This paper argues that Jan Patočka and Paul Ricoeur endured their own cognitive-spiritual crisis, particularly during the development and outbreak of war in the 1930s. Their philosophies of history are thus, on the one hand, born of a rethinking of modern philosophy from the time of Galileo and Descartes, and on the other, a suffering of crisis that Europe itself was suffering. Stemming from the historical and philosophical context of Husserl’s epistemology in the Krisis, both Ricoeur and Patočka had to (...) confront history and the decadence of European sciences, as it concerns the difficulty of remembering the past and describing events in history. These responses to the problem of modern philosophy and science in Europe point to the symptom of spiritual crisis due to ‘modern man’ having no unified worldview. By means of care of the soul and the challenging of the state in action, a hermeneutics of peace emerges from their spiritual crises. (shrink)

Philosophy begins in wonder, according to Plato and Aristotle. However, they did not expand a great deal on what precisely wonder is. Does this fact alone not raise curiosity in us as to why this passion is important? What is its role in our thinking except to end as soon as one begins conceptually delimiting its nature? The thinkers Thomas Hobbes and René Descartes both expanded upon earlier brief articulations of wonder in natural, supernatural and practical ways. By means of (...) an historical and philosophical examination of these two early modern thinkers, this article hopes to begin to answer the question: ‘What is wonder?’. (shrink)

In the Critique of the Power of Judgment , Kant mentions transcendental and physiological judgments in their relationship to the sublime. He further mentions that for the best physiological treatment, one must look to Edmund Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful . Whereas for Burke, the feeling of the sublime “is based on the impulse toward self-preservation and on fear,” for Kant it is the mind that “is not merely attracted by (...) the object, but is also always reciprocally repelled by it,” which provides the basis for the transcendental exposition of aesthetic judgements. How does a reading of Burke in which “we shrink into the minuteness of our own nature, and are, in a manner, annihilated before the almighty power,” on the one hand, and Kant’s view of relation and purposiveness in transcendental judgements, on the other hand, aid us in a deeper understanding of the fear of God? Furthermore, how might these two authors connect or interact with contemporary theories of emotion, specifically the discussion of ‘ambivalent emotions’? In this paper, I hope to both open a discussion of Burke and Kant in relation to their respective readings of the sublime and the fear of God as well as open a discussion of emotions regarding a ‘mighty object’ to whom my ambivalent emotion is directed. (shrink)

Philosophy begins with wonder, according to Plato and Aristotle. Yet Plato and Aristotle did not expand a great deal on what precisely wonder is. Does this fact alone not raise curiosity in us as to why this passion or concept is important? What is wonder.

The contributions in this book address the relation between evil, symbolism and psychoanalysisc by focusing on the two works of Riœur in which these topics play the most prominent role: The Symbolism of Evil and Freud and Philosophy. Furthermore, the bilingual book includes contributions that examine the relation between evil, symbolism and psychoanalysis in Ricœur’s work in a more general fashion, by investigating his philosophy as a whole. It brings together both French and English chapters from leading Ricœur scholars from (...) over the world. The international multilinguistic perspective reflects Ricœur’s spirit who said that when he worked on a book, all of the others were simultaneously open on his writing table. It is a groundbreaking work to those interested in Ricœur, Freud and religion. (shrink)

The question “How can humans learn efficiently to make decisions in a complex, dynamic, and uncertain environment” is still a very open question. We investigate what effects arise when feedback is given in a computer-simulated microworld that is controlled by participants. This has a direct impact on training simulators that are already in standard use in many professions, e.g., for flight simulators for pilots, and a potential impact on a better understanding of human decision making in general. Our study is (...) based on a benchmark microworld with an economic framing, the IWR Tailorshop. N=94 participants played four rounds of the microworld, each 10 months, via a web interface. We propose a new approach to quantify performance and learning, which is based on a mathematical model of the microworld and optimization. Six participant groups receive different kinds of feedback in a training phase, then results in a performance phase without feedback are analyzed. As a main result, feedback of optimal solutions in training rounds improved model knowledge, early learning, and performance, especially when this information is encoded in a graphical representation. (shrink)

In 1665–1666, both Margaret Cavendish and Robert Hooke wrote about the beard of a wild oat. After looking through the microscope at the wild oat, Hooke describes the nature of what he is seeing in terms of a “small black or brown bristle” and believes that the microscope can improve the human senses. Cavendish responds to him regarding the seeing of the texture of a wild oat through the microscope and critiques his mechanistic explanation. This paper takes up the controversy (...) between Cavendish and Hooke regarding the wild oat as two forms of a broadly Baconian enterprise. Challenging Lisa Walters and Eve Keller, who suppose that Cavendish was against the “Baconian enterprise as a whole,” the argument in this paper is that Cavendish is opposed to Hooke’s defense of instruments as recovering Edenic glory in the Micrographia, but not to the Baconian enterprise as a whole. (shrink)

