What is an Author? What’s in a name? Marnie Binder asks if it matters who’s writing, and other questions of authorship.

Accordingto the mass media, a postfeminist era emerged in the 1990s. The first objective is to develop a definition of the postfeminist perspective. Based on an informal content analysis of popular articles, the authors identify four postfeminist claims: overall support for the women’s movement has dramatically eroded because some women are increasingly antifeminist, believe the movement is irrelevant, and have adopted a “no, but..”.version of feminism. The second objective is to determine the extent of empirical support for these claims. Usingexistingpublic (...) opinion data, the authors find little support for the four postfeminist claims. Implications of the unsubstantiated post-feminist argument are discussed. (shrink)

This paper argues that a principle manner in which Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset’s historicist maxim ’man has no nature, what he has is history’ can be understood is through a pragmatist basis of anti-dualism, in part inherited from American philosopher John Dewey. The thesis here is that it is not that man has no nature, per se, rather that history is his nature because the two are anti-dualistic concepts; history is our nature because it is comprised of, as (...) famously posited by Ortega, “myself and my circumstance”. Hence, neither philosopher negates that “preparedness”, or “nature”, influences our being and behavior, rather they are arguing, more importantly, that “plasticity”, or nurture, plays a greater role given that this encompasses “nature” when we relate Ortega’s application of “history” to Dewey’s use of “experience”. Our “experiences” create our history, and interpretations as to the nature of them are not only potentially infinite, but they are primarily just that - interpretations, which can also change over time. Hence what we truly are is our history. Although these two philosophers are not frequently linked, there is a clear connection in this basic, Deweyen pragmatist anti-dualism as an elder of Ortega. And even though Dewey, unlike Ortega, wrote little on specifically the discipline of history, much of it was indeed fundamentally historical. (shrink)

Explains and gives examples of the mathematical concept of infinity.

When Kai Kupferschmidt writes about CRISPR-based gene editing in German, he faces an obstacle: there's no exact translation for “editing” that has the same connotations as it has in English. Instead, as he explained last fall at The Hastings Center's preconference symposium on new genetic technologies at the World Conference of Science Journalists, he draws on a variety of phrases, including “genome surgery,” which conveys precision in Kupferschmidt's assessment, and “gene scissors,” which communicates CRISPR's mechanistic nature. But in any language, (...) explaining CRISPR is difficult. It's a challenge I face at The Hastings Center, where I write about biotechnology for a public audience. (shrink)

[Publisher's description:] When can we be morally responsible for our behavior? Is it fair to blame people for actions that are determined by heredity and environment? Can we be responsible for the actions of relatives or members of our community? In this provocative book, Tamler Sommers concludes that there are no objectively correct answers to these questions. Drawing on research in anthropology, psychology, and a host of other disciplines, Sommers argues that cross-cultural variation raises serious problems for theories that propose (...) universally applicable conditions for moral responsibility. He then develops a new way of thinking about responsibility that takes cultural diversity into account. -/- Relative Justice is a novel and accessible contribution to the ancient debate over free will and moral responsibility. Sommers provides a thorough examination of the methodology employed by contemporary philosophers in the debate and a challenge to Western assumptions about individual autonomy and its connection to moral desert. (shrink)

Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset and German philosopher Karl Jaspers were both born in 1883, and they both maintained the position that humans are principally historical beings. Therefore, as attested by this notion itself, there are points in which their philosophy coincides. Ortega argued that human beings have no nature, only history. His argument is that history as such is human nature; what is most natural about being human is the fact of being historical and thus always having historicity. (...) Jaspers maintained the same position that in contemplating historicity, one's focus should not be on human nature in the strictly hereditary sense, because it is one's traditions, not the genetic makeup, that most make one to be human. Jaspers emphasizes the conversion of an existential historic consciousness into a consciousness of historicity that is similar to what can be understood in Ortega as historical perspectivism imbued with pragmatism. (shrink)

I aim to alleviate the pessimism with which some philosophers regard the 'objective attitude', thereby removing a particular obstacle which P.F. Strawson and others have placed in the way of more widespread scepticism about moral responsibility. First, I describe what I consider the objective attitude to be, and then address concerns about this raised by Susan Wolf. Next, I argue that aspects of certain attitudes commonly thought to be opposed to the objective attitude are in fact compatible with it. Finally, (...) I examine the prospects of someone who wishes to adopt the objective attitude permanently. In response to philosophers who claim that this would be psychologically impossible, I argue that our commitment to attitudes that presuppose moral responsibility can soften and fade, often without our noticing it. (shrink)

Spanish Philosopher José Ortega y Gasset advanced a number of strong criticisms of American pragmatism, yet some pragmatist notions can also be detected in his own philosophy. Within Ortega’s pragmatist perspectivism one can locate the possibility of overcoming one of the principal perceived problems of pragmatism: namely, its tendency toward relativism. This paper focuses on the ways in which Ortega’s discussion of pragmatism pertains to history and historiography. Ortega’s position that history is written from a select number of perspectives is (...) congenial to pragmatist pluralism. What is recorded and continues to thrive in the annals of history is, within a pragmatist framework, whatever continues to be interesting, relevant, useful, and meaningful because it makes a difference – from and for these perspectives. The more of these perspectives we study, the closer we approach what, on Ortega’s view, constitutes the “eternal truth which every period has lived,” because materials initially gathered and framed for pragmatic reasons can later on provide important opportunities for the reflexive analysis of historical knowledge. (shrink)

