Robert Holmes’ Pacifism is the most complete, most detailed in argument, and most compelling book on pacifism I have read. It is not an easy book, for “all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.” It deserves a careful read, many reads, by anyone who cares about war and the war system we are. It is a fitting testimony to Holmes’ excellence as a philosopher in the truest sense of that word--so uncommon in the halls of the academy, (...) yet so inspiring to his students still. (shrink)

Philosophers of science traditionally have ignored the details of scientific research, and the result has often been theories that lack relevance either to science or to philosophy in general. In this volume, leading philosophers of biology discuss the limitations of this tradition and the advantages of the "naturalistic turn"—the idea that the study of science is itself a scientific enterprise and should be conducted accordingly. This innovative book presents candid, informal debates among scholars who examine the benefits and problems of (...) studying science in the same way that scientists study the natural world. Callebaut achieves the effect of face-to-face engagement through separate interviews with participants. Contributors include William Bechtel, Robert Brandon, Richard M. Burian, Donald T. Campbell, Patricia Churchland, Jon Elster, Ronald N. Giere, David L. Hull, Philip Kitcher, Karin Knorr Cetina, Bruno Latour, Richard Levins, Richard C. Lewontin, Elisabeth Lloyd, Helen Longino, Thomas Nickles, Henry C. Plotkin, Robert J. Richards, Alexander Rosenberg, Michael Ruse, Dudley Shapere, Elliott Sober, Ryan Tweney, and William Wimsatt. "Why can't we have both theoretical ecology and natural histories, lovingly done?"—Philip Kitcher "Don't underestimate the arrogance of philosophers!"—Elisabeth Lloyd. (shrink)

This volume has its already distant or1g1n in an inter national conference on Evolutionary Epistemology the editors organized at the University of Ghent in November 1984. This conference aimed to follow up the endeavor started at the ERISS (Epistemologically Relevant Internalist Sociology of Science) conference organized by Don Campbell and Alex Rosen berg at Cazenovia Lake, New York, in June 1981, whilst in jecting the gist of certain current continental intellectual developments into a debate whose focus, we thought, was in (...) danger of being narrowed too much, considering the still underdeveloped state of affairs in the field. Broadly speaking, evolutionary epistemology today con sists of two interrelated, yet qualitatively distinct inves tigative efforts. Both are drawing on Darwinian concepts, which may explain why many people have failed to discriminate them. One is the study of the evolution of the cognitive apparatus of living organisms, which is first and foremost the province of biologists and psychologists (H. C. Plotkin, Ed. , Learning, Development, and Culture: Essays in Evolu tionary Epistemology, New York, Wiley, 1984), although quite a few philosophers - professional or vocational - have also felt the need to express themselves on this vast subject (F. M. Wuketits, Ed. , Conce ts and Approaches in Evolutionary Epistemology, Dordrecht Boston, Reidel, 1984). The other approach deals with the evolution of science, and has been dominated hitherto by (allegedly) 'naturalized' philosophers; no book-length survey of this literature is available at present. (shrink)

This article explores Adorno’s negative dialectics as a critical social theory of economic objectivity. It rejects the conventional view that Adorno does not offer a critique of the economic forms of capitalist society. The article holds that negative dialectics is a dialectics of the social world in the form of the economic object, one that is governed by the movement of economic quantities, that is, real economic abstractions. Negative dialectics refuses to accept the constituted economic categories as categories of economic (...) nature. Instead, the article argues, it amounts to a conceptualized social praxis [ begriffene Praxis] of the capitalistically constituted social relations, which manifest themselves in the form of seemingly independent economic categories. Economic nature is a socially constituted nature, which entails the class antagonism in its concept. The article concludes that for negative dialectics the explanation of real economic abstractions lies in the understanding of the class-divided nature of human practice. (shrink)

