The "Cartesian Meditations" translation is based primarily on the printed text, edited by Professor S. Strasser and published in the first volume of Husserliana ...

This new and up-to-date edition of a book that has been central to political philosophy, history, and revolutionary thought for two hundred years offers readers a dire warning of the consequences that follow the mismanagement of change. Written for a generation presented with challenges of terrible proportions--the Industrial, American, and French Revolutions, to name the most obvious--Burke's Reflections of the Revolution in France displays an acute awareness of how high political stakes can be, as well as a keen ability to (...) set contemporary problems within a wider context of political theory. (shrink)

Science in a new sense arises in the first instance from Plato's establishing of logic, as a place for exploring the essential requirements of "genuine" ...

Husserl (1859-1938) hatte sich in seinem Werk "Formale und transzendentale Logik" das Ziel gesetzt, den inneren Sinn, die Gliederung und Zusammengehörigkeit all dessen nachzuweisen, was bislang an logischen Problemen behandelt worden war, und die Notwendigkeit einer phänomenologischen Durchleuchtung der gesamten logischen Problematik darzutun. Ein Hauptstück der analytisch-deskriptiven Untersuchungen, die einer solchen phänomenologischen Begründung der Logik dienen, ist "Erfahrung und Urteil". Das Buch entstand in Zusammenarbeit mit Schülern und Mitarbeitern.

An important philosophical issue in the study of addiction is what difference the fact that a person is addicted makes to attributions of autonomy (and responsibility) to their drug-oriented behavior. In spite of accumulating evidence suggesting the role of emotional dysregulation in understanding addiction, it has received surprisingly little attention in the debate about this issue. I claim that, as a result, an important aspect of the autonomy impairment of many addicted individuals has been largely overlooked. A widely shared assumption (...) in the philosophical literature is that for addiction to impair a person’s autonomy it has to make them (in some sense) take drugs against their will. So-called “willing addicts” are therefore usually seen as exempted from the autonomy impairment believed to characterize “unwilling addicts”, the latter being those who ‘truly want’ to stop using drugs but find their attempts repeatedly derailed by failures of self-control. In this article, I argue that the association between addiction and emotional dysregulation shows why this assumption is false. Emotional dysregulation is not only consistent with the possibility that many addicts take drugs ‘willingly’, it supports the hypothesis that they use drugs because they truly want to. The article proposes an explanation for why emotional dysregulation should nevertheless be seen as an aspect of their loss of control and an important reason why they have impaired autonomy. I end by exploring some implications of this account for addict’s decision-making capacity when they are prescribed the drugs to which they are addicted. -/- . (shrink)

Philosophy as rigorous science and philosophy and the crisis of European man.

The topics treated in The brain and emotion include the definition, nature, and functions of emotion (Ch. 3); the neural bases of emotion (Ch. 4); reward, punishment, and emotion in brain design (Ch. 10); a theory of consciousness and its application to understanding emotion and pleasure (Ch. 9); and neural networks and emotion-related learning (Appendix). The approach is that emotions can be considered as states elicited by reinforcers (rewards and punishers). This approach helps with understanding the functions of emotion, with (...) classifying different emotions, and in understanding what information-processing systems in the brain are involved in emotion, and how they are involved. The hypothesis is developed that brains are designed around reward-and punishment-evaluation systems, because this is the way that genes can build a complex system that will produce appropriate but flexible behavior to increase fitness (Ch. 10). By specifying goals rather than particular behavioral patterns of responses, genes leave much more open the possible behavioral strategies that might be required to increase fitness. The importance of reward and punishment systems in brain design also provides a basis for understanding the brain mechanisms of motivation, as described in Chapters 2 for appetite and feeding, 5 for brain-stimulation reward, 6 for addiction, 7 for thirst, and 8 for sexual behavior. Key Words: amygdala; brain evolution; consciousness; dopamine; emotion; hunger; orbitofrontal cortex; punishment; reward; taste. (shrink)

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Why do we have emotions? What is the relationship between mind and brain? Why do we appreciate art? How do we make decisions? Why do so many people follow religions? Neuroculture considers the implications of our modern understanding of how the brain works, and how it can help us understand many mental issues central to everyday life.

