Rodolfo Sacco has devoted much of his research to the relations between law and language. His analysis were focused on the problem of legal translation for comparative law research, on mute law, and on the importance of understanding the dynamics of the different languages in Europe today.

Some of the series' finest lectures have been lost for many years, unavailable to the public in any form -- until now.

The object of G. F. Meier's Vernunftlehre and its abridgement for courses, the Auszug aus der Vernunftlehre, does not consist exclusively in the elaboration of the formal aspects of logic, but rather in the individuation of the elements of thought and language, which make human understanding possible. Instead of limiting himself to formal truth, Meier investigates the realms of epistemic, aesthetic, and historic truths, of horizons, and prejudices. Kant used both Meier's Vernunftlehre and its Auszug for about forty years in (...) his logic-lectures. Kant's Logik, and also his Kritik der reinen Vernunft, were thus strongly influenced by Meier. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Kant-Index: Band 5: Stellenindex und Konkordanz zur "Wiener Logik,"Riccardo PozzoNorbert Hinske. Kant-Index: Band 5: Stellenindex und Konkordanz zur "Wiener Logik," Erstellt in Zusammenarbeit mit Heinrich P. Delfosse und Michael Oberhausen unter Mitwirkung von Hans-Werner Bartz, Christian Popp, Tina Strauch und Michael Trauth. Bad Cannstatt: frommann-holzboog, 1999. Pp. Cxiii + 865.The Wiener Logik has long led a shadowy existence. This has nothing to do with the quality of the (...) text, but rather with accidental conditions. When the manuscript of the Wiener Logik was discovered in 1913, the planning of the Akademie-Ausgabe of Kant's complete works had already been largely completed and eight volumes of the works, three of the correspondence and two of the Nachlaß were published. Erich Adickes' edition of Kant's Reflexionen über die Logik appeared in 1914. Hinske suggests that, had Adickes considered it, the Wiener Logik would have played a valuable role in integrating Kant's reflections (xi). This double-volume makes up for all this by highlighting the relevance of this lecture transcript with special reference to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, which is close to it not only in time but also systematically. It contains a lemmatized main index that makes a recognition of the language of the logic course possible and a concordance that allows one to check the corresponding passages. The introduction and more than twenty pages of editorial notes elaborate on the relationship of the Wiener Logik to other Kantian texts while correcting and integrating the references to sources indicated in its 1966 edition by Gerhard Lehmann within the Akademie-Ausgabe (lxxii-xcvi). At the same time, the index correcs more than one hundred fifty errors of the 1966 edition (lviii-lxvii).The Wiener Logik was translated into English by J. Michael Young in the volume of The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant dedicated to the Lectures on Logic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, 251-377). Young made clear that the Wiener Logik is constituted by two different parts (ibid., xxv f.). In fact the manuscript shows a first part written by the hand of a professional copyist, which covers Kant's course until almost the end of the theory of judgement (Akademie-Ausgabe, vol. 24, 790-937), and a second part constituted by a single page written by another hand (probably a student while sitting in Kant's classroom), which deals with the very end of the theory of judgement and the beginning of the theory of syllogism (ibid., 937-40). One needs to recall, though, that the text of the Wiener Logik is incomplete, given that a large part of the theory of syllogism as well as the theory of method, of discourse and of character are missing. The first part of the Wiener Logik shows several parallels with the edited fragments of the Logik Hoffmann (ibid., 944-52), while the second part shows parallels with the Logik Hechsel, which was discovered in 1983 and has recently been made accessible by Tilman Pinder (cf. Logik-Vorlesungen: Unveröffentliche Nachschriften, Hamburg: Meiner, 1998, 271-499). In fact, J. Michael Young found it convenient to complete his translation of the missing parts of the Wiener Logik by the attaching to it the corresponding parts of the Logik Hechsel (cf. Lectures on Logic, 381-423).Hinske provides new arguments as regards the dating of the Wiener Logik by objecting to both the late dating to the nineties suggested by Wilhelm Jerusalem and the early dating before 1781 by Reinhard Brandt and Tilman Pinder. Hinske remarks that while for the terminus ad quem one should consider the years indicated on the frontispice (1794 [End Page 284] and 1796), the terminus a quo should be set after the final redaction of the Critique of Pure Reason (xxiii f.). Following Hinske's lead and on the basis of an accurate examination on the cross-references between the texts, Bruno Bianco has proposed that the terminus a quo be set not before the publication of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (cf. the Italian translation edited by Bianco, Milan: Angeli, forthcoming).What makes the Wiener Logik and this index particularly interesting for Kant... (shrink)

