According to the transparency approach, achievement of self-knowledge is a two-stage process: first, the subject arrives at the judgment ‘p’; second, the subject proceeds to the judgment ‘I believe that p.’ The puzzle of transparency is to understand why the transition from the first to the second judgment is rationally permissible. After revisiting the debate between Byrne and Boyle on this matter, I present a novel solution according to which the transition is rationally permissible in virtue of a justifying argument (...) that begins from a premise referring to the mental utterance that is emitted in the course of judging ‘p.’. (shrink)

Our senses provide us with information about the world, but what exactly do they tell us? I argue that in order to optimally respond to sensory stimulations, an agent’s doxastic space may have an extra, “imaginary” dimension of possibility; perceptual experiences confer certainty on propositions in this dimension. To some extent, the resulting picture vindicates the old-fashioned empiricist idea that all empirical knowledge is based on a solid foundation of sense-datum propositions, but it avoids most of the problems traditionally associated (...) with that idea. The proposal might also explain why experiences appear to have a non-physical phenomenal character, even if the world is entirely physical. (shrink)

The paper argues that Gareth Evans’ argument for transparent self-knowledge is based on a conflation of doxastic transparency with ascriptive transparency. Doxastic transparency means that belief about one’s own doxastic state, e.g., the belief that one thinks that it will rain, can be warranted by ordinary empirical observation, e.g., of the weather. In contrast, ascriptive transparency says that self-ascriptions of belief, e.g., “I believe it will rain”, can be warranted by such observation. We first show that the thesis of doxastic (...) transparency is ill-motivated and then offer a non-epistemic interpretation of ascriptive transparency by reference to the theory of explicit expressive acts: “I think it will rain” requires attendance to the weather because the utterance expresses a belief about the weather, not about ourselves. This will allow us to avoid what is often called “the puzzle of transparent self-knowledge” while remaining faithful to Evans’ linguistic observations. (shrink)

The paper argues that Gareth Evans’ argument for transparent self-knowledge is based on a conflation of doxastic transparency with ascriptive transparency. Doxastic transparency means that belief about one’s own doxastic state, e.g., the belief that one thinks that it will rain, can be warranted by ordinary empirical observation, e.g., of the weather. In contrast, ascriptive transparency says that self-ascriptions of belief, e.g., “I believe it will rain”, can be warranted by such observation. We first show that the thesis of doxastic (...) transparency is ill-motivated and then offer a non-epistemic interpretation of ascriptive transparency by reference to the theory of explicit expressive acts: “I think it will rain” requires attendance to the weather because the utterance expresses a belief about the weather, not about ourselves. This will allow us to avoid what is often called “the puzzle of transparent self-knowledge” while remaining faithful to Evans’ linguistic observations. (shrink)

The creation of new institutions and the initiation of new forms of behaviour cannot be explained only on the basis of constitutive rules – they also require a broader commitment of individuals who participate in social practices and, thus, to become members of a community. In this paper, I argue that the received conception of constitutive rules shows a problematic intellectualistic bias that becomes particularly manifest in three assumptions: (i) constitutive rules have a logical form, (ii) constitutive rules have no (...) normative force, and (iii) rules are essentially tied to a sanctioning authority. I discuss these three claims in light of real-life examples. The goal of this discussion is to show that the normative force of constitutive rules is based on the shared commitment of participants who engage in the relevant practices. The inner cohesion and the persistence in time of these practices is possible only because participants continuously calibrate their own forms of behaviour to that of the other members of the community, which underscores the social dimension of constitution. (shrink)

The paper argues that Gareth Evans’ argument for transparent self-knowledge is based on a conflation of doxastic transparency with ascriptive transparency. Doxastic transparency means that belief about one’s own doxastic state, e.g., the belief that one thinks that it will rain, can be warranted by ordinary empirical observation, e.g., of the weather. In contrast, ascriptive transparency says that self-ascriptions of belief, e.g., “I believe it will rain”, can be warranted by such observation. We first show that the thesis of doxastic (...) transparency is ill-motivated and then offer a non-epistemic interpretation of ascriptive transparency by reference to the theory of explicit expressive acts: “I think it will rain” requires attendance to the weather because the utterance expresses a belief about the weather, not about ourselves. This will allow us to avoid what is often called “the puzzle of transparent self-knowledge” while remaining faithful to Evans’ linguistic observations. (shrink)

