One of the most legendary educational books ever written is Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s “Émile ou de l’Education”. Most obviously Rousseau wrote this book guided by diverse more or less conscious purposes and one of the main problems it presents is paradoxical: Does education have to promote freedom by force? In this article I will, firstly, present several aims that might have triggered Rousseau to write “Émile”. Secondly, I will discuss Rousseau’s view of the so called “educational paradox”. Since this quandary touches (...) the topic of many other of his books, I will discuss “Émile” along with Rousseau’s other works and thus place his educational story in his “great narrative”. (shrink)

This article discusses the way humans value nature, with a focus on the way they value nature aesthetically. Of particular interest are the values of children and adolescents and the role of aesthetics in scientific studies. The discussion is based on philosophical writings, especially aesthetic sources, and current environmental education empirical research. Our aim is to show the necessity the science lessons have of an unambiguous aesthetic dimension. With flexible teaching methods that partly take place outdoor, the students' own values (...) and aesthetic experiences become a prompting starting point for understanding humankind’s role in nature. (shrink)

Charlotte Wolff was born in Riesenburg, West Prussia into a middle-class Jewish family. She studied philosophy and then medicine at several German universities, completing her doctorate in Berlin in 1926. Working in various institutions over the next few years, she was also interested in psychotherapy and had a small private medical and psychotherapeutic practice. In 1933 she was forced to leave Germany because of the Nazi regime, and settled for a few years in Paris. As a German refugee she (...) was unable to practice medicine, so she began her research into the correlation between hand traits and personality. In 1936 she went to London to continue her research work and lived there until her death. An active lesbian from an early age, her later research turned to sexology and her writing on lesbianism and bisexuality were influential early works in the field. This is a great opportunity to rediscover her early work, including her first autobiography. (shrink)

The theories of pre-existence and epigenesis are typically taken to be opposing theories of generation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One can be a pre-existence theorist only if one does not espouse epigenesis and vice versa. It has also been recognized, however, that the line between pre-existence and epigenesis in the nineteenth century, at least, is considerably less sharp and clear than it was in earlier centuries. The debate (1759-1777) between Albrecht von Haller and Caspar Friedrich Wolff on (...) their theories of generation is usually taken to be a debate between a pre-existence theorist and an epigeneticist, and the supposed fact that these two theories of generation are mutually exclusive explains (so the story goes) the divide between Haller and Wolff. However, it’s not clear that Haller endorsed an especially robust form of pre-existence, and nor is it clear that Wolff’s theory of generation -- once he considered it carefully -- is clear epigenetic. Rather, Haller’s theory of generation is marked by traces of epigensis and Wolff’s theory has elements of pre-existence theory. This is not to say that their theories of generation are basically the same, but the debate between the two ought not to be framed in terms of pre-existence versus epigenesis. Their points of difference must be explained in some other way. In this way, their controversy bears characteristics of similar disputes over generation in the nineteenth century more than it resembles those in the seventeenth century. In this paper, I argue that (a) Haller’s and Wolff’s theories both blend elements from pre-existence and epigenesis; (b) but there are still deeply-rooted differences between the two generation theories; (c) one source of these differences is that Haller and Wolff have divergent conceptions of what an adequate explanation is; (d) we can see that they have different conceptions of what constitutes an adequate explanation by paying heed to their evaluations of Descartes’ epistemology and methodology in his theory of generation (such as it is); and (e) this shows that one of the main differences between Haller’s generation theory and that of Wolff is the degree to which each thinks we need to (and indeed can) explain the nature of the causes -- both efficient and final -- at play during the formation of organic beings. (shrink)

It is often claimed that the structure of the Transcendental Logic is modeled on the Wolffian division of logic textbooks into sections on concepts, judgments, and inferences. While it is undeniable that the Transcendental Logic contains elements that are similar to the content of these sections, I believe these similarities are largely incidental to the structure of the Transcendental Logic. In this essay, I offer an alternative and, I believe, more plausible account of Wolff’s influence on the structure of (...) the Transcendental Logic, one that puts the focus on his empirical psychology rather than his logic. In particular, I argue that the structure of the Transcendental Logic is deeply indebted to a conception of purity that Wolff introduces in his empirical psychology and that this conception sheds more light on the overall structure of the Transcendental Logic than the accepted view. In section one, I outline two conceptions of purity found in Kant and trace them to similar views in Wolff. In section two, I turn to Kant’s views about logic as they are expressed in the Critique and argue that it is best to interpret Kant’s taxonomy of logic on its own terms rather than reading it through its terminological similarities to aspects of the Wolffian tradition. In section three, I argue that the second of the two conceptions of purity identified in section one is central to the structure of the Transcendental Logic. In doing so, I argue against the widespread view that this section of the Critique is modeled solely on what Kant calls pure general logic as opposed to both pure and applied general logic. I then conclude by briefly reviewing my account and considering some of its broader implications for our understanding of Kant. (shrink)

