Online research in philosophy

As a great synthesist for the School of Principles of the Northern and Southern Song dynasties, Zhu Xi’s influence over the School of Principles was demonstrated not only through his positive theoretical creation, but also through his choice and critical awareness. Zhu’s relationship with Confucianism and Buddhism is a typical case; and his activities, ranging from his research of Buddhism (the Chan School) in his early days to his farewell to the Chan School as a student of Li Dong from (...) Yanping and then to his critical awareness of the Chan School, developed in his association with Wang Yingchen, set the entire course of his relationship with Confucianism and Buddhism. It fostered his antagonistic attitude towards the Chan School, which lasted his entire life. Zhu approached the Chan School mainly as an objective social and cultural phenomenon; his discrimination between Confucianism and Buddhism was from an epistemological point of view; and his refutation of the Chan School was mainly from the point of view of language and methodology, an antagonistic attitude of how to face learning. Therefore, his opposition to the Chan School not only directly fostered an awareness of the Confucians of the Ming dynasty against Buddhism, who simply viewed the latter as an external and objective existence, but to a certain extent resulted in the disappearance of the transcendence of the School of Principles, and caused a total change in academic direction during the Ming and Qing dynasties and the formation of the Qianjia Hanxue . What is more, such an opposition to Buddhism continues to influence people’s understanding of the School of Principles. (shrink)

Rae Langton offers a new interpretation and defense of Kant's doctrine of things in themselves. Kant distinguishes things in themselves from phenomena, and in so doing he makes a metaphysical distinction between intrinsic and relational properties of substances. Langton argues that his claim that we have no knowledge of things in themselves is not idealism, but epistemic humility: we have no knowledge of the intrinsic properties of substances. This interpretation vindicates Kant's scientific realism, and shows his primary/secondary quality distinction to (...) be superior even to modern-day competitors. And it answers the famous charge that Kant's tale of things in themselves is one that makes itself untellable. (shrink)

This book highlights Kant's fundamental contrast between the mechanistic and dynamical conceptions of matter, which is central to his views about the foundations of physics, and is best understood in terms of the contrast between objects of sensibility and things in themselves.

: George Rupp's Beyond Existentialism and Zen, in its typological-structural analysis and model of religious pluralism, proffers an alternative to the dominant Kantian models (e.g., by John Hicks and Sarvepalli Radhakrish nan). The question for Rupp is not which religion is true and how to decide that issue—answered in the Kantian approach in terms of an unknowable Ding an sich that all religions, albeit imperfectly, try to approximate or conceptualize (i.e., God or the Transcendent)—but rather how do religions (...) represent, at least in principle, a structural possibility for salvation or human flourishing, however different and incompatible their distinct prima facie truth claims might be. Although the potential for a radically relativistic model is implicit in Rupp's approach, it is argued here that his Hegelian assumptions lead him to accept relativism only in a provisional ("critical") way; for Rupp, under ideal epistemic conditions (e.g., the Peircian "end of inquiry"), one final conceptualization of ultimate reality will emerge as absolute truth. In the final part of this essay a version of the relativistic model implicit in Rupp's approach is defended against both the Kantian model of Hicks et al. and Rupp's Hegelian-Peircian model, which, it is argued, is incompatible certainly with the spirit of his own typological-structural analysis, if not with the letter. In challenging what Rupp calls the truth of Zen, it is further argued that not only is more than one salvific structural possibility available to us through the different world religions but also that realizing these possibilities is principally a human responsibility, and that the cosmos is quite indifferent to and compatible with several possibilities, from the most destructive to the most conducive to human well being and flourishing. (shrink)

George Rupp's Beyond Existentialism and Zen, in its typological-structural analysis and model of religious pluralism, proffers an alternative to the dominant Kantian models (e.g., by John Hicks and Sarvepalli Radhakrish- nan). The question for Rupp is not which religion is true and how to decide that issue-answered in the Kantian approach in terms of an unknowable Ding an sich that all religions, albeit imperfectly, try to approximate or conceptualize (i.e., God or the Transcendent)-but rather how do religions represent, (...) at least in principle, a structural possibility for salvation or human flourishing, however different and incompatible their distinct prima facie truth claims might be. Although the potential for a radically relativistic model is implicit in Rupp's approach, it is argued here that his Hegelian assumptions lead him to accept relativism only in a provisional ("critical") way; for Rupp, under ideal epistemic conditions (e.g., the Peircian "end of inquiry"), one final conceptualization of ultimate reality will emerge as absolute truth. In the final part of this essay a version of the relativistic model implicit in Rupp's approach is defended against both the Kantian model of Hicks et al. and Rupp's Hegelian-Peircian model, which, it is argued, is incompatible certainly with the spirit of his own typological-structural analysis, if not with the letter. In challenging what Rupp calls the truth of Zen, it is further argued that not only is more than one salvific structural possibility available to us through the different world religions but also that realizing these possibilities is principally a human responsibility, and that the cosmos is quite indifferent to and compatible with several possibilities, from the most destructive to the most conducive to human well-being and flourishing. (shrink)

Author cultivated fermenting cells (Scccharomyces spec.) in must of grapes and measured the various vital phenomena. The data thus received described in a rectangular co-ordinate as a function of time, found three kinds of characteristic curves in every vital phenomenon (whether belonging to the group of feeding, growth or that of increase): I. the curve described bySachs in 1873 and called the curve of the great period of evolution (Fig. 1:s). 2. the one described byM. G. Harting in 1845, and (...) the curve of individual or ontogenetic evolution (Fig. 1:S). 3. the undulatory curve similar to a sinus-cosinus function, deduced in theory by author and later on, in 1915, also found on an experimental basis (Fig. 3). — Analysing these curves, author demonstrates that they are in the closest relationship with each other. The course ofSachs' great period is identical with the function of the aperiodically mitigated vibromotion; the course ofHarting's ontogenetic curve is identical with the integral of the previous aperiodic function; the undulatory curve discovered by the author, and the one belonging to the philogenesis of evolution, consist of two details, one of the members is formed from the function of aperiodically mitigated vibromotion, and the other from a function of periodically mitigated vibration. — Mitigated vibromotion, according to our present knowledge can only arise if a body capable of vibration is simultaneously affected by a force establishing movement and a resistance mitigating the movement. In the living organism, on this basis, there is also a force and a resistance. The living organism obtains this force from food while the resistance is rooted in the construction of the cell. The author proves that the cells which no longer divide (the so-called permanent tissueforming cells) follow an aperiodical vibromotor course in their development while in the development of the continually dividing, so-called meristematic cells, owing to the periodic change of division and regeneration, the potential of the energy accommodates itself to the periodic vibromotor course. Both forms of development are derived from the identical differential equation: d2s/dt2=−w2s−2r ds/dt, the only difference between the two phenomena is that by aperiodic oscillation it is r2>w2 while by periodic it is r2shrink)

Since 1976 Hilary Putnam has drawn parallels between his `internal'',`pragmatic'', `natural'' or `common-sense'' realism and Kant''s transcendentalidealism. Putnam reads Kant as rejecting the then current metaphysicalpicture with its in-built assumptions of a unique, mind-independent world,and truth understood as correspondence between the mind and that ready-madeworld. Putnam reads Kant as overcoming the false dichotomies inherent inthat picture and even finds some glimmerings of conceptual relativity inKant''s proposed solution. Furthermore, Putnam reads Kant as overcoming thepernicious scientific realist distinction between primary and secondaryqualities, (...) between things that really exist and their projections, adistinction that haunts modern philosophy. Putnam''s revitalisation of Kantis not just of historical interest, but challenges contemporary versions ofscientific realism. Furthermore, Putnam has highlighted themes which havenot received the attention they deserve in Kantian exegesis, namely, theproblematic role of primary and secondary qualities in Kant''s empiricalrealism, and the extent of Kant''s commitment to conceptual pluralism.However, I argue that Putnam''s qualified allegiance to Kant exposes him tosome of the same metaphysical problems that affected Kant, namely, thefamiliar problem of postulating an absolute reality (Ding an sich), while atthe same time disavowing the meaningfulness of so doing. In conclusion Isuggest that Putnam might consider Hegel''s attempts to solve this problem inKant as a way of furthering his own natural realism. (shrink)

If the universe is a machine, consciousness is not possible. If the universe is more than a machine, then physics is incomplete. Since we are both part of the universe and conscious, physics must be incomplete and the understanding required to construct conscious mechanisms must be sought through the advancement of physics not the continued application of inadequate concepts. In this paper I will show that an impediment to this advancement is the confusion arising through the use of terms such (...) as 'physical reality' to refer to an absolute a priori Kantian 'Ding an Sich' when they should both be recognized as referring to data structures holding the knowledge upon which we act and nothing more. Once this confusion has been clarified, I will go on to suggest that the cycle of activity updating physical reality becomes a candidate for a conscious process. I will show how implementing algorithms in modern computers can mimic this process but if actual consciousness is to be achieved the update activity must correspond to a cycle in time. Such cycles have been identified with Whitehead's 'actual occasions' and thus I will argue that fundamental events should replace fundamental particles as the building blocks of the universe if consciousness is to be explained. (shrink)

