Der hier erstmals ver]ffentlichte Briefwechsel zwischen dem Psychiater C.G. Jung und dem Nobelpreistr{ger der Physik Wolfgang Pauli ist ein geistesgeschichtliches Dokument ersten Ranges. Ein privates Schicksal hat sie zusammengef}hrt, und daraus ist ein vorwissenschaftlicher Dialog erwachsen, in dem versucht wird, naturwissenschaftliches und psychologischesDenken zu vereinheitlichen. Die Briefe verdeutlichen, da~ es weder f}r den Psychologen zul{ssig ist, die methodischen Einsichten der Physik, noch f}r den Physiker, die Erfahrungen im Umgang mit dem Psychischenzu vernachl{ssigen.

This collection includes twenty original philosophical essays in honour of Wolfgang Spohn. The contributions mirror the scope of Wolfgang Spohn’s work. They address topics from epistemology (e.g., the theory of ranking functions, belief revision, and the nature of knowledge and belief), philosophy of science (e.g., causation, induction, and laws of nature), the philosophy of language (e.g., the theory of meaning and the semantics of counterfactuals), and the philosophy of mind (e.g., intentionality and free will), as well as problems (...) of ontology, logic, the theory of practical rationality, and meta-philosophy. ― Contributors: Ansgar Beckermann, Wolfgang Benkewitz, Bernd Buldt, Ralf Busse, Christoph Fehige, Wolfgang Freitag, Gordian Haas, Volker Halbach, Franz Huber, Andreas Kemmerling, Manfred Kupffer, Hannes Leitgeb, Godehard Link, Arthur Merin, Thomas Müller, Julian Nida-Rümelin, Martine Nida-Rümelin, Hans Rott, Holger Sturm, Thomas Ede Zimmermann, Alexandra Zinke. (shrink)

1992 haben die Verfasser eine Reihe von Gesprächen geführt, um die Entdeckung einer doppeltgerichteten Zeit, die Wolfgang Kaempfer in Zusammenarbeit mit Friedrich Cramer zu einem plausiblen Modell entwickelt hat, auf Reichweite und Konsequenz hin zu prüfen. Die nun sorgfältig ausgearbeiteten acht Gespräche, in denen Dietmar Kamper aus seiner Erfahrung der Zeit als 'paradoxer Wiederholung' die Fragen stellt und Wolfgang Kaempfer seine Antworten mit spekulativer Kraft immer aufs Neue vorantreibt, zeigen ein weites Spektrum von möglichen Fällen der Anwendung des (...) Modells; hauptsächlich in den historischen Wissenschaften, aber auch in der Ästhetik, der Philosophie und der Religion! Sie zeigen aber auch, daß die Gesprächsform einer solchen Entdeckung, die über das Modell hinaus weiterentwickelt werden soll, eher entspricht als die Abhandlung. Es geht nämlich nicht um gerichtetes Wissen, sondern um eine intensive Weise des experimentellen Fragens und Antwortens, die in der momentanen Verwirrung der Kriterien auf eine neue Orientierung abhebt. (shrink)

This is one of a pair of discussion notes comparing some features of the account of causation in Wolfgang Spohn’s Laws of Belief with the “interventionist” account in James Woodward’s Making Things Happen. This note locates the core difference of the accounts in the fact that Woodward’s account follows an epistemological order, while Spohn’s follows a conceptual order. This unfolds in five further differences: type- versus token-level causation, reference to time, actual/counterfactual intervention versus epistemic/suppositional wiggling, a circular versus a (...) circle-free conception of the circumstances of a direct causal relation, and absolute versus model-relative causation. (shrink)

According to the transparency approach, achievement of self-knowledge is a two-stage process: first, the subject arrives at the judgment ‘p’; second, the subject proceeds to the judgment ‘I believe that p.’ The puzzle of transparency is to understand why the transition from the first to the second judgment is rationally permissible. After revisiting the debate between Byrne and Boyle on this matter, I present a novel solution according to which the transition is rationally permissible in virtue of a justifying argument (...) that begins from a premise referring to the mental utterance that is emitted in the course of judging ‘p.’. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the nature and scope of Moore’s paradox, articulates the desiderata of a successful solution and claims that psychological expressivism best meets these desiderata. After a brief discussion of prominent responses to Moore’s paradox, the paper offers a solution based on a theory of expressive acts: a Moorean utterance is absurd because the speaker expresses mental states with conflicting contents in commissive versions of the paradox and conflicting states of mind in omissive versions. The paper presents a theory (...) of expressivism for self-ascriptions of mental states. In addition, it introduces the idea of expressive denegation—the speaker’s expressing the absence of a mental state—as an analysis of negative self-ascriptions of mental states. Some of the consequences of expressivism for avowals are explored. (shrink)

One of the main controversies of the Logic Schools of the 12th century centered on the question: What follows from the impossible? In this paper arguments for two diametrically opposed positions are examined. The author of the ‘Avranches Text’ who probably belonged to the school of the Parvipontani defended the view that from an impossible proposition everything follows (‘Ex impossibili quodlibet’). In particular he developed a proof to show that by means of so-called ‘disjunctive syllogism’ any arbitrary proposition B can (...) be logically derived from a pair of contradictory propositions A and Not-A. The author of the Ars Meliduna instead argued that nothing follows from an impossible proposition (‘ex falso nihil sequitur’). This view is supported by various counterexamples which aimed to show that the admission of impossible premises would give rise to inconsistent conclusions. Upon closer analysis these inconsistencies do not, however, have the formal structure of a real contradiction like A and Not-A, but rather the structure of two rivalling conditionals like ‘If B then A’ and ‘If B then Not-A’. Hence these counterexamples rather have to be considered as refutations of the basic principles of ‘connexive logic’. (shrink)

Wolfgang Spohn presents the first full account of the dynamic laws of belief, by means of ranking theory. This book is his long-awaited presentation of ranking theory and its ramifications.

Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, EarlyView.