The present essay seeks, by way of the Austrian example, to make a contribution to what might be called the philosophy of the supranational state. More specifically, we shall attempt to use certain ideas on the philosophy of Gestalten as a basis for understanding some aspects of that political and cultural phenomenon which was variously called the Austrian Empire, the Habsburg Empire, the Danube Monarchy or Kakanien.

The central idea of this essay is that philosophical thinking revolves around aporetic clusters, i.e., sets of individually plausible, but collectively inconsistent propositions. The task of philosophy is to dissolve such clusters, either by showing that the propositions in question, contrary to first impression, are compatible with each other, or by showing that it is permissible to abandon at least one of the propositions involved. This view of philosophical problems not only provides a very good description of well-understood philosophizing, but (...) is also better suited than others to explain some seemingly strange characteristics of philosophy, most notably its armchair character, the large variety of incommensurable doctrines by which it is characterized, and its concern with its own history. (shrink)

Many philosophical theories of self-knowledge can be understood as attempts to explain why self-ascriptions enjoy a certain kind of authority that other-ascriptions lack (the Authority Thesis). The aim of this paper is not to expand the stock of existing explanations but to ask whether the Authority Thesis can be adequately specified. To this end, I identify three requirements that must be met by any satisfactory specification. I conclude that the search for an adequate specification of the Authority Thesis leads to (...) a dilemma: it either yields an interpretation under which the thesis is philosophically interesting but false, or it produces an interpretation under which the thesis is actually true but of minor philosophical interest. (shrink)

The ontology of marketing, particularly the question of what products and brands are, is still largely unexplored. The ontological status of brands hinges on their relationship with products. Idealists about brands see perceptual or cognitive acts of consumers grouped under the heading ‘brand awareness’ or ‘brand image’ as constitutive for the existence of brands so that, in their view, tools of the marketing mix can influence relevant mental dispositions and attitudes. Brand realists, on the other hand, reject the view of (...) brands as mere marks or names and interpret them as emergent products with properties that afford branding in the sense of Gibson’s ecological psychology. Brand strength is a function of the degree to which brands occupy defensible niches in product space. Branding as a process involves changing external or internal boundaries of products. Several arguments are proposed in favor of brand realism. The fragments of an ontology of marketing are developed in a broadly Aristotelian framework. Brand realism has significant implications for a new understanding of issues ranging from the effects of advertising to financial brand valuation, the nature of trademarks, and marketing strategy in general. It permits one to treat brand equity as a real phenomenon not dependent on associations, attitudinal states such as brand loyalty, or spurious constructs such as brand character or personality. (shrink)

This paper aims to support my (2018) skeptical position on the possibility of a correct and philosophically significant specification of first-person authority. For this purpose, I critically examine the proposals presented by Doyle (2021) and Winokur (2022) in response to my position and argue that while these proposals contain some ingenious ideas, they ultimately fall short of providing correct and philosophically significant specifications. Ultimately, the search for an adequate specification of first-person authority remains unresolved.

Narrativity is basically linked to the dynamics of the events and actions which are told and it depends on the pragmatic context, mainly on the narrator and his audience, i.e. on the discursive setting. These dynamics ask for an adequate theoretical frame, e.g. in the format of dynamical system theory or vector analysis. Furthermore, narrativity can be manifested in different modalities. We shall present some specimens of analysis in the linguistic modality (spontaneous oral tales, folktales), in the visual modality (painting (...) by Leonardo da Vinci, action movie in the series of Bond films), and in the musical modality (Blues music). The static analyses in the tradition of structuralism are replaced by morphodynamic schemes, by gesture and glance vectors, paths of pursuit and scenarios of conflict in action movies and eventually by harmonic sequences in the Blues. In this dynamic perspective, the notion of narrativity gains a different profile and it is freed from the preference for linguistic or logical categories. (shrink)

