Contemporary experimental philosophers sometimes use versions of an argument from the history of philosophy to defend the claim that what they do is philosophy. Although experimental philosophers conduct surveys and carry out what appear to be experiments in psychology, making them methodologically different from most analytic philosophers working today, techniques like theirs were not out of the ordinary in the philosophy of the past, early modern philosophy in particular. Or so some of them argue. This paper disputes the argument, citing (...) important differences between early modern philosopher-scientists – Descartes, Hobbes and Boyle – and their supposed modern counterparts. Although there is some continuity between early modern philosopher-scientists and the contemporary experimentalists, it is mostly a continuity of interest in empirically informed philosophy, not a distinctively experimental philosophy. (shrink)

Among the reasons that Whitehead is such an interesting philosopher is that his work resonates across philosophical traditions. This collection develops connections between Whiteheadian concepts and recent European thinkers. The purpose is not simply to compare, however, but, as editor Jeremy Fackenthal suggests, to develop a Whiteheadian thinking “in tandem” with European philosophers in order to create disruptions or “dislocations” in thought that can engender creative approaches to contemporary problems.One general feature of the book deserves mention at the outset, though (...) I will return to it later in the review: although phenomenology and hermeneutics are each represented in the volume, roughly half of the essays focus on the work of Gilles Deleuze (if we group these together with essays focused on “new materialism,” which is connected with Deleuze, the proportion is more like two-thirds). This will be no surprise, since Deleuze is the European philosopher who was most appreciative of Whitehead. And yet, the result is that the conversation with “continental philosophy” is highly selective.The book is organized into three parts, each comprised of three essays. In part 1, “Technological and Systematic Dislocations,” William S. Hamrick brings Whitehead into conversation with Maurice Merleau-Ponty's concept of “the flesh” to suggest an ecological ontology capable of overcoming the instrumentalization of nature. Hamrick's strategy is to read Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty as contributing to an “ontological foundation” for a sustainable civilization (18). Bo Eberle writes about the “quantified self” suggested in new, wearable self-monitoring technologies. Drawing on Whitehead's notion of causal efficacy, Eberle argues that devices such as Fitbit give us access to bodily states that bypasses the standard ways we are aware of ourselves (i.e., through consciousness). He goes further to argue that, like all ways of knowing, wearable technologies are selective, and that the selection reflects the interests of the manufacturers and promotes a certain kind of subjectivity (in the case of Fitbit, a subjectivity that is oriented toward “getting your steps in”). Whitehead's epistemology thus enables the critic of wearable technologies to understand how contemporary experience and self-understanding is shaped not simply by recent technological mediations but by the material interests embedded in them. J.R. Hustwit and Carl Dyke take on what they call “activist” uses of Whitehead that naively (in their judgment) suggest that a non-relational substance metaphysics is to blame for most of our social ills. They employ the theory of complex adaptive systems in conversation with Whitehead and Antonio Gramsci to show that, in fact, achieving significant social change is far more difficult and even unpredictable than mere insertion of better ideas into public discourse. Dominant hegemonies have ways of adapting and absorbing attempts to undermine them. Here Hustwit and Dyke draw on the philosophy of Paul Ricoeur to suggest that resistance to the dominant hegemony is nevertheless always possible because of the vagueness of discourse, allowing a plurality of competing interpretations and thus fractures in the dominant hegemony. However, even this kind of resistance is impossible to control and its effects incapable of being entirely predicted. To the essay's titular question, “Can Whitehead save the world?” the authors answer, “No.”In part 2, “Animal/Human Dislocations,” Jeremy Fackenthal draws on the new materialism of Rosi Braidotti (and Deleuze) along with Whitehead to argue for a “process-relational” nomadism that culminates in a “becoming-imperceptible.” His reading together of Whitehead and Braidotti creates the opportunity to recast the former's concept of objective immortality in such a way that it does not refer to death so much as to being diffused into a relational