Diese Ausgabe enthalt auch die in dem seit langerem vergriffenen Band "Vier Seminare" 1977 erstmals veroffentlichten Seminare, die Heidegger mit sieben franzosischen Gelehrten und dem Dichter Rene Char in Le Thor (1966, 1968 und 1969) und Zahringen (1973) abgehalten hat. Der Band fasst die zu Lebzeiten Martin Heideggers veroffentlichten Protokolle der Seminare zusammen, die er geleitet oder an denen er teilgenommen hat. Die Beschaffenheit der Texte ist verschieden, denn die Protokolle sind auf unterschiedliche Weise entstanden, wozu die Nachworte das Nahere (...) mitteilen. Der einzige Text, der eine eigene Handschrift Heideggers wiedergibt, ist die als "Nachtrag" zum letzten der "Vier Seminare" hier erstmals veroffentlichte Erlauterung zu einem Wort des Parmenides mit kurzer Vorbemerkung "Die Herkunft des Denkens". Eine Besonderheit des Bandes bilden die Textbeitrage, die von Seminarteilnehmern stammen, unter denen Eugen Fink mit der eigenen Heraklit-Interpretation den herausragenden Anteil hat. Die mit Franzosen abgehaltenen "Vier Seminare" vermitteln beilaufig einige Einblicke in Heideggers Beziehungen zum geistigen Frankreich und zu seinen wohl wichtigsten Freunden (und Ubersetzern), von denen Rene Char und Jean Beaufret am bekanntesten sind. Heidegger begegnet dem Leser hier im Dialog, als Leiter und Partner im Gesprach, dessen Wiedergabe oft eine eigene Lebendigkeit aus dem jeweiligen Eingehen auf die Teilnehmer gewinnt. Dieser andere Duktus der Texte unterscheidet die Seminare vom Stil der Vorlesungen und der veroffentlichten Schriften. Die Nachworte geben Aufschluss uber das Zustandekommen der einzelnen Seminare und der fruheren Protokoll-Veroffentlichungen; sie enthalten auch Hinweise auf die Teilnehmerkreise. (shrink)

