Do the new sciences of well-being provide knowledge that respects the nature of well-being? This book written from the perspective of philosophy of science articulates how this field can speak to well-being proper and can do so in a way that respects the demands of objectivity and measurement.

This volume is a collection of papers that advance our understanding of the metaphysics of powers — properties such as fragility and electric charge. The metaphysics of powers is a fast developing research field with fundamental questions at the forefront of current research, such as Can there be a world of only powers? What is the manifestation of a power? Are powers and their manifestations related by necessity? What are the prospects for dispositional accounts of causation? The papers focus on (...) questions concerning the metaphysics of powers that cut across any particular subject-specific ontological domain -- whether philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, ethics, epistemology – investigating the metaphysical structure of powers, the nature of the manifestation of powers, the necessity or contingency of a power’s relation to its manifestations, and powers and causation. A number of authors also engage in discussion with Humean and neo-Humean treatments of causation, thereby making contributions to a larger metaphysical debate beyond powers. Additionally, the authors engage critically with the latest contributions to the debate on powers in the literature, thereby bringing together in a wholesome and analytical way the most recent and noteworthy theoretical developments in this research field. (shrink)

Trope theory is the view that the world is a world of abstract particular qualities. But if all there is are tropes, how do we account for the truth of propositions ostensibly made true by some concrete particular? A common answer is that concrete particulars are nothing but tropes in compresence. This answer seems vulnerable to an argument (first presented by F. H. Bradley) according to which any attempt to account for the nature of relations will end up either in (...) contradiction, nonsense, or will lead to a vicious infinite regress. I investigate Bradley’s argument and claim that it fails to prove what it sets out to. It fails, I argue, because it does not take all the different ways in which relation and relata may depend on one another into account. If relations are entities that are distinct from yet essentially dependent upon their relata, the Bradleyan problem is solved. We are then free to say that tropes in compresence are what make true propositions ostensibly made true by concrete particulars. (shrink)

Well–being, health and freedom are some of the many phenomena of interest to science whose definitions rely on a normative standard. Empirical generalizations about them thus present a special case of value-ladenness. I propose the notion of a ‘mixed claim’ to denote such generalizations. Against the prevailing wisdom, I argue that we should not seek to eliminate them from science. Rather, we need to develop principles for their legitimate use. Philosophers of science have already reconciled values with objectivity in several (...) ways, but none of the existing proposals are suitable for mixed claims. Using the example of the science of well-being, I articulate a conception of objectivity for this science and for mixed claims in general. _1_ Introduction _2_ What Are Mixed Claims? _3_ Mixed Claims Are Different _3.1_ Values as reasons to pursue science _3.2_ Values as agenda-setters _3.3_ Values as ethical constraints on research protocols _3.4_ Values as arbiters between underdetermined theories _3.5_ Values as determinants of standards of confirmation _3.6_ Values as sources of wishful thinking and fraud _4_ Mixed Claims Should Stay _4.1_ Against Nagel _5_ The Dangers of Mixed Claims _6_ The Existing Accounts of Objectivity _6.1_ The perils of impartiality _7_ Objectivity for Mixed Claims _8_ Three Rules _8.1_ Unearth the value presuppositions in methods and measures _8.2_ Check if value presuppositions are invariant to disagreements _8.3_ Consult the relevant parties _9_ Conclusion. (shrink)

_Laclau and Mouffe: The Radical Democratic Imaginary_ is the first full-length overview of the important work of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Anna Marie Smith clearly shows how Laclau and Mouffe's work has brought Gramscian, poststructuralist and psychoanalytic perspectives to revitalize traditional political theory. With clarity and insight, she shows how they have constructed a highly effective theory of identity formation and power relations that carefully draws from the criticism of political theory from postmodern anti-foundationalist political theory.