In the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (1781) Kant introduced the transcendental method on a precarious footing and he never shied away from the fact that the transcendental method is structured, and I mean it in the most direct sense possible, aporetically. The aporetic element, the unstable core within Kantian thought, is the distinction between phenomenal and noumenal content in the chapter entitled "On the ground of the distinction [Unterscheidung] of all objects [Gegenstände] in general into phenomena and noumena" (Kant A236/B295-A260/B315). (...) This distinction is noteworthy for introducing into the philosophical tradition the notion of the thing-in-itself [Ding-an-sich]. Depending on your interests this is either the most profound or absurd of ideas in our tradition. I prefer to think of it as the most productive notion in our tradition. We can see its generative function at work almost immediately when it spurred the German idealists into thinking obscenely ingenious thoughts, but the phenomenal-noumenal distinction, hereafter the aporetic distinction, remains an ever-persistent aporia for all continental thinking after Kant. In this article I want to focus on how the aporetic distinction functions in its generative capacity with an emphasis on its ontological rather than epistemological register. Considered as such I claim that it is possible to identify in the aporetic distinction a generative capacity (or logic or function) that is intrinsic to both it and all thought responding to it including, or perhaps especially, the speculative responses. (shrink)

The founders of the Marburger Schule of Neo-Kantianism, Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp, laid an emphasis upon a Platonic understanding of mathematics and logic as the paradigmatic epistemological basis of philosophy. Their successors, namely Ernst Cassirer and Nicolai Hartmann, made obvious, however, that new biological thinking can have a strong influence on ontology as well as on the theory of knowledge. They could show that biology was no longer to be treated as a metaphysical system in that pejorative meaning of (...) metaphysics which Kant had so severely been opposing. Against the anti-realistic approach of the older neo-Kantians who wanted to eliminate Kant's thing-in-itself (Ding an sich), both Cassirer and Hartmann returned to a form of realism by way of Hegel's philosophical results and reflections on his method. This makes clear that their realism is still to be taken as a more of less monistic idealism. However, considering that modern biology as an antimetaphysical force became influential in their system for the first time and that it did so in two different but - on second thoughts - complementary ways, it becomes clear that it was necessary to change the paradigms of any neo-Kantian philosophy. Cassirer proved this by his development as a philosopher with a strong historical impetus while Hartmann as a more systematical philosopher only pointed in that direction. (shrink)

A problem arises in Schopenhauer’s claim that each individual person’s will, or intelligible character, is timeless. The principium individuationis depends upon spatio-temporal determinations governing the world as representation. As individual, one’s individual character would seem to depend upon spatio-temporalconditions. Yet, Schopenhauer adopts the Kantian distinction between empirical character and intelligible character, with the individual’s intelligible characterremaining the timeless Ding-an-sich, or will. In response to this problem, I proceed in four stages. First, I examine why Schopenhauer appropriated the Kantiandistinction (...) between intelligible and empirical character. Secondly, I argue in favor of the solution which indicates that, for Schopenhauer, each individual’s intelligible character is related to the Platonic Idea unique to that individual. In the third stage, I determine how the teleological claims in Schopenhauer’s doctrineof Ideas bear on the problem. In the fourth stage, I suggest how Schopenhauer’s account presents a phenomenology of the unity of consciousness. (shrink)

Der ungarische Philosoph Melchior (Menyhert) Palägyi hatte niemals eine unmittelbare Kritik der Meinongschen Philosophie verfaßt; 1902 erwog er sogar die Möglichkeit, sich bei Meinong zu habilitieren. Dennoch ist die Gegenstandstheorie Meinongs durch die von Palägyi aufgebaute, sprachphilosophisch begründete Widerlegung des logischen Objektivismus eines Bolzano oder Husseri an sich zweifellos ebenfalls berührt. Palägyis Kritik an dem modernen Piatonismus, durch Herder, Max Müller und vermutlich Nietzsche beeinflußt, die bezüglichen Argumente des späteren Wittgenstein und von Eric Havelock in gar mancher Hinsicht (...) vorwegnehmend, ist weitgehend unbekannt und unbeachtet geblieben. Indem der Aufsatz die Prinzipien dieser Kritik nun eben auf die Gegenstandstheorie anwendet, sollen gewisse grundsätzliche Züge der Meinongschen Begriffsbildung in einer geschichtlich angemessenen Weise kritisch beleuchtet werden. (shrink)

Eine vollständige Darstellung von Edmund Husserls Verhältnis zu Gottlob Frege steht noch aus, so dass es nicht verwundert, einige Missverständnisse, dieses Verhältnis betreffend, im Umlauf zu finden. Selbst scheinbar längst überwundene systematische Dogmen tauchen wieder auf, so z.B. die Auffassung, dass Husserl nicht nur entscheidend von Gottlob Frege beeinflusst wurde, sondern darüber hinaus auch seine schärfste Frege-Kritik 1891 zurückgenommen habe. Mein Beitrag enthält eine überwiegend historisch vorgehende Entgegnung auf solche fälschlich vertretenen Ansichten wie sie sich auch in dem neu (...) erschienenen und mit vielen dokumentarischen Belegen versehenen Frege-Kommentarbuch von W. Künne finden. Die wichtigsten Argumente, die in diesem Buch gegen Husserl gerichtet werden, stützen sich auf Stellen in Husserls Frühwerk, die zwar sehr aufschlussreich für die Beurteilung des philosophischen und menschlichen Habitus Husserls in den 1890er Jahre sind, nicht aber Künnes Thesen stützen oder gar beweisen können. Die als zurückgenommene Frege-Kritik verstandene Selbstkritik Husserls betrifft jedoch nach meinen Darlegungen gerade nicht die Kritik, die er an Freges Buch Grundlagen der Arithmetik geübt hatte, sondern seine eigene systematische Stellungnahme hinsichtlich der Begründung der Arithmetik. Ausgehend von dieser Einsicht werde ich auf ein wichtiges Spezifikum von Husserls Erstlingswerk ( Philosophie der Arithmetik ) aufmerksam machen, das voreiligen Interpretationen einen Riegel vorschiebt: Dieses Buch ist ein Mosaik aus Einsichten verschiedener Arbeits- und Denkperioden des Verfassers, die sich vor allem auch in dem zweifachen Begriff der Äquivalenz zeigen. Dies knüpft an einen langen geschichtlichen Entwicklungsprozess an, der in eine von Bolzano, Lotze, Brentano und Carl Stumpf geprägte Tradition zurückführt und das Problem der Unterscheidung zwischen Sinn und Gegenstand eines Aktes betrifft. (shrink)

This contribution analyzes the general relation between nature and laboratory with respect to the alternative of a ,,presented" and a ,,self-presenting nature". It is argued that as essentially presented by technological means, ,,nature in the laboratory" has to be considered as a dimensionally reduced nature already incorporated to the objective world of man. The basic precondition of the emergence of laboratory science on the threshold of modern times was the introduction of a concept of an ,,active physics" which itself presupposed (...) the abandonment of a given ,,metaphysical" order of phenomena, especially in the sense of the Aristotelian substance-accidence-scheme. The logic of a suchlike forced ,,presentation of nature", and also the logic of the modern technology-dependent ways of progress in knowledge can precisely be analyzed within the theoretical framework of the Paul-Lorenzen-School (,,Methodological constructivism"). The concept of a ,,self-presenting nature", on the other hand, requires a genuine reflection of a philosophy of nature which is able to focus on the aspects of self-reference and differentiality of the genuine instances of nature. Finally three starting-points of a non-laboratorial way of thinking nature are discussed. German Der Beitrag analysiert das Verhältnis von Natur und Labor unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Alternative von ,,sich zeigender und ,,gezeigter Natur, wobei die im Labor auf dem Wege einer wesentlich technisch-praktischen Erwirkung konkret ,,gezeigte Natur eine der Gegenstandswelt des Menschen immer schon integrierte (und insoweit dimensional verkürzte) Natur ist. Die entscheidende Voraussetzung für die Entstehung der Laborwissenschaft an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit war die Einführung eines Konzepts ,,handelnder Physik, das seinerseits die Preisgabe einer vorgängigen ,,metaphysischen Ordnung der Phänomene (insbesondere im Sinne des Substanz-Akzidens-Gefälles) voraussetzt. Die Logik dieses ,,Zeigens der Natur ebenso wie die des modernen, technologieabhängig gewordenen Erkenntnisfortschritts ist wissenschaftstheoretisch mit den Mitteln des Methodischen Konstruktivismus präzise beschreibbar. Für den alternativen Begriff einer ,,sich zeigenden Natur als wesentlich polydimensionaler, einheitsbegrifflich nicht einholbarer Totalität bedarf es jedoch einer genuin naturphilosophischen Reflexion, die insbesondere die mit dem Natürlichen verbundenen Komponenten der Selbstbezüglichkeit und der Differentialität zu thematisieren vermag. Abschließend werden drei Ansatzpunkte eines ,,nichtlaboratorischen Naturdenkens diskutiert. (shrink)

