On the basis of many years of personal experience the paper describes Buddhist meditation as a mystical practice. After a short discussion of the role of some central concepts in Buddhism, William James’ concept of religious experience is used to explain the goal of meditators as the achievement of a special kind of an experience of this kind. Systematically, its main point is to explain the difference between a craving for pleasant ‘mental events’ in the sense of short-term moods, and (...) the long-term project of achieving a deep change in one’s attitude to life as a whole, a change that allows the acceptance of suffering and death. The last part argues that there is no reason to call the discussed practice irrational in a negative sense. Changes of attitude of the discussed kind cannot be brought about by argument alone. Therefore, a considered use of age-old practices like meditation should be seen as an addition, not as an undermining of reason. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Suarez, Descartes, Spinoza, Hobbes, Locke, Newton" verfügbar.

This chapter highlights that what is today perhaps most commonly called a “theory of meaning” (i.e., one where there is a robust sense of “theory” not exemplified in Wittgenstein's work) will in most cases be “pure” in Rorty's sense (i.e., it will have no direct epistemological concerns) and can (in Dummett's sense) only be a modest one, since it does not explain what “being in command of a concept” consists in. It typically treats a logical system of the kind developed (...) by Frege as a point of comparison to shed light on some aspects of natural languages. Aspects of language that might be brought into focus by such a comparison are the “calculus” side of language (the side to which our “algebraic understanding” applies). (shrink)

Wittgenstein asks himself how many types of sentences there are, and considers the traditional grammatical answer that there are assertions, questions, and imperatives. In this fictitious language game the assertion takes the form of a complex: a question coupled with a positive answer. This appears plausible when we imagine that the development of this language game began with questions, and assertions found their way into the game only later. Wittgenstein now brings to the fore the previously mentioned fact that despite (...) the situation, we cannot say that in the fictitious language game one makes an assertion by first raising a question and then giving an affirmative answer. Wittgenstein discusses the following thought, in the formulation of which he uses the word “function,” a word that was used above to determine the way in which words are to be grouped into types. (shrink)

Review text: "S.s schönes Buch hilft uns, entscheidende Schritte auf dem Weg hinter das, was nach der Physik kommt, zurückzulegen."Hartmut von Sass in: Theologische Literaturzeitung 7-8/2009 "All jenen, bei denen die Religion(en) also noch auf ein Mindestmaß an Interesse stoßen und noch Irritation und philosophische Beunruhigung auslösen, sei die Hinführung Schneiders herzlich empfohlen."René Kaufmann in: Rundbrief 2008/2009.

Wittgenstein is apparently contending that it is simply linguistic habit that gives us the impression that the question “who or what…?” fits the subject expression of the sentence. The logical conclusions in this chapter show that the strong reading of the proposed thesis developed here of a purely sound‐oriented character of the grammar of a single language (in this case, English) cannot be entirely right, and might not even be what Wittgenstein intended, because he only spoke of the sound as (...) one characteristic of the concept of a sentence. The author seeks a twofold understanding of the grammatical: on the one hand it should grasp sentences as whole units (not aggregates of the “singing from the score” type); on the other hand it should help us better understand the motivation for Wittgenstein's thesis that the grammatical concept of a sentence is oriented by (among other things) sound. (shrink)

Excerpt from Staatslehre Stechnung für Die getane patriotifche S])flicht 5u präfentieren. (R)er allgemeine 9bunfch Der %efien wollte eine @rnte auf Dem %elbe Der (c)aat, wollte für Die nationalen Spfer Den nationalen 'dreiß Die 2lufrichtung geeinter nationaler 932acht. @rft alß Diefe ßoffnung 3ufchanben geworben war, gewann Der (c)ebanfe mehr und mehr an %oben, Daß Dem (c)teger nicht berfagt werben Dürfe, waß Der %efiegte befaß. (R)o wurbe Der Rampf, Der bißher in Den großen 8tegionen Der flbelt fiel) bewegt hatte, in Daß Snnere (...) Der (c)taaten berfeßt und Die lonfiitutionelle 2enbeng, Die man alß einen {fort fchritt Der Seit betrachtete, wurbe überwiegenb. (sianfe.) About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The history of biology is mottled with disputes between two distinct approaches to the organic world: structuralism and functionalism. Their persistence across radical theory change makes them difficult to characterize: the characterization must be abstract enough to capture biologists with diverse theoretical commitments, yet not so abstract as to be vacuous. This Element develops a novel account of structuralism and functionalism in terms of explanatory strategies (Section 2). This reveals the possibility of integrating the two strategies; the explanatory successes of (...) evolutionary-developmental biology essentially depend on such integration (Section 3). Neither explanatory strategy is universally subordinate to the other, though subordination with respect to particular explanatory tasks is possible (Section 4). Beyond structuralism and functionalism, philosophical analysis that centers explanatory strategies can illuminate conflicts within evolutionary theory more generally (Section 5). (shrink)

