La société contemporaine connaît de nombreux conflits qui tendent à mettre à mal le vivre-ensemble harmonieux. Le pluralisme qui caractérise les sociétés contemporaines est souvent considéré comme étant l’origine de ces conflits. C’est pourquoi le libéralisme consensualiste cherche une sorte d’entente permanente entre les différentes oppositions au sein de la société afin de résorber ces conflits et ainsi d’éviter l’explosion sociale qui demeure une menace incessante. Seulement le consensualisme ne semble pas être si efficace pour mettre fin aux conflits sociaux (...) qui s’accroissent de plus en plus. Pire, l’on a l’impression qu’au lieu d’être une voie d’apaisement social, le consensualisme constitue plutôt une source supplémentaire de conflits. C’est la raison pour laquelle le consensus falsifiable apparaît de nos jours comme une alternative plus adaptée aux réalités des sociétés contemporaines pour atténuer ces conflits. (shrink)

There are three sentimental centres of 20th-century philosophical geography: Todtnauberg, Frankfurt and Vienna. Their exceptional status results not only from having given rise to decisive philosophical movements but also from the weight of stories about victimization and exile lacking with regard to Paris, Berkeley and Cambridge. Each of these centres is compromised in its own way: the Schwarzwald cottage from which Heidegger emerged to take over the Rektorat of Freiburg University and to which he returned after this disastrous intermezzo, the (...) "Institut für Sozialforschung" which on its part returned to claim moral authority at a location that increasingly turned into the most important bridgehead of transatlantic logistics, finally the former imperial city where traces of the origins of analytic philosophy were only conserved beneath the enormous sedimentation of a massive counter-reformation. Provincialism, NATO and tourism turned out to be perfectly compatible with remembrance of an heroic epoch at these sites while exiting philosophical work was being done at different locations. How much weight is carried by impressions like these? Not too much as long as well defined philosophical schools promote progress as defined within their own realm. Some doctrin, established all over the world does not depend on the place at which it is further refined. It is, however, in doubt whether philosophy counts among the disciplines so easily internationalized; Heidegger and Adorno being among those who would insist on the inseparability of a theory's fate and its place of origin. Be this as it may, my subject being the precarious relationship between the city and the Circle of Vienna I have to start from the assumption of obvious incomparability between the roots and the extension of the branches of the movement. Only a decade ago this would have presented itself as a fairly easy task. Historians were coming to this city to save the remnants of the beginnings of the movement whereas Anglo-American philosophers were busy refining the orthodoxy and hardly interested in historical matters. Much has changed since. Firstly the analytic enterprise is in certain ways approaching what can be called closure from within.gif Secondly Austrian universities have (with sometimes considerable delay) taken an interest in what is felt to be a lost opportunity.gif Both of these developments coincided with a more general renaissance of fin de siecle and modernist Vienna. Since the imminent conclusion of any movement reactualizes the circumstances of its beginning, renewed attention was drawn to what was happening within and to the Vienna Circle. (shrink)

This volume consists of a collection of articles published by Spencer in leading Victorian periodicals, such as The Westminster Review, The Fortnightly Review and Mind. The wide range of subjects explored includes science, philosophy, aesthetics, ethics, psychology and politics.

(1993). Reply to Ernhart, Scarr, and Geneson. Ethics & Behavior: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 95-101.

Com o rápido desenvolvimento da técnica e da tecnologia, o campo educacional tem se mostrado estratégico para transformar a racionalidade humana em racionalidade tecnológica, alterando a consecução dos fins da própria Educação. O objetivo do artigo é analisar as contradições entre o processo de reprodução da vida material nas sociedades capitalistas e a perda de liberdade dos indivíduos inseridos e ajustados aos seus critérios e, da mesma forma, o ajustamento dos estudantes às demandas socialmente úteis ao sistema em decorrência da (...) pretensa extinção dos cursos de Ciências Humanas dos currículos, que tende a afastar a Educação de sua prerrogativa fundamental que é educar para a emancipação. A Teoria Crítica do filósofo frankfurtiano Herbert Marcuse refere que o restabelecimento da razão humana é tarefa para uma Pedagogia Radical como forma de resistência em tempos de mercantilização da Educação. Seus argumentos contribuem para uma análise crítica e contextualizada da Educação brasileira em tempos de contrarreformas. (shrink)

The regularization of chiral gauge theories is reviewed from the “overlap” point of riew. This is a brief and biased review containing no references.

