Over the course of three books—Wandering Significance, Physics Avoidance, and most recently Imitation of Rigor—Mark Wilson seeks to rectify what he takes to be a century of error regarding analytic philoso-phy’s understanding of scientific theorizing. This is largely framed in terms of a sustained attack on what Wilson terms ‘theory T thinking’, which he uses to refer to a melange of philosophical tendencies that he argues fail to do justice to the nuances of how world–theory relations are forged in the (...) physical sciences. In its place, Wilson puts forward an intricate account of the shifting explanatory strategies scientists and mathematicians utilize, strategies that result in the morphing of the semantic import of our scientific terms. In the aftermath an important question emerges: what is to become of scientific realism? Despite numerous pronunciations of his own ‘stout’ realist stance, it remains unclear what Wilson’s position might actually entail. -/- I first sketch Wilson’s disputes with theory T thinking and demonstrate how his rejection of the main tenets of most contemporary realist accounts leaves a question as to what his own realist avowals could mean, further arguing that these are largely attempts to distance himself from any whiff of neo-Kantianism. In the remainder of the article, I turn to discuss a neo-Kantian account that I argue is both complementary to Wilson’s viewpoint and provides a foundation for a post-theory T realism: Ernst Cassirer’s account of concept-formation in the natural sciences. By fleshing out Cassirer’s notion of the transformation of the given and the particular role he attributes to theoretical idealization, I reconstruct his account in a way that draws out a number of fruitful parallels between his philosophy and Wilson’s. The upshot is that a post-theory T scientific realism can plausibly be brought into line with neo-Kantian conceptions. (shrink)

Die Serie "Meisterwerke der Literatur" beinhaltet die Klassiker der deutschen und weltweiten Literatur in einer einzigartigen Sammlung für Ihren eBook Reader. Lesen Sie die besten Werke großer Schriftsteller,Poeten, Autoren und Philosophen auf Ihrem Reader. Dieses Werk bietet zusätzlich * Eine Biografie/Bibliografie des Autors. Vorländer Werk gehört auch heute noch zu den Referenzbüchern. Inhalt: Karl Vorländer – Biografie und Bibliografie Geschichte der Philosophie Vorwort zur 1. Auflage. Aus dem Vorwort zur 2. Auflage. Vorwort zur 3. Auflage. Zur fünften Auflage. Einleitung. 1. (...) Philosophie. Ihr Name und Begriff. 2. Die Geschichte der Philosophie. Ihre Methode, Quellen und Hilfsmittel. Einteilung des Stoffes. 3. Verhältnis der orientalischen Völker zur Philosophie. 4. Selbständigkeit der griechischen Philosophie. Quellen und Hilfsmittel zu ihrer Geschichte. Die Philosophie des Altertums Erste Periode. Vorsokratische Philosophie. Kapitel I. Anfänge der Reflexion über den Kosmos. Kapitel II. Anfänge der Reflexion über das Denken vom Kosmos. Sein und Werden (die Eleaten und Heraklit). Kapitel III. Die jüngeren Naturphilosophen: Empedokles, Anaxagoras u. a. Kapitel IV. Zweite Periode. Sokrates und die Sophisten. Kapitel V. Die sophistische Aufklärung. Kapitel VI. Sokrates. Kapitel VII. Die sokratischen Schulen. Dritte Periode. Die klassische Philosophie der Griechen: Plato und Aristoteles. Kapitel VIII. Plato. Kapitel IX. Aristoteles. Vierte Periode. Die hellenistisch-römische Philosophie. A. Hellenistische Periode. Kapitel X. Die Stoiker. Kapitel XI. Die Epikureer. Kapitel XII. Die Skeptiker. B. Die Philosophie auf dem Boden des römischen Weltreichs. Kapitel XIII. Die Philosophie bei den Römern. Kapitel XIV. Vorläufer des Neuplatonismus. Kapitel XV. Die Neuplatoniker. Die Philosophie des Mittelalters. Erster Abschnitt. Die Philosophie der Kirchenväter (Patristik). Kapitel I. Ältere Patristik. Kapitel II. Jüngere Patristik Zweiter Abschnitt. Die Scholastik. Kapitel III. Die Anfänge der Scholastik. Kapitel IV. Die Glanzzeit der Scholastik. Kapitel V. Ausgang der Scholastik. Zunehmender Zwiespalt zwischen Glauben und Wissen. Blüte der deutschen Mystik. Die Philosophie der Neuzeit Übergangsperiode. Kapitel I. Die Philosophie der Renaissance. Kapitel II. Die Begründung der modernen Naturwissenschaft. Erste Periode. Die Zeit der grossen Systeme. Kapitel I. Descartes (1596-1650). Kapitel II. Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679). Kapitel III. Spinoza (1632-1677). Kapitel IV. Leibniz (1646-1716). Zweite Periode. Die Philosophie der Aufklärung. A. England und Schottland. Kapitel V. Locke (1632-1704). Kapitel VI. Weitere Entwicklung der Aufklärungsphilosophie in England. B. In Frankreich. Kapitel VII. Die französische Aufklärungsphilosophie von Bayle bis Rousseau. C. In Deutschland. Kapitel VIII. Die deutsche Aufklärungsphilosophie. Dritte Periode.Die Neubegründung der Philosophie durch Immanuel Kant Kapitel IX. Einleitung. Kapitel X. Kants Neubegründung der Wissenschaft. Kapitel XI. Die regulativen Prinzipien der Erfahrung oder die Ideen. Kapitel XII. Kants Neubegründung der Ethik. Kapitel XIII. Die Begründung der Ästhetik. Vierte Periode. Die Systeme der nachkantischen Philosophie von Fichte bis Schopenhauer. Kapitel XIV. Einleitung: Von Kant zu Fichte. Kapitel XV. Fichte. Kapitel XVI. Schelling. Kapitel XVII. Hegel. Kapitel XVIII. Kritische Nebenströmungen. Schleiermacher, Herbart, Beneke. Kapitel XIX. Schopenhauer. Fünfte Periode. Die Philosophie der Gegenwart. Kapitel XX. Der Positivismus. Kapitel XXI. Materialismus und Spiritualismus. Kapitel XXII. Die moderne Entwicklungsphilosophie: Darwin, Spencer. Kapitel XXIII. Idealistische Systembildungen auf naturwissenschaftlicher Grundlage. Kapitel XXIV. Die Erneuerung des Kritizismus. Kapitel XXV. Sozialismus und Individualismus. Kapitel XXVI. Sonstige philosophische Erscheinungen der Gegenwart. Zeittafel zur Geschichte der neueren Philosophie. Fußnoten. (shrink)

