Eine zu einheitliche Vorstellung der historischen Aufklaerung wird in diesem Text kritisiert. Um die gegensaetzlichen Strömungen dieser Epoche aufzuzeigen, wird der weitgehend unbekannte Philosoph La Mettrie vorgestellt und die negative Reaktion der bekannten Aufklaerer auf ihn. La Mettrie ging weit über die 'offizielle' Aufklaerung hinaus. Seine Analyse des Schuldgefühls und seine Ethik scheinen parallell zu zu sein. Alle Probleme der aktuellen > aufgeworfen worden.

This collection of ten essays elucidates some of the more challenging aspects of Anscombe’s work and affirms her reputation as one of our most original ...

This essay reviews one of the most recent books in a trend of new publications proffering evolutionary theorising about aesthetics and the arts—themes within an increasing literature on aspects of human life and human nature in terms of evolutionary theory. Stephen Davies’ The Artful Species links some of our aesthetic sensibilities with our evolved human nature and critically surveys the interdisciplinary debate regarding the evolutionary status of the arts. Davies’ engaging and accessible writing succeeds in demonstrating the maturity and scope (...) of the field and his critique is timely and unparalleled. A laudable effort, however it may have benefited from espousing a co-evolutionary model more explicitly. Moreover there may be reason to question the usefulness of the standard set of distinctions (‘adaptation’, ‘spandrel’, ‘technology’) that Davies appeals to. (shrink)

Meaning is a central concept of (bio)semiotics. At the same time, it is also a word of everyday language. Here, on the example of the world information, we discuss the “reduction-inflation model” of evolution of a common word into a scientific concept, to return subsequently into everyday circulation with new connotations. Such may be, in the near future, also the fate of the word meaning if, flexed through objectified semantics, will become considered an objective concept usable in semiotics. We argue (...) that reducing meaning to a technical term essentially synonymous to code and stripped of most of the original semantic field is not a necessary prerequisite for a meaningful application of the concept in semiotics and in biology. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore how the history of images and conceptual metaphors resulting from them that we use in educational reflections are formed regardless of if they are problematized in practical life. Insight into history shows how these images are shaped not only by our own experiences and by the context of our lives, but also by the history of such images, which are unconsciously inscribed in our metaphorical speech through so called “residues of meaning”. The (...) paper clarifies this, using the examples of alimentary images, that are a transition from nutrix (wet nurse) to nutritor (teacher). The text offers selected examples of consideration of alimentary images. These are among the most primitive and therefore the deepest images of human experience. This history is an example of a cultural line that goes from ancient educational imagination to the more recent forms of such images, even if always with different accents. (shrink)

This paper aims to apply contemporary theories of causation to historiography. The main purpose is to show that historians can use the concept of causation in a variety of ways, each of which is associated with different historiographical claims and different kinds of argumentation. Through this application, it will also become clear, contrary to what is often stated, that historical narratives are (in a specific way) causal, and that micro-history can be seen as a response to a very specific (causal) (...) problem of Braudelian macro-history. (shrink)

In this paper we are going to show that error coping strategies play an essential role in linguistic pragmatics. We study the effect of noisy speaker strategies within a framework of signalling games with feedback loop. We distinguish between cases in which errors occur in message selection and cases in which they occur in signal selection. The first type of errors affects the content of an utterance, and the second type its linguistic expression. The general communication model is inspired by (...) the Shannon–Weaver communication model. We test the model by a number of benchmark examples, including examples of relevance implicatures, quantity implicatures, and presupposition accommodation. (shrink)

This paper consists of two parts. In the first part, I give an in-depth comparison and analysis of the theories of Frank Ankersmit and Eelco Runia, in which I highlight their most important resemblances and differences. What both have in common is their notion of the presence of the past as a ‘presence in absence’. They differ, however, with respect to the character of this past and the role representation plays in making it present. Second, I also argue that for (...) both Ankersmit and Runia, the presence of the past is always the present of our past, which excludes the experience of the otherness of the past, and which opens both theories to the criticisms of being self-centered and nationalistic. (shrink)

In this paper, I will argue with Ernst Cassirer that anticipation plays an essential part in the constitution of time, as seen from a transcendental perspective. Time is, as any transcendental concept, regarded as basically relational and subjective and only in a derivative way objective and indifferent to us. This entails that memory is prior to history, and that anticipation is prior to prediction. In this paper, I will give some examples in order to argue for this point. Furthermore, I (...) will also argue, again with Cassirer and contra Henri Bergson, that time should be seen as a functional unity, and not as a collection of three different things-in-themselves (past, present and future). (shrink)

