"Der vorliegende Band vereinigt die Beitrèage des Symposiums zur Logik der Stoiker und ihrer Vorlèaufer, das vom 1.-7.9.1991 in Bamberg stattfand"--P. [7].

In this paper I defend the existence of a Dialectical school proper against criticisms brought forward by Klaus Döring and by Jonathan Barnes. Whereas Döring claims that there was no Dialectical school separate from the Megarians, Barnes takes issue with my claim (argued for in “Dialektiker und frühe Stoiker bei Sextus Empiricus”) that most of the reports in Sextus on the dialecticians refer to members of the Dialectical school. Barnes contends that these dialecticians are in fact Stoic logicians. As (...) against Döring, I argue that the passage in Diogenes Laertius II 113 (first drawn attention to by David Sedley) which talks of a the Megarian Stilpo winning over disciples from the Dialecticians is not refuted by Döring’s arguments. It clearly shows that the Dialecticians and the Megarians at the time were taken to be different philosophical sects. As against Barnes I insist on the differences between the report in Ps.-Galen’s Historia 9 and the Sextan report on the theory of sign in AM VIII. These reports offer incompatible definitions of the indicative sign. Moreover, the classification of simple propositions reported by Sextus at AM VIII 96f. cannot be a truncated version of the (Stoic) list to be found in Diogenes Laertius VII 69f. since in Sextus’ report one of the three classes of simple propositions is labelled middle (meson). This is a certain sign that we are dealing with a triad, and hence that this list is meant to be complete. Therefore the classification found in Sextus and attributed to the dialecticians and the one in Diogenes Laertius reporting Stoic material do come from different sources. (shrink)

This is a review of the new translation-cum-commentary of Lucretius, De rerum Natura by Klaus Binder, published by dtv, Munich 2017. The review stresses the importance of Lucretius work for the Enlightenment. The translation is o. k. on the whole, however the translator should have avoided rendering the Latin >religio< by >Aberglauben< (superstition). >superstition< was the word chosen by the English translator in the Loeb-Library, W. H. D. Rouse. Rouse was a Headmaster of the Perse School in Cambridge and (...) he may have chosen this rendering in 1924 to avoid getting into trouble with the Church of England. (shrink)

Since the 1970’s there has been a major increase in adventure sports participation but it seems that engagement in such sports comes with a stigma: adventure sports participants are often regarded as reckless ‘daredevils’. We approach the questions about people’s perception of risk and recklessness in adventure sports by combining empirical research with philosophical analysis. First, we provide empirical evidence that suggests that laypeople tend to assess the danger of adventure sports as greater than more mundane sports and judge adventure (...) sports participants as more reckless than participants in non-adventure sports. We contextualise these findings within existing psychological risk perception paradigms and outline new philosophical explanations of the identified pattern in laypeople’s risk perception. (shrink)

This is the first complete English translation of Gottlob Frege's Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, with introduction and annotation. The importance of Frege's ideas within contemporary philosophy would be hard to exaggerate. He was, to all intents and purposes, the inventor of mathematical logic, and the influence exerted on modern philosophy of language and logic, and indeed on general epistemology, by the philosophical framework.

