This book collects published and unpublished work over the last dozen years by one of today's most distinguished and provocative anthropologists. Johannes Fabian is widely known outside of his discipline because his work so often overcomes traditional scholarly boundaries to bring fresh insight to central topics in philosophy, history, and cultural studies. The first part of the book addresses questions of current critical concern. The second part extends the work of critique into the past by examining the beginning of (...) modern ethnography in the exploration of Central Africa during the late nineteenth century: the justification of a scientific attitude and the collecting of ethnographic objects. A final essay examines how the Congolese have returned the 'imperial gaze' of Belgium by the work of critical memory in popular history. The ten chapters are framed by two meditations on the relevance of theory and the irrelevance of the millennium. (shrink)
Abstract This paper reports the results obtained in an aid project designed to improve transport in the municipal area of Jocotán (Guatemala). The rural road network of an area occupied by indigenous people was analysed and a road chosen for repair using the labour-intensive method–something never done before in this area. The manpower required for the project was provided by the population that would benefit from the project; the involvement of outside contractors and businesses was avoided. All payment for labour (...) went into the pockets of the local people. The small earth movements made and the use of local materials guaranteed the project’s environmental sustainability, while the on-site training of the local community prepared its members for the continued maintenance of the road, thus investing the project with social sustainability. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-24 DOI 10.1007/s11948-011-9290-2 Authors Rodrigo Ares, BIPREE Research Group, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain José-María Fuentes, BIPREE Research Group, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain Eutiquio Gallego, BIPREE Research Group, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain Francisco Ayuga, BIPREE Research Group, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain Ana-Isabel García, BIPREE Research Group, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain Journal Science and Engineering Ethics Online ISSN 1471-5546 Print ISSN 1353-3452. (shrink)
Cutting across boundaries of art and science, evolution is a fundamental process that has beguiled thinkers through the ages. This collection draws together world renowned thinkers and communicators with their own intriguing insights. In these essays they offer a feast of dazzling thoughts and ideas to challenge and enthrall the reader. Why and how do civilisations and societies change over time? Why do our cells develop the way they do? Why are some villages still villages while others have grown into (...) vast cities? Can we learn from our evolutionary past to plan a better future for our health and society? Tracing a line from the history of biological evolution, through the evolution of cultures, society, science and the universe, Evolution brings together intriguing parallels from all levels of life. From the evolution of the developing embryo to the evolution of a developing star, common threads develop into a fascinating story. (shrink)
Together the essays illuminate Fabianrs"s pluralist vision of an anthropology that always makes the other present by opening itself to conversational and ...
Economists, in stressing the prescriptive implications of their analysis, typically have ignored the potential contributions of their theorems and methodological principles to the understanding of human behavior as an end in itself. The purpose of the paper is to establish the principle, by detailed reference to the literature of economics, that the 'deductive pattern of explanation' constitutes a valid approach to the general study of human behavior. As such, it is a potentially useful method of analysis in the other social (...) sciences. Literature from the philosophy of social science bearing on the applicability of deductive theory to the study of human behavior is subjected to detailed critical analysis. (shrink)
This paper describes the introduction of a new electronic identity card including an electronic identity (EID) for local physical and online authentication in 2006. The most significant difference to any European country is the decentralized issuing at 256 police stations employing an automatic printing machine. This is the most visible element in a high degree continuation, as the previous paper based ID cards were also personalized and issued at the police stations. Similarly the attributes defining the identity and the legal (...) framework were not changed either. While there was some delay in the planning phase, the role-out of the new eID cards was rather smooth. At the end of 2009, approx. 13 Mio Spanish citizens out of more than 46.5 Mio inhabitants (www.ine.es) were in possession of an eID card. But this does not necessarily mean that they are using the eID function for online authentication. The reasons for this application gap will be discussed with reference to online tax declaration, where the eID so far covers less than one percent of all online declarations while authentication by software certificates still make up for 98 percent. (shrink)
Misuse or misunderstanding of medication information is a common and costly problem in the U.S. The risks of misunderstanding medication information are compounded for the large and growing population of individuals with limited English proficiency that often lacks access to this information in their own language. This paper examines practices related to translation of medication information in the European Union that may serve as a model for future U.S. policy efforts to improve the quality and availability of medication information for (...) individuals with limited English proficiency. (shrink)
This paper seeks to destabilize the silent privilege given to the secured juridical-political position of the citizen as the stable site of enunciation of the problem/solution framework under which the stranger (foreigner, immigrant, refugee) is theoretically located. By means of textual, intertextual, and extratextual readings of Antigone, the paper argues that it is politically and literarily possible to (re)invent her for strangers in the twenty-first century, that is, for those symbolically produced as not-legally locatable and who resignify their ambivalent ontological (...) status between life and death as an alternative sociopolitical location of speech and action in equality with “others.”. (shrink)
It is commonly held that Aristotle's views on politics have little relevance to the preoccupations of modern political theory with authority and obligation. Andres Rosler's original study argues that, on the contrary, Aristotle does examine the question of political obligation and its limits, and that contemporary political theorists have much to learn from him. Rosler takes his exploration further, considering the ethical underpinning of Aristotle's political thought, the normativity of his ethical and political theory, and the concepts of political (...) authority and obligation themselves. (shrink)
Héctor Wittwer, Ist es vernünftig, moralisch zu handeln? Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-2 DOI 10.1007/s10677-012-9342-y Authors Fabian Wendt, Universität Hamburg, Philosophisches Seminar, Von-Melle-Park 6, 20146 Hamburg, Germany Journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Online ISSN 1572-8447 Print ISSN 1386-2820.
