According to Paul Boghossian and others, inference is subject to the taking condition: it necessarily involves the thinker taking his premises to support his conclusion, and drawing the conclusion because of that fact. Boghossian argues that this condition vindicates the idea that inference is an expression of agency, and that it has several other important implications too. However, we argue in this paper that the taking condition should be rejected. The condition gives rise (...) to several serious prima facie problems and the reasons which have been offered in favour of it fail to convince. (shrink)

It has recently been argued that inference essentially involves the thinker taking his premises to support his conclusion and drawing his conclusion because of this fact. However, this Taking Condition has also been criticized: If taking is interpreted as believing, it seems to lead to a vicious regress and to overintellectualize the act of inferring. In this paper, I examine and reject various attempts to salvage the Taking Condition, either by interpreting inferring as a (...) kind of rule-following, or by finding an innocuous role for the taking-belief. Finally, I propose an alternative account of taking, according to which it is not a separate belief, but rather an aspect of the attitude of believing: Believing that p implies not only taking p to be true and taking oneself to believe that p, but also taking one's reasons q to support p, when the belief in question is held on account of an inference. (shrink)

What is involved in making an inference? This chapter argues against what Paul Boghossian calls the Taking Condition: "Inferring necessarily involves the thinker taking his premises to support his conclusion and drawing his conclusion because of that fact" (2014: 5). I won’t argue that the Taking Condition is incoherent: that nothing can coherently play the role that takings are supposed to play in inference. Instead, I’ll argue that it cannot plausibly explain all the inferential knowledge (...) that we ordinarily take ourselves to have. Moreover, I’ll argue that we don’t need it to understand the nature of inference. (shrink)

According to the so-called ‘Taking Condition’ (a label due to Boghossian 2014) on inference, for a response R in circumstances C to count as an instance of reasoning or inferring, it must be the case that the agent’s taking it that R is warranted or justified in C plays (the right sort of) explanatory role in her R-ing. The Taking Condition has come under much criticism in the theory of reasoning. While I believe that these (...) criticisms can be answered, my aim in this paper is to build a positive case for the Taking Condition. More specifically, I argue that views based on the Taking Condition do a much better job accounting for crucial features of reasoning—especially once we recognize the pervasiveness and significance of defeasibility in our reasoning. (shrink)

Many metaethicists endorse a cognitive constraint which links the reasons for which we act or hold attitudes (motivating reasons) to normative reasons (reasons that speak in favour of an action or attitude). As traditionally formulated, this constraint (known as the Taking Condition) requires that an agent’s motivating reasons are mentally represented by her as corresponding normative reasons. In response to the charge that the Taking Condition is overly demanding, Errol Lord and Kurt Sylvan have proposed a (...) reformulation which eschews the need for normative representation (Lord and Sylvan 2019 [“Prime Time (for the Basing Relation).” In Well-Founded Belief, edited by J. Adam Carter, and Patrick Bondy, 141–173. London and New York: Routledge]). As they argue, agents must treat their motivating reasons as normative reasons, where this notion picks out a specific set of dispositions rather than a representational state. I argue that this proposal seriously distorts our understanding of the relation between an action or attitude and the reasons for which we perform or hold it. On the plausible assumption that an account of motivating reasons should not stray too far from this understanding, this response to the over-demandingness charge thus fails. I also provide some directions on how friends of the Taking Condition should instead respond this charge. (shrink)

Theoretical reasoning (inference) is a conscious personal‐level activity and a causal process. It is the process of revising one's beliefs for a reason whereby some of our beliefs cause or result in other beliefs. But inference is more than mere causation. This raises the question of what exactly distinguishes theoretical reasoning from mere causal processes. Paul Boghossian has located the distinguishing feature of inference in, what he calls, the “taking condition” requirement (TC). It turns out, however, that all (...) attempts to explain this notion fail. In this paper, I shall offer an indirect argument for the taking condition grounded in a specific account of the structure of epistemic reasons that distinguishes two levels of epistemic normativity, namely, the possession and justification levels. I show how such an account can legitimize the role of (TC) in reasoning and deflect the standard objections raised against it. Finally, I explain how this proposal naturally accommodates the defeasibility of reasoning. (shrink)

In my paper, I develop a phenomenological and pragmatist reflection on the fragility of liberal democracy’s moral foundations in times of war. Following Judith Shklar’s conception of the “liberalism of fear”, the legitimacy of the liberal-democratic order is seen as grounded in experiences of suffering caused by political violence. It is also assumed that the liberalism of fear delivers an adequate conception of the normative foundations of the European project. With the help of phenomenologists such as Edmund Husserl, Maurice Merleau-Ponty (...) and Michel Henry, the paper ants to philosophically deepen the liberalism of fear by outlining a theory of “pathic evidence” as a normative foundation and the concept of a common “flesh of the political” as a shared moral sensitivity that sets boundaries to political conflict as well as the political imaginary, excluding what I call the production of “monumental meaning”. It then examines the question which political conditions are needed for this evidence to become a shared, communal criteria of ethical thought, and considers inner and outer challenges to the transmission and reproduction of this evidence in time, drawing especially on John Dewey’s ideas of democratic communication and social intelligence. In the current war, the following problem appears as crucial for the “soul” of European democracies which are confronted with the need to respond to Russia’s attack: How can a political morality grounded in pathic evidence be sustained, once it is challenged by an aggressor who, out of cultural and political reasons, shows a higher level of toleration towards violence? Besides aggression from an external foe, there are also temporal dynamics that further the loss of the inhibiting force of pathic evidence from the inside. As it shall be argued, boredom can be such a factor. The paper concludes by drawing conclusions for the current war in Ukraine. (shrink)

