The scientific work of Gianfranco Miglio must be placed in the cleavage of ''political realism'', and it must be seen together with the attempt to study political phenomena applying the same methodology of natural science (this is the meaning of the Miglian ''positivism''). What kind of role did he therefore appointed to political thought? To Miglio, the political class – in the way in which Mosca conceived it – needed ideologies to concretely exercise power: in particular, the class of ''helpers'' (...) had the duty to release technical assignments but also to think forms of legitimation of the authority. Persuaded that the end of Cold War meant also the end of an era, started four centuries before with the birth of modern State, Miglio devoted the last years of his life to think new political models, and with them new forms of legitimation of power. Beyond the specific contents of his constitutional proposals and rather than fulfilling a political role strictu sensu, the ''militant'' commitment of Miglio answered to his theoretical need to think post-State political thought and institutions, once perceived the first signs of the «autumn» of the modern State. (shrink)

Drawing on ten years of research on the unpublished Wittgenstein papers, Stern investigates what motivated Wittgenstein's philosophical writing and casts new light on the Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations. The book is an exposition of Wittgenstein's early conception of the nature of representation and how his later revision and criticism of that work led to a radically different way of looking at mind and language. It also explains how the unpublished manuscripts and typescripts were put together and why they often provide (...) better evidence of the development of his ideas than can be found in his published writing. In doing so, the book traces the development of a number of central themes in Wittgenstein's philosophy, including his conception of philosophical method, the picture theory of meaning, the limits of language, the application of language to experience, his treatment of private language, and what he called the "flow of life." Arguing that Wittgenstein's views are often much more simple (and more radical) than we have been led to believe, Wittgenstein on Mind and Language provides an overview of the development of Wittgenstein's philosophy and brings to light aspects of his philosophy that have been almost universally neglected. (shrink)

This edition of G. E. Moore's notes taken at Wittgenstein's seminal Cambridge lectures in the early 1930s provides, for the first time, an almost verbatim record of those classes. The presentation of the notes is both accessible and faithful to their original manuscripts, and a comprehensive introduction and synoptic table of contents provide the reader with essential contextual information and summaries of the topics in each lecture. The lectures form an excellent introduction to Wittgenstein's middle-period thought, covering a broad range (...) of philosophical topics, ranging from core questions in the philosophy of language, mind, logic, and mathematics, to illuminating discussions of subjects on which Wittgenstein says very little elsewhere, including ethics, religion, aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and anthropology. The volume also includes a 1932 essay by Moore critiquing Wittgenstein's conception of grammar, together with Wittgenstein's response. A companion website offers access to images of the entire set of source manuscripts. (shrink)

Otto Weininger was one of the most controversial and widely read authors of fin-de-siècle Vienna. He was both condemned for his misogyny, self-hatred, anti-semitism and homophobia, as well as praised for his uncompromising and outspoken approach to gender and morality. For Wittgenstein Weininger was a 'remarkable genius'. He repeatedly recommended Weininger's Sex and Character to friends and students and included the author on a short list of figures who had influenced him. The purpose of this new collection of essays is (...) to explore the various ways in which Wittgenstein absorbed and responded to Weininger's ideas. Written by an international team of experts on Wittgenstein and Weininger, the volume is especially timely in the light of recent translations of Weininger's work and will appeal to anyone interested in the history of 20th century philosophy, and the literary and cultural history of fin-de-siècle Vienna. (shrink)

Examines the ethical dilemmas created by contemporary biomedical advances, describing the techniques, applications, and ethical, legal, moral, and social ramifications of such developments as artificial insemination, cloning, prenatal screening, redesigne.

