La question des instincts est une voie d’entrée privilégiée pour le rapport du pragmatisme au naturalisme. Le problème que soulève la théorie des instincts de William James et John Dewey vient du maintien, à première vue surprenant, de l’idée d’une « nature humaine ». Je soutiens que c’est au sein même de la théorie pragmatiste des instincts que l’on trouve des arguments pour montrer que la nature humaine ne détermine pas univoquement la conduite. Bien comprendre la naturalité de l’être humain (...) suffit à défaire toute tentative pour l’ériger en source d’autorité des principes de la conduite. (shrink)

The question of possible moral conflict between commitment to family and to impartiality is particularly relevant to traditional Confucian thought, given the importance of familial bonds in that tradition. Classical Confucian ethics also appears to lack any developed theoretical commitment to impartiality as a regulative ideal and a standpoint for ethical judgment, or to universal equality. The Confucian prioritizing of family has prompted criticism of Confucian ethics, and doubts about its continuing relevance in China and beyond. This chapter assesses how (...) those sympathetic to the Confucian vision of the good life might respond. It first explores Confucian conceptions of love and the importance of familial love. Next, problems arising from this commitment to partiality are discussed, and how a modern Confucian ethics might respond. I explore what notions of impartiality—understood largely pragmatically, as a value that functions in everyday social life rather than as an explicit moral principle that guides deliberation or judgment—can be derived from an ethics that focuses on family commitments. (shrink)

Bayesian epistemology addresses epistemological problems with the help of the mathematical theory of probability. It turns out that the probability calculus is especially suited to represent degrees of belief (credences) and to deal with questions of belief change, confirmation, evidence, justification, and coherence. Compared to the informal discussions in traditional epistemology, Bayesian epis- temology allows for a more precise and fine-grained analysis which takes the gradual aspects of these central epistemological notions into account. Bayesian epistemology therefore complements traditional epistemology; it (...) does not re- place it or aim at replacing it. (shrink)

pt. 1. Text -- pt. 2. Notes, bibliography and indices.

This comprehensive new book introduces the core history of phenomenology and assesses its relevance to contemporary psychology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. From critiques of artificial intelligence research programs to ongoing work on embodiment and enactivism, the authors trace how phenomenology has produced a valuable framework for analyzing cognition and perception, whose impact on contemporary psychological and scientific research, and philosophical debates continues to grow. The first part of _An Introduction to Phenomenology_ is an extended overview of the history (...) and development of phenomenology, looking at its key thinkers, focusing particularly on Husserl, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, as well as its cultural and intellectual precursors. In the second half Chemero and Käufer turn their attention to the contemporary interpretations and uses of phenomenology in cognitive science, showing that phenomenology is a living source of inspiration in contemporary interdisciplinary studies of the mind. Käufer and Chemero have written a clear, jargon-free account of phenomenology, providing abundant examples and anecdotes to illustrate and to entertain. This book is an ideal introduction to phenomenology and cognitive science for the uninitiated, as well as for philosophy and psychology students keen to deepen their knowledge. (shrink)

Among the questions to be raised under the heading of “personal identity” are these: “What are we?” (fundamental nature question) and “Under what conditions do we persist through time?” (persistence question). Against the dominant neo-Lockean approach to these questions, the view known as animalism answers that each of us is an organism of the species Homo sapiens and that the conditions of our persistence are those of animals. Beyond describing the content and historical background of animalism and its rivals, this (...) entry explores some of the arguments for and objections to this controversial account of our nature and persistence. (shrink)

What are we? What is the nature of the human person? Animalism has a straightforward answer to these long-standing philosophical questions: we are animals. After being ignored for a long time in philosophical discussions of our nature, this idea has recently gained considerable support in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. Containing mainly new papers as well as two highly important articles that were recently published elsewhere, this volume's contributors include both emerging voices in the debate and many of those who (...) have been instrumental in shaping it. Some of their contributions defend animalism, others criticize it, still others explore its more general implications. The book also contains a substantial introduction by the editors explaining what animalism is, identifying leading issues that merit attention, and highlighting many of the issues that the contributors have raised. (shrink)

The Repugnant Conclusion served an important purpose in catalyzing and inspiring the pioneering stage of population ethics research. We believe, however, that the Repugnant Conclusion now receives too much focus. Avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion should no longer be the central goal driving population ethics research, despite its importance to the fundamental accomplishments of the existing literature.

