Language has a rich typology of inferential types. It was recently shown that subjects are able to divide the informational content of new visual stimuli among the various slots of the inferential typology: when gestures or visual animations are used in lieu of specific words in a sentence, they can trigger the very same inferential types as language alone (Tieu et al., 2019 ). How general are the relevant triggering algorithms? We show that they extend to the auditory modality and (...) to music cognition. We tested whether pro-speech musical gestures, i.e. musical excerpts that replace words in sentences, can give rise to the same inferences. We show that it is possible to replicate the same typology of inferences using pro-speech music. Minimal and complex musical excerpts can behave just like language, gestures, and visual animations with respect to the logical behavior of their content when embedded in sentences. Specifically, we found that pro-speech music can generate scalar implicatures, presuppositions, supplements, and homogeneity inferences. (shrink)

Presents the early published writings of the distinguished political philosopher Leo Strauss, available here for the first time in English. “Zank places at the reader’s disposal the young Strauss’s passionate advocacy of political Zionism and his early confrontations with Spinoza, consideration of whom helped lead Strauss to formulate his teaching on ‘the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns.’” — National Review.

In this chapter, we focus on the simple sounding question: What is it to have sex? On the assumption that having sex is what you do with all and only your sexual part-ners, this offers a way of focusing the question: What would it take for a sex robot to be a sex partner? In order to understand the significance of the development of robots with whom (or which) we can have sex, we need to know what it is to (...) have sex with a robot. And in order to know this, we have to know what it is to have sex, period. In the bulk of the chapter, we develop an account of shared sexual agency we think is a plausible precondition of genuinely having sex. In the final section, we remark briefly on the issue of what it would take to form a sexual we (as we call it) with a robot. For if we can do this, we can probably have sex with robots; but if we can’t, we can’t. (shrink)

Maude's excellent translation of Tolstoy's treatise on the emotionalist theory of art was the first unexpurgated version of the work to appear in any language. More than ninety years later this work remains, as Vincent Tomas observed, "one of the most rigorous attacks on formalism and on the doctrine of art for art's sake ever written". Tomas' Introduction makes this the edition of choice for students of aesthetics and anyone with philosophical interests.

I. The function of models in the empirical sciencesII. Structure and purpose: conditions of a structural nature which models should satisfy in order to accomplish their function.III. Generalisation and specialisation of the classical definition of model, in view of the above requirements:the algebraic model conceptthe semantic model conceptthe syntactical model conceptIV. Attempt towards reunification: the concept of model on a pragmatic basis.