This article examines Dostoevsky's "fantastic realism," which challenges the explanation of rationalism or empiricism in the need for determinate categories fixed in nature. His use of paintings by Hans Holbein, Claude Lorrain, and Raphael in terms of the sublime and beautiful exemplify an understanding of Holy Saturday and its status between death and resurrection. Julia Kristeva's reading of Dostoevsky's melancholy as exemplifying a religious ideal and William Desmond's metaxological philosophy allows us to propose a terminology that rhymes with Dostoevskian between-ness, (...) a conclusion that does not resolve the space between the beautiful and the sublime but remains open to the confessional enigmatic liminality that is Holy Saturday. (shrink)

From the end of the seventeenth century to now well into the 21st, John Locke’s theory of personal identity has been foundational in the field of philosophy and psychology. Here we suggest that there are two fundamental threads intertwined in Lockean identity, the flux of perception-thought-action (i.e. continuity of consciousness) and memory. Using Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Paul Ricoeur, and Bernard Steigler as guides we will see that these threads constitute a phenomenological self (l’ésprit), a lived experience of our identity that is (...) not only perhaps the most essential component of our humanity, but also the most threatened in today’s ongoing, commercial convergence of the real and the virtual in the “Age of Disruption”. (shrink)

Attracting philosophers, politicians, artists as well as the educated reader, Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry, first published in 1757, was a milestone in western thinking. This edited volume will take the 250th anniversary of the Philosophical Enquiry as an occasion to reassess Burke’s prominence in the history of ideas. Situated on the threshold between early modern philosophy and the Enlightenment, Burke’s oeuvre combines reflections on aesthetics, politics and the sciences. This collection is the first book length work devoted primarily to Burke’s (...) Philosophical Enquiry in both its historical context and for its contemporary relevance. It will establish the fact that the Enquiry is an important philosophical and literary work in its own right. (shrink)

To what extent does dance contribute to an ideal of beauty that can enrich human quality of life? To what extent are standards of beauty predicated on an ideal human body that has no disability? In this chapter, we show how conceptions of proportionality, perfection, and ethereality from the Ancient Greeks through the 19th century can still be seen today in some kinds of dance, particularly in ballet. Disability studies and disability-inclusive dance companies, however, have started to change this. The (...) disabled person can be beautiful, we will show, in dance and in life, under a disability aesthetics that follows Edmund Burke (1730-1797) and that suggests an alternative standard of beauty, which we call “beauty-in-experience,” where beauty is perceived in the qualitative experience of abled and disabled dancers moving together in dance. (shrink)

In this paper Ludwig Wittgenstein is interpreted as a philosopher of language and technology. Due to current developments, a special focus is on lifeworld practice and technoscientific research. In particular, image-interpretation is used as a concrete methodical example. Whereas in most science- or technology-related Wittgenstein interpretations the focus is on the Tractatus, the Investigations or On Certainty, in this paper the primary source is his very late triune fragment Bemerkungen über die Farben. It is argued that Wittgenstein’s approach can supplement (...) Don Ihde’s concept of material hermeneutics, and that Wittgenstein’s constructivist and pragmatist claims relate to current authors in the philosophy of technology like Peter Janich, Carl Mitcham or Jürgen Mittelstraß. Ludwig Wittgenstein enables a philosophical approach of transcendental grammars, techno-linguistic forms of life and technoscientific language games. In detail, several methodological aspects regarding relations between language and technology are summarized. Here concretely repeatability and methodical actions play major roles in uncertain situations of language and technology practice. It is shown that Wittgenstein is still underestimated in the philosophy of technology—although his thoughtful conceptualizations of language, social practice and technology bear important methodical insights for current technosciences like synthetic biology, robotics and many others. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the use of the term ‘life’ in the debates within and about synthetic biology. We review different positions within these debates, focusing on the historical background, the constructive epistemology of laboratory research and the pros and cons of metaphorical speech. We argue that ‘life’ is used as buzzword, as folk concept, and as theoretical concept in inhomogeneous ways. Extending beyond the review of the significant literature, we also argue that ‘life’ can be understood as aBurstwordin (...) two concrete senses. Firstly, terms such as life easily turn into fuzzy, foggy and buzzy clouds of nonsense, if their use is not appropriately reflected. In these cases, the semantic orientation is detonated. This is theBurstword Icharacteristic of the concept of ‘life’ that we reveal for its unclear terminological use. Secondly, and in contrast toBurstword I, we show that the concept of ‘life’ can be used in a methodologically controlled way. We call this kind of useBurstword II. Here the concept of ‘life’ fulfils the function of expanding an inadequately narrow disciplinary or conceptual focus in different discursive contexts. In this second sense, ‘life’ receives an important operational function, for instance as a transdisciplinary research principle. It turns out that the innovative function and paradigm-changing power of metaphorical speech belong here as well. Finally, we illustrate three ethically relevant examples that show how ‘life’ can be applied asBurstword IIin the context of synthetic biology. (shrink)

