In the adult mammalian brain, neurogenesis is restricted to few regions, while gliogenesis continues in a wide‐spread manner. Here we discuss our knowledge of extrinsic and intrinsic factors regulating neuro‐ and gliogenesis in the adult brain and propose a model of fate specification identifying the states of easiest transition between glio‐ and neurogenesis, highlighting the unique mechanisms stabilising the neural stem cell state. The model also encompasses the fate alterations achieved by direct reprogramming, and hence addresses a novel (...) avenue for repair, namely eliciting neurogenesis from glial cells outside the neurogenic niches. (shrink)

Some philosophers assert that astrology is a false theory. The simplest way to argue against all astrology is to identify a proposition that any kind of astrology must be committed to and then show that this proposition is false. In this paper I draw attention to some misconceptions about which propositions are essential to astrology.

Wikipedia has challenged traditional notions about the roles of experts in the Internet Age. Section 1 sets up a paradox. Wikipedia is a striking popular success, and yet its success can be attributed to the fact that it is wide open and bottom-up. How can such a successful knowledge project disdain expertise? Section 2 discusses the thesis that if Wikipedia could be shown by an excellent survey of experts to be fantastically reliable, then experts would not need to be granted (...) positions of special authority. But, among other problems, this thesis is self-stultifying. Section 3 explores a couple ways in which egalitarian online communities might challenge the occupational roles or the epistemic leadership roles of experts. There is little support for the notion that the distinctive occupations that require expertise are being undermined. It is also implausible that Wikipedia and its like might take over the epistemic leadership roles of experts. Section 4 argues that a main reason that Wikipedia’s articles are as good as they are is that they are edited by knowledgeable people to whom deference is paid, although voluntarily. But some Wikipedia articles suffer because so many aggressive people drive off people more knowledgeable than they are; so there is no reason to think that Wikipedia’s articles will continually improve. Moreover, Wikipedia’s commitment to anonymity further drives off good contributors. Generally, some decisionmaking role for experts is not just consistent with online knowledge communities being open and bottom-up, it is recommended as well. (shrink)

In what particular manner human beings are free moral agents and to what extent they can reasonably expect to attain a good life are two intertwined questions that rose to prominence in antiquity and have remained so to the present day. This book analyzes and compares the approaches of two significant authors from different schools at the turn of the third century CE, Alexander of Aphrodisias and Clement of Alexandria. These contemporaries utilize their respective Peripatetic and Christian commitments in their (...) employment of the shared Greek classics toward these shared ethical questions. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the relation of Kant’s theory of free will to that of K.L. Reinhold. I argue that Reinhold’s theory addresses several problems raised in the reception of Kant’s practical philosophy, particularly the problem of accounting for free immoral acts. Focusing on Reinhold’s account of free will as a condition for the conceivability of the moral law shows that the historical focus on Reinhold’s break from Kant’s own account and his alleged reliance on facts of consciousness obscures Reinhold’s decidedly (...) ‘Kantian’ argument. This approach provides a new foundation for free will and demonstrates the significance of Reinhold’s practical philosophy as an attempted corrective to Kant. Chapter 1 examines the influence of Rehberg, Ulrich, and Schmid on Kant’s and Reinhold’s respective theories of free will. Chapter 2 investigates the epistemic foundation of Reinhold’s theory of free will and, contrary to the dominant view in scholarship, argues that his account is not based merely on facts of consciousness. Chapter 3 illuminates a tension between the phenomenology of moral agency and Kant’s account of free agency. It is argued that while Kant talks about overcoming inclinations and adopting maxims by virtue of their lawful form, which would seemingly have to take place at the phenomenal level and be available to consciousness, Kant’s account of free agency is restricted to the noumenal, which precludes availability to consciousness. Reinhold’s theory of free will avoids this tension by positing consciousness of possible courses of action as a necessary condition for self-determination to one such action. Chapter 4 discusses the relation of Reinhold’s theory of free will to Kant’s Religion, a text that Reinhold uses as a basis for his charge that Kant’s theory is either “unintelligible” or “untenable.” I argue that although Reinhold fundamentally misunderstands Kant’s doctrine of supreme maxim adoption, Reinhold is correct in his assertion that Kant is committed to the thesis that the free spontaneity of the power of choice is a necessary condition for moral responsibility. Chapter 5 explicates the Kant-Reinhold Controversy to argue that given Kant’s own commitment to the conditions for moral responsibility, Reinhold was ultimately correct that free will ought to be defined as choosing for or against the moral law. (shrink)

