A full appreciation for Ernst Mach's doctrine of the economy of thought must take account of his direct realism about particulars (elements) and his anti-realism about space-time laws as economical constructions. After a review of thought economy, its critics and some contemporary forms, the paper turns to the philosophical roots of Mach's doctrine. Mach claimed that the simplest, most parsimonious theories economized memory and effort by using abstract concepts and laws instead of attending to the details of each individual event (...) or experiment. For Mach, the individual case never truly repeated in all of its uniqueness, nor was all of the individual detail of a physical element adequately captured in abstract laws and schemata, however necessary these were for the pursuit of science. As can be shown from specific passages, some already published, some not, Mach's elements included physical qualia in nature similar to Russell's unsensed sensibilia, which existed even where there were no conscious observers. An argument will be presented to make the case that Mach believed in the mind-independent elements from the 1870s on, while other aspects of his thought evolved over time; I have thus dated the references to reflect this historical progression. I concentrate on Mach's ontology, as it bears on economy of thought, not his epistemology per se, which might well have been restricted to observable elements/sensations. After his own conversion to neutral monism, in the 1920s, Bertrand Russell echoed Mach's call for a 'future science' capable of handling the 'intrinsic character' of qualitative data directly without the excessive abstraction of physics. (shrink)

Erkenntnis und Irrtum. Skizzen zur Psychologie der Forschung. Von E. MACH Emer. Professor an der Unlversltlt Wlen. LEIPZIG Verlag von Johann Ambrosius Barth 1905. INTRODUCTION XIII On a number of occasions Mach expressed the sentiment, especially in his correspondence, that America was the land of intellectual freedom and opportunity, the coming frontier for a new radical empiricism that would help to wash metaphysics out of philosophy. In 1901 he sponsored the German edition of Concepts and Theories of Modern Physics (1881) (...) 2 by J. B. Stallo, Cincinnati lawyer and philosopher. Mach warmly endorsed Stallo's book because his scientific aims so closely approximated his own, and because Stallo rejected the latent metaphysical elements and concealed ontological assumptions of the mechanical-atomistic inter­ pretation of the world. The second edition of Wiirmelehre was dedicated to Stallo in 1900. The fourth edition of Populiir-wissenschaftliche Vorlesungen (1910), containing seven new essays, was dedicated to Harvard Professor of physiology, philosophY, and psychology, William James. Mach had a strong intellectual affinity for James' pragmatism because, like himself, he recognized that James had come to radically empirical views from science. Both men took pure pre-conceptualized experience, from which the mental and physical predicates of experience are composed, to be neutral rather than real, unreal, objective or subjective. (shrink)

Historical studies convincingly demonstrate that the knowledge process [Erkenntnis] in natural science consists of the gradual adaptation of the thoughts to the facts. This adaptation happens through happy circumstances, which increasingly reveal the more general similarities and subtle differences of the facts. By this, the precision of the representation of the facts by the thoughts grows, so that the latter finally become an image of the former, which for certain intellectual purposes may completely substitute for them. The one who admits (...) this sober view of the meaning of natural science will assign to natural science teaching no other purpose, but to promote the aspired adaptation of thoughts with highest economy of work on shortcuts, by artificially bringing about those favorable circumstances avoiding the unfavorable historical coincidences and delays.One should in teaching first and foremost proceed psychologically; only secondarily and as much logically, as this is enabled through the psychological preparation so that it becomes a need. New concepts, theories, hypotheses, solutions of problems should only be introduced, when the need for this is felt in order to be able to master the topic. For each sentence, which appears during teaching, clarity and explicitness, but in general not indefeasibility from the point of view of the goal of teaching, should be required. (shrink)

Husserl’s phenomenology is what is used, and then the conception of “bracketing reality” is modelled to generalize Peano arithmetic in its relation to set theory in the foundation of mathematics. The obtained model is equivalent to the generalization of Peano arithmetic by means of replacing the axiom of induction with that of transfinite induction. A comparison to Mach’s doctrine is used to be revealed the fundamental and philosophical reductionism of Husserl’s phenomenology leading to a kind of Pythagoreanism in the (...) final analysis. (shrink)

Ernst Mach’s defense of relativist theories of motion in Die Mechanik involves a well-known criticism of Newton’s theory appealing to absolute space, and of Newton’s “bucket” experiment. Sympathetic readers (Norton 1995) and critics (Stein 1967, 1977) agree that there’s a tension in Mach’s view: he allows for some constructed scientific concepts, but not others, and some kinds of reasoning about unobserved phenomena, but not others. Following Banks (2003), I argue that this tension can be interpreted as a constructive (...) one, springing from Mach’s approach to scientific reasoning. Mach’s “economy of science” allows for a principled distinction to be made, between natural and artificial hypothetical reasoning, and Mach defends a division of labor between the sciences in a 1903 paper for The Monist, “Space and Geometry from the Point of View of Physical Inquiry”. That division supports counterfactual reasoning in Mach’s system, something that’s long been denied is possible for him. (shrink)

Ernst Mach’s philosophical ideas were warmly received in America, which already had a pragmatist tradition close to Machian empiricism and budding schools of philosophy, psychology, and physics more or free of the neo-Kantian influences which were a strong academic competitor to the spread of empiricism in Europe. The founding pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce and William James engaged directly with Mach and Paul Carus, the editor of the Monist and publisher of the Open Court press actively translated and published (...) class='Hi'>Mach’s works for the American public. A generation later when members of the Vienna Circle sought Academic posts in elite American universities, the ground was well prepared for their arrival as Holton and Stadler have described. Beneath the surface however, the American reaction to Mach was not one of naïve admiration but fairly staunch criticism, which Mach himself appreciated and welcomed. Peirce was highly critical of Mach’s mechanics in a review and Peirce famously described Mach’s empiricism as akin to riding a horse to death. In some ways, Peirce himself had anticipated aspects of Mach’s views on mind and body, a surprising discovery I made recently. Even Carus, who declared himself an admirer, was highly critical of Mach’s theory of economy of thought. James, too, who admired Mach greatly, had major disagreements with Mach on so-called sensations of innervation in psychology, and although’s James’ own radical empiricist essays owed much to Mach’s neutral monist ideas in the Analysis, James broke away from what he saw as Mach’s excessive physical reductionism, rejecting the monism about nature that was Mach’s trademark. In short Mach’s ideas acted as a stimulus to American thinkers, but they had their own tradition and they were able to resist his authority and contribute in reverse to Mach’s own refinement of his positions. (shrink)

In his general philosophical remarks, scattered across different oeuvres, Mach subscribed to a number of doctrines. First, the thesis of the economy of science: The primary, perhaps the only legitimate goal of scientific theories is to achieve the economy of thought. Instead of recording many facts, science codifies them under the heading of laws. Instead of attending to individual diverse sensations, science postulates the existence of bodies. Then we have evolutionism: Human activities must ultimately be understood in terms of Darwin’s (...) theory. A man is a biological product of evolutionary development. But only human activities: history of knowledge, ideas, thoughts is only intelligible by the lights of evolutionary theory. Finally, phenomenalism: Sensations are denizens of the world, whereas bodies are symbols constructed in thought, chiefly to serve the purposes of economy. Are these views jointly consistent? I argue that the role of naturalism, prominent in the endorsement of the evolutionary theory, creates an unresolved tension among those views. Phenomenalism in particular is deeply revisionary. It appears to be a remnant of empiricist metaphysics casting doubt on pretty much every area of scientific discourse. The adoption of full-fledged philosophical naturalism should be able to resolve the tension without ruling out the possibility of a methodological critique of scientific theories. (shrink)

It has been more than sixty years since R. D. Collison Black published his Economic Thought and the Irish Question, a book which ever since has been widely regarded as a classic in the history of e...

