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729Wittgenstein und SpenglerArchiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 73 (2): 188-207. 1991.In his Vermischte Bemerkungen 43, Wittgenstein notices that he was also influenced by Oswald Spengler. The paper deals with the question of in which way Spengler influenced Wittgenstein’s late works and if it really was influence or only a coincidence of ideas. It is put forward that Spengler’s rather unknown philosophy of language influenced Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, especially the concepts of family resemblance, antiessentialism, and language-game (Sprachspiel). A picture of the f…Read more
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666Was jede Seele sucht und worumwillen sie alles tutElenchos 34 (1): 5-31. 2013.The article first (i) gives an exegesis of the famous passage in the Republic, 505d11-506a2. Attention is drawn to the fact that the principle that every soul does everything for the Good (panta prattei) can be translated in two ways: Every soul does everything for the sake of the Good, or goes to all lengths for the sake of the Good. Depending on the different translations, we have a different picture of the platonic Socrates in the Republic, an intellectualistic Socrates for whom pure irration…Read more
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2558Sokrates: Tugend ist WissenElenchos 12 39-66. 1991.The article examines the Socratic principle that (1) virtue is knowledge and its corollary that (2) nobody errs voluntarily (nemo sua sponte peccat). It tries to show (I) that both principles are paradoxa, i.e. from a phenomenological point of view, they seem to be false; (II) that nevertheless the platonic Socrates accepts both principles as true; and finally (III) that these principles are analytical truths a priori which can only be understood if a person (soul) finds them in him- or herself.
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576Philosophie, Sprache, Erkenntnis, Wahrheit, Sein, GutC. H. Beck. 2008.The book (1994, revised and enlarged 8th edition 2008) provides an introduction to six key concepts in philosophy – philosophy, language, knowledge, truth, being and good. At the same time, it aims to initiate its readers into the process of philosophical thinking. The book is addressed to students and laypeople, but also contains new ideas for specialists. It is written in a clear, accessible and engaging style, and its author ‘shares, and manages to convey, something of Plato's own commitment …Read more
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353Introduction to "Sophistae"In Fulvia de Luise & Alessandro Stavru (eds.), Socratica III, Academia Verlag. pp. 201-203. 2014.Plato’s “Apology of Socrates” is a masterpiece of the philosophical literature. The question remains as to how much it has been influenced by earlier works, e.g. of Gorgias of Leontinoi and Euripides. Nevertheless, comparative studies on Hippolytus’ defense in Euripides’ tragedy of the same name, on Gorgias’ “Defense of Palamedes” and on Plato’s “Apology” do not exist. The short paper gives an introduction into the status quaestionis.
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584Zeno's metrical paradox of extension and Descartes' mind-body problemIn Stefania Giombini E. Flavia Marcacci (ed.), Estratto da/Excerpt from: Il quinto secolo. Studi di loso a antica in onore di Livio Rossetti a c. di Stefania Giombini e Flavia Marcacci. Aguaplano—Of cina del libro, Passignano s.T. 2010, pp. 295-310 [isbn/ean: 978-88-904213-4-1], . pp. 205-310. 2010.The article uses Zeno’s metrical paradox of extension, or Zeno’s fundamental paradox, as a thought-model for the mind-body problem. With the help of this model, the distinction contained between mental and physical phenomena can be formulated as sharply as possible. I formulate Zeno’s fundamental paradox and give a sketch of four different solutions to it. Then I construct a mind-body paradox corresponding to the fundamental paradox. Through that, it becomes possible to copy the solutions to the…Read more
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352Das normative "ist"Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 42 (3). 1988.Despite the fact that Aristotle and Frege/Russell differ in how to understand the ambiguity in the meaning of the word “is”, their theories share a common feature: “is” does not have a normative meaning. This paper, however, (I) shows (a) that there is a normative meaning of “is” (and correspondingly a constative meaning of the word “ought”) and (b) that the ambiguity of “is” is itself ambiguous. Furthermore, it proposes (c) a performative criterion for making a distinction between constative an…Read more
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1166Alle Menschen streben von Natur nach WissenStudia Philosophica 167-183. 2014.The article is the revised version of an inaugural lecture given at the University of Lucerne on 8 November 2001. In part (I), I give an interpretation of the first sentence of the Aristotelian Metaphysics: ‘All men desire by nature to know’. In part (II), I show how, for Aristotle, this desire to know constitutes a continuum from knowledge given by sense perception to knowledge of the first principles. In part (III), I compare this Aristotelian conception to Plato’s more ‘existentialist’ approa…Read more
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28What did Socrates know and how did he know it?In Luc Brisson & Michael Erler (eds.), Gorgias - Menon. Selected Papers from the seventh Symposium Platonicum, Academia Verlag. pp. 263-267. 2007.The article is the shortened English version of the article “Was und wie hat Sokrates gewusst?” Elenchos: Rivista di studi sul pensiero antico, 28, 5-39. First, it states a set of seven “knowledge-claims” made by Socrates: 1. There is a distinction between right opinion and knowledge. 2. Virtue is knowledge. 3. Nobody willingly does wrong. 4. To do injustice is the greatest evil for the wrongdoer himself. 5. An even greater evil is if the wrongdoer is not punished. 6. The just person is happy; t…Read more
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599Perché Platone nel Timeo torna a sostenere la dottrina delle ideeElenchos: Rivista di Studi Sul Pensiero Antico 18 (1): 5-28. 1997.In the whole Corpus Platonicum, we find in principle only one "direct argument" (Charles Kahn) for the existence of the ideas (Tim.51d3-51e6). The purpose of the article is to analyse this argument and to answer the question of why Plato in the Timaeus again defended the existence of the ideas despite the objections in the Parmenides. He defended it again because the latent presupposition of the apories in the Parmenides, the substantial view of sensibles, is removed through the introduction of …Read more
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557Nachruf auf Henri LauenerKant Studien 94 (4): 403-404. 2003.This is an obituary notice on Henri Lauener (1933-2002)