Name der Zeitschrift: Nietzsche-Studien Jahrgang: 45 Heft: 1 Seiten: 33-55.

Resumo Tendo esclarecido a concepção nietzschiana de psicologia, este artigo persegue um duplo objetivo: de um lado, investigar a análise psicológica dos fenômenos da décadence e, de outro, elucidar o que significa a expressão “fórmula da décadence” nos textos de 1888.Having clarified the Nietzschean conception of psychology, this article pursues a double objective: on the one hand, to investigate the psychological analysis of the phenomena of décadence and, on the other, to elucidate what the expression “formula of décadence” means in (...) the texts of 1888. (shrink)

El propósito de este artículo, consiste en investigar el estrecho vínculo entre reflexión filosófica y vivencia en la obra nietzscheana de la madurez. A partir del examen de la crítica a la noción del sujeto, tal como aparece en la modernidad, se muestra que Nietzsche subvierte radicalmente la concepción de autobiografía intelectual y, por tanto, la idea de autoría.

Trata-se de apresentar ao público brasileiro o trabalho de Jörg Salaquarda, tomando como ilustração seu artigo "Zaratustra e o asno”. Através do exame desse texto, conta-se aquilatar o alcance de sua interpretação da filosofia nietzschiana.

It is common in the literature on classical electrodynamics and relativity theory that the transformation rules for the basic electrodynamical quantities are derived from the pre-assumption that the equations of electrodynamics are covariant against these---unknown---transformation rules. There are several problems to be raised concerning these derivations. This is, however, not our main concern in this paper. Even if these derivations were completely correct, they leave open the following fundamental question: Are the so-obtained transformation rules indeed identical with the true transformation (...) rules of the fundamental electrodynamical quantities? In other words, is it indeed the case that the values calculated from the quantities in one inertial frame by means of the transformation rules we derived are equal to the values of the same quantities obtained by the same operations with the same measuring equipments when they are co-moving with the other inertial frame? This is of course an empirical question. In this paper, we will investigate the problem in a purely theoretical framework by applying what J. S. Bell calls “Lorentzian pedagogy”---according to which the laws of physics in any one reference frame account for all physical phenomena. We will show that the transformation rules of the electrodynamical quantities are indeed identical with the ones obtained by presuming the covariance of the equations of electrodynamics, and that the covariance is indeed satisfied. Beforehand, however, we need to clarify the operational definitions of the fundamental electrodynamical quantities. As we will see, these semantic issues are not as trivial as one might think. (shrink)

Political Constructivism is concerned with the justification of principles of political justice in the face of pluralism. Contemporary accounts of multiculturalism, pluralism and diversity have challenged the capacity of political theory to impartially justify principles of justice beyond the boundaries of particular communities. In this original account, Peri Roberts argues that political constructivism defends a conception of objective and universal principles that set normative limits to justifiable political practice. _Political Constructivism_ explores this understanding in two ways. Firstly, by engaging with (...) constructivist thinkers such as John Rawls and Onora O’Neill in order to lay out a basic understanding of what constructivism is. Secondly, the author goes on to defend a particular account of political constructivism that justifies a universal primary constructivism alongside the many secondary constructions in which we live our everyday lives. In doing so he outlines an understanding of principled pluralism which accepts diversity whilst at the same time recognising its limits. This volume will be of particular interest to students and researchers of political theory and political philosophy. (shrink)

This study considers the role of different cognitive units in sound change: phonemes, contextual variants and words. We examine /u/-fronting and /j/-dropping in data from three generations of Derby English speakers. We analyze dynamic formant data and auditory judgments, using mixed effects regression methods, including generalized additive mixed models (GAMMs). /u/-fronting is reaching its end-point, showing complex conditioning by context and a frequency effect that weakens over time. /j/-dropping is declining, with low-frequency words showing more innovative variants with /j/ than (...) high-frequency words. The two processes interact: words with variable /j/-dropping (new) exhibit more fronting than words that never have /j/ (noodle) even when the /j/ is deleted. These results support models of change that rely on phonetically detailed representations for both word- and sound-level cognitive units. (shrink)

In this paper I give an overview of the recent developments in the phenomenalism – intentionalism debate and try to show that the proposed solutions of neither sides are satisfying. The claims and arguments of the two parties are rather vague and attribute to intentional and phenomenal properties either a too weak or a too strong relationship: too weak in the sense that they establish only mere coexistence, or too strong in the sense that they attribute some a priori conceptual (...) connection to intentional and phenomenal properties. I also compare these theories to other theories developed for solving the mind–body problem and argue that these former are much less elaborated. In the end of the paper I try to explain that all of this is not just a contingent feature of the topic, but has deep conceptual roots: intentionality and phenomenal consciousness are two quite distinct concepts on two quite distinct levels. (shrink)

This book presents the psychological basis, methodology, and application of Marton's phenomenographic approach to the theory of learning.

