Economical questions indisputably occupy a central place in everyday life. In order to clarify these questions, people generally turn to those who are familiar with economics. In answering such legitimate questions, economists propose explanations which rest on a few principles among which the rationality principle is by far the most fundamental. This principle assumes that people are rational, but what is meant by this has to be specified. Rationality and Explanation in Economicsclaims that only a minimal kind of rationality is (...) required to ‘animate’ economic explanations. However, such a conception of rationality faces serious objections: it is closely associated with harshly criticised methodological individualism and it is not easily disentangled from sheer irrationality. The book answers these objections and shows that the economists’ way of mobilising the concepts of maximization or of consistency for defining rationality raises more serious problems. Since the latter have encouraged various attempts to downgrade or even to dispense with the very notion of rationality, the book is largely devoted to countering arguments associated with these attempts and to show why postulating that agents are rational is still the only efficient way to explain economic phenomena as such. The author also proposes original views about the role of rationality, the meaning of methodological individualism, the relevance of the selection argument and the relation between ‘rational’ explanations of economics and explanations in natural sciences. (shrink)

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)

The article revisits the old controversy concerning the relation of the mother's brother and sister's son in patrilineal societies in the light both of anthropological criticisms of the very notion of kinship and of evolutionary and epidemiological approaches to culture. It argues that the ritualized patterns of behavior that had been discussed by Radcliffe-Brown, Goody and others are to be explained in terms of the interaction of a variety of factors, some local and historical, others pertaining to general human dispositions. (...) In particular, an evolved disposition to favor relatives can contribute to the development and stabilization of these behaviors, not by directly generating them, but by making them particularly "catchy" and resilient. In this way, it is possible to recognize both that cultural representations and practices are specific to a community at a time in its history (rather than mere tokens of a general type), and that they are, in essential respects, grounded in the common evolved psychology of human beings. (shrink)

This comprehensive encyclopedia entry discusses the life and works of Jane Addams (1860-1935) who influenced contemporaries John Dewey, William James, and George Herbert Mead. Although not traditionally categorized as a philosopher, Addams was a prolific writer who developed a social philosophy of attentiveness and sympathetic knowledge that prefigures contemporary feminist care ethics.

He focuses on Hegel and Nietzche, perhaps to give Mallarme and Kafka a breathing spell. Paper edition (unseen), $10.95. No index or bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Originally published in 1964. In four essays, Professor Mandelbaum challenges some of the most common assumptions of contemporary epistemology. Through historical analyses and critical argument, he attempts to show that one cannot successfully sever the connections between philosophic and scientific accounts of sense perception. While each essay is independent of the others, and the argument of each must therefore be judged on its own merits, one theme is common to all: that critical realism, as Mandelbaum calls it, is a viable (...) epistemological position, even though some schools of thought hold it in low esteem. (shrink)

Traces the life of the renowned Jewish religious philosopher, discussing his youth, his education in turn-of-the-century Vienna, his Zionism, and the impact of world politics on his life and thought.

Featuring essays originally published in La Nouvelle Revue Française, this collection clearly demonstrates why Maurice Blanchot was a key figure in exploring the relation between literature and philosophy.

This article shows buber's dialogue with taoism, Hinduism, And buddhism, How they influenced him, And how this dialogue entered into the progressive stages of his thought. Neither hinduism nor buddhism remains a central part of buber's later thought as do taoism, Hasidism, And zen, But they do play an important part in his early developmental thinking. When he reached his mature philosophy of dialogue, He transcended his early partiality for non-Dualistic vedanta. But taoism, And especially wu-Wei, Action of the whole (...) being, Remained central to the i-Thou relationship, As did buber's affinity for the other "mysticisms of the particular," zen buddhism and hasidism. (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)

Au cours des dernières décennies, d'importants philosophes tels Walter B. Gallie, Arthur Danto, Louis Mink, Hayden White et Paul Ricoeur ont mis l'accent sur le rôle de la narration en histoire. Le présent texte rappelle les thèses de ces auteurs et porte ensuite une attention particulière aux travaux de David Carr voulant que l'action historique elle-même ait une structure narrative. L'article discute des conséquences de ce « narrativisme » en prenant parti dans un débat alimenté par des interventions comme celles (...) de William Dray et de Noël Carroll. Il soutient qu'une thèse «réaliste» en la matière risque de déboucher sur la réactualisation d'une forme de philosophie spéculative de l'histoire, ce qui ne va pas sans soulever quelques questions à propos de l'analyse politique et de la pratique de l'histoire. (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)

