Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906—1945) For Bonhoeffer, the foundation of ethical behaviour lay in how the reality of the world and the reality of God were reconciled in the reality of Christ. Both in his thinking and in his life, ethics were centered on the demand for action by responsible men and women in the face of evil. He was sharply critical of ethical theory and of

Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosophy of History Nietzsche was well-steeped in his contemporary methods and debates in the philosophy of history, which carried over into his philosophy in essential ways. Once a prodigy in classical philology, Nietzsche’s philosophy is everywhere concerned with traditions, historical shifts in custom and meaning, et, to adapt his key expression, “how things become what they are”. Beyond these, Nietzsche was closely concerned

Sigmund Freud (1856—1939) Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, was a physiologist, medical doctor, psychologist and influential thinker of the early twentieth century. Working initially in close collaboration with Joseph Breuer, Freud elaborated the theory that the mind is a complex energy-system, the structural investigation of which is the proper province of psychology. He articulated and refined the concepts of the unconscious, infantile sexuality and

L'argument du caractère indispensable dans la philosophie des mathématiques Dans son article fondateur de 1973, « La vérité mathématique," Paul Benacerraf a présenté un problème auquel sont confrontés tous les récits de vérité et de connaissance mathématiques. Les lectures standard des affirmations mathématiques impliquent l'existence d'objets mathématiques. Mais, nos meilleures théories épistémiques semblent nier que la connaissance des objets mathématiques soit possible. Ainsi, le philosophe des mathématiques est confronté à un dilemme: soit abandonner la norme

Bernard Bolzano: Philosophy of Mathematical Knowledge In Bernard Bolzano’s theory of mathematical knowledge, properties such as analyticity and logical consequence are defined on the basis of a substitutional procedure that comes with a conception of logical form that prefigured contemporary treatments such as those of Quine and Tarski. Three results are particularly interesting: the elaboration of a calculus of probability, the definition of (narrow and

The Knowledge Argument Against Physicalism The knowledge argument is one of the main challenges to physicalism, the doctrine that the world is entirely physical. The argument begins with the claim that there are truths about consciousness that cannot be deduced from the complete physical truth. Par exemple, Frank Jackson’s Mary learns all the physical truths from within a black-and-white room. Then she leaves the room,