Monuments and statues are forms of commemoration. They typically pay tribute to people or events and aim to serve as a permanent marker, a link between present and past generations, committing them to memory and assigning them with importance and meaning. While commemorations can be beneficial in terms of recognising a legacy of the past and helping foster relationships between opposing groups, they can also be divisive and painful, failing to acknowledge other dimensions of historical fact and further hardening the (...) boundaries between groups in conflict. Essentially, what we choose to commemorate reflects what we as a society actually value. This paper focuses on the unsettled fates of the Captain Cook statue that stands with prominence in Hyde Park, Warrane, and other colonial monuments in Australia. It also discusses the emotionality surrounding such commemorations. We question whether Cook’s actual achievements constitute the notoriety that has been bestowed upon him. A range of commentators have put forward ideas around what to do about the Cook statue which we discuss while also considering what the future might look like if the truth of colonial history is known and open conversations can be had. (shrink)

SUMMARY: If you think of analytic philosophy as disciplined argumentation, but with distinctive doctrinal commitments [to: positivism, logical atomism, ideal languages, verificationism, physicalistic reductionism, materialism, functionalism, connectivism, computational accounts of perception, and inductive accounts of language learning], then THAT analytic philosophy is fast going the way of acid rock and the plastic LP. Not because the method has betrayed the doctrines. Rather, the doctrines disintegrate under the method.

This chapter argues that mental fictionalism can only be a successful account of our ordinary folk-psychological practices if it can in some way preserve its original function, namely its explanatory aspect. A too strong commitment to the explanatory role moves fictionalism unacceptably close to the realist or eliminativist interpretation of folk psychology. To avoid this, fictionalists must degrade or dispense with this explanatory role. This motivation behind the fictionalist movement seems to be rather similar to that of Sellars when (...) he came up with the Myth of Jones, his proto-theory of mental concepts. He was faced with the problem of preserving the explanatory status of mental concepts without turning them into proper theoretical entities. By introducing the Sellarsian proto-theory of concepts related to the mental and outlining its main points, this chapter aims to provide a critique of the two versions of mental fictionalism that are arguably the strongest: Adam Toon’s prop-oriented pretence theory and Tamás Demeter’s expressive storyism. (shrink)

This paper explores the common ground in the views on natural law, justice and sociopolitical development in Hume and Spinoza. Spinoza develops a radically revisionary position in the natural law debate, building upon the bold equation of right and power. Hume is best interpreted as offering a skeptical–empirical reworking of traditional natural law theories, which maintains much of the practical purport of these theories, while providing it with a new, metaphysically less firm, but also less problematic, foundation. What the two (...) philosophers have in common is that they formulate realist revisions of the natural law tradition in the light of their more general naturalistic, secular philosophical commitments. Both philosophers, moreover, point to the slow development of man’s insight in the laws of nature, arising through a gradual accumulation of experiential insights. These insights are never wholly ‘liberated’ from the historical and imaginative perspective in which they arise. Accordingly, although rational progress brings the systems of justice and politics of different groups of people closer to each other, they necessarily retain, sometimes fundamentally incompatible, divergences. In the tradition of Machiavellian political realism, therefore, both Spinoza and Hume plead for judging political orders according to their own merits: do they, in their own specific ways, bring about a sufficient degree of order and liberty? (shrink)

