Die Studien und Texte zur Sozialgeschichte der Literatur (STSL)veröffentlichen seit 1975 herausragende literatur-, geschichts- und kulturwissenschaftliche Arbeiten zur vornehmlich deutschen Literatur vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. Schwerpunkt der literaturgeschichtlichen und theoretischen Abhandlungen sowie der Quellen- und Materialienbände ist das Verhältnis von literarischem Text und gesellschaftlich-historischem Kontext. Als maßgebliche Publikationsreihe einer seit den 1960er Jahren einflussreichen Sozialgeschichte der Literatur prägt STSL zugleich die literaturwissenschaftliche Diskussion über mögliche Austauschbeziehungen zwischen Literatur-, Geschichts- und Sozialwissenschaften.

What general conclusions can be drawn about the reception of zymase, its relation to the larger shift from a protoplasm to an enzyme theory of life, and its status as a social phenomenon?The most striking and to me unexpected pattern is the close correlation between attitude toward zymase and professional background. The disbelief of the fermentation technologists, Will, Delbrück, Wehmer, and even Stavenhagen, was as sharp and unanimous as the enthusiasm of the immunologists and enzymologists, Duclaux, Roux, Fernback, and Bertrand, (...) and of Pfeffer, the experimental plant physiologist. Other skeptics—Voit, Kupffer, and Fischer—were conservatives in traditional fields. In all these cases it seems clear that professional commitments and outlook profoundly influenced the reception of zymase.In some cases there is a correlation with a specific earlier statement favoring the protoplasm theory or predicting a fermentation enzyme. Reynolds Green is a striking case of both. In 1893 he stated his belief that life processes in higher plants and fungi were identical, both being mediated by protoplasm.109 Thus he claimed that digestion was not carried out by enzymes, as in higher animals, but by the whole protoplasm, and so too fermentation in yeast: “All the metabolic processes must be carried out in the unicellular organism in the same mass of protoplasm.”110 But Green also insisted that there was no essential difference between “organized” and “unorganized ferments”; enzymes were simply more highly differentiated and specialized forms of primitive protoplasm. He spoke of “the alcoholic ferment” (that is, enzyme), and of intracellular enzymes—very advanced beliefs for 1893. Thus it is understandable why Green saw no reason to doubt his first negative results with yeast juice, and rushed into print. But it is also understandable that he persisted and soon became an outspoken advocate of Buchner's view; like Wroblewski and Pfeffer, he had already accepted the idea of an intracellular fermentation enzyme.The physiological chemists also fit the pattern in a special way. Physiological chemistry is generally regarded as the source of biochemistry; indeed, many early biochemists were trained in physiological chemistry, and imbibed there a progressive interest in enzymes and metabolism. It is not surprising, therefore, that on the whole Neumeister, Madfadyen, Wroblewski, and Loew accepted cell-free fermentation. But what is surprising, and significant, is the diversity of opinion in this group, from Abeles' living protoplasm to Wroblewski's organized array of active proteins. The feelings of the physiological chemists were mixed, and there was enough of the old protoplasm view in Macfadyen's and even Wroblewski's views to allow Buchner to see them as attacks on zymase. The ideas of physiological chemistry were also changing; the idea of protoplasm was already adjusting to the new interest in enzymes in the early 1890's. But in contrast to immunochemistry, the change in physiological chemistry was gradual, uneven, undramatic, and relatively invisible. For the new biochemistry, the tradition of physiological chemistry was the source of traditional conservatism as well as of new ideas of enzymes.In general, then, I claim that it was not experimental facts that determined attitudes toward zymase so much as previous commitments, experience, and expectations. Initially, at least, zymase was less a determinant of opinion than a touchstone of pre-existing opinion. Like a prism, it revealed the spectrum of existing attitudes toward vital phenomena.Also relevant here is the fact that the experimental evidence was entirely ambiguous; the interpretation of Buchner's experiments with antiseptics or dried yeast depended entirely on how far one was willing to stretch the scope of the terms “protoplasm” and “enzyme”. Likewise, how important one judged the instability of zymase to be, or the low level of in vitro activity, depended largely on one's point of view. There was no crucial experiment, no certain proof. Logically zymase could be regarded as protoplasm. A. Fischer did so in 1900;111 Macfadyen was still wavering in 1907;112 and Beijerinck was holding out as late as 1916.113 There were undoubtedly others. Besides the special case of Reynolds Green and the technologists, there are no recorded cases of conversion.But if there was no evidence to convert a dedicated protoplasmist, there was plenty to encourage a dedicated belief in the enzyme theory, and that, I believe, is precisely what happened. The arguments of Buchner et al in support of zymase had the greatest effect not on the protoplasmists but on those who were already predisposed toward the biochemical view. The zymase debate enabled the emerging group of biochemists to recognizethemselves as a group with a community of out-look and objectives; it brought the issue of protoplasm vs. enzyme into the open and gave it a specific and concrete issue on which to turn. The debate sharpened the biochemists' awareness that their point of view was becoming the new mainstream of biochemical thought.All this of course had an important secondary effect on those who opposed the new view, or who were not immediately concerned with it. After the zymase debate, it would have been almost impossible to ignore the new ideas; the dramatic and wide publicity the debate enjoyed would have made it difficult not to take sides. Buchner's successful defense of zymase itself became an important influence on opinion; the new movement had to be looked at with respect. But the primary effect of the debate, I assert, was on those who were already inclined to the new view. The outcome was not a mass conversion of individuals, nor the ejection of one idea by another. The sides probably did not change much; the real change was in the way each side regarded itself and its place in history. The zymase debate may perhaps best be regarded as a process of selection. Buchner's party became aware of itself as the new progressive point of view, while those holding the traditional view could no longer expound it publicly without appearing obstinate or old-fashioned. Thus the way was clear for the gradually wider establishment of the new ideas, especially among the new generation of biochemists. In this specific sense, the acceptance of zymase was a social phenomenon.This way of looking at the zymase debate also illuminates its coincidence with the emergence of biochemistry as a profession. The new professional trappings and organizations were the social manifestation of the new self-awareness gained from the zymase controversy. One of the most important effects on those disposed toward the new view was the awareness of an intellectual community and of the need to give that community social forms. The almost mythical importance of Buchner's “victory” over the old protoplasm theory that later became current is readily understandable. It was a useful ideology for a group anxious to assert the novelty of their approach, a novelty which they in fact felt quite keenly.But if the primary effect of the zymase controversy was on those predisposed to accept zymase, then obviously the success of zymase depended on the fact that change had already begun to occur. Indeed, one of the most striking, and again unexpected, results of this study is the extent to which the importance of enzymes was already recognized in the early 1890's. The new immunology clearly pointed the way. Macfadyen and Hans Buchner were looking for active proteins inside the cell in 1893. Reynolds Green, Wroblewski, and Pfeffer had all anticipated the discovery of a fermentation enzyme. Other discoveries in enzymology in the 1890's pointed the same way.114 Moreover, it is clear from this study that the old protoplams theory was adapting to the new discoveries concerning the importance of enzymes. The sidechains of the old protoplasm molecule were simply reinterpreted as enzymes, as in Wroblewski's theory, for example, or in Paul Ehrlich's extremely influential “sidechain theory” of antibody formation (1897). Despite the later views of Hopkins et al., the old protoplasm and the new enzyme theories were not irreconcilable; a continuity of development had already begun when zymase came so dramatically on the scene. Buchner himself observed that the difference between the two views had become largely verbal; in retrospect we might say, not verbal, but social and historical. The gap between the continuous change in ideas and the contemporary feeling of sharply discontnuous change is a measure of the elusive but real social and historical implications of the zymase debate, of the demise of an old establishment, and the emergence of a new.In retrospect, then, it is clear that a trend was already under way in various quarters when zymase appeared. But it was still a collection of isolated and dispersed events. The zymase controversy made the trend visible and gave it a dramatic unity. The debate influenced those who had already begun to change. It was so effective because things had begun to change and because it coincided with the direction of that trend. (shrink)

