The many gods of modernity -- The dynamics of relativization -- Relativism -- Fundamentalism -- Certainty and doubt -- The limits of doubt -- The politics of moderation.
WALTER BURLEIGH, Von der Reinheit der Kunst der Logik. Erster Traktat: Von den Eigenschaften der Termini. Übersetzt und mit Einfuhrung und Anmerkungen herausgegeben von Peter Kunze. Lateinisch-deutsch. (Philosophische Bibliothek, Nr. 401 .) Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1988. xlvii + 269 pp. 64 DM.
(2013). Review of Peter Ubel, Critical Decisions: How You and Your Doctor Can Make the Right Medical Choices Together. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 13, No. 4, pp. 53-54. doi: 10.1080/15265161.2013.768866.
I am most grateful to Professors Garfield and Westerhoff for their comments on my article "Acquiring Emptiness: Interpreting Nāgārjuna's MMK 24 : 18" in the January 2010 issue of Philosophy East and West. Their responses to my essay and the critiques they offer, grounded in their considerable expertise in Buddhist philosophical schools, are well argued and rooted in thorough commentarial analysis. In what follows, I attempt to respond to their critiques and concerns.There can be no doubt that the occurrence of (...) the phrase sā prajñāptir upādāya in MMK 24 : 18 has been understood by the bulk of the commentarial literature on the treatise as a compound technical term meaning something like "dependent designation." The .. (shrink)
The scholarly career of Professor Chad Hansen has been devoted in large measure to an elucidation of the relationship between the classical Chinese language and the structure and aims of pre-Qin philosophical thought. His “mass-noun” hypothesis of classical Chinese thought, his notion of dao 道 as “guiding discourse,” and his clarifications of the significance of Mohism are marked achievements from which all of us have benefited immensely. In the opening chapters of A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought, Hansen prefaces his (...) interpretation of how the Chinese language lends uniqueness to its philosophical tradition with a sharp contrast to Indo-European language and thought. Hansen attempts to show how the Indo-European .. (shrink)
Beliefs about diverse status characteristics have a common core content of performance capacities and qualities made up of two features: hierarchy (superior/inferior capacities) and role-differentiation (instrumental/expressive qualities). Whatever the status characteristic, its more-valued state tends to be defined as superior and instrumental, and the less-valued state tends to be defined as inferior but expressive. We account for this in terms of the typification of differences in behavioral inequalities and profiles that emerge in task oriented social interaction. Status construction theory argues (...) that new configurations of the states of a nonvalued discriminating characteristic, status values, and status typifications of actors possessing these states arise from a similar process. The theory we present here makes new predictions on the construction and institutionalization of status characteristics and generalized beliefs about the relation of status characteristics to social rewards, called referential structures. This theory, we argue, integrates micro and macro elements in a way that may be applicable to explaining the social construction of cultural objects more generally. (shrink)
The existence and uniqueness of a maximum point for a continuous real—valued function on a metric space are investigated constructively. In particular, it is shown, in the spirit of reverse mathematics, that a natural unique existence theorem is equivalent to the fan theorem.
This book reformulates the sociological subdiscipline known as the sociology of knowledge. Knowledge is presented as more than ideology, including as well false consciousness, propaganda, science and art.