In this chapter, I consider the largely overlooked influence of E. W. von Tschirnhaus' treatise on method, the Medicina mentis, on Wolff's early philosophical project (in both its conception and execution). As I argue, part of Tschirnhaus' importance for Wolff lies in the use he makes of principles gained from experience as a foundation for the scientific enterprise in the context of his broader philosophical rationalism. I will show that this lesson from Tschirnhaus runs through Wolff's earliest (...) philosophical discussions, and indeed continues to inform his major texts in logic and mathematics just before the publication of the German Metaphysics. In the end, my discussion has the effect of revealing Tschirnhaus to be an exceptionally important influence on Wolff's development, perhaps even as important (or so I suggest) as Leibniz. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider the basis for Kant's praise of Wolff's general logic as "the best we have." I argue that Wolff's logic was highly esteemed by Kant on account of its novel analysis of the three operations of the mind (tres operationes mentis), in the course of which Wolff formulates an argument for the priority of the understanding's activity of judging.

This chapter discusses the relation between Christian Wolff's philosophy and the methodological views of early modern experimental philosophers. The chapter argues for three claims. First, Wolff's system relies on experience at every step and his views on experiments, observations, hypotheses, and the a priori are in line with those of experimental philosophers. Second, the study of Wolff's views demonstrates the influence of experimental philosophy in early eighteenth-century Germany. Third, references to Wolff's empiricism and rationalism are best (...) identified or replaced with references to his endorsement of the tenets of experimental philosophers and of a mathematical demonstrative method. (shrink)

The resercher Ann Talbot presents in this book one of the more complex and in-depth studies ever written about the influence of travel literature on the work of the British philospher John Locke (1632-1704). At the end of the 18th century the study of travel literature was an alternative to academic studies. The philosopher John Locke recommended with enthousiasm these books as a way to comprehend human understanding. Several members of the Royal Society like John Harris (1966-1719) affirmed that the (...) learning that could be obtained through these books was different from the one that provided the educative system of that time. Travel literature could make see the source of the ignorance of the ancients; it stressed the curiosities and extraordinary facts and led to a revision of beliefs and scientific theories of the ancient world. Besides the account of a broad diversity of sujects contributed to the creation of matters of fact, and this was important in order to put rational limits to the descriptions of the world that were commonly accepted. (shrink)