Contrary to the widespread view that Hegel excluded Africa from what he called world history proper, the specifically African element of Egypt was indispensable to his account of the pivotal dialectical moment that saw spirit's release from its immersion in nature. Hegel's racist caricature of Africans in the early part of the lectures was not gratuitous, something that commentators can leave to one side. It was integral to his dialectical account of world history because it served to generate the contradiction (...) that saw the Persian Empire give way to Greece. This understanding is confirmed by the newly completed four-volume edition of Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of World History in the Gesammelte Werke. These new volumes also enable us to gain critical insight into how the editors of the first two published versions of the lectures, Eduard Gans and Karl Hegel, sought in their different ways to shape the reception of Hegel's lectures. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NECESSARY PROPOSITIONS AND THE SQUARE OF OPPOSITION MARK ROBERTS University of Rhode Island Kingston, Rhode Island IT IS COMMONPLACE to define contradictory, contrary, and subcontrary propositions in the following way: contradictory propositions cannot both be true and cannot both be false; contrary propositions cannot both be true but can both be false; and subcontrary propositions can both be true but cannot both be false. In his Introduction to Logic (...) 1 Irving Copi raises a problem with two of these definitions which he believes forces him to limit the range of propositions which can be used in the square of opposition. Since contrary propositions can both be false, but the falsity of a necessarily true proposition is not possible, a necessarily true proposition has no contrary. Therefore, only contingent propositions can be contraries. Subcontrary propositions can both be true, but the truth of a necessarily false proposition is not possible.2 This problem is rarely raised in other logic texts, but, it is interesting to note, it is mentioned by a number of neoscholastic philosophers, for example, P. Nicholas Russo,3 Rev. H. Grenier,4 1 Irving M. Copi, Introduction to Logic (New York: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 178-179. Copi first introduced this problem in the fifth edition of his work on the basis of an article by David H. Sanford entitled " Contraries and Subcontraries,'' Nous 2 (1968) : 95-96. Sanford argues that the most reasonable way to resolve the problem of necessary propositions is to assume that contingent propositions comprise the square of opposition. 2 Copi, pp. 178-179. 8 Nicholas Russo, Summa Philosophica (Boston: Apud Marlier et Socios, 1[;85), p. 23. 4 Henri Grenier, Thomistic Philosophy, Vol. I (Charlottetown, Canada: St. Dunstan's University, 1950), p. 69. 427 428 MARK ROBERTS G. Sanseverino,5 Jacques Maritain,6 F.-X. Maquart,7 P. Coffey,8 and others.9 (It is also mentioned by Bishop Whately.10 ) Each of these philosophers makes necessarily true or false propositions an exception to the definition of contrary and subcontrary propositions. The reason is they and Copi interpret the definitions of contrary and subcontrary propositions to mean that the falsity of each contrary proposition is possible and the truth of each subcontrary proposition is possible. It should be mentioned, however, that the position of the philosophers cited above is not entirely the same as Copi's. Copi reasons that these definitions imply that necessary propositions have no contrary or subcontrary. The other philosophers believe that necessary propositions can be contraries and subcontraries. Thus, in the case of necessary propositions contrary and subcontrary propositions are, instead, defined merely in terms of their quantity and quality, not by whether or not they can both be false or can both be true. In fact, Coffey and some of the other philosophers cited above assert that, when the propositions composing the square are necessary, one can infer the truth of the universal from the truth of 5 Gaietano Sanseverino, Philosophia Christiana, Vol. II (Neapoli: Vincentii Manfredi, 1862), pp. DCCXXXVIII ff. 6 J. Maritain, An Introduction to Logic (London: Sheed & Ward, 1937), p. 135, notes 1 & 2. 7 F.-X. Maquart, Elementa Philosophiae, Vol. I (Parisiis: Andreas Blot, 1937)' p. 126 ff. 8 P. Coffey, The Science of Logic, Vol. 1 (New York: Longmans, Green & Co., 1918), p. 225, 226. 9 Joseph Gredt, Elementa Philosophiae, Vol. I (Friburgi: Herder, 1929), p. 46, notes 1 & 2; Sylvester J. Hartman, A Textbook of Logic (New York: American Book Co., 1936), p. 162 ff; Roland Houde and Jerome J. Fischer, Handbook of Logic (Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown Co., 1954), p. 61; Eduard Hugon, Cursus Philosophiae Thomisticae, Vol. I (Parisiis: P. Lethielleux n.d), p. 155; Dennis C. Kane, Logic: The Art of Predication and Inference (Providence: Providence College Press, 1978), p. 98 ff; Francis P. Siegfried, Essentialia Philosophiae (Philadelphia: Dolphin Press, 1927), p. 25; Francis Varvello, Minor Logic, trans. and supplemented Arthur D. Fearon (San Francisco: Univ. of San Francisco Press, 1933), p. 73 ff. 10 Richard Whately, Elements of Logic (Boston: James Munroe & Co., 1854), p. 77 ff. PROPOSITIONS AND THE SQUARE OF OPPOSITION 429 the particular and the falsity of the particular from the falsity of the universal.11 Maritain maintains that in the case... (shrink)

