The twelve specially written essays in this volume investigate the neglected topic of mental action, and show its importance for the metaphysics, epistemology, and phenomenology of mind. The essays investigate what mental actions are, how we are aware of them, and what is the relationship between mental and physical action.

Throughout the 1990s, Jaegwon Kim developed a line of argument that what purport to be nonreductive forms of physicalism are ultimately untenable, since they cannot accommodate the causal efficacy of mental states. We argue that, while the argument needs some tweaking, its basic thrust is sound. In what follows, we lay out our preferred version of the argument and highlight its essential dependence on a causal-powers metaphysic, a dependence that Kim does not acknowledge in his official presentations of the argument. (...) We then discuss two recent physicalist strategies for preserving the causal efficacy of the mental in the face of this sort of challenge, strategies that (ostensibly) endorse a causal powers metaphysics of properties while offering distinctive accounts of the physical realization of mental properties. We argue that neither picture can be satisfactorily worked out, and that seeing why they fail strongly suggests that nonreductive physicalism and a causal powers metaphysic are not compatible, as our original argument contends. Since we also believe that robust realism concerning mental causation should not be abandoned, we take the argument of this paper to strongly motivate an account on which the mental is unrealized by and ontologically emergent from the physical. In a final section, we sketch what an ontologically emergentist account of the mental might look like. (shrink)

In this paper I present a dynamic-epistemic hybrid logic for reasoning about information and intention changes in situations of strategic interaction. I provide a complete axiomatization for this logic, and then use it to study intentions-based transformations of decision problems.

This chapter contains sections titled: Two Concepts of Experience The Matrix of Experience The Work of Thought Re‐Making Experience References.

In this paper, I provide an easy road to nominalism which does not rely on a Field-type nominalization strategy for mathematics. According to this proposal, applications of mathematics to science, and alleged mathematical explanations of physical phenomena, only emerge when suitable physical interpretations of the mathematical formalism are advanced. And since these interpretations are rarely distinguished from the mathematical formalism, the impression arises that mathematical explanations derive from the mathematical formalism alone. I correct this misimpression by pointing out, in the (...) cases recently discussed by Mark Colyvan, exactly where the interpretations of the formalism were invoked and the function they played in the resulting explanations. A viable form of easy - road nominalism, which is also sensitive to scientific practice, then arises. (shrink)

Obesity is the focus of multiple lines of inquiry that have -- together and separately -- produced many deep insights into the physiology of weight gain and maintenance. We examine three such streams of research and show how they are oriented to obesity intervention through multilevel integrated approaches. The first research programme is concerned with the genetics and biochemistry of fat production, and it links metabolism, physiology, endocrinology and neurochemistry. The second account of obesity is developmental and draws together epigenetic (...) and environmental explanations that can be embedded in an evolutionary framework. The third line of research focuses on the role of gut microbes in the production of obesity, and how microbial activities interact with host genetics, development and metabolism. These interwoven explanatory strategies are driven by an orientation to intervention, both for experimental and therapeutic outcomes. We connect the integrative and intervention-oriented aspects of obesity research through a discussion of translation, broadening the concept to capture the dynamic, iterative processes of scientific practice and therapy development. This system-oriented analysis of obesity research expands the philosophical scrutiny of contemporary developments in the biosciences and biomedicine, and has the potential to enrich philosophy of science and medicine. (shrink)

Self, Language, and World: Problems from Kant, Sellars, and Rosenberg Edited by James R. O'Shea and Eric M. Rubenstein Introduction KANT Willem deVries, Kant, Rosenberg, and the Mirror of Philosophy David Landy, The Premise That Even Hume Must Accept LANGUAGE AND MIND William G. Lycan, Rosenberg On Proper Names Douglas Long, Why Life is Necessary for Mind: The Significance of Animate Behavior Dorit Bar-On and Mitchell Green, Lionspeak: Communication, Expression, and Meaning David Rosenthal, The Mind and Its Expression MIND AND (...) KNOWLEDGE Jeffrey Sicha, The Manifest Image: the Sensory and the Mental Bruce Aune, Rosenberg on Knowing Joseph C. Pitt, Sellarsian Antifoundationalism and Scientific Realism Matthew Chrisman, The Aim of Belief and the Goal of Truth: Reflections on Rosenberg James O’Shea, Conceptual Thinking and Nonconceptual Content: A Sellarsian Divide ONTOLOGY Anton Koch, Persons as Mirroring the World Eric M. Rubenstein, Form and Content, Substance and Stuff Ralf Stoecker, On Being a Realist About Death William G. Lycan, Biographical Remarks on Jay F. Rosenberg Scholarly Publications of Jay F. Rosenberg. (shrink)

