This book presents a novel metaphysics of concrete entities. The author uses the theory developed to address three major topics in the metaphysics of concreta: fundamentality, persistence over time, and phenomenal consciousness. The book provides a new theory of what "bundles" particular property instances, or tropes, into material property bearers. The theory is based on two new ideas. The first is that the primitive nature of one sui generis monadic property called markedness bears on the bundling of other properties' tropes. (...) The second idea is that the geometric and topological features of a given markedness trope help to determine which tropes it bundles. The author argues that this new markedness bundle theory determines all property co-instantiation at the levels of both type and token, positioning markedness tropes as the fundamental concreta. The theory also explains bundling across time, yielding an advantageous account of material persistence. Finally, markedness tropes operate as de facto panprotopsychist property instances: fundamental non-consciousness tropes that uniquely explain where and why consciousness properties are exemplified. The book solidifies the case for markedness through sustained critical analysis of competing theories of fundamentality and persistence, focusing in part on their inability to account for unending mereological and plural structures. Concrete Particulars will appeal to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article studies multi-stakeholder initiatives as spaces for both deliberation and contestation between constituencies with competing discourses and disputed values, beliefs, and preferences. We review different theoretical perspectives on MSIs, which see them mainly as spaces to find solutions to market problems, as spaces of conflict and bargaining, or as spaces of consensus. In contrast, we build on a contestatory deliberative perspective, which gives equal value to both contestation and consensus. We identify four types of internal contestation which can be (...) present in MSIs—procedural, inclusiveness, epistemic, and ultimate-goal—and argue that embracing contestation and engaging in ongoing revision of provisional agreements, criteria, and goals can enhance the democratic quality of MSIs. Finally, we explore the implications of this perspective for theorizing about the democratic quality in MSIs and about the role of corporations in transnational governance. (shrink)

From the author of Setting Limits comes a challenging exploration of the proper goals of medicine in our rapidly changing society--a work destined to spark debate and influence policy for years to come.

Two striking claims are advanced on behalf of the free energy principle in cognitive science and philosophy: that it identifies a condition of the possibility of existence for self-organising systems; and that it has important implications for our understanding of how the brain works, defining a set of process theories—roughly, theories of the structure and functions of neural mechanisms—consistent with the free energy minimising imperative that it derives as a necessary feature of all self-organising systems. I argue that the conjunction (...) of claims and rests on a fallacy of equivocation. The FEP can be interpreted in two ways: as a claim about how it is possible to redescribe the existence of self-organising systems, and as a claim about how such systems maintain their existence. Although the Descriptive FEP plausibly does identify a condition of the possibility of existence for self-organising systems, it has no important implications for our understanding of how the brain works. Although the Explanatory FEP would have such implications if it were true, it does not identify a condition of the possibility of existence for self-organising systems. I consider various ways of responding to this conclusion, and I explore its implications for the role and importance of the FEP in cognitive science and philosophy. (shrink)

Each year, over 200 million people are infected with the malaria parasite, nearly half a million of whom succumb to the disease. Emerging genetic technologies could, in theory, eliminate the burden of malaria throughout the world by intentionally eradicating the mosquitoes that transmit the disease. In this paper, we offer an ethical examination of the intentional eradication of Anopheles gambiae, the main malaria vector of sub-Saharan Africa. In our evaluation, we focus on two main considerations: the benefit of alleviating the (...) malaria burden, and the loss of value that would accompany the eradication of the species. We outline a typology of the different ways in which species are valued or could be valuable, then use that typology to appraise the value of the species in question. We argue that Anopheles gambiae has minor (and redundant) instrumental value, little final subjective value and no objective final value. (shrink)

In this book, Daniel K. Miller articulates a new vision of human and animal relationships based on the foundational love ethic within Christianity. Framed around Jesus' parable of the Good Samaritan, Animal Ethics and Theologythoughtfully examines the shortcomings of utilitarian and rights-based approaches to animal ethics. By considering the question of animals within the Christian concept of neighbourly love, Miller provides an alternative narrative for understanding the complex relationships that humans have with other animals. This book addresses significant theological (...) questions such as: Does being created in the image of God present a meaningful distinction between humans and other animals? What does it mean for humans to have dominion over animals? Is meat eating a moral problem for Christians? In addition to drawing out the significance of Christian theology for field of animal ethics this book also engages environmental and feminist ethics. Miller brings a theological perspective to such questions as: Should care for animals be distinguished from care for the environment, and what role should human emotions play in our ethical dealings with other animals? As the title suggests, this book provides fresh insight into the theological significance of human relationships with other animals. mental and feminist ethics. Miller brings a theological perspective to such questions as: Should care for animals be distinguished from care for the environment, and what role should human emotions play in our ethical dealings with other animals? As the title suggests, this book provides fresh insight into the theological significance of human relationships with other animals. (shrink)