Philosophy finds itself "between tradition and another beginning." 1 For this reason it seems necessary to reconsider the foundations of traditional philosophy in the hope that out of these considerations new questions may arise which may lead to a new philosophical foundation. To this end neither the large manual nor the monograph is well suited. What is required, instead, is to take a few steps which lead our thoughts directly into the problems of a given, traditional, philosophical foun dation. In (...) this sense the present work wishes to provide an "introduction" into that philosophical foundation which, until Hegel, had a decisive influence upon traditional philosophy_ Consequently, it does not see its task in providing a survey of this whole complex of problems. Nor does it offer solutions to questions about difficult passages which have been the subject of two thousand years of Aristotelian scholarship_ Instead, it follows a definite path which might bring this Aristotelian science, the theory which seeks to determine being as being, on hei on, closer to the student of philosophy. (shrink)

This article presents, in a programmatic way, the histoire croisée approach, its methodological implications and its empirical developments. Histoire croisée draws on the debates about comparative history, transfer studies, and connected or shared history that have been carried out in the social sciences in recent years. It invites us to reconsider the interactions between different societies or cultures, erudite disciplines or traditions . Histoire croisée focuses on empirical intercrossings consubstantial with the object of study, as well as on the operations (...) by which researchers themselves cross scales, categories, and viewpoints. The article first shows how this approach differs from purely comparative or transfer studies. It then develops the principles of pragmatic and reflexive induction as a major methodological principle of histoire croisée. While underlining the need and the methods of a historicization of both the objects and categories of analysis, it calls for a reconsideration of the way history can combine empirical and reflexive concerns into a dynamic and flexible approach. (shrink)

This paper aims to elucidate a kind of ignorance that is more fundamental than a momentary lack of information, but also not a kind of ignorance that is built into the subject’s cognitive apparatus such that the subject can’t do anything about it. The paper sets forth the notion of cognitive confinement, which is a contingent, yet relatively stable state of being structurally or systematically unable to gain information from an environment, determined by patterns of interaction between the subject and (...) the world. In order to unpack the idea of cognitive confinement the paper discusses niche construction theory, and then, in greater detail, the notion of cognitive niche once proposed by John Tooby and Irven DeVore. Cognitive confinement is here imagined as a pathologized form of cognitive niche. This posit is substantiated by referring to a case that has come to the fore in recent years and raised debate around the world: the rise of so-called filter bubbles. They turn out to be instantiations of a more general phenomenon of cognitive confinement. (shrink)

Summary Since its definition at the council of Nicea the date of Easter had been calculated on a cyclical basis. The Easter formula publicized by C. F. Gauss in 1800 has neither achieved recognition with the chronologists nor with the officials of the papal curia, responsible for the fixing of Easter. In the paper being presented here the elements of medieval computus are transformed on an arithmetical basis and from this a formula for the fixing of Easter is developed. With (...) the help of these two components it is possible to calculate the Julian as well as the Gregorian dates of Easter and, in addition the calendar of any given year. The formula for the date of Easter being submitted here can be traced back exclusively to the elements of the medieval computus and can be ratified by the chronologists. Thus it renders possible the fixing of every Easter date with the help of a pocket calculator or the use of two small tables. This demonstrates that the history of methodology contains tools in order to develop a ‘new’ solution of a systematical problem. (shrink)

ÒChristian ethos cannot be simply defined as 'response to law,' either human or divine. The normative character of theological ethics must rest upon other foundations.Ó from the Introduction.

Summary Not ‘human sciences’, but physics is said to be the measure for that what is called science . Deficiencies of human sciences are led back to complexity, external influences etc. If one differentiates several orientations for that what is called science , another reason is determinable. The conceptions of science in modern thinking are monistically orientated, because they have the aim to reach exceptional knowledge, that lets eliminate alternatives. Elimination combined with competition leads to prejudices. Competition does not reduce (...) the irrationality, like Popper, Toulmin and others assumed, but further it. Only a polyistic orientation, for which the aim of science would be the making and maintenance of alternatives, would diminish the causes for prejudices. Since in the ‘human sciences’ unlike natural sciences prejudices are objects of research this leads to a weakening of the object orientated elimination. What therefore has become an ideal for physics, has fatal consequences for ‘human sciences’, which a physics orientated philosophy of science consolidates. For that reason a polyistic orientated understanding of science has to be developed, that can be divided in eclectic (pluralistic) and systematic conceptions. As an intensional combinatorics produces systematically alternatives systematic polyism and combinatorics are connected with each other. (shrink)