Shedding new light on Kant’s use of the term ‘transcendental’ in the Critique of Pure Reason, this article aims to determine the elements that Kant’s transcendental philosophy has in common with Wolffian ontology as well as the respects in which Kant turns against Wolff. On this basis I argue that Wolff’s, Kant’s and Hegel’s conceptions of metaphysics – qua first philosophy – have a deeper affinity than is commonly assumed. Bracketing the issue of Kant’s alleged subjectivism, I challenge (...) the opposition between metaphysical and non-metaphysical readings of Hegel’s Science of Logic. One the one hand, I argue that Hegel was more deeply indebted to Kant than he generally admits. On the other hand, I hold that this debt concerns Kant’s conception of metaphysics rather than his alleged subjectivism. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the relation of Kant's theory of biology to epigenetic accounts of organic generation and development. In the literature, a dispute about similarities between Blumenbach's epigenetic account and Kant dominated the debate for many years (see Lenoir 1980, 1981, and 1982, 17–34, Richards 2000; 2002, 207–37; Look 2006, and van den Berg 2009). Some more recent interpreters claim that Wolff's, more than Blumenbach's account plays the pivotal role in the development of a vitalistic conception of (...) epigenesis in Kant (see Dupont 2007 and Huneman 2007). Although I myself hold the view that Kant's position contains preformistic and epigenetic characteristics, in the current paper I focus solely on an investigation of epigenetic elements in Kant's account and compare them to the corresponding epigenetic elements in Wolff's theory. Section I of the paper is devoted to an analysis of Wolff's most important epigenetic theorems: the notion of the essential power (vis essentialis) and the conception of the part-whole composition of organized matter. Although Wolff describes the essential power vitalisticly, as a principle of life, he understands it as the cause of mechanical motions explaining the generation, nourishment, and the growth of an organism. Wolff's model of the part-whole composition of organic matter is subtle, but committed to fundamental mechanistic assumptions, such as that the organism as a whole is composed of inorganic parts. In section II, I analyze the corresponding elements in Kant's theory: the notion of the formative power and the conception of the whole-part composition of organized materials. Kant describes the formative power as a principle that causes the purposive form of an organized being such that matter and mechanism are the means to the purpose of the being as their end. The purpose of the whole is a functional unit which is in principle superior to the form and matter of the subordinate parts. The parts are combined into such a whole in being mutually cause and effect of each other and in being related to the superior whole. In section III, I respond to the debate in the literature. Against Dupont (2007) and Huneman (2007) I argue that, according to Wolff, the vis essentialis accounts for mechanic effects in matter, whereas, according to Kant, the formative power explains the intentional order (form, end, purpose) of an individual organized being, its parts, and its species. Since this view is closer to Blumenbach than to Wolff, the ongoing comparison between Kant and Blumenbach in the literature is justified. However, the emphasis on the specific part-whole composition that Kant considers to be the determining feature of an organized being can be found only in Wolff and not in Blumenbach—though Wolff and Kant describe it in opposing ways. This increases the systematic importance of Wolff for Kant. Thus, a fresh look on the historical debate is required. (shrink)

Newton rested his theory of mechanics on distinct metaphysical and epistemological foundations. After Leibniz's death in 1716, the Principia ran into sharp philosophical opposition from Christian Wolff and his disciples, who sought to subvert Newton's foundations or replace them with Leibnizian ideas. In what follows, I chronicle some of the Wolffians' reactions to Newton's notion of absolute space, his dynamical laws of motion, and his general theory of gravitation. I also touch on arguments advanced by Newton's Continental followers, such (...) as Leonhard Euler, who made novel attempts to defend his mechanical foundations against the pro-Leibnizian attack. This examination grants us deeper insight into the fate of Newton's mechanics on the Continent during the early eighteenth century and, more specifically, sheds needed light on the conflicts and tensions that characterized the reception of Newton's philosophy of mechanics among the Leibnizians. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 38, Issue 1, pp 229 - 233 This note announces a recent find in a private Swiss archive: Christian Wolff’s complete lecture course on Grotius’s _De iure belli ac pacis_ that he gave at the University of Marburg between June 1739 and May 1740.

This article traces Kurt H. Wolff’s involvement with Italy, from his first sojourn in the 1930s as a German Jewish intellectual in exile to the end of his life. Wolff developed profound ties with the country that hosted him, and that he was forced to abandon once racial laws were introduced there on the eve of World War II. Nonetheless, throughout his life he regarded Italy as an elective homeland of sorts. Wolff’s Italian experience is revisited through (...) a detailed examination of the places where he resided, his activities as a student, teacher, and scholar, and the many individuals with whom he associated, many of whom became his lifelong friends and collaborators. The documentary evidence collected here includes unpublished conversations with some of Wolff’s Italian connections and serves for a consideration of how his ties to Italy had an impact on the development of his sociological and esthetic theories. (shrink)

