One obvious solution to the puzzles of apparently coincident objects is a sort of reductionism - the tree really just is the wood, the statue is just the clay, and nothing really ceases to exist in the purported non-identity showing cases. This paper starts with that approach and its underlying motivation, and argues that if one follows those motivations - specifically, the rejection of coincidence, and the belief that 'genuine' object-destroying changes must differ non-arbitrarily from accidental changes, that one (...) can plausibly be pushed to an extreme nihilism, that denies the existence of any objects at all. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the transformation from the human zygote to the implanted embryo under the prism of substantial change. After a brief introduction, it vindicates the Aristotelian ideas of substance and accident, and those of substantial and accidental change. It then claims that the transformation from the multicelled zygote to the implanted embryo amounts to a substantial change. Pushing further, it contends that this substantial change cannot be explained following patterns of (...) genetic reductionism, emergence, and self-organization, and proposes Gustavo Bueno’s idea of anamorphosis as a means to encapsulate criticism against such positions. (shrink)

Despite widespread discussion of the impact of corporate social responsibility activities on consumer perceptions, little research has examined how consumers cope with CSR-based crisis response messages as a bolstering strategy. To fill this gap, we propose a framework integrating situational crisis communication theory with the persuasion knowledge model, applying the model to an experiment with a 2 × 2 × 2 between-subjects factorial design. In Study 1, we found interaction effects between CSR motives and crisis type on word-of-mouth intention and (...) purchase intention. In addition, inferences about CSR motives interacted with perceptions about CSR history on purchase intention. In Study 2, we replicated study 1 and found that crisis responsibility mediated the main effect of crisis type on behavioral intentions, but neither the main effect of CSR motives and CSR history nor the interactions effects among those variables were mediated by crisis responsibility. Our results indicate that consumer inferences from a company’s CSR-based crisis communications play a significant role in increasing consumer behavioral intentions in two situations: when a crisis is accidental and when a CSR history is short. Ethical and theoretical implications are discussed. (shrink)

This paper presents the results of the authors’ study of the philosophical heritage of the Ancient Chinese philosopher Pan Maoming, who played an essential role in the development of spiritual culture, as well as Philosophy and Science of Ancient Southern China. The authors carried out historiographical research of currently available ancient and modern sources, which contain data on the life and philosophical ideas of Pan Maoming; reconstructed the Pan Maoming’s intellectual biography; revealed the main features of his worldview. The authors (...) reconstructed the social, cultural, and philosophical context of the historical epoch in which Pan Maoming’s philosophical and scientific views arose and developed; clarified the philosopher’s historical role in the development of local culture in the Southern region of Ancient China.The article contains the author’s description and interpretation of the main philosophical ideas of Pan Maoming, the main amid which the authors consider the ethical concept of “peace and emptiness,” the concept of “clumsiness”; the idea of “monasticism for the happiness of the people.” The authors compared Pan Maoming’s philosophical ideas with Lao-tzu’s philosophical doctrine and came to the conclusion that Pan Maoming formed his own unique and original elaboration of Taoist philosophy, significantly developed its linguistic apparatus and worldview. The authors paid particular attention to the description and analysis of Pan Maoming’s cosmological views, which include the doctrine of “Inner alchemy”, the doctrine of “chaos, order and causality.” The authors concluded that Pan Maoming’s cosmological ideas significantly developed a way of understanding the Universe, the relationship between “inert” and “living” matter, the “world of nature” and the “world of human” in the Taoist philosophical culture. The authors also presented and substantiated their point of view that some philosophical and cosmological ideas of Pan Maoming have not only of historical value but can also be used for developing and enriching the local spiritual culture of Guangdong Province in the form of ethical and educational practices, as well as practices of strengthening cultural unity and identity. (shrink)

This paper presents the results of the authors’ study of the philosophical heritage of the Ancient Chinese philosopher Pan Maoming, who played an essential role in the development of spiritual culture, as well as Philosophy and Science of Ancient Southern China. The authors carried out historiographical research of currently available ancient and modern sources, which contain data on the life and philosophical ideas of Pan Maoming; reconstructed the Pan Maoming’s intellectual biography; revealed the main features of his worldview. The authors (...) reconstructed the social, cultural, and philosophical context of the historical epoch in which Pan Maoming’s philosophical and scientific views arose and developed; clarified the philosopher’s historical role in the development of local culture in the Southern region of Ancient China.The article contains the author’s description and interpretation of the main philosophical ideas of Pan Maoming, the main amid which the authors consider the ethical concept of “peace and emptiness,” the concept of “clumsiness”; the idea of “monasticism for the happiness of the people.” The authors compared Pan Maoming’s philosophical ideas with Lao-tzu’s philosophical doctrine and came to the conclusion that Pan Maoming formed his own unique and original elaboration of Taoist philosophy, significantly developed its linguistic apparatus and worldview. The authors paid particular attention to the description and analysis of Pan Maoming’s cosmological views, which include the doctrine of “Inner alchemy”, the doctrine of “chaos, order and causality.” The authors concluded that Pan Maoming’s cosmological ideas significantly developed a way of understanding the Universe, the relationship between “inert” and “living” matter, the “world of nature” and the “world of human” in the Taoist philosophical culture. The authors also presented and substantiated their point of view that some philosophical and cosmological ideas of Pan Maoming have not only of historical value but can also be used for developing and enriching the local spiritual culture of Guangdong Province in the form of ethical and educational practices, as well as practices of strengthening cultural unity and identity. (shrink)

