Das Buch präsentiert die erste seit längerer Zeit vorgelegte umfassende Studie in deutscher Sprache zum Politischen Denken der klassischen deutschen Literatur und Philosophie nach der Französischen Revolution, die das ganze politische Spektrum der Zeit auf Basis des neuesten Forschungsstandes vorstellt. Sie bietet damit auch einen Einstieg in das politische Denken der Moderne und den Ursprung der modernen politischen Bewegungen und Parteien.

Given the renewed interest in republicanism in political theory and the role Machiavelli plays in the republican tradition, this essay seeks to explore Machiavelli’s republicanism. As an interpretive startingpoint it claims Machiavelli to be a „classical republican“, a „Sattelzeitdenker“ between ancient republicanism and modern republicanism. While Machiavelli heavily relies on greek and roman republicanism, he at the same time transforms them, thereby developing some central thoughts of modern republicanism, without becoming a modern republican in the full sense. I argue that (...) by doing so he anticipates avant la lettre a central problem of liberalism. He conceptualizes the republican order as an institutionalised persistent conflict between social factions, but is also aware, that the Republic rests on a republican culture of freedom, that creates the citizens virtue in the first place. (shrink)

Was heißt Republikanismus heute? Die Diskussion ist sowohl in der politischenPhilosophie als auch in der praktischen politischen Auseinandersetzung aktuell. Philipp Hölzing entwirft in seiner ideengeschichtlichen Studie eine historisch tragfähige Begriffsbestimmung für die Gegenwart. Insbesondere James Madisons Plan für eine kontinentale, föderale, macht- und gewaltenteilige Republik und Kants kosmopolitischer Republikanismus mit dem Ziel eines Weltbürgerrechts in einer Weltrepublik sind für seine Begriffsdefinition in der postnationalen Konstellation zentral.

Die Frage nach gemeinsamen Wurzeln der Religions- und Philosophielehrerausbildung steht im Zentrum der Uberlegungen von deutschen, franzosischen und schweizerischen Religionspadagogen, Philosophen, Historikern und Theologen. Der vorliegende Band unternimmt eine erste Bestandsaufnahme der Situation in den drei Landern, die sich durch vielfaltige Bezeichnungen der Facher (Religionsunterricht, Religionslehre, Religionskunde, Philosophie, Geschichte) sowie unterschiedliche didaktische Varianten (konfessionell, konfessionell-kooperativ, religionskundlich, "fait religieux") auszeichnet. Diese Komplexitat der Situation erfordert andere methodologische Strategien, als sie ein einfacher Vergleich der Lehrerausbildung in den drei Landern nahelegen wurde. Die (...) Autoren stellen deshalb Uberlegungen aus den Bereichen der institutionalisierten Lehrerbildung, des professionellen Verstandnisses und der didaktischen Strukturen vor dem Hintergrund einer transnationalen Perspektive auf entsprechende historische Entwicklungen vor. Die Beitrage von Petra Bleisch Bouzar, Philippe Buttgen, Gerald Chaix, Beatrice Finet, Erhard Holze, Monika Jakobs, David Kabisch, Pierre Kahn, Angela Kaupp, Andreas Kessler, Antje Roggenkamp, Arnulf von Scheliha, Thomas Schlag, Henrik Simojoki und Michael Wermke dokumentieren ein mehrtagiges Kolloquium, das im Fruhjahr 2016 an der Westfalischen Wilhelms-Universitat Munster stattfand. (shrink)

‘India’s founding moment’ a moment of breath-taking political imagination and it is one of the great achievements of Madhav Khosla. to unpack important parts of its pre-history and emergence. This article will look at two questions—one about alternatives and the other about contexts. Regarding alternatives, I am interested in the paths not taken and an understanding of possibilities. I try to get a sense of possible alternative futures or modernities that the founding generation pondered, in the best case allowing us (...) to wonder what we can learn from the choices made as well as from the paths rejected. The other question I raise is the question of the intellectual contexts, in which the founding took place. Coming from a non-Indian perspective, I am interested in the entanglements, the contexts and potentially migrating ideas that emerge. (shrink)

Saskia Sassen today and Jane Adams more than 100 years ago are both social scientists and public philosophers of reconstruction. Both offer defining contributions to a philosophical tradition that will be identified here as “radical pragmatism”. Sassen’s theoretical stance “before method” serves as a key to understand Addams’s locally embedded urban activist projects as a form of social scientific inquiry. Sassen introduces the concept of “territory making” as a spark of hope against rampant and destructive global trends of “expulsions”, which (...) her approach reveals. In this article this concept of “territory making” will be explored in various contexts and with particular attention to Addams’s Hull house project. It will be shown how a pragmatist brand of human imagination is critical in “territory making”. This leads to reconsidering the role of art in social transformation projects. (shrink)

