We have a rough idea of what artifacts are: artifacts are objects made to serve a certain purpose. However, there is no consensus on how to specify this definition. Essentialists argue that objects are grouped into artifact kinds by sharing non-trivial artifact essences, while anti-essentialists argue that there is no such essence to be found. However, the prominent essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts suffer from extensional and definitional problems. I argue that the problems current essentialist and anti-essentialist accounts face mainly stem (...) from the assumption of artifact concept monism. According to artifact concept monism, there is only a single way to group objects into artifact kinds. To remedy the problems that stem from artifact concept monism, this paper offers an alternative framework by drawing parallels from the debates on species concept pluralism and art concept pluralism. (shrink)

Abstract: There is a long tradition of trying to analyze art either by providing a definition (essentialism) or by tracing its contours as an indefinable, open concept (anti-essentialism). Both art essentialists and art anti-essentialists share an implicit assumption of art concept monism. This article argues that this assumption is a mistake. Species concept pluralism—a well-explored position in philosophy of biology—provides a model for art concept pluralism. The article explores the conditions under which concept (...) pluralism is appropriate, and argues that they obtain for art. Art concept pluralism allows us to recognize that different art concepts are useful for different purposes, and what has been feuding definitions can be seen as characterizations of specific art concepts. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that an adequate meta-semantic framework capable of accommodating the range of projects currently identified as projects in conceptual engineering must be sensitive to the fact that concepts (and hence projects relating to them) fall into distinct kinds. Concepts can vary, I will argue, with respect to their direction of determination, their modal range, and their temporal range. Acknowledging such variations yields a preliminary taxonomy of concepts and generates a meta-semantic framework that allows us both to (...) accommodate the full range of cases and to identify a proper subset of concepts for special ameliorative consideration. Ignoring such variations, in contrast, leads to a restricted meta-semantic framework that accommodates only a subset of the particular projects while generating implausible accounts of others. (shrink)

This discussion note addresses Caleb Hazelwood’s ‘Practice-Centered Pluralism and a Disjunctive Theory of Art’. Hazelwood advances a disjunctive definition of art on the basis of an analogy with species concept pluralism in the philosophy of biology. We recognize the analogy between species and art, we applaud attention to practice, and we are bullish on pluralism—but it is a mistake to take these as the basis for a disjunctive definition.

The aim of this paper is to develop a new position regarding the current conflict between concept pluralism and concept eliminativism in the philosophy of psychology.

Species serve as both the basic units of macroevolutionary studies and as the basic units of taxonomic classification. In this paper I argue that the taxa identified as species by the Phylogenetic Species Concept (Mishler and Brandon 1987) are the units of biological organization most causally relevant to the evolutionary process but that such units exist at multiple levels within the hierarchy of any phylogenetic lineage. The PSC gives us no way of identifying one of these levels as the (...) privileged level on which taxonomic classifications can be based. (shrink)

The concept of individuality as applied to species, an important advance in the philosophy of evolutionary biology, is nevertheless in need of refinement. Four important subparts of this concept must be recognized: spatial boundaries, temporal boundaries, integration, and cohesion. Not all species necessarily meet all of these. Two very different types of pluralism have been advocated with respect to species, only one of which is satisfactory. An often unrecognized distinction between grouping and ranking components of any species (...) concept is necessary. A phylogenetic species concept is advocated that uses a grouping criterion of monophyly in a cladistic sense, and a ranking criterion based on those causal processes that are most important in producing and maintaining lineages in a particular case. Such causal processes can include actual interbreeding, selective constraints, and developmental canalization. The widespread use of the biological species concept is flawed for two reasons: because of a failure to distinguish grouping from ranking criteria and because of an unwarranted emphasis on the importance of interbreeding as a universal causal factor controlling evolutionary diversification. The potential to interbreed is not in itself a process; it is instead a result of a diversity of processes which result in shared selective environments and common developmental programs. These types of processes act in both sexual and asexual organisms, thus the phylogenetic species concept can reflect an underlying unity that the biological species concept can not. (shrink)