Individual objects have potentials: paper has the potential to burn, an acorn has the potential to turn into a tree, some people have the potential to run a mile in less than four minutes. Barbara Vetter provides a systematic investigation into the metaphysics of such potentials, and an account of metaphysical modality based on them. -/- In contemporary philosophy, potentials have been recognized mostly in the form of so-called dispositions: solubility, fragility, and so on. Vetter takes dispositions as her (...) starting point, but argues for and develops a more comprehensive conception of potentiality. She shows how, with this more comprehensive conception, an account of metaphysical modality can be given that meets three crucial requirements: Extensional correctness: providing the right truth-values for statements of possibility and necessity; formal adequacy: providing the right logic for metaphysical modality; and semantic utility: providing a semantics that links ordinary modal language to the metaphysics of modality. -/- The resulting view of modality is a version of dispositionalism about modality: it takes modality to be a matter of the dispositions of individual objects. This approach has a long philosophical tradition going back to Aristotle, but has been largely neglected in contemporary philosophy. In recent years, it has become a live option again due to the rise of anti-Humean, powers-based metaphysics. The aim of Potentiality is to develop the dispositionalist view in a way that takes account of contemporary developments in metaphysics, logic, and semantics. (shrink)

Inhalt: K.-O. Apel: Vorwort - G. Calabro: Gesprach uber Hobbes mit Karl-Heinz Ilting - I. Grundfragen der praktischen Philosophie: H.-G. Gadamer: Die Gegenwart der sokratischen Frage in Aristoteles - P. Lorenzen: Politische Ethik - J. D'Hondt: Die Ethik und der Weltlauf - K.-O. Apel: Faktische Anerkennung oder einsehbar notwendige Anerkennung? - H. Schnadelbach: Rationalitat und Normativitat - F. W. Veauthier: Vom sozialen Verantwortungsapriori im phanomenologischen Denken - K. Lorenz: Der Antagonismus von Freiheit und Gerechtigkeit - P. Rohs: Moralische Praferenzen - (...) H. Hoppe: Normenbegrundung ohne naturalistischen Fehlschluss? - W. Kuhlmann: Solipsismus in Kants praktischer Philosophie und die Diskursethik - R. Maliandi: Anerkennung oder Argumentation? - L. H. Meyer: Anerkennung, Zumutbarkeit und Diskussion als praktische Prinzipien - A. Cortina: Substantielle Ethik oder wertfreie Verfahrensethik? - R. Zimmer: Der Selbstbezug des asthetischen Zeichens - II. Zur Geschichte der praktischen Philosophie: P. R. Franke: Zu einem Munzbildnis des Stoikers Chrysippos - V. Hosle: Recht und Geschichte bei Giambattista Vico - M. Riedel: Imputation der Handlung und Applikation des Sittengesetzes - A. Buha: Moral und Geschichte - C. Cesa: Zum Begriff des Praktischen bei Fichte - N. Bobbio: Hegel und das Recht - L. W. Beck: Reformation, Revolution und Restauration in Hegels politischer Philosophie - D. Losurdo: Moralisches Motiv und Primat der Politik bei Hegel - P. Becchi: Die Wurzeln der Ethik der Uberzeugung - R. Pozzo: 'Bourgeois' oder 'citoyen'? Zu Hegels Begriff der burgerlichen Gesellschaft - Die Veroffentlichungen K.-H. Iltings von P. Becchi - Personenregister - Sachregister. (shrink)

Dispositions are modal properties. The standard conception of dispositions holds that each disposition is individuated by its stimulus condition(s) and its manifestation(s), and that their modality is best captured by some conditional construction that relates stimulus to manifestation as antecedent to consequent. I propose an alternative conception of dispositions: each disposition is individuated by its manifestation alone, and its modality is closest to that of possibility — a fragile vase, for instance, is one that can break easily. The view is (...) expounded in some detail and defended against the major objections. (shrink)

Abilities are in many ways central to what being an agent means, and they are appealed to in philosophical accounts of a great many different phenomena. It is often assumed that abilities are some kind of dispositional property, but it is rarely made explicit exactly which dispositional properties are our abilities. Two recent debates provide two different answers to that question: the new dispositionalism in the debate about free will, and virtue reliabilism in epistemology. This paper argues that both answers (...) fail as general accounts of abilities, and discusses the ramifications of this result. (shrink)

