Exegetical scepticism is a strand of scepticism about meaning running through the German Enlightenment. This paper provides the first modern account of its tenets, critics, and proponents, and argues that it shares essential features with modern varieties of meaning-scepticism that have been a preoccupation among philosophers of language since the middle of the twentieth century. I argue that exegetical scepticism is a type of epistemological scepticism first introduced as a philosophical position in a theological debate between August Pfeiffer (1640–1698) and (...) Philipp Jacob Spener (1635–1705). Under contention, so I argue, was the idea that interpretation is never certain because it is necessarily underdetermined by the evidence. Following the effects of this controversy, I show that exegetical scepticism caused a great deal of unrest in German letters in the eighteenth century and can be seen to contribute to the great proliferation of hermeneutical theories in the Aufklärung, indeed to the very birth of hermeneutics as a standalone discipline. Bringing this type of scepticism to contemporary attention supports a reassessment of issues at the heart of meaning-scepticism and hermeneutics itself, and a reconsideration of the histories of Enlightenment scepticism and hermeneutics. (shrink)

We contrast two theoretical positions on the relation between phenomenal and access consciousness. First, we discuss previous data supporting a mild Overflow position, according to which transient visual awareness can overflow report. These data are open to two interpretations: (i) observers transiently experience specific visual elements outside attentional focus without encoding them into working memory; (ii) no specific visual elements but only statistical summaries are experienced in such conditions. We present new data showing that under data-limited conditions observers cannot discriminate (...) a simple relation (same versus different) without discriminating the elements themselves and, based on additional computational considerations, we argue that this supports the first interpretation: summary statistics (same/different) are grounded on the transient experience of elements. Second, we examine recent data from a variant of ‘inattention blindness’ and argue that contrary to widespread assumptions, it provides further support for Overflow by highlighting another factor, ‘task relevance’, which affects the ability to conceptualize and report (but not experience) visual element. (shrink)

This paper examines Gadamer's and Davidson's dialogical models of interpretation. It shows them to be comparable, but importantly dissimilar with respect to the kind of agreement they require for communication to be possible. It is argued that this difference entails different concepts of alterity: they model not only how we talk, but implicitly who we can intelligibly talk to. Another important contribution of this paper is to uncover a distinction in Gadamer between two kinds of agreement missed so far by (...) all commentators. The final section of this paper defends a second thesis, namely that the degree of agreement required by the models is proportional to the conceptual difference it can make intelligible. Hence, the extent of graspable cultural difference is not only an empirical matter, but is entailed by our choice of model. (shrink)

This book develops a new Wittgenstein interpretation called Wittgenstein’s Metametaphysics. The basic idea is that one major strand in Wittgenstein’s early and later philosophy can be described as undermining the dichotomy between realism and idealism. The aim of this book is to contribute to a better understanding of the relation between language and reality and to open up avenues of dialogue to overcome deep divides in the research literature. In the course of developing a comprehensive and in-depth interpretation, the author (...) provides fresh and original analyses of the latest issues in Wittgenstein scholarship and gives new answers to both major exegetical and philosophical problems. This makes the book an illuminating study for scholars and advanced students alike. (shrink)

The article presents an interpretive view on culture wars in America along with their echoes in the autobiographical works written by Barack Obama. Being either viewed as the manifestation of the “post-American” creed, looked down at as a mere product of popular culture, or being ignored as a marginal manifestation, culture wars flared before and after the presidential campaign of 2008, signaling the intensity of a yet unconsumed ideological combustion fuelling further cultural and political dissensions. One of the conspicuous consequences (...) of culture wars in America is that the definition of culture has been significantly altered and that nowadays culture warriors have outnumbered intellectuals. Another outcome of culture wars is that they are considered by many as a benchmark of democracy and democratization, when more probably they are the product of an ideological confrontation. Thirdly, culture wars are regarded either as a political stylization of politicization of culture setting up a new network of correspondences between culture and politics. A final relevant consequence may be found in the increasing awareness that civil society and political parties may deploy different strategies to convey democratic ideals into reality, but it remains to be clarified if this should be carried out into the trenches of a pugnacious media and from there into the beliefs and expectations of citizens. Civil society and political parties in America construed differently the meanings of democracy, providing with different images the promised future and the American creed. Therefore, while culture wars spread their belligerency in various sectors of the American society, it is harder and harder to figure out a democratic consensus. (shrink)

