This essay is not about what love is. It is about what self-ascriptions of love do. People typically self-ascribe romantic love when a nexus of feelings, beliefs, attitudes, values, commitments, experiences, and personal histories matches their conception of romantic love. But what shapes this conception? And (how) can we adjudicate amongst conflicting conceptions? -/- Self-ascriptions of love do not merely describe the underlying nexus of attitudes and beliefs. They also change it. This essay describes how conceptions of love affect romantic (...) experience. I limn distinctions between love and obsessive infatuation and explore ways language can cultivate queer romantic preferences. Since conceptions of love are shaped, often implicitly, by terms available in one’s linguistic community, the resulting nexus of concepts and conceptions manifests linguistic luck. I suggest ways we might sculpt the language of love to better understand—and change—ourselves. Love can help us flourish and so can our “love” language. (shrink)

Understanding enjoys a special kind of value, one not held by lesser epistemic states such as knowledge and true belief. I explain the value of understanding via a seemingly unrelated topic, the implausibility of veritism. Veritism holds that true belief is the sole ultimate epistemic good and all other epistemic goods derive their value from the epistemic value of true belief. Veritism entails that if you have a true belief that p, you have all the epistemic good qua p. Veritism (...) is a plausible and widely held view; I argue that it is untenable. I argue that integration among beliefs possesses epistemic value independent from the good of true belief, and so has value veritism cannot account for. I argue further that this integration among beliefs comprises the distinctive epistemic value of understanding. (shrink)

This study is intended to provide in-depth insights into how design thinking and creativity issues are understood and possibly evolve in the course of design discussions in a company context. For that purpose, we use the seminar transcripts of the Design Thinking Research Symposium 12 (DTRS12) dataset “Tech-centred Design Thinking: Perspectives from a Rising Asia,” which are primarily concerned with how Korean companies implement design thinking and what role designers currently play. We employed a novel method of information processing based (...) on constructed dynamic semantic networks to investigate the seminar discussions according to company representatives and company size. We compared the quantitative dynamics in two seminars: the first involved managerial representatives of four companies, and the second involved specialized designers and management of a design center of single company. On the basis of dynamic semantic networks, we quantified the changes in four semantic measures—abstraction, polysemy, information content, and pairwise word similarity—in chronologically reconstructed individual design-thinking processes. Statistical analyses show that design thinking in the seminar with four companies, exhibits significant differences in the dynamics of abstraction, polysemy, and information content, compared to the seminar with the design center of single company. Both the decrease in polysemy and abstraction and the increase in information content in the individual design-thinking processes in the seminar with four companies indicate that design managers are focused on more concrete design issues, with more information and less ambiguous content to the final design product. By contrast, specialized designers manifest more abstract thinking and appear to exhibit a slightly higher level of divergence in their design processes. The results suggest that design thinking and creativity issues are articulated differently depending on designer roles and the company size. (shrink)

This essay is an accessible introduction to the proof paradox in legal epistemology. -/- In 1902 the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine filed an influential legal verdict. The judge claimed that in order to find a defendant culpable, the plaintiff “must adduce evidence other than a majority of chances”. The judge thereby claimed that bare statistical evidence does not suffice for legal proof. -/- In this essay I first motivate the claim that bare statistical evidence does not suffice for legal (...) proof. I then introduce and motivate a knowledge-centred explanation of this fact. The knowledge-centred explanation rests on two premises. The first is that legal proof requires knowledge of culpability. The second is that one cannot attain knowledge that p from bare statistical evidence that p. To motivate the second premise, I suggest that beliefs based on bare statistical evidence fail to be safe—they could easily be wrong—and bare statistical evidence cannot eliminate relevant alternatives. -/- I then cast doubt on the first premise; I argue that legal proof does not require knowledge. I thereby dispute the knowledge-centred explanation of the inadequacy of bare statistical evidence for legal proof. Instead of appealing to the nature of knowledge, I suggest we should seek a more direct explanation by appealing to those more foundational epistemic properties, such as safety or eliminating relevant alternatives. (shrink)

