Neural reuse demonstrates preadaptation. In accord with Rozin (1976), the process is an increase in accessibility of an originally dedicated module. Access is a dimension that can vary from sharing by two systems to availability to all systems (conscious access). An alternate manifestation is to reproduce the genetic blueprint of a program. The major challenge is how to get a preadaptation into a so that it can be selected for a new function.

We wonder about tying the universal appeal of music to emotion as defined by psychologists. Music is more generally about feelings, and many of these, such as moods and pleasures, are central to the enjoyment of music and fall outside the domain of emotion. The critical component of musical feelings is affective intensity, resulting from syntactically generated implications and their outcomes.

Although North American undergraduates represent about 0.2% of humanity, and a very unrepresentative subset, they actually provide an advance look at what humanity is becoming. In the face of globalization, this is all the more reason to study the wonderful variants of the human condition before they become homogenized.

Following important work by Pizarro, Uhlmann and Salovey (2003) on moral judgments of uncontrolled/impulsive versus controlled/ deliberate action, we focus on the related issue of the moral evaluation of emotion-motivated versus principle-driven behavior. We examine: (a) the potential lesser blameworthiness of antisocial acts perceived as driven by emotion as opposed to principle; (b) how factors governing the moral evaluation of antisocial acts might extend to the evaluation of prosocial acts; and (c) how overriding a moral emotion in favor of a (...) moral principle affects moral attributions. (shrink)

Atran & Norenzayan (A&N) correctly claim that religion reduces emotions related to existential concerns. Our response adds to their argument by focusing on religious differences in the importance of emotion, and on other emotions that may be involved in religion. We believe that the important differences among religions make it difficult to have one theory to account for all religions.

The present volume is, we believe, the first-ever edited volume devoted to the emotion of disgust. In this chapter we address the following issues: 1. Why was disgust almost completely ignored until about 1990, 2. Why has there been a great increase in attention to disgust since about 1990?, 3. The outline of an integrative, body-to-soul preadaptation theory of disgust, 4. Some specific features of disgust that make it particularly susceptible to laboratory research and particularly appropriate to address some fundamental (...) issues in psychology. In the final section, we outline some new questions that arise from the recent increased interest in disgust in the areas of brain mechanisms, psychopathology, the psychometric approach to the structure of disgust, and disgust and morality. We then indicate some important aspects of disgust that have yet to receive systematic investigation. (shrink)

The article discusses the book by A. Yurchak, in which he offers a scientific explanation of the causes and process of the completion of socialist culture and the death of the USSR. The author analyzes the central concept used in this explanation — “authoritative discourse”, showing that the latter is interpreted in two ways: within the framework of the semiotic approach outlined by John Austin, and the “dispositive” approach developed by Michel Foucault. Based on the analysis of the case from (...) the book, the author offers his own reconstruction and concepts (“schemas”, “life world”, “sociality”) that can complement Yurchak’s research. A comparison of the latter’s explanation and the explanation of sociologist Leonid Ionin, carried out during the period of perestroika and reforms, made it possible to clarify Yurchak’s approach and methodology. (shrink)

The author discusses the concept of an ideal object. The statement of O.I. Genisaretsky is quoted and problematized, stating that the obligatory feature that has been preserved for the object and the terms "object" and "ideal object" is, apparently, its representability or visibility. The author shows that ideal objects began to be created during the formation of ancient philosophy and thinking. Faced with contradictions, ancient thinkers dealt with this situation in different ways. If Protogoras recognized the right of the reasoners (...) to receive contradictions and, accordingly, to consider the world contradictory, then Parmenides considered the world consistent, arguing that the criterion for the correctness (truth) of knowledge is not a reasoning person, but this world, existence, which still needs to be reached with the help of correct thought. It was within the framework of the implementation of the Parmenides program that ideal objects began to be created, which, as the author shows, performed three main functions: they allowed us to think consistently, to know the world and its phenomena, to comprehend and interpret empirical phenomena (facts) in a different way. Based on the case of Plato's "Feast", the semiotic schemes on the basis of which Plato creates ideal objects are analyzed. It is argued that it is impossible to build ideal objects, bypassing schemes, since their inventors (creators) are people. By solving problems, they synthesize meanings belonging to different areas of consciousness. The analysis of Galileo's "Conversations" allowed the author to suggest that the construction of ideal objects is due to the historical type of philosophical or scientific thinking. The author considers it necessary, before claiming to create a modern doctrine of ideal objects, to analyze the main typical cases of the construction of these objects in philosophy and science, and such an analysis can make significant adjustments to the understanding of the nature and features of this concept. Nevertheless, he suggests, it is already clear that the construction of ideal objects is an important link in philosophical, scientific and a number of other types of thinking. (shrink)