Ontological pluralism is the view that there are different fundamental ways of being. Trenton Merricks has recently raised three objections to combining pluralism with a generic way of being enjoyed by absolutely everything there is: first, that the resulting view contradicts the pluralist’s core intuition; second, that it is especially vulnerable to the charge—due to Peter van Inwagen—that it posits a difference in being where there is simply a difference in kind; and, third, that it is in tension (...) with various historically influential motivations for pluralism. I reply to each of these objections in turn. My replies will help to bring out the true nature of the pluralist’s basic commitments. (shrink)

Death concept, death definition, death criterion and death test pluralism has been described by some as a problematic approach. Others have claimed it to be a promising way forward within modern pluralistic societies. This article describes the New Jersey Death Definition Law and the Japanese Transplantation Law. Both of these laws allow for more than one death concept within a single legal system. The article discusses a philosophical basis for these laws starting from John Rawls' understanding of (...) comprehensive doctrines, reasonable pluralism and overlapping consensus. It argues for the view that a certain legal pluralism in areas of disputed metaphysical, philosophical and/or religious questions should be allowed, as long as the disputed questions concern the individual and the resulting policy, law or acts based on the policy/law, do not harm the lives of other individuals to an intolerable extent. However, while this death concept, death definition, death criterion and death test pluralism solves some problems, it creates others. (shrink)

In contrast to earlier views that argued for a particular kind of concept, several recent accounts have proposed that there are multiple distinct kinds of concepts, or that there is a plurality of concepts for each category. In this paper, I argue for a novel account of concepts as pluralistic hybrids. According to this view, concepts are pluralistic because there are several concepts for the same category whose use is heavily determined by context. In addition, concepts are hybrids because (...) they typically link together several different kinds of information that are used in the same cognitive processes. This alternative view accounts for the available empirical data, allows for greater cognitive flexibility than Machery's recent account, and overcomes several objections to traditional hybrid views. (shrink)

The status quo: dogmatism, the biopsychosocial model, and alternatives -- What there is: of mind and brain -- How we know: understanding the mind -- What is scientific method? -- Reading Karl Jaspers's General Psychopathology -- What is scientific method in psychiatry? -- Darwin's dangerous method: the essentialist fallacy -- What we value: the ethics of psychiatry -- Desire and self: Hellenistic and Islamic approaches -- On the nature of mental illness: disease or myth? -- Order out of chaos: from (...) insanity to DSM-III to a pluralistic nosology -- A theory of DSM-IV: ideal types -- Dimensions versus categories -- The perils of belief: psychosis -- The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune: depression -- Life's rollercoaster: mania -- Being self-aware: insight -- Calvinism or hedonism? -- Truth and statistics: problems of empirical psychiatry -- A climate of opinion: what remains of psychoanalysis -- Being there: existential psychotherapy -- Beyond eclecticism: teaching psychotherapy in the twenty-first century -- Bridging the biology/psychology dichotomy: the hopes of integrationism -- Why it is hard to be pluralist. (shrink)

Is the liberal state entitled to intervene in the internal affairs of its nonliberal minorities to promote individual autonomy as a public ideal, or should it tolerate the nonliberal practices of such groups in the name of legitimate diversity? This problem can be fruitfully approached from the perspective of Isaiah Berlin's notion of "value pluralism." According to William Galston, value pluralism privileges a form of liberalism that is maximally accommodating of nonliberal groups and their practices. I agree that (...) pluralism fits best with a liberal political framework, but I depart from Galston's interpretation of what liberal pluralism involves. Taking value pluralism seriously, I argue, implies a form of liberalism in which personal autonomy is a central public ideal. (shrink)

Bernard Lonergan has attempted to clarify a major theoretical transition from a classicist conception of culture, which was operative for over two millennia,to a contemporary notion of culture which is empirical, historicist, and pluralist. I argue that this transition has significant implications for apprehending boththe difficulty and the possibility of intercultural understanding. While the need for intercultural understanding is timely and obvious, its actual achievement hasproven elusive. One major impediment, I argue, has been the effective persistence of classicist assumptions which (...) undermine our best theoretical understandings of what a culture is. (shrink)