In this paper, I will present what I take to be a standard view of morality, and I argue that this view amounts to a paradox: the moral event or moral concern, the source of morality, ultimately leads, through moral theory, to a denial of itself. I will show how Badiou and Levinas take a way out of this and in doing so deny the possibility of anticipating the moral. Furthermore, I claim that this anticipatory moment can be introduced back (...) by means of the concept of “practical wisdom” as used in analytical virtue ethics. Finally, I argue that the Kantian notion of the sublime is structurally the same as the moral event in Badiou and Levinas, and that our view of the sublime can benefit from both Levinas’ view and the concept of “practical wisdom” as well. (shrink)

Abstract The infantilization of older adults seems morally deplorable whereas very young children are appropriate recipients of such treatment. Children, we argue, are not mentally capable of acting autonomously and reasoning clearly. However, we have difficulty reconciling this justification with the fact that many of the elders whom we respect are mentally deficient in those very same ways. In this paper, I try to make sense of this asymmetry between our justifications for infantilizing the young and our conviction that our (...) elders ought to be respected. I argue that our intuitions against adult infantilization are non-consequentialist (i.e., deontic). I consider several candidates for the deontic factor that might explain the asymmetry of our judgments and practices. I argue that a very specific kind of dignity (one that is socially constructed and reified) grounds our disparate judgments and treatments of very young and very old persons with similar needs. (shrink)

In this paper, I take up Herman Paul’s suggestion to analyze the process of writing history in terms of virtues. In contrast to Paul, however, I argue that the concept of virtue used here should not be based on virtue epistemology, but rather on virtue ethics. The reason is that virtue epistemology is discriminative towards non-coginitive virtues and incompatible with the Ankersmitian/Whitean view of historiography as a multivocal path from historical reality to historical representation. Virtue ethics on the other hand, (...) more specifically those forms of virtue ethics which emphasize the uncodifiability thesis, is very capable of providing such an account. In order to make this somewhat more concrete, I distinguish four important traits of virtue ethics, and I try to make clear how these can be interpreted with respect to the writing of history. (shrink)

Ethics is demanding by nature, telling us what we should or should not do. But one ethical theory in particular, utilitarianism, is more demanding than most, and is often criticized as requiring too much of us. Neither utilitarianism nor deontology requires Superman to care about truth, justice, or the American way. It might not be possible for Superman to be supererogatory since very little is above or beyond the call of duty for him, given our incredibly high expectations. Virtue ethics (...) has the best chance to explain how Superman can perform supererogatory acts, since it doesn't focus on good action as such, but rather good character. While people use the name “big blue boy scout” in a derogatory way with Superman, it is a nice way to capture an ethical theory that might grant Superman’s responsibilities while allowing him a chance to live his own life: virtue ethics. (shrink)

Die Beiträge zur Altertumskunde enthalten Monographien, Sammelbände, Editionen, Übersetzungen und Kommentare zu Themen aus den Bereichen Klassische, Mittel- und Neulateinische Philologie, Alte Geschichte, Archäologie, Antike Philosophie sowie Nachwirken der Antike bis in die Neuzeit. Dadurch leistet die Reihe einen umfassenden Beitrag zur Erschließung klassischer Literatur und zur Forschung im gesamten Gebiet der Altertumswissenschaften.

Montaigne en de twijfel.--Van Calvijn tot Colijn.--Spinoza en het atheïsme.--Diderot en de lust der zinnen.--Feuerbach, de Antichrist.--Stirner en het soevereine ik.--Schopenhauer contra Jehova.--Nietzsche, de joden en de Duitsers.--Bakoenin, de wilde storm.--Ibsen en het anarchisme.--Multatuli, een verlicht despoot.--Tolstoi en de gehate staat.

This paper takes a stand on Hamblin semantics and its relation to the semantics-to-pragmatics interface. Biased questions, where the speaker finds one of the options more likely and expects the confirmation that p is true, raise a concern about the limits of Hamblin semantics. I argue that biased questions have modified Hamblin semantics, while unbiased questions have unconstrained Hamblin semantics. The optional bias feature explains compositionally. It is triggered by likelihood presuppositions ranging Hamblin sets and highlighting the preferred alternative(s). Biased (...) effects are exceptionally possible in alternative and wh-questions, but only in polar questions, they can be encoded lexically and grammatically. I argue that Hamblin semantics covers all core types of questions, while some of its applications for non-questions are problematic. (shrink)

This paper published in the 1999 volume of the “Logical Analysis” series serves doubles purpose. For the first, it offers a taxonomy of Russian statives (predicates of state) based on language-specific criteria, such as the (in)ability of Russian copular predicates to take animate dative subjects. For the second, it outlines the general idea that true stative predicates with an animate subject project a complex event structure with two animate participants — the Experiencer alias the Subject of State (X), and the (...) Subject of Evaluation (Y), whose role is to fix that the X is affected by the Stimulus (Z) during a time interval. The Stimulus (Z) is conceived as the Outer World or the Locus of State. X and Y can be different persons, if Y evaluates the stative spatiotemporal situation SZ from outside and concludes that some X  Y is cold, angry or disappointed during a time interval. X and Y can also be coindexed (Xi = Yi), in which case the person who experiences an affection or sensation is the primary source of information about her internal state. (shrink)

