Neoclassical economic theory assurnes that people pursue utility maximization within an obiective framework, evident to all, that serves as the basis for the interaction. Agents are assumed to be detached observers who see the situation as it is in obiective reality. It is argued in this article that there is no obiective ground for interaction that exists apart from the understanding of economic agents. Agents have orientations that change over time depending on the way that the situation is currently understood. (...) Depth of understanding and the extent of common ground depend on the quality of attention and the will to openness and honesty. Efforts to maintain connections with others make possible mutual understanding and visions of the common good that enable the coordinated pursuit of desired states of the world. (shrink)
What, if anything, has art to do with the rest of our lives, and in particular with those ethical and political issues that matter to us most? Will art created today be likely to play a role in our lives as profound as that of the best art of the past? A Theory of Art shifts the focus of aesthetics from the traditional debate of "what is art?" to the engaging question of "what is art for?" Skillfully describing the social (...) and historical situation of art today, author Karol Berger argues that music exemplifies the current condition of art in a radical, acute, and revealing fashion. He also uniquely combines aesthetics with poetics and hermeneutics. Offering a careful synthesis of a wide breadth of scholarship from art history, musicology, literary studies, political philosophy, ethics, and metaphysics, and written in a clear, accessible style, this book will appeal to anyone with a serious interest in the arts. (shrink)
Some properties are discussed of regular polygons that may result from angular homeostatic processes in stable orbit. To characterize these homeostatic polygons we need to discuss the winding number, the sidedness (integer, fractional and irrational), multiplicity, envelopes, and density. A regular (i.e., equilateral, equiangular) polygon may be closed in one revolution about its unique center, in multiple revolutions, or not at all. A homeostatic polygon can be generated only if all vertices are included in a single polygon, which occurs if (...) and only if the number of vertices and the number of revolutions required to complete the polygon are relatively prime. For the homeostatic polygon to have a finite number of sides (without repeating itself) the angle subtended by any two successive vertices at the center must be a rational multiple of 2. Biological implications of these properties are illustrated. (shrink)
I am most grateful to Professors Garfield and Westerhoff for their comments on my article "Acquiring Emptiness: Interpreting Nāgārjuna's MMK 24 : 18" in the January 2010 issue of Philosophy East and West. Their responses to my essay and the critiques they offer, grounded in their considerable expertise in Buddhist philosophical schools, are well argued and rooted in thorough commentarial analysis. In what follows, I attempt to respond to their critiques and concerns.There can be no doubt that the occurrence of (...) the phrase sā prajñāptir upādāya in MMK 24 : 18 has been understood by the bulk of the commentarial literature on the treatise as a compound technical term meaning something like "dependent designation." The .. (shrink)
A critical examination of Susan Blackmore’s psi experiment database was undertaken to assess the claims of consistent “no ESP†across these studies. Many inconsistencies in the experimental reports were found, and their serious consequences are discussed. Discrepancies were found between the unpublished experimental reports and their published counterparts. “Flaws†were invoked to dismiss significant results while other flaws were ignored when studies produced nonsignificant results. Experiments that were admittedly flawed in the unpublished reports were mixed with supposedly unflawed studies and (...) published without segregation, creating the impression of methodological soundness. Two instances in which study chronology was reordered were found. Overall, it is concluded that Blackmore’s claims that her database shows no evidence of psi are unfounded, because the vast majority of her studies were carelessly designed, executed, and reported, and, in Blackmore’s own assessment, individually flawed. As such, no conclusions should be drawn from this database. (shrink)
Thoughtprints Anne E. Berger andMarta Segarra I admit to it in the name of autobiography and in order to confide in you the following: [...] I have a particularly animalist perception and interpretation of what I do, think, write, live, ...