This paper investigates the implicative conditional, a connective intended to describe the logical behavior of an empirically defined class of natural language conditionals, also named implicative conditionals, which excludes concessive and some other conditionals. The implicative conditional strengthens the strict conditional with the possibility of the antecedent and of the contradictory of the consequent. $${p\Rightarrow q}$$ p ⇒ q is thus defined as $${\lnot } \Diamond {(p \wedge \lnot q) \wedge } \Diamond {p \wedge } \Diamond {\lnot q}$$ ¬ ◊ (...) ( p ∧ ¬ q ) ∧ ◊ p ∧ ◊ ¬ q. We explore the logical properties of this conditional in a reflexive normal Kripke semantics, provide an axiomatic system and prove it to be sound and complete for our semantics. The implicative conditional validates transitivity and contraposition, which we take to be integral parts of reasoning and communication. But it only validates restricted versions of strengthening the antecedent, right weakening, simplification, and rational monotonicity. Apparent counterexamples to some of these properties are explained as due to contextual factors. Finally, the implicative conditional avoids the paradoxes of material and strict implication, and validates some connexive principles such as Aristotle’s theses and weak Boethius’ thesis, as well as some highly entrenched principles of conditionals, such as conjunction of consequents, disjunction of antecedents, modus ponens, cautious monotonicity and cut. (shrink)

No reverberatory effect of the great war has caused American public opinion more solicitude than the failure of the “melting-pot.” The tendency... has been for the national clusters of immigrants, as they became more and more firmly established and more and more prosperous to cultivate more and more assiduously the literatures and cultural traditions of their homelands. Assimilation, in other words, instead of washing out the memories of Europe, made them more and more intensely real. Just as these clusters became (...) more and more objectively American, did they become more and more German or Scandinavian or Bohemian or Polish.... [This] is not, however, to admit the failure of Americanization. It is not to fear the failure of democracy. It is rather to urge us to an investigation of what Americanism may rightly mean. It is to ask ourselves whether our ideal has been broad or narrow—whether perhaps the time has not come to assert a higher ideal than the “melting pot.”... We act as if we wanted Americanization to take place only on our own terms, and not by the consent of the governed. All our elaborate machinery of settlement and school and union, of social and political naturalization, however, will move with friction just in so far as it neglects to take into account this strong and virile insistence that American shall be what the immigrant will have a hand in making it, and not what a ruling class, descendent of those British stocks which were the first permanent immigrants, decide that America shall be made. Randolph Bourne (1916/1977, 248ff). (shrink)

There is an ongoing debate in the philosophical literature whether the conditionals that are central to deliberation are subjunctive or indicative conditionals and, if the latter, what semantics of the indicative conditional is compatible with the role that conditionals play in deliberation. We propose a possible-world semantics where conditionals of the form “if I take action _a_ the outcome will be _x_” are interpreted as material conditionals. The proposed framework is illustrated with familiar examples and both qualitative and probabilistic beliefs (...) are considered. Issues such as common-cause cases and ‘Egan-style’ cases are discussed. (shrink)

This introduction provides an overview of the current state of the debate on the epistemic condition of moral responsibility. In sect. 1, we discuss the main concepts ‘ignorance’ and ‘responsibility’. In sect. 2, we ask why agents should inform themselves. In sect. 3, we describe what we take to be the core agreement among main participants in the debate. In sect. 4, we explain how this agreement invites a regress argument with a revisionist implication. In sect. 5, we provide (...) an overview of the main responses to the regress argument. In sect. 6, we address the question why blameless ignorance excuses. In sect. 7, we describe further issues that are addressed in the book. In sect. 8, we conclude with some discussion of future directions the debate might take. (shrink)

Taking its point of departure in an anachronic exhibition, Soulèvements (2016/18), this book is a theoretical exploration of how the notion of contemporaneity understood as the coming together of different times in the same historical present relates to the end of a certain history of art. Critical of hitherto dominant chronological, ahistorical, and/or culturally restricted notions of the contemporary, Lund's overall aim is to make an argument for the contemporary contemporary, as the point of departure for any anachronic relationship (...) with time today, and as the inescapable point of departure for any possible historical imagination. (shrink)

Many believe that nanotechnology will be disruptive to our society. Presumably, this means that some people and even whole industries will be undermined by technological developments that nanoscience makes possible. This, in turn, implies that we should anticipate potential workforce disruptions, mitigate in advance social problems likely to arise, and work to fairly distribute the future benefits of nanotechnology. This general, somewhat vague sense of disruption, is very difficult to specify – what will it entail? And how can we responsibly (...) anticipate and mitigate any problems? We can't even clearly state what the problems are anticipated to be. In fact, when we move from sweeping policy statements to more concrete accounts, nanotechnology seems to bifurcate into two divergent streams: one is fairly continuous with current developments, extending extant science in a quantitative way; the other is radically new, and includes science fiction-like dreams of molecular manufacturing and assemblers, with their utopian scenarios of absolute plenty. In these cases, “disruption” takes on the valence of Huxley's brave new world. (shrink)