Jenseits von Gut und Böse ist ein Werk, mit dem Nietzsche einen neuen Ton fand, um so die „Philosophie der Zukunft“ zu initiieren. Es untergräbt gewohnte Gewissheiten in fundamentalphilosophischer, religiöser, moralischer und politischer Hinsicht. Zugleich verspricht es, die Perspektiven, das Leben der Leser grundlegend zu verändern. Signalbegriffe wie „Wille zur Macht“ und „Sklaven-Moral“ dürfen nicht als feste Lehren missverstanden werden.

Our knowledge of ancient history has been tremendously enlarged in the last hundred years. Ancient civilizations, formerly scarcely glimpsed or completely unknown, have emerged from the obscurity in which they were buried. In other domains, already more or less well known, the discovery of documents year after year has shed a clearer—sometimes even a harsh—light upon the great pages of the human past. These discoveries, which reveal to us what the man of earlier days was like and which enable us (...) to achieve a better understanding of the man of today, have at times been due to the purest chance. The manuscripts we are discussing here as well as many others belong in this category. (shrink)

The relative strengths of first-order theories axiomatized by transfinite induction, for ordinals less-than 0, and formulas restricted in quantifier complexity, is determined. This is done, in part, by describing the provably recursive functions of such theories. Upper bounds for the provably recursive functions are obtained using model-theoretic techniques. A variety of additional results that come as an application of such techniques are mentioned.

The theory of history is a central topic in Ortega’s writings. The American pragmatists wrote little on history. Ortega had fervent critiques of American Pragmatism. The argument presented here is that there are similarities in his theory on history with a pragmatist view, nonetheless, which can be summarized as a pragmatist perspectivism on the philosophy of history and historiography. Historical data selected for recording is largely determined by pragmatic reasoning; the historical details are useful, meaningful, relevant, and interesting –and continue (...) to be– as they help us solve problems, since a study of the past is effective in helping us better prepare for the future. There is important epistemological and metaphysical value to be found in a pragmatist perspective on history and historiography. (shrink)

Spanish Philosopher José Ortega y Gasset advanced a number of strong criticisms of American pragmatism, yet some pragmatist notions can also be detected in his own philosophy. Within Ortega’s pragmatist perspectivism one can locate the possibility of overcoming one of the principal perceived problems of pragmatism: namely, its tendency toward relativism. This paper focuses on the ways in which Ortega’s discussion of pragmatism pertains to history and historiography. Ortega’s position that history is written from a select number of perspectives is (...) congenial to pragmatist pluralism. What is recorded and continues to thrive in the annals of history is, within a pragmatist framework, whatever continues to be interesting, relevant, useful, and meaningful because it makes a difference – from and for these perspectives. The more of these perspectives we study, the closer we approach what, on Ortega’s view, constitutes the “eternal truth which every period has lived,” because materials initially gathered and framed for pragmatic reasons can later on provide important opportunities for the reflexive analysis of historical knowledge. (shrink)

Nietzsche no perdió la ocasión de menospreciar a Mill como el típico inglés de mentalidad pasiva, en cambio los intérpretes actuales de Nietzsche son cautelosos en este aspecto, pues el filósofo alemán leyó muy minuciosamente a Mill, en particular su obra Sobre la libertad. Cuando él propicia que Zaratustra hable acerca de «el más frío de todos los monstruos fríos», lo hace con una promesa de futuro: «Allí, donde el Estado acaba, ahí comienza el ser humano que no es superfluo (...) […]. Allí, donde el Estado acaba, — ¡miradme de este modo hacia allá hermanos míos! ¿No los veis, al arcoíris y los puentes del suprahumano?». El presente trabajo establece una comparativa entre la visión de Dios y del Estado en la época moderna y la reflexión que hace Friedrich Nietzsche en Así habló Zaratustra acerca del Estado como algo monstruoso. Para este propósito se utilizarán respectivamente pasajes de la obra de Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Arthur Schonpenhauer, Friedrich Leopold Stolberg, Karl Marx, Max Sterner, Wilhelm von Humboldt y John Stuart Mill. (shrink)

Cet article offre une vue d’ensemble sur les Éléments pour la généalogie de la morale de Nietzsche. La genèse de l’œuvre est d’abord présentée, puis les sources que Nietzsche a exploitées pour ses réflexions sont examinées. Cet examen des sources est suivi d’une analyse de la conception, de la structure et du contenu de l’« écrit polémique » de Nietzsche. Les sections du livre sont présentées et commentées dans leur succession.

This book examines the contributions of William James, John Dewey, F.C.S. Schiller, C.S. Peirce, George Herbert Mead, and Jane Addams to a case for a pragmatist philosophy of history. Together, they expand our understanding on how we process the past, which impacts our present and our future.

