This paper introduces a Special Issue of Topoi entitled "Archaeology and philosophy".

In this article I offer a defence of the use of deceptive placebos—inert treatments like sugar pills or saline injections—in clinical practice. In particular, I will defend what I call the ideal placebo case—where a doctor or nurse has good reason to believe that a deceptive placebo offers a patient’s best, or only, chance of some therapeutic benefit. Taking a Kantian approach to the question of clinical placebo use, I examine the Kantian prohibition on deception as interference with the will (...) of a rational agent, and argue that deception to promote the placebo effect can be carried out in a way that does not interfere with the patient’s will in the way prohibited by Kant. The deception involved in a placebo treatment is not carried out to interfere with or obstruct the function of the will, but merely to make possible a means to the patient’s ends that that would otherwise be unavailable. I will therefore argue that deception carried out in order to promote a therapeutic placebo effect can be done in a way that is consistent with respect for a patient’s autonomy, and may be a rare case of deception that is compatible with a Kantian ethical approach. (shrink)

Andrea Kern has criticized the view that the fallibility of judgements is due to their objectivity and has tried to show that objective knowledge is comprehensible only if its infallibility is not logically excluded. She argues that the notion of knowledge is more fundamental than that of error and that we must bring into play an epistemic capacity as a form of perfection to understand what knowledge is. In the present article, this position is charitably criticized and modified. It is (...) argued that infallible knowledge is even actual, but not fully objective. Infallibility characterises our knowledge of logical and of spatio–temporal form and our judgments of the kind "it seems to me that p". This knowledge is in neither case knowledge of particular objective facts, but in both cases knowledge of what Sebastian Rödl calls the object überhaupt. (shrink)

Thirty-eight million Polo Mints are consumed every day, apparently without a second thought. However, could this humble little minty fella actually be the gateway to true knowledge about life, the Universe and everything? We have drawn on the inspiration of Sartre, the Dalai Lama, Tao Ti Ching, Heidegger and Mahayana Buddhism to find five reasons why the Polo Mint's inner emptiness, with its sweet minty after taste, can lead to contemplations of the ultimate truth.

Recent scholarship has analyzed Hegel’s account of life in the Logic in some detail and has suggested that Hegel provides ways of thinking about organic phenomena that might still be fruitful for us today. However, it failed to clearly distinguish this account from Hegel’s discussion of natural organisms in his Philosophy of Nature and to assess the latter philosophically. In particular, it has not yet been properly discussed that some things that Hegel says about organic phenomena there suggest that his (...) position is objectionably vitalist in that he believes investigating physical and chemical properties of organisms is irrelevant for understanding organic phenomena. I argue that Hegel’s core account of life does not imply this sort of a vitalist position. While some claims Hegel makes suggest that he believed inorganic sciences to be of no relevance for understanding organic phenomena, his core position is that they are merely not sufficient for the full understanding of such phenomena. From this discussion I draw a further consequence that the multi-level structure of nature presented in the Philosophy of Nature points to different properties of natural objects, rather than to distinct domains of objects. (shrink)

The collective monograph "Ontology of Stative Situations - Linguistic Modeling. A Contrastive Bulgarian-Russian Study" includes research carried out within the project of the same name "Ontology of stative situations – linguistic modeling. A contrastive Bulgarian-Russian study", supported by the "Scientific Research" Fund of the Ministry of Education and Science in Bulgaria (№ КП-06-РУСИЯ / 23) and from the Russian Fund for Fundamental Research (No. 20-512-18005).

This self-contained essay collection is published to commemorate half a century of Bell's theorem. Like its much acclaimed predecessor "Quantum [Un]Speakables: From Bell to Quantum Information" (published 2002), it comprises essays by many of the worlds leading quantum physicists and philosophers. These revisit the foundations of quantum theory as well as elucidating the remarkable progress in quantum technologies achieved in the last couple of decades. Fundamental concepts such as entanglement, nonlocality and contextuality are described in an accessible manner and, alongside (...) lively descriptions of the various theoretical and experimental approaches, the book also delivers interesting philosophical insights. The collection as a whole will serve as a broad introduction for students and newcomers as well as delighting the scientifically literate general reader. (shrink)

In diesem Buch geht es um die Grundfragen der Religionsphilosophie und der Religionskritik zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts. Dabei wird Religion vor allem als das "culturelle Gedächtnis" einer Zeitepoche und einer Zivilisation gesehen. Es werden die Grundpositionen der Analytischen Philosophie, der Hermeneutik, des Kritischen Rationalismus, der Pragmatischen Philosophie und des postmodernen Denkens dargelegt. Diskutiert werden die neuen Forschungen der Neurowissenschaft über die Entstehung religiöser Bildwelten und Glaubenslehren. Das Buch zeigt, dass die kritische Vernunft viel an innerer Dynamik in religiöse Glaubenssysteme (...) bringt."-- Back cover. (shrink)

Sartre und Jaspers, in welcher Beziehung stehen sie zueinander, was eint sie, was trennt sie? Jaspers- und Sartre-Forscher zeigen auf, wo das Verbindende, aber auch das Trennende liegt in der Sicht dieser beiden Denker auf zentrale Begriffe wie Existenz, Situation, Freiheit und Verantwortung.

