Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of the most important, influential, and often-cited philosophers of the twentieth century, yet he remains one of its most elusive and least accessible. The essays in this volume address central themes in Wittgenstein's writings on the philosophy of mind, language, logic, and mathematics. They chart the development of his work and clarify the connections between its different stages. The contributors illuminate the character of the whole body of work by keeping a tight focus on some key (...) topics: the style of the philosophy, the conception of grammar contained in it, rule-following, convention, logical necessity, the self, and what Wittgenstein called, in a famous phrase, 'forms of life'. (shrink)

This lucid and accessible dictionary presents technical terms that Wittgenstein introduced into philosophical debate or transformed substantially, and also topics to which he made a substantial contribution. Hans-Johann Glock places Wittgenstein's ideas in their relevance to current debates. The entries delineate Wittgenstein's lines of argument on particular issues, assessing their strengths and weaknesses, and shed light on fundamental exegetical controversies. The dictionary entries are prefaced by a 'Sketch of a Intellectual Biography', which links the basic themes of the early (...) and later philosophy and describes the general development of Wittgenstein's thinking. Extensive textual references, a detailed index and an annotated bibliography will facilitate further study. Authoritative, comprehensive and clear, the volume will be welcomed by anyone with an interest in Wittgenstein - his life, work or influence. Each Blackwell Philosopher Dictionary presents the life and work of an individual philosopher in a scholarly but accessible manner. Entries cover key ideas and thoughts, as well as the main themes of the philosopher's works. A comprehensive biographical sketch is also included. (shrink)

Machines will attain human levels of intelligence by the year 2040, predicts robotics expert Hans Moravec. And by 2050, they will have far surpassed us. In this mind-bending new book, Hans Moravec takes the reader on a roller coaster ride packed with such startling predictions. He tells us, for instance, that in the not-too-distant future, an army of robots will displace workers, causing massive, unprecedented unemployment. But then, says Moravec, a period of very comfortable existence will follow, as (...) humans benefit from a fully automated economy. And eventually, as machines evolve far beyond humanity, robots will supplant us. But if Moravec predicts the end of the domination by human beings, his is not a bleak vision. Far from railing against a future in which machines rule the world, Moravec embraces it, taking the startling view that intelligent robots will actually be our evolutionary heirs. "Intelligent machines, which will grow from us, learn our skills, and share our goals and values, can be viewed as children of our minds." And since they are our children, we will want them to outdistance us. In fact, in a bid for immortality, many of our descendants will choose to transform into "ex humans," as they upload themselves into advanced computers. We will become our children and live forever. In his provocative new book, the highly anticipated follow-up to his bestselling volume Mind Children, Moravec charts the trajectory of robotics in breathtaking detail. A must read for artificial intelligence, technology, and computer enthusiasts, Moravec's freewheeling but informed speculations present a future far different than we ever dared imagine. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's remarks about family resemblance in the Philosophical Investigations should not be construed as implying a comprehensive theory of universals. They possess, rather, a defensive function in his exposition. The remarks allow one, nevertheless, to draw certain general conclusions about how Wittgenstein thought about concepts. Reflection on the notion of family resemblance reveals that kinship and similarity considerations intersect in it in a problematic fashion.

Hans Kamp; IV*—Free Choice Permission, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 74, Issue 1, 1 June 1974, Pages 57–74, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristoteli.

In this book, Hans Joas interweaves Mead's political and intellectual biography with the development of his theories.

Public and intellectual debates have long struggled with the concept of values and the difficulties of defining them. With _The Genesis of Values,_ renowned theorist Hans Joas explores the nature of these difficulties in relation to some of the leading figures of twentieth-century philosophy and social theory: Friedrich Nietzsche, William James, Max Scheler, John Dewey, Georg Simmel, Charles Taylor, and Jürgen Habermas. Joas traces how these thinkers came to terms with the idea of values, and then extends beyond them (...) with his own comprehensive theory. Values, Joas suggests, arise in experiences in self-formation and self-transcendence. Only by appreciating the creative nature of human action can we understand how our values arise. (shrink)

In this paper we provide an analysis of the logical relations within the conceptual or lexical field of angles in 2D geometry. The basic tripartition into acute/right/obtuse angles is extended in two steps: first zero and straight angles are added, and secondly reflex and full angles are added, in both cases extending the logical space of angles. Within the framework of logical geometry, the resulting partitions of these logical spaces yield bitstring semantics of increasing complexity. These bitstring analyses allow a (...) straightforward account of the Aristotelian relations between angular concepts. In addition, also relational concepts such as complementary and supplementary angles receive a natural bitstring analysis. (shrink)