It is commonly held that our intuitive judgements about imaginary problem cases are justified a priori, if and when they are justified at all. In this paper I defend this view — ‘rationalism’ — against a recent objection by Timothy Williamson. I argue that his objection fails on multiple grounds, but the reasons why it fails are instructive. Williamson argues from a claim about the semantics of intuitive judgements, to a claim about their psychological underpinnings, to the denial of rationalism. (...) I argue that the psychological claim — that a capacity for mental simulation explains our intuitive judgements — does not, even if true, provide reasons to reject rationalism. (More generally, a simulation hypothesis, about any category of judgements, is very limited in its epistemological implications: it is pitched at a level of explanation that is insensitive to central epistemic distinctions.) I also argue that Williamson’s semantic claim — that intuitive judgements are judgements of counterfactuals — is mistaken; rather, I propose, they are a certain kind of metaphysical possibility judgement. Several other competing proposals are also examined and criticized. (shrink)

The treatise attempts to approach and deal with some of the most fundamental problems facing anyone who wishes to uphold some version of the so-called theory of tropes. Three assumptions serve as a basis for the investigation: tropes exist, only tropes exist, and a one-category trope-theory along these lines should be developed so that the tropes it postulates are able to serve as truth-makers for all kinds of atomic propositions. Provided that these assumptions are accepted, it is found that the (...) trope-theorist will have to deal with two important problems. First, some atomic propositions seem to require universal truth-makers. Second, some atomic propositions seem to require concrete truth-makers. As tropes are abstract particulars, it follows that the trope-theorist, in order to fulfil assumption, must provide an account of exactly how he or she could construct universality and concreteness from his or her basic stock of tropes. In the treatise such constructions are attempted and some basic problems with such constructions are revealed. Although these problems are serious enough it is argued that it is nevertheless possible to deal with these basic issues while staying squarely within the boundaries of a one-category trope-ontology. (shrink)

Ellie Anderson had always known that she wanted to have children. Her mother, Louise, was aware of this wish. Ellie was designated male at birth, but according to news sources, identified as a girl from the age of three. She was hoping to undergo gender reassignment surgery at 18, but died unexpectedly at only 16, leaving Louise grappling not only with the grief of losing her daughter, but with a complex legal problem. Ellie had had her sperm frozen before starting (...) hormone treatment, specifically so that she would retain the chance of becoming a parent after her gender reassignment. Ellie had considered what might happen to the sperm if she died and was adamant that her children should be brought into the world. She made her mother promise to ensure that this would happen. But according to UK law, Ellie’s mother has no legal right to retain her sperm, or to use it to fulfil Ellie’s wishes. In this paper, we raise several key ethical questions on this case, namely: does a refusal to bring Ellie’s children into the world wrong her posthumously? Is Ellie’s mother morally entitled to use her daughter’s sperm as Ellie wished? Should the fact that Ellie was a minor at the time of her death or the fact that she was transgendered undermine her wish to have children? Can Ellie become a parent posthumously? We consider how these complex ethical questions could be approached. (shrink)

Intuitively, we often see absences. For example, if someone steals your laptop at a café, you may see its absence from your table. However, absence perception presents a paradox. On prevailing models of perception, we see only present objects and scenes (Marr, Gibson, Dretske). So, we cannot literally see something that is not present. This suggests that we never literally perceive absences; instead, we come to believe that something is absent cognitively on the basis of what we perceive. But this (...) cognitive explanation does not do justice to the phenomenology. Many experiences of absence possess immediate, perceptual qualities. One may further argue that the ability to detect certain absences confers strong adaptive advantage and therefore must be as primitive and fundamental to humans as seeing positive things. I argue that we can literally see absences; in addition to representing objects, perception represents absences of objects. I present a model of seeing absence based on visual expectations and a visual matching process. The phenomenon of seeing absence can thus serve as an adequacy-test for a theory of perceptual content. If experiences of absence are possible, then we have another reason (following Siegel) to reject the view that perceptual content is restricted to colors and shapes. Furthermore, if the proposed account is correct, then we have grounds for dissociating seeing absence from other imagery-based phenomena termed “perceptual presence-in-absence” (Noë, Macpherson). (shrink)