Attention has a role in much of perception, thought, and action. On the erotetic theory, the functional role of attention is a matter of the relationship between questions and what counts as answers to those questions. Questions encode the completion conditions of tasks for cognitive control purposes, and degrees of attention are degrees of sensitivity to the occurrence of answers. Questions and answers are representational contents given precise characterizations using tools from formal semantics, though attention does not depend on language. (...) The erotetic theory proposes an integrated account of attention in cognitive control and of attentional focus in perception. The functional role of attentional focus on objects, properties, and locations has to do with picking out something that corresponds to what a task is ‘about’. The erotetic theory of attention opens new avenues in theorizing about the relationship between attention, representational content, phenomenal character, and practical reason. A novel representationalist account of salience is proposed. The theory also provides an account of distraction that suggests when distraction is a defect in practical reasoning. (shrink)

Polysemous concepts with multiple related meanings pervade natural languages, yet some philosophers argue that we should eliminate them to avoid miscommunication and pointless debates in scientific discourse. This paper defends the legitimacy of polysemous concepts in science against this eliminativist challenge. My approach analyses such concepts as patchworks with multiple scale-dependent, technique-involving, domain-specific and property-targeting uses (patches). I demonstrate the generality of my approach by applying it to "hardness" in materials science, "homology" in evolutionary biology, "gold" in chemistry and "cortical (...) column" in neuroscience. Such patchwork concepts are legitimate if the techniques used to apply them produce reliable results, the domains to which they are applied are homogenous, and the properties they refer to are significant to describe, classify or explain the behavior of entities in the extension of the concept. By following these normative constraints, researchers can avoid miscommunication and pointless debates without having to eliminate polysemous patchwork concepts in scientific discourse. (shrink)

Can phenomenologists allow for the existence of unobservable entities such as atoms, electrons, and quarks? Can we justifiably believe in the existence of entities that are in principle unobservable? This paper addresses the relationship between Husserlian transcendental phenomenology and scientific realism. More precisely, the focus is on the question of whether there are basic epistemological principles phenomenologists are committed to that have anti-realist consequences with respect to unobservable entities. This question is relevant since Husserl’s basic epistemological principles, such as the (...) “principle of all principles,” seem to suggest that epistemic justification is limited to what can be originally given in the sense that if an object cannot be given in an originary presentive intuition, then one cannot be justified in believing that this object exists. It is the main aim of this paper to show (i) that interpretative reasons exist for not reading Husserl in such a way and (ii) that systematic reasons exist as to why phenomenologists should not subscribe to this criterion. I shall put forward a different criterion of justification that satisfies the spirit of Husserlian transcendental phenomenology and allows for justifiably believing in the existence of unobservable scientific entities. (shrink)

Recent interest in phenomena of simulation, pretense, and play has given rise to new philosophical debates on the basic structure of human action and action planning. Some philosophers sought to transform Hume's desire-belief-action model by sophisticating its basic structure. For example, they introduced “hypothetical world boxes” or imaginary “i-desires” and “i-beliefs” into the standard model, in order to account for the representational and motivational structures of imaginary scripts. Others used phenomena of behavior driven by imagination to attempt a more fundamental (...) critique of the Humean tradition. This article aims to show how the pragmatist tradition could be used as a resource in reframing current debates on imagination, pretense, and simulation in the cognitive sciences. This will help determine the role of imagination in intelligent human deliberation. (shrink)

Manipulation or manipulative behavior, which is widespread in many life contexts and interpersonal relationships, is mostly associated with a negative connotation. Often considered roughly a form of control over others that cannot be equated with coercion or argumentation, manipulation is an umbrella term for strategies that serve to make another person (or oneself) experience x or do y or induce certain situations and interpersonal constellations. Frequently, the use of manipulative strategies is deemed to result from egoistic or even hostile motives. (...) Such an appraisal has a major impact on the stigma patients with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) are confronted with, given that many of their behaviors are often interpreted as manipulative. In the past decade or so, however, researchers and clinicians have pointed out that what is generally identified as manipulation in persons with BPD needs to be seen through the lens of their lifeworld in order to facilitate an empathetic and more positive attitude towards these individuals. In this paper, I discuss the different functions manipulation may have for persons with BPD and argue that instead of seeing it as a clear expression of malevolence or belligerence, a heightened disposition to manipulations should be considered as both the fruit and seed of a painful and isolating social impairment. (shrink)

