Clearly we can perceive both objects, and various aspects or appearances of those objects. But how should that complexity of perceptual content be explained or analyzed? I argue that perceptual representations normally have a double or two level nested structure of content, so as to adequately incorporate information both about contextual aspects Y(X) of an object X, and about the object X itself. On this double content (DC) view, perceptual processing starts with aspectual data Y?(X?) as a higher (...) level of content, which data does not itself provide lower level X-related content, but only an aspectually encoded form of such data. Hence the relevant perceptual data Y?(X?) must be. (shrink)

This essay begins by focusing on four cultural characters that signify different but associated aspects of the changing destiny of the human figure at the end of the twentieth century and beyond. These characters embody the human figure, in the double sense of form and metaphor, at work, at leisure and at war, and as gendered cultural and philosophical ideal. It is our suggestion that they provide excellent images of a general economy of the future present. Their significance as (...) indices of the destiny of the human resides in the way that they disclose the effects of a restricted economy that overflows its boundaries to incorporate, utilise and restrict every element of its generalised expenditure, to use the categories of Georges Bataille: its sumptuary excess, its sacred forms, its abjected waste, its modes of eroticism, its violence. The essay continues by discussing the implications of, and consequences for, human life in the face of the corporate or techno‐bureaucratic drive to incorporate the ‘impossible‐real’. For Paul Virilio, the technological desire to overwrite the temporal and spatial dimensions of ‘the actual’ discloses something of the ‘divine’ in this new technology. In conclusion, then, the essay questions what resistance there might be to the law of the machine‐God who lies, impossibly, as the immanent being of machinic efficiency, operativity and becoming excellence. (shrink)

The standard version of the doctrine of double effect, a significant doctrine in applied ethics particularly medical ethics, not only fails to capture some morally significant components of Aquinas’ view, but it does not resort to proper complementary features in order to accommodate the doctrine to our moral intuitions. We attempt to offer a new formulation of the doctrine incorporating the main components of Aquinas’ view and also to extend the view using some complementary features. We will examine the (...) strength of the formulation applying it into some ethically controversial situations, mainly in medical ethics. (shrink)

This article owes a lot to Arthur C. Danto's heuristic writings about the Artworld, which have shown us, that the ontological status of works of art is, at least when we discuss some current, maybe even dominating trends in contemporary art, dependent on our more or less philosophical interpretations of them. The effects of the Dantoan atmosphere of theory and art historical consciousness are, still, decisive for just some contemporary art. Danto's interest in the philosophical side of contemporary art makes (...) his philosophy of art exclusive in relation to art which is less philosophically appealing than the readymade tradition, to the extent that Danto did not, for a long time, even try to incorporate problems of beauty, aesthetic experience, and formal qualities, to his theory of the Artworld. (Opening paragraph.). (shrink)

New materialist frameworks have increasingly repudiated dualistic thinking and challenged representationalist views, which hold that discursive practices mediate our access to the material world. As it has become clear that the material cannot be considered inert, important questions concerning agency, politics and subjectivity have been raised. But while the significance of corporeality has been emphasised, Elizabeth Grosz, in an interview on her most recent book, The Incorporeal, notes that: ‘If materialism cannot account for the immaterial events we experience and (...) articulate, then it has a clear limit that it needs to address.’ An important question this raises in terms of the mutual conditionings of love and one I will address is: How can we account for the immaterial space and time tracings of love without negating the material in the process? To answer this, I turn to Deleuze's The Logic of Sense. (shrink)

