Münstersche Vorlesungen zur Philosophie – serie

Philip Kitcher has deeply influenced many of the current debates in the philosophy of biology. He has also made groundbreaking contributions to the philosophy of science, to ethics, the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of mathematics, and, most recently, to pragmatism. This volume results from the 15th Münster Lectures in Philosophy. It contains an original article by Kitcher and eight critical papers on a wide range of topics.

Richard Swinburne is one of the most influential contemporary proponents of the analytical philosophy of religion. He is, above all, a traditional theist, i.e. he believes, that there exists an eternal, uncreated and immaterial perfect soul called “God” which is omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly free, morally perfect and the creator and sustainer of the universe. However, his interests are very wide-ranging. He has written on almost every central theological and philosophical issue such as epistemology, metaphysics, theory of mind and ethics. Swinburne is particularly well-known for his perceptive defence of, some would say “time-honoured”, others may prefer “old-fashioned”, philosophical doctrines. During the “Münstersche Vorlesungen 2007” students and faculty members from Münster entered into a skilful and interesting discussion concerning most of Swinburne’s positions.

John R. Searle is one of the world's leading philosophers. During his long and outstanding career, he has made groundbreaking and lasting contributions to the philosophy of language, to the philosophy of mind, as well as to the nature, structure, and functioning of social reality. This volume documents the 13th Münster Lectures on Philosophy with John R. Searle. It includes not only 11 critical papers on Searle’s philosophy and Searle's replies to the papers, but also an original article by John R. Searle on his overall philosophical enterprise entitled "The Basic Reality and the Human Reality". "I think Münster is probably unique among contemporary universities in its ability to produce such a high level of philosophical production from their philosophy students." - John R. Searle

Without doubt Richard Rorty is one of the most honored, famous and disputed philosophers of our days. All over the world interest in his inspiring and provoking thoughts goes beyond the circles of academic philosophy. The present volume includes "The Brain as Hardware, Culture as Software" and "Philosophy-Envy" of Richard Rorty, papers presented by students of the philosophy department at university of Münster and Rorty's responses to and comments on them. Rorty's lecture has been publicly presented at the 8. Münstersche Vorlesungen zur Philosophie on may 26th 2004. The students presented their intensively prepared papers on the following day. The volume gives an overview of the main topics of his philosophy as well as a detailed analysis of central concepts. "The papers are of very high quality indeed, and the level of discussion during the day I spent with the students was equally high. I have never, in any university, encountered students who combined such detailed knowledge of my writings with such penetrating criticisms of my views." (Richard Rorty)

"Participation in the Münstersche Vorlesungen zur Philosophie 2005 was an honor and a genuine intellectual pleasure for me. The symposium, with all its contributions by the Münster faculty and students, was a wonderfully valuable experience. I can hardly do justice to its spirit of free discussion, or adequately express my thanks, by these short replies. But I think that they will testify clearly to the stimulation the symposium provided and to how much I learned from this exchange." Bas van Fraassen

Robert Brandom is one of the most renowned philosophers in the analytic tradition today. This volume contains his programmatic essay 'Towards an Analytic Pragmatism', in which Brandom shows how analytic philosophy can broaden ist perspective so as to incorporate important insights of pragmatism. In addition, this volume contains nine papers dealing critically with themes from Brandom’s writings, ranging from his 1994 book Making it Explicit to Between Saying and Doing, last year’s Locke Lectures. Finally, there are replies by Robert Brandom to these papers.