Transcendental epistemology of physics Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s11016-010-9507-z Authors Andrés Rivadulla, Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, Complutense University, 28040 Madrid, Spain Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.
In this highly ambitious, wide ranging, immensely impressive and ground-breaking work Fabian Dorsch surveys just about every account of the imagination that has ever been proposed. He identifies five central types of imagining that any unifying theory must accommodate and sets himself the task of determining whether any theory of what imagining consists in covers these five paradigms. Focussing on what he takes to be the three main theories, and giving them each equal consideration, he faults the first two (...) and embraces the third, which argues that imagining is a special form of mental agency. The scholarship is immaculate, the writing crystal clear and the argumentation always powerful. (Malcolm Budd). (shrink)
Farben sind für uns sowohl objektive, als auch phänomenale Eigenschaften. In seinem Buch argumentiert Fabian Dorsch, daß keine ontologische Theorie der Farben diesen beiden Seiten unseres Farbbegriffes gerecht werden k ann. Statt dessen sollten wir akzeptieren, daß letzterer sich auf zwei verschiedene Arten von Eigenschaften bezieht: die repräsentierten Reflektanzeigenschaften von Gegenständen und die qualitativen Eigenschaften unserer Farbwahrnehmungen, die als sinnliche Gegebenheitsweisen ersterer fungieren. Die Natur der Farben gibt einen detaillierten Überblick über die zeitgenössischen philosophischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Theorien der Farben (...) und bietet sich aufgrund seines systematischen und umfassenden Charakters auch als ein seminar- oder vorlesungsbegleitendes Textbuch an. (shrink)
La obra recoge, desde una perspectiva interdisciplinar, las aportaciones de un grupo de investigadores españoles e italianos que han trabajado conjuntamente durante varios años en distintas cuestiones en torno a las posibilidades y riesgos de los avances biotecnológicos y su incidencia en el campo de los derechos humanos. Los estudios y debates se han realizado en el marco del programa de doctorado internacional sobre "Derechos humanos: Problemas actuales" encabezado por las Universidades de Valencia y Palermo. El Profesor Jesús Ballesteros, (...) Catedrático de Filosofía del Derecho en la Universidad de Valencia, ha sido el encargado de dirigir y coordinar este proyecto. (shrink)
Presentación del rector -- El habla de los historiadores -- Discurso de recepción de Andrés L. Mateo en la Academia Dominicana de la Lengua, por Diógenes Céspedes -- La dominicanidad en los Apuntes de un viaje, de José Martí -- Una lectura diferente de la quintilla del Padre Vásquez -- ¿Por qué vino Pedro Henríquez Ureña en 1931? -- Anexos al ensayo : ¿Por qué vino Pedro Henríquez Ureña en 1931?
Este Dicionario Enciclopedia do Pensamento Galego, coordinado por Andrés Torres Queiruga e Manuel Rivas García e redactado por corenta e seis persoas, trata de conxuntar un dicionario de pensadores galegos e unha visión temática que permita encadrar o labor máis directamente filosófico no campo xeral da nosa cultura. De aí a súa división en dúas partes: a primeira, un dicionario de autores, e a segunda, unha enciclopedia que complementa temas, ideas e persoeiros que propiamente non caben na primeira. Deste xeito, (...) o Dicionario, en orde alfabética, permite un percorrido polo enteiro transcurso da nosa historia intelectual e da achega realizada por cento dez autores, mentres que a Enciclopedia propicia un amplo encadramento nos diversos campos da cultura: antropoloxía, pensamento científico, dereito, economía, estética, exilio, feminismo, literatura, matemática, medicina, nacionalismo, pedagoxía, política, prensa e relixión. Por último os índices onomástico e temático permiten diversos percorridos, que, conxuntando sincronía e diacronía, poden axudar a unha visión máis integral e realista da nosa cultura. A nómina de pensadores da primeira parte chega aos nosos días, ocupándose con maior profundidade dos autores fenecidos e delimitando a extension das entradas consonte á importancia do seu pensamento. Para os autores vivos acudiuse, cando foi posible, á información dos propios interesados, adoptándose un criterio de estrita austeridade informativa, cinxíndoa a datos biográficos básicos e referencia á obra publicada no eido filosófico. Para a redacción da parte enciclopédica escolléronse estudosos cualificados, cuxa asinatura consta ao final dos mesmos. Ordenados, tamén, alfabeticamente estes traballos de maior extensión intentan ofrecer unha visión mais global e panorámica, recollendo problemas, preocupacións ou iniciativas que están presentes na cultura actual, procurando sinalar as directrices históricas que seguirn ao longo do tempo. (shrink)
[Stephen Yablo] The usual charge against Carnap's internal/external distinction is one of 'guilt by association with analytic/synthetic'. But it can be freed of this association, to become the distinction between statements made within make-believe games and those made outside them-or, rather, a special case of it with some claim to be called the metaphorical/literal distinction. Not even Quine considers figurative speech committal, so this turns the tables somewhat. To determine our ontological commitments, we have to ferret out all traces of (...) nonliterality in our assertions; if there is no sensible project of doing that, there is no sensible project of Quinean ontology. /// [Andre Gallois] I discuss Steve Yablo's defence of Carnap's distinction between internal and external questions. In the first section I set out what I take that distinction, as Carnap draws it, to be, and spell out a central motivation Carnap has for invoking it. In the second section I endorse, and augment, Yablo's response to Quine's arguments against Carnap. In the third section I say why Carnap's application of the distinction between internal and external questions runs into trouble. In the fourth section I spell out what I take to be Yablo's version of Carnap. In the last I say why that version is especially vulnerable to the objection raised in the second. (shrink)
Very little has been written in recent decades about the temporal nature of art. The two principal explanations provided by our Western cultural tradition are that art is timeless (`eternal') or that it belongs within the world of historical change. Neither account offers a plausible explanation of the world of art as we know it today, which contains large numbers of works which are self-evidently not timeless because they have been resurrected after long periods of oblivion with significances quite different (...) from those which they originally held, and which also seem to have escaped history because, though long-forgotten, they have `come alive' again for us today. In his two key works on the theory of art, "Les Voix du silence" and "La Métamorphose des dieux", André Malraux offers an entirely new account of the temporal nature of art based on the concept of metamorphosis. Unlike the traditional explanations, Malraux's account makes sense of the world of art as we now know it. He revolutionizes our understanding of the relationship between art and time. (shrink)
