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Begegnungen mit Einstein, von Laue und Planck: Realität und wissenschaftliche Wahrheit (Facetten der Physik #12)
by Ilse Rosenthal-SchneiderDer Glaube an die Gesetzmäßigkeit der Natur, das Streben, allge meine und universell gültige Gesetze zu finden, und die Hoffnung - oder sogar Erwartung -, der "Wahrheit" über die "Wirklichkeit" näher zu kommen, haben ihren Grund in einer besonderen persönlichen Welt sicht, die tiefere Wurzeln als alle naturwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen und philosophischen Systeme hat. Der persönliche Kontakt mit einem schöpferischen Geist ist anre gend, er verstärkt den Drang nach Verstehen und vergrößert die Be friedigung, wenn Aufklärung zuteil wurde. Wenn dies durch Mathema tik oder eine theoretische Disziplin erfolgt, ist diese Befriedigung dem Vergnügen verwandt, das man an schöner Musik oder anderen wahren Kunstwerken empfindet. Es war mein großes Glück, an der Universität Berlin studieren zu können, als Einstein, von Laue und Planck dort lehrten. Ihr Werk prägte mich stark und dauerhaft. Ich erhielt Einblick in ihr Denken, die ihnen eigenen Methoden und schließlich in ihre Persönlichkeit. Ich möchte einige meiner Erinnerungen in der Hoffnung wiedergeben, ihre Ansichten und ihre Persönlichkeit für die, die sie kannten, lebendig zu erhalten und für alle anderen erstehen zu lassen.
Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza's Ethics (PDF)
by Edwin CurleyThis book is the fruit of twenty-five years of study of Spinoza by the editor and translator of a new and widely acclaimed edition of Spinoza's collected works. Based on three lectures delivered at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1984, the work provides a useful focal point for continued discussion of the relationship between Descartes and Spinoza, while also serving as a readable and relatively brief but substantial introduction to the Ethics for students. Behind the Geometrical Method is actually two books in one. The first is Edwin Curley's text, which explains Spinoza's masterwork to readers who have little background in philosophy. This text will prove a boon to those who have tried to read the Ethics, but have been baffled by the geometrical style in which it is written. Here Professor Curley undertakes to show how the central claims of the Ethics arose out of critical reflection on the philosophies of Spinoza's two great predecessors, Descartes and Hobbes. The second book, whose argument is conducted in the notes to the text, attempts to support further the often controversial interpretations offered in the text and to carry on a dialogue with recent commentators on Spinoza. The author aligns himself with those who interpret Spinoza naturalistically and materialistically.
Behind the Geometrical Method: A Reading of Spinoza's Ethics
by Edwin CurleyThis book is the fruit of twenty-five years of study of Spinoza by the editor and translator of a new and widely acclaimed edition of Spinoza's collected works. Based on three lectures delivered at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1984, the work provides a useful focal point for continued discussion of the relationship between Descartes and Spinoza, while also serving as a readable and relatively brief but substantial introduction to the Ethics for students. Behind the Geometrical Method is actually two books in one. The first is Edwin Curley's text, which explains Spinoza's masterwork to readers who have little background in philosophy. This text will prove a boon to those who have tried to read the Ethics, but have been baffled by the geometrical style in which it is written. Here Professor Curley undertakes to show how the central claims of the Ethics arose out of critical reflection on the philosophies of Spinoza's two great predecessors, Descartes and Hobbes. The second book, whose argument is conducted in the notes to the text, attempts to support further the often controversial interpretations offered in the text and to carry on a dialogue with recent commentators on Spinoza. The author aligns himself with those who interpret Spinoza naturalistically and materialistically.
Bentham: A Fragment On Government (PDF)
by Herbert L. Hart Ross Harrison Jeremy Bentham Raymond Geuss Quentin SkinnerThis volume makes available to a student readership one of the central texts in the utilitarian tradition, in the authoritative 1977 edition prepared by Professors Burns and Hart as part of Bentham's Collected works. A Fragment on Government is, as Ross Harrison observes in his introduction, a young man's work, and Bentham's exuberant prose reflects his own confidence that the Fragment 'was the first publication by which men at large were invited to break loose from the trammels of authority and ancestor-wisdom on the field of law'. Certain that history was on his side, Bentham sought to rid the world of the hideous mess wrought by legal obfuscation and confusion, and to transform politics into a rational scientific activity, premised on the hideous politics into a rational scientific activity, premised on the fundamental axiom that 'it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong'. In the context of a European social and political order still based upon privilege and hereditary right, this was a profoundly subversive sentiment. This edition of the Fragment on Government contains several important students aids, including a guide to further reading and a chronology of the principal events in Bentham's life.
