En una conferencia sobre el Tercer Sector en Cartagena, Daniel Pecaut afirmó: “Lo que le falta a Colombia más que un “mito fundacional” es un relato nacional ”. Se refería a un relato que posibilite a los colombianos de todas las clases, razas, etnias y regiones, ubicar sus experiencias cotidianas en una mínima trama compartida de duelos y de logros.

In seiner Aufsatzsammlung Anthropologie statt Metaphysik behandelt Ernst Tugendhat große metaphysische Fragen mit nüchternem Blick auf uns Menschen. Tugendhat plädiert dort an mehreren Stellen für ein erkenntnistheoretisches Prinzip, nach dem wir uns z.B. dann zu richten haben, wenn wir uns fragen, ob wir an Gott glauben sollen. Das Prinzip lautet: Wenn die rationalen Gründe zugunsten einer Überzeugung genauso stark sind wie die rationalen Gegengründe, und wenn wir – unabhängig von Vernunft – das Bedürfnis verspüren oder den Wunsch (...) oder die Hoffnung, dass die Überzeugung wahr sein möge, dann sollen wir uns gegen die fragliche Überzeugung entscheiden. Ich halte dies Prinzip für zu pessimistisch und für überzogen rational. Meiner Ansicht nach wären wir nicht gut beraten, dem Prinzip in unserem geistigen Leben immer zu folgen; das ist nur in ganz speziellen Fällen ratsam. Um das plausibel zu machen, gehe ich verschiedene Alltagsbeispiele durch, bei denen das Prinzip greifen würde und bei denen sich seine Anwendung (in ganz verschiedenen Hinsichten) so ähnlich anfühlt wie bei der Frage nach Gott. Die Beispiele betreffen Fragen der künstlerischen Selbsteinschätzung, des Wetters, der Liebe sowie der menschlichen Qualitäten von Vor- und Nachfahren. Und da Tugendhats Prinzip schon bei solchen harmlosen Beispielen pessimistische, aber keineswegs zuverlässige Ratschläge erteilt, sollten wir es besser auch nicht auf die Frage nach Gott anwenden. (shrink)

In seiner Aufsatzsammlung Anthropologie statt Metaphysik behandelt Ernst Tugendhat große metaphysische Fragen mit nüchternem Blick auf uns Menschen. Tugendhat plädiert dort an mehreren Stellen für ein erkenntnistheoretisches Prinzip, nach dem wir uns z.B. dann zu richten haben, wenn wir uns fragen, ob wir an Gott glauben sollen. Das Prinzip lautet: Wenn die rationalen Gründe zugunsten einer Überzeugung genauso stark sind wie die rationalen Gegengründe, und wenn wir – unabhängig von Vernunft – das Bedürfnis verspüren oder den Wunsch (...) oder die Hoffnung, dass die Überzeugung wahr sein möge, dann sollen wir uns gegen die fragliche Überzeugung entscheiden. Ich halte dies Prinzip für zu pessimistisch und für überzogen rational. Meiner Ansicht nach wären wir nicht gut beraten, dem Prinzip in unserem geistigen Leben immer zu folgen; das ist nur in ganz speziellen Fällen ratsam. Um das plausibel zu machen, gehe ich verschiedene Alltagsbeispiele durch, bei denen das Prinzip greifen würde und bei denen sich seine Anwendung so ähnlich anfühlt wie bei der Frage nach Gott. Die Beispiele betreffen Fragen der künstlerischen Selbsteinschätzung, des Wetters, der Liebe sowie der menschlichen Qualitäten von Vor- und Nachfahren. Und da Tugendhats Prinzip schon bei solchen harmlosen Beispielen pessimistische, aber keineswegs zuverlässige Ratschläge erteilt, sollten wir es besser auch nicht auf die Frage nach Gott anwenden. (shrink)

Pubblicato agli inizi degli anni Cinquanta del Novecento da Ernst Bloch (1885-1977), Gli strati della categoria della possibilità diventò in seguito il diciottesimo capitolo del suo Principio speranza. Vi è presentata un’indagine teorica e storica su che cosa sia la possibilità. Da Aristotele a Marx, passando per Averroè, Giordano Bruno e Hegel, lettrici e lettori ripercorreranno le proposte avanzate nella storia della filosofia per affrontare la questione del possibile, fino a scoprire la teoria della possibilità reale. Grazie alla sua (...) particolare struttura, che sviluppa l’argomentazione facendo emergere in ordine di complessità crescente i principali elementi dell’ontologia del non essere ancora, questo testo è una preziosa chiave per orientarsi nella lettura della filosofia di Bloch. (shrink)

The concept of philosophy as a philosophical problem.--Critical idealism as a philosophy of culture.--Descartes, Leibniz, and Vico.--Hegel's theory of the State.--The philosophy of history.--Language and art I.--Language and art II.--The educational value of art.--Philosophy and politics.--Judaism and the modern political myths.--The technique of our modern political myths.--Reflections on the concept of group and the theory of perception.

(2005). Hermann Cohen and the Renewal of Kantian philosophy2. Angelaki: Vol. 10, continental philosophy and the sciences the german traditionissue editor: damian veal, pp. 95-108.