An overview is provided of how the concept of the thought experiment has developed and changed for the natural sciences in the course of the 20th century. First, we discuss the existing definitions of the term 'thought experiment' and the origin of the thought experimentation method, identifying it in Greek Presocratics epoch. Second, only in the end of the 19th century showed up the first systematic enquiry on thought experiments by Ernst Mach's work. After the Mach's work, a negative attitude (...) towards thought experiments came in the beginning of the 20th century, which went on until the Thomas Kuhn's and Karl Popper's work on thought experiments. Only from the mid-1980s did thought experiments begin to be considered relevant to scientific enterprise. Finally, we show the existing empirical and 'functional' theories which have developed about the nature and purpose of thought experiments. (shrink)

How do we reconcile Husserl’s repeated criticism of Mach’s phenomenalism almost everywhere in his work with the leading role that Husserl seems to attribute to Mach in the genesis of his own phenomenology? To answer this question, we shall examine, first, the narrow relation that Husserl establishes between his phenomenological method and Mach’s descriptivism. Second, we shall examine two aspects of Husserl’s criticism of Mach: the first concerns phenomenalism and Mach’s doctrine of elements, while the second concerns (...) the principle of economy of thought, which Husserl closely associates with a form of psychologism in his Logical Investigations . Our working hypothesis is that the apparent contradictory comments of Husserl regarding Mach’s positivism can be partially explained by the double status he confers to his own phenomenology—as a philosophical program radically opposed to positivism, and as a method akin to Mach’s descriptivism. (shrink)

Ce papier soutient que l’indiscipline paradigmatique qui caractérise l’économie Autrichienne contemporaine pourrait être effacée si les économistes Autrichiens prenaient en considération l’unité doctrinale de Carl Menger dans son essai de construire une théorie subjectiviste des institutions. Construite sur une ontologie et une épistémologie aristotélicienne assortie d’ une méthodologie subjectiviste, l’analyse mengerienne des institutions économiques est le point culminant de sa pensée. Ne cherchant ni l’équilibration, ni la coordination, l’image mengerienne de l’économie est celle de relations complexes qui émergent au travers (...) de séquences infinies de processus d’échange. L’article conclut en suggérant que le “progrès” soit reconnu comme la “norme” par les économistes Autrichiens.This paper argues that the paradigmatic indiscipline that characterizes contemporary Austrian Economics can be smoothed out if Austrian economists appreciate the doctrinal unity of Carl Menger’s attempt to construct a subjectivist theory of institutions. Building on an Aristotelian ontology and epistemology coupled with a subjectivist methodology, Menger’s analysis of economic institutions is the culminating point of his thought. Neither equilibrating, nor coordinating, Menger’s image of the economy is that of complex relationships emerging through unending sequences of exchange processes. The paper concludes by suggesting that “progress” be acknowledged as the “norm” by Austrian economists. (shrink)

After years of neglect, alienation has again reached the agenda of critical thought. In my case, I recognize alienation as a challenge for education in contemporary societies. To obtain conceptual resources to overcome this challenge, I have revisited the comprehensive 20 th century discussion of alienation. Today, alienation is naturally discussed as an existential condition of human being, but still in the 1980s, there was a strong Marxist current that claimed alienation to be implied by capitalism, in particular by the (...) institution of private property and the social division of labor, and that alienation therefore should be criticized as part of the critique of capitalism and political economy and possibly overcome. Today, under the hegemony of neo-liberal capitalism, this critical and processual concept of alienation is more relevant than ever. Hence, in the present work I argue that the basic logic of Marx's idea of alienation still has critical potential. The argument forms a long engagement with mainly 20 th century literature, departing from the very idea of capitalism, considering the ideas of history, education and democracy, discussing how to distinguish and translate key terms, considering why alienation became an object of controversy among Marxists, offering an interpretation of Marx's critique relevant for contemporary society, thus considering alienation a consequence of working under conditions of private property, i.e. being a human being in a capitalist society, and finally presenting Marx's idea of communism as relevant to the contemporary educational agenda. (shrink)

What is the role of human agency in Friedrich Hayek's thought? This volume situates Hayek's writing as it relates to economic organization and activity, particularly to assess what role Hayek assigns to leaders in determining economic progress.

Cohen states in the last sentence of his book that his analysis in no way presupposes the controversial labor theory of value. For him, the contradictions of capitalist production result from the fact that its function is to create exchange value. The statements themselves and the fact that they come very late in the book illustrate two distinctive characteristics of the work. First, Cohen espouses what he calls a technological interpretation of Marx. For him, the driving force of history is (...) the steady increase in the capacity of productive forces. Capitalism supersedes feudalism because of its ability to produce more. This technological interpretation of Marx is a theory of history because only certain production relations allow for the development and expansion of productive forces. For example, the levels of production attained by capitalism would be unthinkable within the context of lord and serf. Secondly, it is not really clear that Cohen is defending a theory of history until he formulates the primacy thesis in chapter 6 and elaborates upon it and the rise of capitalism in chapter 7. The primacy thesis states that the production relations of society are explained by the level of development of its productive forces. Cohen seems to dispense with what is often thought of as the philosophy of history in his discussion of the Hegelian roots of Marxism in the first chapter. He proceeds to analyze the distinction between productive forces and production relations and its consequences for the phenomenon of fetishism in chapters 2-5. These first chapters, and some later ones as well, seem to have the property of belaboring at great length elementary problems raised by the preface to the Critique of Political Economy, and Capital as well. For example, in his distinction between productive forces and production relations, Cohen says that the two must not be confused because relations hold between objects while forces are properties of objects. He says that a soldier who guards peasants tilling the soil is not part of the labor power because he fulfills a social rather than an economic need. Then he presents and elaborates upon a list of production relations. Cohen might have avoided the need for such involved analysis if he had clearly delineated the methodological import of his work in the introduction or the first chapter. I refer to his theory of functional explanation. It is, however, only after he has discussed the problem of base and superstructure in chapter 8 that he comes to examine functional analysis in chapters 9 and 10. Since functional explanation is the crux of his defence of Marxism as a theory of history, the reader deserves a more thorough preparation for it in an introduction. (shrink)

