Humean reductionism about laws of nature appears to leave a central aspect of scientific practice unmotivated: If the world’s fundamental structure is exhausted by the actual distribution of non-modal properties and the laws of nature are merely efficient summaries of this distribution, then why does science posit laws that cover a wide range of non-actual circumstances? In this paper, we develop a new version of the Humean best systems account of laws based on the idea that laws need to organize (...) information in a way that maximizes their cognitive usefulness for creature like us. We argue that this account motivates scientific practice because the laws’ applicability to non-actual circumstances falls right out of their cognitive usefulness. (shrink)

Humean Supervenience is a metaphysical model of the world according to which all truths hold in virtue of nothing but the total spatiotemporal distribution of perfectly natural, intrinsic properties. David Lewis and others have worked out many aspects of HS in great detail. A larger motivational question, however, remains unanswered: As Lewis admits, there is strong evidence from fundamental physics that HS is false. What then is the purpose of defending HS? In this paper, we argue that the philosophical merit (...) of HS is largely independent of whether it correctly represents the world’s fundamental structure. In particular, we show that insofar as HS is an apt model of the world’s higher-level structure, it thereby provides a powerful argument for reductive physicalism and explains otherwise opaque inferential relations. Recent criticism of HS on the grounds that it misrepresents fundamental physical reality is, therefore, beside the point. (shrink)

Humean Laws for Human Agents presents cutting-edge research by leading experts on the Humean account of laws, chance, possibility, and necessity. A central question in metaphysics and philosophy of science is: What are laws of nature? Humeans hold that laws are not sui generis metaphysical entities but merely particularly effective summaries of what actually happens. The most discussed recent work on Humeanism emphasizes the laws' usefulness for limited agents and uses pragmatic considerations to address fundamental and long-standing problems. The current (...) volume develops and critically examines pragmatic Humean accounts, with innovative new work on the epistemology of laws and chance, the problem of induction, counterfactuals, special science laws, and a Humean account of essence. Taken together, the papers provide a roadmap for developing pragmatic Humeanism and connate views, setting the agenda for future research. (shrink)

Humean reductionism about laws of nature is the view that the laws reduce to the total distribution of non-modal or categorical properties in spacetime. A worry about Humean reductionism is that it cannot motivate the characteristic modal resilience of laws under counterfactual suppositions and that it thus generates wrong verdicts about certain nested counterfactuals. In this paper, we defend Humean reductionism by motivating an account of the modal resilience of Humean laws that gets nested counterfactuals right.

The Humean best systems account identifies laws of nature with the regularities in a system of truths that, as a whole, best conforms to scientific standards for theory-choice. A principled problem for the BSA is that it returns the wrong verdicts about laws in cases where multiple systems, containing different regularities, satisfy these standards equally well. This problem affects every version of the BSA because it arises regardless of which standards for theory-choice Humeans adopt. In this paper, we propose a (...) Humean response to the problem. We invoke pragmatic aspects of Humean laws to show that the BSA, despite violating some of our intuitive judgements, can capture everything that is relevant for scientific practice. (shrink)

A central question in the philosophy of science is: What is a law of nature? Different answers to this question define an important schism: Humeans, in the wake of David Hume, hold that the laws of nature are nothing over and above what actually happens and reject irreducible facts about natural modality (Lewis, 1983, 1994; cf. Miller, 2015). According to Non-Humeans, by contrast, the laws are metaphysically fundamental (Maudlin, 2007) or grounded in primitive modal structures, such as dispositional essences of (...) powerful properties (Bird, 2007), necessitation relations (Armstrong, 1983), or primitive subjunctive facts (Lange, 2009). This volume focuses on recent developments in the discussion of Humeanism, specifically on pragmatic versions of the view that put the needs of limited agents like us front and center. (shrink)

Siegfried Kracauer was a leading intellectual figure of the Weimar Republic and one of the foremost representatives of critical theory. Best known for a wealth of writings on sociology and film theory, his influence is felt in the work of many of the period’s preeminent thinkers, including his friends, the critic Walter Benjamin, and Theodor W. Adorno, who once claimed he owed more to Kracauer than any other contemporary. This volume brings together for the first time all of (...) Kracauer’s essays on photography that he wrote between 1927 and 1933 as a journalist for the Frankfurter Zeitung, as well as an essay that appeared in the Magazine of Art after his exile in America, where he would spend the last twenty-five years of his life. The texts show Kracauer as a pioneering thinker of the photographic medium in addition to the important historian, and theorist, of film that he is acknowledged to have been. His writings here build a cohesive theory on the affinities between photography, memory and history. With a foreword by Philippe Despoix offering insights into Kracauer’s theories and the historical context, and a Curriculum vitae in pictures, photographs from the Kracauer estate annotated by Maria Zinfert. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Karl Christian Friedrich Krause (1781–1832)" verfügbar.

