Summary The enthusiasm of Renaissance humanists for classical learning greatly influenced the development of botany in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Humanist scholars restored the treatises of Theophrastus, Pliny, Galen and Dioscorides on botany and materia medica to general circulation and argued for their use as textbooks in Renaissance universities. Renaissance botanists' respect for classical precepts and models of the proper methods for studying plants temporarily discouraged the use of naturalistic botanical illustration, but encouraged other techniques for collecting and (...) communicating new observations: herbaria, botanical gardens and field trips. (shrink)

This paper provides a translation of the introduction, titled ‘Account of the work’ Ratio operis, to the first edition of Genera plantarum, published in 1737 by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus. The text derives its significance from the fact that it is the only published text in which Linnaeus engaged in an explicit discussion of his taxonomic method. Most importantly, it shows that Linnaeus was clearly aware that a classification of what he called ‘natural genera’ could not be achieved by (...) a top-down approach of logical division, but had to rely on inductive, bottom-up procedures. The translation is supplemented by explanatory notes. (shrink)

We show that if H is an effectively completely decomposable computable torsion-free abelian group, then there is a computable copy G of H such that G has computable orders but not orders of every degree.

The volume documents, and makes an original contribution to, an astonishing period in twentieth-century philosophy—the progress of Arne Naess's ecophilosophy from its inception to the present. It includes Naess's most crucial polemics with leading thinkers, drawn from sources as diverse as scholarly articles, correspondence, TV interviews and unpublished exchanges. The book testifies to the skeptical and self-correcting aspects of Naess's vision, which has deepened and broadened to include third world and feminist perspectives. Philosophical Dialogues is an essential addition to the (...) literature on environmental philosophy. (shrink)

In this paper I defend a little noted claim of Kant’s — that we should “keep the shutters closed” on our flaws and failings. Kant’s own arguments for this claim aren’t fully satisfactorily, and they rest primarily on pragmatic considerations. My aim in this paper is to provide a more robust Kantian-inspired argument for the moral value of reserve. I argue that collaborating with others to keep the shutters closed on our individual and collective flaws aids in the difficult task (...) of building and maintaining moral community among morally frail and flawed human beings. The paper consists of three parts. In Part I, I examine what Kant himself says about reserve. In Part II, I present a Kantian-inspired argument for the moral value of reserve, drawing on sociologist Erving Goffman’s concept of a front. Moral fronts, I argue, contribute to the fulfillment of the Kantian duties of moral self-improvement and beneficence. To put it differently, they help us instantiate the kingdom of ends in a world of imperfect human beings. In Part III, I address three objections to my argument: that fronts are deceptive, that they actually interfere with moral self-improvement, and that they preclude morally valuable forms of intimacy. I argue that my account can accommodate these concerns. (shrink)

Drawing on insights from causal theories of reference, teleosemantics, and state space semantics, a theory of naturalized mental representation. In A Mark of the Mental, Karen Neander considers the representational power of mental states—described by the cognitive scientist Zenon Pylyshyn as the “second hardest puzzle” of philosophy of mind. The puzzle at the heart of the book is sometimes called “the problem of mental content,” “Brentano's problem,” or “the problem of intentionality.” Its motivating mystery is how neurobiological states can (...) have semantic properties such as meaning or reference. Neander proposes a naturalistic account for sensory-perceptual representations. Neander draws on insights from state-space semantics, causal theories of reference, and teleosemantic theories. She proposes and defends an intuitive, theoretically well-motivated but highly controversial thesis: sensory-perceptual systems have the function to produce inner state changes that are the analogs of as well as caused by their referents. Neander shows that the three main elements—functions, causal-information relations, and relations of second-order similarity—complement rather than conflict with each other. After developing an argument for teleosemantics by examining the nature of explanation in the mind and brain sciences, she develops a theory of mental content and defends it against six main content-determinacy challenges to a naturalized semantics. (shrink)

