Popper's short essay about the rationality principle has been the target of many criticisms which have raised serious doubts about its consistency. How could the well-known promoter of falsificationism suggest that we not reject a principle that he himself describes as false? Nonetheless, the essay can be read in a way that makes it appear much more consistent. Better sense can be made of Popper's own examples (the flustered driver, the pedestrian, etc.), by taking seriously his view that the rationality (...) principle might be "approximately true" and falsified only in very rare cases, while also giving proper attention to his four rather elliptical arguments. (shrink)

Vu l’intérêt croissant que l’on porte aux questions éthiques dans le monde contemporain, on ne s’étonne plus de voir se multiplier les travaux qui discutent la façon dont ces questions se posent dans telle ou telle discipline. Or parmi celles-ci, l’architecture occupe une place assez particulière. Dans la mesure où l’on a affaire à l’un des beaux-arts, il ne va pas de soi que l’on puisse attribuer à l’architecture une fonction éthique, tant il est vrai que l’artiste authentique est en (...) droit de revendiquer une sorte de liberté qui se prête mal au respect inconditionnel d’impératifs d’origine morale. Toutefois, comme l’architecture est un art dont le propre est de répondre à un besoin fondamental de l’être humain, soit celui de trouver un abri et un lieu propice à l’habitation, au travail, à l’étude, au recueillement, à la détente ou à quelque autre activité jugée importante, les architectes ont rarement eu beaucoup de. (shrink)

Le concept de plan utilisé en planification socialiste est rapproché du concept de plan invoqué par diverses philosophies de l'histoire. Pour ce faire, la notion de « plan divin » est analysée à l'aide d'une structure à sept termes qui, s'appliquant également au concept socialiste de plan, permet de fonder ce rapprochement. Les avatars du concept de plan en philosophie de l'histoire sont ensuite examinés de manière à faire ressortir un parallèle entre les dilemmes de cette philosophie et ceux de (...) la planification soviétique, yougoslave ou chinoise.The concept of planning used in socialist experiences is approached by the "plan" concept put forward by diverse philosophies of history. In order to do this, the notion of "divine plan" is analysed with the help of a structure of seven terms which, being equally applied to the socialist concept of planning, allows the foundation of this "rapprochement" . The transformations of the concept of plan in the philosophy of history are next examined in such a manner to manifest a parallel between the dilemmas of this philosophy and those of Soviet, Yugoslav or Chinese planning. (shrink)

C'est bien à la question de savoir s'il est légitime de parler d'une connaissance philosophique, que Gilles-Gaston Granger a voulu répondre, et répondre par l'affirmative, en publiant son dernier livre intitulé Pour la connaissance philosophique. À en juger pourtant par les réactions agaçées que provoque souvent cette enquête constamment réouverte sur la nature de la philosophie, il se pourrait bien que nombre de philosophes trouvent un peu excessif de consacrer encore un ouvrage de près de trois cents pages à justifier (...) la portée cognitive d'une discipline qui, au cours de sa longue histoire, a produit autant d'œuvres dont le moins qu'on puisse dire est qu'elles ont hautement contribué à enrichir le bagage culturel de l'humanité. Qui, parmi ceux qui vouent l'essentiel de leur vie à l'enseignement de la philosophie, accepterait de se voir refuser le droit de prétendre transmettre une connaissance authentique? Pourtant, je voudrais soutenir ici que, compte tenu de son contexte, non seulement l'intervention de Granger n'était pas superflue mais qu'elle n'aura pas été suffisante pour établir de façon convaincante qu'il existe telle chose qu'une connaissance proprement philosophique. (shrink)

