Analytisk filosofi og logisk positivisme

Mauro Dorato charts pressing debates within the philosophy of science that centre around scientific expertise, access to knowledge, consensus, debate, and decision-making.This English-language translation of Disinformazione Scientifica e Democrazia argues that the advancement of science depends on an exponential process of specialization, accompanied by the creation of technical languages that are less and less accessible to the general public. Dorato reveals how such a process must align with representative forms of democracies, in which knowledge and decision-making ought to aim at the society's general interest. Given the importance of the principle of competence, however, the role of experts as mediators of knowledge threatens the citizens' autonomy of choice. Consequently, the risk of technocratic regimes calls for new ways to increase literacy about science and its philosophical and probabilistic foundations. Stressing the conceptual conflict between pluralism and conformism, Science and Representative Democracyreveals the obstacles to the functioning of both science and democracy.

The Evolution of Consciousness brings together interdisciplinary insights from philosophy, neuroscience, psychology and cognitive science to explain consciousness in terms of the biological function that grounds it in the physical world. Drawing on the novel analogy of a house of cards, Paula Droege pieces together various conceptual questions and shows how they rest on each other to form a coherent, structured argument. She asserts that the mind is composed of unconscious sensory and cognitive representations, which become conscious when they are selected and coordinated into a representation of the present moment. This temporal representation theory deftly bridges the gap between mind and body by highlighting that physical systems are conscious when they can respond flexibly to actions in the present. With examples from evolution, animal cognition, introspection and the free will debate, this is a compelling and animated account of the possible explanations of consciousness, offering answers to the conceptual question of how consciousness can be considered a cognitive process.

Hilary Whitehall Putnam was one of the leading philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. As student of Rudolph Carnap's and Hans Reichenbach's, he went on to become not only a major figure in North American analytic philosophy, who made significant contributions to the philosophy of mind, language, mathematics, and physics but also to the disciplines of logic, number theory, and computer science. He passed away on March 13, 2016. The present volume is a memorial to his extraordinary intellectual contributions, honoring his contributions as a philosopher, a thinker, and a public intellectual. It features essays by an international team of leading philosophers, covering all aspects of Hilary Putnam's philosophy from his work in ethics and the history of philosophy to his contributions to the philosophy of science, logic, and mathematics. Each essay is an original contribution. "Hilary Putnam is one of the most distinguished philosophers of the modern era, and just speaking personally, one of the smartest and most impressive thinkers I have ever been privileged to know-as a good friend for 70 years. The fine essays collected here are a fitting tribute to a most remarkable figure." Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology "In Engaging Putnam excellent philosophers engage the writings and ideas of Hilary Putnam, one of the most productive and influential philosophers of the last century. Putnam stands out because of the combination of brilliance and a firm grasp of reality he brought to a very broad range of issues: the logic and the philosophy of mathematics, free-will, skepticism, realism, internalism and externalism and a lot more. Along with this he offered penetrating insights about other great philosophers, from Aristotle to Wittgenstein. All great philosophers make us think. With many, we try to figure out the strange things they say. With Putnam, we are made to think about clearly explained examples and arguments that get to the heart of the issues he confronts. This book is a wonderful contribution to the continuation of Putnam-inspired thinking." John Perry, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University

This book brings together Constantine Sandis's essays on Wittgenstein's approach to understanding others.

In this fresh evaluation of Western ethics, noted philosopher Richard Taylor argues that philosophy must return to the classical notion of virtue as the basis of ethics. To ancient Greek and Roman philosophers, ethics was chiefly the study of how individuals attain personal excellence, or "virtue," defined as intellectual sophistication, wisdom, strength of character, and creativity. With the ascendancy of the Judeo-Christian ethic, says Taylor, this emphasis on pride of personal worth was lost. Instead, philosophy became preoccupied with defining right and wrong in terms of a divine lawgiver, and the concept of virtue was debased to mean mere obedience to divine law. Even today, in the absence of religious belief, modern thinkers unwittingly continue this legacy by creating hairsplitting definitions of good and evil.Taylor points out that the ancients rightly understood the ultimate concern of ethics to be the search for happiness, a concept that seems to have eluded contemporary society despite unprecedented prosperity and convenience. Extolling Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Taylor urges us to reread this brilliant and still relevant treatise, especially its emphasis on an ethic of aspiration.

Niels Thomassen har igennem mere end 60 år læst, undervist, diskuteret og filosoferet med udgangspunkt i den kontinentalfilosofiske tradition. Han har især været engageret i spørgsmålet om, hvad et godt og lykkeligt liv er, og af alt det, der står det i vejen, det onde, ulykkelige og fortvivlende. Thomassen har ikke mindst knyttet an til Søren Kierkegaards og K.E. Løgstrups tænkning, men er også hjemme i den positivistiske og analytiske filosofi, som har haft en stor plads i det danske filosofiske miljø i hans virketid. Denne bog er et indblik i filosofien i Danmark igennem anden halvdel af det 20. århundrede og et indblik i universitetsverdenens maskinrum. Derudover er bogen fuld af nærværende og personlige erindringer, også om to af Danmarks største tænkere i nyere tid, K.E. Løgstrup og David Favrholdt. Thomassen har studeret hos Løgstrup og i mere end 30 år været kollega med Favrholdt på Syddansk Universitet.