The article discusses the issue of how to categorize video games—not the medium of video games, but individual video games. As a lead in to this discussion, the article discusses video game specificity and genericity and moves on to genre theory. On the basis of this discussion, a cognitive experientialist genre framework is sketched, which incorporates both general points from genre theory and theories more specific to the video game domain. The framework is illustrated through a brief example. One virtue (...) of the framework is that it offers a way to bridge the gap between game ontology and player experience; a brief conclusion discusses how the breadth of this gap may depend upon player biographies and also outlines how further work may proceed. (shrink)

Although highly disputed, critical realism (in Ian G. Barbour’s style) is widely known as a tool to relate science and religion. Sympathising with an even more stringent hermeneutical approach, Andreas Losch had argued for a modification of critical realism into the so-called constructive-critical realism to give humanities with its constructive role of the subject due weight in any discussion on how to bridge the apparent gulf between the disciplines. So far, his constructive-critical realism has mainly been developed theologically. This (...) paper will evaluate whether constructive-critical realism is suitable as a philosophy of both science and religion and an appropriate basis for the science and religion discourse. In his original account of the critical realist philosophy of science, Barbour discussed and modified agreement with data, coherence, scope and fertility as criteria for good science, and for religion as well. The article discusses each of the criteria in how far Barbour does justice to the relevant concept, both in science and religion, and it will ask how to eventually modify the criteria for a maybe more sustainable bridge between science and religion, drawing on the idea of constructive-critical realism. Niels Henrik Gregersen’s contextual coherence theory will play a significant role in this regard. The conclusion suggests a deeper meaning of the fertility criterium, embracing ethical fruitfulness as well. As constructive-critical realism fully acknowledges the importance of the role of the knower in the process of knowing, it leads us from pure epistemology into ethics.Contribution: (1) The science and religion debate, inspired by critical realism, is identified as mainly theological discourse about the influence of science on religion; (2) the analysis of truth criteria in Losch’s constructive-critical version of realism proposes an emphasis on correspondence in science and coherence in the humanities; and (3) the deeper meaning of the criterium of fertility in this philosophical stance is highlighted, including ethical fruitfulness. (shrink)

A student's future as a knowledge worker (one who "thinks for a living" with the task of problem solving) is the starting point of this book. With this in mind, the book combines a review of philosophical positions and problems with practical examples and perspectives gained from everyday challenges faced by knowledge workers in their businesses and organizations. Through the use of summative chapters, highlighted key concepts, questions for reflection, and illustrative examples on how to work with the theories presented, (...) the book provides a clear and accessible introduction to this challenging subject. Philosophy of Science primarily addresses students studying language, communication, marketing, economics, and management. However, the survey of the theoretical schools of thought - as well as the discussions on research ethics and the role of research in society - will be equally relevant for other students in the humanities and the natural and social sciences. (shrink)

Many scientists regard mass and energy as the primary currency of nature. In recent years, however, the concept of information has gained importance. In this book, eminent scientists, philosophers, and theologians chart various aspects of information, from quantum information to biological and digital information, in order to understand how nature works. Beginning with a historical treatment of the topic, the book also examines physical and biological approaches to information, and the philosophical, theological, and ethical implications.

This book brings together an impressive group of leading scholars in the sciences of complexity, and a few workers on the interface of science and religion, to explore the wider implications of complexity studies. It includes an introduction to complexity studies and explores the concept of information in physics and biology and various philosophical and religious perspectives. Chapter authors include Paul Davies, Greg Chaitin, Charles Bennett, Werner Loewenstein, Paul Dembski, Ian Stewart, Stuart Kauffman, Harold Morowitz, Arthur Peacocke, and Niels H. (...) Gregersen. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s objections against the possibility of a science of aesthetics were influential on different sides of the analytic/continental divide. Heidegger’s anti-scientism leads him to an alētheic view of artworks which precedes and exceeds any possible aesthetic reduction. Wittgenstein also rejects the relevance of causal explanations, psychological or physiological, to aesthetic questions. The main aim of this paper is to compare Heidegger with Wittgenstein, showing that: there are significant parallels to be drawn between Wittgenstein’s and Heidegger’s anti-scientism about aesthetics, (...) and that their anti-scientism leads both towards partly divergent criticisms of what I will call ‘aestheticism’. The divergence is mainly due to a broader metaphilosophical disagreement concerning appeals to ordinary language. Thus situating the two philosophers’ positions facilitates a possible critical dialogue between analytic and continental approaches in aesthetics. (shrink)

