We argue that the need for commentary in commonly used linear calculi of natural deduction is connected to the “deletion” of illocutionary expressions that express the role of propositions as reasons, assumptions, or inferred propositions. We first analyze the formalization of an informal proof in some common calculi which do not formalize natural language illocutionary expressions, and show that in these calculi the formalizations of the example proof rely on commentary devices that have no counterpart in the original proof. We (...) then present a linear natural deduction calculus that makes use of formal illocutionary expressions in such a way that unique readability for derivations is guaranteed – thus showing that formalizing illocutionary expressions can eliminate the need for commentary. (shrink)

Building on the work of Peter Hinst and Geo Siegwart, we develop a pragmatised natural deduction calculus, i.e. a natural deduction calculus that incorporates illocutionary operators at the formal level, and prove its adequacy. In contrast to other linear calculi of natural deduction, derivations in this calculus are sequences of object-language sentences which do not require graphical or other means of commentary in order to keep track of assumptions or to indicate subproofs. (Translation of our German paper "Ein Redehandlungskalkül. Ein (...) pragmatisierter Kalkül des natürlichen Schließens nebst Metatheorie"; online available at http://philpapers.org/rec/CORERE.). (shrink)

Wir stellen einen pragmatisierten Kalkül des natürlichen Schließens vor, der sich dadurch auszeichnet, dass Ableitungen reine Folgen objektsprachlicher Sätze sind und ohne graphische oder andere Kommentarmittel auskommen.

In the early Analytic Philosophy, the concept of a pseudosentence was used as a polemical device. To try and formalize a sentence without success was a means to ›debunk‹ it as a pseudosentence. The classical example is Heidegger’s dictum of the nothing which noths. But, according to Carnap, not only did Carnap not understand what Heidegger said, but also Heidegger himself must have misunderstood his own utterances! Does Carnap's diagnosis remain intact if one admits the possibility of a misunderstanding and (...) misconstrual on Carnap’s side, too? Should not Carnap's concept of formalization be substituted by that of logico-hermeneutical reconstruction in order to obviate any such infelicities? In everyday communication, we very rarely ever feel the need to undertake a significant effort to understand each other. This attitude is at odds with Friedrich Schleiermacher’s view that misunderstandings are ubiquitous and that one has to actively invest into the establishment of correct understandings. Therefore, one should ask: Are there good reasons to reject the view that we misunderstand ourselves all the time? Or: Is there any worth in the view that misunderstandings are prevalent? The answers developed in this paper are generalized so that they apply to philosophical contexts and a maxim of escalating formalization is formulated. The debate about peer disagreement is adduced as an illustration of philosophical practices that evade the maxim and thus stagnate cognitively. (shrink)

The historical continuity of spinal catastrophism, traced across multiform encounters between philosophy, psychology, biology, and geology. Drawing on cryptic intimations in the work of J. G. Ballard, Georges Bataille, William Burroughs, Andre Leroi-Gourhan, Elaine Morgan, and Friedrich Nietzsche, in the late twentieth century Daniel Barker formulated the axioms of spinal catastrophism: If human morphology, upright posture, and the possibility of language are the ramified accidents of natural history, then psychic ailments are ultimately afflictions of the spine, which itself is (...) a scale model of biogenetic trauma, a portable map of the catastrophic events that shaped that atrocity exhibition of evolutionary traumata, the sick orthograde talking mammal. Tracing its provenance through the biological notions of phylogeny and "organic memory" that fueled early psychoanalysis, back into idealism, nature philosophy, and romanticism, and across multiform encounters between philosophy, psychology, biology, and geology, Thomas Moynihan reveals the historical continuity of spinal catastrophism. From psychoanalysis and myth to geology and neuroanatomy, from bioanalysis to chronopathy, from spinal colonies of proto-minds to the retroparasitism of the CNS, from "railway spine" to Elizabeth Taylor's lost gill-slits, this extravagantly comprehensive philosophical adventure uses the spinal cord as a guiding thread to rediscover forgotten pathways in modern thought. Moynihan demonstrates that, far from being an fanciful notion rendered obsolete by advances in biology, spinal catastrophism dramatizes fundamental philosophical problematics of time, identity, continuity, and the transcendental that remain central to any attempt to reconcile human experience with natural history. (shrink)

Nietzsche's mature masterpiece, Beyond Good and Evil considers the origins and nature of Judeo-Christian morality; the end of philosophical dogmatism and beginning of perspectivism; the questionable virtues of science and scholarship; liberal democracy, nationalism, and women's emancipation. A superb and new translation by Marion Faber, this highly annotated edition is complemented by a lucid introduction by one of the most eminent of Nietzsche scholars, Robert C. Holub.

