Die Investiturstreit-Episode in der Alexias Anna Komnenes ist bemerkenswert detailliert. Neben der Kontroverse um die Simonie, wird auch die Frage der Rechtbzw. Unrechtmäßigkeit des Pontifikats Gregors VII. thematisiert, ebenso die Gegenkönigserhebung Rudolfs von Rheinfelden, die Schlacht an der Weißen Elster, der Tod des Gegenkönigs sowie das Bündnis zwischen Gregor VII. und Robert Guiscard. Der Normannenherzog ist der Anknüpfungspunkt der Autorin für die Ereignisse des Investiturstreits, der Grund dafür, dass dieser westliche Konflikt für sie von Bedeutung ist. Anna Komnenes Bericht erhält (...) jedoch auch Sondergut, Ereignisse, die sich nicht mit den westlichen Quellen in Einklang bringen lassen. Ein bedeutender Teil dieses Sonderguts ist insbesondere gegen Gregor VII. gerichtet, so etwa dessen Misshandlung der Gesandten Heinrichs IV., aber auch die suggerierte Teilnahme des Papstes an der Schlacht an der Weißen Elster. Diese antipäpstliche Tendenz dominiert die gesamte Episode. Sie wird nicht zuletzt an der Art und Weise deutlich, wie Anna Komnene das Aufeinandertreffen zwischen Gregor VII. und Robert Guiscard darstellt. Sie gestaltet die Begegnung als Herrschertreffen und übt somit massive Kritik an Papst Gregor VII., der sich demnach als weltlicher Herrscher geriert. Die Autorin gebraucht die stilistischen Mittel der Ironie und des Spotts, um Gregor in ein negatives Licht zu rücken. Sie präsentiert Gregor als Erfinder unmenschlicher Strafen, als überheblichen Barbaren, als Herrscher und Feldherrn, nie jedoch als einen sich seines Amtes würdig erweisenden Geistlichen. Der Umstand, dass Gregor VII. niemals beim Namen genannt, sondern anonym lediglich als 'Papst' bezeichnet wird, ist mehr als eine 'damnatio memoriae'. Durch Gregors Anonymisierung beschränkt sich die Kritik in der Alexias nicht auf das Individuum 'Gregor VII.', sondern sie wird im Gegenteil ausgeweitet auf die institutionelle Ebene des Papsttums. Die Schlechtigkeit und Boshaftigkeit Gregors VII., also des Papsttums überhaupt, in der Alexias verstärkt sich noch, wenn man diesem Verhalten dasjenige des konstantinopolitanischen Patriarchen gegenüberstellt. Ein Vergleich des in der Alexias geschilderten Verhaltensmusters des 'römischen Patriarchen' mit dem täglich erlebten Verhaltensmuster des 'konstantinopolitanischen' drängte sich dem Rezipienten der Alexias geradezu auf, so dass das päpstliche Verhalten als ὕβρις erscheinen musste. (shrink)

Autor u radu, pod vidom egzistencijalnog razvoja subjekta, tematizira značaj slobode u filozofiji Cornelia Fabra. Egzistencijalno djelovanje se radikalizira na način usmjeravanja ljudskog interesa prema stanovitom identitetu bitka i slobode, da bi se u konačnici došlo do dobra, vlastitog objekta volje. Putem integrativnog pristupa, propituje se mogućnost govora slobode kao ljudskog govora u kojemu dolazi do dijalektičkog prevladavanja unutarnjih tenzija i istovremenog pozitivnog odnosa između slobode, volje i razuma. Na koncu se pokazuje kako bitak pridonosi aktualizaciji ljudskog bića, dok sloboda (...) čovjeka stavlja pred izazov samoaktualizacije.Diese wissenschaftliche Arbeit diskutiert die Bedeutung der Freiheit unter dem Deckmantel der Existenzphilosophie in der Entwicklung des Subjekts von C. Fabro. Existentielle Wirkung wird in der Art und Weise des menschlichen Interesses durch gezielte eine bestimmte Identität vom Wesen und der Freiheit radikalisiert, um letzendlich das Gute zu finden und eigenen Willen durchzusetzen. Durch integrative Ansätze, stellt man die Möglichkeit der Redefreiheit, wie die menschliche Sprache, bei der es zur dialektischen Überwindung der internen Spannungen kommt und gleichzeitig positive Beziehung zwischen der Freiheit, dem Willen und der Vernunft in Frage. Schließlich wird gezeigt, wie das Wesen zur Verwirklichung des Menschen beiträgt und die Freiheit des Menschen stellt die Herausforderung für die Selbstverwirklichung. (shrink)