This book collects a renowned scholar's essays from the past five decades and reflects two main concerns: an approach to logic that stresses argumentation, reasoning, and critical thinking and that is informal, empirical, naturalistic, practical, applied, concrete, and historical; and an interest in Galileo’s life and thought—his scientific achievements, Inquisition trial, and methodological lessons in light of his iconic status as “father of modern science.” These republished essays include many hard to find articles, out of print works, and chapters which (...) are not available online. The collection provides an excellent resource of the author's lifelong dedication to the subject. Thus, the book contains critical analyses of some key Galilean arguments about the laws of falling bodies and the Copernican hypothesis of the earth’s motion. There is also a group of chapters in which Galileo’s argumentation is compared and contrasted with that of other figures such as Socrates, Karl Marx, Giordano Bruno, and his musicologist father Vincenzo Galilei. The chapters on Galileo’s trial illustrate an approach to the science-vs-religion issue which Finocchiaro labels “para-clerical” and conceptualizes in terms of a judicious consideration of arguments for and against Galileo and the Church. Other essays examine argumentation about Galileo’s life and thought by the major Galilean scholars of recent decades. The book will be of interest to scholars in philosophy, logic, philosophy of science, history of science, history of religion, philosophy of religion, argumentation, rhetoric, and communication studies. (shrink)

For example, from the point of view of pure conceptual analysis, since the reduction of what is not understood to what is understood is new understanding, explanation seems to involve growth of understanding. But is it the only kind of growth of understanding? It seems that explanation is quantitative growth of understanding. Could there be a qualitative growth of understanding and if so what would it be? And how would qualitative growth of understanding relate to explanation?

In the process of psychical transmission from one generation to the next, who asks what of whom? The evocative expression of an ‘errand’ suggests that a subject is sent on a mission, sent in error, wanders away, and returns home, adversely changed. A vocative imperative is at the heart of a mission. When there is a call from an anterior Other, there must be a response. Before, there was an experience of a call and its response, then, there would be (...) an errand. Precisely, the subject is preceded by the self-same subject’s constituted and appropriated mandate from an anterior object. To upend an aberrant errand, a subject must reconfigure a posted imperative, ever altering, again and again, the call and summons of an alien and unwelcome guest turned host. Otherwise, the dissonant and unwelcome guest turned host may transform the naïve subject into a ghost, a revenant that disappears and returns to haunt the subject. Thanks to the new and public space in the clinical setting, the entity that listens to the sub-ject will come to know that reception and perception of an errand is communalised in ways where there is a constant alteration, revision and co-creation of meanings of the received and perceived phenomenon through reciprocal connection and reciprocal correction. When subject’s experiential acquisitions enter that clinical setting, a resolute upending of a retrogressive descent toward death may occur. Hence, the meaning of staying alive for an Other who is otherwise dislocated, thrown, posted into a transgenerational spiral, toward death. A toxic errand is thus potentially aborted in that new space where a new relationship for resubjectivising and sublimating the unwanted mandate happens. Resubjectivising the injected errand becomes the exit strategy so that positive change is now conceivable. (shrink)

"I believe," André Breton said, "in the future resolution of the states of dream and reality--in appearance so contradictory--in a sort of absolute reality, or surréalité." The Surrealist movement, born in the 1920s out of the ferment of Dada, committed to revolution against bourgeois rationalism, and inspired by Freudian exploration of the unconscious, has reverberated more widely and deeply than perhaps any other art movement in our century. Its automatism, biomorphic shapes, visionary mode, and manipulation of found objects mark the (...) work of artists as different as Ernst, Miró, Magritte, and Dali. Maurice Nadeau's History of Surrealism, first published in French in 1944 and in English in 1965, has become a classic. It is both lucid and authoritative--by far the best overall account of this complex movement. Nadeau traces the evolution of Surrealism, bringing to life its many internal debates about politics and art. He relates the movement to its intellectual and artistic environment. And he provides the statements and manifestos of Breton, Aragon, Tzara, and others. (shrink)

Although the fallacy of composition is little studied and trivially illustrated, some view it as ubiquitous and paramount. Furthermore, although definitions regard the concept as unproblematic, it contains three distinct elements, often confused. And although some scholars apparently claim that fallacies are figments of a critic’s imagination, they are really proposing to study fallacies in the context of meta-argumentation. Guided by these ideas, I discuss the important historical example of Michels’s iron law of oligarchy.

