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Renaissance Thought and the Arts: Collected Essays

by Paul Oskar Kristeller

Written by an eminent authority on the Renaissance, these classic essays deal not only with Paul Kristeller's specialty, Renaissance humanism and philosophy, but also with Renaissance theories of art. The focus of the collection is on topics such as humanist learning, humanist moral thought, the diffusion of humanism, Platonism, music and learning during the early Renaissance, and the modern system of arts in relation to the Renaissance. For this volume the author has written a new preface, a new essay, and an afterword.

Renaissance Thought and the Arts: Collected Essays

by Paul Oskar Kristeller

Written by an eminent authority on the Renaissance, these classic essays deal not only with Paul Kristeller's specialty, Renaissance humanism and philosophy, but also with Renaissance theories of art. The focus of the collection is on topics such as humanist learning, humanist moral thought, the diffusion of humanism, Platonism, music and learning during the early Renaissance, and the modern system of arts in relation to the Renaissance. For this volume the author has written a new preface, a new essay, and an afterword.

The Roots of Ethics: Science, Religion, and Values (The Hastings Center Series in Ethics)

by Sidney Callahan

OUR AGE IS CHARACTERIZED by an uncertainty about the na­ ture of moral obligations, about what one can hope for in an afterlife, and about the limits of human knowledge. These uncertainties were captured by Immanuel Kant in his Critique of Pure Reason, where he noted three basic human questions: what can we know, what ought we to do, and what can we hope for. Those questions and the uncer­ tainties about their answers still in great part define our cultural per­ spective. In particular, we are not clear about the foundations of ethics, or about their relationship to religion and to science. This volume brings together previously published essays that focus on these inter­ relationships and their uncertainties. It offers an attempt to sketch the interrelationship among three major intellectual efforts: determining moral obligations, the ultimate purpose and goals of man and the cosmos, and the nature of empirical reality. Though imperfect, it is an effort to frame the unity of the human condition, which is captured in part by ethics, in part by religion, and in part by the sciences. Put another way, this collection of essays springs from an attempt to see the unity of humans who engage in the diverse roles of valuers, be­ lievers, and knowers, while still remaining single, individual humans.

Russell's Best

by Bertrand Russell Robert E. Egner

First published in 1981. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Russell's Best

by Bertrand Russell Robert E. Egner

First published in 1981. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Science of Philosophy (Psychology Revivals)

by F. H. George

Originally published in 1981, this book was an attempt to bridge the gap between scientists and philosophers by viewing philosophy, at least in part, through scientific eyes. Professor George is not here concerned with the philosophy of science. Rather he is looking at classical philosophical issues from the behavioural, or scientific, viewpoint. Thus, from the perspective of science, he attempts to establish an understanding of philosophy. The author intended it primarily for behavioural scientists, systems theorists and cyberneticians of the time who should have been closely bound up with the philosophical-scientific relationship.

The Science of Philosophy (Psychology Revivals)

by F. H. George

Originally published in 1981, this book was an attempt to bridge the gap between scientists and philosophers by viewing philosophy, at least in part, through scientific eyes. Professor George is not here concerned with the philosophy of science. Rather he is looking at classical philosophical issues from the behavioural, or scientific, viewpoint. Thus, from the perspective of science, he attempts to establish an understanding of philosophy. The author intended it primarily for behavioural scientists, systems theorists and cyberneticians of the time who should have been closely bound up with the philosophical-scientific relationship.

Scientific Knowledge: Causation, Explanation, and Corroboration (Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science #69)