Contents Preface General Introduction 1 | Science and Pseudoscience Introduction Karl Popper, Science: Conjectures and Refutations Thomas S. Kuhn, Logic of Discovery or Psychology of Research? Imre Lakatos, Science and Pseudoscience Paul R. Thagard, Why Astrology Is a Pseudoscience Michael Ruse, Creation-Science Is Not Science Larry Laudan, Commentary: Science at the Bar---Causes for Concern Commentary 2 | Rationality, Objectivity, and Values in Science Introduction Thomas S. Kuhn, The Nature and Necessity of Scientific Revolutions Thomas S. Kuhn, Objectivity, Value Judgment, and (...) Theory Choice Ernan McMullin, Rationality and Paradigm Change in Science Larry Laudan, Kuhn’s Critique of Methodology Helen E. Longino, Values and Objectivity Kathleen Okruhlik, Gender and the Biological Sciences Commentary 3 | The Duhem-Quine Thesis and Underdetermination Introduction Pierre Duhem, Physical Theory and Experiment W. V. Quine, Two Dogmas of Empiricism Donald Gillies, The Duhem Thesis and the Quine Thesis Larry Laudan, Demystifying Underdetermination *Colin Howson and Peter Urbach, The Duhem Problem Commentary 4 | Induction, Prediction, and Evidence Introduction Peter Lipton, Induction Karl Popper, The Problem of Induction Wesley C. Salmon, Rational Prediction Carl G. Hempel, Criteria of Confirmation and Acceptability Peter Achinstein, Explanation v. Prediction: Which Carries More Weight? *Nelson Goodman, The New Riddle of Induction Commentary 5 | Confirmation and Relevance: Bayesian Approaches Introduction Wesley C. Salmon, Rationality and Objectivity in Science *Deborah G. Mayo, A Critique of Salmon’s Bayesian Way *Alan Chalmers, The Bayesian Approach Paul Horwich, Therapeutic Bayesianism Commentary 6 | Models of Explanation Introduction Rudolf Carnap, The Value of Laws: Explanation and Prediction Carl G. Hempel, Two Basic Types of Scientific Explanation Carl G. Hempel, The Thesis of Structural Identity Carl G. Hempel, Inductive-Statistical Explanation Peter Railton, A Deductive-Nomological Model of Probabilistic Explanation *Philip Kitcher, Explanatory Unification *James Woodward, The Manipulability Conception of Causal Explanation Commentary 7 | Laws of Nature Introduction A. J. Ayer, What Is a Law of Nature? Fred I. Dretske, Laws of Nature D. H. Mellor, Necessities and Universals in Natural Laws Nancy Cartwright, Do the Laws of Physics State the Facts? Commentary 8 | Intertheoretic Reduction Introduction Ernest Nagel, Issues in the Logic of Reductive Explanations Paul K. Feyerabend, How to Be a Good Empiricist *Jerry A. Fodor, Special Sciences Philip Kitcher, 1953 and All That: A Tale of Two Sciences Commentary 9 | Empiricism and Scientific Realism Introduction Grover Maxwell, The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities Bas C. van Fraassen, Arguments Concerning Scientific Realism Alan Musgrave, Realism versus Constructive Empiricism Larry Laudan, A Confutation of Convergent Realism *Juha T. Saatsi, On the Pessimistic Induction and Two Fallacies Ian Hacking, Experimentation and Scientific Realism David B. Resnik, Hacking’s Experimental Realism *Martin Carrier, What Is Right with the Miracle Argument Arthur Fine, The Natural Ontological Attitude Alan Musgrave, NOA’s Ark---Fine for Realism Commentary Glossary Bibliography Name Index Subject Index. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek PhilosophyPatricia CurdA. A. Long, editor. The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Pp. xxxii + 427. Cloth, $54.95. Paper, $19.95.The Cambridge Companions are designed both to introduce and to survey, aims that anyone who teaches introductory courses knows are not fully compatible. The Cambridge Companion to Early Greek Philosophy is successful because its contributors have kept to (...) a uniform tone of mostly introduction, with some reference to recent developments and controversies in the field. There are sixteen essays, with a judicious mix of chapters on particular figures and on general topics.A. A. Long provides a helpful introduction, discussing the problems of dealing with the fragmentary evidence for these philosophers, and giving an account of the nature and scope of early Greek thought. (He also argues—not entirely persuasively—that we should give up the nineteenth century name "Presocratics" for these thinkers.) Jaap Mansfeld explains the problems of sources and doxography (the chapter is quite compressed and could be rather overwhelming for the newcomer to the area), while Keimpe Algra surveys Ionian cosmology. Carl Huffman provides a masterful discussion of early Pythagoreanism, attempting to sort out what we can and cannot be justified in claiming about Pre-Platonic Pythagoreanism. The chapters on individual thinkers mostly provide systematic overviews. Edward Hussey contributes an exemplary chapter on Heraclitus, and David Sedley one on Parmenides and Melissus (it is good to see Melissus treated seriously), with Richard McKirahan weighing in on Zeno (mostly on the paradoxes of motion but with some attention to the arguments against plurality). The discussions of individual Presocratics are rounded out with Daniel Graham's treatment of Empedocles' and Anaxagoras' responses to Parmenides, and C. C. W. Taylor on the Atomists. Sarah Broadie considers rational theology and James Lesher early Greek epistemology, while André Laks surveys ancient theories of soul, sensation, and thought. Paul Woodruff and Fernanda Decleva Caizzi provide chapters on the Sophists, the former discussing Protagoras and Gorgias, the latter, Protagoras and Antiphon. Mario Vegetti undertakes an examination of the notion of causation in early Greek thought, and Diskin Clay explores the poetics of the Presocratic philosophers. The book opens with short discussions—three paragraphs devoted to life, sources, and works for each of the thinkers who figure in the period (in alphabetical rather than even roughly chronological order), a chronological chart, and a map. There is a large and useful—though necessarily selective— bibliography (supplemented in the notes to some chapters by references to articles that are not included in the main bibliography), an index locorum, and an index of names and subjects that [End Page 429] includes modern scholars "only if their views are cited in the main text or discussed in footnotes" (which makes it difficult to use in tracking down references). Unfortunately, as in all the Cambridge Companions, notes are at the end of articles rather than at the foot of the page, making necessary a fair bit of flipping while reading.How well do the contributors succeed in meeting the needs of the intended readers of the series? For the most part, very well; the novice reader will find this an accessible guide to Early Greek philosophy. The various discussions are solid and well-informed, and the authors have indicated issues and interpretations that are controversial (for example, Taylor takes time to consider objections to his earlier criticism of Vlastos on the connection between atomistic metaphysics and ethics, and Hussey is careful to note the traditional flashpoints of disagreement in Heraclitus interpretation). It is also good that some of the Sophists are included (it is worth considering how viable the traditional distinction between the Sophists and the Philosophers really is), and inclusion of both the medical tradition and the issue of poetics is very welcome. Further chapters considering in more detail the cosmologies of post-Milesians (including Parmenides) and on the philosophical uses made of the early Greek thinkers by Plato and Aristotle would have rounded things out, but these would have made an already big book bigger. As perhaps befits an introductory survey, most of the interpretations lean to the traditional - someone looking for... (shrink)

