The idea of human cruelty to animals so consumes novelist Elizabeth Costello in her later years that she can no longer look another person in the eye: humans, especially meat-eating ones, seem to her to be conspirators in a crime of stupefying magnitude taking place on farms and in slaughterhouses, factories, and laboratories across the world. Costello's son, a physics professor, admires her literary achievements, but dreads his mother’s lecturing on animal rights at the college where he teaches. His colleagues (...) resist her argument that human reason is overrated and that the inability to reason does not diminish the value of life; his wife denounces his mother’s vegetarianism as a form of moral superiority. At the dinner that follows her first lecture, the guests confront Costello with a range of sympathetic and skeptical reactions to issues of animal rights, touching on broad philosophical, anthropological, and religious perspectives. Painfully for her son, Elizabeth Costello seems offensive and flaky, but—dare he admit it?—strangely on target. In this landmark book, Nobel Prize–winning writer J. M. Coetzee uses fiction to present a powerfully moving discussion of animal rights in all their complexity. He draws us into Elizabeth Costello’s own sense of mortality, her compassion for animals, and her alienation from humans, even from her own family. In his fable, presented as a Tanner Lecture sponsored by the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, Coetzee immerses us in a drama reflecting the real-life situation at hand: a writer delivering a lecture on an emotionally charged issue at a prestigious university. Literature, philosophy, performance, and deep human conviction—Coetzee brings all these elements into play. As in the story of Elizabeth Costello, the Tanner Lecture is followed by responses treating the reader to a variety of perspectives, delivered by leading thinkers in different fields. Coetzee’s text is accompanied by an introduction by political philosopher Amy Gutmann and responsive essays by religion scholar Wendy Doniger, primatologist Barbara Smuts, literary theorist Marjorie Garber, and moral philosopher Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation. Together the lecture-fable and the essays explore the palpable social consequences of uncompromising moral conflict and confrontation. (shrink)

This study investigated the differences between past and future temporal discounting in terms of neural activity in relation to temporal distance. Results show that brain regions are engaged differently in past and future temporal discounting. This is likely because past temporal discounting requires memory reconstruction, whereas future temporal discounting requires the processing of uncertainty about the future. In past temporal discounting, neural activity differed only when preferences were made between rewards received one hour prior and rewards received further in the (...) past. The peak amplitudes of P2 and P3 varied as the temporal distance increased from 2 weeks to 50 years. In future temporal discounting, neural activity differed only when preferences were evaluated between two delayed rewards. The delay conditions and had a significant influence on P2 and N2. Findings indicate the existence of different decision-making systems operating in past and future temporal discounting. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno is best known for his contributions to aesthetics and social theory. Critics have always complained about the lack of a practical, political or ethical dimension to Adorno's philosophy. In this highly original contribution to the literature on Adorno, J. M. Bernstein offers the first attempt in any language to provide an account of the ethical theory latent in Adorno's writings. Bernstein relates Adorno's ethics to major trends in contemporary moral philosophy. He analyses the full range of Adorno's (...) major works, with a special focus on Dialectic of Enlightenment, Minima Moralia and Negative Dialectics. In developing his account Bernstein lays particular stress on Adorno's contention that the event of Auschwitz demands a new categorical imperative. This book will be widely acknowledged as the standard work on Adorno's ethics and as such will interest professionals and students of philosophy, political theory, sociology, history of ideas, art history and music. (shrink)

Bulang He,1,2 Jeffrey M Hamdorf2 1Liver and Kidney Transplant Unit, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, Perth, WA, Australia; 2School of Surgery, The University of Western Australia, Perth, WA, Australia Aims: The aim of this paper was to review the current status of laparoscopic/robotic kidney transplant and evaluate its feasibility and safety in comparison with conventional standard "open" kidney transplant. Methods: An electronic search of PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane library database was performed to identify the papers between January 1980 and June (...) 2013 that reported on laparoscopic/robotic kidney transplantation. The terms "laparoscopic kidney/renal transplant" and "robotic kidney/renal transplant " were used. Cross-referencing was also used to find the further publications. Only English language reports were selected and accepted for descriptive analysis. Results: A total of 17 papers and abstracts were retrieved. There were two case-control studies of small volume. High-level evidence comparing the safety and efficacy of laparoscopic/robotic kidney transplant with conventional open kidney transplant was not available at the time of this review. Conclusion: The limited published data have suggested that laparoscopic/robotic kidney transplant may offer the advantages of less pain, better cosmesis, possible shorter hospital stay, and fewer wound complications, without compromising graft function. Accordingly, some immunosuppressive agents, such as sirolimus, might be able to be commenced earlier, after laparoscopic/robotic kidney transplant. The techniques are various at this early stage. A uniformed operative technique may be established in the near future. With refinement of laparoscopic devices, this technique may be widely employed. Further studies will be needed to demonstrate the advantages of laparoscopic/robotic kidney transplant over the conventional open kidney transplant. Keywords: laparoscopic surgery, robotic surgery. (shrink)

In this unflinching look at the experience of suffering and one of its greatest manifestations—torture—J.M. Bernstein critiques the repressions of traditional moral theory, showing that our morals are not immutable ideals but fragile constructions that depend on our experience of suffering itself. Morals, Bernstein argues, not only guide our conduct but also express the depth of mutual dependence that we share as vulnerable and injurable individuals. Beginning with the attempts to abolish torture in the eighteenth century, and then sensitively examining (...) what is suffered in torture and related transgressions, such as rape, Bernstein elaborates a powerful new conception of moral injury. Crucially, he shows, moral injury always involves an injury to the status of an individual as a person—it is a violent assault against his or her dignity. Elaborating on this critical element of moral injury, he demonstrates that the mutual recognitions of trust form the invisible substance of our moral lives, that dignity is a fragile social possession, and that the perspective of ourselves as potential victims is an ineliminable feature of everyday moral experience. (shrink)