Phenomenal beliefs are beliefs about the phenomenal properties of one's concurrent conscious states. It is an article of common sense that such beliefs tend to be justified. Philosophers have been less convinced. It is sometimes claimed that phenomenal beliefs are not on the whole justified, on the grounds that they are typically based on introspection and introspection is often unreliable. Here we argue that such reasoning must guard against a potential conflation between two distinct introspective phenomena, which we call fact-introspection (...) and thing -introspection; arguments for the unreliability of introspection typically target only the former, leaving the reliability of the latter untouched. In addition, we propose a theoretical framework for understanding thing -introspection that may have a surprising consequence: thing -introspection is not only reliable, but outright infallible. This points at a potential line of defense of phenomenal-belief justification, which here we only sketch very roughly. (shrink)

Recently, there has been much talk of impact investing. Around the world, specialized intermediaries have appeared, mainstream financial players and governments have become involved, renowned universities have included impact investing courses in their curriculum, and a myriad of practitioner contributions have been published. Despite all this activity, conceptual clarity remains an issue: The absence of a uniform definition, the interchangeable use of alternative terms and unclear boundaries to related concepts such as socially responsible investment are being criticized. This article aims (...) to contribute to a better understanding of impact investing, which could help foster this specific investment style and guide further academic research. To do so, it investigates a large number of academic and practitioner works, highlighting areas of similarity and inconsistency on three levels: definitional, terminological, and strategic. Our research shows that, on a general level, heterogeneity—especially definitional and strategic—is less pronounced than expected. Yet, our research also reveals critical issues that need to be clarified to advance the field and increase its credibility. First and foremost, this includes the characteristics required of impact investees, notably whether they need to be organizations that prioritize their non-financial mission over the business side. Our results indicate that there may be different schools of thoughts concerning this matter. (shrink)

What makes a measure of well-being valid? The dominant approach today, construct validation, uses psychometrics to ensure that questionnaires behave in accordance with background knowledge. Our first claim is interpretive—construct validation obeys a coherentist logic that seeks to balance diverse sources of evidence about the construct in question. Our second claim is critical—while in theory this logic is defensible, in practice it does not secure valid measures. We argue that the practice of construct validation in well-being research is theory avoidant, (...) favoring a narrow focus on statistical tests while largely ignoring relevant philosophical considerations. (shrink)

Partial lying denotes the cases where we partially believe something to be false but nevertheless assert it with the intent to deceive the addressee. We investigate how the severity of partial lying may be determined and how partial lies can be classified. We also study how much epistemic damage an agent suffers depending on the level of trust that she invests in the liar and the severity of the lies she is told. Our analysis is based on the results from (...) exploratory computer simulations of an arguably rational Bayesian agent who is trying to determine how biased a coin is while observing the coin tosses and listening to a liar’s misleading predictions about the outcomes. Our results provide an interesting testable hypothesis at the intersection of epistemology and ethics, namely that in the longer term partial lies lead to more epistemic damage than outright lies. (shrink)

The present reflection draws upon a tradition of energetic, world-facing critical legal scholarship to interrogate the anthropos assumed by the terminology of ‘anthropocentrism’ and of the ‘Anthropocene’. The article concludes that any ethically responsible future engagement with ‘anthropocentrism’ and/or with the ‘Anthropocene’ must explicitly engage with the oppressive hierarchical structure of the anthropos itself—and should directly address its apotheosis in the corporate juridical subject that dominates the entire globalised order of the Anthropocene age.