Offering an innovative approach to critical thinking, Good Reasoning Matters! identifies the essential structure of good arguments in a variety of contexts and also provides guidelines to help students construct their own effective arguments. In addition to examining the most common features of faulty reasoning--slanting, bias, propaganda, vagueness, ambiguity, and a common failure to consider opposing points of view--the book introduces a variety of argument schemes and rhetorical techniques. This edition adds material on visual arguments and more exercises.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Schopenhauer's Pessimism and the Unconditioned Good MARK MIGOTTI SCHOPENHAUERTOOK PESSIMISMtO be a profound doctrine that had long been accepted by the majority of humanity, albeit usually in the allegorical form given to it by one or another religious creed. Accordingly, he credited himself, not with the discovery of pessimism, but with the provision of a satisfactory philosophical exposition and defense of its claims. It was, he contended, only (...) within the context of his philosophy, animated by the "single thought" that "the world is the self-knowledge of the will,"' that the ultimate significance of pessimism and the arguments demonstrating its inescapability can be brought to light. If, nevertheless, he sometimes appears to protest too much, to defend pessimism as if it were a striking and novel affair, he would have attributed this to the fact that he was, unfortunately, writing in the midst of one of the most naively optimistic cultures known to world history. 2 The philosophical reception of Schopenhauer's pessimism since the publication of The World as Will and Representation in 1818 would, one suspects, have been taken by him as further evidence of modern Western philosophy's optimistic somnambulance. For while other, comparably fundamental aspects of his thought--for example, his theories of action, of the self, and his criticisms of Kant--have received a welcome amount of fruitful, critical attention, his I would like to thank John Atwell, David Schmidtz, Susan Haack, Rudolf Makkreel and, especially,two anonymous referees, for prompting me to make substantial improvements to an earlier draft of this paper. ' Arthur Schopenhauer, Der handschrifllicher Nachlass 1, ed. Arthur Hiibscher (Frankfurt-amMain : Kramer, 1967),462; Manuscript Remains 1, trans. E. F.J. Payne(NewYork: Berg Publishing, 1988), 512. 'See, for example, Arthur Schopenhauer, D/e Welt als Wille und VorsteUung II. In Arthur Schopenhauer. Ziircher Ausgabe, ed. Arthur Hiibscher et. al. (Zurich: DiogenesVerlag, 1977),w 4:721, 732-33; The World as Will and Representation II, trans. E. F. J. Payne(New York: Dover Press, 1969),615, 625-26. Future references to this work willbe made within the text, by the abbreviation WW followed by section number, German edition volume and page number and English translation page number. [643] 644 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER ~995 pessimism has not. Amongst enthusiastic followers it has sometimes been swallowed more or less whole, but from more independent-minded readers it has generally met with disdainful mockery or well-intentioned neglect.3 The aim of this paper is to help rectify' this imbalance. In the first of its four sections, I present an account of Schopenhauerian pessimism that can claim a good measure of textual support, and the essential features of which are found often enough in the secondary literature to warrant calling it the mainstream interpretation.4 In section 2 I show that, as critics have charged, the arguments for pessimism on this interpretation suffer from a pair of fatal ambiguities, and in section 3 I sketch an alternative argument for pessimism, one not so obviously open to the sort of knock-down refutation to which the first argument succumbs. In the paper's final section l explore further the philosophical consequences of this alternative argument for pessimism. 3Gyorg'yLukacs, "Schopenhauer," chapter ~,section 4 of The Destruction of Reason, trans. Peter Palmer (London: Merlin Press, 1979), 19~-243, isthe locusclassicusof an attitude of superior scorn. Bryan Magee, The Philosophy of Schopenhauer (Oxford: "the Clarendon Press, 1983), z3-14, D. W. Hamlyn, Schopentmuer (London: Routledge, z98o), *43, Michael Fox, "Schopenhauer on Death, Suicide, and Renunciation." in Schopenhauer: His Philosophical Achievement, ed. Michael Fox (Totowa, NJ: Barnes and Noble Books, 198o), ]47-7o, and David Cartwrigh*, "Schopenhauer on Suffering, Death, Guilt, and the Consolation of Metaphysics,"in Schopenhauer: New Essays in Hotwr ofHis 2ooth Birthday, ed. Eric yon der Luft (Lewiston,NY: Edwin Mellen Press, t988), 66, all incline to the viewthat it was temperament, not argument, that drove Schopenhauer to pessimism, while Patrick Gardiner, Schopenhatwr (London: Penguin Books, ]963), does not discuss pessimism by name. Not even Nietzsche, the deepest and most astute of Schopenhauer'scritics,can resistbarbs of the following sort: "Schopenhauer, although a pessimist, in ]act played the flute... (shrink)

In Homos, he studies the historical, political, and philosophical grounds for the current distrust, within the gay community, of self-identifying moves, for the ...

Media use can empower people, provided that this is accompanied by a deeper understanding of the actors, processes and structures in the media sector – including media policy. It is, however, to be expected that media users’ literacy of media policy is rather limited. This is problematic as the absence of such understanding makes it impossible for citizens to hold the politicians they elected accountable for the media policy they develop. This article explores what media users know about media policy, (...) what they expect to know, and whether they care. We adopted a case-study approach, researching this question for the region of Flanders based on a combination of quantitative (representative survey) and qualitative (49 in-depth interviews) data. While the article focuses on the case of Flanders, its theoretical basis as well as conclusion section are relevant beyond that specific context. (shrink)

Over the last decades we have seen an increased interest in forensic rhetoric in Plato's dialogues, notably in relation to hisApology. However, little interest has been paid to this strain of rhetoric in relation to theGorgias. In this article I focus on one notion, βοήθεια, as it was discussed in Plato'sGorgias. This notion had a wide currency in forensic rhetoric in classical Athens.