La Phenomenologie, derniere section du Nouvel Organon (1764) de Jean-Henri Lambert, proposee ici dans sa traduction integrale, constitue une piece originale apportee au debat entre rationalisme et empirisme au XVIIIe siecle. Ce texte aborde le probleme de la critique de l'apparence en general, en ne recherchant pas seulement les criteres de l'apparence sensible, mais egalement ceux de l'apparence intellectuelle et morale, avec une consideration particuliere pour le domaine du probable. La verite apparente est au coeur de la phenomenologie definie (...) aussi comme une optique ou perspective transcendante. La question centrale est celle du depassement de l'apparence, car elle nous induit en erreur en nous dissimulant l'etre reel. (shrink)

This book successfully achieves to serve two different purposes. On the one hand, it is a readable physics-based introduction into the philosophy of science, written in an informal and accessible style. The author, himself a professor of physics at the University of Notre Dame and active in the philosophy of science for almost twenty years, carefully develops his metatheoretical arguments on a solid basis provided by an extensive survey along the lines of the historical development of physics. On the other (...) hand, this book supplies one long argument for Cushing´s own attitude in the philosophy of science. While former studies of the author, from which this book draws in part, focused each on one special episode in the history of science, this book gathers case material from many different parts of physics and epochs. The main goal of this book is ”to impress upon the reader the essential and ineliminable role that philosophical considerations have played in the actual practice of science” (p. xv). (shrink)

This entry sketches the theory of personal identity that has come to be known as animalism. Animalism’s hallmark claim is that each of us is identical with a human animal. Moreover, animalists typically claim that we could not exist except as animals, and that the (biological) conditions of our persistence derive from our status as animals. Prominent advocates of this view include Michael Ayers, Eric Olson, Paul Snowdon, Peter van Inwagen, and David Wiggins.

Nancy Cartwright is one of the most distinguished and influential contemporary philosophers of science. Despite the profound impact of her work, there is neither a systematic exposition of Cartwright’s philosophy of science nor a collection of articles that contains in-depth discussions of the major themes of her philosophy. This book is devoted to a critical assessment of Cartwright’s philosophy of science and contains contributions from Cartwright's champions and critics. Broken into three parts, the book begins by addressing Cartwright's views on (...) the practice of model building in science and the question of how models represent the world before moving on to a detailed discussion of methodologically and metaphysically challenging problems. Finally, the book addresses Cartwright's original attempts to clarify profound questions concerning the metaphysics of science. With contributions from leading scholars, such as Ronald N. Giere and Paul Teller, this unique volume will be extremely useful to philosophers of science the world over. (shrink)

A new translation of two essential works on Deleuze, written by one of his contemporaries. From the publication of Deleuze: A Philosophy of the Event to his untimely death in 2006, Francois Zourabichvili was regarded as one of the most important new voices of contemporary philosophy in France. His work continues to make an essential contribution to Deleuze scholarship today. This edition makes two of Zourabichvili's most important writings on the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze available in a single volume. A (...) Philosophy of the Event is an exposition of Deleuze's philosophy as a whole, while the complementary Deleuze's Vocabulary approaches Deleuze's work through an analysis of key concepts in a dictionary form. This new translation is set to become an event within Deleuze Studies for many years to come. Key Features: Distinguishes Deleuze's notion of the event from the phenomenological, ontological and voluntarist conceptions that continue to lay claim to it today; With an introduction by Gregg Lambert and Daniel W. Smith, two of the world's leading commentators on Deleuze, explaining the key themes and arguments of Zourabichvili's work. (shrink)