Introduction: Historical background.--The law of causality and experience (1908)--The importance of Ernst Mach's philosophy of science for our times (1917)--Physical theories of the twentieth century and school philosophy (1929)--Is there a trend today toward idealism in physics? (1934)--The positivistic and the metaphysical conception of physics (1935)--Logical empiricism and the philosophy of the Soviet Union (1935)--Philosophical misinterpretations of the quantum theory (1936)--What "length" means to the physicist (1937)--Determinism and indeterminism in modern physics (1938)--Ernst Mach and the unity of science (1938).

Recently, a number of phenomenological approaches to experiential justification emerged according to which an experience's justificatory force is grounded in the experience’s distinctive phenomenology. The basic idea is that certain experiences exhibit a presentive phenomenology and that they are a source of immediate justification precisely by virtue of their presentive phenomenology. Such phenomenological approaches usually focus on perceptual experiences and mathematical intuitions. In this paper, I aim at a phenomenological approach to ethical experiences. I shall show that we need to (...) make a distinction between evaluative experiences directed at concrete cases and ethical intuitions directed at general principles. The focus will be on evaluative experiences. I argue that evaluative experiences constitute a sui generis type of experience that gain their justificatory force by virtue of their presentive evaluative phenomenology. In Sect. 1, I introduce and motivate the phenomenological idea that certain experiences exhibit a justification-conferring phenomenology. In Sect. 4, I apply this idea to morally evaluative experiences. In Sect. 5, I suggest that certain epistemic intuitions should be considered epistemically evaluative experiences and I outline a strong parallelism between ethics and epistemology. (shrink)

Attention influences the character of conscious perceptual experience in intricate and surprising ways, including our experience of contrast, space, and time. These patterns of influence have been argued to cause trouble for the attractive thesis that differences in the character of conscious experience flow from differences in what we represent. I present a novel theory of the functional role of attention that has the resources for a systematic representationalist account of these phenomena. On the erotetic theory of attention, we bring (...) an interest to the task of perception, captured as a question we seek to answer. Questions, as understood here, are contents that cognitive systems can represent rather than sentences. We process perceptual input as a putative answer to our question in a way that is modulated by attentional focus; attentional focus aims to pick out something that matches what our question is “about.” In certain cases, this yields a form of predictive coding: if the contribution of focus matches what our question is about, we take it to select one of the possible answers we are entertaining, even though our perceptual input by itself does not supply a full answer. The proposed account also provides a new account of the phenomenology of salience. (shrink)

In the past decade, research on the dark triad of personality (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) has demonstrated a strong relationship to a number of socially aversive moral judgments such as sacrificial utilitarian decisions in moral dilemmas. This study widens the scope of this research program and investigates the association between dark triad personality traits and anti-natalist views, i.e., views holding that procreation is morally wrong. The results of this study indicate that the dark triad personality traits of Machiavellianism and psychopathy (...) are strongly associated with anti-natalist views. Further, depression is found to be both standing independently in a relationship with anti-natalist views as well as functioning as a mediator in the relationships between Machiavellianism/psychopathy and anti-natalist views. This pattern was replicated in a follow-up study. These findings add to the literature on dark triad personality traits and their relationship to moral judgments, suggesting that personality and mood play a substantive part in variation in anti-natalist views in a lay population. (shrink)

Barnett and Block (J Bus Ethics 18(2):179–194, 2011 ) argue that one cannot distinguish between deposits and loans due to the continuum problem of maturities and because future goods do not exist—both essential characteristics that distinguish deposit from loan contracts. In a similar way but leading to opposite conclusions (Cachanosky, forthcoming) maintains that both maturity mismatching and fractional reserve banking are ethically justified as these contracts are equivalent. We argue herein that the economic and legal differences between genuine deposit and (...) loan contracts are clear. This implies different legal obligations for these contracts, a necessary step in assessing the ethics of both fractional reserve banking and maturity mismatching. While the former is economically, legally, and perhaps most importantly ethically problematic, there are no such troubles with the latter. (shrink)

Based on the history of the problem of perspectivity, from the origination of the central perspective, its decline in the modern age up to the present plurality of perspectives, the authors of the articles in this volume look into the ...