Bertrand Russell
by A. J. AyerWith extraordinary concision and clarity, A. J. Ayer gives an account of the major incidents of Bertrand Russell's life and an exposition of the whole range of his philosophy. "Ayer considers Russell to be, except possibly for Wittgenstein, the most influential philosopher of our time. In this book [he] gives a lucid account of Russell's philosophical achievements."—James Rachels, New York Times Book Review "I am sure [this] is the best introduction of any length to Russell, and I suspect that it might serve as one of the best introductions to modern philosophy. . . . Ayer begins with a brief, austere, and balanced account of Russell's life: as in Russell's autobiography this means his thought, books, women, and politics. Tacitus (and Russell) would have found the account exemplary. Ayer ends with a sympathetic and surprisingly detailed survey of Russell's social philosophy. But the bulk of this book consists of a chapter on Russell's work in logic and the foundations of mathematics, followed by a chapter on his epistemological views and one on metaphysics. . . . I find it impossible to imagine that this book will not remain indefinitely the very best book of its sort."—Review of Metaphysics "The confrontation or conjunction of Ayer and Russell is a notable event and has produced a remarkable book—brilliantly argued and written."—Martin Lebowitz, The Nation
Biomedical Ethics Reviews · 1987 (Biomedical Ethics Reviews)
by James M. Humber Robert F. AlmederBiomedical Ethics Reviews • 1987 is the fifth volume in a series of texts designed to review and update the literature on issues of central importance in bioethics today. Three topics are discussed in the present volume: (1) Prescribing Drugs for the Aged and Dying; (2) Animals as a Source of Human Transplant Organs, and (3) The Nurse's Role: Rights and Responsibilities. Each topic constitutes a separate sec tion in our text; introductory essays briefly summarize the contents of each section. Bioethics is, by its nature, interdisciplinary in character. Recognizing this fact, the authors represented in the present volume have made every effort to minimize the use of techni cal jargon. At the same time, we believe the purpose of pro viding a review of the recent literature, as well as of advancing bioethical discussion, is admirably served by the pieces col lected herein. We look forward to the next volume in our series, and very much hope the reader will also.
The Birth of Meaning in Hindu Thought (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science #102)
by David B. ZilbermanIn his letter to B. K. Matilal, dated February 20, 1977, the author of this book wrote about his work on Advaita-Vedanta: " ... It was not to present Advaita in the light of current problems of the logic of scientific discovery and modern philosophy of language ... but just the contrary. I do not believe that any 'logic without metaphysics' or 'philosophy of language without thinking' is possible." This passage alone may serve as the clue to Zilberman's understanding and mode of explaining that specific and highly original approach to (not 'of'!) philosophy that he himself nicknamed modal. Four points would seem to me to be most essential here. First, a philosophy cannot have 'anything un-thinking' as its object of investigation. Language, to Zilberman, is not a phenomenon of con sciousness but a spontaneously working natural mechanism (like, for instance, 'mind' to some Buddhist philosophers). It may, of course, be come used for and by consciousness; consciousness may see itself, so to speak, in language, but only secondarily, only as in one of its modifica tions, derivations or modalities. That is why to Zilberman linguistic- as to Kant psychology - cannot and must not figure as the primary ground for any philosophical investigation.
Blueprint 2000
by Jim Lester R. HarveyAn attempt by Conservative MPs to put forward and explain their views regarding the so-called technological revolution. The contributors suggest that government must face the challenge of managing the social consequences of this change or risk social upheaval and misery.
