In den letzten Jahrzehntel! hat sich das Interesse an der Grund­ legung der Mathematik immer gesteigert. Fanden frtiher die wenigen Forscher, die sich emsthaft mit dieser 'Frage beschaftigten, wenig Be­ achtung, heute ist die Teilnahme sowohl von mathematischer wie von philosophischer Seite fast allgemein. Zu diesem Umschwung hat sieher die CANToRSche Mengenlehre, die gleich nach ihrem Entstehen lebhafte Erorterungen tiber ihre Berechtigung hervorrief, den AnstoB gegeben, und besonders die bei riicksichtsloser Durchfiihrung ihrer Grundgedanken auftretenden Widerspriiche zogen die allgemeine Aufmerksamkeit auf (...) sich. Doch ist die bisweUen noch geauBerte Behauptung, der Zweck -der Grundlagenforschung liege in der Beseitigung der Widersprtiche, verfehlt. In philosophischer und in mathematischer Richtung geht diese weit tiber eine solche Zielsetzung hinaus. Philosophisch untersucht man -das Wesen der mathematischen Erkenntnis, ihre Voraussetzungen und Endziele, ihr Verhaltnis zu anderen Wissensgebieten, insbesondere der Physik, und ihre Abgrenzung gegen diese dem lnhalt und der Methode nacho An diese philosophischen Erorterungen schlieBen sich umfangreiche mathematische Untersuchungen tiber den Aufbau der Mathematik aus den philosophisch gegebenen Voraussetzungen und tiber die Struktur der mathematischen Beweisftihrungen. Einzelne Teilgebiete dieser Unter­ suchungen entwickeln sich schon zu selbstandigen Disziplinen, die sich in ihren Methoden und Problemstellungen von der eigentlichen Grund­ lagenforschung unabhangig machen; ein Beispiel eines solchen neuen Zweiges der Mathematik, der sein Entstehen der Grundlagenforschung verdankt, ist die mathematischp. Logik. Allmahlich haben sich drei J. auptrichtungen gebildet, die je einer eigenen Auffassung tiber das Wesen der Mathematik entsprechen undo je zu verschieden gearteten mathematischen Untersuchungen geftihrt haben. (shrink)

Several theoretical publications on the Dirac equation published during the last decades have shown that, an interpretation is possible, which ascribes the origin of electron spin and magnetic moment to an autonomous circular motion of the point-like charged particle around a fixed centre. In more recent publications an extension of the original so called “Zitterbewegung Interpretation” of quantum mechanics was suggested, in which the spin results from an average of instantaneous spin vectors over a Zitterbewegung period. We argue that, the (...) corresponding autonomous motion of the electron should, if it is real, determine non-relativistic spin measurements. Such a direct connection with the established formal quantum mechanical description of spin measurements, into which spin is introduced as a “non-classical” quantity has, to our knowledge, not been reported. In the present work we show that, under certain “model assumptions” concerning the proposed autonomous motion, results of spin measurements, including measurements of angular correlations in singlet systems, can indeed be correctly described using classical probabilities. The success of the model is evidence for the “reality” of the assumed autonomous motion. The resulting model violates the Bell—inequalities to the same extent as quantum mechanics. (shrink)

As public research organisations are increasingly driven by their national and regional governments to engage in knowledge transfer, they have started to support the creation of companies. These research based spin-off companies (RBSOs) often keep contacts with the research institutes they originate from. In this paper we present the results of a study of four research institutes within two universities and two non-university public research organisations (PROs) in the Netherlands. We show that research organisations have distinct motivations to support the (...) creation of spin-off companies. In terms of resources RBSOs contribute, mostly in a modest way, to research activities by providing information, equipment and monetary resources. In particular, RBSOs are helpful for researchers competing for research grants that demand participation of industry. Furthermore, RBSOs may be seen as a proactive response by Dutch public research organisations to demands of economic relevance from their institutional environment. RBSOs enhance the prestige of their parent organisations and create legitimacy for public funds invested in PROs. At the same time, most RBSOs do not have a significant impact on the direction of the research conducted at the PROs. (shrink)

A stimulus may be given to the interpretation of Plato's Philebus by no longer ignoring the impact of Plato's political philosophy. A first hint is the occurrence of astasiastotatēn, a notion exclusively functioning within Plato's politi¬cal philosophy and no less surprising, in the 'non-political' Philebus, than 'Friday's Footprint' was to Crusoe. A second hint is the stasis between epistēmai and hēdonai, only to be avoided by the exclusion of hēdonai unwilling to subordinate themselves to phronēsis/nous. A new reading of Philebus (...) in light of these 'footprints' leads to the conclusion that not only the 'digressions' on ontology, cosmology and anthropology but also the analyses of hēdonai and epistēmai — in other words: the main body of Philebus — presuppose the substratum of Plato's political philosophy. Consciousness of this substratum contributes to understanding the content and course of the dialogue, and even to recognizing its unity. (shrink)

