This book engages with what are widely recognized as the two core dimensions of emotion. When we are afraid, glad or disappointed, we feel a certain way; moreover, our emotion is intentional or directed at something: we are afraid of something, glad or disappointed about something. Connecting with a vital strand of recent philosophical thinking, I conceive of these two aspects of emotion as unified. Examining different possible ways of developing the view that the feeling dimension of emotion is itself (...) intentional, I argue against the currently popular view that it is a form of perception-like receptivity to value. I instead propose that emotional feeling is a specific type of response to value, an affective ‘position-taking’. This alternative conceives of emotional feeling as intimately related to our cares and concerns. While situating itself within the analytic-philosophical debate on emotion, the discussion crucially draws on ideas from the early phenomenological tradition in an attempt to think past the theoretical strictures of many contemporary approaches to this subject. The result is a new view of emotional feeling as a thoroughly personal form of engagement with value. (shrink)

Webber's perceptive new introduction helps to decipher this challenging, seminal work, placing it in the context of the author's work and the history of ...

It is popular to hold that our primary epistemic access to specific response-dependent properties like the fearsome or admirable (or so-called ‘affective properties’) is constituted by the corresponding emotion. I argue that this view is incompatible with a widely held meta-ethical view, according to which affective properties have deontic force. More specifically, I argue that this view cannot accommodate for the requirement that deontic entities provide guidance. If affective properties are to guide the formation of the corresponding emotion, our primary (...) access to them cannot be provided by that same emotion. (shrink)

Emotion Review, Volume 14, Issue 4, Page 244-253, October 2022. This article is a précis of my 2019 monograph The World-Directedness of Emotional Feeling: On Affect and Intentionality. The book engages with a growing trend of philosophical thinking according to which the felt dimension and the intentionality of emotion are unified. While sympathetic to the general approach, I argue for a reconceptualization of the form of intentionality that emotional feelings are widely thought to possess and, accordingly, of the kind of (...) role they play in our mental lives. More specifically, I argue that the way we feel in having an emotion is not a perception-like awareness of evaluative properties of its object, but instead constitutes the taking of a stand or position on this object in light of its evaluative properties. (shrink)

A discourse on the arts and sciences -- A discourse on the origin of inequality -- A discourse on political economy -- The general society of the human race -- The social contract.

The aim of this paper is to put into context the historical, foundational and philosophical significance of category theory. We use our historical investigation to inform the various category-theoretic foundational debates and to point to some common elements found among those who advocate adopting a foundational stance. We then use these elements to argue for the philosophical position that category theory provides a framework for an algebraic in re interpretation of mathematical structuralism. In each context, what we aim to show (...) is that, whatever the significance of category theory, it need not rely upon any set-theoretic underpinning. (shrink)

Revolutionary in its own time and controversial to this day, this work is a permanent classic of political theory and a key source of democratic belief. Rousseau's concepts of "the general will" as a mode of self-interest uniting for a common good, and the submission of the individual to government by contract inform the heart of democracy, and stand as its most contentious components today. Also included in this edition is Rousseau's Discourse on Political Economy", a key transitional work between (...) his Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract. This new translation offers fresh insight into a cornerstone of political thought, which is further illuminated by a comprehensive introduction and notes. (shrink)

This paper provides a typology of appeals to authority, identifying three distinct types: that which is based on a command; that which is based on expertise; and that which is based on dignity. Each type is distinguished with respect to the reaction that a failure to follow it ordinarily evokes. The rhetorical roots of Locke's ad verecundiam are traced to the rhetorical practices of ancient Rome.

