The original version of the Principle of Verifiabüity (PV), formulated as "The meaning of a proposition is the method of its verification" (Schlick, quoting Wittgenstein), can be criticised as ungrammatical. Schlick's claim that it was a "truism" reflecting commonsense and scientific practice is refuted by PV's paradoxical consequences. Its users faüed to distinguish between operational and situational readings, the latter of which invokes a mythology of comparison with "facts". Wittgenstein rightly described PV as a "rule of thumb" of limited usefulness.

Die im Wiener Kreis dominierenden konträren Derücer Otto Neurath und Moritz Schlick werden jeweüs mit einem historisch-genetischen Profil persönlich, wissenschaftlich-phüosophisch und politisch charakterisiert. Dabei wüd trotz verschiedener Differenzen — als Extrempositionen im pluralistisch-heterogenen Wiener Kreis — die gemeinsame Müiimalplattform eüier "wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung" und das Bekenntnis zu einer als neuartig verstandenen Forschergemeinschaft transparent. Erst vor diesem Hintergrund sind die beiden Denker- und Persönlichkeitsphysiognomien in einen adäquaten Kontext gestellt: während bei Neurath eine konsistente Entwicklung von den Modellen einer "wissenschaftlichen Philosophie", "Einheitswissenschaft" bis zur "Enzyklopädie" im Zusammenhang mit einem Sozialreformerischen Programm und funktionaler Antimetaphysik zu erkennen ist, wird bei Schlick der Dualismus von Philosophie und Wissenschaft neben einem politischen Liberalismus beibehalten. Auf allgemeinster Ebene kollidieren"phüosophiefreier" RELATIVISMUS und "philosophischer" ABSOLUTISMUS.

Maßgebliche Vertreter der wissenschaftlichen Weltauffassung des Wiener Kreises wie Moritz Schlick, Otto Neurath oder Edgar Zilsel waren jenseits aller sonstigen Differenzen gemeinsam bemüht, gegenüber den im Gefolge der "Krise des mechanistischen Weltbüdes" (die gerade in Mitteleuropa auch eine Krise des Bürgertums überhaupt war) auftretenden Strömungen des Anti-Empüismus, Irrationalismus und Erkenntnispessimismus die Errungenschaften der neuzeitlichen Wissenschaft zu bewahren.Für die Auseinandersetzung mit der gegenwärtigen Phüosophie und Wissenschaft und üirer gesellschaftlichen Stellung wäre ein Anknüpfen an die damaligen Debatten von großer Bedeutung.

Ausgehend von Descartes' Meditationen werden die Standard-Argumente für den — auf den Bereich empirischer Propositionen beschränkten — Skeptizismus untersucht. Der Versuch einer empirischen Begründung nach dem Schema "Wir haben uns alle schon einmal geirrt, also sollten wir es für möglich halten, daß wir uns immer irren" erweist sich dabei als zirkulär; der alternative, apriorische Begründungsversuch der Art "Es ist stets (logisch) möglich, daß wir uns irren, also wissen wir nichts mit absoluter Sicherheit" beruht dagegen auf einer Verwechslung der Begriffe logischer Möglichkeit und doxastischer Möglichkeit und führt zu einer unhaltbaren Konzeption "notwendigen Wissens".

Alexius Meinong developed a notion of defective objects in order to account for various logical and psychological paradoxes. The notion is of historical interest, since it presages recent work on the logical paradoxes by Herzberger and Kripke. But it fails to do the job it was designed for. However, a technique implicit in Meinong's investigation is more successful and can be adapted to resolve a similar paradox discovered by Romane Clark in a revised version of Meinong's Theory of Objects due to Rapaport. One family of paradoxes remains, but it is argued that they are unavoidable and relatively harmless.