Philosophers and ethicists have long neglected moral questions that arise from our interaction with non-human animals. Most assumed that human beings have a higher moral status than other animals, and that it is therefore morally permissible to use non-human animals as a source of food, clothing, and entertainment, and for scientific purposes. In recent decades, however, that assumption has been challenged, and the moral status of non-human animals is now the subject of a lively and controversial academic debate.Advances in sciences, (...) particularly the advent of evolutionary theory, made us realize that human beings and other animals are more similar than different, and force us to rethink our place in nature. We are no longer justified in thinking of ourselves as the crown of creation. We now understand that we are just one species among others, and we must ask ourselves anew – with an open and critical mind and without bias – which values and principles should guide our interaction with non-human animals, and how we should weigh our interests against those of other animals.Recognizing this important trend in moral thinking, the Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics invited me to edit a special issue on animal ethics. The interest was so great that one issue became two, of which this is the first. I am grateful to Professor Shamima Parvin Lasker and Ms. Tahera Ahmed for giving me the opportunity to serve as a guest editor, and for their assistance during the editing process. I also thank our contributors for choosing this journal to publish their excellent work, and the reviewers for their insightful comments and suggestions.This, the first special issue on animal ethics contains the following five articles:Robin Attfield and Rebekah Humphreys (“Justice and Non-Human Animals”) challenge the widely held belief that non-human animals are not included within the scope of the principles of justice, and suggest that the interests of non-human animals sometimes take precedence over the interests of human beings. The implications of their argument for our interaction with other animals are profound: E.g., it is a matter of justice and fairness to prevent avoidable and unnecessary animal suffering, rather than a mere matter of compassion.Eric X. Qi (“Special Relations, Special Obligations, and Speciesism”) develops an account of the moral significance of special relations, and uses it to argue for a modest form of speciesism that steers a middle ground between anti-speciesism and crude speciesism. Unlike anti-speciesists, he maintains that species co-membership grounds special moral obligations among the members of the same species. In contrast to crude speciesists, however, he holds that our special obligations to fellow human beings do not warrant that we always attach more weight to their interests than to the comparable interests of non-human animals.Yamikani Ndasaukaand Grivas M. Kayange (“Existence and Needs: A case for the equal moral considerability of non-human animals”) argue that the existentialist view that human beings have a higher moral status than other animals rests on a weak foundation. They consider a number of arguments that have been made in support of this view and conclude that none of them holds up to critical scrutiny. They then suggest that human beings and other animals in fact deserve equal moral consideration, and – drawing from Martin Heidegger and Abraham Maslow – ground that claim in two important commonalities between them.Sreetama Chakraborty (“Animal Ethics: Beyond Neutrality, Universality, and Consistency”) explains how the postmodern approach to animal ethics departs from the traditional approach, particularly its emphasis on the principles of neutrality, universality, and consistency, and draws attention to the pernicious hierarchy of domination that separates human beings from other animals. Building on the insights of postmodernism, she takes first steps towards a new, non-anthropocentric paradigm, in the hope to achieve a sustainable balance between human interests and the interests of non-human animals.Gabriel Vidal Quiñones (“Singerian Vegetarianism and the Limits of Utilitarianism: A path towards a Meaning Ethics”) takes a critical look at Peter Singer’s utilitarian argument for vegetarianism, and argues that the conceptual resources of utilitarianism only allow for an incomplete moral understanding of our relationship with other animals. What is lacking, he suggests, is an ethical vision. He argues that, without an ethical vision, human action threatens to degenerate into mere automatism without meaning. He proposes a “meaning ethics” that he thinks is better equipped to help us decide how we ought to treat other animals.I hope you, dear reader, will enjoy reading through this remarkable collection of articles as much as I enjoyed putting it together. Maybe you will even be inspired to do some thinking of your own about issues of animal ethics and put your thoughts down on paper. If so, I sincerely hope that you will choose the Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics to publish your article.Warm regards and best wishes for the new year. (shrink)

Abstractionism, which is a development of Frege's original Logicism, is a recent and much debated position in the philosophy of mathematics. This volume contains 16 original papers by leading scholars on the philosophical and mathematical aspects of Abstractionism. After an extensive editors' introduction to the topic of abstractionism, the volume is split into 4 sections. The contributions within these sections explore the semantics and meta-ontology of Abstractionism, abstractionist epistemology, the mathematics of Abstractionis, and finally, Frege's application constraint within an abstractionist (...) setting. (shrink)

Mountaineering is a dangerous activity. For many mountaineers, part of its very attraction is the risk, the thrill of danger. Yet mountaineers are often regarded as reckless or even irresponsible for risking their lives. In this paper, we offer a defence of risk-taking in mountaineering. Our discussion is organised around the fact that mountaineers and non-mountaineers often disagree about how risky mountaineering really is. We hope to cast some light on the nature of this disagreement – and to argue that (...) mountaineering may actually be worthwhile because of the risks it involves. Section 1 introduces the disagreement and, in doing so, separates out several different notions of risk. Sections 2–4 then consider some explanations of the disagreement, showing how a variety of phenomena can skew people's risk judgements. Section 5 then surveys some recent statistics, to see whether these illuminate how risky mountaineering is. In light of these considerations, however, we suggest that the disagreement is best framed not simply in terms of how risky mountaineering is but whether the risks it does involve are justified. The remainder of the paper, sections 6–9, argues that risk-taking in mountaineering often is justified – and, moreover, that mountaineering can itself be justified (in part) by and because of the risks it involves. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: What is Self‐Sufficiency? The Value of Self‐Sufficiency Objections Concluding Remarks Notes.