The merit of the SINBAD model is to provide an explicit mechanism showing how the cortex may come to develop detectors responding to correlated properties and therefore corresponding to the sources of these correlations. Here I argue that, contrary to the article, SINBAD neurosemantics does not need to rely on teleofunctions to solve the problem of misrepresentation. A number of difficulties for the teleofunction theories of content are reviewed and an alternative theory based on categorization performance and statistical relations is (...) argued to provide a better account and to come closer to the practice in neuroscience and to powerful intuitions on swampkinds and on broad/narrow content. (shrink)

In this paper, we revisit the debate surrounding the Unfolding Argument (UA) against causal structure theories of consciousness (as well as the hard-criteria research program it prescribes), using it as a platform for discussing theoretical and methodological issues in consciousness research. Causal structure theories assert that consciousness depends on a particular causal structure of the brain. Our claim is that some of the assumptions fueling the UA are not warranted, and therefore we should reject the methodology for consciousness science that (...) the UA prescribes. First, we briefly survey the most popular philosophical positions in consciousness science, namely physicalism and functionalism. We discuss the relations between these positions and the behaviorist methodology that the UA assumptions express, despite the contrary claim of its proponents. Second, we argue that the same reasoning that the UA applies against causal structure theories can be applied to functionalist approaches, thus proving too much and deeming as unscientific a whole range of (non-causal structure) theories. Since this is overly restrictive and fits poorly with common practice in cognitive neuroscience, we suggest that the reasoning of the UA must be flawed. Third, we assess its philosophical assumptions, which express a restrictive methodology, and conclude that there are reasons to reject them. Finally, we propose a more inclusive methodology for consciousness science, that includes neural, behavioral, and phenomenological evidence (provided by the first-person perspective) without which consciousness science could not even start. Then, we extend this discussion to the scope of consciousness science, and conclude that theories of consciousness should be tested and evaluated on humans, and not on systems considerably different from us. Rather than restricting the methodology of consciousness science, we should, at this point, restrict the range of systems upon which it is supposed to be built. (shrink)

Language learning requires linguistic input, but several studies have found that knowledge of second language rules does not seem to improve with more language exposure. One reason for this is that previous studies did not factor out variation due to the different rules tested. To examine this issue, we reanalyzed grammaticality judgment scores in Flege, Yeni-Komshian, and Liu's study of L2 learners using rule-related predictors and found that, in addition to the overall drop in performance due to a sensitive period, (...) L2 knowledge increased with years of input. Knowledge of different grammar rules was negatively associated with input frequency of those rules. To better understand these effects, we modeled the results using a connectionist model that was trained using Korean as a first language and then English as an L2. To explain the sensitive period in L2 learning, the model's learning rate was reduced in an age-related manner. By assigning different learning rates for syntax and lexical learning, we were able to model the difference between early and late L2 learners in input sensitivity. The model's learning mechanism allowed transfer between the L1 and L2, and this helped to explain the differences between different rules in the grammaticality judgment task. This work demonstrates that an L1 model of learning and processing can be adapted to provide an explicit account of how the input and the sensitive period interact in L2 learning. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article offers a re-contextualization of the Positivism Dispute between the Frankfurt School and advocates of empirical sociology in the German sociological profession between 1954 and 1970. Investigating the reasons why the German Sociological Association convened in Tübingen in October 1961, it assigns a more peripheral role to Karl Popper and this now famous seminar. Focusing instead on the debate among German sociologists from the mid-1950s which prompted the convention of the seminar and the invitation for Popper to speak, the (...) article maintains that philosophy of history was the central concern of the Positivism Dispute. In this debate, members of the Frankfurt School emphasized contingency in history and society, while sociologists such as René König, Helmut Schelsky, Ralf Dahrendorf, and Arnold Gehlen advocated sociology as the empirical study of ‘given’ social facts. By doing so the article questions the narrative of the Positivism Dispute advanced by Karl Popper and some of his followers, as well as interpretations which have focused on debates during the aftermath of the Tübingen seminar in the 1960s. (shrink)

This Element analyzes Kant's metaphysics and epistemology of the exact science of nature. It explains his theory of true motion and ontology of matter. In addition, it reconstructs the patterns of evidential reasoning behind Kant's foundational doctrines.