In meinem Aufsatz möchte ich die Ästhetik auf ihre Möglichkeit hin überprüfen, eine grundlegende Theorie des „Sinnlichen" innerhalb der menschlichen kulturellen Tätigkeiten zu sein. Dieses Vorhaben werde ich damit beginnen, Heideggers Kritik an der traditionellen Ästhetik zu behandeln. Dem überlieferten Ästhetikverständnis liegt nach Heidegger offenbar diesselbe vorstellend-vergegenständlichende Denkweise zugrunde, die der ganzen abendländischen Geschichte eigen ist. Doch lässt sich nach Heidegger mittels der auf dem metaphysischen Denken basierenden Ästhetik das Wesen der Kunst niemals erschöpfend behandeln, da die Kunst als (...) das Ins-Werk- Setzen der Wahrheit verstanden werden muss.Freilich nimmt Heidegger immer eine kritische Haltung gegenüber der sogenannte „Ästhetik" ein, aber man kann dadurch auch die Möglichkeit einer anderen erweiterten Ästhetik finden, die die anfängliche Wahrheitsfunktion der aisthesis als Wahr-nehmung ins Auge zu fassen versucht. Von diesem grundlegenden Standpunkt aus möchte ich mich mit einem gegenwärtigen Versuch des ästhetischen Denkens (Wolfgang Welsch) und mit einer nicht-europäischen traditionellen Ästhetik (Shüzö Kuki) beschäftigen. (shrink)

Kapitel XV von Über Annahmen (1. Aufl.) beginnt mit einigen bitteren Bemerkungen über den Mangel an Einsicht unter Logikern und Philosophen über das Wesen logischen Schließens. Meinong beklagt, daß man sich mit der Klassifizierung von Schlußformen aufgehalten habe, ohne den Versuch einer Analyse des Folgerungsbegriffs zu unternehmen. Es überrascht wenig, daß Meinong auch bei der Analyse des Folgerungsbegriffs der Annahme eine Schlüsselrolle zuweist. Seine Diskussion führt ihn dabei zu einer UntersuChung des Verhältnisses von Schlüssen aus Urteilen, hypothetischen Urteilen und (...) „Annahmeschlüssen", d.h. Argumenten, deren Prämissen Annahmen sind.Meinongs These, daß es so etwas wie Annahmeschlüsse gibt, erscheint selbstverständlich genug. Die Einführung von Annahmen als Prämissen ist heutzutage nicht nur in Kalkülen natürlichen Schließens eine Standardprozedur, die keiner Rechtfertigung bedarf. Umso mehr muß es daher überraschen, daß Russell in seiner ansonsten enthusiastischen Rezension in Mind (\904) vorgibt, für Schlüsse aus Annahmen nichts übrig zu haben: „I cannot understand how the notion of assumptive inference ... can be maintained." Daß es hier in der Tat nicht um einen bloßen Streit um Worte oder ein Mißverständnis geht, wird spätestens dadurch offenkundig, daß auch Frege in diesem Punkt mit Russell vollkommen übereinstimmt. Wie sich jedoch herausstellt, ist der eigentliche Streitpunkt das korrekte Verständnis hypothetischer Urteile: Nach Meinong sind hypothetische Urteile keine Urteile, sondern verkappte Annahmeschlüsse, während Russell (und Frege) genau umgekehrt Annahmeschlüsse als verkappte hypothetische Urteile auffassen. (shrink)

Es ist klar, dass jede Gemeinschaft bereits Organisation ist und der Mensch ist, ob er will oder nicht, Glied einer Gesellschaft und leistet in ihr Dienste. Jedoch: wenn ein Volk sich die Organisation seines Kollektivlebens als Hauptaufgabe stellt, so tut es das um den Preis der Individualität seiner Mitglieder. Es stellt sich heraus, dass Organisation im Allgemeinen das individuelle Leben der Menschen ausschaltet; man verlangt von dem Menschen, dass er aufhört, Individuum zu sein. Organisation entmenschlicht in gewissem Sinne (...) den Menschen; das Amt ist eine Rolle, eine "Maske". Der Verfasser erörtert dann das schwere Problem der Gegenwart: ob oder in welchem Masse das Kollektive menschlich ist und ob Gemeinschaft, Gesellschaft, Staat allzu abstrakte Dinge sind, als dass wir sie jederzeit gegenwärtig haben könnten. Er behandelt ferner die Frage: ist eine 'Gemeinschaft' von Individuen nicht eine Gemeinschaft von 'Individuen', das heisst von Menschen, individuellen Existenzen? Und wenn diese herunterkommen, ist es nicht klar, dass dann auch die Gemeinschaft herunterkommt? Die bis jetzt ziemlich romantische Frage, ob man sich für die kollektivistischen oder für die individualistischen Theorien zu entscheiden gedenkt, nimmt so eine neue und und spannende Gestalt an, ob nämlich die gegenwärtigen Gesellschaften nicht an sich von kollektiver Verfassung sind und, ihrer eigenen Schwerkraft überlassen, das persönliche Leben schliesslich ersticken und zu menschlichen Ameisenhaufen werden lassen müssen. Im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts machte man den Versuch einer Analyse der Gesellschaft und begann ein Buch unter dem Titel 'Soziologie; aber es kam nicht über die ersten Zeilen hinaus; wahrscheinlich glich die neue Wissenschaft nicht genügend der Physik. Und dank diesem Umstand befinden wir uns heute in einer Lage in der es von höchster Dringlichkeit wäre, klare Vorstellungen davon zu haben, was das Soziale oder was ein Kollektivum ist und in welcher Beziehung es zu dem Menschen steht. Ortega y Gasset schlägt schliesslich eine Rundfrage vor um mit aller Strenge die Vorstellungen festzustellen zu suchen, welche die einflussreichsten Männer des Erdballes mit Vokabeln wie 'Gesellschaft', 'Kollektivität', 'Masse', 'Brauch', 'öffentliche Meinung', 'menschliches Individuum', 'Revolution', 'Staat' u.s.w. verbinden. Das Ergebnis wäre niederschmetternd, besonders wenn man die urweltliche Grobheit dieser Ideen dann mit der Präzision der naturwissenschaftlichen Begriffsbildung vergleicht. Die wirtschaftliche Krise hat ausserdem die Unzulänglichkeit der Nationalökonomie blossgelegt. Der Verfasser vermutet, die Mangelhaftigkeit der herkömmlichen Wirtschaftslehre möchte vielleicht daher rühren, dass sie eine soziale Spezialwissenschaft ist, deren Fundamente in der Luft hängen, solange es keine soziologische Grundwissenschaft gibt; genau wie keine gute Optik oder Akustik möglich ist, wenn man keine gute Mechanik hat. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the requirement for the qualitative is theory-dependent, determined by the fundamental assumptions built into the ontology. John Heil’s qualitative, in its role as individuator of objects and powers, is required only by a theory that posits a world of distinct objects or powers. Does Heil’s ‘deep’ view of the world, such that there is only one powerful object (e.g. a field containing modes or properties which we perceive as manifest everyday objects) require the qualitative (...) as individuator of objects and powers? The answer depends on whether it is possible to account for the manifest objects and the ostensible spatial primacy of our perceived world without recourse to the qualitative. In this paper I outline just such an account with the intention of extending Heil’s efforts to incorporate fundamental power in the world while providing a coherent explanation for our strong intuition of spatial, as against relational, priority. (shrink)

Contemporary white Americans cannot meaningfully ask forgiveness from present-day African Americans for slavery, because such a group apology does not have the mental state needed to communicate regret and intend that listeners forgive the group. Even if the requisite mental state were present, contemporary white Americans are not responsible for the wrong and cannot apologize for wrongs for which they are not responsible. Additionally, such a purported apology is not directed to the victims of the wrong but instead seeks forgiveness (...) from present-day citizens who were not enslaved and could not therefore accept such an apology on behalf of the slaves. (shrink)

Nicholas Rescher’s way of understanding process philosophy reflects the ambitions of his own philosophical project and commits him to a conceptually ideal interpretation of process. Process becomes a transcendental idea of reflection that can always be predicated of our knowledge of the world and of the world qua known, but not necessarily of reality an sich. Rescher’s own taxonomy of process thinking implies that it has other variants. While Rescher’s approach to process philosophy makes it intelligible and appealing to (...) mainstream analytic philosophy, it leaves behind the more daring ideas of Bergson, James, and Whitehead, all of whom envisioned the primordial reality of process in a radical ontology of becoming. This variant of process thought can be construed as coherent and self-consistent, but not without relinquishing the correspondence theory of truth and embracing challenging ideas that bring us in close proximity to existentialism, apophatic theology, and Buddhism. (shrink)