Evolutionary theory usually neglects two variables: the changes induced in the environment by the evolving organism, and individual uniqueness in sexually reproducing species. In order to fuel its maintenance and reproduction, an organism must average a positive net energy balance vis-a-v}s its environment. It achieves this via aptations, which consist of information (i.e., the internalization of all that is predictable about the environment, including the machinery to take advantage of this information) and stored energy (to operate the machinery, including a (...) safety margin to deal with events that are unpredictable in principle). Taking advantage of a prediction, however, interferes with what has been predicted; each adaptation by the organism therefore changes its environmental target. Today's organism is adapted to yesterday's environment, and today's predator inherits yesterday's prey image. This paper attempts to show that, over evolutionary time, the persistence of this asymmetric, time-lagged relationship is owed increasingly to genetically unique individuals. Individual uniqueness as resulting from sexual reproduction is janusfaced. It endows an evolving population with both a forward-looking (promethean) and backward-looking (protean) feature. A population made up of genetically unique individuals is promethean (creative) in its ability to exploit non-homogeneous resources and respond serendipitously to environmental change via new genotypes; it is protean (elusive) in presenting a pursuer (predator or parasite) with a scattered target. Furthermore, because of the asymmetry between the winnowing of the target gene pool by the pursuer, and the genetic fixation in the pursuer of an outdated target image, the target keeps evolving away from the pursuer at a speed and in a direction that are a function of the pursuer's success. This mechanism ensures an evolutionary time lag be102 W. Sterrer tween pursuer and target, which explains escalation, the stability of asymmetric coevolutionary systems such as the life/dinner principle, and the pervasiveness of the Red Queen effect. Individuality thus both promotes and retards the speed of evolution. Having probably originated simultaneously with predation, sex-generated individuality is a self-accelerating evolutionary process that may account for much of today's organismic and environmental complexity. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to take a fresh look at a discussion about the distinct existences argument that took place between David Armstrong and Frank Jackson more than fifty years ago. I will try to show that Armstrong’s argument can be successfully defended against Jackson’s objections (albeit at the price of certain concessions concerning Armstrong’s view on the meaning of psychological terms as well as his conception of universals). Focusing on two counterexamples that Jackson put forward against Hume’s (...) principle (which is central to Armstrong’s argument), I will argue that they are either compatible with Hume’s principle, or imply a false claim. I will also look at several other considerations that go against Hume’s principle, such as, for example, Kripke’s origin essentialism and counterexamples from aposteriori necessity. (shrink)

Since their formulation by Keith DeRose (1992), the so-called bank cases have played a major role in the discussion about whether knowledge depends on practical factors. According to the proponents of pragmatic encroachment, the proper conclusion to be drawn from the bank cases and similar examples is that knowledge of a proposition _p_ does not supervene on one’s evidence for or against _p_. In my view, this conclusion is ill-founded. The reason is that the bank cases and similar examples suffer (...) from an ambiguity concerning the known proposition — an ambiguity that has so far been overlooked. When this ambiguity is made explicit, it becomes clear that the conclusion does not follow. (shrink)

This article aims to show that Williamson's anti-luminosity argument does not succeed if we presuppose a constitutive connection between the phenomenal and the doxastic. In contrast to other luminists, however, my strategy is not to critically focus on the refined safety condition in terms of degrees of confidence that anti-luminists typically use in this context. Instead, I will argue that, given a certain conception of what Chalmers calls ‘direct phenomenal concepts,’ luminosity is guaranteed even if the refined safety condition in (...) terms of degrees of confidence is taken for granted. (shrink)

