In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Preface: Virtual Entities in ScienceRobert Harlander, Jean-Philippe Martinez, Friedrich Steinle, and Adrian WüthrichIt is not only since the sudden increase of online communication due to the COVID-19 situation that the concept of the “virtual” has made its way into everyday language. In this context, it mostly denotes a digital substitute for a real object or process. Virtual reality is perhaps the best-known term in this respect. With these (...) digital connotations, “virtuality” has also been used in science and research: Chemists use virtual laboratories, biologists do virtual scanning of molecular structures, and geologists engage in virtual field trips. But the concept of the virtual has a much longer tradition, dating back to long before the dawn of the digital age. Virtual images and virtual displacements were introduced in classical physics already in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, respectively. They represent auxiliary objects or processes without instantiation, with the purpose of efficiently describing specific physical systems. In today’s physics, the term “virtual” is mostly associated with the quantum world, first and foremost with the “virtual particle” of quantum field theory. It has become such an integral part of modern high energy physics that its ontological character may be considered to go beyond the purely auxiliary, which is typically associated with the virtual. [End Page 263]In other disciplines, however, use of the term virtual without a digital connotation is much rarer. While concepts like “virtual adrenaline” show up in physiological research around 1940s, and Charles Darwin, in a private note in January 1840,1 spoke of “virtual change” in the context of embryology, these examples seem to be singular occurrences of entities that were explicitly called “virtual.” The basic idea behind the terminology of the virtual, however, might be much more common, even outside of physics. The “invisible hand” in economics, or the “vital force” in biology, for instance, may carry aspects of a virtual entity, even if they have not been referred to that way.These different observations raise several questions about the status of virtual entities in science. What has led scientists to call one entity “virtual” and not another? Do all virtual entities in science have the same roots and meet the same characteristics? Are they more than auxiliary objects or processes? Why does physics seem to occupy a specific position with respect to the use of the notion of virtuality? These are some points that led us to discuss virtual entities in science during a workshop, out of which grew the present collection. We invited contributions that addressed the historical formation and philosophical interpretation of concepts of virtual entities in physics and other disciplines—in whatever terms they may come. The main goal of the workshop was to bring to the fore similarities and differences in the meanings and functions of these concepts, so as to be able to precisely characterize why certain entities are considered virtual in specific contexts, why a different terminology was often used in each individual case, and in what sense the virtual entities relate to the real world.The organization of the workshop was part of our project “The formation and development of the concept of virtual particles,” a subproject of the Research Unit “The Epistemology of the Large Hadron Collider,” funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) and Der Wissenschaftsfonds (FWF). The workshop took place online on four consecutive Fridays in March 2021. It brought together contributors who discussed the role of the concept of the virtual in theoretical as well as experimental activities, and investigated into the origins of the terminology of the virtual as it was applied to the various disciplines of natural science. Dealing with historical, philosophical, but also methodological questions, the presentations covered a wide time range, from the Middle Ages to the present day. While physics naturally emerged as the dominant field, natural philosophy, computer science and biology were also addressed. The papers in this volume were contributed by participants in this workshop and approach the subject from different angles. [End Page 264]First, Friedrich Steinle provides us with an introductory piece that reflects on the specific meaning of the use of the term ‘virtual’ in science. He highlights and... (shrink)

The increasing availability of brain data within and outside the biomedical field, combined with the application of artificial intelligence (AI) to brain data analysis, poses a challenge for ethics and governance. We identify distinctive ethical implications of brain data acquisition and processing, and outline a multi-level governance framework. This framework is aimed at maximizing the benefits of facilitated brain data collection and further processing for science and medicine whilst minimizing risks and preventing harmful use. The framework consists of four primary (...) areas of regulatory intervention: binding regulation, ethics and soft law, responsible innovation, and human rights. (shrink)