Li Zehou’s work can be understood as an account of a Chinese modernity, a vision for Chinese society that seeks to integrate three distinct philosophical approaches. These are Chinese history and culture, which Li understands as largely Confucian; Marxism, which has exerted such influence on a modernizing China; and Western learning more generally, as expressed by figures such as Immanuel Kant and Sigmund Freud. Li also frequently expresses the hope that a Chinese modernity will be one in which the importance (...) of the individual is recognized, and rights and freedoms upheld (e.g., 2006, p. 182). But this stance raises an important question: how are individuality and freedom understood in Li’s philosophical system? In this paper, I want to examine what resources Li offers to help us conceptualize their place in a modernity with Chinese characteristics. Confucian culture is often regarded as authoritarian and hierarchical, less interested than more liberal traditions in an ideal such as freedom. So how does freedom relate to the Confucian root of Chinese culture, as construed by Li? In this paper I explore how Li Zehou’s study of Confucian aesthetics can deliver a novel conception of freedom, one grounded in Confucian thinking about personal cultivation, and aimed at the free creation of delight (樂). (shrink)

This article describes the history of the City University of New York (CUNY), demonstrating its value as a model for the creation of the Virtual University. Since the establishment of City College in the mid-19th Century, CUNY has continually confronted the challenge of providing quality, low-cost higher education to generations of diverse students. Today CUNY has come to serve as a model not only for effective urban education, but also as an approach to preparing an international student body for a (...) global future. This article details the challenges CUNY has confronted along the way. (shrink)

This article describes the impact of, and response to, Trofim D. Lysenko's anti-genetics campaign in Poland between the years 1949 and 1956. It focuses particularly upon the response of three individuals – Teodor Marchlewski, Waclaw Gajewski, and Aleksandra Putrament -who were central figures in the controversy in Poland. In addition to examining the responses and motivations of these individuals, the article also addresses the question of why the Lysenko-era in Poland ended relatively earlier than in neighboring Soviet-allied states such as (...) Hungary, East Germany or Czechoslovakia, as well as 9 years before Lysenko was forced from power in the USSR. I argue that conditions specific to Polish politics and Poland's relationship with the Soviet Union, during the Thaw after Stalin's death, provided the opponents of "Lysenkoism" in Poland with an opportunity to criticize Lysenko, and restore Polish genetics. These conditions are linked to the near-revolution in Poland following the strike in Poznan in June, 1956, and successful transition of power between Edward Ochab and Wladyslaw Gomulka the following October. (shrink)

Why is there a specific problem with biological individuality? Because the living realm contains a wide range of exotic particular concrete entities that do not easily match our ordinary concept of an individual. Slime moulds, dandelions, siphonophores are among the Odd Entities that excite the ontological zeal of the philosophers of biology. Most of these philosophers, however, seem to believe that these Odd Cases oblige us to refine or revise our common concept of an individual. They think, explicitly or tacitly, (...) that to be a living, evolutionary entity is to be a living individual. In this paper, we explore an alternative proposal: the variety and oddity of the forms of the living realm might be ontologically regimented through an increase in the categorial complexity of the living realm, by admitting, beside living individuals, living non-individuals or by acknowledging, more generally, that the evolutionary development of the living forms is not necessarily a process of building individuals, that life is not necessarily individuals-oriented. We claim that, from an ontological point of view, the spectacle of the living realm obliges us to take aggregativity seriously. (shrink)

Despite widespread support for the claim that death can harm the one who dies, debate continues over how to rescue this harm thesis (HT) from Epicurus’s challenge. Disagreements focus on two of the three issues that any defense of HT must resolve: the subject of death’s harm and the timing of its injury. About the nature of death’s harm, however, a consensus has emerged around the view that death harms a subject (when it does) by depriving her of the goods (...) life would’ve afforded had she continued living. This deprivation view of death’s harm (DV) derives some of its credibility from the general deprivation theory of which it is an instance: mortal harm is subject to the same kind of analysis plausibly given of other non-mortal harms. Furthermore, note that the weak formulation of HT—asserting only that death can inflict harm, not that it always or necessarily does—accommodates the intuition that instances of rational suicide and justifiable euthanasia present cases in which death fails to harm. DV is equipped to explain how in these cases the harms involved in continued existence outweigh the goods of which death deprives the subject. I agree that suicide can be rational and that euthanasia can be justifiable. Likewise I accept both HT and DV as far as they go. But they do not go far enough. Specifically, I argue here that death harms even those who die as a result of rational suicide or justifiable euthanasia; that death’s harm is neither undifferentiated nor wholly contingent, but multifaceted and partly necessary; that the necessary part of death’s harm is distinctive, inflicting a peculiar restriction on the autonomy of one who dies; and, regarding the timing and subject issues, that this restriction harm is inflicted on the antemortem subject prior to her death. (shrink)

