European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 725-739, June 2022.

The aim of this paper is to elucidate Franz Brentano's concept of immanent object through his own words and from his own perspective. The prevalent account of Brentano's revival of intentionality, his initial failure to distinguish between object and content, and his wrong‐headed immanentism, is largely derived from his students. Brentano's objection to it, although well known, is seldom heeded. In fact, plenty of guidelines have been provided by Brentano himself in his writings on how his concept of immanent object (...) is to be understood. I begin with his distinction between two senses of “object,” which, I argue, must be clearly set apart from distinction between two modes of object. I then examine three different interpretations of the term “in‐existence”: the locative, the inherentist, and the objective interpretation. In the end, after dismissing the first two interpretations, I argue that Brentano is best understood as maintaining an objective and deflationary account of mental in‐existence. (shrink)

In the history of ethics, it remains remains unclear how Christians of the Middle Ages came to see God-given virtues as dispositions (habitus) created in the human soul. Patristic works could surely support other conceptions of the virtues given by grace. For example, one might argue that all such virtues are forms of charity, so that they must be affections of the soul, or that they consist in what the soul does, not anything the soul has. Scholars usually assume that (...) the explanation lies in the impact of Aristotle's philosophy on medieval theology. This essay argues that the dispositional account of God-given virtues was already entrenched by the end of the twelfth century and probably owes more to the influence of Augustine's treatise On the Good of Marriage. (shrink)

This paper illuminates the explanatory role of vagueness und species membership against the background of scientific developments in recent stem cell research. With the help of the Neo-Aristotelian concept of “life form naturalism” ontologically vague entities such as stem cells, all above induced pluripotent stem cells, could be described as necessary constituents for the correct sorting and naming of natural processes and its bearers. Furthermore this specific assessment allows drawing some important ontological and ethical consequences.

This thesis proposes a perspective on language and its development by starting from two approaches. The first is the ecological-enactive approach to cognition. In opposition to the widespread idea that cognition is information-processing in the brain, the ecological-enactive approach explains human cognition in relational terms, as skilful interactions with a sociomaterial environment shaped by practices. The second is the metalinguistic approach to language, which holds that reflexive or metalinguistic language use – talking about talking – is crucial for understanding language (...) and its development. In particular, I defend two theses: 1. A child’s initial communicative behaviour can be explained in terms of attentional actions: social actions that function by directing someone else’s attention. 2. In order for the child’s communicative behaviour to be sensitive to key properties of language, such as semantic content and normativity, she needs to learn metalinguistic skills. The development of this ecological-enactive perspective on language serves two functions. First, the ecological-enactive approach started by considering basic behaviour, such as locomotion and grasping. An approach in the cognitive sciences, however, should be able to account for the full gamut of human cognition. If the perspective developed in this thesis is viable, this is a contribution to extending the ecological-enactive approach to typically human forms of cognition. Second, this perspective throws new light on philosophical problems concerning language. In the different chapters, I deal with questions concerning the nature of linguistic knowledge, explanations of communicative behaviour, and the origins of semantic content and linguistic normativity. (shrink)

A Photcopy of Thinking Things Through, Princeton Univeresity Press, 1980.

One of Heidegger’s enduring concerns was to develop an original meditation on the meaning of (the presence of) the present. Integral to this attempt is his critique of the understanding of the being of beings in terms of the objectivity of the object. In this paper, I trace Heidegger’s analyses of objectivity, through which Heidegger consistently establishes objectivity as non-primordial and derivative. In order to do this, however, Heidegger had to identify a specific, narrow (spatio-temporalized) conception of objectivity (in terms (...) of Gegenstehenlassen and Vorstellen) as the hallmark of modern philosophy. I show that it is unclear whether that conception is a justified result or rather an unjustified presupposition of his approach. I then suggest what meanings of objectivity might be lost after Heidegger, by pointing to several aspects of Hegel’s notion of objectivity that are incompatible with Heidegger’s account, to wit: the lack of ‘subject-object’-terminology in his definitions of objectivity; the special language of ‘forms of’ objectivity; Hegel’s critique of representation; his notion of Gegenstand as a content with a categorical form, and, finally, that Aristotle’s notion of hypokeimenon might provide a clue as to how Hegel’s notion of object can be understood. (shrink)

This paper undertakes an in-depth examination of the intriguing argument for the existential import of negative propositions by the fifteenth-century Ottoman scholar Hatibzâde Mehmed (d. 1496) and the counterarguments by his disciple, Taşköprizâde Kâsım (d. 1513). It argues that this discussion is a significant example of Ottoman scholars engaging in long-standing disputes concerning the nature and ontological ground of negative propositions, which date back to Plato and Aristotle. It is also intended to underline the need for considering not only logic (...) texts but also works primarily associated with other disciplines in order to attain a comprehensive picture of logical discussions in the post-classical period of Islamic thought. (shrink)

Categories play a major role in contemporary metaphysics. They have not only been invoked in a number of philosophical theories but are themselves objects of epistemological and metaphysical scrutiny. In this article, we will discuss the following questions: How do we know when something belongs to a certain category? Is there a fundamental category of the world? Can we give a satisfactory account of the number of categories and the completeness of systems of categories? Are categories the genuine subjects of (...) ontology? (shrink)

Hypersequents are a natural generalization of ordinary sequents which turn out to be a very suitable tool for presenting cut-free Gentzent-type formulations for diverse logics. In this paper, an alternative way of formulating hypersequent calculi (by introducing meta-variables for formulas, sequents and hypersequents in the object language) is presented. A suitable category of hypersequent calculi with their morphisms is defined and both types of fibring (constrained and unconstrained) are introduced. The introduced morphisms induce a novel notion of translation between logics (...) which preserves metaproperties in a strong sense. Finally, some preservation features are explored. (shrink)