A naturalistic scheme of primitive conceptual representations is proposed using the statistical measure of mutual information. It is argued that a concept represents, not the class of objects that caused its tokening, but the class of objects that is most likely to have caused it (had it been tokened), as specified by the statistical measure of mutual information. This solves the problem of misrepresentation which plagues causal accounts, by taking the representation relation to be determined via ordinal relationships between conditional (...) probabilities. The scheme can deal with statistical biases and does not rely on arbitrary criteria. Implications for the theory of meaning and semantic content are addressed. (shrink)

The standardised randomised clinical trial (RCT) has been exceedingly popular in medical research, economics, and practical policy making. Recently, RCTs have faced criticism. First, it has been argued by John Worrall that we cannot be certain that our sample is not atypical with regard to possible confounding factors. I will argue that at least in the case of medical research, we know enough about the relevant causal mechanisms to be justified to ignore a number of factors we have good reason (...) not to expect to be disruptive. I will also argue against an argument provided by Nancy Cartwright and Eileen Munro that RCTs should not be taken to deductively infer probabilistic causal claims, but ampliatively. The paper will end on a discussion of evidence hierarchies and a defence of the stance of evidence-based medicine that RCTs are the best available method to assess a treatment’s efficacy. (shrink)

This paper examines the origin, range and meaning of the Principle of Action and Reaction in Kant’s mechanics. On the received view, it is a version of Newton’s Third Law. I argue that Kant meant his principle as foundation for a Leibnizian mechanics. To find a ‘Newtonian’ law of action and reaction, we must look to Kant’s ‘dynamics,’ or theory of matter. I begin, in part I, by noting marked differences between Newton’s and Kant’s laws of action and reaction. I (...) argue that these are explainable by Kant’s allegiance to a Leibnizian mechanics. I show (in part II) that Leibniz too had a model of action and reaction, at odds with Newton’s. Then I reconstruct how Jakob Hermann and Christian Wolff received Leibniz’s model. I present (in Part III) Kant’s early law of action and reaction for mechanics. I show that he devised it so as to solve extant problems in the Hermann-Wolff account. I reconstruct Kant’s views on ‘mechanical’ action and reaction in the 1780s, and highlight strong continuities with his earlier, pre-Critical stance. I use these continuities, and Kant’s earlier engagement with post-Leibnizians, to explain the un-Newtonian features of his law of action and reaction. (shrink)

Much early modern metaphysics grew with an eye to the new science of its time, but few figures took it as seriously as Emilie du Châtelet. Happily, her oeuvre is now attracting close, renewed attention, and so the time is ripe for looking into her metaphysical foundation for empirical theory. Accordingly, I move here to do just that. I establish two conclusions. First, du Châtelet's basic metaphysics is a robust realism. Idealist strands, while they exist, are confined to non-basic regimes. (...) Second, her substance realism seems internally coherent, so her foundational project appears successful.I have two aims in this paper. Historically, I show that du Châtelet's main source of inspiration was Christian... (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I propose a variant of a Humean account of laws called "Open Future Humeanism", which holds that since the laws supervene partly on future events, there are at any instant infinitely many possible future courses of events. I argue that if one wants to take the openness of the future that OFH proposes ontologically serious, then OFH is best represented within a growing block view of time. I further discuss some of OFH's problems which stem from (...) the fact that in this view, there are no laws as long as time progresses. These problems can be solved by adding a temporal operator to the laws, so that at any instant, we get a set of tensed laws which held up to and including that instant. (shrink)

This Elibron Classics title is a reprint of the original edition published by Félix Alcan in Paris, 1905.

This article focuses on the renouncement of possessions in Matthew 19:16–30 in terms of three related questions. Firstly, it asks if the renouncement of possessions was, according to Matthew, a general requirement for following Jesus or for membership of the Matthean community. Secondly, it investigates if this requirement did not lead to a distinction within the Matthean community between those who adhered to a stricter ethic of Jesus and those who did not? Finally it enquiries as to what would have (...) compelled followers of Jesus or members of the latter Matthean community to comply with it? The article concludes that at least some of the followers of Jesus are depicted by Matthew as having renounced their possessions as a sign of their unconditional commitment to him. The Matthean community could thus have been a two-tiered community comprised of virtuosi who had renounced all their possessions, as was demanded of the rich young man, and those who had not. The renouncement of their possessions could have been part of their initiation into the Matthean community and have been motivated by the promise of an incomparable eschatological reward. It further appears that while not all who were considered to be followers of Jesus had surrendered their possessions, all would share in God’s eschatological reward if they provided hospitality to those who did. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFreethought was a transnational movement that developed particularly in the second half of the nineteenth century, spreading across Europe and other world regions and promoting new models for society. The present article proposes an investigation of the contours and developments of the freethought movement in Romania before World War I. This is an important area of research given that most analyses performed to date have considered only the Western world and not the Eastern European context.Our intention is to elucidate to (...) what extent the European models influenced this movement and to uncover their impact on the Romanian society of the time. The paper highlights the criticisms of the clerics upon freethought, showing that the development of this current in Romania as a national movement represented not simply imitation of the European models, but an adaptation of those models to Romanian realities. The Romanian freethinkers can be seen trying to develop some of the most radical ideas of those times, in connection with the European trends. (shrink)

abstractThe paper explores a new interpretation of the consequentializing project. Three prominent interpretations are criticized for neglecting the explanatory dimension of moral theories. Instead...