The formal properties of orbits in a plane are explored by elementary topology. The notions developed from first principles include: convex and polygonal orbits; convexity; orientation, winding number and interior; convex and star-shaped regions. It is shown that an orbit that is convex with respect to each of its interior points bounds a convex region. Also, an orbit that is convex with respect to a fixed point bounds a star-shaped region.Biological considerations that directed interest to these patterns are indicated, and (...) the implications of the prospect of higher orders of star-shapedness mentioned. (shrink)
According to Rosenthal’s higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness, one is in a conscious mental state if and only if one is aware of oneself as being in that state via a suitable HOT. Several critics have argued that the possibility of so-called targetless HOTs—that is, HOTs that represent one as being in a state that does not exist—undermines the theory. Recently, Wilberg (2010) has argued that HOT theory can offer a straightforward account of such cases: since consciousness is a (...) property of mental state tokens, and since there are no states to exhibit consciousness, one is not in conscious states in virtue of targetless HOTs. In this paper, I argue that Wilberg’s account is problematic and that Rosenthal’s version of HOT theory, according to which a suitable HOT is both necessary and sufficient for consciousness, is to be preferred to Wilberg’s account. I then argue that Rosenthal’s account can comfortably accommodate targetless HOTs because consciousness is best understood as a property of individuals, not a property of states. (shrink)
Machine generated contents note: Introduction Alan Berger; Part I. Naming, Necessity, Identity, and A Priority: 1. Kripke on proper and general names Bernard Linsky; 2. Kripke on vacuous names and names in fiction Nathan Salmon; 3. Kripke on epistemic and modal possibility: two routes to the necessary a posteriori Scott Soames; 4. Possible world semantics and its philosophic foundations Robert Stalnaker; Part II. Formal Semantics, Truth, Philosophy of Math, and Philosophy of Logic: 5. Kripke models for modal logic and (...) intuitionism John Burgess; 6. Kripke's theory of truth John Burgess; 7. Kripke on logicism, Wittgenstein, and de re beliefs about numbers Mark Steiner; 8. Kripke on the incoherency of adopting a logic Alan Berger; Part III. Language and Mind: 9. Kripke's new puzzle about belief and our principles of belief attribution Mark Richard; 10.; A note on Kripke's puzzle about belief Nathan Salmon; 11. Kripke's version of Wittgenstein: some conceptions and misconceptions George Wilson; 12. Kripke on color words and the primary, secondary quality distinction Mario Gomez-Torrente; Part IV. Philosophy of Mind and Philosophical Psychology: 13. Kripke's views on carteisianism and naturalism Sydney Shoemaker; 14. Kripke's critique of functionalism Jeff Buechner. (shrink)
This study investigated the attitudinal responses of 403 undergraduate students with respect to nine hypothetical marketing moral dilemmas. Participants varied by gender, major, and age.It was found that undergraduate women responded more ethically on the hypothetical marketing moral dilemmas, as hypothesized. Secondly, chosen major did not make a difference on cognitive, affective, or behavioral responses. Further, the overall means for each scenario were in the morally correct direction in every case. Also, all intercorrelations for each story were significant. Finally, whenever (...) there was a nonchance finding for age, the oldest participants answered more morally than the youngest subjects. (shrink)
The many gods of modernity -- The dynamics of relativization -- Relativism -- Fundamentalism -- Certainty and doubt -- The limits of doubt -- The politics of moderation.
This book reformulates the sociological subdiscipline known as the sociology of knowledge. Knowledge is presented as more than ideology, including as well false consciousness, propaganda, science and art.
The influence of celebrities in the 21st century extends far beyond the traditional domain of the entertainment sector of society. During the recent Palestinian presidential elections, the Hollywood actor Richard Gere broadcast a televised message to voters in the region and stated, “Hi, I’m Richard Gere, and I’m speaking for the entire world”. Celebrities in the 21st century have expanded from simple product endorsements to global political and international diplomacy. The celebrities industry is undergoing, “mission creep”, or the expansion of (...) an enterprise beyond its original goals (Hyde, 2009 ). The global internet is one of the major drivers of this phenomenon. The contribution of this paper is to analyse this global phenomenon and the potential implications for business ethics research. (shrink)