After an initial period of popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, André Malraux’s works on the theory of art, "The Voices of Silence" and "The Metamorphosis of the Gods", lapsed into relative obscurity. A major factor in this fall from grace was the frosty reception given to these works by a number of leading art historians, including E.H. Gombrich, who accused Malraux of an irresponsible approach to art history and of "reckless inaccuracies". This essay examines a representative sample of the (...) art historians' arguments and contends that they reveal serious misreadings of Malraux’s texts and a recurring tendency to confuse matters of interpretation with matters of fact. The article suggests that the charge of irresponsibility might well be levelled at the critics themselves, and that the myth of Malraux as guilty of ‘reckless inaccuracies’ needs to be debunked. (shrink)
André Gallois’s Occasions of Identity injects a refreshing new perspective into an old debate. Actually, what is new is the advocacy of the perspective: Gallois takes up a view that many consider a non-starter, and shows this reaction to be premature. The debate is over the right way to understand the traditional puzzles involving two things being in the same place at the same time; the perspective is that identity can hold temporarily (and contingently). Suppose an amoeba, name it AMOEBA, (...) divides in two. One of the resultant amoebas, POND, lives in a pond; the other, SLIDE, is examined on a slide in a laboratory. Does AMOEBA survive this process, and if so, does it survive as POND or SLIDE? If we stipulate that POND and SLIDE are symmetrically related to AMOEBA then it seems arbitrary to identify AMOEBA with exactly one of POND and SLIDE. But we cannot identify AMOEBA with each, for then by the transitivity and symmetry of identity we would wrongly identify POND and SLIDE. We are left with the conclusion that AMOEBA is identical to neither. But this seems wrong too; surely fission does not result in death. So just what does happen to AMOEBA? How to respond to this and related cases (involving statues and their constituting hunks of matter, cats and their undetached parts, and so on) has been much discussed.1 There are many proposals, each with distinctive strengths and weaknesses. To these Gallois adds his own, which runs as follows. After division, there are two amoebas, POND and SLIDE, each of which existed before division. But it does not follow that there were two amoebas before division. Though POND and SLIDE are numerically distinct after division, they were numerically identical before division. The identity relation can hold temporarily, or occasionally, as Gallois puts it. My sense is that this sort of claim is regarded by most metaphysicians as downright wacky. And yet there is something very natural about it. Why distinguish POND and SLIDE today because they will differ tomorrow? I suspect the “wackiness” reaction has two sources, one based on Leibniz’s Law.. (shrink)
Choderlos de Laclos’s novel 'Les Liaisons dangereuses', first published in 1782, is regarded as one of the outstanding works of French literature. This article concerns a well known commentary by the twentieth-century writer André Malraux which, though often mentioned by critics, has seldom been studied in detail. The article argues that, while Malraux endorses the favourable modern assessments of 'Les Liaisons dangereuses', his analysis diverges in important respects from prevailing critical opinion. In particular, he regards the work as the commencement (...) of an important new stage in the French novel rather than, as often argued, the culmination of the existing libertine tradition. (shrink)
This review essay critically discusses Andre Kukla's Methods of theoretical psychology. It is argued that Kukla mistakenly tries to build his case for theorizing in psychology as a separate discipline on a dubious distinction between theory and observation. He then argues that the demise of empiricism implies a return of some form of rationalism, which entails an autonomous role for theorizing in psychology. Having shown how this theory-observation dichotomy goes back to traditional and largely abandoned ideas in epistemology, an alternative (...) is presented in the guise of the pragmatist or functionalist tradition, where the interdependence of theory, observation and action is emphasized and the positivist dichotomy of pure observations and pure theory is rejected. Furthermore, we show how recent work on "active" perception supports the functionalist approach. Although the authors agree with Kukla that theory has a legitimate place in psychology, it is suggested that he needlessly limits its scope to autonomous domain-neutral theorizing, and that broadening its perspective to analyzing the presuppositions and implications of empirical work is a more fruitful approach. In fact, the attempt to find the epistemological and philosophical implications of empirical work in perception that is sketched in this review essay is, in the authors' view, a case of theorizing in psychology. (shrink)
Andre Gorz is one of the most important contemporary socialist thinkers, acquiring the reputation of an iconoclastic theorist who poses radical questions about the future of the Left. This full length assessment of his work is the first to critically evaluate all of his writings from the 1950s to the '90s. Highlighting the eclectic nature of Gorz's intellectual heritage beginning with his existentialist-Marxist roots in post-war France, Adrian Little creates a unique perspective, arguing that Gorz is primarily a theorist of (...) individual freedom and autonomy. In this context he can be regarded not only as a post-Marxist thinker but as a unique purveyor of individualistic socialism. This view offers a challenge to all on the Left who are concerned with the reproduction of welfare capitalism and the future of democratic socialism. (shrink)
: The Newman programs established at secular colleges and universities provided an opportunity for intellectual, spiritual, and social growth among the Catholic student population. As a young physician and junior medical faculty member, André Hellegers took part in the early organization and ongoing work of Carroll House, the Newman Center at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions. Hellegers's experience at Carroll House enabled him to develop a clear blueprint of an academic center of excellence for the scientific, theological, and philosophical exploration (...) of the many problems that he had seen and foresaw in medicine. That center would become Georgetown's Kennedy Institute of Ethics. (shrink)
A comprehensive and scholarly exploration of the personal and philosophical origins of André Gorz's work, this book includes a unique analysis of his early untranslated texts, as well as critical discussions of his relationship to the work of Husserl, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Marx, and Habermas. Reassessing pivotal notions such as the "lifeworld" and the "subject," it argues that Gorz has pioneered a person-centred social theory in which the motive and the meaning of social critique is firmly rooted in people's lived experience.