Hegel's rejection of the Kantian thing-in-itself makes the "an sich" an ingredient in experience—that about a thing which is not yet present to us is what it is "an sich." Hegel bars thus any philosophical appeal to anything construed as atemporal, a path which I argue was also taken by Nietzsche, Foucault, Rorty, and Habermas. Unlike them, however, Hegel pursues a project of systematic philosophy, which now consists in showing how temporal things mutually support one another. The recent (...) Continental philosophers I discuss do not share this systematic conception; hence some of their most distinctive insights and problems. (shrink)

Forthcoming in Conference Proceedings, Jena Phänomenologie conference I Hegels Charakterisierungen der neuen, von ihm entwickelten philosophischen Form, der Phänomenologie des Geistes, stellen vor allem deswegen ein Problem dar, weil sie so zahlreich sind. Bei einigen handelt es sich um klar erkennbare Reformulierungen oder Spezifizierungen anderer, in vielen Fällen aber scheinen die Beschreibungen inkonsistent zu sein oder unterschiedliche Perioden in Hegels Denken widerzuspiegeln, das sich während der Jenaer Zeit zwischen 1802 und 1806 rasch entwickelte. Ursprünglich war eine Phänomenologie eine (...) „Wissenschaft der Erfahrung des Bewußtseins“. Sie ist auch eine „Wissenschaft der Phänomenologie des Geistes“. Sie stellt eine Einführung in das wissenschaftliche System dar und bildet zugleich den ersten Teil eines solchen Systems. Die Enzyklopädie bezeichnet die PhG als „die wissenschaftliche Geschichte des Bewußtseyns.“ Im Hauptteil nennt Hegel das Werk den „Weg der Seele, welche die Reihe ihrer Gestaltungen, als durch ihre Natur ihr vorgesteckter Stationen durchwandert, daß sie sich zum Geiste läutere, indem sie durch die vollständige Erfahrung ihrer selbst zur Kenntniß desjenigen gelangt, was sie an sich selbst ist” (55). Berühmt ist seine Bezeichnung der Phänomenologie als „Weg des Zweifels“, ja, als „Weg der Verzweiflung“, und als „ausführliche Geschichte der Bildung des Bewußtseyns selbst zur Wissenschafft“. (56). (shrink)

John Hick uses a distinction between the formal and the substantial properties of the Real an sich, the noumenal God. Hick claims that substantial properties, such as 'being good' or 'being personal', cannot be ascribed to the Real an sich. On the other hand, according to Hick, formal properties -- such as 'being such that none of our concepts apply' -- can be predicated of the Real an sich. I argue, first of all, that many of the (...) properties Hick ascribes to the Real an sich are hard to interpret as anything but substantial, unless we adopt a highly arbitrary substantial/formal distinction. Secondly, I argue that it is never possible to ascribe only formal properties to the Real an sich, since the correct framing and application of formal properties involves a prior knowledge of some substantial properties. I show that the predication of formal properties involves having more knowledge than we need for the application of substantial properties. I conclude that Hick's practice is better than his theory, and that by dispensing with the formal/substantial distinction, he would enable his doctrine of God to stand on more respectable and theological grounds. (shrink)

In his Wissenschaftslehre Bernard Bolzano tried to lay down a logically satisfactory foundation of mathematics and theory of probability. Thereby he became aware of the distinction between the actual thoughts and judgments of human beings, their linguistic expressions and the abstract propositions {Sätze an sich) and their components (Vorstellungen an sich). This ontological distinction is fundamental in Bolzano's thinking paired with a universal world view in the sense that philosophy, mathematics, physics and metaphysics should be build upon the (...) same logical foundations. Bolzano's enterprise is sketched in the light of examples from his logical semantics, proof theory, number theory, theory of truth and his variation logic. (shrink)

Die offizielle Urteilstheorie Brentanos war eine nicht-propositionale Theorie. Die These, dass man, um die in einem Urteilsakt involvierten intentionalen Beziehungen zu erklären, keine propositionalen Entitäten einführen muss, war in der Tat eine seiner interessantesten Ideen. Brentano hat aber im Laufe seiner Lehrtätigkeit sehr viele neue Wege ausprobiert und so finden wir in seinen Vorlesungen aus den späten achtziger Jahren auch eine Urteilstheorie, die jedem Urteilsakt eine propositionale Entität zuordnet. Gerade diese Lehre war für Brentanos Studenten besonders inspirierend. Vor allem Anton (...) Marty und Carl Stumpf haben sehr interessante Theorien von solchen, wie sie es nannten, Inhalten entwickelt. 1888 hat Stumpf in seinen Vorle¬sun¬gen für der¬ar¬tige Entitäten den Ausdruck „Sachverhalt” ein¬geführt. Da sich vor allem diese Bezeichnung als terminus technicus durchgesetzt hat, werden wir sie in diesem Aufsatz auch in Bezug auf diejenigen Philosophen verwenden, die ihre propo¬sitionalen Entitäte anders nannten. Unter den treuen Brentanisten war es Anton Marty, der am konsequentesten an der Unentbehrlichkeit solcher Sachverhalte als Wahrmacher für richtige Urteile bestand. Seine Theorie hat jedoch einen etwas merkwürdigen Charakter. Die Sachverhalte werden einerseits als unverzichtbare Elemente des ontologischen Mobiliars angesehen, andererseits finden wir aber bei Marty eine deutliche Tendenz, sie als Strukturen zu interpretieren, die auf den Dingen (der nominalen Form), wie man es heutzutage gerne sagt, supervenieren. Der Sinn, in dem sie dann noch als unreduzierbar zu bezeichnen sind, ist nicht einfach zu eruieren. Der Philosoph, der sich von diesem, an sich sehr attraktiven, Supervenienz¬gedanken endgültig verabschiedet hat, war Alexius Meinong. Wir besprechen die Hauptpunkte seiner Kritik, untersuchen mögliche Auswege und versuchen die innere Spannung Martys Sachverhaltsbegriffs zwischen der Supervenienz und Unreduzierbarkeit ein wenig zu klären. (shrink)

Bolzano's Sätze an sich and Frege's Gedanken are obviously close relatives. The paper underlines both similarities and dissimilarities between the psychological and semantical roles assigned to structured truth-evaluable contents in Bolzano's and Frege's theories. In particular, their different accounts of propositional identity are compared, and it is argued that Dummett's recent criticism of Frege's account is grist to Bolzano's mill.

Frege spricht einerseits von der Zerlegung von Gedanken in Gedankenteile, andrerseits aber vom Aufbau von Gedanken. Scheinbar werden damit verschiedene inkompatible Auffassungen über Struktur bzw. Strukturlosigkeit von Gedanken ausgedrückt. Frege gebraucht jedoch den Ausdruck „Zerlegung" in mehreren Bedeutungen, die mit der Idee einer Konstruktion des Gedankens aus Teilen nicht nur vereinbar sind, sondern diese Idee sinnvoll ergänzen. Gedanken im Sinne Freges sind schon an sich auf eine bestimmte Weise logisch strukturiert und unterschieden sich gerade dadurch wesentlich von den (...) sprachlichen Bedeutungen natursprachlicher Sätze. (shrink)

Ich meine, daß ein erkenntnistheoretischer Skeptizismus nur am Platz ist, wenn ein Ideal der Erreichung der Wahrheit an sich unabhängig von praktischen Zielsetzungen verfolgt und ein universelles Begründungsgebot für hypothetische Aussagen aufgestellt wird. Sieht der Skeptiker gemäß dem Common sense von diesen willkürlichen Forderungen ab, so vermag er gegenüber einem Common-sense-Standpunkt nicht zu zeigen, 1) daß wegen des sogenannten Begründungsregresses eine Begründung von Aussagen unmöglich ist, 2) daß wegen des sogenannten Induktionszirkels eine empirische Begründung von Aussagen unmöglich ist, 3) (...) daß wegen der Möglichkeit konventionalistischer Verfahrensweisen eine Begründung von Aussagen unmöglich ist. Es vermag dies nicht zu zeigen, sofern die Begründungsfrage im Sinne des Common sense sinnvoll ist, d.h. letztlich als praktische Frage gestellt wird. Daher vermag der Skeptiker auch nicht zu zeigen, daß es kein Wissen geben kann, daß alle Glaubenshaltungen gleichwertig sind und ein vermeintliches Wissen einem vermeintlichen Nicht-Wissen berechtigtermassen nicht vorgezogen werden kann. (shrink)

Many international business training programs present a viewpoint of cultural relativism that encourages business people to adapt to the host country's culture. This paper presents an argument that cultural relativism is not always appropriate for business ethics; rather, a code of conduct must be adapted which presents guidelines for core ethical business conduct across cultures. Both moral and economic evidence is provided to support the argument for a universal code of ethics. Also, four steps are presented that will help ensure (...) that company ethical standards are followed internationally. (shrink)

"This is an important book, and no one interested in issues which touch on the free will will want to ignore it."--Ethics. In this stimulating and thought-provoking book, the author defends the thesis that free will is incompatible with determinism. He disputes the view that determinism is necessary for moral responsbility. Finding no good reason for accepting determinism, but believing moral responsiblity to be indubitable, he concludes that determinism should be rejected.