Some popular views of Ernst Mach cast him as a philosopher-scientist averse to imaginative practices in science. The aim of this analysis is to address the question of whether or not imagination is compatible with Machian philosophy of science. I conclude that imagination is not only compatible, but essential to realizing the aim of science in Mach’s biologico-economical view. I raise the possible objection that my conclusion is undermined by Mach’s criticism of Isaac Newton’s famous “bucket experiment.” I (...) conclude that Mach’s issue lies not with thought experimentation, tout court, but with the improper use of thought experimentation as it relates to the aim of the biologico-economical development of science. (shrink)

Jean Baudrillard is one of the outstanding representatives both of French poststructuralism and postmodernism. Because of radical criticism it was not possible for him to establish a logically coherent theoretical system; the philosophical aspects of his work are specifically merged, therefore, into a critical asystematic fragmentarism, which is the subject of this work. From the critique of the political economy of the sign, through critiques of rationalism, reality, progress, truth, history to the theory of simulation, Baudrillard's specific para-concepts (fatal strategy, (...) symbolic exchange, seduction, hyperreality, pataphysics, etc.) are constantly fragmentarily present in the development of his thought. These concepts are Baudrillard's attempt at disengagement from modern philosophy and his new, unsystematic postmodern view of reality in general. In the analysis of binary metaphysical oppositions (reality-simulation, subject-object, knowledge-seduction, history-end, radical-irradical nihilism, metaphysics (God)-pataphysics), Baudrillard is radically exclusive through the arbitrary preference of one over the other concept. his ideas, it is possible to conclude that these dualistic antagonisms are also paradoxically compatible in his system, this compatibility is very close to the irrational mysticism of this thinker. This book is a clear and lucid presentation of this unique brand of postmodernism to English speaking scholarship. (shrink)

It has become orthodox to read Nietzsche as proposing the ‘sublimation’ of troublesome behavioural impulses. On this interpretation, he is said to denigrate the elimination of our impulses, preferring that we master them by pressing them into the service of our higher goals. My thesis is that this reading of Nietzsche’s conception of self-cultivation does not bear scrutiny. Closer examination of his later thought reveals numerous texts that show him explicitly recommending an eliminatory approach to self-cultivation. I invoke his theory (...) of the will to power in order to explain why he persistently valorises both elimination and sublimation as preconditions of healthy subjective unity. I conclude that which of these two approaches he recommends in a given situation depends on whether or not the impulse in question can be put to use within the overall economy of our drives. (shrink)

Aleksandr Bogdanov is probably the most original philosopher to have arisen thus far among Marxists. Most scholars know of him only as the man who provoked Lenin into writing the book of polemical epistemology, Materialism and Empiriocriticism. Jensen’s work, the first full-length study to deal with Bogdanov’s thought in its own right, is a careful analytical account; it sets forth the novel theses, chapter by chapter, in Bogdanov’s later book Philosophy of Living Experience.

Ce papier soutient que l’indiscipline paradigmatique qui caractérise l’économie Autrichienne contemporaine pourrait être effacée si les économistes Autrichiens prenaient en considération l’unité doctrinale de Carl Menger dans son essai de construire une théorie subjectiviste des institutions. Construite sur une ontologie et une épistémologie aristotélicienne assortie d’ une méthodologie subjectiviste, l’analyse mengerienne des institutions économiques est le point culminant de sa pensée. Ne cherchant ni l’équilibration, ni la coordination, l’image mengerienne de l’économie est celle de relations complexes qui émergent au travers (...) de séquences infinies de processus d’échange. L’article conclut en suggérant que le “progrès” soit reconnu comme la “norme” par les économistes Autrichiens.This paper argues that the paradigmatic indiscipline that characterizes contemporary Austrian Economics can be smoothed out if Austrian economists appreciate the doctrinal unity of Carl Menger’s attempt to construct a subjectivist theory of institutions. Building on an Aristotelian ontology and epistemology coupled with a subjectivist methodology, Menger’s analysis of economic institutions is the culminating point of his thought. Neither equilibrating, nor coordinating, Menger’s image of the economy is that of complex relationships emerging through unending sequences of exchange processes. The paper concludes by suggesting that “progress” be acknowledged as the “norm” by Austrian economists. (shrink)

In this study, the existing definitions of thought experiments and the origin of this concept with its first usage in history will be discussed. Then, the epistemology of Ernst Mach, who conducted the first systematic research on thought experiments, will be provided in order to grasp his views on this subject correctly. In this context, the views of James Brown and John Norton, who support different positions, will be briefly described in order to draw the general framework of the epistemological (...) status of thought experiments. Finally, it will be revealed that the biological theory of knowledge and the doctrine of the economy of thought are the sources of Mach’s ‘instinctive knowledge’ argument about scientific thought experiments. (shrink)

The unquestionable achievement of J. G. A. Pocock's The Machiavellian Moment was to describe the retention of pre-modern values in a modern society. Pocock was notoriously accused of decentring Locke and side-lining the Liberal Tradition. A more pertinent critique had it that he failed to articulate how civic humanism in the context of increasingly commercial societies produced more than Jeremiahs or Cassandras. This article explains how Pocock responded to his various critics by inventing the term “commercial humanism” in an effort (...) to clarify the way in which classical virtue was modified in modern commercial contexts, especially by natural jurists and republicans. Commercial humanism proved controversial but stimulated one of the most original scholars working in the history of political thought, István Hont, to undertake a prolonged engagement with Pocock's revisionist ideas, which ultimately allowed him to answer Pocock's critics better than Pocock, whose voice remained too in tune with those whose view of modern political thought he had rejected. For Hont, Pocock's labours in the history of political thought remained less relevant to present politics than they might become, once the depth of eighteenth-century analyses of the relationship between wealth and virtue was recovered. (shrink)

Marx is generally taken to be important in the history of thought as a social philosopher, that is, a philosopher whose main categories are human individuals, their interactions, and the development and modification of institutions, values, and the like. Not so, according to Carol C. Gould, who contends, rather, that Marx is important in the history of thought as a metaphysician, that is, a philosopher whose main categories are particulars, classes, the relation of individuals to class concepts, change, causation, and (...) the like, and, having developed principles in that universal ontic domain, Marx proceeded to apply them to a special subdomain of reality, namely, society. In other words, Marx was important as an ontologist in general, and specifically as a social ontologist. Thus, the author states: "I present Marx for the first time as a great systematic philosopher in the tradition of Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel. Yet I show that Marx’s philosophical system is distinctive in that he develops it as a framework for his concrete social theory and his critique of political economy". (shrink)