Enthält Zusammenfassungen der einzelnen Beitr. in Engl.

Moral transformation is the process by which a person grows in holiness. The grace of the Holy Spirit enables this growth. This article explores how the notion of ‘prudence of the Spirit’ in Aquinas’s commentary on Romans can help to further elaborate the concept of moral transformation. It does so by first presenting this transformation as a human process. Second, the article presents an in-depth interpretation of Aquinas’s commentary on Romans 8:14: ‘those who are led by the Spirit of God (...) are children of God’. Here, special attention will be given to the proper character of the prudence the Holy Spirit forms in believers. The concluding discussion draws lessons from our reading of the commentary and related texts. This reinforces the conviction that grace enables freedom and will help us to find proper metaphors for speaking of the transformative work of the Holy Spirit. (shrink)

liber 1. Disquiritur Critice rationis purae.--liber 2. Discutitur sic dicta Fundatio metaphysices morum.

Name der Zeitschrift: Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft Jahrgang: 24 Heft: 2 Seiten: 185-204.

_History of knowledge, history of ideas, and other forms of history: An overview in Scandinavian perspective_ This article is an overview in which we paint a picture of the research field that during the 2010s has emerged under the banner of history of knowledge. The purpose is to complement the preface of this special issue, and so give a better context for the issue, by providing a somewhat broader introduction. History of knowledge is here specifically related to history of science (...) and history of ideas. In the first half of the text, we present the emergence of the field and some of its key concepts and perspectives, as well as some critique it has faced. In the second half, we discuss and compare history of knowledge with the institutionalised disciplines of history of ideas in Scandinavia. We see some clear overlaps and similarities between history of ideas and history of knowledge, but also differences. For instance, historians of ideas study traditions of thought, which not necessarily count as knowledge. One point we see with history of knowledge as a field is how it works as an interdisciplinary and integrative meeting point, where historical researchers from different disciplines can gather to discuss the appearance and social function of knowledge, and by doing this have the possibility of also generating new perspectives on cultural and societal history. (shrink)

The philosophy of cognitive paleoanthropology involves three related tasks: (1) asking what inferences might be drawn from the paleontological and archaeological records to past cognition, behavior and culture; (2) constructing synthetic accounts of the evolution of distinctive hominin capacities; (3) exploring how results from cognitive paleoanthropology might inform philosophy. We introduce some distinctive cognitive paleoanthropological inferences and discuss their epistemic standing, before considering how attention to the material records and the practice of paleoanthropology can inform and transform philosophical approaches.

_History of knowledge, history of ideas, and other forms of history: An overview in Scandinavian perspective_ This article is an overview in which we paint a picture of the research field that during the 2010s has emerged under the banner of history of knowledge. The purpose is to complement the preface of this special issue, and so give a better context for the issue, by providing a somewhat broader introduction. History of knowledge is here specifically related to history of science (...) and history of ideas. In the first half of the text, we present the emergence of the field and some of its key concepts and perspectives, as well as some critique it has faced. In the second half, we discuss and compare history of knowledge with the institutionalised disciplines of history of ideas in Scandinavia. We see some clear overlaps and similarities between history of ideas and history of knowledge, but also differences. For instance, historians of ideas study traditions of thought, which not necessarily count as knowledge. One point we see with history of knowledge as a field is how it works as an interdisciplinary and integrative meeting point, where historical researchers from different disciplines can gather to discuss the appearance and social function of knowledge, and by doing this have the possibility of also generating new perspectives on cultural and societal history. (shrink)

Papers originally presented at a symposium in Bad Homburg, Germany, in April 1993.

Bd. 1. Die Anfänge der modernen Wissenschaft im XIV. Jahrhundert.--Bd. 2. Crathorn. Ein Oxforder modernes des XIV. Jahrhunderts.

La obra de Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) siempre suele relacionarse con la de autores ajenos a la literatura española como De Quincey, Stevenson, Whitman, Chesterton, Coleridge o Poe. Su anglofilia es bien conocida por todos. También su relación con el idioma de Goethe o con la cultura árabe y Las mil y una noches. Sin embargo, asumiendo su propia sentencia «Mi destino es la lengua castellana, el bronce de Francisco de Quevedo», rastrearemos las huellas indelebles que dejó la literatura española (...) del Barroco y de los Siglos de Oro en la obra del escritor argentino, y cómo los símbolos del siglo XVII son recuperados desde la literatura reconstructivista de Borges para continuar con una tradición y al mismo tiempo transformar su significado. (shrink)