In this essay Ernst Cassirer addresses two currents of the philosophical reflection about man and culture that emerged at the end of the 18th century. Th e naturalistic one, conceives of man and culture as an outcome of the processes that takes place beyond the reach of human will and consciousness. Among such naturalistically oriented philosophies Cassirer includes Hegel’s idealism, Taine’s positivism and Spengler’s psychologism. All of them imply a characteristic kind of historical fatalism. In opposition to such a (...) deterministic vision of human development stands a philosophy that emphasizes the importance of individual decision and responsibility for the course of history. Cassirer names it “humanistic” as it places man in the very middle of its research. The initiators of this tradition were Johann Gottfried Herder and Wilhelm von Humboldt, foremost representatives of the German romantic movement. The philosopher who took up their humanistic thought and elevated it to the importance of a distinct knowledge was Wilhelm Dilthey. While bearing in mind who is the real creator of culture all these thinkers pay special attention to the question of man’s responsibility for culture as well as for himself. The problem of human responsibility that totally escaped the attention of naturalistically oriented philosophers is somehow a distinguishing characteristic of all humanistic philosophies of culture. (shrink)

Emmanuel Lévinas est le philosophe de la non-indifférence; il n’est en aucune sorte un philosophe indifférent. Son inquiétude personnelle et engagement politique ont trouvé une expression philosophique dans une quête à deux versants. Dans le versant ontologique, il cherche à montrer que même si l’homme est l’événement de compréhension de l’être, tout l’homme et toute signification ne se réduisent pas à la compréhension de l’être seul. Dans le versant politique, il s’interroge sur la possibilité de soumettre la tendance totalitaire de (...) toute politique à une recherche de justice qui ne dépend pas finalement de la politique même. Mais ces deux versants n’en font qu’un. La découverte d’une signification qui excède la compréhension de l’être – l’éthique – fournit en même temps la source de renouvellement de la justice. Ainsi, par cette double question, Lévinas nous présente les fils conducteurs de notre enquête: une signification au-delà de la compréhension de l’être et sa portée éthique, que nous appelons «langage» et que nous explorons dans la perspective de son importance politique. Les études analytiques dans lesquelles les notions de politique et de langage fonctionnent comme clef d’interprétation mutuelle débouchent sur une critique centrée sur deux problèmes: l’impossibilité d’interpréter la signifiance de l’autre et le danger inhérent à la conception d’une justice dépassant l’Etat. (shrink)

We review an influential series of lectures on analytic philosophy published in 1976 by the West German philosopher Ernst Tugendhat focusing on Tugendhat's treatment of Husserl, and particularly on issues connected with the notion of dependence or Abhängigkeit central to Husserl's philosophy. These issues are of interest not only because Tugendhat's work is one of the few contributions to contemporary analytic philosophy in which they are confronted explicitly, but also because what he has to say about (...) Husserl and dependence illustrates well both the positive and the negative thrust of his argument. (shrink)

It is argued that medical science requires a classificatory system that (a) puts functions in the taxonomic center and (b) does justice ontologically to the difference between the processes which are the realizations of functions and the objects which are their bearers. We propose formulae for constructing such a system and describe some of its benefits. The arguments are general enough to be of interest to all the life sciences.

Using placebos in day-to-day practice is an ethical problem. This paper summarises the available epidemiological evidence to support this difficult decision. Based on these data we propose to differentiate between placebo and “knowledge framing”. While the use of placebo should be confined to experimental settings in clinical trials, knowledge framing — which is only conceptually different from placebo — is a desired, expected and necessary component of any doctor-patient encounter. Examples from daily practice demonstrate both, the need to investigate the (...) effects of knowledge framing and its impact on ethical, medical, economical and legal decisions. (shrink)

