Nietzsche's metaphor of the spider that spins its cobweb expresses his critique of the metaphysical use of language - but it also suggests that ‟we, spiders‟, are able to spin different, life-affirming, healthier, non-metaphysical cobwebs. This book is a collection of 12 essays that focus not only on Nietzsche's critique of the metaphysical assumptions of language, but also on his effort to use language in a different way, i.e., to create a ‟new language‟. It is from this viewpoint that the (...) book considers such themes as consciousness, the self, metaphor, instinct, affectivity, style, morality, truth, and knowledge. The authors invited to contribute to this volume are Nietzsche scholars who belong to some of the most important research centers of the European Nietzsche-Research: Centro Colli-Montinari (Italy), GIRN (Europhilosphie), SEDEN (Spain), Greifswald Research Group (Germany), NIL (Portugal). In 2011 João Constâncio and Maria João Mayer Branco edited Nietzsche on Instinct and Language, also published by Walter de Gruyter. The two books complement each other. (shrink)

So far as I can tell from the editions of Friedländer, Gilbert, Izaac, and Shackleton Bailey, no one has questioned or defended the pointless repetition of cenam in 15. It is, however, to the credit of the Loeb translator, Walter C. A. Ker, that he could not bring himself to render the word twice and in 15 he translates with ‘table’. Mensam would in fact not be a bad conjecture, especially since it has a number of letters in common (...) with the jarring cenam, and might in fairness be attributed to Ker. Nevertheless, I propose lectum instead. It seems to me superior in that the table might have had up to seven more guests around it. But if the pest pursues Martial to the same couch and reclines beside him, there is truly no relief except escape . At any rate, editors who print cenam a second time ought to say how it pulls its weight. (shrink)

Assyrien und Urarṭu I: Der Achte Feldzug Sargons II. im Jahre 714 v. Chr. By Walter Mayer. Alter Orient und Altes Testament, vol. 395/1. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2013. Pp. xv + 189. €64. Assyrien und Urarṭu II: Die assyrisch-urartäischen Bilinguen. By Walter Mayer. Alter Orient und Altes Testament, vol. 395/2. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2013. Pp. xv + 156. €58.

Recent military coups in West Africa have put the continent’s democratisation itself into question. In some places, for the moment, these coups appear to have popular backing. Nigeria, where radicalism is firmly rooted in democratic values and a human-rights framework, the radical grassroots opposition to the Buhari government’s creeping authoritarianism lies drenched in blood. The roots of this development go back to the history of Nigeria’s radicalism in the twentieth century. Much has appeared on the global 1968 recently, including that (...) of Africa. 1970s/1980s-style radicalism is reappearing today with Omoyele Sowore’s 2018 presidential candidacy, with the African Action Congress party, the #EndSARS protests and the tragic Lekki Toll Gate massacre (2020) in Nigeria. The shift towards radicalism is palpable with protest music such as Falz’s This is Nigeria, and Burna Boy’s Monsters you Made, both explicitly targeting neocolonialism and police brutality. Contrary to Achille Mbembe’s sweeping dismissal of African radicalism, the movement with very deep roots under study is meaningful once again, and is gathering momentum in West Africa’s giant polity. This article applies Walter Benjamin’s and also Nigerian radical thinkers’ conceptualisation of political, social and artistic radicalism, while it frames the Nigerian version via the movement’s history, in which marxisant theory and praxis, feminism, human rights and pro-democracy movements interact with emancipatory strands of Islam, Christianity, Igbo Judaism, and animism. In the context of Nigerian radicalism, even expressly pro-capitalist art theory performs a radical social function by stressing the African’s right to make universal statements (Olu Oguibe) in its de facto defiance of the neo-colony. As these different strands of protest meet, ethnic uprisings (amongst them IPOB) find ways to establish common cause with social radicalism, posing a composite threat to the prebendalist oligarchy that rules and oppresses the country via a militarised neoliberalism. (shrink)

Benenson et al. provide a compelling case for treating greater investment into self-protection among females as an adaptive strategy. Here, we wish to expand their proposed adaptive explanation by placing it squarely in modern state-based and behavioural life-history theory, drawing on Veit'spathological complexityframework. This allows us to make sense of alternative “lifestyle” strategies, rather than pathologizing them.

