The paper discusses the relationship between normal natural deductions and cutfree proofs in Gentzen (sequent) calculi in the absence of term labeling. For Gentzen calculi this is the usual version; for natural deduction this is the version under the complete discharge convention, where open assumptions are always discharged as soon as possible. The paper supplements work by Mints, Pinto, Dyckhoff, and Schwichtenberg on the labeled calculi.

Multilingual dictionary of philosophical terms.

This book provides papers of the conference of leading scientists and philosophers on the notion of progress of knowledge, which is constitutive of our modern selfunderstanding, from the perspective of their disciplines. Summary of contents: 1. GEorg Henrik von Wright, Progress: Fiction and Fact 2. WAlter Burkert, Impact and Limits of the Idea of Progress in Antiquity 3. AListair Crombie, Philosophical Commitments and Scientific Progress 4. SHigeru Nakayama, Chinese "Cyclic" View of History vs Japanese "Progress" 5. JEan Blondel, Political Progress: (...) Illusion or Reality 6. NIcholas Rescher, Progress and the Future 7. RUdolf Flotzinger, Progress and Development in Musical History 8. DAg Pravitz, Progress in Philosophy 9. JOhn D. BArrow, Time in the Universe 10. ANtonio Garcia-Bellido, Progress in Biological Evolution 11. GEreon Wolters, The Idea of Progress in Evolutionary Biology: Philosophical Considerations 12. PHilippe Lazar, The Idea of Progress in Human Health. (shrink)

HSÜN Tzu's essay on "Rectifying Terms" is justly considered a work of "great logical interest." For in this essay, one finds a remarkably modern concern with such topics as the rationale for having terms; the empirical and pragmatic bases for the classification of terms; the formation of generic and specific terms; the importance of observing established linguistic practices; the necessity of complying with proper standards for the institution, ratification, and regulation of the uses of language ; the nature of argumentative (...) discourse ; and the problems inherent in successful linguistic communication. A careful examination of some passages in other essays also suggests an awareness of the distinction between deductive, inductive, and analogical inferences, though Hsün Tzu provides us no explicit discussion of the nature of reasoning and its validating rules. (shrink)

Not everyone agreed with Barker when he wrote those words. Few students of the Politics would agree with him today. Disagreement comes from different sides. On one hand--the "rights" hand, one might call it--Karl Popper argued in 1945 in The Open Society and its Enemies that Aristotle's essentialism was less interesting than Platonism but equally congenial to modern totalitarianism. On the other hand--call it the "anti-rights" hand --scholars such as Alasdair MacIntyre and the legal historian Michel Villey would have it (...) that the whole modern conception of rights, especially human or natural rights, is a pernicious fabrication of the Enlightenment, with roots going back no further than the similarly pernicious nominalism of William of Ockham. As far as the current consensus is concerned, then, whether one favors rights or not, and whether one admires Aristotle or not, there are no rights--or at least no individual natural rights--in Aristotle. (shrink)

UNTIL RECENT YEARS moral traditions have not been an important topic for moral philosophy. With few exceptions, attention has been directed to the problem of moral justification, to the search for universal criteria for the assessment of moral beliefs or judgments regardless of their traditional provenance. Generally, philosophers aspire to formulate "the view from nowhere." Since the publication of Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue there has been a revival of interest in the concept of a living, moral tradition, especially among moral (...) philosophers concerned with the possibility of an ethics of virtue or character as a viable alternative to the ethics of principle or, say, to deontological, utilitarian, or contractarian ethics. We must observe here that in the three decades prior to 1981, some moral philosophers displayed similar concern with tradition, although terms other than "tradition" were used, for example, "forms of life," "ways of life," "moral practices," and "moral community." Rawls's conception of reflective equilibrium is also developed with an eye on the notion of tradition. Indeed, Rawls has been quite explicit about his tradition-oriented approach to moral theory: "What justifies a conception of justice is not its being true to an order antecedent to and given to us, but its congruence with our deeper understanding of ourselves and our aspirations, and our realization that, given our history and the traditions embedded in our public life, it is the most reasonable doctrine.". (shrink)