Machine generated contents note: 1. -- War on war, by Lewis Thomas -- 2. -- Silent genocide, by Abdus Salam -- 3. -- Error: a stage of knowledge, by Paulo Freire -- 4. -- Doing without a revolution?, by Tahar Ben Jelloun -- 5. -- Stop torture, by Manfred Nowak -- 6. -- Truth, force and law, by Rabindranath Tagore -- 7. -- Violence is an insult to the human being, by Federico Mayor -- 8. -- Totalitarianism banishes politics, by (...) Vaclav Havel -- 9. -- No one will stop us. , by Desmond Tutu -- 10. -- Colonialism and the youth bomb, by Joseph Ki-Zerbo -- 11. -- The shedding of blood -- 12. -- Letter from Nagasaki, by Takashi Nagai -- 13. -- Down with exclusion!, by Herbert de Souza -- 14. -- The nower to sav 'no'. bv loan Martin-Brown -- 15. -- Inquiry into a taboo, by Ouassila Si Saber -- 16. -- The illusions of rationalism, by Ernesto Sabato -- 17. -- The 'poisonous weed', by Ba Jin -- 18. -- Humanity, an ongoing creation, by Ali Ahmad Said Esber (Adonis) -- 19. -- Image, writing and the vandal, by Alberto Moravia -- 20. -- The charms of calumny, by Andres Bello -- 21. -- On the threshold of eternity, by the Abbe Pierre -- 22. -- The control of force, by Karl Jaspers -- 23. -- The nature of force, by Simone Weil -- 24. -- The debt of justice, by Martin Luther King -- 25. -- Democracy and barbarism, by Sergei S. Averintsev -- 26. -- If all the animals should disappear, by Richard Fitter -- 27. -- Irony and compassion, by Octavio Paz -- 28. -- Against all hatred, by Aime Cesaire -- 29. -- Creating differences, by Daniel J. Boorstin -- 30. -- I dislike the word 'tolerance', by Mahatma Gandhi. (shrink)
One of the most powerful arguments against intentionalism and in favour of disjunctivism about perceptual experiences has been formulated by M. G. F. Martin in his paper The Transparency of Experience. The overall structure of this argument may be stated in the form of a triad of claims which are jointly inconsistent.
" Suitable for both newcomers to Malraux and more advanced students, the study also examines critical responses to these works by figures such as Maurice ...