Gegenüber der verbreiteten Auffassung, daß unter einem Sachverhalt das zu verstehen ist, was Frege einen Gedanken nennt, wird die Auffassung verteidigt, daß der in einem Satz ausgesagte Sachverhalt als eine extensionale Größe von dem in dem Satz ausgedrückten Gedanken als einer intensionalen Größe zu unterscheiden ist, wobei diese Unterscheidung auf folgenden Identitätskriterien beruht: Die in zwei Sätzen ausgesagten Sachverhalte sind genau dann identisch, wenn die beiden Sätze unter denselben Bedingungen wahr sind. Die in zwei Sätzen ausgedrückten Gedanken (oder Propositionen) hingegen sind genau dann identisch, wenn demjenigen, der die beiden Sätze versteht, die Bedingungen ihrer Wahrheit in derselben Weise gegeben sind. Diese Auffassung erlaubt es, anstelle des Wahrheitswertes, den ein Satz hat, den Sachverhalt, dessen Bestehen oder Nicht-Bestehen die Wahrheit bzw. Falschheit des Satzes bedingt, als das zu betrachten, was Frege zur Unterscheidung vom Sinn des Satzes dessen Bedeutung nennt.

Voluntarism is the view that it is from our intimate awareness of the exercise of our wills in performing actions that we arrive at our concept of causality. This view has generally been thought to be indefensible since Hume attacked it in the Treatise and Enquiry. A variant of the position is stated and defended. The views of Castaiieda, and psychologists such as Maine de Biran, Michotte, and Piaget add clarity and enhance the plausibility of the view.

The law of excluded middle is usually considered as intrinsically connected with the realistic standpoint and incompatible with the idealistic position. This is just what Ajdukiewicz claims in his critique of transcendental idealism. The analysis of Ajdukiewicz's argumentation raises the problem of validity of the law of excluded middle for vague (or incomplete) languages. The problem is being solved by differentiating between the logical (or ontological) and the metalogical (or semantical) law of excluded middle: in contrast to the former, the latter is claimed to be invalid for the languages in question, without thereby embracing the idealist position.

Wodurch wird der Sinn des Prädikats in einer Äußerung des indexikalischen Satzes 'Ich habe Blutgruppe A' zu dem propositionalen Gehalt vervollständigt, den der Sprecher ausdrückt? Durch einen Individualbegriff (unter den der Sprecher fällt)? Durch ein Individuum (den Sprecher in propria persona)! Keiner dieser Lösungsvorschläge für das (von Perry zuerst formulierte) Vervollständigungsproblem ist überzeugend. Für Frege ist der in einer solchen Äußerung verwendete Eigenname hybrid: er besteht aus einem Vorkommnis von 'ich' und den Umständen seiner Äußerung. Der Indikator 'ich' allein ist kein Fregescher Eigenname, sondern ein namenbildender Funktor. Seine semantische Rolle ähnelt der von "token-quotes".

The purpose of this paper is first to discuss and criticize some general theses about interpretation. The concept of interpretation is shown to be more complex than these general theses indicate. Distinctions are suggested between different types o f interpretations, and an attempt is made to state criteria of interpretation and arguments which can be used to support or criticize proposed interpretations. The relations between the various types of interpretations and the criteria (arguments) are then explored. Can they be combined? How? Can they comie into conflict with each other? How are such conflicts in that case to be solved? It is argued that at least partly different criteria and arguments are used, and ought to be used, when different types of interpretations are proposed, checked, and criticized. Sometimes a particular criterion is given, and ought to be given, different weight when different types of interpretations are considered.

Various criticisms have been brought against a Platonistic construal of the musical work: that is, against the view that the musical work is a universal or kind or type, of which the performances are instances or tokens. Some of these criticisms are: (1) that musical works possess perceptual properties and universals do not; (2) that musical works are created and universals cannot be; (3) that universals cannot be destroyed and musical works can; (4) that parts of tokens of the same type can be interchanged and still yield tokens of that type, whereas we cannot interchange parts of performances of the same work and still get performances of the work. Of these claims, (1) and (2) seem to be true, but are not incompatible with a Platonistic construal of the musical work, whereas (3) and (4) just seem to be false and, therefore, of no concern to the musical Platonist.