● Sergio Cremaschi, The non-existing Island. I discuss the way in which the cleavage between the Continental and the Anglo-American philosophies originated, the (self-)images of both philosophical worlds, the converging rediscoveries from the Seventies, as well as recent ecumenic or anti-ecumenic strategies. I argue that pragmatism provides an important counter-instance to both the familiar self-images and to the fashionable ecumenic or anti-ecumenic strategies. My conclusions are: (i) the only place where Continental philosophy exists (as Euro-Communism one decade ago) is America; (...) (ii) less obviously, also analytic philosophy does not exist, or does no more exist as a current or a paradigm; what does exist is, on the one hand, philosophy of language and, on the other, philosophy of mind, that is, two disciplines; (iii) the dissolution of analytic philosophy as a school has been extremely fruitful, precisely in so far as it has left room for disciplines and research programmes; (iv) what is left, of the Anglo-American/Continental cleavage is primarily differences in styles, depending partly on intellectual traditions, partly owing to sociology, history, institutional frameworks; these differences should not be blurred by rash ecumenism; besides, theoretical differences are alive as ever, but within both camps; finally, there is indeed a lag (not a difference) in the appropriation of intellectual techniques by most schools of 'Continental' philosophy, and this should be overcome through appropriation of what the best 'analytic' philosophers have produced. ● Michael Strauss, Language and sense-perception: an aspect of analytic philosophy. To test an assertion about one fact by comparing it with perceived reality seems quite unproblematic. But the very possibility of such a procedure is incompatible with the intellectualistic basis of logical positivism and atomism (as it is for example to be found in Russell's Analysis of Mind). According to the intellectualistic approach pure sensation is meaningless. Sensation receives its meaning and order from the intellect through interpretation, which is performed with the help of linguistic tools, i.e. words and sentences. Before being interpreted, sensation is not a picture or a representation, it is neither true nor false, neither an illusion nor knowledge; it does not tell us anything; it is a lifeless and order-less matter. But how can a thought (or a proposition) be compared with such a lifeless matter? This difficulty confronts the intellectualist, if on the one hand he admits the necessity of comparing thought with sense-perception, and on the other hand presupposes that we possess only intellectual and no immediate perceptual understanding of what we see and hear. In this paper I give a critical exposition of three attempts, made by Russell, Neurath and Wittgenstein, to solve this problem. The first attempt adheres to strict conventionalism, the second tends to naturalism and the third leads to an amended, very moderate version of conventionalism. This amended conventionalism looks at sense impressions as being a peculiar language, which includes primary symbols, i.e. symbols not founded on convention and not being in need of interpretation. ● Ernst Tugendhat, Phenomenology and language analysis. The paper, first published in German in 1970, by which Tugendhat gave a start to the German rediscovery of analytic philosophy. The author stages a confrontation between phenomenology and language analysis. He argues that language analysis does not differ from phenomenology as far as the topics dealt with are concerned; instead, both currents are quite different in method. The author argues that language-analytic philosophy does not simply lay out of the mainstream of transcendental philosophy, but that instead it challenges this tradition on the very level of foundations. The author criticizes the linguistic-analytic approach centred on the subject as well as any object-centred approach, while proposing inter-subjective understanding through language as the new universal framework. This is, when construed in so general terms, the same program of hermeneutics, though in a more basic version. ● Jürgen Habermas, Language game, intention and meaning. On a few suggestions by Sellars and Wittgenstein. The paper, first published in German in 1975, in which Habermas announces his own linguistic turn through a discovery of speech acts. In this essay the author wants to work out a categorical framework for a communicative theory of society; he takes Wittgenstein's concept of language game as a Leitfade and, besides, he takes advantage also of Wilfried Sellars's quasi-transcendental account of the genesis of intentionality. His goal is to single out the problems connected with a theory of consciousness oriented in a logical-linguistic sense. ● Zvie Bar-On, Isomorphism of speech acts and intentional states. This essay presents the problem of the formal relationship between speech acts and intentional states as an essential part of the perennial philosophical question of the relation between language and thought. I attempt to show how this problem had been dealt with by two prominent philosophers of different camps in our century, Edmund Husserl and John Searle. Both of them wrote extensively about the theory of intentionality. I point out an interesting, as it were unintended, continuity of their work on that theory. Searle started where Husserl left off 80 years earlier. Their meeting point could be used as the first clue in our search. They both adopted in effect the same distinction between two basic aspects of the intentional experience: its content or matter, and its quality or mode. Husserl did not yet have the concept of a speech act as contradistinguished from an intentional state. The working hypothesis, however, which he suggested, could be used as a second clue for the further elaboration of the theory. The relationship of the two levels, the mental and the linguistic, which remained for Husserl in the background only, became the cornerstone of Searle' s inquiry. He employed the speech act as the model and analysed the intentional experience by means of the conceptual apparatus of his own theory of speech acts. This procedure enabled him to mark out a number of parallelisms and correlations between the two levels. This procedure explains the phenomenon of the partial isomorphism of speech acts and intentional states. ● Roberta de Monticelli, Ontology. A dialogue among the linguistic philosopher, the naturalist, and the phenomenological philosopher. This paper proposes a comparison between two main ways of conceiving the role and scope of that fundamental part of philosophy (or of "first" philosophy) which is traditionally called "ontology". One way, originated within the analytic tradition, consists of two main streams, namely philosophy of language and (contemporary) philosophy of mind, the former yielding "reduced ontology" and the latter "neo-Aristotelian ontology". The other way of conceiving ontology is exemplified by "phenomenological ontology" (more precisely, the Husserlian, not the Heideggerian version). Ontology as a theory of reference ("reduced" ontology, or ontology as depending on semantics) is presented and justified on the basis of some classical thesis of traditional