Involvement in sport and exercise not only provides participants with health benefits but can be an important aspect of living a meaningful life. The COVID-19 pandemic and the temporary cessation of public life in March/April/May 2020 came with restrictions, which probably also made it difficult, if not impossible, to participate in certain types of sport or exercise. Following the philosophical position that different types of sport and exercise offer different ways of “relating to the world,” this study explored continuity in (...) the type of sport and exercise people practiced during the pandemic-related lockdown, and possible effects on mood. Data from a survey of 601 adult exercisers, collected shortly after the COVID-19 outbreak in Finland, were analyzed. Approximately one third of the participants changed their “worldmaking” and shifted to “I–Nature”-type activities. We observed worse mood during the pandemic in those who shifted from “I–Me,” compared to those who had preferred the “I–Nature” relation already before the pandemic and thus experienced continuity. The clouded mood of those experiencing discontinuity may be the result of a temporary loss of “feeling at home” in their new exercise life-world. However, further empirical investigation must follow, because the observed effect sizes were small. (shrink)

This interview with Olli Pyyhtinen explores his recent work on the writings of Georg Simmel. It focuses in particular upon his new book, The Simmelian Legacy. Taking that book as its focal point, the interview examines the influence of Simmel’s work, the key concepts and ideas it provides and how we might use it today.

Since the 1960s, the virtues have been making a comeback in various fields of study. This book offers an overview of the history of virtues from Plato to Nietzsche, discusses the philosophy and psychology of virtues, and analyzes different applications of virtue in epistemology, positive psychology, ethics, and politics.

There is a pervasive trend in Western theology to identify imago Dei with human intellectual and cognitive capacities. However, several contemporary theologians have criticized this view because, according to the critics, it leads to a truncated view of humanity. In this article, I shall concentrate on the question of rationality, first, through theologies of Thomas Aquinas and contemporary Lutheran Robert Jenson, and second, in some branches of recent cognitive psychology. I will argue that there is a significant overlap between contemporary (...) scientific interpretations of rationality and both a traditional Thomistic view and a contemporary ecumenical interpretation of imago Dei. Consequently, it is possible to give an account of imago Dei which takes structural features as central and which is in accord with contemporary science, without falling prey to the dangers that the critics of structuralism point out. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 57 Heft: 4 Seiten: 483-500.

In this article, we expand on the models available for defining various different business logics relevant to video game development, especially those concerning free-to-play games. We use the models to analyse those business logics from an Aristotelian virtue ethics perspective. We argue that if an individual wishes to follow the Aristotelian virtue ethics code in order to develop the virtues inherent in his or her own character, how he or she chooses to try and generate revenue from the fruits of (...) his or her labour is not irrelevant. Moreover, we argue that some of these methods are in fact vices, which are damaging to the character of the developer, and should therefore be avoided. (shrink)

"The central aims of this book are (1) to present an overview of the philosophical debate on trust in the last three decades; (2) to address a central issue in that debate, namely, the presumed prima facie conflict between trust and rationality; and (3) in the course of the analysis, to apply a non-essentialist understanding of psychological concepts, as developed in Wittgenstein's philosophical psychology. The task is not to judge between different definitions of trust. Instead we need awareness of what (...) is implied in a given case when behaviour is singled out as an instance of trust. To invoke the vocabulary of trust and distrust in human interaction is both to describe it, to take a certain perspective on it and to influence it. This is also true in the philosophical debate itself. The issue of trust has been taken up in response to various theoretical conundrums. A dominant theme is the need to refute scepticism and show why trust can be embraced as a rationally justified pursuit. The author argues that this approach must in the end be self-refuting because it would lose the phenomenon it wants to justify. What emerges is instead a conception of rationality that includes the entire web of practices and ways of thinking that constitute human agency, including our ways of speaking about them. We are always already embedded in relations of dependence, we are ethically committed to each other as beings that trust and receive trust"--Bloomsbury Publishing. (shrink)