Nanotechnology is an important platform technology which will add new features like improved biocompatibility, smaller size, and more sophisticated electronics to neuro-implants improving their therapeutic potential. Especially in view of possible advantages for patients, research and development of nanotechnologically improved neuro implants is a moral obligation. However, the development of brain implants by itself touches many ethical, social and legal issues, which also apply in a specific way to devices enabled or improved by nanotechnology. For researchers developing nanotechnology such issues (...) are rather distant from their daily work in the lab, but as soon as they use their materials or devices in medical applications such as therapy of brain diseases they have to be aware of and deal with them. This paper is intended to raise sensitivity for the ethical, legal and social aspects (ELSA) involved in applying nanotechnology in brain implants or other devices by highlighting the short term problems of testing and clinical trials within the existing regulatory frameworks (A), the short and medium-term questions of risks in the application of the devices (B) and the long-term perspectives related to problems of enhancement (C). To identify and address such issues properly nanotechnologists should involve ethical, legal and social experts and regulatory bodies in their research as early as possible. This will help to remove pressure from regulatory bodies, to settle public concern and to prevent non-acceptable developments for the benefit of the patients. (shrink)
Law and order ranks high among the values the State is thought to achieve. Civil disobedience is often condemned because it is held to threaten law and order. Several senses of 'order' are distinguished, which make clear why 'law' and 'order' are so often linked. It is then argued that the connection cannot always be made since the legal system may itself create disorder. Civil disobedience may contribute to greater order and a more stable legal system by helping to remove (...) these causes of disorder. Thus, civil disobedience is sometimes justifiable in terms of its contribution to law and order. (shrink)
This paper criticises a line of argument adopted by peter winch, Karl popper, And others, To the effect that the course of human history cannot be predicted. On this view it is impossible to predict in a particularly detailed way certain events ('original acts') on which important social developments depend. We analyze the argument, Showing that one version fails: original acts are in principle predictable in the relevant way. A cogent version is presented; this requires a special definition for 'original (...) act'. But, We claim, Social developments do not depend on original acts so defined. We argue separately for the possibility of a person, Or a scientific community, Predicting his or its own original acts. (shrink)
: Two major philosophers of the twentieth century, the German existential phenomenologist Martin Heidegger and the seminal Japanese Kyoto School philosopher Nishida Kitarō are examined here in an attempt to discern to what extent their ideas may converge. Both are viewed as expressing, each through the lens of his own tradition, a world in transition with the rise of modernity in the West and its subsequent globalization. The popularity of Heidegger's thought among Japanese philosophers, despite its own admitted limitation to (...) the Western "history of being," is connected to Nishida's opening of a uniquely Japanese path in its confrontation with Western philosophy. The focus is primarily on their later works (the post-Kehre Heidegger and the works of Nishida that have been designated "Nishida philosophy"), in which each in his own way attempts to overcome the subject-object dichotomy inherited from the tradition of Western metaphysics by looking to a deeper structure from out of which both subjectivity and objectivity are derived and which embraces both. For Heidegger, the answer lies in being as the opening of unconcealment, from out of which beings emerge, and for Nishida, it is the place of nothingness within which beings are co-determined in their oppositions and relations. Concepts such as Nishida's "discontinuous continuity," "absolutely self-contradictory identity" (between one and many, whole and part, world and things), the mutual interdependence of individuals, and the self-determination of the world through the co-relative self-determination of individuals, and Heidegger's "simultaneity" (zugleich) and "within one another" (ineinander) (of unconcealment and concealment, presencing and absencing), and their "between" (Zwischen) and "jointure" (Fuge) are examined. Through a discussion of these ideas, the suggestion is made of a possible "transition" (Übergang) of both Western and Eastern thinking, in their mutual encounter, both in relation to each other and each in relation to its own past history, leading to both a self-discovery in the other and to a simultaneous self-reconstitution. (shrink)
The scholarly career of Professor Chad Hansen has been devoted in large measure to an elucidation of the relationship between the classical Chinese language and the structure and aims of pre-Qin philosophical thought. His “mass-noun” hypothesis of classical Chinese thought, his notion of dao 道 as “guiding discourse,” and his clarifications of the significance of Mohism are marked achievements from which all of us have benefited immensely. In the opening chapters of A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought, Hansen prefaces his (...) interpretation of how the Chinese language lends uniqueness to its philosophical tradition with a sharp contrast to Indo-European language and thought. Hansen attempts to show how the Indo-European .. (shrink)
