Reasoning about situations we take to be impossible is useful for a variety of theoretical purposes. Furthermore, using a device of impossible worlds when reasoning about the impossible is useful in the same sorts of ways that the device of possible worlds is useful when reasoning about the possible. This paper discusses some of the uses of impossible worlds and argues that commitment to them can and should be had without great metaphysical or logical cost. The paper then provides an (...) account of reasoning with impossible worlds, by treating such reasoning as reasoning employing counterpossible conditionals, and provides a semantics for the proposed treatment. (shrink)

Creationism about fictional entities requires a principle connecting what fictions say exist with which fictional entities really exist. The most natural way of spelling out such a principle yields inconsistent verdicts about how many fictional entities are generated by certain inconsistent fictions. Avoiding inconsistency without compromising the attractions of creationism will not be easy.

Impossible fictions are valuable evidence both for a theory of fiction and for theories of meaning, mind and epistemology. This article focuses on what we can learn about fiction from reflecting on impossible fictions. First, different kinds of impossible fiction are considered, and the question of how much fiction is impossible is addressed. What impossible fiction contributes to our understanding of "truth in fiction" and the logic of fiction will be examined. Finally, our understanding of unreliable narrators and unreliable narration (...) in fiction needs to accommodate stories that, on the face of it, cannot possibly be true. (shrink)

Fourteen newly commissioned essays trace the historical development of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, which lies at the intersection of issues in metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of perception. 'Primary and Secondary Qualities' focuses on the age of the Scientific Revolution, the 'locus classicus' of the distinction, but begins with chapters on ancient Greek and Scholastic accounts of qualities in an effort to identify its origins. The remainder of the volume is devoted to philosophical reflections on qualities from the (...) seventeenth century to the present day. Virtualliy every major figure is represented from Gassendi to Kant, and special attention is paid to Locke, Descartes, and Hume. The essays collected here cover a wide range of topics, including the foundation for the distinction, the question of whether it is lmetaphysical or merely epistemic, the status of secondary qualities, the nature of sensoriy representation, the relation between philosophy and science, the status of dispositions, and the semantics of sensible-quality terms"--Publisher's description, p. [4] of dust jacket. (shrink)

Philosophers have found postulating possible worlds to be very useful in a number of areas, including philosophy of language and mind, logic, and metaphysics. Impossible worlds are a natural extension to this use of possible worlds, and can help resolve a number of difficulties thrown up by possible‐worlds frameworks.

It is almost universally believed that some infinite regresses are vicious, and also almost universally believed that some are benign. In this paper I argue that regresses can be vicious for several different sorts of reasons. Furthermore, I claim that some intuitively vicious regresses do not suffer from any of the particular aetiologies that guarantee viciousness to regresses, but are nevertheless so on the basis of considerations of parsimony. The difference between some apparently benign and some apparently vicious regresses, then, (...) turns out to be a matter of a more general assessment of costs and benefits, making viciousness of regresses in some cases less of a local matter than is usually thought. (shrink)

Possible worlds have found many applications in contemporary philosophy: from theories of possibility and necessity, to accounts of conditionals, to theories of mental and linguistic content, to understanding supervenience relationships, to theories of properties and propositions, among many other applications. Almost as soon as possible worlds started to be used in formal theories in logic, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and elsewhere, theorists started to wonder whether impossible worlds should be postulated as well. In many applications, possible worlds (...) face limitations that can be dealt with through postulating impossible worlds as well. This chapter examines some of the uses of impossible worlds, and philosophical challenges theories of impossible worlds face. (shrink)

The point of departure of this article is the trend towards hybridisation in new technology development, which makes classical dichotomies between machines, human life and the environment obsolete and leads to the post-human world we live in today. We critically reflect on the post-human concept of the hybrid world. Although we agree with post-humanists that human life can no longer be opposed to machines but appears as a decentralized human-technology relation, alliance or network that constitutes a hybrid world, we ask (...) for a limit to hybridisation. After rejecting the concept of metabolism as such a limit, we explore the concept of the responsive conativity of material entities. The principle of conativity of material entities provides a materialist perspective on metabolism, which enables us to conceive material entities as self-assertive material entities that are differentiated from the environment. The principle of responsivity of material entities provides a materialist perspective on the post-human world in which material entities are responsive to each other and form alliances and networks. We propose to differentiate between the conativity and responsivity of material entities and propose the conativity of matter as a limit to hybridisation in the post-human world. (shrink)