Der vorliegende Band enthält den Text der zweistündigen Vorlesung, die Husserl im Sommersemester 1912 unter dem Titel,,Einleitung in die Phänomenologie" in Göttingen gehalten hat. Das Thema der ursprünglich als,,Urteilstheorie" angekündigten Vorlesung wurde kurzfristig geändert, da es nicht möglich sei, wie Husserl zu Beginn der Vorlesung erläutert,,,eine Urteilstheorie darzustellen, ohne weitgehende Kenntnis in Betreff gewisser allgemeiner Bewusstseinsgestaltungen vorauszusetzen". Neben einer Untersuchung von Bewusstseinsphänomenen wie,,äußere und innere Wahrnehmung, Erlebnis- und Zeitbewusstsein, Erinnerung, Erwartung, Aufmerksamkeit, Erfassung, Explikation und dergleichen" liegt das Hauptaugenmerk der Vorlesung (...) auf der Erläuterung der beiden Grundpfeiler der phänomenologischen Methode: der Wesensschau und der phänomenologischen Reduktion. Die Vorlesung vom Sommersemester 1912 diente Husserl als Vorlage bei der Niederschrift seines transzendental-phänomenologischen Hauptwerkes, der,,Ideen I" (Husserliana Bd. III/1), mit der er während der Vorlesungszeit, nämlich Ende Mai oder Anfang Juni 1912, begann. Inhaltliche Übereinstimmungen mit dem Vorlesungstext weisen der Erste Abschnitt der "Ideen I" (,,Tatsache und Wesen"), der Zweite Abschnitt (,,Die phänomenologische Fundamentalbetrachtung") und teilweise der Dritte Abschnitt (,,Zur Methodik und Problematik der reinen Phänomenologie") auf. - Die hier erstmals veröffentlichte Vorlesung,,Einleitung in die Phänomenologie" aus dem Sommersemester 1912 bietet Forschern und Studenten interessante Einblicke in Entwicklung und Thematik von Husserls transzendentaler Phänomenologie. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Relativism in an Extended Sense.

The meaning of the word tyrannos in Greek tragedy is much debated. Some have assumed that the word is always a neutral term signifying ‘ruler’ alone. Others argue for competing ideologies regarding tyranny: the result of an evolution in thinking on autocracy. This article challenges both of these assumptions. The negative meaning of tyrannos is always latent in tragedy, even where the word is used objectively and not as a term of abuse. Tyrannos does not simply indicate a powerful individual (...) but implies absolute power, fortune and wealth. This absolute power leads to ruin and tyrannical vice. Tyrannos signifies not a bad or illegitimate ruler, but rather one with the potential to develop such characteristics. It is the tyrant who evolves, whereas Greek conceptions of tyranny remain largely unchanged from at least the time of Aeschylus to that of Aristotle. (shrink)

Based on the experiences of the Hearts and Minds of Ghana authors, I present possible approaches to the ethical questions that clinicians who participate in health missions and disaster relief programs often face.

Clinicians and patients and their families may disagree about a course of treatment, and the ensuing conflict may seem intractable. The parties may request mediation, or use mediation-based approaches, to help resolve the conflict. In the process of mediation, and at other times, parties in conflict may feel so pressured to accept a resolution that they acquiesce unwillingly—and such resolutions often unravel. In this article I investigate how “bullied acquiescence” might happen, and how to avoid it.

Since some care providers give colleagues’ interests priority over patients’ and families’, they are at risk of imposing their bias on patients without knowing this. In this piece I discuss how the risk increases when care providers have greater discretion and how they can best avoid this risk. I discuss identifying these situations, assessing them, and then, based on what they have concluded, intervening and use their having inadequate resources, their seeing what patients want as futile, and their making decisions (...) regarding surrogate decision makers as paradigmatic examples. As “remedies,” I suggest that care providers share with patients their rationales, validate adaptive aspects of difficult behaviors, self-disclose, and sometimes even go beyond their usual clinical practices. (shrink)

This article focuses on three different ways that we may demean people by seeing them as less than they are, and describes ways we may best avoid doing this. More specifically, I explain how we may not see the physical and emotional issues that plague patients and others. This may be because they choose not to disclose their difficulties to us. We may also err when we see only one aspect of who and how others are. These challenges pose ethical (...) quandaries that involve equity, improved communication with patients, and subjecting ethical principles to empirical study before we adopt them. I explore the means to do these. (shrink)

Consensus documents may be extremely helpful. They may, however, also do harm. They may, for example, suggest interventions that are less than optimal, especially when they apply to patients whose situations are at the “outer margins” of their applicability. Yet, even in these instances, clinicians and ethics consultants may still feel pressure to comply with a guideline. Then, we may not do what we think is best for our particular patient because we fear departing from a guideline. In this article (...) I discuss the risks of departing from guidelines and suggest what we can do to overcome those possible risks. I suggest that while guidelines may help, we should continue to put, above all else, tailoring our interventions to our patients’ individual needs and wants. With our patients, together, we should decide what to do, notwithstanding what the most applicable guidelines propose. (shrink)