Anche se siamo comunemente abituati a pensare alla scienza come a un qualcosa di assolutamente atemporale e indipendente da tutto, in realtà essa è profondamente influenzata dalla cultura e dalla società del tempo in cui vive. Infatti né la scienza è isolabile dalla società, né la società è isolabile dalla scienza, tanto meno come si sta configurando oggi. Per approfondire questi aspetti, esistono però due visioni antagoniste che bisogna superare: secondo la visione scolastica, retaggio del positivismo ottocentesco ancora molto diffuso (...) fra scienziati e pubblico di non esperti, la scienza è conoscenza senza soggetto conoscente. All'opposto, la visione cinica della scienza, sull'onda di talune elaborazioni della sociologia della scienza, la riduce a nient'altro che a una costruzione di soggetti che partecipano al gioco scientifico, una cultura come altre e da "mediare", e comunque una conoscenza relativa, se non frutto di una costruzione puramente soggettiva, arbitraria, ideologica. Un'analisi della costituzione sociale della scienza può, invece, mirare a un'indagine scientifica sulla scienza proprio configurando una relatività della conoscenza che supera sia l'assolutismo idealistico sia il relativismo soggettivistico. (shrink)

This article explores the relations between the idea of deep incarnation and scientific ideas of an informational universe, in which mass, energy, and information belong together. It is argued that the cosmic Christologies developed in the vein of Cappadocian theology (fourth century) and the Franciscan theologian Bonaventure (thirteenth century) can be interpreted as precursors of an informational worldview by consistently blending “formative” and “material” aspects of creativity. Reversely, contemporary sciences of information can enlarge the scope of the contemporary view of (...) deep incarnation. I propose three hypotheses for showing how and why. First, mass, energy, and information have an equal causal importance for explaining reality. Second, just as transformation presupposes communication, so communication presupposes information. Third, contemporary science can elucidate seminal concerns of the idea of deep incarnation, insofar as informational structures pave the way for information capture, communication, and transformation. At the level of organismic life, new features of embodied cognition and emotion come up, important for understanding the organismic depth of the concrete incarnation in Jesus of Nazareth. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche was among the figures from the history of nineteenth century philosophy that, perhaps surprisingly, some of the Vienna Circle’s members had presented as one of their predecessors. While, primarily for political reasons, most Anglophone figures in the history of analytic philosophy had taken a dim view of Nietzsche, the Vienna Circle’s leader Moritz Schlick admired and praised Nietzsche, rejecting what he saw as a misinterpretation of Nietzsche as a militarist or proto-fascist. Schlick, Frank, Neurath, and Carnap were in (...) different ways committed to the view that Nietzsche made a significant contribution to the overcoming of metaphysics. Some of these philosophers praised the intimate connection Nietzsche drew between his philosophical outlook and empirical studies in psychology and physiology. In his 1912 lectures on Nietzsche, Schlick maintained that Nietzsche overcame an initial Schopenhauerian metaphysical-artistic phase in his thinking, and subsequently remained a positivist until his last writings. Frank and Neurath made the weaker claim that Nietzsche contributed to the development of a positivistic or scientific conception of the world. Schlick and Frank took a further step in seeing the mature Nietzsche as an Enlightenment thinker. (shrink)