Die „Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre“ bleibt für den, der Fichte im philosophiegeschichtlichen Zusammenhang sehen will, der wichtigste Text; dies gilt auch dann noch, wenn die Akademie-Ausgabe abgeschlossen sein wird. Der Jenaer Fichte hat nicht nur auf seine Zeitgenossen am stärksten gewirkt, er war auch seinerseits damals noch am offensten für Einflüsse. Der vorliegende Kommentar – der erste, der den gesamten deutschen Text behandelt – bietet keine Paraphrase, keine Übersetzung in eine zeitgemäßere Sprache, keine „Darstellung“, die Fichtes Disposition durch eine eigene (...) ersetzt und damit – gewollt oder ungewollt – in Konkurrenz zum Original tritt. Er will vielmehr den Leser auf seinem dornigen Pfad Satz für Satz begleiten und bei keiner Schwierigkeit im Stich lassen. Die konkrete Erforschung literarischer Bezüge und Abhängigkeiten zeigt, wie sehr der „Selbstdenker“ Fichte – unbeschadet seiner Eigenständigkeit – nicht nur in der Philosophie, sondern im ganzen Geistesleben der Epoche verwurzelt ist. Durch die ausgiebigen, mit sprachlichen Erläuterungen versehenen Zitate entlegener Quellen ist der Kommentar zugleich eine Art Lesebuch. (shrink)

The contemporary debate in the philosophy of literature is strongly shaped by the anticognitivist challenge, according to which works of literary fiction (that contain propositions that are neither literally true nor affirmed by the author) cannot impart (relevant) knowledge to the readers or enrich their worldly understanding. Anti-cognitivists appreciate works of literary fiction for their aesthetic values and so risk to reduce them to mere ornaments that are entertaining, but eventually useless. Many philosophers have reacted to this challenge by pointing (...) at ways in which works of literary fiction can be informative even though they lack worldly reference: it has been argued, for example, that works of fictions are thought experiments; that they add not to our theoretical knowledge, but to our know-how or to our phenomenal knowledge; or that that they help readers to understand the perspectives of others. A stubborn defense of literary cognitivism, however, risks to collapse into an instrumental understanding of literature. In my paper I suggest that both sides in the debate focus too narrowly on semantic features of the works in question that is tied to what I will call the “referential picture” of language. A shift perspective is needed: for one, we ought to fully appreciate that the term “literature” does not refer to a homogeneous phenomenon, but rather to a very heterogeneous and multifarious set of works that are read by many different readers for many different reasons in many different ways. Second, we need to understand that these works have in common much more than the semantic peculiarity of lacking worldly reference: they are a unique means of communication between authors and readers – and in particular the role of the latter is often neglected in contemporary debate. These two points should help us to get a more comprehensive understanding of the practice of literature and the vast range of values we can find works of literary fiction – and the interplay between them. (shrink)

We argue that Wittgenstein’s philosophical perspective on Gödel’s most famous theorem is even more radical than has commonly been assumed. Wittgenstein shows in detail that there is no way that the Gödelian construct of a string of signs could be assigned a useful function within (ordinary) mathematics. — The focus is on Appendix III to Part I of Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. The present reading highlights the exceptional importance of this particular set of remarks and, more specifically, emphasises (...) its refined composition and rigorous internal structure. (shrink)

In a series of recent contributions it has been argued that Franz Brentano’s philosophical position constituted a unified system; Uriah Kriegel has called Brentano's philosophy as “the last grand system of Western philosophy”. The goal of the present paper is to scrutinise this claim and shed light on Brentano's methodological approach and his style of reasoning. I pay particular attention to two aspects: Brentano’s view that philosophy should be done in a rigorous, scientific manner and the fragmentary character of Brentano’s (...) work. I argue that both aspects stand in contrast to the very idea of system-philosophy: the maxim that philosophy should adopt the method of the natural sciences was intended by Brentano as a way of distancing himself from system-philosophy; while the fragmentary character of Brentano’s work does not fulfill the aspiration of system-philosophy to provide an answer to everything. Yet, the incompleteness of his work is not an arbitrary or contingent aspect; it is rather a necessary side-effect of his methodological views. (shrink)

Abstract: Brentano’s conception of scientific philosophy had a strong influence on his students and on the intellectual atmosphere of Vienna in the late nineteenth century. The aim of this article is to expose Brentano’s conception and to contrast his views with that of two traditions he is said to have considerably influenced: phenomenology and analytic philosophy. I will shed light on the question of how and to what extent Brentano’s conception of philosophy as a rigorous science has had an impact (...) on these two traditions. The discussion will show that both took their liberties in the interpretation of the thesis, a move that allowed them to liberate themselves from Brentano’s inheritance and to fully develop their own philosophical positions. (shrink)

