The Free Market and the Human Condition explores the human condition as situated in the free market from a variety of academic disciplines. By relying upon contributors who approach the topic from their respective disciplines, the book provides an accumulated picture of the free market, the human condition, and the relationship between them.

Der Mensch als Übender, als sich durch Übungen selbst erzeugendes Wesen - Rainer Maria Rilke hat den Antrieb zu solchen Exerzitien zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts in die Form gefaßt: "Du mußt dein Leben ändern." In seinem Plädoyer für die Ausweitung der Übungszone des einzelnen wie der Gesellschaft entwirft Peter Sloterdijk eine grundlegende und grundlegend neue Anthropologie. Den Kern seiner Wissenschaft vom Menschen bildet die Einsicht von der Selbstbildung alles Humanen. Seine Aktivitäten wirken unablässig auf ihn zurück: die Arbeit (...) auf den Arbeiter, die Kommunikation auf den Kommunizierenden, die Gefühle auf den Fühlenden. Es sind die ausdrücklich übenden Menschen, die diese Existenzweise am deutlichsten verkörpern: Bauern, Arbeiter, Krieger, Schreiber, Yogi, Rhetoren, Instrumentalvirtuosen oder Models. Ihre Trainingspläne und Höchstleistungen versammelt dieses Buch zu einer vergnüglich-instruktiven Lektüre von den Übungen, die erforderlich sind, ein Mensch zu sein. (shrink)

Berkeley’s likeness principle is the claim that “an idea can be like nothing but an idea”. The likeness principle is intended to undermine representationalism: the view (that Berkeley attributes to thinkers like Descartes and Locke) that all human knowledge is mediated by ideas in the mind which represent material objects. Yet, Berkeley appears to leave the likeness principle unargued for. This has led to several attempts to explain why Berkeley accepts it. In contrast to ‘metaphysical’ and ‘epistemological’ interpretations available in (...) the literature, in this paper I defend a ‘conceptual’ interpretation. I argue that Berkeley accepts the likeness principle on the basis of (i) his commitment to the transparency of ideas, and (ii) his account of resemblance which he sets out in his works on vision. Thus, I provide an explanation for Berkeley’s reasons for accepting the likeness principle which, appropriately, focuses on his views concerning ideas and likeness. (shrink)

Margaret Macdonald was at the institutional heart of analytic philosophy in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Yet, her views on the nature of philosophical theories diverge quite considerably from those of many of her contemporaries. In this paper, I focus on her 1953 article ‘Linguistic Philosophy and Perception’, a provocative paper in which Macdonald argues that the value of philosophical theories is more akin to that of poetry or art than science or mathematics. I do so for two reasons. First, (...) because it reveals just how far Macdonald’s meta- philosophical views diverged from those of many of her contemporaries. Second, because the discussion in LPP pre-empts recent literature on the nature of philosophical inquiry and the efficacy of philosophical arguments. Indeed, Macdonald’s paper is just as likely to provoke discussion today as it was in the 1950s. (shrink)

It is argued that causal understanding originates in experiences of acting on objects. Such experiences have consistent features that can be used as clues to causal identification and judgment. These are singular clues, meaning that they can be detected in single instances. A catalog of 14 singular clues is proposed. The clues function as heuristics for generating causal judgments under uncertainty and are a pervasive source of bias in causal judgment. More sophisticated clues such as mechanism clues and repeated interventions (...) are derived from the 14. Research on the use of empirical information and conditional probabilities to identify causes has used scenarios in which several of the clues are present, and the use of empirical association information for causal judgment depends on the presence of singular clues. It is the singular clues and their origin that are basic to causal understanding, not multiple instance clues such as empirical association, contingency, and conditional probabilities. (shrink)

In this important new book in the IPPP series, a group of leading thinkers in psychiatry, psychology, and philosophy offer alternative perspectives that address both the scientific and clinical aspects of psychiatric validation, emphasizing throughout their philosophical and historical considerations.

William Molyneux was born in Dublin, studied in Trinity College Dublin, and was a founding member of the Dublin Philosophical Society (DPS), Ireland’s counterpart to the Royal Society in London. He was a central figure in the Irish intellectual milieu during the Early Modern period and – along with George Berkeley and Edmund Burke – is one of the best-known thinkers to have come out of that context and out of Irish thought more generally. In 1688, when Molyneux wrote the (...) letter to Locke in which he posed the now famous question about a man born blind made to see, he was an active member of the DPS and was on familiar terms with several other key figures in Irish philosophy at the time. For the most part, Irish thinkers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries answered “no” to Molyneux’s question of whether a blind man made to see could distinguish, by sight alone, between a cube and a sphere. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical evaluation of the concept of handedness prevalent but largely unspoken in the scientific literature. This literature defines handedness as the preference or ability to use one hand rather than the other across a range of common activities. Using the philosophical discipline of phenomenology, I articulate and critique this conceptualization of handedness. Phenomenology shows defining a concept of handedness by focusing on hand use leads to a right hand biased concept. I argue further that a phenomenological (...) model based in spatial orientation rather than hand use provides a more inclusive concept of handedness. (shrink)

