Noël BlasSaenz has recently argued for a counterfactual condition on grounding called Sensitivity, with which he tries to show that there are no mereological sums and that universalism abo...
In this paper, I both propose and discuss a novel account of truthmaking. I begin by showing what truthmaking is not: it is not grounding and it is not correspondence. I then show what truthmaking is by offering an account that appeals both to grounding and what I call ‘deep correspondence’. After I present the account and show that it is an account that unifies, I put it to work by showing how it can overcome an objection to truthmaking, how (...) we can get truthmaking from correspondence, what it says about truthmaker necessitation, and how it can explain a connection between truthmaker maximalism and pluralism about truth. (shrink)
In Necessary Existence, Pruss and Rasmussen give an argument for a necessary being employing a modest causal principle. Here I note that, when applied to highly general and fundamental matters, the principle may well be false (or at least not so obvious).
resumo: Há uma solidariedade entre o estilo do L'Individuation à la Lumière des Notions de Forme et d'Information e os princípios teóricos que a obra toma como ponto de partida para sua investigação dos diversos processos de individuação. Essa solidariedade torna o estilo da obra um programa filosófico que responde a demandas precisas quanto ao papel das ciências da natureza, das ciências humanas e da técnica, sua classificação, sua história e sua consistência teórica, demandas que pretendemos especificar no artigo. Ao (...) mesmo tempo esse programa de Simondon requer que o autor recolha os princípios teóricos de sua análise em um corpo teórico cujas linhas gerais desenham a fisonomia de toda uma filosofia, de caráter peculiar. É isso o que justifica, e até mesmo exige, que Simondon tome por objeto o problema da individuação nos termos em que o faz, e que possa apresentar essa aproximação do problema como uma crítica cujo valor é ele mesmo filosófico: uma resposta peculiar ao positivismo, ao pragmatismo, ao estruturalismo e, sobretudo, às formas de compreensão das ciências e das técnicas que era hegemônica no final dos anos 50, no ambiente intelectual francês. abstract: There is a strict allegiance between the style present in L'Individuation à la Lumière des Notions de Forme et d'Information and the theoretical principles by which this work inquires the diverse individuation processes. That allegiance makes this style a whole investigation program on the role of natural sciences, humanities and technology in general, their classification, history and theoretical nature. The clauses of that investigation will be shown in its general lines by the paper itself. But the point is that, at the same time, this investigation program requires the specific theoretical principles adopted by Simondon in this work as a theory and in its development as a complete philosophy. Indeed this is the reason why Simondon takes the problem about individuation processes as the focus of his discussions. Such discussions offer a critique whose value is itself philosophical. That strategy results in a peculiar response to positivism, pragmatism, structuralism and the hegemonic way of thinking about sciences and techniques in the French fifties. (shrink)
Telliamed in its time Content Type Journal Article Category Survey Review Pages 1-7 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9638-x Authors Kenneth L. Taylor, Department of the History of Science, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019-3106, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.
Divine Simplicity has it that God is absolutely simple. God exhibits no metaphysical complexity; he has neither proper parts nor distinct intrinsic properties. Recently, Jeffrey Brower has put forward an account of divine simplicity that has it that God is the truthmaker for all intrinsic essential predications about him. This allows Brower to preserve the intuitive thought that God is not a property but a concrete being. In this paper, I provide two objections to Brower’s account that are meant to (...) show that whatever merits this account of divine simplicity has, plausibility is not one of them. (shrink)
I argue that no classical theist, and even more no orthodox Christian, should affirm compatibilism in our world. However plausible compatibilism may be on atheistic assumptions, bringing God into the equation should radically alter our judgment on this ongoing controversy. In particular, if freedom and determinism are compatible, then God could have created a world in which all persons freely did only the good at all times. Given this implication of compatibilism, three issues that are already challenging become extraordinarily more (...) difficult, if not insuperable, namely: moral responsibility, the problem of evil, and the orthodox doctrine of eternal damnation. (shrink)
In this important book, Susan Hurley sheds new light on consciousness by examining its relationships to action from various angles. She assesses the role of agency in the unity of a conscious perspective, and argues that perception and action are more deeply interdependent than we usually assume. A standard view conceives perception as input from world to mind and action as output from mind to world, with the serious business of thought in between. Hurley criticizes this picture, and considers how (...) the interdependence of perceptual experience and agency at the personal level (of mental contents and norms) may emerge from the subpersonal level (of underlying causal processes and complex dynamic feedback systems). Her two-level view has wide implications, for topics that include self-consciousness, the modularity of mind, and the relations of mind to world. The self no longer lurks hidden somewhere between perceptual input and behavioral output, but reappears out in the open, embodied and embedded in its environment. Hurley traces these themes from Kantian and Wittgensteinian arguments through to intriguing recent work in neuropsychology and in dynamic systems approaches to the mind, providing a bridge from mainstream philosophy to work in other disciplines. Consciousness in Action is unique in the range of philosophical and scientific work it draws on, and in the deep criticism it offers of centuries-old habits of thought. (shrink)