This book closely examines our commonly held beliefs about human suffering, and offers unique insights into God's role in why we suffer. Dr. Perri critically examines what it means to be human from a Judeo-Christian perspective, and extrapolates from the work of Carl Gustav Jung showing a deeply complex development of human transcendence in human suffering. On an interpersonal level, Dr. Perri elaborates on the work of Martin Buber and Emanuel Levinas and shows how our suffering can be shared and (...) lessened by our unconditionality and presence for the other. Scriptural passages are quoted from both the Hebrew and New Testament texts, and are used to depict the suffering of humankind as seen in the face of Job. It was this face, according to Perri, that Jesus saw in the faces of those He came to redeem, and that ultimately brought Him to the crucifix of redemption. Dr. Perri challenges Sartre's position that our existence precedes our essence, and draws on the work of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Christian theology in this regard. He further elaborates a neurodevelopmental paradigm that creates essence as the basis of our freedom to choose. This book can be read and studied by both professionals in the helping and healing professions, and lay persons seeking to better understand our suffering, and how to better help those who suffer. Dr. Perri offers specific ways in how to be present for those who suffer, how to read and receive the hidden language of human suffering, and how to use silence as a communication skill. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that existing ‘self-representational’ theories of phenomenal consciousness do not adequately address the problem of higher-order misrepresentation. Drawing a page from the phenomenal concepts literature, a novel self-representational account is introduced that does. This is the quotational theory of phenomenal consciousness, according to which the higher-order component of a conscious state is constituted by the quotational component of a quotational phenomenal concept. According to the quotational theory of consciousness, phenomenal concepts help to account for the (...) very nature of phenomenally conscious states. Thus, the paper integrates two largely distinct explanatory projects in the field of consciousness studies: (i) the project of explaining how we think about our phenomenally conscious states, and (ii) the project of explaining what phenomenally conscious states are in the first place. (shrink)

Abstract Impossible fictions have lessons to teach us about linguistic representation, about mental content and concepts, and about uses of conceivability in epistemology. An adequate theory of impossible fictions may require theories of meaning that can distinguish between different impossibilities; a theory of conceptual truth that allows us to make useful sense of a variety of conceptual falsehoods; and a theory of our understanding of necessity and possibility that permits impossibilities to be conceived. After discussing these questions, strategies for resisting (...) the picture of impossible fictions presented here and in Part I are discussed. Perhaps apparently impossible fictions describe possibilities after all; or perhaps impossible fictions are all trivial; or perhaps some apparently intelligible impossible fictions are unintelligible after all. (shrink)

This paper responds to commentaries by Kaiserman and Magidor, and Hawthorne. The case of the infinite clowns can teach us several things.

This paper investigates the prospects of Rodney Brooks’ proposal for AI without representation. It turns out that the supposedly characteristic features of “new AI” (embodiment, situatedness, absence of reasoning, and absence of representation) are all present in conventional systems: “New AI” is just like old AI. Brooks proposal boils down to the architectural rejection of central control in intelligent agents—Which, however, turns out to be crucial. Some of more recent cognitive science suggests that we might do well to dispose of (...) the image of intelligent agents as central representation processors. If this paradigm shift is achieved, Brooks’ proposal for cognition without representation appears promising for full-blown intelligent agents—Though not for conscious agents. (shrink)

This chapter provides an introduction to possible worlds semantics in both logic and the philosophy of language, including a discussion of some of the advantages and challenges for possible worlds semantics.

This encylopedia entry describes the "Canberra Plan" approach to conceptual analysis, a method closely related to the Ramsey-Carnap-Lewis approach to analysing the meaning of theoretical terms.