philosophy of language (from Frege to Quine). "Reduced ontology" is shown to be identifiable with one level of a traditional, Aristotelian ontology, namely the one which corresponds to one of the four "senses of being" listed in Aristotle's Metaphysics: "being" as "being true". This identification is justified on the basis of Franz Brentano's "rules for translation" of the Aristotelian table of judgements in terms of (positive and negative) existential judgments such as are easily translatable into sentences of first order predicate logic. The second part of the paper is concerned with "neo-Aristotelian ontology", i.e. with naturalism and physicalism as the main ontological options underlying most of contemporary discussion in the philosophy of mind. The qualification of such options as "neo-Aristotelian" is justified; the relationships between "neo-Aristotelian ontology" and "reduced ontology" are discussed. In the third part the fundamental tenet of "phenomenological ontology" is identified by the thesis that a logical theory of existence and being does capture a sense of "existing" and "being" which, even though not the basic one, is grounded in the basic one. An attempt is done of further clarifying this "more basic" sense of "being". An argument making use of this supposedly "more basic" sense is advanced in favour of a "phenomenological ontology". ● Kuno Lorenz, Analytic Roots in Dialogic Constructivism. Both in the Vienna Circle ad in Russell's early philosophy the division of knowledge into two kinds (or two levels), perceptual and conceptual, plays a vital role. Constructivism in philosophy, in trying to provide a pragmatic foundation - a knowing-how - to perceptual as well as conceptual competences, discovered that this is dependent on semiotic tools. Therefore, the "principle of method" had to be amended by the "principle of dialogue". Analytic philosophy being an heir of classical empiricism, conceptually grasping the "given", and constructive philosophy being an heir of classical rationalism, perceptually providing the "constructed", merge into dialogical constructivism, a contemporary development of ideas derived especially from the works of Charles S. Peirce (his pragmatic maxim as a means of giving meaning to signs) and of Ludwig Wittgenstein (his language games as tools of comparison for understanding ways of life). 7. Albrecht Wellmer, "Autonomy of meaning" and "principle of charity" from the viewpoint of the pragmatics of language. In this essay I present an interpretation of the principle of the autonomy of meaning and of the principle of charity, the two main principles of Davidson's semantic view of truth, showing how both principles may fit in a perspective dictated by the pragmatics of language. I argue that (I) the principle of the autonomy of meaning may be thoroughly reformulated in terms of the pragmatics of language, (ii) the principle of charity needs a supplement in terms of pragmatics of language in order to become really enlightening as a principle of interpretation. Besides, I argue that: (i) on the one hand, the fundamental thesis of Habermas on the pragmatic theory of meaning ("we understand a speech act when we know what makes it admissible") is correlated with the seemingly intentionalist thesis according to which we understand a speech act when we know what a speaker means; (ii) on the other hand, to say that the meaning competence of a competent speaker is basically a competence about a potential of reasons (or also of possible justifications) which is inherently connected with the meaning of statements, or with their use in utterances. ● Rüdiger Bubner, The convergence of analytic and hermeneutic philosophy This paper argues that the analytic philosophy does not exist, at least as understood by its original programs. Differences in the analytic camp have always been bigger than they were believed to be. Now these differences are coming to the fore thanks to a process of dissolution of dogmatism. Philosophical analysis is led by its own inner logic towards questions that may be fairly qualified as hermeneutic. Recent developments in analytic philosophy, e.g. Davidson, seem to indicate a growing convergence of themes between philosophical analysis and hermeneutics; thus, the familiar opposition of Anglo-Saxon and Continental philosophy might soon belong to history. The fact of an ongoing appropriation of analytical techniques by present-day German philosophers may provide a basis for a powerful argument for the unity of philosophizing, beyond its strained images privileging one technique of thinking and rejecting the remainder. Actual philosophical practice should take the dialogue between the two camps more seriously; in fact, the processes described so far are no danger to philosophical work. They may be a danger for parochial approaches to philosophizing; indeed, contrary to what happens in the natural sciences, Thomas Kuhn's "normal science" developing within the framework of one fixed paradigm is not typical for philosophical thinking. And in philosophy innovating revolutions are symptoms more of vitality than of crisis. ● Karl-Otto Apel, The impact of analytic philosophy on my intellectual biography. In my paper I try to reconstruct the history of my Auseinandersetzung mit - as I called it - "language-analytical" philosophy (including even Peircean semiotics) since the late Fifties. The heuristics of my study was predetermined by two main motives of my beginnings: the hermeneutic turn of phenomenology and the transformation of "transcendental philosophy" in the light of the "language a priori". Thus, I took issue with the early and the later Wittgenstein, logical positivism, and post-Wittgensteinian and post-empiricist philosophy of science (i.e. G.H. von Wright and the renewal of the "explanation vs understanding controversy" as well as the debate between Th. Kuhn and Popper/Lakatos); besides, with speech act theory and the debate about "transcendental arguments" since Strawson. The "pragmatic turn", started already by C.L. Morris and the later Carnap, led me to study also the relationship between Wittgensteinian "use" theory of meaning and of truth. This resulted on my side in something like a program of "transcendental semiotics", i.e. "transcendental pragmatics" and "transcendental hermeneutics". ● Ben-Ami Scharfstein, A doubt on both their houses: the blindness to non-western philosophies. The burden of my criticism is that contemporary European philosophers of all kinds have continued to think as if there were no true philosophy but that of the West. For the most part, the existentialists have been oblivious of their Eastern congeners; the hermeneuticians have yet to stretch their horizons beyond the most familiar ones; and the analysts remain unaware of the analyses and linguistic sensitivities of the ancient non-European philosophers. Briefly, ignorance still blinds almost all contemporary Western philosophers to the rich, variegated philosophical traditions outside of their familiar orbit. Both Continental and Anglo-Americans have lost the breadth of view that once characterized such thinkers as Herder and the Humboldts. The blindness that has resulted is not simply that of individual Western philosophers but of our whole, still parochial philosophical culture. (shrink)

