Plato's dialogues frequently criticize traditional Greek myth, yet Plato also integrates myth with his writing. Daniel S. Werner confronts this paradox through an in-depth analysis of the Phaedrus, Plato's most mythical dialogue. Werner argues that the myths of the Phaedrus serve several complex functions: they bring nonphilosophers into the philosophical life; they offer a starting point for philosophical inquiry; they unify the dialogue as a literary and dramatic whole; they draw attention to the limits of language and the (...) limits of knowledge; and they allow Plato to co-opt cultural authority as a way of defining and legitimating the practice of philosophy. Platonic myth, as a species of traditional tale, is thus both distinct from philosophical dialectic and similar to it. Ultimately, the most powerful effect of Platonic myth is the way in which it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in a process of self-examination. (shrink)

Presents German physicist Werner Heisenberg's 1958 text in which he discusses the philosophical implications and social consequences of quantum mechanics and other physical theories.

This essay provides a systematic as well as chronological account of Schiller's concepts of freedom and autonomy. Its main thesis is that the duality of Schiller's moral/aesthetic ideal in the Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man - of beauty and the sublime, of play and the moral law - is a result of his use of conflicting concepts of autonomy. While it is widely accepted that Schiller took over Kant's concept of autonomy, I argue that he simultaneously employed another (...) concept of autonomy, that of the contemporary philosopher Karl Leonhard Reinhold, whose criticism of Kant's concept of free will and alternative formulation of the concept of a neutral will influenced Schiller. (shrink)

Modal dispositionalists hold that dispositions provide the foundation of metaphysical necessity and possibility. According to the kind of modal dispositionalism that can be found in the present literature, a proposition p is possible just in case some things are disposed to be such that p. In the first part of this paper I show that combining this classic form of dispositionalism with the assumptions that the laws of nature are necessary and deterministic and that all dispositions are forward-looking in time (...) leads to the unattractive conclusion that every truth is necessary. I argue that the classic dispositionalist should be troubled by this result and in the second part of the paper I suggest a novel variant of dispositionalism that avoids it. This extended form of dispositionalism allows that some propositions are only indirectly underwritten by dispositions. (shrink)

In the past, Schiller has often been underestimated as a philosopher in his own right. Fortunately, this has been changing, beginning with the bicentennial commemoration of his death in 2005, which has since then produced a fair number of volumes, mostly in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Unfortunately, Frederick Beiser's 2005 Schiller the Philosopher: A Re-Examination, one of the still rare book-length treatments by a single author, has failed to lead to a similar "new wave" in the English-speaking world. Thus, (...) it is heartening to have here a volume of essays focusing on his philosophical writings and bringing together titans of the fields of philosophical Schiller-studies, German early romantic... (shrink)

Affective congruency effects in the evaluation task can be explained by either spreading of activation or response competition. Eliminating effects of response compatibility by using other tasks (semantic categorisation, naming task) typically also eliminates affective congruency effects. However, there is no need for processing the affective information of the stimuli in these tasks either, which could be necessary for an affectively mediated spreading of activation (Spruyt et al., 2007, 2009, 2012). We introduced a new task to further test this hypothesis. (...) The valent/neutral-categorisation task does not confound affective congruency with response compatibility, but still requires a processing of the stimuli's valence. No affective congruency effect was obtained with this task in two experiments, disfavouring a conditional spreading activation account. On the other hand, a significant priming effect was found for associated word pairs in Experiment 1, providing evidence for the sensitivity of the task to detect spreading activation processes. (shrink)

Schon seit ihrer Gr ndung in den 1970er-Jahren ist die Reihe Germanistische Linguistik (RGL) exponiertes Forum des Faches, dessen Namen sie im Titel f hrt. Hinsichtlich der thematischen Breite (Sprachebenen, Variet ten, Kommunikationsformen, Epochen), der Forschungsperspektiven (Theorie und Empirie, Grundlagenforschung und Anwendung, Inter- und Transdisziplinarit t) und des methodologischen Spektrums ist die Reihe offen angelegt. Das Aufgreifen neuer Trends hat in ihr ebenso Platz wie das Fortf hren von Bew hrtem. Die Publikationsformen reichen von Monographien und Sammelb nden bis zu (...) W rterb chern. Wissenschaftlicher Beirat (ab November 2011): Prof. Dr. Karin Donhauser (Berlin) Prof. Dr. Stephan Elspa (Augsburg) Prof. Dr. Helmuth Feilke (Gie en) Prof. Dr. J rg Fleischer (Marburg) Prof. Dr. Stephan Habscheid (Siegen) Prof. Dr. R diger Harnisch (Passau). (shrink)

This paper discusses a puzzle raised by Sharon Berry, published in Analysis. The question in the background of this puzzle is how we should deal with seemingly plausible possibility judgements that commit us to counterfactual truths that find no basis in reality. Three answers to this question and their corresponding solutions to the puzzle will be discussed. The last answer provides a way to make sense of the claim that it is in some cases indeterminate whether a proposition is possible (...) and offers an account of indeterminate modal status. (shrink)

Der logische Status dessen, was in der Hegelschen Terminologie «Begriff» heisst, kann nur als seine eigene Genese zur Darstellung kommen. In ihm sind die Formen der Positivität, die durch die Subjekt-Objekt-Relation charakterisiert sind, als Momente enthalten. Die Einsicht in die einzelnen Formen der Positivität ermöglicht es, sich einen Begriff von der Sprachlichkeit des Selbstbewusstseins zu machen.