Cet article cherche à reconstituer la thèse de Christian Wolff sur l’évidence (Deutlichkeit) des principes métaphysiques, dans un article de 1729 sur les « Notions directrices et le véritable usage de la première science », qui offre une référence centrale (et méconnue aujourd’hui) aux répondants du concours de 1762-1763, dont Kant. Wolff affirme en effet que la métaphysique est susceptible d’une certitude égale voire supérieure à celle des mathématiques et qu’elle diffuse cette certitude à travers toutes les autres (...) disciplines ; c’est cette thèse forte qu’il s’agira précisément de questionner en 1763. Une lecture plus attentive de l’article de Wolff permet d’en dégager certaines prémisses. La thèse de Wolff sur la certitude mathématique de la métaphysique est fondée sur un renversement de l’ordre de priorité entre métaphysique (ontologie) et mathématiques. Selon Wolff qui, dans son débat avec les mathématiques, s’appuie notamment sur la géométrie euclidienne, ce sont des notions métaphysiques qui fondent la validité des règles mathématiques et logiques. Des notions comme « identité », « chose », « possibilité », etc., possèdent en effet un statut « directeur » ou méthodique, dirigeant l’esprit sur le chemin de la connaissance et, sous une forme systématisée, composent une ontologie moderne et « architectonique ». La restitution de ce cadre permet de mieux voir la continuité méthodologique entre Wolff et Kant. En effet, même si Kant conteste la validité de quelques-uns de ces concepts, les modalités de leur systématisation et l’équation entre science architectonique et ontologie, sa Recherche sur l’évidence des principes s’inscrit à l’intérieur du programme, esquissé par Wolff, de la fondation d’une métaphysique architectonique contenant un tableau de concepts directeurs. De ce point de vue, Kant s’avère plus tributaire de la méthode wolffienne qu’il n’est supposé communément, et leur débat gagne en profondeur. (shrink)

This article deals with Kurt Wolff’s interpretation of Karl Mannheim, with reference to his writings on social planning. Wolff’s interpretation is presented and discussed in the context provided by other interpreters of Mannheim. They have, generally speaking, given scant attention to the late works by Mannheim, and rather focused on Ideology and Utopia, Mannheim’s most celebrated work. Interpreters who have considered these writings on planning have been mostly or entirely critical of them, objecting to their vagueness and inadequacy (...) as a project of social reform, and the unsatisfactory conceptualization of the élites. These objections have been raised by several interpreters of different ideological persuasions, from the Marxist thinkers Adorno and Lukacs to the conservative T.S. Eliot. Wolff’s interpretation stands out in that it pays less attention to the social and political contents of Mannheim’s reform project, but brings into light its psychological background; namely, the deep anguish Mannheim experienced because of the widespread tendencies to the formation of a mass society, prone to the forces of irrationalism and authoritarianism. A perusal of Mannheim’s works on planning bears out Wolff’s interpretation. (shrink)

In an earlier article (see J Gen Philos Sci (2009) 40: 357-372) I have discussed the arguments brought forward by Michael Wolff against the interpretation given in the commentary by Ebert and Nortmann on Aristotle's syllogistic theory (Aristoteles Analytica Priora Buch I, übersetzt und erläutert von Theodor Ebert und Ulrich Nortmann. Berlin 2007) and against the critique of Kant's adaption of the syllogistic logic. I have dealt with Wolff's arguments concerning (Ebert/Nortmann's interpretation of) Aristotle in the paper mentioned (...) and with his attempts to defend his critique in this subsequent article (part 1; see J Gen Philos Sci (2010) 41: 215-231). Part 2 (the paper below) is concerned with Wolffs renewed attempts to defend Kant as a logician. In particular I point out that if, as Wolff claims, the nota notae relation in Kant is restricted to subordinated concepts, then it can hardly serve as a principle for syllogistic logic, as Kant claims. Against Wolff's attempts to defend Kant's claim that o-propositions are simpliciter convertible, I point out two arguments: (1) Even if Kant, following the Vernunftlehre by Meier, has assumed that an o-proposition can be turned into an i-proposition (by adding the negation sign to the predicate), this conversion is useless for the reduction to first figure syllogisms since we are no longer dealing with three syllogistic terms but with four. (2) It is quite unlikely that Kant has a conversion of this type in mind since the texts of his students always talk of the group of either the particular propositions or else of the negative propositions. Given Kant's mistakes concerning the convertibility simpliciter of o-propositions, it is no wonder that he overlooks the special status of the moods Baroco and Bocardo. Wolffs attempts to provide Kant with what he claims are direct proofs for these moods can be shown to rely on a reductio ad impossibile. Kant mistook what are parts of the proofs for the validity of moods in figures two to four as parts of these moods themselves. Wolff—who tries to defend Kant on this point—is forced to an artificial and unconvincing reading of the Kantian texts. (shrink)