Origin of the German Trauerspiel was Walter Benjamin's first full, historically oriented analysis of modernity. Readers of English know it as "The Origin of German Tragic Drama," but in fact the subject is something else--the play of mourning. Howard Eiland's completely new English translation, the first since 1977, is closer to the German text and more consistent with Benjamin's philosophical idiom. Focusing on the extravagant seventeenth-century theatrical genre of the trauerspiel, precursor of the opera, Benjamin identifies allegory as the (...) constitutive trope of the Baroque and of modernity itself. Allegorical perception bespeaks a world of mutability and equivocation, a melancholy sense of eternal transience without access to the transcendentals of the medieval mystery plays--though no less haunted and bedeviled. History as trauerspiel is the condition as well as subject of modern allegory in its inscription of the abyssal. Benjamin's investigation of the trauerspiel includes German texts and late Renaissance European drama such as Hamlet and Calderón's Life Is a Dream. The prologue is one of his most important and difficult pieces of writing. It lays out his method of indirection and his idea of the "constellation" as a key means of grasping the world, making dynamic unities out of the myriad bits of daily life. Thoroughly annotated with a philological and historical introduction and other explanatory and supplementary material, this rigorous and elegant new translation brings fresh understanding to a cardinal work by one of the twentieth century's greatest literary critics.--. (shrink)

Walter applies the methodology of neurophilosophy to one of philosophy's centralchallenges, the notion of free will. Neurophilosophical conclusions are based on, and consistentwith, scientific knowledge about the brain and its functioning.

Originally published in 1959, The Faith of a Heretic is the most personal statement of the beliefs of Nietzsche biographer and translator Walter Kaufmann. A first-rate philosopher in his own right, Kaufmann here provides the fullest account of his views on religion. Although he considered himself a heretic, he was not immune to the wellsprings and impulses from which religion originates, declaring it among the most vital and radical expressions of the human mind. Beginning with an autobiographical prologue that (...) traces his evolution from religious believer to "heretic," the book touches on theology, organized religion, morality, suffering, and death—all examined from the perspective of a "quest for honesty." Kaufmann also subjects philosophy's faith in truth, reason, and absolute morality to the same heretical treatment. The resulting exploration of the faiths of a nonbeliever in a secular age is as fresh and challenging as when it was first published. In a new foreword, Stanley Corngold vividly describes the intellectual and biographical milieu of Kaufmann’s provocative book. (shrink)

Meta-learning offers a promising framework to make sense of some parts of decision-making that have eluded satisfactory explanation. Here, we connect this research to work in animal behaviour and cognition in order to shed light on how and whether meta-learning could help us to understand the evolution of cognition.

This is the first complete English translation of _On the Purity of the Art of Logic, _a handbook of logic written in Latin by English philosopher Walter Burley. The work circulated in the Middle Ages in two versions, a shorter and a longer one, both translated here by Paul Vincent Spade. The translations are based on the only complete edition of Burley’s treatises, corrected by Spade on the basis of one of the surviving manuscripts. The book also includes an (...) extensive introduction, explanatory notes, a table of corresponding passages between the two versions, a select annotated bibliography, and three indexes. A contemporary of John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham, Burley was active at the universities of both Paris and Oxford. He became one of the most important figures in the transformation of medieval logic and semantics that took place in the early fourteenth century. Burley used new tools and techniques of logical and semantical analysis, yet in many cases he used them in defense of traditional views, such as a realist metaphysical theory of “universals_._”_ On the Purity of the Art of Logic_ shows_ _both these sides of Burley—the innovator and the conservative—as well as some of the ways in which his views corresponded or clashed with those of William of Ockham. (shrink)

Ever since John Leslie Mackie’s ‘popularization’ of moral error theories in meta-ethics, increasing attention has been focused on how to escape the force of nihilism. For many opponents of the moral error theory, ‘moral nihilism’ is used as a derogatory synonym associated with immorality and selfishness, but such a defamatory usage of the label is obviously not very helpful for a serious philosophical examination of the view. The goal of this paper is to draw on insights by David Hume and (...) other Humean philosophers such as J.L. Mackie, Richard Joyce, and Richard Garner, in order to turn ‘moral nihilism’ from a term of abuse to a ‘badge of honour’. (shrink)

Der Psychiater und Philosoph Karl Jaspers hinterließ eine große fachliche und persönliche Korrespondenz, die historisch vom Untergang des Kaiserreichs bis zur Etablierung der Bundesrepublik reicht. Diese kritische und kommentierte Edition vermittelt ein umfassendes Bild dieses Denkers. Briefpartner dieses Bandes:Gustav Bally, Kurt Beringer, Ludwig Binswanger, Eugen Bleuler, Max Born, Albert Fraenkel, Viktor E. Frankl, Robert Gaupp, Wolfgang Gentner, Hans Walter Gruhle, Willy Hellpach, Jakob Klaesi, Ludwig Klages, Kurt Kolle, Ernst Kretschmer, Arthur Kronfeld, Willhelm Mayer-Gross, Alexander Mitscherlich, Rudolf Nissen, Franz (...) Nissl, Curt Oehme, Wolfgang Pauli, Oskar Pfister, Hans Prinzhorn, Werner Scheid, Gerhard Schmidt, Kurt Schneider, Johannes Heinrich Schultz, Albert Schweitzer, Hugo Spatz, Georg Stertz, Hans Jörg Weitbrecht, Carl Friedrich v. Weizsäcker, Viktor v. Weizsäcker, Albrecht Wetzel, Karl Wilmanns, Richard Woltereck, Jürg Zutt. (shrink)