Jesse Prinz compares Nietzsche’s genealogy of morals to its utilitarian and materialist counterparts and gives two cheers for the Nietzschean approach.1 The project is well conceived; and—readers of this journal will not need to be convinced of this—the recognition of Nietzsche’s achievement is deserved and welcome. But when we get to “the particular go of it,”2 Prinz’s account of what Nietzsche’s achievement is, I have reservations. Though we have much to learn from his juxtaposing Nietzschean genealogy to its utilitarian and (...) materialist counterparts, we can learn more when we dig deeper and pay more attention to detail. In what follows, I will show how a better account of the relationship between history... (shrink)

Leo Corry tells the story behind the idea of number, from the early days of the Pythagoreans, up until the turn of the twentieth century. He presents an overview of how numbers were handled and conceived in classical Greek mathematics, in the mathematics of Islam, in European mathematics of the middle ages and the Renaissance, during the scientific revolution, all the way through to the mathematics of the 18th to the early 20th century.

Thomas Taylor’s interpretation of Plato’s works in 1804 was condemned as guilty by association immediately after its publication. Taylor’s 1804 and 1809 reviewer thus made a hasty generalisation in which the qualities of Neoplatonism, assumed to be negative, were transferred to Taylor’s own interpretation, which made use of Neoplatonist thinkers. For this reason, Taylor has typically been marginalised as an interpreter of Plato. This article does not deny the association between Taylor and Neoplatonism. Instead, it examines the historical and historiographical (...) reasons for the reviewer’s assumption that Neoplatonic readings of Plato are erroneous by definition. In particular, it argues that the reviewer relied on, and tacitly accepted, ethical and theological premises going back to the historiography of philosophy developed by Jacob Brucker in his Historia critica philosophiae . These premises were an integral part of Brucker’s Lutheran religiosity and thus theologically and ethically biased. If these premises are identified, articulated and discussed critically—which they have not been so far in connection with Taylor’s reception—it becomes less obvious that the reviewer was justified in his assumption that the Neoplatonic reading was erroneous by definition. This, in turn, leaves Taylor’s Plato interpretation in a more respectable position. (shrink)

Volume 28, Issue 3, May 2020, Page 431-441.

In the present article two possible meanings of the term mathematical structure are discussed: a formal and a nonformal one. It is claimed that contemporary mathematics is structural only in the nonformal sense of the term. Bourbaki's definition of structure is presented as one among several attempts to elucidate the meaning of that nonformal idea by developing a formal theory which allegedly accounts for it. It is shown that Bourbaki's concept of structure was, from a mathematical point of view, a (...) superfluous undertaking. This is done by analyzing the role played by the concept, in the first place, within Bourbaki's own mathematical output. Likewise, the interaction between Bourbaki's work and the first stages of category theory is analyzed, on the basis of both published texts and personal documents. (shrink)

It is commonplace to observe that the history of thought reveals certain recurring patterns whose mode of expression changes according to context. It is equally apparent that to chart the salient characteristics of an influential way of thinking – to give concrete, clearly defined shape to the usually tangled fundamental impulses informing a cast of mind – is a complex, difficult task which calls for attention from the historian, the psychologist, the philosopher and, in the case of religious figures and (...) movements, the theologian alike. With regard to the manner of thinking embodied in the theological doctrines of Martin Luther such a task is fraught with more than the usual number of pitfalls. In the first place, following recent Luther scholarship, we must be wary of assuming that the great Reformer held fast to a single set of theological opinions throughout his long career. We shall not, therefore, attempt to reach conclusions applicable to Luther's thought as a whole, but rather shall focus exclusively on a number of key early expositions of the Theologia Crucis . Here, between about 1514 and 1520, we find, according to our argument, enough thematic unity to warrant the search for underlying principles. A second, less easily disposed of difficulty is the lack of a working consensus as to how and with what aims in mind one should even begin an historical analysis of Luther's texts. For example, to the believer who regards Luther's basic tenets as in a straightforward sense divinely inspired, the attempt to extract from his writings the ingredients of a certain thoroughly human way of thinking will seem doomed to inadequacy from the start. Likewise, for different reasons, many of today's. (shrink)