The importance of the pure concepts of the understanding (i.e. the categories) within Kant’s system of philosophy is undeniable. As I hope to make clear in this essay, however, the categories are also an essential part of Kant’s critique of Christian Wolff. In particular, I argue that Kant’s development of the categories represents a decisive break with the Wolffian conception of the understanding and that this break is central to understanding the task of the Transcendental Analytic. This break, however, (...) is not merely that Kant affirms while Wolff and his followers deny a sharp distinction between sensibility and the understanding, which is the aspect of Kant’s rejection of Wolff that scholars most frequently note. Rather, this break concerns differences in their views about the understanding itself. For while Wolff conceives of the understanding as a mental capacity to extract and make distinct content already present in the senses, Kant conceives of the understanding in its “real use” as a capacity to produce purely intellectual content. (shrink)

Documentary film, in the words of Bill Nichols, is one of the "discourses of sobriety" that include science, economics, politics, and history-discourses that claim to describe the "real," to tell the truth. Yet documentary film, in more obvious ways than does history, straddles the categories of fact and fiction, art and document, entertainment and knowledge. And the visual languages with which it operates have quite different effects than does the written text. In the following interview conducted during the winter of (...) 1997, historian Ann-Louise Shapiro raises questions about genre-the relationship of form to content and meaning-with documentary filmmaker Jill Godmilow.In order to explore the possibilities and constraints of non-fiction film as a medium for representing history, Godmilow was asked: What are the strategies and techniques by which documentary films make meaning? In representing historical events, how does a non-fiction filmmaker think about accuracy? authenticity? invention? What are the criteria you have in mind when you call a film like The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl "dishonest"? How does the tension between making art and making history affect documentary filmmaking? Should documentary filmmakers think of themselves, in the phrase of Ken Burns, as "tribal storytellers"? What kind of historical consciousness is produced by documentary film? (shrink)

Documentary film, in the words of Bill Nichols, is one of the "discourses of sobriety" that include science, economics, politics, and history-discourses that claim to describe the "real," to tell the truth. Yet documentary film, in more obvious ways than does history, straddles the categories of fact and fiction, art and document, entertainment and knowledge. And the visual languages with which it operates have quite different effects than does the written text. In the following interview conducted during the winter of (...) 1997, historian Ann-Louise Shapiro raises questions about genre-the relationship of form to content and meaning-with documentary filmmaker Jill Godmilow.In order to explore the possibilities and constraints of non-fiction film as a medium for representing history, Godmilow was asked: What are the strategies and techniques by which documentary films make meaning? In representing historical events, how does a non-fiction filmmaker think about accuracy? authenticity? invention? What are the criteria you have in mind when you call a film like The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl "dishonest"? How does the tension between making art and making history affect documentary filmmaking? Should documentary filmmakers think of themselves, in the phrase of Ken Burns, as "tribal storytellers"? What kind of historical consciousness is produced by documentary film? (shrink)

This is a bibliography of Ann Dummett's work.

Both in his pre-critical writings and in his critical works, Kant criticizes the Wolffian tradition for its use of the mathematical method in philosophy. The chapter argues that the apparent unambiguousness of this opposition between Kant and Wolff notwithstanding, the problem of ascertaining the relationship between Kant’s and Wolff’s methods in philosophy cannot be dismissed so quickly. Only a close consideration of Kant’s different remarks on Wolff’s approach and a comparison of the methods that Wolff and (...) Kant actually used in philosophy can allow us to determine when Kant’s criticisms are justified and where the differences in their methodological proposals for philosophy actually lie. We see that Kant’s account of philosophical method in fact has some elements in common with the Wolffian paradigm, even though there are also relevant differences. (shrink)

In attempts to come to grips with Kant’s thought, the influence of the philosophy of Christian Wolff (1679-1754) is often neglected. In this paper, I consider three topics in Kant’s philosophy of mind, broadly construed, where Wolff’s influence is particularly visible: consciousness, self-consciousness, and psychology. I argue that we can better understand Kant’s particular arguments and positions within this context, but also gain a more accurate sense of which aspects of Kant’s accounts derive from the antecedent traditions and (...) which constitute genuine philosophical innovations. (shrink)