Will future lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWS), or ‘killer robots’, be a threat to humanity? The European Parliament has called for a moratorium or ban of LAWS; the ‘Contracting Parties to the Geneva Convention at the United Nations’ are presently discussing such a ban, which is supported by the great majority of writers and campaigners on the issue. However, the main arguments in favour of a ban are unsound. LAWS do not support extrajudicial killings, they do not take responsibility away (...) from humans; in fact they increase the abil-ity to hold humans accountable for war crimes. Using LAWS in war would probably reduce human suffering overall. Finally, the availability of LAWS would probably not increase the probability of war or other lethal conflict—especially as compared to extant remote-controlled weapons. The widespread fear of killer robots is unfounded: They are probably good news. (shrink)

Marriages come in a very wide variety: if the reports of anthropologists and historians are to be believed, an extraordinarily wide variety. This includes some of the more unusual forms, including marriage to the dead; to the gods; and even to plants. This does suggest that few proposed marriage relationships would require 'redefining marriage': but on the other hand, it makes giving a general theory of marriage challenging. So one issue we should face is how accepting we should be of (...) the reports: to what extent reported 'marriages' really are marriages. This paper defends the view that almost all of these reported marriages are in fact marriages, and suggests some theoretical approaches that may be generous enough to account for this. (shrink)

What political problem can autobiography solve? This article examines the politics of Frederick Douglass’s antebellum personal narratives: his 1845 slave narrative, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and his 1855 autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom, written at the opposite ends of Douglass’s transition from the abolitionist politics of William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips to Douglass’s defense of political action and the Constitution as anti-slavery. Placing the two texts alongside Douglass’s distinction “to narrate wrongs” (...) and “denouncing them,” I argue that Douglass writes My Bondage and My Freedom as a mode of denunciation: an autobiographical critique of injustice that balances analysis of collective oppression with advocacy for communal emancipation. Whereas to narrate wrongs encouraged readers to judge Douglass’s story alongside popular criteria of justice, to denounce wrongs is to implicate readers within the structures that create antebellum subjects on and off the plantation, by revealing the coercions and conditionings of society that make not simply slaves but slaveowners, sympathizers, and abolitionists. This article claims that autobiography is a distinct genre of political theory, one that challenges present relations between the individual and the collective by representing not simply its author but an expanded view of “the people.”. (shrink)

