At the 1960 International Congress of Logic, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, and again in his books Conjectures and Refutations (1963) and Objective Knowledge (1972), Karl Popper proposed a formal definition of what it means for one scientific theory to be “closer to the truth” than another (see popper). Such a concept was a necessary ingredient in Popper's philosophy of science, in which all our scientific theories are not only false, but bound to be false. We can never, according (...) to Popper, arrive at the truth: a complete and adequate description of reality. (That such a reality exists, outside us, is the basic tenet of scientific realism.) Nonetheless, Popper holds, scientists do make progress ‐ namely, when they replace one false theory by another which, though still false, is closer to the truth, or, as we shall say, has greater verisimilitude. (shrink)

Despite their contemporaneity and obvious similarities, Richard Price and Immanuel Kant are rarely discussed together. This essay examines the common background of their work, similarities in their methodology and principles, and their common concern with connecting rationalist philosophical systems with knowledge at the level of ordinary life and politics – all this despite their lack of reference to each other. Their normative principles are assessed in connection with major documents and political events in their revolutionary era. A concluding section evaluates (...) their work in relation to contemporary discussions that concern the relationship between pre-reflective and reflective levels of moral knowledge. The essay draws on the work of contemporary scholars such as Danielle Allen, David Brink, Robert Audi, Sarah McGrath, and Thomas Kelly. (shrink)

