There seem to be topics on which people can disagree without fault. For example, you and I might disagree on whether Picasso was a better artist than Matisse, without either of us being at fault. Is this a genuine possibility or just apparent? In this paper I pursue two aims: I want to provide a systematic map of available responses to this question. Simultaneously, I want to assess these responses. I start by introducing and defining the notion of a faultless (...) disagreement. Then I present a simple argument to the conclusion that faultless disagreement is not possible. Those who accept the argument have to explain away apparent cases of faultless disagreement. Those who want to maintain the possibility of faultless disagreement must deny one of the argument's premisses. The position I want to promote belongs to the latter category and is a form of genuine relativism. (shrink)

In this text, a variety of modal logics at the sentential, first-order, and second-order levels are developed with clarity, precision and philosophical insight.

Whether computational algorithms such as latent semantic analysis (LSA) can both extract meaning from language and advance theories of human cognition has become a topic of debate in cognitive science, whereby accounts of symbolic cognition and embodied cognition are often contrasted. Albeit for different reasons, in both accounts the importance of statistical regularities in linguistic surface structure tends to be underestimated. The current article gives an overview of the symbolic and embodied cognition accounts and shows how meaning induction attributed to (...) a specific statistical process or to activation of embodied representations should be attributed to language itself. Specifically, the performance of LSA can be attributed to the linguistic surface structure, more than special characteristics of the algorithm, and embodiment findings attributed to perceptual simulations can be explained by distributional linguistic information. (shrink)

Previous studies have shown that object properties are processed faster when they follow properties from the same perceptual modality than properties from different modalities. These findings suggest that language activates sensorimotor processes, which, according to those studies, can only be explained by a modal account of cognition. The current paper shows how a statistical linguistic approach of word co-occurrences can also reliably predict the category of perceptual modality a word belongs to (auditory, olfactory–gustatory, visual–haptic), even though the statistical linguistic approach (...) is less precise than the modal approach (auditory, gustatory, haptic, olfactory, visual). Moreover, the statistical linguistic approach is compared with the modal embodied approach in an experiment in which participants verify properties that share or shift modalities. Response times suggest that fast responses can best be explained by the linguistic account, whereas slower responses can best be explained by the embodied account. These results provide further evidence for the theory that conceptual processing is both linguistic and embodied, whereby less precise linguistic processes precede precise simulation processes. (shrink)

Two eye-tracking experiments investigated how and when pointing gestures and location descriptions affect target identification. The experiments investigated the effect of gestures and referring expressions on the time course of fixations to the target, using videos of human gestures and human voice, and animated gestures and synthesized speech. Ambiguous, yet informative pointing gestures elicited attention and facilitated target identification, akin to verbal location descriptions. Moreover, target identification was superior when both pointing gestures and verbal location descriptions were used. These findings (...) suggest that gesture not only operates as a context to verbal descriptions, or that verbal descriptions operate as a context to gesture, but that they complement one another in reference resolution. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Philosophisches Wörterbuch" verfügbar.

“The composition of the lectures of which Aristotle's extant works are the notes probably belongs in the main to the twelve or thirteen years of tail headship of the Lyceum, and the thought and research implied, even if we suppose that some of the spadework was done for him by pupils, implies an energy of mind which is perhaps unparalleled. During this time Aristotle fixed the main outlines of the classification of the sciences in the form which they still retain, (...) and carried most of the sciences to a further point than they had hitherto reached; in some of them, such as logic, he may fairly claim to have had no predecessor, and for centuries no worthy successor…one of the greatest of analytic thinkers. “SIR W. DAVID ROSS, Aristotle. (shrink)

"Intentional behaviorism" is Gordon Foxall's name for his proposal to mix the oil of mentalist language with the water of empiricist behaviorism. The trouble is, oil and water don't mix. To remain scientific, the language of behavioral science must remain non-mental. Folk psychological ascriptions of belief and desire do not explain the patterns of behavior identified by behavior analysis; they merely describe these patterns in less scientific language. The underpinnings of these patterns, if not intentionality, must be sought in physiology, (...) particularly neurophysiology. Intentionality is an aspect of language, not the world. If we find it in the world, it is because we have put it there. (shrink)

