We consider two topological interpretations of the modal diamond—as the closure operator (C-semantics) and as the derived set operator (d-semantics). We call the logics arising from these interpretations C-logics and d-logics, respectively. We axiomatize a number of subclasses of the class of nodec spaces with respect to both semantics, and characterize exactly which of these classes are modally definable. It is demonstrated that the d-semantics is more expressive than the C-semantics. In particular, we show that the d-logics of the six (...) classes of spaces considered in the paper are pairwise distinct, while the C-logics of some of them coincide. (shrink)

This article discusses “auditory” arguments: arguments in which non-verbal sounds play a central role. It provides examples and explores the use of sounds in argument and argumentation. It argues that auditory arguments are not reducible to verbal arguments but have a similar structure and can be evaluated by extending standard informal logic accounts of good argument. I conclude that an understanding of auditory elements of argument can usefully expand the scope of informal logic and argumentation theory.

Though the common sense defense of affirmative action (or employment equity) appeals to principles of restitution, philosophers have tried to defend it in other ways. In contrast, I defend it by appealing to the notion of restitution, arguing (1) that alternative attempts to justify affirmative action fail; and (2) that ordinary affirmative action programs need to be supplemented and amended in keeping with the principles this suggests.

Desarrollo de algunas relaciones conceptuales entre una teor a del conocimiento y una teor a de la sociedad. Para ello, se analizan problemas de historia de la ciencia y conceptos tales como verdad y racionalidad. Finalmente, se argumenta contra la idea de que los enfoques sociol gicos y filos ficos del conocimiento que consideran seriamente la dimensi n social quedan comprometidos con concepciones convencionalistas.

CONTEMPORARY TREATMENTS OF INFORMAL FALLACIES TAKE TWO WRONGS REASONING AS A FORM OF FALLACIOUS INFERENCE. I ARGUE THAT SUCH INFERENCES ARE OFTEN VALID AND THAT AN ADEQUATE TREATMENT OF TWO WRONGS ARGUMENTS MUST DISTINGUISH VALID AND INVALID ARGUMENTS, RATHER THAN REJECT THEM OUT OF HAND.

Good Reasoning Matters! is an informal logic/critical thinking textbook designed to teach students a variety of reasoning strategies which can significantly improve their reasoning skills. This second edition updates and revises the original. It retains an emphasis on good reasoning butsimplifies presentation of key concepts and adds new features which will help students and facilitate discussion and review. The new edition updated examples, exercises, and answers to many selected exercises.

The following essay tackles Søren Kierkegaard’s view of temporality within a phenomenological vista. It proceeds by differentiating between an aesthetic, an ethical, and a religious relationality to time in step with Kierkegaard’s Christology and especially, with his notion of “sacred history,” largely unexplored in the scholarship. My fundamental hermeneutic assumption is that Kierkegaard’s stress on Christ’s historicity and the subsequent human task of imitation are properly understood only in a soteriological framework. That is why temporality should be conceived against the (...) backdrop of the singular self’s pursuit of redemption. My thesis will be that, since one’s encounter with the God-man is essentially historical, whilst engaging human temporality in its wholeness (i.e., selfhood’s past, present, and future), Kierkegaard’s soteriology is highly relevant for a phenomenology of Christianity, which still awaits its philosophical unfolding. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the restricted claim in §43a of the Philosophical Investigations is that, for a large class of cases of word meanings, the meaning of a word is its use in the language. Although Wittgenstein does not provide any example of words having uses but no meaning as exceptions to the claim, he does hint at exceptions, which are names being defined, or explained, ostensively by pointing to their bearers, in §43b. Names in ostensive definitions, or (...) explanations, are meaningful, but not being used, and are therefore exceptions to the claim that meaning is use. (shrink)

Leo Strauss's introductions to ten writings of Moses Mendelssohn -- Preliminary remark by Alexander Altmann -- Introduction to Pope a metaphysician! -- Introduction to "Epistle to Mr. Lessing in Leipzig" -- Introduction to Commentary on Moses Maimonides' "Logical terms" -- Introduction to Treatise on evidence in metaphysical sciences -- Introduction to Phädon -- Introduction to Treatise on the incorporeality of the human soul -- Introduction to "On a handwritten essay of Mr. de Luc's" -- Introduction to The soul -- Introduction (...) to Morning hours and to the friends of Lessing -- Introduction to God's cause, or providence vindicated. (shrink)

