Manuel Bremer

There are positive and negative lessons from Sartre: - Taking up some of his ideas one may arrive at a better model of consciousness in the analytic philosophy of mind; representing some of his ideas within the language and the models of a functionalist theory of mind makes them more accessible and inte¬grates them into the wider picture. - Sartre, as any philosopher, errs at some points, I believe; but these errors may be instruc¬tive, especially in as much as they mirror some errors in some current theories of consciousness. This paper, therefore, is not a piece of Sartre scholarship, but an attempt of a “friendly take¬over” of some ideas I ascribe to Sartre into current models in the philosophy of mind.

I consider here several versions of finitism or conceptions that try to work around postulating sets of infinite size. Restricting oneself to the so-called potential infinite seems to rest either on temporal readings of infinity (or infinite series) or on anti-realistic background assumptions. Both these motivations may be considered problematic. Quine’s virtual set theory points out where strong assumptions of infinity enter into number theory, but is implicitly committed to infinity anyway. The approaches centring on the indefinitely large and the use of schemata would provide a work-around to circumvent usage of actual infinities if we had a clear understanding of how schemata work and where to draw the conceptual line between the indefinitely large and the infinite. Neither of this seems to be clear enough. Versions of strict finitism in contrast provide a clear picture of a (realistic) finite number theory. One can recapture standard arithmetic without being committed to actual infinities. The major problem of them is their usage of a paraconsistent logic with an accompanying theory of inconsistent objects. If we are, however, already using a paraconsistent approach for other reasons (in semantics, epistemology or set theory), we get finitism for free. This strengthens the case for paraconsistency.

The book aims to set out in which respects concepts are properly studied in philosophy, what methodological role the study of concepts has in philoso-phy's study of the world. Many of the considerations in this book nowadays are placed under the headline ‘metaphilosophy’. In contrast to paradigmatic ordinary language philosophy the book endorses a representationalist theory of meaning and concepts, thus agreeing with many of its critics in philosophy and the cognitive sciences. In contrast to many of these critics and supposedly the majority of cognitive scientists it endorses the viability of conceptual analysis as one method of philosophy. The book reflects on Frege's theory of concepts, because Frege's theory of sentential unity has barely been super-seded, and the problems arising from Frege's understanding of concepts are still alive. The central part of the book starts by reconsidering the approach and the idea of ordinary language philosophy. Although ordinary language philosophy cannot be the whole of analytic philosophy a proper understanding of conceptual analysis turns out to be one part of analytic philosophy.

In our dealings with our pets, and larger animals in general, at least most of us see them as conscious beings. We say “the cat feels pain” ascribing sensation. We notice “My cat wants to get in the kitchen because she thinks there is some cheese left” ascribing beliefs and desires. Explanations likes these can be employed on a variety of occasions, and usually we are content with what they say. We seem to understand why our cat is doing what she does. On the other hand the employment of human categories to animals seems to be problematic. Reflecting on the details of human beliefs, for example, casts serious doubt on whether the cat is able to believe anything at all. Clever as they are none of my cats has the concept of kitchen, because a kitchen is – roughly – a functional part of an artificial dwelling (a house). Since cats do not built houses and do not prepare their food, the place the cat is walking into cannot be conceptualized by the cat as kitchen. Even the concept of cheese in its generality (made out of goat or cow milk, or camel milk …) is beyond the cat. So when we say what our cat believes and wishes we use our concept, in fact express a belief that a human being might have in a similar situation. What, then, does the cat have? Does a cat have beliefs? Or at least something like beliefs?

A theory of the beliefs of non-human animals is not closed to us, only because we do not have beliefs of their kind. Starting from a theory of human beliefs and working on a building block model of propositional attitudes a theory of animal beliefs is viable. Such a theory is an example of the broader conception of a heterophenomenological approach to animal cognition. The theory aims at outlining the crucial differences between human and animal beliefs as well as the relations between these attitudes and theories of them. By this it contributes both to a theory of human cognition and to a theory of the evolutionary origin of human cognition. The capacities of animals can thus be appreciated without making animals minor humans. Human cognition can be seen in its uniqueness without cutting the ties to its evolutionary origin.

