ONE OF THE intriguing features of Spinoza's well-known work, the Ethics, is its "geometrical method." Even today, there is fundamental disagreement among interpreters concerning practically every aspect of this method. Spinoza's own explicit thoughts about philosophical method are almost exclusively to be found in a short, unfinished work, the Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione, in which Spinoza does not seem to talk about a geometrical method at all.

This article explores the relation between the government and the media in post-apartheid South Africa. An overview is given of key developments and tensions between the government and the media in the first 10 years of democracy and the ethical frameworks underlying the respective positions. An overview of the debate between the so-called "national interest" and the "public interest" is given, and linked to normative ethical frameworks of libertarianism vis-a-vis communitarianism. A mean between the 2 is suggested in the form (...) of mutualism, whereas the necessity for conceptual clarification in debating the relation between the government and the media is emphasized. (shrink)

Startingpoint of the investigation is the Humean idea that the notion and problem of personal identity (and a fortiori of personhood) is best understood not from an epistemological-ontological perspective‚ but in the context of an analysis of ‘the concern we take in ourselves’ as in pride. It turns out that an insight in pride requires an analysis of the paradoxical relation of identification. It is argued that this relation cannot be understood in terms of a conscious strategy from the part (...) of the individual. The analysis shows that identification involves a fundamental passivity of the subject‚ but at the same time requires a certain capacity of distantiation with respect to the object(s) of identification. Pride and the identification(s) going with it‚ involve value-judgments not only concerning the value of the self as identified with certain valuable objects‚ but also concerning the mode of identification. The question is asked by whom and how the criteria of these judgments are determined. An attempt is made to give a rationale for the absence of definitive criteria in this matter. In the last parts of the paper‚ the fundamental passivity of the self in its identification(s) is interpreted as a fundamental ‘vulnerability’ which must somehow be assumed to fully be a person. (It is suggested that the analysis of pride and self-esteem in terms of ‘vulnerability’ could profit from an analysis of gratitude). (shrink)

We introduce an implication-with-possible-exceptions and define validity of rules-with-possible-exceptions by means of the topological notion of a full subset. Our implication-with-possible-exceptions characterises the preferential consequence relation as axiomatized by Kraus, Lehmann and Magidor [Kraus, Lehmann, and Magidor, 1990]. The resulting inference relation is non-monotonic. On the other hand, modus ponens and the rule of monotony, as well as all other laws of classical propositional logic, are valid-up-to-possible exceptions. As a consequence, the rules of classical propositional logic do not determine the (...) meaning of deducibility and inference as implication-without-exceptions. (shrink)

This collection of papers, celebrating the contributions of Swedish logician Dag Prawitz to Proof Theory, has been assembled from those presented at the Natural Deduction conference organized in Rio de Janeiro to honour his seminal research. Dag Prawitz’s work forms the basis of intuitionistic type theory and his inversion principle constitutes the foundation of most modern accounts of proof-theoretic semantics in Logic, Linguistics and Theoretical Computer Science.

One can assign three different aims to the desire for knowledge : utility, pleasure, truth-for-truth's-sake. Whereas the first two aims have a concretely determinable content and therefore look evident, the third one has been looked upon as strange and problematic : it is not immediately clear what kind of value is defended in this case. Popper is one of the recent defenders of the traditional ideal of truth-for-truth's-sake. He wants to defend the ideal against three positions : a primitive taboo-ridden (...) fear for knowledge and truth, relativism, instrumentalism. Analysing Popper's ethic of cognition we do not agree with the instrumentalist's critique of it. However, precisely in advocating a non-instrumentalist value, Popper's position is not unique, but paradoxically resembles the „primitive” position. Popper's belief that there is an objective or absolute truth is, in his opinion, implied by the belief that the search for knowledge makes sense. We try to show that this thesis of absolute truth is based on a conceptual mistake. In opposition to Popper's view, we sketch a form of relativism avoiding this confusion, without doing away with any concrete possibility of discussion or search for truth. At the same time, we try to understand Popper's aversion to relativism as well as the appeal of his position, in that it is a strange mixture of a heroic cognitive ethic and a desire for imaginary control over the uncontrolable. We argue that the form of relativism we advocate easily and perhaps better fulfilb the „heroic” readiness to forsake security in cognitive matters. (shrink)

t. 1. La déduction transcendentale avant la Critique de la raison pure.--t. 2. La déduction transcendentale de 1781 jusqu'à la deuxième édition de la Critique de la raison pure (1887).--t. 3. La déduction transcendentale de 1787 jusqu'à l'Opus postumum.