I describe in this paper some of my efforts in developing formal theories of social processes. These include work on models of occupational mobility, on models to describe the emergence of expectations out of performance evaluations, and on the graph theory formulation of the Status Characteristics theory. Not all models have been equally significant in developing theory. However, the graph theory formulation has played a central role in the growth of the Expectation States program. It has been involved in the (...) generalization of theories, the integration of theories, and in the construction of highly sensitive tests of theories that would be impossible without the inferential capacities of formalization. (shrink)
The gulf between multinational enterprises’ focus on high income countries and the reality of 80% of the world living in developing, bottom of pyramid (Hahn, J Bus Ethics 84:313–324, 2009 ) economies could magnify the anti-globalisation movement and political backlashes in the twenty-first century. The global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009 has increased such social tensions throughout the world and creates greater challenges for, responsible leadership. In this conceptual article, the authors analyse the value and identity of local managers, (...) and the liability of foreignness caused by over-reliance on expatriate managers and under-reliance on local managers in bottom of pyramid countries (Hahn, 2009 ). It is argued that multinational enterprises need to assess local managers’ knowledge and contributions as having not only operational and market value, but also institutional value, such as access to local knowledge and local social capital; such a holistic approach will ensure fairer, equal treatment of all managers in the multinational enterprise. Responsible leadership in the twenty-first century requires a greater appreciation of local managers’ institutional value and the overcoming of any psychological distance towards local managers of bottom of pyramid countries. (shrink)
Beliefs about diverse status characteristics have a common core content of performance capacities and qualities made up of two features: hierarchy (superior/inferior capacities) and role-differentiation (instrumental/expressive qualities). Whatever the status characteristic, its more-valued state tends to be defined as superior and instrumental, and the less-valued state tends to be defined as inferior but expressive. We account for this in terms of the typification of differences in behavioral inequalities and profiles that emerge in task oriented social interaction. Status construction theory argues (...) that new configurations of the states of a nonvalued discriminating characteristic, status values, and status typifications of actors possessing these states arise from a similar process. The theory we present here makes new predictions on the construction and institutionalization of status characteristics and generalized beliefs about the relation of status characteristics to social rewards, called referential structures. This theory, we argue, integrates micro and macro elements in a way that may be applicable to explaining the social construction of cultural objects more generally. (shrink)
Some sociologists argue that sociological theory does not grow and the reason why it does not grow is that the discipline lacks a core of highly developed, almost universally accepted, paradigms; even worse, because it is reflexive, its criteria of problem and theory choice are so noncognitive that there are no paradigms, hence no progress, in its future. We do not question that sociology lacks a core of almost universally accepted paradigms, nor that highly developed paradigms may be a sufficient (...) condition of theory growth, but we question both that universal acceptance of them is necessary and that sociology has nothing like them. We argue that theoretical research programs-sets of strategies, sets of interrelated theories embodying these strategies, and empirical models interpreting these theories-are sufficient for theoretical growth. An examination of three theoretical research programs in this article shows that they perform some of the same functions for theory growth as, in Kuhn, are performed by paradigms. Sociology may lack a universally accepted core, but there are theoretical research programs in sociology, and therefore already there is theory growth if it is looked for in the right place. Nor is there any warrant for the view that because its criteria of problem and theory choice are inescapably noncognitive, there are no paradigms, hence no progress, in sociology's future. If that were true, not only would sociology lack paradigms, but also theoretical research programs. We conclude from our study that sociology need not wait on the emergence of a universally accepted core. It is sufficient for the growth of theory that it develops further its existing theoretical research programs and that it encourages the creation of new programs. (shrink)
The existence and uniqueness of a maximum point for a continuous real—valued function on a metric space are investigated constructively. In particular, it is shown, in the spirit of reverse mathematics, that a natural unique existence theorem is equivalent to the fan theorem.
Although the dynamic field model predicts infants' perseverative behavior in the context of the A-not-B manual search task, it does not account for infant perseveration in other contexts. An alternative cognitive capacity explanation for perseveration is more parsimonious. It accounts for the graded nature of perseverative responses and perseveration in different contexts.