The fundamental concept of classical liberalism is the notion of negative freedom: freedom as the absence of coercion. But what is coercion? Why is coercion considered an evil from a libertarian perspective? The liberal economist and social philosopher Friedrich August von Hayek develops a definition of the concepts of freedom and coercion in his "Constitution of Liberty," which, however, remains incomplete and raises some fundamental questions about his moral philosophy and theory of cultural evolution. In this study, I undertake (...) the task of providing an immanent definition of Hayek's concept of coercion and a justification for the reprehensibility of coercion as a fundamental evil in society. By including essential parts of Hayek's unpublished legacy, I delve into Hayek's entire body of work with a focus on his underlying conception of freedom and coercion. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to provide a comparative study of the concepts of freedom in existential philosophy and liberalism. To this end, it presents a detailed examination of the works of two of the most prominent thinkers of the respective notions of freedom in the 20th century, Karl Jaspers and Friedrich August von Hayek. Their ideas of freedom are developed both independently and in relation to each other, from their foundational principles. In the political conclusion, the possibility (...) of a conception of freedom that integrates both approaches is explored. Although Jaspers himself made an explicit reference to Hayek in one of his books, such a comparative study has not yet been undertaken in the literature. In many respects—both historically and systematically—this work breaks new ground, opening up new philosophical discourses and interpretations of both authors' works in research and teaching. (shrink)

This article sheds light on a today mostly forgotten though highly influential thinker: Theodor Lipps. It explores the notion of ‘tendency’ in his work, a hitherto insufficiently examined yet central concept of the Munich philosopher. More specifically, the paper examines how Lipps utilizes the term to describe important structures of experience. By illuminating the various ways in which Lipps refers to tendencies, it aims to reconstruct important pillars of his theory of experience. This theory emphasizes that experience has a teleological (...) character, striving towards the complete determination and realization of the objects as they are represented (_vorgestellt_) in our experience. As will be shown, the description of different tendencies serves Lipps to conceptualize the laws that govern the related dynamics of our psychic life and to distinguish and examine the diverse range of conscious phenomena within it. To unveil the core ideas that guide Lipps’s development of his proposal, the article will first identify and reconstruct the primary source for his philosophical analysis of the mind’s motions: the metaphysics of Johann Friedrich Herbart. Subsequently, Lipps’s critical examination of Herbart’s proposal will be presented. This discussion will serve as a backdrop to illustrate how Lipps integrates Herbartian themes, reformulates related concepts, and ultimately develops his unique understanding of tendency and its roles in experience. By delving into his comprehensive analysis of tendencies, it will be argued that Lipps offers a version of Herbartianism. (shrink)

This abridged and revised edition of the original book (Springer-Wien-New York: 2001) offers the only comprehensive history and documentation of the Vienna Circle based on new sources with an innovative historiographical approach to the study of science. With reference to previously unpublished archival material and more recent literature, it refutes a number of widespread clichés about "neo-positivism" or "logical positivism". Following some insights on the relation between the history of science and the philosophy of science, the book offers an accessible (...) introduction to the complex subject of "the rise of scientific philosophy” in its socio-cultural background and European philosophical networks till the forced migration in the Anglo-Saxon world. The first part of the book focuses on the origins of Logical Empiricism before World War I and the development of the Vienna Circle in "Red Vienna" (with the "Verein Ernst Mach"), its fate during Austro-Fascism (Schlick's murder 1936) and its final expulsion by National-Socialism beginning with the "Anschluß" in 1938. It analyses the dynamics of the Schlick-Circle in the intellectual context of "late enlightenment" including the minutes of the meetings from 1930 on for the first time published and presents an extensive description of the meetings and international Unity of Science conferences between 1929 and 1941. The chapters introduce the leading philosophers of the Schlick Circle (e.g., Hans Hahn, Otto Neurath, Rudolf Carnap, Philipp Frank, Felix Kaufmann, Edgar Zilsel) and describe the conflicting interaction between Moritz Schlick and Otto Neurath, the long term communication between Moritz Schlick, Friedrich Waismann and Ludwig Wittgenstein, as well as between the Vienna Circle with Heinrich Gomperz and Karl Popper. In addition, Karl Menger's "Mathematical Colloquium" with Kurt Gödel is presented as a parallel movement. The final chapter of this section describes the demise of the Vienna Circle and the forced exodus of scientists and intellectuals from Austria. The second part of the book includes a bio-bibliographical documentation of the Vienna Circle members and for the first time of the assassination of Moritz Schlick in 1936, followed by an appendix comprising an extensive list of sources and literature. (shrink)

