Einzelnen, die Familien, die Gesellschaft, Ausbildung, Beziehungen und (...) Lebensplanung, Laufbahnen im Beruf, das Rentensystem u.v.m. Was für die einen ein "Horrorszenario" sein kann, entpuppt sich für die anderen als ein Segen: Alle können ihren Lebensabend planen und zur rechten Zeit bewusst Abschied nehmen. Und an diesem Punkt wird das Szenario von Ivo W. Greiter zum Plädoyer: Versucht euch täglich bewusst zu sein und zu akzeptieren, dass Ihr nicht ewig leben werdet. Rechnet mit dem Tod, redet über das Sterben, räumt eure Sachen auf. Und: Der Tod kann seinen Schrecken verlieren, wenn er am Leben teilhaben darf. "Und immer wieder stellte ich mir die Frage: Wenn ich weiss, was ich ändern würde, wenn ich in vier Monaten sterben würde, warum ändere ich es dann nicht gleich?" DR. GREITER, geb. 1940, ist Rechtsanwalt in Innsbruck; er ist vielfach in Berufsverbänden und ehrenamtlich engagiert, so als österreichischer Vorsitzender der internationalen Juristenorganisation World Jurist Association, Washington, als Vizepräsident des Österreichischen Juristentages und des österreichischen Anwaltsvereins u. a.; von 1983 bis 1989 war Dr. Greiter Mitglied des Gemeinderates von Innsbruck und von 1993 bis 2010 französischer Honorarkonsul in Innsbruck. Er befasst sich unter anderem mit Rechtsfragen für Menschen über 66; zahlreiche sonstige fachbezogene Veröffentlichungen. (shrink)

This paper presents a direction for narrative ethics based on ethical ideas found in the works of Michel Foucault. Narrative ethics is understood here at the meta-level of cultural discourse to see how the moral subject is constituted by the discursive practices that structure the contemporary debate on reproductive technologies. At this level it becomes meta-narrative-ethics. After a theoretical discussion, this paper uses two literary narratives representing the polarized views in the debate to show how the moral subject may be (...) compelled to relate to its self. Ethics is redefined as Foucauldian rapport à soi, and ethical analysis, at this meta-level, shows how the moral self is intimately connected to cultural discourse. (shrink)

The idea of 'holiness' is central to religion, but it is also one of the hardest concepts to define. Is 'holiness' a synonym for Godliness, one of God's attributes, or does it have independent existence? What does it mean to say that both God and man are holy? What is the proper understanding of 'Be holy, because I the Lord your God am holy'? A Theology of Holiness analyzes the meaning of the Hebrew root k-d-sh from ancient sources, throughout Tanakh, (...) the Talmud, Rashi, Maimonides, Nachmanides, Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, and Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Ultimately, it is a work of theology, and helps the reader achieve a deeper understanding of holiness"--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Chapter One The Karaite Community of Jerusalem in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries: Background and Development A time of intellectual change The eighth and ninth centuries were a time of great political and intellectual change for Jews ...

Electronic sports and other variants of ‘digital sports’ have increased in popularity all over the world and may even come to challenge hegemonic concepts of sport. More relevant than the apparent opposition between ‘physical’ and ‘non-physical’ is the question what kind of embodiment is manifested within virtual environments. In this paper, we argue that eSports do require the learning and performance of motor skills and that embodiment within a virtual environment may be considered playful or even athletic. The type of (...) skills that might be tested can even be considered fundamental movement skills. Under appropriate educational supervision, with knowledge of the game, eSports can be utilized for the development of specific elements of digital literacy. Although motor skills are a defining characteristic of eSports, we do not argue that eSports should be integrated within PE. These arguments have not so much to do with the status of physicality present, but with differences in t... (shrink)