This is the second of the four essays in Part II of the book on liberalism and traditionalist education; all four are by authors who would like to find ways for the liberal state to honour the self-definitions of traditional cultures and to find ways of avoiding a confrontation with differences. Melissa Williams examines citizenship as identity in relation to the project of nation-building, the shifting boundaries of citizenship in relation to globalization, citizenship as shared fate, and the role (...) of multicultural education within the view of citizenship-as-shared-fate. She argues the other side of the same coin to that presented by Shelley Burtt in the previous chapter: according to Williams, the liberal state often demands too much in the way of loyalty from traditional groups, and when it does, it runs a strong risk of becoming oppressive and illiberal. Moreover, she holds that there is no need for a single shared identity among citizens of the liberal state. Her conception of people tied together by a shared fate is to this extent compatible with Burtt’s attempt to make liberalism’s commitment to autonomy more hospitable to groups of individuals encumbered by unchosen attachments, but her notion of citizenship as shared fate also goes further than that, and possibly stands in some tension with, Burtt’s view, since it allows and even encourages people to develop primary affiliation to all kind of groups – traditional as well as global. (shrink)

Discusses the function of action in Malraux's third and most famous novel.

This book contains material from some 15 years of scholarly work on the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and its reception by his immediate successors. While large parts of the book rely on previously published articles, Ameriks has worked these earlier publications into a monographic study by integrating them into an overall argument now prefaced by a detailed introduction to the book’s main thesis and rounded out by a conclusion that provides a “final perspective” on the study as a whole. The (...) central thesis of the book may be summarized as follows. The reception of Kant’s philosophy by his contemporaries and immediate successors, and above all by Fichte and Hegel, was decisively influenced by the way in which Reinhold transformed the Kantian enterprise into a foundationalist system in which all propositions were to be derived from a first grounding principle. This is significant because in the process Reinhold “managed to distort the basic meaning of Kant’s original doctrine”. As a result, German idealism after Kant can by no means be said to be the continuation and completion of Kant’s Copernican revolution. Rather, Kant’s position constitutes an “alternative to this ambitious foundational project”. The post-Kantian development thus breaks with Kant’s much more modest view of what a system of philosophy can and should be. A crucial role in this process of misinterpretation of Kant’s intentions falls to Reinhold’s recasting of what Ameriks calls Kant’s “long argument to idealism” into Reinhold’s “short argument”, that is, the exclusive reliance by Reinhold on the argument from representation according to which the thing-in-itself is “unrepresentable” and hence dispensable. The Reinhold of the “Elementary Philosophy” of 1789–91 thus believed to possess a shortcut to idealism which made Kant’s complicated justification of the complementarity thesis redundant. It also established the immanence of representational consciousness as the exclusive ground of all claims to knowledge and thus prepared the way for the closed, “absolutist” systems that became the hallmark of post-Kantian idealism. Ameriks unfolds this argument in four parts dealing first with Kant’s more modest claims concerning system and knowledge as a backdrop for the subsequent discussion, the motivation for and the content of Reinhold’s revision of Kant’s philosophy, Fichte’s practical foundationalism as inspired by Reinhold, and Hegel’s critique of Kant’s theoretical and practical philosophy. The book covers other topics as well such as an illuminating discussion of the notion of apperception in Kant and Fichte as compared to contemporary interpretations of the apperception theory. The introduction also argues for a compatibilist alternative to Kant’s theory of freedom which would minimize Kant’s metaphysical commitment to the existence of an absolute spontaneity and thus make Kant’s position an even more modest one. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Fate of Eloquence in the Age of HumeVicki J. SappThe Fate of Eloquence in the Age of Hume, by Adam Potkay; xii & 253 pp. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994, $36.95.With the memory still fresh of Jerome Christensen’s Practicing Enlightenment, I experienced no small anxiety on reading Adam Potkay’s first acknowledgment, to Prof. Christensen and his “provocative seminar” on Hume. I finished a third of (...) The Fate of Eloquence in the Age of Hume before the overt nod, when Potkay spotlights the essayist Hume’s appeal to a female readership: “Within this doux commerce, the figures of classical eloquence are entirely too priapic—too ‘swelling... monstrous and gigantic’—to be admitted” (p. 75). However, Hume’s self-castration wound is mercifully left unprobed, and the priapus doesn’t come up again until Potkay’s own prosopopoeia, “ancient eloquence’s priapic energy” (p. 158). Although he follows Christensen’s equation of polite letters with effeminacy, Potkay treats gender more materially than metaphorically. Although attending to his poststructuralist debts with such observations as “Hume, the unmoved mover, observes the spiritual implosion of one whose passions cannot, like his own, be alleviated through voyeurism” (p. 125), Potkay ultimately fulfills his promise to draw his insights from “a history of eighteenth-century reading and reception” (p. 22). In a clear prose he conveys his focused argument, about “the fate of eloquence” in the modern [End Page 244] reconfiguration of society, through a variety of illustrations; as a result, the book has broad appeal to readers interested in literary contexts of rhetoric, gender, and culture.Situating Hume as the center of shared interest and assumption, Potkay defines an “Age of Hume,” a constellation of writers responding to and producing a tension between an ideal of classical eloquence and modern codes of politeness. Boldly establishing this tension “as the characteristic theme of the era,” Potkay makes a compelling case for politeness as the primary means of class stratification for emergent capitalist society. (Paul Fussell has also applied an eighteenth-century literary mind to contemporary sociology in his Class: A Guide Through the American Status System.) In his epilogue, Potkay brings his thesis home, to the ironies of academic publishing elitism and the “peculiarly American commitment to civic equality.”Several ruling assumptions guide Potkay’s treatment of the eloquence/politeness dualism. Reading high-canon writers and moral philosophers, Potkay defines eighteenth-century Britain as an age “that does not want its passions inflamed” and suspects eloquence of aiming to seduce the masses with rhetorical figures and physical gesture. Equated with popular government, eloquence threatens to manipulate “our untutored responses”—passions unmediated by moral and social education—within an exclusively “masculine” political economy. Echoing Christensen, Potkay finds “a characteristic irony” of the new “sentimental commerce” in the “polite restraint of the sexual passions that covertly fuel it” (p. 147). Writers must adapt to the paradigm shift of a new commercial and literary economy which included a sentimental ideal of woman as social sovereign—a model of polite literacy and civility which Hume described in his initial piece, “Of Essay Writing.”Potkay diffuses his gender-based thesis over a broad political and philosophical perspective. Politeness redressed the conflict between masculine populism (Bolingbroke) and effeminate luxury (Walpole) and “served to compensate for virtue lost through commercial progress” (p. 194). Potkay points out the ultimately political association of eloquence with vulgarity: savages, children, and the insane speak a language “thought to abound in figures”—a convenient habit in those whom a ruling class would exclude from “mature, rational discourse” (p. 68). (Here, Potkay elides the more complex “woman” from the above marginalia, for immediate reasons of either obviousness or neatness.)On the philosophical front Hume variously affirmed and problematized a “topos of eloquence as error.” Treatise-lovers may regret that he simmered this passionately figurative text down into the duller and drier Enquiries in order to fulfill a polite—and commercial—demand for the replacement of oral with written culture, of emotional gesticulation with “rationality, abstraction, logic” (p. 63). Potkay’s arguments suggest a ruling irony in this paradigm-shift: the association of eloquence (masculine) with emotionalism and politeness (feminine) with rationality and... (shrink)

Egg or sperm? The mechanism of sexual fate decision in germ cells has been a long‐standing issue in biology. A recent analysis identified foxl3 as a gene that determines the sexual fate decision of germ cells in the teleost fish, medaka. foxl3/Foxl3 acts in female germline stem cells to repress commitment into male fate (spermatogenesis), indicating that the presence of mitotic germ cells in the female is critical for continuous sexual fate decision of germ cells (...) in medaka gonads. Interestingly, foxl3 is found in most vertebrate genomes except for mammals. This provides the interesting possibility that the sexual fate of germ cells in mammals is determined in a different way compared to foxl3‐possessing vertebrates. Considering the fact that germline stem cells are the cells where foxl3 begins to express and sexual fate decision initiates and mammalian ovary does not have typical germline stem cells, the mechanism in mammals may have been co‐evolved with germline stem cell loss in mammalian ovary. (shrink)