network. The satisfaction of an actual occasion may be taken as its translation into its effects among its relations. Fackenthal argues that this becoming-imperceptible makes possible a sustainable presence within a fragile network of life. Deena M. Lin uses Whitehead, Braidotti, and Judith Butler to lay out a vision of human life as precarious and deserving attention, care, and solidarity. She presses this vision as a direct moral assault on US (Trump's) policy toward Syrian refugees. Going further, she draws on Braidotti's posthuman account of zoe to argue for universal connection and solidarity with all life that should foster, as the title of her essay puts it, “Welcoming of Syrian Life.” Tano Posteraro offers an intriguing essay drawing on Jakob von Uexküll's account of animal experience. Posteraro argues that Uexküll's notion of an animal's Umwelt, shaped by its distinctive perceptual apparatus, needs to be supplemented by Whitehead's notion of prehension to account for the active dimension of animal perception. Rather than a passive registering of animal environments, Posteraro argues that the latter are constructed, and that concepts (or conceptual prehensions) should be understood as tools with which such environments are constructed.In part 3, “Time, the World, and Abstraction,” three essays probe ways that Whiteheadian and Deleuzian themes may resonate critically and constructively. Kris Klotz brings the thought of Whitehead and Deleuze together to inquire about how alternatives to present social forms are envisioned. He argues that, for Whitehead, every actual occasion involves a selection of some features of the past, and, further, that every selection is also an abstraction from the concrete welter of influences impinging on it. For Whitehead, then, to envision alternatives involves a critique of abstractions, a reinstatement of the concrete plurality of possibilities. This, for Whitehead, is what rationality does: it works at restoring the concrete, and, with it, a series of alternatives that have been eclipsed. To this Whiteheadian analysis, Klotz adds Deleuze and Guattari's critique of “opinion.” For Deleuze and Guattari, opinion is not an idiosyncrasy but a consensus to which differences of experience are subjected. Philosophy, for Deleuze and Guattari, must always struggle against opinion in order to bring alternatives to light. These conceptions of reason/philosophy, Klotz argues, represent useful ways to critique inequalities and other social wrongs that are embedded in the social forms that are routinely taken for granted. Elijah Prewitt-Davis uses a scene from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, along with philosophical innovations of Foucault, Deleuze, and Whitehead, to offer a distinctive account of power. Prewitt-Davis calls attention to Deleuze's important book on Leibniz, The Fold, and to how Whitehead's concept of prehension lies at its center. The upshot is that power is not reduced to dominance but, instead, is at work wherever any occasion of experience persists amid the onslaught of the influence of other occasions. Power, as Deleuze wrote, is the capacity to be affected—and to decide how to constitute oneself anew. Keith Robinson offers a detailed account of Whitehead's epistemology along with a reading of Deleuze's analysis of temporality to suggest that there is a common trajectory that seeks to undermine what the title of the essay describes as the “Bifurcation of Nature” (i.e., the separation of natural phenomena and human experience) within the dominant Western philosophical tradition.There is much of value in the volume as a whole. Aside from staging what Spinoza might have called good encounters between Whitehead and a number of continental philosophers, enhancing the conceptual power of each, the contributors are able to make a case that these philosophical trajectories, when read together, have much to contribute to our understanding of and response to the pressing issues of the day. In addition, readers who are interested in the relationship between Whitehead and the new materialism will find this volume to be a helpful resource, stocked with fine examples of how to sharpen new materialist thinking with Whitehead and how to read contemporary contexts through these lenses. On the other hand, this book is not a handbook nor a comprehensive reference. The organizational logic behind its division into sections is murky and the amount of attention given to particular continental philosophers as opposed to others appears somewhat arbitrary: there are recent continental philosophers who get little to no attention at (Derrida, Malabou, Žižek, Agamben, Latour, Nancy, for example), several of whom might prove to be quite interesting to read “in tandem” with Whitehead. Perhaps that is just to say that there are many more essays to be written. (shrink)