A recent review of his work describes Wilfred Carr as 'one of the most brilliant philosophers now working in the rich British tradition of educational philosophy ... His work is rigorous, refreshing and original ... and examines a number of fundamental issues with clarity and penetration'. In For Education Wilfred Carr provides a comprehensive justification for reconstructing educational theory and research as a form of critical inquiry. In doing this, he confronts a number of important philosophical questions. What (...) is educational theory? What is an educational practice? How are theory and practice related? What is the role of values in educational research? Is a genuinely educational science possible? By appealing to developments in critical theory, the philosophy of science and the philosophy of the social sciences, Wilfred Carr provides answers to these questions which vindicate the idea of an educational science that is not 'on' or 'about' education but 'for education' - a science genuinely committed to promoting educational values and ideals. (shrink)

Challenging prevailing interpretations of the development of modern philosophy, this book proposes a reinterpretation of the transcendental tradition, as represented primarily by Kant and Husserl, and counters Heidegger's influential reading of these philosophers. Author David Carr defends their subtle and complex transcendental investigations of the self and the life of subjectivity, and seeks to revive an understanding of what Husserl calls "the paradox of subjectivity"--an appreciation for the rich and sometimes contradictory character of experience.

In Phenomenology and the Problem of History. David Carr examines the paradox involving Husserl's transcendental philosophy and his later historicist theory.

Annotation Redefines globalization as merely the framework of the current political debate on the future of world power.

Making Sense of Education provides a contemporary introduction to the key issues in educational philosophy and theory. Exploring recent developments as well as important ideas from the twentieth century, this book aims to make philosophy of education relevant to everyday practice for teachers and student teachers, as well as those studying education as an academic subject.

The problem of time involves an overlap between physics, philosophy, psychology and neuroscience. My talk will discuss the role of time in physics but also emphasize that physics may need to expand to address issues usually regarded as being in the other domains. I will first review the mainstream physics view of time, as it arises in Newtonian theory, relativity theory and quantum theory. I will then discuss the various arrows of time, the most fundamental of which is the passage (...) of time associated with consciousness. I will argue that this goes beyond both relativity theory and quantum theory, so that one needs some new physical paradigm to accommodate it. A new paradigm is required anyway to describe quantum gravity and this may elucidate the nature of both time and consciousness. (shrink)

Phenomenological questions differ from those of metaphysics and epistemology. Regarding history, rather than asking: What is history? Or: How do we know history? a phenomenology of history inquires into history as a phenomenon, and into the experience of the historical. How does history present itself to us, how does it enter our lives, and what are the forms of experience in which it does so? The purpose of this essay is to outline a distinctively phenomenological approach to history. History is (...) usually associated with social existence and its past, and so this essay will ask about the experience of the social world and of its temporality. Experience in this context connotes not just observation but also involvement and interaction. We experience history not just in the social world around us but also in our own engagement with it. Philosophers have asked both metaphysical and epistemological questions about history, and some of the best-known philosophies of history have resulted from this questioning. The phenomenological approach is different, but it is not unrelated to these traditional philosophical questions. The later part of this essay will turn in some detail to how phenomenology, though distinct, may connect to these questions. (shrink)

This paper examines the plays of African-American playwright Adrienne Kennedy, Funnyhouse of a Negro (1962) and The Owl Answers (1963), which remain important for their engagement with notions of African-American identity, resistance and agency through their attention to mixed race female characters or mulattos who experience bodily and psychological traumas that demonstrate the abuse of the colonized on a deeply visceral level. Kennedy's plays have remained controversial because of their failure to comply with the nationalistic orientation of the Black Arts (...) Movement (BAM) of 1960s America. I aim to examine these plays through a framework of postcolonial-feminist performance analysis that finds its way back to histories of colonization and slavery, enabling through such returns, a compelling critique of the manoeuvrings of racial hierarchies and power imbalances. As well, I argue that Kennedy's protagonists are de-essentialized fractured beings who fail to embody either White superiority or Black nationalist pride, as they oscillate between two polarities. Such failure (on the part of Kennedy's mulattos) allows for a strategic de-essentialization of identity that interrogates fixed categorization. As well, through a form that is fluid, fragmented and blurs the distinctions among history, memory, space and time, her works impart political agency to the characters and enable an empowered sense of the ‘self-in-process.’. (shrink)

In der vorliegenden Arbeit soll ein in der analytischen Philosophie aufgestelltes Programm zur Explikation der kausalen Begrifflichkeit kritisch untersucht werden. Seine kritische Analyse mag im Hinblick auf die Rolle von Interesse sein, welche die kausalen Begriffe in einer allgemeinen Theorie der wissenschaftlichen Erklärung zu spielen haben. Diese Analyse könnte außerdem m.E. zur Bestimmung des Ausgangspunktes einer positiven Behandlung der mit den kausalen Begriffen zusammenhängenden Sinnfragen beitragen.