It is sometimes said that changes in academic philosophy in the twentieth century reflected a process in which a discipline that had been earlier closely tied to institutional religion became increasingly laicized and secularized.1 In line with this idea, the idealist philosophy that had flowered within British philosophy at the end of the nineteenth century can look like the last and ill-fated attempt of a Victorian religious sensibility to guard itself against a post-Darwinian God-less view of the world and ourselves.2 (...) Such a view generally represents, I believe, the attitudes of many contemporary philosophers to British philosophy prior to the transforming work of Russell and Moore of about one hundred years ago. Against the luxuriant and mystical metaphysics of the idealists, fuelled by religious longing, the “new philosophy”, it is thought, affirmed the brute materiality of the world and its independence from mind, be it divine or human. A similar development is commonly understood as carrying from Hegel through the “young Hegelians” to the mature Marx. Thus for Feuerbach, for example, Hegel’s idealist doctrine that “nature or reality is posited by the idea” was “merely the rational expression of the theological doctrine that nature is created by God”.3 Hegel’s philosophy had thus provided a “last place of refuge and ... rational support of theology”, and escaping from this condition (more prison than refuge) required rejecting idealism and confronting the fact that “the true relation of thinking and being is simply this. Being is subject and thinking a predicate but a predicate such as... (shrink)

The absence of Islam from recent scholarship on Hegel's account of world religions is puzzling. In the first part of the article, we argue that Hegel's neglect of Islam in his systematic account of religious phenomena is not accidental and that he did not think of Islam as a determinate religion. Its size and believers aside, we suggest that it is not possible to assign any determinacy to Islam as a world-historical phenomenon under Hegel's rubric, because such determinacy that applies (...) to other religions would be in conflict with what Hegel takes to be Islam's emphasis on the negative moment of truth, its revolutionary tendencies, and its lack of any novel conceptual content as a response to Christianity. In the second part of the article, we point out how one could respond to Hegel's characterization of Islam when it is mentioned in relation to other religious traditions. First, we argue that Hegel overemphasizes the significance of Islam qua religion in explaining the history of Muslim peoples. More than that, Hegel does not see that the history of Islamic philosophy and science can be characterized by sublation and that it can be integrated into conceptual developments in the West on these terms. However, our critique of Hegel's Eurocentrism does not remain at this level, for in the third part of the article we argue for the significance of considering the response of Muslim philosophers to Hegel. In particular, we look at the responses by Mohammed al-Khosht and Mahmoud Haider, respectively. We conclude that Hegel's exclusion of Islam from any involvement in the history of the Concept indicates an undialectical commitment on his part and that to this extent being Hegelian today requires that we rectify this oversight. (shrink)

In 1992, Bill Clinton won the presidency committed to an ambitious program of “public investment.” Yet the plan Clinton submitted to the Democrat-controlled Congress in early 1993 was sharply scaled back in favor of an emphasis on reducing the federal budget deficit. Congress then made further deep cuts in Clinton's plan. This Democratic retreat from public investment would continue throughout the remainder of Clinton's presidency. In this article, I argue that the fate of “Clintonomics” was due mainly to public (...) opinion and electoral politics. In an epilogue, I examine the implications of this episode for the new intra-Democratic debate over public investment. (shrink)

What could it mean to be religious in a world where religion no longer retains its former authority? Posing this question for his fellow Western intellectuals who inhabit just such a world, James C. Edwards investigates the loss of religion's traditional power in a culture characterized by what he calls "normal nihilism"—a situation in which one's commitment to a particular set of values is all one really has, and in which traditional religion is only a means of interpretation used (...) to preserve what one most cares about. Recognizing the important historical role of religion in making us the people we are, he seeks to establish a viable understanding of religion without traditional beliefs and within the context of contemporary skepticism. _The Plain Sense of Things_ is a book more interested in the power of religion that in its truth and in what happens to that power when the claims to truth slacken their grip. (shrink)

