This book is a major new study of the doctrines of productivity and interest in Romanticism and classical political economy. The author argues that the widespread contemporary embrace of cultural historicism and the rejection of nineteenth-century conceptions of agency have hindered our study of aesthetics and politics. Focusing on the difficulty of coordinating paradigms of intellectual and material labor, Mieszkowski shows that the relationship between the imagination and practical reason is crucial to debates about language and ideology.From the Romantics (...) to Poe and Kafka, writers who explore Kant's claim that poetry "sets the imagination free" discover that the representational and performative powers of language cannot be explained as the products of a self-governing dynamic, whether formal or material. A discourse that neither reflects nor prescribes the values of its society, literature proves to be a uniquely autonomous praxis because it undermines our reliance on the concept of interest as the foundation of self-expression or self-determination. Far from compromising its political significance, this turns literature into the condition of possibility of freedom. For Smith, Bentham, and Marx, the limits of self-rule as a model of agency prompt a similar rethinking of the relationship between language and politics. Their conception of a linguistic labor that informs material praxis is incompatible with the liberal ideal of individualism. In the final analysis, their work invites us to think about social conflicts not as clashes between competing interests, but as a struggle to distinguish human from linguistic imperatives. (shrink)

Introduction: what is a sentence? -- Slogans and other one-liners -- The poetic line -- Sentences terminable and interminable -- The democratic sentence -- Conclusion: the sentence fetish.

À travers la mise en scène des fantasmes héroïques et les controverses sur le sens de la loi quand c’est sur la scène de l’histoire que les individus doivent faire leur devoir, Le Prince de Hombourg prend la forme d’une série d’échecs à établir un langage où s’exprimeraient clairement les décisions, les responsabilités, et la loi. Sous le regard de Kleist, l’histoire invalide les postulats de la dramaturgie aristotélicienne, elle suspend la capacité à juger éthiquement des identités, des actes et (...) des intentions. Elle confronte le langage de la loi à sa limite indépassable : celle d’un discours performatif qui déclare la loi, mais ne maîtrise pas les conditions de sa performativité. (shrink)

The thesis of this essay is that Gertrude Stein plays an important role in The Differend, the brevity of her appearance in the book notwithstanding. Scarcely one and a half pages long, Lyotard’s discussion of a string of quotations from Stein is the most sustained consideration of a female author in his text. Lyotard is intrigued by Stein’s efforts to conceive of la phrase less as a form or building block than an event—or rupture—of language. Characterizing her work as écriture (...) féminine, he cannot decide whether her “vagabond prose” is one genre among others or a uniquely disruptive verbal praxis that unsettles his most basic ideas about phrases and genres. In the final analysis, the precise status of Stein in Lyotard’s thought remains uncertain, as if her unruly presence might simply be a quirk of the signifier stein. (shrink)

Stephenson (2022) has argued that Kant’s thesis that all transcendental truths are transcendentally a priori knowable leads to omniscience of all transcendental truths. His arguments depend on luminosity principles and closure principles for transcendental knowability. We will argue that one pair of a luminosity and a closure principle should not be used, because the closure principle is too strong, while the other pair of a luminosity and a closure principle should not be used, because the luminosity principle is too strong. (...) Stephenson’s argument also depends on a factivity principle for transcendental knowability, which we will argue to be false. (shrink)

1. Die erste Hälfte des Kommentars, mit Ausnahme der Kapitel über die Weltseele.

'What is real?' has been one of the key questions of philosophy since its beginning in antiquity. But it is not just a question that philosophers ask. This Very Short Introduction discusses what reality is by looking at a variety of arguments, theories, and thought-experiments from philosophy, physics, and cognitive science.

A number of well-developed theories shed light on the question, under what circumstances our beliefs enjoy epistemic justification. Yet, comparatively little is known about epistemic defeat--when new information causes the loss of epistemic justification. This book proposes and defends a detailed account of epistemic defeaters. The main kinds of defeaters are analyzed in detail and integrated into a general framework that aims to explain how beliefs lose justification. It is argued that defeaters introduce incompatibilities into a noetic system and thereby (...) prompt a structured re-evaluation process that makes a justified reinstatement of the defeated belief impossible. The account is then applied to the topic of disagreement, where it is used in an argument for conciliationism, as well as a new explanation for higher-order defeat. Throughout the book, the notion of defeat is the center of attention, while a number of new issues are discussed at the intersections of defeat and justification. Specifically, new problems are raised for broadly internalist accounts of defeat, a fully descriptive reliabilist account of defeat is provided, and the case for normative defeat is revisited. (shrink)