Einleitend wird über die vielfältigen Vorteile wissenschaftlichen Arbeitens im Alter geschrieben. Die fünf Aufsätze des Buches widmen sich Randbereichen philosophischen Denkens. Auf dem Lande war vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert von Akademikern nur der Pfarrer gefragt, statt der akademisch gebildeten Mediziner nutzte man die aus dem Handwerk (z.B. Bader) herkommenden "Volksmediziner". Ebenso Astrologie und Alchemie. Die Dorfschullehrer hatten ebenfalls keine akademische Ausbildung. Über Philipp Melanchthon gibt es eine Vielzahl von Literatur. Sein Verhältnis zu den verschiedenen Richtungen der Häretiker, so (...) zu den Täufern, den Unitariern, zu Sebastian Franck und Caspar von Schwenckfeld ist bislang aber weniger behandelt. Auch der Chiliasmus des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts ist gleich Utopie, Apokalyptik, Messianismus oder Eschatologie in Deutschland relativ selten philosophisches Arbeitsgebiet. Das gilt auch für Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus, Christian Weise und Johann Jakob von Hartig, "drei Glanzlichter der Oberlausitz". Bei Moses Mendelssohn wird vornehmlich seine Toleranzposition von 1782 dargelegt, dabei Toleranz und Intoleranz auch in Staat und Kirche bestimmt"--Back cover. (shrink)

Objectives:Social isolation is increasing in aging societies and several studies have shown a relation with worse cognition in old age. However, less is known about the association in the oldest-old (85+); the group that is at highest risk for both social isolation and dementia. Methods:Analyses were based on follow-up 5 to 9 of the longitudinal German study on aging, cognition, and dementia in primary care patients (AgeCoDe) and the study on needs, health service use, costs, and health-related quality of life (...) in a large sample of oldest-old primary care patients (AgeQualiDe), a multi-center population-based prospective cohort study. Measurements included the Lubben Social Network Scale (LSNS-6), with a score below 12 indicating social isolation, as well as the Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE) as an indicator of cognitive function. Results:Dementia-free study participants (n = 942) were M = 86.4 (SD = 3.0) years old at observation onset, 68.2% were women. One third (32.3%) of them were socially isolated. Adjusted linear hybrid mixed effects models revealed significantly lower cognitive function in individuals with smaller social networks (β = 0.5, 95% CI = 0.3-0.7, p <.001). Moreover, changes in an individual's social network size were significantly associated with cognitive changes over time (β = 0.2, 95% CI = 0.1-0.4, p =.003), indicating worse cognitive function with shrinking social networks. Conclusion:Social isolation is highly prevalent among oldest-old individuals, being a risk factor for decreases in cognitive function. Consequently, it is important to maintain a socially active lifestyle into very old age. Likewise, this calls for effective ways to prevent social isolation. (shrink)

English summary: Questions of orientation in a globalized world social ethics answered with a Theology of Real. German text. German description: Theologie als Selbstreflexion der Kirche bestimmt deren Identitat dogmatisch. Wenn die Kirche jedoch gefragt ist und Gestalt annimmt, indem sie zum Orientierungswissen der Gesellschaft beitragt, dann antwortet die christliche Traditionsgemeinschaft sozialethisch. Beides wird zusammengehalten durch eine Theologie des Wirklichen. Sie verhindert, dass Verantwortungsethik ins Leere lauft. Dies dokumentieren die Beitrage des vorliegenden Bandes. Die Autoren stehen dabei in der Traditionslinie (...) einer Theologie des Wirklichen, mit der Georg Wunsch vor 80 Jahren in Marburg die deutsche Tradition des Fachgebietes begrundete. Wolfgang Huber, Peter Dabrock und Wolfgang Nethofel zeigen, wie diese Sozialethik sich der Zukunft stellt. Die protestantische Kombination von Freiheit und sozialer Verantwortung fuhrt heute auch die Kirche vor Ort hinein in prinzipiell transdisziplinare und globalisierte Fragestellungen. Sozialethik bewahrt sich dabei im Dialog zwischen verschiedenen Kulturen und Fachdisziplinen. Oekologisch-okonomische Zusammenhange, Bio- und Nanotechnologie eroffnen neue Fragehorizonte und ermoglichen paradigmatische Erfahrungen, die bereits heute in ungewohnten, aber fur die ubrigen theologischen Disziplinen wegweisenden Organisationsformen abgearbeitet werden. Die Gegenwartsdimensionen einer zeitgenossischen Verantwortungsethik eroffnen die Autoren, indem sie fundamental- und materialethische Fragestellungen auch im Kontext der neueren Theologiegeschichte erortern. Und schliesslich zeigen die Beitrage, dass neben der Fach- und Sachkritik auch die geschichtsbewusste Selbstkritik der Sozialethik notwendige Dimensionen einer Verantwortungsethik in protestantischer Tradition sind. (shrink)

