In public political deliberation, people will err and lie in accordance with definite patterns. Such discourse failure results from behavior that is both instrumentally and epistemically rational. The deliberative practices of a liberal democracy cannot be improved so as to overcome the tendency for rational citizens to believe and say things at odds with reliable propositions of social science. The theory has several corollaries. One is that much contemporary political philosophy can be seen as an unsuccessful attempt to vindicate, on (...) symbolic and moral grounds, the forms that discourse failure take on in public political deliberation. Another is that deliberative practices cannot be rescued even on non-epistemic grounds, such as social peace, impartiality, participation, and equality. To alleviate discourse failure, this book proposes to reduce the scope of majoritarian politics and enlarge markets. (shrink)

An outstanding problem in so-called modal interpretations of quantum mechanics has been the specification of a dynamics for the properties introduced in such interpretations. We develop a general framework (in the context of the theory of stochastic processes) for specifying a dynamics for interpretations in this class, focusing on the modal interpretation by Vermaas and Dieks. This framework admits many empirically equivalent dynamics. We give some examples, and discuss some of the properties of one of them. This approach is applicable (...) to a wider class of theories, in particular, those using (discrete) strict effective—as in decoherence theory—superselection rules. (shrink)

Francis Bacon’s elusive notion of experience can be better understood when we relate it to his views on matter, motion, appetite and intellect, and bring to the fore its broader philosophical implications. Bacon’s theory of knowledge is embedded in a programme of disciplinary redefinition, outlined in the Advancement of Learning and De augmentis scientiarum. Among all disciplines, prima philosophia plays a key foundational role, based on the idea of both a physical parallelism between the human intellect and nature and a (...) theological parallelism between nature and God. Failure to assess Bacon’s distinctive position concerning the way in which the mind mirrors both the natural and the divine world, that is to say, the meaning of “reality,” has resulted in notoriously jejune discussions on Baconian empiricism, monotonously driven by epistemological concerns. As a result, the standard view on Bacon’s empiricism is as epistemologically comforting as it is imaginary, an “idol” in a genuinely Baconian sense. In this article, Bacon’s notion of experience will be discussed by examining those steps that he considered to be the crucial initial stages in the formation of human experience, stages described as a process of experiential literacy or, in emblematic terms, as a hunting expedition led by the mythological figure of Pan. I argue that a well-rounded analysis of Bacon’s experientia literata needs to take into account the complementary notion of the “spelling-book of nature”, that is, the original code of the primordial motions of matter. By getting acquainted with the first rudiments of experience through its spelling-book, one learns to read the book of nature and, most of all, to write new pages in it. (shrink)

I discuss the interpretation of spontaneous collapse theories, with particular reference to Bell's suggestion that the stochastic jumps in the evolution of the wave function should be considered as local beables of the theory. I develop this analogy in some detail for the case of non-relativistic GRW-type theories, using a generalisation of Bell's notion of beables to POV measures. In the context of CSL-type theories, this strategy appears to fail, and I discuss instead Ghirardi and co-workers' mass-density interpretation and its (...) relation to Schrödinger's original charge-density interpretation. This discussion is extended to relativistic CSL-type theories. A few remarks on Everett's interpretation conclude the paper. (shrink)

In this paper I generalize the new approach to nonmonotonicreasoning that was presented in [6]. This generalization results in the inconsistency-adaptive logic PRL . I give proof theory, semantics, mention interesting properties,and comment on the reconstruction and amelioration of other nonmonotoniclogics and mechanisms.

Dalla Prefazione di Manfred Frings: «Il libro di Guido Cusinato non solo riesce a mettere in evidenza la molteplice rilevanza della filosofia di Scheler […], ma illumina anche nuovi aspetti e apre nuove prospettive di indagine. Questo obiettivo viene raggiunto da Cusinato con rigore metodologico e attraverso uno sforzo teso a verificare tutta una serie di affermazioni che erano state fatte finora in modo forse un po’ troppo affrettato. Per es. dimostra che Scheler non era né un dualista né (...) un panteista, come invece spesso si è sostenuto […] Cusinato offre al lettore elementi finalmente efficaci per rivedere parecchi luoghi comuni. In particolare Cusinato ritiene importante, mettere da parte quella categoria interpretativa del “dualismo” fra spirito e vita, che così spesso è stata invece applicata alla sua metafisica. Al suo posto Cusinato suggerisce di intendere la concezione scheleriana della relazione fra spirito e vita, o meglio, fra spirito e pulsione (Geist e Drang), facendo ricorso ad un termine che compare negli ultimi scritti: quello di interpenetrazione (Durchdringung). […] Fra le analisi che Cusinato svolge […] le più preziose e originali mi sembrano essere quelle relative all’umiltà (Demut). Invece nella maggior parte della letteratura su Scheler l’umiltà, uno dei tre atti morali fondamentali per accedere all’atteggiamento filosofico, non viene neppure menzionata. L’interpretazione che ne dà Cusinato, ponendola a fondamento di una «riduzione catartica» pensata in contrasto con la consueta riduzione husserliana, offre senz’altro spunti promettenti per le indagini future» (M. S. Frings, Prefazione, in: G. Cusinato, Katharsis, pp. 6-7). (shrink)

