Let G be a finite group. We explore the model-theoretic properties of the class of differential fields of characteristic zero in m commuting derivations equipped with a G-action by differential fie...

La obra del economista chileno Manfred Max-Neef contiene múltiples referencias a filósofos como Aristóteles, Giordano Bruno, Schelling, entre otros, y corrientes filosóficas como el humanismo, el anarquismo y la Ecología Profunda, que encuadran y contextualizan su pensamiento en una actitud crítica y heterodoxa con respecto a la economía. Max-Neef recorre la historia del pensamiento occidental para profundizar y comprender por qué hemos llegado a la actual situación de crisis socioambiental y, a su vez, soñar por un futuro que aún no (...) está escrito. Los fundamentos filosóficos de este economista abarcan desde el plano ontológico, el epistemológico, el estético y el ético. No como planos separados, sino interrelacionados e interconectados. (shrink)

In analyzing the socio-psychic nature and operations of intuitive legal rules, Petrazycki formulates a theory of law around five conceptual themes: anti-formalism, imperative-attributive legal relationships, law's functional control, law's subjective reality and morality. Petrazycki presents the two ways by which law coordinates and regulates social conduct as through its distributive and organizing functions. "Law and Morality" has a basic objective: to analyze interrelations between positive and intuitive law. Petrazycki's socio-psychic orientation toward law is behavioral as well as thoughtful. He finds (...) the most suitable methods for obtaining knowledge about legal experiences to be internal and external observation. His technique of introspection is similar to Max Weber's conceptual method." "Petrazycki distinguishes between two kinds of interpretive understanding. External observation involves deriving the meaning of an act or symbolic expression from immediate observation without reference to any broader context, and internal observation involves placing the particular act in a broader context of meaning involving facts that cannot be derived from a particular act or expression. Petrazycki's socio-legal ideas remain relevant in today's society. His arguments concerning the global expansion of human love have an attraction for those working towards a better world. In the context of positive psychology and the growing happiness industry, Petrazycki's ideas will compel legal scholars to consider his arguments. Petrazycki's work stands out for the scientific ambitions and systematic nature of his thought as well as the influence of his work on later scholars in the sociology of law. (shrink)

Une invitation, reçue au début de l’automne 2011, à intervenir dans la séance du 7 mars 2012 d’un séminaire tenu à l’EHESS sur l’islamophobie, a été l’occasion de traiter de « l’affaire Gouguenheim » plus de trois ans après son irruption dans la sphère médiatique. Cette nouvelle lecture d’Aristote au Mont Saint-Michel a permis de mettre en évidence l’importance que Sylvain Gouguenheim attribue à un texte du haut Moyen Age pour suivre la diffusion de l’hellénisme dans l’Europe latine. Il s’agit (...) d’une lettre adressée par le pape Paul 1er à Pépin le Bref. Ce document, le plus souvent négligé par les latinistes en raison de ses obscurités, a excité la sagacité des hellénistes, qui ont très majoritairement montré la difficulté d’en tirer des informations positives. La situation est singulière, si l’on se souvient que, pour l’essentiel, ce sont des latinistes et des arabisants qui ont mené la charge contre les impostures gouguenheimiennes. À la faveur de ce cas d’espèce, « l’affaire Gouguenheim » jette une lumière crue sur la place dérisoire que, pour des raisons historiques, l’enseignement supérieur accorde en France à la philosophie médiévale. Le scandale repose, certes, sur les manipulations d’un agrégé d’histoire ; mais il dévoile aussi l’une des lacunes de l’institution universitaire hexagonale dans l’enseignement de la philosophie médiévale. (shrink)