The hardest part of replicating a genome is the beginning. The first step of DNA replication (called “initiation”) mobilizes a large number of specialized proteins (“initiators”) that recognize specific sequences or structural motifs in the DNA, unwind the double helix, protect the exposed ssDNA, and recruit the enzymatic activities required for DNA synthesis, such as helicases, primases and polymerases. All of these components are orderly assembled before the first nucleotide can be incorporated. On the occasion of the 50th anniversary (...) of the discovery of the DNA structure, we review our current knowledge of the molecular mechanisms that control initiation of DNA replication in eukaryotic cells, with particular emphasis on the recent identification of novel initiator proteins. We speculate how these initiators assemble molecular machines capable of performing specific biochemical tasks, such as loading a ring‐shaped helicase onto the DNA double helix. BioEssays 25:1158–1167, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This article aims to delineate a phenomenology of cinema centered on the double incorporation that Merleau-Ponty’s thought allows us to see at work in film. This incorporation is, first, of the elements in each other, and, second and primarily, of beings themselves, making of cinema a new way of symbolizing thinking and the relation to the other. To understand this double incorporation, we take up the question of the Gestalt and its evolution in the work of Merleau-Ponty, since (...) it is through the Gestalt that Merleau-Ponty not only evades the impasses of the theories, subjectivist as well as objectivist, of movement and image, but also succeeds in establishing—by way of a long and precise dialogue with the new natural sciences—an a-subjective phenomenology of the body. Intersubjectivity finally gives way to an “intercorporeity” that would itself be the ground of a redefinition of imagination and its relationship to perception. We thus find the source of a new aesthetics, where cinema reclaims what is proper to it. (shrink)

ABSTRACTHusserl's phenomenology of intersubjectivity is often thought to fall into solipsism and thus be a failed project. One of the typical symptoms is the so-called “paradox of incorporation”. The key to avoiding the paradox lies in finding the motives that lead to alien experiences. An important effort in this direction is to extend the so-called phenomenon of “double sensation” limited to the tactile realm to all perceptual realms. However, the legitimacy of the extension is based on the recognition of (...) a pre-subjective, anonymous, and impersonal dimension, which exorcizes, but not answer the question. This article attempts to make a new interpretation of Husserl's fifth Cartesian Meditation. It focuses on the concept of “replacing” and argues that the motivational basis of alien experience is the desire for total naturalization. (shrink)

In vitro fertilisation (IVF) daily practice reveals that couples are willing to take greater risks than doctors if there is a higher chance of pregnancy. Arising from this is a frequently addressed issue regarding the embryo transfer strategy: single or double embryo transfer? The dilemma is faced by patients, as well as physicians, who are caught between the possibility of no pregnancies at all and facing the prospect of iatrogenic twin gestation. How could the couple's preferences concerning how many (...) children they would like be taken into account in determining the number of embryos transferred? How should the physician exercise his medical responsibility towards his patients and the unborn child? An effective approach could be to enhance a couple’s autonomy by advocating a medical beneficence that incorporates patients’ values. This can be achieved through a case-by-case approach in a deliberative process of decision-making which includes real patient-centred communication. (shrink)

The traditional disputants in the free will discussion--the libertarian, soft determinist, and hard determinist--agree that free will is a coherent concept, while disagreeing on how the concept might be satisfied and whether it can, in fact, be satisfied. In this innovative analysis, Richard Double offers a bold new argument, rejecting all of the traditional theories and proposing that the concept of free will cannot be satisfied, no matter what the nature of reality. Arguing that there is unavoidable conflict within (...) our understanding of moral responsibility and free choice, Double seeks to prove that when we ascribe responsibility, blame, or freedom, we merely express attitudes, rather than state anything capable of truth or falsity. Free will, he concludes, is essentially an incoherent notion. (shrink)

This chapter examines Kierkegaard’s critical accounts of aesthetic and ethical stages of existence, arguing that on Kierkegaard’s view, both life-views incorporate distorted accounts of human agency. The criticism of the ethical stage is tied to the criticism of Kant’s approach to freedom for evil examined in chapters 2 and 4.

The following is a criticism designed to apply to most libertarian free will theorists. I argue that most libertarians hold three beliefs that jointly show them to be unsympathetic or hard-hearted to persons whom they hold morally responsible: that persons are morally responsible only because they make libertarian choices, that we should hold persons responsible, and that we lack epistemic justification for thinking persons make such choices. Softhearted persons who held these three beliefs would espouse hard determinism, which exonerates all (...) persons of moral responsibility, or, at least, would not espouse libertarianism. I do not address the view held by some libertarians that we do have epistemic justification for thinking that persons make libertarian choices, a minority position that I believe cannot be sustained. (shrink)