Any religious worldview, understood in the sense that ‘life has a purpose’, has to face the problem of evil. The problem of evil has been particularly intensively discussed in the Aristotelian–Scholastic–Christian tradition. The most popular solution has been to deny that anything truly evil actually exists. It is hard to conceive why an omnipotent and perfectly good God would allow evil to appear. Yet, Western culture has been and still is full of imagery of absolute demonic evil. I suggest that (...) this strained dialectic could be best approached by radically rethinking the nature of evil and the theological context in which it has traditionally been thought. In his middle period works, Friedrich Schelling offers a pantheistic framework which gives extensive resources for thinking about evil. Schelling’s account is well balanced and innovative at least in two respects. It does not explain away the inscrutable presence of evil, but it neither completely renounces theoretical speculation of the origin of evil. Second, Schelling’s metaphysics anticipate Nietzsche’s fundamental critique of the ‘life-denying’ character of Western metaphysics and ethics. However, while sharing much of the critical aspects of Nietzsche’s thought, unlike Nietzsche, Schelling does not end up in atheism and moral relativism. (shrink)

Having the ability to understand emotionally how other people feel and see things is an essential fabric for building and sustaining functional interpersonal relationships. Without such an ability, social interaction crumbles, engagement fails, and learning is eroded. Yet, empirical evidence on the relationship between study burnout and study engagement, and empathy between upper secondary school students is limited. We are tackling the challenge by exploring the association between empathy between peers and study engagement and study burnout among upper secondary school (...) students. Two hundred and eighty upper secondary education students took part in our cross-sectional study. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the association between empathy, and study burnout and study engagement. The results showed that cognitive empathy contributed to affective empathy, which was further related to increased levels of study engagement, and decreased levels of cynicism, and sense of inadequacy. The role of cognitive empathy seemed to be more complicated: while cognitive empathy contributed directly to increased levels of cynicism, and inadequacy and decrease in study engagement, the indirect effects of cognitive empathy on cynicism and inadequacy were negative, and positive on study engagement. Neither of the empathy dimensions explained students’ emotional exhaustion. The results indicate that merely teaching students to recognize and identify their peers’ emotions is not sufficient to enhance study wellbeing, but they need to learn to share emotions and to tune into each other’s emotions. (shrink)

According to Spinoza mental events and physical events are identical. What makes Spinoza's identity theory tempting is that it solves the problem of mind body interaction rather elegantly: mental events and physical events can be causally related to each other because mental events are physical events. However, Spinoza seems to deny that there is any causal interaction between mental and physical events. My aim is to show that Spinoza's apparent denial of mind body interaction can be reconciled with the identity (...) theory. I argue that Spinoza had both an extensional and an intensional concept of cause and when Spinoza seems to deny mind body interaction he is having in mind the intensional concept of cause. This intensional concept of cause corresponds to that of causal explanation. I will argue that Spinoza anticipated Donald Davidson's view that even though mental events cannot be explained by referring to physical events and vice versa, mental and physical events are causally related to each other. (shrink)

This article argues that major cases of electoral reform across democracies in Asia in recent years can be explained as institutional measures aimed at curbing corruption and . More specifically, Japan, Taiwan, and Thailand rid themselves of their extreme candidate-centered electoral systems as a means to encourage politicians to invest in collective party labels, while Indonesia discarded its extremely party-centered electoral system to increase the accountability of individual politicians. The article thus disagrees with scholars who argue that recent electoral reform (...) should be understood as part of a wider project by Asian governments to engineer a majoritarian form of democracy. Instead, the comparative analysis shows that democracies across Asia, in line with global trends in institutional design, have been their electoral systems, moving them closer towards the ideal of electoral. (shrink)

A detailed and accessible look at one of the most exciting and contested works of Western philosophy, first published in 2009.

Re-Reading: G.E.M Anscombe, 'Modern Moral Philosophy', Philosophy, Vol 33, No. 124 (1958) 1 -33.

What does it mean to use language religiously? How does religious language differ from our ordinary linguistic practices? Can religious language have meaning? Among others, these questions are part of the so-called problem of religious language, which originates from the peculiar object of many religious claims, that is, the transcendent, or more precisely, God.

