Kaum eine zweite moderne Wissenschaft weckt im gleichen Ausmass Hoffnungen und Angste wie die Biotechnologie. Neben der Hoffnung, durch die Entschlusselung des menschlichen genetischen Codes, die Moglichkeit der Veranderung des Erbgutes und Reduplikation von Stammzellen entscheidende Fortschritte in der Diagnostik und Therapie von Krankheiten zu machen, steht die Angst vor einem Missbrauch dieses neuen Wissens. Einer Moralphilosophie, die sich nicht auf die Exegese historischer Texte reduzieren lassen will, bietet sich hier ein wichtiges neues Aufgabenfeld: Sie ist gefordert, vorausschauend die ethischen (...) Grenzen und Notwendigkeiten menschlichen Handelns neu zu beurteilen und zu begrunden. Dieser Sammelband will Diskussionen anregen und vertiefen, indem er unterschiedliche Positionen, konkurrierende philosophische, theologische und naturwissenschaftliche Begrundungs- und Argumentationsmodelle aufzeigt und kritisch aufeinander bezieht.". (shrink)

Die Beitrage dieses Bandes verdeutlichen die Rolle Spinozas als Denkfigur, als Anreger und als Anstoss - bis hin zum Feindbild - in der deutschen Geistesgeschichte des 18. Jahrhunderts, indem sie die divergenten Aspekte seiner Rezeptions- und Wirkungsgeschichte ergrunden.

Frank Mitjans is an architect who has worked in London since 1976. He was introduced to the significance of the figure of St. Thomas More by Andrés Vázquez de Prada, author of the biography, Sir Tomás Moro, Lord Canciller de Inglaterra. In 1977 Vázquez de Prada invited Mitjans to visit with him the Thomas More Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, which stimulated his interest in representations of More, his family and his friends. Since August 2002 he has given (...) many presentations and talks on the topography of More’s London to groups of students and other interested people in Britain, Ireland, and Sweden. Frank Mitjans, architecte qui travaille à Londres depuis 1976, fut initié au personnage de Saint Thomas More par Andrés Vázquez de Prada, auteur de la biographie Sir Tomás Moro, Lord Canciller de Inglaterra. En 1977 Vázquez de Prada l’invita à l’accompagner dans sa visite de l’exposition Thomas More à la National Portrait Gallery, évènement qui aiguisa son intérêt pour les représentations de More, de sa famille et de ses amis. Depuis août 2002 il a régulièrement fait des présentations et des exposés à des groupes d’étudiants et d’autres en Grande-Bretagne, Irlande et Suède au sujet de la topographie du Londres de Thomas More. The recent exhibitions of the works of Holbein in London and Basel, and scholarly publications such as Holbein and England, have rekindled interest in the Portrait of Thomas More and his Family, and in the late sixteenth-century versions of Holbein’s presumed lost original. The present paper analyses the differences between the sixteenth-century versions and Holbein’s 1527 composition sketch, and concludes that the sketch is a more reliable witness to Holbein’s lost painting than the later versions, as well as the only authentic witness to More’s intentions; though anything we learn from the drawing must be checked against what we know from More’s letters and writings and other biographical data. From the later versions, however, and in particular from the references to Seneca on them, we can learn about those who commissioned them and England’s peculiar historical circumstances. (shrink)

This unusually accessible account of recent Anglo-American philosophy focuses on how that philosophy has challenged deeply held notions of subjectivity, mind, and language. The book is designed on a broad canvas in which recent arguments are placed in a historical context (in particular they are related to medieval philosophy and German idealism). The author then explores such topics as mental content, moral realism, realism and antirealism, and the character of subjectivity. Much of the book is devoted to an investigation of (...) Donald Davidson's philosophy, and there is also a sustained critique of the position of Richard Rorty. A final chapter defends the realist position against objections from postmodern thought. As a rigorous and historically sensitive account of recent philosophy, this book should enjoy a wide readership among philosophers of many different persuasions, literary theorists, and social scientists who have been influenced by postmodern thought. (shrink)