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae proposed a theory of everything. Like other Presocratics, Anaxagoras addressed topics that could now be placed outside the sphere of philosophical inquiry: not only did he explore metaphysics and the nature of human understanding but he also offered explanations in physics, meteorology, astronomy, physiology, and biology. His aim seems to have been to explain as completely as possible the world in which human beings live, and one's knowledge of that world; thus he seeks to investigate the universe (...) from top to bottom. This article explores Anaxagoras's world from its basic foundations. It undertakes to show the connections among the metaphysical, epistemological, and cosmological parts of Anaxagoras's theory. The discovery and publication of new material has also enhanced the understanding of Presocratic thought. A spectacular example is the new material from Empedocles of Acragas that has become available. (shrink)

Parmenides of Elea was the most important and influential philosopher before Plato. He rejected as impossible the scientific inquiry practiced by the earlier Presocratic philosophers and held that generation, destruction, and change are unreal and that only one thing exists. In this book, Patricia Curd argues that Parmenides sought to reform rather than to reject scientific inquiry, and she offers a more coherent account of his influence on later philosophers._ _The Legacy of Parmenides_ examines Parmenides' arguments, considering his connection (...) to earlier Greek thought and how his account of what-is could have served as a model for later philosophers. Curd also explores the theories of his successors, including the Pluralists, the Atomists, the later Eleatics, and the later Presocratics. She concludes with a discussion of the importance of Parmenides' work to Plato's _Theory of Forms._ _The Legacy of Parmenides_ challenges traditional views of early Greek philosophy and provides new insights into the work of Parmenides. "_The Legacy of Parmenides_ represents a milestone... of Parmenides' interpretation. It is full of ideas and tells a coherent story about Parmenides and early Greek thought." --_ Alexander Nehamas, Princeton University___ "Professor Curd offers a genuinely original and possibly correct interpretation of the core thesis of the poem of Parmenides in a field so well worked over that saying something both new and true is profoundly difficult, this is a notable achievement." --_ Thomas M. Robinson, University of Toronto___ "This will be a substantial book in the story of early Greek philosophy, and future writers on the tradition from Thales through Plato will not be able to ignore it without missing an important interpretive alternative. It will be of value to students of Presocratic philosophy or the Greek tradition, as well as to students of the scientific revolution, cosmology, the origins of logic, or comparative mysticism." --_ Scott W. Austin, Texas A&M University___ PATRICIA CURD_ is professor at Purdue University where she works primarily in Ancient Philosophy. She is a co-editor of _Readings in Ancient Greek Philosophy_, and is the editor of _A Presocratics Reader._. (shrink)