In this article, we revisit the longstanding debate of whether there is a pattern in the evolution of organisms towards greater complexity, and how this hypothesis could be tested using an interdisciplinary lens. We argue that this debate remains alive today due to the lack of a quantitative measure of complexity that is related to the teleonomic (i.e., goal-directed) nature of living systems. Further, we argue that such a biological measure of complexity can indeed be found in the vast literature (...) produced within life history theory. We propose that an ideal method to quantify this complexity lies within life history strategies (i.e., schedules of survival and reproduction across an organism’s life cycle), as it is precisely these strategies that are under selection to optimize the organism’s fitness. In this context, we set an agenda for future steps: (1) how this complexity can be measured mathematically, and (2) how we can engage in a comparative analysis of this complexity across species to investigate the evolutionary forces driving increases or, for that matter, decreases in teleonomic complexity. (shrink)

In the abstract I sent to the organizing committee of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, I announced that I would attempt a dialogue between phenomenology and decoloniality, understanding that both are theoretical frames by means of which transcendental phenomenology and the lifeworld, on the one hand, and modernity/coloniality, on the other, came into being. Phenomenology and transcendental consciousness/lifeworld are mutually constitutive. One cannot exist without the other; and so it is for the mutual constitution of decoloniality and modernity/coloniality. (...) There cannot be modernity/coloniality without decoloniality, and vice versa. The axis around which the dialogue I... (shrink)

In the late eighteenth century, Adam Smith significantly shaped the modern world by claiming that when people individually pursue their own interests, they are together led towards achieving the common good. But can a population of selfish people achieve the economic common good in the absence of moral constraints on their behavior? If not, then what are the moral conditions of market interaction which lead to economically efficient outcomes of trade? Answers to these questions profoundly affect basic concepts and principles (...) of economic theory, legal theory, moral philosophy, political theory, and even judicial decisions at the appellate level. Walter Schultz illustrates the deficiencies of theories which purport to show that markets alone can provide the basis for efficiency. He demonstrates that efficient outcomes of market interaction cannot be achieved without moral normative constraints and then goes on to specify a set of normative conditions which make these positive outcomes possible. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary research is becoming more and more popular. Many funding bodies encourage interdisciplinarity, as a criterion that promises scientific progress. Traditionally this has been linked to the idea of integrating or unifying disciplines. Using evolutionary game theory as a case study, Till Grüne-Yanoff (2016) argued that there is no such necessary link between interdisciplinary success and integration. Contrary to this, this paper argues that evolutionary game theory is a genuine case of successful integration between economics and biology, shedding lights on (...) the many dimensions along which integration can take place. (shrink)

Effective documentation is considered a core competency for clinical ethics consultation. Ethics consultants within the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, observed variation in the formatting of ethics chart notes across consultants and realized that this formatting was based on their own views of effectiveness. To minimize variation and optimize the readability and understandability of ethics chart notes for end users, a team undertook a quality improvement project to assess the formatting preferences of healthcare professionals who rely on ethics consultation notes. (...) The team developed three sample templates and conducted interviews with stakeholders to understand their preferences. A single standardized template was developed based on the preferences that emerged, which all consultants on the ethics consultation service then utilized. In the first five months of implementation, the percentage of end user respondents marking the highest Likert scale option on a post-consultation survey regarding whether the ethics consultation service provided helpful documentation increased from 60 percent to 72 percent compared to the same five-month period in the year prior. (shrink)