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. ;A form of metaphysical inquiry is in this thesis both illustrated in detail and defended against the charge of issuing in statements which lack cognitive content. 'Categorial description' concerns the fundamental features of our conceptual scheme: the categories described are those of substance, accident, cause, space and time. ;Following Aristotle's distinction between primary and secondary substances, these two notions are addressed as equivalent to those individual or particular things and their kinds. (...) A particular thing is characterised as not being capable of occuring in the predicate position in a proposition; and as having criteria or principles of individuation and reidentification. Accidents or properties can appear in the predicate position and do not have criteria of identity. ;Secondary substances, or natural kinds, being a species of property, also fail to have criteria for individuation and reidentification. It follows that the recently revived Aristotelian essentialism, as exhibited in particular in the work of Kripke, fails to correctly characterise the category of natural kinds: in that theory, natural kinds have essential properties which enable individuation and reidentification across possible worlds. ;Efficient causation is described, against the background of the Locke-Hume dispute, as involving the concept of necessary connection between cause and effect. Rejecting the theory of Harre and Madden on causal powers, an approach by Mackie is defended whereby this connection is a reflection of our counterfactual thinking. The possible worlds essentialist approach of Lewis to counterfactuals is rejected too, as inadequate. ;Space and time, spatial and temporal relations, and places and moments in time are approached in terms of the other categories of particular and property. The obscurity of fit between these categories is identified as responsible for many philosophical puzzles concerning space and time: for example, McTaggart's 'proof' of the unreality of time; and the recent debate on the possibility of multiple times and multiple spaces. ;In the final chapter, the logical commitments of categorial description concerning conceptual relativism and the nature of reality in itself are explored. It is argued that, since categories are in large part responsible for the kinds of acts there are, a description of our categories is a description of reality itself. Since our categories do not involve the machinery of possible worlds offered by contemporary essentialist theories, those theories fail to describe reality. (shrink)

The possibilities and importance of a spiritual dimension to education are subjects receiving increased consideration from educational practitioners, policymakers and philosophers. Spirituality, Philosophy and Education brings together contributions to the debate by a team of renowned philosophers of education. They bring to this subject a depth of scholarly and philosophical sophistication that was previously missing, and between them offer a wide-ranging exploration and analysis of what spiritual values have to offer contemporary education. The contributors address such subjects as what we (...) mean by 'spiritual values'; scholarship and spirituality; spirituality and virtue; spirituality, science and morality; the shaping of character; the value of spiritual learning; spiritual development and the curriculum and many others. All students of the philosophy of education and anyone interested in how spiritual values might play a part in informing education policy and practice will find this stimulating collection a rich source of ideas and a major addition to the thinking on the meaning, role and possibilities of spirituality in education. (shrink)

Demonstratives and Indexicals In the philosophy of language, an indexical is any expression whose content varies from one context of use to another. The standard list of indexicals includes pronouns such as “I”, “you”, “he”, “she”, “it”, “this”, “that”, plus adverbs such as “now”, “then”, “today”, “yesterday”, “here”, and “actually”. Other candidates include the tenses … Continue reading Demonstratives and Indexicals →.

