L'A. intende negare che l'opera conosciuta nella tradizione islamica, nel medioevo e nel Rinascimento come De intellectu sia attribuibile, come comunemente viene ritenuto, ad Alessandro di Afrodisia. Attraverso l'esame di un passaggio sull'analogia fra la luce e l'Uno, l'A. dimostra l'influenza plotiniana e alessandrina del testo, che risalirebbe alla tarda tradizione neoplatonica dei commentari ad Aristotele.

Despite its centrality and its familiarity, W. V. Quine's dispute with Rudolf Carnap over the analytic/synthetic distinction has lacked a satisfactory analysis. The impasse is usually explained either by judging that Quine's arguments are in reality quite weak, or by concluding instead that Carnap was incapable of appreciating their strength. This is unsatisfactory, as is the fact that on these readings it is usually unclear why Quine's own position is not subject to some of the very same arguments. A (...) satisfying and surprising account is here presented that stitches together the puzzling pieces of this important philosophical exchange and that in turn leads to an explanation of why it is so difficult to say whether anything of substance is at stake. (shrink)

In the first chapter of his book Logical Foundations of Probability, Rudolf Carnap introduced and endorsed a philosophical methodology which he called the method of ‘explication’. P.F. Strawson took issue with this methodology, but it is currently undergoing a revival. In a series of articles, Patrick Maher has recently argued that explication is an appropriate method for ‘formal epistemology’, has defended it against Strawson’s objection, and has himself put it to work in the philosophy of science in further clarification (...) of the very concepts on which Carnap originally used it (degree of confirmation, and probability), as well as some concepts to which Carnap did not apply it (such as justified degree of belief). We shall outline Carnap’s original idea, plus Maher’s recent application of such a methodology, and then seek to show that the problem Strawson raised for it has not been dealt with. The method is indeed, we argue, problematic and therefore not obviously superior to the ‘descriptive’ method associated with Strawson. Our targets will not only be Carnapians, though, for what we shall say also bears negatively on a project that Paul Horwich has pursued under the name ‘therapeutic’, or ‘Wittgensteinian’ Bayesianism. Finally, explication, as we shall suggest and as Carnap recognised, is not the only route to philosophical enlightenment. (shrink)

Im Rahmen dieses Beitrags beleuchten wir, wie Hans Hahn die Einflüsse Russells und Wittgensteins adaptiert, um seine individuelle Variante von Logizismus zu entwickeln. Von Bedeutung ist in diesem Zusammenhang Hahns unterschätzte Vorreiterrolle in der Entwicklung des logischen Toleranzprinzips und des logischen Pluralismus, also der Loslösung von der Vorstellung einer einzigen „korrekten“ Logik. Die detaillierten Arbeiten Uebels (2007, 2009) zur Entwicklung des logischen Pluralismus im Wiener Kreis verdienen zumindest zwei punktuelle Ergänzungen: Erstens untermauern die in diesem Kontext bisher unberücksichtigten Protokolle des (...) Wiener Kreises sowie Vorlesungsmitschriften Hermann Brochs die von Uebel im Gegensatz zu Goldfarb (1996) beschriebene Distanzierung Hahns von Wittgenstein. Zweitens relativieren Hahns und Mengers Arbeiten zu Occams Rasiermesser Uebels Einschätzung, Mengers Beitrag zum Toleranzprinzip sei „wenig philosophisch“. (shrink)

Logical empiricism and the Austrian School of economics are two of the internationally most influential intellectual movements with Viennese roots. By and large independently of each other, both have been subject to detailed historical and philosophical investigations for the last two dec-ades. However, in spite of numerous connections and interactions be-tween the two groups, their relationship has captured surprisingly sparse attention. My dissertation focuses on the many-faceted juxtaposition of two supposedly antagonistic championsof Viennese Late Enlightenment: logical empiricist Otto Neurath and (...) Austrian economist Ludwig Mises. I rationally reconstruct and critically compare their epistemological, meth-odological, and economic positions and demonstrate that a closer look reveals more compatibilities and similarities than acknowledged by the received view and by the protagonists themselves. Over and above the historiographic task of challenging and amending this received view, the analytic components of my thesis inform contemporary debates in phi-losophy, politics, economics, and other sciences. (shrink)