The life-world is a central topic of Husserl’s phenomenology. He addresses this issue in some of the works published during his lifetime and attempts to analyze the life-world extensively in many of his works and posthumously published research manuscripts. The life-world is one of the topics that have been discussed most extensively in phenomenology. However, there are many misunderstandings of Husserl’s phenomenology of the life-world. One misunderstanding concerns the variety of concepts of the life-world in Husserl and the possibility of (...) developing various fields of the phenomenology of the life-world. It is the aim of this paper to show that Husserl has a pluralistic concept of the life-world, which makes it possible to develop various fields of the phenomenology of the life-world. I will introduce the monistic view and the pluralistic view of the concept of the life-world in Husserl and will clarify what the life-world is, thereby showing that the monistic view of the concept of the life-world in Husserl is not legitimate. However, even though Husserl has a pluralistic concept of the life-world, nowhere does he systematically clarify the various concepts of the life-world. Hence I will sort out and clarify various concepts of the life-world such as the narrower concept and the wider concept, the general concept and the particular concept, the natural concept and the transcendental concept, and the empirical concept and the eidetic concept. Based on the discussion of the various concepts of the life-world in Husserl, I will assess the monistic view and the pluralistic view of Husserl’s concept of the life-world so that we can better understand his various concepts of the life-world. (shrink)

The philosophical and scientific literature on play is extensive and the approaches to the study, description, and explanation of play are diverse. In this paper I intend to provide an overview of approaches to play. My interest is in describing the most fundamental categories in terms of which play is characterized, explained, and evaluated. Insofar as these categories attempt to describe what kind of reality we are talking about when we make claims about play, I hope to clarify the metaphysics (...) of play. Once this categorical scheme is made clear, we will be in a better position to evaluate the task of definition, claims about the relation of sport and play, and assertions about the significance of play. First, I place the discussion in the context of Bernard Suits's account of play and some other recent approaches to play. Next, I distinguish the following approaches to play: (a) play as behavior or activity; (b) play as motive, attitude, or state of mind; (c) play as form or structure; (d) play as meaningful experience; (e) play as an ontologically distinctive phenomenon. There is a natural progression in the way the analysis unfolds. In the final section I argue that my analysis generates a pluralist, nonreductive account of play. (shrink)

This paper examines philosophical debates about concepts of biodiversity, making the case for conceptual pluralism. Taking a pragmatist perspective, I argue that normative concepts of biodiversity and eco-centric concepts of biodiversity can serve different purposes. The former would help stress the values of local communities, which have often been neglected by both early scientific approaches to conservation, and by policy makers prioritizing the political or economic interests of specific groups. The latter would help build local research programs independent of (...) pressures from economic or political actors. I employ a case study on environmental research on walnut forests in Kyrgyzstan in support of my argument. Against tendencies to frame different understandings of biodiversity in terms of geographical areas, I propose an interpretation drawing on the philosophy of ecology. Adherence to environmental pragmatism enables a sufficiently complex picture of developing environmental research in the area, capturing issues about scientific framings and local understandings. (shrink)

The article consider the concept of religious pluralism by M. Mendelssohn and some aspects of his theory of knowledge and linguistic theory, lying in the foundation of the pluralism concept. The article shows that Mendelssohn expressed views that are far ahead of his time. His theory of knowledge repeats some lines of Hume's philosophy, which he praised highly, what was not characteristic of the German Enlightenment as a whole. By virtue of this, Mendelssohn can be considered (...) as Kant's predecessor in a positive assessment of Hume. Some of Mendelssohns ideas are further developed in phenomenology. The author argues that Mendelssohns views on the interaction of religions, although they have a number of features that make this thinker related to other thinkers of the Enlightenment, also have a fundamental difference with them. As a result, his religious pluralism concept is close to the modern understanding of religious pluralism. The author also attempts to reveal the reasons why Mendelssohn, despite his great significance for both German philosophy and Jewish culture, was almost forgotten for a long time. (shrink)