The Natural Philosophy of Jan Bayer The main focus of this study is a reconstruction of the natural philosophy of the early modern Prešov's scholar Jan (Johannes) Bayer (1630–1674), with special regard to its Mosaic profile. After a critical reading of the research done on Bayer up to this point, the author concludes that Bayer’s natural-philosophical work, as such, has not yet been satisfactorily analyzed, nor has its connection to its supposedly two most important sources, Francis Bacon and Jan Amos (...) Comenius, been sufficiently explored. The study therefore concentrates on a critical analysis of Bayer’s interpretation of creation and his natural history, which are then both situated in the philosophical context of their time. The author then notes that although Bayer’s project of erecting an original and on the (especially Aristotelian) tradition independent Mosaic natural philosophy ended in failure, the thinker’s work can be assessed as a valuable attempt to synthesize Baconian and Comenian motifs while at the same time reflecting broader intellectual contexts of the period. (shrink)

Analogien lassen sich aus unserem vernünftigen Nachdenken und Argumentieren kaum wegdenken. Ganz zurecht stellen sie eines der klassischen Themen der Argumentationstheorie dar. Doch wie genau sollte die argumentative Rolle von Analogien in Argumentrekonstruktionen dargestellt werden? Das ist die Leitfrage dieses Beitrags. Zunächst wird mit Michael Dummetts Schach-Analogie ein prominentes Beispiel dargestellt und eine genauere Charakterisierung des Analogiebegriffs vorgeschlagen. Danach wird die gängigste Rekonstruktionsform von Analogien diskutiert, das Analogieargument, und in einigen Punkten verfeinert. Vor diesem Hintergrund schlägt der Beitrag eine zweite, (...) alternative Rekonstruktionsform vor, in der zwei analoge Argumente an die Stelle eines einzelnen Analogiearguments treten. Nachdem diese beiden Rekonstruktionsformen an einem weiteren berühmten Beispiel vorgeführt wurden, an Peter Singers Teich-Analogie, wird diskutiert, wie sich diese beiden Varianten gegenseitig ergänzen und welche Stärken und Schwächen sie haben. Es zeigt sich, dass Analogien nicht nur in Form von Analogieargumenten einen zentralen Topos eines Einzelarguments darstellen. Darüber hinaus kann die Untersuchung analoger Argumente bereits selbst als argumentationstheoretische Topik verstanden werden. (shrink)

Analogien lassen sich aus unserem vernünftigen Nachdenken und Argumentieren kaum wegdenken. Ganz zurecht stellen sie eines der klassischen Themen der Argumentationstheorie dar. Doch wie genau sollte die argumentative Rolle von Analogien in Argumentrekonstruktionen dargestellt werden? Das ist die Leitfrage dieses Beitrags. Zunächst wird mit Michael Dummetts Schach-Analogie ein prominentes Beispiel dargestellt und eine genauere Charakterisierung des Analogiebegriffs vorgeschlagen. Danach wird die gängigste Rekonstruktionsform von Analogien diskutiert, das Analogieargument, und in einigen Punkten verfeinert. Vor diesem Hintergrund schlägt der Beitrag eine zweite, (...) alternative Rekonstruktionsform vor, in der zwei analoge Argumente an die Stelle eines einzelnen Analogiearguments treten. Nachdem diese beiden Rekonstruktionsformen an einem weiteren berühmten Beispiel vorgeführt wurden, an Peter Singers Teich-Analogie, wird diskutiert, wie sich diese beiden Varianten gegenseitig ergänzen und welche Stärken und Schwächen sie haben. Es zeigt sich, dass Analogien nicht nur in Form von Analogieargumenten einen zentralen Topos eines Einzelarguments darstellen. Darüber hinaus kann die Untersuchung analoger Argumente bereits selbst als argumentationstheoretische Topik verstanden werden. (shrink)

The relevance of metamathematical researches for philosophy of math- ematics is an indubitable matter. In the paper I shall speak about impli- cations of metamathematics for general philosophy, especially for classical epistemological problems. Let us start with a historical observation con- cerning Hilbert's programme, the rst research programme in metamathe- matics as a separate study of formal systems. This programme was strongly in uence by epistemological considerations. In fact, Hilbert wanted to se- cure all classical mathematics against inconsistencies and this (...) aim had be achieved with the help of nitary consistency proof. Hilbert's claim is like the Cartesian project of reduction of all concepts to clarae et distinctae ideae. The epistemological commitment of original Hilbert's programme may be treated as a prelim- inary heuristic motivation for looking for epistemological implications of metamathematical results. It seems reasonable to examine in this respect three so-called limitative theorems: the rst Godel's incompleteness theo- rem , the second Godel's incom- pleteness theorem consistency of S, cannot be proved in S, providing that S is consistent) and Tarski's undenability theorem ; \S" stands for formal system containing elementary number theory. From the above-mentioned theorems we obtain an important, from philosophical point of view, conclusion: semantics of S cannot be expressed in S. Now, I shall present three applications of limitative theorems to the analysis of classical epistemological problems. (shrink)

