Bd. 1. Sprachanalytik, Semiotik, Hermeneutik. Bd. 2. Das Apriori der Kommunikationsgemeinschaft.

It has been argued that Kant's all-consuming efforts to place autonomy at the center of philosophy have had, in the long-run, the unintended effect of leading to the widespread discrediting of philosophy and of undermining the notion of autonomy itself. The result of this 'Copernican revolution' has seemed to many commentators the de-centring, if not the self-destruction, of the autonomous self. In this major reinterpretation of Kant and the post-Kantian response to his critical philosophy, Karl Ameriks argues that such (...) a view of Kant rests on a series of misconceptions. By providing the first systematic study of the underlying structure of the reaction to Kant's critical philosophy in the writings of Reinhold, Fichte and Hegel, Karl Ameriks challenges the presumptions that dominate popular approaches to the concept of freedom, and to the interpretation of the relation between the Enlightenment, Kant and post-Kantian thought. (shrink)

Die These von einer Achsenzeit in der Weltgeschichte Die zentrale Annahme dieses Buches ist die universalgeschichtliche These von einer Achsenzeit (880-200 v. Chr.) in der Weltgeschichte, in der voneinander unabhangig in China, Indien und dem Abendland strukturell ahnliche kulturelle Revolutionen und Aufbruche erfolgt sind. Inwieweit diese Aufbruche fur das kulturelle Leben in der Gegenwart weiterhin bedeutsam sind, wird heute in kulturwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen wie der Religions- und Kultursoziologie, der vergleichenden Kulturtheorie, der Theorie der Moderne u.a. neu diskutiert. Neben der These von (...) der Achsenzeit wird in Vom Ursprung und Ziel der Geschichte u.a. der Stellenwert von Wissenschaft und Technik in der Moderne erortert; es werden Uberlegungen uber eine mogliche Welteinheit (im Sinne eines Weltfriedenszustandes) angestellt sowie zeitgeschichtliche Tendenzen in der Politik (z.B. Totalitats- und Planungsideologien) kritisiert, die im Gegensatz zu Jaspers' liberalem Ethos der Freiheit und der Humanitat stehen. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant's work changed the course of modern philosophy; Karl Ameriks examines how. He compares the philosophical system set out in Kant's Critiques with the work of the major philosophers before and after Kant. Individual essays provide case studies in support of Ameriks's thesis that late 18th-century reactions to Kant initiated an "historical turn," after which historical and systematic considerations became joined in a way that fundamentally distinguishes philosophy from science and art.

Unveränderter Nachdruck der Originalausgabe von 1856. Der Verlag Anatiposi gibt historische Bücher als Nachdruck heraus. Aufgrund ihres Alters können diese Bücher fehlende Seiten oder mindere Qualität aufweisen. Unser Ziel ist es, diese Bücher zu erhalten und der Öffentlichkeit zugänglich zu machen, damit sie nicht verloren gehen.

Accused of the murder of two men and the rape and murder of a Tombstone businessman's fiancâee, Matt Donohue must find the girl in the middle of Apache territory in order to clear his name.

Providing a gateway to a new history of modern aesthetics, this book challenges conventional views of how art's significance developed in society. -/- The 18th century is often said to have involved a radical transformation in the concept of art: from the understanding that it has a practical purpose to the modern belief that it is intrinsically valuable. By exploring the ground between these notions of art's function, Karl Axelsson reveals how scholars of culture made taste, morals and a (...) politically stable society integral to their claims about the experience of nature and art. -/- Focusing on writings by two of the most prolific men of letters in the 18th century, Joseph Addison (1672–1719) and the third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671–1713), Axelsson contests the conviction that modern aesthetic autonomy reoriented the criticism and philosophy originally prompted by these two key figures in the history of aesthetics. -/- By re-examining the political relevance of Addison and Shaftesbury's theories of taste, Axelsson shows that first and foremost they sought to fortify a natural link between aesthetic experience and modern political society. (shrink)

Central parts of the natural law theories of Grotius and Pufendorf assume that persons by nature have individual realms of their own, violations of which constitute a wrong. This is the basis for their accounts of promises, ownership and reactions against wrongs. These accounts are significantly independent of any assumption that a superior being imposes obligations: rather, the individuals themselves create obligations by their own acts of will. The translator's introducton draws attention to the author's relation to Hägerström, and remarks (...) briefly on related points in Ames, Köhler and Georges Davy. (shrink)

