Ellen Goodman uses extensive extracts from original writings to highlight the main themes of the Western legal tradition.The strength of the book is its clear ...

A paper was published in 2003 discussing the ethics of nurses participating in executions by inserting the intravenous line for lethal injections and providing care until death. This paper was circulated on an international email list of senior nurses and academics to engender discussion. From that discussion, several people agreed to contribute to a paper expressing their own thoughts and feelings about the ethics of nurses participating in executions in countries where capital punishment is legal. While a range of opinions (...) were presented, these opinions fell into two main themes. The first of these included reflections on the philosophical obligations of nurses as caregivers who support those in times of great need, including condemned prisoners at the end of life. The second theme encompassed the notion that no nurse ever should participate in the active taking of life, in line with the codes of ethics of various nursing organisations. This range of opinions suggests the complexity of this issue and the need for further public discussion. (shrink)

2. Thesis 2 I accept insofar as it asserts the relation of possibility to actuality to be a fundamental aspect of things. This relation is sui generis.

With this third edition of Nelson Goodman's The Structure of Appear ance, we are pleased to make available once more one of the most in fluential and important works in the philosophy of our times. Professor Geoffrey Hellman's introduction gives a sustained analysis and appreciation of the major themes and the thrust of the book, as well as an account of the ways in which many of Goodman's problems and projects have been picked up and developed by others. (...) Hellman also suggests how The Structure of Appearance introduces issues which Goodman later continues in his essays and in the Languages of Art. There remains the task of understanding Good man's project as a whole; to see the deep continuities of his thought, as it ranges from logic to epistemology, to science and art; to see it therefore as a complex yet coherent theory of human cognition and practice. What we can only hope to suggest, in this note, is the b. road Significance of Goodman's apparently technical work for philosophers, scientists and humanists. One may say of Nelson Goodman that his bite is worse than his bark. Behind what appears as a cool and methodical analysis of the conditions of the construction of systems, there lurks a radical and disturbing thesis: that the world is, in itself, no more one way than another, nor are we. It depends on the ways in which we take it, and on what we do. (shrink)

The Tattvasaṃgraha, or Encyclopedia of Metaphysics, is the most influential and most frequently studied philosophical text from the late period of Indian Buddhism. This edition includes verses by Śāntarakṣita (c. 725-788 CE), which are clarified and expounded in the commentary of his student Kamalaśīla (c. 740-795 CE); both of these authors played crucial roles in founding the Buddhist tradition of Tibet. In the Tattvasaṃgraha, they explain, discuss and critique a vast range of views and arguments from across the whole South (...) Asian philosophical and religious spectrum. The work deals at length with ideas drawn from Buddhism, Jainism, and a variety of traditions now incorporated within Hinduism, including Mīmāṃsā, Nyāya-vaiśeṣika, and Sāṃkhya; it also includes the earliest discussion of Advaita Vedānta in any Buddhist text. The chapters selected for translation from Sanskrit and Tibetan deal with such fundamental philosophical issues as the existence or nonexistence of God and the soul; the nature of matter and of causal relationships; the connection between words and their referents; the rules of logic; the sources of our knowledge; and the compatibility of beliefs about karma with Buddhism's fundamental claim that there is no self. Introductory chapters discuss translation choices and explain the forms of argument and methods of reasoning employed by Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla. (shrink)

This chapter offers an opinionated introduction to higher-order formal languages with an eye towards their applications in metaphysics. A simply relationally typed higher-order language is introduced in four stages: starting with first-order logic, adding first-order predicate abstraction, generalizing to higher-order predicate abstraction, and finally adding higher-order quantification. It is argued that both β-conversion and Universal Instantiation are valid on the intended interpretation of this language. Given these two principles, it is then shown how we can use pure higher-order logic to (...) ask, and begin to answer, metaphysical questions with non-trivial implications. In particular, while we must reject the popular idea that structural differences between sentences correspond to parallel distinctions in the logical structure of extra-linguistic reality, it may still be possible to give a purely logical characterization of objectual aboutness and related notions. (shrink)