Provides a philosophical analysis of such biological concepts as natural selection, adaptation, speciation, and evolution.

Excerpt from Substanzbegriff und Funktionsbegriff: Untersuchungen Uber die Grundfragen der Erkenntniskritik Die erste Anregung zu den Untersuchungen, die dieser Band enthalt, ist mir aus Studien zur Philosophie der Mathe matik erwachsen. Indem ich versuchte, von Seiten der Logik aus einen Zugang zu den Grundbegriffen der Mathematik zu gewinnen, erwies es sich vor allem als notwendig, die B e g r i f f s f u n k t i 0 n e'lhsimaher zu zergliedern und auf ihre Voraussetzungen zuruckzufuhren. Hier (...) aber machte sich alsbald eine eigentumliche Schwierigkeit geltend: die her kommliche logische Lehre vom Begriff zeigte sich in ihren bekannten Hauptzugen als unzureichend, die Probleme, zu denen die Prinzipienlehre der Mathematik hinfuhrt, auch nur vollstandig z u b e z e i c h n e n. Die exakte Wissenschaft war hier, wie sich mir immer deutlicher zu ergeben schien, zu Fragen gelangt, fur welche die Formensprache der tradi tionellen Logik kein genaues Correlat besitzt. Der sachliche Gehalt der mathematischen Erkenntnisse wies auf eine Grund form des Begriffs zuruck, die in der Logik selbst nicht zu klarer Bezeichnung und Anerkennung gekommen war. Ins besondere waren es Untersuchungen jiber den Reihenbegriff und den Grenzbegriff (deren spezielles Ergebnis in die allgemeineren Erorterungen dieses Buches nich? 3iffge nommen werden konnte), die diese Uberzeugung in mir be festigten und damit zu einer erneuten Analyse der Prinzipien der Begriffsbildung selbsfhindrangten. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

