Heidegger affirmed traditional technology, but was opposed to science-based modern technology, in which everything (including man) is considered to be a mere “resource”. This opposition was expressed in the form of deep questioning and a suspicion of superficial evaluation, because the true nature of things was often concealed, though disclosed at times. Ways in which engineers should question technology are proposed, highlighting some of the hazards and injustices associated with technology and also its subtle sociological and psychological influences. The demands (...) of engineering ethics and the use of metaphor in design are other ways in which a narrowly rationalistic technological outlook can be confronted. (shrink)

On Philosophy and Philosophers is a volume of unpublished philosophical papers by Richard Rorty, a central figure in late-twentieth-century intellectual debates and a primary force behind the resurgence of American pragmatism. The first collection of new work to appear since his death in 2007, these previously unseen papers advance novel views on metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, philosophical semantics and the social role of philosophy, critically engaging canonical and contemporary figures from Plato and Kant to Kripke and Brandom. This book's diverse offerings, (...) which include technical essays written for specialists and popular lectures, refine our understanding of Rorty's perspective and demonstrate the ongoing relevance of the iconoclastic American philosopher's ground-breaking thought. An introduction by the editors highlights the papers' original insights and contributions to contemporary debates. (shrink)

This paper describes how some aspects of Martin Heidegger’s philosophy resonate strongly with an engineering outlook. He argued that practice was more “primordial” than theory, though preserving an important role for theoretical understanding as well, thus speaking to the gap between engineering education (highly theoretical) and engineering practice (mostly empirical). He also underlined the reality of “average” practices into which we are socialized, though affirming the potential for original work and action too, thus providing the grounds for self-actualization whether within (...) the routine or in transcending it. His notion of “thrownness” emphasizes the importance of context, with which engineers are constantly engaged. While all this relates to the idea of our “being”, Heidegger also dealt with the influence of time on our practices. Future death could be seen as spurring innovation, cultural history as a source for critiquing current practice and the present “situation” as the immediate context for corrective action. His major book is appropriately called “Being and Time”.1. (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)

The article is concerned with the question of how legal institutions are structured with the use of constitutive, institutive, consequential, and terminative rules. To that end, the regulation of international treaties as laid down in the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969 is analysed. This leads to the discovery of two additional categories of rules: content rules and invalidating rules. Finally, the special status of unique legal institutions is investigated. Unique legal institutions – for example, heads of (...) state, parliaments, and supreme courts – enjoy validity in a legal system to the exclusion of the validity of any other legal institution of the same category in that system. (shrink)

The six platinum group metals (pgms: ruthenium, rhodium, palladium, osmium, iridium and platinum) posed a number of problems for 19th-century chemists, including Mendeleev, for their Periodic classification. This account discusses the discovery of the pgms, the determination of their atomic weights and their classification.

Die Kritik des späten Wittgenstein am logizistischen Programm zur Begründung der Mathematik, vor allem im Blick auf die Definition der Zahl als Klasse von Klassen, und die darauf gegründete Explikation des Sinnes arithmetischer Sätze wird systematisch rekonstruiert. Entgegen einer verbreiteten Auffassung zeigen die Analysen Wittgensteins, daß Frege und Russell den Zahlbegriff nicht auf den „grundlegenderen" Begriff der eineindeutigen Zuordnung „reduzieren". Entsprechend sind Zahlen nicht mehr als durch Abstraktion erreichbare, echte Eigenschaften von Klassen zu verstehen, sondern als Formen oder Möglicfikeiten, die (...) die Beschreibung der Erfahrungswelt a priori bestimmen. Femer wird die wesentliche Selbständigkeit mathematischer Techniken gegenüber Techniken der Logistik durch einige Betrachtungen deutlich, welche die für den Fall größerer Zahlen unvermeidbare Benutzung vertrauter Bündelungssysteme, etwa der Dezimalnotation, bei Beweisen im Russellschen System zum Thema haben. (shrink)