Abstract Within the moral philosophy of the Spanish?American philosopher George San?tayana (1863?1952), reference to Buddhism becomes an essential feature in his formulation of the notion of post?rational morality, which is that ?phase? of morality which involves an effort to subordinate all precepts to one that points to some single eventual good. Post?rational morality is synonymous with the spiritual life, an essential feature of which is detachment; and this is why the Buddhists can be said to be the ?true masters? of (...) the subject. Santayana's claim that Buddhism ?suffers from a fundamental contradiction? can also be seen as an opportunity for us to deepen our own understanding of that philosophy. (shrink)

This article explores how media content may facilitate processes of recognition through playfulness and comedy. Mediated recognition is typically understood as a matter of respectful and positive representation of subaltern groups and in terms of struggles for visibility and dignity. Yet at the same time, the media address audiences in much less deferential ways that are nonetheless consequential to processes of recognition: by means of playfulness, subversion, and irreverence. This article introduces the concept of ‘playful recognition’ to account for the (...) contradictory ways in which humor can incite recognition. The article empirically illustrates this concept drawing upon a case study of Svart Humor – a comedy show aired in Norway. On the one hand, this article explores an important yet neglected dimension of mediated recognition, on the other, it introduces a recognition perspective to the study of televised comedy. (shrink)

Although conditional stimulus (CS)/unconditional stimulus (US) contingency awareness appears to be necessary for human Pavlovian autonomie conditioning, only a selective review of the literature and the forgetting of certain basic, brute facts can allow the cognitive conclusion that awareness causes, or even is important for, conditioning. That conclusion is theoretically barren for explaining the phenomenon and is also of little potential practical use.

The accepted narrative treats John Stuart Mill’s Kinds as the historical prototype for our natural kinds, but Mill actually employs two separate notions: Kinds and natural groups. Considering these, along with the accounts of Mill’s nineteenth-century interlocutors, forces us to recognize two distinct questions. First, what marks a natural kind as worthy of inclusion in taxonomy? Second, what exists in the world that makes a category meet that criterion? Mill’s two notions offer separate answers to the two questions: natural (...) groups for taxonomy and Kinds for ontology. This distinction is ignored in many contemporary debates about natural kinds and is obscured by the standard narrative that treats our natural kinds just as a development of Mill’s Kinds. (shrink)

This document collects discussion and commentary on issues raised in the workshop by its participants. Contributors are: Greg Frost-Arnold, David Harker, P. D. Magnus, John Manchak, John D. Norton, J. Brian Pitts, Kyle Stanford, Dana Tulodziecki.

According to the so-called “Folk Theorem” for repeated games, stable cooperative relations can be sustained in a Prisoner’s Dilemma if the game is repeated an indefinite number of times. This result depends on the possibility of applying strategies that are based on reciprocity, i.e., strategies that reward cooperation with subsequent cooperation and punish defectionwith subsequent defection. If future interactions are sufficiently important, i.e., if the discount rate is relatively small, each agent may be motivated to cooperate by fear of retaliation (...) in the future. For finite games, however, where the number of plays is known beforehand, there is a backward induction argument showing that rational agents will not be able to achieve cooperation. On behalf of the Hobbesian “Foole”, who cannot see any advantage in cooperation, Gregory Kavka (1983, 1986) has presented an argument that significantly extends the range of the backward induction argument. He shows that, for the backward induction argument to be effective, it is not necessary that the precise number of future interactions be known. It is sufficient that there is a known definite upper bound on the number of interactions. A similar argument is developed by John W. Carroll (1987). We will here question the assumption of a known upper bound. When the assumption is made precise in the way needed for the argument to go through, its apparent plausibility evaporates. We then offer a reformulation of the argument, based on weaker, and more plausible, assumptions. (shrink)

This article focuses on the controversy between Reinhold Niebuhr and John Dewey about the function of religion and religious institutions in a democratic society. It shows how Dewey positions his concept of a “common faith” within his project of democratic experimentalism, before revisiting Niebuhr’s criticism of this concept and particularly its anthropological inclinations. Subsequently, the article highlights the affinity of Niebuhr’s interpretation of Dewey’s A Common Faith to Eric Voegelin’s concept of political religions and compares the different concepts of (...) transcendence involved in Dewey’s and Niebuhr’s thinking (with special focus on Niebuhr’s The Nature and Destiny of Man). Niebuhr’s accusation of a shallow progressivism against Dewey is refuted with reference to Dewey’s concept of immanent transcendence. Finally, the potential of Dewey’s A Common Faith for the clarification of the concept of civil religion is discussed against the backdrop of Robert Bellah’s use of this concept. (shrink)