Recent discussion on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) mainly focuses on two aspects of CSR: from a technical perspective, CSR aims to improve ethical standards in the organizational decision-making process, and should guarantee that management practices are in accordance with commonly accepted standards of behavior. From a political perspective, CSR describes corporate engagement with ecological and social issues that extend beyond the firm's economic activities. The latter perspective in particular leaves unclear whether such corporate contributions to solve environmental and societal problems (...) should be seen as voluntary additional services or whether corporations bear specific duties in this field.Based on the tenet of subsidiarity derived from Catholic thought, this article emphasizes that the common interpretation of CSR should be extended by a third perspective that addresses corporations as intermediate actors bearing specific subsidiary co-responsibilities in society. (shrink)

Some popular views of Ernst Mach cast him as a philosopher-scientist averse to imaginative practices in science. The aim of this analysis is to address the question of whether or not imagination is compatible with Machian philosophy of science. I conclude that imagination is not only compatible but essential to realizing the aim of science in Mach’s biologico-economical view. I raise the possible objection that my conclusion is undermined by Mach’s criticism of Isaac Newton’s famous “bucket experiment.” I (...) conclude that Mach’s issue lies not with thought experimentation, tout court, but with the improper use of thought experimentation as it relates to the aim of the biologico-economical development of science. (shrink)

Modern Studies in Philosophy, we are informed on the page facing the title-page, "is a series of anthologies presenting contemporary interpretations and evaluations of the works of major philosophers." The volumes are "intended to be contributions to contemporary debates as well as to the history of philosophy; they not only trace the origins of many problems important to modern philosophy, but also introduce major philosophers as interlocutors in current discussions." In the first of the two volumes on Plato three of (...) the articles chosen by Gregory Vlastos have not appeared elsewhere: Julius Moravcsik, Learning as Recollection; G. E. L. Owen, Plato on Not-Being; David Higgins, Sentence Meaning, Negation, and Plato's Problem of Non-Being. The other studies in Volume One are reprints: R. Robinson and J. D. Denniston, Plato; H. F. Cherniss, The Philosophical Economy of the Theory of Ideas; A. Wedberg, The Theory of Ideas; R. C. Cross and A. D. Woozley, Knowledge, Belief and the Forms; R. Robinson, Hypothesis in the Republic; G. Vlastos, Reasons and Causes in the Phaedo; R. E. Allen, Participation and Predication in Plato's Middle Dialogues; Colin Strang, Plato and the Third Man; J. L. Ackrill, Symplokë eidön; J. L. Ackrill, Plato and the Copula: Sophist 251-259. In Volume Two Terry Penner, "Thought and Desire in Plato" has not been published before. The others have: Paul Shorey, Plato's Ethics; David Sachs, A Fallacy in Plato's Republic; Raphael Demos, A Fallacy in Plato's Republic?; J. D. Mabbott, Is Plato's Republic Utilitarian?; G. Vlastos, Justice and Happiness in the Republic; F. M. Cornford, The Doctrine of Eros in Plato's Symposium; R. A. Markus, The Doctrine of Eros in Plato's Symposium; Glenn R. Morrow, Plato and the Rule of Law; Wayne A. R. Leys, Was Plato Non-Political?; F. E. Sparshott, Plato as Anti-Political Thinker; Renford Bambrough, Plato's Political Analogies; E. R. Dodds, Plato and the Irrational Soul; W. K. C. Guthrie, Plato's Views on the Nature of the Soul; Harold Cherniss, The Sources of Evil According to Plato; W. J. Verdenius, Plato's Doctrines of Artistic Imitation. Obviously, the above listed articles will be welcome to those debating issues in Plato and to historians of twentieth-century philosophy. There are two difficulties, however. The print is too small in the body of the text and is nearly microscopic in the footnotes and diagrams. Reading thus becomes almost painful. Margins to the left, right, top and bottom of the pages are practically nonexistent. On occasion footnote material is misplaced--for example, the comment on Strang's article as originally published elsewhere should be on p. 184, not on p. 187, of Volume One. But a greater problem is the fact that almost all the articles on metaphysics and epistemology are by linguistic analysts. Vlastos in his introductory remarks admits as much: "Volume One is heavily weighted on the 'analytical' side." He reports the statement of an un-named advocate of conceptual analysis "that these [analytic] methods now enable us to understand Plato better than he was ever understood by anyone in history--better than by any of his own contemporaries, even better than by himself!" He disclaims such euphoria but insists "there is an element of truth in it after all" insofar as analytic tools can alert a student to ambiguity and its consequences in some of Plato's sentences. Hence, "if we come across such sentences in Plato, it would be plainly true to say that we can understand them better than he did and even to add that we can, therefore, understand him better, since we can see both what he meant to say and the logical liabilities of his incautious sentences." All this is true enough, but a warning still is in order. Linguistic analysts tend to read only some of Plato's dialogues and, even within them, to concentrate on some passages only. This is understandable in view of their interests and the capacity of the analytic technique. But that selectivity might lead them to believe that the Plato thus revealed is the complete and authentic Plato, which it is not. Hence, in reading and teaching Plato one must complement language- and concept-analysis with other approaches. Vlastos himself is aware of this necessity : [[sic]] "Once we have made full allowance for what modern semantics and logic can do to make Plato more intelligible and alive for us today, we should be quick to concede that borrowings from this quarter must be used with economy and discretion, and that continuing reliance on older linguistic and historical disciplines is as essential now as it has ever been in the past if the object of our inquiries is Plato himself, instead of some mock-up more pleasing to current taste." One could only wish that Vlastos had fostered that reliance on other disciplines by including articles of that sort among those he actually chose.--L. S. (shrink)