Richard Bradley and others endorse Reverse Bayesianism as the way to model awareness growth. I raise a problem for Reverse Bayesianism—at least for the general version that Bradley endorses—and argue that there is no plausible way to restrict the principle that will give us the right results. To get the right results, we need to pay attention to the attitudes that agents have towards propositions of which they are unaware. This raises more general questions about how awareness growth should be (...) modelled. (shrink)

Trope theory is the view that the world consists (wholly or partly) of particular qualities, or tropes. This admittedly thin core assumption leaves plenty of room for variation. Still, most trope theorists agree that their theory is best developed as a one-category theory according to which there is nothing but tropes. Most hold that ‘sameness of property’ should be explained in terms of resembling tropes. And most hold that concrete particulars are made up from tropes in compresence (for an overview, (...) including an introduction to some alternative versions of the view, cf. Maurin, 2014). D. M. Armstrong disagrees. He thinks the world is a world of immanent universals, the thin particulars in which those universals are instantiated, and the states of affairs that—thereby—exist. He holds that ‘sameness of property’ should be explained in terms of numerically identical universals or—if the resembling things are the universals themselves—in terms of partially identical universals. And he believes that concrete particulars are made up from ‘thin particulars’ in which a (sufficient) number of universals are instantiated. In spite of their disagreements, proponents of tropes owe Armstrong a debt of gratitude. First, for being one of the theory’s earliest, most serious, and—not least—most prominent, critics (Armstrong for the first time considers, and rejects, what he then labels ‘particularism’, in his 1978a). But also for being one of the theory’s most ardent champions. Already in his 1989a, Armstrong regrets his 1978-rejection of the view. Equivalence classes of exactly resembling tropes, he now admits, for most purposes “serve as an excellent substitute for universals” (Armstrong 1989a, 122). But then why isn’t Armstrong a trope theorist? In this paper, Armstrong’s main reasons for rejecting the trope view are critically scrutinized. All of them, it is maintained, fail to convince. If this argument is accepted, Armstrong seems to have no—or, at least, no good—reason for not accepting the existence of tropes. But, then, ought Armstrong to have been a trope theorist? If the ‘best’ version of the trope view turns out to be ontologically more parsimonious than Armstrong’s own theory of universals, then, yes. That there is a version of the trope view, a version that is not (or, at least not seriously) considered by Armstrong, that is ontologically more parsimonious than the universals view, is argued in the next section. Why none of Armstrong’s reasons for preferring universals to tropes manage to convince, is explained in the section after that. First, however, and in order to avoid a common misunderstanding of the trope view and, as a consequence, of why one ought to reject it, a few more words about the core-difference between tropes and universals, and about how this difference matters (as well as does not matter) to what—and how well—these theories explain. (shrink)

This article describes a survey among Finnish business students to find answers to the following questions: How do business students define a well-run company? What are their attitudes on the responsibilities of business in society? Do the attitudes of women students differ from those of men? What is the influence of business education on these attitudes? Our sample comprised 217 students pursuing a master's degree in business studies at two Finnish universities. The results show that, as a whole, students valued (...) the stakeholder model of the company more than the shareholder model. However, attitudes differed according to gender: women students were more in favor of the stakeholder model and placed more weight on corporate ethical, environmental, and societal responsibilities than their men counterparts - both at the beginning and at the end of their studies. Thus, no gender socialization effect of business school education could be observed in this sense. Business school education was found to shape women and men students' attitudes in two ways. Firstly, valuation of the shareholder model increased and, secondly, the importance of equal-opportunity employment decreased in the course of education. This raises the question whether the educational context is creating an undesirable tendency among future business professionals. The results further suggest that the sociocultural context can make a difference in how corporate social responsibility is perceived. The article also discusses possible ways to influence the attitudes of business students. (shrink)