When we ask what natural kinds are, there are two different things we might have in mind. The first, which I’ll call the taxonomy question, is what distinguishes a category which is a natural kind from an arbitrary class. The second, which I’ll call the ontology question, is what manner of stuff there is that realizes the category. Many philosophers have systematically conflated the two questions. The confusion is exhibited both by essentialists and by philosophers who pose their accounts in (...) terms of similarity. It also leads to misreading philosophers who do make the distinction. Distinguishing the questions allows for a more subtle understanding of both natural kinds and their underlying metaphysics. (shrink)

According to the standard narrative, natural kind is a technical notion that was introduced by John Stuart Mill in the 1840s and the recent craze for natural kinds, launched by Putnam and Kripke, is a continuation of that tradition. I argue that the standard narrative is mistaken. The Millian tradition of kinds was not particularly influential in the 20th-century, and the Putnam-Kripke revolution did not clearly engage with even the remnants that were left of it. The presently active tradition (...) of natural kinds is less than half a century old. Recognizing this might help us better appreciate both Mill and natural kinds. (shrink)

Metrisch gebundene Texte sind aus dem altsprachlichen Unterricht nicht wegzudenken: Vergil, Ovid, Horaz, Catull und Martial sind nur einige typische Autoren für die Dichtungslektüre im Lateinunterricht; Homer, Sophokles und Euripides sind typische Beispiele für den Griechischunterricht. Die Curricula schlagen eine Vielzahl poetischer Texte als mögliche Lektüren vor. Allein diese unvollständige Autorenauswahl zeigt schon, dass man allein mit der Behandlung von daktylischem Hexameter und elegischem Distichon nicht besonders weit kommt, will man nicht die Textauswahl nach solchen rein formalen Kriterien unnötig und (...) unzulässig einschränken oder bei allen anderen Metra so tun, als läse man Prosa. Denn ein solches Vorgehen ermöglicht zwar eine Übersetzung, ein wirkliches Verständnis der Texte bleibt den Schülern aber verwehrt, da ihnen die Wirkung des Metrums, der Einschnitte, der Betonung bestimmter Positionen im Vers und nicht zuletzt ästhetische Aspekte verborgen bleiben oder allenfalls indirekt durch den metrischen Vortrag des Lehrers oder eine stilistische Analyse erschlossen werden. -/- Der vorliegende Band widmet sich daher grundlegenden Fragen zum Thema lateinischer und griechischer Prosodie und Metrik im Unterricht unter Einbeziehung der Lehrpläne und einer Befragung von Lehrkräften. Daneben finden sich Praxisbeispiele zu Catull, Ovid, Terenz und Homer, Überlegungen zur Beziehung von Musik und Metrik sowie eine Anregung zum Dichten in lateinischer Sprache. -/- Mit Beiträgen von: Gregor Bitto, John Bulwer, Fabiola Dengler, Boris Dunsch, Magnus Frisch, Hans-Joachim Glücklich, Christoph Kugelmeier, Immanuel Musäus, Jens Pickenhan, Anna Elissa Radke, Wolfgang Schoedel, Katharina Waack-Erdmann und Heike Wolf. (shrink)

A commentary on “SUPPORT and the Ethics of Study Implementation: Lessons for Comparative Effectiveness Research from the Trial of Oxygen Therapy for Premature Babies,” by John D. Lantos and Chris Feudtner, in the January‐February 2015 issue.