Categorial Grammars and Natural Language Structures (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy #32)
by Richard T. Oehrle E. Bach Deirdre Wheeler
Causation, Chance and Credence: Proceedings of the Irvine Conference on Probability and Causation Volume 1 (The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science #41)
by Brian Skyrms and William L. HarperThe papers collected here are, with three exceptions, those presented at a conference on probability and causation held at the University of California at Irvine on July 15-19, 1985. The exceptions are that David Freedman and Abner Shimony were not able to contribute the papers that they presented to this volume, and that Clark Glymour who was not able to attend the conference did contribute a paper. We would like to thank the National Science Foundation and the School of Humanities of the University of California at Irvine for generous support. WILLIAM HARPER University of Western Ontario BRIAN SKYRMS University of California at Irvine VII INTRODUCTION TO CAUSATION, CHANCE, AND CREDENCE The search for causes is so central to science that it has sometimes been taken as the defining attribute of the scientific enterprise. Yet even after twenty-five centuries of philosophical analysis the meaning of "cause" is still a matter of controversy, among scientists as well as philosophers. Part of the problem is that the servicable concepts of causation built out of Necessity, Sufficiency, Locality, and Temporal Precedence were constructed for a deterministic world-view which has been obsolete since the advent of quantum theory. A physically credible theory of causation must be, at basis, statistical. And statistical analyses of caus ation may be of interest even when an underlying deterministic theory is assumed, as in classical statistical mechanics.
Causation in Decision, Belief Change, and Statistics: Proceedings of the Irvine Conference on Probability and Causation (The Western Ontario Series in Philosophy of Science #42)
by W. L. Harper B. SkyrmsThe papers collected here are, with three exceptions, those presented at a conference on probability and causation held at the University of California at Irvine on July 15-19, 1985. The exceptions are that David Freedman and Abner Shimony were not able to contribute the papers that they presented to this volume, and that Clark Glymour who was not able to attend the conference did contribute a paper. We would like to thank the National Science Foundation and the School of Humanities of the University of California at Irvine for generous support. WILLIAM HARPER University of Western Ontario BRIAN SKYRMS University of California at Irvine Vll INTRODUCTION PART I: DECISIONS AND GAMES Causal notions have recently corne to figure prominently in discussions about rational decision making. Indeed, a relatively influential new approach to theorizing about rational choice has come to be called "causal decision theory". 1 Decision problems such as Newcombe's Problem and some versions of the Prisoner's Dilemma where an act counts as evidence for a desired state even though the agent knows his choice of that act cannot causally influence whether or not the state obtains have motivated causal decision theorists.
Collected Papers (Springer Collected Works in Mathematics)
by Marcel RieszMarcel Riesz (1886-1969) was the younger of the famed pair of mathematicians and brothers. Although Hungarian he spent most of his professional life in Sweden. He worked on summability theory, analytic functions, the moment problem, harmonic and functional analysis, potential theory and the wave equation. The depth of his research and the clarity of his writing place his work on the same level as that of his brother Frédéric Riesz. This edition of his Collected Papers contains most of Marcel Riesz's published papers with the exception of a few papers in Hungarian that were subsumed into later books. It also includes a translation by J. Horváth of Riesz's thesis on summable trigonometric series and summable power series. They are thus a valuable reference work for libraries and for researchers.
The Collegium Phaenomenologicum, The First Ten Years: The First Ten Years (Phaenomenologica #105)
by John C. Sallis, Giuseppina Moneta and Jacques TaminiauxIt is our hope that this volume will serve to document both the history of the Collegium Phaenomenologicum during its first ten years as well as some of the philosophical work that has grown out of the annual gatherings in Perugia. The Introduction narrates the history and is supplemented by the Appendices, in which the programs and the participants for each of the ten years are listed. The essays, on the other hand, present in more finished form work that was developed in connection with courses, lectures, or seminars conducted during the first ten years of the Collegium. Giuseppina Moneta John Sallis Jacques Taminiaux Introduction The Collegium Phaenomenologicum in Its First Ten Years GIUSEPPINA C. MONETA The idea of the Collegium Phaenomenologicum first took shape in a conversa tion that I had with Werner Marx at his home in Bollschweil in the Spring of 1975. Previously I had thought of the possibility of a gathering of phenom enologists somewhere in Italy during the summer months. And when I ex plained to Werner Marx that it would not be difficult to find accommodation for such a gathering in a Franciscan monastery in Umbria, he responded enthusiastically and assured me that such a project would have the support of the Husserl Archives in Leuven and in Freiburg.
