Things and Their Place in Theories Our talk of external things, our very notion of things, is just a conceptual apparatus that helps us to foresee and ...

This publication presents manuscript of the famous Russian-Lithuanian philosopher Vasily Seseman accompanied by a preface. The manuscript "Sport and Contemporary Culture" is the text of Seseman's manuscript collection, which is located in Vilnius University. Manuscript is a preparatory text for the article "Time, Culture and Body". In "Time, Culture and Body" Sesemann develops his ideas concerning the objectifying attitude, which leads to human's alienation towards body and time. Sesemann claims that the time is perceived as a meaningful entirety (...) only when the time is contemplated from the point of view of work. Work is a purpose-attaining activity where subjective creativity is oriented towards an objective result in future. Working in pursuit of one's goals helps to avoid facing the emptiness of time, but at the same time it alienates the present. Work helps the subject to overcome his individual limitations and to become a part of the objective culture. By hiding behind the results of an objective activity people avoid direct contact with the time because it may appear as an interruption of meaningful relations and as a boredom. The tendency to objectify time is accompanied by the process of objectification of body. Previously, a primitive person could trust his body more than tools. In the modern culture body is gradually downgraded because tools, machinery and even separate institutions take over its functions. In this way the centre of culture is moved to the world of objects which is beyond a subject's control and body plays a merely auxiliary part. A person can overcome his alienation towards time and body only by being wakeful - here and now, by self-knowledge and self-control. Sesemann describes the self-control as the practical ability and mood, which he called "presence of mind". In this state of mind person is able to fing oneself, concentrate and mobilise all his strength to his utmost, maintain inner composure, calmness and balance of spirit. (shrink)

The manuscript “Self-knowledge, self-consciousness and objectification” is the text of Sesemann’s manuscript collection, Vilnius University (F122-102). The manuscript in the notebook dates from the third quarter of 1954 (Krasnokamsk). The notes were made in ink, some in pencil. The text was written during Sesemann's stay in a labor camp in Taishet (Irkutsk region) in 1950-1955. Due to the limited volume of publications in the journal, only part of Sesemann's text is given.

Does it make sense to refer to the social and political existence of the Baltic countries as to being between civilizations of East and West, or as being on the boundary of two worlds? What are the most characteristic features of modern moral imagination? How does it manifest itself in the politics and cultures of the Baltic countries? These will be the main foci of the book series intended and launched as a critical examination of identity, politics, and culture in (...) the Baltic countries. We are not going to confine this series to Soviet and post-Communist studies. By offering a wide scope of the social science and humanities disciplines, we would like to encourage intercultural dialogue and also to pursue interdisciplinary research in the field of Baltic studies. --Book Jacket. (shrink)

The article deals with the main tendencies in the studies of Russian neo-Kantianism in Poland. Although the number and quality of research in the history of Russian neo-Kantianism still cannot be equated with those of the history of German neo-Kantianism, the situation of these studies is constantly changing for the better. The authors mark the undeniable progress in the studies of Russian neo-Kantianism in Poland in the recent years: there are monographs, articles, collections, research projects on particular thinkers or themes (...) related to the history of Russian neo-Kantianism. The authors consider A. Noras’s idea of the development of neo-Kantianism into post-neo-Kantianism rather heuristic. One of the main features of this development is the ontologization of the cognitive process. This “ontological turn”, typical of Russian neo-Kantianism, in particular as represented by S. Hessen, V. Sesemann, B. Jakovenko, is, on the one hand, the hallmark of the entire Russian philosophy and, on the other, it brings together the philosophical efforts of Russian neo-Kantians and the conception of the author of the “new ontology” – N. Hartmann. (shrink)

Selected Logic Papers, long out of print and now reissued with eight additional essays, includes much of the author's important work on mathematical logic and ...

Explores the nature and types of mystical experience and discusses the value of mysticism for humanity.