The edition of the Nachlass from the early thirties by Michael Nedo and the completion of the "Bergen Electronic Edition" (BEE) have provided Wittgenstein scholars with all the material required to investigate the author's philosophical development starting with his auto-criticism of the "Tractatus" and leading to his later views. Wittgenstein's strategy of dictating from his notebooks and cutting up the typescripts to rearrange paragraphs into sequences of remarks is well documented in Nedo's edition and the BEE provides convenient facsimile access (...) to every page Wittgenstein wrote or edited throughout the process. Some researchers have begun to revise received opinions that were based upon the "books" previously published by the trustees. (Hrachovec 2002, 2004, Kientzler 1997, Nyiri 2002, Pichler 2004, Stern 2002) Yet, the scientific community has barely begun to discover the richness and density of the philosophical endeavor manifesting itself in this material. There has, understandably, been an interest to trace the origin of remarks, well-known from the "Philosophical Investigations", providing some background to Wittgenstein's most popular ideas. Various doctrines of what is becoming known as the "middle Wittgenstein" have been noticed, but they have themselves been perceived as more or less consolidated theories. Wittgenstein's editorial activity has been recognized as a hypertextual undertaking avant la lettre, yet there has been insufficient attention to the philosophical impact of these hypertextual strategies themselves. It is all too easy to be caught by someprovisional result captured on a printed page and to overlook the fact that some of its philosophical significance can only be recognized by considering its genesis. (shrink)

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 was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. 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. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. 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)

'Altruism' was coined by the French sociologist Auguste Comte in the early 1850s as a theoretical term in his 'cerebral theory' and as the central ideal of his atheistic 'Religion of Humanity'. In The Invention of Altruism, Thomas Dixon traces this new language of 'altruism' as it spread through British culture between the 1850s and the 1900s, and in doing so provides a new portrait of Victorian moral thought. Drawing attention to the importance of Comtean positivism in setting the agenda (...) for debates about science and religion, this volume challenges received ideas about both Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer as moral philosophers. Darwin saw sympathy and love, not only selfishness and competition, throughout the natural world. Spencer was the instigator of an Anti-Aggression League and an advocate of greater altruism in Britain's dealings with the 'lower races'. It also sheds light on the rise of popular socialism in the 1880s, on the creation of the idealist 'altruist' in novels of the 1890s, and on the individualistic philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Oscar Wilde, and G. E. Moore - authors considered by some to be representative of fin de siècle 'egomania.' This wide-ranging study in the history of ideas is highly relevant to contemporary debates about altruism, evolution, religion, and ethics. (shrink)

A study of problems, all revolving around the subject of intellect in the philosophies of Alfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes, this book starts by reviewing discussions in Greek and early Arabic philosophy which served as the background for the three Arabic thinkers. Davidson examines the cosmologies and theories of human and active intellect in the three philosophers and covers such subjects as: the emanation of the supernal realm from the First Cause; the emanation of the lower world from the transcendent active (...) intellect; stages of human intellect; illumination of the human intellect by the transcendent active intellect; conjunction of the human intellect with the transcendent active intellect; prophecy; and human immortality. Davidson shows that medieval Jewish philosophers and the Latin Scholastics had differing perceptions of Averroes because they happened to use works belonging to different periods of his philosophic career. (shrink)

At the risk of being ostracized (if not annihilated) by the community of Popperians present, I wish to remark that Professor Lakatos is - and, I think - cannot help being, a second-level inductivist. If Professor Kuhn has pointed out (most eruditely) that science quite frequently is in a rut, and occasionally gets out of it (and into a new one), then Professor Lakatos appraises problem and theory shifts, and methodological innova- tions in the sciences, in the light of his (...) criteria of 'progress' or 'degenera- tion'. There can be little doubt that he wishes to serve (at least) in a critical and/or advisory capacity to scientists. But he can do that only if he 'places his bets', i.e., conjectures as to the fruitfulness of a method, and along with it of a theory engendered or supported by such a method along the lines of success or failure, whichever may be plausibly indicated. I find Professor Lakatos's refutations of simple inductivism (here he agrees with Popper), as well as of simple falsificationism (here he disagrees with a caricature of the early Popper), completely convincing. But if he is to fulfill the critical and/or advisory functions, what else can he do but watch the course of the 'shifts' and extrapolate?! (shrink)

The standard theories of cooperation in humans, which depend on repeated interaction and reputation effects among self-regarding agents, are inadequate. Strong reciprocity, a predisposition to participate in costly cooperation and the punishment, fosters cooperation where self-regarding behaviors fail. The effectiveness of socially coordinated punishment depends on individual motivations to participate, which are based on strong reciprocity motives. The relative infrequency of high-cost punishment is a result of the ubiquity of strong reciprocity, not its absence.