There is a general consensus among economists that the notion of rationality plays a central role in microeconomics. It is important to note, however, that they are far from agreement on the meaning of this notion. It would be difficult to lay out a set of welldefined concepts of rationality, but it might be useful to distinguish three quite different approaches around which economists tend to situate themselves when characterising this notion. I prefer to refer to three "approaches" rather than (...) to three concepts, as I did in the title of the paper, because the concepts of rationality which correspond to these approaches cannot be isolated easily. Indeed, their unsettled definitions often overlap, and even when they purport to be related to opposing approaches, they are more or less interrelated. In any case, I propose to refer to these three approaches as "rationality-purposefulness", "rationality-efficiency", and "rationality-consistency". According to rationalitypurposefulness, an action is rational if and only if it is oriented towards the satisfaction of the agent's purpose, as most Austrian economists would tend to say. According to rationality-efficiency, an action is rational if and only if it actually maximises a positively valued magnitude such as utility or profit, as many neoclassical economists would say, especially when adopting a traditional approach. By contrast, rationality-consistency states that choices are rational if and only if it they are consistent as a set, which implies in particular that they are transitive. (shrink)

There is no doubt that Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises can be considered as two of the most representative and influential members of the Austrian school of economics. However, given the fact that this school is well known for being a methodological school, it might be surprizing to note how far these two prominent economists apparently stand on methodological questions. While Menger frequently insisted that "no essential differences between the ethical and the natural sciences exists, but at most only (...) one of degree"1, Mises emphasizes the alleged gulf between social and natural sciences to the point of adopting what he called a "methodological dualism". As a consequence of this dualism, Mises did not hesitate when it comes to the analysis of human action to refer to laws "derived a priori" that "permit of no exception" because they belong to "an aprioristic and universally valid theory" 2. Such an uncompromising apriorism was so contrary to the empiricist mood of.. (shrink)

Nul penseur, fût-il le plus étranger à la problématique propre de l'histoire, ne peut, bien entendu, s'empêcher de laisser entrevoir, çà et là au long de son œuvre, sa façon de comprendre celle-ci. Aussi est-ce avec beaucoup de prudence qu'il faut parler de «la philosophie de l'histoire» d'un auteur. Réservons pour la fin de cet article la question de savoir si la philosophie de Merleau-Ponty mérite ce titre et contentons-nous pour l'instant de dégager l'ensemble de réflexions que notre auteur présente (...) comme une philosophie de l'histoire. Puisque Merleau-Ponty n'a jamais consacré une œuvre aux problémes de l'Histoire, on pourrait d'ailleurs être tenté de considérer ses réflexions sur la question comme des passages épisodiques qui trahissent seulement son profond intérét pour la situation politique où il s'est trouvé engagé. Il nous faudra donc montrer qu'on peut effectivement parler d'un «ensemble de réflexions» qui, pour ne pas avoir été jeté dans une œuvre particulière, doit se lire en filigrane tout au long des travaux du philosophe. C'est cette lecture en somme que le présent article veut suggérer. (shrink)

While it is well known that Carl Menger and Stanley Jevons adopted very different views on the role of mathematics in economics1, it is usually admitted that their respective views on the theory of value were relatively close. Indeed, both strongly objected to the classical theory of value which is based on objective costs of production, whether these be labour or capital costs. Moreover, each elaborated, roughly at the same time, an alternative economic theory based on a comparison between the (...) various degrees to which needs are fulfilled thanks to goods whose effect tends progressively to diminish with the fulfilment of these needs. Furthermore, each managed to ground a theory of economic exchange on the fact that people are rational enough to choose which of two goods will provide them with the greatest benefit. In the face of such similarities, it is tempting to conclude that, while using very different terminologies, these two economists developed quite similar analyses whose key element is a subjective theory of value which was opposed to the objective theory of the classical economists. It is true that specialists of Austrian economics have often underscored the originality of Menger's position and its differences with those of the two other fathers of the so-called marginalist revolution, but while they have seriously questioned the.. (shrink)

Ronald Coase is usually considered anything but a methodologist. Thus, it is not surprising that, in the introduction to "How Should Economists Choose?", which is the only paper Coase wrote on a methodological topic, he readily confessed his relative ignorance of philosophy of science, candidly observing that "Words like epistemology do not come tripping from my tongue" (HSEC, 6). However, given the importance of this Nobel Prize winner's contribution to the renewal of theoretical thinking in economics, everyone should admit that (...) his infrequent reflections on methodology, however crude they might look to methodologists, undoubtedly merit close consideration. Whatever methodological clarification these reflections might procure, it is surely worthwhile briefly to analyze them, with the hope of understanding a little better some dimensions of Ronald Coase's way of thinking and, more specifically, of emphasizing some implications of the close relationship between his methodological views and his radical conception of the market. With this in mind, I will first illustrate how far these methodological views seem, at first glance, to be dominated by a fundamental commitment to a straightforward realism; I will then show that they are instead subordinated, in a more complex way, to what I have just called Coase's radical conception of the market and, in conclusion, I will point out some questions raised by this situation. (shrink)