_The purpose_ of this study is the reflection on ways of philosophical legitimation for the "Self-made-man" idea in the worldview of the Renaissance and Reformation. _Theoretical basis._ Historical, comparative, and hermeneutic methods became the basis for this. The study is based on the works of Nicholas of Cusa, G. Pico della Mirandola, N. Machiavelli, M. Montaigne, E. Roterodamus, M. Luther, J. Calvin together with modern researchers of this period. _Originality._ The analysis allows us to come to the conclusion that casts (...) doubt on the still widespread belief according to which the emergence of the "Self-made-man" idea is localized by the process of forming the American cultural code and the ideological heritage of Benjamin Franklin. It is highlighted that the formation of this idea is the result of a long process that originated in the ancient world and gains a special impetus in the Renaissance and Reformation. Precisely in the cultural context of the latter, the ancient intention to recognize the individual’s right to self-determination and self-government, which in the depths of Christian theology acquires only a potentially universal character, becomes not only acceptable but also, in the context of Protestantism worldview, the only admissible, in fact, individual’s obligatory life guidelines. _Conclusions._ Humanistic and reformation thoughts quite naturally led to further ideological legitimation of the person’s idea of who is creating oneself. This legitimation was during the complex interaction of numerous factors of culture in the Late Middle Ages, as well as ideas and intentions inherited from Antiquity. Key among them was the gradual formation of a new social order, in essence, indifferent to paternalistic rudiments, together with the ethics of Protestantism corresponding to it. The latter does not only legalize but, de facto, sacralizes the individual’s reorientation from hopes for the synergy of God’s grace and own free will in personal salvation, toward the self-reliance and personal efforts, awareness of personal responsibility for the own fate as key principles of the "Self-made-man" concept. (shrink)

Radical constructivists appeal to self-legislation in arguing that rational agents are the ultimate sources of normative authority over themselves. I chart the roots of radical constructivism and argue that its two leading Kantian proponents are unable to defend an account of self-legislation as the fundamental source of practical normativity without this legislation collapsing into a fatal arbitrariness. Christine Korsgaard cannot adequately justify the critical resources which agents use to navigate their practical identities. This leaves her account riven between rigorism and (...) voluntarism, such that it will not escape a paradox that arises when self-legislation is unable to appeal to external normative standards. Onora O'Neill anchors self-legislation more firmly to the self-disciplining structures of reason itself. However, she ultimately fails to defend sufficiently unconditional practical norms which could guide legislation. These endemic problems with radical constructivist models of self-legislation prompt a reconstruction of a neglected realist self-legislative tradition which is exemplified by Christian Wolff. In outlining a rationalist and realist account of self-legislation, I argue that it can also make sense of our ability to overcome anomie and deference in practical action. Thus, I claim that we need not make laws but can make them our own. (shrink)

Otávio Bueno gives a positive and accurate summary of my defense of Platonism, with special emphasis on the epistemological issues. He criticizes “skeptical nominalism”, and proposes instead an “agnostic nominalism”, which treats mathematical objects as “objects of thought”, and neither rejects nor accepts abstract entities. In my response I argue that the main problem for nominalism is to account for abstract properties and relations, and that treating mathematical objects as objects of thought does not provide a satisfactory solution to that (...) end.Otávio Bueno apresenta um resumo positivo e correto de minha defesa do Platonismo, com ênfase especial nos aspectos epistemológicos. Ele critica o “nominalismo cético” e propõe um “nominalismo agnóstico” que trata os objetos matemáticos como “objetos de pensamento”, sem rejeitar ou aceitar entes abstratos. Em minha réplica argumento que o problema principal para o nominalismo é dar conta das propriedades e relações abstratas, e que tratar os objetos matemáticos como objetos de pensamento não é uma solução satisfatória para esse fim. (shrink)

This book addresses the philosophy of Kant and the poetry of Shelley as historical starting points for a new way of thinking in the modern age. Fusing together critical philosophy and visionary poetry, Bassler develops the notion of visionary critique, or paraphysics, as a model for future philosophical endeavor. This philosophical practice is rooted in the concept of the indefinite power associated with the sublime in both Kant and Shelley’s work, to which the notion of the parafinite or indefinitely large (...) is extended in this book. (shrink)