Walter Kendrick traces the relatively recent concept of pornography—the word was not coined until the late 18th century—which became a public issue once the printing press gave ordinary people access to the erotica of the Greeks and Romans, the art and literature of the French enlightenment, and the poems of the Earl of Rochester and John Cleland's _Fanny Hill_. From the secret museums to the pornography trials of _Madame Bovary_ and _Lady Chatterly's Lover_, to Mapplethorpe, cable TV, and the (...) Internet, Kendrick explores how conceptions of pornography relate to issues of freedom of expression and censorship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:246 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY f~ntlSetifr ~uftanbebrtn~en, [o,ba{~hie @i~e~t heeler~anbluu~ ~uaIet~ bee ~[u~e[t bee ~emu~tfein~ (~m ~e~riffe eiuer ~inie)i[t, u,b baburd~a[rerer[t em Dbieft (el, be[timmter ~a,,m) erfannt r0irb.") The notion of constructing a concept is a technical one for Kant ("r ~e@rlffabet f on ft r u i r en, beiflt: hie i~m focre[p0nblereube ~In [ c @a u u,@ a ~ c i o ~i bar[tdlen." Op. cit., B741)--to (...) construct a concept of space would be to produce a representation of a determinate region of space in accordance with some determining principle. 9Maimon, Salomon (1753-1800): Self-educated philosopher from Lithuania who appeared on the Berlin scene in the later 1780's. His Versuch ~ber die Transzendentalphilosophie (1790) was a critical study of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft; Kant had already seen some of it in manuscript, sent to him by Marcus Herz. In his letter of May 26, 1789 (~362), he describes to Herz how he had been on the point of returning the manuscript unread, with a note saying that he was too busy, but that on glancing at it he had realized its quality and had seen that none of his opponents had understood the Kritilc as well as had M. u Herz, Marcus (1747-1803): Student and subsequently close friend of Kant's. Medical doctor and, from 1786, Professor of Philosophy in Berlin. i Selle, Christian Gottlieb (1748-1800) : Medical doctor in Berlin, involved in experiments in animal magnetism. Kiesewetter regarded the experiments as fraudulent, but absolved S. of complicity. J Berlinische Monatr A liberal journal, founded in 1783, in which Kant frequently published. The editor in question was Johann Erich Biester (1749-1816), who was also Librarian of the Royal Library inBerlin. k Elsner, Christoph Friedrich (1749-1820): Professor of Medicine at K6aigsberg, who attended Kant in his final illness. A FURTHER NOTE ON PAUL MARHENKE'S "THE PHENOMENALISTIC INTERPRETATION OF KANT'S THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE" IN AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE to a paper, "The Phenomenalistic Interpretation of Kant's Theory of Knowledge," which was found in the effects of the late Paul Marhenke, Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, and which was printed in the April, 1964 issue of this Journal I mentioned that an intensive inquiry failed to reveal when this paper was written or for what occasion. I have recently received a note from Professor Jacob Loewenberg, Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at Berkeley, informing me that the paper was written while Paul Marhenke was a student at Berkeley and was written for Professor Loewenberg's Seminar on Kant, during the session of 192526. Professor Loewenberg writes that "the seminar dealt with certain selected topics crucial in or growing out of the Critique of Pure Reason. Among those who in addition to Paul were in the seminar, I remember distinctly (largely because of their superior performance) Donald C. Williams and the late A. P. Ushenko. I am not quite sure whether or not Philip Wiener was also enrolled." University o] California, San Diego A YRD-~[STROLL A I~EPLY TO WALTER KAUFMANN WALTER KAUFMANN,in his article, "Nietzsche in the Light of his Suppressed Manuscripts" 1 converts a review of Erich F. Podach's book, Friedrich Nietzsche's 1This Journal, II, 2 (Oct., 1964), pp. 205-225. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 247 Werke des Zusammenbruchs into a bitter personal attack on Podach and an even more vitriolic assault on me. Every author and scholar is entitled to his own opinion, and had Kaufmann soberly stated his case by simply announcing that, to his mind, the re-editing of Nietzsche's works according to the genuine manuscripts now available in Weimar has not changed one iota of the true character of the philosopher's last books, then his efforts would certainly have been unexceptionable. Prof. Kaufmann could simply have said, "Much ado about nothing! Podach's findings will, by no means, alter the image of Nietzsche among philosophers. Period." Indeed, this is precisely what Kaufmann's elaborate tirades and invectives come to if one reduces them to their... (shrink)

This book contributes to the contemporary revival of pragmatism as a practical and ultimately, as Mayer argues, necessary philosophical stance within democratic schools. Given that pragmatism addresses the question of how people can move forward in the absence of transcendent Truth, the author shows how pragmatism also-and not incidentally-provides grounds for pluralistic democratic societies to move forward in the absence of shared belief systems. Weaving together philosophical analysis and classroom discourse research, Mayer explores the relationships among pragmatism, progressive (...) educational theory, and democratic knowledge construction processes and their implications for enacting progressive educational practices in schools. Several original, research-based heuristics that can serve in reliably identifying, studying, and orchestrating distinctively democratic knowledge construction processes are presented. The importance of granting all students a share of interpretive authority is also emphasized. For in learning to observe and reflect on one's own terms, attend closely to the observations and interpretations of one's peers, and reason collaboratively in a transparent and principled manner, young people are enculturated into essential democratic values, commitments, and practices. This book is written for a general audience and is intended for all those concerned with strengthening the democratic character of schools and societies. It is likely to appeal to scholars, researchers, and practitioners with interests in philosophy and classroom discourse and curriculum studies, as well as philosophers of education and the social sciences more broadly. (shrink)