I address the question of whether naturalism can provide adequate means for the scientific study of rules and rule-following behavior. As the term "naturalism" is used in many different ways in the contemporary debate, I will first spell out which version of naturalism I am targeting. Then I will recall a classical argument against naturalism in a version presented by Husserl. In the main part of the paper I will sketch a conception of rule-following behavior that is influenced by Sellars (...) and Haugeland. I will argue that rule-following is an essential part of human nature and insist in the social dimension of rules. Moreover, I will focus on the often overlooked fact that genuine rule-following behavior requires resilience and presupposes an inclination to calibrate one's own behavior to that of the other members of the community. Rule-following, I will argue, is possible only for social creatures who follow shared rules, which in turn presupposes a shared (first-person plural) perspective. This implies, however, that our scientific understanding of human nature has to remain incomplete as long as it does not take this perspective, which prima facie seems alien to it, into account. (shrink)

Among historians of philosophy it is often taken for granted that the “Brentano school” was one of the influential philosophical movements at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century – but Brentano’s own contributions are often eclipsed by that of his direct students. This invites to reflect on the nature of and the unity within the school. Since Brentano’s conception of a rigorous, scientific philosophy had a strong impact on his students, it has been argued (...) that this conception constitutes a unifying element in an otherwise heterogeneous group. The scope of this article is to shed light on this thesis and to show its limits. I argue for a differentiated view: the Brentano school is best seen not as a compact movement, but as a heterogeneous group of scholars who approached, in a given historical and geographical period, similar topics in very similar ways. (shrink)

(For the English version, see below) Dieser Band schließt an die "Prozessontologie" von Wolfgang Sohst an. In vorliegenden Buch entwickelt er den Begriff der Emergenz auf der Grundlage einer Schichtenontologie. Kern dieser Theorie ist der Nachweis, dass die Struktur alles Gegebenen (also nicht nur des physischen Universums, sondern auch der irdischen Biosphäre und der aus ihr hervorgegangenen psychischen, sozialen und abstrakten Existenzformen) offen ist; es gibt keine absolute Entwicklungsgrenze der Weltstruktur. Alles Gegebene ist allerdings in Schichten gegliedert, beginnend mit (...) den protophysikalischen Weltzuständen über die quantenmechanische, die makrophysikalische und biologische Ebene bis hin zu den sozialen Strukturen menschlicher Wirklichkeit und den noch über sie hinausgehenden abstrakten Strukturen der reinen Symbolsysteme. -/- Der Begriff der Emergenz spielt hierin eine wichtige Rolle. Seine ideengeschichtliche Entwicklung seit den 1920er Jahren verlief allerdings unglücklich, weil von vornherein auf neue Einzelgegenstände und ihre Eigenschaften fixiert. Dabei ging sowohl die Prozesshaftigkeit der Welt verloren als auch die Einsicht, dass neue Strukturschichten der Welt nicht durch einzelne Gegenstände oder ihre Eigenschaften repräsentiert werden, sondern durch neue Gegenstands-, Zustands- und Prozesstypen. Dieser zunächst unauffällig erscheinende Unterschied zur traditionellen Emergenztheorie eröffnet vollkommen neue Zugänge und Verständnismöglichkeiten zur strukturellen Entwicklung des Weltganzen. (560 Seiten, Hardcover) -/- English version: This volume follows on from Wolfgang Sohst's "Process Ontology". In this book, he develops the concept of emergence on the basis of a layered ontology. The core of this theory is the proof that the structure of everything given (i.e. not only of the physical universe but also of the earthly biosphere and the mental, social and abstract forms of existence that emerged from it) is open; there is no absolute developmental limit of the world structure. However, everything given is divided into layers or strata, beginning with the proto-physical world states over the quantum-mechanical, the macrophysical, and biological level up to the social structures of human reality and the abstract structures of the pure symbol systems still going beyond them. -/- The concept of emergence plays an important role in this. However, its development in the history of ideas since the 1920s was unfortunate, because from the outset it was fixed on new individual objects and their properties. In the process, both the processuality of the world and the insight that new structural layers or strata of the world are not represented by individual objects or their properties, but by new types of objects, states, and processes, were lost. This differs from traditional emergence theory, which at first seems inconspicuous, and opens up entirely new approaches and ways of understanding the structural development of the world as a whole. (560 pages, hardcover). (shrink)

