Online research in philosophy

Open peer commentary on the target article “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite Radical Constructivism” by Siegfried J. Schmidt. Upshot: My suggestion is that the shift from objects to processes can be seen as grounded in the processes of self-generation common to all living organisms. Specifically human cognition is a subsequent evolutionary emergence.

Open peer commentary on the target article “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite Radical Constructivism” by Siegfried J. Schmidt. Upshot: I focus my commentary on the fundamental metaphysical issue that Siegfried J. Schmidt’s very stimulating paper addresses in §45 and particularly upon the relationship between the ontological status of the processes from which worlds emerge and the temporality of the objects to be found therein. I argue that Schmidt’s emphasis on world-forming processes raises many questions concerning the temporal stability of objects and the relationship between objects and actors belonging to different worlds. I suggest that some classic as well as contemporary thinkers (e.g., Fichte, Hegel, Heidegger, Gadamer, Foucault, and S. J. Gould) have faced similar problems and discuss how their answers could be integrated within Schmidt’s revised radical constructivism.

Open peer commentary on the target article “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite Radical Constructivism” by Siegfried J. Schmidt. Upshot: Interested in the practical side of philosophy, I tell a story as an example of the never-ending process of life and add some questions: which stories can we tell that undermine and complement our traditions, emotions, abstract rationality, and mainstream ideologies?

Peer Review and Copyright each have a double role: Formal refereeing protects (R1) the author from publishing and (R2) the reader from reading papers that are not of sufficient quality. Copyright protects the author from (C1) theft of text and (C2) theft of authorship. It has been suggested that in the electronic medium we can dispense with peer review, "publish" everything, and let browsing and commentary do the quality control. It has also been suggested that special safeguards and laws may be needed to enforce copyright on the Net. I will argue, based on 20 years of editing Behavioral and Brain Sciences, a refereed (paper) journal of peer commentary, 8 years of editing Psycoloquy, a refereed electronic journal of peer commentary, and 1 year of implementing CogPrints, an electronic archive of unrefereed preprints and refereed reprints in the cognitive sciences modeled on the Los Alamos Physics Eprint Archive, that (i) peer commentary is a supplement, not a substitute, for peer review, (ii) the authors of refereed papers, who get and seek no royalties from the sale of their texts, only want protection from theft of authorship on the Net, not from theft of text, which is a victimless crime, and hence (iii) the trade model (subscription, site license or pay- per-view) should be replaced by author page-charges to cover the much reduced cost of implementing peer review, editing and archiving on the Net, in exchange for making the learned serial corpus available for free for all forever.

Open peer commentary on the target article “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite Radical Constructivism” by Siegfried J. Schmidt > Upshot: Radical Constructivism should be strictly process-oriented to avoid hidden ontology. S. J. Schmidt provides such a strict process-orientation from a very philosophical viewpoint that, however, still lacks access to empirical research. The purpose of this commentary is to show a way to apply Schmidt’s philosophical framework to empirical research.

Open peer commentary on the target article “From Objects to Processes: A Proposal to Rewrite Radical Constructivism” by Siegfried J. Schmidt. Upshot: This commentary asks if Schmidt’s latest process-orientated philosophy is based on a vicious infinite regress argument. The commentator uses recent literature on the distinction of vicious and benign infinite regresses (from Claude Gratton and Nicholas Rescher) and tries to show that – taken verbatim – there is a serious logical problem in Schmidt’s argumentation.

For the purpose of this discussion, I am taking it for granted that the sense of being stared at is real. The weight of available evidence seems to support its factual existence, as discussed in my earlier article in this issue of the Journal of Consciousness Studies. Some people will dispute this conclusion, and there is as yet no universal consensus. But it is not necessary for everyone to agree that a phenomenon exists before discussing its possible implications. A discussion of the implications of evolution began long before everyone agreed that evolution had occurred, and there are still people who deny its reality.

Does your dog know when it is time for walkies, even if you are in a different room when you decide to take it out? Can you sometimes tell that you are being stared at, even when your kibitzer is some distance away and completely hidden? If so, Rupert Sheldrake (www.sheldrake.org) would like to hear from you. He has compiled a database of over 5,000 such cases, and would be glad to learn of any more.