Hyperpolitics and Political Commitment in the Twenty-First Century What do the January 6th invasion of the Capitol and the anti-racist demonstrations of mid-2020 have in common? Both birthed some of the largest protest movements in American history, but also diminished rapidly after their initial, pre-revolutionary peak. This article reads the recent political sequence through the concept of ‘hyperpolitics’. In contrast to previous types of post-politics or mass politics, ‘hyperpolitics’ stands for a distinctly novel mode of political commitment characteristic of the (...) 2010s, in which a formerly apolitical public sphere finds itself intensely repoliticized, imposing itself on other domains such as the private, cultural, or economic. The return in question yet also runs across parameters that are more low-cost, low-entry, and low-duration than previous twentieth-century types, in stark contrast Max Weber’s typology of politics as the ‘slow boring of hard boards.’. (shrink)

I discuss the foundations of predicate ontologies based on two model notions – elementary states of affairs and eventualities, i.e. ordered pairs of initial and end states of affairs. Vendlerian classifications are oriented towards elementary states and tense logic, while Davidsonian classifications deal with eventualities and event logic. There are two kinds of atemporal predicates - fact and properties. Facts are propositional arguments of second-order predicates which add a special meaning that the embedded proposition was verified. Properties are atemporal first-order (...) predicates that lack eventive interpretation and are not associated with factive frames. Davidsonian states are homogeneous durable spatiotemporal things distinct both from atemporal properties and spatiotemporal dynamic predicates. Davidsonian states are causally independent, while resultatives are causally determined as they reconstruct a preceding event that has caused the end state p. I discuss the contrast between external and internal Davidsonian states. The former lack a priority argument and can be quantified extensionally. The latter have a priority experiential argument and can only be quantified intensionally. External states can be observed, while internal states cannot. (shrink)

This paper introduces and discusses three models of future: a determinist model, a stochastic model, and the model of True Prophetic Knowledge. All three models coexist in natural languages and are represented both in their grammatical systems and in the text-building discourse strategies speakers and authors apply to.

I follow the distinction of predicative versus attributive adjectives introduced by P.T. Geach in 1956 and discuss Atina Knowles' arguments contra the revisions of Geach's original conception.

This paper explores the hypothesis that proper names serve as anchors identifying the individuals in the possible or real world. This hypothesis is tested on Old Icelandic narratives. A prominent feature of Old Icelandic sagas is that the narrative matter is not quite new. A Saga is reliable iff it refers to the events relevant for its audience and accepted as true by the whole community. I argue that proper names must be regarded as references to the background knowledge of (...) the medieval audience. I follow two contemporary Sagas based on the fresh events and show that proper names in a Saga mind were arranged in form of a database, each type of a personal designation having its charachteristic text-building profile. The form of the name and its frequency in the Saga are linked with the rank of the character. The high number of people mentioned in the Sagas is explained by the fact that the Sagas aimed at describing the real world, where the names of the individuals and the events they were involved cross-identified each other. Every character had its rigid identifiers. The total amount of propria is always higher than the number of active figures. I classify the Saga characters into five ranks and discuss their information-structural profiles. (shrink)

Empirical research on counterfactual thinking has found a closeness effect: people report higher negative affect if an actual outcome is close to a better counterfactual outcome. However, it remains unclear what actually is a ?close? miss. In three experiments that manipulate close counterfactuals, closeness effects were found only when closeness was unambiguously defined either with respect to a contrasted alternative, or with respect to a categorical boundary. In a real task people failed to report greater negative affect when encountering a (...) close numerical miss, while they predicted greater negative affect hypothetically. These results show that counterfactual closeness effects on affect depend on closeness being accessible and unambiguously defined. (shrink)

The enactive view states that mental processes are embodied in the sensorimotor activity of the organism. This paper seeks to show how it is possible to be conscious of intentions in an embodied way, by adding detail about muscle spindle action to a theory put forward by Damasio. Consciousness is here understood as the awareness of our intentionality. This is a motor plan to interact with the environment, and is expressed in the body. As the body prepares the muscles to (...) act, there is propioceptive feedback from the spindles. The muscle spindle system needs to be added to Damasio's body loop to clarify how intentionality is embodied. He feels that core consciousness is based on the proto-self. I believe that the muscle spindle feedback is part of the proto-self, and enables the proto-self to sense the body's motor preparation. (shrink)

