Subject collection: Philosophy (254 titles, 1969–2015)

The aim of this volume is to discuss recent research into self-experience and its disorders,and to contribute to a better integration of the different empirical and conceptual perspectives. Among the topics discussed are questions like ‘What is a self?,’ ‘What is the relation between the self-givenness of consciousness and the givenness of the conscious self?’,‘How should we understand the self-disorders encountered in schizophrenia?’ and ‘What general insights into the nature of the self can pathological phenomena provide us with?’ Most of the contributions are characterized by a distinct phenomenological approach.

The chapters by Butterworth, Strawson, Zahavi, and Marbach are general in nature and address different psychological and philosophical aspects of what it means to be a self. Next Eilan, Parnas, and Sass turn to schizophrenia and ask both how we should approach and understand this disorder, and, more specifically,what we can learn about the nature of selfhood and existence from psychopathology. The chapters by Blakemore and Gallagher present a defense and a criticism of the so-called model of self-monitoring, respectively. The final three chapters by Cutting, Stanghellini, Schwartz and Wiggins represent anthropologically oriented attempts to situate pathologies of self-experience.

(Series B)

The idea that some aspects of language are ‘natural’, while others are arbitrary, artificial or derived, runs all through modern linguistics, from Chomsky’s GB theory and Minimalist program and his concept of E- and I-language, to Greenberg’s search for linguistic universals, Pinker’s views on regular and irregular morphology and the brain, and the markedness-based constraints of Optimality Theory. This book traces the heritage of this linguistic naturalism back to its locus classicus, Plato’s dialogue Cratylus. The first half of the book is a detailed examination of the linguistic arguments in the Cratylus. The second half follows three of the dialogue’s naturalistic themes through subsequent linguistic history — natural grammar and conventional words, from Aristotle to Pinker; natural dialect and artificial language, from Varro to Chomsky; and invisible hierarchies, from Jakobson to Optimality Theory — in search of a way forward beyond these seductive yet spurious and limiting dichotomies.

The Disputationes in libros De anima, contained in the Paris Codex B.N. lat. 16627, were recorded for centuries under the name Cesare Cremonini. This study shows the Disputationes to be a transcript of a lecture held by the Jesuit Nicolaus Baldelli (1573-1655) and so, on the basis of the only known manuscript, makes accessible a text instructive for the standard and method of the Aristoteles interpretation pursued at the Collegium Romanum during the early 17th century. The edition of the third Disputatio de anima rationali secundum substantiam that follows shows in exemplary fashion the position taken by the author to the three most important and controversial disputes in rational psychology: Is the rational soul of man only a forma assistens, as contended by Averroes, or, as canonically laid down since the Council of Vienna, a genuine forma informans? Is the soul mortal, as Alexander of Aphrodisias asserted, or, since the Fifth Lateran Council’s article of faith, immortal? Is the possible intellect, as assumed by Averroes, the same in all men, or is it individually different? The study categorizes Baldelli’s teachings on these issues into the Latin Aristotelianism doxographically. An index nominum completes the volume.Die in dem Pariser Codex B.N. lat. 16627 enthaltenen Disputationes in libros De anima wurden jahrhundertelang unter dem Namen Cesare Cremoninis geführt. Die vorliegende Studie erweist die Disputationes als Nachschrift einer Vorlesung des Jesuiten Nicolaus Baldelli (1573-1655) und macht damit einen für das Niveau und die Methode der Aristoteleserklärung am Collegium Romanum im frühen 17. Jahrhundert aufschluîreichen Text nach der einzigen Handschrift zugänglich. Die sich anschlieîende Edition der dritten Disputatio de anima rationali secundum substantiam zeigt exemplarisch die Stellung des Autors zu den drei wichtigsten Streitfragen der rationalen Psychologie: Ist die vernünftige Seele des Menschen mit Averroes nur eine forma assistens oder, wie seit dem Konzil von Vienne kanonisch, eine echte forma informans? Ist sie mit Alexander von Aphrodisias sterblich oder, wie seit dem fünften Laterankonzil Glaubenssatz, unsterblich? Ist der mögliche Intellekt, wie Averroes annimmt, einer in allen Menschen, oder ist er individuell in jedem verschieden? Die Studie ordnet Baldellis Lehrinhalte in diesen Fragen doxographisch in den lateinischen Aristotelismus ein. Der Band wird durch einen Index nominum erschlossen.