This is a review of a book by the physician Uwe-Christian Arnold pleading for the right to assisted suicide. Arnold who has accompanied several patients to their end opens his book with several case studies. In the second part A. discusses the arguments against assisted suicide. One of the arguments is based on a reading of the Hippocratic Oath which is shared also by A. As against this reading, I argue that in this text the doctor is not committed (...) to withholding a poison from his patient, but rather to be no part as an accomplice in a poisoning ordered or wished for by a third party. Given the very painful dying caused by the poisons known in antiquity it is in itself rather unlikely that a patient wanting to commit suicide did asked his doctor for a poison. In the third part of the book, A. argues against the slippery slope argument brought forward by people like the catholic philosopher R. Spaemann. Pointing to empirical evidence from US-states as Oregon, A. insists that allowing assisted suicide has helped to enhance palliative medical care and reduced the number of suicides. (shrink)

This work discusses the results of importing and then attempting to Christianize the content of secular education in its available form of discourse (public knowledge), especially with regard to the sciences. The book addresses the need for Christian educators to be conscious of the sources of the content of their curricula.

The purpose of this essay is to consider the significance that Hegel grants to religious love and, with it, forgiveness in his early The Spirit of Christianity and Its Fate. Although Hegel characterizes religious love in this writing as a unity that transcends reason, his association of such love with forgiveness nevertheless sheds light on an important aspect of human finitude. In this, Hegel may be seen to identify forgiveness as a form of freedom elicited by limits that we encounter (...) in practical life. The author suggests that Hegel’s approach to forgiveness, which makes use not only of themes expressed by Jesus in the Gospel but also Greek tragedy, comprises an attractive alternative to some current views. (shrink)

This is the first English translation of Santob do Carrion's Proverbios morales (Moral Proverbs) and also the first book-length study of that monumental work. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly (...) increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of the fragility of Western liberal democracies, the divisions in Western society as a whole and within particular countries, and the loss of faith in the Western model of civilization. My focus will be (1) on the initial enchantment of the Eastern European countries (with special emphasis on Romania) with the West European models of freedom, democracy, lifestyle, and living standards, which explains why these countries overwhelmingly voted in favor of joining the European Union after (...) the fall of Communism; and (2) on their subsequent disenchantment with how far liberal democracies could go, and their general discontent with the restrictions and preconditions imposed on them for obtaining EU funding for their economic development. In dealing with the issue of globalism, nationalism and identity, I will elaborate on the role of identity, personal and national, in the creation of roots, stability, self-esteem, hard work and progress, with reference to the manifestations of populism in Europe. Finally, I will consider the positive effects Eastern countries with their traditionalism and religious values could have on their Western counterparts, in order to revive and sustain their initial enchantment and diminish their disenchantment with Europe, the European Union, and Western civilization. (shrink)

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1909 Edition.

Many have said that God is hidden. This alleged hiddenness is particularly troublesome for evangelical Christianity, much more so than generally recognized, for it would render certain facts about the world and about the Bible very hard to explain on the hypothesis that the God of evangelical Christianity exists. Those facts would be best explained by appeal to the alternate hypothesis that that deity does not exist. Three evidential, epistemic, atheological arguments emerge from this consideration. One of them is the (...) Argument from Nonbelief, which focuses on the fact that there is widespread nonbelief in the given deity. I have written essays and a book (NONBELIEF & EVIL) on that one. The other two are the Argument from Confusion (to be labeled AC) and the Argument from Biblical Defects (ABD). AC focuses on the fact that there is widespread confusion among Christians regarding important doctrinal issues, including morality and salvation. ABD focuses on the fact that there are various defects in the Bible. The present essay is devoted to the latter two arguments. (shrink)

This book offers a close reading of Romans that treats Paul as a radical political thinker by showing the relationship between Paul's perspective and that of secular political theorists. Turning to both ancient political philosophers and contemporary post-Marxists, Jennings presents Romans as a sustained argument for a new sort of political thinking concerned with the possibility and constitution of just socialities. Reading Romans as an essay on messianic politics in conversation with ancient and postmodern political theory challenges the stereotype of (...) Paul as a reactionary theologian who "invented" Christianity and demonstrates his importance for all, regardless of religious affiliation or academic guild, who dream and work for a society based on respect, rather than domination, division, and death. In the current context of unjust global empires constituted by avarice, arrogance, and violence, Jennings finds in Paul a stunning vision for creating just societies outside the law. (shrink)