Une invitation, reçue au début de l’automne 2011, à intervenir dans la séance du 7 mars 2012 d’un séminaire tenu à l’EHESS sur l’islamophobie, a été l’occasion de traiter de « l’affaire Gouguenheim » plus de trois ans après son irruption dans la sphère médiatique. Cette nouvelle lecture d’Aristote au Mont Saint-Michel a permis de mettre en évidence l’importance que Sylvain Gouguenheim attribue à un texte du haut Moyen Age pour suivre la diffusion de l’hellénisme dans l’Europe latine. Il s’agit (...) d’une lettre adressée par le pape Paul 1er à Pépin le Bref. Ce document, le plus souvent négligé par les latinistes en raison de ses obscurités, a excité la sagacité des hellénistes, qui ont très majoritairement montré la difficulté d’en tirer des informations positives. La situation est singulière, si l’on se souvient que, pour l’essentiel, ce sont des latinistes et des arabisants qui ont mené la charge contre les impostures gouguenheimiennes. À la faveur de ce cas d’espèce, « l’affaire Gouguenheim » jette une lumière crue sur la place dérisoire que, pour des raisons historiques, l’enseignement supérieur accorde en France à la philosophie médiévale. Le scandale repose, certes, sur les manipulations d’un agrégé d’histoire ; mais il dévoile aussi l’une des lacunes de l’institution universitaire hexagonale dans l’enseignement de la philosophie médiévale. (shrink)

The book is a critical analysis of the work of Max Weber, Emile Durkheim and Karl Marx. It focuses on their separate analyses of the role of law in society, pointing out their faults and errors, and the resultant impact on modern social science. The author takes issue with Weber's work on rationality, with Durkheim's work on repressive and restitutive law, and with Marx's work on social justice and law as part of the super-structure. In each section of the book (...) he shows the implications that flow from a re-assessment and re-interpretation of their work for an understanding of society. The book is multi-disciplinary, making ample reference to law, sociology, anthropology, history, religion, ecology, criminology, philosophy and economics. Its various chapters discuss a wide range of themes, including rationality, tradition, science, political authority, conflict resolution, community, justice and altruism. (shrink)

This paper makes the case for the relevance of C. G. Hempel’s 1942 proposal of the usage of «covering laws» in History. To do so, it argues that such a proposal reflects how 18 and 19th centuries «philosophy of History» became methods or epistemology of History. This carried a change in meaning of «History»: no longer a succession of past events but the study of documented human action (including of scientific kind in general), its distinction vis-à-vis philosophy, sociology etc., becomes (...) a minor matter as far as logic of research is concerned. Also present in this paper is the conception of theory as a conceptual mode of narrative, and the defense of a development of theories alongside their practice, not apart from them. Authors considered besides Hempel range from Max Weber to Sigmund Freud, from Arthur C. Danto to Albert O. Hirschmann. (shrink)

Este artigo discute algumas variantes de relevo na língua alemã na crítica à modernidade. Em rigor, discute-as na sua pertinência actual, tal como se deixa ver em dois trabalhos recentes de autores portugueses, Rafael Gomes Filipe e Alexandre Franco de Sá. O nó-górdio da questão encontra-se na caracterização da modernidade através da elaboração de uma filosofia da His­tória, problema que sobressai na análise de Nietzsche e Weber por Gomes Filipe e no ensaio schmittiano de Franco de Sá.

En el presente artículo nos propondremos realizar una lectura detallada de la operación a partir de la cual León Rozitchner analiza críticamente el trabajo de Max Scheler y, en ese mismo acto, sienta las bases de lo que posteriormente se constituirá como el núcleo central de su filosofía. En la primera parte, analizaremos las razones por las que Rozitchner se dedica al estudio de la fenomenología de Scheler y la operación de lectura que pone en práctica. En los siguientes dos (...) apartados nos detendremos en dos nociones fundamentales que Rozitchner critica e invierte: el _corpus christi_ como totalidad espiritual y la concepción de persona. Terminado el análisis sobre su lectura de Scheler, nos detendremos en la categoría de absoluto-relativo, entendiéndola como la consecuencia más acabada de los desarrollos de su tesis doctoral. A modo de conclusión, señalaremos brevemente la relevancia de la categoría de absoluto-relativo para la comprensión de la obra de Rozitchner. (shrink)

In this paper we consider the prehistory of quantum gravity (1916–1930) from two perspectives. First, we investigate how this research field constituted itself and we propose for the first time a red thread to trace its evolution in this earliest period. Second, we focus on a case study: the earliest work of Léon Rosenfeld. In 1927 he tried to merge wave mechanics with general relativity in the context of a five‐dimensional universe. We describe how Oskar Klein, Louis de Broglie, and (...) Théophile De Donder influenced Rosenfeld's work and analyze how and why Rosenfeld attempted to reconcile Einstein's theory with quantum phenomena. We argue that Rosenfeld investigated for the first time the corrections to a classical space‐time metric generated by a quantum source. As far as we know, Rosenfeld's approach has been largely ignored until today: he himself considered it “an accident.” After having reconsidered its connection with de Broglie's ideas and Rosenfeld's interpretation of the wave function in 1927, we argue that Rosenfeld's work can be interpreted as a first attempt to introduce the pilot‐wave theory in the context of quantum gravity and we infer that this was one of the reasons that ruled it out. (shrink)