Издание содержит: Российская власть, общество и право в контексте исторических изменений и реформ, вмененности российского сознания, практики возобновляемой культуры.

Eliminative materialism is the thesis that our common-sense conception of psychological phenomena constitutes a radically false theory, a theory so fundamentally defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced, rather than smoothly reduced, by completed neuroscience. Our mutual understanding and even our introspection may then be reconstituted within the conceptual framework of completed neuroscience, a theory we may expect to be more powerful by far than the common-sense psychology it displaces, and more substantially (...) integrated within physical science generally. My purpose in this paper is to explore these projections, especially as they bear on (1) the principal elements of common-sense psychology: the propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, etc.), and (2) the conception of rationality in which these elements figure. (shrink)

"First published in this translation 1955; second edition (revised) 1974; reprinted with additional revisions 1987; reissued with new Further Reading 2003; reissued with new introduction 2007"--T.p. verso.

JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY PRIZE for the best published book in the history of philosophy [Awarded in 2010] _______________ -/- Although it is widely recognized that David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40) belongs among the greatest works of philosophy, there is little agreement about the correct way to interpret his fundamental intentions. It is an established orthodoxy among almost all commentators that skepticism and naturalism are the two dominant themes in this work. The difficulty has been, (...) however, that Hume's skeptical arguments and commitments appear to undermine and discredit his naturalistic ambition to contribute to "the science of man". This schism appears to leave his entire project broken-backed. The solution to this riddle depends on challenging another, closely related, point of orthodoxy: namely, that before Hume published the Treatise he removed almost all material concerned with problems of religion. Russell argues, contrary to this view, that irreligious aims and objectives are fundamental to the Treatise and account for its underlying unity and coherence. It is Hume's basic anti-Christian aims and objectives that serve to shape and direct both his skeptical and naturalistic commitments. When Hume's arguments are viewed from this perspective we can solve, not only puzzles arising from his discussion of various specific issues, we can also explain the intimate and intricate connections that hold his entire project together. This "irreligious" interpretation provides a comprehensive fresh account of the nature of Hume's fundamental aims and ambitions in the Treatise. It also presents a radically different picture of the way in which Hume's project was rooted in the debates and controversies of his own time, placing the Treatise in an irreligious or anti-Chrisitan philosophical tradition that includes Hobbes, Spinoza and freethinking followers. Considered in these terms, Hume's Treatise constitutes the crowning achievement of the Radical Enlightenment. (shrink)

