This pioneering book lays new foundations for the study of reference and truth.

Apologies. The purpose of the following talk is to give an overview of the present state of aims, methods and results in Pure Proof Theory. Shortage of time forces me to concentrate on my very personal views. This entails that I will emphasize the work which I know best, i.e., work that has been done in the triangle Stanford, Munich and Münster. I am of course well aware that there are as important results coming from outside this triangle and I (...) apologize for not displaying these results as well.Moreover the audience should be aware that in some points I have to oversimplify matters. Those who complain about that are invited to consult the original papers.1.1. General. Proof theory startedwithHilbert's Programme which aimed at a finitistic consistency proof for mathematics.By Gödel's Theorems, however, we know that we can neither formalize all mathematics nor even prove the consistency of formalized fragments by finitistic means. Inspite of this fact I want to give some reasons why I consider proof theory in the style of Gentzen's work still as an important and exciting field of Mathematical Logic. I will not go into applications of Gentzen's cut-elimination technique to computer science problems—this may be considered as applied proof theory—but want to concentrate on metamathematical problems and results. In this sense I am talking about Pure Proof Theory.Mathematicians are interested in structures. There is only one way to find the theorems of a structure. Start with an axiom system for the structure and deduce the theorems logically. These axiom systems are the objects of proof-theoretical research. Studying axiom systems there is a series of more or less obvious questions. (shrink)

This essay focuses on the genetic text of Nietzsche’s unpublished poem An Hafis. Frage eines Wassertrinkers in order to establish the development of this poem from preliminary versions to an authoritative version. Through such a detailed philological analysis of the text in Nietzsche’s notebooks, it becomes increasingly clear that the final version of An Hafis constitutes an intertextual answer to Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan (1819/1827), which itself was inspired by the late-medieval Persian poet Hafez. Developing from different, and open-ended, semantic configurations (...) to a final version, Nietzsche’s An Hafis also allows us to reassess the editorial practices necessary to shed light on Nietzsche’s unpublished lyrical drafts. (shrink)

Socio-spatial diversity of environmental ethics and regional-ethnic identity in northern Brazil is examined with the aim of presenting a culturally complex account of Amazonian worldviews in the making. These worldviews involve the variable merging of Amerindian, riverine peasant and new settler beliefs. Interpretative and empiricist textual strategies are juxtaposed in order to explore both broad human-environmental relations, as seen through the prism of enchanted and disenchanted worldviews, as well as the subtlety of belief and disbelief in specific elements of worldview, (...) which reflect the different social backgrounds of individuals. The first part deals with the cultural significance of what is believed while the second part treats the socio-environmental implications of who believes and why. (shrink)

The importance of religious cosmology for environmental ethics is explored in a case-study of enchanted and disenchanted world-views in the Sert o of North-east Brazil. Popular Catholicism is shown to have retained an enchanted world-view of humans interacting with saints, souls and animist spirits. In order to differentiate themselves from Catholics, evangelical Protestants pursue a disenchanted view of the natural environment but hold a highly supernatural view of human society. Afro-Brazilian cult members are Catholics who graft an enchanted view of (...) human society on to an enchanted view of nature, producing a hyper-enchanted world-view. The relationship between religious world-view, agricultural modernisation, deforestation and social disparity is evaluated, showing how the process of disenchantment has been highly uneven with the selective elimination of certain enchanted beliefs alongside the persistence of others and their re-adaptation to the contemporary needs of the local population. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Kit Fine offers a reconstruction of Cantor's theory of ordinals. It avoids certain mentalistic overtones in it through both a non-standard ontology and a non-standard notion of abstraction. I argue that this reconstruction misses an essential constructive and computational content of Cantor's theory, which I in turn reconstruct using Martin-Löf's theory of types. Throughout, I emphasize Kantian themes in Cantor's epistemology, and I also argue, as against Michael Hallett's interpretation, for the need for a constructive understanding (...) of Cantorian ?existence principles? (shrink)

This chapter explores some fundamental consequences of the correspondence between physical process and computations. Most physical questions may be answerable only through irreducible amounts of computation. Those that concern idealized limits of infinite time, volume, or numerical precision can require arbitrarily long computations, and so be considered formally undecidable. The behavior of a physical system may always be calculated by simulating explicitly each step in its evolution. Much of theoretical physics has, however, been concerned with devising shorter methods of calculation (...) that reproduce the outcome without tracing each step. Computational irreducibility is common among the systems investigated in mathematics and computation theory, but it may well be the exception rather than the rule, since most physical questions may be answerable only through irreducible amounts of computation. (shrink)

Proposing a theory of the origins of human language ability and presenting an account of the early evolution of language, this text explains why humans are the only language-using animals and challenges the assumption that language is due to intelligence-- jacket cover.