Change blindness—our inability to detect changes in a stimulus—occurs even when the change takes place gradually, without any disruption [Simons, D. J., Franconeri, S. L., & Reimer, R. L. . Change blindness in the absence of a visual disruption. Perception, 29, 1143–1154]. Such gradual changes are more difficult to detect than changes that involve a disruption. Using this method, David et al. [David, E., Laloyaux, C., Devue, C., & Cleeremans, A. . Change blindness to gradual changes (...) in facial expressions. Psychologica Belgica] recently showed substantial blindness to changes that involve facial expressions of emotion. In this experiment, we show that people who failed to detect any change in the displays were nevertheless influenced by the changing information in subsequent recognition decisions about which facial expression they had seen, and that their confidence in their decisions was lower after exposure to changing vs. static displays. The findings therefore support the notion that undetected changes that occur in highly salient stimuli may be causally efficacious and influence subsequent behavior. Implications concerning the nature of the representations associated with undetected changes are discussed. (shrink)

Peer assessment is employed as one fundamental practice of classroom-based assessment in terms of its learning-oriented and formative nature. The exercise of peer assessment has multiple and additional benefits for student learning. However, research into the learning processes in peer assessment is scarce both in theory and in practice, making it difficult to evaluate and pinpoint its value as a tool in assessment as learning. This study focuses both on the learning process and outcome through assessment activities. We set out (...) with three goals in mind: to examine students' assessment performance in context, to evaluate its impact on student progress, and to illuminate teachers on organizing assessment activities. Three specific research questions are answered in this study: How do student raters perform in the process of PA in an advanced English class? To what extent do assessment activities influence the students' speaking ability? What are students' perceptions of PA regarding its benefits and caveats? A total of 29 undergraduate students participated in two assessment activities on argumentative speaking. Many-Facet Rasch Model analysis was conducted to measure the rater effects both at the group level and the individual level. Bias/interaction analyses were performed to diagnose rater behavior in different contexts including the rating session, speaking session, and peer assessment vs. self-assessment. Questionnaire and semi-structured interview data were also collected to explore factors and strategies that could interfere with PA as AaL. Results show that students exhibited stable rating behavior and made progress in argumentative speaking in all dimensions, including delivery, organization, and language use. They are more stringent with themselves than with peers although there is one rare case with a bias against peers. Participants acknowledged the benefits of PA but also shared reasonable concerns in practice. This study validated the feasibility and the effectiveness of PA for student learning. Discussion on findings and guidelines for effective implementation of PA as AaL are provided. (shrink)

Jeffrey E. Brower presents and explains the hylomorphic conception of the material world developed by Thomas Aquinas, according to which material objects are composed of both matter and form. In addition to presenting and explaining Aquinas's views, Brower seeks wherever possible to bring them into dialogue with the best recent literature on related topics. Along the way, he highlights the contribution that Aquinas's views make to a host of contemporary metaphysical debates, including the nature of change, composition, material constitution, (...) the ontology of stuff vs. things, the proper analysis of ordinary objects, the truthmakers for essential vs. accidental predication, and the metaphysics of property possession. (shrink)

Screening for prostate cancer with the prostate-specific antigen blood test is controversial, as evidence to date has not demonstrated such screening does more good than harm. While the potential benefit of PSA screening on reducing prostate cancer mortality has not been documented in randomized trials, many risks of PSA screening have been well documented. These risks include a substantially higher risk of a prostate cancer diagnosis over a screenee’s lifetime, false-positive and false-negative test results, possible complications from biopsies done in (...) response to suspicious test results, and substantial risks of side effects from subsequent prostate cancer treatments. Nevertheless, PSA screening is widespread in the United States, and many physicians in a national survey reported supporting routine PSA screening as well as getting PSA tests themselves, despite the lack of evidence. (shrink)

