Pierre Bourdieu's theory of practice is an unsung classic of contemporary social philosophy. It combines the first analysis by a social theorist of the practical intelligibility governing action with an exciting perspective on how the structure of social phenomena determines and is itself perpetuated by action. Bourdieu, however, misinterprets his own theory of intelligibility as a theory of the causal generation of action. Moreover, he attempts to analyze the underlying structure of intelligibility with a set of fundamental oppositions that at (...) the same time structure the social phenomena found in the worlds through which people live. It is argued that practical intelligibility has no underlying structure, that the fundamental oppositions apply at best to traditional societies alone, and that these oppositions do not even structure intelligibility in such societies but, instead, are only a descriptive scheme with which a social scientist can reconstruct social phenomena in them. The outline of a more adequate account of practical intelligibility is also presented. (shrink)

My dissertation traces the consequences following for social science from an analysis of the nature of its object domain, which I call "socio-historical reality." In particular, I hope thereby to dissolve many misconceptions about the character of social science. ;Influenced by Dilthey, I propose an "individualist" account that analyzes socio-historical reality as nothing but interrelated everyday lives, which themselves consist in series of actions that are governed by practical intelligibility and performed in interconnected settings. This analysis differs from traditional versions (...) of individualist social ontology because in elaborating Heidegger's idea that action is governed by practical intelligibility, and in emphasizing the role of setting in ongoing action, it offers a novel account of the ingredients out of which socio-historical reality consists. These ingredients are: actions, the entities found in settings, a broad range of factors such as rules, paradigms, ideas, goals, and normal practices, which are articulated by entities in settings and determine what it makes sense to people to do, and concrete relations between these phenomena, for example, chains of actions and commonalities in the factors mentioned under . An important consequence of my account is that socio-historical reality does not contain unexperienceable types of entities. ;This analysis of the object domain of social science has implications for the constitution of overarching social formations , the nature of social causality, and the character of social science. I maintain, for example, that all social science should be verstehende, though not necessarily interpretive; that it is unlikely that social science will discover laws governing what happens in socio-historical reality; that much of contemporary social science unknowingly and illegitimately uses fictions in its accounts; and that explanation in social science refers ultimately to individual actions and does not rest on laws or generalizations. (shrink)

§1. Introduction. Natural sets that can be enumerated by a computable function always seem to be either actually computable or of the same complexity as the Halting Problem, the complete r.e. set K. The obvious question, first posed in Post [1944] and since then called Post's Problem is then just whether there are r.e. sets which are neither computable nor complete, i.e., neither recursive nor of the same Turing degree as K?Let be the r.e. degrees, i.e., the r.e. sets modulo (...) the equivalence relation of equicomputable with the partial order induced by Turing computability. This structure is a partial order with least element 0, the degree of the computable sets, and greatest element 1 or 0′, the degree of K. Post's problem then asks if there are any other elements of.The solution of Post's problem by Friedberg [1957] and Muchnik [1956] was followed by various algebraic or order theoretic results that were interpreted as saying that the structure was in some way well behaved:Theorem 1.1. Every countable partial ordering or even uppersemilattice can be embedded into.Theorem 1.2. For every nonrecursive r.e. degreeathere are r.e. degreesb, c < asuch thatb ∨ c = a.Theorem 1.3. For every pair of nonrecursive r.e. degreesa < bthere is an r.e. degreecsuch thata < c < b. (shrink)

I challenge Gareth Eaton’s recent claim that Theodore Richards should be counted among the discoverers of isotopes. In evaluating Eaton’s claim, I draw on two influential theories of scientific discovery, one developed by Thomas Kuhn, and one developed by Augustine Brannigan. I argue that though Richards’ experimental work contributed to the discovery, his work does not warrant attributing the discovery to him. Richards’ reluctance to acknowledge isotopes is well documented. Further, the fact that he made no (...) claim to having made the discovery also undermines Eaton’s argument. (shrink)

For four decades _Sources of Chinese Tradition_ has served to introduce Western readers to Chinese civilization as it has been seen through basic writings and historical documents of the Chinese themselves. Now in its second edition, revised and extended through Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin--era China, this classic volume remains unrivaled for its wide selection of source readings on history, society, and thought in the world's largest nation. Award-winning China scholar Wm. Theodore de Bary -- who edited the first (...) edition in 1960 -- and his coeditor Richard Lufrano have revised and updated the second volume of Sources to reflect the interactions of ideas, institutions, and historical events from the seventeenth century up to the present day. Beginning with Qing civilization and continuing to contemporary times, volume II brings together key source texts from more than three centuries of Chinese history, with opening essays by noted China authorities providing context for readers not familiar with the period in question. Here are just a few of the topics covered in this second volume of _Sources of Chinese Tradition:_ • Early Sino-Western contacts in the seventeenth century; • Four centuries of Chinese reflections on differences between Eastern and Western civilizations; • Nineteenth- and twentieth-century reform movements, with treatises on women's rights, modern science, and literary reform; • Controversies over the place of Confucianism in modern Chinese society; • The nationalist revolution -- including readings from Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek; • The communist revolution -- with central writings by Mao Zedong; • Works from contemporary China -- featuring political essays from Deng Xiaoping and dissidents including Wei Jingsheng. With more than two hundred selections in lucid, readable translation by today's most renowned experts on Chinese language and civilization, _Sources of Chinese Tradition_ will continue to be recognized as the standard for source readings on Chinese civilization, an indispensable learning tool for scholars and students of Asian civilizations. (shrink)