This article argues that Mohandas K. Gandhi and Isaiah Berlin remain the two main thinkers of pluralism in the 20th century. Though the two never met and despite their essential differences, the two political thinkers can be read as complementary in order to hold on to the idea of a common human horizon. As such, Gandhi’s transformative conception of pluralism, exemplified by his universal method of transforming liberal citizenship into a civic friendship, offers definitely a way to enlarge (...) the Berlinian concept of value pluralism as an alternative of moral monism. Consequently, the reading of Gandhi could complete Isaiah Berlin’s idea of value pluralism by adding an effective exercise of plurality through his antagonism to monism as a tradition of thought that does not possess the resources to change and the potential for the moral and spiritual growth of humanity. As a result, this article suggests that it is worth trying to strike a balance between the Gandhian and Berlinian concepts of pluralism in order to be able to differentiate pluralism and relativism and to search for a core of shared or universal values which allows us to reach an agreement on at least some moral issues in today’s world. (shrink)

Absence of health, that is, sickness in Africa is viewed in personalistic terms. A disease is explained as effected by 'the active purposeful intervention of an agent, who may be human', non-human (a ghost, an ancestor, an 'evil spirit), or supernatural (a deity or other very powerful being)' (Foster). Illness is thus attributed to breaking of taboos, offending God and/ or ancestral spirits; witchcraft, sorcery, the evil eye, passion by an evil spirit and a curse from parents or from an (...) offended neighbour. In view of these personalistic theories of ill health, treatment is through ritual purification, exorcism or sacrifices. For an appropriate diagnosis and intervention, it is imperative to determine 'who' caused the illness and then 'why' it was caused, to which answers are offered through divination by a healer. This interpretive framework, is applicable to all types of sickness, facilitates co-existence of African traditional healing and biomedical treatment, that is, plurality of health seeking practices. The approach fails to offer a constructive approach and contradicts the biblical healing framework whereby one may not have explanatory causes to a situation of ill health. This article engaged the biblical concept of shalōm as a relevant constructive framework. The Hebrew concept of shalōm, though distinctly salvific, is inclusive of holistic and personalistic healing aspects. The concept encompasses constructive aspects of completeness, wholeness, health, peace, welfare, safety, soundness, tranquillity, prosperity, perfectness, fullness, rest, harmony and the absence of agitation or discord, which provides a useful holistic healing theological framework. It therefore provides a health and well-being framework that is relational, sensitive and applicable to healing patterns in Africa. Using the case study of the Abaluyia people of East Africa, this article discussed bereavement as a state that requires healing and how the biblical framework of shalōm could be applied in fostering bereavement healing. (shrink)

This paper explores convergences and divergences in the thoughts of Gaston Bachelard and Paulin Hountondji and their notions of rational pluralism and true pluralism, respectively. There is a problematic in which for Bachelard rational pluralism can be comprehended as the various epistemological profiles to understand a scientific phenomenon, as well as the coherence that such theories have among themselves, while Huontondji is concerned with criticizing a collective ethnological view of philosophy and considers that the true pluralism (...) is precisely the capacity of philosophical singularities that appropriate the history of philosophy. Using Hountondji's criticism to exemplify the pluralism in African philosophy, his references to Bachelard in [African philosophy - Myth and reality], and other texts, we hope to get a better understanding of the rupture between ‘developments’ and ‘new involvements’ that reconstruct the old knowledge synthesized out of old philosophical perspectives. Here, I look for transversal dialogues among the few references to Bachelard in Hountondji's philosophy to find new possibilities for dialogue and engagement from an African phenomenology perspective. Thus, we study links between European and African thought, so presenting a new perspective on studies of Bachelardian philosophy itself. Keywords: systems, phenomenology, pluralism, discontinuities, African philosophy, Hountondji, Bachelard. (shrink)

Official documents, such as the Word Anti-Doping Code (WADC), argue that sport can be deemed a homogenous and unitary concept. Even where different sports have varying characteristics, the homogenous view of a given sport (‘a sport’ or ‘the sport’) persists. The WADC, international and national sport associations aim to protect the spirit of (the) sport. In this picture, the intersection of sporting integrity and legal processes occupies a vital place. The article will posit that, from a legal perspective sport (...) is heterogeneous due to its governance, regulation, adjudication, and enforcement structures. International and national associations, such as sport federations and leagues, have separate normative orders. These normative orders lead to differences in ensuring sporting integrity. A plural normative environment is inherent in sport; thus, we need to deal with it. The article will conclude that although harmonising norms and interpretations related to sporting integrity through national and global institutions may be acceptable, these must be achieved by promoting good governance and human rights. (shrink)