In this paper I show that penalties are not prices, and explain why the difference matters. In section one, I set up the problem which the following two sections will solve: namely, that it is easy enough to make certain kinds of penalties look just like prices. In section two, I lay out and dismantle an argument for reducing the former to the latter; and in section three I dismantle an argument for taking penalties and prices to be pragmatically equivalent, (...) on the grounds that the essential function of both is to attach costs to actions. (shrink)

This article critically explores the history and nature of a hermeneutic assumption which frequently guided interpretations of Plotinus from the 18th century onwards, namely that Plotinus advanced a system of philosophy. It is argued that this assumption was introduced relatively late, in the 18th and 19th centuries, and that it was primarily made possible by Brucker’s methodology for the history of philosophy, dating from the 1740s, to which the concept of a ‘system of philosophy’ was essential. It is observed that (...) the concept is absent from Ficino’s commentary from the 15th century, and that it remained absent in interpretations produced between the 15th and 18th centuries. It is also argued that the assumption of a ‘system of philosophy’ in Plotinus is historically incorrect—we do not find this concept in Plotinus’ writings, and his own statements about method point in other directions. Eduard Zeller is typically regarded as the first to give a satisfying account of Plotinus’ philosophy as a whole. In this article, on the other hand, Zeller is seen as having finalised a tradition initiated in the 18th century. Very few Plotinus scholars have examined the interpretative development prior to Zeller. Schiavone and Bonetti , for instance, have given little attention to Brucker’s introduction of the concept of a ‘system of philosophy’. The present analysis, then, has value for an understanding of Plotinus’ Enneads. It also explains why “pre-Bruckerian” interpretations of Plotinus appear alien to the modern reader; the analysis may even serve to make some sense of the hermeneutics employed by Renaissance Platonists and commentators, who are often eclipsed from the tradition of Platonism. (shrink)

This paper raises three questions: Can Nietzsche provide a satisfactory account of how the slave revolt could have begun to "poison the consciences" of masters? Does Nietzsche's affinity for "master values" preclude him from acknowledging claims of justice that rest upon a sense of equality among human beings? and How does Nietzsche's story fare when looked on as an empirical hypothesis? The first question is answered in the affirmative, the second in the negative, and the third with the verdict "quite (...) well". Nietzsche's interpretation of Socrates is held to vindicate the affirmative answer to question one; his conception of nobility as spontaneously self-affirming to justify the negative answer to question two, and historical, anthropological and etymological evidence to support the favorable answer to question three. (shrink)

Philosophers often claim that forgiveness is a paradoxical phenomenon. I here examine two of the most widespread ways of dealing with the paradoxical nature of forgiveness. One of these ways, emblematized by Aurel Kolnai, seeks to resolve the paradox by appealing to the idea of repentance. Somehow, if a wrongdoer repents, then forgiving her is no longer paradoxical. I argue that this influential position faces more problems than it solves. The other way to approach the paradox, exemplified here by the (...) work of Jacques Derrida, is just too obscure to be by itself helpful. Yet, I argue that what I take to be its spirit is on the right track. I recommend distinguishing between the definition and the justification of forgiveness, and also between forgiveness understood as a mental phenomenon and an overt, communicative act. These distinctions are not given their due in the specialized literature, and I expose the nefarious consequences of this neglect. By focusing on forgiveness as a mental phenomenon I seek to analyze the root of the talk of paradoxes which surrounds the discussion of forgiveness. Finally, I present an analysis of forgiveness as a pure mental phenomenon, and argue that this analysis is the most important step in understanding forgiveness in any other sense. While my analysis reveals interesting aspects of forgiveness, it reveals, too, that forgiveness is not quite as paradoxical after all. (shrink)

This paper raises three questions: (1) Can Nietzsche provide a satisfactory account of how the slave revolt could have begun to "poison the consciences" of masters? (2) Does Nietzsche's affinity for "master values" preclude him from acknowledging claims of justice that rest upon a sense of equality among human beings? and (3) How does Nietzsche's story fare when looked on as (at least in part) an empirical hypothesis? The first question is answered in the affirmative, the second in the negative, (...) and the third with the verdict "quite well". Nietzsche's interpretation of Socrates is held to vindicate the affirmative answer to question one; his conception of nobility as spontaneously self-affirming to justify the negative answer to question two, and historical, anthropological and etymological evidence to support the favorable answer to question three. (shrink)

The essays are based on a long and intimate familiarity with the works, but the essay on Aristotle is especially important as one of Strauss's few writings on ...

