Over the past years, a number of probabilistic measures of coherence have been proposed. As shown in the paper, however, many of them do not conform to the intuitition that equivalent testimonies are highly coherent, regardless of their prior probability.

L’unité de la science, telle qu’elle est comprise dans l’image symbolique du monde des primitifs, repose sur le concept de correspondance. Elle suppose que le monde est un organisme dont toutes les parties se correspondent, que tout événement d’une sphère du monde a sa conséquence dans les autres sphères, que le monde est soumis à des lois qui constituent la meilleure des harmonies, d’où dérivent les règles de la conduite morale.

In Neutrality and the Academic Ethic, distinguished philosopher Robert L. Simon explores the claim that universities can and should be politically neutral. He examines conceptual questions about the meaning of neutrality, distinguishes different conceptions of what neutrality involves, and considers in what sense, if any, institutional neutrality is both possible and desirable. In Part II, a collection of original and previously published essays provides different views on these and related issues.

Gegen Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts vollzieht sich im gelehrten Deutschland ein auffalliger Sinneswandel in der Wertschatzung fernostlicher Weisheit. Die geradezu enthusiastische Begeisterung, mit der etwa Leibniz oder Christian Wolff, selbst Friedrich der Grosse noch den sittlichen Idealen der Konfuzianer begegneten, weicht allmahlich einer immer ausgepragteren Kritik bis hin zur totalen Abwendung, ja Ablehnung der in zunehmendem Masse als statisch, ruckwarts gerichtet und fortschrittsfeindlich empfundenen Lehrinhalte der konfuzianischen Klassiker. In dieser Arbeit wird versucht, den allmahlichen Wandel in der Bewertung konfuzianischen (...) Gedankengutes bei den deutschen Dichtern und Denkern in der Zeit zwischen 1780 und 1850 nachzuzeichnen und dabei vor allem der Frage nachzugehen, auf welche historischen Quellen sich ihr Urteil gestutzt haben konnte. (shrink)

Werner Heisenberg's 1925 paper ‘Quantum-theoretical re-interpretation of kinematic and mechanical relations’ marks the beginning of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg famously claims that the paper is based on the idea that the new quantum mechanics should be ‘founded exclusively upon relationships between quantities which in principle are observable’. My paper is an attempt to understand this observability principle, and to see whether its employment is philosophically defensible. Against interpretations of ‘observability’ along empiricist or positivist lines I argue that such readings are (...) philosophically unsatisfying. Moreover, a careful comparison of Heisenberg's reinterpretation of classical kinematics with Einstein's argument against absolute simultaneity reveals that the positivist reading does not fit with Heisenberg's strategy in the paper. Instead the appeal to observability should be understood as a specific criticism of the causal inefficacy of orbital electron motion in Bohr's atomic model. I conclude that the tacit philosophical principle behind Heisenberg's argument is not a positivistic connection between observability and meaning, but the idea that a theory should not contain causally idle wheels. (shrink)

T. 1. Vorwort. Nachruf auf Hans Werner Arndt. Einleitung. Ehrenpromotion von Jean Ecole. Plenums-und Abendvorträge. -- T. 2. Sektion 1: System der Metaphysik. Sektion 2: Logik. Sektion 3: Ontologie. Sektion 4: Psychologie -- T. 3. Sektion 5: Kosmologie. Sektion 6: Theologie. Sektion 7: Praktische Philosophie -- T. 4. Sektion 8: Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften. Sektion 9: Ästhetik und Poetik -- T. 5. Sektion 10: Wolff und seine Schule. Sektion 11: Wirkungen Wolffs. Sektion 12: Wolff in Halle, Vertreibung und (...) Rückkehr. (shrink)

T. 1. Vorwort. Nachruf auf Hans Werner Arndt. Einleitung. Ehrenpromotion von Jean Ecole. Plenums-und Abendvorträge. -- T. 2. Sektion 1: System der Metaphysik. Sektion 2: Logik. Sektion 3: Ontologie. Sektion 4: Psychologie -- T. 3. Sektion 5: Kosmologie. Sektion 6: Theologie. Sektion 7: Praktische Philosophie -- T. 4. Sektion 8: Mathematik und Naturwissenschaften. Sektion 9: Ästhetik und Poetik -- T. 5. Sektion 10: Wolff und seine Schule. Sektion 11: Wirkungen Wolffs. Sektion 12: Wolff in Halle, Vertreibung und (...) Rückkehr. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Die Überwindung des mathematischen Erkenntnisideals" verfügbar.