This book defends an account of justice to nonhuman beings – i.e., to animals, plants etc. – also known as ecological or interspecies justice, and which lies in the intersection of environmental political theory and environmental ethics. More specifically, against the background of the current extinction crisis this book defends a global non-ranking biocentric theory of distributive ecological/interspecies justice to wild nonhuman beings, because the extinction crisis does not only need practical solutions, but also an account of how it is (...) the outcome of large-scale injustice. This book not only provides a novel theoretical framework that supports such a claim, but it also develops the theoretical tools to find just compromises between the entitlements of intraspecies and intra-human global distributive justice to ecological space for the purpose of working towards a vision of just conservation. -/- Content: 1. Introducing Ecological Justice 2. Political Non-Ranking Biocentrism 3. The Community of Justice 4. The Currency of Distributive Justice 5. The Principles of Distributive Justice 6. Ecological Justice and the Capabilities Approach 7. Biodiversity Loss: An Injustice? 8. Who Owns the Earth? 9. Visions of Just Conservation 10. Outlook for Implementation . (shrink)

One of David Rosenthal’s many important contributions to the philosophy of mind was his clear and unshirking account of introspection. Here we argue that while there is a kind of introspection (we call it “reflective introspection”) that Rosenthal’s account may be structurally fit to accommodate, there is also a second kind (“primitive introspection”) that his account cannot recover. We introduce Rosenthal’s account of introspection in §1, present the case for the psychological reality of primitive introspection in §2, and argue that (...) Rosenthal’s account lacks the resources to accommodate it in §3. (shrink)

Recent decades have seen the facilitation of unconventional or even extraordinary reproductive endeavours. Sperm has been harvested from dying or deceased men at the request of their wives; reproductive tissue has been surgically removed from children at the request of their parents; deceased adults’ frozen embryos have been claimed by their parents, in order to create grandchildren; wombs have been transplanted from mothers to their daughters. What is needed for requests to be honoured by healthcare staff is that they align (...) with widely shared expectations about what people’s reproductive potential ought to be, what marital relationships ought to result in, and which kinds of ties are desirable between parents and children. Costly and invasive technologies are not considered excessive when they are used to support the building of appropriate families. However, deviations from dominant reproductive norms, even if technologically simple and convenient to the participants, are unlikely to receive support. In this paper, we offer examples of such deviations and explore their implications. If reproduction is important as a way of creating genetic relationships, should reproductive material in storage be offered to genetic relatives other than the people from whom it originated? And if parents are allowed to have reproductive material collected from their offspring, or even to use it to create babies, should offspring likewise be allowed to use their parents’ reproductive material? We tackle these questions and suggest ways in which interests in genetic ties could be operationalised in a more coherent and less-invasive manner than they currently are. (shrink)

In Valuing Health, Dan Hausman argues that well-being is not measurable, at least not in the way that science and policy would require. His argument depends on a demanding conception of well-being and on a pessimistic verdict upon the existing measures of subjective well-being. Neither of these reasons, I argue, warrant as much skepticism as Hausman professes.

Clinical ethics training programs are responsible for preparing their trainees to be competent ethics consultants worthy of the trust of patients, families, surrogates, and healthcare professionals. While the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) offers a certification examination for healthcare ethics consultants, no tools exist for the formal evaluation of ethics trainees to assess their progress toward competency. Medical specialties accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) use milestones to report trainees’ progress along a continuum of (...) professional development as a means of “operationalizing and implementing” medical competencies. Utilizing the Core Competencies for Healthcare Ethics Consultation and the ACGME and American Board of Pediatrics’ (ABP) Pediatric Milestones Project, we developed milestones for 17 subcompetencies in clinical ethics consultation and academic bioethics. As the field of clinical ethics becomes more standardized, such tools will be needed to promote the development of robust training programs and to certify that their graduates are competent practitioners. (shrink)

There is an ongoing debate in the metaphysics of dispositions regarding which type of modality governs their manifestation. This paper assumes as its default position the view that dispositions manifest by conditional necessity; that is, when in appropriate circumstances dispositions manifest necessarily. From this standpoint, the paper engages critically with an existing alternative in the literature, put forward most prominently by Mumford and Anjum, and known as dispositional modality. According to this latter view, even when in appropriate manifestation conditions, dispositions (...) only merely tend towards their manifestation. By raising difficulties for this alternative, the paper offers indirect support for the conditional necessity view. (shrink)