Malthus did not leave us with a systematic treatment of colonization, but from remarks scattered throughout his publications and correspondence it is possible to assemble a fairly coherent account of his views on the advantages and disadvantages of colonies, and on the reasons why some have failed and others succeeded. Included in these scattered remarks are some comparisons between his own views on colonies and those of Adam Smith. The question of the relationship between Malthus and Adam Smith is a (...) rather complex and subtle one, and cannot be given the full consideration it deserves in one short paper. But, as a general summary, it can be said that Malthus had a high regard for Smith and considered himself a follower and disciple of Smith, by contrast with Ricardo, James Mill, and McCulloch etc., whom he considered as exponents of a ‘New System of Political Economy”. His own Principles of Political Economy was conceived as a collection of ‘tracts or essays”, not as a new systematic treatise replacing the Wealth of Nations, Joseph Gamier in his article ‘Malthus” in the Dictionnaire de l'Economie Politique, 1852, saw that the title of the Principles was in fact a misnomer: ‘Malgré son titre, le livre sur les Principes n'est point un traité complet, mais seulement une collection de dissertations.” In what was probably intended as a criticism of Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 1817, Malthus stated that the ‘present period … seems to be unpropitious to the publication of a new systematic treatise on political economy”, and, referring to Smith's work, stated that ‘the treatise which we already possess is still of the very highest value”. Nevertheless, despite professing his affiliation, Malthus did not hesitate to criticize Smith when he disagreed with him. He recognized that the Wealth of Nations contained ‘controverted points” and that it would require some ‘additions … which the more advanced stage of the science has rendered necessary”. (shrink)

Aesthetic alienation may be described as the paradoxical relationship whereby art and truth have come to be divorced from one another while nonetheless remaining entwined. J. M. Bernstein not only finds the separation of art and truth problematic, but also contends that we continue to experience art as sensuous and particular, thus complicating and challenging the cultural self-understanding of modernity. Bernstein focuses on the work of four key philosophers—Kant, Heidegger, Derrida, and Adorno—and provides powerful new interpretations of their views. Bernstein (...) shows how each of the three post-Kantian aesthetics to construct a philosophical language that can criticize and displace the categorical assumption of modernity. He also examines in detail their responses to questions concerning the relations among art, philosophy, and politics in modern societies. (shrink)

For the scholastic philosopher William Ockham (c. 1285-1347), there are three kinds of heresy. The first, and most unmistakable, is an outright denial of the truths of faith. Another is so obvious that a very simple person, even if illiterate, can see how it contradicts Divine Scripture. The third kind of heresy is less clear cut. It is perceptible only after long deliberation and only to individuals who are learned, and well versed in Scripture. It is this third variety of (...) heresy that J.M.M.H. Thijssen addresses in Censure and Heresy at the University of Paris, 1200-1400. The book documents 30 cases in which university trained scholars were condemned for disseminating allegedly erroneous opinions in their teaching or writing, and focuses particularly on four academic censures that have occupied prominent positions in the historiography of medieval philosophy. Thijssen grants central importance to a number of questions so far neglected by historians regarding judicial procedures, the authorities supervising the orthodoxy of teaching, and the effects of condemnations on the careers of the accused. He also places still current questions regarding academic freedom and the nature of doctrinal authority into their medieval contexts. (shrink)

When the first volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri was published in 1898, all lovers of Sappho must have been disappointed with the latter half of Blass's otherwise excellent restoration of this poem. The perusal of a recent article by J. Sitzler, in which later suggestions are discussed and fresh ones made, only serves to confirm this feeling of dissatisfaction. Sappho's extant work elsewhere combines a dignified simplicity of matter with a dignified simplicity of form. Any obscurity we find in it, (...) is due rather to our ignorance of her dialect than to any real strangeness of thought or diction. By simple ideas, simple constructions, simple words, she produces a beauty all her own. It must be confessed that the latter half of the Ode to the Nereids, as it stands in any of the published restorations falls short of all else of Sappho's that we possess. It is just possible that in line II xs22EFτοισι can stand as a feminine, but, grammar apart, nothing, surely, could be tamer than the sentence as it stands with the long relative clause beginning in line 13—‘When he heard the reproach, which used to cut him to the quick and restrain him amid the mirth of his fellow citizens, and which died away for a time only to be revived soon after.’ I hope to bring the poem a stage nearer satisfactory restoration by showing that there are grounds for rejecting some at least of the suggestions which contribute to this result. (shrink)

When the first volume of the Oxyrhynchus Papyri was published in 1898, all lovers of Sappho must have been disappointed with the latter half of Blass's otherwise excellent restoration of this poem. The perusal of a recent article by J. Sitzler, in which later suggestions are discussed and fresh ones made, only serves to confirm this feeling of dissatisfaction. Sappho's extant work elsewhere combines a dignified simplicity of matter with a dignified simplicity of form. Any obscurity we find in it, (...) is due rather to our ignorance of her dialect than to any real strangeness of thought or diction. By simple ideas, simple constructions, simple words, she produces a beauty all her own. It must be confessed that the latter half of the Ode to the Nereids, as it stands in any of the published restorations falls short of all else of Sappho's that we possess. It is just possible that in line II ⋯τοισι can stand as a feminine, but, grammar apart, nothing, surely, could be tamer than the sentence as it stands with the long relative clause beginning in line 13—‘When he heard the reproach, which used to cut him to the quick and restrain him amid the mirth of his fellow citizens, and which died away for a time only to be revived soon after.’ I hope to bring the poem a stage nearer satisfactory restoration by showing that there are grounds for rejecting some at least of the suggestions which contribute to this result. (shrink)

The first professors at the newly-established London University were appointed in 1827, but a chair in geology was not created there until 1841. In the intervening years, teaching in geology and palaeontology was included in other natural science courses. Early in 1831, John Phillips, keeper of the Yorkshire Museum at York, was prompted to give a formal course of geological lectures and subsequently he was informally offered the professorship, which he declined.

This paper aims to establish that Sorites reasoning, a fundamental part of Parfit's work, is more destructive that he intends. I establish the form that Parfit's arguments take and then substitute premises whose acceptability to Parfit I show. The new argument demonstrates an eliminativism or immaterialism concerning persons which Parfit must find repugnant.