The revised edition of this highly successful text provides a clear and accessible introduction to some of the most important questions of political philosophy. Organized around major issues, Wolff provides the structure that beginners need, while also introducing some distinctive ideas of his own.

Plato's dialogues frequently criticize traditional Greek myth, yet Plato also integrates myth with his writing. Daniel S. Werner confronts this paradox through an in-depth analysis of the Phaedrus, Plato's most mythical dialogue. Werner argues that the myths of the Phaedrus serve several complex functions: they bring nonphilosophers into the philosophical life; they offer a starting point for philosophical inquiry; they unify the dialogue as a literary and dramatic whole; they draw attention to the limits of language and the (...) limits of knowledge; and they allow Plato to co-opt cultural authority as a way of defining and legitimating the practice of philosophy. Platonic myth, as a species of traditional tale, is thus both distinct from philosophical dialectic and similar to it. Ultimately, the most powerful effect of Platonic myth is the way in which it leads readers to participate in Plato's dialogues and to engage in a process of self-examination. (shrink)

The fall of the Berlin Wall had enormous symbolic resonance, marking the collapse of Marxist politics and economics. Indeed, Marxist regimes have failed miserably, and with them, it seems, all reason to take the writings of Karl Marx seriously. Jonathan Wolff argues that if we detach Marx the critic of current society from Marx the prophet of some never-to-be-realized worker's paradise, he remains the most impressive critic we have of liberal, capitalist, bourgeois society. The author shows how Marx's main (...) ideas still shed light on wider concerns about culture and society and he guides the reader through Marx's notoriously difficult writings. Wolff also argues that the value of a great thinker does not depend on his or her views being true, but on other features such as originality, insight, and systematic vision. From this perspective, Marx still richly deserves to be read. Why Read Marx Today? reinstates Marx as an important critic of current society, and not just a figure of historical interest. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to reflect on the complex practice of responsibility within the context of a globalised world and contemporary means of action. Levinas' exploration of the ethical serves as point of entry and is shown to be seeking inter-cultural political relevance through engagement with the issues of postcoloniality and humanism. Yet, Levinas fails to realise the ethical implications of the inevitable instrumental mediation between ethical meaning and political practice. With recourse to Weber, Apel and Ricoeur, Ernst (...) Wolff proposes a theory of strategic co-responsibility for the uncertain global context of practice. (shrink)

Explores sociocultural influences on the construction of traditional aesthetic theories and judgments.

_In Defense of Anarchism_ is a 1970 book by the philosopher Robert Paul Wolff, in which the author defends individualist anarchism. He argues that individual autonomy and state authority are mutually exclusive and that, as individual autonomy is inalienable, the moral legitimacy of the state collapses.

Modal dispositionalists hold that dispositions provide the foundation of metaphysical necessity and possibility. According to the kind of modal dispositionalism that can be found in the present literature, a proposition p is possible just in case some things are disposed to be such that p. In the first part of this paper I show that combining this classic form of dispositionalism with the assumptions that the laws of nature are necessary and deterministic and that all dispositions are forward-looking in time (...) leads to the unattractive conclusion that every truth is necessary. I argue that the classic dispositionalist should be troubled by this result and in the second part of the paper I suggest a novel variant of dispositionalism that avoids it. This extended form of dispositionalism allows that some propositions are only indirectly underwritten by dispositions. (shrink)

