Recently, Bengt Hansson presented a paper about dyadic deontic logic,2 criticizing some purely axiomatic systems of dyadic deontic logic and proposing three purely semantical systems of dyadic deontic logic which he confidently called dyadic standard systems of deontic logic (DSDL1–3). Here I shall discuss the third by far most interesting system DSDL3 which is operating with preference relations. First, I shall describe this semantical system (Sections 1.1–1.3). Then I shall give an axiomatic system (Section 1.4) which is proved to be (...) correct (Section 2) and complete (Section 3) with respect to Hansson's semantics. Finally, in face of these results Hansson's semantics will be discussed from a more intuitive standpoint. After emphasizing its intuitive attractiveness (Section 4.1) I will show that two objections often discussed in connection with preference relations do not apply to it (Section 4.2 and 4.3); more precisely, I will show that the connectedness condition for preference relations can be dropped and that, in a sense, it is not necessary to compare two possible worlds differing in infinitely many respects. (What exactly is meant by this, will become clear later on.) Yet there is a third objection to Hansson's semantics which points to a real intuitive inadequacy of DSDL3. A way of removing this inadequacy, which corresponds to Hansson's own intuitions as well as to familiar metaethical views, is suggested, but not technically realized (Section 4.4). In the last section (section 4.5) I shall briefly show that DSDL3 is decidable, as expected. (shrink)

where _x_ stands for a visible object and _y_ for a perceiving subject (the reference to a time may be neglected).¹ I take here ”character” in the sense of Kaplan (1977) as substantiated by Haas-Spohn (1995 and Chapter 14 in this book)). The point of using Kaplan’s framework is simple, but of utmost importance: It provides a scheme for clearly separating epistemological and metaphysical issues, for specifying how the two domains are related, and for connecting them to questions concerning meaning (...) where confusions are often only duplicated. All this is achieved by it better than by any alternative I know of.². (shrink)

Diese Arbeit stellt Freges Denken in seiner Entwicklung von den Anfängen bis zum Auftreten des Widerspruch dar. Ausführlich behandelt sind die Begriffsschrift, die Erläuterungsschriften dazu, die Grundlagen der Arithmetik sowie die Texte im Übergang zu den Grundgesetzen der Arithmetik, ein- schließlich der klassischen Aufsätze Funktion und Begriff, Über Sinn und Bedeutung und Über Begriff und Gegenstand. Die Texte werden nach Chronologie und Stellung zueinander präzise aufgeschlüsselt; auch die zeitgenössischen Rezensionen und Freges wissenschaftliches Umfeld werden berücksichtigt. Freges Werk wird dadurch in (...) seiner beeindruckenden Zielstrebigkeit, Geschlossenheit und Tiefe sichtbar. Sein Zentrum ist die radikale Neufassung der Logik, ausgehend von der Grundunterscheidung von Begriff und Gegenstand, die zunächst eher unauffällig über die Zerfällung des Urteils in Funktion und Argument eingeführt und mit f(a) notiert wird. Zusammen mit der Einführung einer (Quantoren-)Notation, um die Allgemeinheit der Einsetzungen auf beiden Positionen einzuschränken, übertrifft Freges Logik die traditionelle, alle zeitgenössischen und etliche spätere an Präzision und Ausdruckskraft. Eben die grundsätzliche Trennung von Begriff und Gegenstand erweist sich aber für sein wissenschaftliches Hauptanliegen, die Ableitung der Arithmetik aus der Logik, als schwerwiegendes, letztlich nicht zu überwindendes Hindernis. Es gelingt ihm nicht, die Zahlen als „logische Gegenstände“ überzeugend einzuführen, und so zeigt er wider Willen die wesentliche Verschiedenheit von Logik und Arithmetik auf. (shrink)