The question of work–family practices commonly arises in both theory and daily practice as a matter of responsibility in today’s organisations. More information is needed about them for socially responsible human resource management. In this article our interest is in how work–family practices, serve as an important element of SR-HRM, constructed as helpful for employees’ work–family integration, are realised in organisational life. We investigate the discursive ways in which members of two different organisations working at different organisational levels construct the (...) issue in the Finnish context. Three discourses were interpreted: a discourse of compliance with external pressure, a discourse of negotiation and a discourse of individual flexibility. Discursive constructions of work–family practices make visible the complex interconnectedness of individuals and organisations with the environment in which they operate. Many organisational efforts to create positive work–family practices can, in fact, lead to failure to make these practices either available or usable, and they may result in the unjust treatment of organisation members. Creating sustainable work–family practices is a complex challenge for which SR-HRM must work out a solution. (shrink)

Ways of Scope Taking is concerned with syntactic, semantic and computational aspects of scope. Its starting point is the well-known but often neglected fact that different types of quantifiers interact differently with each other and other operators. The theoretical examination of significant bodies of data, both old and novel, leads to two central claims. (1) Scope is a by-product of a set of distinct Logical Form processes; each quantifier participates in those that suit its particular features. (2) Scope interaction is (...) further constrained by the semantics of the interacting operators. The arguments are developed using Minimalist syntax, Generalized Quantify theory, Discourse Representation Theory, and algebraic semantics. The contributors (Beghelli, Ben-Shalom, Doetjes, Farkas, Gutiérrez Rexach, Honcoop, Stabler, Stowell, Szabolcsi and Zwarts) make tightly related theoretical assumptions and focus on related empirical phenomena, which include the direct and inverse scope of quantifiers, distributivity, negation, modal and intensional contexts, weak islands, event-related readings, interrogatives, wh/quantifier interactions, and Hungarian syntax. An introduction to the formal semantics background is provided. Audience: Linguists, philosophers, computational and psycholinguists; advanced undergraduates, graduate students and researchers in these fields. (shrink)

This article is a mutual introduction of the science of well-being to philosophy of science and an explanation of how the two disciplines can benefit each other. In the process, I argue that the science of well-being is not helpfully viewed as a social or a natural, but rather as a mixed, science. Hence, its methodology will have to attend to its specific features. I discuss two of its methodological problems: justifying the role of values, and validating measures. I suggest (...) that tackling them calls for developing mid-level rather than high theories of well-being. (shrink)

Bernard Stiegler’s concept of individuation suggests that the human being is co-constituted with technology. Technology precedes the individual in the respect that the latter is thrown in a technological world that always already contains externally inscribed memories—what he calls tertiary memories—that selectively form the individual and the collective space of the community. Revisiting Husserlian phenomenology, Stiegler renews the critique of culture industries asserting that imagination and differance have always been technologically mediated, and echoing the Heideggerian anxiety concerning thinking’s over-determination, Stiegler (...) offers an intriguing analysis of the specificity of our age’s technologies while exploring the possibility for political responsibility and educational intervention. (shrink)

‘The Union of Cause and Effect in Aristotle : Physics III 3’, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, 32, pp. 205-232, May 2007.: I argue that Aristotle introduced a unique realist account of causation, which has not hitherto been appreciated in the history of philosophy: causal realism without a causal relation. In his account, cause and effect are unified by the ectopic actualization of the agent’s potentiality in the patient. His solution consists in the introduction of a property that belongs to (...) one subject but is realized in another subject on whose state this realization depends. I identify and analyze the multiple ontological dependencies between the causal state of the agent and that of the patient during their causal activity. (shrink)

edited by Tuija Takala and Matti Häyry, welcomes contributions on the conceptual and theoretical dimensions of bioethics.