This paper examines the history of animal behavior studies after the synthesis period. Three episodes are considered: the adoption of the theory of natural selection, the mathematization of ideas, and the spread of molecular methods in behavior studies. In these three episodes, students of behavior adopted practices and standards developed in population ecology and population genetics. While they borrowed tools and methods from these fields, they made distinct uses that set them relatively apart and led them to contribute, in their (...) own way, to evolutionary theory. These episodes also highlight some limitations of “conjunction narratives” centered on the relation between a discipline and the modern synthesis. A trend in conjunction narratives is to interpret any development related to evolution in a discipline as an “extension,” an “integration,” or as a “delayed” synthesis. I here suggest that this can lead to underestimate discontinuities in the history of evolutionary biology. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to put into context the historical, foundational and philosophical significance of category theory. We use our historical investigation to inform the various category-theoretic foundational debates and to point to some common elements found among those who advocate adopting a foundational stance. We then use these elements to argue for the philosophical position that category theory provides a framework for an algebraic _in re_ interpretation of mathematical structuralism. In each context, what we aim to show (...) is that, whatever the significance of category theory, it need not rely upon any set-theoretic underpinning. (shrink)

While care ethics has frequently been criticized for lacking an account of autonomy, this paper argues that care ethics' relational model of moral agency provides the basis for criticizing the philosophical tradition's model of autonomy and for rethinking autonomy in relational terms. Using Diana Meyers's account of autonomy competency as a basis, a dialogical model of autonomy is developed that can respond to internal and external critiques of care ethics.

Despite its internal divisions and the uncertainty surrounding many of its foundations, there is a growing consensus that the on‐going search for an alternative model of the mind finds a minimal theoretical identity in the pursuit of an anti‐Cartesian conception of mental phenomena. Nevertheless, this anti‐Cartesianism remains more or less explicitly committed to the neo‐Brentanian idea that intentionality is an essential feature of the mental—an idea that has prevailed since the advent of modern cognitive science in the 1950s. An issue (...) of compatibility is thereby raised, as neo‐Brentanism arguably sides with cognitive Cartesianism. The main goal of the paper is to put into full light one specific aspect of this largely unperceived problem of compatibility by arguing that the neo‐Brentanian property of intentionality is an essentially representational one that runs counter to the salient anti‐representationalism of anti‐Cartesianism. And, that this representational essence confronts the search for alternative models of the mind of an anti‐Cartesian kind with the following theoretical issue: To what extent is it possible to devise a non‐Brentanian property of intentionality, particularly one that is fully dissociated from the property of representation? This issue is shown to be much deeper and more difficult than it looks once the nature of representation is properly apprehended; it seems to be still waiting for an answer in the current search for an alternative model of the mind, if only because it has not yet be set in fully adequate terms. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to clarify the role of category theory in the foundations of mathematics. There is a good deal of confusion surrounding this issue. A standard philosophical strategy in the face of a situation of this kind is to draw various distinctions and in this way show that the confusion rests on divergent conceptions of what the foundations of mathematics ought to be. This is the strategy adopted in the present paper. It is divided into 5 (...) sections. We first show that already in the set theoretical framework, there are different dimensions to the expression foundations of. We then explore these dimensions more thoroughly. After a very short discussion of the links between these dimensions, we move to some of the arguments presented for and against category theory in the foundational landscape. We end up on a more speculative note by examining the relationships between category theory and set theory. (shrink)

Approximations form an essential part of scientific activity and they come in different forms: conceptual approximations (simplifications in models), mathematical approximations of various types (e.g. linear equations instead of non-linear ones, computational approximations), experimental approximations due to limitations of the instruments and so on and so forth. In this paper, we will consider one type of approximation, namely numerical approximations involved in the comparison of two results, be they experimental or theoretical. Our goal is to lay down the conceptual and (...) formal foundations of a local theory of partial truth. This is done by introducing and exploring the concept of truth space. (shrink)

In this paper, we try to establish that some mathematical theories, like K-theory, homology, cohomology, homotopy theories, spectral sequences, modern Galois theory (in its various applications), representation theory and character theory, etc., should be thought of as (abstract) machines in the same way that there are (concrete) machines in the natural sciences. If this is correct, then many epistemological and ontological issues in the philosophy of mathematics are seen in a different light. We concentrate on one problem which immediately follows (...) the recognition of the particular status of these theories: the demarcation problem between ‘natural kinds’ and ‘artefacts’. (shrink)