In this dissertation I provide a novel logic of the ordinary-language conditional. First, however, I endeavor to make clearer and more precise just what the objects of the study of the conditional are, as a lack of clarity as to what counts as an instance of a given category of conditional has resulted in deep and significant confusions in subsequent analysis. I motivate for a factual/counterfactual distinction, though not at the level of particular instances of the conditional. Instead, I argue (...) that each individual instance of the conditional may be interpreted either factually or counterfactually, rather than these instances dividing into distinct types. I examine the classic Oswald–Kennedy pair of sentences, typically taken to be the quintessential example of how conditionals must be split into two different categories, to show that they in fact do not demonstrate this. I then present my account of the logic underlying the ordinary-language conditional, the system C3, and a justification of the form it takes. This logic provides distinct interpretations of the conditional as it concerns what is factual or what is counterfactual, respectively. The factual interpretation is true when both antecedent and consequent are true at the actual world, false when the antecedent is true and consequent false, and not truth-apt otherwise. The counterfactual interpretation incorporates a ceteris paribus clause, ensuring that it is not falsified by extraordinary, unforeseeable occurrences, and is true when, at all worlds at which the antecedent is ceteris paribus true, the consequent too is true. It is false when, at any of these worlds the consequent is false; and not truth-apt otherwise. I go on to examine alternative theories of the conditional—from the suppositionalist approach to evaluating the putative indicative conditional, to Stalnaker’s combined indicative and counterfactual account, and Lewis’s analysis of the counterfactual; among a number of others—and offer comparison to my own theory. Finally, I look at various challenges to my account of the conditional. Being a strict conditional (albeit variably so), that of C3 is open to the objection that it fails to match ordinary speakers’ intuitions as regards its truth-value assignments to, for instance, conditionals with necessarily true consequents. I address these so- called paradoxes of the strict conditional, and also discussion the question of truth-preservation in the C3 system in the case of such inferences as those relying on transitivity and that of modus ponens. I maintain that these inferences are indeed truth-preserving under certain, specifiable, conditions, and I close by offering possible avenues for further research. (shrink)

This review article puts two recent publications —Existence and Heritage: Hermeneutic Explorations in African and Continental Philosophies by Tsenay Serequeberhan and What Fanon Said. A Philosophical Introduction to His Life and Thought by Lewis R. Gordon—in conversation with Achille Mbembe’s renowned On the Postcolony, first published in French in 2000, in English in 2001, and here reviewed in the 2015 Wits University Press edition. The opportunity for such a literary dialogue to take place across fifteen years is occasioned both by (...) the latest South African edition of On the Postcolony, which in itself invites a fresh reading of Mbembe’s manifesto on postcolonial authoritarianism in Africa, as well as by the different potential outcome of the postcolonial condition that Gordon and Serequeberhan envision and propose with respect to Mbembe. I argue that while Mbembe’s pessimistic portrayal of the postcolonial present is one whereby it is difficult to envision transformation, both Serequeberhan and Gordon’s books offer a rich philosophical terrain from which to imagine possible futures, grounded in notions of dialogue and solidarity, that, however, vary significantly for each author. (shrink)

This article, inspired by the Derridean thinking of hospitality, attempts to reflect upon the conditions of peace and hospitality, taking a reading of Kant's ‘Toward Perpetual Peace’ as its guiding thread. It endeavours to show that the peace that inhospitable nations maintain between themselves is necessarily illusory, as they continue to amass the restrictive conditions of their hospitality. The hypothesis is proposed that the guiding thread that links the elements of the hyperbolic ethics that Derrida deploys in his ‘questions (...) of responsibility’ seminars indeed concerns this unconditional condition of peace, of which hospitality is the first law. (shrink)

p and q, one of “were p true, q would be true” and “were p true, not- q would be true” is true. Therefore, even if Curley is not offered the bribe, either he would take it were he offered it or he would not take it were he offered it.

This article takes issue with procedural reductionism, which is the inclination to reduce all matters of judgement and responsibility to the following of some procedure or rule. Two scenarios provide content for a discussion of professional discretion in the context of accountability. The author shows that in professional life there will always be situations that stand beyond the rules of procedures and require the unique judgement of the professional at the time. While this judgement may be determined by the facts (...) available in a situation of uncertainty, it cannot be reduced to the facts (including facts about rules and procedures). The moral judgement will still have an essential indeterminancy about it. (shrink)

Nietzsche's vision of the 'overman' continues to haunt the postmodern imagination. His call that 'man is something that must be overcome' can no longer be seen as simple rhetoric. Our experiences of the hybrid realities of artificial life have made the 'transhuman' a figure that looks over us all. Inspired by this vision, Keith Ansell Pearson sets out to examine if evolution is 'out of control' and machines are taking over. In a series of six fascinating perspectives, he links (...) Nietzsche's thought with the issues at stake in contemporary conceptions of evolution from the biological to the technological. _Viroid Life; Perspectives on Nietzsche and the Transhuman Condition_ considers the hybrid, 'inhuman' character of our future with the aid of Nietzsche's philosophy. Keith Ansell Pearson contrasts Nietzsche and Darwin before introducing the more recent figures such as Giles Deleuze and Guy Debord to sketch a new thinking of technics and machines and stress the ambiguous character of our 'machine enslavement'. (shrink)