*******Résume en français plus bas****** Karl Kraus’s favourable and conceptually complex comments of the portrait drawings byOskar Kokoschka in 1910 put us on the trail of a host of different phenomena of pictorial representation. Based on close-readings of several aphorisms by Kraus and drawings by Kokoschka, I suggest that there is something like realistic distortion and that the traditional concepts of style cannot account for all essential stylistic variations that are important in pictures. I argue that we need to (...) introduce the concept of subject specific style. This must be distinguished from other concepts such as signature style. I try to show how these conceptual distinctions are connected to the difference in representational range displayed by media that are based on traces, like photography, and by media based on testimony, like drawing or writing. *********** Résumé En 1910, Oskar Kokoschka produit une série de dessins pour la revue expressionniste berlinoise Der Sturm. L’un des portraits représente le satiriste Karl Kraus, un autre l’architecte Adolf Loos. Au même moment, Kraus fait paraître une série d’aphorismes qui commentent le travail de Kokoschka. Kraus part du travail de Kokoschka pour arriver à des principes généraux sur la représentation picturale. Une analyse des réflexions de l’écrivain et des deux dessins faits par Kokoschka nous permet non seulement de mieux comprendre comment un dessin peut saisir le caractère d’un modèle au-delà du physique, mais aussi de forger des concepts pour enrichir les notions de style traditionnelles. Nous soutenons dans notre article qu’il faut introduire l’idée d’un style à l’oeuvre pour compléter les notions de style habituelles.Le style à l’oeuvre peut être spécifique au sujet traité. Nous montrons en particulier comment le dessin permet des distorsions réalistes, difficiles à obtenir dans des médias basés sur la trace comme la photographie. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Paul Oskar Kristeller 1905–1999Edward P. MahoneyPaul Oskar Kristeller was without doubt one of the most productive and accomplished scholars of this century. He received an excellent education in the classics at the Mommsen-Gymnasium in his native Berlin before going to the University of Heidelberg in 1923. There he pursued studies in a wide range of subjects, including medieval history, German literature, physics, and art history. The philosophy (...) professors who much influenced him both at Heidelberg and at Freiburg and Marburg were Ernst Hoffman, Karl Jaspers, Richard Kroner, and Martin Heidegger. In 1929 he received his doctorate from Heidelberg for his dissertation Der Begriff der Seele in der Ethik des Plotin, which was directed by Hoffman and published at Tübingen the same year. He then went to Berlin, where he engaged in formal studies in classical philology before going to Freiburg to do postgraduate work in philosophy with Heidegger during the years 1931 to 1933. Heidegger approved a study of Marsilio Ficino as Kristeller’s Habili-tationschrift and helped him to secure a fellowship enabling him to do research on Ficino and to begin writing. After visiting Italy during this period and taking into account the changed political scene in Germany, Kristeller decided in 1934 to move to Italy permanently. He taught in Florence in a high school for German Jewish students until he secured in 1935, with the help of Giovanni Gentile, a lectureship in German at the Scuola Superiore and the University of Pisa. He maintained throughout his academic career a personal and warm attachment to the Scuola Superiore. Moreover, he enjoyed throughout his subsequent career a warm and personal friendship with various Italian scholars that was first developed during his Italian stay in the thirties.While still in Italy, Kristeller completed his book on Ficino in 1937; he prepared an Italian version the next year. However, both the German and Italian versions would be published only years later. During this period he also engaged in manuscript studies in the major Italian cities, searching in particular for Ficino manuscripts. The result of these labors was his two-volume work, Supplementum Ficinianum: Marsilii Ficini Philosophi Platonici Opuscula Inedita et Dispersa, which was published by the Scuola Normale in 1937. He considered his “teachers” in manuscript studies to be Giovanni Cardinal Mercati, Monsignor Auguste Pelzer, and Ludwig Bertalot. Giovanni Gentile aided the publication of Kristeller’s Supplementum Ficinianum and subsequently helped him to emigrate to the United States. Kristeller always maintained a loyalty to Gentile and felt gratitude to him for extending him such help.In 1938 Kristeller lost his position at Pisa because of the Fascist anti-Semitic laws, but he was permitted to go to Rome where he assisted Bertalot in manuscript research at the Vatican library. Through the intervention of Roland H. Bainton, Dean P. Lockwood, Dom Anselm Strittmater, O.S.B., and other American [End Page 758] friends Kristeller was able to leave for the United States. He arrived at New York in February 1939 and spent the Spring term at Yale University. He was given an adjunct position at Columbia University for the fall term, holding the rank of Associate until 1948, when he was made an Associate Professor of Philosophy. By that time he had established himself as a major force in the development of Renaissance studies in the United States. His book on Ficino was translated into English as The Philosophy of Marsilio Ficino and published in 1943 by the Columbia University Press. The Italian version was published at Florence in 1953; a revised edition, containing a new bibliography that had been brought up to date, appeared in 1988.Kristeller published a large number of articles on a wide range of topics, establishing himself as a major interpreter of the significance of Renaissance humanism as well as a leading authority not only on Ficino and Renaissance Platonism but also on Pietro Pomponazzi and Renaissance Aristotelianism. He developed at Columbia bonds of friendship with Ernest A. Moody and John Herman Randall, Jr., both of whom had strong interests in late-medieval Aristotelianism. With Randall and Ernst Cassirer he prepared what would become a bestseller, the Renaissance Philosophy of Man: Selections... (shrink)

Karl Jaspers’ Axial Age concept is used to depict the way humans interact with their environment. The first Axial Age (800-200 BC) can be typified among others as the age in which humans started to objectify nature. Nature was dispossessed of spirits, gods and vital forces that humans previously feared and used as explanation for the origin of things. Secularised and objectified nature became a source of wealth for humans to use and abuse as they like. This has peaked (...) in the post-industrial era which also introduced the Second Axial Age in which we presently live. The Second Axial Age can be typified by a new approach to nature mediated among others by insights from the side of the natural sciences, especially developments in cosmology, our understanding of the quantum world and new insights into the nature of consciousness. Another development in the Second Axial Age is the emergence of the nonhuman turn, new materialism, panpsychism, the notion of the post-human and theological concepts like the ‘entangled God’. These developments are discussed with reference to leading thinkers. The nonhuman turn is welcomed as it introduces respect for nature which may contribute to the survival of our planet. (shrink)