This article explores how a nonreductionist account of Nietzsche's influence on Michel Foucault can enrich our understanding of key concepts in singular works of both philosophers. I assess this exegetical strategy by looking at the two dichotomies Apollinian/Dionysian and ars erotica/scientia sexualis in The Birth of Tragedy and volume 1 of The History of Sexuality, respectively. After exploring the relation between these two dichotomies, I link the science of sexuality to the Apollinian art instinct via the existence of Socratic culture (...) and argue against the "pleasure of analysis" as a sublated form of (Dionysian) ars erotica. These considerations lead to the notions of history in Nietzsche's and Foucault's philosophies that result in situating the polyvalent Ursprung of Greek tragedy and the descent of ars erotica and scientia sexualis in an antimetaphysical and nonteleological picture of historical development.. (shrink)

This chapter examines the neo-republican thesis of the compatibility between freedom and the state under conditions of ‘equally shared control’. It first considers the neo-liberal conception of the relation between freedom and the state as well as the socialist-social-democratic criticism of the neo-liberal understanding of freedom. It then discusses the neo-republicanism of Philip Pettit and the ‘republican thesis’ that freedom and political order are not contradictory to each other. It also analyses Robert Nozick's libertarianism and Friedrich Hayek's liberalism, along (...) with their argument that all actions of a government should be in strict accordance with the rule of law. Furthermore, it looks at the political philosophy of neo-liberalism, the implications of nondomination and the ‘neo-republican thesis’ that even a state's power and interferences can be controlled by its citizens. The chapter concludes by rejecting the thesis that freedom and the state are compatible. (shrink)

Cari Friedrich Hindenburg (1741-1808), le fondateur de la « prétendue Ecole combinatoire » (Eugen Netto), est un personnage largement oublié aujourd’hui. Pourtant, le Dictionary of Scientific Biography lui consacre un article. Il est vrai que l’Ecole combinatoire eut un grand succès en Allemagne à la fin du 18ème siècle, mais seulement en Allemagne, puis elle tomba en discrédit.En fait, l’Ecole combinatoire ne se proposait rien moins que de fonder l’analyse — et si possible toutes les mathématiques — sur l’analyse (...) combinatoire, une nouvelle branche des mathématiques qui était la création de Hindenburg : la problématique des fondements était au cœur de cette tentative. (shrink)

This chapter examines the influence of German idealism on the works of Soren Kierkegaard. It suggests that Kierkegaard's essential concepts and ideas were influenced by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, and that his oeuvre can be best understood in the context of classical German philosophy. The chapter also considers Kierkegaard's views about the theology of sin and the problems in his reception of German idealism.

Existe em Friedrich von Hayek, e isso mais do que em outros economistas contemporâneos, uma teoria completa da "mão invisível" do mercado, teoria essa que Hayek formula de acordo com o vocabulárìo da moderna teoria dos sistemas. Para o teórico da economia, com efeito, o mercado constitui uma ordem auto-organizada que funciona segundo um sistema de comunicação cujas duas faces, inseparáveis uma da outra, são o direito e os preços. Cada um destes canais do processo comunicativo é portador de (...) comunicação efectiva, sendo, por isso, capaz de exercer um efeito real no comportamento dos agentes económicos individuais, ou seja, de fazer com que estes se insiram de forma exacta e efectiva no sistema económico global, e isso apesar de, por motivo da enorme complexidade da economia, nenhum deles, por si só, poder ter um conhecimento global do sistema. Por outro lado, o artigo mostra também de que modo os mesmos canais de comunicação permitem que a economia global se adapte a cada acção livremente decidida pelos agentes económicos individuais. Em suma, o autor do artigo mostra-nos de que modo a teoria de Hayek, de facto, constitui uma "explicação de prìncípio", nova sobretudo pela clareza e pela nitidez da sua formulação, daquilo que continua a ser um estranho paradoxo, a saber, que a liberdade económica possa, sob determinadas condições de estrutura, produzir, não anarquia nem desorganização, mas sim, bem pelo contrário, uma forma de ordem social altamente sofisticada e que, de outra forma, ninguém saberia criar: a divisão mundial do trabalho. There is in Fríedrích von Hayek, more than in any other contemporary economist, a complete theory of the market "invisible hand"; a theory which Hayek formulates in accordance with the vocabulary of the modern theory of systems. As a matter of fact, to the theoretician of economics the market constitutes a self-organized order, which functions in terms of a communication system, the two faces of which are law and prices, and which, as such, are inseparable one from the other. Each one of these channels of the communicative process carries effective communication, thus being able to exert a real effect upon the behavior of individual economic agents, that is, of inserting these ones, in exact and effective form, in the global economic system, something that happens in spite of the fact that neither of them, by themselves, are able to get a global knowledge of the system, something that must be expected due to the enormous complexity of the economy. On the other hand, the article also demonstrates in which way the same channels of communication permit the global economy to adapt to each action freely decided by the individual economic agent. In short, the article demonstrates in which way Hayek's theory, chiefly new because of the clarity and sharpness of its formulation, in fact, constitutes an "explanation of principle" of that which continues to be a strange paradox, namely that economic freedom can, under certain structural conditions, originate neither anarchy nor disorganization, but, on the contrary, a highly sophisticated form of social order, which nobody in any other way would know how to create: the world division of labor. (shrink)

