The Oxford Companion to Philosophy Part 36 pot

Where a free variable α occurs in Φ the application of the rule binds the variable. Formalizations specify condi- tions and syntactic restrictions for application of the rule to ensure that the inferences are valid. An example of a valid application of the rule is the inference of (x) (Fx ∨ ~Fx) from (Fy ∨ ~Fy), since the latter holds for any arbitrary individual. r.b.m. W. V. Quine, Methods of Logic, 4th edn. (Cambridge, Mass., 1982). general properties: see properties, general. general will. The doctrine of the general will is found in the writings of some theorists in the tradition of contrac- tualist political philosophy. The doctrine has controver- sial images associated with it, but its central aim is to provide an account of the conditions under which prin- ciples and policies for the state are morally acceptable. Citi- zens are thought of as having ‘interests’, some of which are ‘perceived’, and often different from one person to another, and even from one time in a person’s life to another, while others are considered ‘real’ or ‘genuine’, and hence common to all persons. The doctrine concerns how these common interests may be identified, and how they may gain expression in the policies of the state, and thereby constitute the state just. Rousseau’s version of the doctrine appears to be driven by the figure of society as ‘social organism’. The general will is the will of this organism, i.e. the ‘collective body’ formed by the citizens of a state, and as such is distin- guished from the will of any particular individual or group, and even from ‘the will of all’. Rousseau’s view influenced Kant, but Kant’s view leaves aside the notion that society should be thought of as ‘organism’. The main idea now is that morality involves principles that are ‘valid for all rational beings’, and that one may arrive at such principles by setting aside one’s ‘inclinations’ (e.g. particu- lar features of personality or interests associated with social station that differ among real people and tend to ground conflicts among them), and by exercising the ‘rational nature’ that is the common possession of moral agents. John Rawls’s conception of *‘justice as fairness’ is thought of heuristically as the choice of parties to a hypo- thetical morally credentialled deliberating-position, one of the main features of which is, again, a setting-aside of those differentiating features of real individuals which are (in Rawls’s words) ‘arbitrary from the moral point of view’. The principles which are then chosen by agents whose particularity is thereby suspended are construed as providing the normative substance of justice for the basic structure of society, i.e. the standards by which to assess its main economic, legal, political, and educational institu- tions and practices. Thus, in different vocabularies, the theories of Rousseau, Kant, and Rawls have in common the claim that the deliverances of reasoning meeting the conditions of impartiality and disinterestedness are morally right. However, interpreting the doctrine in this way makes it attractive but not yet uncontroversial. Recent challenges do not restrict their critiques to the spectre of totalitarian- ism suggested by the idea of society as ‘social organism’. One critique instead cites cases in which particulars about persons, e.g. their special relationships, the meaning- giving projects in their lives, their offices, and roles, are indeed relevant to an understanding of what morality requires, including the substance of justice. This objection suggests that the doctrine does not appropriately recog- nize the moral relevance of ‘partiality’, or, more fully, the moral standing of the ‘individuality’ of persons. This is paradoxical, for the historical and contemporary propon- ents of the doctrine think of their general theories as endorsing *individualism. Another critique argues not from ‘individuality’ but from ‘community’. Its point is that the doctrine’s emphasis on impartiality and disinter- estedness ignores the importance of culture, heritage, and tradition to the identity of citizens. This is paradoxical again, for some proponents of the doctrine think of their theories as providing reasonable interpretations of the communitarian ideals of the public interest and the com- mon good. n.s.c. *organic society; contract, social. Brian Barry, ‘The Public Interest’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1964). Patrick Riley, The General Will before Rousseau: The Transformation of the Divine into the Civic (Princeton, NJ, 1986). John Rawls, A Theory of Justice(Cambridge, Mass., 1971). Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice(New York, 1983). generations, justice between. The Brundtland Report, Our Common Future (1987), defined sustainable develop- ment as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. The responsibility implied in this statement may be regarded as weak or strong. The weak principle of intergenerational justice requires that we pass on natural resources and knowledge to the future in a way that enables future people to meet their basic needs. The strong principle requires us to limit consumption of envir- onmental goods so that future people can be expected to achieve a standard of living, or quality of life, equivalent to that enjoyed by present people. Thomas Schwartz argued that any policy we now undertake will make a difference to who actually exists in future (e.g., by determining who travels where, and who meets whom). Hence, provided future individuals have lives worth living, they cannot be said to be harmed by present policies. Whether Schwartz’s argument undermines the strong principle ofjustice between generations has been very much debated. a.bre. A. de-Shalit, Why Posterity Matters (London, 1995). T. Schwartz, ‘Obligations to Posterity’, in R. Sikora and B. Barry (eds.), Obligations to Future Generations (Philadelphia, 1978). genetic epistemology: see epistemology, genetic. 330 generalization, rule of genetic fallacy. Probably first called such by Morris Cohen and Ernest Nagel, it is the fallacy of confusing the causal origins of a belief with its justification. That this is always a confusion has been queried by reliabilist theories in epistemology, which hold that a belief is justified to the extent that it is the causal output of cognitive devices oper- ating in accordance with their designs, i.e. ‘as they should’. Of particular importance for the analysis of the genetic fallacy is the widespread and indispensable practice of forming one’s beliefs, and acting on them, on the basis of the *testimony of others. Assuming the implausibility of declaring fallacious all such cases of belief-formation, it evidently matters whether a believer’s testimonial sources satisfy appropriate conditions on reliability. Since the same is true of whether a so-called ad verecundiam argument is fallacious, it may be said that ad verecundiam arguments are a special case of ‘genetic’ arguments. j.w. *reliabilism. Morris R. Cohen and Ernest Nagel, Logic and Scientific Method (New York, 1934). genetics and morality. The fast-developing science of genetics, within which the functions of more and more