Philosophers’ intuitions about what constitutes autonomy are largely driven by the exemplars or paradigms that we recognize. There are indefinitely many exemplars, inasmuch as there are relatively private personae that serve as autonomy exemplars such as our parents, third grade teacher, or, for the megalomaniac, oneself. But among Western philosophers there are doubtless some exemplars that are widely shared and broadly influential. Philosophical exemplars include Socrates, Aristotle’s magnanimous man, Kant’s noumenal self that is perfectly attuned to the moral law, Mill’s (...) anti-authoritarian non-conformist, Marx’s manin-society, Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, and Sartre’s authentic youth who must decide whether to join the French resistance or stay at home for the sake of his mother. Exemplars from outside of philosophy include Antigone, Christ, Faust, Ibsen’s Enemy of the People, Winston Churchill, and even figures from popular culture such as the baseball player Ted Williams, the free spirited flower children of the 1960s, and practically any character that John Wayne ever played. (shrink)

The objection to R-S accounts that was raised by the possibility of external agents requires the acceptance of two premises, viz., that all R-S accounts allow for puppeteers and that puppeteers necessarily make us unfree. The Metaphilosophical reply shows that to the extent that puppeteers are more problematic than determinism per se, pup-peteers may be explicitly excluded since they violate our paradigm of free will. The Metaphilosophical reply also suggests that we should not expect our mature R-S account to supply (...) logically necessary and sufficient conditions for free will, but rather give us answers that agree with our intuitions regarding paradigms of free and unfree decisions. The Irrelevancy reply completed our reply to incompatibilists who continue to object that determinism per se destroys the R-S program. It may be debated whether my autonomy variable account is a satisfactory way to spell out the Irrelevancy reply, but I think that this type of approach suggests the way to vindicating the R-S view from an important type of objection. (shrink)

In “The Moral Hardness of Libertarianism”, I accuse libertarians of being morally unsympathetic if they hold three widely shared beliefs: that persons are morally responsible only if they make libertarian choices; that we should hold persons morally responsible; and that we lack epistemic justification for thinking persons make libertarian choices. In “Hard-Heartedness and Libertarianism”, John Lemos, relying on the Kantian principle of ends, suggests a way for libertarians to accept these three beliefs while avoiding the charge of hard-heartedness. In this (...) paper, I criticize Lemos’s rebuttal. (shrink)

Why is debate over the free will problem so intractable? In this broad and stimulating look at the philosophical enterprise, Richard Double uses the free will controversy to build on the subjectivist conclusion he developed in The Non-Reality of Free Will (OUP 1991). Double argues that various views about free will--e.g., compatibilism, incompatibilism, and even subjectivism--are compelling if, and only if, we adopt supporting metaphilosophical views. Because metaphilosophical considerations are not provable, we cannot show any free will theory (...) to be most reasonable. Metaphilosophy and Free Will deconstructs the free will problem and, by example, challenges philosophers in other areas to show how their philosophical argumentation can succeed. (shrink)

Psychiatry is increasingly dominated by the reductionist claim that mental illness is caused by neurobiological abnormalities such as chemical imbalances in the brain. Critical psychiatry does not believe that this is the whole story and proposes a more ethical foundation for practice. This book describes an original framework for renewing mental health services in alliance with people with mental health problems. It is an advance over the polarization created by the "anti-psychiatry" of the past.

The belief that only free will supports assignments of moral responsibility -- deserved praise and blame, punishment and reward, and the expression of reactive attitudes and moral censure -- has fueled most of the historical concern over the existence of free will. Free will's connection to moral responsibility also drives contemporary thinkers as diverse in their substantive positions as Peter Strawson, Thomas Nagel, Peter van Inwagen, Galen Strawson, and Robert Kane. A simple, but powerful, reason for thinking that philosophers are (...) correct in making moral responsibility the prize of the free will problem is this: If we disassociate free will from deserved praise, blame, punishment and reward, reactive attitudes and moral censure, then why care about free will? If free will is not pinned down as that degree of freedom in our choices that we need for moral responsibility, it is difficult to see why anyone would or should care about free will. In this article I argue that some of the most prominent recent writing on free will becomes sidetracked from this key issue. For this reason, a good deal of the literature is so much spilled ink as philosophers misdirect their energies. In section 1 I elaborate just what I believe the key issue in the free will problem is. In section 2 I illustrate what an answer to the key issue requires. In section 3 I suggest motivations for misdirection. In sections 4, 5, and 6 I provide detailed examples of misdirection from compatibilists and libertarians. In sections 7 and 8 I describe some non-misdirected answers to the key question. (shrink)

