Daniel Dahlstrom

Mendelssohn's Philosophical Writings, published in 1761, bring the metaphysical tradition to bear on the topic of 'sentiments'. Mendelssohn offers a nuanced defence of Leibniz's theodicy and conception of freedom, an examination of the ethics of suicide, an account of the 'mixed sentiments' so central to the tragic genre, a hypothesis about weakness of will, an elaboration of the main principles and types of art, a definition of sublimity and analysis of its basic forms, and, lastly, a brief tract on probability theory, aimed at rebutting Hume's scepticism. This volume also includes the essay 'On Evidence in Metaphysical Sciences', selected in 1763 by the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences over all other submitted essays, including one by Kant, as the best answer to the question of whether metaphysical sciences are capable of the same sort and degree of evidence as mathematics.

After reviewing basic features of language, this paper reviews a central debate among twentieth-century philosophers over the proper analysis of linguisticmeaning. While some center the analysis of meaning in language’s capacity to be true, others locate meaning in the communicative intentions of the users of thelanguage. As a means of addressing this impasse and suggesting its unfounded character, the paper draws on recent studies of language acquisition and relates them to existential dimensions of language.

This essay takes a critical look at a specific altruistic interpretation of the moral nature, legitimacy, and value of unselfish actions. The aim of the essay is to raise questions about this altruistic attitude toward the morality of unselfish actions by focussing on certain assumptions that inform that attitude. It is argued that, among those assumptions, the most counterintuitive and deleterious is the notion that the morality of an unselfish action can and should be established by appeal to the possibility of resentment springing from the performance or non-performance of the action. After a short presentation and explanation of these assumptions and their questionableness , the essay investigates the extent to which an altruistic attitude animates contemporary discussion of the moral character of unselfish actions. This investigation is limited to a sketch of a particular development of contemporary ethical theory, from Thomas Nagel's initial attempt to explain the possibility of pure altruism to his revisions of his early theory into a concept of a revised altruism, and culminating in the intersubjective altruism, elaborated by Christine Korsgaard as a consequence of her critique of Nagel's moral theory. In conclusion , after iterating the fundamental inadequacy of appeals to possibilities of resentment, an explanation for the altruistic attitude is ventured. This explanation tries to secure the measure of validity of the assumptions of the altruistic attitude as well as its limitations by suggesting its grounding in an ethics of honor, delimited by an ethics of love and friendship

This well-informed and perceptive study of Kant's theoretical philosophy aims at presenting "how Kant thought that transcendental philosophy can be established, and how he in fact tried to accomplish his task". After indicating the metaphilosophical motivations underlying the study, the author focuses primarily on the transcendental deduction as presented in the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason. The study itself is divided into three parts. In the first part Kant's philosophical motives, assumptions, and method are unpacked. The author properly takes issue with the tendency to read the transcendental deduction as an answer to the sort of skepticism engendered by attributing primacy to mental states. As the author points out, Kant disavows any such attribution and his concern is rather with specifying what the necessary conditions of empirical cognition are and what follows from them.. Another anachronistic tendency to which the author rightly objects is that of construing Kant's assumptions about the analytic-synthetic distinction in terms of modern notions of analyticity and syntheticity. Relying heavily on the distinction Kant makes in the Methodology between mathematical and philosophical methods, the author also argues quite trenchantly that "deduction" does not signify any kind of deductive proof but rather a kind of nontechnical justification, and that the transcendental deduction is to not be equated with a transcendental proof but is, instead, only a preliminary step in accomplishing such a proof.

This meeting of the Hegel-Gesellschaft featured forty-six papers, including those presented during the two plenary sessions, covering a wide range of topics within the theme of the congress. The congress was ably administered and hosted by Dr. Wolfgang Sünkel at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg in Nürnberg. As usual, the congress was heavily represented by scholars from Eastern Europe and by scholars working at the Hegel-Archiv in Bochum. The contingent from the United States included Howard Kainz, Thomas Rockmore, Lawrence Stepelevich and myself.