A distinction has often been drawn between processes and accomplishments; between, say, *walking* and *walking to the shops*. But it has proved difficult to explain the nature of this distinction in a satisfying way. This paper offers an explanation of the nature of this distinction that is suggested by the idea that there is an ontologically significant correspondence between temporal and spatial notions. A number of writers, such as Alexander Mourelatos (1978) and Barry Taylor (1985), have argued that the spatial (...) notions of space-occupying stuff and space-occupying particular have temporal analogues. This paper builds on these discussions in offering the fuller development of a temporal ontology at the core of which are the notions of time-occupying stuff and of a time-occupying particular. It is then argued that when this analogy is properly understood it is possible to advance a distinctive explanation of the nature of the distinction between processes and accomplishments. The paper then goes on to develop some suggestions about how a temporal ontology involving the notions of temporal mass and of a temporal particular can help to provide explanations of a range of further puzzling temporal notions. In the final section of the paper, this temporal ontology is defended in the face of some possible sources of criticism. (shrink)

There has been relatively little discussion, in contemporary philosophy of mind, of the active aspects of perceptual processes. This essay presents and offers some preliminary development of a view about what it is for an agent to watch a particular material object throughout a period of time. On this view, watching is a kind of perceptual activity distinguished by a distinctive epistemic role. The essay presents a puzzle about watching an object that arises through elementary reflection on the consequences of (...) two apparent truths about watching an object throughout a period of time. It proposes that the puzzle can be resolved by a view according to which for an agent to watch an object throughout a period of time is for that agent to maintain visual awareness of that object with the aim of perceptually knowing what that object is doing. The essay goes on to make some further suggestions about how the apparatus developed in connection with the notion of watching may enable us to offer related explanations of other kinds of perceptual activity. It proposes that a useful distinction can be drawn between perceptual activities like watching which have as their aim knowledge of what an object is doing and activities like looking or visually scrutinizing which have as their aims knowledge of the states or conditions of the objects of perceptual awareness. (shrink)

Reflection on cases involving the occurrence of various types of perceptual activity suggests that the phenomenal character of perceptual experience can be partly determined by agential factors. I discuss the significance of these kinds of case for the dispute about phenomenal character that is at the core of recent philosophy of perception. I then go on to sketch an account of how active and passive elements of phenomenal character are related to one another in activities like watching and looking at (...) things. (shrink)

Though it enjoys widespread support, the claim that perceptual experiences possess nonconceptual content has been vigorously disputed in the recent literature by those who argue that the content of perceptual experience must be conceptual content. Nonconceptualism and conceptualism are often assumed to be well-defined theoretical approaches that each constitute unitary claims about the contents of experience. In this paper I try to show that this implicit assumption is mistaken, and what consequences this has for the debate about perceptual experience. I (...) distinguish between two different ways that nonconceptualist proposals about perceptual content can be understood: as claims about the constituents that compose perceptual contents or as claims about whether a subject’s undergoing experiences with those contents requires them to possess the concepts that characterize those contents. I maintain that these ways of understanding conceptualism and nonconceptualism are orthogonal to one another. This is revealed by the conceptual coherence of positions in which the contents of experiences have both conceptual and nonconceptual features; positions which possess their own distinctive sources of philosophical motivation. I argue that the fact that there is a place in conceptual space for such positions, and that there may be good reason for theorists to adopt them, creates difficulties for both the central argument for nonconceptualism and the central argument for conceptualism. I set out each of these arguments; the Argument from Possession-Independence and the Epistemically-Driven Argument. I then try to show how the existence of mixed positions about perceptual content derived from a clear distinction between compositional and possessional considerations constitutes a significant obstacle for those arguments as they stand. The takehome message of the paper is that unless one clearly acknowledges the distinction between issues about the composition of perceptual content and issues about how subject’s capacities to undergo certain experiences relates to their possession of concepts one runs the risk of embracing unsatisfying philosophical arguments in which conclusions relevant to one conception of nonconceptual and conceptual content are grounded on arguments that concern only the other; arguments that cannot, in themselves, sustain them. (shrink)