Adorno's work “What does‘processing of the Рast’ mean” for the first time was presented as a report on November 6, 1959 before the Coordination Council on Christian-Jewish Cooperation. In this work Adorno considered the essence of social ideology prevailing in postwar Germany, which predetermined the strategies of social reconciliation with the political crimes of the former national-socialist power. According to the philosopher the social ideology of the consumer society uses a large number of appropriate means to stabilize its dominant (...) position in society. First of all this ideology tries to eliminate the collective historical memory of people about the horrors of the war period, trying to squeeze them out of the collective consciousness, in particular, through the memories of people about the “best times” of life under the “guardianship” of the previous totalitarian power. The philosopher marked as surrogate the identity of these people which socially integrated only through the authority of the power personality. They do not identify themselves with the victims of the totalitarian regime because of the influence on their consciousness of the cultural elements of this social ideology. Another consequence of this influence is the alienation of these people from the idea of democracy as a factor of properly sociocultural transformations. Adorno defined the new “democratic pedagogy” and the enlightenment as a “second education” as effective means to overcome this influence. They are practically implemented in a society as those educated people who have knowledge about the past crimes of the totalitarian regime. In this manner they cause within the educational process of the effective “re-education of the Past” through the formation of a personal understanding of an individual about social causes and the terrible consequences of rule of a totalitarian regime. This makes possible of his “political full-grown” and makes impossible of historic recurrence of the crimes of authoritarian power in Europe. (shrink)

This article examines the homily titled Address on Vainglory, and the Right Way for Parents to Bring up their Children, concentrating upon the educational vision it expresses. The text is attributed to John Chrysostom, Christian saint and fourth century Patriarch of Constantinople. Uncertainty regarding the manuscript’s authenticity led to the exclusion of “Address on Vainglory” from most collections of John Chrysostom’s writings, which had seminal influence in a context when the church was united, and the homily has consequently received (...) very limited attention. Chrysostom earned the epithet "The Golden Mouthed” primarily by virtue of his training in rhetoric and his ability to translate the classical sources that he read into his own, Christian, context. He argues that education must not only cultivate all the faculties of the student’s mind, but also prepare the child to live and act ethically in the world. Chrysostom reconfigures this argument using the striking imagery of an Athlete for Christ, who cultivated not only the faculties of his mind, but also exercised those of the soul. (shrink)

Almost all evangelical Christians believe that the writing of the Bible was divinely inspired and represents God's main revelation to humanity. They also believe that the Bible contains special features which constitute evidence of its divine inspiration. This would be a use of the Bible to prove God's existence within natural theology rather than within revealed theology, since the book's features are supposed to be evident even to (open-minded) skeptics. Furthermore, since a divinely inspired work must be true, those features (...) are thereby also evidence of the Bible's truth, and thus can be used in support of Christianity as the one true religion. When expressed that way, the reasoning can be construed as an argument both for God's existence and for the truth of the gospel message from the alleged special features of the Bible. We may refer to it as "the Argument from the Bible". Although almost all evangelical Christians agree with it at least to some extent, it is an argument that is for the most part ignored by professional philosophers of religion. One explanation for such neglect is that the argument can be easily refuted. In this essay/outline, I sketch how such a refutation might be formulated. (shrink)

Dieses kleine Buch, wiewohl seine Teile auf eigenen Füßen stehen können, Teile, die einander zunächst nicht kannten, kommend aus verschiedenen Ländern, ihren Ursprung der Gelegenheit dankend, dem Zufall oder dem Einfall, will doch als Einheit verstanden werden, als die Einheit einer Idee. Sie kommen vom Gedanken her, alle aber niemals ohne das Bild, weil niemals ohne die Liebe für das Konkrete, das lndividuale, das Persönliche. Das ist die Art dieses Autors, für die er nichts kann als Anlage, die er übernimmt (...) als Aufgabe, als sein Talent im biblischen Sinne, nicht sich rühmend, nicht fordernd, daß andere auf die gleiche Weise der Wahrheit sich nähern, die über alles ist, oder von der erkannten persönlich Besitz ergreifen, wohl aber hoffend, daß manche sie und ihn verstehen werden. [Notiz zu Begin des Buches]. (shrink)

What do we mean when we talk about "God?" Does this term actually refer to anything in our experience? This book opens up significant new approaches to one of the most important problems confronting theology and the philosophy of religion, namely, the problem of "God-language." Current philosophical concerns over language have intensified the difficulty of talking about God: The necessity of formally proving the "meaningfulness" of statements about God has led to theological dead ends on the one hand and a (...) retreat to mysticism or irrationality on the other. This book moves the discussion of God-language to a new plane, arguing that God-language cannnot be understood within a traditional "theistic" framework. Instead, a "grammar" of God-language must be identified, and in doing this Jennings reaches a fresh view of language, one that is applicable to all religions and all human experience--the religious as well as the secular. (shrink)