The development of T cells and B cells from pluripotent hematopoietic precursors occurs through a stepwise narrowing of developmental potential that ends in lineage commitment. During this process, lineage-specific genes are activated asynchronously, and lineage-inappropriate genes, although initially expressed, are asynchronously turned off. These complex gene expression events are the outcome of the changes in expression of multiple transcription factors with partially overlapping roles in early lymphocyte and myeloid cell development. Key transcription factors promoting B-cell development and candidates for (...) this role in T-cell development are discussed in terms of their possible modes of action in fate determination. We discuss how a robust, stable, cell-type–specific gene expression pattern may be established in part by the interplay between endogenous transcription factors and signals transduced by cytokine receptors, and in part by the network of effects of particular transcription factors on each other. BioEssays 21:726–742, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology is widely regarded as one of the great works of 19th century science, and one of the most influential works in the entire history of the earth sciences. Yet the standard critical interpretation of the Principles makes such high regard and influence look puzzling at best. We are told, for instance, that Lyell’s argument rests on a contentious a priori methodological distinction between scientific and non-scientific explanations, the former featuring observed causes at their present intensities, (...) the latter featuring anything else. 2 We are also told that Lyell simply assumes a priori that. (shrink)

Although best known for his contributions to the theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion, Hume also influenced developments in the philosophy of mind, psychology, ethics, political and economic theory, political and social history, and aesthetic theory. The fifteen essays in this volume address all aspects of Hume's thought. The picture of him that emerges is that of a thinker who, though often critical to the point of scepticism, was nonetheless able to build on that scepticism a constructive, viable, (...) and profoundly important view of the world. Also included in this volume are Hume's two brief autobiographies and a bibliography suited to those beginning their study of Hume. This second edition of one our most popular Companions includes six new essays and a new introduction, and the remaining essays have all been updated or revised. (shrink)

David and Mary Norton present the definitive scholarly edition of one of the greatest philosophical works ever written. This second volume begins with their 'Historical Account' of the Treatise, an account that runs from the beginnings of the work to the period immediately following Hume's death in 1776, followed by an account of the Nortons' editorial procedures and policies and a record of the differences between the first-edition text of the Treatise and the critical text that follows. The volume continues (...) with an extensive set of 'Editors' Annotations', intended to illuminate Hume's texts; a four-part bibliography of materials cited in both volumes; and a comprehensive index. (shrink)

David and Mary Norton present the definitive scholarly edition of one of the greatest philosophical works ever written. This first volume contains the critical text of David Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, followed by the shortin which Hume set out the key arguments of the larger work; the volume concludes with A Letter from a Gentleman to his Friend in Edinburgh, Hume's defence of the Treatise when it was under attack from ministers seeking to prevent Hume's appointment as Professor of (...) Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. (shrink)

Dans son dernier article de 1954, Solvable and Unsolvable Problems, Turing répète le résultat fondamental de 1936 dans lequel est formulée l’impossibilité de résoudre tout problème algorithmique à l’aide d’une méthode universelle. Il expose ce résultat en le reliant à une notion qui paraît simple et accessible à tous : le jeu. Mais qu’est-ce qui est au juste entendu par cette notion de jeu ? S’agit-il d’un simple objet mathématique ou n’y a-t-il pas ici une notion qui touche à l’ordre (...) du monde dans son ensemble ? N’y a-t-il pas chez Turing l’intuition que la cybernétique transformera le monde en une chose contrôlable et organisable, à l’image d’un grand Jeu ? Dans la mesure où le développement des machines à calculer dépasse le strict cadre des techno-sciences, peut-on voir là le déploiement d’un Jeu dont, nous dit Héraclite, nous serions nous-mêmes les pions ? (shrink)