While the story of Stanislav Petrov – the Soviet Lieutenant Colonel who likely saved the world from nuclear holocaust in 1983 – is often trotted out to advocate for the view that human beings ought to be kept “in the loop” of automated weapons’ responses, I argue that the episode in fact belies this reading. By attending more closely to the features of this event – to Petrov’s professional background, to his familiarity with the warning system, and to his decisions (...) to defy his protocol – it becomes clear that Petrov was not seamlessly working “in his loop,” but reassessing it entirely. I claim that this exhibits a paradox intrinsic to all automated loops: namely, that their optimum function in fact rests on unforeseen human interventions that cannot be reliably codified ex ante, that is, that good judgment cannot simply be “programmed into” their protocols. This dependence, moreover, reveals automation’s ineluctable need for virtue ethics – not in the usual sense (whereby ethics deliberates about, say, possible damages and loss of life), but in the sense that ethical judgment, rightly understood, entails the reassessment of all of the conditions surrounding a decision, including whether a protocol should be followed at all. (shrink)

This article seeks to interpret how the scientific study of individualization, broadly construed, is conceived from within. It presents and discusses an analysis of qualitative data gained from performing semi-structured expert interviews. By way of a thematic-analytic approach to interpreting this data, this article seeks to investigate the attitudes and opinions of a sample of scientific experts who study individualization, across a wide range of scientific fields, with regard to key concepts, phenomena, motivating factors, and open questions. Centering its analysis (...) on discussion of four themes, this paper (1) emphasizes the importance for science of individuals and individuality, (2) reflects on matters pertaining to language and interdisciplinary communication, (3) distinguishes between nine meanings of the word “individualization,” stressing their significant features, and (4) considers ideas about the consequences of individualization and ongoing methodological concerns. (shrink)

The article’s intellectual core resides in the examination of social phenomena through the lenses of ambivalence and ambitemptiness. Democracy is conceived through the cultivation of the ideal of national solidarity within the framework of the “indivisible and unified nation” and revolution — values which, according to B. Anderson, individuals do not choose of their own volition. Nevertheless, it functions by virtue of structures that are freely chosen by individuals, specifically political parties and civil society organisations, among which trade unions assume (...) a paramount role in ensuring social solidarity. The author posits that a functioning political democracy, viewed as a historically ambi temptuous phenomenon, necessitates the reanimation of sustained equilibrium between the for ces of social hegemony and counter-hegemony. This revival hinges on transformative shifts in the structure of civil society, particularly reinstatement of pivotal social functions to trade unions. The article underscores the phenomenon of unprecedented demonstrative solidarity exhibited by the Democratic Party of the USA towards the strike movement. The author emphasises that a fully-fledged European liberal democracy was established during its golden age, preceding financial globalisation, as a social democracy. Within its framework, competitive and pluralist elections were complemented by the possibility of nationwide strikes facilitated by trade unions capable of social mobilisation. Proposing the term “political society” to denote the phenomenon encompassing political parties and movements, the article argues that their viability depends on their connection with civil society structures. It is asserted that neither right-wing nor left-wing populism possesses the capacity to fully neutralise “democratic fatigue”. (shrink)

Charles R. Kesler, an eminent scholar and prodigious editor, has exerted a profound influence on the study of American politics and the practice of American conservatism. A precocious high-school student, he impressed a visiting William F. Buckley Jr. who, before becoming a life-long friend, wrote him a recommendation letter to Yale. Kesler asked for another--to Harvard, where he completed his undergraduate degree and earned a PhD under the legendary professor Harvey C. Mansfield. An early passion for political journalism, played out (...) largely on the pages of National Review, led Kesler to author an NR cover story on his third great influence, Harry V. Jaffa. Kesler became a faculty colleague of Jaffa's at Claremont McKenna College and Claremont Graduate University and is perhaps best known as the editorial helmsman of the Claremont Review of Books. The author of I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism and Crisis of the Two Constitutions: The Rise, Decline, and Recovery of American Greatness, Kesler also co-edited (with William F. Buckley Jr.) Keeping the Tablets: Modern American Conservative Thought. His edited volume of The Federalist Papers is the best-selling edition version in the country. In this volume, Kesler's students, friends, and colleagues commemorate his four-decade career as a teacher, mentor, and scholar. (shrink)

We contribute to the empirical debate on whether we understand and predict mental states by using simulation (simulation theory) or by relying on a folk psychological theory (theory theory). To decide between these two fundamental positions, it has been argued that failure to predict other people’s choices would be challenging evidence against the simulation view. We test the specific claim that people prefer the rightmost position in choosing among equally valued objects, and whether or not this position bias can be (...) correctly predicted. A series of experiments shows that the bias appears only in a specific spatial arrangement and that it can be correctly predicted given adequate imaginative input. In concert with other recent findings on the correct prediction of choices these findings do actually strengthen, rather than challenge, the simulation account on the prediction of mental states. (shrink)

Marxism -- Middle-class materialism -- Dietzgen -- Mach -- Avenarius -- Lenin -- The Russian revolution -- The proletarian revolution.