Professor Leonard proposes that imperative and interrogative sentences be classified, together with declarative ones, as true and false. The interesting analysis he gives in connection with this proposal points out that these three types of utterance have something in common and has the merit of evincing the identity of this common element. Also it may seem to offer attractive possibilities of integrating various types of discourse in its promise of partial assimilation of interrogatives and imperatives to the model of truth-valuable (...) language. Even so, Leonard's account is not altogether satisfactory. I shall not discuss his treatment of imperatives but shall argue that his conception of interrogatives has unacceptable consequences. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) has had a profound impact on our way of life. Among other things, he was a philosopher, a poet, and a scholar. Unfortunately, he suffered from poor health, which caused him to resign from his position as the Chair of Classical Philology, which he held at the age of 24. At 44, he was so ill that his mother, and then his sister had to care for him until his death at the page of 55. Nietzsche wrote (...) on numerous subjects, but is commonly associated with nihilism, critiques of Christian morality, and his strong opposition to anti-Semitism and nationalism. There was a brief time when his sister reworked his manuscripts to favor Nazi ideology, but the correct manuscripts were uncovered. Many scholars have written about Nietzsche. J. M. Kennedy was the pen name for John McFarland, who wrote extensively on Nietzsche. He also wrote on education, philology and war. This new edition is dedicated to Daniel Gutierrez Sandoval and Emma Norman, who have had different views of Nietzsche. Please note that this is a reprint of the original version, and has a few small blemishes. (shrink)

In a reflective and richly entertaining piece from 1979, Doug Hofstadter playfully imagined a conversation between ‘Achilles’ and an anthill (the eponymous ‘Aunt Hillary’), in which he famously explored many ideas and themes related to cognition and consciousness. For Hofstadter, the anthill is able to carry on a conversation because the ants that compose it play roughly the same role that neurons play in human languaging; unfortunately, Hofstadter’s work is notably short on detail suggesting how this magic might be achieved1. (...) Conversely in this paper - finally reifying Hofstadter’s imagination - we demonstrate how populations of simple ant-like creatures can be organised to solve complex problems; problems that involve the use of forward planning and strategy. Specifically we will demonstrate that populations of such creatures can be configured to play a strategically strong - though tactically weak - game of HeX (a complex strategic game).We subsequently demonstrate how tactical play can be improved by introducing a form of forward planning instantiated via multiple populations of agents; a technique that can be compared to the dynamics of interacting populations of social insects via the concept of meta-population. In this way although, pace Hofstadter, we do not establish that a meta-population of ants could actually hold a conversation with Achilles, we do successfully introduce Aunt Hillary to the complex, seductive charms of HeX. (shrink)

Subtitled "Studies in Ethical Analysis," this collection of eleven essays, most of which have previously appeared in journals, deals with a number of problems central to modern ethical theory: the emotive interpretation of ethical language, persuasive definitions and their role in ethical reasoning, the cognitive versus emotive conceptions of ethics: many of these problems were first raised and examined by Stevenson in his earlier book Ethics and Language. Other essays are of a less retrospective nature: studies on Moore and Dewey, (...) naturalism and relativism in ethics, and a general discussion of the relations of linguistic analysis to philosophy as a whole. Stevenson is mainly concerned with analytical, as opposed to descriptive, ethics; and he completely avoids the topics of normative ethics except for a brief survey. The approach to ethics is therefore restricted, but there is enough here to interest the philosopher whose main area lies outside of ethics; although it presupposes no acquaintance with the author's previous work, some of the questions on emotivism and persuasive language are more motivated when seen in the context of that work.—P. J. M. (shrink)

John Locke claimed that: ‘We never finding, nor conceiving it possible, that two things of the same kind should exist in the same place at the same time, we rightly conclude that, whatever exists anywhere at any time excludes all of the same kind, and is there itself alone’. He argued that, otherwise, ‘The notions and names of identity and diversity would be in vain, and there could be no such distinctions of substances or anything else one from another’. More (...) recently Professor D. Wiggins has made a similar claim for similar reasons. I shall maintain that, even if we accept the general outline of the essentialist account of identity given by Wiggins in his book, the claim that two things of the same kind cannot be in the same place at the same time should be rejected, until better reasons are forthcoming. (shrink)

Originally published in 1981, Dr Currie's main emphasis in this book is on the economic theory of agricultural land tenure, but he also makes extensive reference to the historical development of land tenure in England. After consideration of the history of economic thought on this important topic, he employs an essentially neo-classical approach, though one that pays due attention to the nature of institutional arrangements and particular forms of property rights. In dealing with these latter aspects, he considers not only (...) the economic effects of particular institutional forms but also their economic causes. The careful use of the history of land tenure development gives this work especial relevance for agricultural development and for issues of land reform. The Physiocrats and Classical economists gave land tenure an important place in their work. Following a long period of' neglect by Neo-Classical economists, land tenure arrangements again received considerable theoretical attention in the years preceding publication. Dr Currie draws on and develops this work. Moreover, he investigates the importance of a number of crucial issues that were being neglected at the time. (shrink)

After recently meeting with his biological parents, the author--a 29-year-old-married male--learned he had been an hour away from being aborted, being 'saved' only by extraordinary circumstances. In the paper the author reflects upon previous strong pro-choice beliefs and reasserts his commitment to a pro-choice philosophy, integrating his new personal experience. The paper pays particular attention to the biological mother's experience and how her fresh insights have reinforced the author's views on abortion.

