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The Liar paradox arises when we consider a sentence that says of itself that it is not true. If such self-referential sentences exist – and examples like »This sentence is not true« certainly suggest this –, then our logic and standard notion of truth allow to infer a contradiction: The Liar sentence is true and not true. What has gone wrong? Must we revise our notion of truth and our logic? Or can we dispel the common conviction that there are such self-referential sentences? The present study explores the second path. After comparing the Liar reasoning in formal and informal logic and showing that there are no Gödelian Liar sentences, the study moves on from the semantics of self-reference to the metaphysics of expressions and proposes a novel solution to the Liar paradox: Meaningful expressions are distinct from their syntactic bases and exist only relative to contexts. Detailed semantico-metaphysical arguments show that in this dynamic setting, an object can be referred to only after it has started to exist. Hence the circular reference needed in the Liar paradox cannot occur, after all. As this solution is contextualist, it evades the expressibility problems of other proposals.
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G.W. Leibniz’s legacy to philosophy is extraordinary for his vast body of work, for his originality and prescience, and for his influence. The aim of this volume is to provide a state-of-the-art exploration of Leibniz’s philosophy and its legacy, especially in the period up to Kant.
The essays collected here offer new insights into signature elements of Leibniz’s thought – the theory of contingency, anti-materialism, the principle of sufficient reason, the metaphysics of substance, and his philosophy of mind – as well as the influence of predecessors such as Lull, Descartes, and Malebranche, the reckoning of his ideas in the works of Wolff and Kant, and the contributions of Clarke, Baumgarten, Meier, Du Châtelet, and others to the content, transmission, and reception of Leibnizian philosophy.
The essays collected here offer new insights into signature elements of Leibniz’s thought – the theory of contingency, anti-materialism, the principle of sufficient reason, the metaphysics of substance, and his philosophy of mind – as well as the influence of predecessors such as Lull, Descartes, and Malebranche, the reckoning of his ideas in the works of Wolff and Kant, and the contributions of Clarke, Baumgarten, Meier, Du Châtelet, and others to the content, transmission, and reception of Leibnizian philosophy.
Free Logic is an important field of philosophical logic. It appeared first in the 1950s, and Karel Lambert was one of its founders and coined the term. The volume begins with three of Lambert’s most recent essays. These papers are followed by a dialogue between Karel Lambert and Edgar Morscher on free logic. The second part of the volume contains papers by Peter Simons and Edgar Morscher on free logic. A systematic and historical survey of free logic with an annotated bibliography of works on free logic completes the book.
Foundations and Challenges
Coercion in the treatment of persons suffering from mental disorders is one of the major ethical controversies in psychiatry. Despite great efforts to reduce the use of coercive interventions, they are still widespread and differ among European countries with regard to the specific type of intervention and the number of affected patients. It is common to justify measures against the present will of patients under the assumption that they promote their well-being, that is, by reference to the ethical principal of beneficence. However, it is indisputable that such measures can also cause severe harm to the patients concerned and that they are often experienced as degrading. So in which situations can coercive interventions justifiably be labeled as »beneficial« at all? How can they be reduced to a minimum? This volume addresses these issues from an interdisciplinary and international perspective, combining contributions of amongst others medical ethicists, philosophers, legal scholars, psychologists, psychiatrists from different European countries. Theoretical and conceptual essays are complemented by contributions with a strong relation to clinical practice.
We are glad to present the nineteenth volume of this journal. Its unitary thematic focus concerns a fruitful discussion of a variety of approaches in Ancient Epistemology. This volume of Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy presents in total eleven articles on the theme of Ancient Epistemology, ranging from the presocratic philosopher Xenophanes to Plotinus and Sextus Empiricus, both by established colleagues and by younger scholars at the beginning of their career. Many interpretations are new or feature new ideas or new applications of ideas. We are confident that they will stimulate the readers to develop their understanding of ancient epistemology in response to them. The Authors: Matthew Duncombe, Alexander P. D. Mourelatos, Patricia Curd, Lucas Angioni, Ada Bronowski, Lee Franklin, Audrey Anton, David Bronstein, Anna Tigani, Andrew Payne, Eleni Perdikouri, Petter Sandstad, Jared Smith and Ádám Tamás Tuboly.
