Causal Role Theories of Functional Explanation Functional explanations are a type of explanation offered in the natural and social sciences. In giving these explanations, researchers appeal to the functions that a structure or system has. Zum Beispiel, a biologist might say, “The kidney has the function of eliminating waste products from the bloodstream.” Or a sociologist might say, “The purpose of monogamy is to preserve the

Higher-Order Theories of Consciousness The most fundamental and commonly used notion of the term ‘conscious’ in philosophical circles is captured by Thomas Nagel’s famous “what it is like” sense (Nagel 1974). When I am in a conscious mental state, there is “something it is like” for me to be in that state from the subjective or first-person point of view. When I smell a rose

Anne-Thérèse Marguenat de Courcelles, Marquise de Lambert (1647–1733) Eine prominente Salonnière im Frankreich Ludwigs XIV. und der Regentschaft, Madame de Lambert verfasste zahlreiche Aufsätze zu philosophischen Themen. Ihre berühmtesten Werke, zwei Anweisungen an ihren Sohn und ihre Tochter, Analysieren Sie die Tugenden, die von jedem Geschlecht in der Aristokratie gepflegt werden müssen. Männer streben nach Ruhm, während Frauen sich auf Demut konzentrieren. Während der literarischen Querelle

Immanuel Kant: Aesthetics Immanuel Kant is an 18th century German philosopher whose work initated dramatic changes in the fields of epistemology, Metaphysik, Ethik, Ästhetik, and teleology. Like many Enlightenment thinkers, he holds our mental faculty of reason in high esteem; he believes that it is our reason that invests the world we experience with structure. In his works on aesthetics and teleology, er argumentiert das

Anne Le Fèvre Dacier (1647—1720) A distinguished classicist during the reign of the French king Louis XIV, Madame Dacier achieved renown for her translation of Greek and Latin texts into French. Her translation of Homer’s Iliad (1699) and Odyssey (1708) remains a monument of neoclassical French prose. In defending Homer during a new chapter of the literary quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, Dacier developed