"Empirical Marxism" comprises a number of Marxists from the nineteenth century to the present who have tried to formulate an alternative to the orthodox materialism and determinism which would be more open to verification through empirical science. This interest connects such otherwise diverse thinkers as the empirio-critics, Eduard Bernstein, the Austro-Marxists, Galvano Della Volpe, and Lucio Colletti. In different ways, all of these attempted but failed to resolve the tension between revolutionary theory based on a priori premises and empiricist (...) methodology responsive to factual research. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.3 (2001) 543-564 [Access article in PDF] Eduard Gans and the Crisis of Hegelianism Warren Breckman In a 1834 report on the development of economic associationism in France, Johannes Schön detected an echo in Germany, the stirrings of a debate over the "modern Associationswesen." This discussion, he believed, would be crucial to the future of the "national economy." 1 Schön was an (...) astute observer, for the German discussion of associationism in the early 1830s was indeed but a faint echo of the French; and insofar as the idea of association was addressed by prominent social writers in those years, it was generally greeted with suspicion. This was the case, for instance, with the liberal thinker Robert von Mohl, whose influential 1835 tract on the social question criticized the notion of proletarian associationism. Conversely, by the early 1840s, association was on many tongues as a panacea for the social ills of the age. By 1840 Mohl himself had embraced the "Assoziationsprinzip" as an antidote to the atomized condition of modern social life. 2Among the relatively small number of German writers who did champion association in the 1830s, the claims for its significance were already grandiose. Moses Hess's Die heilige Geschichte der Menschheit (1837) and August von Cieszkowski's Prolegomena zur Historiosophie (1838) both linked social solidarity to millenarian expectations of a new age of humanity. Even before Hess or Cieszkowski, the first German book on Charles Fourier, by one S. R. Schneider, bore the title Das Problem der Zeit und dessen Lösung durch die Assoziation (1834), while another, by Fr. Hr. Tappehorn, was headed Die vollkommene Association, als Vermittlerin der Einheit des Vernunftstaates und der Lehre Jesu (1834). Yet the enormous importance assigned to associationism [End Page 543] in these titles exposes the ambiguity of the idea itself. For if, as one historian has claimed, "free association can be regarded in principle as the central organizational form of modern or industrial society," 3 there was no agreement on its nature. Should the right of association be understood as liberal or socialist, individualistic or collectivist? Is free association the core idea and mode of interaction of a pluralistic and competitive civil society, or is it the principle of unification that will overcome pluralism and competition? These fundamental questions were to preoccupy nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century debates in areas as diverse as revolutionary theory, labor union activism, and the regulation of business cartels. However, in the 1830s, under the pressure of the newly perceived social question, the stirrings of industrialization in Germany, and the revival of democratic politics in the July Revolution, these issues first appeared with a force that drew the attention of intellectuals.Perhaps no German intellectual of the 1830s so perfectly embodies the implicit tensions of the idea of associationism as the Hegelian philosopher of law, Eduard Gans (1797-1839). A student of the Heidelberg legal scholar A. J. Thibaut, Gans later came to be considered by Hegel as one of his most brilliant followers. Once Gans became a professor in the Juristic Faculty at the University of Berlin in the mid-1820s, it was he, not Hegel, who taught a generation of students the intricacies of Hegelian political philosophy. Gans died in 1839 at the age of 42, felled at a luncheon by a stroke while in mid-sentence, a victim, according to the Hallische Jahrbücher, of his own passion for discussion. This volubility is more than evident in his oeuvre, which includes a multi-volume study of inheritance law in world history, dozens of essays on legal philosophy and political and legal issues in his native Prussia and Europe, a popular memoir, and an edition of Hegel's Philosophy of Right. He was instrumental, moreover, in creating the Society for Scientific Critique in 1826, the Hegelian "counter-academy" established in response to the Royal Prussian Academy of Sciences' decision to exclude Hegel, and he was a founder of Die Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik, the organization's journal and the main organ of Hegelianism. At... (shrink)