As scholars have shown, acceptance is key to the success of Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) scheme. While many studies adopt a static cost-benefit perspective, few address the social process leading to acceptance. Drawing on Suchman (1995), this article examines the legitimacy process underlying the acceptance of a PES in agriculture. In particular, the role of collective action in the legitimisation process is analysed, using a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods of discourse analysis. Data from an agro-environmental PES scheme (...) in France on water quality shows that acceptance depends on the normative and cognitive legitimacy that actors confer upon a public policy. (shrink)

Theories of sentence production that involve a convergence of activation from conceptual‐semantic and syntactic‐sequential units inspired a connectionist model that was trained to produce simple sentences. The model used a learning algorithm that resulted in a sharing of responsibility (or “division of labor”) between syntactic and semantic inputs for lexical activation according to their predictive power. Semantically rich, or “heavy”, verbs in the model came to rely on semantic cues more than on syntactic cues, whereas semantically impoverished, or “light”, verbs (...) relied more on syntactic cues. When the syntactic and semantic inputs were lesioned, the model exhibited patterns of production characteristic of agrammatic and anomic aphasic patients, respectively. Anomic models tended to lose the ability to retrieve heavy verbs, whereas agrammatic models were more impaired in retrieving light verbs. These results obtained in both sentence production and single‐word naming simulations. Moreover, simulated agrammatic lexical retrieval was more impaired overall in sentences than in single‐word tasks, in agreement with the literature. The results provide a demonstration of the division‐of‐labor principle, as well as general support for the claim that connectionist learning principles can contribute to the understanding of non‐transparent neuropsychological dissociations. (shrink)

The ontology of Stoic causes and effects was clearly anti-platonic, since the Stoics did not want to admit that any incorporeal entity could have an effect. However, by asserting that any cause was the cause of an incorporeal effect, they returned to Plato’s syntax of causes in the Sophist, whose doctrine of the asymmetry of nouns and verbs identified names with the agents and verbs with the actions. The ontological asymmetry of causes and effects blocked the multiplication of causes by (...) reducing it to an efficient cause. However, while ontology and syntax merged into the doctrine of the effect as an incorporeal predicate, this was further complicated by a relational description of a cause as the effect of a body on a body and by the distinction of causes. Since there are different kinds of causes, not every kind of cause has the same syntactical role in the nexus of causal relations. This refinement of the original syntactical model presumably allowed the Stoics to give a more coherent view of human action than is usually assumed. (shrink)

A translation of selected correspondence between Jean Wahl and Karl Jaspers on Descartes and Kierkegaard.

Abstract This is a study of the figure of the ?last God? as it appears in Martin Heidegger's Beiträge zur Philosophie. In what sense is this figure related to philosophy of religion as traditionally understood? It is certainly closely related to the question of the relation of time and eternity. Heidegger's earliest accounts of the relation between time and eternity are examined, and Heidegger's reflections in the Beitrage are examined in the context of the accusation of ?theosophy? which Heidegger levels (...) against the most prominent of the ancient thinkers of time and eternity, namely Plotinus. (shrink)

"Besides the impact of their content, the clarity and reach of these essays force one to consider foundational questions concerning philosophy and its history."—Richard Watson, Journal of the History of Philosophy.