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach is widely known as the father of German vitalism and his notion of Bildungstrieb, or nisus formativus, has been recognized as playing a key role in the debates about generation in German-speaking countries around 1800. On the other hand, Caspar Friedrich Wolff was the first to employ a vitalist notion, namely that of vis essentialis, in the explanatory framework of epigenetic development. Is there a difference between Wolff’s vis essentialis and Blumenbach’s nisus formativus? How does (...) this difference influence their overall understanding of the epigenetic process? The paper aims to provide an answer to these questions through the analysis of a little-known document, which contributes to shed light on a crucial chapter of the German life sciences in the late eighteenth-century, namely the decisive phase of the process that led to the formalization of biology as a unified field of inquiry at the beginning of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

This paper seeks to characterize how the study of nutrition processes contributed to revisit the problem of vital organization in the late eighteenth century. It argues that focusing on nutrition leads to reformulate the problem of the relation between life and organization in terms of processes, rather than static or given structures. This nutrition-centered approach to life amounts to acknowledge the specific strategic role nutrition played in the development of a materialist approach to the generation of vital organization. The paper (...) proposes a clarification of the multiple meanings of the concept of organization in the context of Enlightenment physiology and nascent biology, before focusing on the century long analogy between nutrition and generation. It shows how, by contrasting different uses of this analogy, nutrition was employed as a key vital phenomenon in the development of epigenetic theories of generation, i.e. how a nutritive modeling of generation was used in the undermining of preformationism. To this purpose I contrast two seemingly opposite theories of generation, Buffon’s and Bonnet’s, and show that despite the obvious metaphysical discontent, their views of generation share a common mechanical conceptual frame in which nutrition is conflated with growth and repair. I then turn to the role nutrition played in the epigenetic conception of generation in C. F. Wolff’s embryology and analyze this rival understanding of nutrition as an organizing process. (shrink)

A obra de Dilthey desempenha um papel fundamental para a filosofia contemporânea, na medida em que Dilthey distingue duas esferas por meio das quais temos acesso ao todo da realidade: a experiência objetiva ( die Erfahrung ) e a vivência ( das Erlebnis ). É esta distinçáo que possibilita a Dilthey, em oposiçáo às ciências da natureza, conceber as condições de evidência e validade das ciências do espírito. Ainda que náo nomeada com estes termos, esta distinçáo vai estar na base (...) dos textos de muitos autores do final do século XIX e do século XX. Conquanto Dilthey elabore sua teoria no decorrer de uma vasta obra, nosso objetivo é reconstruir a distinçáo que ele estabelece a partir do modo como ele reinterpreta o princípio de razáo suficiente, conforme formulado por Leibniz e Wolff. Também procuramos mostrar, a seguir, como esta reinterpretaçáo permite a Dilthey opor, à esfera dos conhecimentos teóricos circunscrita por Kant, a esfera dos conhecimentos relativos à vivência. Assim, o argumento principal aqui exposto estabelece um vínculo entre o modo como Dilthey reinterpreta o princípio de razáo suficiente e o modo como reconstrói cientificamente a fundamentaçáo das ciências do espírito, concebendo-as a partir de uma relaçáo específica entre evidência e validade. (shrink)

In November, 2009, a prominent group of privacy professionals, business leaders, information technology specialists, and academics gathered in Madrid to discuss how the next set of threats to privacy could best be addressed.The event, Privacy by Design: The Definitive Workshop, was co-hosted by my office and that of the Israeli Law, Information and Technology Authority. It marked the latest step in a journey that I began in the 1990’s, when I first focused on enlisting the support of technologies that could (...) enhance privacy. Back then, privacy protection relied primarily upon legislation and regulatory frameworks—in an effort to offer remedies for data breaches, after they had occurred. As information technology became increasingly interconnected and the volume of personal information collected began to explode, it became clear that a new way of thinking about privacy was needed.Privacy-Enhancing Technologies paved the way for that new direction, highlighting how the universal pr .. (shrink)

This is a critique of Michael Wolff's ideas on Kant and Aristotle. I criticize in particular his overestimation of Kant as a logician and his claim that Aristotle wants to offer proofs for his perfect syllogisms.