BackgroundAlthough the Life-Sustaining Treatment (LST) Decision Act was enforced in 2018 in Korea, data on whether it is well established in actual clinical settings are limited. Hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP) is a common nosocomial infection with high mortality. However, there are limited data on the end-of-life (EOL) decision of patients with HAP. Therefore, we aimed to examine clinical characteristics and outcomes according to the EOL decision for patients with HAP.MethodsThis multicenter study enrolled patients with HAP at 16 referral hospitals retrospectively from (...) January to December 2019. EOL decisions included do-not-resuscitate (DNR), withholding of LST, and withdrawal of LST. Descriptive and Kaplan–Meier curve analyses for survival were performed.ResultsOf 1,131 patients with HAP, 283 deceased patients with EOL decisions (105 cases of DNR, 108 cases of withholding of LST, and 70 cases of withdrawal of LST) were analyzed. The median age was 74 (IQR 63–81) years. The prevalence of solid malignant tumors was high (32.4% vs. 46.3% vs. 54.3%, P = 0.011), and the ICU admission rate was lower (42.9% vs. 35.2% vs. 24.3%, P = 0.042) in the withdrawal group. The prevalence of multidrug-resistant pathogens, impaired consciousness, and cough was significantly lower in the withdrawal group. Kaplan–Meier curve analysis revealed that 30-day and 60-day survival rates were higher in the withdrawal group than in the DNR and withholding groups (log-rank P = 0.021 and 0.018). The survival of the withdrawal group was markedly decreased after 40 days; thus, the withdrawal decision was made around this time. Among patients aged below 80 years, the rates of EOL decisions were not different (P = 0.430); however, mong patients aged over 80 years, the rate of withdrawal was significantly lower than that of DNR and withholding (P = 0.001).ConclusionsAfter the LST Decision Act was enforced in Korea, a DNR order was still common in EOL decisions. Baseline characteristics and outcomes were similar between the DNR and withholding groups; however, differences were observed in the withdrawal group. Withdrawal decisions seemed to be made at the late stage of dying. Therefore, advance care planning for patients with HAP is needed. (shrink)

The unethical behavior of a business founder often leads to negative publicity which substantially affects positive corporate image. The amount of negative publicity relating to business founders’ unethical behavior is on the rise in the age of online social media in China. Based on the stimulus–response theory and balance theory, this paper developed a theoretical model to examine how negative publicity about a business founder’s unethical behavior affects corporate image. The proposed model was tested by the partial least squares technique. (...) Results show that perceived severity, publicity intensity and recovery performance are predictors of corporate image: perceived severity has a negative impact on positive corporate image; publicity intensity and recovery performance have positive impacts on positive corporate image; and founder image mediates the relationships between the three predictors and corporate image. Moreover, initial consumer impression of business founders has a positive impact on positive corporate image. (shrink)

We investigate the effectiveness of corporate social responsibility disclosure in protecting corporate reputation following financial restatements. As expected under legitimacy theory, firms can signal their legitimacy via nonfinancial disclosure after the negative effects of financial restatements. Our results show that restating firms make substantial improvements to overall CSR disclosure quality by changing their standalone reports to a more conservative tone, increasing readability and report length, even though they strategically disclose less forward-looking and sustainability-related content. Such improvements are more pronounced (...) in restating firms with prior low-quality CSR disclosure. Moreover, restating firms with CSR disclosure have smaller forecast errors than non-CSR disclosers, yet the change in CSR disclosure after restatements does not further improve analyst forecast accuracy. Finally, we find that compared with nondisclosers, restating firms with CSR disclosure suffer smaller firm value losses. Overall, the evidence supports the view that consistent CSR reporting alleviates reputational damage and plays an insurance-like or value protection role during crisis periods. (shrink)

This article discusses Descartes’s preferred focus on morally and theologically neutral subjects and points out the impact of this focus on the scientific status of theology. It does so by linking Descartes’s method to his transformation of the notion of substance. Descartes’s _Meditations_ centred around epistemological questions rather than non-human intelligences or the life of the mind beyond this world. Likewise, in his early works, Descartes consistently avoided referring to causal operators. Finally, having first redefined the notion of substance in (...) the _Principia,_ Descartes would completely abandon making use of this notion in his later years. Indeed, in contrast to many authors before and after him, Descartes never showed any interest in the long-established metaphysical interpretation of substances as being causal factors of natural change. With God, nature, and mind commonly serving as instances of substantial causality, Descartes’s philosophy had a huge impact on the place of God in science and discreetl. (shrink)

ObjectivePeer victimization is a substantial early life stressor linked to psychiatric symptoms and poor academic performance. However, the sex-specific cognitive or behavioral outcomes of bullying have not been well-described in preadolescent children.MethodsUsing the baseline dataset of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study 2.0.1 data repository, we evaluated associations between parent-reported bullying victimization, suicidality, and non-suicidal self-injury, as well as internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems, cognition, and academic performance.ResultsOf the 11,015 9-10-year-old children included in the analyses, 15.3% experienced bullying victimization, (...) as reported by the primary caregiver. Of these, boys were more likely to be bullied than girls. Children who were bullied were more likely to display NSSI or passive suicidality and active suicidality. Bullied children also had lower cognitive scores, greater behavioral problems, and poorer grades. Across all participants, boys had poorer grades and greater behavioral problems than girls; however, bullied boys had greater behavioral problems than girls in several areas. Compared to their non-bullied peers, bullied children with greater non-suicidal self-injury or suicidality also had greater behavioral problems and poorer grades.ConclusionThese findings highlight the sex-specific effects of bullying, and the negative associations of bullying victimization with cognitive performance, behavioral problems, and academic performance. Future longitudinal studies will identify the natural history and neural correlates of these deficits during adolescence. (shrink)