A great number of investigations suggest that cognition involves both linguistic and cartographic representations. These researches have motivated a pluralist conception of cognition; also, they have been used to clarify how maps differ from linguistic representations. However, the computational processes underlying the interphase between both kinds of representations deserve further attention. In this paper, I argue that, despite their differences, cartographic representations coexist and interact with linguistic representations in interesting ways.

There are many strands in the thought of Charles Taylor, a gathering of philosophical interests diverse enough to embrace both political theory and philosophy of science, epistemology, and practical ethics, Nietzsche and Donald Davidson. If he has not succeeded in generating any supreme synthesis out of this diversity—if, indeed, he has sometimes finessed the material to fit a bigger picture, as in the controversial details of his grand intellectual history of modern consciousness, Sources of the Self—Taylor has nevertheless created, within (...) his own work, a lively conversation, a dialogue at least as expressive and interesting as the one he has repeatedly advocated as the centre of any vibrant intellectual and political life. In Taylor’s philosophical works, plurality is met not with the fractured incommensurability now so often in vogue, but rather with a compelling, if necessarily endless, attempt at deep reconciliation. (shrink)

There are many strands in the thought of Charles Taylor, a gathering of philosophical interests diverse enough to embrace both political theory and philosophy of science, epistemology, and practical ethics, Nietzsche and Donald Davidson. If he has not succeeded in generating any supreme synthesis out of this diversity—if, indeed, he has sometimes finessed the material to fit a bigger picture, as in the controversial details of his grand intellectual history of modern consciousness, Sources of the Self—Taylor has nevertheless created, within (...) his own work, a lively conversation, a dialogue at least as expressive and interesting as the one he has repeatedly advocated as the centre of any vibrant intellectual and political life. In Taylor’s philosophical works, plurality is met not with the fractured incommensurability now so often in vogue, but rather with a compelling, if necessarily endless, attempt at deep reconciliation. (shrink)

Summary The article deals with the concept of religion in the contemporary theology of religions. Many theologians in the current debate work with a general concept of religion. Such a conception of religion unifies the distinctive religious diversities. This article argues that against the background of the previous debate, a theology of religions must proceed from a concept of religion as communication. This concept emerges out of the Christian religious tradition: it carries a particular meaning and (...) hence should not be treated as universally applicable. Starting with a concrete concept of religion, a theology of religion has the task neither to give a foundation for other “religions”, nor that of Christianity. Only this could be a basis for a real pluralistic conception. From this starting point follows the question on how other religions understand religion. (shrink)

This article aims to reconstruct Max Scheler’s conception of three types of knowledge, outlined in his late work Philosophical Perspectives (1928). Scheler distinguished three kinds of knowledge: empirical, used to exercise control over nature, eidetic (essential) and metaphysical. The author reviews the epistemological criteria that underlie this distinction, and its functionalistic assumptions. In the article’s polemic part he accuses Scheler of a) crypto-dualism in his theory of knowledge, which draws insufficient distinctions between metaphysical and eidetic knowledge; b) totally omitting the (...) status of the humanities in his classification of knowledge types; c) consistently developing a philosophy of knowledge without resort to the research tools offered by the philosophy of science, which takes such analyses out of their social and historical context (i.e. how knowledge is created in today’s scientific communities). (shrink)

Hybrid and pluralist accounts of concepts agree that the class of concepts includes a multiplicity of heterogeneous representational structures, such as prototypes, sets of exemplars and theories. In this paper I argue that these accounts agree on two additional central claims related to the ways in which they articulate those structures: each type of representational structure can be used independently in psychological processes, and co-referential concepts are associated in a distinctive way as representations of the same category. Although they disagree (...) on concept individuation, they seem to agree that on a processing dimension there are multiple independent representations for a given category and on a long-term storage dimension concepts that represent the same category conform an epistemic unity. (shrink)