The aim of this paper is to shed light on and develop what I call a phenomenological conception of experiential justification. According to this phenomenological conception, certain experiences gain their justificatory force from their distinctive phenomenology. Such an approach closely connects epistemology and philosophy of mind and has recently been proposed by several authors, most notably by Elijah Chudnoff, Ole Koksvik, and James Pryor. At the present time, however, there is no work that contrasts these different versions of PCEJ. This (...) paper not only bridges this gap, but also reveals problems in current versions of PCEJ. Consequently, I argue for a new version of PCEJ that focuses on what is given within experience and not on how what is given pushes me towards believing something. (shrink)

Peter Lombard is best known as the author of a celebrated work entitled Book of Sentences, which for several centuries served as the standard theological textbook in the Christian West. It was the subject of more commentaries than any other work of Christian literature besides the Bible itself. The Book of Sentences is essentially a compilation of older sources, from the Scriptures and Augustine down to several of the Lombard's contemporaries, such as Hugh of Saint Victor and Peter Abelard. Its (...) importance lies in the Lombard's organisation of the theological material, his method of presentation, and the way in which he shaped doctrine in several major areas. Despite his importance, however, there is no accessible introduction to Peter Lombard's life and thought available in any modern language. This volume fills this considerable gap. Philipp W. Rosemann begins by demonstrating how the Book of Sentences grew out of a long tradition of Christian reflection-a tradition, ultimately rooted in Scripture, which by the twelfth century had become ready to transform itself into a theological system. Turning to the Sentences, Rosemann then offers a brief exposition of the Lombard's life and work. He proceeds to a book-by-book examination and interpretation of its main topics, including the nature and attributes of God, the Trinity, creation, angelology, human nature and the Fall, original sin, Christology, ethics, and the sacraments. He concludes by exploring how the Sentences helped shape the further development of the Christian tradition, from the twelfth century through the time of Martin Luther. (shrink)

Moral responsibility for an action can only be ascribed if it allows inferences about the agent. In cases of negligence, such a connection appears absent, as the agent acts in ignorance of readily accessible relevant facts. Yet, we hold individuals accountable for their negligent actions. The literature presents two approaches to resolve this apparent contradiction: Derivative theories trace negligence back to prior culpable misconduct, while non-derivative theories view negligent actions as expressions of blameworthy attitudes. However, there are cases that neither (...) approach can adequately explain. This paper aims to justify the appropriateness of moral blame even in these stubborn instances. Central to such a justification is the manner in which the ignorance arises. Often, it results from the violation of epistemic duties, which obligate us to maintain awareness of the consequences our actions have for others. This misconduct thus establishes the necessary connection between the agent and the negligent action, providing a basis for attributing responsibility. (shrink)

Developing tools is a crucial aspect of experimental practice, yet most discussions of scientific change traditionally emphasize theoretical over technological change. To elaborate on the role of tools in scientific change, I offer an account that shows how scientists use tools in exploratory experiments to form novel concepts. I apply this account to two cases in neuroscience and show how tool development and concept formation are often intertwined in episodes of tool-driven change. I support this view by proposing common normative (...) principles that specify when exploratory concept formation and tool development succeed to initiate scientific change. (shrink)

This paper proposes an analysis of the discursive dynamics of high-impact concepts in the humanities. These are concepts whose formation and development have a lasting and wide-ranging effect on research and our understanding of discursive reality in general. The notion of a conceptual practice, based on a normative conception of practice, is introduced, and practices are identified, on this perspective, according to the way their respective performances are held mutually accountable. This normative conception of practices is then combined with recent (...) work from philosophy of science that characterizes concepts in terms of conceptual capacities that are productive, open-ended, and applicable beyond the original context they were developed in. It is shown that the formation of concepts can be identified by changes in how practitioners hold exercise of their conceptual capacities accountable when producing knowledge about a phenomenon. In a manner similar to the use of operational definitions in scientific practices, such concepts can also be used to intervene in various discourses within or outside the conceptual practice. Using the formation of the concepts “mechanism” and “performative” as examples, the paper shows how high-impact concepts reconfigure what is at issue and at stake in conceptual practices. As philosophy and other humanities disciplines are its domain of interest, it is a contribution to the methodology of the humanities. (shrink)

The aim of this note is to determine whether certain non-o-minimal expansions of o-minimal theories which are known to be NIP, are also distal. We observe that while tame pairs of o-minimal structures and the real field with a discrete multiplicative subgroup have distal theories, dense pairs of o-minimal structures and related examples do not.