Bringing social theory and philosophy to bear on popular movies, novels, myths, and fairy tales, The Gift and its Paradoxes explores the ambiguity of the gift: it is at once both a relation and a thing, alienable and inalienable, present and poison. Challenging the nature of giving as reciprocal, the book engages critically with the work of Mauss and develops a new theory of the gift according to which the gift cannot be reduced to a model of exchange, but must (...) instead entail a loss or sacrifice. Ultimately, the gift is examined in the book as the impossible occurrence of gratuitous giving. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to show that most, if not all RFID/biometric passports have clear technical and social problems in their intended use and that there are clear problems with the databases into which biometric data are being collected, due to use of this data for other, non‐intended uses.Design/methodology/approachThe approach of this paper is both a meta‐study of the flaws in the technological specifications as well as the social implementation of RFID/biometric passports. Finland is used as a case, (...) but the results extend beyond Finland in most, if not all the topics presented – not necessarily all results to all implementations, but all to some others.FindingsThe current implementations of RFID/biometric passports are lacking in both technical and social implementations and pose clear risks to their use, both due to lax implementation of the technology itself but specifically due to the social changes brought about. These problems cause both erosion of privacy and trust.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research into other potential social implications on a national level is required. The authors fear that the cases presented do not necessarily reflect all the potential problems, but just the most evident ones.Practical implicationsThe problems with the technological implications can be averted by using the best technological solutions, and thus the best technological solutions should be used instead of the ones proven to be lacking.Social implicationsThe social implications should at least be brought forth for public discourse and acknowledged, which currently does not seem to happen.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the understanding of problems with current RFID/biometric passport implementations as well as inherent social problems that are hard, if not impossible to avoid. The problems belong under the category of critical eGovernment applications, and similar issues are visible in other eGovernment applications. (shrink)

Dorothea, an idealistic young lady, is the central figure of George Eliot's Middlemarch . She longs to devote her life to something valuable, looking up to people like St Teresa as her ideal. Contrary to all expectations, she decides to marry Casaubon, an elderly clergyman. For years, Casaubon has been preparing his magnum opus called ‘Key to All Religions’. In the milieu where Dorothea is living—a quiet English parish in the 1830s—Casaubon's scholarly project appears to her as the right object (...) of her devotion. She would lighten the burden of his solitary labour; share his life of wisdom and pursuit of truth. (shrink)

Free will is a perennial theological and philosophical topic. As a central dogmatic locus, it is implicated in discussions around core Christian doctrines such as grace, salvation, sin, providence, evil and predestination. This book offers a state-of-the-art look at recent debates about free will in analytic and philosophical theology. The chapters revolve around three central themes: the debate between theological compatibilists and libertarians, the communal nature of Christian freedom, and the role of free will in Christology. With contributions by leading (...) scholars, the volume provides a valuable overview of current arguments as well as novel openings and ideas for further discussion. (shrink)

After the publication of Wittgenstein’s posthumous work the question was raised whether that work involved idealist tendencies. The debate also engaged Wittgenstein’s immediate students. Resistance to presumed idealist positions had been ideologically central to G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell and other representatives of realism and early analytic philosophy. While Wittgenstein disagreed with them in key respects, he accepted their tendentious definition of ‘idealism’ at face value and bequeathed it to his students. The greatest flaw in the Realists’ view on idealism was (...) their assumption of symmetry between realist and idealist approaches. For Realists, the chief task of philosophy was to establish what kinds of thing exist, and they took Idealists to offer an alternative account of that. However, the Idealists’ guiding concern was rather to investigate the subjective conditions of knowledge. In this respect, Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophical method was closer to theirs than to that of the Realists. This is especially obvious in his rejection of Moore’s idea of immediate knowledge. Ultimately, the trouble with Wittgenstein was not that he endorsed any kind of idealist ontology. It was his refusal to deliver the expected realist ontological messages on the supposed question of whether reality is independent of language or otherwise. (shrink)