Dieses historische Buch kann zahlreiche Tippfehler und fehlende Textpassagen aufweisen. Kaufer konnen in der Regel eine kostenlose eingescannte Kopie des originalen Buches vom Verleger herunterladen (ohne Tippfehler). Ohne Indizes. Nicht dargestellt. 1910 edition. Auszug:...endliche als durch sie erzeugt; oder diese in jener involviert und aus ihr sich evolvierend. Der wahre Erzeuger der endlichen Grosse ist nicht die unendlichkleine" Grosse (das Unendlichkleine ware dem Grossenwert nach vielmehr Null), sondern es ist das Gesetz der Grosse (als Veranderlicher), das man sich nun wie (...) in einen Punkt zusammengezogen, d. h. fur den einzelnen Punkt ausgedruckt, oder an einer endlichen Erstreckung sich darstellend denken kann, das aber dem letzten Sachgehalt nach dasselbe ist fur den Punkt und die endliche Erstreckung, wenn es auch in Bezug auf beide verschiedene, im allgemeinen auseinander ableitbare Ausdrucke erhalten muss. Da aber die endliche Grosse uberhaupt von Punkt zu Punkt entstehend (d. h. veranderlich) gedacht wird, so ist insofern der punktuelle, d. h. infinitesimale Ausdruck der fundamentale, aus dem der extensionale gleichsam erst hervorwachst. Die Differenz entsteht eben von der Null an; nicht aus ihr; aus Null wird keine extensive Grosse; wohl aber von der Null, d. h. dem Nichtsein dessen, was werden soll, oder ganz schlicht1) vom Ausgangs wert an; woraus? Aus dem Gesetz; eine andere Antwort ist nicht zu geben und nicht zu verlangen. Durch dies Gesetz aber ist die Grosse als Eines, Identisches, im Unterschied von den sukzessiven Grossenwerten, also in ihrem Gattungsausdruck definiert. i) Vgl. oben S. 122. Fragt man also: wie soll aus der Null gewordenen, verschwundenen" Grosse die endliche Grosse wiederentstehen? so ist zu antworten: die Grosse zwar (yuantitas). (shrink)

A study of how syntax relates to meaning by a leader of the new generation of philosopher-linguists.

Many of our most important goals require months or even years of effort to achieve, and some never get achieved at all. As social psychologists have lately emphasized, success in pursuing such goals requires the capacity for perseverance, or "grit." Philosophers have had little to say about grit, however, insofar as it differs from more familiar notions of willpower or continence. This leaves us ill-equipped to assess the social and moral implications of promoting grit. We propose that grit has an (...) important epistemic component, in that failures of perseverance are often caused by a significant loss of confidence that one will succeed if one continues to try. Correspondingly, successful exercises of grit often involve a kind of epistemic resilience in the face of failure, injury, rejection, and other setbacks that constitute genuine evidence that success is not forthcoming. Given this, we discuss whether and to what extent displays of grit can be epistemically as well as practically rational. We conclude that they can be (although many are not), and that the rationality of grit will depend partly on features of the context the agent normally finds herself in. In particular, grit-friendly norms of deliberation might be irrational to use in contexts of severe material scarcity or oppression. (shrink)

In this chapter, we analyze the relationships between the Internet and its users in terms of situated cognition theory. We first argue that the Internet is a new kind of cognitive ecology, providing almost constant access to a vast amount of digital information that is increasingly more integrated into our cognitive routines. We then briefly introduce situated cognition theory and its species of embedded, embodied, extended, distributed and collective cognition. Having thus set the stage, we begin by taking an embedded (...) cognition view and analyze how the Internet aids certain cognitive tasks. After that, we conceptualize how the Internet enables new kinds of embodied interaction, extends certain aspects of our embodiment, and examine how wearable technologies that monitor physiological, behavioral and contextual states transform the embodied self. On the basis of the degree of cognitive integration between a user and Internet resource, we then look at how and when the Internet extends our cognitive processes. We end this chapter with a discussion of distributed and collective cognition as facilitated by the Internet. (shrink)

This article provides the original perspective on esotericism. Two author distinguishes between the two polar directions of esotericism – "transcendental" and "latent" ; as well as introduces the two postulates characteristic to the first direction that in previous research received the name of "classical". The article discusses what binds esotericism and philosophy, religion, and art; outlines the common aspects of these fields of knowledge and life activity are indicated ; examines the cases of interaction, and what caused the decline of (...) interest in esoteric teachings. The research consists of two parts. The first part explores the three cases that reveal a close link between esoteric, philosophical, scientific and literary thought, as well as the fact that esoteric ideas and concepts often enrich philosophy, science and art. The second part discusses the key reasons for the slump in esotericism: new cultural challenges that to which there is yet no esoteric answer, interception of esoteric discourse in a number of directions of contemporary art and philosophy. However, this pause is temporary, since esoteric path is one of the ways to prevail in personality culture; it can be assumed that esotericists will soon eliminate the existing gap. On the example of current interest in vampires, the author discusses certain peculiarities of the phenomenon of mysticism, which indicate that the phenomenon of vampirism is real, perhaps related to the forms of communication widely used in modern life. (shrink)