The accepted narrative treats John Stuart Mill's Kinds as the historical prototype for our natural kinds, but Mill actually employs two separate notions: Kinds and natural groups. Considering these, along with the accounts of Mill's 19th-century interlocutors, forces us to recognize two distinct questions. First, what marks a natural kind as worthy of inclusion in taxonomy? Second, what exists in the world that makes a category meet that criterion? Mill's two notions offer separate answers to the two questions: natural (...) groups for taxonomy, and Kinds for ontology. This distinction is ignored in many contemporary debates about natural kinds and is obscured by the standard narrative which treats our natural kinds just as a development of Mill's Kinds. (shrink)

The underdetermination of theory by data obtains when, inescapably, evidence is insufficient to allow scientists to decide responsibly between rival theories. One response to would-be underdetermination is to deny that the rival theories are distinct theories at all, insisting instead that they are just different formulations of the same underlying theory; we call this the identical rivals response. An argument adapted from John Norton suggests that the response is presumptively always appropriate, while another from Larry Laudan and Jarrett Leplin (...) suggests that the response is never appropriate. Arguments from Einstein for the special and general theories of relativity may fruitfully be seen as instances of the identical rivals response; since Einstein’s arguments are generally accepted, the response is at least sometimes appropriate. But when is it appropriate? We attempt to steer a middle course between Norton’s view and that of Laudan and Leplin: the identical rivals response is appropriate when there is good reason for adopting a parsimonious ontology. Although in simple cases the identical rivals response need not involve any ontological difference between the theories, in actual scientific cases it typically requires treating apparent posits of the various theories as mere verbal ornaments or computational conveniences. Since these would-be posits are not now detectable, there is no perfectly reliable way to decide whether we should eliminate them or not. As such, there is no rule for deciding whether the identical rivals response is appropriate or not. Nevertheless, there are considerations that suggest for and against the response; we conclude by suggesting two of them. (shrink)

On the basis of a comparative analysis of the biosemiotic work of Jakob von Uexküll and of various theories on biological holism, this article takes a look at the question: what is the status of a semiotic approach in respect to a holistic one? The period from 1920 to 1940 was the peak-time of holistic theories, despite the fact that agreement on a unified and accepted set of holistic ideas was never reached. A variety of holisms, dependent on the cultural (...) and disciplinary contexts, is sketched here from the works of Jan Smuts, Adolf Meyer-Abich, John Scott Haldane, Kurt Goldstein, Alfred North Whitehead and Wolfgang Köhler. In contrast with his contemporary holists, who used the model of an organism as a unifying explanatory tool for all levels of reality, Jakob von Uexküll confined himself to disciplinary organicism by extending the borders of the definition of “organism” without any intention to surpass the borders of biology itself. The comparison reveals also a significant difference in the perspectives of Uexküll and his contemporary holists, a difference between a view from a subjective centre in contrast with an all-encompassing structural view. Uexküll’s theories are fairly near to J. S. Haldane’s interpretation of an organism as a coordinative centre, but even here their models do not coincide. Although biosemiotics and holistic biology have different theoretical starting points and research-goals, it is possible nonetheless to place them under one and the same doctrinal roof. (shrink)

Aristotelian commenters have long noted an apparent contradiction between what Aristotle says in Posterior Analytics I.2 and Physics I.1 about how we obtain first principles of a science. At Posterior 71b35–72a6, Aristotle states that what is most universal (καθόλου) is better-known by nature and initially less-known to us, while the particular (καθ’ ἕκαστον) is initially better-known to us, but less-known by nature. At Physics 184a21-30, however, Aristotle states that we move from what is better-known to us, which is universal (καθόλου), (...) to what is better-known absolutely, which is particular (καθ’ ἕκαστον). This paper turns to two of Aristotle’s most notable medieval commentators—Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas—to resolve this apparent contradiction. The key to Thomas and Albert’s solutions, we will argue, is a twofold distinction between a sense-perceptive and scientific universal, and the particulars as sensed individuals and as differentiating attributes. Our Synthetic treatment of these distinctions contributes to the ongoing scholarly effort to understand the Stagyrite’s complex theory of knowledge. (shrink)

Examines the controversy of Thomas Aquinas and Giles of Rome respecting the nature of scientific demonstration of the highest kind. Shows that the position of Giles, making the definition of the attribute the middle term in demonnstratio potissima, agrees with that of Albert the Great, but is opposed to Thomas's, which makes the definition of the subject the middle term.