ABSTRACT:In response to criticism of empirical or “positive” approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR), we defend the importance of these approaches for any CSR theory that seeks to have practical impact. Although we acknowledge limitations to positive approaches, we unpack the neglected but crucial relationships between positive knowledge on the one hand and normative knowledge on the other in the implementation of CSR principles. Using the structure of a practical syllogism, we construct a model that displays the key role of (...) empirical knowledge in fulfilling a firm’s responsibility to society, paying special attention to the implications of the “ought implies can” dictum. We also defend the importance of one particular class of empirical claims; namely, claims from the field of economics. Even positive economic theory, which is often criticized for endorsing profits rather than values, can cooperate in intriguing ways with non-economic concepts in the implementation of CSR goals. (shrink)

In the past decade, the fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) have seen unprecedented developments that raise human-machine interactions (HMI) to the next level.Smart machines, i.e., machines endowed with artificially intelligent systems, have lost their character as mere instruments. This, at least, seems to be the case if one considers how humans experience their interactions with them. Smart machines are construed to serve complex functions involving increasing degrees of freedom, and they generate solutions not fully anticipated by humans. (...) Consequently, their performances show a touch of action and even autonomy. HMI is therefore often described as a sort of “cooperation” rather than as a mere application of a tool. Some authors even go as far as subsuming cooperation with smart machines under the label ofpartnership, akin to cooperation between human agents sharing a common goal. In this paper, we explore how far the notion of shared agency and partnership can take us in our understanding of human interaction with smart machines. Discussing different topoi related to partnerships in general, we suggest that different kinds of “partnership” depending on the form of interaction between agents need to be kept apart. Building upon these discussions, we propose a tentative taxonomy of different kinds of HMI distinguishing coordination, collaboration, cooperation, and social partnership. (shrink)

This article explores the question of how to understand social media following the Habermasian theory of the structural transformation of the public sphere. We argue for a return to political-economic fundamentals as the basis for analysing the public sphere and seek to establish a characteristic connection between digital-behavioural control and singularised audiences in the context of proprietary markets. In the digital constellation, it is less a matter of immobilising the citizen as a consumer but rather of their political activation – (...) albeit in conditions under which commercial interests have primacy: privatisation without privatism. (shrink)

Journal Name: Apeiron Issue: Ahead of print.

How ethical have recent banking practices been? We answer this question via an economic analysis. We assess the two dominant practices of the modern banking system – fractional reserves and maturity transformation – by gauging the respective rights of the relevant parties. By distinguishing the legal and economic differences between deposit and loan contracts, we determine that the practice of maturity transformation (in its various guises) is not only ethical but also serves a positive social function. The foundation of the (...) modern banking system – the holding of fractional reserves against deposits – is, however, problematic from economic, legal and ethical perspectives. Starting from a microanalysis of money's function, a reassessment of the current laws concerning the practice is encouraged, with the aim not only to rectify economic irregularities but also to realign depositors' rights with the obligations of the banking sector. (shrink)

In 1981, David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel received the Nobel Prize for their research on cortical columns—vertical bands of neurons with similar functional properties. This success led to the view that “cortical column” refers to the basic building block of the mammalian neocortex. Since the 1990s, however, critics questioned this building block picture of “cortical column” and debated whether this concept is useless and should be replaced with successor concepts. This paper inquires which experimental results after 1981 challenged the building (...) block picture and whether these challenges warrant the elimination “cortical column” from neuroscientific discourse. I argue that the proliferation of experimental techniques led to a patchwork of locally adapted uses of the column concept. Each use refers to a different kind of cortical structure, rather than a neocortical building block. Once we acknowledge this diverse-kinds picture of “cortical column”, the elimination of column concept becomes unnecessary. Rather, I suggest that “cortical column” has reached conceptual retirement: although it cannot be used to identify a neocortical building block, column research is still useful as a guide and cautionary tale for ongoing research. At the same time, neuroscientists should search for alternative concepts when studying the functional architecture of the neocortex. keywords: Cortical column, conceptual development, history of neuroscience, patchwork, eliminativism, conceptual retirement. (shrink)

In German-speaking countries, John Dewey came to be considered a school reformer, an advocate of the project method and as the propagator of a cognitivistic psychology of learning. His ideas on socio-political reform, on the other hand, were ignored, partly intentionally, partly due to a lack of familiarity with them in detail. His major pedagogical work,Democracy and Education received little attention. In what follows, this selective view of Dewey is discussed mainly on the basis of internal pedagogical theoretical positions.

