These two volumes contain all of my articles published between 1956 and 1975 which might be of interest to readers in the English-speaking world. The first three essays in Vol. 1 deal with historical themes. In each case I as far as possible, meets con have attempted a rational reconstruction which, temporary standards of exactness. In The Problem of Universals Then and Now some ideas of W.V. Quine and N. Goodman are used to create a modern sketch of the history (...) of the debate on universals beginning with Plato and ending with Hao Wang's System L. The second article concerns Kant's Philosophy of Science. By analyzing his position vis-a-vis I. Newton, Christian Wolff, and D. Hume, it is shown that for Kant the very notion of empirical knowledge was beset with a funda mental logical difficulty. In his metaphysics of experience Kant offered a solution differing from all prior as well as subsequent attempts aimed at the problem of establishing a scientific theory. The last of the three historical papers utilizes some concepts of modern logic to give a precise account of Wittgenstein's so-called Picture Theory of Meaning. E. Stenius' interpretation of this theory is taken as an intuitive starting point while an intensional variant of Tarski's concept of a relational system furnishes a technical instrument. The concepts of inodel world and of logical space, together with those of homomorphism and isomorphism be tween model worlds and between logical spaces, form the conceptual basis of the reconstruction. (shrink)

Let g E(m, n)=o mean that n is the Gödel-number of the shortest derivation from E of an equation of the form (m)=k. Hao Wang suggests that the condition for general recursiveness mn(g E(m, n)=o) can be proved constructively if one can find a speedfunction s s, with s(m) bounding the number of steps for getting a value of (m), such that mn s(m) s.t. g E(m, n)=o. This idea, he thinks, yields a constructivist notion of an effectively computable (...) function, one that doesn't get us into a vicious circle since we intuitively know, to begin with, that certain proofs are constructive and certain functions effectively computable. This paper gives a broad possibility proof for the existence of such classes of effectively computable functions, with Wang's idea of effective computability generalized along a number of dimensions. (shrink)

Combinatie van vertaling en uitleg van de 'Ethica', het hoofdwerk van de Nederlandse filosoof (1632-1677).

Vertaling (verkorte versie) van en commentaar op de wijsgerige verhandeling van de Nederlandse filosoof (1632-1677) over de betekenis van het christendom.

Overzicht van de invloed van klassieke auteurs op het werk van de Nederlandse wijsgeer.

In this paper, we reconstruct the debate between Zhuangzi 莊子 and Hui Shi 惠施 that took place on the bridge over the Hao River 濠水 as a substantive debate concerning the epistemic other‐mind skepticism according to which no one mind knows the mental states of the other. We demonstrate how this reconstruction leads to substantive conclusions of the viability of Hui Shi’s position in particular and of the other‐mind skepticism in general. This demonstration is accomplished by means of the contemporary (...) philosophical development regarding, for example, whether asserting a proposition implies that the asserter knows the proposition, whether the closure principle of epistemic logic should be held, and whether knowing something is a mental state. We hold that this debate’s resolution is substantively entangled with contemporary philosophical concerns. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The recent revival of interest in theory leads the writers to examine a particular moment when a curriculum and the institution in which it occurred was explained and justified. Max Horkheimer's inaugural address to the Institute for Social Research in 1931 is summarised. The points made by the new Director of the Institute are examined in relation not only to his proposal for an inter‐disciplinary curriculum, but also to the nature of the institution and to the general justification of (...) higher education. The article concludes with a number of comments on the relevance of these proposals to some modern higher education issues. (shrink)