Johannes Brandl

Philosophie nach Georg Meggle zeichnet sich aus durch kommunikative Offenheit, durch begriffliche Unbestechlichkeit und durch ihr Engagement in der Welt. Die Beiträge in diesem Band orientieren sich an diesem Philosophieverständnis und sind aus Anlass eines Symposiums zu Ehren von Georg Meggle als Originalbeiträge geschrieben worden. Der Band verbindet die theoretischen und praktischen Aspekte der analytischen Philosophie: So sind die Essays zur Hälfte der theoretischen, meist sprach-analytischen, zur Hälfte der praktischen, meist praktisch-politischen Philosophie zuzuordnen. Die Texte vereint das Ideal des Strebens nach begrifflicher Klarheit und welthaltiger Relevanz, nach Dialog. Sie beschreiten neue Wege der analytischen Philosophie und weisen somit den Weg in die Zukunft der Philosophie als gesellschaftlich relevanter Disziplin. Mit Beiträgen u.a. von: Franz von Kutschera, Peter Singer, Wolfgang Lenzen, Wolfgang Spohn, Reinhard Merkel, Rainer Hegselmann, Peter Rohs und Georg Meggle.

Inhaltsverzeichnis/Table of Contents Themenschwerpunkt/Special Topic: Bolzano & Kant Gastherausgeber/Guest Editor: Sandra Lapointe Sandra Lapointe: Introduction Sandra Lapointe: Is Logic Formal? Bolzano, Kant and the Kantian Logicians Nicholas F. Stang: A Kantian Reply to Bolzano¿s Critique of Kant¿s Analytic-Synthetic Distinction Clinton Tolley: Bolzano and Kant on the Place of Subjectivity in a Wissenschaftslehre Timothy Rosenkoetter: Kant and Bolzano on the Singularity of Intuitions Waldemar Rohloff: From Ordinary Language to Definition in Kant and Bolzano Weitere Artikel/Further Articles Christian Damböck: Wilhelm Diltheys empirische Philosophie und der rezente Methodenstreit in der analytischen Philosophie Bernd Prien: Socially Constituted Actions and Objects Daniel Enrique Kalpokas: Two Dogmas of Coherentism Jon Cogburn & Jeff W. Roland: Strong, therefore Sensitive. Misgivings about DeRose¿s Contextualism Andre Abath: Brewer¿s Switching Argument Essay-Wettbewerb/Essay Competition Amadeus Magrabi: The Value of Feelings for Decision-Making Stefan Reining: Do Pain-Accompanying Emotions Mislead Us?¿Considerations in the Light of Reactive Dissociation Phenomena Peter Königs: Patriotism. A Case Study in the Philosophy of Emotions Besprechungsaufsatz/Review Essay Christopher Gauker: What Do Your Senses Say? On Burge¿s Theory of Perception Diskussion/Discussion Georg Brun: Adequate Formalization and De Morgan¿s Argument Buchnotizen/Critical Notes.

Kazimierz Twardowski is most commonly known as the teacher of great philosophers and the founder of the Lvov-Warsaw School. As a philosopher however, he is primarily remembered for his famous comparison of the contents and objects of various kinds of representations, a comparison that remains enshrined in European thought.In fact, he attained important results in many other branches of philosophy as well. For instance, in ontology, he laid the foundations for the modern theory of formal structure of objects, and he introduced the theoretically fruitful pair of terms, action-product. In epistemology, he developed a profound analysis of the notion and criteria of truth; and he provided a forceful account of the errors underlying relativist theories of truth. In methodology, he drew an explicit distinction between the processes of discovering, systematising, and grounding in science, and he offered accurate descriptions of the nature of psychology and other humanities. In logic, he offered decisive arguments on behalf of the idiogenetic conception of judgement, and he improved the traditional typology of adjectives.These achievements are of significance that is not only historical. Kazimierz Twardowski's work, formulated in plain, precise language, are instructive and inspiring for contemporary students of philosophy

Ever since the publication of 'Truth' in 1959 Sir Michael Dummett has been acknowledged as one of the most profoundly creative and influential of contemporary philosophers. His contributions to the philosophy of thought and language, logic, the philosophy of mathematics, and metaphysics have set the terms of some of most fruitful discussions in philosophy. His work on Frege stands unparalleled, both as landmark in the history of philosophy and as a deep reflection on the defining commitments of the analytic school.This volume of specially composed essays on Dummett's philosophy presents a new perspective on his achievements, and provides a focus for further research fully informed by the Dummett's most recent publications. Collectively the essays in philosophy of mathematics provide the most sustained discussion to date of the role of Dummett's diagnosis of the root of the logico-mathematical paradoxes in his case for an intuitionist revision of classical mathematics. The themes of other essays include a fundamental challenge to Dummett's Fregean understanding of predication, and a criticism of his case for logical revision outside of mathematics

Brentano’s use of the expression ‘intentional inexistence’ poses a considerable terminological problem. This is due not only to the expressions ‘intentional’ and ‘inexistence’ contained in it. The biggest hurdle is the liberal use of the expression ‘object’, which is encouraged by Brentano’s notion of intentional inexistent (or immanent) objects. Carlo Ierna tries to meet this problem with a strategy that allows to hold on to the notion of intentional inexistence without accepting immanent objects. The originality of his interpretation lies, as I will show in my commentary, in the fact that it tries to achieve its goal by terminological measures alone. Following the same line, I will argue that Brentano’s self-correction, made in the second edition of his Psychology, can also be interpreted in this context as a terminological move.