This study examined narrative identity in a group of 81 patients with schizophrenia and 50 healthy controls through the recall of self-defining memories. The results indicated that patients’ narratives were less coherent and elaborate than those of controls. Schizophrenia patients were severely impaired in the ability to make connections with the self and extract meaning from their memories, which significantly correlated with illness duration. In agreement with earlier research, patients exhibited an early reminiscence bump. Moreover, the period of the reminiscence (...) bump, which is highly relevant for identity development, was characterized by fewer achievements and more life-threatening event experiences, compared with controls. A negative correlation was found between negative symptoms, number of self-event connections and specificity of narratives. Our results suggest that schizophrenia patients have difficulties to organize and extract meaning from their past experiences in order to create coherent personal narratives. (shrink)

Philosophische Mythen und Modelle. Unzufriedenheit auf höchstem Niveau ; Der Mythenvorwurf in der Philosophie ; Modellierende Philosophie : eine contradictio in adjecto ; Der Mythos des Gegebenen ; Vom Mythos desGegebenen zum Mythos des Mittelbaren ; Interpretationismus und Wahrnehmungsphilosophie ; Transzendentaler Interpretationismus ; Die Verbindung des Mythos des Gegebenen mit dem Mythos des Mittelbaren : Repräsentationalismus ; Das Paradigma des Zugangs -- Phänomenologie : die Philosophie ohne Modell. Phänomenale Gewißheit ; Vom cartesischen Cartesianismus zum phänomenologischen Cartesianimus ; Intentionalität : das (...) fundamentum inconcussum relationalis ; Zu den Sachen und zurück zur Sprache ; Phänomenologische Protreptik ; Eidetische Variation -- Das Mich der Wahrnehmung. Von den Bedingungen der Möglichkeit zu den Folgen der Wirklichkeit ; Vom Primat des Wahrnehmenden zum Primat der Wahrnehmung ; Vom Ich zum Mich der Wahrnehmung ; Die Zumutung dauernder Anwesenheit ; Die Beschreibung der Anwesenheitszumutung : der Gehalt der Wahrnehmung ; Die Qualität der Wahrenmung und der Auffassungssinn ; Sich sicher sein, daß etwas der Fall ist : Wissen und Gewißheit ; Die unmögliche Epoché ; Vom Eindruck zum Ausdruck zur Teilhabe ; Transzendentale Ästhetik und die Unterstellung von Anschauungsformen ; Die Leiblichkeit des Wahrnehmenden : eine folge der Wahrnehmung ; Die Kontinuität des Wahrgenommenen ; Das Wahrgenommene und die Ursache der Wahrnehmung ; Die Zumutung der Öffentlichkeit ; Die Identität des Mich -- Die Partizipationspause. Pause versus Unterbrechung ; Die drei Paradigmen der Bildwahrnehmungstheorie ; Das besondre Objekt der Bildwahrnehmung ; Die besonderen Folgen der Bildwahrnehmung ; Zum Zuschauen gezwungen ; Die optische Entindividualisierung des Mich ; Zur Teilnahme entschieden. (shrink)

We use evidence from cognitive psychology and the history of science to examine the issue of the theory-ladenness of perceptual observation. This evidence shows that perception is theory-laden, but that it is only strongly theory-laden when the perceptual evidence is ambiguous or degraded, or when it requires a difficult perceptual judgment. We argue that debates about the theory-ladenness issue have focused too narrowly on the issue of perceptual experience, and that a full account of the scientific process requires an examination (...) of theory-ladenness in attention, perception, data interpretation, data production, memory, and scientific communication. We conclude that the evidence for theory-ladenness does not lead to a relativist account of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

In the past decade well-designed research studies have shown that the practice of collaborative philosophical inquiry in schools can have marked cognitive and social benefits. Student academic performance improves, and so too does the social dimension of schooling. These findings are timely, as many countries in Asia and the Pacific are now contemplating introducing Philosophy into their curricula. This paper gives a brief history of collaborative philosophical inquiry before surveying the evidence as to its effectiveness. The evidence is canvassed under (...) two categories: schooling and thinking skills; and schooling, socialisation and values. In both categories there is clear evidence that even short-term teaching of collaborative philosophical inquiry has marked positive effects on students. The paper concludes with suggestions for further research and a final claim that the presently-available research evidence is strong enough to warrant implementing collaborative philosophical inquiry as part of a long-term policy. (shrink)