American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and American College of Medical Genetics (ACMG) recently provided two recommendations about predictive genetic testing of children. The Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium's Pediatrics Working Group compared these recommendations, focusing on operational and ethical issues specific to decision making for children. Content analysis of the statements addresses two issues: (1) how these recommendations characterize and analyze locus of decision making, as well as the risks and benefits of testing, and (2) whether the guidelines conflict or (...) come to different but compatible conclusions because they consider different testing scenarios. These statements differ in ethically significant ways. AAP/ACMG analyzes risks and benefits using best interests of the child and recommends that, absent ameliorative interventions available during childhood, clinicians should generally decline to order testing. Parents authorize focused tests. ACMG analyzes risks and benefits using the interests of the child and other family members and recommends that sequencing results be examined for additional variants that can lead to ameliorative interventions, regardless of age, which laboratories should report to clinicians who should contextualize the results. Parents must accept additional analysis. The ethical arguments in these statements appear to be in tension with each other. (shrink)

Closest-possible-world analyses of counterfactuals suffer from what has been called the ‘problem of counterpossibles’: some counterfactuals with metaphysically impossible antecedents seem plainly false, but the proposed analyses imply that they are all (vacuously) true. One alleged solution to this problem is the addition of impossible worlds. In this paper, I argue that the closest possible or impossible world analyses that have recently been suggested suffer from the ‘new problem of counterpossibles’: the proposed analyses imply that some plainly true counterpossibles (viz., (...) ‘counterlogicals’) are false. After motivating and presenting the ‘new problem’, I give reasons to think that the most plausible objection to my argument is not compelling. (shrink)

Goodman draws together, in this memoir, his explorations of meaning and coincidence, and his lived experiences of chance, and his professional experiences teaching, writing, and consulting about risk. The book opens by describing the author's life-changing encounter with a Zen Buddhist monk in 1977, over a cup of tea. Returning to his beginnings, Goodman recounts his coming-of-age, from participating the 1960’s U.S. protests and Vietnam-War resistance, to finally settling down in Canada. He describes his role in a supporting, (...) silent vigil around Willard Straight Hall at Cornell University, the night after it had been occupied by protestors, and his later application for Conscientious Objector status, following the U.S. draft lottery in 1969. He reflects on the challenges and changes on his road taken, in his career and personal relationships, and in spiritual searches, to share some insights about the seamless nature of chance, and about seeing a Both/And perspective in life that encourages openness to possibilities. -/- . (shrink)

On the Life of Abraham displays Philo's philosophical, exegetical, and literary genius at its best. Philo begins by introducing the biblical figures Enos, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as unwritten laws. Then, interweaving literal, ethical, and allegorical interpretations, Philo presents the life and achievements of Abraham, founder of the Jewish nation, in the form of a Greco-Roman bios, or biography. Ellen Birnbaum and John Dillon explain why and how this work is important within the context of Philo's own (...) oeuvre, early Jewish and Christian exegesis, and ancient philosophy. They also offer a new English translation and detailed analyses, in which they elucidate the meaning of Philo's thought, including his perplexing notion that Israel's ancestors were laws in themselves. (shrink)

A Hard-Hitting Critique... Brings Together Fine Essays That Speak Directly To The Underlying Assumptions Of Postmodernism And Offer A Stunning Critique Of Its Usefulness In Both Understanding And Critiquing The Current Historical Epoch. Contemporary Sociology.