Traditional monist theories of art fail to account for the diversity of objects that intuitively strike many as belonging to the category art. Some today argue that the solution to this problem requires the adoption of some version of pluralism to account for the diversity of art. We examine one recent attempt, which holds that the correct account of art must recognize the plurality of concepts of art. However, we criticize this account of concept pluralism as being (...) unable to offer an explanation of why some concept is an art concept. Instead, many of the disagreements over the definition of art could be reconciled by recognizing that works of art can be valued in a plurality of ways. By recognizing a plurality of values for art, we claim further that the definition of art becomes a non-issue. (shrink)

Soul belief is a universal of human culture and belief in multiple souls is common, especially in pre-modern traditions. This essay illustrates how a three-folded structure appears in the soul concepts of Mongolian shamanistic traditions. The reported accounts of the three souls among various Mongolian ethnic groups are somewhat divergent — especially in their consciousness-related attributes — which may reflect the cultural bias of data collectors, inconsistencies between data providers, and the evolution of these concepts due to historical events, socio-economic (...) changes, and external cultural influences. Despite these confounding effects, the soul concept of Mongolian shamanism is similar in its pluralism to the beliefs of many other cultures. Mongolian Indigenous concepts and their descriptions reveal key elements of consciousness. Although these soul concepts evoke spiritual interpretations, they nevertheless reflect aspects of an innately-disposed mindset which extends conceptualizations of consciousness beyond mind-body dualism. (shrink)

Pluralism about truth is the view that there are many properties, not just one, in virtue of which things are true. Pluralists hope to dodge the objections that face traditional monistic substantive views of truth, as well as those facing deflationary theories of truth. More specifically, pluralists hope to advance an explanatorily potent understanding of truth that can capture the subtleties of various realist and anti-realist domains of discourse, all while avoiding the scope problem. I offer a new objection (...) to pluralism that challenges its fundamental commitment to there being a set of alethic properties in virtue of which claims are true. In its place I offer an alternative view that merges standard truthmaker theory with a primitivist conception of truth. This combination of views satisfies the theoretical desires that pluralists claim for themselves, but without taking on pluralism's host of challenges and problems. (shrink)

Brief consideration of (1) Peirce’s ‘logic of vagueness’, (2) his categories, and (3) the concepts of overdetermination and underdetermination, vagueness and generality, and inconsistency and incompleteness, along with (4) the abrogation of classical Aristotelian principles of logic, bear out the complexity of all relatively rich sign systems. Given this complexity, there is semiotic indeterminacy, which suggests sign limitations, and at the same time it promises semiotic freedom, giving rise to sign proliferation the yield of which is pluralistic, inter-relational semiosis. This (...) proliferation of signs owes its perpetual flowing change in time to the inapplicability of classical logical principles, namely Non-Contradiction and Excluded-Middle, with respect to elements of vagueness and generality in all signs. Hempel’s ‘Inductivity Paradox’ and Goodman’s ‘New Riddle of Induction’ bear out the limitation and freedom of sign making and sign taking. A concrete cultural example, the Spaniards’ world including the Virgin of Guadalupe and the Aztecs world including their Goddess, Tonantzín, are given a Hempel-Goodman interpretation to reveal the ambiguous, vague, and complex nature of intercultural sign systems, further suggesting pluralism. In fact, when taking the ‘limitativetheorems’ of Gödel, Turing, and Chaitin into account, pluralism becomes undeniable, in view of the inconsistency-incompleteness of complex systems. A model for embracing and coping with pluralism suggests itself in the form of contextualized novelty seeking relativism. This form of pluralism takes overdetermination, largely characteristic of Peirce’s Firstness, and underdetermination largely characteristic of Peirce’s Thirdness, into its embrace to reveal a global context capable of elucidating local contexts the collection of which is considerably less than that global view. The entirety of this global context is impossible to encompass, given our inevitable finitude and fallibilism. Yet, we usually manage to cope with processual pluralism, within the play of semiosis. (shrink)