Does trust play a significant role in the appreciation of art? If so, how does it operate? We argue that it does, and that the mechanics of trust operate both at a general and a particular level. After outlining the general notion of ‘art-trust’—the notion sketched is consistent with most notions of trust on the market—and considering certain objections to the model proposed, we consider specific examples to show in some detail that the experience of works of art, and the (...) attribution of art-relevant properties or characterisations to works of art, very often involves the notion of trust; in such cases—perhaps most or even, implicitly, all—the question ‘Do I trust the artist (or art-maker)?’, is inescapable. (shrink)

In Lukács: Praxis and the Absolute, Daniel Andrés López reassembles Lukács’s philosophy of praxis on a Hegelian basis, as a conceptual-historical totality, both defending him and proposing an unprecedented, immanent critique that raises problems for Marxian philosophy as a whole.

The vivid terms, "Top-down" and "Bottom-up" have become popular in several different contexts in cognitive science. My task today is to sort out some different meanings and comment on the relations between them, and their implications for cognitive science.

ABSTRACT This article advances a novel way of understanding humor and stand-up comedy. I propose that the relationship between the comedian and her audience is understood by way of trust, where the comedian requires the trust of her audience for her humor to succeed. The comedian may hold the trust of the audience in two domains. She may be trusted as to the form of the humor, such as whether she is joking. She may also be trusted as to the (...) content of the joke. This approach has two distinct virtues. The first is that it makes sense of partial successes. These are cases where the humor neither completely succeeds nor fails because the audience does not fully trust the comedian. The second is that it explains intuitions about ethically dubious humor and why certain classes of humor, especially those dealing in racialized and gendered identities, are more readily accepted from humorists of those identities. (shrink)

John Dewey's classical pragmatism, Daniel M. Savage asserts, can be used to provide a self-development-based justification of liberal democracy that shows the current debate between liberal individualism and republican communitarianism to ...

The topic of my dissertation is satire. This seems to excite many people, and over the past four years I have heard many variations of a similar refrain: “Oh, wow. You’re studying satire? That’s very topical. You must have a lot of material to work with.” There is a way in which this is true, though I suspect in a way that diverges from the way that most of my interlocutors believed. I suspect that the material they imagined me to (...) be working with was the output of Donald Trump, first a candidate for and now holder of the office of President of the United States. That is not the material I find interesting. More interesting to me is their statement. It evinces a number of beliefs that I find interesting, chief among them that Trump makes the current period particularly apt for satire, as if a doddery and incompetent ruling class is somehow a recent phenomenon. And I suspect that underneath this belief in the aptness of satire is a belief in the power of satire. Satire is somehow how people are going to strike back at the vice-governed fools who rule us. Those beliefs are the material I want to work with. This is my interest in satire, then: not so much what it is about satire that makes it powerful, but what is it about satire that makes people think it is powerful? And what is it about satire that makes people think it is powerful when there is pretty powerful evidence that it is not? Unfortunately, here is where I run into the problem that in a very important way I do not have a lot of material to work with. There is not an awful lot on satire within the analytic tradition: outside of a few references to satire, analytic discussions of satire are limited to two short articles. Accordingly, I have taken the task of my dissertation to be to create an account of satire that helps to bring forward why satire is a thing that people can imagine to be powerful, that they can imagine to be politically effective. My dissertation will effectively have two halves, one where I build my account and one where I begin to apply it. The purpose of applying my account, which will comprise the final two chapters, will not be to show its implications so much as how it can be used. My goal will not so much be to give definitive answers about the nature of satire, but rather to give a demonstration of how my account facilitates engaging questions about the role of satire in social and political context. (shrink)

While there are interesting connections between literature and evil, there is as of yet no systematic collection of models of evil to study literature. This is problematic, since literature is among other things an evaluative discourse and the most basic evaluative category is the polarity of good versus evil. In addition, evil shows important affinities with basic narratological principles. To initiate a discussion of models of evil for the analysis of literature, this article organizes a dozen models of evil into (...) four groups. The first consists of a core model which coincides with basic narratological elements in character analysis and narrative tension. The second group contains two pre-modern models of evil, defilement and moral-natural evil. The third group takes its cue from personality theory and proposes the five-factor model of personality and an enriched “dark triad,” and, to balance description against narration, a model which categorizes kinds of murder. The last group organizes six models around the thematic opposition between nature and society, an opposition which forms the backbone of Western philosophy and narrative. To test their validity, the models are applied to a series of literary examples/characters, above all Grendel, Browning’s “My Last Duchess,” and Carol Oates’ short story “Heat.”. (shrink)

This is the English version of the article, originally published in French as "Justice Postcoloniale" [Postcolonial justice].