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae (a major Greek city of Ionian Asia Minor), a Greek philosopher of the 5th century B.C.E. (born ca. 500–480), was the first of the Presocratic philosophers to live in Athens. He propounded a physical theory of “everything-in-everything,” and claimed that nous (intellect or mind) was the motive cause of the cosmos. He was the first to give a correct explanation of eclipses, and was both famous and notorious for his scientific theories, including the claims that the sun (...) is a mass of red-hot metal, that the moon is earthy, and that the stars are fiery stones. Anaxagoras maintained that the original state of the cosmos was a mixture of all its ingredients (the basic realities of his system). The ingredients are thoroughly mixed, so that no individual ingredient as such is evident, but the mixture is not entirely uniform or homogeneous. (shrink)

Aristotle claims that Empedocles took perception and knowledge to be the same; Theophrastus follows Aristotle. The paper begins by examining why Aristotle and Theophrastus identify thought/knowing with perception in Empedocles. I maintain that the extant fragments do not support the assertion that Empedocles identifies or conflates sensation with thought or cognition. Indeed, the evidence of the texts shows that Empedocles is careful to distinguish them, and argues that to have genuine understanding one must not be misled into supposing that sense (...) perception is sufficient for knowledge. Nevertheless, sense perception is necessary for human knowing. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the logos, the primary object of knowledge in Heraclitus’ epistemology, is a unity both as an object of knowledge and as an instance of being rather than becoming. Section I begins with discussions of knowledge and Heraclitus’ conception of logos; section II is concerned with knowledge and unity. The two later sections of the paper explore the consequences of the account I attribute to Heraclitus: section III considers being, unity, and change; and section IV (...) discusses Heraclitus’ views of knowledge and sense perception. (shrink)

The last twenty years have seen a remarkable increase in scholarly work on the Presocratics: new texts have appeared, new interpretations have been advanced, and a new appreciation for the scientific and philosophical claims of the early Greek thinkers is evident.1 There has been a general broadening of the questions that have been examined: scholars have been exploring the supposed boundaries of Presocratic thought, and new work on reception history and on the transmission of texts has enriched our understanding of (...) the earliest Greek philosophers. Here, I survey some of the trends and results of the new Presocratic scholarship.2Because no complete Presocratic text survives, those who work with the early Greek .. (shrink)

This indispensable reference source and guide to the major themes, debates, problems and topics in philosophy of science contains fifty-five specially commissioned entries by a leading team of international contributors. Organized into four parts it covers: historical and philosophical context debates concepts the individual sciences. The _Companion_ covers everything students of philosophy of science need to know - from empiricism, explanation and experiment to causation, observation, prediction and more - and contains many helpful features including: a section on the individual (...) sciences, including chapters on the philosophy of biology, chemistry, physics and psychology, further reading and cross-referencing at the end of each chapter. (shrink)

Ideal for a two-to-three week introduction to the Presocratics and Sophists, this volume offers a selection of the extant remains of early Greek philosophical thought on cosmology, metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics, together with unobtrusive, minimally interpretive editorial material: an introduction, brief headnotes, maps, and a concordance.

This handbook brings together leading international scholars to study the diverse figures, movements, and approaches that constitute Presocratic philosophy. More than a survey of scholarship, this study presents new interpretations and evaluations of the Presocratics' accomplishments, from Thales to the sophists and from theology to science.

Some philosophers have argued that miracles cannot occur because it is impossible for an event to violate a law of nature. This paper examines three attempts (by W.L. Rowe, N. Smart, and R. Swinburne) to refute this argument. It concludes that none of them is successful if one wants to use the law-violating character of alleged miracles as evidence for God’s existence and nature.