The existence of a Catholic Intellectual Tradition (CIT) is not a given, as arguments contra are in balance with arguments pro. An intellectual tradition consists of a style of thought and of a worldview, as its formal and material modes. The former defines the way knowledge is appropriated, processed, and passed on whereas the latter amounts to its applications to various regions of reality – God, man, morality, society, the Church, etc. A model of the CIT is proposed that consists (...) of principles differentiated by the degree of centrality they have in a topological structure. The paper asserts the existence of a CIT because a non-stipulative, non-trivial, and non-circular case can be made for it. (shrink)

On the consequences of the interplay between the diversity of ethnic, national, cultural and linguistic groupings in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Every domain-specific ontology must use as a framework some upper-level ontology which describes the most general domain-independent categories of reality. In the present paper we sketch a new type of upper-level ontology, and we outline an associated knowledge modelling language called GOL – for: General Ontological Language. It turns out that the upper-level ontology underlying well-known standard modelling languages such as KIF, F-Logic and CycL is restricted to the ontology of sets. In a set theory which allows Urelements, however, there (...) will be ontological relations between these Urelements which the set-theoretic machinery cannot capture. In contrast to standard modelling and representation formalisms, GOL provides a machinery for representing and analysing such ontologically basic relations. GOL is thus a genuine extension of KIF and of similar languages. In GOL entities are divided into sets and Urelements, the latter being divided in their turn into individuals and universals. Foremost among the individuals are things or substances, tropes or moments, and situoids: entities containing facts as components. (shrink)

A brief introductory note to the special issue of the Journal of Philosophy on "Parts and Wholes", setting the background for the seven papers included in the rest of the issue (by K. Fine, H. Hudson, M. Johnston, K. Koslicki, C. Normore, P. M. Simons, and P. van Inwagen).

The focus of this paper is on Kant and on a text which has often been drawn upon when talking about the present situation of philosophy at university, namely his 'The Conflict of the Faculties' of 1798. Kant’s claims, though not applicable to the contemporary situation directly, can indeed be worked out in a way which can assign a distinct and clearly identifiable role for university-based philosophy. I need to emphasize, though, that I am not suggesting that this is the (...) only way Kant’s thoughts in this respect can be adapted to and utilized for such an account. Quite the contrary, Kant’s text offers a manifold of highly important options here. In my article I will seek to establish the following claims: a) Kant, in his later years, which therefore amounts to something like his “mature” position, subscribed to a conception of a public use of reason which mainly referred to the Faculties of Philosophy at universities. b) Kant’s dismissal of philosophy according to the school conception of it must not be taken as a dismissal of academic philosophy altogether. Philosophy practiced at university by professionals is vital for Kant to build philosophy as a fully worked out discipline and to answer questions revolving around the issue of the compatibility of the theoretical standpoint and Kant’s own moral theory. c) Neither a) nor b) can be immediately applied to the contemporary situation we find ourselves in. Combining elements of a) and b), however, a possible route for the actualization of Kant’s ideas may open up. At least one of the functions for which university-based philosophy is uniquely qualified is the assessment of the implications of progress in the natural sciences for the conception of a moral standpoint in general, and as such for a core element of our self-understanding as rational beings. (shrink)