Argues for political liberalism as a process-oriented view and process philosophy as a politically liberal view Daniel A. Dombrowski brings together the thought of the 20th-century philosophy's greatest political liberal, John Rawls, with the thought of the great process philosophers, Alfred North Whitehead and Charles Hartshorne. He shows that political liberalism is intimately linked with process philosophy, renaming it 'process liberalism'. He justifies this process liberalism in contrast to four potentially troublesome sources or influences: metaphysics, religion, right-wing politics and (...) left-wing politics. Dombrowski engages a series of interlocutors and alternative positions including Franklin I. Gamwell, Timothy D. Snyder, Martin Heidegger and Karl Marx. In conclusion, he offers a compelling, intricate and resourceful argument for nonhuman animal rights based on Rawlsian principles, which in turn forms the basis of a future environmental ethics. (shrink)

The experience of authorship arises when we feel that observed effects (e.g., the onset of a light) are caused by our own actions (e.g., pushing a switch). This study tested whether dysphoric persons’ authorship ascription can be modulated implicitly in a situation in which the exclusivity of the cause of effects is ambiguous. In line with the idea that depressed individuals’ self-schemata include general views of uncontrollability, in a subliminal priming task we observed that dysphoric (compared with nondysphoric) participants experienced (...) lower authorship of action effects when the self-concept was primed. Priming the potential effects of an action just prior to their occurrence, however, increased experiences of authorship in all participants and eliminated the effect of self-concept priming on dysphoric participants’ authorship experiences. These findings suggest that the human mental system seizes on a match between primed and actual action effect to establish a sense of authorship, even in a state of depression when persons have weak self-views of causing behavioral outcomes. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

In this engaging volume, Daniel Gardner explains the way in which the Four Books--_Great Learning_, _Analects_, _Mencius_, and _Maintaining Perfect Balance_--have been read and understood by the Chinese since the twelfth century. Selected passages in translation are accompanied by Gardner's comments, which incorporate selections from the commentary and interpretation of the renowned Neo-Confucian thinker, Zhu Xi. This study provides an ideal introduction to the basic texts in the Confucian tradition from the twelfth through the twentieth centuries. It guides the (...) reader through Zhu Xi's influential interpretation of the Four Books, showing how Zhu, through the genre of commentary, gave new coherence and meaning to these foundational texts. Since the Four Books with Zhu Xi's commentary served as the basic textbook for Chinese schooling and the civil service examinations for more than seven hundred years, this book illustrates as well the nature of the standard Chinese educational curriculum. (shrink)

From Nietzsche's early writings to those marking the end of his intellectual life, the dynamics of what he called "physiology" permeate virtually every facet of his philosophical enterprise. In the following investigation, these dynamics are explored as an interpretive key to not only the dominant themes but also the philosophical motive underlying Nietzsche's philosophy. This motive is described in terms of his diagnosis and attempted cure for the disease of nihilism. In this we maintain that Nietzsche's foremost philosophical task is (...) that of a cultural physician. ;In pursuit of this theme, Nietzsche's "clinical standpoint" is explored and applied with regard to Socrates and Jesus Christ as two case studies in decadence. These two "cases" are a simultaneous physiological investigation into both the ancient Greek and Hebrew cultures. ;This investigation concludes with a detailed analysis of the physiological significance of the Revaluation of all Values, Eternal Recurrence, the Overman and Dionysus as integral to curing the sickness of nihilism. (shrink)

Philosophical accounts of humour standardly account for humour in terms of what happens within a person. On these internalist accounts, humour is to be understood in terms of cognition, perception, and sensation. These accounts, while valuable, are poorly-situated to engage the social functions of humour. They have difficulty engaging why we value humour, why we use it define ourselves and our friendships, and why it may be essential to our self-esteem. In opposition to these internal accounts, I offer a social (...) account of humour. This account approaches humour as a social practice. It foregrounds laughter and participation, and thereby gives an account of humour that helps to understand why we value humour, why we use it as we do, and why we use it to define our relationship to the world. (shrink)