The Hegel Lectures Series Series Editor: Peter C. Hodgson Hegel's lectures have had as great a historical impact as the works he himself published. Important elements of his system are elaborated only in the lectures, especially those given in Berlin during the last decade of his life. The original editors conflated materials from different sources and dates, obscuring the development and logic of Hegel's thought. The Hegel Lectures series is based on a selection of extant and recently discovered transcripts and (...) manuscripts. Lectures from specific years are reconstructed so that the structure of Hegel's argument can be followed. Each volume presents an accurate new translation accompanied by an editorial introduction and annotations on the text, which make possible the identification of Hegel's many allusions and sources. Lectures on the Proofs of the Existence of God Hegel lectured on the proofs of the existence of God as a separate topic in 1829. He also discussed the proofs in the context of his lectures on the philosophy of religion (1821-31), where the different types of proofs were considered mostly in relation to specific religions. The text that he prepared for his lectures in 1829 was a fully formulated manuscript and appears to have been the first draft of a work that he intended to publish and for which he signed a contract shortly before his death in 1831. The 16 lectures include an introduction to the problem of the proofs and a detailed discussion of the cosmological proof. Philipp Marheineke published these lectures in 1832 as an appendix to the lectures on the philosophy of religion, together with an earlier manuscript fragment on the cosmological proof and the treatment of the teleological and ontological proofs as found in the 1831 philosophy of religion lectures. Hegel's 1829 lectures on the proofs are of particular importance because they represent what he actually wrote as distinct from auditors' transcriptions of oral lectures. Moreover, they come late in his career and offer his final and most seasoned thinking on a topic of obvious significance to him, that of the reality status of God and ways of knowing God. These materials show how Hegel conceived the connection between the cosmological, teleological, and ontological proofs. All of this material has been newly translated by Peter C. Hodgson from the German critical editions by Walter Jaeschke. This edition includes an editorial introduction, annotations on the text, and a glossary and bibliography. (shrink)

This edited volume on the philosophy of perception is based on the papers presented at the Wittgenstein Symposium 2017 (Kirchberg, Austria). It covers a wide range of recent topics in the philosophy of perception, from realism and objectivity in perception, intentionality and content, the distinction between perception and cognition, the cognitive penetrability of perception to the epistemology of perception. The volume contains papers by Tyler Burge, Howard Robinson, Olivier Massin, Michael Schmitz, Michael Tye, Marcello Fiocco, Guillaume Frechette, Sofia Miguens, Uriah (...) Kriegel, Pierre Jacob, Mark Kalderon, Berit Brogaard, Athanassios Raftopoulos, Ophelia Deroy, Charles Travis, Johannes Roessler, Philipp Berghofer, Harald Wiltsche, Frederique de Vignemont, Romana Schuler, Ulrich Arnswald, David Stern and Hans Sluga. (shrink)

Constructibility and complexity play central roles in recent research in computer science, mathematics and physics. For example, scientists are investigating the complexity of computer programs, constructive proofs in mathematics and the randomness of physical processes. But there are different approaches to the explication of these concepts. This volume presents important research on the state of this discussion, especially as it refers to quantum mechanics. This `foundational debate' in computer science, mathematics and physics was already fully developed in 1930 in the (...) Vienna Circle. A special section is devoted to its real founder Hans Hahn, referring to his contribution to the history and philosophy of science. The documentation section presents articles on the early Philipp Frank and on the Vienna Circle in exile. Reviews cover important recent literature on logical empiricism and related topics. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin is a persistent but elusive presence in many of Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s writings, and the relationship between Lacoue-Labarthe and Benjamin is accordingly both significan...

