Russell

Alija Izetbegovićs "Islam zwischen Ost und West" ist ein bedeutendes, aber noch kaum bekanntes Werk der islamischen Geistesgeschichte und am Puls einer Zeitenwende angesiedelt. Unter Einbeziehung der großen Denker Europas wertet der Autor die Erfahrungen des 20. Jahrhunderts aus. Die Ideen des Marxismus und des Materialismus werden in Beziehung gesetzt zu den großen Strömen des Christen- und Judentums sowie der Philosophiegeschichte. Dabei ist es das Ziel Izetbegovićs, den Islam als Geistesströmung und Religion innerhalb dieser Erscheinungen zu verorten und auch anhand der sozialen Realitäten einen Ausblick zu geben auf die Entwicklungen unserer unmittelbaren Gegenwart und die Rolle des Islams darin, deren wesentliche Parameter der Autor bereits vorwegnimmt. Aber die durchaus anspruchsvolle Lektüre wird niemals langweilig, da das Werk in einem Guss geschrieben und aus den leidenschaftlich geführten Auseinandersetzungen der Zeit hervorgegangen ist, wofür der hochgebildete Autor vom damaligen kommunistischen Regime auch mit dem Gefängnis bestraft wurde. Andererseits vermehrt das Faktum, dass Alija Izetbegović 1990 bis 1995 in einer schwierigen Zeit der Präsident Bosnien und Herzegowinas war, nur das Interesse und den Nutzen, "Islam zwischen Ost und West" zu lesen. Alija Izetbegović war von 1990 bis 1995 Präsident der Republik Bosnien und Herzegowina und von 1996 bis 2000 führendes Mitglied des siebenköpfigen Staatspräsidiums. Izetbegović ist unter anderem Autor der "Islamischen Deklaration", der Sammlung der "Probleme der islamischen Neubelebung", von "Islam zwischen Ost und West", "Meine Flucht in die Freiheit", "Erinnerungen" (Autobiographie) und "Krieg und Frieden in Bosnien-Herzegowina".

Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970) was a prolific, versatile and prominent British philosopher/mathematician who has been active in every major area of philosophy except aesthetics. While simultaneously having been notably prolific in the fields of metaphysics, philosophy of language, ethics and epistemology, Russell came to be widely regarded as one of the 20th century’s foremost logicians to such an extent that his name has become inseparable from any mention of mathematical logic. The principal goal of this present exposition will be the introduction of and
expounding upon the intricate details of Russell’s lifelong logical output, as well as briefly sketching the historical progression and the contextual overview of the then-contemporary logic leading up to Russell’s efforts.

According to Rush Rhees, Wittgenstein composed TS 209 (Philo-sophical Remarks) and handed it in to Russell in order to renew a grant from the Cambridge Council Cambridge in April-May 1930. Pichler (1994, 2009) and Rothhaupt (2010) challenged Rhees' hypothesis and claimed that Witt-genstein handed in TS 208 to Russell, and not TS 209. Against their view, I argue that Rhees' hypothesis best explains the major motive for the composition of Philosophical Remarks, and that it best explains what Wittgenstein handed in to Russell. While I give six reasons in favor of Rhees, I also try to explain how Russell, Moore, Littlewood, Schlick, and Waismann are linked with the composition of TS 208 and TS 209.

Russell's main academic achievements consist in the fields of logic and analytic philosophy. His contributions to logic include: in order to avoid paradoxes, he put forward the principle of vicious circle, developed simple type theory and branched type theory; basing on his type theory, he established propositional logic, first-order predicate logic, theory of identity, theory of descriptions, etc.; he insisted on a logicist project to use logic to guarantee the consistency and reliability of mathematics, and deduced a lot of mathematical theories in his logical system. His contributions to analytic philosophy include: he rejected theory of internal relations with theory of external relations, thus rebelling against Kant's and Hegel's idealistic philosophy; he distinguished knowledge of truths from knowledge of things, knowledge by acquaintance from knowledge by description, primitive truths from derived truths, and his epistemology has a strong empiricist and skeptic flavor; he maintained logical atomist philosophy, asserting that there is a structural parallel between (ideal) language and the external world; he developed his theory of logical constructions based on sense-data, trying to eliminate too many ontological settings of natural language and retaining "the robust sense of reality" even in abstract research. Because of his creative works and significant academic influence, Russell has been a master and giant in the fields of logic and analytic philosophy.