In this paper I take up John Searle's account of ?Background capacities? to render intelligible the presupposed and hidden aspects of the background conditions that enable the performance of skilled movement. The paper begins with a review of Searle's initial account of Background capacities and how this picture can be applied to account for skilled movement in sport. Then an objection to this picture is addressed, claiming that Searle's initial picture might ?overrepresentationalise? background conditions. Moreover, this objection prompts how Searle (...) has modified his initial picture of background conditions in accordance with his more recent ?connection principle?. Searle's recent account of background conditions is then elaborated and discussed in the second half of the paper. The discussion emphasises three distinct levels of analysis in Searle's framework necessary to a full understanding of his background conditions: (i) the neurophysiological level; (ii) the descriptive higher-order practical skill level; and (iii) the logical level of integration. It is argued that Searle's logical framework is found plausible, but that more work is needed to better understand the background conditions of skilled movement in terms of neurophysiological capacities and practical skills from both scientific and philosophical perspectives. (shrink)

This article takes issue with procedural reductionism, which is the inclination to reduce all matters of judgement and responsibility to the following of some procedure or rule. Two scenarios provide content for a discussion of professional discretion in the context of accountability. The author shows that in professional life there will always be situations that stand beyond the rules of procedures and require the unique judgement of the professional at the time. While this judgement may be determined by the facts (...) available in a situation of uncertainty, it cannot be reduced to the facts (including facts about rules and procedures). The moral judgement will still have an essential indeterminancy about it. (shrink)

Disjunctivists maintain that perceptual experiences and hallucinatory experiences are distinct kinds of event with different metaphysical natures. Moreover, given their view about the nature of perceptual cases, disjunctivists must deny that the perceptual kind of experience can occur during hallucination. However, it is widely held that disjunctivists must grant the converse claim, to the effect that the hallucinatory kind of experience occurs even during perception. This paper challenges that thought. As we will see, the argument for thinking that the hallucinatory (...) kind of experience is present even in cases of perception depends on prior acceptance of a ‘non-demanding’ conception of hallucination, on which all it takes to produce an hallucinatory experience is to induce in the subject the right kind of neurological condition. On the view developed here, by contrast, there are substantive causal conditions, going beyond the mere occurrence of the right kind of neurological state, that must be met if an experience of the hallucinatory kind is to occur. By drawing on this view, I argue, disjunctivists can deny that the kind of experience involved in hallucination ever occurs during perception. This then allows disjunctivists to avoid certain important problems they would otherwise face. It also leaves them with considerably more freedom when it comes to theorising about the nature of hallucinatory experience. (shrink)

Rights forfeiture or liability are not a path to the permissibility of self-defense (not even barring extraordinary circumstances), and the necessity condition is not intrinsic to justified self-defense. Rather, necessity in the context of justification must be distinguished from necessity in the context of rights forfeiture. While innocent aggressors only forfeit their right against necessary self-defense, culpable aggressors also forfeit, on grounds of a principle of reciprocity, certain rights against unnecessary self-defense. Yet, while culpable aggressors would therefore not be (...) wronged by certain unnecessary defensive means, the use of such means against them would still not be justified. The underlying rationale of this necessity requirement lies not in the rights of the aggressor, but in an agent-relative requirement to take fair precautions against violating the rights of the innocent. This concern is also expressed in the necessity criterion defended and formulated in this paper, which is very harsh on aggressors. To wit, the necessity condition for justified self-defense must not be interpreted as requiring the employment of literally the least harmful means or of means that the defender reasonably believes to be, literally, the least harmful ones. What he must believe about the properties and possible effects of the means he employs is something that is much less demanding. Finally, the necessity condition of justified self-defense is also harsh (on the aggressor) in not implying a “success condition” worth its name. (shrink)

In this paper I offer an explanation for the fact that QR tends to be more local than other types of A-bar movement (i.e., in typical cases, QR cannot take place out of a finite clause). My explanation assumes (and offers evidence for) the Phase Impenetrability Condition (cf. Chomsky 2001a, b) and an Economy Condition that requires that each step of (possibly successive cyclic) QR be motivated (cf. Fox 1999). After showing why QR is local in typical cases, (...) I consider new evidence, involving a counterpart of ACD in Italian, which indicates that QR takes place long distance, as other types of A-bar movement do, whenever each step is independently motivated. It follows that it can be maintained that the locality conditions on QR are not construction specific, as expected given the general format of the theory. (shrink)

This paper addresses the concept of semiotic scaffolding by considering it in light of questions arising from the contemporary challenge to the humanities. This challenge comes from a mixture of scientistic demands, opportunism on the part of Western governments in thrall to neo-liberalism, along with crass economic utilitarianism. In this paper we attempt to outline what a theory of semiotic scaffolding may offer to an understanding of the humanities’ contemporary role, as well as what the humanities might offer to the (...) elucidation of semiotic scaffolding. We argue that traditional humanist positions adopted in defence of the humanities fail to articulate the enhancement of humanity that semiotic scaffolding represents. At the same time, we note that the concept of scaffolding is sometimes in danger of taking on a functionalist perspective which understanding the humanities modus operandi is likely to dispel. Putting forward these arguments, we draw on the work of Peirce, Cassirer and Sebeok in elucidating the structural and ‘future-orientated’ benefits of the scaffolding process as it suffuses the humanities. (shrink)