Čovjek je biće dijaloga, biće komunikacije, te se upravo na ovome području najuočljivije manifestiraju znakovi moguće krize. Cornelio Fabro, analizirajući komunikacijsku situaciju današnjeg čovjeka, uočava kako je tišina zamijenila govor. Razgovor sa samim sobom, bez kojega nema niti dijaloga sa drugima, supstituiran je čovjekovim pokušajem da putem umjetnosti, kulture ili filozofije uspostavi izvanjski dijalog sa svijetom koji ga okružuje. Kultura nastala u ovakvom okružju »duhovne pustinje«, kako kaže Fabro, također sama postaje kulturom egzistencijalno-duhovnog kolapsa.U radu se kritički propituje teza po (...) kojoj je čovjek osamljen, predan duhovno-kulturnoj pustinji isključivo zbog toga što se udaljio od svoga temelja, što prvenstveni interes njegova cjelokupnog istraživanja ne leži u području bitka i realnosti, nego u području mogućeg i virtualnog.Man is a being of dialogue, being of communication, and this is the area where signs of possible crisis most visibly manifest themselves. C. Fabro, analysing communicational situation of contemporary man, notices how silence have replaced speaking. Dialogue with him/herself, which is the condition for dialogue with others, is substituted by man’s endeavour in establishing external dialogue with the world around him/her, by means of art, culture and philosophy. Culture, made in circumstances of so called »spiritual desert«, itself becomes a culture of existential-spiritual collapse.This article critically examines thesis on man’s solitude, or his/hers devotion on spiritual-cultural desert, exclusively because he/she has distanced him/heself from his/her foundations, i. e. because primary interest of his/hers does not lay in the area of Being and reality, but in the area of possible and virtual. (shrink)

Prijateljstvo prati čovjeka od njegovih samih početaka, a očituje se u trajnoj dvostrukoj raspoloženosti: biti s drugim i biti netko drugome. U izlaganju se analizira Aristotelova filozofska refleksija o prijateljstvu. Osobita važnost posvećuje se trima različitim motivacijama koje ljude potiču na stupanje u različite oblike druženja ili prijateljevanja, a to su: zbog koristi, užitka ili, pak, zbog kreposti. Pokazuje se kako prijateljstvo vođeno kriterijem koristi nije istinsko prijateljstvo, jer se njime ne ostvaruje dobro osobe, nego neko korisno dobro koje osoba (...) ima, a koje drugoj osobi treba. Takvo je prijateljstvo, prijateljstvo reciprociteta u kojem se nešto dobiva, umjesto da se netko susretne radi njega samoga. Ovom tipu prijateljstva slično je prijateljstvo iz užitka, budući da ni jedan ni drugi tip prijateljstva ne počiva na bitnom principu zasnovanom na vrijednosti i dostojanstvu ljudske osobe, nego na principu ugode ili koristi kojim se ostvaruje isključivo simbiotsko-egoistični odnos.Posebno se apostrofira kako je pravo, istinsko prijateljstvo ono koje svoje utemeljenje pronalazi u sličnosti prema kreposti, te se stoga ostvaruje u blagotvornoj sličnosti prema dobroti. Naime, samo dobri mogu dobro željeti onom drugom prijatelju koji je također dobar. Prijateljstvo koje počiva na temeljima dobrote biva više prijateljstvo ukoliko se širi horizont dobrote, prave, istinske, nesebične dobrote, u kojoj se prijatelju želi dobro radi njega samoga, a ne zbog možebitne koristi koju očekujemo od njega. Kritički se propituje Aristotelovo mišljenje da nije potrebno doći samo do kreposti na osobnom planu, nego je potrebno postići i krepost na području zajednice, te je stoga za prijateljstvo od presudne važnosti, kao svojevrstan poligon kreposnog djelovanja, kakvi će odnosi vladati u društvu.Freundschaft begleitet den Menschen von Anfang an, und diese offenbart sich in einer dauerhaften zweifachen Verfügbarkeit: mit jemandem sein und für jemanden da sein. In dem Aufsatz wird Aristoteles’ philosophische Reflektierung der Freundschaft analysiert. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit gilt dabei dreierlei Motivationen, die die Menschen zu verschiedenen Freundschaftsbeziehungen anregen. Die Gründe dieser Beziehungen können Eigennutz, Vergnügen oder auch Tugend sein. Es wird gezeigt, dass die auf Eigennutz basierende Freundschaft keine wahre Freundschaft ist, weil dadurch nicht das Gute der Person verwirklicht, sondern das Gute, das eine Person hat, von einer anderen Person ausgenutzt wird. Eine solche Freundschaft nennt man Reziprozitätsfreundschaft, da man von dem anderen etwas erwartet, statt mit ihm seiner selbst wegen Umgang zu pflegen. Diesem Freundschaftstyp ähnelt die zum Vergnügen geschlossenen Freundschaft. Weder der erste noch der zweite Freundschaftstyp lehnen sich an das wesentliche, auf dem Wert und der Würde des Menschen basierende Prinzip an, sondern an das Prinzip des Eigennutzes bzw. des Vergnügens, womit ausschließlich eine symbiotisch-egoistische Beziehung verwirklicht wird.Besonders betont wird die einzig wahre Freundschaft, die sich auf der Tugend gründet und daher ihren Höhepunkt im Guten erreicht. Nur derjenige, der gut ist, kann gut zu dem anderen sein, der auch gut ist. Die auf dem Guten basierende Freundschaft ist ein erhabener Freundschaftstyp, da sich dabei der Horizont des wahrhaftigen Guten und der Selbstlosigkeit weitet und man dem Freund seiner selbst wegen das Gute gönnt und nicht, weil man von ihm etwaserwartet. Auf kritische Weise wird der Standpunkt Aristoteles’ ausgelegt, dem zufolge Tugend auf dem persönlichen Plan allein nicht ausreicht, sondern auch auf dem Plan des Gemeinwesens angestrebt werden muss. Deshalb hängt von der Freundschaft als einem Ausübungsplatz tugendhaften Handelns ab, wie sich die zwischenmenschlichen Beziehungen in der Gesellschaft gestalten. (shrink)

