Nasr (Islamic studies, George Washington U.), in a series of ten lectures, argues that, unlike in the West, where scientific thought has been secularized, in the East, knowledge and religious experience have remained unified. Drawing from Buddhist, Hindu, Judaic, Christian, and Islamic traditions, he finds in each the idea of perennial wisdom as a philosophical basis for such unity. Paperback edition ($10.95) not seen. A reprint of the 1987 original with a new (short) preface. The paper edition (06459-4) is available (...) for $13.50. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

Production of Presence is a comprehensive version of the thinking of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, one of the most consistently original literary scholars writing today. It offers a personalized account of some of the central theoretical movements in literary studies and in the humanities over the past thirty years, together with an equally personal view of a possible future. Based on this assessment of the past and the future of literary studies and the humanities, the book develops the provocative thesis (...) that, through their exclusive dedication to interpretation, i.e. to the reconstruction and attribution of meaning, the humanities have become incapable of addressing a dimension in all cultural phenomena that is as important as the dimension of meaning. Interpretation alone cannot do justice to the dimension of "presence," a dimension in which cultural phenomena and cultural events become tangible and have an impact on our senses and our bodies. Production of Presence is a passionate plea for a rethinking and a reshaping of the intellectual practice within the humanities. (shrink)

Dogmatic, naive and sophisticated falsificationism are construed as being distinguished by different views on the revisability of scientific theories. Then Lakatos's methodology of scientific research programs (SRP) is reinterpreted: The structure of an SRP is a target theory equipped with a priority structure for hypothetical revisions that accommodate idealizing assumptions. Idealizations pointing "backwards" capture predecessor theories, thus showing both their virtues and limitations. The core of an SRP is assigned top priority; its positive heuristics consists in a strategy of how (...) to work off the idealizing assumptions. In the dynamics of SRP's, progressive intertheoretic relations within an SRP are characterized as generating continuity through revisions, while those that hold across SRP's only have excess empirical content. Finally, we contrast our account with a reconstruction of Lakatos's in the structuralist philosophy of science (W. Stegmüller). (shrink)

Originally published in 1973 the editors of this book collected together those studies which had been considered at the time to yield the best evidence in support of Freudian theory, and found on close examination that they failed to provide any such proof. Each paper is printed in full and is followed by a critical discussion which raises questions of statistical treatment, sufficiency of controls and alternative interpretations. The particular usefulness of this format is that it allows readers to form (...) their own opinions while providing helpful suggestions and guidelines on how to approach experimental studies with a critical mind. (shrink)

_Political Poetry across the Centuries_ aims to give a concise yet wide ranging overview of political poetry from antiquity to the immediate past spanning from Europe to East Asia.

Die Erregung, mit der in den 1960er-Jahren der von Theodor Adorno und anderen so genannte „Positivismusstreit“ ausgetragen wurde, hat sich in den fast 50 Jahren, die vergangen sind, seit 1969 der Sammelband zur Debatte veröffentlicht wurde, weitgehend gelegt. Das macht es möglich, von der Parteinahme für die eine oder andere Seite Abstand zu nehmen und noch einmal präziser die Argumente von damals zu durchdenken. Es zeigt sich, dass in der Diskussion zwischen Karl Popper und Theodor Adorno in Tübingen 1961 die (...) Gemeinsamkeiten die Divergenzen bei weitem überwogen. Erst mit dem Eintritt on Jürgen Habermas und Hans Albert in die Debatte kam eine polemische Schärfe in die Diskussion, zum Teil durch die Etikettierung der Position Poppers als „Positivismus“ durch Habermas und dann auch Adorno. Zusätzlich wird hier versucht, die Debatte der 1960er-Jahre dadurch zu historisieren, dass sie in einen weiteren Zeitrahmen eingebettet wird, der einerseits die weit in die 1920er- und 1930er-Jahre reichende Vorgeschichte des Streits sowie andererseits die Folgen der Auseinandersetzung seit den späten 1960er-Jahren einbezieht.Die Darstellung beruht auf früheren Arbeiten des Verfassers. Zusätzlich werden einige neue Archivfunde präsentiert und inzwischen erschienene Autobiografien bzw. Biografien der Beteiligten des Positivismusstreits ausgewertet. Es bleibt zu hoffen, dass sich in Zukunft die bislang nicht zugänglichen Teile des Briefwechsels zwischen Adorno und Popper noch auffinden lassen. (shrink)

Technik bestimmt auf die mannigfaltigste Weise unser Leben und Zusammenleben. Obgleich sie von Platon und Aristoteles bis in das zwanzigste Jahrhundert in Einzelaspekten betrachtet worden ist, wurde sie erst in den letzten Jahrzehnten zu einem eigenständigen Gegenstand der Philosophie. Dennoch werden ihre philosophischen Probleme immer noch eher beiläufig behandelt. So geht es um die Klärung ganz zentraler und herausfordernder Aufgaben – von der menschlichen Schöpferkraft über eine Klärung, was ein technisches Artefakt ist, zum technischen Wissen, in all diesen Elementen verknüpft (...) mit dem Verantwortungsproblem. Das Ziel ist eine Darstellung dieser faszinierenden philosophischen Fragen vor dem Hintergrund der Tradition. (shrink)

Few arguments against intentional states in animals have stood the test of time. But one objection by Stich and Davidson has never been rebutted. In my reconstruction it runs: Ascribing beliefs to animals is vacuous, unless something counts as an animal believing one specific “content” rather than another; Nothing counts as an animal believing one specific content rather than another, because of their lack of language; Ergo: Ascribing beliefs to animals is vacuous. Several attempts to block the argument challenge the (...) first premise, notably the appeals to “naked” belief ascriptions and alternative representational formats. This essay defends the first premise and instead challenges the second premise. There are non-linguistic “modes of presentation”; these can be determined by attributing to animals specific needs and capacities—a “ hermeneutic ethology” based on lessons from the debate about radical translation/interpretation in the human case. On that basis we can narrow down content by exclusion. What remains is an “imponderability of the mental” which does not rule out attributions of intentional states to animals. (shrink)

Hans-Johann Glock develops a capacity-based alternative to the currently widespread view that concepts and experiences are mental representations. He claims that experiences must be explained by way of perceptual and sensory capacities and that concepts must be explained by way of intellectual ones, in particular, by way of capacities for classification and reasoning. Glock does not, however, identify concepts with intellectual capacities. He rather conceives of them as rules that guide the application of capacities. He defines the relationship between (...) perceptions and concepts by coupling rationalistic, Aristotelian, and Kantian motifs: perceptions are to be strictly distinguished from concepts; perceptual capacities genetically, causally, and conceptually precede conceptual ones; and conceptual capacities must, in principle, be applicable to objects of experience. Glock's “capacity approach” can accordingly be understood as a variant of non-conceptualism. (shrink)

This work introduces the English-speaking reader to the theoretical foundations of Kng's popular works; an indispensable prolegomena for every future Christology.