Previous studies have been split over how to view family owners’ CSR engagement, arguing that they either engage in or disengage from CSR based on different motives (i.e., preserving socio-emotional wealth vs. seeking rent expropriation). Focusing on family owners in business groups, this study integrates these divergent views. We hypothesize that family owners would pursue both motives simultaneously by optimizing the level of CSR of each affiliated firm depending on their ownership level. Furthermore, we argue that this tendency is moderated (...) by group-level contexts. Using a sample of Korean business groups, we found that family ownership is negatively associated with affiliated firms’ CSR. Also, this negative relationship is more pronounced when firms belong to business groups with more charitable corporate foundations and when business networks are greater in their scope and scale. This study contributes to the literature by offering a more complete understanding of how family owners make CSR decisions in business group contexts. (shrink)

While the effect of top executives' social networks on their compensations has received substantial scholarly attention, little effort has been made to integrate segmented views to offer more complete understanding of this effect. In this paper, we propose an integrative two-stage model by taking both economic and socio-political views into account. We theorise that some characteristics of top executive's outside social ties are positively related to firm performance, and those relationships are conditioned by external and internal strategic contexts, such (...) as environmental uncertainty, strategic relevance, and tie strength. We also theorise that firm performance leads to executives' compensations, but this linkage is moderated by the socio-political dynamics among executives (within-group dynamics) as well as between executives and a board of directors (between-group dynamics) inside the firm. Based on our integrative framework, this paper provides the comprehensive understanding of how executives' compensations are determined and highlights the importance of executive's social ties and their implications. (shrink)

An increased focus on fake news and misinformation is currently emerging. But what does it mean when information is designated as “fake?” Research on deception has focused on lies of commission, in which people disclose something false as true. However, people can also lie by omission, by withholding important yet true information. In this research, we investigate when people are more likely to tell a lie of omission. In three studies, with tests among undergraduates, online sample respondents, and candidates for (...) U.S. Senate, we found that people in a gain frame were more likely to lie by omission (vs. commission), and vice versa for a loss frame. Moreover, participants rated lies of commission in a gain frame as the least acceptable type of deception, suggesting why people may avoid telling this kind of lie. Overall, our results emphasize that from frame-to-frame, lying is not only different in degree but different in kind. (shrink)

The article critically engages Menachem Fisch’s account of normative frameworks, in particular of (rational) transitions between them. I argue, first, that exposure to the normative criticism leveled at us by other human beings is indeed “capable of destabilizing normative commitment” to one’s own underlying framework beliefs and standards, as Fisch holds; however, closer scrutiny reveals that such exposure is neither sufficient nor necessary but rather accidental in this respect. Second, I will try to show that Søren Kierkegaard’s account of (...) how people fundamentally change their mind provides resources for both a substantial critique of Fisch and a more adequate understanding of the transitions in question. The article argues, third, that Fisch’s framework model – though meaningful, in fact heuristically indispensable in and as of itself – has robust transcendental implications which as such are being ignored, if not directly denied by Fisch and, precisely by being ignored or denied, unnecessarily weaken the overall plausibility of his account. Finally, and ex post, I will address an important objection raised by some commentators. (shrink)

The use of medical records in research can yield information that is difficult to obtain by other means. When such records are released to investigators in identifiable form, however, substantial privacy and confidentiality risks may be created. These risks become more common and more serious as medical records move to an electronic format. In 1996, the state of Minnesota enacted legislation with respect to consent requirements for the use of medical records in research. This legislation has been widely criticized (...) because—it is claimed—it creates an unnecessary impediment to research. In this article, we show that these arguments rest upon misinterpretation and/or misrepresentation of the 1996 legislation. A consent requirement had actually been present in Minnesota since 1976 (though codified in a patient rights statute rather than a privacy statute). The 1996 law does not require specific consent, as often claimed, but rather only a general authorization. The campaign against the Minnesota legislation appears to have been motivated by concern with respect to the then impending federal privacy rule. The HIPAA rule, as enacted, is in fact less stringent with respect to consent than the Minnesota consent law. On the other hand, the Minnesota consent law has not been effectively applied or enforced. As we change the way we manage sensitive medical information, new efforts are needed to provide protection against the confidentiality risks in research. Patient consent is an important tool in this regard. New instrumentalities are needed to solicit and document consent. (shrink)

The distinction between essential versus accidental properties has been characterized in various ways, but it is currently most commonly understood in modal terms: an essential property of an object is a property that it must have, while an accidental property of an object is one that it happens to have but that it could lack. Let’s call this the basic modal characterization, where a modal characterization of a notion is one that explains the notion in terms of necessity/possibility. (...) In the characterization just given of the distinction between essential and accidental properties, the use of the word “must” reflects the fact that necessity is invoked, while the use of the word “could” reflects that possibility is invoked. The notions of necessity and possibility are interdefinable: to say that something is necessary is to say that its negation is not possible; to say that something is possible is to say that its negation is not necessary; to say that an object must have a certain property is to say that it could not lack it; and to say that an object could have a certain property is to say that it is not the case that it must lack it. (shrink)