Watching, looking at, and listening to, are all things that perceiving agents actively do. Though the occurrence of these activities appears to entail perception of elements of the agent's environment, perception is not something that can be actively done by agents. This raises the question how perceptual activity and perception are related to one another. This chapter, through reflecting on a discussion of listening offered by Brian O'Shaughnessy, argues that listening to material particulars ought to be understood as the agential (...) maintenance of aural awareness of those particulars, with the aim of knowing what sounds they are making. He goes on to explore some of the consequences of these claims about listening for exercises of perceptual agency involving the other sensory modalities. (shrink)

Most research in philosophy of perception has focussed on the perceptual experience of three-dimensional, solid, bounded and coherent material objects – items like ink-stands and tomatoes. But as well as having perceptual experience of such objects, we also experience such ‘perceptual ephemera’ as, for instance, rainbows, surfaces, and stuff; things that are ephemeral in the sense that they can be contrasted, in selected respects, with material objects. This book collects together fourteen new essays on the perceptual experience of ‘ephemera’. A (...) substantive introduction by the editors provides a detailed introduction to the topic as a whole, setting out the thematic background to this emerging area of research in contemporary philosophy of perception. The volume winds a path through the ephemeral that touches on sensibilia, shadows and absences, as well as on ephemeral topics that are less familiar: media, transparency, camouflage, solidity and ambient vision. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe aim of the paper is to demonstrate the fruitfulness of the influential verb typology developed by Zeno Vendler for recent debates in the philosophy of perception. Section one explains t...

‘Liberty’, as a word, is thrown about contemporary society as casually as a ball is on a summer’s day, and yet, does anyone have a grasp on what it is? If it is freedom from limitation, then liberty must represent nothing less than consciousness without restraint. But though this straightforward definition implies its acquisition to be equally straightforward, the full spectrum of liberty would certainly prove to be one of the most elusive concepts imaginable. As a result, what we have, (...) and what we throw about so indifferently, is a Substitute - a poor kind of replica of the real thing. True liberty - Omniversal liberty - is much less tangible however, and represents the equilibrium that occurs when anything is possible, but where the capacity to ever allow one possibility to dominate over another becomes impossible to maintain. (shrink)

There is a much‐discussed form of argument the conclusion of which is that we do not directly perceive space‐filling material objects themselves, only parts of their surfaces. Donald Davidson's view that events are temporal particulars invites a structurally similar argument about the direct perception of events. In this paper, I spell out such an argument and consider a number of possible solutions to it. I explore the idea that a satisfactory response to this problem in the philosophy of perception can (...) be grounded in a temporal ontology that includes temporal stuff as well as temporal particulars. I discuss different ways of developing this idea, and I go on to identify what I take to be the most promising version of an approach of this kind. (shrink)

Life is a battlefield onto which we are thrown at birth, with only fate and fortune settling upon where we land. Wherever we land, whether it's on the front lines or surrounded by a network of defenses, we are all asking the same question: why are we here? The problem with this question, however, is that we tend to answer it from our own relative positions, and so we all arrive at different conclusions. The many answers we've created have filled (...) the field. They have become banners that are raised high so that we can see and follow them. These banners are always at risk of being toppled though; always at risk of losing their capacity for belief. But then, what if belief is more than a mere by-product of our universal search? What if belief can change the very fabric of this field? That is, what if truth is actually irrelevant, and the only real thing that makes up this battlefield is the belief, and consequently the collective will, which we invest in our answers? (shrink)

Reality is two-fold, composed of the lighted world as revealed in Genesis, and the darker primordiality which preceded it. The illuminated represents that which the human mind can comprehend, manipulate and re-order to its will: a “designed” and mechanical universe of parts. But behind it, in the backspace of reality, remains the darkness. A formless state of pre-creation, the darkness exists as an endless series of intertwining “signatures” – single possibilities waiting to be created in the illuminated forefront of reality. (...) Permitting each and every part of the lighted world to be connected to the rest, it possesses a “design” all of its own. The question is, if we are blind in the dark, how could we ever come to know it? (shrink)

There is a much-discussed form of argument the conclusion of which is that we do not directly perceive space-filling material objects themselves, only parts of their surfaces. Donald Davidson's view that events are temporal particulars invites a structurally similar argument about the direct perception of events. In this paper, I spell out such an argument and consider a number of possible solutions to it. I explore the idea that a satisfactory response to this problem in the philosophy of perception can (...) be grounded in a temporal ontology that includes temporal stuff as well as temporal particulars. I discuss different ways of developing this idea, and I go on to identify what I take to be the most promising version of an approach of this kind. (shrink)