This book presents a concise and accessible view of the central arguments of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Starting from the difficulties found in historical and current debates, drawing on the background of Russell's philosophy, and grounded in the ladder structure expressed in the numbering system of the book, the Element presents the central arguments of the Tractatus in three lines of thought. The first concerns the role of the so-called 'ontology' and its relationship to the method of the Tractatus and its logical symbolism, which displays the formal essence of language and world. The second deals with the symbolic 'formal unity of language' and its role in the 'ladder structure' and explains how and why the book is not 'paradoxically self-defeating'. The third elucidates Wittgenstein's claim to have solved in essentials all philosophical problems, whose very formulation, he says, rests on the 'misunderstanding of the logic of our language'.



CONTENTS

1. Readings of the Tractatus and How to Read It
1.1 A Variety of Readings
1.2 Resoluteness
1.3 “Understanding the Author”: Not A Resolute Method of Deception
1.4 Discontents
1.5 Benchmarks for a Reading and “Overlapping Consensus”

2. Method, Analysis, and ‘Ontology’
2.1 Open Questions in Russell’s Philosophy
2.2 Wittgenstein’s Reformation
2.3 The A Priori and the Method of the Tractatus
2.4 Wittgenstein’s Definite Descriptions and ‘Ontology’
2.5 The Role of ‘Ontology’

3. Ladder Lessons 1: Formal Unity, Symbolism, and No Self-defeat
3.1 Climbing ‘Equivalents’
3.2 Symbolism: The Formal Unity of Language
3.3 Prototype
3.4 The Unity of the Prototype and Complex Forms
3.5 The Showing Symbolism Dissolves the Appearance of Self-Defeat

4. Ladder Lessons 2: The Problems of Philosophy Solved in Essentials
4.1 From Logic to Mathematics, and to Science
4.2 From Logic to Ethics
4.3 Logic and Mysticism
4.4 An Ethical Point After All
https://www.cambridge.org/core/elements/reading-wittgensteins-tractatus/69683B904CEB346FFC2759D0817591C5

This is the introductory essay to the collection of essays: 'Acquaintance: New Essays' (eds. Knowles & Raleigh, forthcoming, OUP). In this essay I provide some historical background to the concept of acquaintance. I examine various Russellian theses about acquaintance that contemporary acquaintance theorists may wish to reject. I consider a number of questions that acquaintance theorists face. I provide a survey of current debates in philosophy where acquaintance has recently been invoked. And I also provide brief summaries of the other essays in this volume.

The aim of this paper is consider the context and possible influences on Rudolf Carnap’s Principle of Tolerance (PoT). My thesis is the following: One can acknowledge the important influence of Hans Hahn, Karl Menger and Otto Neurath (i.e. the left wing of the Vienna Circle) along with Moritz Schlick and Friedrich Waismann (i.e. the right wing of the Vienna Circle) and try to place the PoT in the context of Carnap’s immediate allies and opponents. But one can and actually have to locate it in a broader context, namely in the philosophy of logic of Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein. As is it less known, Russell introduced a certain pragmatic freedom into the considerations of logic but to obtain Carnap’s PoT we have to extend the boundaries of Russell’s freedom. To do this, Carnap accepted the idea of Wittgenstein, namely that logic is devoid of empirical content. Since logic is tautological (which Russell denied) we have the relevant freedom which resulted in the PoT. Hence Carnap’s writings about logic and philosophy in the 1930s could be seen and reconstructed as a(n either intended or unintended) syntheses or special combination of Russell’s inductive and pragmatical considerations on logic and Wittgenstein’s idea of an empty logic.

Il Tractatus logico-philosophicus di Wittgenstein attribuisce una forma ad entità a prima vista disparate: gli oggetti semplici; la realtà nel suo complesso; le proposizioni. In questo libro, Giorgio Lando pone la teoria della forma al centro delle tesi metafisiche e semantiche del giovane Wittgenstein. A partire da questa intuizione, molti temi spesso discussi isolatamente dagli interpreti possono essere interpretati in modo unitario e coerente: la “soluzione” del problema di Bradley sulle relazioni; il cosidetto “pensiero fondamentale”, secondo cui la logica dei fatti non può avere rappresentanti; le ragioni della composizionalità semantica; i vincoli sulla natura degli oggetti semplici. Questa ricostruzione mostra che la crescente tendenza a considerare Wittgenstein come una figura irriducibilmente peculiare o come un ironista dedito solo a denunciare le insensatezze della metafisica è fuori strada: il Tractatus può essere utilmente analizzato e criticato con gli strumenti teorici della metafisica analitica contemporanea. Il volume contiene una prefazione di Pasquale Frascolla.