The current debate on literary cognitivism in the philosophy of fiction typically assumes that we can rigorously distinguish between fictional and factual, and focuses on the question of whether and how works of fiction can impart propositional knowledge to the reader. In this paper we suggest that this way of framing the debate may be problematic. We argue that works of fiction almost inevitably include a reference to the real world and that – contrary to what is usually assumed – (...) the exchange between fiction and reality is vivid as well as potentially fruitful. We shed a new light on these complex dynamics by building on the metaphors of trade exchange and smuggling between the two worlds. While the current debate exclusively focuses on cognitively relevant goods that “officially” cross the border through “customs”, as it were, we show that exchanges between fiction and reality run deeper. Indeed, as we show, a substantial part of the cognitive impact that we derive from fiction goes “under the table” and is “smuggled” from fiction to reality. As such, it bypasses the audience’s conscious control, which in turn explains the manipulative force that fiction can exert. Smuggling takes place when cognitively relevant contents are passed on to the reader in subliminal ways, as it happens when they imprint implicit biases or prejudices, shift perspectives or subtly modify habits or patterns of behavior. By elaborating on the metaphors of trade exchange and smuggling, we aim at presenting a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the relations between fiction and reality and on the impact that imagination has on our real-world beliefs. (shrink)

Anti-cognitivism is best understood as a challenge to explain how works of fictional narrative can add to our worldly knowledge. One way to respond to this challenge is to argue that works of fictional narrative add to our knowledge by inviting us to explore, in the imagination, the perspectives or points of view of others. In the present paper, I distinguish two readings of this thesis that reflect two very different conceptions of “perspective”: a first understanding focuses on what the (...) world looks like from a subjective point of view. Within this framework, we can distinguish approaches that focus on the subjective character of experience from others that explore the nature of subjectivity. I will argue that both strands can be successful only if they acknowledge the de se character of imagining. The second conception understands perspective as a method of representing. To illustrate it, I will look back to the invention of linear perspective in Renaissance painting. I will argue that the definition of perspective as a rule-guided method or technique can shed new light on the thesis that works of narrative fiction are particularly suited to display other perspectives. (shrink)

The present "philological commentary" is directed at those who have decided to take time for reading the original text, at least in an English translation. The first volume "Textual Criticism" is intended to meet the difficulties caused by the fact that our text editions are based on manuscripts separated from the original by more than a millennium.

With the third volume, it is invited to enter the intellectual environment of Aristotle. The most relevant sources are given in full (with English translation), so that the commentary is also a reader documenting the disputationes metaphysicae of the 4th century BC. For the undeniable contradictions in the Metaphysics, a new genetic explanation is offered.

Kendall Walton’s account of make-believe takes the social dimension of imagination into account. In this paper I aim to extend this suggestion and argue that works of fiction allow for encounters with concrete (yet fictitious) persons with a distinct point of view and a discernible perspective. These encounters allow us to contrast the perspective(s) that emerge from the work with one’s own. I will then discuss two moments of the social dimension: imagining fictional scenarios is a social practice, a game (...) we play together and in which we encounter others. Both of these moments shed light on the central role of fiction for the social community in which it is embedded and show how engaging with works of fiction can contribute to the inner cohesion and to the persistence of the group. (shrink)

In accordance with the contemporary state of the natural sciences, Wolfgang Sohst here presents an extended ontological model where the process is the first cosmological category, not objects. Her starts with very few primordial categories of becoming that even precede the fundamental concepts of physics and mathematics. Since Democritus, ie. for about 2,400 years, all cultures of European descent rest mainly on the presupposition that substances and their properties provide the inventory of our world. This, however, contradicts the formerly (...) and still today lively intuition (intellectually up to Heraclitus, again in Aristotle and only then resurgent with Hegel) that objects are not the dominating aspect of what we are living in. Rather, the basis of our cosmos is a world process as the result of the complementary relationship of particular objects and their mutual efficiencies. (shrink)

Every domain-specific ontology must use as a framework some upper-level ontology which describes the most general, domain-independent categories of reality. In the present paper we sketch a new type of upper-level ontology, which is intended to be the basis of a knowledge modelling language GOL (for: 'General Ontological Language'). It turns out that the upper- level ontology underlying standard modelling languages such as KIF, F-Logic and CycL is restricted to the ontology of sets. Set theory has considerable mathematical power and (...) great flexibility as a framework for modelling different sorts of structures. At the same time it has the disadvantage that sets are abstract entities (entities existing outside the realm of time, space and causality), and thus a set-theoretical framework should be supplemented by some other machinery if it is to support applications in the ripe, messy world of concrete objects. In the present paper we partition the entities of the real world into sets and urelements, and then we introduce several new ontological relations between these urelements. In contrast to standard modelling and representation formalisms, the concepts of GOL provide a machinery for representing and analysing such ontologically basic relations. (shrink)