Social identity poses one of the most important challenges to rational choice theory, but rational choice theorists do not hold a common position regarding identity. On one hand, externalist rational choice ignores the concept of identity or reduces it to revealed preferences. On the other hand, internalist rational choice considers identity as a key concept in explaining social action because it permits expressive motivations to be included in the models. However, internalist theorists tend to reduce identity to desire—the desire of (...) a person to express his or her social being. From an internalist point of view, that is, from a viewpoint in which not only desires but also beliefs play a key role in social explanations as mental entities, this article rejects externalist reductionism and proposes a redefinition of social identity as a net of beliefs about oneself, beliefs that are indexical, robust, and socially shaped. (shrink)
One central fact about hallucinations is that they may be subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions. Indeed, it has been argued by M. G. F. Martin and others that the hallucinatory experiences concerned cannot — and need not — be characterised in any more positive general terms. This epistemic conception of hallucinations has been advocated as the best choice for proponents of experiential (or ‘na¨ıve realist’) disjunctivism — the view that perceptions and hallucinations differ essentially in their introspectible subjective characters. In this (...) chapater, I aim to formulate and defend an intentional alternative to experiential disjunctivism called experiential intentionalism. This view does not only enjoy some advantages over its rival, but also can hold on to the epistemic conception of perception-like hallucinations. First of all, I try to spell out in a bit more detail in which sense hallucinations may be subjectively indistinguishable from perceptions, and why this leads us to erroneously judge them to be perceptions (cf. sections I–III and VIII). Then, I raise three challenges each for experiential disjunctivism and its orthodox intentionalist counterparts (cf. sections IV and V), notably in respect of the need to explicate why a perception-like hallucination still makes the same judgements reasonable from the subject’s perspective as the corresponding perceptions. And, finally, I propose my alternative both to experiential disjunctivism and to orthodox intentionalism. Experiential intentionalism takes perceptions and perception-like hallucinations to share a common character partly to be spelled out in intentional — and, hence, normative — terms (cf. sections VI and VII). The central thought is that the hallucinations concerned are intentionally — and erroneously — presented to us as perceptual relations to the world. I aim to show that the resulting view can meet all six challenges (cf. sections VI–VIII). I end.. (shrink)
Why does art matter to us, and what makes good art? Why is the role of imagination so important in art? Illustrated with carefully chosen color and black-and-white plates of examples from Michelangelo to Matisse and Poussin to Jackson Pollock, Revealing Art explores some of the most important questions we can ask about art. Matthew Kieran clearly but forcefully asks how art inspires us and disgusts us and whether artistic judgment is simply a matter of taste, and if art can (...) be immoral or obscene, should it be censored? He brings such abstract issues to life with fascinating discussions of individual paintings, photographs and sculptures, such as Michelangelo's Pietà, Andres Serrano's Piss Christ and Jackson Pollock's Summertime. He also suggests some answers to problems that any one in an art gallery or museum is likely to ask themselves: what is a beautiful work of art, and can art really reveal something true about our own nature? Revealing Art is ideal for anyone interested in debates about art today, or who has simply stood in front of a painting and felt baffled. (shrink)
One important issue in the philosophy of perception is the question of which features of objects are perceivable.1 Perhaps the only fairly uncontroversial claim in this debate is that we can perceive the traditional examples of what have been called ‘secondary qualities’ — such as colours, smells, or tastes.2 But even among those who accept that we are also able to perceive certain basic ‘primary qualities’ — notably shapes, distances, sizes, weights, and so on — there is disagreement about (...) whether our access to more higher-level properties can likewise be perceptual. Thus, it is debated, for instance, whether we can see the sadness or intelligence of a friend, the kindness of an action, the elegance of a gait, the climbability of a wall, the fragility of a glass, the quality of a proof or of a move in chess, the content of a painting, or even simpler properties like being a bottle or being a cat. Some of our recognitions of such higher-level features have three things in common. First, they are immediate in the sense of being phenomenologically (or psychologically) immediate. We need not engage in a conscious inference or another form of reasoning in order to notice that someone is sad or that a certain chess move is bad. Second, our awareness of the higher-level features involves or is grounded in the — typically perceptual — recognition of relevant lower-level features which contribute to the realisation3 of the higher-level features in question. We notice that a friend is sad partly on the basis of perceiving the tone of his voice or the shape of his gestures. And we notice that a chess move is bad partly in response to perceiving the specific situation on the board. Third, we have an intelligible and reasonable practice of backing up our ascriptions of the higher-level features by highlighting the respective lower-level properties. When someone challenges our judgement that our friend is sad, or the move bad, we support our assessments by referring to the lower-level features just mentioned.. (shrink)
In this paper we shall address some issues concerning the relation between the content and the nature of perceptual experiences. More precisely, we shall ask whether the claim that perceptual experiences are by nature relational implies that they cannot be intentional. As we shall see, much depends in this respect on the way one understands the possibility for one to be wrong about the phenomenal nature of one's own experience. We shall describe and distinguish a series of errors that can (...) occur in our introspective access to our perceptual experiences. We shall argue that once the nature of these different kinds of error are properly understood, the metaphysical claim that perceptual experiences are relational can be seen to be compatible with the view that they are intentional. (shrink)
Philip Pettit’s republican conception of freedom is presented as an alternative both to negative and positive conceptions of freedom. The basic idea is to conceptualize freedom as non-domination, not as non-interference or self-mastery. When compared to negative freedom, Pettit’s republican conception comprises two controversial claims: the claim that we are unfree if we are dominated without actual interference, and the claim that we are free if we face interference without domination. Because the slave is a widely accepted paradigm of the (...) unfree person, the case of a slave with a non-interfering master is often cited as providing a good argument for the first republican claim and against a negative conception of freedom. One aim of this article is to raise doubts about whether this is true. The other aim of the article is to show that the prisoner—also a paradigm of the unfree person—presents a good argument against the second republican claim and in favour of a negative conception of freedom. This is called the ‘prisoner-argument’. It will be argued that neither Pettit’s distinction between free persons and free choices nor his distinction between compromising and conditioning factors of freedom can help to rebut the charge of the prisoner-argument. (shrink)
The claim that consciousness is propositional has be widely debated in the past. For instance, it has been discussed whether consciousness is always propositional, whether all propositional consciousness is linguistic, whether propositional consciousness is always articulated, or whether there can be non-articulated propositions. In contrast, the question of whether propositions are conscious has not very often been the focus of attention.
This paper continues a dialogue that began with an article by Jeffrey Koperski entitled “Two Bad Ways to Attack Intelligent Design and Two Good Ones,” published in the June 2008 issue of Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science. In a response article, Christopher Pynes argues that ad hominem arguments are sometimes legitimate, especially when critiquing Intelligent Design (2012). We show that Pynes’s examples only apply to matters of testimony, not the kinds of arguments found in the best defenses of ID.