There are passages in Wittgenstein where he compares his method to psychotherapy and one or two where he seems to suggest that the ‘patient’ has the last word on his ‘illness’ and ‘cure’.  This paper tries to take these seriously, especially in connexion with the idea that victims of philosophical confusion talk nonsense.

Philosophical accusations of talking nonsense made in a polemical spirit are bound to fail, since the only way one can effectively criticise another’s utterance is by attaching some meaning to it.  But if the other acknowledges the possibility that his puzzlement arises from his having been taken in by nonsense, then perhaps a co-operative investigation of this suggestion might be fruitful.  Indeed self-diagnosis ought in principle to be possible.  Ought it not to have happened at least once in the history of philosophy if philosophical nonsense has ever been exposed? 

But there are difficulties.  For example:
a) We must ask whether or not philosophical nonsense, when exposed as such, is supposed to lose all appearance of meaningfulness.  Either answer is problematic.
b) The acknowledged similarity of the methodology under investigation to that of psychoanalysis exposes it to many of the familiar objections to the methodology of psychoanalysis, especially those that draw attention to the misleading influence of suggestion by an authority-figure.
c) The proposal that relentless cross-questioning of a suspected nonsense-talker will eventually lead her to ‘dry up’ (if she really is talking nonsense) seems to involve a version of the so-called Socratic Fallacy.

The Twin Earth scenario assumes reference to natural kinds is unique and never changes (rigid designation), and that we can give justice to the intuition of reference-permanence and things having a deep structure only by pushing meaning outside the brain or mind (semantic externalism). This, I'll show, doesn't follow. Besides, the intuition itself is misconstrued here. To say the term “water” expressed a thought or concept or belief denoting H2O before its actual discovery around 1750, is to make a claim without real content and be guilty of after-the-fact rationalizing. If anything, Twin Earth undercuts the theory of semantic externalism and its core-notion of rigid designation. A pluralized, descriptivist model of reference, I claim, is a better fit for our scientific data and ordinary intuitions either way.

I originally entitled this paper ‘Why are there no uncontroversial examples of philosophical nonsense?’, but since this seemed apt to provoke rather superficial responses, I decided to re-title it.  In it I ponder the fact that, not only are there no uncontroversial examples of philosophical nonsense, there are no uncontroversial examples of what one might call ‘analogue philosophical nonsense’.  These would be non-philosophical cases of someone’s believing he means something when in reality he means nothing.  (Someone’s saying, ‘It’s 5 o’clock on the sun’ is sometimes offered as an example.)  I ask what conditions such cases would need to satisfy.  What would count as a compellingly clear case of an illusion of meaning?  Why has no one described one?

Analytic tradition tries to discern itself from other schools of thought through clarity, precision, rigor, and narrow focus. Despite this, some schools, within a vast analytic philosophy cluster, usually bear some remarkable resemblances with its antagonist-Continental Philosophy. In this study, I try to show how, since its inception, analytic philosophy has frequently become conflictual; the properties that it has thoroughly rejected are also included therein or have been acquired over time. As a result, I conclude that it is neither justified nor useful to utilize the label analytic philosophy. Another corollary I have derived is that analytic philosophy has revived the very philosophical tradition that it has previously denied during the past half a century. It is the finding and formulation of such knowledge that could not be attained by empirical sciences.

Neste artigo temos por objetivo principal apresentar tópicos da obra O Ateísmo no Brasil: os sentidos da descrença nos séculos XX e XXI, de Ricardo Oliveira da Silva, historiador e professor da UFMS (campus de Nova Andradina). Os tópicos que selecionamos para apresentar e comentar foram: "As definições de ateísmo" (2020, p. 14-17); "O ateísmo na historiografia brasileira" (p. 17-29); "O ateísmo materialista na obra de intelectuais comunistas brasileiros" (p. 129-138); "A criação da Revista Ateísta" (p. 198-218); e "Ateísmo e feminismo" (p. 215-218). Como se pode notar, as discussões desta produção perpassam por definições de ateísmo; pela construção historiográfica desse ateísmo; pela chegada desse pensamento ateísta no Brasil; como as pesquisas nacionais estão lidando com essa temática do ateísmo; o movimento ateísta organizado e a criação de meios de divulgação, como revistas e sites; a questão feminina na educação científica e no ateísmo. Para cada um desses temas, criamos tópicos próprios, que serão comentados em nossas considerações no final deste artigo.