According to the standard realistic interpretation of classical electrodynamics, the electromagnetic field is conceived as a real physical entity existing in space and time. The problem we address in this paper is how to understand this spatiotemporal existence, that is, how to describe the persistence of a field-like physical entity like electromagnetic field. First, we provide a formal description of the notion of persistence: we derive an “equation of persistence” constituting a necessary condition that the spatiotemporal distributions of the fundamental (...) attributes of a persisting physical entity must satisfy. We then prove a theorem according to which the vast majority of the solutions of Maxwell’s equations, describing possible spatiotemporal distributions of the fundamental attributes of the electromagnetic field, violate the equation of persistence. Finally, we discuss the consequences of this result for the ontology of the electromagnetic field. (shrink)

Contemporary debate over laws of nature centers around Humean supervenience, the thesis that everything supervenes on the distribution of non-nomic facts. The key ingredient of this thesis is the idea that nomic-like concepts—law, chance, causation, etc.—are expressible in terms of the regularities of non-nomic facts. Inherent to this idea is the tacit conviction that regularities, “constant conjunctions” of non-nomic facts do supervene on the distribution of non-nomic facts. This paper raises a challenge for this conviction. It will be pointed out (...) that the notion of regularity, understood as statistical correlation, has a necessary conceptual component not clearly identified before—I shall call this the “conjunctive relation” of the correlated events. On the other hand, it will be argued that there exists no unambiguous, non-circular way in which this relation could be determined. In this regard, the notion of correlation is similar to that of distant simultaneity where the necessary conceptual component is the one-way speed of light, whose value doesn’t seem to be determined by matters of facts. (shrink)

While there is a longstanding discussion about the interpretation of the extended, general principle of relativity, there seems to be a consensus that the special principle of relativity is absolutely clear and unproblematic. However, a closer look at the literature on relativistic physics reveals a more confusing picture. There is a huge variety of, sometimes metaphoric, formulations of the relativity principle, and there are different, sometimes controversial, views on its actual content. The aim of this paper is to develop a (...) precise language in order to provide a precise formulation of the principle. In view of the fact that the special relativity principle is considered as a universal meta-law, which must be valid for all physical laws in all situations, we try to keep the formalism as general as possible. The benefit of the formal reconstruction is that it makes explicit all the necessary conceptual components of the principle; it brings out many subtle details and the related conceptual problems. (shrink)

Helmuth Plessner’s philosophical anthropology is framed by a comprehensive theory of living nature. Central to this philosophical biology is the claim that animals lack self-consciousness but their awareness of their surroundings is nevertheless anchored in a self. Since Plessner does not explain how this unselfconscious self is manifest to the animal, the warrant for his claim remains unclear. Following Plessner’s construal of human existence as a radically transformed variant of animal life, I argue that he leaves animals’ selfhood unaccounted for (...) because he overlooks the animal precursor of the feeling of pleasure and displeasure, which affords a pre-reflective self-awareness. I fill this lacuna by drawing on Kant’s and Plessner’s theories of human feelings, Hans Jonas’s conception of animal emotion,and recent arguments that make evaluative affects fundamental to animal consciousness. Revised along these lines, Plessner’s framework allows us to specify how animal affectivity is transformed in self-conscious human life. (shrink)

We consider decompositions of the real line into pairwise disjoint Borel pieces so that each piece is closed under addition. How many pieces can there be? We prove among others that the number of pieces is either at most 3 or uncountable, and we show that it is undecidable in and even in the theory if the number of pieces can be uncountable but less than the continuum. We also investigate various versions: what happens if we drop the Borelness requirement, (...) if we replace addition by multiplication, if the pieces are subgroups, if we partition (0, ∞), and so on. (shrink)

This paper is a further consideration of Hemmo and Shenker’s ideas about the proper conceptual characterization of macrostates in statistical mechanics. We provide two formulations of how macrostates come about as elements of certain partitions of the system’s phase space imposed on by the interaction between the system and an observer, and we show that these two formulations are mathematically equivalent. We also reflect on conceptual issues regarding the relationship of macrostates to distinguishability, thermodynamic regularity, observer dependence, and the general (...) phenomenon of measurement. (shrink)

Our paper consists of three parts. In the first part we explain the concept of mental fictionalism. In the second part, we present the various versions of fictionalism and their main sources of motivation.We do this because in the third part we argue that mental fictionalism, as opposed to other versions of fictionalism, is a highly undermotivated theory.