Listening effort has been known to characterize speech recognition in noise regardless of hearing sensitivity and age. Whereas the behavioral measure of dual-task paradigm effectively manifests the cognitive cost that listeners exert when processing speech in background noise, there is no consensus as to a clinical procedure that might best express LE. In order to assess the cognitive load underlying speech recognition in noise and promote counselling for coping strategies, a feasible clinical paradigm is warranted. The ecological validity of such (...) a paradigm might best be demonstrated in middle-aged adults, exhibiting intact hearing sensitivity on one hand, however, experiencing difficulties in degraded listening conditions, unaware of the implicated cognitive cost of speech recognition in noise. To this end, we constructed a dual-task paradigm that consists of a primary task of sentences-in-noise recognition and a secondary task of simple visual colored-shape matching. Research objective was to develop a clinical paradigm for the assessment of LE in middle-aged adults. Participants were 17 middle-aged adults and 23 young adults. All participants had normal hearing according to age. Speech stimuli consisted of the Hebrew Matrix sentences in noise test. SRTn was obtained for 80% correct identification. Visual stimuli were colored geometric shapes. Outcome measures were obtained initially for each task separately, to establish performance ability, and then obtained simultaneously. Reaction time and accuracy in the secondary task were the defined metrics for LE. Results: LE was indicated for both groups, however, was more pronounced in the middle-aged, manifested in the visual accuracy and reaction time metrics. Both groups maintained the 80% correct recognition-in-noise in the dual-task, however, the middle-aged group necessitated a better SNR of 1.4dB than the normal hearing group. Moreover, the middle-aged group was taxed in a greater prolongation of reaction time, in order to uphold the correct recognition. Conclusion: a dual-task paradigm consisting of sentences-in-noise primary task combined with a simple secondary task successfully showed different manifestations of LE in middle-aged adults compared to young adults, thus approximating the use of such a paradigm in a clinical setting. (shrink)

This article examines the evolution of Russian methodological thought, namely, a philosophical school known as the Moscow Methodological Circle. The paper analyzes the transition from the study of thought during the first stage, to the institutionalization of thought during the second. In the first stage, thought was viewed primarily from a semiotic and historical standpoint, whereas the aim in the second stage was to construct a theory of activity. Here, thought was treated as a type of activity and termed “methodological (...) thinking”, and the source of knowledge about thought was the creative work of the methodologists, rather than the study of thought. The paper analyzes the specifics of methodological thinking and the new methodological practice. Methodological thinking is examined as a supreme ontology where the aim is to reform unfulfilled forms of thinking. A number of principles of the methodological approach are formulated: the methodologists’ creative work as the frame of reference, assimilation of intellectual technologies, and a distinction between particular and general methodology. Within the framework of the new methodological practice, several independent directions of methodology come together, marking a crisis in methodological thought. Approaches to resolving the crisis are reviewed: the new demands of the times that need to be addressed by the methodology, the need for different variations of the “supreme ontology”, a sustainable culture of methodological thinking, and a better understanding of the history of methodology. (shrink)

For over twenty years, Paul Weithman has explored the thought of John Rawls to ask how liberalism can secure the principled allegiance of those people whom Rawls called 'citizens of faith'. This volume brings together ten of his major essays, which reflect on the task and political character of political philosophy, the ways in which liberalism does and does not privatize religion, the role of liberal legitimacy in Rawls's theory, and the requirements of public reason. The essays reveal Rawls (...) as a thinker deeply engaged with political and existential questions that trouble citizens of faith, and explore how - in firm opposition to political realism - he tries to show that the possibility of liberal democracy and the natural goodness of humanity are objects of reasonable faith. The volume will be of interest to political philosophers, political theorists, moral theologians, and religious ethicists. (shrink)

The first study of this ancient text in over 70 years, Rituals of the Way explores how the Xunzi influenced Confucianism and other Chinese philosophies through its emphasis on "the Way.".