Excerpt from Hartmann, Duhring und Lange: Zur Geschichte der Deutschen Philosophie im XIX. Jahrhundert; Ein Kritischer Essay Zu dem Bedeutendfien nun, was auf diefem Gebiet feit einem Decennium zu Tage gefordert worden ift, gehoren die Werke von Hartmann, Duhring und Im Folgenden werde ich Hartmann und Duhring, die beiden fyftematifehen Dogma tiker, gegenuberf'cellen, um fie fo gegenfeitig in moglichfl fcharfes Licht zu bringen und fie als Extreme aufzuweifen, zwifchen denen Lange wahrhaft vermittelnd, nicht charakterlos lavirend, als Kri ticift und Relativift (...) und gleichfam als Correctiv mitten innen fieht; er verzichtet darauf, mit einem neuen Syflem die Welt zu beglucken und fieht den Fortfchritt der Wiffenfchaften weniger in voreiligen Lofungsverfuchen, als in immer exacterer F ormuli rung der Probleme im Anfchlufs an Kant, deffen Syfiem nicht veraltet if'c, weil man es jetzt erft ganz und voll verficht. Alle drei erheben den gewichtigen Anfpruch, auf der vollen Hohe der Gegenwart zu ftehen; und insbefondere glaubt jeder, dafs die fo heifs und feit langer Zeit erfehnte Vermahlung von Philo fophie und Naturwiffenfchaft in feinem Syf'tem gefeiert fei. Dies ift ihre gemeinfame Tendenz, dies ihr gemeinfames Pro gramm, das freilich dann jeder auf feine eigenthumliche Weife' zu erfullen fucht. 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)

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)

One of our great behavioral scientists, the bestselling author of Behave, plumbs the depths of the science and philosophy of decision-making to mount a devastating case against free will, an argument with profound consequences Robert Sapolsky's Behave, his now classic account of why humans do good and why they do bad, pointed toward an unsettling conclusion: We may not grasp the precise marriage of nature and nurture that creates the physics and chemistry at the base of human behavior, but (...) that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Now, in Determined, Sapolsky takes his argument all the way, mounting a brilliant (and in his inimitable way, delightful) full-frontal assault on the pleasant fantasy that there is some separate self telling our biology what to do. Determined offers a marvelous synthesis of what we know about how consciousness works-the tight weave between reason and emotion and between stimulus and response in the moment and over a life. One by one, Sapolsky tackles all the major arguments for free will and takes them out, cutting a path through the thickets of chaos and complexity science and quantum physics, as well as touching ground on some of the wilder shores of philosophy. He shows us that the history of medicine is in no small part the history of learning that fewer and fewer things are somebody's "fault"; for example, for centuries we thought seizures were a sign of demonic possession. Yet, as he acknowledges, it's very hard, and at times impossible, to uncouple from our zeal to judge others and to judge ourselves. Sapolsky applies the new understanding of life beyond free will to some of our most essential questions around punishment, morality, and living well together. By the end, Sapolsky argues that while living our daily lives recognizing that we have no free will is going to be monumentally difficult, doing so is not going to result in anarchy, pointlessness, and existential malaise. Instead, it will make for a much more humane world. (shrink)