Abstract: The State of Nature, Prehistory, and Mythmaking Karl Widerquist This chapter provide an overview of two books, in which Grant S. McCall and I name, define, and debunk the following false claims that still play important roles in contemporary political theories although they are not always defined and defended explicitly: 1. The Hobbesian hypothesis: sovereign states and/or the liberal private property rights system benefits everyone (or at least harms no one) relative to how well they could reasonably expect (...) to live in the state of nature—i.e. a society lacking one or both of these institutions. 2. The appropriation hypothesis: private property in the form of liberal ownership rights develops naturally while collective, communal, common, or government-held property rights systems do not. 3. The natural inequality hypothesis: inequality is natural and inevitable, i.e. economic, social, and/or political equality cannot exist and/or cannot be created without a significant loss in negative freedom. 4. The market-freedom hypothesis: a market economy (and/or capitalism) is more consistent with negative freedom than any other economic system. The third and fourth of these claims are not obviously claims about prehistoric or small-scale societies, but they are universal claims about all societies and so they include claims about even the most remote and distant societies from contemporary thinking. (shrink)

The semantics for a deontic action logic based on Boolean algebra is extended with an interpretation of action expressions in terms of sets of alternative actions, intended as a way to model choice. This results in a non-classical interpretation of action expressions, while sentences not in the scope of deontic operators are kept classical. A deontic structure based on Simons’ supercover semantics is used to interpret permission and obligation. It is argued that these constructions provide ways to handle various problems (...) related to free choice permission. The main result is a sound and complete axiomatization of the semantics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pierre Jurieu's Contribution to Bayle's Dktionnaire KARL C. SANDBERG PIERRE BAYLE'S VIEWSon faith and reason1as they appear throughout his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697) may be reduced to two basic points. First, the doctrines of Christian theology are vulnerable to a great number of rational objections which would seem to destroy them. Second, reason itself is not a reliable guide in areas of speculative knowledge and should be (...) made to bow to the authority of revelation. This position in its essence is neither irreligious nor antireligious. On the contrary, it is closely related to the general stream of seventeenth-century fideism,~ and is only the logical extension of views which Bayle had expressed as a Protestant controversialist in his early writings2 Moreover, recent studies of Bayle in his milieu have presented compelling evidence that Bayle himself lived, wrote, and died as some kind of believing member of the Reformed Church. 4 It is not less certain, however, that Bayle's Dictionnaire was one of the most powerful antireligious influences of the Enlightenment, s for the eighteenth-century rationalists found in it such a tone of polemics coupled with such an abundant display of the rational insufficiencies of Christianity, that they could not take Bayle's ostensible fideism seriously. This paradox leads one to wonder why Bayle as a believer should so insist upon the disparity he found between faith and reason if he did not intend to lead an attack upon religion in general. What would account for the presence of the penetrating rational critique of Christian doctrines except a desire to discredit them? A partial answer might be suggested by Bayle's method of exposition and disputa1By faith is meant the belief in the speculative doctrines of Calvinist Protestantism, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Providence, and in the authority of revelation. By reason is meant essentially the Cartesian method, whose criterium of truth is incontrovertible evidence. See Richard Popkin, "Pierre Bayle's Place in 17th-century Scepticism," in Pierre Bayle, le philosophe de Rotterdam, ed. Paul Dibon (Amsterdam: 1959). 8During his participation in the Protestant-Catholic controversies of 1682-1687, Bayle became keenly aware that no Christian dogma was susceptible of rational proof. See his Commentaire Philosophique (1686)in his Oeuvres diverses (The Hague: 1737), II, 438. He had, however, previouslybeen convinced of the frailty of reason as a guide in speculative areas (but not in practical matters of morality). See his NouveUes de la Republique des Lettres, September, 1684, in Oeuvres diverses, I, 132-133. These works will hereafter be abbreviated CP, OD, and NRL, respectively. Other abbreviations to be used are DHC, Dictionnaire historique el critique; LFam, Lettres de M. Bayle ~ sa famille; SCP, Supplement du Commentaire philosophique (1687); PDC, Pens~es diverses sur la eomOte (1682); CC, La Cabale ehimdrique (1691). All of these works except the Dictionnaire are found in the Oeuvres diverses. The fourth edition of the Dictionnaire (1730) is the one cited here. 4See Paul Dibon, ed., Pierre Bayle, le philosophe de Rotterdam (Amsterdam: 1959), and Elizabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, Vol. I, "Du Pays de Foix i~la cit~ d'Erasme" (La Haye: 1963). 6Paul Hazard, La Pens~e europ$enne au XVIII~me si~cle de Montesquieu (~ Lessing (Paris [1946], I, 44. [59] 60 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY tion, for in examining any question he felt intellectually obligated to set forth the strong and weak points of both sides. One can never boast of having proved a point, he said, without having stated and answered the strongest objections of one's opponent. ~ What subsequent readers found heterodox was possibly only Bayle's statement of his opponent's position. This answer is insufficient, however, because as Bayle had previously become aware of irreconcilable differences between faith and reason in the course of his early thought and writings, he had been extremely reluctant to voice the implications of his disquieting discoveries (1682-1687).7 Ten years later in the Dictionnaire, on the other hand, he seemed to go out of his way to state them with all possible clarity and vigor. It was this change in emphasis in the expression of his thought which was responsible for the great antireligious... (shrink)