genes, either alone or in conjunction with others, are being discovered, can be seen as providing the latest form of determinism, or reductionism, according to which all human behaviour can be explained by the genes a person has. If genetic determinism were true, no one could be blamed, or indeed praised, for what he or she did, since behaviour would have been programmed from the time a person was an embryo. Though such a theory is wholly implausible, since environment (including education and culture) must be taken into account in the formation of character as much as genetic inheritance, yet, like other forms of determinism, the theory in a less thoroughgoing form may gradually come to have an effect on moral atti- tudes. If it were shown conclusively that a certain gene or conjunction of genes led to aggressive behaviour, for example, or indifference to the well-being of other people, then there would be less inclination to apportion moral blame to those who exhibited this kind of antisocial behav- iour, and less faith in the efficacy of exhortation or example to get people to mend their ways. The language of morals, as well as the practice of punishment, might be subtly changed. It has to be noticed, however, that there have in the past been many forms of determinism, theo- logical, physical, and psychological. None has destroyed the idea of morality, nor the human desire to influence children by education and good upbringing. The fate of genetic determinism may be no different. A specific way in which our new appreciation of the importance of genes may change our moral attitudes is with regard to children who are born either through an adulterous relationship or by artificial insemination with donor sperm. Hitherto it has been possible to try to justify keeping a child in ignorance of her true paternity (though many have always regarded such deception as morally indefensible). This seems now positively wrong: too much may turn on the knowledge for it to be concealed. A more dramatic way in which new genetic knowledge may in future impinge on morality is in the matter of genetic intervention. Morality is largely based on the assumption that individual people are unique, each differ- ent from one another, to be valued for their own sake and responsible, at least to a large extent, for their own charac- ters. If it became possible for parents to choose not only the sex but the personalities and abilities of their children, according to their own blueprint, the sense of independ- ence and individual responsibility might be gradually eroded. It is difficult to foresee the difference it would make to someone’s sense of responsibility and self-image if he had to think that other people, his parents, had decided that this was what he should be. There is some- thing profoundly inimical to our concept of morality in the thought of one person being in a position to dictate in advance the life-chances of another. Though it seems morally right that parents should, by genetic manipula- tion, see to it that their child does not suffer from serious or life-threatening disease, it seems morally wrong that they should intervene to enhance their child’s ability or beauty or talents. This uneasiness may arise partly from the fact that such genetic enhancement, if it were possible, would be extremely expensive. Only the very rich could afford it. The gap between the children of the rich and those of the poor would be widened still further, to the detriment of society. Political considerations apart, how- ever, the thought that we had been manipulated to con- form to someone else’s blueprint would be profoundly demeaning. The intrinsic value that each individual has, a value that lies at the heart of morality, depends in part on the random and unpredictable mixture of his parents’ genes which make up his unique genome. Such moral dis- tinctions may fall to be settled in the future, and are the subject of theoretical discussion even now. m.warn. *bioethics. John Harris, Clones, Genes and Immortality: Ethics and the Genetic Revolution (Oxford, 1998). Jonathan Glover, What Sort of People Should there Be? (Har- mondsworth, 1986). John Habgood, Being a Person (London, 1998). Ellie Lee (ed.), Designer Babies: Where Should we Draw the Line? (London, 2002). genius. Creative ability of an exalted kind. In philosophy creative ability is in the realm of ideas. It would be contro- versial to attempt either to provide a complete list of those philosophers who would be entitled to the label of genius, or to lay down necessary and sufficient conditions for it. Indeed, some philosophers might regard it as invidious to single out an individual philosopher as a ‘genius’ on the grounds that this creates a cult of cleverness. But, if one were to allow the term, the following conditions—which are much wider than ‘cleverness’—are typically satisfied by the philosophical genius. The genius expresses through his work the main currents of scientific and other thought genius 331 of his times; he not only synthesizes these but adds the stamp of his own mind to them; the force of the ideas alters the direction of subsequent thought; the ideas embody a vision of the world, they appeal to the imagin- ation as well to the intellect. It will be widely agreed that Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, and Wittgenstein fit these criteria, and other names can plausibly be added to the category. r.s.d. *superman. R. L. Gregory, ‘Genius’, in R. L. Gregory (ed.), The Oxford Com- panion to the Mind (Oxford, 1987). Gentile, Giovanni (1875–1944). Together with Croce, he led the revival of Italian idealist philosophy at the turn of the century. Gentile’s ‘actualism’ represented the subject- ive extreme of *idealism. He aimed to integrate our con- sciousness of experience with its creation by uniting thought and will in the self-constitution or autoctisi of real- ity. The ‘pure act’ of spirit constituted the true synthesis a priori of self and world which made objective knowledge possible. He claimed that his theory explained the phe- nomenological development of self-consciousness within both the individual and Western thought as a whole. To illustrate the first thesis, he wrote a number of influential books on education. Demonstrating his second claim led him to write a detailed history of modern *Italian philoso- phy in order to show how the ideas of the German thinkers he admired were adopted or independently conceived by Italian philosophers as part of a single European tradition reflecting the unity of spirit or human consciousness. The embodiment of the individual’s self-consciousness was the state, a doctrine that led to his philosophical support of *fascism. He stood by Mussolini to the end, dying at the hands of communist partisans. r.p.b. Richard Bellamy, Modern Italian Social Theory (Cambridge, 1987), ch. 6. Gentzen, Gerhard (1909–45). German logician who, in his fundamental paper of 1935, expounded a radically new way of formalizing logic—*natural deduction, which he carried out for both classical and intuitionistic first-order logic. A natural deduction system has rules of inference, but no logical truths assumed axiomatically. A formula may be introduced into