One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler’s _Gender Trouble_ is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated (...) social _performance _rather than the expression of a prior reality. Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same extent. (shrink)

Contemporary feminist debates over the meanings of gender lead time and again to a certain sense of trouble, as if the indeterminacy of gender might eventually culminate in the failure of feminism. Perhaps trouble need not carry such a..

This book presents a comprehensive, non-model-theoretic theory of ontic necessity and possibility within a formal (and formalised) ontology consisting of states of affairs, properties, and individuals.

J'ai fait dernierement (etant a un endroit ou quelques jours durant je n'avais rien a faire) un petit discours de Metaphysique, dont je serais bien aise d'avoir le sentiment de M. Arnauld. Leibniz annoncait en ces termes, en fevrier 1686, a l'un de ses nombreux correspondants, l'achevement tout recent de ces fameux trente sept articles. Ce discours offre, avec une remarquable densite, le premier grand expose d'ensemble des principes generaux d'une metaphysique qui jusque la se cherchait encore a travers de (...) nombreux travaux partiels; c'est cette synthese, qui sera bientot reprise par d'innombrables opuscules, qui inspirera encore les grandes oeuvres de maturite (Theodicee, Monadologie, Principes de la nature et de la grace). (shrink)

The Parmenides is, especially with respect to its second part, one of Plato's most difficult dialogues. The paper sketches an interpretation which is characterized by the following main points: The interpretation is neither rejectionistic nor compatibilistic, that is, according to it, neither should none of the statements of the 2nd part be taken seriously as an assertion meant to be true, nor are all statements of the 2nd part acceptable as true if correctly interpreted. In the 2nd part of the (...) Parmenides, Plato develops a logical theory - a theory of predication, participation and of the community of ideal forms in general - on mereological foundations; in doing this, he advances far beyond elementary mereological principles. This forces us to revise our views concerning the beginnings of logic. It is due to the incomparably high rank which Plato accorded to the active working-out of insights that Plato presents his results not in an expository manner, but as a web of contradictions. The readers are challenged to find the truth for themselves. (shrink)

In Plato's Parmenides we find on the one hand that the One is denied every property , and on the other hand that the One is attributed every property . In the course of the history of Platonism , these assertions - probably meant by Plato as ontological statements of an entirely formal nature - were repeatedly made the starting points of metaphysical speculations. In the Mystical Theology of the Pseudo-Dionysius they became principles of Christian mysticism and negative theology. I (...) shall show that the two assertions can each be interpreted within the ontological framework of ancient and medieval logic in such a manner that it becomes true, and I shall make plausible that they were understood, with regard to their logical core, by pagan and Christian Platonic metaphysicians just as is indicated by that interpretation. The mentioned ontological framework is basically the Boolean algebra of first-order properties. The main points of the interpretation are on the one hand the identification of the One with the maximal element of the algebra of properties, and on the other hand two alternative intuitively prominent mereological definitions of ontic predication. (shrink)