... A Contemporary History of African Philosophy, Owerri: Amamihe Publications, 1999. PARRINDER, GEOFFREY, African Traditional Religion, London: Sheldon, ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:242 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Thus Locke's mistake is not the simplistic one of bringing in a new type of perception --perception of the agreement of an idea with something which is not an idea. He attributes the certainty which is appropriate for a general verbal truth concerning archetypal ideas to a real truth concerning ectypal ideas. There is an additional difficulty in Locke's use of the distinction between adequate (...) and inadequate ectypal ideas when he uses them in his theory of self knowledge. How can we be sure that these simple ectypal ideas are adequate? We have certainty concerning the adequacy of our archetypal ideas because we have a complete knowledge of the archetype which is itself an idea. However, we are not given a complete knowledge of the archetype of simple ectypal ideas. We are assured of the adequacy of simple ectypal ideas only by assuming the truth of the causal principle. This leads to a circular argument. We can be assured of the adequacy of the causal relation considered as a product of our own construction. If the idea of the causal relation is archetypal, then the idea of this relation is adequate. However, when the causal relation is used to assure us of the adequacy of our simple ectypal ideas, the causal relation is no longer restricted to the level of archetypal ideas. In order to insure the adequacy of our simple ideas, the causal relation must be a relation between our ectypal ideas and something which is not an idea, viz., the power which causes the sensation. Archetypal ideas of relations are adequate, but this is not an archetypal idea of a relation, and thus we have no way of judging its adequacy. The only way to determine the adequacy of the causal connection is to show the adequacy of our simple ectypal ideas, but the adequacy of these simple ectypal ideas is itself predicated on the adequacy of the idea of the causal relation. Thus, the whole argument for the adequacy of simple ectypal ideas is circular. Either the real and nominal essences of simple ideas are identical as claimed in Book Three, or the real and nominal essences of simple ideas are not identical, as claimed in Book Two. If the real and nominal essences of simple ideas are identical, then these simple ideas are archetypal and adequate but they afford us no knowledge about any extra-mental thing. If the real and nominal essences of simple ideas are not identical then simple ideas are ectypal, but we cannot be assured of their adequacy because their adequacy is dependent on the causal relation whose adequacy is not assured. Thus, Locke's epistemology does not support his claim for intuitive knowledge of his own existence, but the mistakes he does make are not nearly as simplistic as they are often claimed to be. DONALD W. GOTTERBARN University of Southern California THE DISTINGUISHABLE AND THE SEPARABLE; A NOTE ON HUME AND CAUSATION In this note, I shall be concemed with only one part of Hume's doctrine of causation, and my criticism of this feature of his position will leave much of the remainder untouched. This is not to say that my point is unimportant, for I shall challenge Hume's fight to claim that there cannot in any case be a direct impression of connection, force, or power. He attempted to establish this claim by argument, and I wish to show that there is a fatal flaw in that argument. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 243 In order that what follows shall not be misunderstood, two points must be noted. First, I would not claim that we have an impression of connection, force, or power in all cases in which we hold that events are related as cause and effect. There are many instances in which this is not true, and the number and even the varieties of these cases could be greatly expanded beyond the illustrations which Hume gave in the Treatise and the Enquiry Concerning the Human Understanding. I shall only argue that he did not offer adequate reasons for holding that there are no eases in which we can possibly have such... (shrink)

This book presents three of Blondel's important turn of the century articles. These are The Idealist Illusion, The Elementary Principle of a Logic of the Moral Life and in two parts, The Starting Point of Philosophy. These essays uncover a certain pragmatism in Blondel's thought while Fiachra Long's introduction argues that Blondel veered away from idealism and towards a logic of the concrete life which allied him closely if unwittingly with the Scottish common sense school of Thomas Reid.

Anthropologists customarily use the term ‘tribe’ to designate two realms of different yet connected facts. On the one hand, nearly all of them make use of it to distinguish one type of society among many, one specific mode of social organization which they compare to others—’bands,’ ‘States,’ etc. There is, however, a lack of unanimity on this point, an outcome of the imprecision, the haziness of the criteria selected to define and to isolate these various types of society. But the (...) discord is deeper yet with respect to the second use of the term ‘tribe,’ when it is used to designate a stage in the evolution of human society. (shrink)

Michael Holland presents an early and little-known article by Maurice Blanchot, whose subject is the memorial concert in honour of Claude Debussy which took place in Paris in June 1932, following the unveiling of a monument to the composer earlier in the day. Blanchot provides a detailed account of the concert, emphasising the international co-operation that lay behind the expression of national pride, and arguing, against the grain of contemporary opinion, that the pure art of music transcends any notion (...) of national genius. (shrink)