This paper does not take for granted, and indeed questions, the common assumption that pragmatist philosophers endorse some form of relativism, and examines the issue in more detail with reference to both the classical pragmatists-Charles S. Peirce, William James and John Dewey-and more contemporary thinkers such as Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam. The article calls for a more nuanced characterization of the relationship between pragmatism and relativism, which in turn results in a more nuanced characterization of the pragmatist tradition itself, (...) one opposed to the easy dichotomy between the Peircean anti-relativist legacy on the one hand, and the Jamesian-Deweyan relativist strand on the other. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the first reference to pragmatism in Ludwig Wittgenstein’s manuscripts, dating back to the beginning of 1930. The remark refers to the pragmatist conception of truth. In what follows, I will offer ahistorical framework for as better understanding of this reflection, and show how it was embedded within a philosophical atmosphere in which the roots of various philosophical perspectives merged into each other. Different possible sources of Wittgenstein’s perception of pragmatism will be examined, including William James’ and (...) Charles S. Peirce’s writings and Wittgenstein’s conversations with Frank P. Ramsey in 1929. The analysis is meant to illustrate the relevance of this early “encounter” with the pragmatist tradition for the development of Wittgenstein’s thought. (shrink)

Influenzati entrambi in modo particolare da John Dewey, Sidney Hook e Morton White si caratterizzano per un impegno costante verso l'estensione dell'approccio naturalista da un ambito strettamente scientifico a uno piu' ampio, etico e sociale. Hook, coniugando l'ottica pragmatista con l'accentuazione dei caratteri conflittuali della realta', concepisce la democrazia stessa come un'applicazione dell'intelligenza sperimentale alla soluzione dei conflitti nella vita sociale e politica. White propone un pragmatismo olistico che mira a rimarginare non solo la dicotomia tra analitico e sintetico, ma (...) anche la divisione tra credenze scientifiche e credenze morali e, piu' ingenerale, tra il piano descrittivo e il piano normativo. Se l'ampliamento del naturalismo e l!'nteresse per i temi epistemologici caratterizzano entrambi i pensatori, si puo' dire che il percorso di Hook si intreccia costantemente con la dimensione politica, mentre quello di White si sviluppa nel dialogo con la dimensione storica. (shrink)

The influence of William James on Ludwig Wittgenstein has been widely studied, as well as the criticism that the latter addresses to the former, but one aspect that has only rarely been focused on is the two philosophers’ use of the image of the flux, stream, or river. The analysis of some notes belonging to Wittgenstein’s Nachlass support the possibility of a comparison between James’ stream of thought, as outlined in the Principles of Psychology, and Wittgenstein’s river-bed of thoughts, presented (...) in On Certainty. (shrink)

Childhood trauma is associated with many interpersonal and psychosocial problems in adulthood. The aim of this study was to explore the associations with a spiritual area of personality, namely religious and spiritual struggles (R/S struggles). A nationally representative sample of 1,000 Czech respondents aged 15 years and older participated in the survey. All types of CT were associated with an increased level of all six types of R/S struggles, with the highest values for demonic struggles. Thus, the findings of this (...) study might be important for clinical practice and pastoral care as well as a further research. (shrink)

It is well known that languages differ in how they encode motion. Languages such as English use verbs that communicate the manner of motion (e.g., climb, float), while languages such as Greek often encode the path of motion in verbs (e.g., advance, exit). In two studies with English- and Greek-speaking adults and 5-year-olds, we ask how such lexical constraints are used in combination with structural cues in hypothesizing meanings for novel motion verbs cross-linguistically. We show that lexicalization biases affect the (...) interpretations of motion verbs in both young children and adults across different languages; furthermore, their scope of application is larger than previously thought, since they also extend to the domain of caused motion events. Crucially, we find that the language-specific effects of such biases interact with universal mappings between syntactic structure and semantic content. Finally, we demonstrate that the combined effects of lexical and structural cues shift non-linguistic biases observed during event categorization: even though speakers of English and Greek share non-linguistic preferences in categorizing spontaneous and caused motion, they focus on different components of motion events when building hypotheses about the meaning of novel motion verbs. (shrink)

