Claudia Schmidt

David Hume is generally regarded as the leading representative of scepticism or a narrow form of empiricism in philosophy. This dissertation demonstrates that Hume actually presents a constructive philosophical position, which might be described as a "social theory of knowledge," or a philosophical account of the relation between history and rationality in human thought. This provides the basis for a unified interpretation not only of his theoretical philosophy but also of his thought as a whole, including his moral and political theory and his writings in economics, aesthetics and history. ;The social and historical dimension of Hume's philosophy emerges especially in his account of abstract ideas and language; his discussion of probable reasoning; his reflections concerning custom; his approach to the ideas of space, time, external existence and personal identity; his discussion of the passions; his account of sympathy; his emphasis on the relation between motive, character and circumstances in the interpretation of human action; his reflection concerning the methodological foundations of the various social sciences; his discussion of conventions; his account of the standards involved in morals, aesthetics and political life; his emphasis on the study of history; and his own approach to the writing of history. Hume suggests that the standards of rationality involved in these areas of life and thought are abstractions from experience, including not only individual but also social and historical experience. ;This study draws together a number of recent developments in Hume scholarship and seeks to present a comprehensive statement of their significance for the reassessment of his thought. It represents a response not only to the prevailing general approaches to the interpretation of his thought, but also to many of the prevailing criticisms of the individual arguments in his philosophical and other writings. ;In conclusion, this study suggests that by presenting an alternative to the conception of autonomous reason associated with the Enlightenment, Hume anticipates a number of developments in contemporary thought, such as the later philosophy of Wittgenstein, Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics, and some aspects of Rorty's critique of foundationalism, along with several lines of development in contemporary religious thought

Immanuel Kant is recognized mainly for his critical examination of reason, his transcendental account of cognition, and his post-critical metaphysics of nature and morals. However, he also developed a lecture course on "anthropology" or the study of human nature, which he eventually published as the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View . In this thesis I provide a general interpretation of this text, and a more specific discussion of the relation between his account of the human cognitive faculties in the Anthropology and his examination of the transcendental faculties of cognition in his philosophical works. ;In my general interpretation I argue that the Anthropology combines elements of three interrelated projects: a "transcendental anthropology" or study of the a priori principles of human cognition and volition; an empirical anthropology based upon introspection and observation; and a practical anthropology which includes both "pragmatic anthropology" and "moral anthropology." I also provide an account of the history of the text: including its various editions, translations, related material in Kant's writings, and other resources for its study. ;In my comparative study of the cognitive faculties as considered in the Anthropology and in the critical philosophical works I argue that Kant presents a "two-aspect" view of the various faculties of human cognition, as including both an empirical and a transcendental dimension. I then trace this two-aspect view through his account of consciousness and self-consciousness, sensibility, imagination, and the understanding. In each case I consider Kant's account of the transcendental aspect of these faculties as it emerges in his critical and anthropological writings, his examination of their empirical aspects in the Anthropology, and finally his account in the Anthropology of their possible disorders and methods for their improvement. ;Finally, I also consider several unique passages in the Anthropology which might be regarded as challenges to the content and boundaries of Kant's own critical project: especially his examination of language and sign-cognition; his further discussion of temporality as divided into past, present and future; and his account of "wit" or ingenuity

In his seminal _Philosophy of David Hume_, Norman Kemp Smith called for a study of Hume "in all his manifold activities: as philosopher, as political theorist, as economist, as historian, and as man of letters," indicating that "Hume's philosophy, as the attitude of mind that found for itself these various forms of expression, will then have been presented, adequately and in due perspective, for the first time." Claudia Schmidt seeks to address this long-standing need in Hume scholarship. Against the charges that Hume holds no consistent philosophical position, offers no constructive account of rationality, and sees no positive relation between philosophy and other areas of inquiry, Schmidt argues for the overall coherence of Hume's thought as a study of "reason in history." She develops this interpretation by tracing Hume's constructive account of human cognition and its historical dimension as a unifying theme across the full range of his writings. Hume, she shows, provides a positive account of the ways in which our concepts, beliefs, emotions, and standards of judgment in different areas of inquiry are shaped by experience, both in the personal history of the individual and in the life of a community. This book is valuable at many levels: for students, as an introduction to Hume's writings and issues in their interpretation; for Hume specialists, as a unified and intriguing interpretation of his thought; for philosophers generally, as a synthesis of recent developments in Hume scholarship; and for scholars in other disciplines, as a guide to Hume's contributions to their own fields