Unlike Aristotelian physics with its teleological notions, modern physics was developed exclusively in relation to the nonliving domain. This raised the question as to whether mechanics applies to organisms, and if so, to what extent. From the seventeenth century on, mechanistic ideas became prominent in biological and medical theory. Contemporary biology explains essential features of life on the basis of physical laws and processes. This does not prove, however, that the early mechanists were essentially right. In the eighteenth century, following (...) Cartesian notions of mind-body separation and preformation theories of organismic development, they tended to exclude major biological questions rather than answering them. It was those who insisted on the organizational features of organisms, like Stahl and Wolff, who paved the way for solutions to such crucial problems as the psychological basis of human nature and behavior and the generation of form in the course of reproduction. Though they underrated the potentials of a future, extended physics for understanding biology, their case against reductionist exclusion should not be considered outdated even today. (shrink)

Although it may seem from its formalism that game theory must have sprung from the mind of John von Neumann as a corollary of his work on computers or theoretical physics, it should come as no real surprise to philosophers that game theory is the articulation of a historically developing philosophical conception of rationality in thought and action. The history of ideas about rationality is deeply contradictory at many turns. While there are theories of rationality that claim it is fundamentally (...) social and aims at understanding and molding all facets of human psychological life, game theory takes rationality to be essentially located in individuals and to concern only the means to achieve predetermined ends. Thus, there are some thinkers who have made important contributions to this history who do not appear in the story of game theory at all, among them, Plato, Kant, and Hegel. There is, however, a clear trail to follow linking theories of instrumental rationality from Aristotle to the nineteenth-century marginalist economists and ultimately to von Neumann and Morgenstern and contemporary game theorists, that historically grounds game theory as a model of rational interaction. (shrink)

This paper analyzes Immanuel Kant’s views on mechanical explanation on the basis of Christian Wolff’s idea of scientific demonstration. Kant takes mechanical explanations to explain properties of wholes in terms of their parts. I reconstruct the nature of such explanations by showing how part-whole conceptualizations in Wolff’s logic and metaphysics shape the ideal of a proper and explanatory scientific demonstration. This logico-philosophical background elucidates why Kant construes mechanical explanations as ideal explanations of nature.

A recent article in this journal describes certain mathematical and philosophical controversies which occurred in Prussia during the middle decades of the 18th century. The article pays particular attention to the position of Christian Wolff and to the views of some of his followers. Both Wolff and the Wolffians are shown to have supported some of Leibniz's doctrines against those of the Newtonian camp. As a result, or perhaps in part as a premise, there is a strong tendency (...) throughout the article to identify Wolff himself with Leibniz. The reader will naturally conclude that Wolff (and, in turn, the Wolffians) must have been a faithful student and expositor of his master, Leibniz. My purpose in the present investigation is to contribute to an examination of the accuracy of this portrayal. (shrink)

Between Wolff and Kant: Merian's Theory of Apperception UDO THIEL IT IS WELL KNOWN that the nodon of apperception or self-consciousness is central to Kant's theoretical philosophy. Kant introduces the notion in one of the crucial parts of the Critique of Pure Reason, the Transcendental Deduction of the Categories, and assigns it an important role in his critique of traditional metaphysics of the soul in the Transcendental Dialectic.' It is also well known that Kant did not invent the term (...) "apperception." Leibniz had introduced the French 'Tapperception" into philosophical terminology early in the eigh- teenth century. Kant scholars generally stress, rightly, that Kant's notion of apperception differs significandy from that of his predecessors. However, the precise relation between Kant's concept of apperception and earlier accounts has not been considered in any detail. Wolfgang Carl, for example, simply states that the main difference is that, prior to Kant, apperception was under- stood as relating only to mental acts and their contents, and not to the subject that thinks and has ideas, whereas in Kant apperception relates essentially to the thinking subject. 2 This very general thesis is questionable even in regard to some of the philosophers that Carl cites in this context . It is clearly not true of some other pre-Kantian philoso- phers who deal with self-consciousness. ' References to the Critique of Pure.. (shrink)

Wolff suggests by way of the following argument that democracy appears to be irrational. Here is the argument given: 1) Ruling is a skill. 2) It is rational to leave the exercise of skills to experts [sic] 3) In a democracy the people rule. 4) The people are not experts. Therefore: 5) Democracy is irrational.