This essay works to set up a debate between the German philosopher Manfred Frank and the French philosophers Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy. At stake in the debate is the concept of freedom. The essay begins by explaining Frank's subject-based concept of freedom and then it presents the perfectly opposed non-subjective ontological concept of freedom that Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy forward. In the end, in the interest of threading a way through this impasse, and following the cue of these three philosophers, (...) we turn to the early German Romantics Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel to help us reconceptualise freedom. Following their cue, I draw on the strengths of Frank and Lacoue-Labarthe and Nancy while avoiding their dangerous extremes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Werke, and: Vol. 1, Schriften zum Spinozastreit (1998), and: Vol. 2, Schriften zum transzendentalen Idealismus (2004), and: Vol. 3, Schriften zum Streit um die göttlichen Dinge und ihre Offenbarung (2000)Rolf AhlersFriedrich Heinrich Jacobi. Werke. Edited by Klaus Hammacher and Walter Jaeschke. Vol. 1, Schriften zum Spinozastreit ( 1998). Vol. 2, Schriften zum transzendentalen Idealismus ( 2004). Vol. 3, Schriften zum Streit um die göttlichen Dinge und ihre Offenbarung (...) ( 2000). Pp. x + 640. Cloth, € 168,00 (Vol. 1). Pp. vii + 823. Cloth, € 264,00 (Vol. 2). Pp. vi + 262. Cloth, € 78,00 (Vol. 3). Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1998, 2000, 2004.The new critical Jacobi Werke Ausgabe (JWA), accompanied by four volumes of the still incomplete Briefwechsel (in progress at Frommann-Holzboog Publishers since 1981), is a masterpiece of research on Jacobi, early German Idealism and early Romanticism. Now [End Page 491] available are Volumes I, II and III. Volume I (1998) carries the title Schriften zum Spinozastreit and contains Jacobi's Spinozabriefe in the three editions of 1785, 1789, and 1819, Wider Mendelssohns Beschuldigungen of 1786, and the Vorbericht (Preface) of the third edition of the Spinozabriefe of 1819. The running text of all writings contains all editions, variant readings clearly identifiable with page references in the margins, subscripted to identify the various editions. This method enables the identification of various disputes which Jacobi provoked and in which his writings played a role. The Anhang, appendix, to all texts contains a) a list of abbreviations, and b) the editorial principles used and also a description of the circumstances leading to the writing of the texts. But the bulk of the Anhang of each volume is c) the "Kommentar," the commentary. It provides the key to the highly nuanced and, without guidance, the often cryptic allusions and references of Jacobi's texts. This commentary (separately bound in Volumes I and II) really brings Jacobi's work to life. The end of the Anhang contains d) a bibliography of all works mentioned not only by Jacobi himself but also emerging in the literary debate unlocked by the commentary, as well as e) an extensive index of names. Volume II (2004) is Schriften zur Transzendentalphilosophie, and contains David Hume of 1787, the Sendschreiben an Fichte, Ueberflüssiges Taschenbuch, both of 1799, and other essays such as Three Letters to Köppen of 1803. Volume III (2000) is Schriften zum Streit um die Göttlichen Dinge and contains mainly the famous essay Von den Göttlichen Dingen of 1811 plus three other writings. This book deals with the controversy between Schelling and Jacobi while both were at Munich. Other major works of Jacobi, such as the novel Allwill, are to follow in later volumes.This critical edition of Fr. H. Jacobi (1743–1819) definitively revises the standard interpretation of the man and his work. The standard interpretation (advocated by such figures as Fr. Schlegel, Moses Mendelssohn, and H. Heine) views his thought as promoting irrationalism, specifically a religious irrationalism of faith, taking form in "personalism." Heine spoke of Jacobi as a "whiney old biddy." Fr. Schlegel characterized Jacobi's salto mortale as the "leap into the arms of divine mercy," promoting an irrational "philosophical non-philosophy" (KFSA XVIII 13, Nr. 101). Schlegel criticized Jacobi at the very end of in his Woldemar Review of 1796 thus: "So (Jacobi's) Woldemar is really an invitation to meet God..., and (his) theological masterpiece ends, as do all moral excesses, with a salto mortale... into the abyss of divine mercy" (Früher Idealismus und Frühromantik PlS I.1, ed. W. Jaeschke [Hbg: Meiner, 1995], 270). Carl Philipp Moritz credited Jacobi with "fanaticism and superstition."In contrast, Jacobi himself was quite critical of this characterization of his thought, especially in the Sendschreiben of 1799, and earlier in his Briefe. Jacobi already in 1786 thought it was "outrageous" for Mendelssohn to suggest he surrenders a philosophy of reason in favor of the Christian faith, or worse. He addresses this problem, which is still today the dominant view of the "irrationality" of his "leap," with admirable clarity in his letter to Neeb of May 30, 1817: "I do not at all advocate a head-first... (shrink)