One of the purposes of this paper is to explore a number of questions which-to judge from what he assumes–Aristotle might well have asked, but which he apparently did not ask. It is often informative in the history of philosophy to point out the questions which are not raised; it sets those which are raised in a more precise frame.It can be argued that Aristotle implies that it is possible to look like a human being–and indeed be called a human (...) being–without “really” or “fully” being one. Leaving aside the status of females (who for Aristotle are males manques, analogous to the blind or deaf, and of children, we cannot be certain that all adult males of the class whose members look like men “really” are men. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 10.2 (2003) 133-134 [Access article in PDF] Fictional Beings J. M. Coetzee What Does It Mean, "To Understand"? A tennis coach is teaching a young player a forehand topspin drive. He does so with a mixture of demonstrations (nonverbal) and explanations (verbal), such as, "At the moment of impact you roll the wrist over like this" (demonstrates). The player tries the stroke again and again, (...) and each time the coach shakes his head and says, "You haven't got it yet." Then the player gets the stroke right. The coach says "Now you've got it! Now you understand! Now let's do it again!"Is this a legitimate use of the word understand? I think it is. The coach intends the following: At first you may have understood my words but from your actions—the practice strokes you played—I could not see that you had understood my meaning. Then, when you got the stroke right, and could repeat it, I saw that you had finally understood the meaning behind my words.Understanding is in this case the effective translation of words, or words plus demonstrations, into actions, where effectiveness can be easily measured. The translation is from a verbal, or mixed verbal, system into an entirely nonverbal system of electrochemical impulses.Conversely, one can picture an exhaustive analysis of forehand topspin drives by André Agassi, conducted by microphotography, implanted sensors, and so on, to issue in a mixed verbal and diagrammatic account of how Agassi plays the stroke. In this case the physiologic system of the stroke has been successfully translated into a (partially) verbal system. Again, it would be meaningful to say that the sports physiologist who does the analysis has come to understand how the stroke is played.Although in both these cases understanding is conceived of as a translation process, I concentrate from here onward on the translation process from the verbal to the nonverbal, exemplified by understanding how to play a particular stroke.The coach says X and the player tries to "do" X, but fails and fails, until finally he succeeds. When the player has at last "done" X, he has understood. Thereafter, by steps, the player ceases to depend on the coach and the coach's X: the player can do X by himself; he understands X in the sense that whenever he says X to himself he can do X. He has made X his own.I read The Sound and the Fury, the part devoted to Benjy. Benjy says X and I don't understand. I understand the words on the page one by one, many of the sentences I understand one by one in the sense that I can translate them into other English sentences, but I don't understand the logic that gets Benjy from one sentence to the next, I don't understand the references of many words that are usually referential, and sometimes I am baffled by the syntax.For whatever reason, I go on reading Benjy. In a few respects I begin to understand better. For instance, there are sentences that stop in midstride, and I begin to suspect that such sentences stop because Benjy does not want to think what [End Page 133] comes next—that is to say, that the Faulkner behind Benjy means me to understand that Benjy lacks the wherewithal to face what would naturally come next. Mainly, however, I remain in the dark.Then I begin to experience something interesting. I find that I am, in my mind, going through some of the movements of Benjy's language. I am, as it were, practicing the characteristic strokes of his game. Although I remain, for the most part, unable to translate his pages into connected discourse—that is, into a discourse in which the logical connection between one sentence and the next is, however faulty, at least clear—I am better and better able to "do" Benjy."Doing" Benjy in this case means more than parrot-like repetition of Benjy's words. I can now speak of "entering Benjy" in a way that makes sense. I... (shrink)

In the first part of the article the author discusses the use of the word 'fact'. In the second he uses his conclusions to "throw light on some of the discussions of the logical atomists." he discusses austin, Russell, And strawson. The author concludes that it a mistake to identify questions of ontology with questions of language, Which arises because of a confusion with the term 'fact'. (staff).

Xavier Zubiri arouses a growing interest as a philosopher. It is, however, well known that he has also treated theological themes; he was concerned especially with the theology of the eucharist. Zubiri was convinced that the most precise concept of the eucharistic transformation was not the «transubstantiation» but «transubstantivation» and «transactualisation». In exposing Zubiri's conviction we meet two fundamental concepts of his philosophy: substantivity and actuality . Yet, to understand adequately these two concepts, it is necessary, it would seem, to (...) start from another fondamental concept of Zubiri: the sentient intelligence . For this reason the article intends, in the first place, to present the Zubirian concept of sentient intelligence, substantivity and actuality, in order, thereafter, to expose the concept of the eucharistic transformation as transubstantivation and transactualisation. Zubiri says that he does not claim to say new things about the eucharist, but only to conceive in his own way the things said before. In agreement with him, the article tries to show that, if one starts from his concept of human intelligence as sentient intelligence, human intellection will be primarily «actuality», the real will be «substantivity», and the adequate concept of the eucharistic transformation will be «transubstantivati. (shrink)

Whether the law should permit individuals to opt out of accepted death standards is a question that must be faced and clarifiedWhile media coverage of the Terri Schiavo case in Florida has recently refocused public attention on end of life decision making, another end of life tragedy in Utah has raised equally challenging—and possibly more fundamental—questions about the roles of physicians and families in matters of death. The patient at the centre of this case was Jesse Koochin, a six year (...) old boy suffering from “inoperable and incurable” brain cancer. He had been undergoing care at Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City since September 15, 2004 when “his tumor pushed his brain stem down through the skull”.1 Subsequently, two physicians independently determined that the child was “brain dead” and informed his parents that they would order life support removed within twenty four hours. Steve and Gayle Koochin overtly rejected the hospital’s definition of death. The couple, relying on traditional notions of cardiopulmonary death, obtained a restraining order to keep Jesse on a ventilator and ultimately removed the brain dead child from the hospital. The ongoing case raises the complex question of whether patients’ families should be permitted to opt out of widely accepted definitions of death in favour of their own standards.The definition of death has evolved rapidly in the United States over the past thirty five years. Until the middle of the twentieth century, the medical community, the legal system, and an overwhelming majority of the public understood death to …. (shrink)

Four years after completing his Ph.D. on “The Psychology of Kant,” one of Peirce’s most famous students, John Dewey, published a compendium of Leibniz’s main theses, his 1888 Leibniz’s New Essays.1 Such a move from critical to pre-critical rationalism seems to echo Peirce’s judgment that to fully understand Kant, a thorough familiarity with Leibniz’s philosophy is an indispensable preliminary (N 2:186, 1899); for Kant himself “was reposing in a firm belief in the metaphysics of Leibnitz as theologized by Wolff when (...) he first read the book of Hume.” (W 1:104, 1863) Peirce himself started his reflection with the study of Kant’s thought. The purpose of the present paper is to demonstrate that his actual implicit.. (shrink)

Continuing the dialogue: postcolonial feminist scholarship and Bourdieu — discourses of culture and points of connection Postcolonial feminist theories provide the analytic tools to address issues of structural inequities in groups that historically have been socially and economically disadvantaged. In this paper we question what value might be added to postcolonial feminist theories on culture by drawing on Bourdieu. Are there points of connection? Like postcolonial feminists, he puts forward a position that aims to unmask oppressive structures. We argue that, (...) while there are points of connection, there are also epistemologic and methodologic differences between postcolonial feminist perspectives and Bourdieu's work. Nonetheless, engagement with different theoretical perspectives carries the promise of new insights — new ways of ‘seeing’ and ‘understanding’ that might enhance a praxis‐oriented theoretical perspective in healthcare delivery. (shrink)

In Poetics chapter 9, Aristotle famously claims that poetry is more philosophical than history. What does this mean? I argue that he is talking about the metaphysics of events. Poets seek causal coherence among the events in their stories. Historians must report what happened whether or not the events of history exhibit causal coherence. This makes the poet's job more philosophical than the historian's, for the poet is seeking a unified plot -- an action-type -- that serves as the backbone (...) of the story he is trying to tell. The poet's final script is a token of an Aristotelian universal, the universal being an action-type that could have been fleshed out in many different ways, although with similar characters. Hence, the poet shows us what he thinks it is likely or necessary for agents of different types to do in the circumstances that confront them. Aristotelian mimesis, on this account, is the poetic representation of "one action," that is, of one action-type. (shrink)