Th ere is much controversy surrounding the nature of the relation between fictional individuals and possible individuals. Some have argued that no fictional individual is a possible individual; others have argued that (some) fictional individuals just are (merely) possible individuals. In this paper, I off er further grounds for believing the theory of fictional individuals defended by Amie Thomasson,viz., Artifactualism, by arguing that her view best allows one to make sense of this puzzling relation. More specifically, when we realize that (...) the view allows for an identification of merely possible individuals with fictional individuals, we seethat the utility, and hence the level of credence lent to Artifactualism, is increased. After arguing for this thesis, I respond to three of the most pressing worries. (shrink)

In this volume, noted philosopher Lenn E. Goodman shares the insights gained over a lifetime of pondering the meaning and purpose of Maimonides' celebrated Guide to the Perplexed. Written in the late twelfth century, Maimonides' Guide aims to help religiously committed readers who are alive to the challenges posed by reason and the natural sciences to biblical and rabbinic tradition. Keyed to the new translation and commentary by Lenn E. Goodman and Phillip I. Lieberman, this volume follows Maimonides' (...) life and learning and delves into the text of the Guide, clearly explaining just what Maimonides means by identifying the Talmudic Ma'aseh Bereshit and Ma'aseh Merkavah with physics and metaphysics (to Maimonides, biblical cosmology and theology). Exploring Maimonides' treatments of revelation, religious practice and experience, law and ritual, the problem of evil, and the rational purposes of the commandments, this guide to the Guide explains the tactics Maimonides deployed to ensure that readers not get in over their heads when venturing into philosophical deep waters. (shrink)

An original study of late Enlightenment aesthetics, poetics, and environmental medicine as overlapping ways of comprehending the dislocations of historical existence lodged in the movements of bodies and minds This book studies later eighteenth-century medicine, aesthetics, and poetics as overlapping forms of knowledge increasingly concerned about the relationship between the geographical movements of persons displaced from home and the physiological or nervous "motions" within their bodies and minds. Looking beyond familiar narratives about medicine and art's shared therapeutic and harmonizing ideals, (...) this book explores Enlightenment and Romantic-era aesthetics and poetics in relation to a central but less well known area of eighteenth-century environmental medicine: pathology. No mere system of diagnosis or classification, philosophical pathology was an art of interpretation, offering sophisticated ways of reading the multiple conditions and causes of disease, however absent from perception, in their palpable, embodied effects. For medical, anthropological, environmental, and literary authors alike, it helped to locate the dislocations of modern mobility when a full view of their causes and conditions remained imperfectly understood or still unfolding. Goodman traces the surprising afterlife of the period's exemplary but unexplained pathology of motion, medical nostalgia, within aesthetic theory and poetics, arguing that nostalgia persisted there not as a named condition but as a set of formal principles and practices, perturbing claims about the harmony, freedom, and free play of the mind. (shrink)

Orthodox Judaism is one of the fastest-growing religious communities in contemporary American life. According to the 2013 Pew Center Survey on American religious life, Orthodox Judaism is poised to surpass all other denominations of Judaism in the United States by 2050. Anyone who wishes to understand more about Judaism in America will need to consider the tenets and practices of Orthodox Judaism: who its adherents are, what they believe in, what motivates them, and to whom they turn for moral, intellectual, (...) and spiritual guidance. Among those spiritual leaders none looms larger than Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, heir to the legendary Talmudic dynasty of Brisk and a teacher and ordainer of thousands of rabbis during his time as a Talmud teacher at Yeshiva University from the Second World War until the 1980s. Soloveitchik was not only a Talmudic authority but a scholar of Western philosophy. While many books and articles have been written about Soloveitchik's legacy and his influence on American Orthodoxy, few have looked carefully at his disciples in Torah and Talmud study, and even fewer at his Jewish thought and philosophy. "Soloveitchik's Children: Irving Greenberg, David Hartman, Jonathan Sacks, and the Future of Jewish Theology in America" is the first book to study closely three of Soloveitchik's major disciples in Jewish thought and philosophy: Rabbis Irving ("Yitz") Greenberg, David Hartman, and Jonathan Sacks. These three figures hold unique places in modern and contemporary American Jewish life. Each has been highly influential not only within American Orthodoxy but within American Judaism more broadly; each has contributed significantly in the development of Jewish philosophy and theology in the postwar era; each has founded and presided over institutions of their own. David Ross Goodman narrates how each of these three major modern Jewish thinkers learned from and adapted Soloveitchik's teachings in their own ways, even while advancing his philosophical and theological legacy. Goodman highlights the approaches taken by Greenberg, Hartman, and Sacks to some of the most critical religious and philosophical issues of our time: Jewish-Christian relations and interfaith theology; the proper religious response to the Holocaust; the place of creativity in religious life; and the primacy of life in the Jewish tradition. The story of religious life and Judaism in contemporary America is incomplete without an understanding of how three of the most consequential Jewish thinkers of this generation adapted the teachings of one of the most consequential Jewish thinkers of the previous generation. "Soloveitchik's Children" tells this gripping intellectual and religious story in a learned, and engaging manner, shining a light on where Jewish religious thought in the United States currently stands-and where it may be heading in the coming generations. (shrink)