Contemporary experimental philosophers sometimes use versions of an argument from the history of philosophy to defend the claim that what they do is philosophy. Although experimental philosophers conduct surveys and carry out what appear to be experiments in psychology, making them methodologically different from most analytic philosophers working today, techniques like theirs were not out of the ordinary in the philosophy of the past, early modern philosophy in particular. Or so some of them argue. This paper disputes the argument, citing (...) important differences between early modern philosopher-scientists – Descartes, Hobbes and Boyle – and their supposed modern counterparts. Although there is some continuity between early modern philosopher-scientists and the contemporary experimentalists, it is mostly a continuity of interest in empirically informed philosophy, not a distinctively experimental philosophy. (shrink)

In England and Wales, Section 15 of the Sexual Offences Act criminalizes the act of meeting a child—someone under 16—after grooming. The question to be pursued in this paper is whether grooming—I confine myself to online grooming—is justly criminalized. I shall argue that it is. One line of thought will be indirect. I shall first try to rebut a general argument against the criminalization of acts that are preparatory to the commission of serious offences. Grooming is one such act, but (...) there are others, sometimes associated with terrorism. According to me, the general argument misapplies certain considerations about autonomy that are alleged to be in force in other areas of criminal law. Contrary to that general argument, criminalization of preparatory acts does not, in general, bypass the agency of citizens. Moreover, the criminalization of preparatory acts can disrupt activity that would have led to very serious crime, and with relatively low costs to the perpetrators, costs that reflect the non-occurrence of the more serious crime. There is evidence that grooming is harmful in itself, and so another point against the general argument is its assumption that preparatory offences are often harmless or at least victimless. There are objections to some of the undercover policing techniques that lead to a Section 15 prosecution, but these objections are not all weighty. (shrink)

The work of 6th century Indian logician Dharmakirti is explored in detail in series of twelve articles analyzing deviant logic, subject failure, andther important aspects of the Indo-Tibetan Buddhist logical tradition.riginal.

Sensation is a concept with a conflicted philosophical history. It has found as many allies as enemies in nearly every camp from empiricism to poststructuralism. Polyvalent, with an uncertain referent, and often overshadowed by intuition, perception, or cognition, sensation invites as much metaphysical speculation as it does dismissive criticism. -/- The promise of sensation has certainly not been lost on the phenomenologists who have sought to ‘rehabilitate’ the concept. In Plastic Bodies, Tom Sparrow argues that the phenomenologists have not gone (...) far enough, however. Alongside close readings of Merleau-Ponty and Levinas, he digs into an array of ancient, modern, and contemporary texts in search of the resources needed to rebuild the concept of sensation after phenomenology. He begins to assemble a speculative aesthetics that is at once a realist theory of sensation and a philosophy of embodiment that breaks the form of the ‘lived’ body. Maintaining that the body is fundamentally plastic and that corporeal identity is constituted by a conspiracy of sensations, he pursues the question of how the body fits into/fails to fit into its aesthetic environment and what must be done to increase the body’s power to act and exist. (shrink)

Global society is facing formidable current and future problems that threaten the prospects for justice and peace, sustainability, and the well-being of humanity both now and in the future. Many of these problems are related to science and technology and to how they function in the world. If the social responsibility of scientists and engineers implies a duty to safeguard or promote a peaceful, just and sustainable world society, then science and engineering education should empower students to fulfil this responsibility. (...) The contributions to this special issue present European examples of teaching social responsibility to students in science and engineering, and provide examples and discussion of how this teaching can be promoted, and of obstacles that are encountered. Speaking generally, education aimed at preparing future scientists and engineers for social responsibility is presently very limited and seemingly insufficient in view of the enormous ethical and social problems that are associated with current science and technology. Although many social, political and professional organisations have expressed the need for the provision of teaching for social responsibility, important and persistent barriers stand in the way of its sustained development. What is needed are both bottom-up teaching initiatives from individuals or groups of academic teachers, and top-down support to secure appropriate embedding in the university. Often the latter is lacking or inadequate. Educational policies at the national or international level, such as the Bologna agreements in Europe, can be an opportunity for introducing teaching for social responsibility. However, frequently no or only limited positive effect of such policies can be discerned. Existing accreditation and evaluation mechanisms do not guarantee appropriate attention to teaching for social responsibility, because, in their current form, they provide no guarantee that the curricula pay sufficient attention to teaching goals that are desirable for society as a whole. (shrink)