The natural rights with which we have been dealing are, however, inseparably connected, in the very person who is their subject, with just as many respectiveduties; and rights as well as duties find their source, their sustenance and their inviolability in the natural law which grants or enjoins them.Since men are social by nature they are meant to live with others and to work for one another’s welfare. A well-ordered human society requires that men recognize and observe their mutual rights (...) and duties. It also demands that each contribute generously to the establishment of a civic order in which rights and duties are more sincerely and effectively acknowledged and fulfilled. (shrink)

This book presents the most important problems of reference and considers their solution. It presupposes no technical knowledge, presents analyses from first principles, illustrates every stage with examples, and is written with verve and clarity. This is the ideal introduction to reference for students of linguistics and philosophy of language.

It is a familiar point that many ordinary dispositions are multi-track, that is, not fully and adequately characterisable by a single conditional. In this paper, I argue that both the extent and the implications of this point have been severely underestimated. First, I provide new arguments to show that every disposition whose stimulus condition is a determinable quantity must be infinitely multi-track. Secondly, I argue that this result should incline us to move away from the standard assumption that dispositions are (...) in some way importantly linked to conditionals, as presupposed by the debate about various versions of the ‘conditional analysis’ of dispositions. I introduce an alternative conception of dispositionality, which is motivated by linguistic observations about dispositional adjectives and links dispositions to possibility instead of conditionals. I argue that, because of the multi-track nature of dispositions, the possibility-based conception of dispositions is to be preferred. (shrink)

In this paper I develop a framework for environmental philosophy on the ground of what I call a radical relationalism based on Whitehead’s thought. Accordingly, relations are ontologically prior to and constitutive of entities rather than being conceived as external link(ing) between them. On this ground an alternative, relational axiology can be developed that challenges the current environmental ethics debate and its dichotomy between intrinsic and instrumental values. In the last section, I show how such an axiology can become an (...) important ally for global environmental justice struggles and help support what the anthropologist Arturo Escobar calls a “decolonial view of nature.”. (shrink)

Combining knowledge of social policy and practice with insights from poststructural and feminist theory, the text demonstrates how democratic citizens and the political are continually recreated.

Ulrich Beck's best selling Risk Society established risk on the sociological agenda. It brought together a wide range of issues centering on environmental, health and personal risk, provided a rallying ground for researchers and activists in a variety of social movements and acted as a reference point for state and local policies in risk management. The Risk Society and Beyond charts the progress of Beck's ideas and traces their evolution. It demonstrates why the issues raised by Beck reverberate widely throughout (...) social theory and covers the new risks that Beck did not foresee, associated with the emergence of new technologies, genetic and cybernetic. The book is unique because it offers both an introduction to the main arguments in Risk Society and develops a range of critical discussions of aspects of this and other works of Beck. (shrink)

Williamsonian modal epistemology is characterized by two commitments: realism about modality, and anti-exceptionalism about our modal knowledge. Williamson’s own counterfactual-based modal epistemology is the best known implementation of WME, but not the only option that is available. I sketch and defend an alternative implementation which takes our knowledge of metaphysical modality to arise, not from knowledge of counterfactuals, but from our knowledge of ordinary possibility statements of the form ‘x can F’. I defend this view against a criticism indicated in (...) Williamson’s own work, and argue that it is better connected to the semantics of modal language. (shrink)

One main issue within environmental ethics is the so-called Demarcation Problem, i.e. the question of which entities are members of the moral community and hold intrinsic value. I argue that the demarcation problem relies mainly on Kantian moral philosophy. While the Kantian framework offers a strong and immediately deontological argument for moral agents holding inherent moral values, it presents problems when stretched beyond its original scope and lacks an adequate ground for addressing relational complexity and the moral significance of collectives. (...) In this paper I outline an alternative axiological framework ('map of moral significance') that relies on a relational ontology and encompasses intrinsic and relational values as the two equipollent axes of a matrix in which to embed the question posited by the Demarcation Problem. (shrink)