For centuries, the ancient Chinese philosophical text the _Daodejing (Tao Te Ching)_ has fascinated and frustrated its readers. While it offers a wealth of rich philosophical insights concerning the cultivation of one's body and attaining one's proper place within nature and the cosmos, its teachings and structure can be enigmatic and obscure. Hans-Georg Moeller presents a clear and coherent description and analysis of this vaguely understood Chinese classic. He explores the recurring images and ideas that shape the work and (...) offers a variety of useful approaches to understanding and appreciating this canonical text. Moeller expounds on the core philosophical issues addressed in the _Daodejing_, clarifying such crucial concepts as Yin and Yang and Dao and De. He explains its teachings on a variety of subjects, including sexuality, ethics, desire, cosmology, human nature, the emotions, time, death, and the death penalty. The _Daodejing_ also offers a distinctive ideal of social order and political leadership and presents a philosophy of war and peace. An illuminating exploration, The _Daodejing_ is an interesting foil to the philosophical outlook of Western humanism and contains surprising parallels between its teachings and nontraditional contemporary philosophies. (shrink)

More and more, we present ourselves and encounter others through profiles. A profile shows us not as we are seen directly but how we are perceived by a broader public. As we observe how others observe us, we calibrate our self-presentation accordingly. Profile-based identity is evident everywhere from pop culture to politics, marketing to morality. But all too often critics simply denounce this alleged superficiality in defense of some supposedly pure ideal of authentic or sincere expression. This book argues that (...) the profile marks an epochal shift in our concept of identity and demonstrates why that matters. You and Your Profile blends social theory, philosophy, and cultural critique to unfold an exploration of the way we have come to experience the world. Instead of polemicizing against the profile, Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul J. D’Ambrosio outline how it works, how we readily apply it in our daily lives, and how it shapes our values—personally, economically, and ethically. They develop a practical vocabulary of life in the digital age. Informed by the Daoist tradition, they suggest strategies for handling the pressure of social media by distancing oneself from one’s public face. A deft and wide-ranging consideration of our era’s identity crisis, this book provides vital clues on how to stay sane in a time of proliferating profiles. (shrink)

Justice, equality, and righteousness—these are some of our greatest moral convictions. Yet in times of social conflict, morals can become rigid, making religious war, ethnic cleansing, and political purges possible. Morality, therefore, can be viewed as pathology-a rhetorical, psychological, and social tool that is used and abused as a weapon. An expert on Eastern philosophies and social systems theory, Hans-Georg Moeller questions the perceived goodness of morality and those who claim morality is inherently positive. Critiquing the ethical "fanaticism" of (...) Western moralists, such as Immanuel Kant, Lawrence Kohlberg, John Rawls, and the utilitarians, Moeller points to the absurd fundamentalisms and impracticable prescriptions arising from definitions of good. Instead he advances a theory of "moral foolishness," or moral asceticism, extracted from the "amoral" philosophers of East Asia and such thinkers as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Niklas Luhmann. The moral fool doesn't understand why ethics are necessarily good, and he isn't convinced that the moral perspective is always positive. In this way he is like most people, and Moeller defends this foolishness against ethical pathologies that support the death penalty, just wars, and even Jerry Springer's crude moral theater. Comparing and contrasting the religious philosophies of Christianity, Daoism, and Zen Buddhism, Moeller presents a persuasive argument in favor of amorality. (shrink)

Considering a range of present-day phenomena, from the immediacy effects of literature to the impact of hypercommunication, globalization, and sports, Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht notes an important shift in our relationship to history and the passage of time. Although we continue to use concepts inherited from a "historicist" viewpoint, a notion of time articulated in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the actual construction of time in which we live in today, which shapes our perceptions, experiences, and actions, is no longer (...) historicist. Without fully realizing it, we now inhabit a new, unnamed space in which the "closed future" and "ever-available past" (a past we have not managed to leave behind) converge to produce an "ever-broadening present of simultaneities." This profound change to a key dimension of our existence has complex consequences for the way in which we think about ourselves and our relation to the material world. At the same time, the ubiquity of digital media has eliminated our tactile sense of physical space, altering our perception of our world. Gumbrecht draws on his mastery of the philosophy of language to enrich his everyday observations, traveling to Disneyland, a small town in Louisiana, and the center of Vienna to produce striking sketches of our broad presence in the world. (shrink)