Traditionally, discussions of moral participation – and in particular moral agency – have focused on fully formed human actors. There has been some interest in the development of morality in humans, as well as interest in cultural differences when it comes to moral practices, commitments, and actions. However, until relatively recently, there has been little focus on the possibility that nonhuman animals have any role to play in morality, save being the objects of moral concern. Moreover, when nonhuman cases are (...) considered as evidence of moral agency or subjecthood, there has been an anthropocentric tendency to focus on those behaviors that inform our attributions of moral agency to humans. For example, some argue that the ability to evaluate the principles upon which a moral norm is grounded is required for full moral agency. Certainly, if a moral agent must understand what makes an action right or wrong, then most nonhuman animals would not qualify (and perhaps some humans too). However, if we are to understand the evolution of moral psychology and moral practice, we need to turn our attention to the foundations of full moral agency. We must first pay attention to the more broadly normative practices of other animals. Here, we begin that project by considering evidence that great apes and cetaceans participate in normative practices. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Christ's Human Nature and the Cry from the Cross:St. Thomas Aquinas on Psalm 22:2Philip Nolan O.P.Christ's cry from the Cross quoting Psalm 22 (Mark 15:34; Matt 27:46) has become a central focus for contemporary Christological debates.1 A number of modern thinkers have read this verse as expressing in Christ an experience of dereliction incompatible with traditional positions concerning divine impassibility Christ's beatific knowledge, and Trinitarian relations.2 Thomas Joseph (...) White has recently offered an insightful Thomistic critique of these interpretations: [End Page 1219]The final cry of Christ on the cross cannot be interpreted as a cry of either despair or of spiritual separation from God. By contrast, it must be understood theologically as a prayer of desire related to Christ's abandonment to the Father and his hope to introduce humanity into the eschatological gift of redemption.3In his work, White is concerned to engage with modern Christological themes using principles derived from the Thomistic tradition. For this reason, he articulates a rather original alternative to modern theologies of dereliction—especially those marked by divine kenoticism and Luther's theology of the Cross. In offering a view inspired by Thomistic principles, White presents his own creative retrieval of Aquinas's ideas concerning the cry from the Cross.At times, however, White's argument leaves somewhat obscure the literal meaning of the words of that cry: "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"4 For example, in pushing back against radical interpretations [End Page 1220] of dereliction, he shifts the language of "abandonment" from God's abandonment of Christ to Christ's abandonment to the Father. My argument in this article is that the textual commentaries on Psalm 225 by Augustine and Aquinas—material that White does not consider specifically—can provide an alternate and somewhat complementary Thomistic approach to the one White proposes, and one more soundly based on Aquinas's texts themselves.6 Christ's cry is a quote from this psalm, and Aquinas's commentary on Ps 22:27 develops the Augustinian interpretation of this verse in order to give greater emphasis to Christ's human nature. This emphasis helps to explain, in a classical way, what it can mean that Christ is abandoned. Thus, Aquinas's exegesis bolsters the orthodox response to contemporary revisionist theologians by providing a clear literal understanding of this contested biblical passage without applying an experience of damnation to Christ or denying classical positions concerning divine impassibility, Christ's beatific knowledge, and the nature of Trinitarian relations.To make this argument, I will first look at the rich tradition of reflection on the Christological meaning of the Psalms, and Psalm 22 in particular, inherited by Thomas. This tradition includes a series of psalm commentaries, conciliar documents, and a variety of other theological works. In this tradition, I argue, we see two primary interpretative approaches. The first is what I will call the Augustinian approach, which insists that Christ is speaking on the Cross for sinners and in the voice of sinners. The second interpretation places more weight on Christ's own voice and insists that he is speaking in a real way for himself—Christ in some way truly is abandoned by God. These interpretations need not and should not be read as contradictory. In fact, all the authorities I examine insist on the first approach. Differences emerge, however, in how they coordinate the latter interpretation with the former. I will discuss Thomas's synthesis of these interpretations, a synthesis that he grounds in the reality of Christ's human nature. Finally, I will suggest [End Page 1221] how a close reading of Thomas's mature treatment of Ps 22:2 supplements contemporary Thomist responses to modern Christological concerns and misguided interpretations of Christ's cry on the Cross.Thomas's Sources for Reading Psalm 22:2Thomas's primary source for understanding Ps 22:2 is Scripture itself Both Mark and Matthew report that Christ spoke the words of this psalm from the Cross, a fact which necessitates for Thomas a Christological interpretation of the psalm.8 Augustine links Ps 22:2 with passages in... (shrink)

The ontological pictures underpinning David Lewis's Parts of Classes and On the Plurality of Worlds are in some tension. One tension concerns whether the sets and classes of Parts of Classes can be found in Lewis's modal space, since they cannot in general be parts of any possible world. The second is that the atoms that are the mathematical ontology of Parts of Classes seem to meet the criteria for being possible worlds themselves, and so fail to be the material (...) Parts of Classes needs. Two different responses to these tensions are discussed: one is unappealing in several ways but keeps more of Lewis's doctrines, while the other requires some modifications to the system of Parts of Classes. (shrink)

Despite its growing use over past decades, there has been relatively little public or scholarly discussion of life sentences that deny the possibility of parole. This essay outlines the labyrinthine legal and political developments that have rendered life imprisonment difficult to address—including the intertwined histories of the death penalty and civil death—and draws upon the life writing of those serving life to theorize a more distinct understanding of this punishment. Witnesses reveal how the possibility of life despite the impossibility of (...) parole punishes by subverting the goals of human growth and development. The potentiality of what can be done in the present grinds up against the futility of what could have been done and what could be done were release an option. Considered alongside the laws and court opinions and claims that characterize its convoluted development, these testimonies reveal this punishment’s role in the American imagination. Life without the possibility of parole reinforces and relies upon a vision that not simply some people are unable to change, but that anyone in a democracy—no matter their position—is some steps away from irretrievable exclusion. Permanent confinement denies a restorative vision of democracy: any effort to abolish or amend it must include the voices of those imprisoned. (shrink)