According to essentialism, metaphysical modality is founded in the essences of things, where the essence of a thing is roughly akin to its real definition. According to potentialism (also known as dispositionalism), metaphysical modality is founded in the potentialities of things, where a potentiality is roughly the generalized notion of a disposition. Essentialism and potentialism have much in common, but little has been written about their relation to each other. The aim of this paper is to understand better the relations (...) between essence and potentiality, on the one hand, and between essentialism and potentialism, on the other. It is argued, first, that essence and potentiality are not duals but interestingly linked by a weaker relation dubbed ‘semi-duality’; second, that given this weaker relation, essentialism and potentialism are not natural allies but rather natural competitors; and third, that the semi-duality of essence and potentiality allows the potentialist to respond to an important explanatory challenge by using essentialist resources without thereby committing to essentialism. (shrink)

According to ecological psychology, animals perceive not just the qualities of things in their environment, but their affordances: in James Gibson’s words, ’what things furnish, for good or ill’. I propose a metaphysics for affordances that fits into a contemporary anti-Humean metaphysics of powers or potentialities. The goal is to connect two debates, one in the philosophy of perception and one in metaphysics, that stand to gain much from each other.

Dispositionalists try to provide an account of modality—possibility, necessity, and the counterfactual conditional—in terms of dispositions. But there may be a tension between dispositionalist accounts of possibility on the one hand, and of counterfactuals on the other. Dispositionalists about possibility must hold that there are no impossible dispositions, i.e., dispositions with metaphysically impossible stimulus and/or manifestation conditions; dispositionalist accounts of counterfactuals, if they allow for non-vacuous counterpossibles, require that there are such impossible dispositions. I argue, first, that there are in (...) fact no impossible dispositions; and second, that the dispositionalist can nevertheless acknowledge the non-vacuity of some counterpossibles. The strategy in the second part is one of ‘divide and conquer’ that is not confined to the dispositionalist: it consists in arguing that counterpossibles, when non-vacuous, are read epistemically and are therefore outside the purview of a dispositional account. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kant-Studien Jahrgang: 109 Heft: 1 Seiten: 185-188.

This paper surveys recent "new actualist" approaches to modality that do without possible worlds and locate modality squarely in the actual world. New actualist theories include essentialism and dispositionalism about modality, each of which can come in different varieties. The commonalities and differences between these views, as well as their shared motivations, are layed out.

The standard Kratzerian analysis of modal auxiliaries, such as ‘may’ and ‘can’, takes them to be univocal and context-sensitive. Our first aim is to argue for an alternative view, on which such expressions are polysemous. Our second aim is to thereby shed light on the distinction between semantic context-sensitivity and polysemy. To achieve these aims, we examine the mechanisms of polysemy and context-sensitivity and provide criteria with which they can be held apart. We apply the criteria to modal auxiliaries and (...) show that the default hypothesis should be that they are polysemous, and not merely context-sensitive. We then respond to arguments against modal ambiguity. Finally, we show why modal polysemy has significant philosophical implications. (shrink)

My aim in this paper is to sketch, with a broad brush and in bare outlines, an approach to modal epistemology that is characterized by three distinctive features. First, the approach is agency-based: it locates the roots of our modal thought and knowledge in our experience of our own agency. Second, the approach is ambitious in that it takes the experience of certain modal properties in agency to be the sole distinctive feature of specifically modal thought and knowledge; everything that (...) we know about modality beyond the experience of agency is a matter of applying standard methods of inquiry such as deduction, induction and abductive methods for choosing between theories. Third, the account holds that modal thought and knowledge is, first and foremost, about modal properties that are sufficiently like those encountered in agency. (shrink)

Modal dispositionalism is the view that possibilities are a matter of the dispositions of individual objects: it is possible that p if and only if something has a disposition for p to be the case. We raise a problem for modal dispositionalism: nothing within the theory rules out that there could be necessary, perfect masks, which make the manifestation of a disposition impossible. Unless such necessary perfect masks are ruled out, modal dispositionalism runs the risk of failing to provide a (...) sufficient condition for possibility, and indeed of engendering contradictions. But to rule them out, modal dispositionalism would have to revise a crucial tenet of the view, its localism. (shrink)

The article argues that the relationship to time is at the root of what makes us human and that culture arises with and from efforts to transcend death, change and the rhythmicity of the physical environment. Time can be tracked through systems of time measurement and later transformed from a process of nature into clock time, a time to human design that is abstracted from context and content. In this form time can be traded with all other times. With contemporary (...) science and new information and communications technologies, which operate in a new all-encompassing temporal spectrum that extends from nanoseconds to millennia, clock time is no longer appropriate to the associated present-oriented transactions and futures are traversed in the dual sense of the word. By historically locating temporal relations, the article provides both a new understanding of socio-cultural relations and a perspective on social change. (shrink)