I will present and criticise the two theories of truthmaking David Armstrong offers us in Truth and Truthmakers (Armstrong 2004), show to what extent they are incompatible and identify troublemakers for both of them, a notorious – Factualism, the view that the world is a world of states of affairs – and a more recent one – the view that every predication is necessary. Factualism, combined with truthmaker necessitarianism – ‘truthmaking is necessitation’ – leads Armstrong to an all-embracing totality state (...) of affairs that necessitates not only everything that is the case but also everything else – that which is not the case, that which is merely possible or even impossible. All the things so dear to realists – rocks, natural properties, real persons – become mere abstractions from this ontological monster. The view that every predication is necessary does in some sense the opposite: it does away with totality states of affairs and, arguably, also with states of affairs. We have particulars and universals, partially identical and necessarily connected to everything else. Just by the existence of anything, everything is necessitated – the whole world mirrored in every monad. Faced with the choice between these two equally unappealing alternatives, I suggest returning to Armstrong’s more empiricist past: the world is not an all-inclusive One, nor necessitated by every single particular and every single universal, but a plurality of particulars and universals, interconnected by a contingent and internal relation of exemplification. While a close variant, truthmaker essentialism, can perhaps be saved, this means giving up on truthmaker necessitarianism. This, I think, what it takes to steer a clear empiricist course between the Scylla of Spinozist general factness and the Charybdis of a Leibnizian overdose of brute necessities. (shrink)

Abstract Theories of descriptions tend to involve commitments about the ambiguity of descriptions. For example, sentences containing descriptions are widely taken to be ambiguous between de re , de dicto , and intermediate interpretations and are sometimes thought to be ambiguous between the former and directly referential interpretations. I provide arguments to suggest that none of these interpretations are due to ambiguities (or indexicality). On the other hand, I argue that descriptions are ambiguous between the above family of interpretations and (...) what may be called ‘institutional’ as well as generic interpretations. My arguments suggest that an adequate theory of descriptions may require considerable rethinking. Most contemporary theories of descriptions appear to be committed to one or more claims about the ambiguity of descriptions that I reject in this paper. I suggest that my observations provide a reason to renew efforts to develop a theory of descriptions within a representationalist theory of interpretation. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-16 DOI 10.1007/s11098-011-9759-5 Authors Philipp Koralus, Philosophy Department, Princeton University, 212 1879 Hall, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA Journal Philosophical Studies Online ISSN 1573-0883 Print ISSN 0031-8116. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWhat is the relation between ethical reflection and moral behavior? Does professional reflection on ethical issues positively impact moral behaviors? To address these questions, Schwitzgebel and Rust empirically investigated if philosophy professors engaged with ethics on a professional basis behave any morally better or, at least, more consistently with their expressed values than do non-ethicist professors. Findings from their original US-based sample indicated that neither is the case, suggesting that there is no positive influence of ethical reflection on moral action. (...) In the study at hand, we attempted to cross-validate this pattern of results in the German-speaking countries and surveyed 417 professors using a replication-extension research design. Our results indicate a successful replication of the original effect that ethicists do not behave any morally better compared to other academics across the vast majority of normative issues. Yet, unlike the original study, we found mixed results o... (shrink)

This paper sets out to evaluate the claim that Aristotle’s Assertoric Syllogistic is a relevance logic or shows significant similarities with it. I prepare the grounds for a meaningful comparison by extracting the notion of relevance employed in the most influential work on modern relevance logic, Anderson and Belnap’s Entailment. This notion is characterized by two conditions imposed on the concept of validity: first, that some meaning content is shared between the premises and the conclusion, and second, that the premises (...) of a proof are actually used to derive the conclusion. Turning to Aristotle’s Prior Analytics, I argue that there is evidence that Aristotle’s Assertoric Syllogistic satisfies both conditions. Moreover, Aristotle at one point explicitly addresses the potential harmfulness of syllogisms with unused premises. Here, I argue that Aristotle’s analysis allows for a rejection of such syllogisms on formal grounds established in the foregoing parts of the Prior Analytics. In a final section I consider the view that Aristotle distinguished between validity on the one hand and syllogistic validity on the other. Following this line of reasoning, Aristotle’s logic might not be a relevance logic, since relevance is part of syllogistic validity and not, as modern relevance logic demands, of general validity. I argue that the reasons to reject this view are more compelling than the reasons to accept it and that we can, cautiously, uphold the result that Aristotle’s logic is a relevance logic. (shrink)