Inside Out takes people on a journey into terrain not often explored in animated films – the inner workings of the developing 11‐year‐old self. Inside Out takes a girl's emotional development as important, primary, and worthy of attention. Along the way, audiences come to appreciate that even though emotions often feel singular, solitary, and intense, some aspects of emotions are universal and cut across age, gender, and culture. The movie also highlights the social dimension of emotional expressiveness. The directors were (...) originally going to include many more emotions than the five core emotions they depict: joy, sadness, anger, disgust, and fear. The choice to focus on five primary emotions allows people to better appreciate how emotions are central to selfhood and how one's emotions influence his/her memories and self‐understanding. (shrink)

In this groundbreaking work, Ellen Meiksins Wood rewrites the history of political theory, from Plato to Rousseau. Treating canonical thinkers as passionately engaged human beings, Wood examines their ideas not simply in the context of political languages but as creative responses to the social relations and conflicts of their time and place. She identifies a distinctive relation between property and state in Western history and shows how the canon, while largely the work of members or clients of dominant classes, (...) was shaped by complex interactions among proprietors, labourers and states. Western political theory, Wood argues, owes much of its vigour, and also many ambiguities, to these complex and often contradictory relations. In this new edition, incorporating both volumes, the book takes us from classical antiquity to the age of enlightenement. In the first volume, Wood traces the development of the Western tradition from classical antiquity through to the Middle Ages in the perspective of social history--a significant departure not only from the standard abstract history of ideas but also from other contextual methods. In the second volume, Wood moves on to explore the formation of the modern state, the rise of capitalism, the Renaissance and Reformation, the scientific revolution and the Age of Enlightenment. In her focus on canonical thinkers through the ages, Wood illuminates a rich and provocative legacy of political ideas unmatched in Western history"--Publisher's website. (shrink)

All Christians read the Bible differently, pray differently, value their traditions differently, and give different weight to individual and corporate judgment. These differences are the basis of conflict. The question Christian ethics must answer, then, is, "What does the good life look like in the context of conflict?" In this new introductory text, Ellen Ott Marshall uses the inevitable reality of difference to center and organize her exploration of the system of Christian morality. What can we learn from Jesus' (...) creative use of conflict in situations that were especially attuned to questions of power? What does the image of God look like when we are trying to recognize the divine image within those with whom we are in conflict? How can we better explore and understand the complicated work of reconciliation and justice? This innovative approach to Christian ethics will benefit a new generation of students who wish to engage the perennial questions of what constitutes a faithful Christian life and a just society. (shrink)