Die vorgelegte Summe des Hochidealismus ersetzt - der neuen Forschungs- und Quellenlage entsprechend - die alte Konstruktion vom Dreischritt, der von Fichtes Jenaer Wissenschaftslehre ausgeht, in die Naturphilosophie Schellings ubergeht und in Hegels System vollendet aufgeht, durch die Gegenthese: Der Deutsche Idealismus ist die Begrundung der Vernunftwissenschaft im Widerstreit von drei Vollendungsanspruchen, erhoben im Identitatssystem und der positiven Philosophie Schellings, in Hegels Onto-Theo-Logik und der Ungeschriebenen Lehre Fichtes, d.i. den mundlichen Vortragszyklen nach 1800. Die eingehende Ausarbeitung dieses dreiseitigen Widerstreites hebt (...) einen Vorrang heraus. Fichtes Ungeschriebene Lehre ist die einzige der drei Vollendungsgestalten, die im Begreifen des Wahrheits- und Systemgrundes, des Absoluten, transzendentale Besinnung in absoluter Reflexion bewahrt und daher auch vorzuglich in der Lage ist, unser Zeitalter der Nichtbesinnung herauszufordern. Wolfgang Janke ist emeritierter Universitatsprofessor. Zu seinen Forschungsschwerpunkten gehort das Gebiet des Deutschen Idealismus von Kant bis Hegel. Neue Einblicke zumal in die Spatphilosophie Fichtes eroffnen seine Abhandlungen: Fichte. Sein und Reflexion, 1970. - Historische Dialektik. Von Kant bis Marx, 1977. - Vom Bilde des Absoluten, 1993. - Johann Gottlieb Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre 1805. Methodisch-systematischer und philosophiegeschichtlicher Kommentar, 1999. In der Supplementa-Reihe ist (bei Rodopi) erschienen: Entgegensetzungen. Studien zu Fichte-Konfrontationen von Rousseau bis Kierkegaard, 1994. Wolfgang Janke, dessen erster akademischer Lehrer ein Erneuerer der Kant- und Fichte-Interpretation, Heinz Heimsoeth, war und dem durch Karl-Heinz Volkmann-Schluck aus dem Heidegger-Kreis der Deutsche Idealismus in seiner problemreichen Vollendungsphase nahegebracht wurde, ist heute Ehrenprasident der Internationalen Fichte-Gesellschaft. (shrink)

This article argues that current civilizational analysis as exemplified by the work of Shmuel N. Eisenstadt still shares the strengths and weaknesses of the original approach as developed by Marcel Mauss (and Émile Durkheim) a century ago. Eisenstadt’s approach basically relies on a particular understanding of path dependency which immediately raises the question how civilizational patterns are reproduced after the crucial turning point of the Axial Age. This problem of civilizational persistence, however, remains largely unresolved and will not even be (...) resolved in the future as long as civilizational analysis relies on mostly culturalist premises. Only a combination of arguments from the field of political sociology and the sociology of religion — as suggested by Johann P. Arnason — promises to explain how civilizations are able to reproduce their patterns over and over again. (shrink)

The paper analyzes the meaning of color terms within the framework of Kaplan's character theory (which, when generalized to a treatment of hidden indexicality or dependence on the context world, can perfectly accommodate Kripke's notions of apriority and of (metaphysical) necessity). It explains this framework and why it might be fruitfully applied to color terms. Then it defends six theses: that (1) the predicate "is red" and (2) even the relation "appears red to" are hidden indexicals (i.e., have, as used (...) in English, different extensions in different context worlds), that (3) the phenomenal, the comparative, and the epistemic reading of "appears red to" are not three different readings, but reflect the context world dependence of this term, that (4) the statement "x is red iff x would appear red to most English-speaking people under normal conditions" is a priori in English, but analytic only in one reading and not in another, and that these observations account well for the epistemology of color terms and allow us to be metaphysically conservative by claiming that our context world is presumably such that (5) the statement "x appears red to y iff x (appropriately) causes y to be in a certain (disjunctive) neural state N" is necessarily true and (6) the statement "x is red iff the reflectance spectrum of the surface of x is of some (disjunctive) kind R" is necessarily true as well. (shrink)

The way Frege presented the Square of Opposition in a reduced form in 1879 and 1910 can be used to develop two distinct versions of the square: The traditional square that displays inferences and a “Table of Oppositions” displaying variations of negation. This Table of Oppositions can be further simplified and thus be made more symmetrical. A brief survey of versions of the square from Aristotle to the present shows how both aspects of the square have coexisted for a very (...) long time without ever being properly distinguished. (shrink)