This paper explores the added value of studying intra- and inter-speaker variation in grammaticalisation based on idiolect corpora. It analyses the usage patterns of the English let alone construction in a self-compiled William Faulkner corpus against the backdrop of aggregated community data. Vast individual differences (early Faulkner vs. late Faulkner vs. peers) in frequencies of use are observed, and these frequency differences correlate with different degrees of grammaticalisation as measured in terms of host-class and syntactic context expansion. The corpus findings (...) inform general issues in current cognitive-functional research, such as the from-corpus-to-cognition issue and the cause/consequence issue of frequency. They lend support to the usage-based view of grammaticalisation as a lifelong, frequency-sensitive process of cognitive automation. To substantiate this view, this paper proposes a self-feeding cycle of constructional generalisation that is driven by the interplay of frequency, entrenchment, partial sanction and habituation. (shrink)

The logic of change formulated by K. Świętorzecka, has its motivation coming from the Aristotelian theory of substantial change which is undrstood as a transformation consisting in the disappearing and becoming of individual substances. The transition: becoming/disapearing (and conversely) is expressed in by the primitive operator C, to be read: it changes that …, and it is mapped by the progressively expanding language. We are interested in attributive changes of individual substances. We consider a formalism with two (...) non-normal and not mutually definable operators of possible and necessary change, inspired by Aristotelian distinction of accidental and essential attributes. From we adopt the idea that temporal concepts are defined via change operators, and the idea of an expanding language. In what follows, We axiomatise our new logic and describe its semantics, giving the proof of its completeness. We compare our formalism with selected modal logics. (shrink)

Things change. If anything counts as a datum of metaphysics, that does. Change occurs in many ways: it can be accidental or substantial; essential or non-essential; intrinsic or extrinsic; subjective or objective. Changes can be physical, spatial, quantitative, qualitative, natural, artefactual, conceptual, linguistic. Events are arguably best defined as changes in an object or objects. All change is from something and into something, and hence is at least a two-term relation, involving a term from which (...) and a term to which. (shrink)

What is the ultimate structure of the material world? Brower’s monograph provides a well-argued reconstruction of Aquinas’s Aristotelian answer to this question: the fundamental contents of the material world are prime matter, substantial and accidental forms, substances, and accidental unities.Brower’s aim is twofold: presenting Aquinas’s ontology of the material world, and also emphasizing its relevance—as a mixed ontology and a peculiar two-tier structured substratum theory, combining elements of both thin and thick particularism—to current metaphysical debates. These two (...) perspectives intermingle in the five sections of the book. In part 1, Brower provides a clear roadmap and lucidly condenses the key elements.. (shrink)

Things change. If anything counts as a datum of metaphysics, that does. Change occurs in many ways: it can be accidental or substantial; essential or non-essential; intrinsic or extrinsic; subjective or objective. Changes can be physical, spatial, quantitative, qualitative, natural, artefactual, conceptual, linguistic. Events are arguably best defined as changes in an object or objects. All change is from something and into something, and hence is at least a two-term relation, involving a term from which (...) and a term to which. (shrink)

The striking difference between the orthodox nomological necessitation view of laws and the claims made recently by Scientific Essentialism is that on the latter interpretation laws are metaphysically necessary while they are contingent on the basis of the former. This shift is usually perceived as an upgrading: essentialism makes the laws as robust as possible. The aim of my paper—in which I contrast Brian Ellis’s Scientific Essentialism and David Armstrong’s theory of nomological necessity—is threefold. (1) I first underline the familiar (...) fact that metaphysical necessity (of Kripkean “water is necessarily H2O” kind) is not a stronger kind of necessity than nomological necessity but an entirely different kind of thing: nomological, but not metaphysical necessity, is an intra-world necessitation which Armstrong (almost) identifies with causation; metaphysical, but not nomological necessitation, has a canonical link to possible world considerations and counterfactual reasoning. Hence, the change from one necessity to the other is not an upgrading but a substantial shift. (2) I will explain how the essentialists, who promote this shift, are nonetheless able to retain the features of nomological necessity. (3) I also explore, for both the essentialist and the Armstrongian, whether they could extract a modal force from intra-world nomological necessity which it does not have per se. I argue that such a modal force is, indeed, obtainable for them. I will close the paper with some remarks and questions about the relation between Kripkean metaphysical necessity and the modal version of nomological necessity as defined in (3). (shrink)