David Lewis rejected consequentialism in ethics. However, two aspects of his meta-ethical views make it a challenge to see how consequentialism could be resisted. Lewis endorses a maximising conception of rationality, where to be rational is to maximise value of a certain sort; he appears to think it is possible to be both rational and moral; and yet he rejects conceptions of moral action as acting to maximise moral value. The second tension in Lewis's views arises from his meta-ethics. Lewis's (...) naturalisation of morality is in terms of a naturalised account of value, including moral value. Insofar as he offers a motivational story for moral judgements, it is one that goes via a motivational connection to value. Yet his anti-consequentialism seems to commit him to rejecting a story of moral action entirely in terms of pursuit of moral value. In both cases there are things to be said about how to weave these strands of Lewis's thought together. After setting out these two apparent tensions in Lewis's thought about ethics, the paper discusses what a Lewisian could best say about these puzzles. Lewisians do have a number of plausible options for dealing with the first challenge. While there are things a Lewisian could attempt to extend Lewis's moral naturalism in a way that could deal with the second challenge, it is harder to see how to do this in a satisfying way. Attention then turns to what Lewis said in his letters on these topics: on that basis, perhaps Lewis was close to being an agent-relative consequentialist after all. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a digital technology that will be of major importance for the development of humanity in the near future. AI has raised fundamental questions about what we should do with such systems, what the systems themselves should do, what risks they involve and how we can control these. - After the background to the field (1), this article introduces the main debates (2), first on ethical issues that arise with AI systems as objects, i.e. tools made and (...) used by humans; here, the main sections are privacy (2.1), manipulation (2.2), opacity (2.3), bias (2.4), autonomy & responsibility (2.6) and the singularity (2.7). Then we look at AI systems as subjects, i.e. when ethics is for the AI systems themselves in machine ethics (2.8.) and artificial moral agency (2.9). Finally we look at future developments and the concept of AI (3). For each section within these themes, we provide a general explanation of the ethical issues, we outline existing positions and arguments, then we analyse how this plays out with current technologies and finally what policy conse-quences may be drawn. (shrink)

An overview of hyperintensionality is provided. Hyperintensional languages have expressions with meanings that are more fine-grained than necessary equivalence. That is, the expressions may necessarily co-apply and yet be distinct in meaning. Adequately accounting for theories cast in hyperintensional languages is important in the philosophy of language; the philosophy of mind; metaphysics; and elsewhere. This entry presents a number of areas in which hyperintensionality is important; a range of approaches to theorising about hyperintensional matters; and a range of debates that (...) attention to hyperintensional constructions has generated. (shrink)

The cognition and information theoretic sciences have now been in existence for the better part of a century. In that time, their varied disciplines have undergone extensive maturation, honing their methods, constitutions, and evaluation techniques in the pursuit of academic rigor, while not losing sight of the practical influences that have served as their almost universal cornerstone. Meanwhile, this period has also been marked by increasing disparity and gradual distancing of the philosophical underpinnings upon which each field is founded, adding (...) strain to interdisciplinary collaborative efforts. This article presents an overview of select information-science-related cognition disciplines, and shows how the nascent Philosophy of Information can be adopted as a means of unifying these philosophical foundations in an empirically sound manner, without sacrificing general applicability. In addition, it demonstrates how PI is already rooted in the philosophies or epistemological views of several of the cognition disciplines, implicitly or otherwise. (shrink)