A complete translation of Aristotle's classic that is both faithful and readable, along with an introduction that provides the modern reader with a means of understanding this seminal work and its impact on our culture. In this volume, Joe Sachs (translator of Aristotle's _Physics, Metaphysics,_ and the _Nicomachean Ethics _)also supplements his excellent translation with well-chosen notes and glossary of important terms. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a (...) glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Aristotle’s immediate audience. (shrink)

In the Transcendental Aesthetic (TA), Kant is typically held to make negative assertations about “things in themselves,” namely that they are not spatial or temporal. These negative assertions stand behind the “neglected alternative” problem for Kant’s transcendental idealism. According to this problem, Kant may be entitled to assert that spatio-temporality is a subjective element of our cognition, but he cannot rule out that it may also be a feature of the objective world. In this paper, I show in a new (...) way how Kant’s view (focusing on his conclusions about space) is not subject to this objection, by showing that he does not make the denial about mind-independent reality that he is typically held to make. The argument develops consequences of a new reading of Kant’s expression “an sich selbst” (‘in itself’; ‘in themselves’). I argue that “an sich selbst” or “per se” has a special, judgment-level role, so that this expression does not form new noun-terms adjectivally. It follows that the conceptual unit of Kant’s “Conclusions” in the TA is simply “things” (Dinge), since “things in themselves” is not a nominal expression; Kant adopts the Wolffian ontological use of “thing” as the basic kind-term for any existent. The arguments that things per se are not in space are arguments that space cannot be a necessary property or relations of things as a kind. I show that this does not involve the positive claim about mind-independent reality that inspires the neglected alternative objection. (shrink)

Some cognitive processes appear to have “phenomenal” properties that are directly revealed to the subject and not determined by physical properties. I suggest that the source of this appearance is the method by which our brain processes sensory information. The appearance is an illusion. Nonetheless, we are not mistaken when we judge that people sometimes fee lpain.

Noch während des Zweiten Weltkriegs in den Vereinigten Staaten entstanden, 1947 als Buch erschienen, mit der Neuausgabe von 1969 endgültig zum einflussreichsten Werk der ”Frankfurter Schule“ geworden: eine Sonderausgabe zum hundertsten Geburtstag Theodor W. Adornos am 11. September 2003.

In this essay I suggest that we view design principles in systems biology as minimal models, for a design principle usually exhibits universal behaviors that are common to a whole range of heterogeneous (living and nonliving) systems with different underlying mechanisms. A well-known design principle in systems biology, integral feedback control, is discussed, showing that it satisfies all the conditions for a model to be a minimal model. This approach has significant philosophical implications: it not only accounts for how design (...) principles explain, but also helps clarify one dispute over design principles, e.g., whether design principles provide mechanistic explanations or a distinct kind of explanations called design explanations. (shrink)

"First published by Oxford University Press, 1916."--Title page verso.

Thomas Kuhn's shadow hangs over almost every field of intellectual inquiry. His book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has become a modern classic. His influence on philosophy, social science, historiography, feminism, theology, and (of course) the natural sciences themselves is unparalleled. His epoch-making concepts of 'new paradigm' and 'scientific revolution' make him probably the most influential scholar of the twentieth century. Sharrock and Read take the reader through Kuhn's work in a careful and accessible way, emphasizing Kuhn's detailed studies of (...) the history of science, which often assist the understanding of his more abstract philosophical work. These historical studies provide vital insight into what Kuhn was actually trying to achieve in his The Structure of Scientific Revolutions: an endeavour far less extreme than either his 'foes' or his 'fans' claim. In the book's second half, Sharrock and Read provide excellent explications, defences and, where appropriate, criticisms of Kuhn's central concept of 'incommensurability', and tackle head on the crucial issue of whether Kuhn's insights concerning the natural sciences can be extrapolated to other disciplines, such as the social sciences. This is the first comprehensive introduction to the work of Kuhn and it will be of particular interest to students and scholars in philosophy, theory of science, management science and anthropology. (shrink)