Die wirtschaftliche und soziale Bedeutung der Juden im Mittelalter.--John Spencer's Erklärung der biblischen Gesetze in ihrer Beziehung zu Maimonides.--Max Webers Soziologie des antiken Judentums.--Zu Gabirols allegorischer Deutung der Erzählung vom Paradies.--Das Problem der Willensfreiheit bei Ḥasdai Crescas und den islamschen Aristotelikern.--Religion und Wissenschaft im mittelalterlichen und im modernen Denken.--Zur Kritik der Offenbarungsreligion in der islamischen und jüdischen Philosophie.--[Le-ḥeḳer ha-meḳorot shel Sefer ha-ʻiḳarim].--Die Akademie für die Wissenschaft des Judentums.--Die religiösen Motive in der Philosophie des Maimonides.--Das Problem der Kontingenz in der Philosophie (...) des Maimonides.--Die Normierung des Glaubensinhalts im Judentum.--Hermann Cohens Ethik. (shrink)

Philosophical studies of complex scientific concepts are predominantly “adaptationist,” arguing that conceptual complexity serves important purposes. This is a historical artifact. Having had to defend their views against a monist presumption favoring simpler concepts, pluralists and patchwork theorists felt compelled to show that complexity can be beneficial. This neglects an alternative possibility: Conceptual complexity is largely neutral, persisting simply because it does little harm. This article defends the neutral theory of conceptual complexity in two forms: (a) as a plausible theory (...) in its own right and (b) as a useful foil for adaptationist arguments. (shrink)

This article reports the results of an experiment involving 108 college students with varying backgrounds in biology. Subjects answered questions about the evolutionary history of sets of hominid and equine taxa. Each set of taxa was presented in one of three diagrammatic formats: a noncladogenic diagram found in a contemporary biology textbook or a cladogram in either the ladder or tree format. As predicted, the textbook diagrams, which contained linear components, were more likely than the cladogram formats to yield explanations (...) of speciation as an anagenic process, a common misconception among students. In contrast, the branching cladogram formats yielded more appropriate explanations concerning levels of ancestry than did the textbook diagrams. Although students with stronger backgrounds in biology did better than those with weaker biology backgrounds, they generally showed the same effects of diagrammatic format. Implications of these results for evolution education and for diagram design more generally are discussed. (shrink)

Liebe Grete Herrmann, besten Dank für Ihren Brief vom 19.5! Auch ich freue mich, Sie auf dem Pariser Kongreß zu sehen; wahrscheinlich werde ich auch an der vorangehenden Positivistentagung teilnehmen, also schon am 29.7. in Paris sein. Es interessiert mich, diese antimetaphysischen Metaphysiker einmal aus der Nähe zu beobachten. Ich werde sehen, es so einzurichten, daß ich eventuell auch nach dem Hauptkongreß noch einige Tage in Paris sein kann, um die von Ihnen angeregten Diskussionen mitzuführen. Jedenfalls hoffe ich auf einige (...) gründliche Gespräche mit Ihnen. (shrink)

Biological science uses multiple species concepts. Order can be brought to this diversity if we recognize two key features. First, any given species concept is likely to have a patchwork structure, generated by repeated application of the concept to new domains. We illustrate this by showing how two species concepts (biological and ecological) have been modified from their initial eukaryotic applications to apply to prokaryotes. Second, both within and between patches, distinct species concepts may interact and hybridize. We thus defend (...) a semantic picture of the species concept as a collection of interacting patchwork structures. Thus, although not all uses of the term pick out the same kind of unit in nature, the diversity of uses reflects something more than mere polysemy. We suggest that the emphasis on the use of species to pick out natural units is itself problematic, because that is not the term’s sole function. In particular, species concepts are used to manage inquiry into processes of speciation, even when these processes do not produce clearly delimited species. (shrink)