[This paper is written in Czech.] The aim of this article is to briefly introduce and critically analyze the dialogue between phenomenology and contemporary theories of embodied cognition in relation to the study of affectivity. The author explains how these theoretical approaches interpret the dynamic relationship between affective experiences on the one hand and bodily behavior and intersubjectively observable processes taking place in the environment on the other. He first summarizes the positions of Joel Krueger and Giovanna Colombetti, who draw (...) on the theories of extended cognition and enactivism, and then compares them with Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological approach. In this way, there are found to be inconsistencies in Krueger’s and Colombetti’s approaches, whose resolution, in the author’s opinion, requires the working out of a rigorously “relational” interpretation of affectivity. From this point of view, affectivity is not understood as an internal phenomenon causally linked to external material factors, but strictly as a dynamic relationship between a sense-making agent and his or her meaningful environment. (shrink)

'Sound Effects' collects original articles on English and American prose fiction which analyse vocal phenomena by using the psychoanalytic concept of the object voice - introduced by J. Lacan and theorised by M. Dolar - as their interpretative tool.

This paper is concerned with the inverted gender roles portrayed in the Middle English Partonope of Blois, and the part played by Urake in realigning them. The relationship between hero and heroine begins with Partonope in a female passive role as a "kept man," and Melior in a male dominating role as a sexually self-assured woman who chooses the man she wants and controls him. Urake, one of the most unusually interventionistic of romance go-betweens, saves Partonope's life and prepares him, (...) both physically and psychologically, to assume his position as the triumphal hero; she also torments Melior into accepting a less controlling form of love more suitable for a medieval woman. In this way the conventional ending to the romance is enhanced by the satisfaction of seeing the inverted gender roles of hero and heroine put to rights. (shrink)

Semantic externalism in the style of McDowell and Evans faces a puzzle formulated by Pryor: to explain that a sentence such as 'Jack exists' is only a posteriori knowable, despite being logically entailed by the seemingly logical truth 'Jack is self-identical', and hence being itself a logical truth and therefore a priori knowable. Free logics can dissolve the puzzle. Moreover, Pryor has argued that the existentially hedged 'If Jack exists, then Jack is self-identical', when properly formalised, is a logical truth (...) in a system of neutral free logic and therefore a priori knowable, while it does not entail that Jack exists. The latter holds also for negative free logic. In response, Yeakel has argued that on any system of neutral free logic existence hedges will either entail some unwanted existence claims or they will not entail some wanted existence claims. The dilemma also holds for any non-positive free logic. It will be shown that the extension of one of the systems of neutral free logic with a truth operator escapes Yeakel's dilemma, whereas no other non-positive free logic when extended with the truth operator does the same (or it breaks quantifier exchangeability). (shrink)

According to Eugen Fink, a thorough elucidation of the meaning of play has the capacity to lead us towards an understanding of the world as a totality. In order to go beyond Plato’s understanding of play as an inferior copy of serious action, Fink provides an analysis of the cultic game. This form of playing cannot be said to be the origin of all play, but it enables us to demonstrate how the act of playing transcends circumscribed beings inside the (...) world and provides a relationship with a higher whole, in which the community participating in the play is encompassed. A masked shaman does not represent a particular god, but brings to presence the action of gods upon humans as such. Thus, the cultic game is a symbol of a more important reality, not an inferior representation of an individual reality. This, however, is still not a sufficiently radical interpretation of the ontological dimension of play: the whole is only understood as an action of gods, i.e. mediately. Fink strives to demonstrate on the cont... (shrink)