Engaging with Kant’s transcendental logic seems to be a question of mere scholarly historical interest today. It is most commonly regarded a mixture between logic and psychology or epistemology, and by that, not a serious form of logic. Transcendental logic seems to be of no systematical impact on the concept of logic. My paper aims to disclose a different account on the endeavour of Kant’s transcendental logic in particular and of the “Critique of Pure Reason” (CPR) in general. Kant’s fundamental (...) question is in a revolutionary way aiming to ground the character of necessity of knowledge, which means to justify the claim that thinking in accordance with the forms and principles of formal logic does not lead to sheer tautologies or an unsolved contradiction, but to knowledge that is objectively valid. In a first part, I shall demonstrate the necessity and the significance of this new fundamental question of the CPR with respect to its genesis out of pre-Kantian metaphysics. A brief outline of Kant’s answer to this question, with special emphasis on his revolutionary new comprehension of logical form, will be given as well. A second part shall open up a perspective that lies beyond Kant’s standpoint with reference to Nietzsche and eventually to Hegel. I will answer the question: What knowledge do we achieve about being or actuality by means of formal logic? I will argue that Kant shows that formal logic is the logic of all technical-practical conduct but also, at least indirectly, the limitation of the technical-practical knowledge and its legitimate sphere of application. (shrink)

This paper argues that within consciousness studies, dualist vs. reductionist debates typically characterise experience in ways which do not correspond to ordinary experience, and that to understand consciousness one must start with an accurate description of its phenomenology. Only then can one develop an understanding of how experiences viewed from a first-person perspective relate to events in the brain viewed from a third-person perspective. The paper then lists some common arguments for conscious experiences (accurately described) being nothing more than brain (...) states along with their fallacies. It concludes that there are fundamental problems with ontological reductionism of conscious experiences to brain states that cannot be resolved. (shrink)

Nor does the converse relation hold. Freedom does not insure facility, as the following case shows. Jones is free, any time he wishes, to press five hundred pounds. There is no law against it and nobody will object if he makes the attempt. Nevertheless, Jones, who weighs only a hundred pounds himself, is unable to lift fifty pounds, much less five hundred, and must fail if he tries. Again, the distinction is that between "may" and "can." Jones may lift five (...) hundred pounds; he can't. He has the prerogative but not the power; he has the right but not the strength. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological CategoryMax RosenkrantzThomas Dixon. From Passions to Emotions: The Creation of a Secular Psychological Category. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. x + 287. Cloth, $60.00Thomas Dixon's From Passions to Emotions defends a provocative set of theses. (1) The concept of "emotion" is of relatively recent vintage, having been designed by secular Scottish writers in the first half (...) of the nineteenth century. (2) That concept embraces a range of phenomena that earlier Christian writers such as Augustine and Aquinas understood in terms of a manifold of concepts such as "appetites," "passions," "affections," and "sentiments." (3) The concept of "emotion" is too crude an instrument for understanding human psychology. Further, (4) today the secular conceptual framework has completely displaced the religious one. This has nothing to do with the former's greater proximity to the truth, as is shown by the persistence of cogent Christian theories in the second half of the nineteenth century, the period of secularism's triumph; and (5) The opposition between reason and emotion arises only when theorists begin to think of "emotions" rather than "appetites," "passions," "affections," and "sentiments." Christian writers did not see the passions as simply the enemies of reason.The basis for Dixon's argument is his interpretation of nineteenth-century psychological theory in the English speaking world. Specifically he argues that the concept of "emotion" was invented by the Scottish thinker Thomas Brown (1778-1820). Brown's innovation was then appropriated and developed by Spencer, Darwin, and William James. The foil for this story is the Christian tradition represented most compellingly by Augustine and Aquinas and carried on by a host of lesser nineteenth-century figures. In my judgment, the story thus told cannot bear the weight Dixon places upon it.The centerpiece of Dixon's argument is his claim that Brown "invents" (109) the emotions and thereby initiates a conceptual revolution in western thought. While Dixon may be right in asserting that Brown is the first to use the word 'emotion' in a systematic fashion, this achievement is merely terminological. Brown deploys the term to develop a mechanistic account of human nature, one in which the springs of action are located not in the will and reason, but in the emotions. Replace 'emotion' in the preceding sentence with 'passion' and one gets a concise characterization of Hobbes's view. Dixon is aware that Brown and others work within a Hobbesian framework (250) but does not attend to that framework. Thus his claims for the significance of the developments he describes fail to convince. The real innovation in psychological theory—as in so much else—took place in the seventeenth century.Just as Dixon overestimates the importance and originality of the Scottish writers he discusses, so too he overestimates the intellectual importance of Augustine and Aquinas. His presentation of their views (26-62) is accurate, but he does not note that they take over the Platonic-Aristotelian view of the soul according to which reason can and should penetrate, educate and direct the passions. Thus the guiding thought that structures the work—the nineteenth century witnesses an ultimately successful revolt against Christian psychology—must be rejected. The revolt is against ancient, pre-Christian modes of thought and is undertaken and largely won in the seventeenth century. The events Dixon describes are skirmishes in that larger campaign.The rest of the theses Dixon defends can be dispatched with more quickly. The idea that the modern concept of "emotion" is insufficiently subtle is averted to frequently, but never adequately defended. At no point does Dixon demonstrate, or even claim to demonstrate, that Christian thinkers recognized something secular thinkers miss. Roughly the same can be said for his claims about the persistence of Christian psychology in the nineteenth century. What Dixon means is not just that such thinkers exist, but that their thought remains vibrant. Again I see no argument for such a verdict. Finally, there is the matter of the opposition between reason and passion. To his credit Dixon rejects the view according to which almost all Western thought is hostile to the passions. As he shows, this... (shrink)