In his entire oeuvre Brentano defended a scientific conception of philosophy and advocated the adoption of a rigorous, scientific method. Given this background it might come as a surprise that in his reflections on aesthetics he firmly rejected the classic definition of aesthetics as the science of beauty. This must not be read as an expression of disinterest in – or a dismissal of – aesthetics, though. It is rather an expression of Brentano's view concerning the position of aesthetics in (...) his overall system. He conceived it – on a par with logic and ethics – not as a theoretical science, but as a practical discipline that was rooted in psychology: aesthetics, Brentano suggests, is not constituted by a set of intrinsically related propositions; it rather serves the practical purpose of instructing those who want to experience the beautiful with correct taste or to create works of art. The task of aesthetics is, in other words, to formulate a set of rules or instructions that teach us how to correctly experience beauty, how to come to prefer the more over the less beautiful, but also how to create beauty and how to produce works of art that have the power to bring about aesthetic pleasure in the beholder. (shrink)

Brentano hat das Zeit-Problem in verschiedenen Phasen seiner Philosophie aus verschiedenen Perspektiven zu lösen gesucht, die in vier Phasen eingeteilt werden können: Erstens die frühe Würzburger Phase, in der er die Zeitdifferenzen in der Weise des urteilenden Verhaltens sieht; zweitens die frühe Wiener Phase, in der er besonderes Augenmerk auf die zeitlichen Unterschiede als Unterschiede des Gegenstandes legt, aber diese seine Auffassung des kontinuierlichen Zeitüberganges auch einer 3-fachen Kritik unterzieht, drittens die Charakterisierung der Zeitunterschiede als Unterschiede des Urteilsmodus; viertens die (...) Auffassung der zeitlichen Unterschiede als Unterschiede des Vorstellens. (shrink)

The Physikalische Gesellschaft zu Berlin , founded in 1845 as a local association, became a centre of interdisciplinarity. Until about 1880 the Physical Society contributed to the development of interdisciplinary sciences like bio(medical)physics, astrophysics and Physics of the earth (physical meteorology). In the same way the emergence of well-founded electrotechnics and scientific device construction was promoted by physics.

The book has a twofold content and aim: on the one hand, it offers a radical critique of the modern world, and on the other, it seeks to expound timeless wisdom. And the second end presupposes the first: for so long as we have not "broken through the barrier of scientistic belief" as the subtitle has it, that timeless wisdom-that veritable sophia perennis-remains inaccessible.

Rudolf Carnap was born on May 18, 1891, and Hans Reichenbach on September 26 in the same year. They are two of the greatest philosophers of this century, and they are eminent representatives of what is perhaps the most powerful contemporary philosophical movement. Moreover, they founded the journal Erkenntnis. This is ample reason for presenting, on behalf of Erkenntnis, a collection of essays in honor of them and their philosophical work. I am less sure, however, whether it is a good (...) time for resuming their philosophical impact; their work still is rather part than historical basis of the present philosophical melting-pot. Their basic philosophical theses have currently, it may seem, not so high a standing, but their impact can be seen in numerous detailed issues; they have opened or pushed forward lively fields of research which are still very actively pursued not only within philosophy, but also in many neighboring disciplines. Whatever the present balance of opinions about their philosophical ideas, there is something even more basic in their philosophy than their tenets which is as fresh, as stimulating, as exemplary as ever. I have in mind their way of philosophizing, their conception of how to do philosophy. It is always a good time for reinforcing that conception; and if this volume would manage to do so, it would fully serve its purpose. (shrink)

The paper proposes to amend structuralism in mathematics by saying what places in a structure and thus mathematical objects are. They are the objects of the canonical system realizing a categorical structure, where that canonical system is a minimal system in a specific essentialistic sense. It would thus be a basic ontological axiom that such a canonical system always exists. This way of conceiving mathematical objects is underscored by a defense of an essentialistic version of Leibniz’ principle according to which (...) each object is uniquely characterized by its proper and possibly relational essence (where “proper” means “not referring to identity"). (shrink)

"Five Questions on Formal Philosophy": Like the other authors in the volume, I was asked for my reflections on the character of philosophy by answering the following five questions : 1. Why were you initially drawn to formal methods? 2. What example from your work illustrates the role formal methods can play in philosophy? 3. What is the proper role of philosophy in relation to other disciplines? 4. What do you consider the most neglected topics and/or contributions in late 20th (...) century philosophy? 5. What are the most important problems in philosophy and which are the prospects for progress? (shrink)