Examines the role of philosophical analysis for the understanding and realization of human rights. Relies on two historical events: the framing of the universal declaration of human rights and recent emphasis on global justice. Suggests that power and moral authority of human rights does not depend on a previous thorough consideration of this notion, and also that this authority is not compatible with any theory. Argues also that philosophical analysis is important for the understanding of the idea of global justice (...) and quite irrelevant for its realization.<<<--------------------->>> -/- Se examina la relevancia de los análisis filosóficos para la conceptualización y para la realización de los derechos humanos, a partir de dos episodios concretos: la elaboración de la declaración universal de los derechos humanos y los planteamientos recientes sobre la justicia global. Se propone que la fuerza y la autoridad moral de los derechos humanos no depende de que se haya llevado a cabo un examen exhaustivo de esta noción, pero también que esa autoridad no es compatible con cualquier teoría sobre ello. Y se defiende la relevancia del análisis filosófico de la idea de justicia global y la irrelevancia de la filosofía para su realización. (shrink)

This paper discusses Tugendhat's project of a "modern ethics" (moderne Moral) in contrast to "traditional ethics" (traditionelle Moral). We argue that this distinction is not as clear cut as Tugendhat would like it to be, and that Tugendhat's modern ethics shares important features with traditional ethics.

This article initially presents Ernst Mach's anti-realist or instrumentalist stance that underpin his opposition to atomism and reveal his idea that science should be based totally on objectively observable facts. Then, the details of Mach's phenomenalist arguments which recognize only sensations as real are revealed. Phenomenalist thought is not compatible with the idea of realism, which evaluates unobservable entities such as atom, molecule and quark as mind-independent things. In this context, Mach considers the atom as a thought symbol or (...) a metaphysical fiction. This results in the idea that the existence of matter or entity is not independent of the perceiving minds, which is considered Mach’s subjective idealism. As a result of these arguments, the article argues that it would not be wrong to associate Mach's thoughts with solipsism, a radical form of subjective idealism. -/- Bu makalede ilk olarak Ernst Mach’ın atomun varlığına ilişkin itirazının temelini oluşturan ve bilimin sadece gözlemlenebilir olgulara dayandırılması gerektiği yönündeki düşüncelerini ortaya koyan anti-realist ya da enstrümantalist görüşlerine yer verilmektedir. Ardından Mach’ın enstrümantalist tavrının alt metninde bulunan ve yalnızca duyumları gerçek olarak kabul eden fenomenalist argümanlarının ayrıntıları serimlenecektir. Fenomenalist düşünce atom, molekül ve kuark gibi gözlemlenemeyen varlıkları zihinden bağımsız şeyler olarak değerlendiren realizm düşüncesi ile uyuşmamaktadır. Bu bağlamda yapılan incelemeler, Mach’ın atomu bir düşünce sembolü ya da metafiziksel bir kurgu olarak değerlendirmesine ve dış dünyadaki varlıkların var olmasını, onların bir zihin tarafından duyumsanması koşuluna bağlaması ile sonuçlanmaktadır. Makalede Mach’ın öznel idealizmi olarak ele alabileceğimiz bu argümanlarının radikal bir sonucu olarak onun düşüncelerini solipsizm ile ilişkilendirmenin yanlış olmayacağı sonucuna varılmaktadır. (shrink)

Ernst Mach, le célèbre physicien autrichien, est principalement connu en épistémologie et en philosophie de la psychologie pour avoir été l’auteur d’une théorie de l’expérience sensible qui le positionna, aux côtés de William James, comme l’un des représentants de ce courant philosophique connu sous le nom de « monisme neutre ». L’un des développements les plus fructueux de cette théorie de l’expérience semble avoir été la psychologie de la forme, tant dans la version qu’en a livrée l’École de Graz (...) que l’École de Berlin. Or, le concept de Gestalt est en contradiction fagrante avec la théorie moniste défendue par Mach. Si, comme il le soutient, l’expérience est reconductible à une série d’éléments, et à eux seuls, elle ne peut alors ni supporter unmode de structuration interne, qui présiderait à l’organisation de l’ensemble articulé de ses parties élémentaires, ni manifester, comme en supplément d’elle-même, un élément qui viendrait se surajouter aux éléments sensibles qui la constituent. Toute psychologie de la forme est dualiste dans son principe car elle présuppose que l’expérience ne se sufft pas d’une seule catégorie de constituants sensibles. Ce paradoxe doctrinal relevé, quel statut est-il dès lors permis d’accorder à la théorie de l’expérience élaborée par Mach dans la généalogie de la Gestaltpsychologie ? -/- Mon intention dans cette étude est de défendre la thèse que, loin de s’exclure, le projet d’une analyse des sensations et la notion de Gestalt se complètent dans la théorie de l’expérience développée par Mach. Je soutiendrai l’idée que l’on retrouve chez Mach une conception de l’expérience sensible selon laquelle la perception s’oriente dans le fux des sensations grâce à un processus de reconnaissance d’entités « unes et indivisibles », que l’on pourrait considérer comme des entités de nature fgurale. Selon cette ligne interprétative, la notion de Gestalt constitue l’un des développements nécessaires de la théorie des sensations proposée par Mach. Mais nous verrons cependant en quoi l’approche de Mach se distingue des approches canoniques du concept de Gestalt. (shrink)

Ernst Mach (1838-1916) è stato una figura di riferimento per la cultura scientifica e filosofica tardo-ottocentesca e dei primi decenni del Novecento. Le sue ricerche in fisica e psicologia, così come il lavoro epistemologico che emerge dalle pagine di opere quali La meccanica nel suo sviluppo storico-critico e Conoscenza ed errore, hanno influito notevolmente su molti autori a lui contemporanei. In questi testi, Mach delinea una concezione antimetafisica del pensiero scientifico e una concezione biologico-evolutiva della conoscenza umana che si (...) ritrovano elaborate in vario modo nella teoria della relatività di A. Einstein, nell’epistemologia evoluzionistica di K. Popper e D. Campbell, nel pragmatismo di W. James e, più in generale, nelle idee che animarono il primo Circolo di Vienna. I saggi raccolti nel presente volume si propongono di commemorarne la figura e l’opera, guardando a Mach come figura di confine tra prospettive di indagine che la storia della filosofia dell’ultimo secolo ha spesso visto contrapposte. (shrink)

L'articolo si propone di accostarsi alla figura di Ernst Mach seguendo la stessa metodologia storico-critica da lui utilizzata. Essa permette di contestualizzarne la figura e l'opera in un momento significativo della storia della filosofia occidentale, ma anche di ridefinire alcuni concetti fondamentali del suo pensiero. Scopo ulteriore della ricerca è di osservare da una diversa prospettiva la questione relativa al valore filosofico del lavoro epistemologico di Mach, mostrando come esso possa essere affermato senza bisogno di uscire dai confini da (...) lui stesso tracciati. (shrink)

This article shows that those texts, attributed to Ernst Mach, that reject relativity theory are posthumous forgeries.