The basic form of the exclusion problem is by now very, very familiar. 2 Start with the claim that the physical realm is causally complete: every physical thing that happens has a sufficient physical cause. Add in the claim that the mental and the physical are distinct. Toss in some claims about overdetermination, give it a stir, and voilá—suddenly it looks as though the mental never causes anything, at least nothing physical. As it is often put, the physical does all (...) the work, and there is nothing left for the mental to do. (shrink)

In this paper I describe and defend an account of virtuous motivation that differs from what we might call ordinary moral motivation. It is possible to be morally motivated without being virtuously motivated. In the first half of the essay, I explore different senses of moral motivation and the philosophical puzzles and problems it poses. In the second half, I give an account of virtuous motivation that, unlike ordinary moral motivation, requires the motivational structure characteristic of a fully virtuous person. (...) I draw on Aristotle's account of virtuous action to argue that a fully virtuous agent's judgment reflects a robust form of moral knowledge about what features of an action render it virtuous and hence, choiceworthy. Virtuously motivated actions are chosen in light of those features and are accompanied by the affective state appropriate to the overall moral landscape in which the judgment is made. (shrink)

This paper argues that a minimal notion of function and a notion of normal-proper function are used in explaining how bodies and brains operate. Neither is Cummins’ notion, as originally defined, and yet his is often taken to be the clearly relevant notion for such an explanatory context. This paper also explains how adverting to normal-proper functions, even if these are selected functions, can play a significant scientific role in the operational explanations of complex systems that physiologists and neurophysiologists provide, (...) despite a lack of relevant causal efficacy on the part of such functions. (shrink)

Concerns about ‘mental causation’ are concerns about how it is possible for mental states to cause anything to happen. How does what we believe, want, see, feel, hope, or dread manage to cause us to act? Certain positions on the mind-body problem—including some forms of physicalism—make such causation look highly problematic. This entry sketches several of the main reasons to worry, and raises some questions for further investigation.

Et uventet og uformodet bidrag og introduktion til en filosofisk forståelse af den nye globaliserede verdensorden, der kommer fra et nyt sted i denne vores globaliserede verden: Mexiko. Ny og ukendt i hvert fald i en dansk sammenhæng – hverken vores stats- eller udenrigsminister har garanteret hørt om Enrique Dussel før. -/- Forfatteren forholder sig eksplicit til en europæisk filosofisk tradition, men udbygger en egensindig forståelse af både filosofi og dens anvendelse i enmoderne verdensorden – netop på baggrund af en (...) udkantserfaring i forhold til den fremherskende filosofi, politik og verdensforståelse. Hans idéer har et nyt og tankevækkende anderledes perspektiv i forhold til den kendte vestlige forståelsesramme af virkeligheden. -/- Dussel kan sammenlignes med en lang række tænkere og filosoffer, som han også forholder sig til og er inspireret af – blandt de europæiske især Ricœur og Lévinas – men også den nutidige Naomi Klein. Materien er tungere og kræver mere fordybelse, men den er autentisk og fornyende, også pga. forfatterens baggrund, født i Argentina, hvor hans hus blev bombesprængt i 70'erne i sidste århundrede, da det daværende diktatur mente at måtte bekæmpe anderledes tænkende på denne måde – ligesom andre alternative tænkere (f.eks. en Horatio Cerutti Guldberg), der alle emigrerede til Mexiko. (Tekst fra pressemeddelelse) -/- Filosofi kræver universel gyldighed og en frigørelsesfilosofi må derfor kræve frigørelse for alle mennesker. Frihed er dog meget ulige fordelt, og frigørelsesfilosofi tager følgelig parti for dem, der mest tydeligt er ekskluderede fra samfundsmæssige goder og politiske rettigheder: Den tredjeverdens fattige under den globaliserede kapitalisme, oprindelige folk og farvede i racistiske samfund, kvinder i mandschauvinistiske kulturer, illegale immigranter m.fl.. -/- I Enrique Dussels frigørelsesfilosofi skal etik skal derfor ikke blot diskutere formelle principper, men hele tiden medtænke afhjælpelse af materiel lidelse. Politik kan tilsvarende ikke blot understrege demokratiske principper og menneskerettigheder, men må også indeholde en kritik af selve det kapitalistiske økonomiske system, ligesom der skal være en strategi tilforbedring af kårene for de underprivilegerede. Og i en sådan strategi er staten det vigtigste bolværk mod de transnationale selskabers udbytning af verdensressourcer. -/- Med dette bevidst marginale perspektiv kan Dussel desuden vise, at der i vores almindelige kulturarv og filosofi er begreber og tankegange, der bidrager til at tilsløre den herskende globale ulighed. Over for den udbredte opfattelse af historien som en udvikling fra det traditionelle samfund til moderniteten, viser Dussel, at vores modernitet modsvares af underudvikling og globaludbytning, og at dette ikke er et enestående fænomen. Tidligere har f.eks. Spanien udviklet en meget rig og forfinet højkultur med individuel refleksivitet i sit centrum, der kun var mulig ved at udpine den daværende globale periferi, altså indianerne i på det amerikanske kontinent. -/- Dussels fremhævelse af det marginale perspektiv, hans kompromisløse stillingtagen til fordel for den svage part i ethvert menneskeligt forhold og hans stringent logiske ideologikritik har vakt respekt blandt filosoffer ogintellektuelle over hele kloden. Med denne antologi præsenteres Dussels filosofi for første gang for et dansk publikum. -/- Enrique Dussel (f. 1934), født i Argentina og videreudannet i Spanien, Frankrig, Tyskland og Israel. Doktor fra Universidad Complutense i Madrid og Sorbonne iParis. Siden 1975 professor i etik og politisk filosofi på Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Iztapalapa og fra 1976 også på Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, begge i Mexico by. Blandt hans vigtigste værker er Ética de la liberación [Frigørelsesetikken], der er kommet i fem udgaver siden 1998. Flere af hans øvrige værker er oversat til engelsk, tysk og fransk, universiteter over hele verden har udnævnt ham til æresdoktor, og han er hovedtaler på den filosofiske verdenskongres i Korea i 2008. (Bogens bagside tekst - udvidet version). (shrink)