While Schelling’s anticipation of Freudian psychoanalysis is well established, it has thus far gone unnoticed that Schelling’s ideas also proved fruitful in the context of a distinctively philosophical theory of the psyche developed by a younger contemporary of Freud. During the 1920s Helmuth Plessner, a key figure of philosophical anthropology, outlined a complex conception of the psyche as an individualized, inner region of reality. Although Plessner did not present his philosophical psychology in a systematic form, its building blocks can be (...) found in _The Unity of the Senses_, _The Limits of Community_, and _Levels of Organic Life and the Human_, among other writings. Moreover, Plessner left a clue as to how these building blocks fit together, which suggests that Plessner viewed his philosophical psychology as structurally analogous to the model of personality outlined in Schelling’s 1809 treatise on human freedom. I propose that Plessner sought to formulate an alternative to both idealism and realism about the psyche that might reconcile the insights motivating these rival positions. Schelling provided Plessner with a workable model for such a reconciliation. After reviewing textual evidence for my hypothesis, I sketch Schelling’s predecessor theory. Based on the Schellingian template, I then reconstruct Plessner’s non-reductively naturalistic theory of the psyche, which aligns the real bodily ground of the psyche with its ideal existence. Highlighting the strengths of Plessner’s philosophical psychology against the foil of Paul Ricoeur’s and John McDowell’s relevant arguments, I argue that the theory reconstructed here deserves contemporary consideration as a plausible contender. (shrink)

Como propiciar um estado permanente de criação filosófica no ensino da Filosofia entre os estudantes do Ensino Superior? Eis o objetivo deste artigo. Essa questão está previamente acompanhada por dois argumentos: um deles relativo ao fato de que o ensino prevê uma atitude de abertura, disposição e curiosidade, condições essas indispensáveis à aprendizagem. O segundo, decorrente do primeiro, é que o ensino de Filosofia está intimamente vinculado à natureza própria da Filosofia que, distante da busca pela verdade como afirmação ou (...) detenção de um saber, resulta da experiência de alguém que é perguntado pela verdade, em certa atitude que se expressa no “cuidado de si mesmo” conduzindo a uma transformação, como vem apresentado por Michel Foucault em sua obra “A Hermenêutica do Sujeito”. Argumentaremos que o filosofar pode ser intensificado pela arte e, nesse aspecto, iremos estabelecer relações entre experiência filosófica e música como paisagem sonora. Essa conexão estimula entre os alunos a construção de realidades materiais e imateriais – paisagens – de modo que habitem seu universo de memórias afetivas, intelectuais, poéticas, musicais e filosóficas. Em sintonia com essa forma de pensar, será apresentado o conceito de pensamento-sentimento desenvolvido pela filósofa portuguesa Paula Cristina Pereira, que exibe grande fecundidade na direção do acesso às matrizes fundantes de nossa condição antropológica existencial. Nesse diálogo entre filosofia e música, escuta musical e experiência filosófica suscitam-se possibilidades para um ensino de filosofia habitado pelo sensível e pelos sentidos da vida em tempos tão difíceis como na atualidade, porque extremamente fugazes, dispersos, “líquidos” e carentes de densidade e dignidade humana. Palavras-chave: Ensino de Filosofia. Filosofia e Educação. Arte e Filosofia. Paisagem Sonora. Pensamento-Sentimento. (shrink)

In recent years, the attention of scholars to the figure and work of Iamblichus has increased, while the emphasis is on his thought in the history of the Platonic school. However, a major work still remains to be studied: the De Anima. Preserved only in fragments in the anthology of Stobaeus, it proves to be of crucial importance for the understanding of the development of Platonism at the end of antiquity.

Esta obra trata da recepção do pensamento de Nietzsche na Itália, marcada por vários pontos de inflexão. Ligada, de início, ao nome de Gabriele D'Annunzio, a fortuna de sua obra toma outra direção com Benedetto Croce, para ser uma vez mais redirecionada com Giovanni Gentile. Os socialistas, porém, para ela abrem um novo caminho, que os fascistas se empenham rapidamente em desviar. Na cena acadêmica, a partir do final dos anos 1920, trabalhos vêm operar uma reviravolta na abordagem do pensamento (...) nietzschiano, abordagem essa que, na década de 1960, será outra vez revista com a interpretação heideggeriana. Ponto de inflexão maior, porém, constitui a edição crítica das obras completas do filósofo e a fundação dos Nietzsche-Studien. (shrink)