In this paper, we present an informal introduction to Logical English and illustrate its use to standardise the legal wording of the Automatic Early Termination clauses of International Swaps and Derivatives Association Agreements. LE can be viewed both as an alternative to conventional legal English for expressing legal documents, and as an alternative to conventional computer languages for automating legal documents. LE is a controlled natural language, which is designed both to be computer-executable and to be readable by English speakers (...) without special training. The basic form of LE is syntactic sugar for logic programs, in which all sentences have the same standard form, either as rules of the form conclusion if conditions or as unconditional sentences of the form conclusion. However, LE extends normal logic programming by introducing features that are present in other computer languages and other logics. These features include typed variables signalled by common nouns, and existentially quantified variables in the conclusions of sentences signalled by indefinite articles. Although LE translates naturally into a logic programming language such as Prolog or ASP, it can also serve as a neutral standard, which can be compiled into other lower-level computer languages. (shrink)

First published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The way from the path integral to Feynman diagrams is sketched. The emphasis is put on the decrease of complexity in this process, from infinite-dimensional integrals down to the apparent simplicity of child’s play. On the other hand, also the subsequent increase in complexity when using Feynman diagrams to make realistic physical predictions is described, thus illustrating the dialectic between the simplicity and clarity of Feynman diagrams, and the complexity in their practical applications.

You recognize when you know something for certain, right? You "know" the sky is blue, or that the traffic light had turned green, or where you were on the morning of September 11, 2001--you know these things, well, because you just do. In On Being Certain , neurologist Robert Burton challenges the notions of how we think about what we know. He shows that the feeling of certainty we have when we "know" something comes from sources beyond our control (...) and knowledge. In fact, certainty is a mental sensation, rather than evidence of fact. Because this "feeling of knowing" seems like confirmation of knowledge, we tend to think of it as a product of reason. But an increasing body of evidence suggests that feelings such as certainty stem from primitive areas of the brain, and are independent of active, conscious reflection and reasoning. The feeling of knowing happens to us; we cannot make it happen. Bringing together cutting edge neuroscience, experimental data, and fascinating anecdotes, Robert Burton explores the inconsistent and sometimes paradoxical relationship between our thoughts and what we actually know. Provocative and groundbreaking, On Being Certain , will challenge what you know (or think you know) about the mind, knowledge, and reason. ROBERT BURTON, M.D. graduated from Yale University and University of California at San Francisco medical school, where he also completed his neurology residency. At age 33, he was appointed chief of the Division of Neurology at Mt. Zion-UCSF Hospital, where he subsequently became Associate Chief of the Department of Neurosciences. His non-neurology writing career includes three critically acclaimed novels. He lives in Sausalito, California. Visit his website at http://www.rburton.com/ “What do we do when we recognize that a false certainty feels the same as certainty about the sky being blue? A lesser guide might get bogged down in nail-biting doubts about the limits of knowledge. Yet Burton not only makes clear the fascinating beauty of this tangled terrain, he also brings us out the other side with a clearer sense of how to navigate. It's a lovely piece of work; I'm all but certain you'll like it. “ --David Dobbs, author of Reef Madness; Charles Darwin, Alexander Agassiz, and the Meaning of Coral “Burton has a great talent for combining wit and insight in a way both palatable and profound.” --Johanna Shapiro PhD, professor of Family Medicine at UC Irvine School of Medicine “A new way of looking at knowledge that merits close reading by scientists and general readers alike.” -- Kirkus “This could be one of the most important books of the year. With so much riding on ‘certainty,’ and so little known about how people actually reach a state of certainty about anything, some plain speaking from a knowledgeable neuroscientist is called for. If Gladwell's Blink was fascinating but largely anecdotal, Burton's book drills down to the real science behind snap judgments and other decision-making.” -- Howard Rheingold, futurist and author of Smart Mobs “A fascinating read. Burton’s engaging prose takes us into the deepest corners of our subconscious, making us question our most solid contentions. Nobody who reads this book will walk away from it and say ‘I know this for sure’ ever again.” --Sylvia Pagán Westphal, science reporter, The Wall Street Journal “Burton provides a compelling and though-provoking case that we should be more skeptical about our beliefs. Along the way, he also provides a novel perspective on many lines of research that should be of interest to readers who are looking for a broad introduction to the cognitive sciences.” -- Seed Magazine. (shrink)