In metasemantics, semantic dispositionalism is the view that what makes it the case that, given the value of the relevant parameters, a certain linguistic expression refers to what it does are the speakers’ dispositions. In the literature, there is something like a consensus that the fate of dispositionalism hinges on the status of three arguments, first put forward by Saul Kripke ‒ or at least usually ascribed to him. This paper discusses a different, and strangely neglected, anti-dispositionalist argument, which develops (...) some remarks first put forward by Paul Boghossian and Anandi Hattiangadi and revolves around the idea that semantic dispositionalists have no way to justify their privileging certain dispositions, the ones they take to be reference-determining, over all the others. After some background (Section 1) and a first presentation of the argument (Section 2), I discuss three ways a dispositionalist might try to answer it and find them all wanting (Section 3). (shrink)

Émile Durkheim remains one of the most controversial, and deeply misunderstood, classics of social theory. His work differs from the dominant version of sociology that has essentially accepted the modernist self-description of contemporary societies; and it contradicts the individualism that has come to dominate the social sciences. For everybody who is interested in constructing theoretical alternatives to this individualism, Durkheim's sociology can be a useful inspiration - not only because of the solutions it suggests, but already because of the questions (...) it asks. Making use of the theoretical possibilities offered by the Durkheimian tradition, however, requires going beyond the familiar appropriations. The Oxford Handbook of Émile Durkheim takes stock of the different recent debates on Durkheimian sociology, and makes them accessible to a wide audience spanning various disciplines; this includes crucial debates that, due to language barriers, are not easily accessible for an English-reading public. The handbook's chapters elucidate the controversial key concepts of Durkheimian sociology; situate them within the contemporary political and theoretical debates they were originally responding to; offer surveys of empirical research that uses Durkheimian concepts (on topics that were already central for Durkheim's own work as well as on topics that Durkheim hardly touched upon), thus demonstrating the possibilities of a Durkheimian sociology; bring out the divergent, and competing, ways in which Durkheim's ideas have been appropriated and reformulated within more recent theoretical developments in the social sciences. In doing so, this volume is an important resource for all scholars and students looking to understand Durkheimian sociology. (shrink)

The organic unity between the head and the vital arms of the octopus is proposed as a metaphor for science and religion as an academic field. While the specific object of the field is to pursue second-order reflections on existing and possible relations between sciences and religions, it is argued that several aspects of realism and normativity are constitutive to the field. The vital arms of the field are related to engagements with distinctive scientific theories, specialized philosophy of science, representative (...) theological proposals, and the input from the study of world religions. (shrink)

The neo-Darwinian paradigm, focusing on natural selection of genes responsible for differential adaption, provides the foundation for explaining evolutionary processes. The modern synthesis is broader, however, focusing on organisms rather than on gene transmissions per se. Yet, strands of current biology argue for further supplementation of Darwinian theory, pointing to nonbiotic drivers of evolutionary development, for example, self-organization of physical structures, and the interaction between individual organisms, groups of organisms, and their nonbiotic environments. According to niche construction theory, when organisms (...) and groups develop, they not only adapt to their environments but modify their environments, creating new habitats for later generations. Insofar as ecological niches persist beyond the lifecycle of individual organisms, an ecological inheritance system exists alongside genetic inheritance. Such ecological structures may even facilitate the development of a cultural inheritance system, as we see in humans. The article discusses theological perspectives of such new developments within holistic biology. (shrink)

The dialogue between science and theology is no longer confined to discussing theology, physics and biology, but, as these essays make clear, sociology, psychology & neuroscience are now open for discussions between theologians and scientists.