In this paper, we criticize the current focus of the bio-based economy (BBE) on efficiency and control and demonstrate the contradictions that this causes. We elucidate these tensions by comparing the BBE to alternative conceptions of economy that emphasise the relevance of both the human condition and unfathomable nature in the macro ecological transition project. From Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy, we take and extrapolate two major concepts—il y a and enjoyment—that help to re-evaluate the status of both nature and the (...) human subject involved in environmental instability. From this analysis, we evaluate current economic practice in close relation to the deteriorating environment to contribute to a conception of an economy that is truly based on principles of the biosphere. We conclude that humankind and nature are notions that must be always considered in this encompassing and topical effort and explain how they have been fundamentally overlooked in current thought on the bio-based and circular economy. (shrink)

To approach the creation of artificial conscious systems systematically and to obtain certainty about the presence of phenomenal qualities (qualia) in these systems, we must first decipher the fundamental mechanism behind conscious processes. In achieving this goal, the conventional physicalist position exhibits obvious shortcomings in that it provides neither a plausible mechanism for the generation of qualia nor tangible demarcation criteria for conscious systems. Therefore, to remedy the deficiencies of the standard physicalist approach, a new theory for the understanding of (...) consciousness has been formulated. The aim of the paper is to present the cornerstones of this theory, to outline the conditions for conscious systems derived from the theory, and to address the implications of these conditions for the creation of robots that transcend the threshold of phenomenal awareness. In short, the theory is based on the proposition that the universe is permeated by a ubiquitous field of consciousness that can be equated with the zero-point field (ZPF) of quantum electrodynamics (QED). The ZPF, which is characterized by a spectrum of field modes, plays a crucial role in the edifice of modern physics. QED-based model calculations on cortical dynamics and empirical findings on the neural correlates of consciousness suggest that a physical system can only generate conscious states if it is capable of establishing resonant coupling to the ZPF, resulting in the amplification of selected field modes and the activation of the phenomenal qualities that are assumed to be associated with these modes. Thus, scientifically sound considerations support the conclusion that the crucial condition for generating conscious states lies in a system's capacity to tap into the phenomenal color palette inherent in the ZPF. (shrink)

In ‘The Human Condition’ Hannah Arendt presents a picture of what it is to be human based on the activities that we humans undertake. She distinguishes three forms of activity fundamental to our lives –labor, work and action. In her view the western intellectual tradition hasfailed to take proper account of the distinctions between the three activities. She considers that this way of categorising human actions is important to understanding the way that modern life has developed and seeks to (...) describe each one as fully as possible. Labor refers to the actions required to meet the unceasing need to satisfy our bodily needs. Work includes all those activities by which physical products are produced. It is through work that man transforms raw materials into tools and creates the human world we live in. However it is the third type of activity –action which promises to shine a different light on both the way organisations make use of Information and Communications Technology and the role current research methods play in developing our understanding of the potential value to be obtained by organisations from this technology. This paper presents Arendt’s analysis of these three human activities and then explores the implications for business research methods –in particular those applied within the Information Systems discipline. (shrink)

In what is likely to be the final word from one of the most accomplished historians of our time, History and the Human Condition presents John Lukacs's profound reflections on the very nature of history, the role of the historian, the limits of knowledge, and more. Guiding us on a quest for knowledge, Lukacs ranges far and wide over the past two centuries. The pursuit takes us from Alexis de Tocqueville to the atomic bomb, from the American frontier to (...) the Cold War, from Hitler to Heisenberg. As an added bonus, this book features a complete bibliography of Lukacs's writings.Readers of History and the Human Condition will cherish this fascinating work by the man the Washington Times calls "one of the more incisive historians of the twentieth century. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to bring to light what I take to be the two most seminal philosophical insights of John Macmurray in the face of the postmodern condition which establishes the foundation and platform of a new philosophy, a new ethics, and a new politics.

"Go and design a perfect car," "Go and arrange a perfect vacation." These are instructions no one can possibly fulfill. For cars and vacations, like other goods in general, are inherently complex and multidesideratal, since it is a key fact of axiology that every evaluation-admitting object combines a plurality of evaluative features and every good a plurality of desiderata. And this circumstance makes perfection unattainable. For it lies in the nature of things that desirable features are in general competitively interactive. (...) A conflict or competition among desiderata is an unavoidable fact of life. They cannot all be enhanced at once since more of the one can only be realized at the expense of less of the other. Take a car—an automobile. Here the relevant parameters of merit clearly include such factors as speed, reliability, repair infrequency, safety, operating economy, aesthetic appearance, road handling ability. But in actual practice such features are interrelated. It is unavoidable that some will trade off against others. And it would be ridiculous to have a supersafe car with a maximum speed of two miles per hour or to have a car that is very inexpensive to operate but spends most of its time in a repair shop. And similarly throughout the range of the desirable we encounter inherent conflicts among the relevant desiderata. There is no avoiding the fact that we cannot concurrently maximize all of the parameters of merit of any object of desire. (shrink)

"Go and design a perfect car," "Go and arrange a perfect vacation." These are instructions no one can possibly fulfill. For cars and vacations, like other goods in general, are inherently complex and multidesideratal, since it is a key fact of axiology that every evaluation-admitting object combines a plurality of evaluative features and every good a plurality of desiderata. And this circumstance makes perfection unattainable. For it lies in the nature of things that desirable features are in general competitively interactive. (...) A conflict or competition among desiderata is an unavoidable fact of life. They cannot all be enhanced at once since more of the one can only be realized at the expense of less of the other. Take a car—an automobile. Here the relevant parameters of merit clearly include such factors as speed, reliability, repair infrequency, safety, operating economy, aesthetic appearance, road handling ability. But in actual practice such features are interrelated. It is unavoidable that some will trade off against others. And it would be ridiculous to have a supersafe car with a maximum speed of two miles per hour or to have a car that is very inexpensive to operate but spends most of its time in a repair shop. And similarly throughout the range of the desirable we encounter inherent conflicts among the relevant desiderata. There is no avoiding the fact that we cannot concurrently maximize all of the parameters of merit of any object of desire. (shrink)