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

This paper situates and examines the project of genealogy as articulated by the philosopher, Michel Foucault, and draws out from that examination educative implications both in terms of research and school practice. Following Foucault, the genealogist's primary challenge, it would seem, is both to acknowledge and to respond to the entwinement of rationality and power. This paper also considers critiques which have clustered around Foucault's work, and, more specifically, his genealogical work, which argue that Foucault leaves us with no hope (...) for a better, more humane future and no positive agenda for change. Despite this “lack” in Foucault's work, I argue, here, that his genealogical agenda is philosophically, politically, and educatively significant. (shrink)

In this article, I attempt to restore the philosophical significance of that nonformalizable, noniterable, “singular’ element of natural language that I call “style.” I begin by critically addressing the exclusion of such instances of natural language by both semantics‐oriented logical analysis and a restricted variation of structuralist linguistics. Despite the obvious advantages – with regard to style – of ”pragmatic“approaches to language, such pragmatism merely returns to rule‐determination in the guise of “normativity.” Although style by definition resists any kind of (...) rule‐determination – whether posed in terms of semantics or intersubjective regulations of speech‐acts – there can be no consideration of language that ignores the persistence of style in natural language. In terms of cognition, any discursive agent understands more than allowed by either semantics or speech‐act theory. I ascribe this element of excessive signification to the role of style. My principal thesis is twofold: (1) a hermeneutic approach (exemplified by Schleiermacher) to literature should reveal the heuristically decisive role played by style in philosophy; and, more radically still, (2) style, in fact, may be crucially determinative of philosophical discourse in general. I suggest that a closer scrutiny of the lesser‐known works of Ludwig Wittgenstein, conventionally regarded as having dreamt of a “philosophy without style,” may consolidate the restoration of style's philosophical import. (shrink)

The empirical and theoretical resources of different disciplines are often combined to shed light on questions that concern the deep history of humanity, such as the geographic origin of people groups, patterns of migration, and the diffusion of culture. In this article, I discuss three ways in which other disciplines, such as biology and archaeology, are integrated with historical linguistics to enhance our understanding of the past. First, other disciplines provide background knowledge that helps to constrain and assess competing historical (...) explanations of the data. I examine this issue in the context of the Principle of the Common Cause and Inference to the Best Explanation. Second, the synthesis of data from multiple disciplines provides a diverse and varied set of evidence, which is epistemically superior, other things being equal, to a homogeneous set of evidence. I consider several justifications for the confirmational value of diverse evidence. Finally, methods and procedures from other disciplines can often be fruitfully applied to forge new pathways to knowledge. Here, I survey the recent application of phylogenetic methods from biology, used for inferring evolutionary trees, within historical linguistics. (shrink)

The restructuration of municipalities which has been decided by the Belgian government, is not only a purely technical operatzon but rather, and in the first place, a social problem. The shape and duty-profile of a local authority should not, indeed, be attuned only to fast changing expectations as far as services are concerned, but to consultation and participation as well.Public administration research cannot keep aloof from this debate, but is considerably hampered by the institutional confusion and the insufficient explicitation of (...) the aims of the present reform. A starting-pointcan, however, be found in the mergers of municipalities that were realized in 1964 and in 1970/1971. In 67 of these municipalities an inquiry was held concerning the consequences of the merger, and moreover, in twotest-cases this inquiry grew to a full-scale systematic policy analysis.This research shows that, as a rule, the former municipalities are reasonably represented in the new entity's council, but it also reveals that few efforts are made to give this representation a broader impact along formal or informal participation-channels. Integration of employees has not caused insurmountable problems. However, in large sized municipalities, resulting from mergers, one could notice a drastic increase in municipal personnel, not only with regard to new duties and objectives but to traditional administrative and police duties as well. Such a phenomenon points to the far-reaching changes which a substantial scale-increase provokes in a municipality's structure and policy profile. A large municipality resulting from mergers is no langer a simple sum of component parts, but a completely new entity, wishing to catch up as fast as possible with comparable municipalities that passed through a progressive growth process. Therefore, scale-increase is not only a means of economizing or an intra-administrative matter, but rather a way of creating chances for further development or wealth and well-being. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence and the interrogation game; Scientific method and explanation; Godel's incompleteness theorem; Determinism and uncertainty; Axioms, theorems and formalisation; Creativity; Consciousness and free will; Pragmatics; A ...