The meaning of function statements is not clear. Several authors have come up with different explications. By interviewing biologists I tried to get a picture of how they think about function. Two explications of Feature X of organism S has function F came to the fore: (1) X contributes to F and F contributes to survival/reproduction of S and (2) X does F and that contributes to the evolutionary development of X in S via natural selection. Most biologists also related (...) function to adaptation. Gould and Vrba criticize the ordinary use of adaptation in biology. They propose to use it only in the sense of features developed by natural selection for their current role and to use exaptation for features enhancing fitness, but not developed for this by natural selection. This, however, leaves a terminological gap, because as a consequence only effects of adaptations are functions. Effects of exaptations and effects which are not beneficial, like the production of heart sounds, are placed on the same level. That is not in accordance with the practice of biology. That is why a distinction is made between general, adaptive and exaptive functions: function as a pluralistic concept. (shrink)

There is a discrepancy between human rights theories and the contemporarily international human rights practice. The discrepancy is not only generated by theexpectable distance between the ideal and the real world, but also generated by the consequence which the orthodox conception of human rights theories cannot proper account for the role of human rights in the contemporarily international relations. Furthermore, the orthodox conception cannot be compatible with political pluralism; for it often justify the ground of human rights with human (...) dignity and presuppose the independence and the autonomy of persons. I propose that the orthodox conception fails to supply two good reasons for dispelling the doubt on the western cultural imperialism---one is human rights may beaccepted by the different cultures and moral codes with the method of overlapping consensus; the other is the orthodox conception does not prefer to liberal values. Instead of the orthodox conception, I suggest that we have to justify the ground of human rights according to the political pluralistic conception if we hope human rights can be universalized in the world. The political pluralistic conception will not only avoid the doubt on the western cultural imperialism, but alsoconsist with the role of human rights in the contemporarily international relations. (shrink)

There is a discrepancy between human rights theories and the contemporarily international human rights practice. The discrepancy is not only generated by theexpectable distance between the ideal and the real world, but also generated by the consequence which the orthodox conception of human rights theories cannot proper account for the role of human rights in the contemporarily international relations. Furthermore, the orthodox conception cannot be compatible with political pluralism; for it often justify the ground of human rights with human (...) dignity and presuppose the independence and the autonomy of persons. I propose that the orthodox conception fails to supply two good reasons for dispelling the doubt on the western cultural imperialism---one is human rights may beaccepted by the different cultures and moral codes with the method of overlapping consensus; the other is the orthodox conception does not prefer to liberal values. Instead of the orthodox conception, I suggest that we have to justify the ground of human rights according to the political pluralistic conception if we hope human rights can be universalized in the world. The political pluralistic conception will not only avoid the doubt on the western cultural imperialism, but alsoconsist with the role of human rights in the contemporarily international relations. (shrink)

There is a discrepancy between human rights theories and the contemporarily international human rights practice. The discrepancy is not only generated by theexpectable distance between the ideal and the real world, but also generated by the consequence which the orthodox conception of human rights theories cannot proper account for the role of human rights in the contemporarily international relations. Furthermore, the orthodox conception cannot be compatible with political pluralism; for it often justify the ground of human rights with human (...) dignity and presuppose the independence and the autonomy of persons. I propose that the orthodox conception fails to supply two good reasons for dispelling the doubt on the western cultural imperialism---one is human rights may beaccepted by the different cultures and moral codes with the method of overlapping consensus; the other is the orthodox conception does not prefer to liberal values. Instead of the orthodox conception, I suggest that we have to justify the ground of human rights according to the political pluralistic conception if we hope human rights can be universalized in the world. The political pluralistic conception will not only avoid the doubt on the western cultural imperialism, but alsoconsist with the role of human rights in the contemporarily international relations. (shrink)