Problems arising from two issues are examined and resolved: those having to do with reference and denotation involving fictional entities (associated with avoiding truth-value gaps and with adhering to extensional accounts) and those having to do with the realist/idealist controversy - and with confusions due to mingling the two issues. Discussion ranges over the views of Russell, Quine, Strawson, Searle, Beardsley, Ryle, Wolterstorff, van Inwagen, de Man, Bakhtin, Goodman, and others. The solutions offered depend on sorting actual persons, actual stories, and imaginary or fictitious persons; and on treating reference in a purely grammatical way, without ontological import in itself but without precluding ontological interpretation.

Peter Kivy has developed a general philosophical account of musical expressiveness based on baroque writings. But he omitted the association which baroque accounts make between the arts of music and rhetoric. It will be argued that one cannot capture the specifics of baroque musical expressiveness without taking account of baroque rhetorical theory. The detailed analysis of an example will demonstrate how rhetorical analysis of baroque music can fill in the details of Kivy's schematic account of musical expressiveness.

Music often pictures emotion through representing its expression and is thereby able to bear insight into significant aspects of emotional life. Scruton's arguments for denying that music is significantly representational is shown to fail, musical pictures having their own sort of determinacy. Musical representation is dramatic. Musical sounds play the role of expression. They themselves are portrayed as expressing the emotions which we thus represented. But musical drama is distinct from literary drama.

Numerous writers on photography and motion pictures have claimed that photographically originated pictures are essentially different from handmade pictures. Arguments made on behalf of the essential difference of photographs from other kinds of pictures generally depend upon one or another of two models of the photographic process: the visual model claims that photographs are closely allied to vision and show what we would have seen from the standpoint of the camera at the time of exposure; the mechanical or automatic model claims that irrespective of what a photograph looks like, it is a reliable index of what was the case at the moment of exposure. Each of these models is examined and shown to be faulty on either or both factual and/or conceptual grounds. Stanley Cavell's assertions about the "automatic" nature of photography are examined in some detail and shown to be either equivocal or false. It is suggested, in closing, that sharp, categorial differences between photographs and handmade pictures do not exist and that questions about the differences between photographs and, say, paintings, can be solved only within the context of viewing particular photographs and particular paintings. In sum, claims about the ontological distinctions between photographs and handmade pictures cannot be warranted.

Talk of fictions is usually problematic. One reason is our habitual difficulty in distinguishing clearly between discourse about fiction and fictional discourse. And part of our problem is understanding more clearly what such various discourse refers to. In this paper I would like to examine critically a recent influential account of "fictional discourse" with a view towards offering several proposals for reconstructing that account.

There is a real distinction between fantasy and imagination, which corresponds in part to Coleridge's distinction between fancy and imagination. Fantasy seeks substitute objects for a real emotion: it therefore involves the 'realization' of its object in a perfect simulacrum. Imagination seeks unreal objects for unreal emotions, and therefore is thwarted by the presentation of a simulacrum. At the same time, the motive of imagination is to understand what is real, and to respond with emotional alertness to it. The cinema awakens and satisfies fantasy. But it has difficulty in giving full elaboration to an imaginative thought. Its principle is not reality but realization.

Philosophers currently speak of the growth of knowledge only in the context of scientific enquiry, and concentrate exclusively on the growth of prepositional knowledge. That this is mistaken can be seen from a consideration of the knowledge acquired from fictional literature. There are many different things that are learned from fiction. Certainly people acquire prepositional beliefs and knowledge about the actual world from fiction, but they also acquire strategic and cognitive skills, emphatic beliefs and knowledge, and values of one sort or another. These are all acquired in interestingly different ways which are detailed in the body of the paper.

In an attempt to overcome the traditional casual neglect of the study of the informal fallacies, we here treat one fallacy, the ad baculum, at an adequate theoretical level in order to determine how it may best be understood as a fallacy. We conclude, after following through a number of plausible routes of tracking down the essential fallaciousness of the ad baculum, that the type of phenomenon apparently so typically thought to constitute ad baculum by the texts is not, so far as we can tell, an instance of a logical fallacy.