Historically, "Healing Methods" (HMS) have not been based on rational theories. Of the thousands of HMs that have arisen over the ages, only a small number survive today, drawing their power and longevity mostly from their superior ability to act as a placebo within the context of modern-day culture, rather than through any other mode of action.When it comes to HMs, Western scientific culture has not yet evolved beyond a pre-scientific stage (Fancher 1995). A scientific analysis of the part played (...) by practitioner/subject empathy and other emotional influences within the healing situation is needed. Furthermore, the question "Does 'it'work?" should be reformulated as "Is 'it' an effective placebo?"Once one accepts .. (shrink)

This book offers a solution for the problem of structure and agency in sociological theory by developing a new pair of fundamental concepts: metric and nonmetric. Nonmetric forms, arising in a crowd made out of innumerable individuals, correspond to social groups that divide the many individuals in the crowd into insiders and outsiders. Metric forms correspond to congested zones like traffic jams on a highway: individuals are constantly entering and leaving these zones so that they continue to exist, even though (...) the individuals passing through them change. Building from these concepts, we can understand “agency” as a requirement for group identity and group membership, thus associating it with nonmetric forms, and “structure” as a building-up effect following the accumulation of metric forms. This reveals the contradiction between structure and agency to be a case of forced perspective, leaving us victim to an optical illusion. (shrink)

In this paper, I investigate the betting behavior of a decision-maker who can influence the likelihood of the events upon which she is betting. In decision theory, this is best known as a situation of moral hazard. Focusing on a particularly simple case, I sketch the first systematic analysis of moral hazard in the canonical Savage framework. From the results of this analysis, I draw two philosophical conclusions. First, from an observational and a descriptive point of view, there need to (...) be no incompatibility between moral hazard and the Savage framework. This qualifies the incompatibility view, that is ubiquitous in decision theory. Second, in general, moral hazard is not sufficient to overcome the challenges posed by state-dependent utility to the behavioral identification of beliefs. This qualifies the sufficiency view, that is influential in decision theory. These two philosophical conclusions are the main contributions of my paper. (shrink)

Prosocial compensation is a corporate social responsibility practice that involves donating money to a charitable cause on behalf of customers as a means to compensate them for their loss after a service failure. In order to determine the effectiveness of PC, we carried out three experiments while also comparing its effectiveness within private and public settings. Experiment 1 focused on the signaling effects of communicating the promise to offer PC to potential customers in the event of service failure. Results show (...) that, in both private and public settings, PC has positive effects on corporate image, credibility, and word-of-mouth intent. More significantly, PC improved one’s CSR image, whereas more tangible compensation, such as a gift voucher, did not. Experiments 2A and 2B focused on the effects of offering PC after a service failure on perceptions of justice. Results show that PC contributes to perceived distributive justice, procedural justice, and post-recovery satisfaction in both private and public settings. Our study showed that PC could be a relevant new CSR practice for organizations wanting to enhance theirs CSR image while contributing to fulfilling their ethical and philanthropic CSR responsibilities. We discuss the implications of our findings and offer several avenues for follow-up research on this initial study on PC. (shrink)

Starting from a nonlinear relativistic Klein-Gordon equation derived from the stochastic interpretation of quantum mechanics (proposed by Bohm-Vigier, (1) Nelson, (2) de Broglie, (3) Guerra et al. (4) ), one can construct joint wave and particle, soliton-like solutions, which follow the average de Broglie-Bohm (5) real trajectories associated with linear solutions of the usual Schrödinger and Klein-Gordon equations.

Dans cet article, je discute l’épistémologie de Pascal Engel, en particulier sa stratégie de réponse aux arguments sceptiques dans Va Savoir!. Après avoir présenté de manière synthétique les grands axes de cette stratégie, je reviens avec plus d’attention sur deux éléments de cette stratégie avec lesquels je suis en désaccord : le rejet par Engel de tout principe de réflexivité épistémique, et le rejet par Engel d’une défense « forte » du sens commun. Je défends qu’un certain principe de réflexivité (...) ne peut pas être raisonnablement rejeté ; puis je montre que l’épistémologie d’Engel ne permet pas d’apporter une réponse satisfaisante au défi sceptique que pose le principe de Méta-Cohérence. Enfin, je soutiens que la seule manière de répondre de manière satisfaisante à ce défi est de recourir à une défense « forte » du sens commun, c’est-à-dire à une stratégie dans laquelle les propositions de sens commun sont justifiées parce qu’elles sont de sens commun. (shrink)