The idea that reading literature changes the reader seems as old as literature itself. Through the ages philosophers, writers, and literary scholars have suggested it affects norms, empathic ability, self-concept, beliefs, etc. This book examines what we actually know about these effects. And it finds strong evidence for the old claims. However, it remains unclear what aspects of the reading experience are responsible for these effects. Applying methods of the social sciences to this particular problem of literary theory, this book presents a psychological explanation based upon the conception of literature as a moral laboratory. A series of experiments examines whether imagining oneself in the shoes of characters affects beliefs about what it must be like to be someone else, and whether it affects beliefs about consequences of behavior. The results have implications for the role literature could play in society, for instance, in an alternative for traditional moral education.

Poetic Effects: A Relevance Theory Perspective offers a pragmatic account of the effects achieved by the poetic use of rhetorical tropes and schemes. It contributes to the pragmatics of poetic style by developing work on stylistic effects in relevance theory. It also contributes to literary studies by proposing a new theoretical account of literariness in terms of mental representations and mental processes.

The book attempts to define literariness in terms of text-internal linguistic properties, cultural codes or special purpose reading strategies, as well as suggestions that the notion of literariness should be dissolved or rejected. It challenges the accounts of language and verbal communication that underpin such positions and outlines the theory of verbal communication developed within relevance theory that supports an explanatory account of poetic effects and a new account of literariness. This is followed by a broader discussion of philosophical and psychological issues having a bearing on the question of what is expressed non-propositionally in literary communication. The discussion of emotion, qualitative experience and, more specifically, aesthetic experience provides a fuller characterisation of poetic effects and ‘poetic thought’.

Human Cognition and Social Agent Technology is written for readers who are curious about what human (social) cognition is, and whether and how advanced software programs or robots can become social agents. Topics addressed in 16 peer-reviewed chapters by researchers at the forefront of agent research include: Narrative intelligence and implementations of story-telling systems, socially situated avatars and ‘conscious’ software agents, cognitive architectures for socially intelligent agents, agents with emotions, design issues for interactive systems, artificial life agents, contributions to agent design from artistic practice, and a Cognitive Technology view on living with socially intelligent agents. The book addresses both software and robotic agents. On the one hand justice is done to the scientific and technical aspects, and on the other hand the reader will learn about pioneering technological developments which are necessary for a public discourse and critical evaluation on where social agent technology is leading us and how such a development can be shaped in order to meet the social, cultural and cognitive needs of humans.

The book is suitable for students, researchers, and everyone interested in this emerging and quickly growing field, it does not require any specialist background knowledge.

(Series B)

Spätestens seit dem Abschluß der kritischen Edition der Werke Dietrichs von Freiberg im Rahmen des ‘Corpus Philosophorum Teutonicorum Medii Aevi’ ist die philosophische Bedeutung seines Denkens offenkundig. Dietrichs Philosophie ist aus der Philosophiegeschichte des Mittelalters nicht mehr wegzudenken — eine Tatsache, der über die Edition hinaus zahlreiche Einzeluntersuchungen Rechnung getragen haben.

Vom 10. bis 13. März 1997 fand in Freiberg ein Symposion zu Dietrich von Freiberg statt. Der Band vereinigt die Beiträge, die aus diesem Anlaî vorgetragen wurden. Die Breite der Themen umfaît das historische Umfeld im Sachsen seiner Zeit, Aspekte seiner theoretischen und seiner praktischen Philosophie, seine Theologie sowie seine Rezeption durch andere Philosophen des Mittelalters.