Desenvolvo um método de prova por refutação para a Lógica Proposicional Clássica, que resgata ideias dos tablôs semânticos de Evert Beth. Primeiro apresento o método em forma conjuntista, depois o utilizo em forma tabular simplificada.

Formulações da validade dedutiva clássica costumam recorrer explicitamente a modalidades: por exemplo, um argumento é classicamente dedutivamente válido se, e somente se, necessariamente se as premissas forem verdadeiras, a conclusão também é verdadeira. Não é possível abolir completamente esse apelo ao discurso modal, porque a lógica clássica é o domínio das possibilidades. Não obstante, pode-se, por intermédio de uma semântica informacional, evitar que o usuário da lógica clássica tenha de manipular modalidades, ainda que elas estejam, de algum modo, imbricadas nos (...) infons – unidades mínimas de informação. A partir do trabalho pioneiro de Carnap e de Bar-Hillel, apresentarei duas semânticas informacionais: uma delas diretamente relacionada a mundos possíveis, e a outra relacionada aos duais de mundos possíveis. (shrink)

In this classic work of philosophy, Thilly provides a comprehensive overview of inductive reasoning and its role in scientific inquiry. With clear examples and lucid prose, Thilly's text remains an essential resource for anyone seeking to understand the nature of knowledge and the scientific method. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of (...) America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

This article addresses the extent and ways in which gender inequality in the newspaper coverage of arts and culture has changed in France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States, 1955-2005. Through a quantitative content analysis, we mapped all articles that appeared in two elite newspapers in each country in four sample years 1955, 1975, 1995, and 2005. First, despite increasing women’s employment in arts and culture and a quantitative feminization of journalism, elite newspaper coverage of women in arts and (...) culture has hardly changed, making up about 20-25 percent consistently over the last 50 years. Second, our results show surprisingly few cross-national differences in the amount of the newspaper coverage devoted to women in arts and culture. Third, although women are underrepresented in the coverage of all artistic genres, there is some evidence of horizontal sex segregation—particularly in architecture and modern dance and fashion —as well as vertical sex segregation—in that attention to women has increased in “highbrow” genres that have declined in status. Finally, as the status of an actor type increases from laymen to artistic directors, the proportion of women decreases in newspaper attention to arts and culture. (shrink)

: For quite some time now there has been an ongoing debate whether authoritative self-knowledge is compatible with anti-individualism.1 One influential line of argument against compatibilism is due to Paul Boghossian (1998). I argue that Boghossian misconstrues what the anti-individualist really is committed to. This defence of compatibilism is elaborated by showing how the Twin Earth thought experiment is meant to speak in favour of anti-individualism. Partly this will show that Boghossian is wrong in his denial that empirical background knowledge (...) is imported into the Twin Earth experiment. The main points argued are that Boghossian fails to realize, both, (1) that anti-individualism does not involve concept-individuation in terms of reference, and (2) that anti-individualism assumes a core of representational success. In effect, these two points constitute an entirely new way to defend compatibilism, a way that seems to have gone unnoticed in the literature. (shrink)

We introduce a discrete probabilistic model of motion in special and general relativity that is shown to be compatible with the standard model in the statistical limit.