De blinde vlek in praktijk en discussie rond orgaandonatie In countries like Belgium and The Netherlands, there seems to be overwhelming public acceptance of transplantation and organ donation. Yet, paradoxically, part of the public refuses post-mortal donation of their own organs or of those of family members. It is customary within the transplantation context to accept the refusal of organ donation by family members “in order to accommodate their feelings”. I argue that this attitude does not take seriously what is (...) really behind the refusal of donation by (at least some) family members. My hypothesis is that even in very secularized societies, this refusal is determined by cultural-symbolic attitudes vis-à-vis the (dead) human body (and some of its parts). The blind spot for this reality, both in the practice of and discussions around organ donation, prevents understanding of what is producing the paradox mentioned. (shrink)

Books and articles are written with titles like The Last Professors and The End of the University. Of course these headings should not be taken literally. What they indicate are deep changes in the nature of the university and in the understanding of what is a professor. They also demonstrate a profound malaise, especially - but not only-among academics in the Humanities. In this brief paper an attempt is made to understand what is happening. Universities have been changing from institutions (...) dedicated to specific "ends in themselves" into organizations geared towards the production of specific forms of outcome or product. Professors have become professionals in the service of such organizations. It is argued that these changes produce effects which pervert the internal aims of university teaching and research. They originate in a wider cultural, quasi-religious belief in mastery and control. (shrink)

The author describes the recent changes of rules and proceedings in the House of Representatives, later on in the Senate and finally in both the new «cultural Assemblees», concerning the existence, the functioning and the importance of parliamentary groups and their leaders.Assimilated to the status of Vice-presidents of their Assembly, the parliamentary leaders are in charge of many responsabilities and more attention is given to the parliamentary group as such rather than to the individual members. Seating the members in the (...) House, allocating to their «mandated» members speaking time in important debates, replacing members of their group in the specialized committees, preparing with the Speaker the public debates, taking full responsability for the material aid provided to their group and their members the many tasks of the parliamentary leaders in the organization of parliamentary work are increasing.Their political functions are much more important. Usually the parliamentary leader sits in the top policy making organs of his party, very often he has had governmental experience and, as a floor leader, intervenes in the important debates.Even if essential differences can be observed between political parties the leader in the Parliament plays an important role as the link between political parties and parliament. (shrink)

This article analyses the complex relationships between the elected parliament and the government.Firstly, effective political participation of the constituency in the election of its parliamentary representatives is limited because of the pre-selection of the candidates by the parties themselves. Secondly, the freedom of the parliament is restricted by the complex network of pressures and counterpressures between legislature and executive. Parliament has recently tried to regain some of its influence by organising special parliamentary inquiry committees and by resorting to professional help (...) for assistance in its legislative work. However, the growing professionalisation might become yet another restriction to the parliamentarians' freedom of political action. Thirdly, parliamentary legislative power is undermined by the subtile way governmental decision making ends in legislation.The mass media seem increasingly unable to translate this complexity to the public. As a result the public becomes more and more indifferent to the functioning of the system, which could endanger the genuine democratic influence of the people in the parliamentary system. (shrink)

The Best Trick to Teach Critical Thinking. How philosophy of science and magic make young people resilient to nonsense. In a world of ‘alternative facts’ and fact-free opinions, all readily available through the internet, young people can easily fall prey to nonsense, thus running the risk to act on false information. Critical thinking is usually seen as a remedy against accepting and acting on such falsehoods. Under a pragmatist-naturalist interpretation of science, critical thinking is synonymous with scientific inquiry. Magic tricks (...) in the classroom seem to trigger, in an attractive and accessible way, the scientific process of inquiry in students. Two examples are discussed. Provisional results look promising enough to further explore the use of magic tricks in the classroom to train critical thinking in young people. (shrink)

The argument that automatic processes are responsible for affective/evaluative priming effects has been primarily based on studies that have manipulated the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA; i.e., the interval between the onset of the prime and the onset of the target). Moreover, these SOA studies provide an insight in the time course of the activation processes underlying automatic affect/attitude activation. Based on a fine-grained manipulation of the SOA employing either the evaluative decision task (Experiment 1) and the pronunciation task (Experiment 2) (...) we concluded that affective priming, and hence automatic affect activation, is based on fast-acting automatic processes. The results of Experiment 3 provide a valid explanation for an apparent discrepancy between the results of Experiments 1 and 2 and previous findings. Finally, the results of Experiment 3 support the prediction of Jarvis and Petty (1996) that affective priming effects should be stronger for participants who are more chronically engaged in conscious evaluations. (shrink)

Introduction -- Sagesse et savoir théorique (Spinoza I) -- Naturalisme et religion révélée (Spinoza II) -- Un naturalisme ironique (Hume I) -- Théorie et pratique, et la pratique de la théorie (Spinoza et Hume) -- Science, sens commun et sagesse -- Science et religion -- Science et éthique -- Ethique et religion -- La fin de l'histoire -- Progrès et tradition.

This article contains a reply to Guido Vanheeswijck’s critical study of my book Vloeibare waarden. Politiek, zorg en onderwijs in de laatmoderne tijd. I respond to his criticisms on the following topics: what is behind the liquidity of values; conservatism and the sacred; autonomy and the transcendence of values. The discussion also contains insights relevant to these topics from the work of Leszek Kolakowki.