Le philosophe américain Charles S. Peirce ne trouva, malgré ses efforts, guère d’interlocuteurs en France. On le considéra comme un mathématicien et logicien, un physicien et un psychologue fiable, mais son œuvre philosophique fut systématiquement distordue au gré des controverses franco-françaises. Nous mettons l’accent sur les lectures d’André Lalande et de Louis Couturat qui contribuèrent néanmoins à faire reconnaître en France l’originalité du père du pragmaticisme.Despite his efforts, the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce found hardly any interlocutors in France. He (...) was considered mostly as a mathematician and logician, a physicist and a reliable psychologist, but his philosophical work was systematically distorted in consequence of “Franco-French” disputes. We emphasize here the readings of André Lalande and Louis Couturat who made significant contributions towards the recognition in France of the originality of the founding father of Pragmaticism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Hegel and the Problem of Beginning: Scepticism and Presuppositionlessness by Robb DUNPHYJ. M. FritzmanDUNPHY, Robb. Hegel and the Problem of Beginning: Scepticism and Presuppositionlessness. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2023. x + 213 pp. Cloth, $105.00This rich, learned, and important book investigates and critically evaluates how, according to Hegel, philosophy should begin. Briefly stated, the problem of beginning philosophy is that any beginning seems susceptible to a skeptical (...) challenge that takes the form of a dilemma. On the one side, if philosophy begins immediately with a presuppositionless assertion, skeptics will contend that it is dogmatic. On the other side, if philosophy begins mediately with a claim that presupposes an argument, skeptics will confront each premise of that argument with a trilemma: The premise is either only a dogmatic assertion; it is the conclusion of an argument whose premises must in turn be justified (which threatens an infinite regress); or it depends on an argument that is viciously circular. Hegel solves this problem with a beginning that is simultaneously immediate and mediate.The introduction explains that this book has three goals. First, it critically analyzes the problem of beginning, showing how Hegel responds to the skeptical challenge. Second, it explains how Hegel’s approach to the problem and his solution are informed by his deep engagement with the tradition of Pyrrhonian skepticism. Finally, it provides a guide to reading Hegel’s essay “With What Must the Beginning of the Science be Made?” in the Science of Logic.Chapter 1, “Hegel and Pyrrhonian Scepticism,” presents the essentials of Pyrrhonism and Hegel’s interpretation of it. Pyrrhonism is a way of life. It aims to find an equally good counterargument for every argument it encounters, thus leading to a suspension of judgment that allows the skeptic to live in a state of undisturbedness. Pyrrhonism presents encountered arguments with a trilemma: Either they depend on dogmatic assertions; they generate an infinite regress of arguments; or they are viciously circular. Hegel’s interpretation emphasizes skepticism’s equipollence, whereby it opposes every argument with a counterargument that is equally persuasive. Viewed historically, Pyrrhonism seems to have confronted arguments only as it happened to encounter them and to have restricted itself to epistemology. However, Hegel is open to the interpretation that skepticism’s inquiry could be completed. This would allow it to demonstrate that for every argument there will always be an [End Page 143] equally persuasive counterargument. He also interprets skepticism as accepting a metaphysical principle regarding the inherent instability of objects.“A Short History of the Problem of Beginning,” chapter 2, provides a detailed précis of Hegel’s essay. It also gives the brief history of the problem of beginning, discussing Descartes, Kant, Reinhold, Fichte, and Schelling. It notes that some philosophers posit an objective beginning, others a subjective beginning. It explains why Hegel regards previous attempts to solve the problem of beginning as inadequate. It recognizes that Fichte’s solution can be interpreted as much closer to that of Hegel than Hegel acknowledges.Chapter 3, “The Problem of Beginning,” supplies Hegel’s own account of the problem. His solution has two versions, one in the Science of Logic and the other in the Encyclopedia Logic. Each version posits a beginning without determinate content. In the Science of Logic, Hegel states that absolute knowing, the culminating shape of consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit, corresponds to the empty thinking with which philosophy begins. Philosophy’s beginning in the Science of Logic is mediate as it emerges from the progression of shapes of consciousness in the Phenomenology of Spirit and immediate as it does not have an object of thought. In the Encyclopedia Logic, Hegel proposes that a completed skepticism corresponds to the abstract concept of being with which philosophy begins. Philosophy’s beginning in the Encyclopedia Logic is mediate as it emerges from the skepticism’s equipollence and immediate as being without content. Hegel ultimately denies that a completed skepticism could play this role, however, which suggests that he believes that philosophy can begin immediately.“Meditation I—Phenomenology,” chapter 4, argues that Hegel’s first version is unsuccessful. To succeed, William Maker’s interpretation would have to be accepted, which... (shrink)

