William James’ Principles of Psychology, in which he made famous the ‘specious present’ doctrine of temporal experience, and Edmund Husserl’s Zur Phänomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins, were giant strides in the philosophical investigation of the temporality of experience. However, an important set of precursors to these works has not been adequately investigated. In this article, we undertake this investigation. Beginning with Reid’s essay ‘Memory’ in Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, we trace out a line of development of ideas (...) about the temporality of experience that runs through Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, William Hamilton, and finally the work of Shadworth Hodgson and Robert Kelly, both of whom were immediate influences on James (though James pseudonymously cites the latter as ‘E.R. Clay’). Furthermore, we argue that Hodgson, especially his Metaphysic of Experience (1898), was a significant influence on Husserl. (shrink)

This chapter offers a overview of Shadworth Hodgson's account of experience as fundamentally temporal, an account that was deeply influential on thinkers such as William James and which prefigures the phenomenology of Husserl in many ways. I highlight eight key features that are characteristic of Hodgson's account, and how they hang together to provide a coherent overall picture of experience and knowledge. Hodgson's account is then compared to Husserl's, and I argue that Hodgson's account offers a better target for (...) projects such as neurophenomenology than does Husserl's. Hodgson's account is historically important as a culmination of a certain trajectory of British Empiricist thought. It offers a substantive alternative for how to think about temporality and experience in contemporary discussions, not just of the present moment but of the relationship between experience and knowledge more broadly. (shrink)

This chapter examines the philosophical discussion concerning the relationship between time, memory, attention, and consciousness, from Locke through the Scottish Common Sense tradition, in terms of its influence on James' development of the specious present doctrine. The specious present doctrine is the view that the present moment in experience is non punctate, but instead comprises some nonzero amount of time; it contrasts with the mathematical view of the present, in which the divide between past and future is merely a point (...) or a line with no thickness. The anonymous source for the term 'specious present' is revealed as a retired businessman-turned-amateur philosopher. The more likely source for the idea itself is a little-known philosopher, Shadworth Hollway Hodgson, who was not merely a significant influence on James but also on Husserl's development of the tripartite account of internal time consciousness. I conclude by demonstrating how James' changing views on the relationship between concepts and experience meant that by the later period of his writings, including those in which he develops his own views on pragmatism, James would have not merely noted the contrast between a mathematical conception of the present and our actual experience of it, he would have taken a further step and condoned the thick experience of the present as demonstrating the inadequacy of the intellectualized mathematical characterization. (shrink)

The Danish philosopher K. E. Løgstrup is best known in the Anglo-American world for his original work in ethics, primarily in _The Ethical Demand _. Løgstrup continued to write extensively on issues in ethics and phenomenology throughout his life, and extracts from some of his later writings are now also available in translation in _Beyond the Ethical Demand_. In _Concern for the Other: The Ethics of K. E. Løgstrup_, eleven scholars examine the structure, intention, and originality of Løgstrup's ethics as (...) a whole. This collection of essays is a companion to _Beyond the Ethical Demand_, as well as to _The Ethical Demand_. The essays examine Løgstrup’s crucial concept of the “sovereign expressions of life”; his view of moral principles as a substitute for, or inferior form of, ethics; his relationships to other philosophers, including the twentieth-century British moral philosophers; and the role of his Lutheran background in his ethics. Løgstrup also firmly advanced the controversial thesis, examined by several essays in this volume, that the demand for “other-concern” central to his ethics does not depend on religious faith. “The significance of Løgstrup’s work is well demonstrated by the substantive criticisms made of that work by the essays here collected. Hopefully this book will encourage others to engage this significant but unfortunately not well-known thinker.” —_Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics, Duke Divinity School_ “Svend Andersen and Kees van Kooten Niekerk have done a great service for everyone with the publication of this stellar book on the thought of Knud E. Løgstrup, the most prominent Danish theologian-philosopher of the last century. CONCERN FOR THE OTHER includes essays by renowned thinkers who critically engage Løgstrup’s work with both insight and depth. The book thereby provides an engagement with this important thinker’s ideas about morality, trust, and responsibility and yet also presents features of the current state of the debate within ethics. I enthusiastically commend this book to anyone interested in contemporary ethics and moral theory as well as the relation between theology and philosophy.” —_William Schweiker, Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor of Theological Ethics, The University of Chicago_. (shrink)

