The Mental and the Physical was first published in 1967. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Professor Feigl's essay "The 'Mental' and the 'Physical'" has provoked a great deal of comment, criticism, and discussion since it first appeared as a part of the content of Volume II of the Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science about ten years ago. Now Professor (...) Feigl takes account of the critical discussions and presents his own comments with respect to the most important points raised in the criticisms. The essay itself is presented here in full, along with the postscript. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science has called the essay "a 'super-colossal' survey of the mind-body problem." In its review of the earlier book containing the essay, Thought said: "This essay deserves careful reading by every philosopher concerned with genuine philosophical dialogue.". (shrink)

The conditions for verbal irony comprehension implicitly or directly claimed as necessary by all of the recent philosophic, linguistic and psycholinguistic theories of verbal irony (Clark and Gerrig 1984; Kreuz and Glucksberg 1989; Kumon-Nakamura, Glucksberg and Brown 1995; Sperber and Wilson 1981, 1986) were experimentally tested. Allusion to a violation of expectations, predictions, desires, preferences, social norms, etc., was confirmed as a necessary condition, but pragmatic insincerity was not. Pragmatically sincere comments can be comprehended ironically. A revised set of conditions (...) was proposed, involving intentional violation of Gricean conversational maxims and the portrayal of a contrast between expectations and reality. A cautionary note was made, however, regarding the viability of a single account of verbal irony comprehension. (shrink)

Inclusive fitness theory provides conditions for the evolutionary success of a gene. These conditions ensure that the gene is selfish in the sense of Dawkins (The selfish gene, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1976): genes do not and cannot sacrifice their own fitness on behalf of the reproductive population. Therefore, while natural selection explains the appearance of design in the living world (Dawkins in The blind watchmaker: why the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design, W. W. Norton, New York, (...) 1996), inclusive fitness theory does not explain how. Indeed, Hamilton’s rule is equally compatible with the evolutionary success of prosocial altruistic genes and antisocial predatory genes, whereas only the former, which account for the appearance of design, predominate in successful organisms. Inclusive fitness theory, however, permits a formulation of the central problem of sociobiology in a particularly poignant form: how do interactions among loci induce utterly selfish genes to collaborate, or to predispose their carriers to collaborate, in promoting the fitness of their carriers? Inclusive fitness theory, because it abstracts from synergistic interactions among loci, does not answer this question. Fitness-enhancing collaboration among loci in the genome of a reproductive population requires suppressing alleles that decrease, and promoting alleles that increase the fitness of its carriers. Suppression and promotion are effected by regulatory networks of genes, each of which is itself utterly selfish. This implies that genes, and a fortiori individuals in a social species, do not maximize inclusive fitness but rather interact strategically in complex ways. It is the task of sociobiology to model these complex interactions. (shrink)

Review of N. Immler: Das Familiengedächtnis der Wittgensteins (2011).

“The church is not the Old Israel, even though the Old Israel looked beyond itself; the church is the Israel of God, the ‘remnant chosen by grace.’ ”.

Hans Kelsen’s (1881-1973) teaching in law covers studies in such topics as the general theory of law, legal philosophy, the general teaching of law, constitutional, administrative and international law. He was also the author of the Austrian Constitution, designed in 1920. Among many of his publications is the Comment of the Charter of the United Nations, published in 1950 in New York City. Among numerous Hans Kelsen’s publications, translated into many languages, the best known, which has made the greatest impact, (...) is his book ‘Pure Theory of Law’, first published in 1934, and the second edition appeared in 1960 together with attachment ‘The Justice Problem’. In particular, a comprehensive legal and policy issue in 1929 appears in Kelsen’s work ‚On the Nature and Value of Democracy‘. Pure Theory of Law is a theory of positive law, the science that reads positive law only into normative sense. Kelsen eliminates any non-normative approach. His science of law is based on the legal positivism and leads to the neutrality of government valuables and indifferent provisions of individual. Kelsen disclaims any ‘over-positive law’ (Recht präpositives), as well as from the natural law. Therefore, the Pure Theory of Law fits for totalitarian and authoritarian regimes. (shrink)

The Sator square is a widespread palindrome: It may be read like a grid from left to right and vice versa, from top to bottom and vice versa. For nearly 2,000 years, it has been serving above all for magic purposes, among other things for healing sick persons, furthermore as a magic fire extinguisher. The sequence of letters was a riddle and invited contradictory attempts to solve it. The author pleads for not taking it only as a challenge for the (...) riddle-solving mind, but also for reading it in the bustrophedon way, i.e. bidirectionally, as the ox turns when ploughing. Doing so, a swaying rhythm would result. The cruciform middle as a cosmological cross, however, would symbolise absolute stability, and thus the complex unity would lead to "mountains moving" faith. In research with the random generator working with Strontium 90, the Schmidt-machine, resulted that such a mental state is indeed favourable for psychokinetic effects . So far, magic can be accompanied by science today. But the mystic consciousness expressed by the central TENET remains out of the positivistic science's reach and demands a different kind of religious psychology for its articulation. (shrink)

Clark highlights a neglected issue in research on language use: the process by which speakers and addressees anchor utterances with respect to individual entities in their common ground. In his review, he identifies the challenges linked to investigations of anchoring, but also displays the pitfalls of evading it.

In everyday joint activities, people coordinate with each other by means not only of linguistic signals, but also of material signals – signals in which they indicate things by deploying material objects, locations, or actions around them. Material signals fall into two main classes: directing-to and placing-for. In directing-to, people request addressees to direct their attention to objects, events, or themselves. In placing-for, people place objects, actions, or themselves in special sites for addressees to interpret. Both classes have many subtypes. (...) Features of material signals were examined in pairs of people who were videotaped as they assembled TV stands, built Lego models, planned furnishings for a house, played piano duets, or bought coffee at Starbucks. In these activities, the pointing and placements were often sustained, creating three phases of signals – initiation, maintenance, and termination – each with its own interpretation. (shrink)