The theories of pre-existence and epigenesis are typically taken to be opposing theories of generation in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. One can be a pre-existence theorist only if one does not espouse epigenesis and vice versa. It has also been recognized, however, that the line between pre-existence and epigenesis in the nineteenth century, at least, is considerably less sharp and clear than it was in earlier centuries. The debate (1759-1777) between Albrecht von Haller and Caspar Friedrich Wolff on their (...) theories of generation is usually taken to be a debate between a pre-existence theorist and an epigeneticist, and the supposed fact that these two theories of generation are mutually exclusive explains (so the story goes) the divide between Haller and Wolff. However, it’s not clear that Haller endorsed an especially robust form of pre-existence, and nor is it clear that Wolff’s theory of generation -- once he considered it carefully -- is clear epigenetic. Rather, Haller’s theory of generation is marked by traces of epigensis and Wolff’s theory has elements of pre-existence theory. This is not to say that their theories of generation are basically the same, but the debate between the two ought not to be framed in terms of pre-existence versus epigenesis. Their points of difference must be explained in some other way. In this way, their controversy bears characteristics of similar disputes over generation in the nineteenth century more than it resembles those in the seventeenth century. In this paper, I argue that (a) Haller’s and Wolff’s theories both blend elements from pre-existence and epigenesis; (b) but there are still deeply-rooted differences between the two generation theories; (c) one source of these differences is that Haller and Wolff have divergent conceptions of what an adequate explanation is; (d) we can see that they have different conceptions of what constitutes an adequate explanation by paying heed to their evaluations of Descartes’ epistemology and methodology in his theory of generation (such as it is); and (e) this shows that one of the main differences between Haller’s generation theory and that of Wolff is the degree to which each thinks we need to (and indeed can) explain the nature of the causes -- both efficient and final -- at play during the formation of organic beings. (shrink)

This book provides a new interpretation of Hegel's philosophy, arguing that his theory of reason and thinking revolve around the concept of organic life. Through a detailed analysis of Hegel's philosophy and Kant's influence, Karen Ng shows that Hegel's unique contribution is that cognitive capacities are indexed to species capacities, where embodiment and the relation to the environment are central in processes of mind.