The claim that even in 1543 the Copernican theory was objectively superior to the Ptolemaic theory is explained and defended. The question is then raised concerning the relevance of this insight for our understanding of the rationality of the Copernican revolution. It is proposed that (a) the decision to reject the Ptolemaic theory first became clearly rational early in the 17th century as a result of Galileo's observations of the phases of Venus, and (b) the decision to accept the Copernican (...) theory only became clearly rational when Newtonian gravitational theory provided reasonable physical grounds for rejecting the Tychonic theory towards the end of the 17th century. (shrink)

Building on the virtues that made the first edition of _A Presocratics Reader_ the most widely used sourcebook for the study of the Presocratics and Sophists, the second edition offers even more value and a wider selection of fragments from these philosophical predecessors and contemporaries of Socrates. With revised introductions, annotations, suggestions for further reading, and more, the second edition draws on the wealth of new scholarship published on these fascinating thinkers over the past decade or more, a remarkably rich (...) period in Presocratic studies. At the volume's core, as ever, are the fragments themselves--but now in thoroughly revised and, in some cases, new translations by Richard D. McKirahan and Patricia Curd, among them those of the recently published Derveni Papyrus. (shrink)

What does a philosophos do and what is a philosophos anyway? Christopher Moore explores these questions in his intriguing book, examining the history of the word philosophos and considering the development of the discipline that came to be known as philosophia. Moore's account "begins around 500 BCE with the coinage not of a self-lauding 'love of wisdom' but with a wry verbal slight, and concludes a century and a half later, in the maturity of an institution that is continuous with (...) today's departments of philosophy". The story moves between analysis of the word philosophos, comparing it and its history with that of other phil- compounds, and a wide-ranging discussion of the activities of those to whom the name... (shrink)

This chapter explores the main argument for scientific realism, the No-Miracle Argument (NMA), and two antirealist arguments criticizing scientific realism, the Pessimistic Induction and the argument from Underdetermination. Scientific realists have articulated many different versions of their doctrine in response to the acknowledged shortcomings of the original NMA. While most rely on an inference to the best explanation, they propose stricter notions of novel predictive success, richer notion of success in general, and more discriminating ways of identifying the parts of (...) a theory responsible for that success. When one looks at the history of science, especially the scientific revolutions in physics, astronomy, and chemistry chronicled in T. S. Kuhn, the realist seems to be in a bind. For Kuhn, and later Larry Laudan, gave many examples of theories that were successful in their day and recognize as based on radically false assumptions about the world. (shrink)