The general context of this writing is that of finding exits both from dualism and from reductive physicalism. Dualism—the attitude of seeing and taking things according to a fixed absolute distinction, with mind as invisible, conscious ‘containing’ the thought, feeling and sensation ‘hidden’ by body. Reductive physicalism—the attempt to grasp and be satisfied with body as left over by dualism's rape of its mentality, dualism's refusal to recognize the distinctiveness of point of view, as requiring a bodily mentality. Physicalism finally (...) supplants an ‘inner life’ within the bodily vacancy after all, as in traditional dualist image, but now understands that ‘inner’, ‘conscious’ life in the terms pertaining to processes in the brain, rather than as deeds, passions, thoughts, reasoning as within the general ‘imaginary’ of our several minds. (shrink)

We develop a set-theoretic semantics for Cocchiarella's second-order logical system . Such a semantics is a modification of the nonstandard sort of second-order semantics described, firstly, by Simms and later extended by Cocchiarella. We formulate a new second order logical system and prove its relative consistency. We call such a system and construct its set-theoretic semantics. Finally, we prove completeness theorems for proper normal extensions of the two systems with respect to certain notions of validity provided by the semantics.

This review of Martin Matuštík’s Jürgen Habermas: A Philosophical-Political Profile questions whether Matuštík’s description of theexistentialist dimensions of Habermas’s political theory is adequate to the internal differentiation of Habermas’s conception of a substantive ethical life. In doing so, it questions whether Habermas’ own theory adequately distinguishes between first-person singular and first-person plural ethical discourse. The review closes with a reflection on ethical self-reflection and the collective past, a theme that Matuštík’s book discusses under the theme of “anamnestic solidarity.”.

À l'encontre de la conception classique qui fait de l'idée d'infini l'expression de la perfection de Dieu inscrite en l'homme, Diderot propose une conception de l'infini qui rapporte immédiatement celui-ci à sa production corporelle. Soustrayant ainsi l'infini au divin, la pensée du corps sensible révoque jusqu'en ses fondements la conceptualité classique qui, par la notion d'ordre, liait l'épistémologie au théologique. Le désordre s'en trouve réévalué jusqu'en ses formes pathologiques et gagne ainsi une valeur créatrice immanente et fondamentale.