A history of divining rods Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9565-x Authors Martina Kölbl-Ebert, Jura-Museum, Burgstrasse 19, 85072 Eichstätt, Germany Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

Der Fokus auf die Sprache bestimmte die Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts, die sowohl die Dekonstruktion der Metaphysik als auch den Tod des Subjekts verkündete. Der Psychoanalytiker Jacques Lacan führte das Subjekt des Begehrens wieder in den philosophischen Diskurs ein und entwickelte aus der Struktur der Sprache eine neue, symbolische Logik des Unbewussten. Die Logik des Signifikanten, deren Geschichte diese Arbeit nachzeichnet, um sie zu transzendieren, stellt die Frage nach der Dialektik von Signifikant und Begriff, Sprache und Logik, Bewusstem und Unbewusstem, (...) Ich und Subjekt, Gesetz und Begehren, Denken und Sein. Durch die Funktionen der Metonymie, der Metapher und des Stepppunktes sowie über das Schema der vier Diskurse werden die Tropen der traditionellen philosophischen Logik - Begriff, Urteil und Schluss - neu interpretiert. Das Peirce'sche Konzept der Abduktion ermöglicht es, sowohl den Borromäischen Knoten Lacans - Imaginäres, Symbolisches und Reales - wie auch die transzendentale Dialektik und Ontologie der Moderne, die auf Kants und Hegels Revolutionen der Denkungsart zurückgehen, schlusslogisch zu begründen. (shrink)

Diese komparatistische Monographie stellt zentrale Kategorien und Theorien der Literaturwissenschaft dar. Sie synthetisiert und bewertet den Stand der Forschung und unterwirft viele Dogmen der neueren Forschung einer kritischen Analyse. Resultat ist eine Reformulierung des theoretischen Kernbestandes der Literaturwissenschaft für die zentralen Kategorien Interpretation, Fiktion, Performativität, Intertextualität, Gattung, Epoche. Der Band richtet sich an alle Wissenschaften, die mit Texten als Erkenntnisobjekten umgehen; neben der Literaturwissenschaft sind also auch die Theaterwissenschaft, die Sprachwissenschaft, die Sprachphilosophie, die Kunstwissenschaft, die Geschichtswissenschaft sowie Theologie und Jurisprudenz (...) angesprochen. (shrink)

This is an introductory survey article to the philosophy of mathematics. I provide a detailed account of what Benacerraf’s problem is and then discuss in general terms four different approaches to ….

What is the relation between ‘full’ or ‘outright’ belief and the various levels of confidence that agents can have in the propositions that concern them? This paper argues for a new answer to this question. Decision theory implies that in making decisions, rational agents must treat certain propositions as though they were completely certain; but on most forms of decision theory, these propositions are not ones for which any finite agent could have maximal justification – the agent will clearly have (...) less justification for these propositions than for elementary logical truths. Thus, every adequate model of a finite rational agent's belief‐system must involve two set of credences – theoretical credences and practical credences . A full or outright belief in p can be defined as the state of being stably disposed to assign a practical credence of 1 to p, for all normal practical purposes. This definition allows for a kind of reconciliation between the pragmatist and intellectualist approaches in epistemology. (shrink)

A co-authored article with Roy T. Cook forthcoming in a special edition on the Caesar Problem of the journal Dialectica. We argue against the appeal to equivalence classes in resolving the Caesar Problem.