The problem of the origin of life understandably counts as one of the most exciting questions in the natural sciences, but in spite of almost endless speculation on this subject, it is still far from its final solution. The complexity of the functional correlation between recent nucleic acids and proteins can e.g. give rise to the assumption that the genetic code (and life) could not originate on the Earth. It was Portelli (1975) who published the hypothesis that the genetic code (...) could not originate during the history of the Earth. In his opinion the recent genetic code represents the informational message transmitted by living systems of the previous cycle of the Universe. Here however, we defend the existence of a certain strategy in the syntheses of the genetic code during the history of the Earth. The strategy of correlation between amino acid and nucleotide polymers made an increasing velocity of the chemical evolution possible, that is, it increased the velocity of formation of the genetic code. Thus, life with the recent genetic code could originate on the Earth within the present cycle of the Universe. (shrink)
Mandik (2012)understands color-consciousness conceptualism to be the view that one deploys in a conscious qualitative state concepts for every color consciously discriminated by that state. Some argue that the experimental evidence that we can consciously discriminate barely distinct hues that are presented together but cannot do so when those hues are presented in short succession suggests that we can consciously discriminate colors that we do not conceptualize. Mandik maintains, however, that this evidence is consistent with our deploying a variety of (...) nondemonstrative concepts for those colors and so does not pose a threat to conceptualism. But even if Mandik has shown that we deploy such concepts in these experimental conditions, there are cases of conscious states that discriminate colors but do not involve concepts of those colors. Mandik’s arguments sustain only a theory in the vicinity of conceptualism: The view that we possess concepts for every color we can discriminate consciously, but need not deploy those concepts in every conscious act of color discrimination. (shrink)
While results from statistical modelling too often receive blind acceptance, we question whether there is any real alternative to use of modelling. This does not diminish the main point of Professor Freedman, which is that healthy scepticism towards models is needed. While agreeing with many of Professor Freedman's points concerning the objectivist debate, we argue that there is a Bayesian school of objectivists that possesses considerable advantages over the classical objectivist school. At the least, the debate needs to be enlarged (...) to include this school. (shrink)
Although the neoconservative movement has come to dominate American conservatism, this movement has its origins in the old Marxist Left. Communists in their younger days, as the founders of neoconservatism, inverted Marxist doctrine by arguing that moral values and not economic forces were the primary movers of history. Yet the neoconservative critique of biotechnology still borrows heavily from Karl Marx and owes more to the German philosopher Martin Heidegger than to the Scottish philosopher and political economist Adam Smith. Loath to (...) identify these sources - or perhaps unaware of them - neoconservatives do not acknowledge these intellectual underpinnings or their implications. Thus, in the final analysis, their critique is incoherent and even internally inconsistent. By not acknowledging and embracing their intellectual roots, neoconservatives are left with a deeply ambivalent and often confused view of biotechnology and the society that gives rise to it. (shrink)
This paper describes formalizations of Tait's normalization proof for the simply typed λ-calculus in the proof assistants Minlog, Coq and Isabelle/HOL. From the formal proofs programs are machine-extracted that implement variants of the well-known normalization-by-evaluation algorithm. The case study is used to test and compare the program extraction machineries of the three proof assistants in a non-trivial setting.
Open peer commentary on the article “Communication Emerging? On Simulating Structural Coupling in Multiple Contingency” by Manfred Füllsack. Upshot: Our criticism aims at the premises of Füllsack’s simulation model, i.e., we claim that his interpretation of the Luhmannian concept of double contingency contradicts the systems theoretical approach in fundamental ways. Neither the view of communication as an emergent system, nor the theory of double contingency is addressed in an adequate manner. Thus Füllsack in fact does not simulate a systems theoretical (...) approach to double contingency but simulates a mere reduction of the social to the individual psyches. (shrink)
This is a critical review of Death Penalties by constitutional scholar Raoul Berger. It rebuts Berger's argument that the Eighth Amendment "no cruel and unusual punishments" clause validates capital punishment.