In everyday life, assumptions about our peers' as well as our own personality shape social interactions. We investigated whether self-rated personality and inferences drawn from partners' faces influence economic decisions. Participants (N= 285) played the trust game in the role of the trustor as well as the ultimatum game in the role of the proposer and interacted with trustees and receivers represented by prototypical personality faces. Participants also evaluated both their own traits and the personality of the faces. In the (...) trust game, trustees represented by faces rated higher on agreeableness yielded higher transferred amounts. This effect was more pronounced for trustors low on dispositional trust, whereas trustors high on dispositional trust did not relate their decisions to the faces. Trustees represented by faces rated higher on conscientiousness yielded higher transferred amounts only for trustors high on dispositional anxiety. In the ultimatum game, receivers represented by faces rated higher on conscientiousness yielded lower offers only for proposers high on dispositional assertiveness. These results extend previous findings on the inferences drawn from facial features and the influence of personality on decision making. They highlight the importance of considering the personality of both interaction partner, as well as potential interactions of players' traits. (shrink)

Dieser Band behandelt umfassend und systematisch die Frage des Patientenwillens: die historischen und philosophischen Grundlagen des Willensbegriffs, die Beziehung von Autonomie und Wille und praktische Fragen der Bioethik und des Biorechts. Die Herausgeber: PD Dr. Marko Fuchs lehrt Philosophie an der Universität Bamberg. Dr. Martin Hähnel lehrt Philosophie an der Universität Bremen und ist Koordinator des BMBF-Verbundvorhabens "Verantwortungsvoller Umgang mit Künstlicher Intelligenz in der Medizin" (VUKIM) Dr. Danaë Simmermacher lehrt Philosophie an der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg.

We investigated the influence of social status on behavior in a modified dictator game. Since the DG contains an inherent dominance gradient, we examined the relationship between dictator decisions and recipient status, which was operationalized by three social identities and an artificial intelligence. Additionally, we examined the predictive value of social dominance orientation on the behavior of dictators toward the different social and non-social hierarchical recipients. A multilevel model analysis showed that recipients with the same status as the dictator benefited (...) the most and the artificial intelligence the least. Furthermore, SDO, regardless of social status, predicted behavior toward recipients in such a way that higher dominance was associated with lower dictator offers. In summary, participants treated other persons of higher and lower status equally, those of equal status better and, above all, an algorithm worst. The large proportion of female participants and the limited variance of SDO should be taken into account with regard to the results of individual differences in SDO. (shrink)