Abstract:We discuss the role that transnational corporations (TNCs) should play in developing global governance, creating a framework of rules and regulations for the global economy. The central issue is whether TNCs should provide global rules and guarantee individual citizenship rights, or instead focus on maximizing profits. First, we describe the problems arising from the globalization process that affect the relationship between public rules and private firms. Next we consider the position of economic and management theories in relation to the social (...) responsibility of the firm. We argue that instrumental stakeholder theory and business and society research can only partially solve the global governance issue, and that more recent concepts of corporate citizenship and republican business ethics deliver theoretically and practically helpful, fresh insights. However, even these need further development, especially with regard to the legitimacy of corporate political activity. (shrink)

This article investigates the hitherto under-examined relations between affirmative action, paternalism and respect. We provide three main arguments. First, we argue that affirmative action initiatives are typically paternalistic and thus disrespectful towards those intended beneficiaries who oppose the initiatives in question. Second, we argue that not introducing affirmative action can also be disrespectful towards these potential beneficiaries because such inaction involves a failure to adequately recognize their moral worth. Third, we argue that the paternalistic disrespect involved in affirmative action is (...) alleviated when the potential beneficiaries’ preferences against such initiatives are adaptive. We conclude that although there is a relevant sense in which paternalistic affirmative action is disrespectful, it may well be more disrespectful not to pursue such policies. (shrink)

Simondon adopts some concepts of social psychology as ‘in group’ and ‘out group’, namely from Kurt Lewin and Gordon Allport, that allow him to describe the fundamental processes shaping the domain of collective individuation, and to challenge Bergson’s distinction between a ‘closed’ community and an ‘open’ society. Reconstructing Simondon’s sources is necessary to understand how he tries to provide an analysis of the social system without presupposing a given anthropology, but rather exploring different perspectives on the human/nature threshold through the (...) concept of transindividual. In his study of the social system Simondon progressively gives conceptual shape to the processes he calls transindividual thanks to the ontogenetic analysis of the phenomena of belief, work and language. In all these domains, a ‘basic community’ emerges just over the threshold of the biological group, where the structural ambivalence of all collective processes as simultaneously closed and open becomes clear. That is why Simondon does not present the concept of the transindividual as a solution to the epistemological problem of psychic and collective individuation, but rather as the ‘field’ in which a whole series of social, biological and technical dimensions can be made converge towards a science of anthropogenic processes. (shrink)

There is little question as to whether there is good boring art, though its existence raises a number of questions for both the philosophy of art and the philosophy of emotions. How can boredom ever be a desideratum of art? How can our standing commitments concerning the nature of aesthetic experience and artistic value accommodate the existence of boring art? How can being bored constitute an appropriate mode of engagement with a work of art as a work of art? More (...) broadly, how can there be works of art whose very success requires the experience of boredom? Our goal in this paper is threefold. After offering a brief survey of kinds of boring art, we: i) derive a set of questions that we argue constitutes the philosophical problem of boring art; ii) elaborate an empirically informed theory of boredom that furnishes the philosophical problem with a deeper sense of the affect at the heart of the phenomenon; and iii) conclude by offering and defending a solution to the problem that explains why and how artworks might wish to make the experience of boredom key to their aesthetic and artistic success. (shrink)

Many people are worried about the harmful effects of climate change but nevertheless enjoy some activities that contribute to the emission of greenhouse gas (driving, flying, eating meat, etc.), the main cause of climate change. How should such people make choices between engaging in and refraining from enjoyable greenhouse-gas-emitting activities? In this chapter, we look at the answer provided by decision theory. Some scholars think that the right answer is given by interactive decision theory, or game theory; and moreover think (...) that since private climate decisions are instances of the prisoner’s dilemma, one rationally should engage in these activities provided that one enjoys them. Others think that the right answer is given by expected utility theory, the best-known version of individual decision theory under risk and uncertainty. In this chapter, we review these different answers, with a special focus on the latter answer and the debate it has generated. (shrink)

Systems theory is proposed as a major resource for reconceptualizing a Christian theology of creation. Section I outlines the principles of the theory of autopoietic systems and discusses in particular Manfred Eigen's and Stuart Kauffman's differing views of the emergence of life. Section II shows how biblical texts conceive of God's “blessing” as a divine installment and reshaping of spatio‐temporal fields for creaturely self‐productivity. On this double basis, Section III undertakes a constructive attempt to formulate a theology of self‐productivity within (...) a Trinitarian framework. The unity of divine self‐consistency and capacity for self‐relativization is seen as the clue for understanding how God not only sustains the world in general but also influences particular processes by changing the overall probability pattern of evolving systems. (shrink)