We distinguish between the paradigm of game theory in which individuals act directly and that of social choice in which an impartial observer acts on the basis of social preferences, which in turn are derived from individual preferences. Much of the critique of Sen brought forward by Buchanan and de Jasay and Kliemt rests on a confusion of these two paradigms.

Ecce Homo is an autobiography like no other. Nietzsche passes under review all his previous books and reaches a final reckoning with his many enemies. Ecce Homo is the summation of an extraordinary philosophical career.

On the Genealogy of Morals is a book about the history of ethics and about interpretation. Nietzsche rewrites the former as a history of cruelty, exposing the central values of the Judaeo-Christian and liberal traditions - compassion, equality, justice - as the product of a brutal process of conditioning designed to domesticate the animal vitality of earlier cultures. The result is a book which raises profoundly disquieting issues about the violence of both ethics and interpretation. Nietzsche questions moral certainties by (...) showing that religion and science have no claim to absolute truth, before turning on his own arguments in order to call their very presuppositions into question. (shrink)

Bibliography of works by and about F. Waismann : p. [177]-184.

Ist Intelligenz erblich? Karl-Friedrich Fischbach und Martin Niggeschmidt zeigen, dass „Erblichkeit“ in der biologischen Fachsprache etwas anderes bedeutet als in der Alltagssprache – was fast zwangsläufig zu Fehlinterpretationen führt. Die 2. Auflage dieses essentials wurde um Kapitel zur Aussagekraft von Zwillingsstudien und genomweiten Assoziationsstudien über IQ-Unterschiede erweitert. Wer sich die Logik der Modelle und Methoden vergegenwärtigt, stellt fest: Intelligenz als „erblich“ zu bezeichnen, ist unpräzise und irreführend. Die Autoren: Prof. Dr. Karl-Friedrich Fischbach ist Entwicklungsbiologe und Neurogenetiker. Er war (...) von 1985 bis 2013 Professor für Biophysik und Molekularbiologie an der Universität Freiburg, davon zwei Jahre lang als geschäftsführender Direktor des Instituts für Biologie III. Martin Niggeschmidt ist Redakteur in Hamburg. Stimmen zur 1. Auflage: „... Das zugänglich geschriebene Werk erklärt faktenbasiert und anhand zahlreicher Abbildungen den komplexen Stoff, um so Missverständnisse, aber auch bewusste Falschaussagen aufzudecken.” „... wirklich lohnenswert, ja verdienstvoll...“. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Habermas fragt vor dem Hintergrund geschwächter Kräfte der sozialen Integration in kritischem Bezug auf Carl Schmitt nach dem vernünftigen Sinn der alteuropäischen Kategorie des Politischen. Schmitt versteht seinen Begriff des Politischen im Sinne des jus reformandi, mit dem sich die Reformatoren für das Politische in seiner klassischen Gestalt und für religiösen Zwang entscheiden. Habermas erhofft sich einen komplementären Lernprozess von religiösen und säkularen Bürgern und vom eschatologischen Denken einer unter demokratischen Bedingungen erneuerten Politischen Theologie, dass es gegenüber einem idealisierenden, (...) normativen Denken ‚Zeitempfindlichkeit‘ einklagt. Sein Ansatz bei der in Geschichte und Sprache inkarnierten Vernunft ist einer am Ereignis des Wortes Gottes und der Kommunikation des Evangeliums orientierten Theologie eng verbunden und hilft deren Bedeutung für das Politische zu klären. (shrink)

Auf dem Höhe- und Wendepunkt seines Denkweges verfaßt Nietzsche 1886 in einem Zuge fünf Vorreden zu den Neuausgaben seiner frühen Werke. Im Zusammenhang gedacht, können diese kurzen Texte als Selbstinterpretation und damit als Schlüssel zu allen folgenden Schriften Nietzsches bis zu den Briefen und Postkarten vom Januar 1889 dienen. Im einzelnen handelt es sich um die Vorreden zu Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches, Morgenröte, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft, um den Versuch einer Selbstkritik zur Geburt der Tragödie und um die (...) Vorrede zur Genealogie der Moral. (shrink)

Presents Nietzsche's evolving thinking on truth, which has exerted a powerful influence over modern and contemporary thought.