The main thesis of this book is that Wittgenstein’s early philosophy is an exemplification of Newtonian physics, whereas the later philosophy exemplifies contemporary, relativistic physics. The reader may recall Wittgenstein’s insistence, during both major periods of his thought, upon the separation of philosophy from science. However, Bolton’s unstated premise is that Wittgenstein’s thought was unconsciously determined by two different conceptions of physics. Whatever one may think of this, it leaves a question unanswered. Since both periods of Wittgenstein’s thought follow the (...) development of relativistic physics, why was he initially influenced by Newtonian physics or its expression in modern philosophy? Was this a contingent error of the youthful Wittgenstein, or an expression of historical inevitability? We find no discussion of this difficult problem in Bolton’s book. Instead, he claims, and to some extent shows, that Wittgenstein, in the Tractatus, crystallizes the axioms of modern philosophy, which is essentially Newtonian. At the historical level, this thesis is either wrong or uninformative. It is wrong because not all of modern philosophy can be explained on the basis of the peculiarities of modern or Newtonian physics. It is uninformative because to the extent that all modern philosophers took Newtonian physics for granted, the latter cannot account for the sharp differences between, say, John Locke and Hegel. Nevertheless, Bolton provides interesting and plausible reasons for regarding the Tractatus as an expression of that aspect of modern philosophy which may profitably be called "Newtonian." He fails to convince at least one reader that the repudiation of the Tractatus is a repudiation of modern philosophy for anyone other than Wittgenstein and his followers. On the other hand, once we discount, or even disregard, Bolton’s historical thesis, the more traditional virtues of his book come sharply into focus. Having recently reviewed the 686 page commentary by Baker and Hacker on the first third of the Investigations, as well as Wright’s 481 page essay on Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mathematics, the author of this note is in a good position to appreciate the economy and lucidity of Bolton’s summary analysis of the main points in the Tractatus. As an example of my disagreement with Bolton’s interpretation, I begin with a brief citation from p. 86. (shrink)

Modern Studies in Philosophy, we are informed on the page facing the title-page, "is a series of anthologies presenting contemporary interpretations and evaluations of the works of major philosophers." The volumes are "intended to be contributions to contemporary debates as well as to the history of philosophy; they not only trace the origins of many problems important to modern philosophy, but also introduce major philosophers as interlocutors in current discussions." In the first of the two volumes on Plato three of (...) the articles chosen by Gregory Vlastos have not appeared elsewhere: Julius Moravcsik, Learning as Recollection; G. E. L. Owen, Plato on Not-Being; David Higgins, Sentence Meaning, Negation, and Plato's Problem of Non-Being. The other studies in Volume One are reprints: R. Robinson and J. D. Denniston, Plato; H. F. Cherniss, The Philosophical Economy of the Theory of Ideas; A. Wedberg, The Theory of Ideas; R. C. Cross and A. D. Woozley, Knowledge, Belief and the Forms; R. Robinson, Hypothesis in the Republic; G. Vlastos, Reasons and Causes in the Phaedo; R. E. Allen, Participation and Predication in Plato's Middle Dialogues; Colin Strang, Plato and the Third Man; J. L. Ackrill, Symplokë eidön; J. L. Ackrill, Plato and the Copula: Sophist 251-259. In Volume Two Terry Penner, "Thought and Desire in Plato" has not been published before. The others have: Paul Shorey, Plato's Ethics; David Sachs, A Fallacy in Plato's Republic; Raphael Demos, A Fallacy in Plato's Republic?; J. D. Mabbott, Is Plato's Republic Utilitarian?; G. Vlastos, Justice and Happiness in the Republic; F. M. Cornford, The Doctrine of Eros in Plato's Symposium; R. A. Markus, The Doctrine of Eros in Plato's Symposium; Glenn R. Morrow, Plato and the Rule of Law; Wayne A. R. Leys, Was Plato Non-Political?; F. E. Sparshott, Plato as Anti-Political Thinker; Renford Bambrough, Plato's Political Analogies; E. R. Dodds, Plato and the Irrational Soul; W. K. C. Guthrie, Plato's Views on the Nature of the Soul; Harold Cherniss, The Sources of Evil According to Plato; W. J. Verdenius, Plato's Doctrines of Artistic Imitation. Obviously, the above listed articles will be welcome to those debating issues in Plato and to historians of twentieth-century philosophy. There are two difficulties, however. The print is too small in the body of the text and is nearly microscopic in the footnotes and diagrams. Reading thus becomes almost painful. Margins to the left, right, top and bottom of the pages are practically nonexistent. On occasion footnote material is misplaced--for example, the comment on Strang's article as originally published elsewhere should be on p. 184, not on p. 187, of Volume One. But a greater problem is the fact that almost all the articles on metaphysics and epistemology are by linguistic analysts. Vlastos in his introductory remarks admits as much: "Volume One is heavily weighted on the 'analytical' side." He reports the statement of an un-named advocate of conceptual analysis "that these [analytic] methods now enable us to understand Plato better than he was ever understood by anyone in history--better than by any of his own contemporaries, even better than by himself!" He disclaims such euphoria but insists "there is an element of truth in it after all" insofar as analytic tools can alert a student to ambiguity and its consequences in some of Plato's sentences. Hence, "if we come across such sentences in Plato, it would be plainly true to say that we can understand them better than he did and even to add that we can, therefore, understand him better, since we can see both what he meant to say and the logical liabilities of his incautious sentences." All this is true enough, but a warning still is in order. Linguistic analysts tend to read only some of Plato's dialogues and, even within them, to concentrate on some passages only. This is understandable in view of their interests and the capacity of the analytic technique. But that selectivity might lead them to believe that the Plato thus revealed is the complete and authentic Plato, which it is not. Hence, in reading and teaching Plato one must complement language- and concept-analysis with other approaches. Vlastos himself is aware of this necessity : [[sic]] "Once we have made full allowance for what modern semantics and logic can do to make Plato more intelligible and alive for us today, we should be quick to concede that borrowings from this quarter must be used with economy and discretion, and that continuing reliance on older linguistic and historical disciplines is as essential now as it has ever been in the past if the object of our inquiries is Plato himself, instead of some mock-up more pleasing to current taste." One could only wish that Vlastos had fostered that reliance on other disciplines by including articles of that sort among those he actually chose.--L. S. (shrink)

I aim to explode a famous thesis about “the rise of fictionality,” argued in an essay of that title by Catherine Gallagher. I also have in mind related claims that the eighteenth or the nineteenth century first distinguished fiction from nonfiction or first differentiated literature from other modes of discourse. Gallagher places the rise of fictionality exactly where Ian Watt placed the rise of the novel—England, 1720 to 1740—and she connects it to the development of a credit economy. This article (...) argues that the relationship between fiction and credit goes deeper than this, insofar as fiction was classically theorized in relation to modal concepts like probability and as such had a direct relationship to what Aristotle called endoxa: what is believed by all or by most. Probability was understood in relation not to what happens but to what is thought to happen: that is, to a socially constituted sense of what and who is credible. The article takes account of the multiple disciplines in which fictionality was theorized in the premodern period, but it emphasizes the centrality of rhetoric and the dissemination of a model of fictionality through the early modern grammar schools. Finally, it reads Shakespeare’s Othello to show that probable fiction was not only an available concept but a crucial tool for the analysis of social life. In Othello, ideologies of race and gender define the unequal terms on which credibility is established. Probable fiction is directly tied to the work of making and unmaking social worlds. (shrink)