The video game producers are currently in spotlight of market information services. Successes and huge budgets of such companies attract many readers. However, scientific studies related to this sector do not share the same popularity. A reflection on the source of value in this sector shows that what generates revenues is not disclosed in the report. Great examples are customers’ relationships or the value of employees creating the game code and story of the game. Video games producers sector presents a (...) good combination of business and culture that allows reflection on financial characteristics of knowledge based companies. Prior studies show that market’s valuation takes into account unrecognised assets but capital-intensive character of a production and intangibility of a product and its assets causes problems with exact valuation. In this paper the author asks about the impact of the characteristics on the assessment of a financial condition. The research question in this paper is whether it is possible to use and interpret correctly popular discriminant analysis model for knowledge based entities on the example of video game companies. Results are applicable by analysts and managers of this sector and help to determine the usefulness of this method, but it still depends on assumptions and accounting policies. The reflection presented also broadens the discussion on financialisation because analysed companies can oppose this trend in a specific way. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: How Does One Avoid Skepticism? The Experience Machine Contextualism My Take on Skepticism Notes.

As our scientific and technical abilities expand at breathtaking speeds, concern that modern genetics and bioengineering are leading us to a posthuman future is growing. Is Human Nature Obsolete? poses the overarching question of what it is to be human against the background of these current advances in biotechnology. Its perspective is philosophical and interdisciplinary rather than technical; the focus is on questions of fundamental ontological importance rather than the specifics of medical or scientific practice.The authors -- all distinguished scholars (...) in their fields -- take on questions about technology's goals and values that are often ignored or sidelined in the face of rapid scientific advances and the highly specialized nature of technical knowledge. The essays included represent a rich variety of thought, ranging from finely nuanced philosophical and theological arguments to historical studies and cultural commentaries. Several explore the historical background of today's biotechnology: Timothy Casey traces such developments as the emergence of cybernetic humanity from Cartesian dualism, and Diane Paul presents the history of "positive" versus coerced eugenics. Jean Bethke Elshtain discusses cloning as a "messianic project" to perfect the body and exclude natural diversity -- giving as an example the elimination of Down Syndrome as an acceptable human type -- while Harold Baillie calls for an examination of the metaphysical roots of personhood. Robert Proctor finds no evidence in paleontology for any "essence of humanity," and Tom Shannon argues against materialist reductionism. Addressing social concerns, Lisa Sowle Cahill finds the possibility of a political solution to the problems raised by genetic engineering in Catholic teachings on social justice, and Langdon Winner looks critically at the "scientific enthusiasts of a posthuman future." Taken as a whole, the book provides a humanistic overview of a subject too often considered only in its technological aspect. (shrink)

This essay argues that the Nestor's Cup Inscription is not a joke, but rather a magical spell designed to work as an aphrodisiac. It is divided into two parts, the first dealing with the hexametrical couplet and the second with the opening line. In the first section the author argues that the hexameters comprise a bonafide magical incantation, pointing out that: the two hexameters take the semantic form of a conditional curse well known from oaths and proprietary inscriptions of the (...) archaic period and from the earliest extant magical texts; hexametrical verse was commonly used as early as the classical period-and probably much earlier-in magical incantations; prosaic words in the inscription that do not appear elsewhere in literary hexameters, but are used in the Greek magical tradition, may in fact be terms of a quasi-technical nature that survive from a very old, but poorly documented, tradition of metrical incantations; and the deictic pronoun in the second line of the inscription signals the use of performative language common in magical spells. The second section of the paper turns to the opening line of the inscription, arguing that instead of introducing some sophisticated intertextual joke, this line can be best understood as a label or rubric of the sort frequently used to signify authorship or ownership in archaic inscriptions and other early texts to "seal" a writer's name to his œuvre. In later magical texts such rubrics boast a legendary author of a particular incantation or ritual. The author concludes that this inscription records an erotic spell traditionally spoken over a cup without any recourse to writing, and that its appearance on the cup from Pithecusae resulted from a random and ultimately unsuccessful experiment to transfer and transform an oral incantation into a written one in an age of incipient literacy. (shrink)

The work of scientists and doctors in advancing genetic research and its applications has been accompanied by plenty of discussion in the popular press—from Good Housekeeping and Forbes to Ms. and the Congressional Record—about such ...