This article addresses major arguments in the controversy about the “rationality” of moral behavior: can moral behavior be explained by rational choice theory (RCT)? The two positions discussed are the incentives thesis (norms are incentives as any other costs and benefits) and the autonomy thesis claiming that moral behavior has nothing to do with utility. The article analyses arguments for the autonomy thesis by J. Elster, A. Etzioni, and J. G. March and J. P. Olsen. Finally, the general claim is (...) discussed whether norm following and norm emergence are utility maximizing. The conclusion is that the autonomy thesis is not tenable if one applies a wide subjectivist, social psychological version of RCT that includes the assumption of “bounded rationality.” The autonomy thesis is only compatible with a narrow version of RCT that excludes internal outcomes and that refers to norms that do not have external outcomes. It is argued that such a narrow version is not capable of explaining many forms of behavior social scientists are interested in. (shrink)

O artigo interpreta o pensamento de Heidegger como transformação da filosofia transcendental que conduz à sua radicalização e, ultimamente, destruição. A este projecto contrapõe Apel a sua tentativa de estabelecer uma filosofia transcendental linguístico-pragmática que procura estabelecer um compromisso entre as temáticas da constituição antepredicativa do sentido e da exigência de validade intersubjectiva. /// L'article interprète la pensée de Heidegger comme transformation de la philosophie transcendantale qui conduit à sa radicalisation et, en dernier lieu, à sa destruction. A ce projet, (...) Apel oppose sa tentative d'établir une philosophie transcendantale linguistique pragmatique qui cherche à faire un compromis entre les thématiques de la constitution anteprédicative du sens et de l'exigence de validité intersubjective. /// The author interprets Heidegger's thought in terms of a transformation of transcendental philosophy, leading to its radicalization and finally its destruction. In the place of this project, the author proposes a transcendental philosophy of a linguistic and pragmatic kind, wich seeks to establish a compromise between the thematics of ante-predicative constitution of sense and the demand for intersubjective validity. (shrink)

Con la finalidad de responder positivamente a la pregunta planteada en eltítulo de este trabajo, el autor presenta y cuestiona, en primer Jugar, el supuesto filosófico tradicional, por el que se hace depender al lenguaje unilateralmente de la intenciones moralmente relevantes de los individuos. Expone luego las estaciones del fracaso de los intentos de fundamentación moral sobre la base del solipsismo metódico de la filosofía moderna antes del giro pragmático- lingüístico. Y defiende finalmente la posición de la fundamentación pragmático-trascendental última (...) frente a las interpretaciones relativistas del mencionado giro de la filosofía contemporánea. (shrink)

[A communicating society as a transcendental precondition of the social sciences; ].

In reconstructing and commenting upon the Kosovo conflict, the cognitive interest of practical philosophy does not evade a political judgment but is primarily led by the interest in answering the question of what normative yardsticks are available (to politicians and to the public) for coping with a situation where the international order of law fails to provide a legal solution to the problem of preserving peace and, at the same time, protecting human rights that are severely violated by a sovereign (...) state. The paper proposes an answer from the point of view of an ethics of history-related responsibility, which takes into account three normative levels based on ethical, legal and political considerations. In this light the action of NATO must be judged. (shrink)

Several recent discussions of metaphysics disavow existence-questions, claiming that they are metaphysically uninteresting because trivially settled in the affirmative by Moorean facts. This is often given as a reason to focus metaphysical debate instead on questions of grounding. I argue that the strategy employed to undermine existence-questions fails against its usual target: Quineanism. The Quinean can protest that the formulation given of their position is a straw man: properly understood, as a project of explication, Quinean metaphysics does not counsel us (...) to choose between obvious ordinary-language claims and absurd revisionist claims, even if appeal to Moorean facts is permitted. (shrink)