The author's purpose is to distinguish and characterize the various distinctive experiences that are associated with the appreciation of art. the author is especially concerned with the variousness of such experiences "and the folly of a monopolistic view on the part of aestheticians as to the things we are to permit ourselves to value as aesthetic." (staff).

The classical argument for the existence of other minds begins by ascribing states of consciousness to oneself, and argues to the existence of other conscious beings on the basis of an analogy in bodily constitution and behavior. P. F. Strawson attacks the foundation of this argument. “One can ascribe states of consciousness to oneself only if one can ascribe them to others. One can ascribe them to others only if one can identify other subjects of experience.” My thesis is that (...) this objection depends on running together the two distinct necessary conditions for ascribing states of consciousness. There is the conceptual condition (a general concept of consciousness); and there is the referential condition (the capacity to identify suitable subjects).A version of the argument from analogy is also developed which does not presuppose an original consciousness that my experiences are mine. The general concept of experience is by itself enough for the original specification of all experiences associated with body M, because other experiences which also conform to the concept are not introduced until the argument from analogy is complete. (shrink)

In this thesis I shall summarize and critically examine the central features of the theories of values of four contemporary moral philosophers: A.J. Ayer, C.L. Stevenson, R.M. Hare, and P.H. Nowell - Smith. I shall first look back, however, to the theory of moral philosophy of the most influential 'forefather' of this group, David Hume. Hume's theory stands as a challenge to moral philosophers who would assume that moral judgments are primarily, in some sense, acts of 'reason'. Although our four (...) contemporaries follow Hume in this, his challenge, in the form I shall indicate shortly, will provide the main theme for this thesis. (shrink)

The working situation prevailing in theoretical and experimental physics today is held to be inseparable from the interpretation of quantum theory, and constitutes an embodiment of its implicit difficulties. Such an understanding of the present situation in fundamental physics provides a quite different basis for ideas than the formulation of alternative courses of action (experiments) or alternative forms of knowledge (theories), which proceeds from the belief in a full separation of theory from experiment in this field. It is argued that (...) this underlying belief is not well founded. One must therefore consider the technical details of the field together with its foundations, and thus especially the situation produced by fundamental physics, including, in particular, the growth of high-energy technology, which exerts a determining influence on the further course of the subject. (shrink)

David Blank presents a new translation into clear modern English of a key treatise by one of the greatest of ancient philosophers, together with the first ever commentary on this work. Sextus Empiricus' Against the Grammarians is a polemical attack on ancient Greek ideas about grammar, and provides one of the best examples of sustained Sceptical reasoning.

Предпринимается попытка связать результаты самопознания со взглядами человека на историю всего человеческого и мир в целом. Для тех, кто интересуется антропологическими проблемами философии.

The causal representative theory of perception dominated theory of knowledge for hundreds of years after it was put on the map by Descartes and Locke. It is now almost extinct. How could this happen? The theory collapsed because it could not explain how we acquire knowledge of the external world, since it presupposes a causally organized system of external objects producing sensations in us. This presupposition, however, is generally recognized as true, so that the pattern of causal inference at the (...) heart of the theory is surely justified. The theory cannot explain how we originally acquire our knowledge of the external world, but it is entitled on a second pass to correct our empirical beliefs, where necessary. This includes replacing our naive picture of the physical world with a more sophisticated scientific conception, which downgrades secondary qualities. This was, indeed, the main reason why it was originally introduced by Descartes and Locke, and has been the source of its attraction over the years. (shrink)

Editors who profess to interpret these lines, while reaching agreement on some few points of detail, concur chiefly in a somewhat irritable half-confession of puzzlement and not unnatural tendency to avenge their smart on the poet's broader back. Hence the suggestions of historical misrepresentation and dramatic confusion, the hypothesis of a late recension, and other well-worn devices of commentatorial window-dressing. A task more likely to be of value to the study of the Georgics is to explore this short, compact poem (...) for that unifying principle among the multiplicity of details, in accordance with which the triumphator and the temple-builder, the Greek festival and the Italian venue, the lightness of allegory and the ponderous literalism of the Via Sacra, Virgil and Octavian each perform their different functions and move in harmony with the whole poetic plan. (shrink)