Memory of historical trauma has a unique power to generate works of art. This book analyzes the relation of public memory to history, forgetting, and selective memory in Berlin, Buenos Aires, and New York—three late-twentieth-century cities that have confronted major social or political traumas. Berlin experienced the fall of the Berlin Wall and the city’s reemergence as the German capital; Buenos Aires lived through the dictatorships of the 1970s and 1980s and their legacy of state terror and disappearances; and New (...) York City faces a set of public memory issues concerning the symbolic value of Times Square as threatened public space and the daunting task of commemorating and rebuilding after the attack on the World Trade Center. Focusing on the issue of monumentalization in divergent artistic and media practices, the book demonstrates that the transformation of spatial and temporal experience by memory politics is a major cultural effect of globalization. (shrink)

Im dreizehnten Aphorismus von Jenseits von Gut und Böse distanziert sich Nietzshe von Spinozas Begriff der Selbsterhaltung. Hierfür gibt Nietzsche zwei Gründe an: Zum einen hält er den Selbsterhaltungstrieb, als Prinzip genommen, für überflüssig und setzt ihm den Willen zur Macht als fundamentaleres, die Selbsterhaltung bereits in sich begriefendes Prinzip entgegen. Zum anderen sei besagter Trieb zudem noch eine "Inconsequenz", sofern Spinozas antiteleologisches System durch den teleologischen Gedanken der Selbsterhaltung unterminiert werde. Die Abhandlung macht Adolf Trendelenburgs Aufsatz Ueber Spinoza's Grundgedanken (...) und dessen Erfolg als mutmaßliche Quelle für Nietzsches Diktum "Inconsequenz Spinoza's" ausfinding und umreißt kurz Trendelenburgs diesbezügliche Argumentation. Im Anschluss daran wird die Frage diskutiert, ob Nietzsche's Kritik an Spinoza ihre berechtigung hat, oder ob sie selbst inkonsequent ist.In the thirteenth aphorism of Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche refuses Spinoza's concept of self-preservation. Nietzsche gives two reasons: First, he considers self-preservation a superfluous principle while the will to power is a more fundamental one. Secondly, Nietzsche calls the self-preservation an "inconsistency" since it would ruin Spinoza's anti-teleological system by infiltrating it with a teleological concept. The article detects Adolf Trendelburg's treatise Ueber Spinoza's Grundgedanken und desen Erfolog as most likely to be the source of Nietzsche's words "Spinoza's inconsistency" and summarize Trendelenburg's argumentation against Spinoza. Afterwards it is discussed whether Nietzsche's criticism at Spinoza is accurate or inconsistent itself. (shrink)

The central contention of this article is that the classificatory scheme of contemporary affective science, with its traditional categories of emotion, anger, fear, and so on, is no longer suitable to the needs of affective science. Unlike psychological constructionists, who have urged the transition from a discrete to a dimensional approach in the study of affective phenomena, I argue that we can stick to a discrete approach as long as we accept that traditional emotion categories will have to be transformed (...) in order to do any scientific work. I conclude by articulating some general rules for turning traditional emotion categories into suitable scientific tools. (shrink)

Previous research has found that more embodied insults are identified faster and more accurately than less embodied insults. The linguistic processing of embodied compliments has not been well explored. In the present study, participants completed two tasks where they identified insults and compliments, respectively. Half of the stimuli were more embodied than the other half. We examined the late positive potential component of event-related potentials in early, middle, and late time windows. Increased embodiment resulted in improved response accuracy to compliments (...) in both tasks, whereas it only improved accuracy for insults in the compliment detection task. More embodied stimuli elicited a larger LPP than less embodied stimuli in the early time window. Insults generated a larger LPP in the late time window in the insult task; compliments generated a larger LPP in the early window in the compliment task. These results indicate that electrophysiological correlates of emotional language perception are sensitive to both top-down and bottom-up processes. (shrink)