In a recent issue of Philosophy East and West Douglas Berger defends a new reading of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā XXIV : 18, arguing that most contemporary translators mistranslate the important term prajñaptir upādāya, misreading it as a compound indicating "dependent designation" or something of the sort, instead of taking it simply to mean "this notion, once acquired." He attributes this alleged error, pervasive in modern scholarship, to Candrakīrti, who, Berger correctly notes, argues for the interpretation he rejects.Berger's analysis, and (...) the reading of the text he suggests is grounded on that analysis, is insightful and fascinating, and certainly generates an understanding of Nāgārjuna's enterprise that is welcome .. (shrink)
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002. Pp. xi + 234. H/b £?.??, $?.??, P/b £?.??, $?.??. If asked for an example of a rigid designator it is likely that one would suggest a name, like ‘Aristotle’ or ‘Tony Blair’, or a demonstrative, like ‘that book’ said whilst pointing at a certain text. Intuitively, what these expressions have in common is the central role they accord to perception of an object: you can see the book you want to talk about, there are (...) people around in our community who have bumped into Tony, and, although no one alive today perceived Aristotle directly, it seems plausible to claim that our ability to use the name now relies on the fact that someone, sometime, did perceive him directly. However, as anyone at all familiar with rigid designation knows, not all such expressions follow this model. Kripke himself stressed that certain definite descriptions have a constant extension across all possible worlds (for example, ‘the smallest prime number’, ‘the actual prime minister of Great Britain now’) and thus meet the criterion for being rigid designators; while Kaplan emphasized the role of a descriptive rule in determining the referent for a token utterance of an indexical, like ‘I’ or ‘tomorrow’. (shrink)
In a brilliant series of essays, the distinguished philosopher D. Z. Phillips explores the alternatives for faith after foundationalism. A significant exploration of post-foundationalist thought in its own right, Faith After Foundationalism is also an important evaluation and critique of the theological implications of the views of Alvin Plantinga, Richard Rorty, George Lindbeck, and Peter Berger.Phillips’s own position is that one must resist the philosopher’s tendency to turn religious mystery into epistemological mystery. To understand how religious concepts are formed (...) is to understand that to speak of God as “beyond mortal telling” is not to confess a failure of language. God’s hiddenness is part of our concept of him—a reflection of the mystery of human life as it is lived. Faith After Foundationalism will be essential reading for philosophers of religion and theologians, as well as for students of contemporary epistemology. (shrink)
Transcendent Individual is an anthropological account of individual creativity and its conscious engagement in society. Drawing widely on ethnographic and theoretic material, and bringing into debate a range of voices--Nietzsche, Wilde and Forster, Bateson and Gerald Edelman, George Steiner, Richard Rorty and John Berger, Edmund Leach and Anthony Cohen--the book approaches individuality in terms of a range of issues: biological integrity, consciousness, agency, democracy, discourse, knowledge, consumerism, globalism and play.
The article presents the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD). SKAD, which has been in the process of development since the middle of the 1990s, is now a widely used framework among social scientists in discourse research in the German-speaking area. It links arguments from the social constructionist tradition, following Berger and Luckmann, with assumptions based in symbolic interactionism, hermeneutic sociology of knowledge, and the concepts of Michel Foucault. It argues thereby for a consistent theoretical and methodological grounding (...) of a genuine social sciences perspective on discourse interested in the social production, circulation and transformation of knowledge, that is in social relations and politics of knowledge in the so-called ‘knowledge societies’. Distancing itself from Critical Discourse Analysis, Linguistics, Ethnomethodology inspired discourse analysis and the Analysis of Hegemonies, following Laclau and Mouffe, SKAD’s framework has been built up around research questions and concerns located in the social sciences, referring to public discourse and arenas as well as to more specific fields of (scientific, religious, etc.) discursive struggles and controversies around problematizations (Foucault). (shrink)
I will argue that Mill used the concepts tendency and intention as technical terms a proper understanding of which is vital in interpreting his moral philosophy. I examine two interpretations of tendency, offered by Brian Cupples and Fred Berger, and proceed to show weaknesses in both. I will also sketch an interpretation of my own in which tendencies have an important place in Mill's understanding of not only science but moral philosophy as well. I will then show how my (...) interpretation of tendency can help in understanding Mill's foreseeable consequences utilitarianism that relies heavily on Mill's unorthodox use of the notion of intention. (shrink)