Worrall argued that structural realism provides a ‘synthesis’ of the main pro-realist argument – the ‘No Miracles Argument’, and the main anti-realist argument – the ‘Pessimistic Induction’. More recently, however, it has been claimed that each of these arguments is an instance of the same probabilistic fallacy – sometimes called the ‘base-rate fallacy’. If correct, this clearly seems to undermine structural realism and Magnus and Callender have indeed claimed that both arguments are fallacious and ‘without [them] we lose the (...) rationale for … structural realism ’. I here argue that what have been shown to be fallacious are simply misguided formalisations of ‘the’ arguments and that when they are properly construed they continue to provide powerful motivation for favouring structural realism. (shrink)

The catalogues of works by John Buridan include a commentary on the De secretis mulierum by pseudo-Albertus Magnus. The same commentary is also attributed to Buridan in more general studies on medieval natural philosophy as well as in catalogues of manuscripts and repertories of incipits of medieval scientific writings. In most cases, a unique manuscript copy of this commentary is mentioned, namely Erfurt, Universitätsbibliothek, Dep. Erf., CA Q.299. However, in her Répertoire of Masters of Arts at the University (...) of Paris, Olga Weijers claims that Buridan’s commentary on De secretis mulierum can also be found in a different redaction in another manuscript: Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Ms. lat. 8513. This article examines the question of the attribution of these texts to Buridan. First, it argues that the Parisian text is not a commentary by Buridan on De secretis mulierum but rather a different version of pseudo-Albertus’ work, and second, that Buridan can be considered the author of the quest... (shrink)

Albertus Magnus favours the Aristotelian definition of the soul as the first actuality or perfection of a natural body having life potentially. But he interprets Aristotle's vocabulary in a way that it becomes compatible with the separability of the soul from the body. The term “perfectio” is understood as referring to the soul's activity only, not to its essence. The term “forma” is avoided as inadequate for defining the soul's essence. The soul is understood as a substance which exists (...) independently of its actions and its body. The article shows that Albertus' terminological decisions continue a tradition reaching from the Greek commentators, and John Philoponos in particular, to Avicenna. Albertus' position on another important issue is also influenced by Arabic sources. His defense of the unity of the soul's vegetative, animal and rational parts rests on arguments from Avicenna and Averroes. It is shown that Averroes' position on the problem is not clearcut: he advocates the unity thesis, but also teaches the plurality of the generic and individual forms in man. This double stance is visible in the Latin reception of Averroes' works, and also in Albertus, who presents Averroes both as supporter and opponent of the plurality thesis. (shrink)

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition.

Typical discussions of virtual reality (VR) fixate on technology for providing sensory stimulation of a certain kind. They thus fail to understand reality as the place wherein we live and work, misunderstanding it instead as merely a sort of presentation. The first half of the paper examines popular conceptions of VR. The most common conception is a shallow one according to which VR is a matter of simulating appearances. Yet there is, even in popular depictions, a second, more subtle conception (...) according to which VR is a matter of facilitating new kinds of interaction. The latter half of the paper turns to questions about the contemporary technology of Internet chatrooms. The fact that chatrooms can be used in certain ways suggests something about the prospects for VR. The penultimate section asks whether chatrooms may legitimately be thought of as places. (In a sense, they may.) The final section asks whether cybersex may legitimately be thought of as sex. (Again, yes.) Chatroom technology thus provides an argument for the second conception of VR over its much ballyhooed rival. (shrink)

Reissued here in its corrected second edition of 1864, this essay by John Stuart Mill argues for a utilitarian theory of morality. Originally printed as a series of three articles in Fraser's Magazine in 1861, the work sought to refine the 'greatest happiness' principle that had been championed by Jeremy Bentham, defending it from common criticisms, and offering a justification of its validity. Following Bentham, Mill holds that actions can be judged as right or wrong depending on whether they (...) promote happiness or 'the reverse of happiness'. Although attracted by Bentham's consequentialist framework based on empirical evidence rather than intuition, Mill separates happiness into 'higher' and 'lower' pleasures, arguing for a weighted system of measurement when making and judging decisions. Dissected and debated since its first appearance, the essay is Mill's key discussion on the topic and remains a fundamental text in the study of ethics. (shrink)