It has been argued that an adequate feminist response to sexist pornography demands not just efforts to eradicate sexist beliefs, but also aesthetic counter-intervention at the level of taste. This view motivates support for feminist pornography. This paper takes the feminist pornography suggestion seriously by unpacking difficulties for the project. I begin by spelling out two views about what makes feminist pornography feminist: the ‘content view,’ and the ‘context view,’ and discuss what I take to be existing arguments for the (...) latter. I then present two objections to the context view: the first focuses on how we characteristically interact with pornography (as a masturbatory aid), the second challenges the value of authenticity upon which much feminist pornography rests. If these arguments are correct, then there are serious flaws with feminist pornography as it is commonly conceived. I close with a brief suggestion of an alternative approach rooted in feminist solidarity. (shrink)

Self-sovereign identity solutions implemented on the basis of blockchain technology are seen as alternatives to existing digital identification systems, or even as a foundation of standards for the new global infrastructures for identity management systems. It is argued that ‘self-sovereignty' in this context can be understood as the concept of individual control over identity relevant private data, capacity to choose where such data is stored, and the ability to provide it to those who need to validate it. It is also (...) argued that while it might be appealing to operationalise the concept of ‘self-sovereignty’ in a narrow technical sense, depreciation of moral semantics obscures key challenges and long-term repercussions. Closer attention to the normative substance of the ‘sovereignty’ concept helps to highlight a range of ethical issues pertaining to the changing nature of human identity in the context of ubiquitous private data collection. (shrink)

This article studies the specific designation of morals under the conditions of a modern society. Due to the circumstances that morals are able to overcome differences between the social regulatory systems and to unite the perceptions of a regulatory framework, they have become a major contemporary metalegal regulator. Being a significant social regulator, morals also play a mediation role between law and other social regulatory systems. In this role of theirs, they make a substantial factor having an influence on building (...) and changing legal prescriptions. Morals are also studied as a variable in the conditions of a dynamically developing society and changing conditions of living. Some models of behaviours, which were considered to be against moral only several decades ago, are nowadays regarded as completely normal. (shrink)

"Application of the possibilities for this renewal of temperance comes with an examination of how emotion will help moral deliberation in the clinical practice of medicine. Sir William Osler (1849-1919) and his doctrine of aequanimitas is greatly misunderstood to be the founder of emotional detachment in physician/patient relations. This book offers the most detailed look at aequanimitas in print and equates it with a normative view of temperance as a moral virtue." "For upper-level undergraduate and graduate-level students interested in ethics, (...) bioethics, and moral psychology; Oslerians; and students of Aristotle's and Aquinas' views of the moral virtues."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the choice of trust conceptualisations in the context of consumer Internet of Things (IoT) can have a significant impact on the understanding and implementations of a user’s private data protection. Narrow instrumental interpretations of trust as a mere precondition for technology acceptance may obscure important moral issues such as malleability of user’s privacy decisions, and power imbalances between suppliers and consumers of technology. A shift of focus in policy proposals from trust to the trustworthiness of technology (...) can be the first step on the way to addressing these moral concerns. It is argued that complexity of IoT systems, comprised of technological artefacts and institutional data-collecting entities, warrants the moral value of distrust as a prima facie assumption for technological design and regulatory measures. Such a conceptual perspective highlights importance of technological measures that can minimise reliance on trust in consumer IoTs and regulatory measures aimed to improve transparency of IoT architectures. (shrink)

This article aims to elucidate the relationship between Agamben’s notion of messianism and his project of philosophical archaeology. Whereas the former relates to political and ethical aspects of Agamben’s philosophy, the latter belongs to the domain of methodology of philosophical research itself. The main thesis of the paper argues that these two components rely on each other and constitute one and the same project. The author demonstrates that Agamben’s notion of messianic action and scholarly activity of philosophical archaeology overlap, which (...) leads to a problematization of political dimension of Agamben’s messianism. The orientation towards the past in Agamben’s understanding of the messianic is its crucial presupposition that imposes limits on its applicability to the realm of politics. This thesis is substantiated by an investigation of the problem of relation between theory and practice in Agamben’s thought and by a close reading of the ‘Mystery of Anomia’ section in The Time that Remains. Beginning with the problem of the possibility of a transition from the tragic narrative elaborated in the Homo Sacer project to the messianic state of lawlessness, the author demonstrates that in Agamben’s thought this transition is made possible only by means of an archaeological inquiry. (shrink)

This paper argues that the practical implementation of blockchain technology can be considered an institution of property similar to legal institutions. Invoking Penner's theory of property and Hegel's system of property rights, and using the example of bitcoin, it is possible to demonstrate that blockchain effectively implements all necessary and sufficient criteria for property without reliance on legal means. Blockchains eliminate the need for a third-party authority to enforce exclusion rights, and provide a system of universal access to knowledge and (...) discoverability about the property rights of all participants and how the system functions. The implications of these findings are that traditional property relations in society could be replaced by or supplemented with blockchain models, and implemented in new domains. (shrink)