Virtual reality enables individuals to be exposed to naturalistic environments in laboratory settings, offering new possibilities for research in human neuroscience and treatment of mental disorders. We used VR to study psychological, autonomic and postural reactions to heights in individuals with varying intensity of fear of heights. Study participants were immersed in a VR of an unprotected open-air elevator platform in an urban area, while standing on an unstable ground. Virtual elevation of the platform elicited robust and reliable psychophysiological activation (...) including increased distress, heart rate, and electrodermal activity, which was higher in individuals suffering from fear of heights. In these individuals, compared with individuals with low fear of heights, the VR height exposure resulted in higher velocity of postural movements as well as decreased low-frequency body sway oscillations. This indicates that individuals with strong fear of heights react to heights with maladaptive rigidity of posture due to increased weight of visual input for balance control, while the visual information is less reliable at heights. Our findings show that exposure to height in a naturalistic VR environment elicits a complex reaction involving correlated changes of the emotional state, autonomic activity, and postural balance, which are exaggerated in individuals with fear of heights. (shrink)

A collection of 37 essays surveying the state of the art on metaphysical ground. -/- Essay authors are: Fatema Amijee, Ricki Bliss, Amanda Bryant, Margaret Cameron, Phil Corkum, Fabrice Correia, Louis deRosset, Scott Dixon, Tom Donaldson, Nina Emery, Kit Fine, Martin Glazier, Kathrin Koslicki, David Mark Kovacs, Stephan Krämer, Stephanie Leary, Stephan Leuenberger, Jon Litland, Marko Malink, Michaela McSweeney, Kevin Mulligan, Alyssa Ney, Asya Passinsky, Francesca Poggiolesi, Kevin Richardson, Stefan Roski, Noel Saenz, Benjamin Schnieder, Erica Shumener, Alexander Skiles, (...) Olla Solomyak, Tuomas Tahko, Naomi Thompson, Kelly Trogdon, Jennifer Wang, Tobias Wilsch, and Justin Zylstra. (shrink)

Ever since ?ukasiewicz, it has been opinio communis that Aristotle's modal syllogistic is incomprehensible due to its many faults and inconsistencies, and that there is no hope of finding a single consistent formal model for it. The aim of this paper is to disprove these claims by giving such a model. My main points shall be, first, that Aristotle's syllogistic is a pure term logic that does not recognize an extra syntactic category of individual symbols besides syllogistic terms and, second, (...) that Aristotelian modalities are to be understood as certain relations between terms as described in the theory of the predicables developed in the Topics. Semantics for modal syllogistic is to be based on Aristotelian genus-species trees. The reason that attempts at consistently reconstructing modal syllogistic have failed up to now lies not in the modal syllogistic itself, but in the inappropriate application of modern modal logic and extensional set theory to the modal syllogistic. After formalizing the underlying predicable-based semantics (Section 1) and having defined the syllogistic propositions by means of its term logical relations (Section 2), this paper will set out to demonstrate in detail that this reconstruction yields all claims on validity, invalidity and inconclusiveness that Aristotle maintains in the modal syllogistic (Section 3 and 4). (shrink)

A revised translation of Heidegger's most important work.

In this essay, I argue that Robert Boyle does not hold that true religion requires us to believe doctrines that are in violation of the law of noncontradiction or that it yields logical contradictions. Rather, due to the epistemological limitations of human reason, we are sometimes called to believe doctrines or propositions that are at first blush contradictory but, upon further inspection, not definitively so. This holds for doctrines considered singly or together and is an important qualifier to the traditional (...) line of scholarship’s flat claim that Boyle’s limits of belief are logical contradictions. My conclusions here are at odds with Jan W. Wojcik’s claim, in her important, revisionist work on the famous natural philosopher, that he teaches that sometimes we are required to believe religious doctrines that violate the law of noncontradiction. (shrink)