Aristotle takes up the topic of change (or coming-to-be and ceasing-to-be) in both the Physics and De Generatione et Corruptione. He distinguishes between simple coming-to-be (substantial change), as when something comes into existence, and qualified coming-to-be (accidental change), as when an already existing thing alters, or moves, or changes in some other way. But he also maintains a persistence principle: that in every change, whether simple or qualified, there is something that persists throughout the (...) change. I examine the question of whether this principle threatens the viability of the distinction between substantial and accidental change by comparing what Aristotle has to say about it in the Physics with what he says in GC. In the process, I discuss several recent treatments of the topic as well as some conflicting views about the role, if any, of prime matter in Aristotle's account of substantial change. (shrink)

This paper argues that the substance concept, as discussed by Aristotle in his Categories, aids us to improve our understanding of human nature. Aristotle distinguished the primary from the secondary substance, and substantial from accidental change. We explain these distinctions, their use for understanding phenomena, and discuss how we can integrate them with evolutionary explanations of human nature. For explaining of how the typical human characteristics evolved, we extend our investigations with a discussion of the concept of (...) person. It is argued that psychological attributes, used to characterize persons, are not attributes of a separate mental substance, as Cartesians believe. The concept of a person, though not a substance concept, qualifies a substance concept of a human being possessing rational powers. The latter evolved as the result of language evolution. (shrink)

In the last several years, there has been an uptick of scholarly interest in Aristotelian theories of efficient causation. Much of this interest has focused on the late scholastic figure Francisco Suárez (1548-1617). This paper clarifies an important but neglected aspect of Suárez's theory of efficient causation—namely, his account of active causal powers. Like other Aristotelians, Suárez understands active causal powers as features that enable their subjects to perform certain sorts of actions. For example, a fire is able to heat (...) in virtue of its power or capacity for heating. However, it is not immediately clear which items in an Aristotelian ontology perform the role of an active power. The paper explains and motivates Suárez's answer to this question, and shows how this answer influences his position in a scholastic controversy about the causal roles of substantial and accidental forms in substantial change. (shrink)

Leibniz argued that in natural world, only intra-substantial or immanent causation is possible— the causation that takes place within an individual, when an individual brings about a change in itself. In this dissertation, I address issues arising from Leibniz’s arguments against the rival view that posits a world of causally interacting substances and issues pertaining to Leibniz’s own positive metaphysics of immanent causation and change. -/- Chapter 1 is devoted to stage setting for the remainder of the (...) dissertation. I first offer a historically informed overview of efficient causation and change before introducing Leibniz’s novel views, including his criticisms of competing accounts and his own positive account. After presenting a detailed roadmap of my project, I articulate the idealistic interpretation of Leibniz assumed in this dissertation, where the only genuine substances are simple monads. Finally, I articulate the methodological approaches I employ. -/- In Chapters 2 and 3, I reconstruct and assess Leibniz’s most frequent argument against transeunt causation (the causation that occurs when a substance produces a property in a numerically distinct substance), what I call the “Transference Argument.” Leibniz argued that a created substance’s causing an accident in a numerically distinct substance is possible only if the agent transfers the accident from itself to the patient, where upon transference the agent no longer possesses the accident it transferred. Call the transeunt causal requirement that the agent transfer the accident produced from itself to the patient the “Transference Condition.” -/- Chapter 2 is devoted to two problems with Leibniz’s transference condition. First, Leibniz stated the transference condition throughout his career, but offered little argument for it. Second, God is a transeunt cause in Leibniz’s metaphysics yet God’s causation does not consist in transference. Thus, Leibniz needs a principled way to require transference for creaturely causation while denying that divine transeunt causation consists in transference. Finally, I close off chapter 2 by drawing attention to an important weakness with the transference condition that has not yet been recognized by Leibniz scholars. -/- In Chapter 3, I argue that there is nothing in Leibniz’s ontology that could be transferred from the cause to the recipient of the effect. I first argue that Leibniz’s ontology consists of simple non-corporeal substances and their modifications. Second, I present and articulate a number of important theses Leibniz affirmed about substances and their modifications, which entail that neither could be transferred. I also show that most of these theses were not unique to Leibniz, but were in fact widely endorsed by his predecessors who defended the possibility of creaturely transeunt causation. -/- In chapter 4, I continue the study of the nature of Leibnizian accidents, shifting the focus from their role in Leibniz’s critique of creaturely transeunt causation to their positive role in change and as causal relata, where such accidents are the effects of immanent causation. I shall argue that Leibniz’s thesis that accidents are modifications or limitations allowed him to posit mereologically simple substance that have a multitude of accidents at a time and change accidents over time. -/- In Chapter 5, I address an issue that has divided Leibniz scholars concerning the precise relata in Leibnizian immanent efficient causation. In many passages, Leibniz writes as if it is the substance or individual itself that efficiently causes its later properties or accidents. Call this the “Efficacious-substance” account. The efficacious-substance account is difficult to reconcile with Leibniz’s requirements that change be intelligible and deterministic. In plenty of other passages, he writes as if it is the substances earlier properties or accidents that cause its later accidents. Call this the “Efficacious-accident” account. The efficacious-accident account explains how change is intelligible and deterministic but it faces a “plurality of agents” objection. If a substance’s accidents are the efficient causes of later accidents, then prima facie there is a plurality of efficient causal agents in a substance. This view is incompatible with Leibniz’s requirement that substances be simple, unified entities. -/- Drawing upon a Scholastic distinction made between two kinds of efficient causes— principle quod efficient causes and principle quo efficient causes, I shall argue that for Leibniz, substances are principle quod efficient causes and their appetitions are principle quo efficient causes. This interpretation combines the strengths of the Efficacious-substance and Efficacious-accident accounts while overcoming their weaknesses. There is just one causal agent, the substance, but change is both intelligible and deterministic because as what an agent produces is explained by its appetitions. (shrink)