by J.H. Fetzer

With this defense of intensional realism as a philosophical foundation for understanding scientific procedures and grounding scientific knowledge, James Fetzer provides a systematic alternative to much of recent work on scientific theory. To Fetzer, the current state of understanding the 'laws' of nature, or the 'law-like' statements of scientific theories, appears to be one of philosophical defeat; and he is determined to overcome that defeat. Based upon his incisive advocacy of the single-case propensity interpretation of probability, Fetzer develops a coherent structure within which the central problems of the philosophy of science find their solutions. Whether the reader accepts the author's contentions may, in the end, depend upon ancient choices in the interpretation of experience and explanation, but there can be little doubt of Fetzer's spirited competence in arguing for setting ontology before epistemology, and within the analysis of language. To us, Fetzer's ambition is appealing, fusing, as he says, the substantive commitment of the Popperian with the conscientious sensitivity of the Hempelian to the technical precision required for justified explication. To Fetzer, science is the objective pursuit of fallible general knowledge. This innocent character­ ization, which we suppose most scientists would welcome, receives a most careful elaboration in this book; it will demand equally careful critical con­ sideration. Center for the Philosophy and ROBERT S. COHEN History of Science, MARX W. WARTOFSKY Boston University October 1981 v TABLE OF CONTENTS EDITORIAL PREFACE v FOREWORD xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xv PART I: CAUSATION 1.

Scientific Materialism (Episteme #9)

by M. Bunge

The word 'materialism' is ambiguous: it designates a moral doc­ trine as well as a philosophy and, indeed, an entire world view. Moral materialism is identical with hedonism, or the doctrine that humans should pursue only their own pleasure. Philosophical ma­ terialismis the view that the real worId is composed exclusively of material things. The two doctrines are logically independent: hedonism is consistent with immaterialism, and materialism is compatible with high minded morals. We shall be concerned ex­ c1usively with philosophical materialism. And we shall not confuse it with realism, or the epistemological doctrine that knowIedge, or at any rate scientific knowledge, attempts to represent reality. Philosophical materialism is not a recent fad and it is not a solid block: it is as old as philosophy and it has gone through six quite different stages. The first was ancient materialism, centered around Greek and Indian atomism. The second was the revival of the first during the 17th century. The third was 18th century ma­ terialism, partly derived from one side of Descartes' ambiguous legacy. The fourth was the mid-19th century "scientific" material­ ism, which flourished mainly in Germany and England, and was tied to the upsurge of chemistry and biology. The fifth was dialec­ tical and historical materialism, which accompanied the consolida­ tion of the socialist ideology. And the sixth or current stage, evolved mainly by Australian and American philosophers, is aca­ demic and nonpartisan but otherwise very heterogeneous. Ancient materialism was thoroughly mechanistic.

Scientific Progress: A Study Concerning the Nature of the Relation Between Successive Scientific Theories (Synthese Library #153)

by Craig Dilworth

For the philosopher interested in the idea of objective knowledge of the real world, the nature of science is of special importance, for science, and more particularly physics, is today considered to be paradigmatic in its affording of such knowledge. And no understand­ ing of science is complete until it includes an appreciation of the nature of the relation between successive scientific theories-that is, until it includes a conception of scientific progress. Now it might be suggested by some that there are a variety of ways in which science progresses, or that there are a number of different notions of scientific progress, not all of which concern the relation between successive scientific theories. For example, it may be thought that science progresses through the application of scientific method to areas where it has not previously been applied, or, through the development of individual theories. However, it is here suggested that the application of the methods of science to new areas does not concern forward progress so much as lateral expansion, and that the provision of a conception of how individual theories develop would lack the generality expected of an account concerning the progress of science itself.

Semantical Investigations in Heyting's Intuitionistic Logic (Synthese Library #148)

by Dov M. Gabbay

From the point of view of non-classical logics, Heyting's implication is the smallest implication for which the deduction theorem holds. This book studies properties of logical systems having some of the classical connectives and implication in the neighbourhood of Heyt­ ing's implication. I have not included anything on entailment, al­ though it belongs to this neighbourhood, mainly because of the appearance of the Anderson-Belnap book on entailment. In the later chapters of this book, I have included material that might be of interest to the intuitionist mathematician. Originally, I intended to include more material in that spirit but I decided against it. There is no coherent body of material to include that builds naturally on the present book. There are some serious results on topological models, second order Beth and Kripke models, theories of types, etc., but it would require further research to be able to present a general theory, possibly using sheaves. That would have postponed pUblication for too long. I would like to dedicate this book to my colleagues, Professors G. Kreisel, M.O. Rabin and D. Scott. I have benefited greatly from Professor Kreisel's criticism and suggestions. Professor Rabin's fun­ damental results on decidability and undecidability provided the powerful tools used in obtaining the majority of the results reported in this book. Professor Scott's approach to non-classical logics and especially his analysis of the Scott consequence relation makes it possible to present Heyting's logic as a beautiful, integral part of non-classical logics.