Das vorliegende Open-Access-Buch zeigt, wie Kinder im Grundschulalter auf philosophische Gedanken reagieren. Diese werden den Kindern in Form von Kürzesttexten dargeboten. Auf Veranschaulichungen wird bewusst verzichtet. Dieser Zugang zum Philosophieren erscheint ungewöhnlich, wird doch in der Regel beim Philosophieren mit Kindern auf anschauliche Zugänge zurückgegriffen. Es zeigt sich jedoch, dass Kinder auf diese ungewöhnliche Einladung auf ebenso ungewöhnliche, eigenwillige und kreative Weise reagieren. Die vorliegende empirische Studie kommt mithin zu dem Ergebnis: Der Einsatz von Kürzesttexten erweist sich als lohnend. Die (...) Autorin Ellen Franziska Möller ist ausgebildete Lehrerin (Sek I und Sek II) für die Fächer Philosophie, praktische Philosophie und Physik. Zwischen 2019 und 2022 hat sie am Philosophischen Seminar der Universität zu Köln das Forschungsprojekt "Philosophie in der Primarstufe" vertreten. (shrink)

How Classification Works attempts to bridge the gap between philosophy and the social sciences using as a focus some of the work of Nelson Goodman. Throughout his long career Goodman has addressed the question: are some ways of conceptualizing more natural than others? This book looks at the rightness of categories, assessing Goodman's role in modern philosophy and explaining some of his ideas on the relation between aesthetics and cognitive theory. Two papers by Nelson Goodman are (...) included in the collection and there are analyses of his work by seven leading academics in anthropology, philosophy, sociology and musicology. (shrink)

Overview -- Why social workers earn less than accountants : pay equity -- Can you have a job and a life? -- Can a woman do a man's job? -- You want to see my what? : sexual harassment -- Nine to five : not just a movie--the right to organize -- Working other than nine to five : part-time and temporary jobs -- What this nation really thinks of motherhood : welfare reform -- Revaluing women's work outside of work (...) -- How you can help get there. (shrink)

In der Literatur der deutschen Romantik wird die jüdische Mystik auch von christlichen Autoren wie Novalis, F. Schlegel, Brentano, Arnim und E.T.A. Hoffmann entdeckt. Während die Kabbala bei Theologen und Philosophen der Romantik als religiöse Urlehre der Menschheit und als Brücke zwischen rabbinischer Tradition und Christentum galt, fasziniert sie die Literaten als esoterische jüdische Zauber- und Geheimlehre sowie als Trope einer die Rationalität und die Autorenintentionen übersteigenden, magischen Eigenmächtigkeit von Sprache und Schrift.

Our earliest mythologies tell us we all start as a little bit of dirt. These stories carry a profound message: each of us is born with a deep and abiding connection to the earth, one that many of us have lost touch with. The Silent Spring for today's environmental activists, this book offers an invitation to reestablish our relationship with nature to repair our damaged environment. Chapter 1 examines the threats to the planet's health through the lens of the human (...) energy system known as the chakras, describing how the broken first chakra relates to our disconnection from our biosphere. Chapter 2 shows how our current environmental crises--global warming, climate change, dwindling water resources, natural disasters such as wildfires and hurricanes--represent severe manifestations of our disconnection from the earth. Chapter 3 describes how the preponderance of oil in our culture--especially agribusiness--compounds this disconnection, from our dependence on other countries for our energy, to current issues of oil depletion, peak oil, and fracking, to the dumbing down of our agricultural polyculture. Chapter 4 explains how the most basic building blocks of our nourishment--seeds--are being compromised with a loss of biodiversity and rise of GMOs, and how that adversely affects the farmers whose sacred connection to the land has in many cases been severed. Chapter 5 describes the ways in which we as individuals can begin to wake up to climate activism as a spiritual practice. This chapter includes specific activities that you can use to implement change and heal your own connection to the earth. By learning and practicing ritual and understanding the earth's rhythms and seasonal rites of passage, each of us can find unique ways to heal our own connections and help others heal theirs. Chapter 6 looks at stories of how people are responding to their inner callings with generosity, innovation, and dedication--exactly the traits our nation and our planet need now. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Fundamental Principle of Fichte's Philosophy The purpose of this monograph is to make a careful study of Fichte's conception of the ultimate principle. In his various writings the principle appears under many different names. 'The Ego, ' 'the Idea of the Ego, ' 'the moral world-order, ' 'God, ' 'the Absolute, ' 'Being, ' 'the Light, ' are some of the phrases by which it is most commonly designated. It is not the main purpose of this study (...) to examine tile much discussed question of the relation between the two periods of Fichte's philosophy. But the question is so intimately connected with the problem which I have undertaken that some discussion of it is inevitable. I have tried, however, to keep well within the limits of my theme, and instead of considering the relation between the two periods in all its aspects, have sought merely to determine how far the conception of the fundamental principle which we find in Fichte's later writings differs from that which appears in the earlier ones. The references to Fichte's writings are to the Sammtliche Werke (Berlin, 1845-1846, 8 vols.) and to the Nachgelassene Werke (Bonn, 1834-1835, 3 vols.). References to the Sammtliche Werke are indicated by the letters S. W.; to the Nachgelassene Werke, by the letters N. W. References to the Kritik der remen Vernunft arc indicated by the letters A (for the First Edition) and B (for the Second). All other references to Kant's writings are made to Hartenstein's second edition of the Sammtliche Werke (Leipzig, 1867-1868, 8 vols.) and are indicated by the letter H. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.". (shrink)