In this essay, I examine the reception and use of Aristotle’s four causes by twelfth- and thirteenth-century Latin Christian theologians, primarily at Paris. I pay special attention to the early thirteenth century, when Aristotle’s works on natural philosophy were officially prohibited in the French capital. By looking at a wide range of texts from both prominent and obscure theologians, I hope to contribute to an expanded view of the ways in which intellectuals in the Latin west received and appropriated Aristotle’s (...) ideas. (shrink)

This paper focuses on a water management project in the remote Aboriginal community of Milingimbi, Northern Australia. Drawing on materials and experiences from two distinct stages of this project, we revisit a policy report and engage in ethnographic storytelling in order to highlight a series of sensing practices associated with water management. In the former, a working symmetry between Yolngu and Western water knowledges is actively sought through the practices of the project. However, in the latter, recurrent asymmetries in the (...) research work continue to appear: a bilingual diagram of water usage is displayed but produces confusion; measuring a water hole for salinity, a member of the scientific team throws in a water meter, while a Yolngu elder prefers the telling of an ancestral story; a collaborative 3-D mapping exercise invites participation from community members but struggles to develop an outcome that differs from existing maps used by scientists and government staff. Focusing on these moments as subtle points of rupture, we suggest that attending to “seeing,” “telling,” and “mapping” in both stages of this water management project offers a way to explore the political work of crafting climate futures and beginning to interrogate differing means for “doing difference” within them. (shrink)

This essay aims to shed new light on the relations between physiology and psychology in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by focusing on the use of unicellular organisms as research objects during that period. Within the frameworks of evolutionism and monism advocated by Ernst Haeckel, protozoa were perceived as objects situated at the borders between organism and cell and individual and society. Scholars such as Max Verworn, Alfred Binet, and Herbert Spencer Jennings were provoked by these (...) organisms to undertake experimental investigations situated between general physiology and psychology that differed from the physiological psychology advocated by Wilhelm Wundt. Some of these investigations sought to locate psychological properties in the molecular structure of protoplasm; others stressed the existence of organic and psychological individuality in protozoa. In the following decades, leading philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Sanders Peirce, and Henri Bergson, as well as psychological researchers like Sigmund Freud, integrated the results of these investigations into their reflections on such problems as the nature of the will, the structure of the ego, and the holistic nature of the reactions of organisms to their environment. (shrink)

This book represents a unique attempt to reconcile the traditional oppositions of the natural law and social utopian traditions, providing basic insights into the meaning of human rights in a socialist society.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss the role played by Ernst Mach on Nietzsche’s thought. Starting from the contents of his Beiträge zur Analyse der Empfindungen, I’ll show the close similarities between their view on both human knowledge and the scientific world description. In his writing on science Nietzsche shares Mach’s critique to the 19th century mechanism and its metaphysical ground, as much as his way of defining the substantial notions such as matter, ego and free will. Moreover, my investigation (...) will make it clear that Mach cannot be seen as a direct source of Nietzsche’s thought, since the latter wrote many times on the same subjects long before his first reading one of his works. Rather, it is possible to consider the writings of Lange, Spir and Spencer as the first sources of Nietzsche’s views on the main themes Mach dealt with in his work from 1886. (shrink)

1.t. Die Sprache. --2.t. Das mythische Denken. --3.t. Phänomenologie der Erkenntnis.

Posings as such form part of hierarchic thinking and prevailing practices and are thus subsumed in negativity. Idle talk, seemingly dimming one's view, has been replaced by hallucination, dreams, and illusions. It is so very difficult to see through them and to realize that there is nothing there but them.

The type in taxonomy is not meant to be a particularly typical specimen, but simply a reference specimen suited to serve as a 'name bearer' whenever doubt arises concerning the identity of a species. The minimum requirement is that the specimen reflects some differentiating characteristics of the species. In analogy, only such individuals should be made the type of an ideological system as adhere to the principal ideologies of that system. Only such an evolutionist could serve as type for Darwinism (...) who on the whole accepts gradual evolution and, as the major moving force in evolution, natural selection. It is very questionable whether the type-method would be of any use where highly heterogeneous, open, or rapidly evolving systems are involved. When the meaning of a system is changing it is less confusing to redefine it than to coin a new term for each change. (shrink)