This paper investigates the notion of ‘distributed cognition’—the idea that entities external to one’s organic brain participate in one’s overall cognitive functioning—and the challenges it poses to the notion of personhood. Related to this is also a consideration of the ever-increasing ways in which neuroprostheses replace and functionally replicate organic parts of the brain. However, the literature surrounding such issues has tended to take an almost exclusively physicalist approach. The common assumption is that, given that non-physicalist theories (chiefly, dualism, and (...) hylomorphism) postulate some form of immaterial ‘soul’, then they are immune from the challenges that these advances in cognitive science pose. The first aim of this paper, therefore, is to argue that this is not the case. The second aim of this paper is to attempt to elucidate a route available for the non-physicalists that will allow them to accept the notion of distributed cognition. By appealing to an Aristotelian framework, I propose that the non-physicalist can accept the notion of distributed cognition by appealing to the notion of ‘unitary life’ which I introduce, as well as to Aristotle’s dichotomy between active and passive mind. (shrink)

Confronter un scientifique et un philosophe sur les neurosciences, leurs résultats, leurs projets, leur capacité à soutenir un débat sur la morale, sur les normes, sur la paix, tel est l'objet de ce livre. Le débat d'idées est trop rare en France. Affirmations péremptoires, critiques unilatérales, discussions incompréhensibles, dérisions faciles ne cessent d'encombrer le terrain sans souci pour des arguments qui, avant d'être convaincants,aspirent à être tenus pour plausibles, c'est-à -dire dignes d'être plaidés. Vivre un dialogue totalement libre et ouvert (...) entre un scientifique et un philosophe constitue une expérience exceptionnelle pour l'un comme pour l'autre. " (P. R. et J. -P. C. ). Paul Ricoeur est professeur honoraire à l'université Paris-X et professeur émérite à l'université de Chicago. Il est l'auteur de très nombreux ouvrages, notamment "La métaphore vive", "Temps et Récit", "Soi-même comme un autre". Jean-Pierre Changeux est professeur au Collége de France et à l'Institut Pasteur, membre de l'Académie des sciences. Il est notammentl'auteur de "L'Homme neuronal", "Matiére à pensée" (avec Alain Connes), et "Raison et Plaisir". ". (shrink)

This paper gives a detailed narrative of a controversial empirical research in postwar population genetics, the analysis of the cytological polymorphisms of an Australian grasshopper, Moraba scurra. This research intertwined key technical developments in three research areas during the 1950s and 1960s: it involved Dobzhansky’s empirical research program on cytological polymorphisms, the mathematical theory of natural selection in two-locus systems, and the building of reliable estimates of natural selection in the wild. In the mid-1950s the cytologist Michael White discovered an (...) interesting case of epistasis in populations of Moraba scurra. These observations received a wide diffusion when theoretical population geneticist Richard Lewontin represented White’s data on adaptive topographies. These topographies connected the information on the genetic structure of these grasshopper populations with the formal framework of theoretical population genetics. As such, they appeared at the time as the most successful application of two-locus models of natural selection to an empirical study system. However, this connection generated paradoxical results: in the landscapes, all grasshopper populations were located on a ridge while they were expected to reach a peak. This puzzling result fueled years of research and triggered a controversy attracting contributors from Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. While the original problem seemed, at first, purely empirical, the subsequent controversy affected the main mathematical tools used in the study of two-gene systems under natural selection. Adaptive topographies and their underlying mathematical structure, Wright’s mean fitness equations, were submitted to close scrutiny. Suspicion eventually shifted to the statistical machinery used in data analysis, reflecting the crucial role of statistical inference in applied population genetics. In the 1950s and 1960s, population geneticists were not simply in search for new generalizations about the evolutionary process and for new evidence about genetic variation: struggling against statistical artifacts, they were searching for reliable tests and descriptors to analyze their data. (shrink)

" "The straightforward, well-organized presentation makes the book itself a microcosm of what Varenne singles out as a dominant feature of classical Hindu ...