In three experiments, we investigated the computational complexity of German reciprocal sentences with different quantificational antecedents. Building upon the tractable cognition thesis (van Rooij, 2008) and its application to the verification of quantifiers (Szymanik, 2010) we predicted complexity differences among these sentences. Reciprocals with all-antecedents are expected to preferably receive a strong interpretation (Dalrymple et al., 1998), but reciprocals with proportional or numerical quantifier antecedents should be interpreted weakly. Experiment 1, where participants completed pictures according to their preferred interpretation, provides (...) evidence for these predictions. Experiment 2 was a picture verification task. The results show that the strong interpretation was in fact possible for tractable all but one-reciprocals, but not for exactly n. The last experiment manipulated monotonicity of the quantifier antecedents. (shrink)
The aim of this article is to present the disagreement between Moran and Walton on the nature of our affective responses to fiction and to defend a view on the issue which is opposed to Moran's account and improves on Walton's. Moran takes imagination-based affective responses to be instances of genuine emotion and treats them as episodes with an emotional attitude towards their contents. I argue against the existence of such attitudes, and that the affective element of such responses should (...) rather be taken to be part of what is imagined. In this respect, I follow Walton; and I also agree with the latter that our affective responses to fiction are, as a consequence, not instances of real emotion. However, this gives rise to the challenge to be more specific about the nature of our responses and explain how they can still involve a phenomenologically salient affective element, given that propositionally imagining that one feels a certain emotion is ruled out because it may be done in a dispassionate way. The answer - already suggested, but not properly spelled out by Walton - is that affectively responding to some fictional element consists in imaginatively re- presenting an experience of emotional feeling towards it. The central thought is that the conscious and imaginative representation of the affective character of an instance of genuine emotion itself involves the respective phenomenologically salient affective element, despite not instantiating it. (shrink)
Most philosophers writing on the imagination have insisted that we cannot gain knowledge by relying on imagining – in contrast, say, to perception or inference – as our source of knowledge. Their doubts have not concerned the widely acknowledged fact that imagining a situation may help or enable us to acquire certain pieces of knowledge – for instance, when we visualise geometrical figures or patterns of numbers to come to know mathematical facts (cf. Giaquinto (1992) and (2007)), or when we (...) engage in thought experiments or other imaginative projects to gain philosophical knowledge (cf. Gendler (2000), and Gendler & Hawthorne (2002)). Instead, what is traditionally rejected is the idea that mental episodes of imagining can ground or constitute knowledge in the same way in which episodes of perceiving, remembering or judging can do so.1.. (shrink)
In this paper I defend the idea that there is a sense in which it is meaningful and useful to talk about objective understanding, and that to characterize that notion it is necessary to formulate an account of explanation that makes reference to the beliefs and epistemic goals of the participants in a cognitive enterprise. Using the framework for belief revision developed by Isaac Levi, I analyze the conditions that information must fulfill to be both potentially explanatory and epistemically (...) valuable to an inquiring agent and to a scientific community. To be potentially explanatory, the information must state the relations of probabilistic relevance that the explanans bares to the explanandum. But a potential explanation con only be a bona fide explanation if it becomes part of inquiry, that is, if an agent or a group of agents can see any value in it for their cognitive purposes. I provide a way to evaluate the epistemic value of a potential explanation as a function of its credibility and its informational content. (shrink)
In this paper I critically examine the notion of explanation used in artificial intelligence in general, and in the theory of belief revision in particular. I focus on two of the best known accounts in the literature: Pagnucco’s abductive expansion functions and Gärdenfors’ counterfactual analysis. I argue that both accounts are at odds with the way in which this notion has historically been understood in philosophy. They are also at odds with the explanatory strategies used in actual scientific practice. At (...) the end of the paper I outline a set of desiderata for an epistemologically motivated, scientifically informed belief revision model for explanation. (shrink)
In many respects, how things subjectively seem to us is distinct — and may diverge — from how they objectively are. My goal in this research project is to illustrate that this is in particular true of reasons, and to highlight some of the main metaphysical, epistemological and normative consequences of this truth. My central claim is that objective facts constitute reasons for us by speaking for or against certain beliefs, actions, evaluations or emotions; and that we recognise such facts (...) as reason-constituting by experiencing our awareness of them as reason-providing. The first two parts of my project address the subject-relative nature of, and our subjective access to, objective reasons; while the third part applies the gained results to more specific issues concerning the relation between experience and reasons. (shrink)
Very few—if any—will doubt Hobbes's aversion to the state of nature and sympathy for civil society. On the other hand, it is not quite news that it would be inaccurate to claim that Hobbes rejected the state of nature entirely. Indeed, he embraced or at the very least tolerated the state of nature at the international level in order to escape from the individual state of nature. Hobbes's recommended exchange of an individual state of nature for an international one does (...) seem to have a smack of contradiction, arguably first noted by Rousseau. There is yet another charge of contradiction lurking around Hobbes's account of the state of nature. Hobbes's political thought would still reflect an ambivalent attitude towards a third instantiation of the state of nature, i.e. civil war. This is one of the main reasons why the political allegiance of Thomas Hobbes has been an issue ever since the publication of De Cive at the very least. This paper deals with Hobbes's differential treatment of the original and the international states of nature and discusses the source of Hobbes's somewhat ambivalent attitude towards civil war. It is here argued that Hobbes can fairly hold his ground vis-à-vis Rousseau's criticism, in spite of the normative resemblance between the international state of nature and the initial state of nature, and that Hobbes ambivalent attitude of attraction and repulsion towards civil war is actually due not so much to opportunism on his part as to the normative autonomy he has granted to the state of nature. (shrink)