In this paper, I submit that it is the controlled part of skilled action, that is, that part of an action that accounts for the exact, nuanced ways in which a skilled performer modifies, adjusts and guides her performance for which an adequate, philosophical theory of skill must account. I will argue that neither Jason Stanley nor Hubert Dreyfus have an adequate account of control. Further, and perhaps surprisingly, I will argue that both Stanley and Dreyfus relinquish an account of (...) control for precisely the same reason: each reduce control to a passive, mechanistic, automatic process, which then prevents them from producing a substantive account of how controlled processes can be characterized by seemingly intelligent features and integrated with personal-level states. I will end by introducing three different kinds of control, which are constitutive of skilled action: strategic control, selective, top–down, automatic attention, and motor control. It will become clear that Dreyfus cannot account for any of these three kinds of control while Stanley has difficulty tackling the two latter kinds. (shrink)

Influential work on proper names, most centrally associated with Kripke (1980), has had a significant influence in the literature on singular thought. The dominant position among contemporary singularists is that we can think singular thoughts about any object we can refer to by name and that, given the range of cases in which it is possible to refer using a name, name use in fact enables singular thought about a name's referent. I call this the extended name-based thought thesis (extended-NBT). (...) This chapter outlines the reasoning and presumptions of theorists who adopt extended NBT, and also outlines a set of reasons to resist it. The piece is distinctive in approaching the question of the relation between names and singular thought by focusing on the function of names and what this function entails (or doesn’t) about the kinds of thoughts (singular or descriptive) we have when we use names to communicate. In short, thinking about the function of names tells against the claim that name-use enables singular thought. (shrink)

It is not rare in philosophy and psychology to see theorists fall into dichotomous thinking about mental phenomena. On one side of the dichotomy there are processes that I will label “unintelligent.” These processes are thought to be unconscious, implicit, automatic, unintentional, involuntary, procedural, and non-cognitive. On the other side, there are “intelligent” processes that are conscious, explicit, controlled, intentional, voluntary, declarative, and cognitive. Often, if a process or behavior is characterized by one of the features from either of the (...) above lists, the process or behavior is classified as falling under the category to which the feature belongs. For example, if a process is implicit this is usually considered sufficient for classifying it as “unintelligent” and for assuming that the remaining features that fall under the “unintelligent” grouping will apply to it as well. Accordingly, if a process or behavior is automatic, philosophers often consider it to be unintelligent. It is my goal in this paper to challenge the conceptual slip from “automatic” to “unintelligent”. I will argue that there are a whole range of properties highlighted by the existing psychological literature that make automaticity a much more complex phenomenon than is usually appreciated. I will then go on to discuss two further important relationships between automatic processes and controlled processes that arise when we think about automatic processes in the context of skilled behavior. These interactions should add to our resistance to classifying automaticity as unintelligent or mindless. In Sect. 1, I present a few representative cases of philosophers classifying automatic processes and behaviors as mindless or unintelligent. In Sect. 2, I review trends in the psychology of automaticity in order highlight a complex set of features that are characteristic, though not definitive, of automatic processes and behaviors. In Sect. 3, I argue that at least some automatic processes are likely cognitively penetrable. In Sect. 4, I argue that the structure of skilled automatic processes is shaped diachronically by practice, training and learning. Taken together, these considerations should dislodge the temptation to equate “automatic” with “unintelligent”. (shrink)