Sean McGrath has produced an interesting interpretation of Renaissance Hermeticism in the context of environmental philosophy. By recovering this esoteric current he combines deep ecological criticism of anthropocentrism with humanistic critique of one-sidedly ecocentric views. After summarizing McGrath’s position and arguing for its profound potential, I will point out a problem in McGrath’s use of one of his key conceptions: disenchantment. Countering McGrath, I argue that the conception of disenchantment is not suitable for distinguishing overly ideological or superficial forms of (...) esotericism from those with actual philosophical and political potential. (shrink)

This article has a twofold aim. First it is shown, based on Joseph Christopher Greer’s earlier analysis, that there is a close historical, and to some extent substantial, affinity between deep ecology and esotericism. Greer’s findings will be corroborated by applying three different definitions of esotericism to the question at hand. Second, based on Sean McGrath’s ecophilosophy, it will be argued that utilizing esoteric influences systematically in deep ecological context can help deep ecology to avoid some problematic aspects it is (...) often accused of. Especially the esoteric conception of living nature can help deep ecology to bridge the gulf between nature and the human being, and thereby to avoid both theoretical and practical anti-humanism. (shrink)

Clinical research must be understood to be the foundation of scientific medicine of the clinical type. But the essence of scientific clinical medicine remains a matter of profound confusion, even in clinical academia, and so does the essence of clinical research. The confusion now revolves, principally, around ‘clinical epidemiology’. We address clinical research in the meaning of quintessentially ‘applied’ clinical research, which we take to be the foundation of the scientific knowledge base of clinical medicine, of gnosis (dia‐, etio‐, pro‐) (...) in it. More specifically, we address the essence, priorities, and status quo of this research – and argue that the requisite theory of this is not a matter of ‘clinical epidemiology’ but of theory of clinical research endogenous to clinical (rather than epidemiological) academia. (shrink)

F.W.J. Schelling argues in his middle period work Philosophical Inquiries into the Nature of Human Freedom that will should be understood as the most fundamental constitutive element of reality. Though it is often downplayed in recent scholarship, Schelling derived his most central ideas for this work more or less directly from the theosophy of Jacob Boehme. I will argue that far from peripheral and antiquated curiosity, Schelling´s esoteric influences constitute the very foundation of his middle period thought. Schelling´s affinity to (...) esotericism enabled him to develop a form of pantheism, which is not tied to the familiar problematic aspects of traditional Christian and post-Christian narratives. In mainstream Christianity, the meaning of life is dependent on the almighty God´s will, for which nature is inherently meaningless material. For Schelling, by contrast, nature itself is constitutively willing and meaningful. Consequently, owing to his esoteric influences, Schelling provides an account of the meaning of life which diverges from the dominant idea of Western philosophical and theological tradition that the meaning of life consists in a ”true world” or ”destination” beyond immanent reality. (shrink)

This essay addresses the process philosophy of the German fin-de-siècle philosopher and sociologist Georg Simmel. While Simmel’s contribution to sociological process analysis has been widely acknowledged, his more subtle philosophical contributions have largely gone unnoticed. In the essay, Simmel’s philosophical process thinking is discussed by focusing on three themes. The first is what he calls his “relativistic” mode of thinking, a way of considering entities in terms of processes and dynamic relations. The second one is his Lebensphilosophie, lifephilosophy, philosophy that (...) tries to view life as such in its continuous, fluctuating becoming. In the third section, Simmel’s view of philosophy itself as process is discussed. For Simmel, philosophy is not cut up in crystallized notions, systems, or sublime results, but amounts to process. Therefore what philosophy is can be specified only within philosophical practices; philosophy cannot be defined before engaging in the actual practice of doing philosophy. (shrink)

The article argues for the relevance of Simmel's life‐philosophy for the contemporary thought about life and death. By considering life, paradoxically, at once as a pre‐individual flux of becoming and individuated, Simmel manages to avoid both reductionism and mysticism. In addition, unlike Deleuze, for example, Simmel thinks that we can experience and know life only in some individual, actual form, never in its pure virtuality, as an absolute flow. During the course of examination, Simmel's insights will also be discussed in (...) connection with Heidegger. The article maintains that what remains on the Simmelian side beyond the striking affinities between the two thinkers is a kind of animal vitality. Though Simmel's life‐philosophy is mainly concerned with the world‐relation of humans, when it comes to death, it places humans on a par with all living organisms. A death that is immanent in life is appropriate to anything that is living. Thus the human individual, too, is dying precisely as a living organism, as some‐body that is alive. (shrink)