The origin of paraconsistent logic is closely related with the argument, 'from the assertion of two mutually contradictory statements any other statement can be deduced'; this can be referred to as ex contradictione sequitur quodlibet (ECSQ). Despite its medieval origin, only by the 1930s did it become the main reason for the unfeasibility of having contradictions in a deductive system. The purpose of this article is to study what happened earlier: from Principia Mathematica to that time, when it became well (...) established. The two main historical claims that I am going to advance are the following: (1) the first explicit use of ECSQ as the main argument for supporting the necessity of excluding any contradiction from deductive systems is to be found in the first edition of the book Grundz ge der Theoretischen Logik (Hilbert, D. and Ackermann, W. 1928. Grundz ge der Theoretischen Logik . Berlin: Julius Springer Verlag); (2) ukasiewicz's position regarding the logical constraints against contradictions varies considerably from his studies on the principle of (non-) contradiction in Aristotle, published in 1910 and what is stated in his 'authorized lectured notes' on mathematical logic that appeared in 1929. The two texts are: 1) a paper in German ( ukasiewicz, J. 1910. ' ber den Satz des Widerspruchs bei Aristotles'. Bulletin International de l'Acad mie des sciences de Cracovie, Classe d'Histoire et de Philosophie, pp. 15-38) [English translation: ukasiewicz, J. 1971. 'On the principle of contradiction in Aristotle', Review of Metaphysics , XXIV , 485-509]; and 2) a book in Polish. ukasiewicz, J. 1910. O zasadzie sprzecznosci u Aristotelesa Studium krytyczne , Warsaw: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe [German translation: ukasiewicz, J. 1993. ber den Satz des Widerspruchs bei Aristotles . Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag]. The lecture notes were then published as a book ( ukasiewicz, J. 1958. Elementy Logiki Matematycznej . Warszawa: Panstwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe [PWN] and then translated into English ( ukasiewicz, J. 1963. Elements of Mathematical Logic. Oxford, New York: Pergamon Press/The Macmillan Company) . The second half of this article will concentrate on ukasiewicz's position on ECSQ. This will lead me to propose that to regard him as a forerunner of paraconsistent logic by virtue of those early writings is accurate only if his book published in Polish is considered but not if the analysis is restricted to the paper originally published in German (as has been the case for the principal reconstructions of the history of paraconsistent logic). Furthermore, I will stress that in the 1929 book he presented one formalization of ECSQ as an axiom for sentential calculus and, also, he used ECSQ to defend the necessity of consistency, apparently independently of Hilbert and Ackermann's book. At the end, I will suggest that the aim of twentieth century usage of ECSQ was to change from the centuries-long philosophical discussion about contradictions to a more 'technical' one. But with paraconsistent logic viewed as a technical solution to this restriction, then, the philosophical problem revives but having now at one's disposal an improved understanding of it. Finally, ukasiewicz's two different positions about ECSQ open an interesting question about the history of paraconsistent logic: do we have to attempt a consistent reconstruction of it, or are we prepared to admit inconsistencies within it? (shrink)
Within the debate on the epistemology of aesthetic appreciation, it has a long tradition, and is still very common, to endorse the sentimentalist view that our aesthetic evaluations are rationally grounded on, or even constituted by, certain of our emotional responses to the objects concerned. Such a view faces, however, the serious challenge to satisfactorily deal with the seeming possibility of faultless disagreement among emotionally based and epistemically appropriate verdicts. I will argue that the sentimentalist approach to aesthetic epistemology cannot (...) accept and accommodate this possibility without thereby undermining the assumed capacity of emotions to justify corresponding aesthetic evaluations – that is, without undermining the very sentimentalist idea at the core of its account. And I will also try to show that sentimentalists can hope to deny the possibility of faultless disagreement only by giving up the further view that aesthetic assessments are intersubjective – a view which is almost as traditional and widely held in aesthetics as sentimentalism, and which is indeed often enough combined with the latter. My ultimate conclusion is therefore that this popular combination of views should better be avoided: either sentimentalism or intersubjectivism has to make way. (shrink)
It is common both in philosophy and in the cognitive sciences (broadly understood as ranging from, say, neuroscience to developmental or evolutionary psychology) to distinguish between two kinds of hallucinations.1 What differentiates them is whether they are subjectively indistinguishable from genuine perceptions and therefore mistaken by us for the latter. While perceptual (or ‘true’) hallucinations cannot, from the subject’s perspective, be told apart from perceptions, non-perceptual (or ‘pseudo’) hallucinations can and usually are. Sometimes, when subjects, say, auditorily hallucinate someone else (...) calling their name or commenting on their behaviour, they are able to realise, on the basis of how they subjectively experience their episode of hallucination, that they are not perceiving real speech: their hallucination is non-perceptual. This happens, for instance, when subjects suffering from schizophrenia or other illnesses hear ‘inner voices’ speaking to them. But in other circumstances, the subjects concerned are - even under conditions of proper mental health and rationality - in no position to recognise the hallucinatory status of their experience without the help of some external evidence: their hallucination is perceptual. Wrongly hearing the phone ringing while taking a shower, say, is a good example of this kind of hallucination.2 When philosophers speak or write about hallucinations, they usually concentrate on perceptual hallucinations. One reason for this is the fact that philosophers tend to address the topic of hallucination, not for its own sake, but only in the context of some wider issues. Thus, when they are discussing hallucinations, they are primarily interested in other topics, such a how - or whether - we are able to acquire knowledge about the external world, in which sense our mental states are directed at objects and properties, how best to account for what our experiences are subjectively like, which features suffice for something to count as a conscious experience, and so on.. (shrink)