Many people, including many egalitarian political philosophers, professa belief in equality while enjoying high incomes of which they devotevery little to egalitarian purposes. The article critically examinesways of resolving the putative inconsistency in the stance of thesepeople, in particular, that favouring an egalitarian society has noimplications for behaviour in an unequal one; that what''s bad aboutinequality is a social division that philanthropy cannot reduce; thatprivate action cannot ensure that others have good lives; that privateaction can only achieve a ``drop in (...) the ocean''''; that private effortis not called for, since justice is a matter for the state to enforce;that private effort cannot remove the fundamental injustice, whichis inequality of power; and that private effort involves an unreasonablylarge psychological burden. (shrink)

In his ecological approach to perception, james gibson introduced the concept of affordance to refer to the perceived meaning of environmental objects and events. this paper examines the relational and causal character of affordances, as well as the grounds for extending affordances beyond environmental features with transcultural meaning to include those features with culturally-specific meaning. such an extension is seen as warranted once affordances are grounded in an intentional analysis of perception. toward this end, aspects of merleau-ponty's treatment of perception (...) are explored. finally, a resolution of the apparent tension between the relational and perceiver-independent nature of affordances is presented. (shrink)

For many years emotion theory has been characterized by a dichotomy between the head and the body. In the golden years of cognitivism, during the nineteen-sixties and seventies, emotion theory focused on the cognitive antecedents of emotion, the so-called “appraisal processes.” Bodily events were seen largely as byproducts of cognition, and as too unspecific to contribute to the variety of emotion experience. Cognition was conceptualized as an abstract, intellectual, “heady” process separate from bodily events. Although current emotion theory has moved (...) beyond this disembodied stance by conceiving of emotions as involving both cognitive processes (perception, attention, and evaluation) and bodily events (arousal, behavior, and facial expressions), the legacy of cognitivism persists in the tendency to treat cognitive and bodily events as separate constituents of emotion. Thus the cognitive aspects of emotion are supposedly distinct and separate from the bodily ones. This separation indicates that cognitivism’s disembodied conception of cognition continues to shape the way emotion theorists conceptualize emotion. (shrink)

This paper examines Ian Hacking's analysis of the looping effects of psychiatric classifications, focusing on his recent account of interactive and indifferent kinds. After explicating Hacking's distinction between 'interactive kinds' (human kinds) and 'indifferent kinds' (natural kinds), I argue that Hacking cannot claim that there are 'interactive and indifferent kinds,' given the way that he introduces the interactive-indifferent distinction. Hacking is also ambiguous on whether his notion of interactive and indifferent kinds is supposed to offer an account of classifications or (...) objects of classification. I argue that these conceptual difficulties show that Hacking's account of interactive and indifferent kinds cannot be based on - and should be clearly separated from - his distinction between interactive kinds and indifferent kinds. In clarifying Hacking's account, I argue that interactive and indifferent kinds should be regarded as objects of classification (i.e., kinds of people) that can be identified with reference to a law-like biological regularity and are aware of how they are classified. Schizophrenia and depression are discussed as examples. I subsequently offer reasons for resisting Hacking's claim that the objects of classification in the human sciences - as a result of looping effects - are 'moving targets'. (shrink)

Discussions of the mind-body problem often refer to an.

This essay is a sustained attempt to bring new light to some of the perennial problems in philosophy of mind surrounding phenomenal consciousness and introspection through developing an account of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Building on the information-theoretic framework of Dretske (1981), we present an informational psychosemantics as it applies to what we call sensory concepts, concepts that apply, roughly, to so-called secondary qualities of objects. We show that these concepts have a special informational character and semantic structure that closely (...) tie them to the brain states realizing conscious qualitative experiences. We then develop an account of introspection which exploits this special nature of sensory concepts. The result is a new class of concepts, which, following recent terminology, we call phenomenal concepts: these concepts refer to phenomenal experience itself and are the vehicles used in introspection. On our account, the connection between sensory and phenomenal concepts is very tight: it consists in different semantic uses of the same cognitive structures underlying the sensory concepts, such as the concept of red. Contrary to widespread opinion, we show that information theory contains all the resources to satisfy internalist intuitions about phenomenal consciousness, while not offending externalist ones. A consequence of this account is that it explains and predicts the so-called conceivability arguments against physicalism on the basis of the special nature of sensory and phenomenal concepts. Thus we not only show why physicalism is not threatened by such arguments, but also demonstrate its strength in virtue of its ability to predict and explain away such arguments in a principled way. However, we take the main contribution of this work to be what it provides in addition to a response to those conceivability arguments, namely, a substantive account of the interface between sensory and conceptual systems and the mechanisms of introspection as based on the special nature of the information flow between them. (shrink)

Most models of corporate social responsibility revolve around the controversy as to whether business is a single dimensional entity of profit maximization or a multi-dimensional entity serving greater societal interests. Furthermore, the models are mostly descriptive in nature and are based on the experiences of western countries. There has been little attempt to develop a model that accounts for corporate social responsibility in diverse environments with differing socio-cultural and market settings. In this paper an attempt has been made to fill (...) this gap by developing a two-dimensional model of corporate social responsibility and empirically testing its validity in the context of two dissimilar cultures – Australia and Bangladesh. The two dimensions are the span of corporate responsibility (narrow to wider perspective) and the range of outcomes of social commitments of businesses (cost to benefit driven perspective). The test results confirm the validity of the two-dimensional model in the two environments. The Factor analysis revealed two leading dimensions. Cluster analysis pointed to two distinctive clusters of managers in both Australia and Bangladesh, one consisting of managers with a broad contemporary concept of social responsibility, and the other with a limited narrow view. The paper concludes that corporate social responsibility is two-dimensional and universal in nature and that differing cultural and market settings in which managers operate may have little impact on the ethical perceptions of corporate managers. (shrink)

In this article I articulate and defend an African moral theory, i.e., a basic and general principle grounding all particular duties that is informed by sub-Saharan values commonly associated with talk of "ubuntu" and cognate terms that signify personhood or humanness. The favoured interpretation of ubuntu is the principle that an action is right insofar as it respects harmonious relationships, ones in which people identify with, and exhibit solidarity toward, one another. I maintain that this is the most defensible moral (...) theory with an African pedigree and that it should be developed further with an eye to rivalling dominant Western theories such as utilitarianism and Kantianism. (shrink)

Wegner’s analysis of the illusion of conscious will is close to my own account of how conscious experiences relate to brain processes. But our analyses differ somewhat on how conscious will is not an illusion. Wegner argues that once conscious will arises it enters causally into subsequent mental processing. I argue that while his causal story is accurate, it remains a first-person story. Conscious free will is not an illusion in the sense that this first-person story is compatible with and (...) complementary to a third-person account of voluntary processing in the mind/brain. (shrink)

Moore's proof of an external world is a piece of reasoning whose premises, in context, are true and warranted and whose conclusion is perfectly acceptable, and yet immediately seems flawed. I argue that neither Wright's nor Pryor's readings of the proof can explain this paradox. Rather, one must take the proof as responding to a sceptical challenge to our right to claim to have warrant for our ordinary empirical beliefs, either for any particular empirical belief we might have, or for (...) belief in the existence of an external world itself. I show how Wright's and Pryor's positions are of interest when taken in connection with Humean scepticism, but that it is only linking it with Cartesian scepticism which can explain why the proof strikes us as an obvious failure. (shrink)

Elaborating on the notions that humans possess different modalities of decision-making and that these are often influenced by moral considerations, we conducted an experimental investigation of the Trolley Problem. We presented the participants with two standard scenarios (‹lever’ and ‹stranger’) either in the usual or in reversed order. We observe that responses to the lever scenario, which result from (moral) reasoning, are affected by our manipulation; whereas responses to the stranger scenario, triggered by moral emotions, are unaffected. Furthermore, when asked (...) to express general moral opinions on the themes of the Trolley Problem, about half of the participants reveal some inconsistency with the responses they had previously given. (shrink)