When reflecting on the nature of skilled action, it is easy to fall into familiar dichotomies such that one construes the flexibility and intelligence of skill at the level of intentional states while characterizing the automatic motor processes that constitute motor skill execution as learned but fixed, invariant, bottom-up, brute-causal responses. In this essay, I will argue that this picture of skilled, automatic, motor processes is overly simplistic. Specifically, I will argue that an adequate account of the learned motor routines (...) that constitute embodied skills cannot be given in a purely bottom-up, brute-causal fashion. Rather, motor control is intelligent all the way down. To establish this, I will first review two recent accounts of skill, Stanley and Krakauer and Papineau, which characterize the automatic motor control responsible for the fine-grained movements constitutive of motor skill as brute, low-level phenomena. I will then isolate five key features that should apply to skilled motor control, if these accounts are correct. Together, the accounts posit that motor control is: ballistic, invariant, independent of general action trajectories, Insensitive to semantic content, and independent of personal-level intentions. In the final section of this paper, I will appeal to optimal control theory for empirical evidence to challenge the commitment to skilled action as qualified by the above features. (shrink)

From the beginning in 1932, LEGO toys have expressed and were designed with an ethos grounded in simplicity, care, fun, and sustainability. The LEGO corporation's emphasis on openness parallels the philosopher Martin Heidegger's emphasis on openness, releasement, and working creatively within the structures and limitations of history and culture. When one play with LEGO toys, he/she eventually realize his/her creations can be taken apart or knocked down. Heidegger explains that these moments of destruction are opportunities for understanding. For Heidegger, play (...) is especially important because it reconnects them with the awe and wonder. The open structure of LEGO toys invites openness from creators. Other toys might create, require, and sustain different moods and modes of play. However, LEGO play reveals moods and desires in a unique way. LEGO play often extends over a sustained period of time, inviting play with the same bricks in diverse environments with different emotional settings. (shrink)

When reflecting on the nature of skilled action, it is easy to fall into familiar dichotomies such that one construes the flexibility and intelligence of skill at the level of intentional states while characterizing the automatic motor processes that constitute motor skill execution as learned but fixed, invariant, bottom-up, brute-causal responses. In this essay, I will argue that this picture of skilled, automatic, motor processes is overly simplistic. Specifically, I will argue that an adequate account of the learned motor routines (...) that constitute embodied skills cannot be given in a purely bottom-up, brute-causal fashion. Rather, motor control is intelligent all the way down. To establish this, I will first review two recent accounts of skill, Stanley and Krakauer (Front Hum Neurosci, 2013. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2013.0050) and Papineau (R Inst Philos Suppl 73:175–196, 2013), which characterize the automatic motor control responsible for the fine-grained movements constitutive of motor skill as brute, low-level phenomena. I will then isolate five key features that should apply to skilled motor control, if these accounts are correct. Together, the accounts posit that motor control is: (1) ballistic, (2) invariant, (3) independent of general action trajectories, (4) Insensitive to semantic content, and (5) independent of personal-level intentions. In the final section of this paper, I will appeal to optimal control theory for empirical evidence to challenge the commitment to skilled action as qualified by the above features. (shrink)