6 werden kann, mußte die Einsicht erwecken, daß das Quantitative gar nicht zum allgemeinsten Wesen des Mathematischen oder "Formalen" und der in ihm gründenden kalkulatorischen Me­ thode gehöre. Als ich dann in der "mathematisierenden Logik" 5 eine in der Tat quantitätslose Mathematik kennenlemte, und zwar als eine unanfechtbare Disziplin von mathematischer Form und Methode, welche teils die alten Syllogismen, teils neue, der Überlieferung fremd gebliebene Schlußformen behandelte, gestalteten sich mir die wichtigen Probleme nach dem allgemei- 10 nen Wesen des Mathematischen (...) überhaupt, nach den natürlichen Zusammenhängen oder etwaigen Grenzen zwischen den Systemen der quantitativen und nichtquantitativen Mathematik, und spe­ ziell z. B. nach dem Verhältnis zwischen dem Formalen der Arithmetik und dem Formalen der Logik. Naturgemäß mußte 15 ich von hier aus weiter fortschreiten zu den fundamentaleren Fragen nach dem Wesen der Erkenntnisform im Unterschiede von der Erkenntnismaterie und nach dem Sinn des Unter­ schiedes zwischen formalen (reinen) und materialen Bestimmun­ gen, Wahrheiten, Gesetzen. 20 Aber noch in einer ganz anderen Richtung fand ich mich in Probleme der allgemeinen Logik und Erkenntnistheorie ver­ wickelt. Ich war von der herrschenden Überzeugung ausgegangen, daß es die Psychologie sei, von der, wie die Logik überhaupt, so die Logik der deduktiven Wissenschaften ihre philosophische 25 Aufklärung erhoffen müsse. Demgemäß nehmen psychologische Untersuchungen in dem ersten (und allein veröffentlichten) B- de meiner Philosophie der Arithmetik einen sehr breiten Raum ein. {[A VII] Diese psychologische Fundierung wollte 11 mir in gewissen Zu- [B VII] sammenhängen nie recht genügen. (shrink)

The evolution of conservative political thought from the French Revolution to today explained.

A textbook intended for undergraduates. Develops an overview of approaches to the philosophy of man (human beings) by presenting representative examples of major areas of emphasis. Drawing on the social sciences as well as philosophical works, the book presents the human phenomenon as a product of both heredity and environment (the "facticity" of man) and a source of new realities (the "transcendence" of man). Considered under the heading of man's facticity are aspects of corporeality and consciousness; under the heading of (...) man's transcendence, aspects of personal and societal development. Multicultural bibliographies provided. Regrettably, writing style of book is dated by use of male-only terminology. (shrink)

This book provides strong guidance to teachers and students of literature that gives them a greater understanding of the philosophical influences on more than 100 major literary figures. The text describes philosophical influences reflected in their writings as well as references to philosophical works that are known to have played a part in their intellectual and aesthetic development.

A Constructivist Foundation of the Objects of Scientific Empirical Theories. The following considerations are guided by the assumption that the objects of any scientific empirical theory are constructs as well as the theories themselves, the construction of these object-constructs being fundamentally dependent on the theories' functioning in the provision of practically relevant empirical explanations. The relevance of these explanations consists in their contribution to the improvement of at least one practical capacity through enabling the invention of at least one improving (...) kind of practical actions. In an excursus on the origination and the development of the notion of theory within human history the view is held, in contrast to Aristotle, that theorization has always aimed at practical relevance, however in a broader sense of "practical" than that in which Aristotle uses the term "πρακτικός", and that only the practical functions of theory-construction have changed over the times, and their object-constructs correspondingly. The latest form of theory with the above-mentioned function in the development of social practice is the scientific explanatory empirical theory with the descriptive empirical theory now no longer fulfilling a practical function of its own, but only a service-function of data acquisition for the explanatory theory. The object-constructs of strictly scientific empirical theories in the sense of explanatory theories for the improvement of practical capacities are here considered to be empirical quasi-actions, those of the dependent descriptive empirical theories either quasi-instruments or quasi-products or quasi-materials of the respective kind of quasi-actions of the explanatory theory. The empirical quasi-action is here conceived as the latest in a sequence of developing object-constructs that have resulted from different and successively more effective attempts at better survival of human beings and even from prehuman stages of evolution. The author envisages a differentiation of empirical quasi-actions into further sub-categories to provide the conceptual bases for the construction of objects of new kinds of scientific explanatory empirical theories that might become practically relevant for the improvement of new kinds of practical capacities to be preferably improved for the advancement of social practice: Beside the already relevant category of empirical processes are here proposed the further categories of empirical originations of meaning and of empirical originations of practical actions as conceptual bases for object-constructs of future scientific empirical theories. (shrink)