Ongoing discussion of this paper here: https://www.academia.edu/s/cf13d33860?source=link
Philosophy – whether traditional or contemporary – has nothing to say about the human metaphysical predicament, and cannot even offer a basic phenomenology of the human condition. Part of the problem is the ongoing confusion as to what philosophy actually amounts to, and what it can achieve. It is necessary to demystify philosophy, and have it restricted to the discipline of critical thinking, and it should not be thought of as possessing any substantial theoretical content of its own. It is a method, a skillset, a series of techniques, not a repository of various highbrow theories, whether about mind, epistemology, ontology, cosmology, science, or anything else. Metaphysics is an entirely distinct and separate field of inquiry, and concerns the human predicament, and ultimate human fulfilment, and it is to this end that critical thinking skills can usefully be applied. The purpose of this short study is to give some help to those hoping to gain an insight into the metaphysical realms of their being, and who would like some guidance with regard to those formal and academic disciplines supposedly geared to dealing with that very subject.

This paper suggests that reference to phenomenal qualities is best understood as involving iconicity, that is, a passage from sign-vehicle to object that exploits a similarity between the two. This contrasts with a version of the ‘phenomenal concept strategy’ that takes indexicality to be central. However, since it is doubtful that phenomenal qualities are capable of causally interacting with anything, indexical reference seems inappropriate. While a theorist like David Papineau is independently coming to something akin to iconicity, I think some of the awkwardness that plagues his account would be remedied by transitioning to a more inclusive philosophy of signs.

This chapter examines Bertrand Russell’s various confrontations with Bergson’s work. Russell’s meetings with Bergson during 1911 would be followed in 1912 by the publication of Russell’s earliest polemical pieces. His 1912 review of Bergson’s Laughter ridicules the effort to develop a philosophical account of humour on the basis of some formula. In his 1912 “The Philosophy of Bergson”, Russell develops a series of objections against Bergson’s accounts of number, space, and duration. Bergson’s position is defended against Russell’s onslaught by H. W. Carr (1913) and Karin Costelloe-Stephen (1914), though Russell only replies to the former. By contrast to Bergson’s silence in the face of Russell’s criticisms, Russell would continue responding to Bergson’s views in multiple works during the 1910s and 1920s. As this chapter shows, Russell not only develops further objections against specific theses upheld by Bergson, but also comments upon the political implications of Bergson’s philosophy, as well as its positioning within the history of French philosophy.

I suggest that, although the nonsensicalist challenge (obviously) matters, it has, at least in its Wittgensteinian form, been widely ignored.  On the other hand, those who still adhere to nonsensicalism (mainly Wittgensteinians) have been equally remiss in their failure to examine its presuppositions.

In this note, we analyze and propose solution to the Russell's Paradox. We prove that
the paradox is just an allurement to help us teach people the foundations of
Mathematics properly.
Everything in the world, in general, is relative. It would be expected that things in
Mathematics, an extreme reduction of the natural world, would be relative as well.
The secret, in dealing with ‘Russell’s Paradox’, is acknowledging the relativism of the
mathematical entities, especially the attachment of those to time constraints.

斯特劳逊 （Strawson）的语义预设概念在语义学和语言哲学研究上颇有建树。尽管如此，语义预设概念一直遭受来自各方面的批判。概要说来，对语义预设概念之批判主要来自两个方面：其一，试图抽去语义预设概念的逻辑基础，即非真值概念 (the notion of truthvaluelessness)，从而达到间接地拒斥语义预设概念之目的。其二，直接批判语义预设概念本身。他们或者论证此概念在理论上不自恰或微不足道，或者断定即使此概念本身在理论上自恰，但实为一空洞无物之概念。因为我们根本找任何一个语义预设的具体例证。所以，语义预设概念不具任何真正的哲学意义。它只是一个当代神话，理应拒斥。