This article posits a pragmatist philosophy of history as exemplified in the work of British Philosopher F.C.S. Schiller (1864–1937). Part of this argument for a pragma-tist philosophy of history resides on pragmatism’s key notion of “experience” be-ing presented here as both related to human forces that are operant in history, and the particularly important “temporal” nature within the term, making it also in part “historical.” The goal is to more generally broaden scholarship in pragmatism as both containing important elements of (...) a unique and coherent philosophy of history, and to bring Schiller closer into the academic circle of the history of pragmatist thought. Available for download. (shrink)

José Ortega y Gasset In the roughly 6,000 pages that Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset wrote on the humanities, he covered a wide variety of topics. This captures the kind of thinker he was: one who cannot be strictly categorized to any one school of philosophy. José Ortega y Gasset did not want … Continue reading Gasset, José Ortega y →.

A pragmatist philosopher of history asks what practical difference it makes for this or that historical “fact” to be taken as “useful and meaningful,” and then consider that the principal motivation behind what is recorded, what continues to circulate, and to what extent, in the annals of historical texts. Part of the methodology of pragmatism is derived from history, since usefulness is attested over time. History and historiography are shaped, in part, by pragmatic interests. This discussion is indispensable for the (...) era of digital humanities that is upon us, with all the new materials and interpretations that are to come as a result. (shrink)

In the second half of the nineteenth century, France was the main site of the controversy around the so-called eoliths, supposedly human-made tools of Tertiary Europe. In contrast to the more common situation where scientists have to make sure that an object stabilized in a laboratory is not an artifact of the lab but a natural object, in the eoliths debates the opposite was the case. The eolith proponents tried to render plausible the object's artificial, that is human, origin. In (...) their case, the objects would only be of scientific interest if they were artifacts not geofacts (naturally flaked stones). The paper ties in with existing literature on the French eoliths movement and investigates the successive eoliths debates in Britain. In Bruno Latour's terms, eoliths as archaeological evidence for Tertiary Man in Europe could gain in reality through a successful enlisting of the collaboration of human and non-human actors such as scientists, theories, publications, taxonomies, technologies, institutions, etc. Indeed, networks were established among scientists, preferably of powerful institutions, the 'tools' were integrated or denied a place in existing taxonomies of prehistoric artifacts, experiments were carried out to demonstrate their chance or designed origin, and their convergence or incompatibility with a certain theoretical framework was discussed. Arguments often revolved around questions of negative evidence, since both proponents and opponents of eoliths as tools were aware of the fact that the eoliths' strongest tie to reality would be evidence of the toolmakers themselves. Several known hominid fossils, among them those of doubtful age, were thus proposed as Tertiary shapers of the 'tools'. These hypothetical 'Englishmen' and their supposed artifacts were enmeshed in particular theories of human evolution, marked as they were by the racism and nationalism widespread at the time. (shrink)

An Invitation to Formal Reasoning introduces the discipline of formal logic by means of a powerful new system formulated by Fred Sommers. This system, term logic, is different in a number of ways from the standard system employed in modern logic; most striking is its greater simplicity and naturalness. Based on a radically different theory of logical syntax than the one Frege used when initiating modern mathematical logic in the 19th Century, term logic borrows insights from Aristotle's syllogistic, Scholastic logicians, (...) Leibniz, and the 19th century British algebraists. Term logic takes its syntax directly from natural language, construing statements as combinations of pairs of terms, where complex terms are taken to have the same syntax as statements. Whereas standard logic requires extensive 'translation' from natural language to symbolic language, term logic requires only 'transcription' into the symbolic language. Its naturalness is the result of its ability to stay close to the forms of sentences usually found in every day discourse. Written by the founders of the term logic approach, An Invitation to Formal Reasoning is a unique introduction and exploration of this new system, offering numerous exercises and examples throughout the text. Summarising the standard system of mathematical logic to set term logic in context, and showing how the two systems compare, this book presents an alternative approach to standard modern logic for those studying formal logic, philosophy of language or computer theory. Fred Sommers is Professor Emeritus, Brandeis University, USA; George Englebretsen is Professor of Philosophy, Bishop's University, Canada. (shrink)

In his book, Andreas Urs Sommer reflects on the question of what it really means when everybody’s appealing to values, all the time – the question, fundamentally, of what values actually are. Values explores both of these points, arriving at two intriguing suggestions: Maybe what we call values are just a set of elaborate fictions. And maybe those fictions serve some very important purposes.

The aim of this paper is to examine the philosophical sources of some of the criticisms made in the second half of the 20th century to the practices and the main assumptions of historiography. In particular, the influence of the writings by Nietzsche dedicated to European Historicism on the renewed concept of history which is imposed in the twentieth century from the thought of Heidegger and Foucault. The divergent concepts of historical time and existential temporality, as well as those of (...) narrative unity and continuity of historical events, are the concepts that mainly fall under the critical scrutiny of these thinkers. Archaeological investigations that Foucault devotes to institutions and procedures of the European past are mentioned as examples of the critical review of traditional historiography. (shrink)