In this book, Livingston develops the political implications of formal results obtained over the course of the twentieth century in set theory, metalogic, and computational theory. He argues that the results achieved by thinkers such as Cantor, Russell, Godel, Turing, and Cohen, even when they suggest inherent paradoxes and limitations to the structuring capacities of language or symbolic thought, have far-reaching implications for understanding the nature of political communities and their development and transformation. Alain Badiou's analysis of logical-mathematical structures forms (...) the backbone of his comprehensive and provocative theory of ontology, politics, and the possibilities of radical change. Through interpretive readings of Badiou's work as well as the texts of Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Livingston develops a formally based taxonomy of critical positions on the nature and structure of political communities. These readings, along with readings of Parmenides and Plato, show how the formal results can transfigure two interrelated and ancient problems of the One and the Many: the problem of the relationship of a Form or Idea to the many of its participants, and the problem of the relationship of a social whole to its many constituents. (shrink)

Although thinkers of the past might have started from presumptions of fundamental difference and inequality between (say) the genders, or people of different races, this is no longer the case. At least in mainstream political philosophy, we are all now presumed to be, in some fundamental sense, basic equals. Of course, what follows from this putative fact of basic equality remains enormously controversial: liberals, libertarians, conservatives, Marxists, republicans, and so on, continue to disagree vigorously with each other, despite all presupposing (...) some kind of basic equality. They may argue about who gets what, how much, and why, but the starting point - that all people are in some sense deserving of prima facie equal consideration - has become an axiom of our moral and political thinking. But why? Why are we basic equals? The trouble is that as soon as one asks for an explanation of this foundational premise, it begins to look shaky. After all, on any conceivable metric human beings are notably unequal, and often to striking degrees. Philosophers in this area tend to talk of equal worth, but often without trying to specify what exactly that means. Philosophically, basic equality is neither acceptable nor rejectable. It is not rejectable because we appear to be, as a matter of fact, profoundly committed to the truth of the claim that we are all one another's basic equals. But to the extent that there appear to be no philosophical arguments for believing in the truth of basic equality, it is not acceptable either. The aim of this book is to try and show why basic equality is acceptable. To do so, however, it will also contend that we need to approach the question rather differently to how it has mostly been handled so far. What's required is an exercise in what Bernard Williams called 'impure philosophy': it must include insights from other areas of human intellectual endeavour, whether psychology and history or even what we learn from how we go about practicing basic equality in our collective lives. (shrink)

Ricoeur’s theory of productive imagination in previously unpublished lectures. The eminent philosopher Paul Ricoeur was devoted to the imagination. These previously unpublished lectures offer Ricoeur’s most significant and sustained reflections on creativity as he builds a new theory of imagination through close examination, moving from Aristotle, Pascal, Spinoza, Hume, and Kant to Ryle, Price, Wittgenstein, Husserl, and Sartre. These thinkers, he contends, underestimate humanity’s creative capacity. While the Western tradition generally views imagination as derived from the reproductive example of (...) the image, Ricoeur develops a theory about the mind’s power to produce new realities. Modeled most clearly in fiction, this productive imagination, Ricoeur argues, is available across conceptual domains. His theory provocatively suggests that we are not constrained by existing political, social, and scientific structures. Rather, our imaginations have the power to break through our conceptual horizons and remake the world. (shrink)

This is done by exploring some of his other ideas concerning how critical comparisons inform our cultivation of taste, and art's relation to genius.