Après le rapport du « Club de Rome », le débat écologique a acquis une très grande audience à l’Ouest. Les « limites de la croissance » étaient discutées publiquement dans de nombreux ouvrages à succès et faisaient l’objet de débats dans le champ politique, culturel, économique et social. Un mouvement environnemental s’est constitué qui, par la suite, a donné naissance aux partis verts. En RDA, en revanche, la croissance n’a pas fait l’objet de discussions à cette époque. Le parti-État (...) qu’était le SED était focalisé sur l’idée d’une croissance extensive et d’une consommation financée par la dette. L’objectif était de dépasser l’Ouest sur le plan économique. La « crise écologique » était donc perçue comme une arme idéologique contre la croissance du socialisme réel. À la fin des années 1970, Rudolf Bahro, Wolfgang Harich et Robert Havemann, auteurs marxistes de RDA critiques à l’égard du système, ont élaboré des utopies écologiques orientées vers des alternatives éco-communistes. L’article présente ces utopies et leurs auteurs et esquisse les grandes lignes de la réception dont elles ont bénéficié à l’époque et aujourd’hui. (shrink)

Austrian economics emphasizes a priori components of social scientific theory. Most emphatically, Ludwig Mises and Murray Rothbard champion praxeology, a methodology often criticized as extremely aprioristic. Among the numerous justifications and interpretations of praxeology to be found in the primary and secondary literature, conventionalism avoids the charge of extreme apriorism by construing the fundamental axiom of praxeology as analytic instead of synthetic. This paper (1) explicates the tentative structure of the fundamental axiom, (2) clarifies some aspects of a conventionalist defense (...) of praxeology, and (3) appraises conventionalist praxeology according to Rothbardian criteria. While Rothbard provides an essentialist justification of praxeology and embraces extreme apriorism, a mildly aprioristic conventionalist defense of praxeology fares better on Rothbard’s own criteria and is much more compatible with other contemporary methodological positions and economic theories. (shrink)

A reading is offered of Carl Hempel’s and Thomas Kuhn’s positions on, and disagreements about, rationality in science that relates these issues to the debate between W.V. Quine and Rudolf Carnap on the analytic/synthetic distinction.

Friedrich Stadler und sein Team schließen über 40 Jahre nach Präsentation der ersten beiden Bände das von Rudolf Haller initiierte Projekt einer umfassenden Werkschau Otto Neuraths (1882–1945) ab. In acht Bänden wird auf fast 5.000 Seiten das Schaffen eines Polyhistors dokumentiert und zugänglich gemacht, dessen intellektueller Spannweite man nicht einmal gerecht wird, wenn man ihn als Philosophen, Nationalökonomen, Gesellschaftstechniker und Aufklärer bezeichnet.

Unser menschlicher Leib gleicht einem Umschlagplatz: Mittels der Wahrnehmung verwandeln wir Mitwelt in Innenwelt und Innenwelt in Mitwelt. Wir kommunizieren dabei nicht nur mit unserer Sprache, Gestik und Mimik, sondern mit unserem gesamten Bewegungsverhalten. Dies birgt nicht nur Gefahren, sondern vor allem die Möglichkeit, die eigene Leiblichkeit und Körpersprache als Quelle der Selbsterkenntnis nutzbar zu machen, durch sie das eigene Selbst zu erfahren und zu verstehen und sich damit dem eigenen Ich anzunähern. Beate Schüler untersucht anhand der Laban- und der (...) Alexandertechnik sowie der Tanztherapie von Anna Halprin exemplarisch, wie die sozialen und individuellen Gegebenheiten eine solche leibliche Eigenerfahrung, eine Begegnung mit dem eigenen Selbst, beeinflussen und wie sich in der Bewegung die traditionelle Trennung zwischen Geist und Körper aufhebt. (shrink)