Nudging works through dispositions to decide with specific heuristics, and has three component parts. A nudge is a feature of an environment that enables such a disposition; a person is nudged when such a disposition is triggered; and a person performs a nudged action when such a disposition manifests in action. This analysis clarifies an autonomy-based worry about nudging as used in public policy or for private profit: that a person’s ability to reason well is undermined when she is nudged. (...) Reasoning well is a component of self-guidance, which is an aspect of autonomy and so something there is reason to promote, preserve, or respect. However, a person can reason well when she is nudged: Many of these heuristics are good rules to reason with, and she can be flexible with respect to them when she takes there to be a better way to reason. Along the way, this paper uncovers several design specifications for responsible nudging, and discusses open empirical questions. However, nudging’s being compatible with reasoning well crystallizes a distinct worry about manipulation: that nudge designers can rely on nudged people guiding themselves toward the designers’ own ends. Manipulation of this sort exploits one aspect of autonomy (namely, self-guidance) to undermine autonomy in other respects. (shrink)

by W. S. F. Pickering Durkheim's sociological approach to morals and moral systems has always aroused considerable interest, be it by way of criticism or ...

In 2014 the Essex Autonomy Project undertook a six month project, funded by the AHRC, to provide technical advice to the UK Ministry of Justice on the question of whether the Mental Capacity Act is compliant with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Over the course of the project, the EAP research team organised a series of public policy roundtables, hosted by the Ministry of Justice, and which brought together leading experts to discuss and debate (...) the issues. A one-day public conference was held at the Institute for Government in July. In September 2014, the EAP research team submitted its findings to the Ministry of Justice. (shrink)

_Selections_ seeks to provide an accurate and readable translation that will allow the reader to follow Aristotle's use of crucial technical terms and to grasp the details of his argument. Unlike anthologies that combine translations by many hands, this volume includes a fully integrated set of translations by a two-person team. The glossary--the most detailed in any edition--explains Aristotle's vocabulary and indicates the correspondences between Greek and English words. Brief notes supply alternative translations and elucidate difficult passages.

The companion piece to this article, “Situating Moral Justification,” challenges the idea that moral epistemology's mission is to establish a single, all‐purpose reasoning strategy for moral justification because no reasoning practice can be expected to deliver authoritative moral conclusions in all social contexts. The present article argues that rethinking the mission of moral epistemology requires rethinking its method as well. Philosophers cannot learn which reasoning practices are suitable to use in particular contexts exclusively by exploring logical relations among concepts. Instead, (...) in order to understand which reasoning practices are capable of justifying moral claims in different types of contexts, we need to study empirically the relationships between reasoning practices and the contexts in which they are used. The article proposes that philosophers investigate case studies of real‐world moral disputes in which people lack shared cultural assumptions and/or are unequal in social power. It motivates and explains the proposed case study method and illustrates the philosophical value of this method through a case study. (shrink)

This volume contains the editions of polemical texts by Erasmus against Martin Luther and Pierre Cousturier, of his defence against attacks on his oration on matrimony (and celibacy), and of his immensely popular ‘pocket’ edition of the _Disticha Catonis_.

Life, work, and influences -- Life -- Work -- Influences -- Metaphysics -- The intelligible world -- The existence of the intelligible world -- The intelligible and the divine world -- The intelligible and the natural world -- Knowledge -- Mind and body -- The souls of animals -- Knowledge : thought and souls -- Knowledge : God -- Mediate knowledge : external world -- Discussion and assessment of Norris's theory -- Was Norris an idealist? -- Faith and reason -- (...) The Socinian controversy -- Faith -- Reason -- Above reason and contrary to reason -- The measure of truth -- Faith and reason -- Malebranche -- Descartes -- Locke -- Love -- The theory of love -- The regulation of love -- The measure of divine love -- Controversy with Locke -- Norris's criticisms of Locke -- Locke's responses -- Concluding comments. (shrink)