This is the first translation into English of a work of late German enlightenment by Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1757-1823).

With the publication of the Parerga and Paralipomena in 1851, there finally came some measure of the fame that Schopenhauer thought was his due. Described by Schopenhauer himself as 'incomparably more popular than everything up till now', the Parerga is a miscellany of essays addressing themes that complement his work The World as Will and Representation, along with more divergent, speculative pieces. It includes his 'Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life', reflections on fate and clairvoyance, trenchant views on the philosophers (...) and universities of his day, and an enlightening survey of the history of philosophy. The present volume offers a new translation, a substantial introduction explaining the context of the essays, and extensive editorial notes on the different published versions of the work. This readable and scholarly edition will be an essential reference for those studying Schopenhauer, the history of philosophy, and nineteenth-century German philosophy. (shrink)

Dieser Beitrag stellt die Zeitlichkeit des Bewusstseins und ihre Folgeprobleme in einer neuen Perspektive vor, die sich aus der Verknüpfung der empirischen Theorie selbstreferentieller Systeme mit der transzendentalen Phänomenologie Edmund Husserls ergibt. -/- .

This article is about the 500 hundred year commemoration of the Reformation in 2017. However, the question is to be asked: What should we celebrate in 2017? The article reflects on this question against the background of the ongoing division within Western Christianity. It discusses objectives laid out by Wolfgang Huber in 2008 for the Luther Decade. These objectives focus on the relationship between church and society, and particularly Lutheran-themes such as ‘hopelessnesses of life’, ‘afflictions of faith’, ‘God’s hiddenness’ and (...) the ‘theology of the cross’. The article demonstrates that the soteriological focal point of Biblical-Lutheran theology reflects the assertion that it is only God who, through the belief in Christ, awards freedom and dignity to every human. The Church represents the ‘metaphor of a Christian fellowship’, which is a fellowship of equals that provides a socio-political impetus. (shrink)

The first part of this book provides the best short overview of the German Enlightenment available in English. Although, as the author says, she “sheds no new light on the German Enlightenment but follows current views”, those views are largely unavailable in English. With admirable lucidity, Roehr covers topics such as the nature of enlightenment, theology, Freemasonry, responses to the French revolution, and moral philosophy.

This paper argues that institutions are higher-level autonomous systems enacted by patterns of participatory sense-making. Therefore, unlike in the standard equilibrium theory, institutions are not themselves thought of as behavioural patterns. Instead, they are problem domains that these patterns have brought forth. Moreover, these are not merely any patterns, but only those devoted to maintaining a specific strategy of problem solving, called the strategy of ‘letting be’. The latter refers to, following Hanne de Jaegher, a balance between underdetermination and overdetermination (...) of individual behaviour by a collective. Such an understanding of institutions becomes an option once a hybrid ‘equilibrium + rules’ theory of institutions, such as the one proposed by Frank Hindriks, is supplemented with insights from enactivism. In this light, drawing a connection between these two areas is the additional, meta-theoretical goal of this paper. This connection is beneficial, I argue, in particular since it allows for a satisfactory, in-depth account of the normative character of institutions as well as their local character. (shrink)

The article examines philosophical conceptions of responsibility found in the contributions of Martin Buber, Hans Jonas and Emmanuel Levinas. It argues that, despite the significant differences of these contributions, they all share important goals, significant structural features, and corresponding challenges. All three thinkers try to overcome the solipsistic limitations of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology as well as the egocentrism of Heidegger’s concept of "solicitude" or "self-care." All three try to overcome the Kantian subject-object dichotomy. All three understand responsibility as a bipolar (...) relation only. In consequence, all of them face similar challenges resulting from new forms of dichotomies and the exclusion of “thirdness” that are the result of their conceptual decisions. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION WERNER ABRAHAM, LACI MARÁCZ, SJAAK DE MEY & WIM SCHERPENISSE University of Groningen The Groningen Conference on Topic, ...

This collection broadens the scientific discussion of modularity by bringing together experts from a variety of disciplines, including artificial life, ...

The seminal work by one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century, Physics and Philosophy is Werner Heisenberg's concise and accessible narrative of the revolution in modern physics, in which he played a towering role. The outgrowth of a celebrated lecture series, this book remains as relevant, provocative, and fascinating as when it was first published in 1958. A brilliant scientist whose ideas altered our perception of the universe, Heisenberg is considered the father of quantum physics; he (...) is most famous for the Uncertainty Principle, which states that quantum particles do not occupy a fixed, measurable position. His contributions remain a cornerstone of contemporary physics theory and application. (shrink)