Both Kant and Dilthey distinguish between cognition and knowledge, but they do so differently in accordance with their respective theoretical interests. Kant’s primary cognitive interest is in the natural sciences, and from this perspective the status of psychology is questioned because its phenomena are not mathematically measurable. Dilthey, by contrast, reconceives psychology as a human science.For Kant, knowledge is conceptual cognition that has attained certainty by being part of a rational system. Dilthey also links knowledge with certainty; however, he derives (...) the latter from life-experience rather than from reason. Dilthey’s psychology begins with the self-certainty of lived experience and life-knowledge, but this turns out to fall short of cognitive understanding. In the final analysis, both Kant and Dilthey move beyond psychology to arrive at self-understanding. Because of his doubts about introspection, Kant replaces psychology with a pragmatic anthropology to provide a communal framework for self-understanding. Dilthey supplements psychology with other human sciences as part of a project of anthropological reflection.Author Keywords: Anthropology; Cognition; Dilthey; Kant; Knowledge; Psychology. (shrink)

Im ersten Teil des Anhangs zur Transzendentalen Dialektik entwickelt Kant einen Übergang zwischen dem logischen Gebrauch der Vernunft und den transzendentalen Prinzipien der Vernunft. Basierend auf methodologischen Überlegungen zur Chemie, zur physiologischen Anthropologie und zur Entwicklungsgeschichte astronomischer Grundannahmen versucht Kant, diese Prinzipien in ihrem transzendentalen Status zu rechtfertigen und ihre Kompatibilität mit anderen Teilen der Kritik der reinen Vernunft nachzuweisen. Ausgehend von diesen wissenschaftstheoretischen Beispielen wird für eine heuristisch- pragmatische Rechtfertigung der transzendentalen Prinzipien der Vernunft und eine ideelle Funktion der (...) durch diese Prinzipien gewonnenen Ideen argumentiert. Dabei lässt sich die enge Verbindung zwischen den transzendentalen Prinzipien des ersten Teils des Anhangs zur Transzendentalen Dialektik und Kants Konzept der rationalen Naturwissenschaft in den Metaphysischen Anfangsgründen der Naturwissenschaft nachweisen. (shrink)

Glückwunsch, von W. Jaeger.--Grenzsituationen der Gegenwart, von A. Wenzl.--Theologische Ontologie, von G. Jacoby.--Wissenschaft, Philosophie, Weltanschauung. von J. Barion.--Theorie und Ideologie in der Politik, von Cabralde Moncada.--Nikolai Berdjajew im bolschewistischen Russland, von F. Stepun.--Spinoza-Sokrates-Christus, der Menschensohn und die Philosophen, von H. Schuster.--Wertung und Wirksamkeit der Frau in der christlichen Kirche, von F. Heiler.--Ein neues Dogma? Von O. Schroeder.--Anbrosius von Mailand und sein Verhältnis zum Judentum, von W. Wilbrand.--Das Bild Luthers bei Johannes Hessen, von P. Althaus.--Zur Mystik Augustins, von W. falkenhahn.-Johannes Hessen (...) und Rudolf Ottos "Religlöser Menschheitsbund," von C. Barth.--Eine Antithese zum Jahre 1933, Johannes Hessens prophetische Mahnworte, von T. Pöhler.--Der Lehrer, von H. Höttges. (shrink)

This chapter suggests that descriptive epidemiological studies like the Global Burden of Disease Study can usefully be divided into four tasks: describing individuals’ health states over time, assessing their health states under a range of counterfactual scenarios, summarizing the information collected, and then packaging it for presentation. The authors show that each of these tasks raises important and challenging ethical questions. They comment on some of the philosophical issues involved in measuring health states, attributing causes to health outcomes, choosing the (...) counterfactual against which to assess causes, aggregating and summarizing complex information across multiple domains, discounting, age-weighting, handling fetal deaths, measuring health inequalities, representing uncertainty, and assessing personal responsibility for health outcomes. (shrink)

In the theoretical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, the term object has an extensive and far-reaching significance, and it can therefore be understood as a theory of objects. This becomes particularly clear when it is observed that all of his guidelines can be traced to different concepts of objects and their combination. With his concept of the object of experience, he attempts to mediate incompatible aspects in this: in relation to the object of experience, we have apodictic claims but at the (...) same time our knowledge of the object develops and contains the possibility of historical progress. This theory of objects was elaborated by Kant with regard to natural science and the claim of its metaphysical foundation. For this reason, Kant’s concept of object is inherently linked with his concept of science. Astronomy is at the core of his investigation, because it represents a perfect example of a so-called proper and rational natural science. (shrink)