玻尔(S. Ber)和莱肯(W. Lycan)对语义预设概念的批判集中代表了以上两个方面。据我所知，迄今不曾有人对他们的批判予以全面和公正的反驳，以致于许多人人云亦云，使得他们的论点至今颇有影响。给予玻尔和莱恩的批判以全面反驳乃本文初衷。于此相关，我以为很有必要澄清对语义预设概念的诸多误解，从而确立一个理论上自恰，实际上可行，和确有实质性内容的语义预设概念。基于以上考虑，我对语义预设概念批判之反驳包括正 反两个方面。在第二节，我试图建立一个自恰，完备，非庸俗的语义预设概念。基于这一概念，第三节对玻尔和莱恩反对语义预设的两个核心批判予以全面反驳。第四节着重辩护非真值概念。本文的最后结论是：各种批判并未损伤斯特劳逊的语义预设概念的精髓。语 义预设概念非但不是一个当代神话，而且具有重大哲学意义。

Neste artigo temos por objetivo principal apresentar tópicos da obra O Ateísmo no Brasil: os sentidos da descrença nos séculos XX e XXI, de Ricardo Oliveira da Silva, historiador e professor da UFMS (campus de Nova Andradina). Os tópicos que selecionamos para apresentar e comentar foram: “As definições de ateísmo” (2020, p. 14-17); “O ateísmo na historiografia brasileira” (p. 17-29); “O ateísmo materialista na obra de intelectuais comunistas brasileiros” (p. 129-138); “A criação da Revista Ateísta” (p. 198-218); e “Ateísmo e feminismo” (p. 215-218). Como se pode notar, as discussões desta produção perpassam por definições de ateísmo; pela construção historiográfica desse ateísmo; pela chegada desse pensamento ateísta no Brasil; como as pesquisas nacionais estão lidando com essa temática do ateísmo; o movimento ateísta organizado e a criação de meios de divulgação, como revistas e sites; a questão feminina na educação científica e no ateísmo. Para cada um desses temas, criamos tópico...

Wittgenstein's notion of passing from 'disguised' to 'patent' nonsense is problematic once one realises that nonsense can have no logical properties.  I ask whether anything has yet been demonstrated to to be disguised nonsense.  No philosophical thesis (something that has been seriously offered as a truth) has, but even invented examples turn out to be controversial.  An example from elementary algebra however does seem to show how someone could unwittingly treat as sense what was in fact nonsense.  But, although the case genuinely deserves to be called one of disguised nonsense, there is still a crucial difference from what a case of philosophical nonsense would have to be.

What is at stake for Russell in espousing logicism? I argue that Russell's aims are chiefly epistemological and mathematical in nature. Russell develops logicism in order to give an account of the character of mathematics and of mathematical knowledge that is compatible with what he takes to be the uncontroversial status of this science as true, certain and exact. I argue for this view against the view of Peter Hylton, according to which Russell uses logicism to defend the unconditional truth of mathematics against various Idealist positions that treat mathematics as true only partially or only relative to a particular point of view.

Three points of view on the problem of the answerability of philosophical questions are developed:
a) the traditional view that the questions are perfectly genuine but just very difficult;
b) what I call the 'nonsensicalist' view, characteristic of logical positivists and Wittgensteinians, that they are largely meaningless pseudo-problems;
c) the 'mysterian' or transcendental naturalist view that they are genuine problems but ones that our intellects are unequipped, or at least very ill-equipped, to handle.

How can we think or say what is not? If we equate what-is-not with nothing, then a thought of nothing is no thought at all; if we don’t, we are condemned to admit that what-is-not is, seemingly incurring in self-refutation. In this paper, I address this paradox through the lenses of Parmenides, Plato, Russell, and the early Wittgenstein.

Nota introduttiva di Giuliano Campioni e Prologo del autore.

Come tutto quello che conosciamo, anche un testo è una creatura storica, non una cosa in sé. Vale a dire che nasce e vive delle sue relazioni con altri testi: quelli che il suo autore lesse e quelli che lui stesso creò. Borges, che era di questo intendimento, vedeva che lettura e scrittura si integrano in un continuum: «i libri messi assieme e interrogati da un uomo costituiscono anch’essi un aspetto della sua opera».
Questo libro intende esplorare gli aspetti dell’opera di Borges che sono la sua lettura di Nietzsche e Carlyle.