A traditional view maintains that thought, while expressed in language, is non-linguistic in nature and occurs in non-linguistic beings as well. I assess this view against current theories of the evolutionary design of human grammar. I argue that even if some forms of human thought are shared with non-human animals, a residue remains that characterizes a unique way in which human thought is organized as a system. I explore the hypothesis that the cause of this difference is a grammatical way (...) of structuring semantic information, and I present evidence that the organization of grammar precisely reflects the organization of a specific mode of thought apparently distinctive of humans. Since there appears to be no known non-grammatical structuring principle for the relevant mode of thought, I suggest that grammar is that principle, with no independent ?Language of Thought? needed. (shrink)

Short description: Wie kann der Boden für eine kulturmenschliche Potenzialentfaltung politisch und gesellschaftlich fruchtbar gemacht werden?; Promotional text: Immanuel Hermann Fichtes ›System der Ethik‹ ist vor dem Hintergrund einer innenpolitischen Erstarrung als Folge der Revolution von 1848 und des in Deutschland sich nahezu gleichzeitig ereignenden wirtschaftlichen ›Take-off‹ des beginnenden Industriezeitalters verfasst. In direktem Bezug auf diese Umbruchssituation bietet Fichtes Konzeption, die Wolfram Schmitz in seiner Studie erstmals umfassend untersucht, Leitlinien für eine weitgreifende Reform von Staat und Gesellschaft.; Biographical note: (...) Dr. Wolfram Schmitz hat Philosophie, Geschichte und Soziologie studiert. (shrink)

This book introduces generative grammar as an area of study and asks what it tells us about the human mind. Wolfram Hinzen lays the foundation for the unification of modern generative linguistics with the philosophies of mind and language. He introduces Chomsky's program of a 'minimalist' syntax as a novel explanatory vision of the human mind. He explains how the Minimalist Program originated in work in cognitive science, biology, linguistics, and philosophy, and examines its implications for work in these (...) fields. He considers the way the human mind is designed when seen as an arrangement of structural patterns in nature, and argues that its design is the product not so much of adaptive evolutionary history as of principles and processes that are ahistorical and internalist in character. Linguistic meaning, he suggests, arises in the mind as a consequence of structures emerging on formal rather than functional grounds. From this he substantiates an unexpected and deeply unfashionable notion of human nature. Clearly written in nontechnical language and assuming a limited knowledge of the fields it examines and links, Minimal Mind Design will appeal to a wide range of scholars in linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive science. It also provides an exceptionally clear insight into the nature and aims of Chomsky's Minimalist Program. (shrink)

This interdisciplinary book considers the relationship between language and thought from a philosophical perspective, drawing both on the philosophical study of language and the purely formal study of grammar, and arguing that the two should align. The claim is that grammar provides homo sapiens with the ability to think in certain grammatical ways and that this in turn explains the vast cognitive powers of human beings. Evidence is considered from biology, the evolution of language, language disorders, and linguistic phenomena.

Dieser Band dokumentiert die Hauptvorträge des XIX. Deutschen Kongresses für Philosophie, der vom 23.-27. September 2002 in Bonn stattfand. Das Thema des Kongresses Grenzen und Grenzüberschreitungen wurde dabei hinsichtlich des gesamten Spektrums philosophischer Fragestellungen beleuchtet. So wird die aktuelle Problematik hinsichtlich der Grenzen technischer Machbarkeit und moralischer Verantwortbarkeit ebenso aufgegriffen wie klassische erkenntnis- und wissenschaftstheoretische Fragestellungen nach den Grenzen unserer kognitiven Möglichkeiten. Weitere Beiträge befassen sich mit Grenzen und Grenzüberschreitungen in der Ästhetik, Geschichtsphilosophie, Kulturphilosophie, Metaphysik, Philosophie des Geistes, Philosophie der (...) Logik und Mathematik, der politischen Philosophie sowie der Religionsphilosophie. Der historischen Dimension des Themas wird ebenfalls Rechnung getragen und zugleich die Diskussion von Grenzen und Grenzüberschreitungen durch die Geschichte der Philosophie zurückverfolgt. (shrink)

Internalism is an explanatory strategy that makes the internal structure and constitution of the organism a basis for the investigation of its external function and the ways in which it is embedded in an environment. It is opposed to an externalist explanatory strategy, which takes its departure from observations about external function and mind-environment interactions, and infers and rationalizes internal organismic structure from that. This paper addresses the origins of truth, a basic ingredient in the human conceptual scheme. I suggest (...) the necessity of pursuing an internalist line of explanation for it, as adopted in the biolinguistic program and generative grammar at large. According to this view, the concept of truth is a presupposition for the way language is used in relation to the world, rather than a function of that use or a consequence of language-world relations. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 57 Heft: 4 Seiten: 501-520.