Darwin's theory of natural selection and its moral purpose -- Appendix 1: the logic of Darwin's long argument -- Appendix 2: the historical ontology and location of scientific theories -- Darwin's principle of divergence: why Fodor was almost right -- Darwin's romantic quest: mind, morals, and emotions -- Appendix: assessment of Darwin's moral theory -- The relation of Spencer's evolutionary theory to Darwin's -- Ernst Haeckel's scientific and artistic struggles -- Haeckel's embryos: fraud not proven -- The linguistic (...) creation of man: August Schleicher and the missing link in Darwinian theory -- Was Hitler a Darwinian? (shrink)

Das Bemühen um eine methodische Grundlegung der Geisteswissenschaften führte Cassirer zu dem Schluß, daß die allgemeine Erkenntnistheorie in ihrer tradierten Form nicht ausreiche, um die verschiedenen Grundformen des Weltverstehens bestimmt voneinander abzugrenzen. An die Stelle des rein rationalen Erkennens, dem in der Philosophie der Neuzeit immer ein Primat zukam, tritt die Pluralität von symbolischen Formen, in denen sich jeweils eine spezifische Spontaneität des menschlichen Geistes bekundet. "Die Kritik der Vernunft", so heißt es in der "Philosophie der symbolischen Formen", "wird damit (...) zur Kritik der Kultur". In den 1942 im Göteborger Exil veröffentlichten fünf Studien "Zur Logik der Kulturwissenschaften" unternimmt Cassirer eine genauere wissenschaftstheoretische Bestimmung des geisteswissenschaftlichen Feldes. Ausgangspunkt allen Kulturverstehens ist für ihn die Ausdruckswahrnehmung im Gegensatz zur Dingwahrnehmung in den exakten Wissenschaften. Die Kulturwissenschaften arbeiten nicht in erster Linie mit Natur- und Geschichtsbegriffen, sondern mit Form- und Stilbegriffen. Nicht "die Individualität der Gesetze" ist das Erkenntnisziel der Kulturwissenschaften, "sondern die Totalität der Formen, in denen sich menschliches Leben vollzieht". In diesem für die im 20. Jahrhundert entstehenden Kulturwissenschaften fundamentalen Werk entwickelt Cassirer bereits präzise das Motiv seiner Anthropologie, das 1944 im "Essay on Man" (Philosophische Bibliothek Band 488) zur Entfaltung kommt. Im Anhang beigegeben ist der 1939 ebenfalls in Göteborg gehaltene Vortrag "Naturalistische und humanistische Begründung der Kulturphilosophie". (shrink)

Constantin Leonardescu (1844–1907) was a professor of philosophy for 34 years at the University of Iași. He was an adept of the French eclectic spiritualism, which he tried to reconcile with the positivism of Herbert Spencer and with the Darwinism of Ernst Haeckel, while countering Vasile Conta’s brand of scientific materialism. Leonardescu argued against the positivist tenet of the incompatibility of metaphysics and positive science, based on the emergence of new “partial” or “local” metaphysics in the thought of (...) contemporary genuine scientists, who philosophized disregarding the former metaphysical tradition, using only the concepts of their own disciplines and forging their own principles. Positive metaphysics exists thus potentially, the metaphysician’s task being to systematize, or to “reconcile” the local contributions of the scientists-philosophers in the framework of a general, unifying theory. This framework, he argues, is a generalization of “Darwinism”, that is, of the special metaphysics initiated by Darwin, then rendered general by Spencer and most importantly by Haeckel. However, philosophical Darwinism or “evolutionary monism” curiously vindicates, in Leonardescu’s view, traditional spiritualism. Generalized Darwinism thus interpreted offered a fundamental theory in which science could achieve systematic unity and become a true mirror of the Totality, which is metaphysics’ true object. Scientific metaphysics is principally a reflection upon science, taking as starting point the positive facts recognized as such by the sciences, and the empirical generalizations validated within each science, and aiming to ensure logical coherence amongst them, under the rule of the supreme evolution-principle. (shrink)

Modern Darwinism is an elaboration of Darwin's original theories. The misunderstandings of the synthetic theory, on which recent attacks are based, are analyzed in detail. Six areas are described in which current theory modifies or amplifies Darwin's thinking. The rejection of an inheritance of acquired characters, the greater role assigned to chance in the production of genetic variability, the knowledge of the total separation of genotype and phenotype, and the clearer recognition of the role of the individual as target of (...) selection, are among the modern amplifications of the Darwinian theory. Remaining gaps in our understanding of evolution are specified. (shrink)