Social History of Nineteenth Century Mathematics

by Mehrtens Hendrik (Short Hendriks Ivo Schneider

During the last few decades historians of science have shown a growing interest in science as a cultural activity and have regarded science more and more as part of the gene­ ral developments that have occurred in society. This trend has been less evident arnong historians of mathematics, who traditionally concentrate primarily on tracing the develop­ ment of mathematical knowledge itself. To some degree this restriction is connected with the special role of mathematics compared with the other sciences; mathematics typifies the most objective, most coercive type of knowledge, and there­ fore seems to be least affected by social influences. Nevertheless, biography, institutional history and his­ tory of national developments have long been elements in the historiography of mathematics. This interest in the social aspects of mathematics has widened recently through the stu­ dy of other themes, such as the relation of mathematics to the development of the educational system. Some scholars have begun to apply the methods of historical sociology of knowledge to mathematics; others have attempted to give a ix x Marxist analysis of the connection between mathematics and productive forces, and there have been philosophical studies about the communication processes involved in the production of mathematical knowledge. An interest in causal analyses of historical processes has led to the study of other factors influencing the development of mathematics, such as the f- mation of mathematical schools, the changes in the profes- onal situation of the mathematician and the general cultural milieu of the mathematical scientist.

The Social Production of Art: Second Edition

by Janet Wolff

Soziologische Aufklärung 3: Soziales System, Gesellschaft, Organisation

by Niklas Luhmann

Unbeirrt hält auch diese Sammlung soziologischer Studien an dem Titel "Aufklä­ rung" fest. Wer die soziologische Literatur des letzten Jahrzehnts soziologisch, das heißt mit Sinn für Realität betrachtet, wird wenig finden, was diesen Anspruch rechtfertigen könnte. Er ist stärker umstritten als je zuvor. Die Dreieinigkeit von Aufklärung, Vernunft und Politik hat keinen Ankerpunkt in der Realität gefunden. Sie hatte ganz und gar auf Zukunft gesetzt und kontrafaktisch auf ihre eigene Normativität. So groß bemessene Gesten vermögen jedoch kaum noch zu überzeugen. Wie sollte man heute angesichts bedrängender Zukunftssorgen sich auf das verlassen können, was als Zukunft impliziert war? Lieber flüchtet man unter die Fittiche der Klassi­ ker, die prinzipiell endlose Möglichkeiten der Interpretation und damit einen Schutz gegen Gedanken- und Arbeitslosigkeit zu bieten scheinen. Neben der Exe­ gese der Klassiker bietet auch die Exegese selbstproduzierter Daten Möglichkeiten zur Variation soziologischer Aussagen. All das sind berechtigte Wege der Forschung und des Erkenntnisgewinns, aber Exegese ist keine Aufklärung.

Spurs: Nietzsche's Styles/Eperons: Les Styles de Nietzsche

by Jacques Derrida

Nietzsche has recently enjoyed much scrutiny from the nouveaux critiques. Jacques Derrida, the leader of that movement, here combines in his strikingly original and incisive fashion questions of sexuality, politics, writing, judgment, procreation, death, and even the weather into a far-reaching analysis of the challenges bequeathed to the modern world by Nietzsche. Spurs, then, is aptly titled, for Derrida's "deconstructions" of Nietzsche's meanings will surely act as spurs to further thought and controversy. This dual-language edition offers the English-speaking reader who has some knowledge of French an opportunity to examine the stylistic virtuosity of Derrida's writing—of particular significance for his analysis of "the question of style."

The Talking Cure: Essays in Psychoanalysis and Language (Language, Discourse, Society)

by Colin MacCabe

'The essays are exemplary in their stylistic clarity. One can only compliment MacCabe along with the contributors, for the readability and conceptual variability of this collection. 'E.Ragland-Sullivan, Lacan Study Notes This book, which grew out of a series of seminars at King's College, Cambridge, addresses itself to the problem of understanding the relations between psychoanalysis and language not only in terms of contemporary linguistic and philosophical conceptions of language but also in relation to the wider field of the human sciences.