The critical edition of Theodoric of Freiberg’s works within the ‘Corpus Philosophorum Teutonicorum Medii Aevi’ now being complete, the philosophical significance of his thought is clearer than ever. Theodoric’s philosophy is an integral part of the intellectual history of the Middle Ages — a fact to which numerous individual studies beyond the edition have attempted to do justice.

This volume collects the papers on Dietrich’s thought presented at a conference in Freiberg (March 10-13, 1997). Themes include the historical context of his contemporary Saxony, aspects of his theoretical and practical philosophy, his theology and the reception of his thought by other philosophers of the Middle Ages.

Der vorliegende Sammelband widmet sich einem Thema der Sprachphilosophie: den Grenzen der Sprache. Die Begrenztheit des Sprechens, das Versagen der Sprache und das Schweigen sind Bereiche, denen das Interesse dieses Buches gilt. Groß e Bedeutung gewinnt deshalb die Frage, in welchem Sinne und ob überhaupt von einem Jenseits der Sprache gesprochen werden kann. Dabei steht das Verhältnis von Immanenz und Transzendenz im Mittelpunkt. Das Unnennbare, Unaussagbare, das Unheimliche, das hinter dem Rücken des Sprechenden lauert, ist der Sprache selbst transzendent. Trotzdem gelingt es, das Transzendente sprachlich einzuholen. Es ist der Sprache immanent: ein immanentes Transzendentes. Darin scheint sich eine Potenz der Sprache anzudeuten, selbst darüber zu sprechen, worüber man nicht sprechen und gleichwohl nicht schweigen kann.

Kaum ein Thema der Sprachphilosophie eignet sich daher mehr für einen interdisziplinären Band als gerade dieses. Es ist nicht nur Gegenstand der Philosophie, sondern verweist auf und korrespondiert mit wichtigen Forschungsrichtungen aus der Wissenschaftstheorie, der Theologie, der Sprachwissenschaften, der Germanistik, der Ästhetik, der Musikwissenschaften, der Wirtschaftswissenschaften, der Soziologie und Ethnologie und schließlich auch der Medizin. Der vorliegende Sammelband versucht, den unterschiedlichen Aspekten dieses Themas sowohl in historischer als auch in systematischer Hinsicht gerecht zu werden.

This is a philosophical study of qualitative consciousness, characteristic examples of which are pains, experienced colors, sounds, etc. Consciousness is analyzed as the having of qualia. Phenomenal properties or qualia are problematical because they lack appropriate bearers. The relation of having is problematical because none of the typical candidates for this relation — introspection, inner monitoring, higher level thoughts — is capable of explaining what it looks like to have a quale . The qualia problem is solved by introducing a bundle theory of phenomenal objects. Phenomenal objects are bundles of qualia. Thus there is no need for independent qualia bearers. The having problem is solved by introducing a bundle theory of the self. To have a quale is for it to be in the bundle one is. Thus no further relations are needed to explain how qualia are had. This study strives for phenomenological adequacy. Thus the first-person point of view dominates throughout. (Series A)

The body of theory on speech production and speech disorder developed prior to Descartes has been so neglected by historians that its very existence is practically unknown today. Yet it provides a framework for understanding the speech process which is not only comprehensive and coherent, but of great relevance to current debates on issues of language performance and applied linguistics. Current theoretical difficulties stem largely from initial errors of Descartes; whereas earlier theoretical formulations, while outlining a bio-mechanics of speech, retain the central role of the human agent.

The discussions explicated in this book come mainly from the natural-philosophic and medical literature of Greco-Roman Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Renaissance and early 17th century. This uncharted territory is mapped by tracing its textual history and diffusion as well as explaining the theory on its own terms but in clear and comprehensible language. Interdisciplinary in perspective, the book encompasses topics of interest not only to the language sciences, but also to the biosciences, medicine, philosophy of human movement, psychology and behavioral sciences, neurosciences, speech pathology, experimental phonetics, speech and rhetoric, and the history of science in general.