The paper maps out and responds to some of the main areas of disagreement over the nature of Wittgenstein’s philosophy: (1) Between defenders of a “two Wittgensteins” reading (which draws a sharp distinction between early and late Wittgenstein) and the opposing “one Wittgenstein” interpretation. (2) Among “two-Wittgensteins” interpreters as to when the later philosophy emerged, and over the central difference between early and late Wittgenstein. (3) Between those who hold that Wittgenstein opposes only past philosophy in order to do philosophy (...) better and those who hold that Wittgenstein aimed to bring an end to philosophy and teach us to get by without a replacement. It is shown that each of these debates depends on some deeply un-Wittgensteinian, and quite mistaken, assumptions. It is concluded that Wittgenstein’s most polished writing, most notably in Philosophical Investigations I §§ 1–425, is best understood as a kind of Pyrrhonism which aims to subvert philosophical theorizing, by means of a polyphonic dialogue. Because this delicate balance between philosophical questions and their dissolution is not achieved in most of his other published and unpublished writings, we should be very cautious when using the theories and methods we find in those other writings as a guide to reading the Philosophical Investigations. (shrink)

Examining the significance of Kant's account of "rational faith," this study argues that he profoundly revises his account of the human will and the moral philosophy of it in his later religious writings.

Wittgenstein's 'middle period' is often seen as a transitional phase connecting his better-known early and later philosophies. The fifteen essays in this volume focus both on the distinctive character of his teaching and writing in the 1930s, and on its pivotal importance for an understanding of his philosophy as a whole. They offer wide-ranging perspectives on the central issue of how best to identify changes and continuities in his philosophy during those years, as well as on particular topics in the (...) philosophy of mind, religion, ethics, aesthetics, and the philosophy of mathematics. The volume will be valuable for all who are interested in this formative period of Wittgenstein's development. (shrink)

The model of parallel architecture for language presented by Jackendoff is a kind of stratificational model in the spirit of Sydney Lamb. It differs from the more usual stratificationalism most importantly in its clear commitment to nativism, though the variety of nativism is greatly modified from what is more usual among Chomskyans. The revised model presents a potential for fruitful discussion with proponents of stratificationalism, and the potential for enrichment via a relational implementation.

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 96-98.

The alliance of discursivity with neurosis on the one hand, and an exploration of new conditions of discourse on the other, conditions now self consciously denoted as 'West', gives notice of a certain disillusionment I feel with my culturally received, monotheistic valourization of the power of 'word-ing', and my sense that the problem is not discourse per se, but the way my understanding of it is, or has been, too stuck within its own cultural self enclosure, within the compound of (...) its own cultural grammar, one might say. In taking up these issues within the context of a conference convened to consider "Fragmentation and the Desire for Order/Unity" play off each other relationally, or symbiotically but how so inevitably and incidentally in the West that play-off has a neurotic tail-chasing character that is inspired precisely by Desire. My remarks, therefore, about the possibilities of new conditions of discourse for the West, turn most profoundly on a problematizing of Desire itself. (shrink)

Drawing on recent work on the nature of the numbering system of the _Tractatus_ and Wittgenstein’s use of that system in his composition of the _Prototractatus_, the paper sets out the rationale for the online tool called__ __ The University of Iowa Tractatus Map. The map consists of a website with a front page that links to two separate subway-style maps of the hypertextual numbering system Wittgenstein used in his _Tractatus_. One map displays the structure of the published _Tractatus_; the (...) other lays out the structure of the _Prototractatus_. The site makes available the full text of the German and the two canonical English translations.__ __While we envisage the map as a tool that we would like a wide variety of readers to find helpful, we argue that our website amounts to a radically new edition of Wittgenstein’s early masterpiece, with far-reaching implications for the interpretation of that text. In particular, we claim that our visually compelling presentation of the book’s overall structure delivers on Wittgenstein’s cryptic claim in a letter to his publisher that it is the numbers that “make the book surveyable and clear”. (shrink)

Human illusions and the Biblical call to hope.

Preaching should be a speaking of Scripture and not about Scripture.