© British Society of Aesthetics 2017. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society of Aesthetics. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: [email protected] Crowther’s most recent book How Pictures Complete Us marks a new phase in this prolific and sometimes iconoclastic philosopher’s oeuvre. Crowther—an aesthetician that engages equally with both analytic and continental traditions—is perhaps best known for his writing on Kant, his theory of ‘Supermodernity’ and for his commitment to a new form of (...) phenomenological investigation, all in the name of Crowther’s primary concern, that is, the philosophical analysis of the nature of art.Despite Crowther’s expansive frame of reference and a writing career spanning almost three decades, nowhere has he previously—to my knowledge—made substantial recourse to theological argument. This book hence represents a break in continuity... (shrink)

Several approaches to developing a theory of quantum gravity suggest that spacetime—as described by general relativity—is not fundamental. Instead, spacetime is supposed to be explained by reference to the relations between more fundamental entities, analogous to `atoms' of spacetime, which themselves are not (fully) spatiotemporal. Such a case may be understood as emergence of \textit{content}: a `hierarchical' case of emergence, where spacetime emerges at a `higher', or less-fundamental, level than its `lower-level' non-spatiotempral basis. But quantum gravity cosmology also presents us (...) with the possibility of emergence of \textit{context}: where spacetime emerges from some `prior' non-spatiotemporal state (replacing the Big Bang), due to particular conditions in the early universe. I present a general conception of emergence which is plausibly able to accommodate both pictures. This is a positive conception that does not rely on a failure of reduction or explanation in any sense (indeed, reduction is a necessary feature of quantum gravity, and is useful in understanding emergence in this case). I also consider the possibility that the distinction between content- and context- based explanations is blurred, or usefully `collapsed', in the case of spacetime emergence. (shrink)

Painting as an art: Wollheim and the subjective dimension -- Abstract art and transperceptual space: Wolheim, and beyond -- Truth in art: Heidegger against contextualism -- Space, place, and sculpture: Heidegger's pathways -- Vision in being: Merleau-Ponty and the depths of painting -- Subjectivity, the gaze, and the picture: developing Lacan -- Dimensions in time: Dufrenne's phenomenology of pictorial art -- Conclusion: a preface to post-analytic phenomenology.

In this book, T. M. Scanlon offers new answers to these questions, as they apply to the central part of morality that concerns what we owe to each other.

This volume brings together for the first time a significant number of Reid's manuscript papers on natural history, physiology and materialist metaphysics. An important contribution not only to Reid studies but also to our understanding of eighteenth-century science and its context.

The first sustained phenomenological approach to modern art, taking a new approach and drawing upon an unsual selection of thinkers.

Originally published in 1913. Author: Henri Lichtenberger Language: English Keywords: History Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Obscure Press are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.Keywords: English Keywords 1900s Language English Artwork.

Thomas Reid was a philosopher who founded the Scottish school of 'common sense'. Much of Reid's work is a critique of his contemporary, David Hume, whose empiricism he rejects. In this work, written after Reid's appointment to a professorship at the university of Glasgow, and published in 1785, he turns his attention to ideas about perception, memory, conception, abstraction, judgement, reasoning and taste. He examines the work of his predecessors and contemporaries, arguing that 'when we find philosophers maintaining that (...) there is no heat in the fire, nor colour in the rainbow … we may be apt to think the whole to be only a dream of fanciful men, who have entangled themselves in cobwebs spun out of their own brain'. Written by one of the Scottish Enlightenment's most important thinkers, this work brings to life the intellectual debates of the time. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas produced a voluminous body of work on moral theory, and much of that work is on virtue, particularly the status and value of the virtues as principles of virtuous acts, and the way in which a moral life can be organized around them schematically. Thomas Osborne presents Aquinas's account of virtue in its historical, philosophical and theological contexts, to show the reader what Aquinas himself wished to teach about virtue. His discussion makes the complexities of Aquinas's (...) moral thought accessible to readers despite the differences between Thomas's texts themselves, and the distance between our background assumptions and his. The book will be valuable for scholars and students in ethics, medieval philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

Mindfulness and the Birth Sphere draws together and critically appraises a raft of emerging research around mindfulness in healthcare, looking especially at its relevance to pregnancy and childbirth. This is an essential read for all those interested in mindfulness in connection to pregnancy and childbirth, including midwives, doulas, doctors and birth activists, whether involved in practice, research or education.