L’auteur a pris le risque de traiter d’une question qui, aujourd’hui encore, fait polémique : celle du rapport qu’entretient le philosophe et romancier Jean-Jacques Rousseau avec la différence sexuelle. L’un des mérites de l’étude de Laure Challandes est d’argumenter, avec une grande précision, sur la nécessaire frontière qui existe entre les textes théoriques, Lettre à d’Alembert sur les spectacles, Du contrat social, Émile ou de l’éducation, entre autres, et les textes fictifs, parmi lesque...

This book provides an interdisciplinary examination of international law by addressing four critical questions: How are international legal rules distinctive? How does an investigator determine the existence of a rule of international law? Does international law really matter in international politics? and What effect could the changing nature of international relations have on international law? Using Constructivist theory, Arend argues that international law can alter the identity of states, and, consequently, have a profound impact on state behavior.

This is the Spanish translation, by María Gabriela Fulugonio, of Arend Heyting’s classical text “Die logizistische Grundlegung der Mathematik”, which was originally presented at the Königsberg’s Symposium on Philosophy of Mathematics in 1930, and finally published in Erkenntnis in 1931.

The method of explication has been somewhat of a hot topic in the last 10 years. Despite the multifaceted research that has been directed at the issue, one may perceive a lack of step-by-step procedural or structural accounts of explication. This paper aims at providing a structural account of the method of explication in continuation of the works of Geo Siegwart. It is enhanced with a detailed terminology for the assessment and comparison of explications. The aim is to provide means (...) to talk about explications including their criticisms and their interrelations. There is hope that this treatment will be able to serve as a foundation to a step-by-step guide to be established for explicators. At least it should help to frame and mediate explicative disputes. In closing the enterprise will be considered an explication of ‘explication’, though consecutive explications improving on this one are undoubtedly conceivable. (shrink)

At first glance, every metaphysics of laws can be combined with every ontology of time. In contrast, the paper intends to show that Humeanism requires eternalism and that Power metaphysics must presuppose an existentially dynamical view of temporal existence, i.e. growing block or presentism. The presented arguments turn out to be completely independent of whether the laws of nature are deterministic or probabilistic: the world is non-productive and static or productively dynamical, the future be ‘open’ or not.

This encyclopedia article provides a procedural account of explication outlining each step that is part of the overall explicative effort (2). It is prefaced by a summary of the historical development of the method (1). The latter part of the article includes a rough structural theory of explication (3) and a detailed presentation of an examplary explication taken from the history of philosophy and the foundations of mathematics (4).

L’ouvrage d’A. Wenger est la version remaniée de sa thèse de doctorat complétée par certains développements parus dans des revues spécialisées, Clio. Histoire, Femmes et Sociétés, Dix-huitième Siècle… La reprise de travaux antérieurs a entraîné parfois quelques redondances – sur l’onanisme ou la lectrice, par exemple – qu’une lecture plus attentive aurait pu éviter. Cette restriction est mineure au regard de l’intérêt de cette étude dont « l’objectif est de faire bouger les objets d’analyse t...

The purpose of this paper is the clarification of some methodological problems concerning Rawls’ theory of justice. The first part seeks to make more precise Tugendhat’s distinction between 1st-person-theory and 3rd-person-theory. Rawls’ theory fulfills all criteria for 1st-person-theories. In the second part Rawl’s coherence model for the justification of norms („reflective equilibrium“) is critically analyzed and opposed to the hypothetical decision which individuals are to make in the original position (contract model). It is shown that the conception of reflective equilibrium (...) is in various aspects mistaken. In conclusion a problem is indicated which Rawls has not satisfactorily resolved: The veil of ignorance is supposed to guarantee that the decision for the basic principles of social justice is unanimous. Nevertheless it would appear that the individuals in the original position either have too little empirical knowledge in order to make a rational decision, or they have too much knowledge in order to come to an unanimous decision. The veil of ignorance is either too fine or not fine enough. (shrink)

In this paper the thesis is argued that there is no need for a special legal logic to deal with the defeasibility of legal arguments. An important argument for this thesis is that legal judgements ask for a complete justification and that such a complete justification requires a deductively valid argument.