Raymond Aron was a student of Léon Brunschvicg, a representative of French historical epistemology. This article explores Aron’s relation to this tradition through three claims. First of all, it contests that Raymond Aron’s philosophy of history constituted a complete break with this tradition. Secondly, resituating Aron in this tradition is valuable, because it highlights how Aron’s own philosophy of history is to be understood as a normative project, seen as an alternative to that of Brunschvicg. Finally, Aron’s philosophy can still (...) hold valuable lessons for present-day historical epistemology and history and philosophy of science in general. (shrink)

To write of “the” philosophy of transhumanism is a little daring. The growth of transhumanism as a movement and philosophy means that differing perspectives on it have formed.

In the past, it was possible to approach transhumanism as primarily involving philosophical discussion and technological speculation. While transhumanist goals such as radical life extension, uploading, and cognitive, sensory, and physical enhancement were speculative they were also considered scientifically feasible, even if the technologies to achieve those goals appeared remote.

Stefan Sorgner (2009) says that on becoming familiar with transhumanism, he “immediately thought that there were many fundamental similarities between transhumanism and Nietzsche’s philosophy, especially concerning the concept of the posthuman and that of Nietzsche’s overhuman.” In contrast to Bostrom (2005), Sorgner sees significant and fundamental similarities between the posthuman and the overhuman. (I will adopt his use of “overhuman” in place of “overman” or Übermensch.) This overall view seems to me highly plausible. I agree with most of Sorgner’s comments (...) in this respect. My intent is to give further support to the conceptual parallels. In addition, I argue that these are not merely parallels: transhumanist ideas were directly influenced by Nietzsche. (shrink)

What does woman mean? According to two competing views, it can be seen as a sex term or as a gender term. Recently, Jennifer Saul has put forward a contextualist view, according to which woman can have different meanings in different contexts. The main motivation for this view seems to involve moral and political considerations, namely, that this view can do justice to the claims of trans women. Unfortunately, Saul argues, on further reflection the contextualist view fails to do justice (...) to those moral and political claims that motivated the view in the first place. In this article I argue that there is a version of the contextualist view that can indeed capture those moral and political aims, and in addition, I use this case to illustrate an important and more general claim, namely, that moral and political considerations can be relevant to the descriptive project of finding out what certain politically significant terms actually mean. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the question of what it means to say that a property is socially constructed. I focus on an influential project that many social constructivists are engaged in, namely, arguing against the inevitability of a trait, and I examine several recent characterizations of social construction, with the aim of assessing which one is more suited to the task.

Dear Mother Nature: Sorry to disturb you, but we humans – your offspring – come to you with some things to say. (Perhaps you could pass this on to Father, since we never seem to see him around.).

What, in essence, characterizes the mind? According to Searle, the potential to be conscious provides the only definitive criterion. Thus, conscious states are unquestionably "mental"; "shallow unconscious" states are also "mental" by virtue of their capacity to be conscious (at least in principle); but there are no "deep unconscious mental states" - i.e. those rules and procedures without access to consciousness, inferred by cognitive science to characterize the operations of the unconscious mind are not mental at all. Indeed, according to (...) Searle, they have no ontological status - they are simply ways of describing some interesting facets of purely physiological phenomena. (shrink)

Of all the problems facing science none are more challenging yet fascinating than those posed by consciousness. In The Science of Consciousness leading researchers examine how consciousness is being investigated in the key areas of cognitive psychology, neuropsychology and clinical psychology. Within cognitive psychology, special focus is given to the function of consciousness, and to the relation of conscious processing to nonconscious processing in perception, learning, memory and information dissemination. Neuropsychology includes examination of the neural conditions for consciousness and the (...) effects of brain damage. Finally, mind/body interactions in clinical and experimental settings are considered, including the somatic effects of imagery, biofeedback and placebo effects. Every chapter is written by an expert in the field. They each provide a clear overview of existing research along with an exciting new synthesis of consciousness studies. The The Science of Consciousness will be invaluable for students, researchers and clinicians interested in the developments and directions of this rapidly growing field. (shrink)