How do movies evoke and express ethical ideas? What role does our emotional involvement play in this process? What makes the aesthetic power of cinema ethically significant? Cinematic Ethics: _Exploring Ethical Experience through Film_ addresses these questions by examining the idea of cinema as a medium of ethical experience with the power to provoke emotional understanding and philosophical thinking. In a clear and engaging style, Robert Sinnerbrink examines the key philosophical approaches to ethics in contemporary film theory and philosophy (...) using detailed case studies of cinematic ethics across different genres, styles, and filmic traditions. Written in a lucid and lively style that will engage both specialist and non-specialist readers, this book is ideal for use in the academic study of philosophy and film. Key features include annotated suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter and a filmography of movies useful for teaching and researching cinematic ethics. (shrink)

Book Reviewed in this article: Israel's Prophetic Tradition: Essays in honour of Peter R. Ackroyd. Edited by Richard Coggins, Anthony Phillips and Michael Knibb, Pp.xxi, 272. Cambridge University Press, 1982, £21.00. Essays on John. By C.K. Barrett. Pp.viii, 167, London, SPCK, 1982, £10.50. The Letter to the Colossians. By Eduard Schweizer, translated by Andrew Chester. Pp.319, London, SPCK, 1982, £12.50. Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church. By Francis Schüssler Fiorenza. Pp.xix, 326, New York Crossroad, 1984, $22.50. The Darkness of (...) God: Theology after Hiroshima. By Jim Garrison. Pp.x, 238, London, SCM Press, 1982, £5.95. Discerning the Mystery, An Essay on the Nature of neology. By Andrew Louth. Pp.xiv, 150, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983, £12.50. The Tao and the Daimon: Segments of a Religious Inquiry. By Robert C. Neville. Pp.xv, 281, Albany, New York, State University of New York Press, 1982, $34.50 ), $11.95. Person and Myth: Maurice Leenhardt in the Melanesian World. By James Clifford. Pp.xi, 270, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1982, £21.50. Transcendence and the Sacred. Edited by A.M. Olson and L.S. Rouner. Pp.xv, 230, University of Notre Dame Press, 1981, £10.75. A History of Religious Ideas. Vol. 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity. By Mircea Eliade. Translated by William R. Trask. Pp.xi, 565, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1982, £17.50. Ordeal by Labyrinth: Conversations with Claude‐Henri Racquet. By Mircea Eliade. Translated by Derek Coltman. Pp.ix, 225, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1982, £12.55. Religious Philosophy of Prince‐Bishop Njegosh of Montenegro. By Zika Rad. Prvulovich. Pp.xviii, 273, Birmingham, The Author, 1984, £12.50, £10.50. The Home of Meaning: The Hermeneutics of the Subject of Paul Ricoeur. By John W. Van Dengel. Pp.xxi, 333, Washington, D.C., University Press of America, 1982, $24.50, $13.25. Life Forms and Meaning Stucture. By Alfred Schutz, translated, introduced and annotated by Helmut Wagner. Pp.vi, 217, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, £11.95. The Shaping of Man: Philosophical Aspects of Sociobiology. By Roger Trigg. Pp.xx, 186. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982, £12.50, £5.95. Marx and Marxisms: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series, 14. Edited by G.H.R. Parkinson. Pp.vi, 268, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £9.95. Marx and Justice: The Radical Critique of Liberalism. By Allen E. Buchanan. Pp.xiv, 206, London, Methuen, 1982, £12.95. Israel Satanter: Text, Structure, Idea. By Hillel Goldberg. Pp.xvii, 358, New York, Ktav, 1981, $17.50. Freud on Femininity and Faith. By Judith Van Herik. Pp.xiii, 216, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1982, £17.50. Women, Reason and Nature. By Carol McMillan. Pp.x, 165, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982, £12.50. Supererogation: Its Status in Ethical Theory. By David Heyd. Pp.vii, 191, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £14.00. The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy. Edited by Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny and Jan Finborg. Pp.xi, 1035, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £40.00. St Thomas Aquinas. By Ralph McInerny. Pp.197, Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1982, £4.50. Yves de Vallone: The Making of an Esprit‐Fort. By James O'Higgins, S.J. Pp.viii, 248, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1982, $35.00. Religion and National Identity. Edited by Stuart Mews. Pp.xvi, 618, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982, £19.50. Mortmain Legislation and the English Church, 1279–1500. By Sandra Raban. Pp.xii, 215,, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £25.00. John XXIII, Pope of the Council. By Peter Hebblethwaite. Pp.viii, 550, London, Geoffrey Chapman, 1984, £14.95.iCompiled by J.F. Púglisi and S.J. Voicu. Pp.260, Rome, Centro Pro Unione, 1984, $20.00. Ireland: A Bibliography of Material held at St Deiniol's Library. Compiled by Helen C. Price. Pp.iv, 136, Hawarden, St Deiniol's, 1984, £2.50. The Later Poems, 1972–1982. By R.S. Thomas. Pp.224, London, Macmillan, 1984, £4.95. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis essay covers two criticisms of Brennan’s Against Democracy. The first charges that the public political ignorance findings upon which Brennan relies are not epistemically nuanced to th...