The difficulties often attributed to prime matter hold for all hylomorphic accounts of substantial change. If the substratum of substantial change actually persists through the change, then such change is merely another kind of accidental change. If the substratum does not persist, then substantial change is merely creation ex nihilo. Either way matter is an empty concept, explaining nothing. This conclusion follows from Aristotle’s homoeomerity principle, and attempts to evade this (...) conclusion by relaxing the constraints Aristotle imposes on elementhood, generation, and substrata all fail, and even the minimal constraints imposed by the Problem of Material Constitution are enough to generate the dilemma. -/- Aristotle resolves this dilemma in Physics I.9 by postulating pure potentiality-for-substance as the substratum of substantial change. Because the substratum persists, substantial change is not creation ex nihilo, but because it does not persist actually it is not a kind of accidental change. Aristotle uses this approach to solve the Problem of the Mixt and the Problem of Material Constitution without weakening his constraints on elementhood, generation, or substrata. This pure potentiality approach must be carefully distinguished from other ‘traditional’ or ‘prime matter’ views that posit some actuality for the substratum of substantial change, and it is best understood in light of the analogy found at Metaphysics Θ.6. Pure potentiality-for-substance can do the work needed in a substratum for substantial change because Aristotle is able to ground the identity, existence, and characterization of the substratum in the corrupting and generating substances rather than the substratum itself. (shrink)

In his influential paper “Grasping the Third Realm,” John Bengson raises the question of how we can non-accidentally grasp abstract facts. What distinguishes successful intuition from hallucinatory intuition? Bengson answers his “non-accidental relation question” by arguing for a constitutive relationship: The intuited object is a literal constituent of the respective intuition. Now, the problem my contribution centers around is that Bengson’s answer cannot be the end of the story. This is because, as Bar Luzon and Preston Werner have recently (...) pointed out, this answer leads to the follow-up question of why certain intuitional experiences are constituted by the facts, but others are not. My objective is to answer this question by specifying precisely what is epistemically defective about intellectual hallucinations. My result is that, in stark contrast to perception, intellectual hallucinations are epistemically defective in the sense that something is overlooked. In successful intuition, by contrast, all relevant possibilities/scenarios are considered/imagined. This has crucial epistemological implications. In particular, I argue that intuitions exhibiting a certain phenomenology cannot fail to successfully grasp abstract facts. I call this the non-accidental correctness thesis, which constitutes the main thesis of this paper. (shrink)

Traditionally, logic has been the dominant formal method within philosophy. Are logical methods still dominant today, or have the types of formal methods used in philosophy changed in recent times? To address this question, we coded a sample of philosophy papers from the late 2000s and from the late 2010s for the formal methods they used. The results indicate that the proportion of papers using logical methods remained more or less constant over that time period but the proportion of papers (...) using probabilistic methods was approximately three times higher in the late 2010s than it was in the late 2000s. Further analyses explored this change by looking more closely at specific methods, specific levels of technical engagement, and specific subdisciplines within philosophy. These analyses indicate that the increasing proportion of papers using probabilistic methods was pervasive, not confined to particular probabilistic methods, levels of sophistication, or subdisciplines. (shrink)

Substantial change occurs when a persisting object of some kind either begins or ceases to exist. Typically, this happens when one or more persisting objects of another kind or kinds are subjected to appropriate varieties of qualitative or relational change, as when the particles composing a lump of bronze are rearranged so as to create a statue. However, such transformations also seem to result, very often, in cases of spatiotemporal coincidence, in which two numerically distinct objects of (...) different kinds exist in exactly the same place at the same time, such as a statue and a lump of bronze. Various attempts to resist this way of describing the results of such transformations are examined and found wanting and objections to the possibility of cases of spatiotemporal coincidence are rebutted. (shrink)

Substantial change occurs when a persisting object of some kind either begins or ceases to exist. Typically, this happens when one or more persisting objects of another kind or kinds are subjected to appropriate varieties of qualitative or relational change, as when the particles composing a lump of bronze are rearranged so as to create a statue. However, such transformations also seem to result, very often, in cases of spatiotemporal coincidence, in which two numerically distinct objects of (...) different kinds exist in exactly the same place at the same time, such as a statue and a lump of bronze. Various attempts to resist this way of describing the results of such transformations are examined and found wanting and objections to the possibility of cases of spatiotemporal coincidence are rebutted. (shrink)