Pluralism is relevant to conceptual engineering in many ways. First of all, we face the issue of pluralism when trying to characterise the very object(s) of conceptual engineering. Is it just concepts? Could concepts be pluralistically conceived for the purposes of conceptual engineering? Or rather, is it concepts and other representational devices as well? Second, one may wonder whether concepts have only one function in our mental life (representation) or, rather, a plurality of functions (including non-representational ones). Third, (...) it is a contended question whether conceptual engineering projects should pursue only one set of values and goals (epistemic ones) or, rather, a variety of values and goals, including non-epistemic ones. Finally, the engineering of a concept may result in a form of “local” conceptual pluralism, which gives rise to its own ontological and semantic challenges. Having explored the various ways in which pluralism becomes important for conceptual engineers, this contribution presents and summarizes the articles published in this special issue. (shrink)

Pluralisms of various sorts are popular in philosophy of science, including those that imply some scientific concept x should be eliminated from science in favour of a plurality of concepts x1, x2, … xn. This article focuses on influential and representative arguments for such eliminative pluralism about the concept species. The main conclusions are that these arguments fail, that all other extant arguments also fail, and that this reveals a quite general dilemma, one that poses a defeasible (...) presumption against many eliminative pluralisms about various scientific concepts. The article ends by outlining a novel integrative alternative in defence of species. 1) Introduction 2) The species Concept, the Category ‘Species’, and the ‘Species’ Category Problem 3) What Are Eliminative Pluralism about species, and the Arguments for It? 4) Evaluation of Arguments 4.1 Splitting? 4.2 Lumping? 4.3 The eliminative pluralist’s dilemma 5) More General Lessons6Species Cohesion: An Integrative Alternative7Conclusion. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper addresses the current debate in environmental ethics regarding the notion of wilderness. It has been argued by J. Baird Callicott and Michael Nelson, William Cronon, and others that our current idea of wilderness is deeply flawed, especially insofar as it draws a sharp dichotomy between us and the rest of nature. This paper first explores what it means (and what it does not) to say that “wilderness” is a constructed concept. It then describes some of the key (...) objections and solutions proposed in order to argue that the best approach to understanding the concept and place of wilderness is to embrace a pluralistic approach. This proposal would allow for mutually inconsistent and incommensurable ideas to co-exist without succumbing to the pitfalls of an anything-goes relativism. (shrink)

Human nature has always been a foundational issue for philosophy. What does it mean to have a human nature? Is the concept the relic of a bygone age? What is the use of such a concept? What are the epistemic and ontological commitments people make when they use the concept? In What’s Left of Human Nature? Maria Kronfeldner offers a philosophical account of human nature that defends the concept against contemporary criticism. In particular, she takes on (...) challenges related to social misuse of the concept that dehumanizes those regarded as lacking human nature (the dehumanization challenge); the conflict between Darwinian thinking and essentialist concepts of human nature (the Darwinian challenge); and the consensus that evolution, heredity, and ontogenetic development results from nurture and nature. After answering each of these challenges, Kronfeldner presents a revisionist account of human nature that minimizes dehumanization and does not fall back on outdated biological ideas. Her account is post-essentialist because it eliminates the concept of an essence of being human; pluralist in that it argues that there are different things in the world that correspond to three different post-essentialist concepts of human nature; and interactive because it understands nature and nurture as interacting at the developmental, epigenetic, and evolutionary levels. On the basis of this, she introduces a dialectical concept of an ever-changing and “looping” human nature. Finally, noting the essentially contested character of the concept and the ambiguity and redundancy of the terminology, she wonders if we should simply eliminate the term “human nature” altogether. (shrink)

The biological species (biospecies) concept applies only to sexually reproducing species, which means that until sexual reproduction evolved, there were no biospecies. On the universal tree of life, biospecies concepts therefore apply only to a relatively small number of clades, notably plants andanimals. I argue that it is useful to treat the various ways of being a species (species modes) as traits of clades. By extension from biospecies to the other concepts intended to capture the natural realities of what (...) keeps taxa distinct, we can treat other modes as traits also, and so come to understand that theplurality of species concepts reflects the biological realities of monophyletic groups.We should expect that specialists in different organisms will tend to favour those concepts that best represent the intrinsic mechanisms that keep taxa distinct in their clades. I will address the question whether modes ofreproduction such as asexual and sexual reproduction are natural classes, given that they are paraphyletic in most clades. (shrink)