In his seminal paper, ‘Can There Be Vague Objects?’ (1978), Gareth Evans advanced an argument purporting to prove that the idea of indeterminate identity is incoherent. Aware that his argument was incomplete as it stands, Evans added a remark at the end of his paper, in which he explained how the original argument needed to be modified to arrive at an explicit contradiction. This paper aims to develop a modified version of Evans’ original argument, which I argue is more promising (...) than the modification that Evans proposed in his remark. Last, a structurally similar argument against the idea of indeterminate existence is presented. (shrink)

Literatur ist ein sehr vielschichtiges und lebendiges Phänomen, das beständig im Wandel ist. So wie sie im Laufe der Jahrhunderte und in den verschiedenen Kulturkreisen unter-schiedliche Formen angenommen und anderen Funktionen gedient hat, liegt es in ihrer Natur, immer wieder neue Ausdrucksformen zu entwickeln, die den sich ändernden Be-dürfnissen und Rahmenbedingungen gerecht werden können. Auch die theoretische Aus-einandersetzung mit der Literatur ist Veränderungen unterworfen, die manchmal wellen-förmige Bewegungen anzunehmen scheinen. Neue Fragestellungen geraten in den Mittel-punkt des Interesses, einzelne Aspekte werden (...) besonders beachtet, während andere in Vergessenheit geraten – um eventuell zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt in neuer Form wieder-aufzutauchen. In der Philosophie der Literatur gilt es seit Längerem als weithin anerkannt, dass der Text die entscheidende Größe sei, und dass die Tatsache, dass an der Produktion und Rezeption von literarischen Kunstwerken Menschen beteiligt sind, die mit diesen Werken Ziele verfolgen und Wünsche und Interessen verwirklichen wollen, ignoriert werden kön-ne. Im vorliegenden Beitrag will ich auf die gegenwärtige Diskussion in der Philosophie der Literatur eingehen und für einen Perspektivenwechsel argumentieren: Um dem Phä-nomen Literatur gerecht zu werden, sollten wir versuchen, es ganzheitlich in das Blickfeld zu bekommen. Literatur ist mehr als bloß Text. Sie ist eine soziale Praxis, die einen festen Stellenwert in unserer Gesellschaft hat und stellt ein Medium dar, in dem wir uns mit an-deren austauschen und auf sie abstimmen können. Mein Hauptaugenmerk liegt auf der Debatte um den kognitiven Gehalt der Literatur, weil hier die negativen Auswirkungen der Verkürzung der vorherrschenden Perspektive besonders augenscheinlich sind. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that introspective beliefs about one’s own current visual experiences are not immediate in the sense that what justifies them does not include other beliefs that the subject in question might possess. The argument will take the following course. First, the author explains the notions of immediacy and truth-sufficiency as they are used here. Second, the author suggests a test to determine whether a given belief lacks immediacy. Third, the author applies this test (...) to a standard case of formation of an introspective belief about one’s own current visual experiences and concludes that the belief in question is neither immediate nor truth-sufficient. Fourth, the author rebuts several objections that might be raised against the argument. (shrink)

In this article I argue that the strong fascination that Wittgenstein has had for artists cannot be explained primarily by the content of his work, and in particular not by his sporadic observation on aesthetics, but rather by stylistic features of his work formal aspects of his writing. Edoardo Paolozzi’s testimony shows that artists often had a feeling of acquaintance or familiarity with the philosopher, which I think is due to stylistic features of his work, such as the colloquial tone (...) in which Wittgenstein shares his observation with the reader, but also the lack of long-winded arguments or explanations. In the concluding part I suggest that we can read Wittgenstein’s artworks of a specific kind: as philosophical works of art. (shrink)