In seinem 1960 erschienenen Hauptwerk "Wahrheit und Methode" nimmt Gadamer die bis in die Antike zuruckreichende hermeneutische Tradition auf, um vor allem im Anschluss an Hegel und Heidegger eine philosophische Hermeneutik zu begrunden. Das Buch brachte seinem Autor internationalen Ruhm, und die philosophische Hermeneutik ist eine der massgeblichen Konzeptionen der neueren Philosophie geworden. Nach wie vor bildet "Wahrheit und Methode" den Ausgangspunkt fur eine philosophische Klarung des Verstehens und seiner von Gadamer behandelten Auspragungen in Kunst, Geschichte und Sprache. Der vorliegende (...) Band rekonstruiert und diskutiert in Form eines kooperativen Kommentars, der Gliederung des Werkes folgend, Gadamers Gedankengang, zeigt aber auch die Perspektiven einer Philosophie auf, die sich gegenuber ihrem eigenen hermeneutischen Charakter nicht verschliesst.". (shrink)

Hans Kamp; XIII*—Context, Thought and Communication, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 85, Issue 1, 1 June 1985, Pages 239–262, https://doi.org/10.

Das Menschliche ist dadurch charakterisiert, dass der Mensch über sich selbst und seine Verfasstheit sowie seine Gemeinschaft und Kultur nachdenken kann, ja, muss. Er ist das Wesen, das sich selber immer wieder zum Problem geworden ist und wird, das nicht selbstverständlich einfach so dahinlebt oder -existiert, sondern in gewisser Weise ein reflektierendes Wesen ist, das sich nach sich selber befragt, nach dem Sinn seiner Existenz, seines Lebens, seiner Verfasstheit als eines geschlechtlichen Wesens usw. Das sind Gesichtspunkte, die natürlich immer nur (...) in einer kulturellen und einer traditions-gesellschaftlichen Welt eingenommen bzw. gewonnen werden können. Aufgabe einer philosophischen Anthropologie ist es nun - so Hans Lenk - das Wissen um die Lage und die Fähigkeiten des Menschen in ein Gesamtbild zu bringen. Mit anderen Worten, sie muss sich interdisziplinär verstehen und die Ergebnisse der Wissenschaften, soweit sie für das Thema Mensch und die umfassende Behandlung und Integration aller Aspekte in diesem Zusammenhang wichtig sind, mit einbeziehen. (shrink)

This paper presents a generalization of the standard notions of left monotonicity (on the nominal argument of a determiner) and right monotonicity (on the VP argument of a determiner). Determiners such as “more than/at least as many as” or “fewer than/at most as many as”, which occur in so-called propositional comparison, are shown to be monotone with respect to two nominal arguments and two VP-arguments. In addition, it is argued that the standard Generalized Quantifier analysis of numerical determiners such as (...) “more than three/at least three” is a simplification which ignores the fundamental parallellism with the propositional comparatives. Furthermore, the symmetric monotonicity configurations of the existential “some” and “no” are shown to be straightforwardly related to those of numerical comparatives with the limit numeral zero, whereas the asymmetric configurations of universal “all” and “not all” involve the extra complicating mechanism of polarity reversal, which is related to Keenan's notion of co-intersectivity (as opposed to intersectivity). A second aim of the paper is to investigate some of the factors reducing the inferential potential of determiners. Different types of comparative determiners and their modification will be considered in detail. In addition, a systematic interaction will be revealed between the monotonicity properties of the determiners in propositional comparatives and the differ ent types of ellipsis in the “than”-complement. Different degrees of ellipsis are defined in terms of informational dependencies between the “than”-complement and the main clause. A general balancing mechanism is observed by virtue of which an increase in informational dependency is compensated by a reduction of the inferential potential of the comparative determiner. The structure of the paper is as follows. Part two deals with propositional comparison and introduces the two basic monotonicity configurations. Part three distinguishes three types of informational dependencies or ellipsis between the “than”-complement and the main clause. In Section 3.1 the “than”-complement only contains a VP constituent, whereas in Section 3.2. it only consists of a nominal constituent. Section 3.3 considers more complex instances of multiple dependencies. Section 3.4 then looks at the interaction of these three types with the modifier “proportionally”. Part four presents the two basic monotonicity configurations for numerical comparison, whereas part five deals with more complex numerical determiners. Bounding determiners, such as “between five and ten”, and other boolean combinations are discussed in Section 5.1, whereas Section 5.2 goes into approximative determiners involving modifiers such as “only” or “almost”. Section 5.3. is devoted to proportional determiners such as “more than two out of three”. Part six then considers the standard existential and universal quantifiers. Section 6.1 reformulates the standard Generalized Quantifier analysis in comparative terms, whereas Section 6.2 deals with exception determiners of the form “all but five”. (shrink)

La notion de "Bildung" (culture) de Humboldt au National-socialisme dans les états allemands modernes.