In this article I provide an overview of the many different terms that Brentano sometimes uses as synonyms or as explanations for “intentional inexistence”. The many terms associated with intentional inexistence appear in many different contexts, and we can conclude that Brentano uses these terms primarily to describe a property that is accidental and dependent on the subject from which it arises and with which it passes away. Ontologically, both properties and substances exist, but the former requires a substance (the subject) for its existence. A mental act is to be considered as a first-order property, whereas the content (or part of the mental act) can be understood as an accident of that accident.

We develop a criterion for telling when integrating two pieces of information, e.g. two pictures or statements requires an understanding of perspective. Problems that require such an understanding are perspective problems. With this criterion we can show that understanding false beliefs vis-à-vis reality pose a perspective problem, so does understanding spatial descriptions given from different viewing points (a classical example of what is commonly seen as a problem of perspective) and individuating objects with different sortals (naming objects). We use the result that understanding false belief as well as alternative naming of objects are both perspective problems to explain the otherwise inexplicable developmental finding that children master these two tasks at about the same time, around the age of 4 years.

Theories of mind draw on processes that represent mental states and their computational connections; simulation, in addition, draws on processes that replicate (Heal 1986 ) a sequence of mental states. Moreover, mental simulation can be triggered by input from imagination instead of real perceptions. To avoid confusion between mental states concerning reality and those created in simulation, imagined contents must be quarantined. Goldman bypasses this problem by giving pretend states a special role to play in simulation (Goldman 2006 ). We argue that this path leads to the resurgence of the threat of collapse (Davies 1994 ), diluting the principled distinction between simulation and theory use. Exploration of a related method of real-mental states operating in a pretend mode leads to a factually untenable model. Our main goal here is to raise this problem as a challenge for Goldman’s reconfigured simulation theory. Only at the end we will briefly sketch a possible alternative way of quarantine that preserves the replicative element of simulation and avoids collapse. Figure 1 provides a guide to our argument.

Thoughts may have a subject — they may concern a certain topic —without having an object in the sense of being directed upon a referent. It is argued that, once this distinction is acknowledged, a third position between Meinong and Russell can be established. There will then be objectless thoughts which need not be false in view of the non-existence of their purported referents. But there will also be object-dependent thoughts which have their referents necessarily. Neither logically proper names nor non-existing objects need to be introduced if we allow for cases when we are mistaken about what kind of thoughts we are considering. This result is achieved via an analysis of fictional names and a free logic which includes a nonpredicating use of general terms in sentences imitating the logical form of predications.

Wittgenstein on colour exclusion : not fatally mistaken / Andrew Lugg -- Dummett's criticism of the context principle / Philip A. Ebert -- What is wrong with classical negation? / Nils Kürbis -- Plain particulars / Ernâni Magalhães -- Frege and the description theory : an attempt at rehabilitation / Ari Maunu -- Die Moralpille : über Risiken und Nebenwirkungen denken Sie eigenständig nach und fragen Ihren Philosophen oder Ihre Philosophin / Dorothee Bleisch --Agency & the pill that makes us moral / Philip Fox -- Breaking good : is there a patent recipe for cooking up the moral pill? / David Heering.

Thoughts may have a subject — they may concern a certain topic —without having an object in the sense of being directed upon a referent. It is argued that, once this distinction is acknowledged, a third position between Meinong and Russell can be established. There will then be objectless thoughts which need not be false in view of the non-existence of their purported referents. But there will also be object-dependent thoughts which have their referents necessarily. Neither logically proper names nor non-existing objects need to be introduced if we allow for cases when we are mistaken about what kind of thoughts we are considering. This result is achieved via an analysis of fictional names and a free logic which includes a nonpredicating use of general terms in sentences imitating the logical form of predications.

In this paper, I discuss the different views of the founders of descriptive psychology in the 19th century about the meaning and purpose of this discipline and sketch a new plan for connecting descriptive psychology with the language-critical tradition of analytic philosophy. I will show that the goals Hermann Lotze, Franz Brentano, and Wilhelm Dilthey set for descriptive psychology were too lofty for different reasons. The common problem they faced was how to reconcile the ideal of autonomous philosophical knowledge with the empirical relevance that descriptive psychology should have. Faced with this dilemma, I outline a new plan to conceive of descriptive psychology as a critical project aimed at overcoming the obstacles that language places in the way of our knowledge of mental phenomena.

We develop a new theory of the cognitive changes around 4 years of age by trying to explain why understanding of false belief and of alternative naming emerge at this age. We make use of the notion of discourse referents as it is used in File Change Semantics, one of the early forms of the more widely known Discourse Representation Theory. The assumed cognitive change exists in how children can link DRs in their mind to external referents. The younger children check whether the conditions for a DR match the conditions of an external entity. The older children, in addition, have an explicit understanding of reference in virtue of making explicit identity assertions. This involves the metarepresentational ability of representing that different DRs represent the same external referent, which — we argue — is required for alternative naming and for the false belief task.