The Great Divide in metaphysical debates about laws of nature is between Humeans, who think that laws merely describe the distribution of matter, and non-Humeans, who think that laws govern it. The metaphysics can place demands on the proper formulations of physical theories. It is sometimes assumed that the governing view requires a fundamental / intrinsic direction of time: to govern, laws must be dynamical, producing later states of the world from earlier ones, in accord with the fundamental direction of (...) time in the universe. In this paper, we propose a minimal primitivism about laws of nature (MinP) according to which there is no such requirement. On our view, laws govern by constraining the physical possibilities. Our view captures the essence of the governing view without taking on extraneous commitments about the direction of time or dynamic production. Moreover, as a version of primitivism, our view requires no reduction / analysis of laws in terms of universals, powers, or dispositions. Our view accommodates several potential candidates for fundamental laws, including the principle of least action, the Past Hypothesis, the Einstein equation of general relativity, and even controversial examples found in the Wheeler-Feynman theory of electrodynamics and retrocausal theories of quantum mechanics. By understanding governing as constraining, non-Humeans who accept MinP have the same freedom to contemplate a wide variety of candidate fundamental laws as Humeans do. (shrink)

Bohmian mechanics and the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber theory provide opposite resolutions of the quantum measurement problem: the former postulates additional variables (the particle positions) besides the wave function, whereas the latter implements spontaneous collapses of the wave function by a nonlinear and stochastic modification of Schrödinger's equation. Still, both theories, when understood appropriately, share the following structure: They are ultimately not about wave functions but about 'matter' moving in space, represented by either particle trajectories, fields on space-time, or a discrete set of (...) space-time points. The role of the wave function then is to govern the motion of the matter. (shrink)

Book Information Nature's Purposes: Analyses of Function and Design in Biology. Edited by Allen Colin, Bekoff Mark and Lauder George. MIT Press. Cambridge. 1998. Pp. vi + 597. Paperback, US$31.50.

In cooperation with the Philosophical Faculty of Sofia University, the Bulgarian Philosophical Society organized the conference "Phenomenologies: the legacies of Edmund Husserl," which took place on 6 and 7 November 2015, and became the founding event of BFO-Fenomenologia – the Phenomenological Association as a community of the Bulgarian Philosophical Society. The Association offers a new home for Bulgarian scholars and groups from different phenomenological currents.

Após a conclusão do curso de medicina psiquiátrica em Lyon, em 1951, Fanon foi acolhido no hospital Saint Alban, para um aprofundamento dos estudos psiquiátricos, tendo ali, trabalhado e pesquisado sob a supervisão do psiquiatra espanhol Francesc Tosquelles, onde praticou os fundamentos da psicoterapia institucional, desenvolvida por Tosquelles e seus colaboradores naquele hospital. Mais tarde, na Argélia, Fanon atuou no hospital de Blida-Joinvile e, posteriormente, na Tunísia, introduzindo reformas, à luz da psicoterapia institucional. A concepção de ser humano que cultivava (...) e a compreensão de que a sociedade doente produz pessoas doentes, levaram-no a um profundo conflito, à medida em que foi tomando consciência da violência do colonialismo francês contra o povo argelino, conforme relatou na carta de demissão que enviou ao Ministro Residente, Robert Lacoste, em 1956. Após o pedido de demissão, adentrou o movimento de libertação da Argélia. Escreveu livros e artigos combatendo o colonialismo e difundindo os ideais revolucionários. Van Renssalaer Potter, por longo tempo atuou como biólogo e bioquímico no MacArdle Laboratory for Cancer Research, na Universidade de Winsconsin, na cidade de Madison, onde doentes de câncer eram tratados. Na década de 1970, publicou um livro seminal, Bioética, ponte para o futuro. Anos depois, publicou estudos de Bioética Global. Mais tarde, articulou conceitos de Bioética Profunda. Preocupado com a sobrevivência humana neste planeta, atacado pela irresponsabilidade humana, Potter conclamou a humanidade à tomada de consciência e mudança de condutas. Comparando-se os dois autores, observa-se que os escritos de Fanon foram produzidos na década de 1950, sendo que seu último livro, Os Condenados da Terra, foi escrito em 1961. Potter, por sua vez, escreveu os primeiros estudos de bioética na década de 1970, cerca de uma década após o falecimento de Fanon. Respeitados os limites cronológicos, este estudo se pergunta: A dialética da medicina como política e da política como medicina, na práxis de Fanon, teria sintonias bioéticas? Para enfrentar este problema, o trabalho contextualiza a formação de Fanon, identificando os princípios da práxis médico-psiquiátrica dele. Em seguida, demonstra-se as contradições do colonialismo, identificando uma dialética da medicina como política e da política como medicina. Adiante, informa-se a contribuição de Van Rensselaer Potter, na proposição da bioética. Finalmente, argumenta-se a favor das sintonias bioéticas presentes nas passagens selecionadas. O procedimento metodológico é a pesquisa bibliográfica, analítico-dedutiva. Palavras-chave: Colonialismo. Consciência. Medicina. Política. Sintonias bioéticas. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the following conclusions. First, quotas are not normative goals in themselves but only a means to reach non-discriminatory selection procedures. Second, in a democracy quotas are most plausibly used as a means to fill offices in those bodies which have a major impact on how well interests or discourses are translated into policy. Third, quotas for the young can be justified since, due to demographic development, their discourses tend to be marginalized. Fourth, youth quotas (...) cannot be a means to ensure long-term policy-making, but they can enhance legitimacy of long-term impacts from policy decisions taken today. (shrink)