Representationism¹, as I use the term, says that the phenomenal character of an experience just is its representational content, where that representational content can itself be understood and characterized without appeal to phenomenal character. Representationists seem to have a harder time handling pain than visual experience. (I say 'seem' because in my view, representationists cannot actually handle either type of experience successfully, but I will put that claim to one side here.) I will argue that Michael Tye's (2004) heroic attempt (...) at a representationist theory of pain, although ingenious and enlightening, does not adequately come to terms with the root of this difference. (shrink)

• An adequate conceptual framework is still needed to account for phenomena that (i) have a first-person, subjective-experiential or phenomenal character; (ii) are (usually) reportable and describable (in humans); and (iii) are neurobiologically realized.2 • The conscious subject plays an unavoidable epistemological role in characterizing the explanadum of consciousness through first-person descriptive reports. The experimentalist is then able to link first-person data and third-person data. Yet the generation of first-person data raises difficult epistemological issues about the relation of second-order awareness (...) or meta-awareness to first-order experience (e.g. (shrink)

_René Descartes proposed an interactive dualism that posits an interaction between the_ _mind of a human being and some of the matter located in his or her brain. Isaac Newton_ _subsequently formulated a physical theory based exclusively on the material/physical_ _part of Descartes’ ontology. Newton’s theory enforced the principle of the causal closure_ _of the physical, and the classical physics that grew out of it enforces this same principle._ _This classical theory purports to give, in principle, a complete deterministic account (...) of the_ _physically described properties of nature, expressed exclusively in terms of these_ _physically described properties themselves. Orthodox contemporary physical theory_ _violates this principle in two separate ways. First, it injects random elements into the_ _dynamics. Second, it allows, and also requires, abrupt probing actions that disrupt the_ _mechanistically described evolution of the physically described systems. These probing_ _actions are called Process 1 interventions by von Neumann. They are psycho-physical_ _events. Neither the content nor the timing of these events is determined either by any_ _known law, or by the afore-mentioned random elements. Orthodox quantum mechanics_ _considers these events to be instigated by choices made by conscious agents. In von_ _Neumann’s formulation of quantum theory each such intervention acts upon the state of_ _the brain of some conscious agent. Thus orthodox von Neumann contemporary physics_ _posits an interactive dualism similar to that of Descartes. But in this quantum version the_ _effects of the conscious choices upon our brains are controlled, in part, by the known_ _basic rules of quantum physics. This theoretically specified mind-brain connection allows_ _many basic psychological and neuropsychological findings associated with the apparent_ _physical effectiveness of our conscious volitional efforts to be explained in a causal and_ _practically useful way.. (shrink)

Goodman'snew riddle of induction can be characterized by the following questions: What is the difference between grue and green?; Why is the hypothesis that all emeralds are grue not lawlike?; Why is this hypothesis not confirmed by its positive instances?; and, Why is the predicate grue not projectible? I argue in favor of epistemological answers to Goodman's questions. The notions of lawlikeness, confirmation, and projectibility have to be relativized to (actual and counterfactual) epistemic situations that are determined by the available (...) background information. In order to defend this thesis, I discuss an example that is less strange than the grue example. From the general conclusions of this discussion, it follows that grue is not projectible in the actual epistemic situation, but it is projectible in certain counterfactual epistemic situations. (shrink)

In the present paper I wish to argue that psychological egoism may well have a basis in the empirical facts of human psychology. Certain contemporary learning theorists, e.g., Hull and Skinner, have put forward behavioristic theories of the origin and functioning of human motives which posit a certain number of basically "selfish, " unlearned primary drives or motives (like hunger, thirst, sleep, elimination, and sex), explain all other, higher-order, drives or motives as derived genetically from the primary ones via certain (...) "laws of reinforcement," and, further, deny the "functional autonomy" of those higher-order drives or motive. Now it is a hotly debated issue in contemporary Learning Theory whether any theory such as we have described briefly above could adequately explain adult human behavior. I shall, however, argue only that a theory of the above kind may well be true, and that from such a theory, fortified only by one additional psychological premise, the truth of egoism (non-altruism) logically follows. I hope to show, thereby, that the question of psychological egoism is still an open empirical issue, however fallacious be the philosophical arguments for it. (shrink)

Pleasure is one of the strongest candidates for an occurrence that might be good, in some respect, unconditionally. Malicious pleasure is one of the most often cited alleged counter-examples to pleasure’s being an unconditional good. Correctly evaluating malicious pleasure is more complex than people realize. I defend pleasure’s unconditionally good status from critics of malicious pleasure.

The last ten years have seen an increasing interest, within cognitive science, in issues concerning the physical body, the local environment, and the complex interplay between neural systems and the wider world in which they function. --œPhysically embodied, environmentally embedded--� approaches thus loom large on the contemporary cognitive scientific scene. Yet many unanswered questions remain, and the shape of a genuinely embodied, embedded science of the mind is still unclear. I begin by sketching a few examples of the approach, and (...) then raise a variety of critical questions concerning its nature and scope. A distinction is drawn between two kinds of appeal to embodiment: 'simple' cases, in which bodily and environmental properties merely constrain accounts that retain the focus on inner organization and processing, and more radical appeals, in which attention to bodily and environmental features is meant to transform both the subject matter and the theoretical framework of cognitive science. (shrink)

In this incisive new book one of Britain's most eminent philosophers explores the often overlooked tension between voluntariness and involuntariness in human cognition. He seeks to counter the widespread tendency for analytic epistemology to be dominated by the concept of belief. Is scientific knowledge properly conceived as being embodied, at its best, in a passive feeling of belief or in an active policy of acceptance? Should a jury's verdict declare what its members involuntarily believe or what they voluntarily accept? And (...) should statements and assertions be presumed to express what their authors believe or what they accept? Does such a distinction between belief and acceptance help to resolve the paradoxes of self-deception and akrasia? Must people be taken to believe everything entailed by what they believe, or merely to accept everything entailed by what they accept? Through a systematic examination of these problems, the author sheds new light on issues of crucial importance in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. (shrink)

This version of this paper has been superseded by a substantially revised version in G. Strawson, Real Materialism and Other Essays (OUP 2008) I take 'content' in a natural internalist way to refer to occurrent mental content. I introduce a 'thin' or ‘live’ notion of the subject according to which a subject of experience cannot exist unless there is an experience for it to be the subject of. I then argue, first, that in the case of a particular experience E, (...) its content C, and its (thin) subject S, [C ↔ E ↔ S]; and, second, that the metaphysical fact that underlies this (strong modal) equivalence is in fact identity: [E = S = C]. I suggest that the effort of thought required to grasp this is deeply revealing of the nature of reality. On the way I raise a doubt about the viability of the traditional object/property distinction. -/- . (shrink)

Although much human action serves as proof that irrational behavior is remarkably common, certain forms of irrationality--most notably, incontinent action and self-deception--pose such difficult theoretical problems that philosophers have rejected them as logically or psychologically impossible. Here, Mele shows that, and how, incontinent action and self-deception are indeed possible. Drawing upon recent experimental work in the psychology of action and inference, he advances naturalized explanations of akratic action and self-deception while resolving the paradoxes around which the philosophical literature revolves. In (...) addition, he defends an account of self-control, argues that "strict" akratic action is an insurmountable obstacle for traditional belief-desire models of action-explanation, and explains how a considerably modified model accommodates action of this sort. (shrink)

Existing accounts of shared intention (by Bratman, Searle, and others) do not claim that a single token of intention can be jointly framed and executed by multiple agents; rather, they claim that multiple agents can frame distinct, individual intentions in such a way as to qualify as jointly intending something. In this respect, the existing accounts do not show that intentions can be shared in any literal sense. This article argues that, in failing to show how intentions can be literally (...) shared, these accounts fail to resolve what seems problematic in the notion of shared intention. It then offers an account in which the problem of shared intention is resolved, because intention can indeed be literally shared. This account is derived from Margaret Gilbert’s notion of a “pool of wills,” to which it applies Searle’s definition of intention. (shrink)

This paper constitutes a defence of an affective account of emotion. I begin by outlining the case for thinking that emotions are just feelings. I also suggest that emotional feelings are not reducible to other kinds of feelings, but rather form a distinct class of feeling state. I then consider a number of common objections that have been raised against affective accounts of emotion, including: (1) the objection that emotion cannot always consist only of feeling because some emotions - for (...) example, indignation and regret - necessarily have a cognitive component (say, the perception of a lost opportunity in the case of regret); (2) the objection that emotion cannot consist only of feeling because in order to explain how emotions have intentional objects we will have to recognise that emotion consists of cognition; and (3) the objection that emotion cannot consist only of feeling because emotion, but not feeling, can be variously assessed or evaluated. However, I demonstrate how an affective account of emotion might be successfully defended against all of the objections that are cited. (shrink)