Impact, Volume 2020, Issue 26, Page 2-41, June 2020.

At a time when many institutions of higher learning are reflecting on their past complicity with chattel slavery, either in terms of the sources of their funding or their use of slave labor, philosophy as an academic discipline has been largely silent about its own complicity. Questions surrounding the legitimacy and practice of slavery were a regular part of moral philosophy courses at universities from the sixteenth century until its abolition. However, the discussions of slavery found in the dominant textbooks (...) tended to be deeply conservative judged even by the standards of those times. This partly explains why after emancipation the many moral questions posed by slavery are barely mentioned in survey histories of ethics or of political philosophy today: this is a context in which academic philosophy does not show itself to its best advantage. The present article explores what academic philosophers need to do to redress the discipline's past failures, including its virtual silence about slavery since the Civil War. Given today's political environment, academic philosophers need to reflect on how the discipline in its institutional form functions within a system governed by the legacy of slavery and its aftermath. (shrink)

Phenomenologists usually insist that their approach involves going “back” to and “starting” with technoscientific experience—that is, returning to the actual existing or living through of technoscientific life—after centuries of privileging the analysis of how things are “objectively” known and denigrating accounts of how they are “subjectively” lived with. But then who says this and how is this understood? “Who” is really a phenomenologist, when so many diverse thinkers claim the title? This paper considers some of the reasons why this is (...) such a difficult question and argues that it is wrong to look for The Answer to it. (shrink)

Religion is the third and final volume in Robert Cummings Neville's systematic development of a new philosophical theology. Unfolding through his earlier volumes, Ultimates and Existence, and now in Religion, philosophical theology considers first-order questions generally treated by religious traditions through philosophical methods while reflecting Neville's long engagement with philosophy, theology, and Eastern and Western religious traditions. In this capstone to the trilogy, Neville provides a theory of religion and presents a sacred worldview to guide religious participation. His philosophical (...) theory of value enlightens religions' approaches to ethics, spirituality, and religious institutional living and collaboration. With a detailed examination of plausibility conditions for sacred worldviews, the book concludes with an exploration of "religionless religion" for which institutions of religion are of penultimate value. Through the development of philosophical theology, Neville has built a unique, multidisciplinary, comparative, nonconfessional theological system, one that addresses concerns and provides tools for scientific and humanistic scholars of religion, postmodern thinkers, intellectuals from both secular and religious backgrounds, and those interested in the global state of religion today. (shrink)

In 1968, Jürgen Habermas claimed that, in an advanced technological society, the emancipatory force of knowledge can only be regained by actively recovering the ‘forgotten experience of reflection’. In this article, we argue that, in the contemporary situation, critical reflection requires a deliberative ambiance, a process of mutual learning, a consciously organised process of deliberative and distributed reflection. And this especially applies, we argue, to critical reflection concerning a specific subset of technologies which are actually oriented towards optimising human cognition. (...) In order to create a deliberative ambiance, fostering critical upstream reflection on emerging technologies, we developed the concept of a mutual learning exercise. Building on a number of case studies, we analyse what an MLE involves, both practically and conceptually, focussing on key aspects such as ambiance and expertise, the role of ‘genres of the imagination’ and the profiles of various ‘subcultures of debate’. Ideally, an MLE becomes a contemporary version of the Socratic agora, providing a stage where multiple and sometimes unexpected voices and perspectives mutually challenge each other, in order to strength-en the societal robustness and responsiveness of emerg-ing technologies. (shrink)

Author Robert Wright shows how Buddhist meditative practice can loosen the grip of anxiety, regret, and hatred, and deepen your appreciation of beauty and other people." -- Adapted from book jacket.

Propositional relationalists about the attitudes claim to find support for their view in what they assume to be the dyadic relational logical form of the predicates by which we canonically attribute propositional attitudes. In this paper I argue that the considerations that they adduce in support of this assumption, specifically for the assumption that the that-clauses that figure in these predicates are singular terms, are suspect on linguistic grounds. Propositional relationalism may nonetheless be true, but the logical form of attitude (...) predicates provides no grounds for thinking this to be so. (shrink)