In recent years, Charles Sanders Peirce has emerged, in the eyes of philosophers both in America and abroad, as one of America’s major philosophical thinkers. His work has forced us back to philosophical reflection about those basic issues that inevitably confront us as human beings, especially in an age of science. Peirce’s concern for experience, for what is actually encountered, means that his philosophy, even in its most technical aspects, forms a reflective commentary on actual life and on the world (...) in which it is lived. In Charles S. Peirce: On Norms and Ideals, Potter argues that Peirce’s doctrine of the normative sciences is essential to his pragmatism. No part of Peirce’s philosophy is bolder than his attempt to establish esthetics, ethics, and logic as the three normative sciences and to argue for the priority of esthetics among the trio. Logic, Potter cites, is normative because it governs thought and aims at truth; ethics is normative because it analyzes the ends to which thought should be directed; esthetics is normative and fundamental because it considers what it means to be an end of something good in itself. This study shows that pierce took seriously the trinity of normative sciences and demonstrates that these categories apply both to the conduct of man and to the workings of the cosmos. Professor Potter combines sympathetic and informed exposition with straightforward criticism and he deals in a sensible manner with the gaps and inconsistencies in Peirce’s thought. His study shows that Peirce was above all a cosmological and ontological thinker, one who combined science both as a method and as result with a conception of reasonable actions to form a comprehensive theory of reality. Peirce’s pragmatism, although it has to do with "action and the achievement of results, is not a glorification of action but rather a theory of the dynamic nature of things in which the "ideal" dimension of reality – laws, nature of things, tendencies, and ends – has genuine power for directing the cosmic order, including man, toward reasonable goals. (shrink)

" Façonner le monde atome par atome " : tel est l'objectif incroyablement ambitieux affiché par les promoteurs américains de la " National Nanoinitiative ", lancée en 1999. Un projet global de " convergence des sciences ", visant à " initier une nouvelle Renaissance, incorporant une conception holiste de la technologie fondée sur [..] une analyse causale du monde physique, unifiée depuis l'échelle nano jusqu'à l'échelle planétaire. " Ce projet démiurgique est aujourd'hui au coeur de ce qu'on appelle la " (...) technoscience ", étendard pour certains, repoussoir pour d'autres. En précisant dans ce livre la signification de ce concept, pour sortir enfin du sempiternel conflit entre technophiles et technophobes, son auteur propose d'abord une sorte d'archéologie du terme " technoscience ". Loin d'être un simple renversement de hiérarchie entre science et technique, il s'agit d'un changement de régime de la connaissance scientifique, ayant désormais intégré la logique entrepreneuriale du monde des affaires et mobilisant des moyens considérables. Surtout, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent montre que le brouillage de la frontière entre science et technique n'est que la manifestation d'un tremblement plus général, marqué par l'effacement progressif des distinctions traditionnelles : nature/artifice, inerte/vivant, matière/esprit, homme/machine, etc. Alors que nos sociétés sont silencieusement reconfigurées par les nanotechnologies, Internet, le génie génétique ou les OGM, ce livre montre l'importance de faire enfin pleinement entrer les questions de choix technologiques et scientifiques dans la sphère du politique et dans l'arène publique. Car la technoscience est un processus historique qui engage la nature en la refaçonnant et qui implique la société dans son ensemble. (shrink)

Recent studies have shown that self‐explanation is an effective metacognitive strategy, but how can it be leveraged to improve students' learning in actual classrooms? How do instructional treatments that emphasizes self‐explanation affect students' learning, as compared to other instructional treatments? We investigated whether self‐explanation can be scaffolded effectively in a classroom environment using a Cognitive Tutor, which is intelligent instructional software that supports guided learning by doing. In two classroom experiments, we found that students who explained their steps during problem‐solving (...) practice with a Cognitive Tutor learned with greater understanding compared to students who did not explain steps. The explainers better explained their solutions steps and were more successful on transfer problems. We interpret these results as follows: By engaging in explanation, students acquired better‐integrated visual and verbal declarative knowledge and acquired less shallow procedural knowledge. The research demonstrates that the benefits of self‐explanation can be achieved in a relatively simple computer‐based approach that scales well for classroom use. (shrink)