a derivation as a hypothesis at any stage. Gentzen divided the rules of his natural deduction system that governed the logical constants into introduc- tion rules and elimination rules. An introduction rule allowed the derivation of a formula with the given logical constant as its main operator from premisses in which it does not occur essentially; thus the introduction rule for ‘&’ allows us to infer A &B from A and B as separate prem- isses. An elimination rule allowed an inference from such a formula, perhaps together with additional minor premisses; thus the elimination rule for ‘→’ (if-then) was simply modus ponens, whereby B is inferred from A→B together with the minor premiss A. In such cases, the con- clusion of the inference depends on whatever hypotheses the premisses depended on. In some inferences, however, it does not depend on all of them. Thus the introduction rule for negation is *reductio ad absurdum: if from a set Γ of hypotheses, together with the hypothesis A, a contradict- ory conclusion can be derived, then the negation of A may be inferred as depending on the hypotheses Γ alone. The hypotheses on which the final conclusion of the derivation depends may then be regarded as the premisses of the derivation as a whole. In order to keep track of the hypotheses on which each line of a natural deduction derivation depends, these lines may be shown as sequents. A sequent is a pair Γ :A, where A is the formula standing at that line of the derivation, and Γ is the finite set of formulae on which A depends; the introduction of a hypothesis H will be represented by the ‘basic sequent’ H : H. If Γ : A occurs as a line of a correct derivation, the formula A will be a logical consequence of the formulae Γ . In the same paper, Gentzen developed another method of formalization, a sequent calculus. For classical, but not intuitionistic, logic, a sequent was now allowed to have finitely many formulae on the right (these formulae being understood disjunctively). The introduc- tion rules remained as before, but the elimination rules were replaced by rules of introduction on the left-hand side of the sequent: e.g. that for & allowed the derivation of Γ, A & B: ∆ from Γ, A:∆ or Γ, B:∆; it is thereby inferred that a conclusion follows from certain premisses from the fact that it follows from other, simpler, premisses. The sequent calculus is easily shown equivalent to the natural deduction system, with the help of the cut rule, allowing the derivation of Γ, Θ : ∆, Λ from Γ : C, ∆ and Θ, C : Λ, where C is termed the cut formula. Gentzen’s cut- elimination theorem (Hauptsatz) showed that any deriva- tion using the cut rule could be transformed into one not using it: the introduction of the cut formula had been an unnecessary detour. The cut-free sequent calculus (lack- ing the cut rule) has the subformula property: any formula occurring within a derivation is a subformula of one occurring in the final sequent. The cut-elimination theorem yielded a decision procedure for intuitionistic sentential logic, and allowed very simple proofs of several theorems hitherto proved by appeal to an algebraic characterization of the set of valid formulae. Gentzen proceeded to give two proofs of the consist- ency of formal (Peano) arithmetic (1936 and 1938), using a form of transfinite induction. By Gödel’s second *incom- pleteness theorem, such transfinite induction cannot be so derivable; but in Gentzen’s proof, it was applied only to statements with no bound variables. m.d. G. Gentzen, Collected Papers, ed. M. E. Szabo (Amsterdam, 1969). genus and species. Terms forming part of a system of clas- sification of entities (most characteristically biological entities); genera constitute a wider class than do species. The terms derive from Aristotle, for whom the principles of clas- sification depend on real relations between things in nature. The Greek word for species is the same as that for *form, and in Aristotle’s view species have *essences and are 332 genius distinguished from other co-ordinate species falling under the same genus by a determinate differentia. d.w.h. *determinables and determinates; categories. Aristotle, De partibus animalium i and De generatione animalium i, tr. with notes by D. M. Balme (Oxford, 1972). German philosophy. In Germany, as in other European nations, medieval philosophers (apart from the mystics) wrote in Latin. (The most significant was Albertus Magnus (c.1200–80), the learned Aristotelian who taught Aquinas.) But in Germany philosophy continued to be written and taught in Latin later than elsewhere. Leibniz wrote mainly in Latin and French. In 1688 Christian Thomasius (1655– 1728) gave, at Leipzig, the first philosophy lectures in German. Christian Wolff (1679–1754) was the first signifi- cant philosopher to write mainly in German. Partly as a result of this, many of the philosophers who wrote in German were very conscious of the fact, and emphasized and exploited the philosophical resources of German. They did not always commend the same fea- tures of the language. Leibniz stressed the concrete sen- sual imagery of German words and their metaphorical potentialities, developed and transmitted by the medieval mystics. Hegel stressed the great variety of abstract, and thus implicitly philosophical, terms in everyday speech. The virtues of German continued to be praised in the twentieth century. Heidegger noted the ‘peculiar inner affinity of the German language with the language of the Greeks and their thought. . . . When the French begin to think, they speak German’ (Der Spiegel, 31 May 1976). Fichte’s proposal to extrude foreign loan-words (including ‘Philosophie’) from the German language found little sup- port, but the belief that German is an ideal philosophical language, whatever its truth, affects the style of much German philosophy. Owing in part to the nature of the Reformation and to the survival of Catholicism as a potent force, theology was, from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, a flour- ishing academic discipline with important interconnec- tions with philosophy. Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768– 1834), one of the founders of *hermeneutics, was also the greatest Protestant theologian since Luther. Many philosophers were originally trained as theologians: Hegel and Schelling as Protestants, for example, and Hei- degger as a Jesuit. In the case of other philosophers too, one cannot ignore their deep religiosity and their theo- logical interests: the pietism of Kant, for example, or the Augustinian Catholicism of Scheler. Even when philoso- phers initially reject their inherited religious beliefs, they often, though not invariably, return to them later: Fichte’s and Schelling’s talk about the I or the Absolute eventually becomes talk about God, and Friedrich Schlegel (1772– 1829), like many of the Romantic radicals, converted to Catholicism. Conversely, theologians were often deci- sively influenced by philosophers: Barth by Kierkegaard, Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976) by his friend Heidegger, and Tillich (1886–1965) by Schelling. The theological background of many philosophers perhaps accounts for their willingness to transcend, or at least delve beneath, experience in their exploration of the nature of things and to keep the natural sciences in their proper place, if not to ignore them altogether. Connected with this (since theologians need to inter- pret ancient texts) is the deeply historical character of much German philosophy and thought in general. Philoso- phy of history was founded by Vico and baptized by Voltaire, but it came into its own in Germany. Philoso- phers such as Herder and Hegel became aware that men think differently in different periods and came to ask not (like Hume or Gibbon) ‘Given that people think, if they think at all, in a uniformly rational way, how can we explain what they did in the past?’, but ‘How did it come about that we now think in a certain rational way, when in the past people thought in radically different ways?’ Associated with this historical tendency is the intense study, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth cen- turies, of the philosophical and literary works of the past: Homer, Plato, Plotinus, and Shakespeare, etc. were edited, translated, and explored. Dilthey, among many others, continued this tradition into the twentieth cen- tury. Nietzsche was a classical philologist as well as a philosopher, but philosophers who were not primarily scholars were often steeped in the works of classical antiquity (Hegel, Schelling, Marx, Heidegger) and occasionally in medieval philosophy (Heidegger). When Hegel speaks of scepticism, for example, he usually has in mind the Greek Sceptics rather than Hume. In the same period, German philosophers, above all Kant, explored the nature of the self and tended to a form of *idealism. British philosophers did so too, both earlier (Hume) and later ( J. S. Mill). But the two approaches differ significantly. Hume and Mill distinguish two realms of entities, the outer objects studied by the natural sciences and the inner objects studied by psychology. Mental events and states are to be studied by the same methods as outer objects; they are to be analysed, classified, and explained by laws of association. Idealism consists in the conclusion that outer objects are reducible to complex pat- terns of inner events. Kant and his followers, such as Fichte, rejected this procedure. It ignores, they argued, the I or subject that is aware of both inner and outer objects. It omits to ask why the I has experience both of inner and of outer objects, and why its experience takes the form that it does. Hence they abandoned the psychological approach in favour of the transcendental: the I that has experience of both realms is neither physical nor psychical, but transcen- dental. The rejection of the psychological and the espousal of the transcendental persists into the twentieth century in the work of Husserl. Some philosophers believed they had discovered a ‘third realm’ distinct from both the physical and the psychological, the realm of the ‘ideal’. But this did not go unchallenged. Heidegger rejected this ‘banal Pla- tonism’ in favour of a radically overhauled psychology that no longer regards man as a compound of ‘body’, ‘soul’, and ‘spirit’, but as *Dasein or ‘being-in-the-world’. German philosophy 333 continental european philosophy in the nineteenth century j. g. fichte developed Kant’s epistemological and ethical ideas at the end of the eighteenth century, and became an apostle of Prussian nationalism. søren kierkegaard gave deliberately anti-academic expression (witness the peculiar forms, titles, and pseud- onyms of his works) to a powerful defence of human freedom against systems, rules, and rationalizations. arthur schopenhauer’s academic career at the Univer- sity of Berlin foundered when he opted unwisely to deliver his lectures at the same times as Hegel’s; the resulting resentment, and many others, find expression in his writings. In his work Eastern religious traditions first exert a significant influence on Western philosophy. friedrich nietzsche’s iconoclastic brilliance brought him international fame too late for him to know it. His unpredictable influence has coursed through modernism and postmodernism. The transcendental method is connected with several other features of German thought. First, transcendental philosophers regard idealism as entirely compatible with objectivity. While idealists such as Hume and Mill tend to see values and the truths of logic and arithmetic as depend- ent on our psychological states (or, later, on our lan- guage), German idealists often, though not invariably, regard them as wholly objective, albeit transcendentally determined. The transcendental lies deeper than our cus- tomary distinction between the subject and the object, the subjective and the objective. Second, since the transcen- dental I is neither psychological subject nor physical object, and since it is, on some accounts, prior even to the distinction between different people, it tends to be equated with, or to turn into, the Absolute or God; it met with this fate in Fichte and Schelling, if not in Husserl. By contrast, Hume and Mill incline to atheism, since there is little temptation to deify the psychological I. (Berkeley’s theology depends on a combination of the psychological and transcendental methods.) Third, psychological or sub- jective idealism is inimical to a sense of history. If I focus on my own mental states and the laws governing them, I have little reason to suppose that others may have, or have had, mental states of a different type, governed perhaps by different laws. It is even hard to see how the historical past can be more than a dubious inference from my present mental states or a logical construction out of them. *Tran- scendental idealism, by contrast, presents no such difficul- ties in the view of its adherents. Indeed, it is plausible to suppose that it favoured historicism: if one pares oneself down to one’s bare I, shorn of historically determined physical and psychological contingencies, it is easier to range in imagination over other times and places. What I then find in the past may be as independent of my present mental states as are the laws of logic and mathematics. The transcendental method is also related to the ten- dency of German philosophers to reject individualism. Psychological states are decidedly the states of a single individual, and the single individual is, on the whole, what concerns British empiricists. An individual is conceived as a complete person prior to relations with other individ- uals. The acquisition of concepts and knowledge is regarded as a solitary enterprise, with little attention to the education of children into a shared language and culture. There then arises the problem of other minds: How can I know that there are any other minds or, if there are, what goes on in them? How can there even be psychological states that are not experienced by me? (Little attention was paid to this problem before J. S. Mill, however.) Individu- alism also inspired social contract theories: people are con- ceived as fully formed individuals, capable of making contracts, etc., prior to relations with others, independ- ently of any shared culture or tradition. The transcen- dental I, by contrast, is less obviously a complete