Free Will & The Tragic Predicament : Making Sense of Williams -/- The discussion in this paper aims to make better sense of free will and moral responsibility by way of making sense of Bernard Williams’ significant and substantial contribution to this subject. Williams’ fundamental objective is to vindicate moral responsibility by way of freeing it from the distortions and misrepresentations imposed on it by “the morality system”. What Williams rejects, in particular, are the efforts of “morality” to further “deepen” (...) or “refine” the notion of the voluntary, with a view to securing “ultimate justice”. It is these aims and aspirations, he argues, that take us to the precipice of scepticism. In Shame and Necessity (1993) Williams advances a vindicatory genealogy that unmasks the “illusions” and “fantasies” of our current ethical ideas as they relate to agency and responsibility. What we are then left with is the task of “recasting our ethical conceptions” . It is here that Williams is especially insistent on the importance and value of historical consciousness and reflection. The role of our reflections about the Greeks and tragedy is precisely to show that in order to move forward, into the future, we need to first look back at where we have come from. The value of these “untimely” observations is that they provide us with alternatives and options that we might otherwise lack. What we discover, when we consider the Greeks, is their commitment to a “pessimism of strength” that rests on rejecting scepticism. It is this two-sided perspective on our ethical predicament that delivers a more truthful account of our human situation, one that will help us discard those illusions and fantasies of "morality" that we are “better off” without. An account of this kind refuses to accept an optimism that insists that any form of responsible ethical life must be one that is immune to the influence of luck and fate. This is the fundamental lesson that we can learn from the ancient Greeks and that Williams seeks to “recover” for us. (shrink)

This Special Issue addresses a range of educational issues linked to main themes from our 2019 book The Emergence of Complexity: Rethinking Education as a Social Science. This book elaborated two major theses that raise fundamental questions for philosophy of education. First, that learning by groups is typically a distinctive kind of learning that is not reducible to learning by individuals. Second, that a degree of holism, as against a focus on individuals, is essential for achieving a convincing understanding of (...) this distinctive type of group learning. These two theses are of direct interest to philosophy of education since they challenges the resources of received theories of learning. Yet this kind of group learning characterises the vast bulk of human learning situations that occur outside of formal education systems. In this Special Issue introductory article we, firstly, introduce some basic principles of complexity theory, and demonstrate that, together with the concept of a ‘co-present group’ (between 2 and about 12 individuals), these ideas offer develop novel understandings of the distinctive learning that occurs within such groups. Secondly, we outline and illustrate with further examples the main features of co-present groups. Thirdly, we consolidate our conceptual work by showing five ways in which our account of group learning serves to refurbish the concept of ‘learning’. (shrink)

The article examines the debate between, on the one hand, the proponents of the position that European reason and logic are universal and therefore the dialogue between West and East will always be unequal and, on the other hand, the advocates of a pluralistic approach, who defend the equality of parties in the dialogue as well as the independence of cultures and ways of thinking in different regions of the world. The author expands the agenda of the debate, appealing to (...) the authors of the book Dialogue of Cultures in a Globalizing World. In addition, the author clarifies the concept of globalization, used by many participants in the discussion, and also formulates his own understanding of philosophy. The author considers philosophy, firstly, as a way of deconstructing reality that has ceased to respond to the challenges of time, secondly, as a process of the creation of schemes defining new reality and objects and, thirdly, as personal and professional methods for solving these problems. The article also discusses the condition of the comprehension of procedural phenomena. Thus, there is a methodological approach that makes possible, according to Kant, to grasp the essence of complex systemic phenomena. Therefore, the author examines a case in which C.G. Jung talks about one of his own child experiences. The author argues that the conditions of the comprehension of processuality are, on the one hand, the formation of a special integrity that is personality and, on the other hand, its actions, which make it possible to assemble the discrete states identified by the researcher into a single process. The personality is considered as the subject who, starting from ancient culture, aims for independent behavior, partially overcomes social and cultural dependence, begins to build his own world and himself in this world. (shrink)

David Hume (1711-1776) is widely recognized as one of the most influential and significant critics of religion in the history of philosophy. There remains, nevertheless, considerable disagreement about the exact nature of his views. According to some, he was a skeptic who regarded all conjectures relating to religious hypotheses to be beyond the scope of human understanding – he neither affirmed nor denied these conjectures. Others read him as embracing a highly refined form of “true religion” of some kind. On (...) the other side of this spectrum, it is claimed that Hume was committed to atheism, although due to social conditions at the time, this had to be (thinly) concealed or masked. The aim of this article is to provide an overview of Hume’s core concerns and arguments on this subject and to provide the reader with a framework for interpreting and assessing his various contributions. (shrink)