John Rawls defines “primary social goods” to be the benefits of social co-operation that are valuable no matter what one’s life-plan. The benefit for international trade of talking in terms of primary goods is that such goods represent a fixed or standard rate, and thus facilitate efficient negotiation. The difficulty, however, is that such discussions appear to ignore, and thereby do violence to, significant cross-cultural value differences. I argue that an appropriate view of Rawlsian primary goods helps to facilitate inter-subjective (...) agreement about what constitutes an advantage to the least advantaged. I illustrate this in a case study of the PT Freeport mining operations in Papua New Guinea. (shrink)

Intelligence allows people to understand events and to shape their surrounding environment. This book delves deeper into the theories and applications of intelligence, showing it is a multifaceted concept —defined and explained differently by prestigious experts of various disciplines in their own research. The book provides interdisciplinary connections of intelligence as it relates to a variety of clearly outlined subject areas, and should lead to a deep understanding of the phenomenon as it pertains to practical applications in different domains. Contributors (...) in this volume present results from evolutionary biology, mathematics, artificial intelligence, medicine, psychology, cultural studies, economy, political sciences and philosophy. Individual scientific models are integrated in an interdisciplinary concept of wisdom. This volume will help enhance the common understanding of intelligence for fellow researchers and scientists alike. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Motivational Externalism Avoiding Brinksmanship Motivational Internalism A Creative High Shall We Close the Gateway?

Transformation of the sparrow and the butterfly -- Meeting the gods of poverty in a dream -- The greatest joys of the cicada and its cast-off shell -- The owl's understanding -- The centipede questions the snake -- The toad's way of the gods -- The mysterious technique of the cat -- Afterword by William Scott Wilson.

Inspired by the work of Wilfrid Sellars, Michael Williams launches an all-out attack on what he calls "phenomenalism," the idea that our knowledge of the world rests on a perceptual or experiential foundation.

Michael S. Brady offers a new account of the role of emotions in our lives. He argues that emotional experiences do not give us information in the same way that perceptual experiences do. Instead, they serve our epistemic needs by capturing our attention and facilitating a reappraisal of the evaluative information that emotions themselves provide.

We are material beings in a material world, but we are also beings who have experiences and feelings. How can these subjective states be just a matter of matter? To defend materialism, philosophical materialists have formulated what is sometimes called "the phenomenal-concept strategy," which holds that we possess a range of special concepts for classifying the subjective aspects of our experiences. In Consciousness Revisited, the philosopher Michael Tye, until now a proponent of the the phenomenal-concept strategy, argues that the (...) strategy is mistaken. A rejection of phenomenal concepts leaves the materialist with the task of finding some other strategy for defending materialism. Tye points to four major puzzles of consciousness that arise: How is it possible for Mary, in the famous thought experiment, to make a discovery when she leaves her black-and-white room? In what does the explanatory gap consist and how can it be bridged? How can the hard problem of consciousness be solved? How are zombies possible? Tye presents solutions to these puzzles -- solutions that relieve the pressure on the materialist created by the failure of the phenomenal-concept strategy. In doing so, he discusses and makes new proposals on a wide range of issues, including the nature of perceptual content, the conditions necessary for consciousness of a given object, the proper understanding of change blindness, the nature of phenomenal character and our awareness of it, whether we have privileged access to our own experiences, and, if we do, in what such access consists. (shrink)

In this book, Michael Arbib, a researcher in artificial intelligence and brain theory, joins forces with Mary Hesse, a philosopher of science, to present an integrated account of how humans 'construct' reality through interaction with the social and physical world around them. The book is a major expansion of the Gifford Lectures delivered by the authors at the University of Edinburgh in the autumn of 1983. The authors reconcile a theory of the individual's construction of reality as a network (...) of schemas 'in the head' with an account of the social construction of language, science, ideology and religion to provide an integrated schema-theoretic view of human knowledge. The authors still find scope for lively debate, particularly in their discussion of free will and of the reality of God. The book integrates an accessible exposition of background information with a cumulative marshalling of evidence to address fundamental questions concerning human action in the world and the nature of ultimate reality. (shrink)

The two dominant theories of consciousness argue it appeared in living beings either suddenly, or gradually. Both theories face problems. The solution is the realization that a foundational consciousness was always here, yet varying conscious states were not, and appeared gradually. Michael Tye explores this idea and the key questions it raises.