***Angaben zur beteiligten Person Kann: Christoph Kann ist Professor für Philosophie an der Universität Düsseldorf.

We investigate connections between the syntactic and semantic distance of programs on an abstract, recursion theoretic level. For a certain rather restrictive notion of interdependency of the two kinds of distances, there remain only few and “unnatural” numberings allowing such close relationship. Weakening the requirements leads to the discovery of universal metrics such that for an arbitrary recursively enumerable family of functions a numbering compatible with such a metric can uniformly be constructed. We conclude our considerations with some implications on (...) learning theory. (shrink)

This review summarizes recent experiments on neuronal mechanisms underlying goal-directed behaviour. We investigated two basic processes, the internally triggered initiation of movement and the processing of reward information. Single neurons in the striatum were activated a few seconds before self-initiated movements in the absence of external triggering stimuli. Similar activations were observed in the closely connected cortical supplementary motor area, suggesting that these activations might evolve through build up in fronto-basal ganglia loops. They may relate to intentional states directed at (...) movements and their outcomes. As a second result, neurons in the striatum were activated in relation to the expectation and detection of rewards. Since rewards constitute important goals of behaviour, these activitations might reflect the evaluation of outcome before the behavioural reaction is executed. Thus neurons in the basal ganglia are involved in individual components of goal-directed behaviour. (shrink)

Life's Solution builds a persuasive case for the predictability of evolutionary outcomes. The case rests on a remarkable compilation of examples of convergent evolution, in which two or more lineages have independently evolved similar structures and functions. The examples range from the aerodynamics of hovering moths and hummingbirds to the use of silk by spiders and some insects to capture prey. Going against the grain of Darwinian orthodoxy, this book is a must read for anyone grappling with the meaning of (...) evolution and our place in the Universe. Simon Conway Morris is the Ad Hominen Professor in the Earth Science Department at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of St. John's College and the Royal Society. His research focuses on the study of constraints on evolution, and the historical processes that lead to the emergence of complexity, especially with respect to the construction of the major animal body parts in the Cambrian explosion. Previous books include The Crucible of Creation (Getty Center for Education in the Arts, 1999) and co-author of Solnhofen (Cambridge, 1990). Hb ISBN (2003) 0-521-82704-3. (shrink)

Philosophie ist wissentlicher Einhegungsversuch des Nichtwissens. Wo immer sie daher die Bedeutung und Wirksamkeit des Nichtwissens nicht präsent hält, verfehlt sie ihre Mitte. Das hat sich seit der Antike bis heute nicht geändert. Allerdings blieb es den Interessen der Zeiten und Denker vorbehalten, die Mischformen von Wissen und Nichtwissen in ihrer Eigenart mehr oder weniger eingehend zu analysieren. Selbst wenn die sokratische Formel vom Wissen des Nichtwissens durchgängig gerne zitiert wurde: Wie die Formen des Wissens in ihren schwachen, aber unentbehrlichen (...) Variationen näherhin zu charakterisieren sind, hat über die Zeiten die Philosophen eher selten interessiert. Aber diese schwachen Formen des Wissens wie Ahnung, Mutmaßung und das Gefühl als Grundlage von Situationseinschätzungen sind für unseren Alltag von erheblicher Bedeutung. Wolfram Hogrebe diskutiert in seinem Buch Formen des Wissens in ihrer szenischen Relevanz, ja das Szenische als Wissensform selbst. Ein von der Philosophie bislang völlig ignoriertes Thema. Aber die Philosophie kann gar nicht ignorieren, ohne dennoch auch in ihrem Absehen noch etwas Mitgesehenes hervortreten zu lassen. (shrink)

The question of 20th century philosophy was: how are we humans situated in our world? In forms of consciousness, as Husserl insistently analyzed, in language games, as Wittgenstein thought, or in a prior understanding of being, as Heidegger recommended? Wolfram Hogrebe summarizes these answers in what he calls scenic existence. This is grounded in certainties in which we experience ourselves sensitively 'tinted'. In this respect, forms of consciousness, language games and understanding of being are only built up from an (...) anonymous sonority. Wolfram Hogrebe has been following these circumstances for several years. In this new book, he delineates the project in historically informed, multi-faceted differentiations, terminating in a plea for a new enlightenment that may be understood as a program for our time. (shrink)