individ- ual, or even an individual at all. To the questions ‘Why can there not be just one person? Why does the I splinter into many individuals?’, Fichte and Schelling reply that with- out others I would not be complete. I would lack moral constraints and thus be unable to display my (Kantian) freedom. Bereft of others and confined to my own per- spective on the world, I could hardly extricate the world from myself: it would be my world, not an objective world. Hegel develops their thought in his concept of Geist, a word for ‘mind’ that expands, more readily than its English counterpart, into a shared mind or ‘spirit’, into an ‘I that is We and a We that is I’. Heidegger too, with his concepts of ‘being-with-others’ and the They, insists that a shared world and a complete human being require a deep interconnection between individuals, not just a plurality of solitary individuals. Such philosophical anti- individualism converges with the German propensity for cultural history (Herder, Dilthey) and sociology (Weber). The history of German philosophy is more complex than these generalizations suggest. The first strictly Ger- man philosophers, writing in German as often as in Latin, were the mystics, the earliest of whom were nuns, such as Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1173) and Mechthild of Magde- burg (1212–85). These prepared the ground for Meister Eckhart (1260–1337), Heinrich Seuse (1300–66), Johann Tauler (1300–61), and Thomas à Kempis (1379–1471). The mystics were not wholly divorced from scholastic philoso- phy. Eckhart, for example, made use of *Neoplatonism and of Aquinas, and his thought is essentially scholastic, even if his style and devotion are shaped by earlier mystics. The mystics were much admired by Leibniz, and their influ- ence, especially on the Romantics, but also on, for example, Heidegger, is pervasive. The greatest German philosopher of the Renaissance, Nicholas of Cusa (1401–64), was influ- enced by Eckhart, as well as by medieval logic, in arguing that the universe flows out of and returns to an unknow- able God. Several aspects of his thought, especially his prin- ciple of the coincidence of opposites, anticipate Leibniz and Hegel. (Hegel, however, nowhere mentions Nicholas.) Among later mystics, the shoemaker Jakob Böhme (1575–1624) had a large impact on later philosophers, including Hegel and Schelling (who called him a ‘miracu- lous phenomenon in the history of humanity’). Böhme was persecuted by the Protestant orthodoxy established by Martin Luther (1483–1546), who rejected the metaphysical element in German philosophy, attacked Aristotelianism and Thomism, and advocated conceptual and verbal clarity. Philip Melanchthon (1497– 1560), who was entrusted by Luther with the task of sys- tematizing the thought of the Reformation, paradoxically returned to Aristotle as the foundation of his system, thus establishing what came to be known as Protestant neo-scholasticism. The first indisputably great German philosopher is Leib- niz, who, although he did not teach philosophy and pub- lished relatively little, decisively shaped the future course of philosophy in Germany and was in a sense the founder of German idealism. Christian Wolff, who was a follower of Leibniz, achieved enormous popularity in the late eight- eenth century and was largely responsible for establishing a clear, stable philosophical vocabulary in German. Other rationalist philosophers were Mendelssohn and Alexander German philosophy 335 Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714–62), who first gave aesthetics its name and established it as a distinct department of phil- osophy, and whose Metaphysica (1739) was used by Kant as the basis for his lectures. The German *Enlightenment reached its climax with Kant, who initiated the most important period of philo- sophical activity in modern times. He generated a host of followers, attempting to explain, systematize, and develop his thought: among others, Karl Leonhard Reinhold (1758–1823), Solomon Maimon (1753–1800), J. S. Beck (1761–1840), and Jakob Friedrich Fries (1773–1843). Schiller gave Kantianism a distinctive historical and aes- thetic bias that contributed to the growth of post-Kantian idealism. But other forces worked to the same end: for example, Johann Georg Hamann (1730–88), the ‘magus of the north’, a Protestant mystic who disliked the analytical rationalism of the Enlightenment and saw more creative power in feeling, language, and especially poetry, the ‘mother-tongue of the human race’. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi (1743–1819) argued that our knowledge of mundane and divine matters rests, not on argument, but on feeling and faith. He also initiated the revival of Spinoza, a crucial influence on Herder, Goethe, and the post-Kantian ideal- ists: Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. The Romantic circle, especially Novalis (1772–1801) and Schlegel, made per- verse use of Fichte’s doctrines, cultivating the aphoristic style later adopted by Nietzsche. Schelling was seen as their official philosopher. Schleiermacher was another member of the circle. Hegel admired his On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers (1799), but later came to hate him, avowedly because he rejected his view that religion rests on a feeling of ‘absolute dependence’ (in which case, Hegel said, a dog is the best Christian), but perhaps also because he envied his work on Heraclitus, Plato, and dialectic. With the death of Hegel in 1831 the period of German idealism, which has no parallel elsewhere, came to end. The growth of the natural sciences cast suspicion on philo- sophical systems and favoured *naturalism and *material- ism. The view of man as essentially rational gave way to the view that he is primarily a biological creature, dom- inated by will rather than reason. Schopenhauer forms a bridge between idealism and naturalism, shifting freely from the ‘I’ to the ‘brain’, and Nietzsche moved further in the direction of naturalism. The best of the Hegelians fol- lowed this trend: Feuerbach, Stirner, and Marx. Schelling’s late philosophy, essentially an elaboration of idealism, was regarded as an anachronism. Three other developments which began in the nineteenth century contributed to the upsurge of German philosophy in the twentieth. First, the neo-Kantians appealed to Kant both to oppose metaphysical idealism and to supply a more adequate foundation for the sciences. They later included Cassirer and Heidegger’s teacher Heinrich Rickert (1863– 1936). Second, Dilthey and Georg Simmel (1858–1918) advanced the philosophy of history, making more use of the concept of life than of reason. (History and ‘life’ are also central in Nietzsche’s thought.) Third, Brentano laid the foundations of phenomenology. The main philosophical trends of the early twentieth century, a period of creativity almost equal to the age of idealism, emerged from these beginnings. Husserl and Scheler developed *phenomenology, though Scheler (as protean as Schelling) moved closer to Nietzsche and Dilthey when he championed philosophical *anthropol- ogy. Nicolai Hartmann abandoned neo-Kantianism to establish an empirically grounded ontology. All of these