The paper interprets Wittgenstein’s famous call to silence at the end of his Tractatus – that “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent” – as a critique of philosophy itself. Wittgenstein was concerned throughout his philosophical life with finding a way to delineate the limits of language. These limits, once we have them clearly in view, rob our attempts to put forth philosophical theories of their legitimacy. In order to give a critical assessment of this Wittgensteinian critique of (...) philosophy, the paper primarily focuses on the roots of that critique in Wittgenstein’s earliest writings – his notebooks, his 1913 “Notes on Logic,” the 1914 set of notes dictated to G. E. Moore, and the Tractatus itself. Wittgenstein’s influence by Fritz Mauthner and, mediated through Mauthner, by Kant receive special attention. The conclusion is that, far from Mauthner’s radical anti-philosophical bias, we can come to see a deep appreciation of the power, the draw, and the significance of philosophical problems in Wittgenstein’s writings. The text closes with a short look at how Wittgenstein’s thinking about the limits of language evolved later in his life. (shrink)

Hans Kamp; XIII*—Context, Thought and Communication, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 85, Issue 1, 1 June 1985, Pages 239–262, https://doi.org/10.

This chapter contains sections titled: A Political Moment Action, Words, and Concepts The Pluralism of the Political Natural Affinities Words and Their Contexts Rules, Decisions, Authority The Unpredictability of Behavior Vision and Choice in Politics Further reading.

Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998) was a German sociologist and system theorist who wrote on law, economics, politics, art, religion, ecology, mass media, and love. Luhmann advocated a radical constructivism and antihumanism, or "grand theory," to explain society within a universal theoretical framework. Nevertheless, despite being an iconoclast, Luhmann is viewed as a political conservative. Hans-Georg Moeller challenges this legacy, repositioning Luhmann as an explosive thinker critical of Western humanism. Moeller focuses on Luhmann's shift from philosophy to theory, which introduced new (...) perspectives on the contemporary world. For centuries, the task of philosophy meant transforming contingency into necessity, in the sense that philosophy enabled an understanding of the necessity of everything that appeared contingent. Luhmann pursued the opposite--the transformation of necessity into contingency. Boldly breaking with the heritage of Western thought, Luhmann denied the central role of humans in social theory, particularly the possibility of autonomous agency. In this way, after Copernicus's cosmological, Darwin's biological, and Freud's psychological deconstructions of anthropocentrism, he added a sociological "fourth insult" to human vanity. A theoretical shift toward complex system-environment relations helped Luhmann "accidentally" solve one of Western philosophy's primary problems: mind-body dualism. By pulling communication into the mix, Luhmann rendered the Platonic dualist heritage obsolete. Moeller's clarity opens such formulations to general understanding and directly relates Luhmannian theory to contemporary social issues. He also captures for the first time a Luhmannian attitude toward society and life, defined through the cultivation of modesty, irony, and equanimity. (shrink)

Extensive measurement is called weak if the axioms allow two objects to have the same scale value without being indifferent with respect to the order. Necessary and/or sufficient conditions for such representations are given. The Archimedean and the non-Archimedean case are dealt with separately.

Wittgenstein’s Tractatus has always been and remains a puzzle and that from its first page onwards. According to its initial assertions, the totality of facts constitutes the world and the totality of states of affairs defines the space of logical possibilities. But what are facts? What are possible states of affairs? And why do we need to consider their totality? Frege and Russell were the first to grapple with these interpretational questions. The ever-growing secondary literature on the Tractatus shows how (...) easy it is to become absorbed in its hermeneutics. More important, however, is the question what substantively philosophical lessons we can extract from Wittgenstein’s words. There are, it turns out, at least, three of them. The first is, that the concept of fact, on which Russell and the Wittgenstein of the Tractatus relied so much, is philosophically brittle and that we must turn our attention, instead, to the broader notion of the factuality of the world. The second lesson is that we can and must think about the world in both factual and modal terms but that in doing so we must treat the idea of possibility, not that of necessity, as primary and we must conceive of possibilities as merely virtual, not as factual. The third is that we must consider the world as a whole, if we are to make sense of logic, science, and ethics. (shrink)

A selection from the correspondence of the logician Wilhelm Ackermann (1896?1962) is presented in this article. The most significant letters were exchanged with Bernays, Scholz and Lorenzen, from which extensive passages are transcribed. Some remarks from other letters, with quotations, are also included.