Perhaps it is a measure of the controversy that Popper has evoked that this should be the first two-volume addition to Schilpp’s library. Certainly the thirty-three discursive and critical essays emanate from a galaxy of philosophical and other stars: Kraft, Kneale, Quine, Putnam, Lakatos, Medawar, Maxwell, Levison, Bar-Hillel, Eccles, Watkins, Campbell, Freeman & Skolimowski, Feigl & Meehl, Musgrave, Bernays, Bronowski, Lejewski, Schlesinger, Ayer, Agassi, Settle, Margenau, Suppes, Grünbaum, Kuhn, Wisdom, Boyle, Wild, Acton, Winch, Donagan, and Gombrich. The LLP faces a (...) problem, given that it takes a long time to mature a significant philosopher, for the project always teeters on the brink of human mortality; indeed, quite a few of the above contributors themselves are now defunct. It is therefore a pleasure to have a volume devoted to a philosopher whose work is very much alive, as is evidenced by the recent publication of Popper’s works on quantum theory and the Postscript to his Logic of Scientific Discovery. Moreover these volumes bring into salience the fundamental value of this style of publication that centers on written intellectual debate. Intellectuals in modern culture, especially in the United States, are sadly dispersed—there is not an abundance of discussion groups—so it is volumes like these that allow the isolate the linkages to sustained erudite exploration. So fruitful is this style of publication, that we find it emulated recently in such journals as Current Anthropology and The Brain and Behavioral Sciences. At least on paper, philosophical debate and exploration need not involve personal antipathy. Here, on the contrary, in the focusing on crucial issues, is the opportunity for personal sympathy and the struggle for mutual understanding. For methodological reasons centered on his concept of rationality, Popper has actively sought out intellectual controversy and these two volumes are therefore his natural milieu. Yet Popper has expressed a reluctance to write quickly and perhaps this explains why these volumes were a long time in the making. Certainly some of the papers such as Putnam’s “The ‘Corroboration’ of Theories” and Campbell’s “Evolutionary Epistemology” have had wide currency for some time now. But much that is good in these two volumes remains to be recognized, not the least of which is Popper’s “Intellectual Autobiography.” These 181 pages give the reader an inspiring impression of an intellect struggling after truth. Since Popper’s work has spanned the intellectual currents of the twentieth century and, in fact, dominated some of them, it would be difficult for this autobiography to fail. Popper’s writing has always struck this reviewer as an embodiment of Bacon’s maxim that truth will emerge more readily from error than from confusion, for he strives after simplicity and clarity in his writing with the consequence that disagreement is more closely focused. In this, he has lived out his central concept of critical rationality. At a more mundane level, there are all-too-human moments recorded, such as Popper’s reception at Oxbridge. Besides some enjoyable anecdotes, there is a little gentle self-mockery too. (shrink)

Prolog -- Eros : auf dem Weg zur Erkenntnis -- Liebe als einheitsstiftende Macht -- Das tragische Chorspiel der Hellenen und ihre Imaginationen von Liebe -- Narkissos : die unstillbare Selbstliebe und das Spiegelmotiv -- Gnosis als erlösende Erkenntnis der Liebe -- Liebe in der kontemplativen Metaphysik Plotins -- Das Eine und das Viele -- Kontemplation und Liebe : das Mysterium Sacrum -- Sensorisches und Imaginatives : Weisen der Vergeistigung der Liebe -- Mystische Liebe : Gott-Leiden und Gott-Lieben in der (...) "Rheinischen Mystik" (Eckhart, Tauler, Seuse, Ruusbroec) -- Figurationen der Liebe auf den Brettern, die "die Welt bedeuten" (Wissen, Macht, Liebe, Tod) -- Amor fati : die Liebe zum Schicksal -- Die Liebe auf der Bühne des Theatrum Mundi -- Reflexionen und Mythopoetik der Liebe : philosophisch, theologisch, poetisch -- Liebe in der Theologie des Alten Bundes -- Liebe in der Theologie des Neuen Bundes. (shrink)

Described by the philosopher A.J. Ayer as a work of 'great originality and power', this book revolutionized contemporary thinking on science and knowledge. Ideas such as the now legendary doctrine of 'falsificationism' electrified the scientific community, influencing even working scientists, as well as post-war philosophy. This astonishing work ranks alongside _The Open Society and Its Enemies_ as one of Popper's most enduring books and contains insights and arguments that demand to be read to this day.