Philosophical Essays in Honour of Wolfgang Spohn
Wolfgang Spohn is an eminent figure in contemporary analytic philosophy. Though best known for his seminal work in formal epistemology, in particular for the inception and development of ranking theory, his philosophical interests are much broader, covering virtually all parts of theoretical philosophy. This collection of essays from colleagues, friends and former students reflects the wide variety of Spohn’s philosophical interests. It contains articles on epistemology (e.g., the nature of knowledge and belief, ranking theory, formal theories of belief and its revision), theory of science (e.g., causality, induction, laws of nature), philosophy of language (e.g., theories of meaning, the semantics of counterfactuals) and philosophy of mind (e.g., intentionality, intuitions, free will) as well as on logic, ontology and game theory. The authors: Ansgar Beckermann, Wolfgang Benkewitz, Bernd Buldt, Ralf Busse, Christoph Fehige, Wolfgang Freitag, Gordian Haas, Volker Halbach, Franz Huber, Andreas Kemmerling, Manfred Kupffer, Hannes Leitgeb, Godehard Link, Arthur Merin, Thomas Müller, Julian Nida-Rümelin, Martine Nida-Rümelin, Hans Rott, Holger Sturm, Thomas Ede Zimmermann and Alexandra Zinke.
Practical reasoning answers the question »what should I do?« As reasoning it must be a valid combination of premises, as practical it must result in action. We can thus ask what form the premises must have and how they must be combined so as to be valid and practical, i.e. so as to result in rational action. The conventional approach to answering this question results in a dilemma. This book develops an alternative approach which resolves this dilemma. The key to this is to start by analysing the requirements that practical reasoning must meet in order to result in action. With these requirements, we can show that the form of the elements of practical reasoning is that of ends. The validity of practical reasoning will be shown to consist in necessary agreement among ends. The concept of ends and the validity of practical reasoning will be developed on the Basis of a critical assessment of rational choice theory. The resulting contrast is that between fully determined objects of preferences and general ends, between comparison and agreement.
Systematic and Historical Perspectives
The study of concepts lies at the intersection of various disciplines, both analytic and empiric. The rising cognitive sciences, for instance, are interested in concepts insofar as they are used in an explanation of such diverse epistemic phenomena like categorization, inference, memory, learning, and decision-making. In philosophy, the challenge imposed by conceptualization consists, among other things, in accommodating reverse intuitions about concepts like shareability, mind-dependency, mediation between reference, knowledge and reality, etc. While researchers have collaborated more and more to contribute to a unified understanding of concepts and categorization, the joint venture unfortunately suffers (so far) from the fact that it is generally left unclear how exactly the different approaches undertaken in the participating sciences relate to each other. What do psychologists and philosophers mean by the notion of a concept? Is there a core-theory of concepts and categorization underlying analytical and empirical studies? The present collection of essays addresses these and related questions and tries to answer them from both a systematic and a historical perspective.
An Integrative Approach To Evolutionary And Social Constructionist Perspectives On Emotions
Emotions are shaped by evolution and they are shaped by culture. This book explores several ways in which emotions are shaped by culture, and examines what they tells us about the nature of emotions. A crude dichotomy between evolution and culture is certainly not warranted, since evolutionary frameworks can accommodate many cultural influences on emotions. However, the most deeply culturally shaped emotions, those which deserve to be called 'socially constructed', call for significant modifications of existing evolutionary frameworks. This book argues for a new version of Social Constructionism for emotions: Some emotions are social kinds rather than non-social natural kinds. This study thereby introduces new distinctions apart from the familiar distinction between cognitive and non-cognitive emotions. This book includes some applications to topics of practical relevance: jealousy is neither a paradigmatic cognitive emotion nor a paradigmatic basic one. This analysis casts doubt on the cognitive/basic distinction and speaks against an overtly moralized understanding of jealousy. Finally, some arguments about the desirability of exclusivity in romantic relationships are explored.
How do we understand other people’s minds? This question has been discussed intensively in the theory of mind debate. ‘Theory of mind’ is defined as the capacity to attribute mental states to oneself and to others and to make use of that capacity in behavior understanding. This book offers a critical analysis of a variety of tasks that have been conducted to investigate the development of a theory of mind in children. The heart of the book is a pluralistic account of social understanding. Rather than relying on a default procedure of social understanding (e.g., theory or simulation), individuals understand the behavior of another person in various ways dependent on their cognitive competencies and the socio-situational context. As a rule of thumb, individuals are prone to make use of that procedure that is cognitively least effortful to them in a given context. Covering a wide range of studies, the implications of the pluralistic account are discussed with respect to culture and psychopathology. Finally, the book points to the role that social interaction may play in social understanding.