One of the central concerns of Moran's essay The Expression of Feeling in Imagination1 is to address the problem of fictional emotions - that is, of our emotional responses towards fictional characters, situations or events – and to clarify whether it is essentially related to some form of imagining or another.2 Moran's specific aim is thereby to criticise Walton's solution to the problem in terms of (as it seems) propositional imagining, and to present his own alternative account in terms (...) of emotional imagining. In this paper, I will primarily be concerned with the question of whether he has succeeded in this aim. But I intend also to briefly introduce and discuss towards the end a third approach to the problem and, especially, to the issue of whether imagining plays a central role in the occurrence of fictional emotions. (shrink)
With the waves of reform occurring in mental health legislation in England and other jurisdictions, mental capacity is set to become a key medico-legal concept. The concept is central to the law of informed consent and is closely aligned to the philosophical concept of autonomy. It is also closely related to mental disorder. This paper explores the interdisciplinary terrain where mental capacity is located. Our aim is to identify core dilemmas and to suggest pathways for future interdisciplinary research. The terrain (...) can be separated into three types of discussion: philosophical, legal and psychiatric. Each discussion approaches mental capacity and judgmental autonomy from a different perspective yet each discussion struggles over two key dilemmas: whether mental capacity and autonomy is/should be a moral or a psychological notion and whether rationality is the key constitutive factor. We suggest that further theoretical work will have to be interdisciplinary and that this work offers an opportunity for the law to enrich its interpretation of mental capacity, for psychiatry to clarify the normative elements latent in its concepts and for philosophy to advance understanding of autonomy through the study of decisional dysfunction. The new pressures on medical and legal practice to be more explicit about mental capacity make this work a priority. (shrink)
Need-claims are ubiquitous within moral and political theory. However, need-based theories are often criticized for being too narrow in scope and too focused on the material preconditions for leading a decent life for grounding a substantial theory of social justice. The aim of this paper is threefold. Firstly, it will investigate the nature and scope of needs by analysing existing conceptualizations of the idea of needs. In so doing, we will get a better understanding of needs, which will help us (...) to carve out the importance and singularity of basic need claims. Secondly, on the basis of the analysis of needs, it will argue for the concept of a fundamental interest in free social agency, which is much better suited than the idea of basic needs actually to ground a theory of social justice, as it highlights the social and institutional conditions for free agency. Thirdly, using the distinction between basic needs and fundamental interests, it will clarify their respective role in and importance for grounding moral principles. Overall, the paper offers a friendly critique of need-based theories, while arguing for a shift of focus to the idea of fundamental interests. (shrink)
What is the scope of our conscious mental agency, and how do we acquire self-knowledge of it? Both questions are addressed through an investigation of what best explains our inability to form judgemental thoughts in direct response to practical reasons. Contrary to what Williams and others have argued, it cannot be their subjection to a truth norm, given that our failure to adhere to such a norm need not undermine their status as judgemental. Instead, it is argued that we cannot (...) form judgements at will because we subjectively experience them as responses to epistemic reasons, and because this is incompatible with our experiential awareness of direct mental actions, such as instances of imagining. However, this latter awareness does not extend to indirect agency, which relies on epistemic or causal processes as means. Judging may therefore still count as an indirect action - just like, say, breaking a window by throwing a stone. (shrink)
When philosophers speak or write about hallucinations, they usually have perceptual (or ’true’) hallucinations in mind - that is, hallucinations which the subject mistakes for genuine perceptions and which have the same impact on his mental lives as the latter.1 One reason for this is the fact that philosophers tend to address the topic of hallucination, not for its own sake, but only in the context of some wider issues. Thus, when they are discussing hallucinations, they are primarily interested in (...) other topics, such a how - or whether - we are able to acquire knowledge about the external world, in which sense our mental states are directed at objects and properties, how best to account for what our experiences are subjectively like, which features suffice for something to count as a conscious experience, and so on. Especially the epistemic question, but also the connected issues in the philosophy of mind, lead them first of all to the phenomenon of genuine perception. For perceptions are precisely those mental episodes which point us to, and bring us into contact with, the world; and they also constitute the paradigm examples of conscious episodes with a distinctive phenomenal character. Hallucinations, on the other hand, do neither. Instead, they become relevant for the epistemic and related considerations only in so far as they give rise to sceptical scenarios and cast doubt on the common-sense (or naive) conception of the nature of perceptual experiences. And, in both cases, only those hallucinations matter which are indistinguishable from genuine perceptions with respect to their content and character.2 In the cognitive sciences (broadly understood as ranging from, say, neuroscience to developmental or evolutionary psychology), by contrast, hallucinations are much more prominent objects of study, and moreover objects of study in their own right. From the perspective of empirical investigations of the brain and mind - whether they utilise neuroimaging, observe behaviour, or examine verbal reports - hallucinations simply form one class of mental phenomena among many, all of which are ultimately in the same need of being studied and accounted for as part of our attempt to come to a full understanding of how our psychology works and is neurally realised.. (shrink)