Thought Experiments of Economic Surplus: Science and Economy in Ernst Mach’s Epistemology. Thought experiments are an important element in Ernst Mach’s epistemology: They facilitate amplifying our knowledge by experimenting with thoughts; they thus exceed the empirical experience and suspend the quest for immediate utility. In an economical perspective, Mach suggested that thought experiments depended on the production of an economic surplus based on the division of labor relieving the struggle for survival of the individual. Thus, as frequently emphasized, (...) in Mach’s epistemology, not only the ‘economy of thought’ is an important feature; instead, also the socioeconomic conditions of science play a decisive role. The paper discusses the mental and social economic aspects of experimental thinking in Mach’s epistemology and examines those within the contemporary evolutionary, physiological, and economic contexts. (shrink)

Ernst Mach’s positivism, it is argued in this paper, may be regarded as a version of pragmatist philosophy of science. Already James’s biographer Perry detected such tendencies in Mach and this is confirmed here by close attention to Mach’s early works, esp. History and Root of the Principle of the Conservation of Energy and The Science of Mechanics. Both Mach’s principle of the economy of thought and his principle of scientific significance are shown to bear out his (...) pragmatism. A similar conclusion is shown to hold for the philosophy of Wilhelm Jerusalem already long before he became the translator of James’s Pragmatism into German. But while Jerusalem early on relied perhaps even more than Mach on evolutionary theory for promptings of pragmatist insights, he soon too linked them, as Mach had all along, to broadly sociological observations concerning the condition of human cognition. (shrink)

Ernst Mach’s definition of the relationship between thoughts and facts is well known, but the question of how Mach conceived of their actual relationship has received much less attention. This paper aims to address this gap in light of Mary B. Hesse’s view of a postempiricist approach to natural science. As this paper will show, this view is characterized by a constructivist conception of the relationship between theory and facts that seems to be consistent with Mach’s observations on (...) scientific knowledge. The paper first explores Hesse’s account of postempiricism and her project of a new epistemology. It then considers Ernst Mach’s conception of facts as the middle term of a triad of concepts that includes thoughts and elements as extreme terms. Finally, the paper will offer concluding remarks on Mach’s contribution to the debate on scientific realism and his attempt to redefine the notions of correspondence and objectivity in science. (shrink)

Ernst Mach’s definition of the relationship between thoughts and facts is well known, but the question of how Mach conceived of their actual relationship has received much less attention. This paper aims to address this gap in light of Mary B. Hesse’s view of a postempiricist approach to natural science. As this paper will show, this view is characterized by a constructivist conception of the relationship between theory and facts that seems to be consistent with Mach’s observations on (...) scientific knowledge. The paper first explores Hesse’s account of postempiricism and her project of a new epistemology. It then considers Ernst Mach’s conception of facts as the middle term of a triad of concepts that includes thoughts and elements as extreme terms. Finally, the paper will offer concluding remarks on Mach’s contribution to the debate on scientific realism and his attempt to redefine the notions of correspondence and objectivity in science. (shrink)

In the present article, I compare Ernst Mach’s and Heinrich Gomperz’s contributions to the German-speaking positivist tradition by showing how, in trying to refound epistemology on the basis of one definite category of experiential element, namely, sensation and feeling, respectively, they each epitomized one major trend of Immanenzpositivismus. I demonstrate that, besides Mach’s “sensualist” conception of positivism – in light of which historians have tended thus far to interpret all German-speaking positivist research of that period – there also (...) existed an “affectivist” conception of positivism, which originated in Avenarius’s empiriocriticism and culminated in Gomperz’s pathempiricism. Here I aim to provide a new perspective on the history of positivism by highlighting the role played in it by psychological concerns. First, I revisit the notion of Immanenzpositivismus, the form of positivism that prevailed in both Germany and Austria between the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: in addition to addressing the definition of this philosophical school of thought, I discuss the issue of “pure experience”, from which the positivists tried to reinterpret the foundations of knowledge. Second, I deal with Mach’s sensation-based approach to Immanenzpositivismus by commenting on his ontological and typological analysis of the constitutive elements of experience and emphasizing the fact that his concept of Empfindung is a relatively ill-defined notion in light of contemporary psychological standards. Moreover, I show that, despite his pretense of confining his epistemological developments to the analysis of sensations, Mach did not deny the involvement of feelings in epistemology, as clearly evidenced by some passages of Erkenntnis und Irrtum. Third, I analyze Gomperz’s feeling-based conception of Immanenzpositivismus, that is, pathempiricism, by highlighting how he strove to radically refound epistemology on the basis of the most recent advances of affective psychology. Focusing on the question of language sciences, I also discuss how he considered the role of feelings in the various forms of theoretical knowledge, the only field of investigation that he revisited in detail in his unfinished book, the Weltanschauungslehre. Fourth and last, I contrast Gomperz’s with Mach’s positivist model and argue that the former is more coherent and has a higher explanatory power than the latter. In conclusion, I insist on the importance of revisiting pathempiricism within the broader framework of affective epistemology. (shrink)

Essentially a history of religion in the twentieth century, this erudite work puts more emphasis on religion than on change and more faith in Christianity than in other traditions. Alive to the importance of the ecumenical movement and the Second Vatican Council, Edwards argues that no other religious groups in our time have the sophistication of the major Christian denominations in responding to the challenges of a scientifically based culture and an industrialized economy. He relates the major movements in modern (...) theology to a context informed by Marx and Freud, biology and technology, Eastern spirituality and Western revivalism. But he evades the challenge to revise our concept of God or demonstrate the meaningfulness of the traditional concept, with the plea that today's theologians have to be more humble than their predecessors in making dogmatic claims. From his vantage-point in England he judiciously assesses currents of thought in Europe and the United States, while showing more sensitivity to the views of British humanists than to the crises of faith and morals arising in contemporary political and social life. Despite his familiarity with the "new" morality and literary celebrations of the "death" of God, he ends with a relatively unperturbed affirmation of the biblical message concerning Jesus' death and resurrection. The result is a highly competent survey of how things stand at present for Western churchmen and theologians. The book has a few typographical and other errors, notably the placing of the last line first on page 260 and the footnote references to Sir Humphrey rather than Hamilton Gibb and to Robert rather than Richard Robinson.--C. P. S. (shrink)