Kriegel’s self-representationalist theory of phenomenal consciousness pursues two projects. The first is to offer a positive account of how conscious experience arises from physical brain processes. The second is to explain why consciousness misleadingly appears to be irreducible to the physical i.e. to ‘demystify’ consciousness. This paper seeks to determine whether SR succeeds on the second project. Kriegel trades on a distinction between the subjective character and qualitative character of conscious states. Subjective character is the property of being a conscious (...) state at all, while qualitative character determines what it is like to be in that state. Kriegel claims that SR explains why subjective character misleadingly appears irreducible, thereby neutralising the apparent irreducibility of consciousness. I argue that although SR credibly demystifies subjective character, it cannot explain why qualitative character also appears irreducible. I conclude that we should pursue the possibility of a hybrid position that combines SR with an account that does explain the apparent irreducibility of qualitative character. (shrink)

The world of disability theory is currently divided between those who insist it reflects a physical fact affecting life quality and those who believe disability is defined by social prejudice. Despite a dialogue spanning bioethical, medical and social scientific literatures the differences between opposing views remains persistent. The result is similar to a figure-ground paradox in which one can see only part of a picture at any moment. This paper attempts to find areas of commonality between the opposing camps, and (...) thus to rearrange the figures of the paradox at a fundamental level. The purpose is first to identify areas in which common ground can be achieved, and secondarily, to clarify the areas in which disagreement continues. While a general and unified theory of physical difference/disability is beyond the scope of this paper the result may advance that general goal. (shrink)

The research importance of biobanked biological materials and their derived data is growing, especially as these are increasingly linked with individual and population‐level medical and health information. The number, diversity, and size of biobanks are growing in tandem. So, too, is the number of individuals whose donations are being used in biobank‐supported research, with or without their knowledge. Pretty soon, we all will be “participants” in a variety of research projects we know nothing about. Until recently, our leftover tissue or (...) deidentified medical information could be used for research without our consent or even our knowledge. Even if we've been asked–as the current regulations require when research uses are anticipated‐we were most likely asked to give a blanket consent to any future use, with no prospect of learning about or controlling how our material is later used. This is an ethically problematic state of affairs, but there are options for improving it. (shrink)

This article considers photography’s role as a visual technology and the consequent effects of expanded frames of knowledge. At the very moment human vision and memory were called into profound doubt, photography provided a mechanical, prosthetic extension to perceptual experience. However, as a technology, it contains the potential for both revelation and control. In this article, photography is considered as a technique that: expands human perception; inscribes its own mechanical operations into new visual forms, therefore enframing and encoding visible knowledge; (...) and can be harnessed as a disciplinary instrument and technique of power. As a consequence, photography’s revealing of hitherto invisible dimensions of reality unfolds within a history of revelation, spectacle and power. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes might seem an unlikely source for a theory of emergency powers applicable to liberal democracies in our own day. He advocated the concentration of political, judicial, economic and military authority, and was in favour of great latitude for a monarch or assembly in the choice of means to security. His theory demands absolute submission to law on the part of citizens, with no constitutional limitations on what laws can require. 1 The same theory demands preventive measures against sedition, (...) and has a very expansive conception of seditious behavior. What is more, the concentration of power with wide discretion is supposed to be politics as usual. (shrink)

Hobbesian resources can remedy limitations in the standard classification of serious crimes due to Jareborg and Von Hirsch. In particular, they can help the standard theory to accommodate serious crime in the form of undermining valuable public institutions. Examples of such crimes are bribery of judges and large-scale fraudulent claims on welfare state provisions.

Digilantism is punishment through online exposure of supposed wrongdoing. Paedophile hunting is one example, and the practice is open to many of the classical objections to vigilantism. But it lies...