In this article, I will examine St. Edith Stein’s theory of religious language. Stein, who was both a professional philosopher and a mystic, and deeply rooted both in the tradition of negative theology and early phenomenology, held a peculiar version of univocity with regard to religious language. On the one hand, our concepts have something objectively in common with the thing they signify. On the other hand, our concepts are merely representations of the real. Therefore, when mystics say that God (...) can be addressed “without words or images,” this does not entail anti-realism or non-cognitivism. Instead, according to Stein, this only means that words are not needed when the thing itself is present without mediation in the mystical experience. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie Jahrgang: 57 Heft: 1 Seiten: 87-109.

In adult education there is always a problem of prefabricated and in many respect fixed opinions and views of the world. In this sense, I will argue, that the starting point of radical education should be in the destruction of these walls of belief that people build around themselves in order to feel safe. In this connection I will talk about ‘gentle shattering of identities’ as a problem and a method of radical education. When we as adult educators are trying (...) to gently shatter these solidified identities and pre‐packed ways of being and acting in the world, we are moving in the field of questions that Sigmund Freud tackled with the concepts of ‘de‐personalization’ and ‘de‐realization’. These concepts raise the question about the possibility of at the same time believing that something is and at the same time having a fundamentally sceptical attitude towards this given. In my article I will ask, can we integrate the idea of learning in general with the idea of strangeness to oneself as a legitimate and sensible experiential point of departure for radical learning? (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz wird das Problem der Inkompossibilität bei Leibniz diskutiert. Zwei mögliche Substanzen sind inkompossibel, wenn und nur wenn es nicht möglich ist, daß sie in einer gemeinsamen Welt existieren, d. h. es für Gott unmöglich ist, eine Welt zu erschaffen, in der beide Substanzen existieren. Der Begriff von Inkompossibilität ist nun jedoch aufgrund der völligen Unabhängigkeit der Substanzen voneinander in Gefahr, sich als gehaltlos zu erweisen. Unser Ausgangspunkt im Folgenden ist Hintikkas Analyse des Problems. Wir versuchen zu zeigen, (...) wie es für Leibniz möglich ist, in seiner Theorie der Individuation ohne Relationen auszukommen und sich auf sie dennoch zu stützen, um dem Begriff der Inkompossibilität Gehalt zu verleihen. Dazu bedienen wir uns auch der Ideen von Russell über die Quelle der Inkompossibilität bei Leibniz: Um ihre Herkunft aufzuspüren, müssen wir das Konzept von der Welt, welches Leibniz verwandt hat, noch beleuchten -unsere Lösung des Problems kann dann als eine Art Synthese der sogenannten analytischen und synthetischen Lösungen angesehen werden. (shrink)

The article discusses Georg Simmel’s theorizing on the social in the light of his treatment of the ‘dyad’ and the ‘triad’, constellations of two and three elements. What makes the dyad and the triad particularly interesting is the fact that they express the difference between the primary intersubjectivity immanent to the individuals and the objectified social forms in numerical terms, as quantitatively determined. In the article, it is argued that in its basic, methodologically simplest form, the social amounts for Simmel (...) to dyadic interaction between I and you, that can be conceptualized as ‘beingwith’. Nevertheless, a third element is always included also in the dyad, be it only as an excluded third. Therefore, it is claimed that in order to fully understand the dynamics of social relationships, one must look at the interplay of two socio-logics, bivalent and trivalent. The ‘third’ not only interrupts the supposedly immediate relation between the two elements of the dyad, but it is also capable of transforming it into a completely new figure: a social whole, a ‘we’, which obtains a supra-individual life independent of the individuals. (shrink)