El nacimiento de la hermenéutica está condicionado por la existencia de la noción de Libro revelado. la necesidad demantener vivo y actualizado el sentido del Libro constantemente genera nuevas interpretaciones, lo que se refleja en la categorías de midrás, hagadá, Tárgum, tipología, etc., como puede ser apreciado en el judaísmo, en San Pablo y en el gnosticismo.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:John P. Anton C. P. CAVAFY'S ARS POETICA ' It is generally recognized that Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933) was not born a poet but became one only through persistence and labor, reaching his "first step" sometime after the midpoint of his life. In his effort to assess the quality of his earlier poetic production and sharpen his sensitivity in facing self-criticism, he decided to put in writing his (...) personal thoughts on his work sometime in 1903. The text was written in English in a personal shorthand Cavafy had devised for his own use. It was found among the papers he left to A. Sengopoulos and published for the first time in 1963 by M. Peridis, who also supplied the suitable title Ars Poetica. It falls outside the scope of this essay to discuss the antecedents of this document. Taken as a whole, the text has all the clarity and directness required of a testament designed to serve as a personal guide and handbook. The problems it discusses are limited to the needs of the poet. In this regard, the Ars Poetica has neither the range of topics nor the theoretical scope of, for instance, Aristotle's Poetics. It is quite certain that the ideas that preoccupy Cavafy in the Ars Poetica had been on his mind for a period of years. However, the Ars Poetica is his first prose piece where he gives a systematic treatment to technical and critical issues directly related to the assessment of his work and his role as a poet. In order to project here a clear image of Cavafy's struggle to reach his technical maturity which came after 1910, we need first to discuss the persistent problems he faced during this crucial decade, then to examine the attitudes and values he embodied in certain representative early poems, and finally to relate them to the guiding principles he formulated in his self-addressed poetics of 1903. A number of interrelated problems confronted Cavafy in his late twenties and throughout his thirties. They emerged one by one, to 85 86Philosophy and Literature make more pressing the demand for a consistent solution and a complete recasting of his outlook. Coming to terms with them was extremely difficult. Aside from the emotional and sexual pressures he had to face alone, there was the absence of suitable ideas and conceptual tools to provide him with even the rudiments of an intellectual framework. Whatever he borrowed from Europe and England, or resurrected from his own Hellenic heritage, proved either beyond assimilation or insufficiently digested. The lingering issues fell roughly into four areas. (i) Despite his determination to devote his life to the writing of poetry, the quality of his work was discouraging. He knew this and as a result he often expressed uncertainty about his ability to proceed. Time and again he appeared suffering from a feeling of inadequacy, but nevertheless he sought to engage a reflective mood from which to draw encouragement and hope. (ii) On the theoretical side, he identified with the long tradition which assigned a coveted cultural role to the savant-poet as discloser of truth and spokesman for humanity; this despite the prevailing climate of opinion in his immediate environment which recognized no such high position in his case. Cavafy knew that his standing with the Greek community of Alexandria had gradually dwindled with the loss of family wealth and his lowly employment, and also that his expectations to be respected in his role as a poet and leader in communal affairs were futile. This denial of personal recognition in a society dominated by commerce and finance contributed to his mood of depression. The feeling of being an outcast, despite his associations with the upper social circles of Alexandria, became a constant irritant to his sense of pride. (iii) The course of culture, the destiny of human institutions and the workings of history, became puzzles as he tried to view them through the opaque glass of disillusionment. These were the grand themes actively discussed in the writings of leading European intellectuals, but to the young poet they had a different personal urgency. His vital concern in this connection was not understanding science... (shrink)

Ernst Fehr’s experimental research on altruistic behaviour aims at superseding the classical homo oeconomicus in micro-economic behaviour theory. This essay discusses Fehr’s results from two points of view: first, in regard to the understanding of social action associated with the term “altruism”; second, in regard to the ‘anthropological’ strategy of research that is based on the laboratory method. Against the emphasis on altruism it will be argued that it misleads into providing a distorted description of social acting, and that, due (...) to insufficient clarity about motives for acting, Fehr’s empirical results give evidence not of altruism but rather of phenomena of social recognition. The objection against the anthropological strategy will be that it makes visible only local phenomena within prevailing social conditions and that it thus assumes more than it explains. (shrink)

The degradation of natural resources in the environment is, technically speaking, a form of depleting a public good. Public goods are notorious for free-riding among egoists, but the marginality of individual contributions provides no less an obstacle, both to moral duty and motivation. This article discusses the problems of minimized and missing causal involvement on the empirical side; and, in the applicability of classical moral arguments, on the ethical side. It. suggests that individual responsibility is derived on the basis of (...) implicit advantage-taking from participation in collective action. (shrink)

Sustainability is currently the term dominating environmental policy. Its extensive political diffusion is in stark contrast, however, to the extent to which there is agreement over its meaning. Its ability to motivate is not in question, but a certain scepticism surrounds its ideological content. Since ideological terms have no objective basis, it is therefore important for the purposes of environmental policy to establish whether such scepticism is justified.