Methods facilitating noetic ascent -- Contraction as an ontological concept -- Contraction and noesis -- Contraction and memory -- Physiologically induced contraction -- The scholastic tradition of contraction -- Cusanus and the scholastic tradition of contraction.

With a view to the theme of church renewal, this article explores the role of a well-known and popular phrase in the Reformed tradition within Protestantism, that is, ecclesia reformata semper reformanda [‘the reformed church should always be reformed’]. Is this a helpful slogan when considering the possibilities and the limitations of church renewal? Firstly, the historical background of this phrase is described: it is rooted in the Dutch Reformed tradition, and only in the 20th century it was widely recognised (...) in Reformed circles. Against this background the hermeneutical problem, linked with the principle of sola Scriptura, is presented, and put into an ecumenical ecclesiological perspective: the church is grounded in the gospel. Finally, the article focuses on church polity as an important field of renewal, taking into account Karl Barth’s interpretation of this phrase. From this perspective, a balanced and ecumenical approach of church renewal is possible. (shrink)

In this article I argue that Socrates appropriated a traditional discourse characteristic of Athenian law courts and politics keyed to the concept of protection (boētheia). More specifically, I argue that Socrates aimed at protecting the Athenians, though not directly, but indirectly, namely via his life-long endeavour to serve (boēthein) Apollo. I thus read Plato’s Apology as a political text, though not “political” in the sense of Socrates being suspect of overthrowing democracy, as sometimes claimed, but “political” in the sense that (...) Plato’s Socrates latched on to this concept of boēthein in the Apology. (shrink)

This paper takes up Nietzsche’s contrast between a relatively enduring ‘drama’ of punishment, which consists in sequences of procedures, and a congeries of often discrepant meanings and purposes of the drama and contrasts it favorably with the distinction between a definition of punishment and a justification for it which received a good deal of attention in the middle of the twentieth century in anglophone philosophical circles. My chief thesis is that the philosophical lesson to be drawn from the widely acknowledge (...) failure of efforts to further the philosophical understanding of punishment by the latter route is Nietzsche’s: that the concept in question and the practices that fall under it are fundamentally insusceptible to ahistorical methods. I argue for the thesis proper in the first section of the paper, and explore consequences of it for our understanding of the connection between punishment and justice in the second. (shrink)

This uniquely fascinating volume is not merely a learned treatise in historical semantics; it is itself a stupendous display of world harmony as a creed-a vivid demonstration that "all is all.".

Mr. Brown's paper contains a detailed statement of the industrial situation at the present day, and the part which Scholastic philosophy should naturally take in bettering it. Some of the facts he delineates will come as a surprise to many people; those, for example who expect the workingman to gain redress through the courts will find added interest in this paper.

While it is no doubt a good pedagogical principle to stress the most convincing proof in the first learning of a philosophic thesis, yet a man with any pretence to philosophic effeciency should certainly have at his beck and call several proofs to do service in various situations. Mr. Brown indicates a few subsidiary proofs in connection with the subject of materialsm, a consideration of grave import in the philosophical world today.

It is commonly known that ancient schools of ethics were revived during the Renaissance: The texts pertaining to Platonic, Aristotelian, Stoic and Epicurean ethics were edited, translated and discussed in this period. It is less known that the Renaissance also witnessed a revival of Plotinian ethics, by then perceived as a legitimate form of Platonic ethics. Plotinus' ethics had been transmitted through the Middle Ages through Macrobius' Latin treatise In somnium Scipionis I.8, which relied heavily on Plotinus' student, Porphyry, and (...) his report of Plotinus' ethics. In this article it is argued that the Florentine humanist and philosopher Marsilio Ficino carried on this tradition of Platonic, or rather Plotinian, ethics. He was familiar with Plotinus' Enneads, since he had had access to it through Greek manuscripts from around 1462; his Latin translation of the Enneads was published in 1492. The article argues that in his commentary on Plato's Symposium, completed in 1469, Ficino made use of Plotinian ethi.. (shrink)

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