When we talk about globalization, we tend to focus on its social and economic benefits. In Governance in the New Global Disorder, the political philosopher Daniel Innerarity considers its unsettling and largely unacknowledged consequences. The "opening" of different societies to new ideas, products, and forms of prosperity has introduced a persistent uncertainty, or disorder, into everyday life. Multinational corporations have weakened sovereignty. We no longer know who is in control or who is responsible. Economies can collapse without sufficient warning, (...) and the effort to rebuild can drag on for years. Piracy is everywhere. Is there any way to balance the interests of state, marketplace, and society in this new construct of power? Since national economies have become deterritorialized and political interdependencies aggravate our common vulnerabilities, Innerarity contends that there is no other solution except to move toward global governance and a denationalization of justice. Globalization tries to unify the world through technologies, the economy, and cultural products and styles, but it cannot articulate or regulate political and legal equivalents. Everyone faces the same risks to their security, food supply, health, financial stability, and environment, and these risks demand a new global politics of humanity. In her foreword, the sociologist Saskia Sassen isolates the key takeaways from Innerarity's argument and the solutions they present to growing global tensions. (shrink)

After more than a century in which social learning was blackboxed by evolutionary biologists, psychologists and economists, there is now a thriving industry in cognitive neuroscience producing computational models of learning from and about other agents. This is a hugely positive development. The tools of computational cognitive neuroscience are rigorous and precise. They have the potential to prise open the black box. However, we argue that, from the perspective of a scientific realist, these tools are not yet being applied in (...) an optimal way. To fulfil their potential, the shiny new methods of cognitive neuroscience need to be better coordinated with old-fashioned, contrastive experimental designs. Inferences from model complexity to cognitive complexity, of the kind made by those who favour lean interpretations of behaviour (‘associationists’), require social learning to be tested in challenging task environments. Inferences from cognitive complexity to social specificity, made by those who favour rich interpretations (‘mentalists’), call for non-social control experiments. A parsimonious model that fits current data is a good start, but carefully designed experiments are needed to distinguish models that tell us how social learning _could_ be done from those that tell us how it is _really_ done. (shrink)

Advocates of radical enactivism maintain that contentful cognition is kinky, and that we need a kinky explanation of its natural origins (Hutto & Satne 2017, Hutto, D. D., & Myin, E. (2017). Evolving enactivism. MIT Press.). In advancing this idea, they maintain that there are qualitatively important cognitive differences between creatures capable of full-fledged contentful thought and speech and those which are not. Moreover, they maintain that the capacity for full-fledged contentful cognition needs special kind of explanation – it needs (...) an explanation that isn’t a simple tale of the mere elaboration or embellishment of prior existing forms of cognition. Moyal-Sharrock (2021a, 2021b) rejects the need to introduce kinks of either sort. This contribution responds to her critical assessment, defending the radical enactivist stance on the need to keep contentful cognition kinky. (shrink)

Clinical trials of xenotransplantation (XTx) may begin early in the next decade, with kidneys from genetically modified pigs transplanted into adult humans. If successful, transplanting pig hearts into children with advanced heart failure may be the next step. Typically, clinical trials have a specified end date, and participants are aware of the amount of time they will be in the study. This is not so with XTx. The current ethical consensus is that XTx recipients must consent to lifelong monitoring. While (...) this presents challenges to the right to withdraw in the adult population, additional and unanswered questions also linger in the paediatric population. In paediatric XTx, parents or guardians consent not only to the initial treatment of the child but also to lifelong monitoring, thus making a decision whose consequences will remain present as the child develops the capacity for assent, and finally the capacity for informed consent or refusal. This article presents and evaluates unanswered paediatric ethical questions in regard to the right to withdraw from XTx follow-up in the paediatric population. (shrink)

Daniel C. Dennett " Is Perception the 'Leading Edge' of Memory? " Consciousness appears to us to consist of a sequence of contentful items, arranged in a sequence, the so-called "stream of consciousness," in which each item in turn bursts quite suddenly into consciousness and thereby enters memory, perhaps only briefly to be remembered, and then forgotten. I think that hidden in this comfortable and largely innocent picture of consciousness is a deep and seductive mistake. I intend to expose (...) and elucidate that mistake, and describe an alternative vision. (shrink)