Recent business headlines, particularly those related to the collapsed energy-trading giant, Enron and its auditor, Arthur Andersen raise concerns about accountants' ethical reasoning. We propose, and provide evidence from 90 new auditors from Big-Five accounting firms, that a selection-socialization effect exists in the accounting profession that results in hiring accountants with disproportionately higher levels of the Sensing/thinking (ST) cognitive style. This finding is important and relevant because we also find that the ST cognitive style is associated with relatively low levels (...) of ethical reasoning, regardless of gender. This finding implies a need for emphasis on the ethical training of accountants. The results also suggest that accounting firms should consider recruiting accountants with cognitive styles associated with relatively higher levels of ethical reasoning. (shrink)

Peter Williams complains that Richard Dawkins wraps his naturalism in ‘a fake finery of counterfeit meaning and purpose’. For his part, Williams has wrapped his complaint in an unoriginal and inapt analogy. The weavers in Hans Christian Andersen's fable announce that the Emperor's clothes are invisible to stupid people; almost the whole population pretends to see them for fear of being thought stupid . Fear of being thought stupid does not seem to trouble Richard Dawkins. Moreover, Williams offers no reason (...) to think that such fear motivates any of Dawkins' readers. Perhaps all we are supposed to take from the fable is that Dawkins' naturalism is obviously lacking in meaning and purpose. If that is the intended reading, then by using this analogy, Williams has given himself an unnecessarily difficult task. Surely, it would be achievement enough for him to show that Dawkins' naturalism lacks meaning and purpose. There is no reason for Williams to make the extra claim that it obviously lacks meaning and purpose. After all, there is an obvious difficulty with arguing over several pages that something is obviously the case. (shrink)

The use of multiple means of determination to “triangulate” on the existence and character of a common phenomenon, object, or result has had a long tradition in science but has seldom been a matter of primary focus. As with many traditions, it is traceable to Aristotle, who valued having multiple explanations of a phenomenon, and it may also be involved in his distinction between special objects of sense and common sensibles. It is implicit though not emphasized in the distinction between (...) primary and secondary qualities from Galileo onward. It is arguably one of several conceptions involved in Whewell’s method of the “consilience of inductions” (Laudan 1971) and is to be found in several places in Peirce. (From M. Brewer and B. Collins, eds., (1981); Scientific Inquiry in the Social Sciences (a festschrift for Donald T. Campbell), San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 123–162.). (shrink)

One of Hans Christian Andersen's most beautiful tales is "The Emperor's Nightingale." Its message—an exceptionally sobering one in the present context—is that nature is altogether finer and more enduring than art. It tells how a Chinese emperor, beguiled by a precious imitation bird that had been given him, forsook a natural songster he had once favored. But when that glittering counterfeit broke down, its clockwork sound silenced, the now aged ruler found welcome solace in the real bird's return, in its (...) more reliable and spiritually healing song. . . . Despite the artist's foregone defeat in any contest with nature , over the ages artists have been irresistibly drawn to the challenge of imitating nature. The persistence of these claims upon their skills and the inventive flight that have been elicited in the process testify to the extraordinary hold that the desire to mirror nature, or better still, to capture something of its essence, can exert over artists and their public. Accounts of imitative prowess go back to the most ancient days, beyond the fabled skills of Zeuxis and Apelles. There is no need here to summarize the complicated but almost domestically familiar history of illusionism. Rather, it is my present intention to reflect upon some contradictions inherent in the conception of art as illusion and to review some of the more exaggerated forms in which efforts have been made to break down the boundaries between art and nature. Frank Anderson Trapp, William Rutherford Mead Professor of Fine Arts, chairman of the department of art, and director of the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College, is the author of The Attainment of Delacroix and a number of essays on the history of art. (shrink)

In a town near mine, a small business owner used their changeable-letter sign to wage a public protest against a variety of restrictions implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike a great man...

Science should tell us what the world is like. However, realist interpretations of physics face many problems, chief among them the pessimistic meta induction. This book seeks to develop a realist position based on process ontology that avoids the traditional problems of realism. Primarily, the core claim is that in order for a scientific model to be minimally empirically adequate, that model must describe real experimental processes and dynamics. Any additional inferences from processes to things, substances or objects are not (...) warranted, and so these inferences are shown to represent the locus of the problems of realism. The book then examines the history of physics to show that the progress of physical research is one of successive eliminations of thing interpretations of models in favor of more explanatory and experimentally verified process interpretations. This culminates in collections of models that cannot coherently allow for thing interpretations, but still successfully describe processes. (shrink)

A climactic piece in the controversy between rationalists & the advocates of sentiment.