René Descartes proposed an interactive dualism that posits an interaction between the mind of a human being and some of the matter located in his or her brain. Isaac Newton subsequently formulated a physical theory based exclusively on the material/physical part of Descartes’ ontology. Newton’s theory enforced the principle of the causal closure of the physical, and the classical physics that grew out of it enforces this same principle. This classical theory purports to give, in principle, a complete deterministic account (...) of the physically described properties of nature, expressed exclusively in terms of these physically described properties themselves. Orthodox contemporary physical theory violates this principle in two separate ways. First, it injects random elements into the dynamics. Second, it allows, and also requires, abrupt probing actions that disrupt the mechanistically described evolution of the physically described systems. These probing actions are called Process 1 interventions by von Neumann. They are psycho-physical events. Neither the content nor the timing of these events is determined either by any known law, or by the afore-mentioned random elements. Orthodox quantum mechanics considers these events to be instigated by choices made by conscious agents. In von Neumann’s formulation of quantum theory each such intervention acts upon the state of the brain of some conscious agent. Thus orthodox von Neumann contemporary physics posits an interactive dualism similar to that of Descartes. But in this quantum version the effects of the conscious choices upon our brains are controlled, in part, by the known basic rules of quantum physics. This theoretically specified mind-brain connection allows many basic psychological and neuropsychological findings associated with the apparent physical effectiveness of our conscious volitional efforts to be explained in a causal and practically useful way.. (shrink)

This article presents an interview method which enables us to bring a person, who may not even have been trained, to become aware of his or her subjective experience, and describe it with great precision. It is focused on the difficulties of becoming aware of one’s subjective experience and describing it, and on the processes used by this interview technique to overcome each of these difficulties. The article ends with a discussion of the criteria governing the validity of the descriptions (...) obtained, and then with a brief review of the functions of these descriptions. (shrink)

The English translation of Habermas's The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere converges with a recent trend toward the revival of the "political culture concept" in the social sciences. Surprisingly, Habermas's account of the Western bourgeois public sphere has much in common with the original political culture concept associated with Parsonian modernization theory in the 1950s and 1960s. In both cases, the concept of political culture is used in a way that is neither political nor cultural. Explaining this peculiarity is (...) the central problem addressed in this article and one to follow. I hypothesize that this is the case because the concept itself is embedded in an historically constituted political culture (here called a conceptual network)-a structured web of conceptual relationships that combine into Anglo-American citizenship theory. The method of an historical sociology of concept formation is introduced to analyze historically and empirically the internal constraints and dynamics of this conceptual network. The method draws from new work in cultural history and sociology, social studies, and network, narrative, and institutional analysis. This research yields three empirical findings: this conceptual network has a narrative structure, here called the Anglo-American citizenship story; this narrative is grafted onto an epistemology of social naturalism; and these elements combine in a metanarrative that continues to constrain empirical research in political sociology. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes three conceptual problems that attend philosophical accounts of consciousness. The first concerns the problem of properly characterizing the nature of consciousness itself, the second is the problem of making intelligible the relation between consciousness and the ‘physical’, and the third is the problem of creating the intellectual space for a shift in philosophical framework that would enable us to deal adequately with the first two problems. It is claimed that physicalism, in both its reductive and non-reductive forms, (...) fails to deal adequately with either the first or second problem. The diagnosis of this failure is connected to the fact that consciousness cannot be treated in its own terms while being simultaneously fitted into an object-based conceptual schema. In light of this, it is proposed that a Bradleian version of absolute idealism may provide a metaphysical and epistemological framework which would enable us to recognize the conceptual diversity required to treat conscious phenomena on their own terms without forcing us to abandon naturalism. (shrink)

This essay seeks to give philosophical expression to the vitality, willfullness, and recalcitrance possessed by nonhuman entities and forces. It also considers the ethico-political import of an enhanced awareness of "thing-power." Drawing from Lucretius, Spinoza, Gilles Deleuze, Bruno Latour, and others, it describes a materialism of lively matter, to be placed in conversation with the historical materialism of Marx and the body materialism of feminist and cultural studies. Thing-power materialism is a speculative onto-story, an admittedly presumptuous attempt to depict the (...) nonhumanity that flows around and through humans. The essay concludes with a preliminary discussion of the ecological implications of thing-power. (shrink)

The claim that there is an explanatory gap between physical and phenomenal properties is perhaps the leading current challenge to materialist views about the mind. Tye tries to block this challenge, not by providing an explanation to bridge the gap but by denying that phenomenalphysical identities introduce an explanatory gap. Since an explanatory gap exists only if there is something unexplained that needs explaining, and something needs explaining only if it can be explained (whether or not it lies within the (...) power of human-beings to explain it), there is no gap. (Tye ????, p. ???) Tyes strategy differs crucially from the claim that identities never stand in need of explanation because they constitute ultimate explanations; for he allows that identities such as water = H?O are explainable. Unlike WATER and H?O, which are descriptive concepts, phenomenal concepts are perspectival and hence irreducible to descriptive concepts, according to Tye. The fact that something picked out by a perspectival concept is identical to something picked out by a non-perspectival concept cannot be explained.1 So, he concludes, phenomenalphysical identities need not be explained. (shrink)

This essay critically examines some classic philosophical and legal theories of privacy, organized into four categories: the nonintrusion, seclusion, limitation, and control theories of privacy. Although each theory includes one or more important insights regarding the concept of privacy, I argue that each falls short of providing an adequate account of privacy. I then examine and defend a theory of privacy that incorporates elements of the classic theories into one unified theory: the Restricted Access/Limited Control (RALC) theory of privacy. Using (...) an example involving data-mining technology on the Internet, I show how RALC can help us to frame an online privacy policy that is sufficiently comprehensive in scope to address a wide range of privacy concerns that arise in connection with computers and information technology. (shrink)

This paper analyses conceptual change. A rejection of pure experience has prompted philosophers of science to adopt a certain perspective from which to view changes of belief. Popper, Kuhn, and others have analysed conceptual change in terms of problems or anomalies, that is, in terms of contingent reasoning about issues posed in the context of an inherited web of belief. This paper explores a more general analysis of conceptual change in dialogue with these philosophers of science. Because changes of belief (...) are not all changes in scientific belief, we seek to unpack conceptual change in terms of dilemmas, as opposed to anomalies or problems. For a start, the notion of a dilemma has to be broader than that of an anomaly since it purports to apply to conceptual change as a whole, not just the transition from one era of normal science to another. In addition, we should detach the notion of a dilemma from the objectivism of Popper's world-3 problems. (shrink)

This paper aims to outline an analysis and interpretation of the process that led to First-Order Logic and its consolidation as a core system of modern logic. We begin with an historical overview of landmarks along the road to modern logic, and proceed to a philosophical discussion casting doubt on the possibility of a purely rational justification of the actual delimitation of First-Order-Logic. On this basis, we advance the thesis that a certain historical tradition was essential to the emergence of (...) modern logic; this traditional context is analyzed as consisting in some guiding principles and, particularly, a set of exemplares (i.e., paradigmatic instances). Then, we proceed to interpret the historical course of development reviewed in section 1, which can broadly be described as a two-phased movement of expansion and then restriction of the scope of logical theory. We shall try to pinpoint ambivalencies in the process, and the main motives for subsequent changes. Among the latter, one may emphasize the spirit of modern axiomatics, the situation of foundational insecurity in the 1920s, the resulting desire to find systems well-behaved from a proof-theoretical point of view, and the metatheoretical results of the 1930s. Not surprisingly, the mathematical and, more specifically, the foundational context in which Firs-Order-Logic matured will be seen to have played a primary role in its shaping. (shrink)

This paper examines whether non-human animals have a moral right not to be experimented upon. It adopts a Razian conception of rights, whereby an individual possesses a right if an interest of that individual is sufficient to impose a duty on another. To ascertain whether animals have a right not to be experimented on, three interests are examined which might found such a right: the interest in not suffering, the interest in staying alive, and the interest in being free. It (...) is argued that while the first two of these interests are sufficient to ground animal rights against being killed and made to suffer by experiments, the interest in freedom does not ground a general animal right not to be used in experimentation. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Peter Klein's “Human Knowledge and the Infinite Progress of Reasoning” (also in this issue of this journal). After briefly discussing what Klein says about the requirement, for doxastic justification, that a belief be formed in the right way, I'll make the following three points: Klein's solution to the regress problem isn't an infinitist solution, Klein's position on doxastic justification faces a troubling dilemma, and Klein's objection to foundationalism fails.