tendencies, along with Kierkegaard, contributed to the Existenzphilosophie of Jaspers and Heidegger. Most of these trends continued after the Second World War, but with several additions. Heidegger’s thought developed away from, or at least beyond, his pre-war writings. Gadamer elaborated Heidegger’s *hermeneutics into a hermeneutical philosophy. The neo-Marxian critical theory of the *Frankfurt School, originated in the 1930s by Adorno and Horkheimer, continued to flourish after their return from exile and has been developed by Habermas. Finally, analytical philosophy prospers in Germany, espe- cially under the influence of the Vienna Circle, Popper, Wittgenstein, and Anglo-American philosophers, but utilizing also the fertile resources of the German heritage. m.j.i. *Hegelianism; Kantianism; neo-Kantianism; Schlegel; Schleiermacher; English philosophy; French philosophy. L. W. Beck, Early German Philosophy: Kant and his Predecessors (Cambridge, Mass., 1969). F. C. Beiser, German Idealism: The Struggle against Subjectivism, 1781–1801 (Cambridge, Mass., 2002). R. Bubner, Modern German Philosophy (Cambridge, 1981). J. D. Caputo, The Mystical Element in Heidegger’s Thought (Athens, Oh., 1978). A. O’Hear (ed.), German Philosophy since Kant (Cambridge, 1999). H. Schnadelbach, Philosophy in Germany 1831–1933 (Cambridge, 1984). German philosophy today. Contemporary philosophiz- ing in the German-speaking realm is characterized by a ‘new obscurity’ (neue Unübersichtlichkeit, Jürgen Habermas). The decline of previous philosophical systems within and after the two World Wars led to a plurality of coexisting approaches and directions. They are often in opposition to the idealistic and transcendental traditions which had been dominant for a long time and are still influential (especially the writings of Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel). What appeared in the twentieth century as a revolution or break became estab- lished as branches of new traditions, which will likely con- tinue for quite a while. They are of no less importance than the extensive investigations of the history of philoso- phy and the interpretation of classical texts, the treasures of which are made fruitful for contemporary thinking. Three main currents are characteristic today: (1) the hermeneutic current, which evolved out of the plurality of interpretations and deals with them; (2) the post-modern current, which is brought about by the plurality of life- forms, partially leading to an extreme relativism, and giv- ing special emphasis to aesthetic points of view; and 336 German philosophy (3) the scientific and science-oriented current, which reacts to the growth of knowledge and the increase in specializa- tion, and carefully considers the theoretical and practical conditions and consequences of the scientization and mechanization of the world we live in. A shared core of these three main currents is anthropology in all its different aspects—a reflection about man as an interpreting, social, and natural being that searches for orientation in an increasingly complex world. 1. Hermeneutic philosophy is the only main current today that has persisted relatively intact since before the Second World War, and is the deepest continuation of traditional philosophy in the German-speaking realm. It builds espe- cially upon the analyses of understanding by Wilhelm Dilthey, phenomenology (Edmund Husserl), analyses of being (Martin Heidegger), and subsequent philosophical hermeneutics in a narrower sense (Hans-Georg Gadamer). At the centre of this ‘art of understanding’ are philosoph- ical, literary, and theological texts and their historical hori- zon, as well as the methods of the humanities, and everyday life as a whole. This approach is chiefly about interpretations and hence also about the phenomenon of language (which rose—but for different reasons and espe- cially with the aim of a theory of meaning—to be a main subject of analytical philosophy as well). The conditions and features of the communicative society, as well as lin- guistic practice itself, are analysed (with natural connec- tions to speech-act theory, structuralism, and general semiotics). Not the individual consciousness but, rather, intersubjectivity is regarded as constitutive for reason and the truth of statements. Contrary to the coherence and cor- respondence theories of truth, which are dominant in sci- entific philosophy, consensus theories of truth are favoured, and the concept of explanation is confronted with the concept of understanding. The underlying motiv- ations for thought and action are analysed, leading to dis- course ethics ( Jürgen Habermas, Karl-Otto Apel) and a strong tendency to investigate and criticize social mecha- nisms (with connections to sociology) and the tradition of philosophical enlightenment. Sometimes social theory has almost demanded the status of a prima philosophia. Before the reunification of Germany, Marxist philosophy also had a shaping influence: in West Germany (FRG) as a critical instance within the scope of the Frankfurt School (Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Mar- cuse, Jürgen Habermas, etc.), and quite differently in East Germany (GDR) as a state doctrine. Today, the spectrum of the hermeneutic current extends from the attempting of ultimate explanations in ideal-communicative and tran- scendental-pragmatic contexts, to a ‘farewell to principles’ (Abschied vom Prinzipiellen, Odo Marquard). The search for anthropological and social guide-lines for managing one’s own existence took the place of systematizing objective truths in a philosophia perennis. This pragmatic turn lead to a self-restriction of philosophy. Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later investigations of the philosophy of language gave many impulses for the analysis of everyday communication and the life-world. In taking very different historical, geographical, but also individual ways of life into consideration, the ‘new obscurity’ is also reflected in the second contemporary main current: 2. Post-modern philosophy which, in the broader sense, separates itself from ways of thinking which are orientated towards strict methods, rationality, linguistic analyses, and the search for objective knowledge. It has been influ- enced partly by twentieth-century French philosophy. So-called post-modernism (a somewhat misleading term which expresses, quite appropriately, a certain insecurity within this current) tries to interpret the plurality of approaches and perspectives affirmatively and as progress, contrary to sceptical objections. At the same time, earlier philosophical systems and traditions are con- sidered ‘grand narratives’ among others. Some aspects of the modern are preserved, however, which is why Wolf- gang Welsch spoke of ‘our postmodern modern age’. Here one continues to emphasize human autonomy; on the other hand, belief in the progress of science and society is questioned or criticized as a form of totalitarianism. The aim is a ‘narrative philosophy’ similar to Richard Rorty’s in the USA. Questions about forms of life, and how to conduct one’s own life, are the focus of interest in this divergent current of thought, which exceeds