When do two sentences say the same thing, that is, express the same content? We defend two-component (2C) semantics: the view that propositional contents comprise (at least) two irreducibly distinct constituents, (1) truth-conditions, and (2) subject-matter. We contrast 2C with one-component (1C) semantics, focusing on the view that subject-matter is reducible to truth- conditions. We identify exponents of this view and argue in favor of 2C. An appendix proposes a general formal template for propositional 2C semantics.

In my contribution to this Concise Collection on Margaret Cavendish, I focus on teaching Cavendish’s work in the context of philosophy (and, more specifically, Early Modern Philosophy). I have three aims. First, to explain why teaching women from philosophy’s history is crucially important to the discipline. Second, to outline my own reflections on teaching Cavendish’s philosophy. Third, to defend a specific claim about the benefits of teaching Cavendish to philosophy students; namely, that introducing biographical detail alongside philosophical ideas enriches the (...) learning experience. (shrink)

Since its original publication in 1975, this groundbreaking work has awakened millions of people to the existence of "speciesism"—our systematic disregard of nonhuman animals—inspiring a worldwide movement to transform our attitudes to animals and eliminate the cruelty we inflict on them. In Animal Liberation, author Peter Singer exposes the chilling realities of today’s "factory farms" and product-testing procedures—destroying the spurious justifications behind them, and offering alternatives to what has become a profound environmental and social as well as moral issue. (...) An important and persuasive appeal to conscience, fairness, decency, and justice, it is essential reading for the supporter and the skeptic alike. (shrink)

Prospect Theory: For Risk and Ambiguity, provides a comprehensive and accessible textbook treatment of the way decisions are made both when we have the statistical probabilities associated with uncertain future events and when we lack them. The book presents models, primarily prospect theory, that are both tractable and psychologically realistic. A method of presentation is chosen that makes the empirical meaning of each theoretical model completely transparent. Prospect theory has many applications in a wide variety of disciplines. The material in (...) the book has been carefully organized to allow readers to select pathways through the book relevant to their own interests. With numerous exercises and worked examples, the book is ideally suited to the needs of students taking courses in decision theory in economics, mathematics, finance, psychology, management science, health, computer science, Bayesian statistics, and engineering. (shrink)

P.F. Strawson's essay traces some formal characteristics of logic and grammar to their roots in general features of thought and experience.

In der genannten Epoche werden Grundentscheidungen gefällt, welche die Fundamentalfrage der Philosophie, die Seinsfrage, in die Krisis führen, in den Nihilismus unter ontologischem, metaphysischem, epistemologischem, axiologischem Aspekt. Den Extrempositionen der Systemdenker Hegel, Schopenhauer und Schelling erwachsen in den Hegelkritikern Feuerbach, Br. Bauer, Marx und Stirner Kontrapositionen, die das Wahrheitsproblem der Beliebigkeit unterstellen. Kierkegaard klagt unter existentiellem Aspekt das Problem der Wahrheit ein. Nietzsche überholt durch Abschaffung der Wahrheit alle Positionen,was seinen Standort in der europäischen Denkgeschichte ausmacht und als Ergebnis der (...) problemgeschichtlichen Analysen zu charakterisieren ist. Die Rückgewinnung des Vernunfthorizontes setzen erst die Problemdenker N. Hartmann und M. Heidegger ins Werk durch kritische Erneuerung der Seinsfrage. (shrink)

In September 2008, the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) scientists successfully switched on the historic biggest physics device, the Large ...

"This book is an augmented and updated translation by the author of Theorie des Subjekts: Subjectiviteat und Identiteat zwischen Moderne und Postmoderne, Teubingen, Francke-UTB, 2010 (3rd ed.)"--Title page verso.