We offer obeisances to Lord Śiva, guru of knowledge, lord of the dance, who purifies by the very utterance of his name, who transcends all dualities. May he grant us permission to argue with his devotees. May he also give us his blessings to convince them.Properly speaking, comparative philosophy does not lead toward the creation of a synthesis of philosophical traditions. What is being created is not a new theory but a different sort of philosopher. The goal of comparative philosophy (...) is learning a new language, a new way of talking. The comparative philosopher does not so much inhabit both of the standpoints represented by the traditions from which he draws as he comes to inhabit an.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Readymades, Monochromes, Etc.:Nominalism and the Paradox of ModernismJ. M. Bernstein (bio)If Schopenhauer's thesis of art as an image of the world once over bears a kernel of truth, then it does so only insofar as this second world is composed out of elements that have been transposed out of the empirical world in accord with Jewish descriptions of the messianic order as an order just like the habitual order (...) but changed in the slightest degree.—T. W. Adorno, Aesthetic TheoryAdorno's philosophy as a whole, and his aesthetic theory in particular, is irrevocably bound to the tradition and achievements of high modernism. Although Adorno himself did not recognize American Abstract Expression as the apotheosis of high modernism in painting, that judgment now hardly seems contentious.1 And that raises a problem: it is the problem of R. Mutt, again, the problem of the porcelain urinal called Fountain, which was refused admittance to the Society of Independent Artists' Exhibition in April 1917 in spite of the Society's proclaimed democratic slogan "No jury, no prizes"—the work whose life or after-life begins with the beautiful photograph of it by Stieglitz set against the background of Marsden Hartley's The Warriors and that appeared shortly thereafter in the new avant-garde journal The Blind Man. Whatever the immediate repercussions of Fountain, there can be little doubt that much of what is most vital in art in the second half of this century is unthinkable without it; Duchamp's readymade offers an exemplary alternative to the tradition of high modernist painting that has continued to be generative. For a modernist like Adorno, for whom authentic art is that which best rises to the demands and necessities of artistic materials, for whom internal consistency and rigor would appear to be everything, for whom, finally, aesthetic form is the "objective organization within each artwork of what appears as bindingly eloquent" [AT 143; emphasis mine], Duchamp's gesture of simply naming or claiming artistic status for an ordinary bathroom fixture must be anathema. In this respect, Adorno's aesthetic theory would seem to be in the same predicament as Clement Greenberg's modernism: inextricably bound to a tradition that history has left behind. And while the option of refuting the claim of Fountain is certainly possible, and should not be too quickly suppressed (there is something in the claim that will forever be skeptically self-defeating), nonetheless there does appear to be an exemplariness to Fountain that exceeds the narrow provocation of Duchamp's nominalist gesture; something in the readymade, in fact, seems (art historically? aesthetically? conceptually?) irresistible. If so, then modernist [End Page 83] formalism must either find a way of accommodating the readymade without departing from its internal logic or find its claim to our attention forfeited.After laying out the bold outlines of Adorno's formalism, the remainder of this essay will seek to uncover an account of the readymade in the context of what I will eventually call "the paradox of modernism" in order to locate in what way the readymade can be accommodated to a defense of Adorno's late modernism. For the purposes of this argument, I am going to assume that the best overall defense of Duchamp's gesture, which makes it foundational for the understanding of modern art, is that offered by Thierry de Duve in his Kant after Duchamp. My elaboration of Adorno's late modernism will hence proceed, in part, through a charting of some of the fault lines in de Duve's Duchamp. My contention shall be that the generativity of Fountain as readymade not only belongs within modernism, but is only intelligible within a wholly modernist and formalist frame of reference.Adorno's Formalism and the Material MotiveAdorno opens the section of Aesthetic Theory entitled "Coherence and Meaning" with the drastic sounding thesis that "Although artworks are neither conceptual nor judgmental, they are logical" [AT 136]. He continues:In them nothing would be enigmatic if their immanent logicality did not accommodate discursive thought, which criteria they nevertheless regularly disappoint. They most resemble the form of a syllogism and its prototype in empirical thought. That in the temporal... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Not Only Sub Specie Aeternitatis, but Equally Sub Specie DurationisA Defense of Hegel's Criticisms of Spinoza's PhilosophyJ. M. Fritzman and Brianne RileyIn what seem like halcyon days, when William Jefferson Clinton was America's President, James Carville wrote We're Right, They're Wrong: A Handbook for Spirited Progressives, arguing against the Republican Party's "Contract with America" (derided by the Left as a "Contract on America") and for progressivism. In the present (...) philosophical conjuncture, what is required is a precisely analogous intervention—"Hegel's Right, Spinoza's Wrong: An Article for Spirited Hegelians." Hegel criticizes Spinoza's philosophy at various places in his writings.1 Spinozists have made several major challenges to Hegel's criticisms.2 Although there have been explications of Hegel's criticisms, there has been no effective response to the Spinozists' challenges.3 Until now. This article defends Hegel's criticisms of Spinoza's philosophy and shows that the challenges to his criticisms fail.This article presents a précis of Spinoza's system and shows the senses in which Hegel is not wholly enamored with it. It defends Hegel's criticism of Spinoza's system as an acosmism from Parkinson's challenges to it. It considers both Myers's view that Hegel's system begins where Spinoza's system ends and McMinn's charge that the systems of Spinoza and Hegel are fundamentally identical. Myers and McMinn misunderstand Hegel's dialectical method, and so they incorrectly believe that the methods of Spinoza and Hegel are complementary. Hegel's dialectics can sublate the systematic pluralism that Myers and Armour propose as its alternative. The penultimate section discusses the modifications that must be made to Spinoza's system to advance from his substance to Hegel's subject.Clinton successfully appropriated what was worthwhile in the "Contract with America," but he also effectively argued that the "Contract" would be a disaster for America. Similarly, Hegel assimilates the truth in his predecessors' philosophies while demonstrating how those philosophies remain [End Page 76] one-sided and partial. This article concludes by showing how this happens to Spinoza's philosophy.Everybody Loves SpinozaSpinoza's philosophy is a metaphysical monism. That is, he thinks that there is only one basic substance. Although there is only one substance, it necessarily expresses itself through an infinite number of attributes, and an attribute is the essence of substance as experienced by the intellect.4 Humans are capable of knowing only two of these attributes: thought and extension. Objects, ideas, and relations—Spinoza refers to all of these as "modes"—are presented through some attribute or other. Spinoza denies that a thing presented through one attribute can cause or be affected by anything presented through another attribute. Rather, each thing which is presented through an attribute has an infinite number of counterparts presented through the infinite number of attributes. Indeed, those infinite counterparts are that thing, presented through the other attributes. Substance necessarily expresses itself through the attributes and modes, according to Spinoza, and everything that is possible is also actual.5Spinoza's substance expresses itself through its attributes and modes, but what occurs at the level of the attributes and modes has no reciprocal effect on substance. Like unrequited love, expression is a one-way street. Not e pluribus unum (out of many, one), but e unibus plurum (out of one, many). Unlike the relation of the states to the federal government, the attributes and modes do not possess a relative or circumscribed autonomy vis-à-vis substance.6 Substance expressing itself through its attributes and modes is nature, according to Spinoza, and nature in turn is God. Hence, Spinoza's God is wholly immanent within the world—for him, God is the world—and so he rejects that traditional God of theism, who transcends and is wholly independent from the world. Spinoza rejects as illusory all notions of purpose and intention.7 Although individuals generally believe that their actions are performed in order to fulfill some goal, Spinoza instead maintains that human actions are entirely determined and necessary and that the belief that actions are done to accomplish something is entirely mistaken. He believes that all happenings—physical... (shrink)