The paper provides a thorough account of the relationship between Ernst Mach’s thought and that of an apparently more intellectually distant near-contemporary, Friedrich Nietzsche. The consistency of their views is in fact substantial, as I try to show within the paper. Despite their interests being different, both Mach and Nietzsche were concerned with the same issues about our intellectual relationship with the external world, dealing with the same questions and pursuing a common aim of eliminating worn-out philosophical conceptions. Moreover, (...) it can be argued that both Mach and Nietzsche converged on what we now know as the problem of realism versus anti-realism in the philosophy of science, and that they both rejected ‘representational’ (realist) conceptions of science in favour of a certain sort of pragmatic anti-realism, whose focus was on the role science plays as a means of orientation. (shrink)

Ernst Mach’s definition of the relationship between thoughts and facts is well known, but the question of how Mach conceived of their actual relationship has received much less attention. This paper aims to address this gap in light of Mary B. Hesse’s view of a postempiricist approach to natural science. As this paper will show, this view is characterized by a constructivist conception of the relationship between theory and facts that seems to be consistent with Mach’s observations on scientific (...) knowledge. The paper first explores Hesse’s account of postempiricism and her project of a new epistemology. It then considers Ernst Mach’s conception of facts as the middle term of a triad of concepts that includes thoughts and elements as extreme terms. Finally, the paper will offer concluding remarks on Mach’s contribution to the debate on scientific realism and his attempt to redefine the notions of correspondence and objectivity in science. (shrink)

Auf die Frage „Was ist Wahrnehmung und welche Rolle spielt sie für die Objektivität der Erfahrung?“ hätte Ernst Cassirer vermutlich schlicht geantwortet: „Wahrnehmung ist eine erste Form objektiver Erfahrung.“ Tobias Endres macht es sich zur Aufgabe, Cassirers „Philosophie der symbolischen Formen“ einer Neu- und Gesamtinterpretation zu unterziehen und sie als eine „Phänomenologie der Wahrnehmung“ auszulegen. In Auseinandersetzung mit klassischen und gegenwärtigen Wahrnehmungstheorien wie der Sinnesdatentheorie, dem Disjunktivismus oder dem Enaktivismus gelingt es dem Autor, die Aktualität und Originalität solch einer (...) phänomenologischen Wahrnehmungstheorie aufzuzeigen. (shrink)

Ernst Mally’s Gegenstandstheoretische Grundlagen der Logik und Logistik (1912) proposes that the abstract object “the circle” does not satisfy the properties of circles, but instead “determines” the class of circles. In this he anticipates the notion of “encoding” that Edward Zalta proposes for his theory of Abstract Objects. It is argued that Mally did anticipate the notion of “encoding”, but sees it as a way of taking the concept as the subject of a proposition, rather than as a primitive (...) notion in the theory of a new ontological category of abstract objects, as Zalta does. (shrink)

Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich mit Ernst Cassirers Werk "Die Wendung zum Symbolischen". Der Autor analysiert die Argumentation von Cassirer und untersucht, wie er die Beziehung zwischen Symbolen und menschlichem Denken versteht. Cassirer argumentiert, dass das menschliche Denken durch Symbole geprägt ist, die eine Art von Sprache darstellen. Symbole ermöglichen es uns, über komplexe Konzepte nachzudenken und uns über abstrakte Ideen zu verständigen. Cassirer vertritt die Ansicht, dass Sprache und Symbole eine zentrale Rolle beim Verständnis der Welt und der (...) menschlichen Erfahrung spielen. Funke diskutiert Cassirers Ideen im Kontext der zeitgenössischen Philosophie und weist darauf hin, dass seine Arbeit wichtige Implikationen für die heutige Forschung hat. Der Autor betont, dass die Untersuchung der Beziehung zwischen Sprache, Symbolen und menschlichem Denken wichtige Erkenntnisse über die Funktionsweise des menschlichen Geistes liefern kann. Zusammenfassend betrachtet bietet die Arbeit eine detaillierte Analyse von Cassirers Werk und betont die Bedeutung seiner Ideen für die moderne Philosophie. Die Untersuchung der Rolle von Sprache und Symbolen beim menschlichen Denken ist auch heute noch ein wichtiges Forschungsfeld, das unser Verständnis der menschlichen Kognition erweitert. (shrink)

First paragraph: In the 1980s I went through a phase of writing limericks during idle moments when I lacked something to read. The result was a set of 27 limericks about cybernetics (Umpleby 1992). I occasionally use the limericks in class to restate a theoretical point. Limericks bring a smile and demonstrate that cybernetics can be approached in a variety of ways. Below are three limericks from this collection. The last was written by Ernst von Glasersfeld. It seems (...) class='Hi'>Ernst believed that I was overly concerned with "reality" as opposed to perception, or at least that I had not captured the point that he was trying to make. (shrink)

The article examines Cassirer's complete works as well as his posthumous writings with regard to Heinz Paetzold's thesis that Cassirer's philosophy undergoes a transformation to anthropology in his late work as well as Guido Kreis' thesis that such a transformation of the philosophy of symbols is not possible because it cannot guarantee its own ground. The author demonstrates a continuity in Cassirer's thinking with regard to the topic of anthropology, according to which Cassirer has been dealing with the problem of (...) a metaphysics of the symbolic since at least 1921 and already in 1928 makes an initial determination of man as a being capable of form. The resumption of the anthropological question occurs in 1939 and is in clear continuity with the previous works. The reconstruction of the genesis of An Essay on Man (1944) that follows on from this finally reveals a hitherto well-kept secret of Cassirer-research, namely an answer to the question of why history first appears as a symbolic form in Cassirer's last published work. (shrink)