Alfred Schutz''s influence on American sociologists and sociology in the 1960s and 1970s is traced through the examination of the work of two of his students, Helmut Wagner and Peter Berger, and of Harold Garfinkel with whom he met and corresponded over a number of years. The circumstances of Schutz''s own academic situation, particularly the short period of his academic career in the United States and his location at the New School, are examined to consider how and in what (...) ways he was constrained from exerting an even wider influence. The two major areas of influence in American sociology that are examined are the sociology of knowledge and the early development of ethnomethodology. (shrink)
I respond to the separate commentaries by Jacob Berger, Charlie Pelling, and David Pereplyotchik on my paper, “Color-Consciousness Conceptualism.” I resist Berger’s suggestion that mental colors ever enter consciousness without accompaniment by deployments of concepts of their extra-mental counterparts. I express concerns about Pelling’s proposal that a more uniform conceptualist treatment of phenomenal sorites can be gained by a simple appeal to the partial overlap of the extensions of some concepts. I question the relevance to perceptual consciousness of (...) the arguments for demonstrative concepts that Pereplyotchik attacks. (shrink)
Phenomenological sociology was founded at the beginning of 1930s by Alfred Schutz. His mundane phenomenology sought to combine impulses drawn from Husserl's transcendental phenomenology and Weber's action theory. It was made famous at the turn of 1960s and 1970s by Garfinkel's ethnomethodology and Berger & Luckmann's social constructionism. This paper deals with the notable accomplishments of Schutz and his followers and then proceeds to a shared shortcoming, which is that the phenomenological approach is unable to understand meaning in any (...) other way but as actors's knowledge. Therefore, phenomenological sociologists are forced to describe the actor's interpretations of meaning as transparent to the actor him/herself, even if they sometimes make heroic attempts to escape the limitations of the phenomenological conception. The limitation is apparent in Husserl's and Schutz's definition of meaning as a “reflective intentional act”, Garfinkel's use of the term “accounting” to refer to a signifying effect, and the way Berger and Luckmann describe their social theory as “sociology of knowledge”. Today, similar confusions are present in Michael Polanyi's “tacit knowledge”and in Giddens' structuration theory. (shrink)
Part I: Science for humanism -- Historical context : humanism and Giddens's call -- Theoretical framework : postmodernism and after -- Kant and the stalemate of the social sciences : prelude and transformation -- Kant and the stalemate of the psychological sciences : behavior and energy -- Part II: Returning to Kant and the stalemate of sociology -- Simme l: sociation and the real a priori of power -- Durkheim : the social fact as a new third antinomy -- Weber (...) : the noumenal freedom of the historical actor -- Parsons, Dahrendorf, Berger : rituals of return -- Returning to Kant and to Giddens call -- The dynamical theory of matter : natural agency -- Kantian realism : human agency. (shrink)
This paper was presented at the American Philosophical Association's 2007 Berger Prize session. It is a reply to Ken Himma's comment on my paper, "How Facts Make Law," which was awarded the 2007 Berger Prize for the outstanding paper in philosophy of law published during 2004 and 2005. In his thoughtful and thought-provoking paper, Himma claims that the argument of "How Facts Make Law" must go wrong somewhere because, if successful, the argument shows too much with too little. (...) In particular, he claims that my argument, with very limited resources, reaches a conclusion that entails that subjectivist and non-cognitivist theories of morality are false. Himma insists that I should not be able to resolve such controversial debates in meta-ethics with no meta-ethical or even normative resources. My basic response has two parts. First, it is not correct that my conclusion entails that subjectivist and non-cognitivist theories of morality are false. My conclusion itself is neutral as to the metaphysics of morality. Second, it's not even true that my argument, if successful, shows that there must be moral facts. The reason is that I rely on the plausibility of the existence of moral facts (whatever their metaphysics) in arguing for my conclusion. In sum, my argument's conclusion doesn't get us nearly as far as Himma thinks. Nor are my argument's resources as meager as he claims. (shrink)
I deploy the sense-reference distinction and its kin from the philosophy of language to answer the question what in constitutional interpretation should, and should not, be able to change after founders adopt a constitutional provision. I suggest that a constitutional expression's reference, but not its sense, can change. Interpreters should thus give founders' assessments of reference only Skidmore-level deference. From this position, I criticize the theories of constitutional interpretation offered by Raoul Berger, Jed Rubenfeld, and Richard Fallon, and apply (...) the theory to whether the Fourteenth Amendment forbids racial segregation in public schools. (shrink)
Alan Berger’s Terms and Truth covers various expressionsparticularly names and anaphoric pronouns, but also demonstratives and general termsas they occur in various linguistic contexts, including identity sentences, belief ascriptions, and negative existentials. A central thesis of Berger’s book is that all of these expressions are rigid designators. (So I assume that Berger would say, contrary to what the subtitle might suggest, that anaphoric reference is direct reference.).