In two of his dialogues especially, the Sophist and the Parmenides, Plato concerns himself at length with problems presented by the Eleatics. Despite difficulties in the interpretation of individual passages, the Sophist has in general proved the less difficult to understand, and since some of the problems at issue in the two works indicate the same or similar preoccupations in Plato's mind, it is worth considering how far an interpretation of the ‘easier’ dialogue can be used to forward an interpretation (...) of the more difficult. First, therefore, we must identify problems common to the two works; then we must see whether we can understand what Plato understood Parmenides to have done—this may help towards an understanding of what he did in fact do; finally we can apply our findings to the Parmenides itself, particularly to the problem of the unity of the dialogue, in the hope that Plato's intentions may become clearer. (shrink)

In an article in an earlier edition of the Journal of Medical Ethics (1) Dr Iglesias bases her analysis upon the mediaeval interpretation of Platonic metaphysics and Aristotelian logic as given by Aquinas. Propositional forms are applied to the analysis of experience. This results in a very abstract analysis. The essential connection of events and their changing temporal relationships are ignored. The dichotomy between body and soul is a central concept. The unchanging elements in experience are assumed to be more (...) real than the actual world of experienced process. Such a view makes the analysis of the temporal factors in experience impossible. Its abstractness is quite unsuitable for the analysis of the ontological structure and development of the neonate from fertilisation to birth. A N Whitehead made the notion of organism central to his philosophy. He refused to place human experience outside nature, or admit dualism. His philosophy of organism is an attempt to uncover the essential elements connecting human experience with the physical and biological sciences. Time, change and process are, in his view, more real than the static abstractions obtainable by the use of the fallacy of misplaced concreteness. Use of the latter negates the essential connectedness of events and the importance of temporarily and change (2). In this paper I argue that the embryo, being an organism, is not analysable in terms of thinghood. It is a process. To apply Aristotelian logical concepts to it is to distort the real nature of the datum. (shrink)

Deleuze's philosophy of cinema departs from the standard conception of modernist aesthetics that sees art withdrawing from representation in order to reflect upon the specificity of its medium. While ambitious and influential, Deleuze's attempt fails. Overdetermined by its own metaphysics, it forsakes the real importance of the movies. It is unable to explain how they function and why they matter. This essay pursues three lines of criticism: Deleuze cannot account for the aesthetic specificity of cinema because he deposes the primacy (...) of action in the movement-image in favour of the primacy of belief. This failure is connected to the fact that a cinema of the virtual depends on the very Bazinian realism it is meant to displace. Realism must be acknowledged as the cinematic condition and truth of virtuality. Further, Bazinian realism is the cinematic form of philosophical modernism, preferable for many reasons to Deleuze's philosophy, which returns to pre-modern cosmology in its desire to escape the agent-based, anti-metaphysical commitments of modernism. I apply these criticisms to my analysis of Resnais's Hiroshima mon amour, a movie that prima facie looks made to fulfil the terms of Deleuze's theory but which I argue is an object lesson in realism. (shrink)

Like his predecessor Herodotus, Ctesias has a great deal to report of marvellous springs, lakes and other bodies of water. Indeed, in one of the most noteworthy tales in his book on India, he describes a remarkable well which produces not water but gold. The story has never been discussed in full. A recent scholar, in fact, in one of the few allusions to it, reproduces the account, but only in part, namely the lines which concern the gold. The original (...) narrative, however, includes much more, for it deals, in addition, with the iron found at the bottom of the well and with its remarkable properties, as well as with the two swords of this metal which Ctesias allegedly received, one from the queen-mother, the other from the king. (shrink)

Tall tales abound in Ctesias' Indica, as scholars have not hesitated to emphasize, heaping ridicule on the author's enthusiasm for the fantastic and on his apparent lack of regard for the truth. However, by no means everything in the work is absurd or wrong, and marvels too are no surprise. After all, as a resident of the Persian court for a number of years at the end of the fifth century B.C., Ctesias had seen items from India which would have (...) been truly remarkable to Greeks of his time. He had seen, for example, elephants, which few Greeks before Alexander's Asian campaigns had done, and, it should be added, much of what he says about these animals is quite correct. The following pages discuss what he relates of the bird which he calls the βττακκος, the parrot, or rather what Photius in a not entirely problem-free section of his summary of the work preserves of the original description. As with Ctesias' account of the elephant, this is the first Greek description, so far as we know. (shrink)

Tall tales abound in Ctesias'Indica, as scholars have not hesitated to emphasize, heaping ridicule on the author's enthusiasm for the fantastic and on his apparent lack of regard for the truth. However, by no means everything in the work is absurd or wrong, and marvels too are no surprise. After all, as a resident of the Persian court for a number of years at the end of the fifth century B.C., Ctesias had seen items from India which would have been (...) truly remarkable to Greeks of his time. He had seen, for example, elephants, which few Greeks before Alexander's Asian campaigns had done, and, it should be added, much of what he says about these animals is quite correct. The following pages discuss what he relates of the bird which he calls the β⋯ττακκος, the parrot, or rather what Photius in a not entirely problem-free section of his summary of the work preserves of the original description. As with Ctesias' account of the elephant, this is the first Greek description, so far as we know. (shrink)

In a series of essays, Miss Rand expounds her "Objectivist Ethics." Man will discover, if he is sufficiently rational, those goals and values which are peculiar to him alone, i.e., those which will enable him to survive, and which require complex thought processes. The result of this search is that the moral man is he who achieves his maximum happiness; relationships, whether economic or emotional, are to be based on trade, and no interests conflict if they are viewed in a (...) properly wide context. The essays are quite readable, although not so arresting as Miss Rand's novels; however, the ethics collapses when it is applied to a populous society whose environment is either agriculturally poor or highly mechanized. Given these conditions, if a man views his interest from the limited standpoint of Objectivism, there is a necessary conflict of interests.—J. M. B. (shrink)

This article argues that Hegel read Lacan. Put less paradoxically, it claims that situating Hegel within a Lacanian paradigm results in an understanding of the future as still open and of history as not ended. Absolute knowing, on this model, is the recognition of the way in which history has developed, not a claim that it can advance no further. The article aims to persuade those who might otherwise dismiss Hegel – for example, persons au courant with poststructuralism – that (...) he still can make a decisive contribution to current debates. (shrink)

This article discusses Habermas' rejections of the orthodoxy of the philosophy of history, ethical socialism, and scientism. It urges that his attempt to derive rationality and morality from consensus fails, and so he does lapse into ethical socialism. However, ethical socialism only appears to be something to avoidbecause of his belief that consensus could generate rationality and morality. Once the impossibility of that is recognized, ethical socialism can be rehabilitated. Hence, Althusser's version of ethical socialism escapes Habermas' censure.