Nabataean history is significantly overlooked in the works of ancient historians. Josephus is an exception to this, as he includes several important events from Nabataean history in De Bello Judaico and Antiquitates Judaicae. However, his retelling of these events differs between the two works. In this paper, I argue that Josephus became more “pro-Roman” over time and eventually overshadowed an accurate portrayal of Nabataean history in his later narrative. He undermined moments of tension between Rome and Nabataea in order to (...) showcase Roman power in the Near East, even beyond reality. In support of this argument, I analyze the Nabataean sections of Josephus’ works, as each passage has overlapping details, but significantly different emphasis, characterization, and perspective through variations in terminology, imagery, and tone. Though problematic, Josephus has preserved a unique look into Roman-Nabataean relations in the two centuries prior to the incorporation of Nabataea into the Empire. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss Zineb Sedira’s two-screen video projection “Saphir” in relation to the landscape which Hélène Cixous has called the “the immense landscape of the trans-, of the passage.” My non-conclusive text explores the acts of transition taking place on the dual screen of Sedira’s video work. The work – filmed in the harbour area of Algiers – forms a multifaceted visual narrative of departures and arrivals. Within this narrative an intriguing choreography develops between two solitary characters, a (...) man and woman, who never meet but nonetheless, step by step, mutually perform a ritualistic dance. “Saphir” – which borrows its name from a French colonial hotel – is filled with ambiguities that evoke the landscape described by Cixous. Contemplating its topography, I become involved in Cixous’s bodily word world. “Passage” is what she calls part of this landscape, but it is also a word. It is a password which when split in two in the French language becomes ill-behaved and unwise. But could the word, I ask, also lead to a wise step (un pas sage )? And where do the steps danced by Sedira’s man and woman lead? (shrink)

I argue that Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight are best seen as an example of memento mori art. Memento mori, the admonition to remember death, can take many forms, but the idea remains the same, namely that an awareness of our inevitable end should bear on how we live. I show how Richard Linklater’s warning works in each of the movies and argue that with the Before trilogy he makes a Frankfurt-style case that romantic love is life’s summum (...) bonum--i.e. "the ultimate ground of practical rationality.". (shrink)

The paper focuses on a discussion about McDowell’s "conceptualist" interpretation of Kant’s theory of experience, as one in which all representational content is identified with conceptual content. Both in Mind and WorldM and in his Woodbridge Lectures, McDowell furthers a reading on which the "picture of visual experiences as conceptual shapings of visual consciousness is already deeply Kantian", supporting it with Kant’s famous claim from the A51/ B75 passage of the Critique of Pure Reason, which can be called a Cooperation (...) Thesis. However, much indicates that McDowell’s reading is, if not altogether false, then at least one-sided. In the "Transcendental Aesthetic", as well as in some of the pre-Critical writings , Kant presented a range of arguments for a subjective, non-discursive character of space and time, i.e. the forms of sensible intuition and pure intuitions themselves, underlying all conceptual cognition, and providing a non-conceptual basis for a special kind of synthetic a priori cognition . This allows us to conclude that he would rather take the side of the contemporary “nonconceptualists”, and could be regarded as their predecessor, to use R. Hanna’s formulation. On this reading of the Kantian theory of empirical cognition, intentionality is independent of and prior to any application of concepts to the objects of experience. (shrink)

The main subject of the paper is to present the criteria which help us to establish whether a given ontological controversy (or even a whole dispute) is substantial or merely verbal. Metaphysics is often perceived as a discipline composed of endless disputes with no glimpse of hope for solution. This fact makes many philosophers claim that ontology is nothing more than matter of linguistic choice. In this paper, we argue that there exist certain methodological tools which enable us to establish (...) whether particular ontological disagreement is substantial or merely verbal. However, as we emphasize, the scope of application of these tools is limited to strictly defined cases. At first, we clarify the general background for an occurrence of ontological controversy. Assume that a controversy occurs between the person A and the person B iff. (shrink)