Macht ist allgegenwärtig; sie kann soziale, wirtschaftliche oder politische Formen annehmen und wirkt zu jeder Zeit in und um uns. Die Beschäftigung mit Macht und Ohnmacht ist daher auch keineswegs neu - seit Jahrtausenden steht sie im Mittelpunkt des Denkens berühmter Philosophen wie Thukydides, Machiavelli oder Thomas Hobbes. Was aber heißt und ist Macht eigentlich? Wie entsteht und vergeht sie? Was bewirkt sie? Was macht mächtig? Können Recht, Ethik oder Religion ihr Grenzen setzen? Diesen Fragen geht der Rechts-, Politik- und (...) Kulturwissenschaftler Peter Cornelius Mayer-Tasch nach. Facettenreich und kurzweilig führt er die verschiedenen Phänomene und Ausprägungen von Macht in diesem Band zusammen: Angefangen beim Begriff der Macht über die Anbetung von Macht - etwa in Religion oder Politik - schlägt Mayer-Tasch den Bogen bis hin zur Dialektik von Segen und Fluch der Macht und der Utopie von Verzicht auf Macht. Peter Cornelius Mayer-Tasch untersucht eines der bedeutsamsten Phänomene des sozialen Lebens: Was ist Macht und was macht mächtig? Kann man Macht Grenzen setzen? Geschickt verknüpft Mayer-Tasch die philosophisch-historischen Hintergründe von Macht mit ihren unerwarteten, alltäglichen Ausprägungen - oder hätten Sie Macht mit Liebe, Schönheit oder Gartengestaltung in Verbindung gebracht? (shrink)

This paper estimates the effects of human capital skills largely created through education on life's chances over the life cycle. Qualifications as a measure of these skills affect earnings, and schooling affects private and social non-market benefits beyond earnings. Private non-market benefits include better own-health, child health, spousal health, infant mortality, longevity, fertility, household efficiency, asset management and happiness. Social benefits include increased democratisation, civil rights, political stability, reduced crime, lower prison, health and welfare costs, and new ideas. Individual benefits (...) enhance community-wide development. New 'narrow' social rates of return using UK Labour Force earnings correct for institutional costs, longitudinal trends and ability. The paper's objective, however, is to estimate these earnings plus non-market outcomes comprehensively without overlaps and also relative to costs. Non-market outcomes are measured by averaging regression coefficients from published studies that meet scientific standards. New UK 'narrow' social rates of return average 12.1 per cent for short-cycle and 13.6 per cent for bachelor's programmes. Augmented with non-market effects on life chances, they are over twice that. Short degrees are found effective for regional development and have potential for developing countries. (shrink)

The two most antagonistic schools in contemporary Western philosophy are Existentialism and Logical Positivism. They have nothing in common but the name of philosophy, and even that they deny each other. There is some kind of discussion going on between even such distant schools as Pragmatism and neo-Thomism; Existentialists and Logical Positivists have nothing but sarcasms for each other. To philosophers familiar only with the Anglo-Saxon scene Existentialism must appear negligible. In the Mediterranean countries, on the other hand, where philosophy (...) is a much more popular pastime, Existentialism has an unparalleled vogue and Logical Positivism is considered a horrible aberration from the naturally speculative course of philosophy. In South America whose philosophical life we are apt to underrate Logical Positivism seems to be known to almost nobody, whereas Existentialism, mostly in its German and anti-religious shape, has become, quite paradoxically, the rallying point of “Liberalism,” liberalism, in Spanish countries, being above all anti-catholicism. Although, ironically enough, both Logical Positivism and modern Existentialism originated in German speaking countries, the split between the two goes vaguely parallel with, and may have found some ready echo in, the different cultural inheritance of the Anglo-Saxon and Latin races. Hence, the subject of this paper would seem far-fetched to those steeped in their own national tradition. There is, however, a growing consciousness of the “one world” function of philosophy, particularly with regard to Eastern and Western philosophy. Would it not be a prerequisite of this more ambitious enterprise to gain a clear conception about the most radical split in our own contemporary Western philosophy, the split between Logical Positivism and Existentialism? This paper is an attempt to establish a perspective permitting a just evaluation of the two philosophies. (shrink)