In this article I offer an opinionated overview of the central elements of Kant’s philosophical methodology during the critical period. I begin with a brief characterization of how Kant conceives of the aims of human inquiry – focusing on the idea that inquiry ideally aims at not just cognition (Erkenntnis), but also the more demanding cognitive achievements that Kant labels insight (Einsehen) and comprehension (Begreifen). Then I explore the implications of this picture for philosophy — emphasizing Kant’s distinction between critical (...) and doctrinal phases of philosophical inquiry, with the first of these playing both a negative and a positive role with respect to the second. Then, I will argue that this positive role is possible, according to Kant, only insofar as philosophy follows what I call a “capacities-first” methodology – that is, one that treats basic cognitive capacities (such as reason) and their self-conscious activities as fundamental (in both a cognitive sense and in an explanatory sense) for the sort of philosophy human beings are capable of. It is this methodology, I will argue, that allows Kant to introduce the first principles that philosophy in its doctrinal phase requires in a manner that is neither arbitrary nor (at least obviously) incompatible with Kant’s own critical restrictions on cognition. I conclude by discussing some of the implications of this methodological picture – including the methodological significance of self-consciousness and regressive or “transcendental” arguments, Kant’s distinction between analytic and synthetic methods in philosophy, and Kant’s conception of reason as autonomous. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:William Thomas Jones 1910–1998Charles M. YoungWilliam Thomas Jones, a friend and supporter of this journal since its inception, died on September 30, 1998, in Claremont, California, at the age of eighty-eight. Born in Natchez, Mississippi, Will was educated at Swarthmore, Oxford (as a Rhodes scholar), and Princeton. After a legendary teaching career spanning nearly fifty years, thirty-four at Pomona College and another fifteen at the California Institute of Technology, (...) Will retired in 1985. He published a host of articles and books, among them the highly regarded five-volume A History of Western Philosophy, now in its fourth edition. Will received numerous awards and honors, including Lippincott, Procter, Ford Faculty, and Guggenheim Fellowships; he was also a Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, and twice a Resident Scholar with the Rockefeller Foundation at Villa Servelloni. In 1969–70, he was President of the American Philosophical Association’s Pacific Division.In 1961, Will joined Karl Aschenbrenner, John D. Goheen, Paul O. Kristeller, Oskar Piest, Benson Mates, Ernest Moody, Richard H. Popkin, Herbert W. Schneider, and E. W. Strong (as chair) to form the Executive Committee (now Board of Directors) of the Journal of the History of Philosophy. The first issue of the JHP appeared some two years later. Will provided much valuable counsel and support in the turbulent early years of the JHP, helping in particular in securing much needed financial support from the Claremont Colleges. We join Will’s family, friends, colleagues, and students in mourning the loss of a fine historian, philosopher, and teacher.Copyright © 1999 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

CONTENTS James G. Hart: Wisdom, Knowledge, and Reflective Joy: Aristotle and Husserl Wayne Martin: Judgment Stroke-Truth Predicate: Frege and the Phenomenology of Judgment David R. Cerbone: Distance and Proximity in Phenomenology: Husserl and Heidegger Ra·l GutiTrrez: "The Logic of Decadence": Deficient Forms of Government in the Republic Heribert Boeder: Derrida's Endgame Jacques Derrida: Phenomenology and the Closure of Metaphysics (1966) Hans Rainer Sepp: Jan Patocka and Cultural Difference Carl Friedrich Gethmann: Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Logical Intuitionism: On Oskar Becker's Mathematical (...) Existence Essays in Honor of Heribert Boeder by Dennis J. Schmidt, Claus-Artur Scheier, Klaus Erich Kaehler, Franco Volpi, Martfn Zubirfa, Burt Hopkins, and Marcus Brainard Edmund Husserl: The Idea of a Philosophical Culture (1923) Johannes Daubert: Notes from Husserl's Mathematical-Philosophical Exercises (1905), ed. and intro. Mark van Atten and Karl Schuhmann (German/English) Jacob Klein: On Aristotle Eugen Fink and Jan Patocka: On the Phenomenological Reduction. (shrink)