El trabajo explora críticamente la idea de una justificación débil o pen última de la moral enmarcándola en el conjunto de la filosofía de Tugendhat, reordenan do sus escritos éticos y discriminando los diversos aspectos que incluye dicha idea. Entre ellos, revisa el concepto formal de moral, ligado a los sentimientos, antes de centrarse en el punto crucial: la fundamentación de la ética moderna. Aquí se distingue, por un lado, la justificación comparativa de un contractualismo igualitario frente a otras (...) alternativas teóricas y, por otro, los motivos que pueden llevar a un individuo autónomo a entenderse en términos morales. (shrink)

This paper is about the reception of Ernst Mach by Brentano and his students in Austria. I shall outline the main elements of this reception, starting with Brentano’s evaluation, in his lectures on positivism, of Mach’s theory of sensations. Secondly, I shall comment the early reception of Mach by Brentano’s pupils in Prague. The third part bears on the close relationship that Husserl established between his phenomenology and Mach’s descriptivism. I will then briefly examine Mach’s contribution to the controversy (...) on gestalt qualities. The fifth part bears on Stumpf’s debate with Mach on psychophysical relations and I shall conclude on Husserl’s criticism of Mach’s alleged logical psychologism. (shrink)

A look at Mach's work on monocular stereoscopy with relation to Mach Bands and the sensation of space.

Johann Georg Hamann, filozof z Królewca, filolog oraz teolog (1730-1788) był nazywany przez Goethego „najuczeńszą głową swojego czasu”. Twierdził, że właśnie od niego „najwięcej się nauczył”. Dlatego też zbierał i czytał jego pisma. To samo można powiedzieć o stosunku Ernsta Jüngera (1895-1998) do „maga Północy” . Usłyszał o nim przypadkowo w roku 1924 od lipskiego docenta filozofii Hugo Fischera i odtąd był Hamannem zafascynowany. Często powoływał się na niego w węzłowych miejscach twórczości, jak np. w postaci motta z Hamanna w (...) obu wersjach swojej pierwszej pracy Das abenteuerliche Herz (1929, 1938). Także dzięki Hamannowi powziął przekonanie, że „wyrazistość jest słusznym podziałem między światłem i cieniem”, jak i to, że najważniejsze fenomeny nie są zjawiskami przyczynowo uszeregowanymi, możliwymi do opanowania przez człowieka, lecz zjawiskami podpowierzchniowo powiązanymi ze sobą. Można je poprzez analogię opisać w zbliżony sposób. Jünger stanął tutaj w jednym szeregu z Hamannem i Goethem. Pod koniec swoich opublikowanych dzienników (14.12.1995) nazwał swoją znajomość z magiem Północy „nieuniknionym” i zaliczył go do „budzicieli”, którzy uformowali jego charakter. (shrink)

Abstract: In the past fifteen years Tugendhat has tentatively proposed to recover the role of anthropology as the core philosophical discipline or first philosophy. This peculiar return to the German thinking of the ‘20s is, on the one hand, a projection of the author’s whole intellectual evolution. On the other hand, it allows us to focus on classic epistemological problems of philosophical anthropology such as its object and contents, its method, and its place among other philosophical studies. The present (...) paper criticizes Tugendhat’s position, yet considers this sort of return to Kant as valuable, a return that sees anthropology as the core and ultimate self-reflective telos of philosophy. -/- Key Words: Ends of reason. Human vulnerability. Kant. Metaphilosophy. Self-reflection. (shrink)

Aesthetics versus Art History? Ernst Cassirer as Mediator in an ongoing Controversy on the Relevance of Art for Life. Against the background of Ernst Cassirer’s cultural philosophy, art studies are to be classified as cultural studies. Central to this is Cassirer’s philosophy as the basis for answering a question that has been posed by the methods of formal aesthetics and iconology since the 19th century but is still unanswered today, namely the question of the relevance of the arts (...) for life. In this way, aesthetics/Kunstwissenschaft and art history gain a new meaning as cultural studies beyond their achievements in the humanities and in epistemology. (shrink)

Ernst Schröder, Parafrasi Schröderiane. Ovvero: Ernst Schröder, Leoperazioni del Calcolo Logico. Original German text with Italian translation, commentary and annotations by Davide Bondoni, LED Edizioni, Milan, 2010, pp. 208, 15,5 × 22 cm, ISBN 978-88-7916-474-0.

In this study, the existing definitions of thought experiments and the origin of this concept with its first usage in history will be discussed. Then, the epistemology of Ernst Mach, who conducted the first systematic research on thought experiments, will be provided in order to grasp his views on this subject correctly. In this context, the views of James Brown and John Norton, who support different positions, will be briefly described in order to draw the general framework of the (...) epistemological status of thought experiments. Finally, it will be revealed that the biological theory of knowledge and the doctrine of the economy of thought are the sources of Mach’s ‘instinctive knowledge’ argument about scientific thought experiments. (shrink)

This paper, for two upcoming volumes, makes what I consider to be the definitive textual case for finally rejecting the phenomenalist interpretation of Ernst Mach's works, and his customary association with the Vienna Circle, in favor of a stronger realistic neutral monist reading connecting him to James, Russell and the American realist movement and today's neutral monism (for example my 2014). I hope that this reading will eventually supplant the previously mistaken view of Mach's work and that his views (...) of science and philosophy of space and time can be revised as well. (shrink)