Computers and Languages: Theory and Practice (ISSN #Volume 4)
by A. NijholtA global introduction to language technology and the areas of computer science where language technology plays a role. Surveyed in this volume are issues related to the parsing problem in the fields of natural languages, programming languages, and formal languages.Throughout the book attention is paid to the social forces which influenced the development of the various topics. Also illustrated are the development of the theory of language analysis, its role in compiler construction, and its role in computer applications with a natural language interface between men and machine. Parts of the material in this book have been used in courses on computational linguistics, computers and society, and formal approaches to languages.
Computing in Horn Clause Theories (Monographs in Theoretical Computer Science. An EATCS Series #16)
by Peter PadawitzAt least four research fields detennine the theoretical background of specification and deduction in computer science: recursion theory, automated theorem proving, abstract data types and tenn rewriting systems. As these areas approach each other more and more, the strong distinctions between functional and relational views, deductive and denotational approaches as well as between specification and programming are relieved in favour of their integration. The book will not expose the lines of this development; conversely, it starts out from the nucleus of Hom clause logic and brings forth both known and unknown results, most of which affect more than one of the fields mentioned above. Chapter 1 touches on historical issues of specification and prototyping and delimits the topics handled in this book from others which are at the core of related work. Chapter 2 provides the fundamental notions and notations needed for the presentation and interpretation of many-sorted Horn clause theories with equality. Chapter 3 supplies a number of sample Hom clause specifications ranging from arithmetic through string manipulation to higher data structures and interpreters of programming languages. Some of these examples serve as a reference to illustrate definitions and results, others may throw a light on the strong link between specifications and programs, which are executed by applying deduction rules. Thus we have included examples of how to use program trans/ormation methods in specification design.
Concept Of The Knowledge Of God: (pdf) (Library Of Philosophy And Religion Ser.)
by Brian Haymes Elisabeth Özdalga
Confluent String Rewriting (Monographs in Theoretical Computer Science. An EATCS Series #14)
by Matthias JantzenReplacement systems, such as term rewriting systems, tree manipulat ing systems, and graph grammars, have been used in Computer Science in the context of theorem proving, program optimization, abstract data types, algebraic simplification, and symbolic comput ation. Replacement systems for strings arose about seventy years earlier in the area of combinatory logic and group theory. The most natural and appropriate formalism for dealing with string rewriting is the notion of a semi-Thue system and this monograph treats its central aspects. The reduction relation is here defined firstly by the direction of the rules and secondly by some metric that yields efficient algorithms. These systems are general enough to discuss the basic notions of arbitrary replacement systems, such as termination, confluence, and the Church-Rosser property in its original meaning. Confluent semi-Thue systems in which each and every derivation consists of finitely many steps only are called complete; they guarantee the existence of unique normal forms as canonical representatives of the Thue congruence classes. Each such system can be considered a nondeterministic algorithm for the word problem which works correctly without backtracking. This is often conceptually simpler and more elegant than an ad hoc construction. In many cases a replace ment system can be altered to a complete system by the Knuth-Bendix completion method.
The Conquest of Politics: Liberal Philosophy in Democratic Times
by Benjamin R. BarberThe description for this book, The Conquest of Politics: Liberal Philosophy in Democratic Times, will be forthcoming.
Conquests and Cultures: An International History
by Thomas SowellThis book is the culmination of 15 years of research and travels that have taken the author completely around the world twice, as well as on other travels in the Mediterranean, the Baltic, and around the Pacific rim. Its purpose has been to try to understand the role of cultural differences within nations and between nations, today and over centuries of history, in shaping the economic and social fates of peoples and of whole civilizations. Focusing on four major cultural areas(that of the British, the Africans (including the African diaspora), the Slavs of Eastern Europe, and the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere -- Conquests and Cultures reveals patterns that encompass not only these peoples but others and help explain the role of cultural evolution in economic, social, and political development.