Представлен перевод статьи великого британского философа Бертрана Рассела, посвященной концептуальному осмыслению философских оснований эпистемологии. В ней формулируются базовые определения и обосновываются методологические принципы, на основе которых возможно построение
теорий, соответствующих идеям эмпиризма и концепции знания-знакомства.
Опираясь на конкретные примеры, а также тезисы о логической обусловленности методов познания, Рассел закладывает фундамент теории нейтрального монизма, ставшей основой его эпистемологических идей в ранний период творчества.

Si esamina la teoria sulla denotazione del primo Russell espressa ne "I Principi della matematica"  e con lui si analizzano i quantificatori cercando di definirli attraverso il rapporto tra i concetti e gli insiemi che ne costituiscono l'estensione

In his 1927 Analysis of Matter and elsewhere, Russell argued that we can successfully infer the structure of the external world from that of our explanatory schemes. While nothing guarantees that the intrinsic qualities of experiences are shared by their objects, he held that the relations tying together those relata perforce mirror relations that actually obtain (these being expressible in the formal idiom of the Principia Mathematica). This claim was subsequently criticized by the Cambridge mathematician Max Newman as true but trivial, insofar as from a closed body of observations (or “Ramsey sentence”) one can always generate other equally-satisfactory networks of relations, provided they respect the original set’s cardinality. Since any model thus generated will be empirically adequate, “[t]he defence is therefore driven back from the fairly safe fictitious-real classification to the much less tenable ‘trivial’ and ‘important’” (Newman 1928). Given the definitional rigour afforded by the initial appeal to isomorphism (via one-to-one correspondences in extension), the received assessment, shared by Russell himself, is that retreating to a pragmatic adjudication would betoken a fatal blow. However, I suggest that reliance on “importance” can be avoided if we incorporate an impersonal criterion of diachronic precedence. When collecting observations, an ordinality emerges alongside the cardinality which gives that underived structure an irrevocable epistemological privilege. Hence, I argue that, all other things being equal, any construct parasitic on an antecedent theory ought to be regarded as inferior/dispensable, since it was generated by an algorithm lacking the world-involving pedigree of its host structure.

Има ли някакво знание в света, ко ето да е толкова сигурно, че никой разумен човек не би могъл да се усъмни в него? Този въпрос, който на пръв поглед може да не изглежда труден, е в действителност един от най-трудните въпроси, които бихме могли да си зададем. Веднъж осъзнали препятствията, които стоят на пътя на един категоричен отговор, ние ще се заемем с изучаване на философията, защото тя е просто един опит за отговор на такива фундаментални въпроси, но не небрежно и догматично, както правим в обикновения живот, а дори и в някои от науките, а критично, след проучване на всичко, което прави подобни въпроси озадачаващи, и след осъзнаването на цялата неяснота и объркване, които стоят в основата на нашите обикновени идеи. В ежедневния си живот приемаме определен брой неща за сигурни, които обаче ако бъдат погледнати по-внимателно, ще установим, че са толкова пълни с очевидни противоречия, че само един сериозен размисъл би ни дал възможността да осъзнаем в какво наистина бихме могли да повярваме. В търсенето на сигурност, е естествено да се започне с нашите настоящи преживявания, и в известен смисъл, няма съмнение, че ще извлечем знание от тях. Но всяко твърдение за нашите непосредствени преживявания ни позволява да разберем, че е много вероятно подобно твърдение да бъде погрешно. Струва ми се, че сега съм седнал на един стол, до една маса с определена форма, върху която виждам лист хартия с нещо написано или напечатано. Обръщайки главата си виждам през прозореца слънцето, сградите и облаците. Вярвам, че Слънцето е на около 93 милиона мили от Земята; че то е едно небесно тяло много пъти по-голямо, отколкото Земята; че благодарение на въртенето на Земята, то изгрява всяка сутрин, и ще продължи да го прави за неопределен период от време в бъдещето. Вярвам, че всеки друг нормален човек влизайки в стаята ми, ще види същите столове, маси,книги и документи, които виждам аз, и че масата, която виждам, е същата като масата, която усещам, че докосва ръката ми. Всичко това, изглежда сякаш толкова очевидно, че едва ли си струва да се казва,освен в отговор на някой човек , съмняващ се в това дали въобще знам нещо. Но това може да бъде с основание поставено под съмнение, и всичко това изисква много внимателно обсъждане, преди да можем да бъдем сигурни, че сме го представили във форма, която е изцяло истинна. За да опростим нашите трудности, нека концентрираме вниманието си върху масата. За окото тя е правоъгълна, кафява и лъскава, а на пипане е гладка,хладна и твърда; а при почукване, издава дървен звук. Всеки един друг, който вижда,усеща и чува ,звука от почукването по масата ще се съгласи с това описание, така че изглежда, като че ли никаква трудност не би възникнала; но веднага след като се опитваме да бъдем по-точни нашите проблеми започват. Въпреки, че вярвам, че масата в действителност е едноцветна , частите, които отразяват светлината, изглеждат много по-ярки от други части, както и някои части изглеждат бели, заради отразената светлина. Знам, че ако аз се преместя , частите които отразяват светлината ще бъдат различни, така че очевидното разпределение на цветовете на масата ще се промени. От това следва, че ако няколко човека наблюдават масата в един и същ момент, няма да има и двама от тях, които да виждат едно и също разпределението на цветовете, защото никой от двамата , не би могъл да я види от същата гледна точка, а всяка промяна в гледната точка , води до промяна в начина, по който светлината се отразява. За повечето практически цели тези разлики са маловажни, но за художника те са най-важното: художникът трябва да се отучи от навика да мисли, че нещата изглеждат сякаш имат