In this contribution I argue that Brouwer’s legal positivism suffers from an internal tension that is not easily solved. This tension stems from the combination of two strands in Brouwer’s thought. The first is that Brouwer wants to stick to the legal positivist view that the law is fixed by convention. The second is that there can be exceptions to the application of legal rules, based on legal principles. The combination of these two strands is, I argue, problematic, because the (...) conventional basis for legal principles will usually be lacking in hard cases. One may then argue, as Brouwer does, that where conventions are lacking there is no law and the judge is not bound by the law. But then exceptions to rules are also allowed where there are no conventional principles to justify these exceptions. This contradicts Brouwer’s starting point that exceptions to the application of rules are possible on the basis of legal principles. (shrink)

Kant’s ontology of appearances implies that the numerical distinctness of empirical objects is grounded in their appearance-aspect, more precisely in space as pure intuition, in which alone such objects can be given. With distinguishing concepts things can only be thought: in contrast to Leibniz’s complete concepts and to Kripke’s rigid designators, Kant’s general concepts do not entail their referents analytically. They must be applied to intuition, i. e. be completed synthetically. Consequently, Kant’s ontology of merely singular individuals is closely connected (...) with a genuine semantics of synthetic reference via intuition, expressed by irreducible demonstratives such as “this”, “here”, and “now”. Accordingly, the judgment “There can be indiscernibles” is synthetic-apriori, which distinguishes Kant’s view both from skeptical empiricism and from heavyweight ontological realism. (shrink)

Dieses Buch liefert dem Leser eine aktuelle und fundierte Einführung in die Philosophie der Quantenphysik. Obwohl sich die Quantentheorie durch spektakuläre empirische Erfolge auszeichnet, wird bis heute kontrovers diskutiert, wie sie zu verstehen ist. In diesem Werk geben die Autoren einen Überblick über die zahlreichen philosophischen Herausforderungen: Verletzen Quantenobjekte das Prinzip der Kausalität? Sind gleichartige Teilchen ununterscheidbar und daher keine Individuen? Behalten Quantenobjekte in der zeitlichen Entwicklung ihre Identität? Wie verhält sich ein zusammengesetztes Quantensystem zu seinen Teilen? Diese Fragen werden (...) im Rahmen verschiedener Deutungsansätze der Quantentheorie diskutiert. Ein Ausblick in die Quantenfeldtheorie verschärft das Hauptproblem der Nichtlokalität. Philosophie der Quantenphysik richtet sich an Philosophiestudierende mit Interesse für Physik, macht Physikerinnen und Physiker mit den philosophischen Fragen ihres Faches vertraut und liefert Lehramtsstudierenden und Lehrern Anregungen für den gymnasialen Physik-Unterricht. Das Buch schließt damit eine Lücke zwischen populären Einführungen und spezialisierten Monografien zur Philosophie der Quantenphysik im deutschsprachigen Lehrbuchmarkt. In der vorliegenden zweiten Auflage wurde das Kapitel zu Verschränkung und Nicht-Lokalität deutlich erweitert und jedes Kapitel mit Übungsaufgaben und Musterlösungen ergänzt. cord friebezurzeit="" vertretung="" der="" professur="" für="" analytische="" philosophie="" an="" universität="" des="" saarlandes.p. (shrink)

The question of how to arrive at questions is ambiguous. I will concentrate on two readings: (i) How should one set up a formal syntax that accomodates questions? (ii) How does one, while working in a suitable formal language, arrive at a situation where one is allowed to or even must ask a certain question? In other words: How is the asking of questions regulated within a given formal language? I will propose an answer to question (i) and consider the (...) field of possibilities of answering (ii). (shrink)

According to Kant, concepts can be used in three different ways, i.e. an empirical (= pre-philosophical) use, a transcendentally real (= philosophically inadequate) use, and a transcendentally ideal (= philosophically reasonable) use. Regarding the concept of the world as a whole, however, Kant misrepresents the empirical meaning and therefore overlooks the transcendentally ideal understanding of “everything”. Along this guiding line, the paper defends Kant’s program of showing that spatiotemporal objects are conditioned by subjective, non-empirical conditions against the charge that it (...) is inconsistent with Kant’s alleged solution of the antinomies. It turns out that Kant’s program is consistent both with ontological realism about the world and with empirical realism about, e.g., the Big Bang. The remaining problem is how to formalize in modal logic unrestricted quantification in its transcendentally ideal usage. (shrink)