This article focuses on the completely neglected relation between Collingwood and Heidegger's concepts of metaphysics by highlighting their respective reactions to Alfred J. Ayer and Rudolf Carnap. In his article “The Elimination of Metaphysics through Logical Analysis of Language” from 1931, Carnap exposed the metaphysical statements, used by Heidegger in his inaugural lecture What is Metaphysics?, as pseudo-statements. Three years later, Ayer published the article “Demonstration of the Impossibility of Metaphysics”.In the late 1930s, Ayer's position was attacked by Collingwood in (...) An Essay on Metaphysics. In the British debate, the tables of the German debate were thus turned. Whereas the analytic philosopher Carnap reacted against the metaphysician Heidegger, the metaphysician Collingwood reacted against the analytic philosopher Ayer. Accordingly, a correct understanding and evaluation of the relation between Collingwood's and Heidegger's concepts of metaphysics are dependent on knowledge of their respective reactions to Ayer and Carnap.Three steps are taken. First, the discussion between Carnap and Heidegger is presented. Second, the friction between Ayer and Collingwood is outlined. In the final section, the similarities and differences between Collingwood and Heidegger's concepts of metaphysics are explored and situated within their divergent views on the Western history of philosophy. (shrink)

Since the early Medieval Time people contested theological legitimation and rational discursive discours on authority as well as retreated to refuges to escape from any secular or ecclesiastical authority. Modern attempts formulated rational legitimation of authority in several ways: pragmatic authority by Monteigne, Bodin and Hobbes, or the contract authority of Locke and Rousseou. However, Enlightened Anarchism, first formulated in 1793 by the English philosopher William Godwin fulminated against all rational restrictions of human freedom and self-determination. However, we do not (...) analyze anarchism by the ‘what’ and the ‘why’, but by looking for the best actual approach of Anarchist’s ‘Promised Land’. Furthermore, we follow the footsteps of Thoreau’s Walden Pond experiment considered as a place of salvation and prototype of 19th century romantic’s extreme individualism towards Leopold’s ethics of the land. Indeed, Thoreau’s and later Muir’s concepts of refuges are tightly connected to territorial and temporal bio-regional constraints and imply an internally organized public area based on mutualism and Hannah Arendt’s agape. From these ideas of refuges, Aldo Leopold formulated his Land-ethics that claimed integrity and autonomy of the ‘Land’. His foundation is a prototype of the eco-centric free space version of eco-anarchism as formulated by Bookchin. In order to formulate a philosophical foundation of eco-anarchism we reject Newtonian homogeneous space-temporal conception, preceding the whole Modern discours about authority and state. On the contrary, we adopt the pluralistic Leibnizian space-time from which thinking-humans do not dissociate themselves, but participate as part of the rational infrastructure of eco-refuges. In eco-refuges, citizen belong to the civil society that stays in equilibrium with the landscape and all forms of biological life. Space is the boundary condition of human activity and determines how borders, environmental organization and institutes are sustained. Space has its proper essence of sustainability, unity and integrity. The individual feelings of security are embedded in a timelike tradition and evolution of the free space, while individual particular conceptions of space and time integrate into the social processes of identification with the refuge. Therefore, the creation of eco-refuges transforms the actual world of national authorities into a world of anarchistic democratic eco-regional homelands. (shrink)

when r. g. collingwood began to write his autobiography in 1938, he was only 49 years old, still very young for drawing up a final balance. Only three years earlier, he had been appointed to the prestigious Waynflete Chair of Metaphysical Philosophy in Oxford. By then, Collingwood was already severely ill and he knew that he only had a few more years to live. Therefore, he did not only present his past evolution in his autobiography; his attention rather went to (...) those subjects for which he feared there was not enough time left to elaborate. The project that in his mind deserved the most attention was the defence of the possibility of a contemporary metaphysics. Less than one year later, Collingwood elaborated this .. (shrink)