This paper examines the young Kant’s claim that all motion is relative, and argues that it is the core of a metaphysical dynamics of impact inspired by Leibniz and Wolff. I start with some background to Kant’s early dynamics, and show that he rejects Newton’s absolute space as a foundation for it. Then I reconstruct the exact meaning of Kant’s relativity, and the model of impact he wants it to support. I detail (in Section II and III) his polemic engagement (...) with Wolffian predecessors, and how he grounds collisions in a priori dynamics. I conclude that, for the young Kant, the philosophical problematic of Newton’s science takes a back seat to an agenda set by the Leibniz-Wolff tradition of rationalist dynamics. This results matters, because Kant’s views on motion survive well into the 1780s. In addition, his doctrine attests to the richness of early modern views of the relativity of motion. (shrink)

The aim of our commentary is to strengthen Cowan's proposal for an inherent capacity limitation in STM by suggesting a neurobiological mechanism based on competitive networks and nonlinear oscillations that avoids some of the shortcomings of the scheme discussed in the target article (Lisman & Idiart 1995).

Newton rested his theory of mechanics on distinct metaphysical and epistemological foundations. After Leibniz's death in 1716, the Principia ran into sharp philosophical opposition from Christian Wolff and his disciples, who sought to subvert Newton's foundations or replace them with Leibnizian ideas. In what follows, I chronicle some of the Wolffians' reactions to Newton's notion of absolute space, his dynamical laws of motion, and his general theory of gravitation. I also touch on arguments advanced by Newton's Continental followers, such as (...) Leonhard Euler, who made novel attempts to defend his mechanical foundations against the pro-Leibnizian attack. This examination grants us deeper insight into the fate of Newton's mechanics on the Continent during the early eighteenth century and, more specifically, sheds needed light on the conflicts and tensions that characterized the reception of Newton's philosophy of mechanics among the Leibnizians. (shrink)

Linguistic competence is, among other things, the cognitive ability of using words appropriately. Following this notion, being a competent language user cannot be merely simulated because pretending to use words appropriately already is using words appropriately. Since current AI already can use words appropriately it may be that AI already has linguistic competence instead of merely simulating it. However, in this article I argue that there is at least one domain of linguistic competence that can be simulated: grasping lexical effects. (...) Since grasping lexical effects presupposes an ability which AI lacks, namely feeling emotions, I argue that AI can only grasp the cognitive part of words but not their lexical effects. AI can only simulate to grasp lexical effects. Hence, lexical effects are a domain of linguistic competence AI cannot grasp. (shrink)

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

My thesis in this paper is: the modern concept of laws of motion—qua dynamical laws—emerges in 18th-century mechanics. The driving factor for it was the need to extend mechanics beyond the centroid theories of the late-1600s. The enabling result behind it was the rise of differential equations. -/- In consequence, by the mid-1700s we see a deep shift in the form and status of laws of motion. The shift is among the critical inflection points where early modern mechanics turns into (...) classical mechanics as we know it. Previously, laws of motion had been channels for truth and reference into mechanics. By 1750, the laws lose these features. Instead, now they just assert equalities between functions; and serve just to entail (differential) equations of motion for particular mechanical setups. This creates two philosophical problems. First, it’s unclear what counts as evidence for the laws of motion in the Enlightenment. Second, it’s a mystery whether these laws retain any notion of causality. That subverts the early-modern dictum that physics is a science of causes. (shrink)

I argue that the key dynamical concepts and laws of Newton's Principia never gained a solid foothold in Germany before Kant in the 1750s. I explain this absence as due to Leibniz. Thus I make a case for a robust Leibnizian legacy for Enlightenment science, and I solve what Jonathan Israel called “a meaningful historical problem on its own,” viz. the slow and hesitant reception of Newton in pre-Kantian Germany.

This paper argues that the development of early-modern science was strongly influenced by prevailing legal practices.1 This argument goes back to the work of Barbara Shapiro, who explored in a numb...