There has been an explosion of interest in the metaphysics of fundamentality in recent decades. The consensus view, called metaphysical foundationalism, maintains that there is something absolutely fundamental in reality upon which everything else depends. However, a number of thinkers have chal- lenged the arguments in favor of foundationalism and have proposed competing non-foundationalist ontologies. This paper provides a systematic and critical introduction to metaphysical foundationalism in the current literature and argues that its relation to ontological dependence and substance should (...) be qualified in important ways. (shrink)

In a recent paper Weinberg (2007) claims that there is an essential mark of trustworthiness which typical sources of evidence as perception or memory have, but philosophical intuitions lack, namely that we are able to detect and correct errors produced by these “hopeful” sources. In my paper I will argue that being a hopeful source isn't necessary for providing us with evidence. I then will show that, given some plausible background assumptions, intuitions at least come close to being hopeful, if (...) they are reliable. If this is true, Weinberg's new challenge comes down to the claim that philosophical intuitions are not reliable since they are significantly unstable. In the second part of my paper I will argue that and why the experimentally established instability of folk intuitions about philosophical cases does not show that philosopher's expert intuitions about these cases are instable. (shrink)

In this article, the authors use the context of childbirth to consider the power that is endemic in certain forms of evidence within maternity care research. First, there is consideration of how the current evidence hierarchy and experimental‐based studies are the gold standard to determine and direct women's maternity experiences, although this can be at the detriment of care and irrespective of women's needs. This is followed by a critique of how the predominant means to assess women's experiences via satisfaction (...) surveys is of limited utility, offering impartial and restricted insights to assess the quality of care provision. A counter position of hermeneutic phenomenology as research method is then described. This approach offers an alternative perspective by penetrating the taken‐for‐granted ordinariness of an event (such as childbirth) to elicit rich emic meanings. Whilst all approaches to understanding maternity care have a place, depending on the question(s) being asked, the contribution of phenomenology is how it can uncover a depth of contextual understanding into what matters to women and to inform and transform care delivery. (shrink)

I critically examine some deflationary theories of properties, according to which properties are ‘shadows of predicates’ and quantification over them serves a mere quasi-logical function. I start by considering Hofweber’s internalist theory, and pose a problem for his account of inexpressible properties. I then introduce a theory of properties that closely resembles Horwich’s minimalist theory of truth. This theory overcomes the problem of inexpressible properties, but its formulation presupposes the existence of various kinds of abstract objects. I discuss some ways (...) to reduce these existence assumptions, but ultimately suggest that deflationists can hardly avoid quantification over abstract objects of one sort or another. I conclude that property deflationism is perhaps not as deflationary as some philosophers want it to be, but that it’s still apt to call the position ‘deflationary’. (shrink)

Looking back on it, it seems almost incredible that so many equally educated, equally sincere compatriots and contemporaries, all drawing from the same limited stock of evidence, should have reached so many totally different conclusions---and always with complete certainty.

Issues concerning patients' rights are at the center of bioethics, but the political basis for these rights has rarely been examined. In Bioethics in a Liberal Society: The Political Framework of Bioethics Decision Making , Thomas May offers a compelling analysis of how the political context of liberal constitutional democracy shapes the rights and obligations of both patients and health care professionals. May focuses on how a key feature of liberal society -- namely, an individual's right to make independent (...) decisions -- has an impact on the most important relational facets of health care, such as patients' autonomy and professionals' rights of conscience. Although a liberal political framework protects individual judgments, May asserts that this right is based on the assumption of an individual's competency to make sound decisions. May uses case studies to examine society's approach to medical decision making when, for reasons ranging from age to severe mental disorder, a person lacks sufficient competency to make independent and fully informed choices. To protect the autonomy of these vulnerable patients, May emphasizes the need for health care ethics committees and ethics consultants to help guide the decision-making process in clinical settings. Bioethics in a Liberal Society is essential reading for all those interested in understanding how bioethics is practiced within our society. (shrink)