Can Marxism still serve the American left? "History and Subjectivity" answers this question by synthesizing the conflict perspectives of traditional Marxism, Western and neo-Marxism, socialist-feminism, and various minority political movements into a comprehensive and original social theory. Roger Gottlieb argues convincingly that a properly transformed Marxism must understand how socialisation processes and political structures and experiences have joined the mode of production as socially primary. Drawing on resources from Marxist philosophy, political economy, feminism, Western Marxism, and from detailed historical studies (...) of racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and the American left, Gottlieb has produced a sweeping synthesis of existing Marxist thought and an original and compelling social theory. In this edition, Roger Gottlieb has added a new introduction addressing the central questions that have emerged since the book's first publication. These include the effect on Marxist theory of the fall of communism, the theoretical challenge of postmodernism, the environmental crisis, and the rise of modern spiritual movements. The book is challenging and complex, yet clearly written and accessible to advanced undergraduate and graduate students. It will provoke a strong response from any scholar concerned with the present status and future possibilities of Marxist theory. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Review Essay:Aquinas, Modern Theology, and the TrinityGuy Mansini O.S.B.As one would expect from his Incarnate Lord, Thomas Joseph White's Trinity is no exercise in historical theology, although of course it calls on history, but aims to give us St. Thomas's theology as an enduring and so contemporary theology that both respects the creedal commitments of the Catholic Church and offers a more satisfying understanding of the Trinity than anything (...) proposed by the great theologians, Catholic and Protestant, of the past hundred years.1 The Trinity, however, gives a more complete and satisfying view of its subject than does The Incarnate Lord.Can St. Thomas really be fruitfully located within the dialectic of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Trinitarian speculation? Yes, and it is one of White's principal contributions to show how St. Thomas's medieval contemporaries, the early Franciscans on the one hand and William of Ockham on the other, remotely but really adumbrate nineteenth- and twentieth-century theological positions, once due attention is paid to the key issues of the analogical naming of God and his knowability. The reader is thus assured that Aquinas's original project was composed with some awareness of temptations and alternatives repeated (though not exactly, of course) in modern thought. It should be added that St. Thomas is by no means treated as the only systematic theological authority for Trinitarian theology, but White recognizes his paradigmatic place in the Catholic theological tradition. [End Page 1415]The most important issue for assessing the enduring value of Thomas's Trinitarian theology, then, whether in the thirteenth century or twentieth century, turns out to be the applicability and centrality of the psychological analogy for an understanding of the immanent intelligibility of the Trinity, an analogy suggested by Scripture, and developed by the Cappadocians, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and other medieval writers, not to mention John Henry Newman and Matthias J. Scheeben.What is the status of this analogy? Olivier-Thomas Venard laconically describes it as "revealed"—too hot. Michael Maria Waldstein has recently argued vigorously and at length that it is not revealed at all—too cold. White does not discuss this in detail but is satisfied with saying that it is "derived" from Scripture—just right. However one thinks this question is to be resolved, White robustly defends the psychological analogy as a proper analogy and as the only systematic theological instrument ever offered by the theological tradition that succeeds in providing real understanding of the immanent life of the Trinity, one that preserves the transcendence of God and honors the dogmatic tradition of the Church bearing on the nature of God and the Trinity of persons—Nicaea, Lateran IV, and Vatican I, especially. This is how he does it in chapter 22.1. We know the mystery of interior Trinitarian life based on God's manifestation of it to us in the economy of salvation via the missions of Word and Spirit, which disclose to us distinct personal processions.2. Such processions are either immanent or transitive.3. But transitive processions terminate in some substance distinct from whence they emanate.4. God, however, is one in nature (essence, substance) both specifically and numerically.5. Therefore, the processions are immanent to the godhead.6. However, there are only two immanent immaterial activities known to us, that of knowing and that of loving.7. Therefore, we cannot have some understanding of the mystery of interior Trinitarian life except by analogy with these two [End Page 1416] activities. That is to say, we know the mystery of the Trinitarian life according to the "psychological model" or not at all.This argument can be re-phrased with more pointed reference to modern theologies of the Trinity.1. If we wish to understand the mystery of the immanent Trinitarian life of distinct persons, but not by way of immanent activities and processions, then we must appeal to transitive activity to account for the distinction of persons.2. Transitive divine activity can be conceived of (1) as creative, (2) as within creation relative to its history (the continental way), or (3) as taking place between three already constituted divine individuals, relating transitively to one... (shrink)

In this dissertation, I examine the origins and nature of Mach's philosophy, or rather theory, of science. I show how it relates to, and is informed by, his own works in physiology, psychophysics, physics, and the history and psychology of science. I argue that Mach's theory of science grew out of his concern to provide a single, unified--albeit coherent--perspective on both the life and physical sciences. Corresponding to this conceptual unification of perspectives in the different branches of knowledge, lies Mach's (...) belief in the unity of the so-called 'organic' and 'inorganic' worlds. I demonstrate how Mach grappled with these issues, tracing the evolutionary development of his thought, which vacillates between the two poles of the physical and the psychological, culminating in his neutral monism. My main findings, which differ from previous accounts of Mach, consist in the following: Mach can be considered as a precursor of Logical Positivism only in the sense that they both reject metaphysics, and believe that the world can be constructed out of simple entities. However, significant differences can be discerned between Mach and the Logical Positivists, viz.: Mach's emphasis on history and psychology--rather than logic--in understanding the nature of scientific knowledge, Mach is not a scientific realist, and he asserts the primacy of sensations over physical objects. Mach's notion of "philosophy", and hence of "philosophy of science", differs in character from contemporary mainstream philosophy of science which is based on analytic philosophy. For Mach, philosophy is not first philosophy and its function is not to provide justification or foundation for science. In this sense Mach anticipates the naturalization of epistemology and the philosophy of science. ;Finally, I show how his reaction towards atomism can be understood within this broader context of his attempt to provide a unified view of knowledge. I defend Mach's stand on atomism on the grounds that his objection is not so much against the development of the atomic theory, but against a realist construal of the atom and the mechanistic-reductionistic world-view implied by it. (shrink)

Ernst Mach stands as a representative figure of the positivist philosophy of science at the turn of the twentieth century, yet he is by far the most misunderstood scientist-philosopher. The misunderstanding is largely caused by his epistemological rejection of the use of hypothetical entities that are ordinarily posited by scientists. He also argued against the mechanistic worldview which dominated scientific investigations in the nineteenth century. This essay will demonstrate that Mach’s positivism differs from the earlier positivism of August Comte. (...) His anti metaphysical stance is deeply-rooted in his physical phenomenology, guided by the economy of thought in pursuit of the unity of science. In Mach’s view, scientific theories are merely biological tools for organizing experience by means of the fewest possible concepts, and all metaphysical elements are to be eliminated from science as methodologically and epistemologically superfluous. But Mach’s thesis of the unification of science does not share the common concern of the logical positivists to reduce various scientific statements to physical language. While Mach’s philosophy of science clearly exhibits a miscalculation of the strength of scientific conceptual tools, his physical phenomenology serves as a bridge between theory and experiment which has proved to be fruitful. Keywords: The economy of thought, evolution, element, physical phenomenology, the unity of science, instrumentalism, emphirical realism. Abstrak: Ernst Mach tampil sebagai tokoh representatif dari Filsafat Ilmu Pengetahuan positivis pada peralihan menuju abad ke-20, sekaligus sebagai ilmuwan-filsuf yang paling disalahpahami. Kesalahpahaman tersebut sebagian besar disebabkan oleh penolakan epitemologisnya terhadap penggunaan wujud-wujud hipotetis yang kerap diajukan oleh para ilmuwan. Ia juga melawan cara pandang mekanistis yang mendominasi penyelidikan ilmiah pada abad ke-19. Artikel ini memperlihatkan bahwa positivisme Mach berbeda dengan positivisme August Comte yang mendahuluinya. Pandangan anti-metafisis Mach berakar sangat dalam pada fisika fenomenologi yang dipandu oleh ekonomi pikiran untuk mencapai sains terpadu. Dalam pandangan Mach, teori-teori ilmiah semata-mata sarana biologis untuk menata pengalaman dengan memanfaatkan sesedikit mungkin konsep, dan semua elemen metafisika perlu disingkirkan dari sains karena secara metodologis dan epistemologis tidak bermanfaat. Namun, tesis Mach tentang sains terpadu tidak sejalan dengan gagasan para positivis logis yang mereduksi berbagai macam pernyataan ilmiah ke dalam bahasa fisika. Sementara Filsafat Ilmu Pengetahuan Mach jelas-jelas keliru dalam memperhitungkan kekuatan piranti-piranti konseptual sains, fisika fenomenologi yang menjembatani teori dan eksperimen telah terbukti sangat bermanfaat. Kata-kata kunci: Ekonomi pikiran, evolusi, elemen, fisika fenomenologi, sains terpadu, instrumentalisme, realisme empiris. (shrink)