Attention is automatically allocated to stimuli that are opposite in valence to the current motivational focus (Rothermund, 2003; Rothermund, Voss, & Wentura, 2008). We tested whether this incongruency effect is due to affective–motivational counter-regulation or to an increased salience of stimuli that mismatch with cognitively activated information. Affective processing biases were assessed with a search task in which participants had to detect the spatial position at which a positive or negative stimulus was presented. In the motivational condition, positive or negative (...) affective–motivational states were induced by performance feedback after each trial. In the cognitive activation condition, participants memorised the word “good” or “bad” during the search task. The affective incongruency effect was replicated in the motivational condition, whereas an affective congruency effect obtained in the cognitive activation condition. These findings support an explanation of affective incongruency effects in terms of automatic counter-regulation that is motivational in nature. (shrink)

The achievement of unity and perfection in human action begins with a struggle for these ideals in human thought. Dr. Klaus Vondung in his collection of essays that span four decades explores examples of this in different fields of human inquiry: striving for harmonious existential unity of talents and morals, intellect and emotion; seeking to make natural sciences consonant with the humanities and thereby moving toward a more universal, "perfect" science; and establishing unity in political structures and cultivating in (...) this unity a homogenous society. Vondung has given special devotion to National Socialism as a context wherein he revisits its perverted motivation and the consequences of this despite noble ideals. Particular focus in following the thread of unity and perfection in human intellectual and practical ambitions ultimately hones in on the combination of religion and politics. Vondung in these essays unpacks the ways in which this continues to fascinate and disturb us, and in his expertise he uses National Socialism to connect this pursuit of unity and perfection to what he calls one of the signature marks of modernity--namely, secular apocalypticism. This claim stands in opposition to Eric Voegelin's remark that Gnosticism, rather, is "the nature of modernity." Vondung, who studied and wrote his dissertation under Voegelin, grapples with the contrast of these positions. Vondung is willing to challenge Voegelin, but ultimately his treatment of the latter bears the quality of tribute to this great scholar. Vondung also explores the points of contact between apocalypticism and Hermetic speculation. Despite the independence of the religious and philosophical doctrines of Hermeticism, there are parallels to be found. Apocalypticism and Hermeticism originated in antiquity and yet each represents a tradition that still holds footing today. Vondung furthermore leads the reader to see the project of salvation found in both even as each operates with a different scope. This collection of essays centers itself on a perspective of the human pursuit of unity and perfection, directly or indirectly, as objectives of intellectual endeavors, existential ideals, as social or political outcomes, and in the case of National Socialism even as perverse aberrations. Vondung's particular treatment of Voegelin's work likewise establishes what the former identifies as a stand-out question of this study: Does the search of order in history show us the unity of the history of humankind? (shrink)

In this book, linguists and philosophers combine to offer a unique insight not only into Grice's contribution to philosophy of language, but on his theories of natural and non-natural meaning, implicatures and the semantic-pragmatic distinction.

This chapter describes the phenomenology of the political world. Phenomenology must get underway with an analysis of the political world. The chapter evaluates more precisely the relation between the concept of world or worldliness and the openness of the political. Using the term ‘political world’ is preferred to utilising the traditional terms because it is less burdened by prejudice. The guiding impulse towards the clarification of the Sache of political philosophy as political world stems from Hannah Arendt, who does not (...) make use of the phenomenological conception of ‘horizon’. Science's confidence that it can attain a knowledge free of all horizonal plurality is among the most fundamental prejudices that phenomenology endeavours to overcome. Phenomenology is the decided present renewal of the most ancient idea of epistêmê. (shrink)

In the age of digitization, the world seems to be reducible to a digital computer. However, mathematically, modern quantum field theories do not only depend on discrete, but also continuous concepts. Ancient debates in natural philosophy on atomism versus the continuum are deeply involved in modern research on digital and computational physics. This example underlines that modern physics, in the tradition of Newton’s Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis, is a further development of natural philosophy with the rigorous methods of mathematics, measuring, (...) and computing. We consider fundamental concepts of natural philosophy with mathematical and computational methods and ask for their ontological and epistemic status. The following article refers to the author’s book, “The Digital and the Real World. Computational Foundations of Mathematics, Science, Technology, and Philosophy.”. (shrink)