Starting from the current trend to digitise the university, this thesis aims to clarify the specific relation between university thinking and its use of media. This thesis is an investigation concerning the sensorial and medial conditions which enable the event of thinking to emerge at the university, i.e. conditions which do not make thinking necessary, but possible. Thinking is approached as an event which can happen while studying at the university, not as an outcome, nor a disposition or skill. The (...) ambition of this thesis is theory development and of making a contribution in the field of philosophy of education. The theoretical framework discussed in chapters one and two will allow first, an analysis of the university sensorium inspired by the work of Ivan Illich who, through a history of the senses, pioneered this kind of research applied to medieval reading practices. Secondly, the work of media philosopher Vilém Flusser is used to operationalize the analysis of media at the university; this thesis will use the Flusserian concepts of code, modes of consciousness, transcoding, gestures, intellectual field, dialogue and apparatus. The methodology consists of a novel approach inspired by Flusser’s phenomenology of gestures: in order to find traces of thinking, this investigation looks for gestures (with media) occurring in university practices, gestures which seem to imply some form of coding or transcoding. The first chapter critically discusses Ivan Illich’s historical hypothesis of the mediatic specificity of the university thinking. Illich works with a particular conception of the history of the senses through which he shows how the invention of the optical text and its way of reading gave rise to a new way of thinking which was later fostered by the university. The text emerges as an instrumental way of using the book for studying and thinking, a profanation and suspension of the book. This move is taken to be the signature move of the university which enables a particular way of thinking: abstract and non-visual thinking, which is made present through the event of reading. The second chapter introduces the media-theoretical framework of Flusser by discussing his particular take on codes and the modes of consciousness enabled by the dominant codes. Provisionally, transcoding is taken to be an indication of the event of thinking. The threshold introduces the approach of a phenomenology of gestures which will be used in the following two chapters. The third chapter examines the practice of university lecturing from a sensorial and gestural perspective by using several direct observations of lectures and historical reports of lectures. It was found that the lecture does not promote any particular sense, hence no particular mode of consciousness, and that the media in the lecture suffers a continuous transcoding. Thinking in the lecture was described as a thinking which suddenly makes itself present for all those attending the lecture. The fourth chapter examines MOOCs which are taken to be the digital counterpart of the university course. The specific media usage enabled by MOOCs is described starting from two case studies: an xMOOC and the bMOOC (designed by KU Leuven and LUCA researchers). Using interviews and an autoethnographic account, this chapter finds indications of what could be digital gestures in the MOOC and concludes that thinking in the MOOC occurs as a collective construction of a techno-image. The fifth and final chapter outlines the theoretical contributions of this thesis. The kind of thinking made possible by university practices is described as a form of collective thinking, non-productive and anti-apparatus. The ways in which this thinking is made possible are theorised by introducing the notion of mediatic displacement, a specific event in which the particular logic of media is suspended in such a way as to make room for a thinking which is not determined by any mediality. The notion of intellectual askesis is proposed for the collective enactment of attention, as the sensorial condition which makes possible the mediatic displacement. In light of these findings, the thesis proposes to understand the promise of the digital university as still a utopian project to come, because it cannot yet enable the sensorial and collective attention techniques which the classical university managed to enact through its study practices. (shrink)

What are the freedom-relevant conditions necessary for someone to be a morally responsible person? I examine several key authors beginning with Harry Frankfurt that have contributed to this debate in recent years, and then look back to the writings or Søren Kierkegaard to provide a solution to the debate. In this project I investigate the claims of semi-compatibilism and argue that while its proponents have identified a fundamental question concerning free will and moral responsibility—namely, that the agential properties necessary for (...) moral responsibility ascriptions are found in scenarios where the agent acts on her own as opposed to her action resulting from freedom undermining external causes such as manipulation, phobias, etc.—they have failed to show that the freedom-relevant agential properties identified in those actual-sequence scenarios are compatible with causal determinism. My argument is that only a voluntarist-libertarian theory can adequately account for the kinds of cases that the semicompatibilist identify. I argue that there are three freedom-relevant conditions necessary for someone to be a morally responsible person: a hierarchical understanding of human desires [specifically and mental states generally], an incompatibilist (non-deterministic) understanding of human action, and a historical understanding of character development. The ability to reflect critically about one’s own desires and emotions, and thus to have a kind of self-knowledge and understanding with regard to the springs of one’s own actions, is required to make it possible for the agent to be the “source” of her own actions and character. The non-deterministic understanding of human action is needed for a similar reason: if determinism is true, then every action a person performs can be ultimately traced to and exhaustively explained in terms of factors outside the agent’s control, thus making the agent’s responsibility for his actions an illusion. And finally,human nature must be such that, over time, one’s choices leave a dispositional residue self-understanding and motivation in the person’s self, out of which, in mature understanding and motivation, the person acts as a fully responsible agent. (shrink)

My purpose in this paper is to illustrate how we can understand that what the Christian tradition calls the peccatum naturae neither consists in a mere privation nor in the total corruption of nature. There is a widespread understanding that for Catholics the sin of nature consists in the privation of the gift of original justice –the complete order of the natural tendencies and their subjection to reason as a result of the elevation of our first parents to a state (...) of grace–, whereas Protestant denominations would in general terms understand that after the fall human nature was abandoned to a complete corruption. The two stances are sometimes seen as an either-or dichotomy. My intention is not theological, since I do not want to discuss or decide what Christians should believe in this matter, but I try to dig into the conceptual conditions under which we can coherently understand that our present condition is characterized by a twisted inclination of the will, which without destroying or totally corrupting human nature, still runs contrary to its proper good and cannot be considered as belonging or being inherent to it. I first present Thomas Aquinas’ understanding of the peccatum naturae as a moral defect. Then, I take recourse mostly to Rosmini’s work in order to better understand how there could be a moral weakness, which could be rightly called corruption, without implying that our moral condition is completely irrecoverable. (shrink)