Constructing the Political Spectacle
by Murray EdelmanThanks to the ready availability of political news today, informed citizens can protect and promote their own interests and the public interest more effectively. Or can they? Murray Edelman argues against this conventional interpretation of politics, one that takes for granted that we live in a world of facts and that people react rationally to the facts they know. In doing so, he explores in detail the ways in which the conspicuous aspects of the political scene are interpretations that systematically buttress established inequalities and interpretations already dominant political ideologies.
Contemporary Yugoslav Philosophy: The Analytic Approach (Nijhoff International Philosophy Series #36)
by Aleksandar PavkovićThe aim of this collection is to present the work of Yugoslav philosophers who approach philosophy in a analytic manner. I have sought contributions from all philosophers of whom I knew to be working in this tradition. Not all sent their contributions; but I should say that the majority did. As a consequence of so wide an appeal, the papers published here exhibit not only a variety of topics but also differences in quality. This, I think, is to be expected given that the aim is to present the work of a group of philosophers who share only a poorly defined and general approach to philosophy. Of many people who have helped me bring out this collection, I can mention only a few. Jovan Babic gave me, as usual, sound advice and helped me to establish and maintain contact with the contributors in Yugoslavia. Milos Arsenijevic rounded up the recalcitrant contributors and constantly recruited new ones. And Svetlana Knjazev encouraged me - perhaps unwittingly - to persevere by her yarns of the old times in which there was no analytic philosophy in Yugoslavia. And Down Under, Steve Glaister checked the English, Nancy Simmons patiently typed the manuscripts into a rather temperamental word-processor, Mitjana Djukic proof-read them and Dean Davidson of the Macquarie University Computing Centre helped us to get them printed. To all of them many thanks.
Context Over Foundation: Dewey and Marx (Sovietica #52)
by William J. Gavin"I should venture to assert that the most pervasive fallacy of philosophic thinking goes back to neglect of context. III John Dewey " . . . philosophers do not grow like mushrooms, out of the earth; they are the outgrowth of their period, their nation, whose most subtle, delicate and invisible juices abound in the philosophical ideas. ,,2 Karl Marx Few issues are more heatedly debated in contemporary philosophy circles than that of con textual ism vs. foundationalism. The genesis for the debate was the publication in 1979 of Richard Rorty's Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, which announ~ed the death of traditional philosophy. By "traditional" here is meant the quest for a certain or apodictic bedrock upon which an overall general theory or schema might be erected. This approach, for Rorty, characterized most previous philosophy, but especially the era from Descartes to Kant. Further, the three major philosophic thinkers of the 20th century, Dewey, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein, each initially tried to construct a foundational philosophy but each of the three, in his later work, broke free of the Kantian conception of philosophy as foundational, and spent his time warning us against those very temptations to which he himself had once succumbed. Thus their later work is therapeutic rather than constructive, edifying rather than systematic, designed to make the reader question his own motives for philosophizing rather than to 3 supply him with a new philosophical program.
Cruelty to Animals: The Moral Debt
by Les BrownThis and the author's three previous books, are interrelated in their notions of practical morality and education, and the common conclusion focuses not on moral delinquency or intractability, but rather on the human capacity for improvement through appropriate education.
Crusade against Drink in Victorian England
by Lilian Lewis ShimanDrink, 'the curse of Britain', was sweeping the land, or so it seemed to many Englishmen in the early decades of the nineteenth century. They held it responsible for crime, poverty and many other ills of the rapidly industrializing towns. A 'moderation' temperance reform organized in 1829 largely under middle class auspices soon gave way to a radical commitment to total abstinence in a great variety of worker self-help groups. When these too failed to change the drinking habits of most Englishmen the temperance movement sought new alliances. In the 1870s and 1880s Gospel Temperance married temperance to revivalist religion. It received the support of both established and non-conformist churches, and millions 'took the pledge'. But many did not; and as religious enthusiasm faded the anti-drink forces shifted their attention to the political arena. After successfully pressuring the Liberal Party to adopt limited prohibition, they mounted a great but unsuccessful campaign in the 1895 election. With this defeat the anti-drink crusade disintegrated, leaving the dedicated teetotallers socially isolated in the safe haven of their drink-free subculture.