Is transcendental pragmatics a matter of ultimate foundation or a matter of holism? Transcendental pragmatics as developed by Karl-Otto Apel has been the object of various criticisms. Against the fallibilists' claim (Albert) that argumentation is at last either dogmatic, axiomatic or circular, the transcendental pragmatists have given an argument that ultimate foundation ('Letztbegründung') cannot be proved to be impossible. But this clarification of their claims leaves open the questions whether their method can establish universal statements, and whether they prove statements which are synthetic a priori. Against the claim of the reconstructive scientist (Habermas) they have to restate their view, and take into account an element of fallibilism. Here we encounter a first element of holism. With regard to the question whether there can be ultimate foundation without ultimate foundation of the method of ultimate foundation holism breaks in. The distinction between a vicious and a transcendental circle, used against Albert, is of no use in the establishment of the transcendental circle.

In the first part the paper rehearses the main arguments why to be a dialetheist (i.e. why to assume that some contradictions are true). Dialetheism, however, has been criticised as irrational or self-refutating. Therefore the second part of the paper outlines one way to make dialetheism rational assertable. True contradictions turn out to be both believable and assertable. The argument proceeds by setting out basic principles of assertion and denial, and employing bivalent truth value operators.

Die in Wittgensteins Anfangsthesen des Tractatus formulierte Ansicht, daß Tatsachen die Bausteine der Welt ausmachen, kann auch so interpretiert werden, daß Tatsachen physische Entitäten sind. Die These von der physischen Existenz von Tatsachen wird in der analytischen Philosophie jedoch weitgehend abgelehnt. Hier wird hingegen versucht, diese Position als Tatsachen-Ontologie kohärent zu entwickeln. Vorzüge diese Position wären u.a. eine elegante Deutung der Vielheit verschiedener wahrer Aussagen, eine gute Basis fur eine Korrespondenztheorie der Wahrheit, Referenz auf strukturierte Raum-Zeit-Bereiche, sie wäre Baustein einer realistischen Situationslogik und könnte eine Lösung für David Lewis' Problem der Einermengen liefern.

In the last twenty years analytic philosophy has seen a rising interest in the philosophy of religion in general and in rational reconstructions of religion related arguments and Christian doctrines. In this short note I like to point to a problem that although cosmological arguments play a great role in the present discussion has not received the attention, I believe, it deserves.[1] An old objection to cosmological arguments, named “the Carriage Objection” by Schopenhauer[2], charges them as being arbitrary: the arguments are employed to carry you to the existence of God, but no further (as the carriage carries you to some destination to be dismissed then, therefore the name of the objection). A simple cosmological argument claims the existence of the universe to require explanation, and offers God as the cause of the universe. The Carriage Objection now asks why the principle of sufficient explanation that carried the argument forth to God will not carry us on to a sufficient explanation of God, and then on – ad infinitum. The regress is considered to be vicious. If one was to accept some brute fact (like the existence of God) then why not stop with the brute fact of the existence of the universe?

The following essay reconsiders the ontological and logical issues around Frege’s Basic Law (V). If focuses less on Russell’s Paradox, as most treatments of Frege’s Grundgesetze der Arithmetik (GGA)1 do, but rather on the relation between Frege’s Basic Law (V) and Cantor’s Theorem (CT). So for the most part the inconsistency of Naïve Comprehension (in the context of standard Second Order Logic) will not concern us, but rather the ontological issues central to the conflict between (BLV) and (CT). These ontological issues are interesting in their own right. And if and only if in case ontological considerations make a strong case for something like (BLV) we have to trouble us with inconsistency and paraconsistency. These ontological issues also lead to a renewed methodological reflection what to assume or recognize as an axiom.

Traditionally transcendental logic has been set apart from formal logic. Transcendental logic had to deal with the conditions of possibility of judgements, which were presupposed by formal logic. Defined as a purely philosophical enterprise transcendental logic was considered as being a priori delivering either analytic or even synthetic a priori results. In this paper it is argued that this separation from the (empirical) cognitive sciences should be given up. Transcendental logic should be understood as focusing on specific questions. These do not, as some recent analytic philosophy has it, include a refutation of scepticism. And they are not to be separated from meta-logical investigations. Transcendental logic properly understood, and redefined along these theses, should concern itself with the (formal) re-construction of the presupposed necessary conditions and rules of linguistic communication in general. It aims at universality and reflexive closure.