Observational studies have suggested that some nonhuman primates’ cooperative behavior may rely on their capacity to share goals and understand the role of their partners. Experimental studies have tried to find evidence for this under controlled conditions, investigating aspects like the degree of organization in different primate species and the individuals’ capacity to recognize and choose good partners, switch roles with them, and care about their outcomes. Often, the results have been mixed. Partly, this is because of the methodological difficulties (...) inherent to empirical research. In this paper, I offer a critical, methodological review of the experimental studies done in the last years on nonhuman primates’ cooperation, I discuss their findings, and suggest possible solutions to some of the procedural problems. Hopefully, this will contribute to improve the design of future studies and therefore our knowledge about the evolutionary history of cooperation. (shrink)

The Reflection Principle can be defended with a Diachronic Dutch Book Argument (DBA), but it is also defeated by numerous compelling counter-examples. It seems then that Diachronic DBAs can lead us astray. Should we reject them en masse—including Lewis’s Diachronic DBA for Conditionalization? Rachael Briggs’s “suppositional test” is supposed to differentiate between Diachronic DBAs that we can safely ignore (including the DBA for Reflection) and Diachronic DBAs that we should find compelling (including the DBA for Conditionalization). I argue that Brigg’s (...) suppositional test is wrong: it sets the bar for coherence too high and places certain cases of self-doubt on the wrong side of the divide. Given that the suppositional test is unsatisfactory, we are left without any justification for discriminating between Diachronic DBAs and ought to reject them all—including the DBA for Conditionalization. (shrink)

The extremely extensive philosophical legacy of Roman Witold Ingarden, a student of Edmund Husserl, including papers in the fields of ontology, epistemology, and aesthetics, has been consistently arousing the interest of researchers from around the world for several decades. The year 2020 marked the fiftieth anniversary of Ingarden’s death. The present book constitutes a unique contribution honoring the philosopher’s memory and academic legacy. An ambitious project that brings together the thoughts of many intellectuals, the book includes research problems, contemporary interpretations (...) of Ingarden’s thought, and comparative studies, placing his philosophy in a broader historical and cultural context. This approach perfectly reflects the relevance, refinement, and depth of Ingarden’s theories. Although the essays presented in the book undoubtedly constitute a due tribute to an important figure in contemporary philosophy, this collection is not exclusively retrospective, but also shows the present and future development of philosophical thought inspired by Ingarden’s works. Including a substantial introduction by the editors, the book contains eight chapters from some of the most significant scholars in the field, covering the historical and comparative approach to Ingarden’s thought, as well as from young, ambitious scholars developing new interpretations of selected aspects of Ingarden’s theories. Specifically, the reader will find chapters on existential ontology (Peter Simons, Jan Woleński), Ingarden’s theory of questions (Giuditta Corbella), music ontology (Edward Świderski), empathy and aesthetic experience (Jeff Mitscherling), the aesthetics of computer games (Matthew Gladden), aesthetic attention (Harri Mäcklin), and Ingarden’s theory and aesthetics of time (Charlene Elsby). (shrink)

Johann Heinrich Tieftrunk has a place among the early Kantians in Halle as both a theologian and a philosophical thinker. After situating Tieftrunk within this intellectual history and determining his theological and philosophical position, this paper provides a chronological account of the concept of hope—which lies at the basis of Kant’s moral philosophy—in Tieftrunk’s writings on philosophy of religion. In particular, the discussion centers on the relationship between the foundation of hope in the moral law and the exclusion of a (...) legalistic fulfilment of hope. The “love of the law,” which emerges especially in Tieftrunk’s work, takes a prominent position in the interpretation. The investigation is accompanied by an evaluation of Tieftrunk’s role in the early reception of Kant. (shrink)