Although the philosophical ideas of the English philosopher Robin George Collingwood on history and art have often been compared with those of the German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, an in-depth comparison between their concepts of metaphysics was never made. Therefore, the focus in this article is on both authors’ concepts of metaphysics. It is shown that, despite the undeniable affinity, their views of the status of metaphysics differ substantially. Both Dilthey and Collingwood focus on an inherent antinomy in the project of (...) metaphysics. On the one hand, there is the inescapable relativity of all time-bound ways of thinking and their results; on the other, there is the metaphysical search for objective and generally accepted knowledge of reality as a whole. For Dilthey, the awareness of its historical character reveals the impossibility for metaphysics to provide a foundation for natural and human sciences alike. Collingwood’s aim, by contrast, is to safeguard the possibility of metaphysics as a historical science to supply an enduring foundation of natural and human sciences. To clarify this radical difference with regard to the role of metaphysics, I make three steps. First, I situate Dilthey’s critique of metaphysics within the context of his work in order to present his ‘solution’ of the metaphysical antinomy. Second, I focus on the role of Collingwood’s reform of metaphysics and his ‘solution’ of the metaphysical antinomy. Finally, I relate the different status of their views of metaphysics to their divergent interpretations of human finitude. (shrink)

Proof theory and semantics of an adaptive logic that deals adequately with change in individuals with or without a name are presented. New logical constants are introduced, viz. indicators. Within a given context they function as names, predicates and quantifiers at the same time. The thus extended language (of classical logic) has a big expressive power and solvespartly — the (classical) non-logical presuppositions with respect to ‘the existence of individuals’. Nevertheless, from a purely logical point of view, the here pre (...) - sented logic requires nothing but a very intuitive selection of classical models of the premises, viz. the minimally abnormal ones. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

In On the Genealogy of Morality Nietzsche exposes christianity as the product of the slave morality and its resentment. Nietzsche’s exposure provoked different reactions. In Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen from 1913 Max Scheler shows, in contrast to Nietzsche, that the quintessence of christian ethics does not arise from resentment. More interesting than Scheler’s rebuttal of Nietzsche is the reaction from the French-American thinker René Girard . Girard does not only criticize Nietzsche’s analysis, but goes as well into the (...) both paradoxal and crucial point that resentment is, on the one hand, intertwined with christian culture and, on the other, is at odds with christian inspiration. I would like to present Girard’s rebuttal of Nietzsche in two steps. First, I outline the background of Girard’s view on the relation between myth and christianity, taking his interpretation of the function of the scapegoat mechanism in premodern mythical religions as a starting-point. According to Girard, christianity functions as the exposure of premodern mythical religions, rejecting as it does the foundational role of the scapegoat mechanism as a means of canalising violence, inherent to mimetic desire. It is not christianity’s intent to canalize violence by means of limited violence , but precisely to expose violence. By making obvious that christianity did not succeed in doing this – by giving a philosophical analysis of the role of christianity in Western culture Girard shows that christianity has succeeded only in wounding violence, not in eliminating it and, as a consequence, has cleared the way for resentment – he is able to demonstrate that resentment is the child of christianity, not its father. Subsequently I outline Girard’s view on the role of mimetic desire in modern culture. Instead of canalizing mimetic desire by means of the scapegoat mechanism, modern Western culture unchains mimetic desire by means of the free market principle of competition. External mediation, which is typical of premodern mythical-religious cultures, is now being replaced by internal mediation, which is guided by economic principles. As such, resentment is going to determine modern culture from within. Hence, christianity will, as an integral part of modern culture, be likely to fall a prey to this resentment. Finally, I conclude by going into the challenge christianity, squeezed as it were between religious claims on the one hand and modern presuppositions on the other, has to cope with: how can it overcome resentment, of which it undoubtedly bears the fruits and which it simultaneously radically rejects? (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