Neuroscience, brain based learning and education -- Collaborative reports in neuroscience and education -- A local paradigmatic example, founded on an international research phenomenon -- The mereological fallacy -- First-person/third-person asymmetry -- Neuroscience and irreducible uncertainty -- Inner and outer : the epistemology of the mind -- Inner and outer : the challenges of crypto-cartesianism, materialism and reductionism -- Intrinsic and relational models of education -- Education, psychology and physics -- Bohr's philosophy of physics and its application to psychology and (...) education -- A new educational philosophy based on Bohr's interpretation of quantum physics -- Conclusions : wittgenstein-bohr model of education. (shrink)

Exploring what a scientific metaphysics grounded in biological practices could look like and how it might impact the way we investigate the world around us, the contributors to From Biological Practice to Scientific Metaphysics review and discuss long-held objections to metaphysics by natural scientists. They illuminate how, in order to learn about the world as it truly is, we must look not only at what scientists say but also what they do.

In their Why Machines Will Never Rule the World, Landgrebe and Smith (2023) argue that it is impossible for artificial general intelligence (AGI) to succeed, on the grounds that it is impossible to perfectly model or emulate the “complex” “human neurocognitive system”. However, they do not show that it is logically impossible; they only show that it is practically impossible using current mathematical techniques. Nor do they prove that there could not be any other kinds of theories than those in (...) current use. Even if perfect theories were impossible or unlikely, perfection may not be needed and may even be unhelpful. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Rethinking Utopia and Utopianism by Lyman Tower SargentWilliam James MetcalfLyman Tower Sargent. Rethinking Utopia and Utopianism. Ralahine Utopian Studies 26. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2022. 412 pp. Softcover, US$61, £53, €40. ISBN 978-1-80079-489-4.In the field of utopian studies, Lyman Tower Sargent is well known and respected globally. His new book, Rethinking Utopia and Utopianism, is well written, witty, and persuasively argued, reflecting on, and updating, his life’s [End Page (...) 137] work. It includes several previously published pieces, such as Sargent’s oft-cited “The Three Faces of Utopianism Revisited” (1994), along with his current thinking across the broad field of utopian studies.Sargent admits to naiveté when, as a young scholar in the 1960s, he set out to write a “history of utopian literature”—probably thinking it wouldn’t take long! This field, he soon found, ever expands the more one looks. Sargent continues to look for, and discover, examples from around the world—many of which he has made available online in Utopian Literature in English: An Annotated Bibliography from 1516 to the Present.1 But now, at eighty-two years of age, he accepts that this project will require “quite a few lifetimes, lifetimes that are not available to me, so I hope that others will take up these topics” (349).Sargent thinks utopianism is best understood as “social dreaming—the dreams and nightmares that concern the ways in which groups of people arrange their lives and which usually involve a radically different society” (7). Utopia, he points out, “expresses deep-seated needs, desires and hopes” (42). This, he asserts, is a universal phenomenon—part of being human—certainly not confined to the Western Christian tradition, as some scholars have argued.We must be careful, Sargent warns, not to equate utopia with perfection; utopias are about betterment, not perfection. He argues that equating utopia with perfection is a ruse employed “by those opposed to the idea that human beings can bring about significant social change and is intended to undermine that possibility” (323). Sargent argues that all humans “need the idea that a better life is possible” (325) and this is what utopianism provides.As someone who has spent much of my professional life studying intentional communities, I have always recognized that almost all such groups have an underlying utopian impulse. So I came to utopianism research as a subset of intentional communities research. Sargent, on the other hand, sees “communitarianism as a sub-category of utopianism” (85). He acknowledges that intentional community members are “trying to find better ways of living together, making decisions about all important aspects of life, whether it is political, economic, religious, or sexual.... They are actually doing with their own lives what literary utopias describe in words” (93). Perhaps our different paths are a bit like asking whether the chicken or egg came first?Sargent quite correctly observes that many intentional community members reject the label of “utopian” because they confuse it with the naïve, and unobtainable notion of perfection—and I have often observed the same. Nevertheless Sargent asserts “that continued utopian thinking is essential to the overcoming of [End Page 138] the dystopian reality of... the last century” (178). This, he argues, is why intentional communities are important test sites for enacting utopian dreams.In discussing dystopia, Sargent points out how utopian aspirations occasionally lead to the creation of dystopias. “The hopes of communism became the dystopia of Stalinism.... The utopian dreams of Pol Pot became the dystopia of Kampuchea” (172). “Utopian visions from Lenin to the Taliban that purported to have the potential of producing an enhanced life have been hijacked and turned into dystopias” (175). While acknowledging that some colonization schemes, particularly for New Zealand and South Australia, had a utopian angle, nevertheless those schemes generally created dystopia for the Indigenous peoples. “The original inhabitants’” idea of the good life “inconveniently did not include having their land stolen, being enslaved, and being slaughtered” (262).That reminds us that utopianism, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder. Sargent offers a wonderful personal example, “my utopia would include a strong right to die” whenever and however he... (shrink)