Leo Strauss is known primarily for reviving classical political philosophy through careful analyses of works by ancient thinkers. As with his published writings, Strauss’s seminars devoted to specific philosophers were notoriously dense, accessible only to graduate students and scholars with a good command of the subject. In 1965, however, Strauss offered an introductory course on political philosophy at the University of Chicago. Using a conversational style, he sought to make political philosophy, as well as his own ideas and methods, understandable (...) to those with little background on the subject. Leo Strauss on Political Philosophy brings together the lectures that comprise Strauss’s “Introduction to Political Philosophy.” Strauss begins by emphasizing the importance of political philosophy in determining the common good of society and critically examining the two most powerful contemporary challenges to the possibility of using political theory to learn about and develop the best political order: positivism and historicism. In seeking the common good, classical political philosophers like Plato and Aristotle did not distinguish between political philosophy and political science. Today, however, political philosophy must contend with the contemporary belief that it is impossible to know what the good society really is. Strauss emphasizes the need to study the history of political philosophy to see whether the changes in the understanding of nature and conceptions of justice that gradually led people to believe that it is not possible to determine what the best political society is are either necessary or valid. In doing so, he ranges across the entire history of political philosophy, providing a valuable, thematically coherent foundation, including explications of many canonical thinkers, such as Auguste Comte and Immanuel Kant, about whom Strauss did not write extensively in his published writings. (shrink)

The essays are based on a long and intimate familiarity with the works, but the essay on Aristotle is especially important as one of Strauss's few writings on ...

Presents the early published writings of the distinguished political philosopher Leo Strauss, available here for the first time in English. “Zank places at the reader’s disposal the young Strauss’s passionate advocacy of political Zionism and his early confrontations with Spinoza, consideration of whom helped lead Strauss to formulate his teaching on ‘the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns.’” — National Review.

Can a bomb ever be "clean"? Are we relieved to be warned that there will be an " odor " when once we were told that something would "stink"? Or, to put it another way, when is a euphemism a mark of good taste and when is it a sign of verbal obfuscation? To answer such questions, D.J. Enright invited sixteen distinguished writers to ponder and explore the ubiquitous phenomenon of euphemism. The result is a delightful and provocative collection (...) that not only includes general reflections on euphemism and its history but also treats such specific categories as sex, death, and other natural functions; politics; the language of the great Christian texts; euphamisms spoken to and by children; the law; medicine; office life; and the jargon of official spokesmen, military communiques, and tyrants. Such writers as Diane Johnson, Robert Nisbet, John Gross, Robert Burchfield, and Joseph Epstein bring a variety of perspectives and sensibilities to bear on these topics. Because euphemisms are so intimate and integral to our thinking, any study of them is bound to throw light on the human condition, both past and present. In these essays, humor jostles horror and the homely alternates with the farfetched. Taken together they form an eloquent and often amusing testament to the richness of the subject. About the Author: D.J. Enright is a noted English poet and critic. He recently compiled and edited The Oxford Book of Death. (shrink)

The first major piece of unpublished work by Leo Strauss to appear in more than thirty years, "Leo Strauss On Plato's "Symposium"" offers the public the unprecedented experience of encountering this renowned scholar as his students did.

Due to a widespread belief in mechano-reductionism, most intellectuals reject the idea that nonconscious living beings act toward goals. Proposing otherwise is mostly rejected as unscientific anthropomorphizing or necessitating appeals to a supernatural power. This false dichotomy has stymied biology and its related sciences. Herein, I present a new naturalistic gestalt on the nature of life—one based on facts and evidence. It incorporates Ludwig von Bertalanffy’s and Arthur Koestler’s theories of systems and hierarchies with the ideas of Aristotle, Hans Jonas, (...) and Ayn Rand, to identify fundamental formulations on the nature of life, consciousness, free will, and meaning. (shrink)