We present work demonstrating that the nature of an object for our visual system depends on the actions we are programming and on the presence of action relations between stimuli. For example, patients who show visual extinction are more likely to become aware of two objects if the objects fall in appropriate visual locations for a common action. This effect of the action relations between objects is modulated both by the familiarity of the positioning of the objects for action, and (...) by the mere possibility of action (the ‘affordance’) between the objects. In addition, the programming of an action to a part of an object alters the representation of that object, making the ‘part’ into the object selected by the visual system. These results point to object coding being a rather flexible process, affected not only by the perceptual properties of stimuli but also by the relations between these properties and action. We discuss the implications for theories of perception as well as considering why action information, in particular, may be important for perception. (shrink)

It is widely noted that physicalism, taken as the doctrine that the world contains just what physics says it contains, faces a dilemma which, some like Tim Crane and D.H. Mellor have argued, shows that “physicalism is the wrong answer to an essentially trivial question”. I argue that both problematic horns of this dilemma drop out if one takes physicalism not to be a doctrine of the kind that might be true, false, or trivial, but instead an attitude or oath (...) one takes to formulate one’s ontology solely according to the current posits of physics. (shrink)

Derek Parfit's “reductionist” account of personal identity (including the rejection of anything like a soul) is coupled with the rejection of a commonsensical intuition of essential self-unity, as in his defense of the counter-intuitive claim that “identity does not matter.” His argument for this claim is based on reflection on the possibility of personal fission. To the contrary, Simon Blackburn claims that the “unity reaction” to fission has an absolute grip on practical reasoning. Now David Lewis denied Parfit's claim that (...) reductionism contravenes common sense, so I revisit the debate between Parfit and Lewis, showing why Parfit wins it. Is reductionism about persons then inherently at odds with the unity reaction? Not necessarily; David Velleman presents a reductionist theory according to which fission does not conflict with the unity reaction. Nonetheless, relying on the distinction between person level descriptions of first-person states and the first-person perspective itself, I argue that Velleman's theory does not eliminate fission-based conflict with the unity reaction. Footnotesa * Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the philosophy departments at Rutgers University and Bowling Green State University. I am indebted to many members of these audiences, and to the other contributors to this volume, for their comments—especially Frank Arntzenius, Michael Bradie, David Copp, John Finnis, Jerry Fodor, Brian Loar, Barry Loewer, Colin McGinn, Fred Miller, Mark Moyer, David Oderberg, Marya Schechtman, David Schmidtz, David Sobel, and Sara Worley. Special thanks to David Sanford. I am also grateful to graduate students in my seminar at Bowling Green during the spring of 2003, for urging me to take seriously the grip of the unity reaction; I am especially grateful for the comments of Nico Maloberti, Jonathan Miller, John Milliken, Robyn Peabody, Jennifer Sproul, Jessica Teaman, and Sherisse Webb. (shrink)

The issue of meaningful yet unexpressed background-to language and to our experiences of the body-is one whose exploration is still in its infancy. There are various aspects of ''invisible,'' implicit, or background experiences which have been investigated from the viewpoints of phenomenology, cognitive psychology, and linguistics. I will argue that James's concept of the phenomenon of fringes, as explicated by Gurwitsch, provides a structural framework from which to investigate and better understand ideas and concepts that are indeterminate, particularly those experienced (...) in the sense of being sought-after. Johnson's conception of the image-schematic gestalt (ISG) provides an approach to bridging the descriptive gap between phenomenology and cognitive psychology. Starting from an analysis of the fringes, I will turn to a consideration of the tip-of-tongue (TOT) state, as a kind of feeling-of-knowing (FOK) state, from a variety of approaches, focusing mainly on cognitive psychology and phenomenology. I will then integrate a phenomenological analysis of these experiences, from the James/Gurwitsch structural viewpoint, with a cognitive/phenomenological analysis in terms of ISGs, and further integrate that with a cognitive/functional analysis of the relation between consciousness and retrieval, employing Anderson et al's theory of inhibitory mechanisms in cognition. This synthesis of these viewpoints will be employed to explore the thesis that the TOT state and similar experiences may relate to the gestalt nature of schemas, and that figure/ground and other contrast-enhancing structures may be both explanatory and descriptive characterizations of the field of consciousness. (shrink)

This paper develops an adverbial theory of consciousness. Adverbialism is described and endorsed and defended from its near rival, an identity thesis in which conscious mental states are those that the mental subject self-knows immediately that he or she is "in". The paper develops an account of globally supported self-ascription to embed this neo-Brentanian view of experiencing consciously within a more general account of the relation between consciousness and self-knowledge. Following O'Shaughnessy, person level consciousness is explained as a feature of (...) the bundle of mental capacities characteristic of persons: person level consciousness involves a capacity holism. Drawing on Kant, it is argued that if a person is in a mental state intentionally directed to an object then such a subject can "self token" such knowledge. The content of that self-knoweldge supervenes on the possession of a global set of capacities, and this capacity for self-ascription depends on the fact that our experience has a perspectival character with, as it were, nothing at the vanishing point of this perspective. The fact that one can attach the cogito to any one of one's representation shows a truth about the unity of the conscious life of a person that cannot be stated and this capacity is distinguished from self-conscious thinking about oneself. This approach is contrasted to Shoemaker's functionalist treatment of the self-tokening of conscious states and of "self-blindness". It is argued that to be fully consistent, Shoemaker has to abandon the claim that introspectionism is guilty of a self-scanning model or rational control as he seems committed to that model too. (shrink)

It is widely held that belief explanations of action are a species of causal explanation. This paper argues against the causal construal of action explanation. It first defends the claim that unless beliefs are brain states, beliefs cannot causally explain behavior. Second, the paper argues against the view that beliefs are brain states. It follows from these claims that beliefs do not causally explain behavior. An alternative account is then proposed, according to which action explanation is teleological rather than causal, (...) and the paper closes by suggesting that teleological account makes sense of and supports the autonomy of common sense psychology. (shrink)

In this paper we argue that there is much to learn about “wild justice” and the evolutionary origins of morality – behaving fairly – by studying social play behavior in group-living mammals. Because of its relatively wide distribution among the mammals, ethological investigation of play, informed by interdisciplinary cooperation, can provide a comparative perspective on the evolution of ethical behavior that is broader than is provided by the usual focus on primate sociality. Careful analysis of social play reveals rules of (...) engagement that guide animals in their social encounters. Because of its significance in development, play may provide a foundation of fairness for other forms of cooperation that are advantageous to group living. Questions about the evolutionary roots of cooperation, fairness, trust, forgiveness, and morality are best answered by attention to the details of what animals do when they engage in social play – how they negotiate agreements to cooperate, to forgive, to behave fairly, and to develop trust. We consider questions such as why play fairly? Why did play evolve as it has? Does “being fair” mean being more fit? Do individual variations in play influence an individual’s reproductive fitness? Can we use information about the foundations of moral behavior in animals to help us understand ourselves? We conclude that there is likely to be strong selection for cooperative fair play because there are mutual benefits when individuals adopt this strategy and group stability may also be fostered. Numerous mechanisms have evolved to facilitate the initiation and maintenance of social play, to keep others engaged, so that agreeing to play fairly and the resulting benefits of doing so can be readily achieved. (shrink)

While "Consciousness Explained" has received an enormous amount of attention since its publication, there is still little agreement on what Dennett’s account of consciousness is. Most interpreters treat his view as an instance of one or another of the standard ontological positions (functionalism, behaviorism, eliminativism, instrumentalism). I believe a different metaphysical account underlies Dennett’s view, one that is important though ill-understood. In the paper I attempt to point in the direction of a proper characterization of that account through the use (...) of two illustrative examples. A ten-point story that applies to the examples is developed, and it is suggested that the story applies equally well to Dennett’s view of consciousness. (shrink)

In this paper I present the Discrete Space-Time Thesis, in a way which enables me to defend it against various well-known objections, and which extends to the discrete versions of Special and General Relativity with only minor difficulties. The point of this presentation is not to convince readers that space-time really is discrete but rather to convince them that we do not yet know whether or not it is. Having argued that it is an open question whether or not space-time (...) is discrete, I then turn to some possible empirical evidence, which we do not yet have. This evidence is based on some slight differences between commonly occurring differential equations and their discrete analogs. (shrink)

I first pose a challenge which, it seems to me, any philosophical account of forgiveness must meet: the account must be articulate and it must allow for forgiveness that is uncompromising. I then examine an account of forgiveness which appears to meet this challenge. Upon closer examination we discover that this account actually fails to meet the challenge—but it fails in very instructive ways. The account takes two missteps which seem to be taken by almost everyone discussing forgiveness. At the (...) end, I sketch an alternative account of forgiveness, one that I think meets the challenge and avoids the missteps. (shrink)

Turning around and changing an organization's culture does not happen by chance. The purpose of this paper is to offer insights into what is needed for an organization to successfully transform itself from a culture and experience that does not support individual ethical behavior. The recent bond trading scandal at Salomon Brothers will be used to demonstrate that a successful ethical turnaround does not just happen spontaneously. In particular, we argue that new leadership, altering policies, structure, behavior, and beliefs are (...) paramount to successfully change to an organizational culture that supports ethical behavior. Schein's five primary mechanisms available to leaders for embedding and reinforcing culture will be used to systematically analyze efforts to change Salomon Brothers' culture. (shrink)