Gegenwärtige Zeitdiagnosen sehen sich häufig durch das Religiöse herausgefordert und stellen es in den Mittelpunkt einer Analyse der modernen Gesellschaft. Daneben entwickelt sich in den letzten Jahren eine soziologische Theorierichtung, die eng am Begriff der Praxis ausgerichtet ist und vor allem in ihrer postkolonialen Ausformung universellen Gesellschaftsdiagnosen höchst skeptisch gegenübersteht. Diese Ansätze kommen zu Neudefinitionen soziologischer Grundbegriffe, indem sie etwa die Rolle der menschlichen Körper und der materialen Dinge bei der Entstehung und Reproduktion von Praktiken und Praxisformen zentral thematisieren. Die (...) praxistheoretische Perspektive verspricht, so die Ausgangshypothese des Bandes, nicht nur hinsichtlich der Thematisierung des Religiösen fruchtbare Anknüpfungspunkte für die Religionssoziologie zu liefern, sondern zeigt außerdem, wie sich die Axiome des klassischen Modernitätsdiskurses praxistheoretisch revidieren oder möglicherweise neu fassen lassen. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to show the value of the reasonings guided by questions based on uncertain assumptions. The notion of a properly asked question is being redefined to include questions based on uncertain assumptions. As a result, the classification of simple reasonings, originally set up by K. Ajdukiewicz, is presented as more detailed. Moreover, the paper sets up the classification of complex reasonings.

The article deals with philosophy of mathematics called quasi-empiricism, with special attention paid to concepts of changes in mathematics as a result of social activity during its development. Three outlooks on historical changes in the development of mathematics are presented: Wilder's description of mathematical practise in a cultural framework, Garbiner's analysis of „scientific revolution” in mathematics in the end of 18th century and Kitcher's criticism of invariability and cummulativity of mathematical knowledge and his application of Kuhn's philosophy of science to (...) mathematics. (shrink)

This volume focuses on the authorial voice in antiquity, exploring the different ways in which authors presented and projected various personas. In particular, it questions authority and ascription in relation to the authorial voice, and considers how later readers and authors may have understood the authority of a text's author.

This volume represents the first which interfaces with astronomy as the fulcrum of the sciences. It gives full expression to the human passion for the skies. Advancing human civilization has unfolded and matured this passion into the comprehensive science of astronomy. Advancing science’s quest for the first principles of existence meets the ontopoietic generative logos of life, the focal point of the New Enlightenment. It presents numerous perspectives illustrating how the interplay between human beings and the celestial realm has informed (...) civilizational trends. Scholars and philosophers debate in physics and biology, the findings of which are opening a more inclusive, wider picture of the universe. The different models of the universal order and of life here presented, all aiming at the first principles of existence—accord with the phenomenology/ontopoiesis of life within the logos-prompted primogenital stream of becoming and action, which points to a future of progressing culture. (shrink)

Surging from the ontopoietic vital timing of life, human self-consciousness prompts the innermost desire to rise above its brute facts. Imaginatio creatrix inspires us to fabulate these facts into events and plots with personal significance attempting to delineate a life-course in life-stories within the ever-flowing stream – existence. Seeking their deep motivations, causes and concatenations, we fabulate relatively stabilized networks of interconnecting meaning – history. But to understand the meaning and sense of these networks’ reconfigurations call for the purpose and (...) telos of our endless undertaking; they remain always incomplete, carried onwards with the current of life, while fluctuating with personal experience in the play of memory. Facts and life stories, subjective desires and propensities, the circumambient world in its historical moves, creative logos and mythos, personal freedom and inward stirrings thrown in an enigmatic interplay, prompt our imperative thirst for the meaning of this course, its purpose and its fulfillment – the sense of it all. To disentangle all this animates the passions of the literary genius. The focus of this collection is to isolate the main arteries running through the intermingled forces prompting our quest to endow life with meaning. Papers by: Jadwiga Smith, Lawrence Kimmel, Alira Ashvo-Munoz, William D. Melaney, Imafedia Okhamafe, Michel Dion, Franck Dalmas, Ludmila Molodkina, Victor Gerald Rivas, Rebecca M. Painter, Matti Itkonen, Raymond J. Wilson III, Christopher S. Schreiner, Bruce Ross, Bernadette Prochaska, Tsung-I Dow, Jerre Collins, Cezary Jozef Olbromski, Victor Kocay, Roberto Verolini. (shrink)