Räsänen draws a distinction between chronological age and biological age and argues that biological ageing is (sometimes) desirable. To demonstrate this, he asks us to consider the case of April, who like Karel Čapek’s Elina Makropulos, has stopped biologically ageing. Unlike Makropulos, though, April’s biological ageing was halted before puberty, so she will never mature into adulthood. Räsänen contends this case shows ageing can be desirable, but this equivocates between maturing and ageing. Here I argue biological ageing, or the wear (...) and tear normally associated with chronological ageing, isprima facieundesirable, but that maturing can beprima faciedesirable. (shrink)

This text focuses on basic topics and problems of logic, as well as decision theory and topics related to the philosophy of science and statistics. Topics covered include inductive inference; causal inferrence; probability calculus; expected value; confirmation theory; the justification of induction; the riddle of induction and theories of probability. It also includes coverage, in both historical and contemporary terms, of the traditional problem of induction raised by Hume.

We generalize two of our previous results on abelian definable groups in p-adically closed fields [12, 13] to the non-abelian case. First, we show that if G is a definable group that is not definably compact, then G has a one-dimensional definable subgroup which is not definably compact. This is a p-adic analogue of the Peterzil–Steinhorn theorem for o-minimal theories [16]. Second, we show that if G is a group definable over the standard model $\mathbb {Q}_p$, then $G^0 = G^{00}$. (...) As an application, definably amenable groups over $\mathbb {Q}_p$ are open subgroups of algebraic groups, up to finite factors. We also prove that $G^0 = G^{00}$ when G is a definable subgroup of a linear algebraic group, over any model. (shrink)

One of the many brilliant insights of C. Thi Nguyen’s brilliant book, Games: Agency as Art, is the connection he draws between the distinctive agency of game play and one important feature of a lif...

We argued that explanatoriness is evidentially irrelevant in the following sense: Let H be a hypothesis, O an observation, and E the proposition that H would explain O if H and O were true. Then our claim is that Pr = Pr. We defended this screening-off thesis by discussing an example concerning smoking and cancer. Climenhaga argues that SOT is mistaken because it delivers the wrong verdict about a slightly different smoking-and-cancer case. He also considers a variant of SOT, called (...) “SOT*”, and contends that it too gives the wrong result. We here reply to Climenhaga’s arguments and suggest that SOT provides a criticism of the widely held theory of inference called “inference to the best explanation”. (shrink)

The wave function of quantum mechanics can be understood in terms of the dispositional role it plays in the dynamics of a distribution of matter in three-dimensional space (or four-dimensional spacetime). There is more than one way, however, of specifying its dispositional role. This paper considers Suárez’s theory of ‘Bohmian dispositionalism’, in which the particles are endowed with their own ‘Bohmian dispositions’, and Simpson’s theory of ‘Cosmic Hylomorphism’, in which the particle configuration comprises a hylomorphic substance which has an intrinsic (...) power. I argue that Bohmian dispositionalism fails to capture intuitively correct counterfactuals about what would happen in Small Worlds which have only a small number of particles, but that this problem is avoided by Cosmic Hylomorphism, in which the cosmic power manifests a teleological process. (shrink)

Based on a qualitative study, this paper explores how United States public health professionals view and think about the existing U.S. healthcare system, while also allowing these study participants to imagine new ways of structuring and practicing public health. Using semi-structured qualitative interviews, I show how public health professionals engage with the concept of “the social” and their personal experiences with public health to question the status quo. By giving public health professionals space in which to imagine changes and different (...) ways of practicing public health, I demonstrate the effectiveness of imagination as a capacity that public health professionals possess to take the lead in creating the changes they hope for. (shrink)

In the recent literature on causal and non-causal scientific explanations, there is an intuitive assumption according to which an explanation is non-causal by virtue of being abstract. In this context, to be ‘abstract’ means that the explanans in question leaves out many or almost all causal microphysical details of the target system. After motivating this assumption, we argue that the abstractness assumption, in placing the abstract and the causal character of an explanation in tension, is misguided in ways that are (...) independent of which view of causation or causal explanation one takes to be most accurate. On major accounts of causation, as well as on major accounts of causal explanation, the abstractness of an explanation is not sufficient for it being non-causal. That is, explanations are not non-causal by dint of being abstract. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps, and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may (...) freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