This article is concerned with the first philosophers and scientists in the Western tradition. It studies the Presocratic philosophers. One can approach early Greek philosophy through either particular figures of the period or thematic studies that cover broader time periods. If the term “Presocratic philosopher” is a conventional designation established by scholars, it marks out a set of figures who do seem to merit special attention. So as long as there is a tribe of philosophers in the West, they will (...) look back to the first antecedents of their profession. And it seems that the Presocratics are the obvious candidates for founders of the movement. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Cambridge Companion to Galileo ed. by Peter MachamerMartin CurdPeter Machamer, editor. The Cambridge Companion to Galileo. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp xii + 462. Cloth, $59.95. Paper, $19.95.The contributions fall into three main areas: Galileo’s work on mechanics, his defense of Copernicus, and his relationship with the church. The relative number of pages devoted to these topics is unusual: the ratio is roughly 3 to 1 (...) to 3.The papers on Galileo’s mechanics and physics are by William Wallace, Peter Machamer, Rivka Feldhay, Wallace Hooper, and Pietro Redondi. Wallace concentrates on unpublished manuscripts from Galileo’s early period, arguing that they reveal Galileo’s intense involvement with Aristotelian philosophy. As in his other writings, Wallace emphasizes the importance of the demonstrative regressus argument for Galileo’s thought, especially for Galileo’s later claim in the Dialogue to have demonstrated the earth’s motion from the phenomenon of the tides. Machamer offers an “Archimedean” [End Page 364] interpretation of Galileo, stressing the Galileo’s use of simple machines, especially the balance, as a model of intelligibility throughout his scientific work. According to Machamer, these machines functioned as something like a Kuhnian exemplar for Galileo, providing the element of necessity and picturability that Galileo deemed essential for scientific explanation. Feldhay explores the role of mathematics in Galileo’s science, arguing that Galileo began to diverge from the Jesuit-Aristotelian tradition once he gave up trying to understand the causes of accelerated motion and focused instead on its geometrical analysis in terms of degrees of velocity. In a useful discussion, Hooper follows the development of Galileo’s inertial mechanics, concluding that even in the Discourses (1638) it is unclear whether Galileo abandoned his pre-Newtonian notion of impetus as the sustaining cause of motion. Redondi examines the relationship of Galileo’s physics to his theology. While Redondi’s conclusion is clear—“Galileo’s physics required God”—his argument is hard to follow, ranging as it does over Galileo’s views on time, atomism, macroscopic and microscopic physics, and cosmogony.Only two articles are directly about Galileo and the Copernican theory but those two pieces, by William Shea and Noel Swerdlow, are models of clarity. Swerdlow focuses on Galileo’s telescopic discoveries 1610–13 while Shea covers the entire period up to the Dialogue of 1632. Unfortunately, this involves repetition of the material about the telescopic discoveries, including some diagrams and illustrations. Tighter editorial control might have avoided this duplication and allowed Shea to devote more time to the fascinating arguments in the Dialogue. What we have is fine, but more would have been better.On Galileo and the church, there are contributions from Ernan McMullin, Richard Blackwell and Marcello Pera. McMullin argues that the seeds of Galileo’s downfall in 1633 were sown in his Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (1615) in which Galileo endorsed a theory of scriptural interpretation remarkably similar to that contained in Augustine’s commentary on Genesis. McMullin finds a tension in that theory between regarding Scripture and natural science as mutually irrelevant while at the same time giving science priority over the literal reading of Scripture if and only if a demonstration has been provided. Once the demonstration principle was adopted, Galileo’s task of defending the earth’s motion against biblical literalism in the Dialogue became hopeless. Blackwell asks whether there could be another Galileo case in light of the Vatican’s admission of error in 1992. His answer is “Yes.” Blackwell reminds us that while in 1616 it was the Copernican theory that been tried and found heretical, in 1633 the sole issue was Galileo’s obedience to church authority. In Blackwell’s view, there remains the potential for conflict between the church’s “logic of centralized authority” and the democratic, pluralistic methods that give legitimacy to science. Pera, too, concludes that the possibility of conflict remains as long as the church insists that there are truths of faith, necessary for salvation, and those doctrines also have a factual content amenable, at least in principle, to scientific investigation.The book concludes with two pieces: a survey by Michael Segre of the evolution of Galileo’s... (shrink)

The Parmenides has long been thought of as one of Plato's more mysterious dialogues. The first part is an attack on the Theory of Forms while the second is an apparently bewildering discussion of the One and the Others. It is the contention of this project that in the Parmenides Plato points out and begins to solve a serious difficulty generated by assumptions about being and the Forms made in the middle period theory. ;The dissertation has three major divisions. In (...) the first, several aspects of the middle period Theory of Forms are examined. It is first shown that his acceptance of the Parmenidean analysis of being, combined with Heraclitean views on change and Socratic assumptions about definitions, leads Plato to separate Forms from particulars. There follow a discussion of a particular interpretation of self-predication with an analysis of its role in the Theory of Forms and an examination of the relation of participation. The first section closes with a discussion of certain problems in the first part of the Parmenides. ;The second part of the thesis discusses the arguments of the First Hypothesis, showing that the middle period claim that a Form, the F-itself, must be only f and can neither be nor become its opposite is so strong as to undermine the theory, since it prevents the application of any predicate to a Form. ;The third section examines the arguments of the Second Hypothesis and shows that in that hypothesis Plato begins to solve the problem posed by the First by introducing participation at the level of the Forms, allowing two types of predication to be applied to Forms. The thesis closes with a discussion of the nature of this new relation of Form-participation and the implications of this new relation for the Theory of Forms. (shrink)