This paper develops an inference system for natural language within the ‘Natural Logic’ paradigm as advocated by van Benthem, Sánchez and others. The system that we propose is based on the Lambek calculus and works directly on the Curry-Howard counterparts for syntactic representations of natural language, with no intermediate translation to logical formulae. The Lambek -based system we propose extends the system by Fyodorov et~al., which is based on the Ajdukiewicz/Bar-Hillel calculus Bar Hillel,. This enables the system to deal with (...) new kinds of inferences, involving relative clauses, non-constituent coordination, and meaning postulates that involve complex expressions. Basing the system on the Lambek calculus leads to problems with non-normalized proof terms, which are treated by using normalization axioms. (shrink)

Are emotions, feelings, sentiments not the stuff of literature? There it is where they project their inner logic of aesthetic transmutation; there, beyond the instrument of language that they command. This collection explores how the lyrical virtualities of life-experience and the elegiac style in literature share a common core, lifting the human significance of life from abysmal vitality to esoteric heights, from abysmal grief to a serene reconciliation with destiny. The elegiac sequence in the play of emotions, feelings and sentiments (...) brings together life and literary creativity in its transformatory power. (shrink)

Among the multiple, subliminal passions that inspire our life in innumerable ways, literature shows us one that seems to play a particularly penetrating role in human concerns. This passion, which Tymieniecka calls an `esoteric passion', finds its projection and crystallization in space: it is the esoteric passion for space. This subliminal passion, investigated through literature, allows the philosopher to reach beneath the fallacious separations of nature, humanness and the cultural world, restoring the wholeness of experience that has become lost in (...) the artificial one-sidedness of contemporary approaches, confined to language as they are. The elemental passion for place is investigated here in the literary fruits of creative imagination. Unravelled from the very depths of the primogenital, onto-poietic unfolding of life, the passion for place is revealed as projecting into the flux of life: it is a `station' of life-significance. This collection presents papers from two conferences of the International Society of Phenomenology and Literature held in Cambridge, MA in 1993/4. (shrink)

Philosophy has been always received or bypassed for its resonance or aloofness with the spirit of the time. Should not philosophy/phenomenology of life be expected to do more to ascertain its validity? Should it not pass the pragmatic test, that is to respond directly to the life-concerns of its time? What is the role of the philosopher and philosophy today? Due to the ever-advancing scientific, technological, social and cultural changes that are shaping human life and the life-world-in-transformation, we are desperately (...) seeking a measure to estimate life's unfolding, a compass to stir the course between Scylla and Charibda to maintain human-hood and creative insight for laying the cornerstones for the unforeseeable unfolding of life dynamisms. It is this challenge which philosophy/phenomenology of life meets with underlying ontopoietic unraveling of the hidden logoic concatenations of beingness-in-becoming. The present collection of essays offers contributions to answer this challenge by focusing upon measure, sharing-in-life, intersubjectivity and communication, societal equilibrium, education, and more. It will be of great interest to those working in the fields of Phenomenology, Philosophy, History of Philosophy, and Contemporary Philosophy. (shrink)

To introduce this collection of research studies, which stem from the pro grams conducted by The World Phenomenology Institute, we need say a few words about our aims and work. This will bring to light the significance of the present volume. The phenomenological philosophy is an unprejudiced study of experience in its entire range: experience being understood as yielding objects. Experi ence, moreover, is approached in a specific way, such a way that it legitima tizes itself naturally in immediate evidence. (...) As such it offers a unique ground for philosophical inquiry. Its basic condition, however, is to legitimize its validity. In this way it allows a dialogue to unfold among various philosophies of different methodologies and persuasions, so that their basic assumptions and conceptions may be investigated in an objective fashion. That is, instead of comparing concepts, we may go below their differences to seek together what they are meant to grasp. We may in this way come to the things them selves, which are the common objective of all philosophy, or what the great Chinese philosopher Wang Yang Ming called "the investigation of things". It is in this spirit that the Institute's programs include a "cross-cultural" dialogue meant to bring about a profound communication among philosophers in their deepest concerns. Rising above artificial cultural confinements, such dialogues bring scholars, thinkers and human beings together toward a truly human community of minds. Our Institute unfolds one consistent academic program. (shrink)