Are there atoms in the constitution of things? Or is everything made of atomless ‘gunk’ whose proper parts have proper parts? Anaxagoras is the first gunk lover in the history of metaphysics. For him gunk is not only a theoretical possibility that cannot be ruled out in principle. Rather, it is a view that follows cogently from his metaphysical analysis of the physical world of our experience. What is distinctive about Anaxagoras’s take on gunk is not only what motives the (...) view, but also the particular type of gunk that he develops. It is qualitative gunk, rather than material gunk. Anaxagoras’s ontology was developed before matter was ‘invented’. It includes quality tropes only; they are gunky. The resulting metaphysical view – a world of qualitative gunk – is new, in the sense of being hitherto unexplored; and yet, it is derived from Anaxagoras’s writings. Drawing on Anaxagoras’s insights, this paper offers a sketch of what qualitative gunk ontology l.. (shrink)

This study belongs to the ethnomethodological tradition of identifying the everyday practices accounting for the oiled machinery of social organization and applies this approach to understanding direction light usage. We observe a set of episodes videorecorded in North-East Italy in the urban traffic. We first unpack the meaning of direction light usage from a pragmatic perspective and then test our interpretation against the cases in our collection that seem to deviate from it. We argue that direction lights’ usage works as (...) an announcement to some road users and a request to a subset of them; in both cases, direction lights convey contextualized (indexical) coordinates about the vehicle’s prospective trajectory. We then explain the cases in which signaling is omitted and draw some implications for traffic coordination and safety. (shrink)

Although the expression “form of life” and its plural “forms of life” occur only five times in Philosophical Investigations, and generally few times in his works, it is commonly agreed that this is one of the most relevant issues in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy. Starting from the analysis of the contexts in which Wittgenstein makes use of this concept, the paper focuses on the different interpretations that have been given in secondary literature, and proposes a classification based on two axes of (...) debate: the monistic versus pluralistic interpretation, and the empirical versus transcendental interpretation. After placing some well-known readings in the resulting scheme, an attempt will be made to offer an evolutionary reading of Wittgenstein’s own ideas about forms of life. It will be argued that the empirical and plural view that seems characteristic of his writings in the Thirties, slowly appears to turn towards a monistic view, sometimes with transcendental tones, although within a pragmatic perspective. This turn remains nevertheless rooted in Wittgenstein’s general attitude towards philosophy intended as a conceptual inquiry with clarifying and therapeutic aims. (shrink)

It is estimated that over 800 million people are hungry each day and two billion are suffering from the consequences of vitamin and mineral deficiencies. While a paradigm shift towards a multi-dimensional and multi-sectoral approach to food and nutrition insecurity is emerging, technical approaches largely prevail to tackle the causes of hunger and malnutrition. Founded in original in-depth field research among smallholder farmers in southwest Kenya, we argue that incorporating cultural or social dimensions in this technical debate is imperative and (...) that by systematically overlooking these dimensions, food insecurity cannot be accurately captured nor properly addressed. Based on a sub-location in rural southwest Kenya where the food plate is rapidly narrowing towards a high-calorie low nutrient diet and where over 80 % of households experience food shortages at least once a year, conclusions suggest that preferences, the local function of food, and the practices that emerge therefrom can affect the regularity of meals and their composition. The findings allow us to complement emerging research and program development with a more comprehensive and locally adapted approach to tackle food and nutrition insecurity. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the infinite regress of resemblance is vicious in the guise it is given by Russell but that it is virtuous if generated in a (contemporary) trope theoretical framework. To explain why this is so I investigate the infinite regress argument. I find that there is but one interesting and substantial way in which the distinction between vicious and virtuous regresses can be understood: The Dependence Understanding. I argue, furthermore, that to be able to decide (...) whether an infinite regress exhibits a dependence pattern of a vicious or a virtuous kind, facts about the theoretical context in which it is generated become essential. It is precisely because of differences in context that he Russellian resemblance regress is vicious whereas its trope theoretical counterpart is not. (shrink)

I examine a range of popular solutions to the puzzle of imaginative resistance. According to each solution in this range, imaginative resistance occurs only when we are asked to imagine something that conflicts with what we believe. I show that imaginative resistance can occur without this sort of conflict, and so that every solution in the range under consideration fails. I end by suggesting a new explanation for imaginative resistance—the Import Solution—which succeeds where the other solutions considered fail.