ABSTRACT This study focuses on the notions of ‘ruins’, ‘savage knowledge’, and ‘American race’ in the works of the German naturalist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868). A somewhat neglected figure in the history of anthropology and of natural history, Martius was regarded by scholars from Europe and the Americas as a leading figure in botany and ethnology in the nineteenth century. In this article, I discuss how Martius articulated: (1) the notion of American race, that is, a (...) broad characterization of the native peoples of the Americas rooted in a complex natural history which brought together seemingly disparate fields of knowledge, such as medicine, botany, theology, philology, and mythology; (2) having ruins as a guiding concept, which helped him to make sense of American natives; and (3) savage knowledge – a concept semantically aligned to that of ruins, and among whose principal modes of expression was shamanic practice. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche was among the figures from the history of nineteenth century philosophy that, perhaps surprisingly, some of the Vienna Circle’s members had presented as one of their predecessors. While, primarily for political reasons, most Anglophone figures in the history of analytic philosophy had taken a dim view of Nietzsche, the Vienna Circle’s leader Moritz Schlick admired and praised Nietzsche, rejecting what he saw as a misinterpretation of Nietzsche as a militarist or proto-fascist. Schlick, Frank, Neurath, and Carnap were (...) in different ways committed to the view that Nietzsche made a significant contribution to the overcoming of metaphysics. Some of these philosophers praised the intimate connection Nietzsche drew between his philosophical outlook and empirical studies in psychology and physiology. In his 1912 lectures on Nietzsche, Schlick maintained that Nietzsche overcame an initial Schopenhauerian metaphysical-artistic phase in his thinking, and subsequently remained a positivist until his last writings. Frank and Neurath made the weaker claim that Nietzsche contributed to the development of a positivistic or scientific conception of the world. Schlick and Frank took a further step in seeing the mature Nietzsche as an Enlightenment thinker. (shrink)

Foundationalism and coherentism are two fundamentally opposed basic epistemological views about the structure of justification. Interestingly enough, there is no consensus on how to interpret Husserl. While interpreting Husserl as a foundationalist was the standard view in early Husserl scholarship, things have changed considerably as prominent commentators like Christian Beyer, John Drummond, Dagfinn Føllesdal, and Dan Zahavi have challenged this foundationalist interpretation. These anti-foundationalist interpretations have again been challenged, for instance, by Walter Hopp and Christian Erhard. One might suspect that (...) inconsistencies in Husserl’s writings are the simple reason for this disagreement. I shall argue, however, that the real question is not so much how to read Husserl, but how to define foundationalism and that there is overwhelming textual evidence that Husserl championed the most tenable version of foundationalism: a moderate foundationalism that allows for incorporating coherentist elements. (shrink)

Attention has a role in much of perception, thought, and action. On the erotetic theory, the functional role of attention is a matter of the relationship between questions and what counts as answers to those questions. Questions encode the completion conditions of tasks for cognitive control purposes, and degrees of attention are degrees of sensitivity to the occurrence of answers. Questions and answers are representational contents given precise characterizations using tools from formal semantics, though attention does not depend on language. (...) The erotetic theory proposes an integrated account of attention in cognitive control and of attentional focus in perception. The functional role of attentional focus on objects, properties, and locations has to do with picking out something that corresponds to what a task is ‘about’. The erotetic theory of attention opens new avenues in theorizing about the relationship between attention, representational content, phenomenal character, and practical reason. A novel representationalist account of salience is proposed. The theory also provides an account of distraction that suggests when distraction is a defect in practical reasoning. (shrink)