The article examines the compatibility of agonistic democracy and populism as well as their relationship to the idea of constitutionalism. The first part shows that Chantal Mouffe’s recent attempts to reconcile her normative approach of an agonistic pluralism with a populist style of politics are not fully convincing. Although there are undeniable commonalities between an agonistic and a populist understanding of politics – the appreciation of conflict, the rejection of moralistic and juridical modes of conflict resolution etc. – the populist (...) mode of the construction of the people (and the denunciation of political opponents as enemies of the people) risks impeding the transformation of antagonistic into agonistic modes of political contest. The tensions between agonism and populism are especially evident in matters of constitutionalism. This topic is examined in the second part of the article, which provides some ideas for reducing the normative and institutional blind spots of contemporary theories of agonistic democracy. It focuses on elementary principles for an agonistic concept of democratic constitutionalism that differs from the populist view of the relationship between politics and law, especially in respect of its interpretation of the concept of ‘resistibility’ of legal norms. (shrink)

On-line, just as off-line, there are ways of assessing the credibility of information sources. The Internet, although it arguably makes for nothing wholly new in this regard, complicates the ordinary task of assessing credibility. In the first section, I consider a specific example and argue that Internet content providers have no clear interest in resolving these comlications. In the second, I consider four general ways that we might assess credibility and explore how they apply to life online. Finally, I argue (...) that even careful information gathering may pose subtle pitfalls but that some of these may be mitigated on-line. (shrink)

Whistleblowing on organizational wrongdoing is becoming increasingly prevalent. What aspects of the person, the context, and the transgression relate to whistleblowing intentions and to actual whistleblowing on corporate wrongdoing? Which aspects relate to retaliation against whistleblowers? Can we draw conclusions about the whistleblowing process by assessing whistleblowing intentions? Meta-analytic examination of 193 correlations obtained from 26 samples (N = 18,781) reveals differences in the correlates of whistleblowing intentions and actions. Stronger relationships were found between personal, contextual, and wrongdoing characteristics and (...) whistleblowing intent than with actual whistleblowing. Retaliation might best be predicted using contextual variables. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (shrink)

J.L. Mackie insists that ordinary evaluative thought presents itself as a matter of sensitivity to aspects of the world. And this phenomenological thesis seems correct. When one or another variety of philosophical non-cognitivism claims to capture the truth about what the experience of value is like, or (in a familiar surrogate for phenomenology) about what we mean by our evaluative language, the claim is never based on careful attention to the lived character of evaluative thought or discourse. The idea is, (...) rather, that the very concept of the cognitive or factual rules out the possibility of an undiluted representation of how things are, enjoying, nevertheless, the internal relation to 'attitudes' or the will that would be needed to count as evaluative. On this view the phenomenology of value would involve a mere incoherence, if it were as Mackie says--a possibility that then tends (naturally enough) not to be so much as entertained. But, as Mackie sees, there is no satisfactory justification for supposing that the factual is, by definition, attitudinatively and motivationally neutral. This clears away the only obstacle to accepting his phenomenological claim; and the upshot is that non-cognitivism must offer to correct the phenomenology of value, rather than give an account of it. -/- In Machie's view the correction is called for. In this paper I want to suggest that he attributes an unmerited plausibility to this thesis, by giving a false picture of what one is committed to if one resists it. (shrink)

In his preface Mr Wilson writes 'I feel that a great many adults … would do better to spend less time in simply accepting the concepts of others uncritically, and more time in learning how to analyse concepts in general'. Mr Wilson starts by describing the techniques of conceptual analysis. He then gives examples of them in action by composing answers to specific questions and by criticism of quoted passages of argument. Chapter 3 sums up the importance of this kind (...) of mental activity. Chapter 4 presents selections for the reader to analyse, followed by questions of university entrance/scholarship type. This is a book to be worked through, in a sense a text-book. (shrink)