The view known as animalism asserts that we are human animals—that each of us is an instance of the Homo sapiens species. The standard argument for this view is known as the thinking animal argument . But this argument has recently come under attack. So, here, a new argument for animalism is introduced. The animal ancestors argument illustrates how the case for animalism can be seen to piggyback on the credibility of evolutionary theory. Two objections are then considered and answered.

The present paper is a kind of selective summary of my book The Genesis of Yogācāra-Vijñānavāda. [1.–2.] It deals with questions of origin and early development of three basic concepts of this school, viz., the ‘idealist’ thesis that the whole world is mind only or manifestation only, the assumption of a subliminal layer of the mind, and the analysis of phenomena in terms of the “Three Natures”. [3.] It has been asserted that these three basic concepts are logically inseparable and (...) therefore must have been introduced conjointly. [4.] Still, from Vasubandhu onward treatises have been written in which only one of the three concepts is advocated or demonstrated to be indispensable, without any reference to the other two being made. Likewise, in most of the earlier Yogācāra treatises, the three concepts occur in different sections or contexts, or are even entirely absent, as vijñaptimātra in the Yogācārabhūmi and ālayavijñāna in the Mahāyānasūtrālaṁkāra and Madhyāntavibhāga. [5.] It is therefore probable that the three concepts were introduced separately and for different reasons. [5.1.] As regards the concept of the “Three Natures”, I very hypothetically suggest that it was stimulated by the Tattvārthapaṭala of the Bodhisatvabhūmi. [5.2.1.] In the case of ālayavijñāna, I still think that my hypothesis that the concept originated from a problem emerging in connection with the “attainment of cessation” holds good and has not been conclusively refuted, but I admit that Prof. Yamabe?s hypothesis is a serious alternative. [5.2.2.] An important point is that in the Yogācārabhūmi we come across two fundamentally different concepts of ālayavijñāna, the starting point for the change being, probably, the fifth chapter of the Saṁdhinirmocanasūtra. [5.3.] As for ‘idealism’, we may have to distinguish two strands, which, however, tend to merge. [5.3.1.] The earlier one uses the concept cittamātra and emerges as early as in the Pratyutpanna-buddha-saṁmukhāvasthita-samādhi-sūtra in connection with an interpretation of visions of the Buddha Amitāyus. [5.3.2.] The later strand introduces the concept vijñaptimātra and seems to have originated in the eighth chapter of the Saṁdhinirmocanasūtra in connection with a reflection on the images perceived in insight meditation. [5.3.3.] In texts like the Mahāyānasūtrālaṁkāra, concepts from other Mahāyānasūtra strands become prominent in this connection, and it is only in the Mahāyānasaṁgraha that the use of vijñaptimātra is finally established. (shrink)

Die Studien zur Philosophie des Bildes verfolgen eine doppelte Absicht: Sie bemühen sich einerseits um einen Überblick über die grundlegenden Positionen innerhalb der gegenwärtigen Bildwissenschaft und versuchen andererseits stets einen systematischen Hauptgedanken zu verteidigen: Bilder präsentieren; nur Bilder ermöglichen die artifizielle Präsenz von ausschließlich sichtbaren Dingen, die den Gesetzen der Physik enthoben sind. Vor dem Hintergrund dieses Bildbegriffs wird die Verwendung von Bildern als Zeichen aus einer phänomenologischen Sicht beschrieben, Platons Mimesis-Begriff anhand seiner kanonischen Bildvorstellungen rekonstruiert und die besondere Bedeutung (...) extremer Bildtypen - wie die virtuelle Realität, Benutzeroberflächen oder die Abstrakte Fotografie - für die philosophische Arbeit am Bildbegriff vorgeführt. (shrink)

These phenomenological studies on the philosophy of the image review contemporary image theory while defending the fundamental insight that images alone make the artificial presence of things possible.