Dans son dernier article de 1954, Solvable and Unsolvable Problems, Turing répète le résultat fondamental de 1936 dans lequel est formulée l’impossibilité de résoudre tout problème algorithmique à l’aide d’une méthode universelle. Il expose ce résultat en le reliant à une notion qui paraît simple et accessible à tous : le jeu. Mais qu’est-ce qui est au juste entendu par cette notion de jeu? S’agit-il d’un simple objet mathématique ou n’y a-t-il pas ici une notion qui touche à l’ordre du (...) monde dans son ensemble? N’y a-t-il pas chez Turing l’intuition que la cybernétique transformera le monde en une chose contrôlable et organisable, à l’image d’un grand Jeu? Dans la mesure où le développement des machines à calculer dépasse le strict cadre des techno-sciences, peut-on voir là le déploiement d’un Jeu dont, nous dit Héraclite, nous serions nous-mêmes les pions? (shrink)

En el contexto de la pregunta por el destino de la Teoría Crítica, la discusión entre Axel Honneth y Jürgen Habermas sobre el cambio en el paradigma de la Filosofía Política y Social con la tesis "de la comunicación al reconocimiento" gira aquí en torno a una reconstrucción crítica de la filosofía de Immanuel Kant, un Kant ´moderado´ en un modelo ´explicativo´ o ´hermenéutico´, y así ´irrebasable´ del progreso moral, rompiendo su sistema, y un Kant ´destrascendentalizado´, apto para fundamentar la (...) necesidad de un diálogo entre la razón y la fe. ¿Por qué Kant y no Georg Hegel, central este último para los dos filósofos alemanes en su superación de las aporías de la primera generación de la Teoría Crítica? Pero ¿dónde queda Karl Marx, tan importante para los fundadores de la Escuela de Frankfurt? Y ¿no había exigido Habermas en 2009 con motivo del aniversario de su discípulo, que Honneth, después de su viaje de Marx a Hegel, hiciera el necesario regreso? De tal manera que en esta vuelta, Honneth trajera en su equipaje lo rescatado del Idealismo Alemán. Así la historia de la Teoría Crítica queda inconclusa. In the context of the question for the fate of the Critical Theory, the debate between Axel Honneth and Jürgen Habermas on the change in the paradigm of Social and Political Philosophy with the thesis "from communication to recognition" here revolves around a critical reconstruction of Immanuel Kant’s philosophy, a ‘moderated’ Kant in an ‘explanatory’ or ‘hermeneutic’ model, and so ‘unsurpassable’ moral progress, breaking his system, and a ‘distranscended’ Kant, suitable to substantiate the need for a dialogue between reason and faith. Why Kant and not Georg Hegel, the latter being central for the two German philosophers in their overcoming of the aporias of the first generation of the Critical Theory? But where it remains Karl Marx, so important to the founders of the Frankfurt School? And in 2009, on the occasion of the anniversary of his disciple, had not Habermas demanded that Honneth, after his journey from Marx to Hegel, made the necessary back? In such a way that in this return, Honneth brought the salvage of German Idealism in his luggage. This way the history of the Critical Theory remains incomplete. (shrink)

A Treatise of Human Nature, David Hume's comprehensive attempt to base philosophy on a new, observationally grounded study of human nature, is one of the most important texts in Western philosophy. It is also the focal point of current attempts to understand 18th-century western philosophy. The Treatise addresses many of the most fundamental philosophical issues: causation, existence, freedom and necessity, and morality. The volume also includes Humes own abstract of the Treatise, a substantial introduction, extensive annotations, a glossary, a comprehensive (...) index, and suggestions for further reading. (shrink)

The Description for this book, David Hume: Common-Sense Moralist, Sceptical Metaphysician, will be forthcoming.