One hundred years after Luigi Russolo's "The Art of Noises," this book exposes a cross-section of the current motivations, activities, thoughts, and reflections of composers, performers, and artists who work with noise in all of its many forms. The book's focus is the practice of noise and its relationship to music, and in particular the role of noise as musical material--as form, as sound, as notation or interface, as a medium for listening, as provocation, as data. Its contributors are first (...) and foremost practitioners, which inevitably turns attention toward how and why noise is made and its potential role in listening and perceiving. Contributors include Peter Ablinger, Sebastian Berweck, Aaron Cassidy, Marko Ciciliani, Nick Collins, Aaron Einbond, Matthias Haenisch, Alec Hall, Martin Iddon, Bryan Jacobs, Phil Julian, Michael Maierhof, Joan Arnau Pàmies, and James Whitehead (JLIAT). The book also features a collection of short responses to a two-question "interview"--"what is noise (music) to you?" and "why do you make it?"--by some of the leading musicians working with noise today. Their work spans a wide range of artistic practice, including instrumental, vocal, and electronic music; improvisation; notated composition; theater; sound installation; DIY; and software development. Interview subjects include Eryck Abecassis, Franck Bedrossian, Antoine Chessex, Ryan Jordan, Alice Kemp (Germseed), George Lewis, Lasse Marhaug, Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje, Diemo Schwarz, Ben Thigpen, Kasper Toeplitz, and Pierre Alexandre Tremblay."--Page 4 of covers. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that Robert Boyle does not hold that true religion requires us to believe doctrines that are in violation of the law of noncontradictionor that it yields logical contradictions. Rather, due to the epistemological limitations of human reason, we are sometimes called to believe doctrines orpropositions that are at first blush contradictory but, upon further inspection, not definitively so. This holds for doctrines considered singly or together and is animportant qualifier to the traditional line of scholarship’s (...) flat claim that Boyle’s limits of belief are logical contradictions. My conclusions here are at odds withJan W. Wojcik’s claim, in her important, revisionist work on the famous natural philosopher, that he teaches that sometimes we are required to believe religiousdoctrines that violate the law of noncontradiction. (shrink)

Contemporary French philosophers such as Levinas, Bataille, and Derrida, along with the existentialists Kierkegaard and Nietzsche have all made use of Franciscan insights in order to safeguard the ipseity that cannot be reduced or totalized.1 In keeping with the taste that concerns me, this paper will examine Derrida’s turn to the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins and how such a turn may place Derrida within a catholic and Franciscan tradition.

Disjunctivism about perceptual appearances, as I conceive of it, is a theory which seeks to preserve a naïve realist conception of veridical perception in the light of the challenge from the argument from hallucination. The naïve realist claims that some sensory experiences are relations to mind-independent objects. That is to say, taking experiences to be episodes or events, the naïve realist supposes that some such episodes have as constituents mind-independent objects. In turn, the disjunctivist claims that in a case of (...) veridical perception like this very kind of experience that you now have, the experiential episode you enjoy is of a kind which could not be occurring were you having an hallucination. The common strategy of arguments from hallucination set out to show that certain things are true of hallucinations, and hence must be true of perceptions. For example, it is argued that hallucinations must have non-physical objects of awareness, or that such states are not relations to anything at all, but are at best seeming relations to objects. In insisting that veridical perceptual experience is of a distinct kind from hallucination, the disjunctivist denies that any of these conceptions of hallucination challenges our conception of veridical perceptions as relations to mind-independent objects. More specifically, I assume that the disjunctivist advocates naïve realism because they think that this position best articulates how sensory experience seems to us to be just through reflection. If the disjunctivist is correct in this contention, then anyone who accepts the conclusion of the argument from hallucination must also accept that the nature of sensory experience is other than it seems to us to be. In turn, one may complain that any such error theory is liable to lead to sceptical consequences. A Humean scepticism about the senses launches a challenge about our knowledge of the world through questioning the conception we have of what sense experience is, and how it can provide knowledge of the world. (shrink)

A landmark discussion between two great thinkers, vital to an understanding of twentieth-century philosophy and intellectual history.

We provide a battery of examples of delusions against which theoretical accounts can be tested. Then, we identify neuropsychological anomalies that could produce the unusual experiences that may lead, in turn, to the delusions in our battery. However, we argue against Maher’s view that delusions are false beliefs that arise as normal responses to anomalous experiences. We propose, instead, that a second factor is required to account for the transition from unusual experience to delusional belief. The second factor in the (...) aetiology of delusions can be described superficially as a loss of the ability to reject a candidate for belief on the grounds of its implausibility and its inconsistency with everything else that the patient knows. But we point out some problems that confront any attempt to say more about the nature of this second factor. (shrink)

Article copyright 2002. We provide a battery of examples of delusions against which theoretical accounts can be tested. Then we identify neuropsychological anomalies that could produce the unusual experiences that may lead, in turn, to the delusions in our battery. However, we argue against Maher's view that delusions are false beliefs that arise as normal responses to anomalous experiences. We propose, instead, that a second factor is required to account for the transition from unusual experience to delusional belief. The second (...) factor in the etiology of delusions can be described superficially as a loss of the ability to reject a candidate for belief on the grounds of its implausibility and its inconsistency with everything else that the patient knows, but we point out some problems that confront any attempt to say more about the nature of this second factor. (shrink)

Disjunctivism about perceptual appearances, as I conceive of it, is a theory which seeks to preserve a na.