Levelt, reviewing the AGL field from a psycholinguistic perspective, identifies various gaps and makes a number of concrete suggestions for improving several currently used experimental designs. He raises the question whether artificial (and natural) grammar learning is about detecting ‘rules’, as is commonly assumed, or rather the detection of a set of ‘constraints’. He cautions the community to not ignore ‘semantics’, and recommends to consider less artificial tasks, that may be needed for learning more complex rules by human or nonhuman (...) animals. (shrink)

This book is of little interest except to those tracing back the neo-scholastic sources of such figures as Maréchal, Coreth, Rahner, et al. The introductory essay by G. Isaye, supposedly designed to give a summary description of Scheurer's method, is a masterpiece of obscure writing even for those acquainted with neoscholastic jargon. The rest of the volume consists of twelve very desultory essays by Scheurer. In these essays Scheurer struggles to pour the philosophy of the ego à la Kant and (...) his successors into scholastic molds. This synthesis is done in the name of the transcendental method, but what results is historically dubious and philosophically tortured. Though ambiguities abound, Scheurer was ahead of most of his scholastic contemporaries in that he tried to come to grips with Kant and to see in Kant someone more than the malin genie of modern philosophy. Unfortunately, the editor does not date Scheurer's essays and one, therefore, cannot determine whether Scheurer first influenced Maréchal or vice-versa--D. J. M. B. (shrink)

Chomsky is widely mentioned in those philosophical circles whose interest centers on the analysis of language, but until now he has really been little read; this new work will remedy that situation. Here Chomsky, building on a presupposed acquaintance with linguistics, provides a stimulating examination of four major areas of linguistic theory: first, generative grammars are studied in their relation to language learning and understanding, then they are further considered as theories of linguistic use and competence; Chomsky here sets out (...) the criteria required for a grammar to be considered adequate—the justification of grammars. The second chapter examines syntactic theory with reference to depth structure and the problem of the relation of syntactic description to the traditional, correct account of how language is used. Depth structures and their import with reference to transformations within grammars are the subject matter of the third chapter. The last section considers, among other problems, the interface between syntax and semantics, especially the problems of degrees of grammaticality. A number of notes which go further into certain topics appear after the main text, and there is a useful bibliography. The main thrust of the book is a syntactical treatment of natural language by using transformational generative grammars as descriptive. Although he suggests empirical tests for the models he has constructed, he does not provide an attempt to fully verify the proposed system. This book will certainly be essential for an understanding of the structure of language viewed from the syntactic point of view.—P. J. M. (shrink)

Although Frege is now one of the most important figures in analytical philosophy, there are virtually no full-length studies available. Walker does not try to present all of Frege—that would be a monumental undertaking—but only to consider the philosophical aspects of his thought. Frege's theory of functions, concepts, and objects is first studied; then naming and describing are related to predication and thence to concepts; the notion of the sense of words and expressions, and then the notion of truth, especially (...) as picture-truth, is analyzed with their assistance. The last sections view Frege's general idea of the use of language and symbols, the nature of scientific laws, and the nature of numbers. The author sees Frege as tending to shift his interest from logic to ordinary language and so to the problems of expression in general; this view is reflected in the book itself. The affinities which the author sees with the work of Frege and Wittgenstein is only occasionally treated, but he does make it clear that the Tractatus owes much to Frege. Generally, this compact work will serve well in the study and interpretation of the work of the nineteenth century's greatest logician.—P. J. M. (shrink)

This concise work is a study of the semantical aspects of various paradoxes arising in formal logic. The author constructs a second-order system T with an interpretation in order to provide apparatus for stating and dodging the antinomies. After presenting a number of paradoxes, the author discusses a semantic vicious-circle principle, and provides a clarification of the problems by its application. He then discusses semantic aspects of some classical meta-mathematical results of Gödel, Tarski, Kleene, and Turing on unsolvable problems. Also (...) treated is the topic of impredicative definition in mathematics, especially as it relates to the vicious-circle principle.—P. J. M. (shrink)

Descartes considered the methods of reasoning put forth in the Discourse to be correct because, among other justifications, he had examples of scientific theories in which the techniques were successful: the Optics, Meteorology, and Geometry. The chief value of this edition is to have the Discourse back in its proper setting, as well as the more obvious one of having available three works of importance in the history of the exact sciences in one compact and readable edition. The Optics is (...) especially useful for the study of Descartes' theory of sight and perception. There are a large number of diagrams and figures which are quite helpful in making some rather schematic presentations more complete.—P. J. M. (shrink)

This well-written introduction to the theory of recursive functions and effective computability is an English translation of the 1960 German edition. The seven chapters deal with all the usual material, beginning with a treatment of Turing machines and their relation to the intuitive idea of computability, through general recursive functions, to a chapter on such diverse topics as the hierarchy of arithmetical predicates and Fitch's basic logic system. Rather than try to cover the whole subject sketchily, the author confines himself (...) to a narrower range of subjects which he elucidates with admirable clarity. The treatment of Turing machines is similar to that of Davis' book in using quadruples as instruction units in machine "programs," but the treatment differs in some details which might interest the connoisseur. In between technical discussions there are numerous remarks, often of more than a page in length, dealing with the more purely philosophical aspects of the theory under development. Each chapter terminates with a short bibliography. The publishers are to be congratulated for making this valuable work available to a wider range of readers.—P. J. M. (shrink)

This rigorous treatment of elementary logic can best be characterized by noting that it relies heavily on semantical analyses of systems of logic running from the propositional calculus right through to a system of second-order arithmetic. The first chapter covers a multiplicity of topics: the concept of consequence, proofs and calculi, the symbolization of mathematical propositions. Hermes then painstakingly constructs quantification theory: first, the language itself, then its semantics; he then presents a completely set up predicate calculus, giving special attention (...) to derivability and decidability problems; a long, well-worked out completeness proof along the lines of Henkin is given, and some of its consequences are drawn out. Hermes then constructs a system of arithmetic in second-order logic, where he is especially concerned with categoricity of its interpretations. The last chapter provides further material on the functional calculus of first order: extended predicate calculi, normal forms for expressions. Excepting for a very few passages, this book should be accessible to everyone interested in formal logic.—P. J. M. (shrink)