David Hume is, arguably, the most important philosopher ever to have written in English. Although best known for his contributions to epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion, Hume also made substantial and influential contributions to psychology and the philosophy of mind, ethics, the philosophy of science, political and economic theory, political and social history, and, to a lesser extent, aesthetic and literary theory. All facets of Hume's output are discussed in this volume, the first genuinely comprehensive overview of his (...) work. The picture that emerges is of a thinker who, though critical to the point of scepticism, was nonetheless able to build on that scepticism a profoundly important, and still viable, constructive philosophy. (shrink)

David and Mary Norton present the definitive scholarly edition of Hume's Treatise, one of the greatest philosophical works ever written. This set comprises the two volumes of texts and editorial material, which are also available for purchase separately. -/- David Hume (1711 - 1776) is one of the greatest of philosophers. Today he probably ranks highest of all British philosophers in terms of influence and philosophical standing. His philosophical work ranges across morals, the mind, metaphysics, epistemology, religion, and aesthetics; he (...) had broad interests not only in philosophy as it is now conceived but in history, politics, economics, religion, and the arts. He was a master of English prose. -/- The Clarendon Hume Edition will include all of his works except his History of England and minor historical writings. It is the only thorough critical edition, and will provide a far more extensive scholarly treatment than any previous editions. This edition (which has been in preparation since the 1970s) offers authoritative annotation, bibliographical information, and indexes, and draws upon the major advances in textual scholarship that have been made since the publication of earlier editions - advances both in the understanding of editorial principle and practice and in knowledge of the history of Hume's own texts. (shrink)

David Hume is, arguably, the most important philosopher ever to have written in English. Although best known for his contributions to epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion, Hume also made substantial and influential contributions to psychology and the philosophy of mind, ethics, the philosophy of science, political and economic theory, political and social history, and, to a lesser extent, aesthetic and literary theory. All facets of Hume's output are discussed in this volume, the first genuinely comprehensive overview of his (...) work. The picture that emerges is of a thinker who, though critical to the point of scepticism, was nonetheless able to build on that scepticism a profoundly important, and still viable, constructive philosophy. (shrink)

In response to kenneth winkler's criticism of my suggestion (found in my "david hume: common sense moralist, sceptical metaphysician") that frances hutcheson embraced an interesting form of moral realism. i show important differences between hutcheson and locke, amplify my previous account of hutcheson's notion of concomitant ideas, and provide evidence that hutcheson's contemporaries, including his student adam smith, believed him to have maintained "that there is a real and essential distinction between vice and virtue". ("theory of moral sentiments").

David and Mary Norton present the definitive scholarly edition of Hume's Treatise, one of the greatest philosophical works ever written. This set comprises the two volumes of texts and editorial material, which are also available for purchase separately.

Volumes 1 and 2 of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, first published in January 1739, were soon after publication the subject of five notices and four reviews. Volume 3, published at the end of October 1740, received no notices and was reviewed only in the Bibliothèque raisonnée. This anonymous review of vol. 3 is of interest not only for David Norton is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, McGill University, and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, University of Victoria. His address is 8-4305 Maltwood (...) Lane, Victoria, BC, Canada V8X 5G9. what it says about Hume’s views as set out in the third book of the Treatise, but also because of questions that have arisen about the authorship of this and an earlier review of vol. 1 of the Treatise published in the same journal. In Part I of this paper we begin by reviewing the grounds for attributing to Pierre Des Maizeaux the notice of vols. 1 and 2 of the Treatise published by the Bibliothèque raisonnée in its April–June, 1739 issue. We then focus principally on the question of the authorship of the review of vol. 3 of the Treatise published by the Bibliothèque raisonnée in its April–June, 1741 issue, but we also consider in passing the grounds that have been offered for attributing to Francis Hutcheson the critical components of the Bibliothèque raisonnée review of vol. 1 of the Treatise. In Part II of the paper we present a transcription of the French text, never before reprinted, of this review. Part III is a new English translation of this text. In an effort to show the differences between the sense of the Treatise presented by translated quotations of it and Hume’s original texts, Part IV offers some three-column comparisons of three relatively lengthy French “quotations” of Treatise 3 found in the review, our back-translations of these texts, and the versions of these texts found in the Treatise. It then offers in a similar format, comparisons of the present and earlier translations of passages of the review of vol. 3. (shrink)

Demonstrates there are two separate (albeit remarkably similar) versions of the philosopher's engraved bookplate. Presents arguments as to which is the earlier. Speculates that the later version was produced for Hume's favorite nephew and the inheritor of his library, David Hume the Younger.