Ernst Jünger is known for his war writings, but is largely ignored by contemporary phenomenologists. In this essay, I explore his e Adventurous Heart which has recently been made available in English. is work consists of a set of fragments which, when related, disclose a coherent ow of philosophical thinking. Speci cally, I show that, beneath a highly poetic and obscure prose, Jünger posits how subjective experience and poetry allow individuals to realize truth. I relate parts of Jünger’s insights (...) to contributions by Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, arguing that Jünger o ers a unique and valuable contribution to the phenomenological discipline. (shrink)

This paper tries to reconstruct Ernst Cassirer's potential reception of the EPR argument, as exposed by Einstein in his letter to Cassirer of March 1937. It is shown that, in conformity with his transcendental epistemology taking the conditions of accessibility as constitutive of the quantum object, Cassirer would probably have rejected the argument. Indeed, Cassirer would probably not have subscribed to its separability/local causality presupposition (which goes against his interpretation of the quantum formalism as a self-suf!cient condition constitutive of (...) the quantum object, without any reliance on spatial intuition), nor to its completeness requirement (as his partial endorsement of Bohr's complementarity, and his rejection of the Kantian "idea of complete determination", illustrate). By rejecting both of its premises, Cassirer's philosophy of physics thus enables to escape the EPR dilemma, and exhibits what, in Kantian terms, might be called a "negative utility" with respect to physical science. A further investigation of the anti-reductionist utility of Cassirer's systematic philosophy with respect to physics and other "symbolic forms" is !nally suggested. (shrink)

The paper aims to investigate some aspects of Ernst Mach’s epistemology in the light of the problem of human orientation in relation to the world (Weltorientierung), which is a main topic of Western philosophy since Kant. As will be argued, Mach has been concerned with that problem, insofar as he developed an original pragmatist epistemology. In order to support my argument, I firstly investigate whether Mach defended a nominalist or a realist account of knowledge and compare his view to (...) those elaborated by other pragmatist thinkers, such as W. James, H. Vaihinger and H. Poincaré. Secondly, the question of what does it mean, for Mach, to orient ourselves in science is addressed. Finally, it will be argued that, although Mach tried to keep his epistemology restricted to a mere operational and economical account of science, that question involves the wider plane of practical philosophy. (shrink)

Hans Kleinpeter’s letters to Ernst Mach held in the Deutsches Museum Archive in Munich are of the greatest importance in order to learn some details of the relationship between these scholars. In the three letters here entirely published for the first time, Kleinpeter shows his interest for Nietzsche’s thought, and states that some of the latter’s ideas are in compliance with Mach’s epistemology.

Known as the Darwin of the twenty-first century, the German biologist Ernst Walter Mayr (1904-2005) studied a great variety of subjects such as Ornithology, Genetics, Evolution, Classification, History, and Philosophy of Biology. This scientist was a giant of the previous century and an icon of Evolutionary Biology. He became famous for his Biological Species Concept and his conclusion that allopatry is the main cause for the origin of species. He provided a decisive contribution to the New Systematics and was (...) the pioneer of the punctuated equilibrium idea. Mayr was one of the main architects of the evolutionary synthesis as also of the Neo-Darwinian wave. Evaluated together, all of his works reveal several elements of his ambition – to organize a philosophical conception inherent for Biology. An assiduous defender of autonomous Biology, Mayr asserted that four sets of factors in Biology differ from those in the Exact Sciences: (I) refutation of essentialism, mechanism, vitalism, and teleology; (II) some physical principles cannot be applied to Biology; (III) absence of general laws in Biology; and (IV) basic principles of biology and their specific character cannot be applied to the inanimate world. The present study took as an axis a minor or even invisible theme from the Ernst Mayr literature and aims to analyze critically the theoretical and epistemological basis that subsidizes – or not– the affirmation that Biology is an autonomous Science. - O biólogo alemão Ernst Walter Mayr (1904-2005), conhecido como o Darwin do século XXI, trabalhou com uma grande variedade de temas: Ornitologia, Genética, Evolução, Classificação, História e Filosofia da Biologia. Esse cientista foi um dos gigantes do século XX e um ícone para a Biologia Evolutiva. Ficou famoso com o seu Conceito Biológico de Espécie e sua conclusão de que a alopatria era a principal causa da origem das espécies. Forneceu uma contribuição decisiva à Nova Sistemática, foi precursor da ideia de equilíbrio pontuado e um dos principais arquitetos da síntese evolutiva, bem como do movimento Neodarwinista. Quando avaliados em conjunto, seus trabalhos revelam os diversos elementos de sua ambição – organizar um corpo de concepções filosóficas próprias da Biologia. Defensor assíduo de uma Biologia autônoma, Mayr afirmou que há quatro conjuntos de fatores que diferenciam a Biologia do conjunto das Ciências Exatas: (I) refutação do essencialismo, do mecanicismo, do vitalismo e da teleologia; (II) convicção de que certos princípios da Física não podem ser aplicados à Biologia; (III) ausência de leis naturais universais em Biologia; e (IV) percepção do caráter único de certos princípios básicos da Biologia não aplicáveis ao mundo inanimado. O presente artigo tomou por eixo um tema aparentemente menor ou mesmo invisível na obra de Ernst Mayr e pretende realizar uma análise crítica acerca de suas bases teóricas e epistemológicas que subsidiaram – ou não – a afirmação da Biologia como uma Ciência autônoma. (shrink)

Hans Kleinpeter’s letters to Ernst Mach held in the Deutsches Museum Archive in Munich are of the greatest importance in order to learn some details of the working relationship between these scholars. In the three letters here entirely published for the first time Kleinpeter shows his interest for Nietzsche’s thought, and states that some of the latter’s ideas are in compliance with Mach’s epistemology.