This article develops an ecological framework for understanding collective action. This is contrasted with approaches familiar from the collective intentionality debate, which treat individuals as fundamental units of collective action. Instead, we turn to social ecological psychology and dynamical systems theory and argue that they provide a promising framework for understanding collectives as the central unit in collective action. However, we submit that these approaches do not yet appreciate enough the relevance of social identities for collective action. To analyze this (...) aspect, we build on key insights from social identity theory and synthesize it with embodied and ecological accounts of perception and action. This results in the proposal of two new types of affordances. For an individual who enacts her "embodied social identity" of being a member of a particular collective, there can be what we call embodied social identity affordances. Moreover, when several individuals dynamically interact with each other against the background of their embodied social identities, this might lead to the emergence of a collective, which we understand as a dynamically constituted and ecologically situated perception-action system consisting of several individuals enacting relevant embodied social identity affordances. Building on previous work in social ecological psychology, we suggest that there can be genuine collective affordances, that is, affordances whose subject is not an individual, but a collective. (shrink)

Recent empirical findings from social psychology, ecological psychology, and embodied cognitive science indicate that situational factors crucially shape the course of human behavior. For instance, it has been shown that finding a dime, being under the influence of an authority figure, or just being presented with food in easy reach often influences behavior tremendously. These findings raise important new questions for the philosophy of action: Are these findings a threat to classical conceptions of human agency? Are humans passively pushed around (...) by situational factors, or are there agential aspects in the way we spontaneously experience and react to situations? How can one conceptualize the pervasive influence of situational factors on human action? What are situations in the first place, and how should the influence of these situations on action be thought of? This paper sets out to develop a new conceptual repertoire for thinking about the influence of situations on action, drawing on research from ecological psychology as well as from embodied and enactive cognitive science. The key proposal is the development of a philosophical sensorimotor account of agency: Action, it is proposed, should be conceived of as constant dynamical interaction of agential and environmental factors – factors which should all be conceptualized in new ways. (shrink)

Two more or less standard methods exist for the systematic, logical construction of classical mathematics, the so-called theory of types, due in the main to Russell, and the Zermelo axiomatic set theory. In systems based upon either of these, the connective of membership, “ε”, plays a fundamental role. Usually although not always it figures as a primitive or undefined symbol.Following the familiar simplification of Russell's theory, let us mean by alogical typein the strict sense any one of the following: (i) (...) the totality consisting exclusively of individuals, (ii) the totality consisting exclusively of classes whose members are exclusively individuals, (iii) the totality consisting exclusively of classes whose members are exclusively classes whose members in turn are exclusively individuals, and so on. Any entity from (ii) is said to beone type higherthan any entity from (i), any entity from (iii), one type higher than any entity from (ii), and so on. In systems based upon this simplified theory of types, the only significant atomic formulae involving “ε” are those asserting the membership of an entity in an entity one type higher. Thus any expression of the form “(x∈y)” is meaningless except where “y” denotes an entity of just one type higher than the type of the entity denoted by “x” It is by means of general type restrictions of this kind that the Russell and other paradoxes are avoided. (shrink)

A noted author defends his personal attitudes toward the fundamental issues of classical philosophy, discussing the awesome mystery surrounding science and life and explaining why he considers himself a theist.

Some authors have recently claimed that relativism about knowledge sentences accommodates the context sensitivity of our use of such sentences as well as contextualism, while avoiding the counterintuitive consequences of contextualism regarding our inter-contextual judgments, that is, our judgments about knowledge claims made in other contexts. I argue that relativism, like contextualism, involves an error theory regarding a certain class of inter-contextual judgments.

Some authors have recently claimed that relativism about knowledge sentences accommodates the context sensitivity of our use of such sentences as well as contextualism, while avoiding the counterintuitive consequences of contextualism regarding our inter-contextual judgments, that is, our judgments about knowledge claims made in other contexts. I argue that relativism, like contextualism, involves an error theory regarding a certain class of inter-contextual judgments.