With the publication of The Social Frameworks of Knowledge? the English speaking world has at last been given a serious opportunity to approach the complex sociological thought of Georges Gurvitch. However, as the author himself admits in the Preface, this book appears ?abstract and schematic particularly to the uninitiated?.1 The aim of this paper will be to try to relate this translated work to the main body of Gurvitch's writing and particularly to his stance in the sociology of knowledge. First (...) I will examine the intellectual origins of his sociology of knowledge and his attitude to his predecessors in the field. Secondly I will compare his approach to the sociology of knowledge to that of P. L. Berger and T. Luckmann. (shrink)
Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) are currently the gold standard within evidence-based medicine. Usually, they are conducted as sequential trials allowing for monitoring for early signs of effectiveness or harm. However, evidence from early stopped trials is often charged with being biased towards implausibly large effects (e.g., Bassler et al. 2010). To our mind, this skeptical attitude is unfounded and caused by the failure to perform appropriate conditioning in the statistical analysis of the evidence. We contend that a shift from unconditional (...) hypothesis tests in the style of Neyman and Pearson to conditional hypothesis tests (Berger, Brown and Wolpert 1994) gives a superior appreciation of the obtained evidence and significantly improves the practice of sequential medical trials, while staying firmly rooted in frequentist methodology. (shrink)
Starting with D. Scott's work on the mathematical foundations of programming language semantics, interest in topology has grown up in theoretical computer science, under the slogan `open sets are semidecidable properties'. But whereas on effectively given Scott domains all such properties are also open, this is no longer true in general. In this paper a characterization of effectively given topological spaces is presented that says which semidecidable sets are open. This result has important consequences. Not only follows the classical Rice-Shapiro (...) Theorem and its generalization to effectively given Scott domains, but also a recursion theoretic characterization of the canonical topology of effectively given metric spaces. Moreover, it implies some well known theorems on the effective continuity of effective operators such as P. Young and the author's general result which in its turn entails the theorems by Myhill-Shepherdson, Kreisel-Lacombe-Shoenfield and Ceĭtin-Moschovakis, and a result by Eršov and Berger which says that the hereditarily effective operations coincide with the hereditarily effective total continuous functionals on the natural numbers. (shrink)
'This is a smart and compelling book. Difficult ideas are presented in an accessible manner, with plenty of supporting illustrations…Students will enjoy the research material and other supporting material. A definite winner!'- Professor Jay Gubrium, University of Missouri This book gets to the heart of what the social sciences really know about the elusive and contradictory object of research: human reality. Drawing on a wide range of international examples and scenarios, Social Theory and Human Reality examines key sociological concepts that (...) we use to understand human behaviour such as: norms, rules and meanings; language and discourse; ritual; and personality and identity construction. Alasuutari clearly and convincingly demonstrates: - The constant interplay between routines and reflexivity that grounds social order - how the body and our bodily experiences mediate our social reality - that language plays a multi-faceted role as it describes, reflects and constructs human reality Building on the work started by Berger and Luckmann in The Social Construction of Reality, this book is a lucid and contemporary analysis of the premises shared across the social sciences, and of the kaleidoscope of 'human reality'. This important book will be welcomed by students and scholars alike in the fields of Cultural Studies, Sociology and Anthropology. (shrink)
Values and the scope of scientific inquiry, by M. Farber.--The phenomenology of epistemic claims: and its bearing on the essence of philosophy, by R. M. Zaner.--Problems of the Life-World, by A. Gurwitsch.--The Life-World and the particular sub-worlds, by W. Marx.--On the boundaries of the social world, by T. Luckmann.--Alfred Schutz on social reality and social science, by M. Natanson.--Homo oeconomicus and his class mates, by F. Machlup.--Toward a science of political economics, by A. Lowe.--Some notes on reality-orientation in contemporary societies, (...) by A. Brodersen.--The eclipse of reality, by E. Voegelin.--Alienation in Marx's Political economy and philosophy, by P. Merlan.--The problem of multiple realities: Alfred Schutz and Robert Musil, by P. L. Berger.--Phenomenology, history, myth, by F. Kersten.--The role of music in Leonardo's Paragone, by E. Winternitz.--Alfred Schutz bibliography (p. [297]-306). (shrink)
Religious phenomena in a technological society are increasingly technicized. The technicizing of religion folIows technological development in the broader socicty and vices arise associated with this process. With Berger I analyze the significance of introducing burcaucratic structures into religious organizations, and with Ellul the influence of modern mass media in the religious sphere.