"A splendidly illuminating book." —The New York Times Like it or not, George W. Bush has launched a revolution in American foreign policy. He has redefined how America engages the world, shedding the constraints that friends, allies, and international institutions once imposed on its freedom of action. In America Unbound, Ivo Daalder and James Lindsay caution that the Bush revolution comes with serious risks–and, at some point, we may find that America’s friends and allies will refuse to follow his lead, (...) leaving the U.S. unable to achieve its goals. This edition has been extensively revised and updated to include major policy changes and developments since the book’s original publication. (shrink)

In Transparent Intensional Logic we can recognize two distinct notions of computation that loosely correspond to term rewriting and term interpretation as known from lambda calculus. Our goal will be to further explore these two notions and examine some of their properties.

In this paper we examine two approaches to the formal treatment of the notion of problem in the paradigm of algorithmic semantics. Namely, we will explore an approach based on Martin-Löf’s Constructive Type Theory, which can be seen as a direct continuation of Kolmogorov’s original calculus of problems, and an approach utilizing Tichý’s Transparent Intensional Logic, which can be viewed as a non-constructive attempt of interpreting Kolmogorov’s logic of problems. In the last section we propose Kolmogorov and CTT-inspired modifications to (...) TIL-based approach. The focus will be on non-empirical problems only. (shrink)

Schlenker (Semant Pragmat 2(3):1–78, 2009; Philos Stud 151(1):115–142, 2010a; Mind 119(474):377–391, 2010b) provides an algorithm for deriving the presupposition projection properties of an expression from that expression’s classical semantics. In this paper, we consider the predictions of Schlenker’s algorithm as applied to attitude verbs. More specifically, we compare Schlenker’s theory with a prominent view which maintains that attitudes exhibit belief projection, so that presupposition triggers in their scope imply that the attitude holder believes the presupposition (Karttunen in Theor Linguist 34(1):181, (...) 1974; Heim in J Semant 9(3):183–221, 1992; Sudo in The art and craft of semantics: a festschrift for Irene Heim, MIT Press, 2014). We show that Schlenker’s theory does not predict belief projection, and discuss several consequences of this result. (shrink)

Proofs from assumptions are amongst the most fundamental reasoning techniques. Yet the precise nature of assumptions is still an open topic. One of the most prominent conceptions is the placeholder view of assumptions generally associated with natural deduction for intuitionistic propositional logic. It views assumptions essentially as holes in proofs, either to be filled with closed proofs of the corresponding propositions via substitution or withdrawn as a side effect of some rule, thus in effect making them an auxiliary notion subservient (...) to proper propositions. The Curry–Howard correspondence is typically viewed as a formal counterpart of this conception. I will argue against this position and show that even though the Curry–Howard correspondence typically accommodates the placeholder view of assumptions, it is rather a matter of choice, not a necessity, and that another more assumption-friendly view can be adopted. (shrink)