Theology and Philosophical Inquiry: An Introduction

by Vincent Brummer

Theory Change, Ancient Axiomatics, and Galileo’s Methodology: Proceedings of the 1978 Pisa Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science Volume I (Synthese Library #145)

by Jaakko Hintikka D. Gruender E. Agazzi

Proceedings of the 1978 Pisa, Italy, September 4-8, 1978 Conference on the History and Philosophy of Science

The Theory of Beauty in the Classical Aesthetics of Japan

by T. Izutsu

The Japanese sense of beauty as actualized in innumerable works of art, both linguistic and non-linguistic, has often been spoken of as something strange to, and remote from, the Western taste. It is, in fact, so radically different from what in the West is ordinarily associated with aesthetic experience that it even tends to give an impression of being mysterious, enigmatic or esoteric. This state of affairs comes from the fact that there is a peculiar kind of metaphysics, based on a realization of the simultaneous semantic articulation of consciousness and the external reality, dominating the whole functional domain of the Japanese sense of beauty, without an understanding of which the so-called 'mystery' of Japanese aesthetics would remain incomprehensible. The present work primarily purports to clarify the keynotes of the artistic experiences that are typical of Japanese culture, in terms of a special philosophical structure underlying them. It consists of two main parts: (1) Preliminary Essays, in which the major philosophical ideas relating to beauty will be given a theoretical elucidation, and (2) a selection of Classical Texts representative of Japanese aesthetics in widely divergent fields of linguistic and extra-linguistic art such as the theories of waka-poetry, Noh play, the art of tea, and haiku. The second part is related to the first by way of a concrete illustration, providing as it does philological materials on which are based the philosophical considerations of the first part.

The Theory of Categories (Nijhoff International Philosophy Series #8)

by F.C. Brentano

This book contains the definitive statement of Franz Brentano's views on meta­ physics. It is made up of essays which were dictated by Brentano during the last ten years of his life, between 1907 and 1917. These dictations were assembled and edited by Alfred Kastil and first published by the Felix Meiner Verlag in 1933 under the title Kategorienlehre. Kastil added copious notes to Brentano's text. These notes have been included, with some slight omissions, in the present edition; the bibliographical references have been brought up to date. Brentano's approach to philosophy is unfamiliar to many contemporay readers. I shall discuss below certain fundamental points which such readers are likely to find the most difficult. I believe that once these points are properly understood, then what Brentano has to say will be seen to be of first importance to philosophy. THE PRIMACY OF THE INTENTIONAL To understand Brentano's theory of being, one must realize that he appeals to what he calls inner perception for his paradigmatic uses of the word "is". For inner perception, according to Brentano, is the source of our knowledge of the nature of being, just as it is the source of our knowledge of the nature of truth and of the nature of good and evil. And what can be said about the being of things that are not apprehended in inner perception can be understood only by analogy with what we are able to say about ourselves as thinking subjects.

The Theory of Indistinguishables: A Search for Explanatory Principles Below the Level of Physics (Synthese Library #150)

by A.F. Parker-Rhodes

It is widely assumed that there exist certain objects which can in no way be distinguished from each other, unless by their location in space or other reference-system. Some of these are, in a broad sense, 'empirical objects', such as electrons. Their case would seem to be similar to that of certain mathematical 'objects', such as the minimum set of manifolds defining the dimensionality of an R -space. It is therefore at first sight surprising that there exists no branch of mathematics, in which a third parity-relation, besides equality and inequality, is admitted; for this would seem to furnish an appropriate model for application to such instances as these. I hope, in this work, to show that such a mathematics in feasible, and could have useful applications if only in a limited field. The concept of what I here call 'indistinguishability' is not unknown in logic, albeit much neglected. It is mentioned, for example, by F. P. Ramsey [1] who criticizes Whitehead and Russell [2] for defining 'identity' in such a way as to make indistinguishables identical. But, so far as I can discover, no one has made any systematic attempt to open up the territory which lies behind these ideas. What we find, on doing so, is a body of mathematics, offering only a limited prospect of practical usefulness, but which on the theoretical side presents a strong challenge to conventional ideas.

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