Designed for classroom use, this authoritative anthology presentskey selections from the best contemporary work in philosophy offilm. The featured essays have been specially chosen for theirclarity, philosophical depth, and consonance with the current movetowards cognitive film theory Eight sections with introductions cover topics such as thenature of film, film as art, documentary cinema, narration andemotion in film, film criticism, and film's relation to knowledgeand morality Issues addressed include the objectivity of documentary films,fear of movie monsters, and moral questions surrounding the (...) viewingof pornography Replete with examples and discussion of moving picturesthroughout. (shrink)
As I will use the term, an object is a mereological sum of some things just in case those things compose it simply in virtue of existing. In the first half of this paper, I argue that there are no sums. The key premise for this conclusion relies on a constraint on what, in certain cases, it takes for something to ground, or metaphysically explain, something else. In the second half, I argue that in light of my argument against sums, (...) Universalism, which is perhaps the most widely accepted answer to the Special Composition Question, is false. (shrink)
For nearly two thousand years Buddhism has mystified and captivated both lay people and scholars alike. Seen alternately as a path to spiritual enlightenment, an system of ethical and moral rubrics, a cultural tradition, or simply a graceful philosophy of life, Buddhism has produced impassioned followers the world over. The Buddhist saint Nagarjuna, who lived in South India in approximately the first century CE, is undoubtedly the most important, influential, and widely studied Mahayana Buddhist philosopher. His many works include texts (...) addressed to lay audiences, letters of advice to kings, and a set of penetrating metaphysical and epistemological treatises. His greatest philosophical work, the Mulamadhyamikakarika--read and studied by philosophers in all major Buddhist schools of Tibet, China, Japan, and Korea--is one of the most influential works in the history of Indian philosophy. Now, in The Foundations of the Philosophy of the Middle Way, Jay L. Garfield provides a clear and and eminently readable translation of Nagarjuna's seminal work, offering those with little of no prior knowledge of Buddhist philosophy a view into the profound logic of the Mulamadhyamikakarika. Translated from the Tibetan, the tradition through which Nagarjuna's philosophical influence has largely been transmitted, Garfield presents a superb translation of Mulamadhyamikakarika in its entirety. Illuminating the systematic character of Nagarjuna's reasoning, as well as the works profundity, Garfield shows how Nagarjuna develops his doctrine that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence and essenceless. But, he argues, phenomena nonetheless exist conventionaly, and that indeed conventional existence and ultimate emptiness are in fact the same thing. This represents the radical understanding of the Buddhist doctrine of the two truths, or two levels of reality. Nagarjuna reinterprets all of Buddhist metaphysics and epistemology through this analytical framework--"a systematic and beautifully elegant philosophical dissection of reality." In turn, Garfield goes on to offer the only verse-by-verse commentary based upon the Indo-Tibetan Prasangika-Madhyamika reading of Nagarjuna, the school most influential in the development of Mahayana philosophy in Tibet, China, Korea, and Japan. Written specifically for the Western reader, the commentary explains Nagarjuna's positions and arguments in the language of Western metaphysics and epistemology, and connects Nagarjuna's concerns tho those of Western philosophers such as Sextus, Hume, and Wittgenstein. A fascinating and accessible translation of the foundational text for all Mahayana Buddhism text, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way will enlighten all those in search of the essence of reality. (shrink)
Enrique Dussel's writings span the theology of liberation, critiques of discourse ethics, evaluations of Marx, Levinas, Habermas, and others, but most importantly, the development of a philosophy written from the underside of Eurocentric modernist teleologies, an ethics of the impoverished, and the articulation of a unique Latin American theoretical perspective. This anthology of original articles by U.S. philosophers elucidating Dussel's thought, offers critical analyses from a variety of perspectives, including feminist ones. Also included is an essay by Dussel that responds (...) to these essays. (shrink)
No one who cares about equal opportunity can derive much comfort from the present occupational distribution of working women. In the various industrial societies of the West, women comprise between one quarter and one-half of the national labor force. However, they tend to clustered in employment sectors – especially clerical, sales, and service J occupations – which rank relatively low in remuneration, status, autonomy, and other perquisites. Meanwhile, the more prestigious and rewarding managerial and professional positions, as well as the (...) major categories of blue-collar labor, remain largely a male preserve. In the same societies the average income earned by full-time female workers is one-half to two- J thirds that of their male counterparts. Although this disparity owes much to i other factors, including lower pay for work similar or even identical to that r standardly done by men, much of it can be explained only by the concentration of working women in traditional female job ghettos. (shrink)
If early Caribbean philosophy is characterized by its pan-African flourishes, what is less well known is its flirtations with existentialism. Although C.L.R. James’s 1965 Heideggerian reading of Wi...
17/02/2005 Synthèse du mémoire de la maîtrise soutenue en juin 1998 sous la direction de J.-P. Fruit et P. Clergeot à l’Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne. Les aspects spatiaux sont la traduction privilégiée des mutations de la ruralité en Europe et sont au cœur d’une approche géographique de ces récentes évolutions. Au sein de l’Union Européenne, les Pays-Bas sont l’un des pays les plus sensibles aux enjeux fonciers, en raison de p...