" La formule cartésienne causa sive ratio scande l'histoire de la causalité, entre le privilège suarézien de la cause efficiente et l'invention leibnizienne du principe de raison suffisante. Elle traverse un siècle exactement, des Disputationes metaphysicae de Suarez (1597) aux 24 thèses métaphysiques de Leibniz (1697). La métaphysique s'y constitue en époque de la causalité. Qu'ils la soutiennent ou qu'ils la récusent, les philosophes du XVIIe siècle ont en commun de discuter la thèse qui confère l'intelligibilité à la relation causale (...) ; elle prend la forme exemplaire de l'équivalence cartésienne de la cause et de la raison. Mais la façon dont la relation causale gagne l'intelligibilité demeure à son tour inintelligible, puisqu'elle renvoie à la toute-puissance incompréhensible de celui qui l'exerce, y compris peut-être envers lui-même : sui causa. C'est là précisément la thèse que les post-cartésiens ne cesseront de lire comme un problème et de récuser : Spinoza, en posant que l'ordre et la connexion des idées sont les mêmes que l'ordre et la connexion des choses ; Malebranche, en faisant de la cause occasionnelle une raison inefficace et en concentrant en Dieu toute l'efficace ; Leibniz, en employant le principe de raison suffisante, qui rationalise l'existence en la soustrayant à l'emprise de l'efficience. Loin de la produire, la causalité se voit alors soumise, sous diverses modalités, à l'intelligibilité. Aussi le principe de raison suffisante signe-t-il ce que nous appelons la fin de la cause - par excellence la fin de l'efficience -, qui n'est pas la fin de la question du fondement, mais le déplacement de sa réponse vers plus fondateur que la cause : la raison. Ainsi se trouve accomplie l'essence du fondement à l'époque moderne de l'histoire de la métaphysique. " V. C. (shrink)

In philosophical reflections on geoethics, it is primarily the question of what it means to be ‘part’ of the Earth system that is critically reflected upon. As the current geological era of the Anthropocene disrupts the dichotomy between Human agency and the Earth system, philosophers criticise a humanist account of geoethics and call for a post-humanist account. In this chapter, we critically engage with one specific proponent of the post-humanist position, Timothy Morton. We introduce his version of the post-humanist position (...) by focussing on his call for the ‘end-of-the-world’ in the Anthropocene. We subsequently criticise Morton’s rejection of the World for three reasons. We show that the emergence of the Anthropocene is primarily an ontological phenomenon, namely a shift in our ‘being-in-the-world’ and that the concept of World is needed to understand the meaning of our ‘being-in-the-Anthropocene’ in contrast with our ‘being-in-the-Holocene’. We introduce a twofold between our ‘being-in-the-world’ as a symmetric relation and our ‘being-on-Earth’ as an asymmetric relation that constitutes our ‘being-in-the-Anthropocene’. This asymmetry disrupts the post-humanist position and calls for a conceptualisation of the human ethos beyond the post-humanist position. This conceptualisation of the human ethos also has consequences for our understanding of geoethics as geo-ethos. (shrink)

The reformed tradition on moral virtue -- Barth's objections -- Objections overcome -- The shape of reformed virtue after Barth -- Living out the reformed virtues.

RULE or restricted utilitarianism is frequently propounded and just as frequently criticized in the literature. Its various refinements initially involve conceptual adjustments such as clarifying the logical relations between some stateable rule of utility and other moral rules or the specification of a criterion for ranking rules in case of conflict and so forth. It soon becomes clear, comparatively speaking, that a cluster of problems involving justice, personal rights and the denotation of ‘intrinsic good’ cannot be resolved without extending rule (...) utilitarianism as a theory of right conduct and justification; thus the origin of the appellation ‘extended’ rule utilitarianism. In this paper I shall: render an interpreted model of rule utilitarianism that possesses all the logical features of alternative interpretations. Describe a style of argument for extending rule utilitarianism to incorporate a rule of distribution. Such an extension preserves the consistency of rule utilitarianism. Describe a second style of argument for extending rule utilitarianism to incorporate a rule of distribution. Such an extension does not preserve the consistency of rule utilitarianism. (shrink)