A commonly held idea regarding the nature of time is that the future is open and the past is fixed or closed. This article investigates the notion that there is an asymmetry in openness between the past and the future. The following questions are considered: How exactly is this asymmetry in openness to be understood? What is the relation between an open future and various ontological views about the future? Is an open future a branching future? What is the relation (...) between an open future and the question of whether contingent statements about the future are true or false? Is an open future compatible with a single determinate future? (shrink)

I suggest a way of extending Stalnaker’s account of assertion to allow for centered content. In formulating his account, Stalnaker takes the content of assertion to be uncentered propositions: entities that are evaluated for truth at a possible world. I argue that the content of assertion is sometimes centered: the content is evaluated for truth at something within a possible world. I consider Andy Egan’s proposal for extending Stalnaker’s account to allow for assertions with centered content. I argue that Egan’s (...) account does not succeed. Instead, I propose an account on which the contents of assertion are identified with sets of multi-centered worlds. I argue that such a view not only provides a plausible account of how assertions can have centered content, but also preserves Stalnaker’s original insight that successful assertion involves the reduction of shared possibilities. (shrink)

We provide a simple translation of the satisfiability problem for regular grammar logics with converse into GF2, which is the intersection of the guarded fragment and the 2-variable fragment of first-order logic. The translation is theoretically interesting because it translates modal logics with certain frame conditions into first-order logic, without explicitly expressing the frame conditions. It is practically relevant because it makes it possible to use a decision procedure for the guarded fragment in order to decide regular grammar logics with (...) converse. The class of regular grammar logics includes numerous logics from various application domains. A consequence of the translation is that the general satisfiability problem for every regular grammar logics with converse is in EXPTIME. This extends a previous result of the first author for grammar logics without converse. Other logics that can be translated into GF2 include nominal tense logics and intuitionistic logic. In our view, the results in this paper show that the natural first-order fragment corresponding to regular grammar logics is simply GF2 without extra machinery such as fixed-point operators. (shrink)

We provide a simple translation of the satisfiability problem for regular grammar logics with converse into GF2, which is the intersection of the guarded fragment and the 2-variable fragment of first-order logic. The translation is theoretically interesting because it translates modal logics with certain frame conditions into first-order logic, without explicitly expressing the frame conditions. It is practically relevant because it makes it possible to use a decision procedure for the guarded fragment in order to decide regular grammar logics with (...) converse. The class of regular grammar logics includes numerous logics from various application domains. A consequence of the translation is that the general satisfiability problem for every regular grammar logics with converse is in EXPTIME. This extends a previous result of the first author for grammar logics without converse. Other logics that can be translated into GF2 include nominal tense logics and intuitionistic logic. In our view, the results in this paper show that the natural first-order fragment corresponding to regular grammar logics is simply GF2 without extra machinery such as fixed-point operators. (shrink)

The relation of global supervenience is widely appealed to in philosophy. In slogan form, it is explained as follows: a class of properties A supervenes on a class of properties B if no two worlds differ in the distribution of A-properties without differing in the distribution of B-properties. It turns out, though, that there are several ways to cash out that slogan. Three different proposals have been discussed in the literature. In this paper, I argue that none of them is (...) adequate. Furthermore, I present a puzzle that reveals a tension in our concept of global supervenience. (shrink)

This article reflects a conversation between Jan G. van der Watt and Stephan Joubert. The article serves as the introduction to the Special Collection: ‘From timely exegesis to contemporary ecclesiology: Relevant hermeneutics and provocative embodiment of faith in a Corona-defined world – Festschrift for Stephan Joubert, sub-edited by Willem Oliver ’. Following a brief bio-statement as introduction, the following issues are discussed: the collection for the Jerusalem church; relevance of theology for society; social-scientific exegesis; the ancient concept of grace; Bible (...) translation in South Africa; public theology on the electronic platform; biblical examples of leadership and electronic media in religious activities and education.Contribution: This Festschrift represents current trends in biblical scholarship and ecclesial leadership. It contributes to the public discourse in church and society, especially the role of the electronic media in current Fourth Industrial Revolution. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Case Study I: Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious (1905) Case Study II: Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920) Case Study III: The Future of an Illusion (1927) Conclusion References Further Reading.