This article considers the relation between public and private morality as a stumbling block to a unified moral theory, and therefore as a source of skepticism about moral theory. It aims to show that some of the difficulties for theory in this area are a product of assuming that private morality has a certain priority over the public, and that moral life is unitary. These assumptions are questionable and perhaps question-begging. If they are dropped, the strength of the requirements of (...) public morality increases, and utilitarianism and other impersonal theories appear less problematic as theories of public life, and of the relation between public and private life. (shrink)

Alphonso Lingis is the author of many books and renowned for his translations of Levinas, Merleau-Ponty, and Klossowski. By combining a rich philosophical training with an extensive travel itinerary, Lingis has developed a distinctive brand of phenomenology that is only now beginning to gain critical attention. Lingis inhabits a ready-made language and conceptuality, but cultivates a style of thinking which disrupts and transforms the work of his predecessors, setting him apart from the rest of his field. This essay sketches Lingis’ (...) phenomenology of sensation in order to give expression to some dimensions of Lingisian travel. As we see, Lingis deploys a theory of the subject which features the plasticity of the body, the materiality of affect, and the alimentary nature of sensation. (shrink)

We are living through a radicalized, unsettling moment in Western politics as what seemed the drift of history towards democracy, greater individual freedoms, increased fairness and greater international cooperation is at least temporarily reversed. As we finished production of this issue, ISPA was also concluding its 4th Biennial conference at a most overtly political venue— The United States Air Force Academy—which is simultaneously a Mecca for modern architecture lovers as well as an indisputable seat of the projection of American power. (...) This fact was underscored as our philosophical discussions were occasionally interrupted by fighter jets buzzing the campus. Thus, it should make sense that even in the slow-moving world of applied philosophy, the times would lead us to produce this most overtly political issue. This development was not by design but rather by accretion—but one we eventually embraced as a legitimate extension of the exploration of the conjunction of architecture and philosophy. (shrink)

The literature regarding social and environmental sustainability of business focuses primarily on rationales for adopting sustainability strategies and operational practices in support of that goal. In contrast, we examine sustainability from a perspective that has received far less research attention—attitudes that inform managerial decision-making. We develop a conceptual model that identifies six elemental categories of attitudes that can be held independently or aggregated to yield a meta-attitude representing the legitimacy of sustainability. Our model distinguishes among three types of internally held (...) attitudes and externally perceived subjective norms: pragmatic, moral, and cognitive. We propose a refinement of Ajzen's (In: Kuhl J, Beckmann J (eds) Action control: from cognition to behavior, 1985; Organ Behav Hum Decis Process 50:179-211, 1991) Theory of planned behavior (TPB) that incorporates these sub-categories of personal attitudes and subjective norms. Practical implications are discussed including how organizations considering adopting sustainability programs might use the model as a conceptual tool to help achieve and assess program success. (shrink)

An argument is presented which shows that coherence theories of justification are committed to a conception of epistemic support which conflicts with an axiom of probability theory.

‘Natural-History’ is one of the key concepts in the thought of the Frankfurt School critical theorist Theodor W. Adorno, appearing from his very earliest work through to his very last. Unfortunately, the existing literature provides little illumination as to what Adorno’s concept of natural-history is, or what it is supposed to do. This paper thus seeks to supply the required understanding. Ultimately, I argue that ‘natural-history’ is best understood as a sort of ‘therapeutic’ concept, intended to dissolve certain philosophical anxieties (...) which might otherwise present obstacles to our being able to obtain a critical-theoretical understanding of reality. (shrink)

In a health service with limited resources we must make decisions about who to treat first. In this paper I develop a version of the restoration argument according to which those whose need for resources is a consequence of their voluntary choices should receive lower priority when it comes to health care. I then consider three possible problems for this argument based on those that have been raised against other theories of this type: that we don't know in a particular (...) case that the illness is self-inflicted, that it seems that all illness is self-inflicted in the sense used in my argument, and finally that this type of approach incorporates an unacceptable moralising element if it is to avoid giving those like fire-fighters a lower priority for treatment. I argue that the position outlined here has the resources to respond to each of these objections. (shrink)