A posteriori physicalism is the combination of two appealing views: physicalism (i.e. the view that all facts are either physical or entailed by the physical), and conceptual dualism (i.e. the view that phenomenal truths are not entailed a priori by physical truths). Recently, some philosophers such as Goff (2011), Levine (2007) and Nida-Rümelin (2007), among others, have suggested that a posteriori physicalism cannot explain how phenomenal concepts can reveal the nature of phenomenal properties. In this paper, I wish to defend (...) a posteriori physicalism from this new and interesting challenge, by arguing that a posteriori physicalists have the resources to explain how phenomenal concepts can reveal at least something of what it would take for the corresponding phenomenal property to be instantiated. (shrink)

Max Scheler: Die Stellung des Menschen im Kosmos Edition Holzinger. Taschenbuch Berliner Ausgabe, 2016 Vollständiger, durchgesehener Neusatz bearbeitet und eingerichtet von Michael Holzinger Erstdruck: 1928. Herausgeber der Reihe: Michael Holzinger Reihengestaltung: Viktor Harvion Gesetzt aus der Minion Pro, 11 pt.

The inference from conceivability to possibility has been challenged in numerous ways. One of these ways is the so-called phenomenal concept strategy, which has become one of the main strategies against the conceivability argument against physicalism. However, David Chalmers has recently presented a dilemma for the phenomenal concept strategy, and he has argued that no version of the strategy can succeed. In this paper, I examine the dilemma, and I argue that there is a way out of it. I conclude (...) that Chalmers has not posed any serious problem for the phenomenal concept strategy to succeed in blocking the conceivability argument. In doing so, my aim is not only to show that Chalmers’s argument has not refuted the phenomenal concept strategy, but also to clarify what any version of the strategy should achieve in order to be successful. (shrink)

Abstract. This introductory chapter was written in 1996, for a new book of review articles on the emerging science of consciousness, specifically aimed at undergraduate and postgraduate students by experts in the relevant fields. Following on a brief history, the chapter moves on to definitions of consciousness and background philosophical issues, and then introduces a unified, non-reductionist scientific approach. It then summarises major issues for studies of consciousness in cognitive psychology, including studies of attention, memory, the extent of preconscious analysis (...) and the relation of consciousness more generally to human information processing. It then turns to the neuropsychology of consciousness, starting with some apparent neural requirements for the transition from preconscious to conscious states, various clinical dissociations of consciousness, conditions for integration (or binding) and, finally, clinical applications, including different forms of mind/body interaction and evidence for the causal efficacy of mental states. The chapter concludes that while some of the ancient problems of consciousness remain unsolved, its study has become the subject of a rapidly developing science. (shrink)

One of the main strategies against conceivability arguments is the so-called phenomenal concept strategy, which aims to explain the epistemic gap between physical and phenomenal truths in terms of the special features of phenomenal concepts. Daniel Stoljar has recently argued that the phenomenal concept strategy has failed to provide a successful explanation of this epistemic gap. In this paper my aim is to defend the phenomenal concept strategy from his criticisms. I argue that Stoljar has misrepresented the resources of the (...) strategy, which can indeed accomplish the required explanatory task, once it is properly understood. (shrink)

In this paper I examine Chalmers and Jackson’s defence of the a priori entailment thesis, that is, the claim that microphysical truths a priori entail ordinary non-phenomenal truths such as ‘water covers 60% of the Earth surface’, which they use as a premise for an argument against the possibility of a reductive explanation of consciousness. Their argument relies on a certain view about the possession conditions of macroscopic concepts such as WATER, known as ascriptivism. In the paper I distinguish two (...) versions of ascriptivism: reductive versus non-reductive ascriptivism. According to reductive ascriptivism, competent users of a concept have the ability to infer truths involving such concept from lower-level truths, whereas according to non-reductive ascriptivism, all that is required in order to be a competent user of a concept is to be able to infer truths involving that concept from other truths, which need not be lower-level truths. I argue, first, that the a priori entailment thesis is committed to reductive ascriptivism, and secondly, that reductive ascriptivism is problematic because it trivializes the notion of a priori knowledge. Therefore, I conclude that Chalmers and Jackson have not presented a convincing case for the claim that microphysical truths entail ordinary non-phenomenal truths a priori, especially when we understand this claim in the sense that is relevant for their argument against the possibility of a reductive explanation of consciousness. (shrink)

The hard problem of consciousness is about how we could explain in physicalist terms why we are conscious. The meta-problem of consciousness is about how we could explain why we have a hard problem of consciousness. In this note I argue that the phenomenal concept strategy can in principle provide a satisfactory solution to the meta-problem.