post-modernism in a narrower sense; traditional philosophizing with its demand for ultimate obligations recedes into the back- ground. Culture and art critics, journalists, artists, movie directors and talk-show hosts now consider themselves competent to answer philosophical questions. The result is a popularization of philosophical topics in philosophical cafés, feature pages, and on television. Aesthetics, philoso- phy of art, and the search for meaning, happiness, and an art of living become more and more important; occasion- ally there are even attempts to apply philosophy thera- peutically. A philosophy of the media has developed, where virtual reality, simulation, and surrogates acquire paradigmatic status. There is a far-reaching scepticism about metaphysics and rationality, attacking social taboos (e.g. in the evaluation of mental diseases and criminality) and cultural bias. There is an increased exploration of ways of thinking from other cultures, especially Asia. Finally, some post-modern philosophers oppose meta- physical or scientific realism, justifying this with historical investigations of era changes and paradigm shifts, as well as studies of the sociology of science; they argue for diverse forms of anti-realism and relativism. This is in sharp contrast to the third main current: 3. Scientific and science-oriented philosophy, which has mostly been influenced by the Anglo-American world, and can be subdivided into a theoretical and a more practical, applied part. The theoretical side, with its emphasis of the significance of logic, language analysis, and empiricism, is dominated by analytical philosophy and philosophy of science. It is in the tradition of Cambridge philosophers like G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, the early Ludwig Wittgenstein, and especially the Vienna Circle. German philosophy today 337 Historically its reception did not begin until the emigra- tion of many of its proponents to the USA, and the subse- quent radiation of their teachings. Additionally, Karl Popper and his successors had a formative influence on philosophy of science and political philosophy (fallibilism, criticism of totalitarianism). Also initiated by Popper, and in conjunction with biological discoveries, evolutionary epistemology was developed. Here the nature and cap- acity of our epistemological faculties are viewed objectiv- istically in the light of the Darwinian theory of selection. Contrary to this, radical constructivism takes a more rela- tivistic and subjectivistic view, culminating in quasi- idealistic epistemological schemes. It is inspired by cyber- netics and neurobiology. In the framework of the Erlanger school (Paul Lorenzen), constructivist approaches also exist in philosophy of science (especially of physics) and mathematics. The focus of interest here is the process and methods of gaining knowledge: philosophy of science is transformed into a theory of action, and laws of nature are interpreted as instructions to act. Structuralism (Wolf- gang Stegmüller and successors) is another prominent current in philosophy of science; its focal point is, the for- mal description and reconstruction of scientific theories. Finally, those working within the framework of modern philosophy of nature reflect on scientific knowledge and interpret its implications for an extensive philosophical world-view. Partly this has the character of a counter- movement to post-modern pluralism and splintering, striving for orientation by means of a unification of sci- ence and world interpretation. It has, however, by now reached its own high degree of differentiation and, thus, complexity or obscurity. The central issue being dealt with is naturalism (physicalism, materialism). It is both elaborated and stated in rigorous forms, and also criti- cized. Especially influential upon philosophy of nature and mind are discoveries in physics (cosmology, chaos theory, particle physics) and biology (evolutionary the- ory, neuroscience). As in the Anglo-American world, the mind–body problem, consciousness, intentionality, per- sonal identity, free will, and artificial intelligence have long been central issues, with interdisciplinary connec- tions to evolutionary and cognitive psychology, linguis- tics, and computer science. A new topic is evolutionary ethics, which combines sociobiology, ethnology, and behavioural ecology to explore possible biological foun- dations of morality. The applied side of scientific philosophy is concerned with the decisions required by new results and opportun- ities of science and technology. There is a political dimen- sion to this, and that is why philosophers participate in advisory boards and parliamentary decision-making. Par- ticularly urgent and controversial are the different domains of bioethics, especially because of the new possi- bilities in genetics and medicine. Another focus of interest is philosophy of technology. Here, quite pragmatic ten- dencies are common, which accompany technological developments mainly reflectively and try to evaluate their effects and implications. The three main currents outlined are not unrelated and separate from each other. There were and are connecting topics, attempts at mediation, and more or less fruitful controversies (e.g. the positivist dispute). Within the phil- osophy of mind, for instance, phenomenological and ana- lytical approaches are linked to each other, post-modern ideas are discussed (‘the end of the subject’), and some aspects of traditional German idealism are maintained (e.g. self-consciousness in the work of Dieter Henrich and Manfred Frank). Philosophers of technology have to deal with the critical hermeneutical tradition since Martin Hei- degger. Philosophers of nature derive some inspirations (e.g. for the problem of emergence) from the organismic conceptions of nature which go back to German idealism and romanticism. There is interpollination between hermeneutical and analytical schools, especially in discus- sions of ethics and ecology. In general pragmatics, there are efforts to integrate hermeneutic, relativistic, and natur- alistic perspectives. Whatever its different currents and points of view, philosophy should, after all, always be indispensable as a means for conceptual analysis and reflection, as well as being a critical authority, for science and society. r.v. k.w. A. Bowie, Introduction to German Philosophy (Cambridge, 2003). P. Gorner, Twentieth-Century German Philosophy (Oxford, 2000). J. Habermas, Postmetaphysical Thinking, tr. W. M. Hohengarten (Cambridge, Mass., 1994). K. Wuchterl, Bausteine zu einer Geschichte der Philosophie des 20. Jahrhunderts (Bern, 1995). —— Handbuch der analytischen Philosophie und Grundlagen- forschung (Bern, 2002). Gestalt theory. A psychological theory which tried to explain various aspects of psychology in terms of struc- tures (Gestalten), particularly in relation to the tendency of forms of *perception to conform to ‘good’ structures (the so-called law of Prägnanz). The movement was initiated by Max Wertheimer (1880–1943), Wolfgang Köhler (1897–1967), and Kurt Koffka (1886–1941) in reaction against earlier sensationalist psychological theories which tried to break down the mental life