Errol Harris talks about a crypto-dialectic method that lies behind the geometrical disguise of Spinoza'sEthics.Spinoza's method, he argues, is not the linear formal deduction of traditional logic but a crypto-dialectical development of the structural implications of a systematic whole. Substance differentiates itself into infinite attributes and infinite modes. Each attribute is self-differentiated into a hierarchy of modes ranging from the most complex to the simplest. Harris calls this a dialectical scale or a crypto-dialectical development of the structural implications of a (...) systematic whole. The self-specification of the whole into attributes and modes provides the framework for a dialectical system. Spinoza's hypotheses are implications dialectically derived from his concept of substance, a concept of a whole which differentiates itself into infinite attributes and modes. Substance is not a hypothesis but is a postulate which s i absolutely certain. Everything follows from substance with dialectical necessity. Substance is the origin of all things and ideas. (shrink)

Income redistribution and insurance are core functions of welfare states. What role should the EU play in this domain? I examine the purchase of normative theorizing on social justice on this question, focusing on the contrast between three models of EU involvement: the EU as Support, which implies the sharing of resources through intergovernmental transfers; the EU as Provider, which implies EU cross‐border transfers towards individual citizens; the EU as Norm‐setter, which implies that the EU formulates normative policy ideals. I (...) review different accounts of justice for the EU and how they bear on the choice between these models of EU involvement. Conceptions of “background justice” have some purchase in a debate on the EU's role, but that purchase is limited. They need to be complemented by shared conceptions of domestic justice and a degree of moral cosmopolitanism. I argue that a “European Social Union” should be a Support and Norm‐setter in the realm of insurance and redistribution. Through the establishment of interstate insurance, it would be a true “insurance union.” It would engage in interstate redistribution, but there are no compelling reasons of justice for it to become a direct Provider of insurance or redistribution towards individual citizens. (shrink)

We show that a stable groupG satisfying certain commutator conditions is nilpotent. Furthermore, a soluble stable group with generically splitting automorphism of prime order is nilpotent-by-finite. In particular, a soluble stable group with a generic element of prime order is nilpotent-by-finite.

The world is littered with wars in which innocent individual human beings, helpless groups of persons and harmless institutions are casualties because they are directly or indirectly targeted and attacked. The nature or composition of such casualties calls for a revision of, or at least leads one to question, the dominant approach to the principle of non-combatant immunity. In the just war theory, moral and political philosophers mostly approach the theorisation about the principle of the immunity of non-combatants from what (...) may be termed the individualist approach. In this approach, combatants and non-combatants are conventionally conceived as individual human beings only, or groups of persons. Consequently, the approach cannot show us how institutions cause or participate in war, and it cannot tell us how institutions should be treated in war, whether they should be treated as combatants or non-combatants, and when they should be treated as combatants or non-combatants. For this reason, the individualist approach is insufficient. However, in what may be referred to as the institutional approach, combatants and non-combatants can also be conceived as institutions rather than individuals or groups of persons. If this is the case, then arguments for and against the immunity of non-combatants can be proffered based on this institutional conception. This article contends that we need to supplement the individualist approach with the institutional approach to be able to: (i) ascertain the causal, constitutive, contributory and participatory roles of certain institutions in a particular war; and (ii) determine whether they are legitimate targets of attack. (shrink)

Die Publizistik hat erfolgreich ihre Auffassung durchgesetzt, dass „die Diskussion einer wie auch immer gearteten ‚Zeitschriftentheorie‘“ „wenig ergiebig“ sei, woraus sich auch der schmale, auf die Inhaltsanalyse beschränkte Werkzeugkasten der Zeitschriftenforschung erklärt (dazu historisch fundierte Ergänzungsvorschläge unter Abschnitt 9 und 10). Nach einer Einführung in die Zeitschrift Die Kreatur (Abschnitt 1) scheint es deshalb nötig, das theoretische Objekt – Voraussetzung jeglicher Forschungspraxis – ‚Zeitschriften‘ vorab in aller gebotenen Kürze (Abschnitt 2–4) historisch-systematisch zu skizzieren. Die Kreatur kann dann als eine der (...) Zeitschriften im Rahmen zeitgenössischer Format-Optionen (Abschnitt 5–8) in Netzwerken wie dem um Walter Benjamin situiert werden (Abschnitt 11–13). (shrink)