It’s constitutive of classical theism that there is a necessarily existent personal god who is also the creator of the universe, where the latter claim includes at least the following three theses: (i) God is wholly distinct from the natural world; (ii) God is the originating or sustaining cause of the natural world; and (iii) God created the natural world ex nihilo, i.e., without the use of pre-existing materials. Call this tripartite component of classical theism the classical view of creation. (...) In this paper, I offer a new argument against classical theism. In particular, I argue that creation ex nihilo is prima facie impossible, and that since the doctrine of creation ex nihilo is constitutive of classical theism, classical theism is false. (shrink)

What does it mean to say that some features, such as gender, race and sexual orientation, are socially constructed? Many scholars claim that social constructionism about a kind is a version of realism about that kind, according to which the corresponding kind is a social construction, that it, it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructionism, then, is a version of realism about a kind that asserts that the kind is real, and puts forward a particular view about (...) the nature of the kind, namely, that it is constituted by social factors and practices. Social constructivists about human kinds such as gender, race and sexual orientation often make an additional claim, namely, that these kinds are social constructions but they are typically believed to be biological kinds (that is, people are typically wrong about the nature of these kinds). Ron Mallon (2017) calls social constructions that are (falsely) taken to be biological kinds covert social constructions. This paper is about how we could have terms in our natural language that come to refer to covert social constructions. (shrink)

In his book The future of human nature, Jürgen Habermas argues against a scenario of liberal eugenics, in which parents are free to prenatally manipulate their children’s genetic constitution via germline interventions. In this paper, I draw attention to the fact that his species‐ethical line of argument is pervaded by a substantial ambiguity between an argument from actual intervention (AAI) and an argument from mere controllability (AMC). Whereas the first argument focuses on threats for the autonomy and equality of prenatally (...) modified persons, the second argument takes all human beings, whether they have been modified or not, into account. Hence, when invoking Habermas in these debates, bioethicists need to consider carefully which argument they are referring to. (shrink)

Two seminal articles by a founder of the Gestalt school of psychology, newly translated and accompanied by essays that connect his work to current research.

In this chapter the author argues that the desire to improve on the human body and eventually to replace it with post‐biological alternatives does not imply that we loathe the flesh in which we are currently embodied. The appeal of post‐biology lies in the opportunities for expanding not only our cognition and sensory richness and for sculpting and refining our emotions but also for deeper self‐understanding. The chapter points out that post‐biological beings are not truly disembodied. All thinking beings rely (...) ultimately on physical processes, even if those processes are distributed across numerous computational devices. Whatever senses are built into the bodies we choose to inhabit, we will also be able to expand our perceptual range enormously by connecting to external sensors. If we can accomplish the transition to post‐biological being, the result will not be mechanization and restriction; it will be greater richness of being and existential freedom. (shrink)

Classical ways of viewing the relation of consciousness to the brain and physical world make it difficult to see how consciousness can be a subject of scientific study. In contrast to physical events, it seems to be private, subjective, and viewable only from a subject's first-person perspective. But much of psychology does investigate human experience, which suggests that classical ways of viewing these relations must be wrong. An alternative, Reflexive model is outlined along with it's consequences for methodology. Within this (...) model the external phenomenal world is viewed as part-of consciousness, rather than apart-from it. Observed events are only "public" in the sense of "private experience shared." Scientific observations are only "objective" in the sense of "intersubjective." Observed phenomena are only "repeatable" in the sense that they are sufficiently similar to be taken for "tokens" of the same event "type." This closes the gap between physical and psychological phenomena. Indeed, events out-there in the world can often be regarded as either physical or psychological depending on the network of relationships under consideration. (shrink)

Excerpt from La Théorie Platonicienne des Idées Et des Nombres d'Après Aristote: Étude Historique Et Critique La théorie phtonioionno de l'amour. Vol. Ia-8 de la Collection historique des grands philosophes 3 fr. 75. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the (...) aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)