Resumen El artículo se centra en el poema Seudoaraucana de Elvira Hernández (2010; 2017) a partir de la reescritura como recurso articulador de una mirada descentrada y amplificada del texto fuente, La Araucana de Ercilla y Zúñiga. Como hipótesis se plantea que la reescritura discute fenómenos sociales vinculados con las fisuras de la nación chilena y los procesos políticos de la actual coyuntura. Como objetivo, se busca establecer un diálogo con la tradición y el campo literario en torno a la (...) épica, por un lado, y con las reconsideraciones críticas acerca de la imaginación poética de la historia, por otro. Abstract The article focuses on the poem Seudoaraucana by Elvira Hernández (2010; 2017) based on the rewriting as an articulating resource of an off-center and amplified look at the source text, La Araucana de Ercilla y Zúñiga. As a hypothesis, it proposes that the rewriting discusses social phenomena linked to the fissures of the Chilean nation and the political processes of the current situation. As an objective, it tries to establish a dialogue with the tradition and the literary field around the epic, on the one hand, and with critical reconsiderations about the poetic imagination of history, on the other. (shrink)

_Purpose._ The main purpose of this research is to comprehend the philosophical principles in the spread and legitimation of the Self-made-man idea in the worldview transformations of the 17th century. _Theoretical basis._ Historical and comparative methods became fundamental ones for the research. The research is based on the creative heritage of R. Descartes, T. Hobbes, J. Locke, as well as the works of modern researchers. _Originality._ The analysis shows that the Self-made-man idea, which originated in the ancient world and gradually (...) spreads in the Christian Middle Ages, gained a powerful impetus in the philosophical and moral-legal metamorphoses of the 17th century. These metamorphoses theoretically substantiated and radically accelerated the transition from mystical to rational, from theocentric to the anthropocentric worldview, and, as a result, to the recognition of the intellectual autonomy of the individuals and the freedom of their own will, the emergence of the construct of natural human rights, the requirements of religious tolerance and freedom of conscience, ultimately, to the principle of reliance on one’s own strength and the individual’s personal responsibility for one’s own destiny. Exactly these ideas in interaction with the ideas of Puritanism became the theoretical basis for the formation of B. Franklin’s views and the corresponding cultural code. _Conclusions._ The philosophy of the 17th century, having laid the principles of a new – subject-centric – metaphysics, as well as the philosophical and legal foundations of liberal ideology, provided philosophical and moral-legal legitimation to the sporadic attempts of man to break out of the triple circle of fatalism, paternalism, and conformity to a rationally founded and the ever-growing orientation of the individual towards active self-determination and self-realization, self-reliance and personal responsibility for their own destiny as key principles of the Self-made-man concept. (shrink)

Dans cet article, le théologien dominicain propose une sorte de biographie intellectuelle qui recoupe l’évolution de la théologie catholique durant les quarante dernières années. Héritier de la tradition intellectuelle dont Marie-Dominique Chenu fut l’initiateur dans son ouvrage, Une École de théologie: le Saulchoir, il explique comment, tout en restant fidèle à la posture théologique de Thomas d’Aquin, il a pris peu à peu ses distances vis-à-vis de la théologie thomiste en tant que théologie métaphysique. En charge à la suite d’Henri (...) Bouillard de la chaire de théologie fondamentale de l’Institut Catholique de Paris, il a cherché à définir celle-ci comme une science herméneutique qui assure la crédibilité du message chrétien à partir d’une corrélation critique entre l’expérience de la communauté chrétienne primitive et l’expérience historique des hommes et des femmes d’aujourd’hui. Il précise alors les conséquences de ce tournant herméneutique de la théologie tant pour la relecture des Écritures que pour la réinterprétation de la tradition théologique et dogmatique. En conclusion, dans la fidélité à l’orientation herméneutique de sa théologie, il fait état de ses principales options dans le chantier toujours ouvert de la théologie des religions ou mieux du pluralisme religieux. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “Circularity and the Micro-Macro-Difference” by Manfred Füllsack. Upshot: We join Füllsack in his effort to untangle the concepts of circular causation, macro states, and observation by reanalyzing one of our own simulations in the light of these concepts. This simulation presents an example agent that keeps track of its own macro states. We examine how human observers can consider such an agent as an observing agent on its own.