This new book integrates material drawn from a variety of sources – feminist theory, cultural and literary analysis, sociology and art history – in an original discussion of women′s relationship to modern and post–modern culture. The essays in the book challenge the continuing separation of sociological from textual analysis in cultural (and feminist) theory and enquiry. They address critically the question of women′s writing, exploring the idea that women may begin to define their own lives and construct their identities in (...) a patriarchal culture through the very process of writing. They also present a cogent defence of a feminist cultural politics, including a politics of the body. (shrink)

My paper ‘Hobbes and the Motivations of Social Contract Theory’ was published in this journal in 1994. In this contribution I explain the background that led me to write that paper at an early stage of my career, relating the explanation to my education as a student at UCL, and, briefly, at Harvard and contrasting the methodological approaches I experienced in the two departments. The Hobbes paper itself offers a type of ‘rational reconstruction’ of Hobbes, drawing on the logic of (...) different social contract arguments, and while there is much in the paper I still agree with, it assumes an approach to Philosophy that I would not adopt now. (shrink)

Feminism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, and Marxism, among other critical approaches, have undermined traditional notions of aesthetics in recent decades. But questions of aesthetic judgment and pleasure persist, and many critics now seek a "return to aesthetics" or a "return to beauty." Janet Wolff advances a "postcritical" aesthetics grounded in shared values that are negotiated in the context of community. She relates this approach to contemporary debates about a committed politics similarly founded on the abandonment of certainty. Neither universalist nor relativist, (...) the "aesthetics of uncertainty" provides a discourse on beauty that contemporary critics can engage with and offers a basis for judgment that is committed to assigning value to works of art. Wolff explores her position through a range of topics: the question of beauty in relation to feminist critique; the problematic status of twentieth-century English art, visual representations of the Holocaust, Jewish identity as portrayed by the artist R. B. Kitaj, refugee artists and modernism in 1940s Britain, and the nature and appeal of imagistic thinking in sociology. She addresses the desire for certainty and the timeliness of doubt and concludes with a meditation on the intersection of aesthetics and ethics, arguing that ethical issues are very much implicated in aesthetic discourse. (shrink)

Stance-independent nonnaturalist moral realism is subject to two related epistemological objections. First, there is the metaethical descendant of the Benacerraf problem. Second, there are evolutionary debunking arguments. Standard attempts to solve these epistemological problems have not appealed to any particular moral epistemology. The focus on these epistemologically neutral responses leaves many interesting theoretical stones unturned. Exploring the ability of particular theories in moral epistemology to handle these difficult epistemological objections can help illuminate strengths or weaknesses within these theories themselves, as (...) well as opening up potentially unexplored avenues for responding to deeply entrenched concerns about our epistemic access to the moral properties. In this paper, I assess the prospects of an empiricist and perceptualist model of moral knowledge for responding to epistemological arguments against non-skeptical moral realism. I argue that such a view has powerful responses to these objections that are not open to other moral epistemologists. The upshot is that if some version of the view is correct, then the realist has less to fear from Benacerraf and evolutionary debunking–style epistemological objections. Insofar as one is already a committed realist, then, this provides some indirect support for moral perceptualism. (shrink)

Affective congruency effects in the evaluation task can be explained by either spreading of activation or response competition. Eliminating effects of response compatibility by using other tasks (semantic categorisation, naming task) typically also eliminates affective congruency effects. However, there is no need for processing the affective information of the stimuli in these tasks either, which could be necessary for an affectively mediated spreading of activation (Spruyt et al., 2007, 2009, 2012). We introduced a new task to further test this hypothesis. (...) The valent/neutral-categorisation task does not confound affective congruency with response compatibility, but still requires a processing of the stimuli's valence. No affective congruency effect was obtained with this task in two experiments, disfavouring a conditional spreading activation account. On the other hand, a significant priming effect was found for associated word pairs in Experiment 1, providing evidence for the sensitivity of the task to detect spreading activation processes. (shrink)

Mémoire de Mons. Lange contre cette philosophie -- Réponse préliminaire d'un auteur anonimeà ce mémoire -- Sommaire de la réponse de Mr. Wolf mȩme avec un avis au lecteur de l'histoire de ce nouveau différend.