Alexander Bogdanov’s first work of philosophy, Basic Elements of the Historical View of Nature, was fundamentally influenced by Friedrich Engels. As a Marxist philosopher seeking to elaborate a comprehensive, systematic, and scientific worldview appropriate for worker–students, Bogdanov found inspiration in Engels’s Anti-Dühring, which provided him with his monist conception of being and his ‘historical view of nature’ and pointed him toward three critical elements of his work: the monism of motion, Spinoza’s naturalist and determinist system, and Charles Darwin’s conception of (...) natural selection. Bogdanov’s overall goal was to demonstrate that in nature, life, the psyche, and society there is no such thing as self-generated motion; all change occurs because of external action. For the individual and for society this means that existence determines consciousness, and societies evolve as a result of their struggle for existence, which is manifested first and foremost in labor. (shrink)

Although the importance of spirituality is increasingly recognized in clinical medicine, spirituality is rarely mentioned in the practice, literature, or training programs of global health. To understand the role of spirituality in global health practice and identify factors that influence and limit its expression, I initiated conversations and informal interviews with more than 300 global health leaders, students, and practitioners during 2010-2014. Four spiritual themes or challenges emerged: compassion at a distance; dichotomous thinking; conspiracy of silence; and compulsion to save (...) the world. Practitioners expressed strong interest in bringing spirituality more fully into global health discourse, which could help the field realize its potential. (shrink)

The essay begins by briefly reviewing the complex history of the collaborative long-distance editing work that led to the publication of Wittgenstein: Lectures, Cambridge 1930-1933 (Cambridge UP, 2016). It then turns to a discussion of the rationale for the innovative editorial policies we ultimately developed and implemented, and some of the broader methodological issues that they raise.

The Late Hellenistic Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria has been neglected in studies of theories of mind and language in Post-Aristotelian Philosophy. Philo's dualism distinguishes immateriality and materiality in our language (logos). His arguments about the nature of mind and his explanations of the relation of speech to the mind, divine or human, draw heavily from Stoics and Platonists. Philo appears to present contemporary Platonist, anti-Stoic arguments that mind is of a different nature than body. Also, Philo deserves credit as (...) our first detailed, surviving expositor of the view that meanings are thoughts, presented to the world in speech. (shrink)

The "standard account" of Wittgenstein’s relations with the Vienna Circle is that the early Wittgenstein was a principal source and inspiration for the Circle’s positivistic and scientific philosophy, while the later Wittgenstein was deeply opposed to the logical empiricist project of articulating a "scientific conception of the world." However, this telegraphic summary is at best only half-true and at worst deeply misleading. For it prevents us appreciating the fluidity and protean character of their philosophical dialogue. In retrospectively attributing clear-cut positions (...) to Wittgenstein and his interlocutors, it is very easy to read back our current understanding of familiar distinctions into a time when those terms were used in a much more open-ended way. The paper aims to to provide a broader perspective on this debate, starting from the protagonists’ understanding of their respective positions. Too often, the programmatic statements about the nature of their work that are repeated in manifestoes, introductions, and elementary textbooks have occupied center stage in the subsequent secondary literature. Consequently, I focus on a detailed examination of a turning point in their relationship. That turning point is Wittgenstein's charge, in the summer of 1932, that a recently published paper of Carnap's, "Physicalistic Language as the Universal Language of Science", made such extensive and unacknowledged use of Wittgenstein's own ideas that Wittgenstein would, as he put it in a letter to Schlick, "soon be in a situation where my own work shall be considered merely as a reheated version or plagiarism of Carnap’s." While the leading parties in this dispute shared a basic commitment to the primacy of physicalistic language, and the view that all significant languages are translatable, there was a remarkable lack of mutual understanding between them, and deep disagreement about the nature of the doctrines they disputed. Three quarters of a century later, we are so much more conscious of the differences that separated them than the points on which they agreed that it takes an effort of historical reconstruction to appreciate why Wittgenstein once feared that his own work would be regarded as a pale shadow of Carnap’s. (shrink)