Has moral relativism run its course? The threat of 9/11, terrorism, reproductive technology, and globalization has forced us to ask anew whether there are universal moral truths upon which to base ethical and political judgments. In this timely edited collection, distinguished scholars present and test the best answers to this question. These insightful responses temper the strong antithesis between universalism and relativism and retain sensitivity to how language and history shape the context of our moral decisions. This important and relevant (...) work of contemporary political and social thought is ideal for use in the classroom across many disciplines, including political science, philosophy, ethics, law, and theology. (shrink)

Has moral relativism run its course? The threat of 9/11, terrorism, reproductive technology, and globalization has forced us to ask anew whether there are universal moral truths upon which to base ethical and political judgments. In this timely edited collection, distinguished scholars present and test the best answers to this question. These insightful responses temper the strong antithesis between universalism and relativism and retain sensitivity to how language and history shape the context of our moral decisions. This important and relevant (...) work of contemporary political and social thought is ideal for use in the classroom across many disciplines, including political science, philosophy, ethics, law, and theology. (shrink)

Effective Altruism encourages affluent people to make significant donations to improve the wellbeing of the world’s poor, using quantified and observational methods to identify the most efficient charities. Critics argue that EA is inattentive to the systemic causes of poverty and underestimates the effectiveness of individual contributions to systemic change. EA claims to be open to systemic change but suggests that systemic critiques, such as the socialist critique of capitalism, are unhelpfully vague and serve primarily as hypocritical rationalizations (...) of continued affluence. I reformulate the systemic change objection, rebut the charges of vagueness and bad faith and argue that charity may not be worth doing at all from a purely altruistic perspective. In order to take systemic change seriously, EA must repudiate its narrowly empiricist approach, embrace holistic, interpretive social analysis and make inevitably controversial judgments about the complex dynamics of collective action. These kinds of evidence and judgment cannot be empirically verified but are essential to taking systemic change seriously. EA is thereby forced to sacrifice its a-political approach to altruism. I also highlight the importance of quotidian, extra-political contributions to perpetuating or changing harmful social practices. Radical efforts to resist, subvert and reconstruct harmful social practices, such as those involved in economic decision-making, could be just as effective and demanding as charity. But such efforts may be incompatible with extensive philanthropy, because they can require people to retain some level of affluence for strategic reasons but to repudiate both the acquisition of significant wealth and charity as is currently organized. The wealth and status of some critics of charity may indeed be incompatible with effectively contributing to social change, but the altruistic merits of charity are neither as obvious nor as easily demonstrated as EA believes. (shrink)

Mindfulness as a clinical and nonclinical intervention for a variety of symptoms has recently received a substantial amount of interest. Although the application of mindfulness appears straightforward and its effectiveness is well supported, the concept may easily be misunderstood. This misunderstanding may severely limit the benefit of mindfulness-based interventions. It is therefore necessary to understand that the characteristics of mindfulness are based on a set of seemingly paradoxical structures. This article discusses the underlying paradox by disentangling it into five (...) dialectical positions - activity vs. passivity, wanting vs. non-wanting, changing vs. non-changing, non-judging vs. non-reacting, and active acceptance vs. passive acceptance, respectively. Finally, the practical implications for the medical professional as well as potential caveats are discussed. (shrink)

This paper focuses on one of the metaphysical problems for theistic evolution which is the problem of evolutionary transition from one specified substantial form to another. According to the evolutionary account, new substantial forms appear owing to accidental changes in previously existing substances. However, the accidental change may only lead to production of new accidents not entirely new distinct substantial forms. The solutions proposed by modern Thomists head in two directions: One is the reduction (...) of the number of substantial forms ; the other consists of diminishing substantial form altogether. Both proposals stray from classical metaphysics. The evolutionary account of the origin of species ultimately needs to challenge the real existence of species and leads to nominalism. As such it cannot be reconciled with classical metaphysics. (shrink)

The general aim of this paper is to defend a theory of properties grounded on universals and the notion of substratum. We offer first a brief survey of some problems concerning the attribution of properties to objects and the similarity of objects. We next characterize the notion of universal by contrasting universals against other entities that have often been postulated in order to account for the mentioned problems. Besides, we distinguish two different theories of properties, both based on the notion (...) of universal: the bundle theory of the former. In the rest of the paper we try to answer to some of the former. In the rest of the paper we try to answer to some of the serious objections that have been posed against the substratum theory. Firstly, we argue that the theory of temporal stages can solve some problems deriving from the substantial change and the accidental change; moreover, we give a reply to some objections advanced against this substratum as a bare particular. Thirdly, we discuss some objections to the use that the substratum theory makes of these bare particulars as individuators. Our reply is based on a distinction between three different roles that can be ascribed to an entity: a particularizer role and two kinds of individuatory roles . We argue that a substratum can perfectly play a rol as a particularizer and also as an intraworld individuator. Finally, we offer a solution to the well known Bradley´s regressum. (shrink)