Schon seit ihrer Gr ndung in den 1970er-Jahren ist die Reihe Germanistische Linguistik (RGL) exponiertes Forum des Faches, dessen Namen sie im Titel f hrt. Hinsichtlich der thematischen Breite (Sprachebenen, Variet ten, Kommunikationsformen, Epochen), der Forschungsperspektiven (Theorie und Empirie, Grundlagenforschung und Anwendung, Inter- und Transdisziplinarit t) und des methodologischen Spektrums ist die Reihe offen angelegt. Das Aufgreifen neuer Trends hat in ihr ebenso Platz wie das Fortf hren von Bew hrtem. Die Publikationsformen reichen von Monographien und Sammelb nden bis zu (...) W rterb chern. Wissenschaftlicher Beirat (ab November 2011): Prof. Dr. Karin Donhauser (Berlin) Prof. Dr. Stephan Elspa (Augsburg) Prof. Dr. Helmuth Feilke (Gie en) Prof. Dr. J rg Fleischer (Marburg) Prof. Dr. Stephan Habscheid (Siegen) Prof. Dr. R diger Harnisch (Passau). (shrink)

Serena Olsaretti brings together new essays by leading moral and political philosophers on the nature of desert and justice, their relations with each other and with other values.

This article focuses on unjust credibility deficits in cases of testimony about emotional reactions towards acts of oppression. It argues that the injustice in these cases is not rooted in the hearer’s identity prejudices against the speaker, but the hearer's problematic way of dealing with his simulation of being in the speaker's situation. The simulation is in itself not morally problematic. However, I focus on a case where the hearer either recklessly or negligently fails to consider knowledge about the differences (...) in people’s emotional reactions and comes to believe that his simulated reaction is the only possible reaction, thus believing that the speaker does not report her emotions truthfully.In this case, the ‘epistemic poison’ results from the recklessness or negligence not necessarily from identity prejudice against the speaker. This credibility deficit is unjust, yet its persistent and systematic nature stems from the fact that a hearer who is not from the same marginalized or oppressed group as the speaker will simulate different emotional reactions to those reported by the speaker. Hence, the unjust credibility deficit can be connected to other forms of social injustices suffered by the speaker. (shrink)

Résumé éditeur : "Nous avons perdu les deux repères qui permettaient autrefois de nous définir entre les dieux et les bêtes. Nous ne savons plus qui nous sommes, nous autres humains. De nouvelles utopies en naissent. D'un côté, le post-humanisme prétend nier notre animalité et faire de nous des dieux promis à l'immortalité par les vertus de la technique. D'un autre côté, l'animalisme veut faire de nous des animaux comme les autres et inviter les autres animaux à faire partie de (...) notre communauté morale. Alors forgeons une nouvelle utopie à notre mesure. Ne cherchons plus à nier les frontières naturelles - celles qui nous séparent des dieux ou des animaux - et défendons un humanisme conséquent, c'est-à-dire un cosmopolitisme sans frontières.". (shrink)

This paper argues that institutions are higher-level autonomous systems enacted by patterns of participatory sense-making. Therefore, unlike in the standard equilibrium theory, institutions are not themselves thought of as behavioural patterns. Instead, they are problem domains that these patterns have brought forth. Moreover, these are not merely any patterns, but only those devoted to maintaining a specific strategy of problem solving, called the strategy of ‘letting be’. The latter refers to, following Hanne de Jaegher, a balance between underdetermination and overdetermination (...) of individual behaviour by a collective. Such an understanding of institutions becomes an option once a hybrid ‘equilibrium + rules’ theory of institutions, such as the one proposed by Frank Hindriks, is supplemented with insights from enactivism. In this light, drawing a connection between these two areas is the additional, meta-theoretical goal of this paper. This connection is beneficial, I argue, in particular since it allows for a satisfactory, in-depth account of the normative character of institutions as well as their local character. (shrink)