This paper investigates the interaction between semantic theories for cp-laws (roughly, laws that hold “all things equal”) and metaphysical theories of kinds in the special sciences. Its central conclusion is that cp-laws concerning kinds behave differently from cp-laws concerning non-kinds: “ravens are black” which concerns the kind corvus corax, behaves differently from from “albino ravens are white” which concerns the non-kind grouping of albino ravens. I argue that this difference is in the first instance logical: the two sorts of cp-laws (...) give rise to different inferential patterns. I draw two further conclusions. The difference in logical behavior poses a severe problem for extant semantic theories of cp-laws, and: we cannot elucidate the distinction between kinds and non-kinds by suggesting that only kinds can appear in laws. (shrink)

Kapitola X., Zánik středověku v které běží o otázku, zda je náš rytíř figurou potvrzující středověk. Don Quijote začíná jako retro-rytíř. Krámuje kusy brnění svých prarodičů. Jeho cíl je, zdá se, inspirován středověce. Ve středověku existovali rytíři, v době Dona Quijote již ne. Přesto se v tomto románu bezúspěšně pátrá po potvrzení věku zvaného „medium aevum“. Je tento věk potvrzen alespoň skrytě? Anebo zjistíme, podíváme-li se na jádro našeho caballero andante, že je jen středověkým převlekem pro opuštění středověku? Následující, zeširoka (...) pojatá „dřevořezba“, dává na tuto otázku jednoznačnou odpověď. (shrink)

There is a consensus on war: violent conflicts are out. But they continue to happen. One likes to exclude violent conflicts and to avoid them. But they could happen. Avoidance of wars appears not be sufficient. International relations presuppose an international anarchy. Anarchy does not exclude wars, but reduces them to exceptions. The present essay attempts to argue in favour of a categorical exclusion of violent conflicts which easily could destroy vital conditions of human survival.

Reading Cassirer’s philosophy of myth: early signs of Heidegger’s late philosophy? In 1928, Heidegger’s book review of the second volume of Cassirer’s Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (The Mythical Thought) was published in the Deutsche Literaturzeitung. Cassirer’s text date of 1925, hence it is possible that Heidegger had read it even before the publication of Being and Time. What makes both texts worthy of a closer examination is the fact that several central motifs and terms of Heidegger’s later philosophy are already (...) present in these two texts. Heidegger focuses particularly on Cassirer’s reflections on the representation of mana (Mana-Vorstellung) in mythical thinking. This representation involves not only the distinction between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the ‘uncanniness’ or ‘not-at-homeness’ that befalls mightily the Dasein, but also the distinction between the sacred and the profane and that of the four world regions (Weltgegenden) and its organization in form of a cross. Although not everything that Heidegger announces is interpretable as full awareness of the future impact of these traces, one would wonder if the density with which they appear would be mere accident. Thus, the article contributes to the debate on the issue of the emerging of Heidegger’s late thought and its origins which can be traced back to the stage of genesis, or rather, the final draft of Being and Time. (shrink)

The Ontogenesis can be explained in a double way: historically: it runs from the past to the present. idealistically: it runs from the general to the special. The development of the dimorphism of sex tells against the historical and for the idealistical perception. Therefore the idealistical morphology has to be put in the place of the phylogenetical. Idiogenesis and Morphogenesis are going analogically from the general to the special. There exists parallelism of the order of thinking and being. L'ontogenèse peut (...) être expliquée de deux manières différentes: historiquement; elle se passe du passé au présent. idéalistiquement; elle se passe de l'universel au particulier. Le développement du dimorphisme du sexe est contradictoire à l'interprétation historique et affirme la conception idéalistique. Par conséquent il faut remplacer la morphologie phylogénétique par l'idéalistique. De façon analogue l'idiogenèse et la morphogenèse se passent de l'universel au particulier. Il existe un parallélisme de l'ordre d'existence et de l'ordre des pensées. (shrink)

The essay reexamines the famous scene from Proust’s ›In Search of Lost Time‹ about the death of the writer Bergotte. In pointing out that the notorious ›patch of yellow wall‹ Bergotte claims to have discovered in Vermeer’s ›View of Delft‹ does not exist in the real painting, the article’s aim is to show that the scene is not to be read as an autobiographical recollection, but rather as a reflection on ›mimesis‹, i.e. on the transcendental conditions of perception and representation. (...) As such, it can be considered to have in large measure inspired the reorientation of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s later phenomenological oeuvre towards a new ontology. On the basis of Merleau-Ponty’s recently published lecture notes, the essay locates the common concern of the writer and the philosopher in the idea of remembrance not as a derivative phenomenon, but as an originary mode of givenness. (shrink)