I am planning a history of the concept of philosophical nonsense and naturally difficult historical and exegetical questions have come up.  Charles Pigden has argued that it goes back at least as far as Hobbes and that Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant (on some interpretations) and pragmatists such as William James, as well as numerous Twentieth-Century philosophers make use of it.  In this ‘paper’ I put forward for general discussion such questions as whether Hobbes was the first nonsensicalist, whether Kant was a nonsensicalist at all, which philosophers if any have considered contradictions to be meaningless and whether Wittgenstein thought that his concept of criterion could legitimately be used verificationistically.  I shall continue to add further questions as they occur to me.

In The Analysis of Mind (1921), Bertrand Russell stresses the importance of William James’ late neutral monist view of consciousness for the studies in psychology. In so doing, he focuses on a topic whose roots can be traced back to the nineteenth-century European debate on physiology and scientific psychology. In this introductory paper I shall briefly outline the path that, starting from the revival of Kant in the German scientific debate, leads to both Ernst Mach’s and William James’ questioning the value of the I or consciousness as a substance concept.

I consider the dispute, not with a view to reaching a final verdict, but for the light it sheds on the notion of philosophical nonsense.  How does it look to a sceptic about philosophical nonsense?  It is generally agreed that the Tractatus is an unsatisfactory work, if the traditional reading of, for example, G. E. M. Anscombe or Peter Hacker is correct.  But is it any better on the ‘resolute’ reading of Cora Diamond or James Conant?  I maintain that it is more difficulty to handle the concept of nonsense than nonsensicalists of any stripe realise.  If the ‘ineffable truths’ and ‘important nonsense’ of traditional readings raise problems, so too do the contrast between meaningful frame and nonsensical core, Diamond’s idea that one can imaginatively identify with the nonsense-talker and the mysterious new entity, ‘transitional’ nonsense.  Meaning and communication, I suggest, keep reappearing precisely where they should not.

La meta è giungere dove la logica classica e non-classica si fondono sotto il principio di non contraddizione. Proseguiamo col trattare alcuni aspetti della verità, del linguaggio, della matematica e dell'esistenza atti a stabilizzare alcune logiche (sfumata, paraconsistente, intuizionistica, mereologica, libera, quantistica) sotto questo tertium non datur. Chiudiamo col dettaglio del codice logico. L'articolo è un'introduzione al processo di unificazione logica, un'illustrazione dei suoi elementi portanti.

Schopenhauer develops a transcendent metaphysics, based on a claim that goes beyond the possibility of experience. I shall argue however that this claim does not depend closely on transcendental idealism, following a recent similar interpretation of Kant due to Rae Langton. This makes for some surprising connections to contemporary metaphysics, especially panpsychism. I argue that Schopenhauer is in fact not a panpsychist. But some arguments for panpsychism shed light on and make more plausible his extension of the will from being the in-itself of the cognitive subject to being the in-itself of everything.