In this philosophically sophisticated and historically significant work, John H. Zammito reconstructs Kant's composition of The Critique of Judgment and reveals that it underwent three major transformations before publication. He shows that Kant not only made his "cognitive" turn, expanding the project from a "Critique of Taste" to a Critique of Judgment but he also made an "ethical" turn. This "ethical" turn was provoked by controversies in German philosophical and religious culture, in particular the writings of Johann Herder and (...) the Sturm und Drang movement in art and science, as well as the related pantheism controversy. Such topicality made the Third Critique pivotal in creating a "Kantian" movement in the 1790s, leading directly to German Idealism and Romanticism. The austerity and grandeur of Kant's philosophical writings sometimes make it hard to recognize them as the products of a historical individual situated in the particular constellation of his time and society. Here Kant emerges as a concrete historical figure struggling to preserve the achievements of cosmopolitan Aufkl-rung against challenges in natural science, religion, and politics in the late 1780s. More specifically Zammito suggests that Kant's Third Critique was animated throughout by a fierce personal rivalry with Herder and by a strong commitment to traditional Christian ideas of God and human moral freedom. "A work of extraordinary erudition. Zammito's study is both comprehensive and novel, connecting Kant's work with the aesthetic and religious controversies of the late eighteenth century. He seems to have read everything. I know of no comparable historical study of Kant's Third Critique."-Arnulf Zweig, translator and editor of Kant's ;IPhilosophical Correspondence, 1759-1799;X "An intricate, subtle, and exciting explanation of how Kant's thinking developed and adjusted to new challenges over the decade from the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason to the appearance of the Critique of Judgment. "--John W. Burbidge, Review of Metaphysics "There has been for a long time a serious gap in English commentary on Kant's Critique of Judgment Zammito's book finally fills it. All students and scholars of Kant will want to consult it."--Frederick Beiser, Times Literary Supplement. (shrink)

Do we violate human rights when we cooperate with and impose a global institutional order that engenders extreme poverty? Thomas Pogge argues that by shaping and enforcing the social conditions that foreseeably and avoidably cause global poverty we are violating the negative duty not to cooperate in the imposition of a coercive institutional order that avoidably leaves human rights unfulfilled. This article argues that Pogge's argument fails to distinguish between harms caused by the global institutions themselves and harms caused by (...) the domestic policies of particular states and collective action problems for which collective responsibility cannot be assigned. The article also argues that his position relies on questionable factual and theoretical claims about the impact of global institutions on poverty, and about the benefits and harms of certain features of these institutions. Participation in, and benefit from, global institutions is unlikely to constitute a violation of our negative duties towards the poor. Key Words: justice • international regimes • institutions • human rights • trade. (shrink)

In this article, interviewing from a descriptive, phenomenological, human scientific perspective is examined. Methodological issues are raised in relation to evaluative criteria as well as reflective matters that concern the phenomenological researcher. The data collection issues covered are 1) the selection of participants, 2) the number of participants in a study, 3) the interviewer and the questions, and 4) data collection procedures. Certain conclusions were drawn indicating that phenomenological research methods cannot be evaluated on the basis of an empiricist theory (...) of science, but must be critiqued from within a phenomenological theory of science. Some reflective matters, experienced by the phenomenological researcher, are also elaborated upon. (shrink)

This paper investigates the moral emotion of being socially, but non-agentially connected to a harm. I propose understanding the emotion of an affiliated onlooker as a species of regret called ‘social-regret’. Breaking from existing guilt- and shame-based accounts, I argue that social-regret can be a fitting, expressive, and revelatory reactive attitude that opens the way for deliberation over accountability for others’ harms. When we feel social-regret, our attention is directed towards the moral salience of our social relations and the expectations (...) that undergird them, as well as possibilities for ameliorative action. I consider several existing accounts of affiliated onlookers’ emotions (including embarrassment, guilt, and shame), and I highlight the advantages of supplementing these with a regret-based account. Social-regret provides a novel way to understand negative, self-directed emotions in response to others’ harms as rational, expressive, and potentially reason-giving experiences. (shrink)

Though the revised edition of A Theory of Justice, published in 1999, is the definitive statement of Rawls's view, so much of the extensive literature on Rawls's theory refers to the first edition.

This article provides concrete examples of a phenomenological approach to empathy training, which is a pedagogical method designed for higher education. First, the phenomenology of empathy and empathy training is briefly described. Second, excerpts from training sessions in higher education are provided as examples. The examples are meant as to concretize the purpose of the training in relation to the overall pedagogical process. In addition, some clarifications are made about how a phenomenological approach can facilitate university students’ deeper understanding of (...) how empathy relate to interpersonal understanding in the we-relation. (shrink)