Traditionally, the manufacturer/operator of a machine is held (morally and legally) responsible for the consequences of its operation. Autonomous, learning machines, based on neural networks, genetic algorithms and agent architectures, create a new situation, where the manufacturer/operator of the machine is in principle not capable of predicting the future machine behaviour any more, and thus cannot be held morally responsible or liable for it. The society must decide between not using this kind of machine any more (which is not a (...) realistic option), or facing a responsibility gap, which cannot be bridged by traditional concepts of responsibility ascription. (shrink)

Edmund Husserl is regarded as the founder of transcendental phenomenology, one of the major traditions to emerge in twentieth-century philosophy. In this book Andrea Staiti unearths and examines the deep theoretical links between Husserl's phenomenology and the philosophical debates of his time, showing how his thought developed in response to the conflicting demands of Neo-Kantianism and life-philosophy. Drawing on the work of thinkers including Heinrich Rickert, Wilhelm Dilthey and Georg Simmel, as well as Husserl's writings on the natural and human (...) sciences that are not available in English translation, Staiti illuminates a crucial chapter in the history of twentieth-century philosophy and enriches our understanding of Husserl's thought. His book will interest scholars and students of Husserl, phenomenology, and twentieth-century philosophy more generally. (shrink)

According to relational egalitarianism, justice requires equal relations. The theory applies to those who stand in the relevant social relations. In this paper, I distinguish four different accounts of what it means to be socially related and argue that in all of them, self-relations—how a person relates to themselves—fall within the scope of relational egalitarianism. I also point to how this constrains what a person is allowed to do to themselves.

Responsibility as accountability is normally taken to have stricter control conditions than responsibility as attributability. A common way to argue for this claim is to point to differences in the harmfulness of blame involved in these different kinds of responsibility. This paper argues that this explanation does not work once we shift our focus from other-directed blame to self-blame. To blame oneself in the accountability sense is to feel guilt and feeling guilty is to suffer. To blame oneself in the (...) attributability sense, it will be argued, is to feel shame and feeling shame is also to suffer. The different control conditions cannot be explained by a difference in the harm of blame. Instead, this paper argues that accountability and attributability are governed by different kinds of appropriateness: an agent S is accountability blameworthy for X only if S deserves to feel guilty; an agent S is attributability blameworthy for X only if it is fitting that S feels shame for X. (shrink)

Neural devices have the capacity to enable users to regain abilities lost due to disease or injury – for instance, a deep brain stimulator (DBS) that allows a person with Parkinson’s disease to regain the ability to fluently perform movements or a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) that enables a person with spinal cord injury to control a robotic arm. While users recognize and appreciate the technologies’ capacity to maintain or restore their capabilities, the neuroethics literature is replete with examples of (...) concerns expressed about agentive capacities: A perceived lack of control over the movement of a robotic arm might result in an altered sense of feeling responsible for that movement. Clinicians or researchers being able to record and access detailed information of a person’s brain might raise privacy concerns. A disconnect between previous, current, and future understandings of the self might result in a sense of alienation. The ability to receive and interpret sensory feedback might change whether someone trusts the implanted device or themselves. Inquiries into the nature of these concerns and how to mitigate them has produced scholarship that often emphasizes one issue – responsibility, privacy, authenticity, or trust – selectively. However, we believe that examining these ethical dimensions separately fails to capture a key aspect of the experience of living with a neural device. In exploring their interrelations, we argue that their mutual significance for neuroethical research can be adequately captured if they are described under a unified heading of agency. On these grounds, we propose an “Agency Map” which brings together the diverse neuroethical dimensions and their interrelations into a comprehensive framework. With this, we offer a theoretically-grounded approach to understanding how these various dimensions are interwoven in an individual’s experience of agency. (shrink)