CONTENTS James G. Hart: Wisdom, Knowledge, and Reflective Joy: Aristotle and Husserl Wayne Martin: Judgment Stroke-Truth Predicate: Frege and the Phenomenology of Judgment David R. Cerbone: Distance and Proximity in Phenomenology: Husserl and Heidegger Ra·l GutiTrrez: "The Logic of Decadence": Deficient Forms of Government in the Republic Heribert Boeder: Derrida's Endgame Jacques Derrida: Phenomenology and the Closure of Metaphysics Hans Rainer Sepp: Jan Patocka and Cultural Difference Carl Friedrich Gethmann: Hermeneutic Phenomenology and Logical Intuitionism: On Oskar Becker's Mathematical Existence (...) Essays in Honor of Heribert Boeder by Dennis J. Schmidt, Claus-Artur Scheier, Klaus Erich Kaehler, Franco Volpi, Martfn Zubirfa, Burt Hopkins, and Marcus Brainard Edmund Husserl: The Idea of a Philosophical Culture Johannes Daubert: Notes from Husserl's Mathematical-Philosophical Exercises, ed. and intro. Mark van Atten and Karl Schuhmann Jacob Klein: On Aristotle Eugen Fink and Jan Patocka: On the Phenomenological Reduction. (shrink)

CONTENTS Tom Nenon: Freedom, Responsibility, and Self-Awareness in Husserl Steven Galt Crowell: Authentic Thinking and Phenomenological Method Burt C. Hopkins: Authentic and Symbolic Numbers in Husserl's Philosophy of Arithmetic Karl Schuhmann: The Development of Speech Act Theory in Munich Phenomenology Gianfranco Soldati: Early Phenomenology and the Origins of Analytic Philosophy Heribert Boeder: The Submodern Character of Linguistic Analysis Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert: On Oskar Becker's Phenomenological Aesthetics Orrin F. Summerell: Identity, Subjectivity, and Being Other than the Same: Thinking beyond Hegel (...) and Heidegger George Heffernan: Language, Logic, and Logocentrism in Transcendental Phenomenology Edmund Husserl: Philosophy as Rigorous Science (1911) (new translation) Edmund Husserl: On the Task of Logic (1898), ed. and intro. Karl Schuhmann (German/English) Johannes Daubert: Remarks on the Psychology of Apperception and Judgment (1902), ed. and intro. Karl Schuhmann (German/English) Jacob Klein: The Problem of Truth (1924). (shrink)

Brent Kious has recently attacked several arguments generally adduced to support anti-doping in sports, which are widely supported by the sports medicine fraternity, international sports federations, and international governments. We show that his attack does not succeed for a variety of reasons. First, it uses an overly inclusive definition of doping at odds with the WADA definition, which has global, if somewhat contentious, currency. Second, it seriously misconstrues the position it attacks, rendering the attack without force against a more balanced (...) construal of an anti-doping position. Third, it makes unwarranted appeals to matters Kious considers morally ‘clear’, while simultaneously attacking a position many others take to be equally morally ‘clear’, namely that of anti-doping. Such an inconsistency, attacking and appealing to the moral status quo as befits one’s argument, is not acceptable without further qualification. Fourth, his position suffers from a general methodological flaw of over-reliance upon argumentation by analogy. Moreover, it is argued that the analogies, being poorly selected and developed, fail to justify his conclusion that the anti-doping lobby lacks philosophical and moral authority for its stance. These issues are symptomatic of a more fundamental problem: any attempt at providing a blanket solution to the question of whether doping is morally acceptable or not is bound to run up against problems when applied to highly specific contexts. Thus, rather than reaching any particular conclusion for or against doping products or processes in this article, we conclude that an increased context-sensitivity will result in a more evenhanded appraisal of arguments on the matter. (shrink)