Perhaps the most pressing issue concerning teacher education and training since the end of the Second World War has been that of the role of theory—or principled reflection—in professional expertise. Here, although the main post‐war architects of a new educational professionalism clearly envisaged a key role for theory—considering such disciplines as psychology, sociology and philosophy as indispensable for reflective practice—there are nevertheless well‐rehearsed difficulties about crediting such disciplines with quite the (applied) role in educational practice of (say) physiology or anatomy (...) in medical practice. This paper argues that while recent developments in professional teacher education and training may have moved on from erstwhile instrumentalist and/or applied science (competence and other) perspectives, there may yet be a case for further progress towards a rather more sophisticated philosophical psychology of teacher knowledge and expertise. (shrink)

In this study, I reconstruct and compare Alain Badiou’sBeing and Event(2005) and Graham Priest’sOne(2014), arguing that the ontologies pursued within the two texts are intriguingly analogous in a number of ways. Both Badiou and Priest are committed to thinking through classically ontological problems without denying the validity of the paradoxes they raise; both regard Plato’sParmenidesas an early and formative account of these paradoxes; both establish conclusions to the effect that unity – or “oneness” – is indeed a contradictory phenomenon; and (...) both, as a corollary of this conclusion, develop frameworks which confer ontological prominence uponthe voidandemptinessrespectively, thereby arriving at what appears to be a shared ontological nihilism. In this comparative study, I not only enquire whether the frameworks adopted by Badiou and Priest really do lead to nihilist conclusions, but also attempt to clearly outline their trajectories of thought for the benefit of those who might be tempted to dismiss their seemingly outlandish theses out of hand. (shrink)

the article aims, through a comparative analysis, to explicate the Gnostic and Bogomil religious-philosophical conceptual grounds for the possibility of acquiring knowledge saving man from the dualism of being. The tasks of the study are to indicate the reasons for the search for such knowledge, which provides a form of human existence that will lead man to salvation. To achieve the tasks, the study begins by establishing the connections of Gnosticism and Bogomilism with historically preceding spiritual-religious communities and their concepts, (...) the relations with Christianity and the grounds for their designation as Christian heresies are indicated, the conceptual parallels between Gnosticism and Bogomilism in their cosmological understandings are indicated and their consequences for man, the way out is indicated, which overcomes the unnatural state of being and the subsequent opportunity available to man for union with God. (shrink)

The author considers the specifics of “trading zones” as a cognitive model for the study of interdisciplinary interaction which is aimed to compensate lack of understanding between different scientific and non-scientific practices. It is argued that “trading zones” represents the unity of its intellectual, material and social components that creates the «communications area» for joint activities to produce new creative products. It is emphasized that the understanding of the mechanism of formation and functioning of the “trading zone” is a matter (...) of epistemology. It is also claimed that “trading zones” provide the mediation in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary researches. (shrink)

The topic of the essay is the “explanatory gap” between, on one side, descriptions of conscious states from 1st person perspective, termed as phenomenal consciousness; and on the other side, the descriptions of conscious states in representational theories of mind, from 3rd person perspective, termed as access consciousness. The main source of the explanatory gap between P-consciousness and A-consciousness is the methodology of functionalism, accepted in almost contemporary representational theories. I argue for the following: The principles of materialist ontology, accepted (...) in representational theories of mind, are true. But materialism is not necessary linked with functionalist research methods. The only reasonable consequence from the existence of the “explanatory gap” is that functionalism should be replaced with more adequate methodological approaches. One such non-functionalist approach, termed as “aesthesionomic approach”, is proposed. The central idea is that phenomenal conscious states should be first described in objective terms . Only on base of such a preliminary objective description of phenomenal conscious states, the description of representational mechanisms will not give rise to an “explanatory gap”. (shrink)