Husserl claims that his phenomenological–epistemological system amounts to a “universal” form of empiricism. The present paper shows that this universal moment of Husserl’s empiricism is why his empiricism qualifies as a rationalism. What is empiricist about Husserl’s phenomenological–epistemological system is that he takes experiences to be an autonomous source of immediate justification. On top of that, Husserl takes experiences to be the ultimate source of justification. For Husserl, every justified belief ultimately depends epistemically on the subject’s experiences. These are paradigms (...) of empiricist claims and thus Husserl seems to subscribe to empiricism. However, what is universal about Husserl’s “empiricism” is that he does not limit the concept of experiences to sensory experiences or sensory experiences plus introspective intuitions but broadens the concept of experience such that also a priori intuitions are included. Husserl insists that logical, mathematical, and phenomenological intuitions such as ~, 2 + 2 = 4, and “Experiences necessarily bear the mark of intentionality” provide non-inferential justification analogous to how sensory experiences can non-inferentially justify beliefs such as “There is a table in front of me.” Importantly, Husserl makes clear that such a priori intuitions are not about our concepts but about reality. This is why Husserl’s universal empiricism is a rationalism. Husserl differs from traditional rationalism as he allows that a priori intuitions can be fallible and empirically underminable. This distinguishes Husserl’s rationalism from Descartes’ and makes him a proponent of moderate rationalism as currently championed by Laurence BonJour. (shrink)

A study of how contemporary cinema and film-philosophers explore radical skepticism about our knowledge of the world.

Perceptual experiences justify. When I look at the black laptop in front of me and my perceptual experience presents me with a black laptop placed on my desk, my perceptual experience has justificatory force with respect to the proposition that there is black laptop on the desk. The present paper addresses the question of why perceptual experiences are a source of immediate justification: What gives them their justificatory force? I shall argue that the most plausible and the most straightforward answer (...) to this question consists in what I call the phenomenological conception of perceptual justification. Perceptual experiences justify by virtue of their distinctive presentive phenomenology. This is a truly internalist conception that enjoys significant advantages over rival conceptions. In the course of his paper, I demonstrate the advantages of the phenomenological conception and defend it against a recent objection. (shrink)

Can phenomenologists allow for the existence of unobservable entities such as atoms, electrons, and quarks? Can we justifiably believe in the existence of entities that are in principle unobservable? This paper addresses the relationship between Husserlian transcendental phenomenology and scientific realism. More precisely, the focus is on the question of whether there are basic epistemological principles phenomenologists are committed to that have anti-realist consequences with respect to unobservable entities. This question is relevant since Husserl’s basic epistemological principles, such as the (...) “principle of all principles,” seem to suggest that epistemic justification is limited to what can be originally given in the sense that if an object cannot be given in an originary presentive intuition, then one cannot be justified in believing that this object exists. It is the main aim of this paper to show (i) that interpretative reasons exist for not reading Husserl in such a way and (ii) that systematic reasons exist as to why phenomenologists should not subscribe to this criterion. I shall put forward a different criterion of justification that satisfies the spirit of Husserlian transcendental phenomenology and allows for justifiably believing in the existence of unobservable scientific entities. (shrink)

A great mathematician and teacher, and a physicist and philosopher in his own right, bridges the gap between science and the humanities in this exposition of the philosophy of science. He traces the history of science from Aristotle to Einstein to illustrate philosophy's ongoing role in the scientific process. In this volume he explains modern technology's gradual erosion of the rapport between physical theories and philosophical systems, and offers suggestions for restoring the link between these related areas. This book is (...) suitable for undergraduate students and other readers. 1962 ed. Index. 36 figures. (shrink)

Skillful, sophisticated translations of two of Nietzsche's essential works about the conflict between the moral and aesthetic approaches to life, the impact of Christianity on human values, the meaning of science, the contrast between the Apollonian and Dionysian spirits, and other themes central to his thinking.