In concept, an image has both verticality and horizontal dimensions. Saturated images within this space have a horizon and can exceed that horizon. Within that horizon where the image dwells something chances itself upon the observer and the observed. Into that public space between self and other, students bring an instrumental approach to how they plan to deploy their new fund of knowledge, only to discover that the setting itself has become an event where surprise and upheaval disrupt their illusion (...) of self-continuity and the façade of familiarity. Phenomenologically, upheaval shows itself when givenness both precedes and participates in the giving of phenomena such as medical students’ “before and after” images of psychoanalysis. They discover and reconfigure their erstwhile absolute positions and values into reconfigurations of self and prior commitments. The turning point from their instrumental use of knowledge to reconfigurations of how they situate themselves in the world decisively comes when teaching and learning become an event in se that disturbs their sense of order.Following Husserl, phenomenological psychological observation has required us to go from the events of history to a sense of history. Would, however, that we could stay at the level of events much longer to see images explode and exceed their horizons from the illusion of order, and patterned repetition disrupted by surprise, upheaval and indeterminacy in the spirit of Alain Badiou! (shrink)

[vol. non numéroté] Notice. 1952. v. 1. Livres petit alif, grand alif ba' gim. 2. éd. 1967. v. 2. Livres dal, he zay, hha', tta' 2. éd. 1967. v. 3. Livres ya' et lam, et index alphabétiques des 3 volumes. 1948.

Feyerabend's views are construed as formulating the problem of determining the role of rhetoric in scientific rationality and posing the solution-theory that scientific rationality is essentially rhetorical. He is taken to give three arguments against reason, of which the one from the insufficiency of reason and the one from incommensurability are shown to presuppose his historical argument; his historical argument is based on his account of Galileo, which hinges essentially on Feyerabend's analysis of the tower argument. This analysis is insightful (...) in certain important ways but misconceived in others. Feyerabend's main error is to see a conflict between reason and rhetoric, where none exists; it is argued that rhetorical devices have their own standards of propriety and impropriety, different from those of rational arguments, and that at the same time sound rhetorical analysis presupposes sound logical analysis. (shrink)

In this chapter I explore, in some cases for the first time, the significance of the ethical, liberatory dimension of Spinoza’s thought among a number of women philosophers across the long nineteenth century’s German tradition. I begin with brief discussions of Elise Reimarus and Charlotte von Stein. I then proceed to more in-depth treatments of Caroline Michaelis- Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling and Karoline von Günderrode, stressing not only that we may learn about both in drawing out a link to Spinoza or Spinozism, but (...) likewise that we can deepen our understanding of Spinoza in bringing him into dialogue with each (in particular regarding, respectively, the importance of others for self-expression, as well as the metaphysical and ethical status of death, especially suicide). I conclude with a discussion of the turn-of-the-century thinkers Lou Salomé as well as Resa von Schirnhofer, Anna Tumarkin, and especially Elisabeth Schmitt—some of the first academic women philosophers in the German-language context, all closely engaged with Spinoza’s writings—before presenting final remarks concerning the status of Spinoza’s thought in the present context. (shrink)

In this chapter I explore, in some cases for the first time, the significance of the ethical, liberatory dimension of Spinoza’s thought among a number of women philosophers across the long nineteenth century’s German tradition. I begin with brief discussions of Elise Reimarus and Charlotte von Stein. I then proceed to more in-depth treatments of Caroline Michaelis- Böhmer-Schlegel-Schelling and Karoline von Günderrode, stressing not only that we may learn about both in drawing out a link to Spinoza or Spinozism, but (...) likewise that we can deepen our understanding of Spinoza in bringing him into dialogue with each (in particular regarding, respectively, the importance of others for self-expression, as well as the metaphysical and ethical status of death, especially suicide). I conclude with a discussion of the turn-of-the-century thinkers Lou Salomé as well as Resa von Schirnhofer, Anna Tumarkin, and especially Elisabeth Schmitt—some of the first academic women philosophers in the German-language context, all closely engaged with Spinoza’s writings—before presenting final remarks concerning the status of Spinoza’s thought in the present context. (shrink)

This Book Incorporates Prof. Friedman S Lectures And Discussions That Were A Part Of The Inter-Cultural Dialogue At Many Levels. His Major Contribution Is In Developing An Approach That Is Within The Framework Of The Human Image.