This book discusses the notion that quantum gravity may represent the "breakdown" of spacetime at extremely high energy scales. If spacetime does not exist at the fundamental level, then it has to be considered "emergent", in other words an effective structure, valid at low energy scales. The author develops a conception of emergence appropriate to effective theories in physics, and shows how it applies (or could apply) in various approaches to quantum gravity, including condensed matter approaches, discrete approaches, and loop (...) quantum gravity. (shrink)

The Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid first published Essays on Active Powers of Man in 1788 while he was Professor of Philosophy at King's College, Aberdeen. The work contains a set of essays on active power, the will, principles of action, the liberty of moral agents, and morals. Reid was a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment and one of the founders of the 'common sense' school of philosophy. In Active Powers Reid gives his fullest exploration of sensus communis as (...) the basis of all philosophical inquiry. He uses common sense realism to argue for the existence of a stable external world, the existence of other minds, and to offer a powerful challenge to versions of the Theory of Ideas advocated by Hume and Locke . This is a key work of the Scottish Enlightenment that made important contributions to fundamental debates about the basis of philosophical inquiry. (shrink)

Re-working the Gramscian idea of the ‘organic’ intellectual from the cultural-political sphere to Higher Education (HE), suggests the need to develop critical and questioning ‘counter hegemonic’ ideas and behaviour in community education students. Connecting this reworking to the Habermasian theory of communicative action, suggests that these students also need to learn how to be constructive in developing such knowledge. Working towards critical and constructive capacities is particularly relevant for students who learn through acting in practice settings where general principles and (...) purposes acquired in the academy need to be interpreted in response to the unique demands of specific situations. From a Gramscian perspective, enabling students to develop the qualities of organic intellectuals means that lecturers have a duty to teach critical knowledges which the student will be unfamiliar with and unlikely to possess. If teaching is not to become simply didactic, however, there is also a need to acknowledge Habermas’s contention that all knowledge is contingent. This does not mean that knowledge is merely relative, subjective, or essentially interest serving, as some postmodernists would have it. In Habermasian terms, knowledge is developed through a rigorous process of contesting validity claims according to procedures appropriate to discipline areas. In these procedures, contestation occurs to the point where there is general agreement about the best current understanding, until such time as this is overtaken by ideas with a better claim. The danger is that over commitment to contestation in the classroom undermines subject knowledge and ultimately the authority of the educator. Speaking Habermas to Gramsci, and vice versa, helps socially and politically committed educators to construct a space in which didactic and discursive moments purposefully alternate. (shrink)

What are the truth conditions of want ascriptions? According to an influential approach, they are intimately connected to the agent’s beliefs: ⌜S wants p⌝ is true iff, within S’s belief set, S prefers the p worlds to the not-p worlds. This approach faces a well-known problem, however: it makes the wrong predictions for what we call (counter)factual want ascriptions, wherein the agent either believes p or believes not-p—for example, ‘I want it to rain tomorrow and that is exactly what is (...) going to happen’ or ‘I want this weekend to last forever, but of course it will end in a few hours’. We solve this problem. The truth conditions for want ascriptions are, we propose, connected to the agent’s conditional beliefs. We substantiate this connection by pursuing a striking parallel between (counter)factual and non-(counter)factual want ascriptions on the one hand and counterfactual and indicative conditionals on the other. (shrink)

T. H. Green's Prolegomena to Ethics is a classic of modern philosophy. It begins with Green's idealist attack on empiricist metaphysics and epistemology and develops a perfectionist ethical theory that aims to bring together the best elements in the ancient and modern traditions, and that provides the moral foundations for Green's own distinctive brand of liberalism. David Brink's new edition will restore this great work to prominence, after two decades in which it has been hard to obtain. The present edition (...) uses the text of the fifth edition, accompanied by a new introductory essay, bibliographical essay, and index. Translations are provided for Green's quotations from other languages. Of particular importance is the editor's extended introductory essay, which situates the Prolegomena in its intellectual context, sympathetically but critically engages its main themes, and explains Green's enduring significance for the history of philosophy and contemporary ethical theory. Students and scholars of the history of ethics, ethical theory, political philosophy, and nineteenth century philosophy will find this new edition an invaluable resource. (shrink)