A plausible view in the literature on the epistemic condition of blameworthiness is the Reasonable Expectation View (RE). According to RE, whether ignorance excuses an agent from deserving blame is a matter of whether the agent could have reasonably been expected to have avoided or corrected the ignorance. This paper does not take up the task of defending this view, but instead examines what it implies for an interesting type of ignorance: moral or political ignorance rooted in myside bias. (...) With the prevalence of increasing political polarization, it is worth examining what a plausible view like RE implies about when, if ever, myside bias-based ignorance excuses the agent from blame—from deserving resentment or indignation. To assess this issue, the paper examines the empirical literature on what it takes to mitigate myside bias and then takes the United States as a case study to examine what RE implies for the actual non-ideal circumstances many agents are in. The paper argues that RE has two revisionary implications for our practice of blame. First, the paper argues that RE implies that political or moral ignorance rooted in myside bias is currently an excuse in a surprising number of cases. Second, our epistemic position to know whether a given instance of political or moral ignorance is excusing is often inadequate. (shrink)

Following his retirement from teaching in 1972 J. M. Bocheński entered into a creative phase of his scholarly career characterized by, among other things, a marked shift to ‘naturalism’ to the detriment of philosophical ‘speculation’ of any kind (comprising much of classical metaphysics, ‘world views’, ‘ideologies, ‘moralizing’—for him so many nefarious ‘superstitions’). During this period he examined issues which bear on the human condition in a way that was at once constructive and critical—constructive by virtue of the logical analyses (...) of such concepts as authority, critical by dint of his refusal to take seriously any so-called ‘anthropocentric’/‘humanist’ thinking attempting to secure a special standing for ‘Man’ in the world. These attitudes come to expression in his last work devoted to worldly wisdom, the practical rationality required to ensure a long and happy life. I examine, first, some of the background of this work, with an eye to the naturalism it is based on, provide a schematic overview of the contents of the study, and concentrate on a couple of key issues related to the question as Bocheński understood it. The salient issue concerns his insistence that whatever else it may be the wisdom that is conducive to the long and happy life is not to be confused, conceptually, with any sort of morality: worldly wisdom and the categorical commands of morality stand in no essential relation to each other and may indeed be contradictory … to the detriment of morality, according to Bocheński. Throughout, but especially in the concluding section, I express some doubts about the cogency of this position. (shrink)

This dissertation defends the truth-conditional theory of meaning and the inflationary theory of truth it requires by explaining how truth-conditions could play an explanatory role in the account of the proper use of a language while being nevertheless metaphysically "lightweight" properties of sentences instituted by the way these sentences are used by the speakers of a language. Following the common division of approaches to truth into deflationary and inflationary, the dissertation begins in Chapter One with a discussion of currently advocated (...) deflationary theories. A general characterization of deflationism is developed that focuses on the deflationist's explanation of why certain attributions of truth-condition to the sentences of a language are assertible. This basic, meaning-theoretic deflationary commitment is distinguished from the metaphysically deflationary idea that truth is somehow not "robust" in the way that traditional inflationary theories take it to be. Chapter Two then argues that meaning-theoretic deflationism is best characterized by a less-noticed commitment to the claim that it is sufficient for adequacy in a theory of truth that it imply the attributions of truth-conditions discussed in Chapter One. In Chapter Three the relation of these basic deflationary commitments to the also common deflationary claim that meanings attributed with locutions like the English "means that", meanings that, in Hartry Field's phrase, "encapsulate truth-conditions" is considered, and it is argued that this latter view is actually not compatible with deflationism. ;Chapter Four examines the most prominent sorts of inflationary theory and finds them wanting. Chapter Five then discusses in a general way how a better inflationary theory could be developed; the central ideas are that truth-conditions play an explanatory role in the account of certain embedded uses of sentences, and that truth-conditions should be understood as instituted for sentences by the way that speakers use them. In Chapter Six the relevant sort of use is explained. The result is a view that is meaning-theoretically inflationary, in that truth-conditions play an explanatory role in the account of meaning, but metaphysically deflationary. (shrink)

In medicine the understanding and interpretation of the complex reality of illness currently refers either to an organismic approach that focuses on the physical or to a 'holistic' approach that takes into account the patient's human sociocultural involvement. Yet as the papers of this collection show, the suffering human person refers ultimately to his/her existential sphere. Hence, praxis is supplemented by still other perspectives for valuation and interpretation: ethical, spiritual, and religious. Can medicine ignore these considerations or push them to (...) the side as being subjective and arbitrary? Phenomenology/philosophy-of-life recognizes all of the above approaches to be essential facets of the Human Condition (Tymieniecka). This approach holds that all the facets of the Human Condition have equal objectivity and legitimacy. It completes the accepted medical outlook and points the way toward a new `medical humanism'. (shrink)

The article explores the construction of boundaries, alterity and otherness in modern science-fiction films. Boundaries, understood as real state borders, territoriality and sovereignty, as well as the construction of the other beyond an imagined border and delimited space, have a significant meaning in the dystopian settings of SF. Even though SF topics are not bound to the contemporary environment, be it of a historical, technical or ethical nature, they do relate to the present-day world and transcend our well-known problems. Therefore, (...) SF offers a pronounced discourse about current social challenges under extreme conditions such as future technological leaps, encounters with the alien other or the end of the world. At the same time the genre enables us to play through future challenges that might really happen. Films like Equilibrium, Code 46, Children of Men and District 9 show that in freely constructed cinematic settings we are not only unable to escape from our border conflicts, but quite the contrary, we take them everywhere with us, even to an alternative present or into the future, where new precarious situations of otherness are constructed. (shrink)