For four decades _Sources of Chinese Tradition_ has served to introduce Western readers to Chinese civilization as it has been seen through basic writings and historical documents of the Chinese themselves. Now in its second edition, revised and extended through Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin-era China, this classic volume remains unrivaled for its wide selection of source readings on history, society, and thought in the world's largest nation. Award-winning China scholar Wm. Theodore de Bary--who edited the first edition in (...) 1960--and his coeditor Richard Lufrano have revised and updated the second volume of Sources to reflect the interactions of ideas, institutions, and historical events from the seventeenth century up to the present day. Beginning with Qing civilization and continuing to contemporary times, volume II brings together key source texts from more than three centuries of Chinese history, with opening essays by noted China authorities providing context for readers not familiar with the period in question. Here are just a few of the topics covered in this second volume of _Sources of Chinese Tradition:_ • Early Sino-Western contacts in the seventeenth century; • Four centuries of Chinese reflections on differences between Eastern and Western civilizations; • Nineteenth- and twentieth-century reform movements, with treatises on women's rights, modern science, and literary reform; • Controversies over the place of Confucianism in modern Chinese society; • The nationalist revolution--including readings from Sun Yat-sen and Chiang Kai-shek; • The communist revolution--with central writings by Mao Zedong; • Works from contemporary China--featuring political essays from Deng Xiaoping and dissidents including Wei Jingsheng. With more than two hundred selections in lucid, readable translation by today's most renowned experts on Chinese language and civilization, _Sources of Chinese Tradition_ will continue to be recognized as the standard for source readings on Chinese civilization, an indispensable learning tool for scholars and students of Asian civilizations. (shrink)

We study the global properties of [Formula: see text], the Turing degrees of the n-r.e. sets. In Theorem 1.5, we show that the first order of [Formula: see text] is not decidable. In Theorem 1.6, we show that for any two n and m with n < m, [Formula: see text] is not a Σ1-substructure of [Formula: see text].

Sacks [23] asks if the metarecursively enumerable degrees are elementarily equivalent to the r.e. degrees. In unpublished work, Slaman and Shore proved that they are not. This paper provides a simpler proof of that result and characterizes the degree of the theory as [Formula: see text] or, equivalently, that of the truth set of [Formula: see text].

Some contemporary Russellians, defenders of the view that the semantic content of a proper name, demonstrative or indexical is simply its referent, are prepared to accept that view’s most infamous apparent consequence: that coreferential names, demonstratives, indexicals, etc. are intersubstitutable salva veritate, even in intentional contexts. Nathan Salmon and Scott Soames argue that our recalcitrant intuitions with respect to the famous apparent counterexamples are not semantic intuitions, but rather pragmatic intuitions. Strictly and literally speaking, Lois Lane believes, and even knows (...) that Clark Kent is identical to Superman, since she believes and knows that Superman is identical to Superman. Salmon and Soames attempt to soften our reaction to this shocker by allowing that it is typically misleading to utter the sentence ‘Lois Lane knows that Clark Kent is identical to Superman’, since it pragmatically implicates, without semantically entailing, that Lois Lane would accept the sentence ‘Clark Kent is identical to Superman’. Our compulsive tendency to claim that ‘Lois Lane knows that Clark Kent is Superman’ is false, rather than merely misleading, is due to a confusion between semantics and pragmatics, between truth conditions and conditions of appropriateness of utterance.1 It is probably fair to say that the common reaction to this move in defense of Russellianism is negative. Mark Richard says the following. (shrink)

Zu den großen Denkern der Subjektivität im 19. Jahrhundert gehören ohne Zweifel Friedrich Schleiermacher und Søren Kierkegaard. Beiden ist gemeinsam, dass sie sich sowohl philosophisch als auch theologisch mit der Frage der Subjektivität beschäftigten. Kierkegaard hat sich eingehend mit Schleiermachers Werk auseinandergesetzt. Das gewachsene Interesse an der Subjektivität des Menschen führte 2003 zum Schleiermacher-Kierkegaard-Kongress der Schleiermacher-Gesellschaft in enger Zusammenarbeit mit dem Søren-Kierkegaard-Forschungszentrum in Kopenhagen. Die dort gebotenen vielseitig orientierten Beiträge sind in diesem Kongressband dokumentiert. Der Titel erscheint als Band 11 (...) der "Kierkegaard Studies. Monograph Series" und als Band 21 des "Schleiermacher-Archivs". (shrink)

The kinds of real or natural kinds that support explanation and prediction in the social sciences are difficult to identify and track because they change through time, intersect with one another, and they do not always exhibit their properties when one encounters them. As a result, conceptual practices directed at these kinds will often refer in ways that are partial, equivocal, or redundant. To improve this epistemic situation, it is important to employ open-ended classificatory concepts, to understand when different research (...) programs are tracking the same real kind, and to maintain an ongoing commitment to interact causally with real kinds to focus reference on those kinds. A tempting view of these non-idealized epistemic conditions should be avoided: that they signal an ontological structure of the social world so plentiful that it would permit ameliorated classificatory schemes to achieve their normative aims regardless of whether they defer to real-kind classificatory schemes. To ground these discussions, the essay appeals to an overlooked convergence in the systematic naturalistic frameworks of Richard Boyd and Ruth Millikan. (shrink)