into atomic sensations and ideas. The Gestaltists emphasized ‘wholes’ and struc- tures which could not be broken down into elements. Ini- tially the movement was concerned with perception, starting from the phi-phenomenon, the apparent move- ment of alternating points of light; but gradually other aspects of psychology, including both their physiological and their philosophical backing, were brought within the same principles, especially by Köhler. d.w.h. D. W. Hamlyn, The Psychology of Perception (London, 1957). K. Koffka, Principles of Gestalt Psychology (London, 1935). Gettier, Edmund (1927– ). Gettier is famous in Anglo- American epistemology for one three-page paper in which he attacks the tripartite definition of *knowledge. This defines ‘S knows that p’ as: 338 German philosophy today 1. p is true. 2. S believes that p. 3. S’s belief that p is justified. Gettier showed by counter-example that this definition is insufficient; there are cases where the three clauses are all true, but S does not know. The general idea was that one’s true belief might be justified in a way that depends too much on luck, as, for example, when a clock which is normally accurate happens to have stopped, but its hands indicate the very time at which one glances at it. In a case like this, one has a true belief which is justified, but is not knowledge. (Russell made the same point some decades earlier.) Considerable effort has been spent, especially in the USA, on repairing the definition. Counter-examples to suggested repairs are known as Gettier counter-examples. j.d. *counter-example, philosophy by. E. L. Gettier, ‘Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?’, Analysis (1963). Geulincx, Arnold (1624–69). An occasionalist, a modified Cartesian, and an anti-Aristotelian, Geulincx moved from Louvain to Leiden, and simultaneously from Catholicism to *Calvinism, in 1658. Using the analogy of two synchron- ized but otherwise unconnected *clocks which strike simultaneously, he pointed out the possibility of there being two law-governed areas with no causal interaction. Applying this to the general case he held that though God acts immediately and in a lawlike manner in the realms of both thought and extension, there is no interaction between the two. Like Descartes, Geulincx was a plenist who held that body and extension are coextensive. Hence, given his supposition that the universe is infinite, so is mat- ter. Motion, however, may not be. Beyond the universe of events lies infinite space: ‘completely solid, completely dark, harder than any adamant’. j.j.m. *Cartesianism; occasionalism. B. Cooney, ‘Arnold Geulincx: A Cartesian Idealist’, Journal of the History of Philosophy (1978). Gewirth, Alan (1912–2004). Gewirth did important work on Descartes’s theory of knowledge and medieval politi- cal philosophy, especially Marsilius of Padua, but he is best known for his attempt to develop a stringently rational foundation for morality in Reason and Morality. The cen- tral argument of this book begins with a claim that every rational agent must accept, which is that he or she must have freedom and well-being. Gewirth claims that when the implications of this claim are fully worked out, it fol- lows that every rational agent must also accept the claim that all prospective purposive agents have a moral *right to freedom and well-being. Professor Gewirth spent most of his career at the University of Chicago. j.p.s. Alan Gewirth, Reason and Morality (Chicago, 1978). —— The Community of Rights (Chicago, 1996). Ghaza¯lı¯, al- (1058/9–1111). Persian Abu¯H . a¯mid Muh . ammad Ghaza¯lı¯ (Algazel in Latin texts) was the most influential Ash‘arite theologian of his time. His role as head of the state-endowed Niz . a¯miyya Madrasa, his monu- mental work Revival of Religious Sciences, and his autobio- graphical account Deliverance from Error (often compared to Augustine’s Confessions) furthered the triumph of reve- lation over reason. His specifically anti-philosophical works, Intentions of the Philosophers and Incoherence of the Philosophers, called on theologians to use philosophical technique to oppose ‘heretic’ arguments. However, the effects on philosophy proved positive. The study of logic gained widespread theological acceptance. The identifica- tion of twenty philosophical problems argued to be false (including eternity, immortality, and rational causality) were brilliantly rebutted by Averroës, thus leading to refinement of Aristotelian arguments, and Sohravardı¯’s philosophy. h.z. W. M. Watt, The Faith and Practice of al-Ghaza¯lı¯ (London, 1951). ghost in the machine. Gilbert Ryle in his book The Con- cept of Mind held that the ‘Cartesian’ tradition represents the human body as a purely physical thing (the machine), and the human *mind as a purely non-physical thing (the ghost) somehow inhabiting the body and ‘operating’ it from inside. ‘The ghost in the machine’ is his derisive title for this—as Ryle argues—fundamentally misleading picture. g.j.w. *self; persons; subjectivity; category mistake. G. Ryle, The Concept of Mind (London, 1949), 15ff. Gibbard, Allan (1942– ). American philosopher, profes- sor at the University of Michigan, who has developed a general theory of normative judgement. According to this expressivist theory, to cite a reason for action or judgement is to accept norms that give it weight in deliberation. Norms serve the biological function of social co-ordination, and Gibbard offers naturalistic accounts of their force and degree of objectivity. Morality concerns the rationality of feelings such as guilt and anger that sanction unco- operative actions. Feelings have rationales stating that the circumstances that elicit them call for the actions they prompt, and moral norms endorse or alter the rationales for these moral feelings that have naturally evolved. a.h.j. A. Gibbard, Wise Choices, Apt Feelings: A Theory of Normative Judge- ment (Cambridge, Mass., 1990). —— Thinking How to Live (Cambridge, Mass., 2003). Giles of Rome (c.1247–1316). A member of the Order of the Hermits of St Augustine, rising to become General of the order in 1292. He studied at Paris, possibly under Aquinas, and eventually taught theology there. He pro- duced a number of commentaries on Aristotle’s writings, though his most famous treatise Errors of the Philosophers was a different sort of work, in which he attacks Aristotle and a number of major Muslim and Jewish thinkers. His aim is, however, not always accurate. For example, although he singles out Maimonides for censure partly on the grounds that the latter taught that some terms Giles of Rome 339 . of hypotheses, together with the hypothesis A, a contradict- ory conclusion can be derived, then the negation of A may be inferred as depending on the hypotheses Γ alone. The hypotheses on which the. scientific and other thought genius 331 of his times; he not only synthesizes these but adds the stamp of his own mind to them; the force of the ideas alters the direction of subsequent thought; the ideas embody. and to keep the natural sciences in their proper place, if not to ignore them altogether. Connected with this (since theologians need to inter- pret ancient texts) is the deeply historical character