A Moderate Anti-realist approach to truth and meaning, built around the concept of knowability, will be introduced and argued for in this essay. Our starting point will be the two fundamental anti-realists principles that claim that neither truth nor meaning can outstrip knowability and our focus will be on the challenge of adequately formalizing these principles and incorporating them into a formal theory. Accordingly, the author will introduce a MAR truth operator that is built on a distinction between being true (...) and being factual. He will show then that this approach partitions propositions into eight classes, on the basis of their knowability. We will then ask the following question: Given the anti-realist principles, what kind of theory of propositional meaning can properly explain the meaninglessness of fully unknowable propositions? This question will lead us to the claim that the meaning/content of propositions should be identified not with the set of possible worlds in which the propositions are true/factual, but rather in which they are known. This modified approach will then be used to analyze both the Liar Paradox and the Strengthened Liar. To anticipate the conclusion of this essay, it will be shown that a MAR framework can render definite truth and factuality values to the Liar sentence and it will also confirm our intuition that such paradoxical sentences are devoid of proper meaning. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to show that the privacy of conscious experience is inconsistent with any kind of physicalism. That is, if you are a physicalist, then you have to deny that more than one subject cannot undergo the very same conscious experience. In the first part of the paper we define the concepts of privacy and physicalism. In the second part we delineate two thought experiments in which two subjects undergo the same kind of conscious experience in (...) such a way that all the physical processes responsible for their experiences are numerically the same. Based on the thought experiments and their interpretations we present our argument for the inconsistency of the privacy of experience with physicalism in the third part of the paper. In the final part we defend our argumentation against some objections. (shrink)

We consider a real-valued function f defined on the set of infinite branches X of a countably branching pruned tree T. The function f is said to be a limsup function if there is a function $u \colon T \to \mathbb {R}$ such that $f(x) = \limsup _{t \to \infty } u(x_{0},\dots,x_{t})$ for each $x \in X$. We study a game characterization of limsup functions, as well as a novel game characterization of functions of Baire class 1.

In this paper I challenge the widespread assumption that the conditions for singular reference are more or less the same as the conditions for singular thought. I claim that we refer singularly to things without thinking singularly about them more often than it is usually believed. I first argue that we should take the idea that singular thought is non-descriptive thought very seriously. If we do that, it seems that we cannot be so liberal about what counts as acquaintance; only (...) perception will do. I also briefly discuss and reject semantic instrumentalism. Finally, I argue that while singular reference is cheap, singular thought comes only at a price. (shrink)

A widespread view among physicists is that Bell’s theorem rests on an implicit assumption of “classicality,” in addition to locality. According to this understanding, the violation of Bell’s inequalities poses no challenge to locality, but simply reinforces the fact that quantum mechanics is not classical. The paper provides a critical analysis of this view. First we characterize the notion of classicality in probabilistic terms. We argue that classicality thus construed has nothing to do with the validity of classical physics, nor (...) of classical probability theory, contrary to what many believe. At the same time, we show that the probabilistic notion of classicality is not an additional premise of Bell’s theorem, but a mathematical corollary of locality in conjunction with the standard auxiliary assumptions of Bell. Accordingly, any theory that claims to get around the derivation of Bell’s inequalities by giving up classicality, in fact has to give up one of those standard assumptions. As an illustration of this, we look at two recent interpretations of quantum mechanics, Reinhard Werner’s operational quantum mechanics and Robert Griffiths’ consistent histories approach, that are claimed to be local and non-classical, and identify which of the standard assumptions of Bell’s theorem each of them is forced to give up. We claim that while in operational quantum mechanics the Common Cause Principle is violated, the consistent histories approach is conspiratorial. Finally, we relate these two options to the idea of realism, a notion that is also often identified as an implicit assumption of Bell’s theorem. (shrink)

It is common in the literature on classical electrodynamics and relativity theory that the transformation rules for the basic electrodynamical quantities are derived from the hypothesis that the relativity principle applies to Maxwell's electrodynamics. As it will turn out from our analysis, these derivations raise several problems, and certain steps are logically questionable. This is, however, not our main concern in this paper. Even if these derivations were completely correct, they leave open the following questions: Is the RP a true (...) law of nature for electrodynamical phenomena? Are, at least, the transformation rules of the fundamental electrodynamical quantities, derived from the RP, true? Is the RP consistent with the laws of ED in a single inertial frame of reference? Are, at least, the derived transformation rules consistent with the laws of ED in a single frame of reference? Obviously, and are empirical questions. In this paper, we will investigate problems and. Abstract First we will give a general mathematical formulation of the RP. In the second part, we will deal with the operational definitions of the fundamental electrodynamical quantities. As we will see, these semantic issues are not as trivial as one might think. In the third part of the paper, applying what J. S. Bell calls “Lorentzian pedagogy”---according to which the laws of physics in any one reference frame account for all physical phenomena---we will show that the transformation rules of the electrodynamical quantities are identical with the ones obtained by presuming the covariance of the equations of ED, and that the covariance is indeed satisfied. Abstract As to problem, the situation is much more complex. As we will see, the RP is actually not a matter of the covariance of the physical equations, but it is a matter of the details of the solutions of the equations, which describe the behavior of moving objects. This raises conceptual problems concerning the meaning of the notion “the same system in a collective motion”. In case of ED, there seems no satisfactory solution to this conceptual problem; thus, contrary to the widespread views, the question we asked in the title has no obvious answer. (shrink)