Sensationalistic Phenomenalism and Economy of Thought. On Ernst Mach's Concept of Science. Ernst Mach, natural scientist and major precursor of the Vienna Circle, never wants to be a philosopher. Nevertheless his writings are full of valuable hints for a modern theory of human knowledge – with respect to economical, historical and evolutionary aspects. His kind of phenomenalism is sensationalistic, monistic and instrumentalistic. This article deals with some contributions of his approach to actual debates in the general philosophy of science.

We argue that the fundamental assertion underlying Mach's critique of Newton's first law is that inertial motion is not motion in the absence of causes; rather, it is motion whose cause lies in some homogeneous aspect of the environment. We distinguish this formal requirement (Mach's principle) from two hypotheses which Mach considers concerning the origin of inertia: that the distant stars play (1) a merely “collateral” or (2) a “fundamental” role in the causal determination of inertial motion. -/- In his (...) later writings, Mach deliberately avoids referring to the concept of causation, and indeed, this has made the interpretation of Mach's principle a subject of widespread controversy. However, in his earlier writings, the substance of Mach's critique is less ambiguously expressed. Therefore, close attention is given to Mach's early writings and the evolution of his thought. Various accounts in the secondary literature on Mach's principle, in particular those of Norton and DiSalle, are assessed on this basis. We end with a defence of the Machian status and legitimacy of the early Einstein's research program. (shrink)

Purpose This study aims to analyze how English-language versions of e-newspapers in the first two countries affected, China and Japan, which are non-English-speaking countries and have different socio-economic and political settings, have highlighted Coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic news and informed the global community. Design/methodology/approach A text-mining approach was used to explore experts’ thoughts as published by the two leading English-language newspapers in China and Japan from January to March 2020. This study analyzes the Opinion section, which mainly comprises editorial and (...) the op-ed section. The current study groups all editorial discussions and highlights into ten major aspects, which cover health, economy, politics, culture and others. Findings Within the first three months, the media in both China and Japan shifted their focus from health and preparedness to the economy, politics and social welfare. Governance and social welfare were key concerns in China’s news media, while, in contrast, global politics received the highest level of attention from experts in Japan’s news media. Environment and technologies aspects did not receive much attention by the expert’s columns. Originality/value At the initial stage of a world crisis, how leading nations and initially affected nations deal with the problem, how media play their role and guide mass population with experts’ thoughts are highlighted here. The understanding developed in this study can provide guidance to news media in other countries in playing effective roles in the management of this health crisis and catastrophes. (shrink)

To make out in what way Einstein’s manifold 1905 ‘annus mirabilis’ writings hang together one has to take into consideration Einstein’s strive for unity evinced in his persistent attempts to reconcile the basic research traditions of classical physics. Light quanta hypothesis and special theory of relativity turn out to be the contours of a more profound design, mere milestones of implementation of maxwellian electrodynamics, statistical mechanics and thermodynamics reconciliation programme. The conception of luminiferous ether was an insurmountable obstacle for Einstein’s (...) statistical thermodynamics in which the leading role was played by the light quanta paper. In his critical stand against the entrenched research traditions of classical physics Einstein was apparently influenced by David Hume and Ernst Mach. However, when related to creative momenta, Einstein’s 1905 unificationist modus operandi was drawn upon Mach’s principle of economy of thought taken in the context of his ‘instinctive knowledge’ doctrine and with promising inclinations of Kantian epistemology presuming the coincidence of both constructing theory and integrating intuition of Principle. (shrink)

Born in 1838, Mach was a pioneer in the field of physics, having even made an impression on Einstein in his younger life who credited him with being the "Philosophical forerunner of relativity theory." His name is also associated with the speed of sound (as in traveling at Mach "insert-number-here") as well as the Doppler effect. Throughout his career, he was particularly interested in the biological and sensory relationship to physics and science, and naturally, this interest expanded to that of (...) the world of psychological perception and physiological psychology as well as philosophy. The Analysis of Sensations is about just that, the nature of the relationship of physics and the physical sciences to psychological phenomena of sense and perception. It's a fascinating read for anyone looking to expand their knowledge of how the two sides of the same coin meld harmoniously. (shrink)

This paper argues that whereas Mach understood thought economy as a principle of practical rationality, Husserl rejected it as a principle of theoretical rationality. The distinction is further supported by their correspondingly different readings of the principle of permanence.

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) never wrote any subtle disquisition on esteem (stima in Italian). Even so, this essay suggests that esteem played an important and hitherto largely unexplored role in Machiavelli’s political thought. Proceeding from an examination of Machiavelli’s use of the noun stima and the verb stimare in their literal and figurative senses, this article discusses Machiavelli’s ideas from three different perspectives. The first section discusses ways of attracting other people’s esteem through virtuous deeds. The second section, in turning to (...) Machiavelli’s notorious advice to princes, explores the ways in which stima may be generated by merely pretending to be virtuous. I argue that Machiavelli’s new prince exchanges the real esteem he must elicit from his subjects (if he wishes to stay in power) with a surrogate: in other words, a psychological economy of stima. It arrests, through a performative spectacle, the rational faculties of the prince’s subjects. The third section investigates Machiavelli’s ideas on esteem in relation to his own person. Even though Machiavelli never uses the phrase stima di se stesso (which would be a literal translation of self-esteem), some passages from his correspondence are highly pertinent to this topic. (shrink)