Open peer commentary on the article “Exploration of the Functional Properties of Interaction: Computer Models and Pointers for Theory” by Etienne B. Roesch, Matthew Spencer, Slawomir J. Nasuto, Thomas Tanay & J. Mark Bishop. Upshot: We support Roesch and his co-authors’ theoretical stance on constructivist artificial agents, and wish to enrich their “exploration of the functional properties of interaction” with complementary results. By revisiting their experiments with an agent that we developed previously, we explore two issues that they deliberately left (...) aside: autonomous intentionality and dynamic reutilization of knowledge by the agent. Our results reveal an alternative pathway to constructivism that addresses the central question of intentionality in a single agent from the very beginning of its design, suggesting that the property of distributed processing proposed by Roesch et al. is not essential to constructivism. (shrink)

This article is the first in-depth analysis of the direct intellectual engagement between one of America's most important Founding Fathers, John Adams, and the work of the leading modern feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft. It draws on the first complete transcription of Adams's marginalia in his copy of Wollstonecraft's French Revolution to argue that these two thinkers disagreed profoundly in their respective assessments of the watershed event of political modernity due to their divergent interpretations of the relationship between human nature, history, and (...) Revolutionary violence on the one hand, and the appropriate structure of political and social institutions on the other. (shrink)

O. R. Jones; VIII—Things Known Without Observation, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 61, Issue 1, 1 June 1961, Pages 129–150, https://doi.org/10.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:This volume collects seven articles of Carlo Paolazzi, O.F.M., previously published in journals and congress proceedings between 1996 and 2004, each of them dealing with the Writings of Francis. The essays are not arranged chronologically but move from more general to more specific studies on the Writings of Francis of Assisi. The titles of the essays included are: 1) The Birth of the Writings and Constitution of the Canon (...) ; 2) Francis, Theology and the Letter to brother Anthony ; 3) Anthony cites Francis: the Epilogue of the Sunday Sermons and the Early Rule XVI ; 4) The Writings between Francis and his secretaries: a Knot to be Untied ; 5) Concerning the Autographs of brother Francis: Doubts, Verifications and Confirmations ; 6) Concerning the Authenticity of the Writings of Francis to the "Poor Ladies" ; 7) The Lesser Brothers and Books: Concerning the Exegesis of "the books necessary to fulfill their office" and "Those who do not know how to read" . Each of the essays displays a careful methodology and appreciation for the evangelical content of the texts.The first essay deals with the establishment of the "canon" of Francis's writings in which the author demonstrates that the writings are born and develop from Francis's relationship with the Word of God. In this context, "writing" takes on the character of an "essential moment" in Francis's relationship with the Word , with God and with the brotherhood. This explains for Paolazzi, the passion with which Francis recommends the writings to those to whom they are addressed.The second and third essays are related to Anthony of Padua and the writings. The second essay deals with the content and authenticity of the Letter to Anthony, included by Kajetan Esser in the canon of Francis's writings. Paolazzi argues that the expression, "Brother Anthony my bishop" goes back to Francis himself. He suggests that Anthony's request for permission to teach reflects the concern of the novice who had permission from his minister to have a breviary, but was uncomfortable and needed Francis's explicit permission , a characteristic of the tension in the brotherhood upon Francis's return from Egypt in 1220. The conditions Francis places on the teaching of Anthony reflect Francis's concern that the Word of God not be approached purely from an intellectual perspective, but rather as a Word which must transform life. The third essay attempts to demonstrate that the Epilogue to Anthony's Sunday Sermons integrates sections of chapter 17 of the Early Rule. Paolazzi concludes this careful lexical study with the affirmation that Anthony had the Early Rule's exhortation to preachers in chapter 17 before his eyes as he concluded his Opus Evangeliorum .In the fourth essay Paolazzi tackles the question of the role played by secretaries in the production of the Writings of Francis. Scholars, including Esser, have suggested that because of his health and/or because of his status as "illiterate," Francis depended on secretaries to put his thoughts on paper. Paolazzi approaches the question by citing a saying attributed to Francis from the Mirror of Perfection . That this saying goes back to the historical Francis Paolazzi concludes based on both the content and the fact that it reflects Francis's literal approach to the Gospel. The saying states that Francis wanted no one to call him good, father or master because of the teaching of Christ in the Gospel who said that only God should be addressed with these titles . He then studies the usage and appearance of these three terms in the Writings of Francis, which confirm a consistent usage in accord with this saying. This demonstrates that the Writings reflect the "speech" of Francis and not simply his conceptual thought. Paolazzi considers that "in the Writings religious thought and the verbal lexicon of evangelical inspiration respond one to.. (shrink)