Moral encroachment holds that the epistemic justification of a belief can be affected by moral factors. If the belief might wrong a person or group more evidence is required to justify the belief. Moral encroachment thereby opposes evidentialism, and kindred views, which holds that epistemic justification is determined solely by factors pertaining to evidence and truth. In this essay I explain how beliefs such as ‘that woman is probably an administrative assistant’—based on the evidence that most women employees at the (...) firm are administrative assistants—motivate moral encroachment. I then describe weaknesses of moral encroachment. Finally I explain how we can countenance the moral properties of such beliefs without endorsing moral encroachment, and I argue that the moral status of such beliefs cannot be evaluated independently from the understanding in which they are embedded. (shrink)

In the early 1960s, American philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn contributed to a “crisis of rationality” with his hypothesis that science develops by means of paradigm shifts. He challenged the positivist concept of cumulative and continuous scientific progress. According to Kuhn, the relation between two succeeding scientific traditions ‘separated by a scientific revolution’ is characterized by conceptual incommensurability that constrains the interpretation of science as a cumulative, steadily progressing enterprise. Thomas Kuhn’s philosophy was heavily criticized by German-American biologist Ernst Mayr (...) as unapplicable to the history of biology. Mayr, one of the most outstanding evolutionary biologists of the 20th century and a “co-architect” of the so-called Modern Synthesis (contemporary Darwinism), published extensively on the history and philosophy of biology as he thought that theoretical biology cannot progress without proper philosophy of science. Being convinced of the progressive development of Darwinism, Mayr pointed out that Kuhn’s concept of scientific revolutions does not reflect conceptual changes in evolutionary biology. Here we summarize Mayr’s critiques of Kuhn and, based on our own research, take Mayr’s side in the controversy between two great thinkers. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article discusses some common narratives found in discourses on national identity in Russia and Japan, and their temporal transformations reflecting the needs of a nation as it becomes a colonial empire. National identity discourse is examined from the viewpoint of national antagonism arising from an external threat. Russian and Japanese intellectuals, with their vastly different historical and cultural heritage, have dwelled upon similar issues pertaining to modernization of the state and adoption or rejection of foreign ideas and ways of (...) life. There are several themes in Russian and Japanese discourses on national identity that share a significant overlap, particularly themes of national uniqueness and a ‘special path’, deterministic worldviews, imperial cosmopolitanism/messianism and criticism of ‘Western’ philosophical systems and concepts. This article elucidates the shared aspects of these narratives and philosophical inquiries in Russia and Japan and puts them into a historical context. (shrink)

The purpose of the present paper is to develop kinematics of the special relativity with an anisotropy of the one-way speed of light. As distinct from a common approach, when the issue of anisotropy of the light propagation is placed into the context of conventionality of distant simultaneity, it is supposed that an anisotropy of the one-way speed of light is due to a real space anisotropy. In that situation, some assumptions used in developing the standard special relativity kinematics are (...) not valid so that the “anisotropic special relativity” kinematics should be developed based on the first principles, without refereeing to the relations of the standard relativity theory. In particular, using condition of invariance of the interval between two events becomes unfounded in the presence of anisotropy of space since the standard proofs drawing the interval invariance from the invariance of equation of light propagation are not valid in that situation. Instead, the invariance of the equation of light propagation, which is a physical law, should be taken as a first principle. A number of other physical requirements, associativity, reciprocity and so on are satisfied by the requirement that the transformations between the frames form a group. Finally, the correspondence principle is to be satisfied which implies that the coordinate transformations should turn into the Galilean transformations in the limit of small velocities. The above formulation based on the invariance and group property suggests applying the Lie group theory apparatus which includes the following steps: constructing determining equations for the infinitesimal group generators using the invariance condition; solving the determining equations; specifying the solutions using the correspondence principle; defining the finite transformations by solving the Lie equations; relating the group parameter to physical parameters. The transformations derived in such a way, as distinct from the transformations derived in the context of conventionality of distant simultaneity, cannot be converted into the standard Lorentz transformations by a coordinate change. The anisotropic nature of the presented transformations manifests itself in that they do not leave the interval invariant but only provide the conformal invariance of the interval. The relations that represent measurable effects include the conformal factor which depends on the relative velocity of the frames and the anisotropy degree. It is important to note the use of the correspondence principle as a heuristic principle which allows to relate the conformal factor to the anisotropy degree and thus completely specify the transformations and observable quantities. (shrink)