This paper criticises a line of argument adopted by peter winch, Karl popper, And others, To the effect that the course of human history cannot be predicted. On this view it is impossible to predict in a particularly detailed way certain events ('original acts') on which important social developments depend. We analyze the argument, Showing that one version fails: original acts are in principle predictable in the relevant way. A cogent version is presented; this requires a special definition for (...) 'original act'. But, We claim, Social developments do not depend on original acts so defined. We argue separately for the possibility of a person, Or a scientific community, Predicting his or its own original acts. (shrink)
In a recent issue of Philosophy East and West Douglas Berger defends a new reading of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā XXIV : 18, arguing that most contemporary translators mistranslate the important term prajñaptir upādāya, misreading it as a compound indicating "dependent designation" or something of the sort, instead of taking it simply to mean "this notion, once acquired." He attributes this alleged error, pervasive in modern scholarship, to Candrakīrti, who, Berger correctly notes, argues for the interpretation he rejects.Berger's analysis, and (...) the reading of the text he suggests is grounded on that analysis, is insightful and fascinating, and certainly generates an understanding of Nāgārjuna's enterprise that is welcome .. (shrink)
In a brilliant series of essays, the distinguished philosopher D. Z. Phillips explores the alternatives for faith after foundationalism. A significant exploration of post-foundationalist thought in its own right, Faith After Foundationalism is also an important evaluation and critique of the theological implications of the views of Alvin Plantinga, Richard Rorty, George Lindbeck, and PeterBerger.Phillips’s own position is that one must resist the philosopher’s tendency to turn religious mystery into epistemological mystery. To understand how religious concepts are (...) formed is to understand that to speak of God as “beyond mortal telling” is not to confess a failure of language. God’s hiddenness is part of our concept of him—a reflection of the mystery of human life as it is lived. Faith After Foundationalism will be essential reading for philosophers of religion and theologians, as well as for students of contemporary epistemology. (shrink)
With the publication of The Social Frameworks of Knowledge? the English speaking world has at last been given a serious opportunity to approach the complex sociological thought of Georges Gurvitch. However, as the author himself admits in the Preface, this book appears ?abstract and schematic particularly to the uninitiated?.1 The aim of this paper will be to try to relate this translated work to the main body of Gurvitch's writing and particularly to his stance in the sociology of knowledge. First (...) I will examine the intellectual origins of his sociology of knowledge and his attitude to his predecessors in the field. Secondly I will compare his approach to the sociology of knowledge to that of P. L. Berger and T. Luckmann. (shrink)
Values and the scope of scientific inquiry, by M. Farber.--The phenomenology of epistemic claims: and its bearing on the essence of philosophy, by R. M. Zaner.--Problems of the Life-World, by A. Gurwitsch.--The Life-World and the particular sub-worlds, by W. Marx.--On the boundaries of the social world, by T. Luckmann.--Alfred Schutz on social reality and social science, by M. Natanson.--Homo oeconomicus and his class mates, by F. Machlup.--Toward a science of political economics, by A. Lowe.--Some notes on reality-orientation in contemporary societies, (...) by A. Brodersen.--The eclipse of reality, by E. Voegelin.--Alienation in Marx's Political economy and philosophy, by P. Merlan.--The problem of multiple realities: Alfred Schutz and Robert Musil, by P. L. Berger.--Phenomenology, history, myth, by F. Kersten.--The role of music in Leonardo's Paragone, by E. Winternitz.--Alfred Schutz bibliography (p. [297]-306). (shrink)
Alfred Schutz''s influence on American sociologists and sociology in the 1960s and 1970s is traced through the examination of the work of two of his students, Helmut Wagner and PeterBerger, and of Harold Garfinkel with whom he met and corresponded over a number of years. The circumstances of Schutz''s own academic situation, particularly the short period of his academic career in the United States and his location at the New School, are examined to consider how and in (...) what ways he was constrained from exerting an even wider influence. The two major areas of influence in American sociology that are examined are the sociology of knowledge and the early development of ethnomethodology. (shrink)
Part I: Science for humanism -- Historical context : humanism and Giddens's call -- Theoretical framework : postmodernism and after -- Kant and the stalemate of the social sciences : prelude and transformation -- Kant and the stalemate of the psychological sciences : behavior and energy -- Part II: Returning to Kant and the stalemate of sociology -- Simme l: sociation and the real a priori of power -- Durkheim : the social fact as a new third antinomy -- Weber (...) : the noumenal freedom of the historical actor -- Parsons, Dahrendorf, Berger : rituals of return -- Returning to Kant and to Giddens call -- The dynamical theory of matter : natural agency -- Kantian realism : human agency. (shrink)