In "The Illusion of Conscious Will," Daniel Wegner (2002) argues that our commonsense belief that our conscious choices cause our voluntary actions is mistaken. Wegner cites experimental results that suggest that brain processes initiate our actions before we become consciously aware of our choices, showing that we are systematically wrong in thinking that we consciously cause our actions. Wegner's view leads him to conclude, among other things, that moral responsibility does not exist. In this article I propose some ways that (...) traditional philosophical defenders of moral responsibility, both compatibilists and libertarians, might accept Wegner's empirical premise regarding the will but amend their theories so that they may reject his conclusion regarding moral responsibility. (shrink)

John searle has recently claimed to have dissolved what daniel dennett calls 'hume's problem'--The question whether the explanation of behavior by appeal to mental representations can be done without circularity or infinite regress. Searle argues that a careful analysis of the concept of an intentional state shows that mental representations do not require intentional "homunculi" to explain how intentional states have their contents, And, Hence dennett's worry is groundless. I argue that searle's conceptual analysis of intentional states, Even if correct, (...) Provides no clue of an answer to the worry underlying hume's problem. (shrink)

Adopting meta‐level Free Will Subjectivism is one among several ways to maintain that persons never experience moral freedom in their choices. The other ways of arguing against moral freedom I consider are presented by Saul Smilansky, Ted Honderich, Bruce Waller, Galen Strawson, and Derk Pereboom. In this paper, without arguing for the acceptance of free will subjectivism, I argue that subjectivism has some moral and theoretical advantages over its kindred theories.

Confidence ratings have often been integrated into reasoning and intelligence tasks as a means for assessing meta-reasoning processes. Although it is often assumed that eliciting these judgements throughout reasoning tasks has no effect on the underlying performance outcomes, this is yet to be established empirically. The current study examines whether eliciting CR from participants during a fluid-reasoning task influences their performance and how this effect is moderated by their initial self-confidence in their own reasoning abilities. In a first experiment, we (...) found that participants performing CR during Raven's Progressive Matrices significantly outperformed a control group who did not provide ratings. Additionally, a second experiment demonstrated that CR only facilitated performance in participants who have a high level of initial self-confidence in their reasoning ability, whereas they were detrimental to participants low in self-confidence. (shrink)

Beginning Philosophy offers students and general readers a uniquely straightforward yet challenging introduction to fundamental philosophical problems. Readily accessible to novices yet rich enough for more experienced readers, it combines serious investigation across a wide range of subjects in analytic philosophy with a clear, user-friendly writing style. Topics include logic and reasoning, the theory of knowledge, the nature of the external world, the mind/body problem, normative ethics, metaethics, free will, the existence of God, and the problem of evil. A concluding (...) chapter outlines the worldview developed in the text and connects that view to questions about the meaning of life. The interconnection of philosophical problems and the relationship of philosophy and science are emphasized throughout. The book includes both extensive quotes from historical figures such as Aquinas, Descartes, and Hume and references to philosophically minded nonphilosophers like Dostoevski, Stephen Jay Gould, and Carl Sagan. Beginning Philosophy is designed for use in introductory philosophy courses at a wide range of institutions. It contains numerous pedagogical materials at the end of each chapter: sections called "misconceptions" list errors that introductory readers should avoid; guide questions prompt students to explain in their own words what the text is saying; review questions help students prepare for examinations; open-ended discussion questions call for independent judgment; and annotated bibliographies provide suggestions for further reading. The volume is further enhanced by a list of famous quotations from philosophers, a glossary of philosophical terms, a glossary of names of the most famous philosophers and scientists discussed in the text, and an extensive bibliography listing every work cited. (shrink)