RÉSUMÉ: R. G. Collingwood a-t-il rejeté, après 1933, l’existence de problèmes éternels en philosophie? En me référant à son œuvre complète, je voudrais montrer que cette question doit recevoir une réponse négative. J’essaie d’expliquer, d’abord, pourquoi Collingwood recourt, dans An Autobiography et An Essay on Metaphysics, à une terminologie un peu curieuse et même parfois trompeuse, qui a donné prise à l’interprétation selon laquelle le der-nier Collingwood répudiait l’existence de problèmes éternels en philosophie. Deuxiè-mement, mon intention est de rendre manifeste (...) que pour Collingwood — qui se considérait luimême, au milieu des années trente, comme un «idéaliste objectif» — les questions philosophiques sont à la fois historiques et éternelles. (shrink)

In this article I intend to focus on the interpretation of the so-called postmodern phenomenon of anthropological fragmentation/doubling. My starting-point is a comparison between the anthropological position of the American philosopher Richard Rorty on the one hand and that of the French-American anthropologist René Girard on the other. Both Rorty and Girard prefer literature to academic philosophy as a gateway to the understanding of anthropological issues. Moreover, both their anthropological analyses take full account of the work of Sigmund Freud. In (...) spite of these resemblances, their respective interpretations of the current image of man are complete opposites. I shall work out this opposition in three different steps. In the first section of this article, I shall go into Rorty's interpretation of the Freudian image of man. In the second section I shall present the Girardian image of man, which, to a certain extent, he has worked out in answer to the Freudian one. Eventually, in the third section, I shall confront both forms of current anthropology, situate Girard's early writings within the context of his entire oeuvre and put forward a few critical remarks with regard to his anthroplogical presuppositions. (shrink)

According to Whitehead, nature is disclosed to mind by an ensemble of events characterized by unobservable hidden intrinsic factors (e.g., mass, gravitation) and observable extrinsic factors (e.g., motion, density). Mass is not the substratum of dynamics. It implies spatial extension and temporal duration, which are both necessary conditions of observable natural phenomena. Therefore, an instant, deprived of duration, is immeasurable. Whitehead’s claims on mass, space, and time corroborate Verlinde’s alternative conception of quantum gravitation. Within the de Sitter space-time, this conception (...) starts from the competition of the short distance degrees of freedom of the Ryn-Takanayagi tensor with long-distance thermalized excitations. This enables the creation of a baryonic mass and a decrease in de Sitter entropy. The memory effect of the original baryon creation leads to gravitation and the production of extensive thermodynamic entropy. However, the baryon production shrinks, and the dissipating space-time transforms into a space-timeless cold sink with an accompanying strong contracting memory effect. This is equivalent to the alternate motion of a giant Carnot engine, where the heat source and sink energy exchange produce the eternal periodic dynamics of the Universe. This suggests that the Universe did not start from Big Bang but oscillated eternally as a Big Bounce Universe. (shrink)

This book addresses selected central questions in phenomenological psychology, a discipline that investigates the experience of self that emerges over the course of an individual’s life, while also outlining a new method, the formal indication, as a means of accessing personal experience while remaining faithful to its uniqueness. In phenomenological psychology, the psyche no longer refers to an isolated self that remains unchanged by life’s changing situations, but is rather a phenomenon which manifests itself and constantly takes form over the (...) course of a person’s unique existence. Thus, the formal indication allows us to study the way in which ipseity relates to the world in different situations, in a way that holds different meanings for different people. Based on this new approach, phenomenological psychotherapy marks a transition from a mode of grasping the truth about oneself through reflection, to a mode of accessing the disclosure of self through a work of self-transformation that requires the person to actually change her position on herself. By putting forward this method, the authors shed new light on the dynamic interplay between a person’s historicity and uniqueness on the one hand, and the related physiopathological mechanisms on the other, providing evidence from the fields of genetics, cardiology, the neurosciences and psychiatry. The book will appeal to a broad readership, from psychiatrists, psychologist and psychotherapists, to researchers in these fields. (shrink)

Introduzione.--pte. I. La filosofia tedesca.--pte. II. La filosofia francese.--pte. III. La filosofia anglo-americana.--pte. IV. La filosofia italiana.--Considerazioni finali.--Nota bibliografica (p. [461]-475)--Indice dei nomi.

1. Premesse Questo articolo richiede alcune premesse. Innanzitutto sono opportuni due chiarimenti, o precisazioni, che riguardano il titolo, Il nominalismo di Quine: un argomento circolare. Il primo chiarimento riguarda l’attribuzione a Willard Van Orman Quine di una posizione nominalistica, attribuzione contestabile sotto diversi rispetti. È vero che Quine è comunemente considerato uno dei maggiori esponenti del nominalismo contemporaneo. Tuttavia il termine “nominalismo” può essere inteso i...