It has been claimed, out of admiration for the great thinker, that his political errors have nothing to do with his philosophy. If only we could be content with that! Wholly unnoticed was how damaging such a “defense” of so important a thinker really is. And how could it be made consistent with the fact that the same man, in the fifties, saw and said things about the industrial revolution and technology that today are still truly astonishing for their foresight?In (...) any case: no surprise should be expected from those of us who, for fifty years, have reflected on what dismayed us in those days and separated us from Heidegger for many years: no surprise when we hear that in 1933—and for years previous, and for how long after?—he “believed” in Hitler. But Heidegger was also no mere opportunist. If we wish to dignify his political engagement by calling it a “standpoint,” it would be far better to call it a political “illusion,” which had notably little to do with political reality. If Heidegger later, in the face of all realities, would again dream his dream from those days, the dream of a “people’s religion” [Volksreligion], the later version would embrace his deep disappointment over the actual course of affairs. But he continued guarding that dream—and kept silent about it. Earlier, in 1933 and 1934, he thought he was following his dream, and fulfilling his deepest philosophical mission, when he tried to revolutionize the university from the ground up. It was for that that he did everything that horrified us at that time. For him the sole issue was to break the political influence of the church and the tenacity of academic bossdom. Even Ernst Jünger’s vision of “the worker” [der Arbeiter] was given a place beside his own ideas about overcoming the metaphysical tradition via the reawakening of Being. Later, as is known, Heidegger wandered all the way to his radical talk of the end of philosophy. That was his “revolution.” Hans-Georg Gadamer is professor emeritus of philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. His books include Truth and Method, Philosophical Hermeneutics, The Idea of the Good in Platonic-Aristotelian Philosophy, and The Relevance of the Beautiful and Other Essays. John McCumber, associate professor of philosophy at Northwestern University, is the author of Poetic Interaction: Language, Freedom, Reason. (shrink)

Anhand der Erinnerungskultur der NS-Psychiatrieverbrechen in den ersten Nachkriegsjahrzehnten wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie sich Erinnern und Gedenken gestalten lassen. Erinnern, Gedenken und Bewusstsein stehen in dynamischer Beziehung zueinander: Je nach Perspektive, ob der des Opfers oder des Täters, war das, was erinnert, wessen gedacht und was bewusst wurde bzw. unbewusst bleiben musste, sehr unterschiedlich. Durchgesetzt hat sich das Täter-Opfer-Narrativ der deutschen Nachkriegs-Psychiater, das die verstörende Realität, als Wissenschaft, als Institution und als Individuen so willfährig für ein verbrecherisches Regime gewesen (...) zu sein, verleugnen wollte. An dieser spezifischen »Erinnerungskultur« wird gezeigt, dass Erinnern und Gedenken Konstruktionen aus der Jetztzeit über die Vergangenheit sind und von der jeweiligen Gegenwart des Erzählenden geformt werden. Eine Aufführung der »Antigone« in der Erlanger psychiatrischen Anstalt 1946 wird als Rahmen gewählt, um die sich aus der Erinnerungskultur der NS-Psychiatrieverbrechen ergebenden ethischen Fragestellungen auf einer anderen Ebene zu betrachten. (shrink)

This book interprets Hannah Arendt’s work as a “wandering” type of political theory. Focusing on the sub-text of Arendt’s writings which questions “how to think” adequately in political theory whilst categorically refraining from explicitly investigating meta-theoretical questions of epistemology and methodology, the book characterizes her theorizing as an oscillating movement between the experiential positions of philosophy and politics, and by its distinctly multi-contextual perspective. In contrast to the “not of this world” attitude of philosophy, the book argues that Arendt’s political (...) theory is “of this world”. In contrast to politics, it refrains from being “at home” in any particular part of this world and instead wanders between the multiple horizons of the many different political worlds in time and space. The book explores how these two decisive motives of Arendt’s theoretical self-perception majorly influence her epistemological, methodological and normative frame of reference and inspire her understanding of major concepts, including politics, judgment, understanding, nature, and space. (shrink)