Resumo: O presente artigo pretende trazer à luz a convergência entre dois modos divergentes de superação do paradigma por excelência da filosofia moderna, qual seja, o da interioridade do sujeito, como pedra de toque epistemológica. Mais precisamente, pretende-se evidenciar o rito de passagem de um filosofar moderno para o contemporâneo, segundo a vertente que se convencionou chamar de “filosofia continental”, a aqui ser visitada com Nietzsche - equacionada a uma hermenêutica -, e a “filosofia analítica” ou “anglo-saxônica”, a aqui ser (...) visitada com o Wittgenstein dos §§ 143-178 das Investigações filosóficas -, equacionada a uma filosofia da linguagem. Em um e outro caso, cada qual à sua maneira, vai se pôr em questão o que até então se tinha como consciência pensante, transparente a si mesma e com acesso a seus próprios fundamentos e conteúdos, ou, então, uma interioridade, a qual, por um viés o mais das vezes mentalista, associa significado a entidades ou processos mentais. Desse modo, sujeito e pensamento, em vez de tomados por núcleos duros, passam a ser desvelados como funções das condições que os suscitam - de sobrevivência, no caso de Nietzsche, de condições práticas, ou seja, do uso, no caso de Wittgenstein.: The purpose of this article is bringing to light the convergence between two diverging modes of overcoming the very paradigm of modern philosophy, namely, the interiority of the subject as an epistemological milestone, and thus emphasizing the rite of passage from a modern philosophizing to a contemporary one. This process will be addressed according to the strand known as “continental philosophy”, with Nietzsche, equated with a hermeneutics, and to the “analytical philosophy” or anglo-saxon philosophy, with Wittgenstein, equated with a philosophy of language. In both cases we will put into question the conditions underlying the thinking consciousness, transparent to himself and with access to his own grounds and contents, and an interiority approached most of times by a mentalistic bias, that relates meaning to entities or mental processes. In this way, subject and act of thinking, instead of being taken as a core, are unveiled as functions of their very conditions - condition of survey, for Nietzsche, conditions of practical experience, for Wittgenstein. (shrink)

This paper aims to develop a comparative analysis of the place of emotion from Indian and Western philosophical perspectives. Both Eastern and Indian philosophy consider three mental states as being involved with the arousal of emotions, i.e., cognitive (epistemic), conative (desire), and affective. In Indian philosophy, there is no such single term or specific equivalent definition to the Western term ‘emotion.’ Further, there is no clear dichotomy (cognitive & non-cognitive) between reason and emotion in Indian culture. In Indian scriptures, there (...) are various, at times intermingled conceptions of emotion. From a religious standpoint, emotion can be an expression of religious devotion (bhakti), and often emotions are viewed as barriers to having true knowledge and are considered a cause of attachment and an obstacle to liberation. After comparing a large amount of discussion on emotion following Western and Indian conceptions, and analyzing some real-life experiences where emotion plays various roles (intellectual, personal, and spiritual) within each philosophical tradition this paper concludes that it is critical to engage in a comparative, collaborative study of emotion. (shrink)

O estudo investigou a experiência de transição para a aposentadoria na perspectiva subjetiva dos sujeitos que a vivenciaram. Foram entrevistados 20 trabalhadores aposentados no período de até 18 meses após o desligamento de suas atividades laborais. As entrevistas seguiram roteiro semi-estruturado e..

An examination of topics involved in statistical reasoning with imprecise probabilities. The book discusses assessment and elicitation, extensions, envelopes and decisions, the importance of imprecision, conditional previsions and coherent statistical models.

Relatively new and now ubiquitous, smartphones and tablet computers are changing our lives by asking us to rethink the ways that we conduct business, form and maintain relationships, and read books and magazines. In the same capacity, mobile devices are redefining how health care is administered, monitored, and delivered through specialized technologies called medical apps (applications). In general, apps are pieces of software that can be installed and run on a variety of hardware platforms, including smartphones, tablets, laptops, and desktop (...) computers. Medical apps, in particular, refer to a wide variety of software that focuses on health care (loosely defined). Whether these apps target the health-care .. (shrink)

In The Metaphysics of Margaret Cavendish and Anne Conway, Marcy P. Lascano holds up the metaphysical views of two early modern women philosophers alongside one another in order to demonstrate that...

This book is not a critique of digital ethics but rather a hack. It follows the method of hacking by developing an exploit kit on the basis of state-of-the-art social theory, which it uses to breach the insecure legacy system upon which the discourse of digital ethics is running. This legacy system is made up of four interdependent components: the philosophical mythology of humanism, social science critique, media scandalization, and the activities of many civil society organisations lobbying for various forms (...) of regulation. The hack exposes the bugs, the sloppy programming, and the false promises of current digital ethics, and, because it is an ethical hack, redesigns digital ethics so that it can address the problems of the global network society. The main idea of the book is that the social world of meaning is based on information, which, because of its relational nature, must be understood more as a common good than as private property. A digital ethics that relies upon humanistic individualism cannot address the issues arising from the global network society based upon information. This demands a complete revision of the philosophical foundations of current digital ethics by means of a redesign of ethics as a theory of governance by design. (shrink)