The bulk of the present book has not been published previously though Chapters II and IV are based in part on two earlier papers of mine: "The Influence of Harald H!1lffding's Philosophy on Niels Bohr's Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics", which appeared in Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, 1979, and "The Bohr-H!1lffding Relationship Reconsidered", published in Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, 1988. These two papers comple ment each other, and in order to give the whole issue a more extended treatment (...) I have sought, in the present volume by drawing on relevant historical material, to substantiate the claim that H!1lffding was Bohr's mentor. Besides containing a detailed account of Bohr's philosophy, the book, at the same time, serves the purpose of making H!1lffding' s ideas and historical significance better known to a non-Danish readership. During my work on this book I have consulted the Royal Danish Library; the National Archive of Denmark and the Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen, in search of relevant material. I am grateful for permission to use and quote material from these sources. Likewise, I am indebted to colleagues and friends for commenting upon the manuscript: I am especially grateful to Professor Henry Folse for our many discussions during my visit to New Orleans in November-December 1988 and again here in Elsinore in July 1990. (shrink)

It is a frequent assumption that—via superluminal information transfers—superluminal signals capable of enabling communication are necessarily exchanged in any quantum theory that posits hidden superluminal influences. However, does the presence of hidden superluminal influences automatically imply superluminal signalling and communication? The non-signalling theorem mediates the apparent conflict between quantum mechanics and the theory of special relativity. However, as a ‘no-go’ theorem there exist two opposing interpretations of the non-signalling constraint: foundational and operational. Concerning Bell’s theorem, we argue that Bell employed (...) both interpretations, and that he finally adopted the operational position which is associated often with ontological quantum theory, e.g., de Broglie–Bohm theory. This position we refer to as “effective non-signalling”. By contrast, associated with orthodox quantum mechanics is the foundational position referred to here as “axiomatic non-signalling”. In search of a decisive communication-theoretic criterion for differentiating between “axiomatic” and “effective” non-signalling, we employ the operational framework offered by Shannon’s mathematical theory of communication, whereby we distinguish between Shannon signals and non-Shannon signals. We find that an effective non-signalling theorem represents two sub-theorems: Non-transfer-control theorem, and Non-signification-control theorem. Employing NTC and NSC theorems, we report that effective, instead of axiomatic, non-signalling is entirely sufficient for prohibiting nonlocal communication. Effective non-signalling prevents the instantaneous, i.e., superluminal, transfer of message-encoded information through the controlled use—by a sender-receiver pair —of informationally-correlated detection events, e.g., in EPR-type experiments. An effective non-signalling theorem allows for nonlocal quantum information transfer yet—at the same time—effectively denies superluminal signalling and communication. (shrink)

Er bleibt in der juristischen Diskussion aber doch weitgehend ohne scharfere Konturen. Jan Schapp hat sich dieser Thematik seit 1992 in einer Reihe rechtsphilosophischer Aufsatze angenommen, die er hier in einer Sammlung zuganglich macht.

Students of Thomas Aquinas have so far lacked a comprehensive study of his doctrine of the transcendentals. This volume fills this lacuna, showing the fundamental character of the notions of being, one, true and good for his thought. The book inquires into the beginnings of the doctrine in the thirteenth century and explains the relation of the transcendental way of thought to Aquinas's conception of metaphysics. It analyzes 'Being', 'One', 'True', 'Good' and 'Beautiful' individually and discusses their importance for the (...) philosophical knowledge of God. Medieval Philosophy and the Transcendentals: The Case of Thomas Aquinas is intended as a contribution to the question 'What is philosophy in the Middle Ages?' It argues that the doctrine of the transcendentals is essential for understanding medieval philosophy. (shrink)

Is knowledge-how, or “practical” knowledge, a species of knowledge-that, or “theoretical” knowledge? There is no comfortable position to take in the debate around this question. On the one hand, there are counterexamples against the anti-intellectualist thesis that practical knowledge is best analysed as an ability. They show that having an ability to ϕ is not necessary for knowing how to ϕ. On the other hand, the intellectualist analysis of practical knowledge as a subspecies of theoretical knowledge is threatened by its (...) own set of counterexamples, which convincingly establish that practical knowledge lacks many of the typical characteristics of theoretical knowledge. Most strikingly it does not even appear to require a belief. In this paper, I develop an account of practical knowledge that avoids these counterexamples. It also manages to preserve both the status of such knowledge as a cognitive achievement and its apparently close conceptual relation to abilities. I start with the counterexamples against the necessity of abilities for practical knowledge and show that they fail because they underestimate the cognitive demands of attempts. I then make use of the logic of dispositions to bridge the gap that counterexamples against the necessity of abilities for practical knowledge open. It is argued that, instead of the ability to ϕ, it is a specific disposition to have the ability to ϕ that constitutes practical knowledge about ϕ. The resulting theory is an anti-intellectualist position that preserves essential intellectualist motivations and thus should be satisfactory for proponents of both views. (shrink)

This book provides for the first time a complete history of the doctrine of the transcendentals and shows its importance for the understanding of philosophy in the Middle Ages.