,Etwa zwei Monate vor dem Tode sagte Husserl:,Man solle seine Vergangenheit nicht trivialisieren. ' "1 Die Herausforderung dieser Worte lieB sich nur schwer abschatzen, als ich dem Stifter des Husserl-Archivs, meinem Freund Pater Van Breda, im Januar I974- zwei Monate vor seinem unzeitigen Hingang- den von ihm so sehr begruBten und geforderten EntschluB, eine Husserl-Bio­ graphie zu schreiben, naher erlauterte. Mancherlei ware darin ein­ zubringen gewesen: Ubersicht uber die Geschicke des Bismarck­ Staates und das aufkommende Hitler-Reich, Vertrautheit mit Stifter und (...) Hofmannsthal, Kenntnis der Theorie mathematischer Funktionen wie der Psychologie der Wurzburger Schule, Einsicht in die Einfuhlungslehre von Lipps wie auch Heideggers Seins­ frage. Aber solche Absicht erwies sich hauptsachlich deswegen als undurchfiihrbar, weil es derzeit noch am Notigsten fehlt: an einer verlaBlichen Durcharbeitung von Husserls Denken und seiner Entwicklung, wie sie sich in den veroffentlichten Werken, vor al­ lem aber im Meer bewahrter Manuskripte niederschlug. Hier galt es, da viel bisher im Dunkeln liegt, die Materialien zu einer Bio­ graphie erst einmal bereitzustellen und, wenn auch oft nur um­ riBhaft, fur die Zukunft sicherzustellen. Ergebnis dieser Beschei­ dung ist die vorliegende Chronik. GewiB, Husserl ware selbst der befugteste interpres sui gewe­ sen. Doch was er unterm 20. Juni rg2r an den Meiner Verlag schrieb - der,Stand seiner Lebensarbeit" erlaube es ihm zur Zeit nicht, zu der in diesem Verlag erscheinenden Reihe von Selbstdarstellungen einen Beitrag zu liefern (F I r8/r + 25) -, galt, wie gerade unsere Chronik deutlich macht, fur ihn zeitlebens. (shrink)

Despite our admiration for Renaissance achievement in the arts and sciences, in literature and classical learning, the rich and diversified philosophical thought of the period remains largely unknown. This volume illuminates three major currents of thought dominant in the earlier Italian Renaissance: classical humanism, Platonism, and Aristotelianism. A short and elegant work of the Spaniard Vives is included to exhibit the diffusion of the ideas of humanism and Platonism outside Italy. Now made easily accessible, these texts recover for the English (...) reader a significant facet of Renaissance learning. (shrink)

This chapter describes how philosophical theorizing about justice can be connected with empirical research in the social sciences. We begin by drawing on some received distinctions between ideal and non-ideal approaches to theorizing justice along several different dimensions, showing how non-ideal approaches are needed to address normative aspects of real-world problems and to provide practical guidance. We argue that there are advantages to a transitional approach to justice focusing on manifest injustices, including the fact that it enables us to set (...) aside some reasonable disagreements about justice. The ‘bottom-up’ approach we advocate, for which we borrow Wolff’s term ‘real-world political philosophy’, is an empirically-informed normative analysis that attends to specific, identifiable injustices, and thus is partial, though not isolationist. We illustrate our approach by considering how different models of the nature of disability suggest different kinds of remedy for injustices faced by persons living with disabilities. We reflect on the nature and significance of vulnerabilities, and we assess the role of public opinion in normative theorizing, suggesting a particular significance for the opinions and experiences of marginalized groups. We finally reflect on the relevance of European legal and institutional frameworks for theorizing justice in Europe. (shrink)

This paper sets Kant in the broader context of modern philosophy as a whole by suggesting that Kant not be understood primarily as attempting to i) defeat skepticism, ii) promote “scientism”, or iii) develop a radically new ontology. It suggests that Kant’s philosophy aims to take the claims of common sense at face value and then attempts to mediate between such claims and the apparently conflicting claims of science. Accordingly, philosophy is a systematic articulation of the sphere of conceptual frameworks (...) that mediate between the extremely informal and the highly formal levels of judgment within our complex objective picture of the world. Thus, for Kant, philosophy lies in between common sense and science by attempting to mediate between them. (shrink)