First published in 1840, this two-volume treatise by Cambridge polymath William Whewell remains significant in the philosophy of science. The work was intended as the 'moral' to his three-volume History of the Inductive Sciences, which is also reissued in this series. Building on philosophical foundations laid by Immanuel Kant and Francis Bacon, Whewell opens with the aphorism 'Man is the Interpreter of Nature, Science the right interpretation'. Volume 1 contains the majority of Whewell's section on 'ideas', in which he (...) investigates the philosophy underlying a range of different disciplines, including pure, classificatory and mechanical sciences. Whewell's work upholds throughout his belief that the mind was active and not merely a passive receiver of knowledge from the world. A key text in Victorian epistemological debates, notably challenged by John Stuart Mill and his System of Logic, Whewell's treatise merits continued study and discussion in the present day. (shrink)

Paracelsus is an extraordinarily difficult author to interpret, in part because of the seemingly elusive boundary between literal and metaphorical levels of meaning in his work. The present paper argues for a literal reading of Paracelsus, based on comments that he makes in his late Philosophia de divinis operibus & factis & de secretis naturae. The article also includes a translated chapter from one of the treatises in that work, De lunaticis.

Understanding how biological organisms are autonomous—maintain themselves far from equilibrium through their own activities—requires understanding how they regulate those activities. In multicellular animals, such control can be exercised either via endocrine signaling through the vasculature or via neurons. In C. elegans this control is exercised by a well-delineated relatively small but distributed nervous system that relies on both chemical and electric transmission of signals. This system provides resources to integrate information from multiple sources as needed to maintain the organism. Especially (...) important for the exercise of neural control are neuromodulators, which we present as setting agendas for control through more traditional electrical signaling. To illustrate how the C. elegans nervous system integrates multiple sources of information in controlling activities important for autonomy, we focus on feeding behavior and responses to adverse conditions. We conclude by considering how a distributed nervous system without a centralized controller is nonetheless adequate for autonomy. (shrink)

This article seeks to develop an under-appreciated aspect of spectator activity: the way in which viewers make use of film to enter or sustain a project of bad faith. Based on Jean-Paul Sartre's account of bad faith in Being and Nothingness (1943), the article explains the aspects of bad faith that are pertinent to viewer activity, then explores the way viewers can make use of filmic depictions to facilitate self-denial. For example, spectators may emphasize the fact that persons are depicted (...) in narrow terms as corroboration for their belief that human nature is just as its depicted, thereby denying that we have the freedom to be otherwise. Or spectators may deny the relevance of problematic aspects of themselves when they find it depicted in characters who are admirable in other ways. I then consider whether films themselves can be described as being in bad faith. While technically they cannot, I identify ways that a film may encourage or discourage bad faith in viewers. I also examine how the immersive aspect of film enables viewers to turn attention away from themselves while they engage in self-denial. The case for this approach to viewer activity and film analysis is supplemented by a distinction between traits that do apply to film, e.g., being racist, sexist, or homophobic, and the resources it gives persons to be in bad faith about these social attitudes. I argue that a film can have traits like these while not encouraging bad faith and vice versa, demonstrating the unique perspective offered by approaching film and spectator activity in terms of bad faith. (shrink)

David Armstrong argues that necessitation relations among universals are the best explanation of some of our observations. If we consequently accept them into our ontologies, then we can justify induction, because these necessitation relations also have implications for the unobserved. By embracing Armstrongian universals, we can vindicate some of our strongest epistemological intuitions and answer the Problem of Induction. However, Armstrong’s reasoning has recently been challenged on a variety of grounds. Critics argue against both Armstrong’s usage of inference to the (...) best explanation and even whether, by Armstrong’s own standards, necessitation relations offer a potential explanation of this explanandum, let alone the best explanation. I defend Armstrong against these particular criticisms. Firstly, even though there are reasons to think that Armstrong’s justification fails as a self-contained defence of induction, it can usefully complement several other answers to Hume. Secondly, I argue that Armstrong’s reasoning is consistent with his own standards for explanation. (shrink)

As a retired professor, I join in the growing concerns among educators, and others, about plagiarism, especially now that AI tools like ChatGPT are so readily available. However, I feel more caution is needed, regarding temptations to rely on supposed automatic detection tools, like Turnitin, to solve the problems. Students can be unfairly accused if such tools are used unreflectingly. The Toronto Star's online version of this published Op Ed is available at the link shown below. The version attached here (...) is a pre-print, which also includes annotations for my references, which are not displayed in the published version. (shrink)