Contemporary egalitarian political philosophy has become increasingly interested in the ways the international order may protect or undermine states’ capacities to deliver domestic egalitarianism. This paper draws on Miriam Ronzoni’s helpful discussion of the various different ways in which both philosophical and practical commitments can move beyond a contrast between a world of closed societies and a cosmopolis to explore how successful the theorizing prompted by that interest has been. Problems scholars like Peter Mair and Wolfgang Streeck have suggested the (...) EU faces also suggest that there are difficulties views like Ronzoni’s have to overcome to usefully orient us towards the threats posed by the interactions between domestic and international politics. These problems can be usefully framed by what the intellectual historian István Hont called jealousy of trade and used to understand debates between members of what is commonly understood as the republican tradition, especially in the eighteenth century. Jealousy of trade revolves around the way that international economic competition intensifies international political competition, requiring the restructuring of domestic politics to ensure the survival of the state, which then further intensifies international economic competition. The ways of navigating and controlling the increasing costs of an increasingly belligerent international order eighteenth century political theorists found help illustrate the challenges contemporary internationalising egalitarians face. Isaac Nakhimovsky’s work on Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s closed commercial state is, I argue, specially useful given the similarity of some of Fichte’s commitments to those of contemporary internationalising egalitarians. (shrink)

On the Genealogy of Morality has become the most common point of entry into Nietzsche's thought. It offers relatively straightforward, sustained explanatory narratives addressing many of the main ideas of Nietzsche's mature thought, such as 'will to power', 'nihilism', 'perspectivism' and the 'value of truth'. It also directs its attention to what is widely taken to be Nietzsche's important philosophical contribution, the critique of morality. Yet it is challenging to understand because Nietzsche intended it as an expansion and elaboration of (...) his ideas developed elsewhere. Presupposing no prior knowledge of Nietzsche or the text, Robert Guay provides the interpretive and philosophical context to make Nietzsche's thought more accessible and shows how Nietzsche's narratives engage with philosophical issues about agency, self-knowledge, historical explanation and the critique of morality"-- Back cover. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAccording to the prioritized reason model of precedent, precedential constraint is explained in terms of the need for decision-makers to reconcile their decisions with a settled priority order extracted from past cases. The prioritized reason model of precedent departs from the view that common law rules comprise protected reasons for action. In this article I show that a model utilizing protected reasons and the prioritized reason model of precedential constraint are, in an important sense, equivalent. I then offer some reflections (...) on the philosophical significance of this result. I argue that the protected reason model is consistent with the phenomenology of precedential constraint. I suggest an account of precedential reasoning that reconciles the prioritized reason and protected reason models. (shrink)

In this conversation, American philosopher Robert Brandom talks about the historical background of his inferentialism, reconstructing the influence of his teachers Wilfrid Sellars and Richard Rorty.

The weeks-long rioting and the destruction of property were more than just a hyper reaction to apparent racial discrimination in 2020. We might interpret this anti-social and criminal behavior as having its origin with an envy and resentment over things material. We were warned about this misuse of our freedom more than forty years ago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Finding our way back from a materialist-saturated vision of the good life depends on taking up a Christian humanism which was championed by (...) Pope Saint John Paul II. We see that Christian humanism expressed vividly in family life. (shrink)

While theoretically, egoism may be considered one kind of ethics, generally speaking, egoism, defined as self-interest at the expense of others, is contrary to the central principles of ethics, which are, in the main, other-directed. While Adam Smith's economics is famously argued to serve both self and other, the core thesis of this chapter is that Adam Smith's position is seriously flawed. The chapter argues that self-interest economics is fundamentally flawed and needs to be replaced by an objective, value-based economics. (...) It is shown that Adam Smith's notions of humans as simultaneously ethical beings and beings who pursue their self-interest are contradictory. Economics cannot exist for the sake of itself: it must exist for the sake of a higher end. (shrink)

The Center of Interdisciplinary Studies in Cracow has a very rich tradition that has been studied by many and recently by Kamil Trombik. The very difficult period for the Church and for philosophy during the materialistic Marxist ideology was an opportunity for card. K. Wojtyła to outline a new mode of dialog between science and religion. The future Center, organized by Michał Heller and Józef Życiński not only captured this idea but transformed it into an academic institution centered on the (...) idea of philosophy in science, which was also developed at the Vatican Observatory by W.G. Stoeger et al. Trombik’s book is an excellent study of the historical context and initial years of activity of the Center and its development. (shrink)

In her book Natural Saints: How People of Faith Are Working to Save God's Earth Mallory McDuff quotes a member of the religious environmental group Georgia Interfaith Power and Light as saying that:the science of climate change and the environmental crisis is the wakeup call. But faith in God provides the hope that gets us out of bed to do something about it. Faith gives us the hope, joy, and possibility of triumph to "let not our hearts be troubled" but (...) to move forward with action. And ultimately, this hope is what the religious community can offer that the secular environmental groups have not been able to provide.1At the end of her book McDuff revisits much the same theme, writing that "[the] God thing has the... (shrink)

This paper explores the model theory of relevant arithmetic, emphasizing the structure of nonstandard natural numbers in the relevant arithmetic R#. In particular, the authors prove the “Alien Intruder Theorem” guaranteeing the existence of a model of R# including the rational numbers in which each rational acts as a nonstandard natural number. The authors conclude by considering some consequences of and open questions about the construction used in the theorem.

Myoe the Dreamkeeper, Fantasy and Knowledge in Early Kamakura Buddhism. George Tanabe, Jr. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1992. xiv, 291 pp. $35.