Kant's critical philosophy is often regarded as standing in a problematic relation to his works in “anthropology”, or the study of human nature. In the Preface to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason Kant describes his critical project as a “Copernican” turn toward the cognitive subject, which might seem to signal a reorientation of philosophy around anthropology.1 However, both in the first Critique and in his subsequent works he relegates “empirical anthropology” and “practical” or “moral anthropology” to the sidelines of his critical projects in cognitive and practical philosophy. Yet Kant's formulation of his critical philosophy coincided almost exactly with the development of his interest in anthropology. During the 1770s, the “silent decade” in which he formulated his critical philosophy, Kant initiated a course on anthropology at the University of Königsberg. This course was among the most popular in his regular schedule, and he offered it annually for twenty-five years until his retirement. He then published a revised version of his lectures as the Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View, a text that is one of his most accessible publications, and might even seem uncharacteristically loose and anecdotal to readers of his other works. Kant also published a number of shorter works on anthropological topics during this period, and even suggested, in several scattered remarks, that anthropology in some way encompasses all of the philosophical disciplines

One of the perennially intriguing questions regarding Kant’s approach to the human sciences is the relation between his ‘transcendental psychology’ and empirical cognitive psychology. In this paper I compare his analysis of the a priori conditions of human cognition in the Critique of pure reason with his empirical account of the human cognitive faculties in his Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view. In comparing his approach to self-consciousness, sensibility, imagination, and understanding in these two works, I argue that Kant distinguishes between the transcendental and empirical aspects of the human cognitive faculties, and regards the transcendental functions as configuring the empirical faculties of human consciousness, or as giving them the structure that they require to become faculties of cognition. I then show that the cognitive faculties of human beings may vary in their empirical operation, even while they are configured by the same transcendental structure. Finally, I characterize Kant’s transcendental psychology in the first Critique as an account of the faculties that are required for a mind to be an agent or subject of cognition, corresponding to his account of the conditions that are required universally and necessarily for something to be an object of cognition.Keywords: Immanuel Kant; Anthropology; Psychology; Cognition; Transcendental; Empirical.

Previous research on the neural basis of cognitive control processes has mainly focused on cortical areas, while the role of subcortical structures in cognitive control is less clear. Models of basal ganglia function as well as clinical studies in neurodegenerative diseases suggest that the striatum (putamen and caudate nucleus) modulates the inhibition of interfering responses and thereby contributes to an important aspect of cognitive control, namely response interference control. To further investigate the putative role of the striatum in the control of response interference, 23 patients with stroke-induced lesions of the striatum and 32 age-matched neurologically healthy controls performed a unimanual version of the Simon task. In the Simon task, the correspondence between stimulus location and response location is manipulated so that control over response interference can be inferred from the reaction time costs in incongruent trials. Results showed that stroke patients responded overall slower and more erroneous than controls. The difference in response times (RTs) between incongruent and congruent trials (known as the Simon effect) was smaller in the ipsilesional/-lateral hemifield, but did not differ significantly between groups. However, in contrast to controls, stroke patients exhibited an abnormally stable Simon effect across the reaction time distribution indicating a reduced efficiency of the inhibition process. Thus, in stroke patients unilateral lesions of the striatum did not significantly impair the general ability to control response interference, but led to less efficient selective inhibition of interfering responses.

ABSTRACTThis article focuses on the writings of David Hume. The original edition of the book "Oxford English Dictionary," as well as the integrated edition of 1989, both contain the definition that "spirit" is the prevailing tone or tendency of a particular period of time. In the essay "Of Luxury," published by David Hume in 1752, he writes that the spirit of the age affects all the arts. He says that the minds of men, being once roused from their lethargy, and put into a fermentation, turn themselves on all sides, and carry improvements into every art and science.

This article contributes to the analysis of refusal to license cases as abuse of a dominant position pursuant Article 82 EC from an economic perspective. In the Microsoft case, the European Commission introduced an "Incentives Balance Test" to assess whether the refusal to give access to interface information can be justified by arguing that this information is protected by Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs): The Commission argued that if the overall innovative effects evoked by a compulsory license are significantly higher than without this access, the IPR owner is obliged to license. This should be assessed through balancing the different incentives to innovate between the dominant firm and its competitors. In the paper we pursue two objectives: Firstly, we analyze to what extent the decision of the Court of First Instance, which confirmed the decision of the Commission, helps to clarify the criteria in refusal to license cases; in fact, it is disappointing in this regard. Secondly, we demonstrate that the basic idea of the Incentives Balance Test can be interpreted as a test whether the specific IPRs of the dominant firm can be defended from the perspective of the economics of IPRs. This implies that Article 82 allows competition law to correct economically not optimal IPRs through a specific economic analysis. This is followed by a broad overview on theoretical and empirical insights from economics of IPRs, innovation economics and competition and network economics that can help to develop a more general and sophisticated Innovation Effects Test that can be applied in Article 82 refusal to license cases.