Wrestling and arguing with God: between insider and outsider African perspectives -- Introduction to Richard Kearney's intellectual autobiography: where do you come from, Richard Kearney? -- Where I speak from: a short intellectual autobiography -- Phenomenology in South Africa: an indirect encounter with Richard Kearney -- Transcendence and anatheism -- Response to Richard Kearney's Anatheism: Anatheism and holy folly -- Kearney between poles: is too much lost in the middle? -- Strangers, Gods and Africa: in dialogue with Richard Kearney on (...) Otherness -- Approaching the threshold: hospitality as a pedagogical wager in the work of Richard Kearney -- God-talk, the biblical prophets and Richard Kearney -- 'Strange' theology: engaging with Richard Kearney -- Trinitarian theology and Richard Kearney's anatheism: an engagement -- After God but behind the Cross: the procession as a way to re-encounter God in a culture beyond classical liturgy -- Touch gives rise to thought: Paul Ricoeur and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela on mutual recognition and carnal hermeneutics -- Towards hospitality between enemies -- Across oceans: a conversation on otherness, hospitality and welcoming a strange God. (shrink)

This paper argues that deciding on whether the cognitive sciences need a Representational Theory of Mind matters. Far from being merely semantic or inconsequential, the answer we give to the RTM-question makes a difference to how we conceive of minds. How we answer determines which theoretical framework the sciences of mind ought to embrace. The structure of this paper is as follows. Section 1 outlines Rowlands’s argument that the RTM-question is a bad question and that attempts to answer it, one (...) way or another, have neither practical nor theoretical import. Rowlands concludes this because, on his analysis, there is no non-arbitrary fact of the matter about which properties something must possess in order to qualify as a mental representation. By way of reply, we admit that Rowlands’s analysis succeeds in revealing why attempts to answer the RTM-question simpliciter are pointless. Nevertheless, we show that if specific formulations of the RTM-question are stipulated, then it is possible, conduct su... (shrink)

Daniel, Michael E Review(s) of: Benedict XVI: A guide for the perplexed, by Tracey Rowland, London: T and T Clark International, 2010, pp.160, $29.95.

Health care has increasingly come to be understood as a commodity. The ethical implications of such an understanding are significant. The author argues that health care is not a commodity because health care (1) is non-proprietary, (2) serves the needs of persons who, as patients, are uniquely vulnerable, (3) essentially involves a special human relationship which ought not be bought or sold, (4) helps to define what is meant by necessity and cannot be considered a commodity when subjected to rigorous (...) conceptual analysis. The Oslerian conception that medicine is a calling and not a business ought to be reaffirmed by both the profession and the public. Such a conception would have significant ramifications for patient care and health care policy. (shrink)

A prominent historiographic theme in the past decade has been a movement away from causal explanation of large-scale processes and outcomes and toward narrative interpretation of singular historical processes. This article argues for the continued vitality of large-scale historical inquiry and surveys the historiographic issues that arise in large-scale historical explanation. The article proceeds through an examination of several important recent examples of large-scale history: comparative history of Europe and China, the history of alternative forms of industrial organization, and the (...) history of technology. These three cases provide the basis for a conception of what may be called "conjunctural contingent meso-level" explanations: explanations that identify intermediate-level structures and processes and highlight both the structural factors that govern change and the multiple pathways that change can take. (shrink)

. Between 1833 and 1835, Victor Cousin and F.W.J. Schelling engaged in an “amical but serious critique” of each other’s philosophies. I argue that, despite perceptions to the contrary, key to this exchange is a common vision of an atypical, speculative empiricism. That is, against the grain of most commentaries, I contend that there are significant similarities between Cousin’s and Schelling’s philosophies of the early 1830s—similarities that converge on the possibility of a post-Kantian speculative empiricism, which they respectively dub metaphysical (...) psychology or a priori empiricism. (shrink)

El autor plantea una consideración "panóptica" de la Historia, a partir de la cual se abre a la Utopía y la Providencia realizada en el "verum-factum" de Vico.The author considers a "panoptical" consideration of History, which would open the possibility of Utopia and Providence, through Vico's "verum-factum".

Internal relations are nothing over and above the terms of the relation.

Kant's theory of judgment establishes the conceptual framework for understanding the subtle relationships between the experimental scientist, the modern instrument, and nature's atomic particles. The principle of purposiveness which governs judgment has also a role in implicitly guiding modern experimental science. In Part 1 we explore Kant's philosophy of science as he shows how knowledge of material nature and unobservable entities is possible. In Part 2 we examine the way in which Kant's treatment of judgment, with its operating principle of (...) purposiveness, enters into his critical project and underlies the possibility of rational science. In Part 3 we show that the centrality given to judgment in Kant's conception of science provides philosophical insight into the investigation of atomic substances in modern chemistry. (shrink)