By helping to introduce the relatively new concept of institutional racism into Britain, Sir Michael and Ann Dummett expanded the concept of racism beyond the limited sense it had been given in the 1940s and 1950s when racism tended to be associated with the scientific concept of race and when the focus tended to fall on the intent to harm or speak harm of a group that was identified as a race by science. They recognised that ‘race’ was primarily a (...) political and not a scientific concept. This led them in a different direction from that taken by the next generation of mainstream philosophers working in this area, such as Kwame Anthony Appiah, who adopted the UNESCO approach of highlighting the scientific deficiencies of the concept of race. However, although they both succeeded in developing ways to break through the forms of self-deception that allow institutional racism to go unnoticed and at the same time offered instructive insights into the ways politicians hide behind the racism of others, I argue that they failed to see, as clearly as Sartre and Fanon did, that the conception of institutional racism necessitates a structural changes in society beyond anything they contemplated. (shrink)

Fraser Smith argues that Plato's argument against democracy as reconstructed by Jonathon Wolff is flawed because in a ‘modern’ democracy the people do not rule, but instead elect officials subject to a system of checks and balances. Smith's conception of democracy is much like Churchill's . I will argue that Smith's reply does not address Wolff and Plato's argument. I will then point out that Aristotle replied to Plato's argument in an appealing – and strikingly modern – fashion. (...) Aristotle, I conclude, did justify to at least some degree democracy, and hence did address Plato's argument. (shrink)

RESUMO:O objetivo deste artigo é discutir sobre os conceitos de obrigação e lei natural, tendo como referência o polêmico debate moderno envolvendo intelectualismo e voluntarismo. Em um primeiro momento, destacaremos a rejeição de Wolff ao voluntarismo de Pufendorf e sua orientação em direção ao intelectualismo de Leibniz. Conforme essa nova orientação, uma teoria da lei natural não deve basear seu conceito de obrigação na autoridade das leis e em seu poder coercitivo, mas, por outro lado, unicamente na ideia de (...) necessidade moral, interpretada como expressão da ligação natural universal dos seres racionais com o dever. Em um segundo momento, apresentaremos os efeitos dessa discussão no pensamento inicial de Kant, que, se posicionando diante mesmo de Wolff e Baumgarten, vai empreender a superação de seus predecessores, através de uma revisão conceitual do problema, a qual culminará nos pressupostos de sua doutrina ética madura. ABSTRACT:This paper highlights the debate around the concepts of obligationand natural law, with reference to the controversial modern discussion involving intellectualism and voluntarism. Firstly, we highlight Wolff’s rejection of the voluntarism of Pufendorf and Wolff’s orientation toward the intellectualism of Leibniz. For intellectualism, a theory of natural law should not ground the concept of obligation in the authority of laws and in their coercive power, but in the idea of moral necessity, understood as an expression of the universal natural connection of rational beings with duty. We then present the effects of this discussion on Kant’s early thought. Kant undertook to go beyond Wolff and Baumgarten through a conceptual review of the problem, which culminated in the assumptions of his mature ethics. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to vindicate the viability of Kurt H. Wolff''s methodology of surrender-and-catch for the human and social sciences. The article is divided into three sections. The first section explicates the fundamental significance of surrender-and-catch and Wolff''s motivation for advocating its practice. The second section compares surrender-and-catch with phenomenological methodology as well as objective science and the province of the everyday. The third section illustrates surrender-and-catch through my own practice. In this section I contextualize (...) surrender-and-catch in a triangulated design, which exhibits its flexibility and compatibility for use in conjunction with other forms of research. (shrink)

By helping to introduce the relatively new concept of institutional racism into Britain, Sir Michael and Ann Dummett expanded the concept of racism beyond the limited sense it had been given in the 1940s and 1950s when racism tended to be associated with the scientific concept of race and when the focus tended to fall on the intent to harm or speak harm of a group that was identified as a race by science. They recognised that ‘race’ was primarily a (...) political and not a scientific concept. This led them in a different direction from that taken by the next generation of mainstream philosophers working in this area, such as Kwame Anthony Appiah, who adopted the UNESCO approach of highlighting the scientific deficiencies of the concept of race. However, although they both succeeded in developing ways to break through the forms of self-deception that allow institutional racism to go unnoticed and at the same time offered instructive insights into the ways politicians hide behind the racism of others, I argue that they failed to see, as clearly as Sartre and Fanon did, that the conception of institutional racism necessitates a structural changes in society beyond anything they contemplated. (shrink)