"Recent decades have witnessed a sharp rise in the number of state apologies for historical and more recent injustices, ranging from enslavement to displacement and from violations of treaties to war crimes, all providing the backdrop to displays of official regret. Featuring a host of leading authors in the field, this book seeks to contribute to the growing literature on official apologies by effectively combining philosophical reflection and empirical analysis. It achieves two interrelated goals: it enriches the theoretical debates on (...) the nature and functions of apologies while bringing forth new insights from hitherto unexamined normative horizons. It further addresses often overlooked aspects of political apologies, such as their non-verbal dimension as well as religious overtones, while testing theoretical reflections through encounters with real practices of state apologies. Finally, the book explores the obstacles to, and the limitations of, political apologies. The result is an excellent interdisciplinary volume that affords the reader a better understanding of conditions for a legitimate and successful state apology. -/- TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. Introduction PART I: THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS 2. Beyond the Ideal Political Apology; Alice MacLachlan 3. Political Apologies and Categorical Apologies; Nick Smith PART II: RITES AND RITUALS OF REGRET 4. From Mea Culpa to Nostra Culpa: A Reparative Apology from the Catholic Church?; Danielle Celermajer 5. The Power of Ritual Ceremonies in State Apologies: An Empirical Analysis of the Bilateral Polish-Russian Commemoration Ceremony in Katyn in 2010; Michel-André Horelt 6. Confessing the Holocaust: The Evolution of German Guilt; Stefan Engert PART III: CHALLENGING CASES 7. Revisiting the 'Membership Theory of Apologies': Apology Politics in Australia and Canada; Melissa Nobles 8. The Canadian Apology To Indigenous Residential School Survivors: A Case Study of Re-Negotiation of Social Relations; Neil Funk-Unrau 9. What Makes a State Apology Authoritative? Lessons from Post-Authoritarian Brazil; Nina Schneider PART IV: OBSTACLES AND LIMITATIONS 10. The Apology in Democracies: Reflections on the Challenges of Competing Goods, Citizenship, Nationalism and Pluralist Politics; Michael Cunningham 11. An Apology for Public Apologies; Juan Espindola 12. Reasoning Like a State: Integration and the Limits of Official Regret; Cindy Holder". (shrink)

Michael Devitt is a distinguished philosopher of language. In this book he takes up one of the most important difficulties that must be faced by philosophical semantics: namely, the threat posed by holism. Three important questions lie at the core of this book: what are the main objectives of semantics; why are they worthwhile; how should we accomplish them? Devitt answers these 'methodological' questions naturalistically and explores what semantic programme arises from the answers. The approach is anti-Cartesian, rejecting the (...) idea that linguistic or conceptual competence yields any privileged access to meanings. This new methodology is used first against holism. Devitt argues for a truth-referential localism, and in the process rejects direct-reference, two-factor, and verificationist theories. The book concludes by arguing against revisionism, eliminativism, and the idea that we should ascribe narrow meanings to explain behaviour. (shrink)

_Paradoxes from A to Z, Third edition_ is the essential guide to paradoxes, and takes the reader on a lively tour of puzzles that have taxed thinkers from Zeno to Galileo, and Lewis Carroll to Bertrand Russell. Michael Clark uncovers an array of conundrums, such as Achilles and the Tortoise, Theseus’ Ship, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma, taking in subjects as diverse as knowledge, science, art and politics. Clark discusses each paradox in non-technical terms, considering its significance and looking at (...) likely solutions. This third edition is revised throughout, and adds nine new paradoxes that have important bearings in areas such as law, logic, ethics and probability. Paradoxes from A to Z, Third edition is an ideal starting point for those interested not just in philosophical puzzles and conundrums, but anyone seeking to hone their thinking skills. (shrink)

Was leistete der Gedanke der selbstandigen Auswahl (Eklektik) in der Geschichte der Philosophie von Aristoteles bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, wo liegen die Anwendungsgebiete, wo seine Grenzen und warum kam der Begriff der Eklektik schon im 18. Jahrhundert zur Bezeichnung unselbstandiger Vermischung herunter? Der Schwerpunkt der umfangreichen Arbeit liegt in der Philosophie und Naturwissenschaft des 17. Jahrhunderts; sie reicht aber bis zur eklektischen Psychotherapie der Gegenwart.