Frege's philosophy of language includes detailed views on judgments. His formal logic - the Begriffsschrift - documents some of these views in the introduction and treatment of the judgment stroke. In current logic such an expression is either entirely ignored or, appearing as turnstile, plays an fundamentally different role. In this paper I put forward four claims: (i) Considering Frege's Begriffsschrift, it is methodologically palpable why the judgment stroke was omitted in nearly all logical systems developed after Frege. (ii) The (...) Frege-style inclusion of the judgment stroke in a formal language represents a partial implementation of results from speech act theory. (iii) A more comprehensive implementation, not limited to the judgment stroke, helps to satisfy justified expectations about formal languages and logical calculi. (iv) Such an implementation has not yet been achieved in the current logical mainstream. (shrink)

Dieses Buch liefert dem Leser eine aktuelle und fundierte Einführung in die Philosophie der Quantenphysik. Obwohl sich die Quantentheorie durch spektakuläre empirische Erfolge auszeichnet, wird bis heute kontrovers diskutiert, wie sie zu verstehen ist. In diesem Werk geben die Autoren einen Überblick über die zahlreichen philosophischen Herausforderungen: Verletzen Quantenobjekte das Prinzip der Kausalität? Sind gleichartige Teilchen ununterscheidbar und daher keine Individuen? Behalten Quantenobjekte in der zeitlichen Entwicklung ihre Identität? Wie verhält sich ein zusammengesetztes Quantensystem zu seinen Teilen? Diese Fragen werden (...) im Rahmen verschiedener Deutungsansätze der Quantentheorie diskutiert. Ein Ausblick in die Quantenfeldtheorie verschärft das Hauptproblem der Nichtlokalität. Philosophie der Quantenphysik richtet sich an Philosophen mit Interesse für Physik, macht Physiker mit den philosophischen Fragen ihres Faches vertraut und liefert Anregungen für den gymnasialen Physik-Unterricht. Das Buch schließt damit eine Lücke zwischen populären Einführungen und spezialisierten Monografien zur Philosophie der Quantenphysik. In der vorliegenden zweiten Auflage wurde das Kapitel zu Verschränkung und Nicht-Lokalität deutlich erweitert und jedes Kapitel mit Übungsaufgaben und Musterlösungen ergänzt. (shrink)

Both bosons and fermions satisfy a strong version of Leibniz’s Principle of the Identity of Indiscernibles (PII), and so are ontologically on a par with respect to the PII. This holds for non-entangled, non-product states and for physically entangled states—as it has been established in previous work. In this paper, the Leibniz strategy is completed by including the (bosonic) symmetric product states. A new understanding of Pauli’s Exclusion Principle is provided, which distinguishes bosons from fermions in a peculiar ontological way. (...) Finally, the program as a whole is defended against substantial objections. (shrink)

This book provides a thorough and up-to-date introduction to the philosophy of quantum physics. Although quantum theory is renowned for its spectacular empirical successes, controversial discussion about how it should be understood continue to rage today. In this volume, the authors provide an overview of its numerous philosophical challenges: Do quantum objects violate the principle of causality? Are particles of the same type indistinguishable and therefore not individual entities? Do quantum objects retain their identity over time? How does a compound (...) quantum system relate to its parts? These questions are answered here within different interpretational approaches to quantum theory. Finally, moving to Quantum Field Theory, we find that the problem of non-locality is exacerbated. Philosophy of quantum physics is aimed at philosophers with an interest in physics, while also serving to familiarize physicists with many of the essential philosophical questions of their subject. (shrink)

We report to which extent elementary particles and the nucleons can be described by an Ansatz that is alternative to the established standard model, and can still yield predicted results that reproduce the observed ones, without using the formalism of quantum mechanics. The different Ansatz is motivated by the attempt to explain known properties of elementary particles as a consequence of an inner structure, in contrast to the approach of the standard model, where the properties are ascribed to point-like particles. (...) Based on the assumption of the existence of photons, the possibility of the creation of fermion and anti-fermion in an interaction of two photons of equal energy is shown. The properties of these created elementary material particles are found to agree with the ones observed. Also the possibility of the creation of a neutron by interaction of two photons of equal energy is shown. In this case, the newly formed neutron rests in the center of the collision system as a combined system of the localized two photons. The created neutron is shown to have the known properties of the neutron, and in addition, to have a definite shape of definite size. The proton is described as the particle formed by decay of the neutron, also owning the observed properties, and in addition a definite shape. For all particles described by the Ansatz, their properties are consequences of an inner structure. The merits of the alternative description as compared to the standard model and the application of quantum mechanics are discussed. (shrink)