Contrary to the popular assumption that linguistically mediated social practices constitute the normativity of action (Kiverstein and Rietveld, 2015; Rietveld, 2008a,b; Rietveld and Kiverstein, 2014), I argue that it is affective care for oneself and others that primarily constitutes this kind of normativity. I argue for my claim in two steps. First, using the method of cases I demonstrate that care accounts for the normativity of action, whereas social practices do not. Second, I show that a social practice account of (...) the normativity of action has unwillingly authoritarian consequences in the sense that humans act only normatively if they follow social rules. I suggest that these authoritarian consequences are the result of an uncritical phenomenology of action and the fuzzy use of “normative”. Accounting for the normativity of action with care entails a realistic picture of the struggle between what one cares for and often repressive social rules. (shrink)

I argue that embodied understanding and conceptual-representational understanding interact through schematic structure. I demonstrate that common conceptions of these two kinds of understanding, such as developed by Wheeler (2005, 2008) and Dreyfus (2007a, b, 2013), entail a separation between them that gives rise to significant problems. Notably, it becomes unclear how they could interact; a problem that has been pointed out by Dreyfus (2007a, b, 2013) and McDowell (2007) in particular. I propose a Kantian strategy to close the gap between (...) them. I argue that embodied and conceptual-representational understanding are governed by schemata. Since they are governed by schemata, they can interact through a structure that they have in common. Finally, I spell out two different ways to conceive of the schematic interaction between them—a close, grounding relationship and a looser relationship that allows for a minimal interaction, but preserves the autonomy of both forms of understanding. (shrink)

I develop a theory of action inspired by a Heideggerian conception of concern, in particular for phenomenologically-inspired Embodied Cognition (Noë 2004; Wheeler 2008; Rietveld 2008; Chemero 2009; Rietveld and Kiverstein 2014). I proceed in three steps. First, I provide an analysis that identifies four central aspects of action and show that phenomenologically-inspired Embodied Cognition does not adequately account for them. Second, I provide a descriptive phenomenological analysis of everyday action and show that concern is the best candidate for an explanation (...) of action. Third, I show that concern, understood as the integration of affect and embodied understanding, allows us to explain the different aspects of action sufficiently. (shrink)

In this paper I analyze constitution embodiment, a particular conception of embodiment. Proponents of constitution embodiment claim that the body is a condition of the constitution of entities. Constitution embodiment is popular with phenomenologically-inspired Embodied Cognition, including research projects such as Enactivism and Radical Embodied Cognitive Science. Unfortunately, PEC’s use of constitution embodiment is neither clear nor coherent; in particular, PEC uses the concept of constitution embodiment so that a major inconsistency is entailed. PEC conceives of the body in a (...) transcendental sense as a condition of the constitution of entities, and, in an ontic sense, as a scientifically describable entity. Yet, a condition of the constitution of entities cannot be itself an entity—rather, it is the very condition of the possibility of an entity. This inconsistency entails further problems, among them PEC’s misguided focus on the location of the embodied mind. In order to correct these mistakes, I develop a conception of constitution embodiment based on the work of Heidegger, Husserl and to a lesser degree Merleau-Ponty. This has two purposes. First, it provides the conceptual groundwork to secure the status of PEC as a consistent and coherent research project and to clarify PEC’s conception of the relationship between phenomenology and the sciences. In that spirit, my approach provides further guidelines for fruitful research alliances between PEC and other research programs such as Grounded Cognition and identifies current research alliances, such as those with Radical Enactivism, as undesirable. Second, my account provides an elaborate concept of constitution embodiment that can function as the basis for more sophisticated work in the future. (shrink)

I argue that Hubert Dreyfus’ work on embodied coping, the intentional arc, solicitations and the background as well as his anti-representationalism rest on introspection. I denote with ‘introspection’ the methodological malpractice of formulating ontological statements about the conditions of possibility of phenomena merely based on descriptions. In order to illustrate the insufficiencies of Dreyfus’ methodological strategy in particular and introspection in general, I show that Heidegger, to whom Dreyfus constantly refers as the foundation of his own work, derives ontological statements (...) about the conditions of possibility of phenomena not merely from descriptions, but also from analyses. I further show that deriving ontological statements directly from descriptions entails implausible results. I do so by discussing representative cases. Based on these general methodological considerations, I show that Dreyfus’ work on action, skill and understanding is introspective. First, I demonstrate that Dreyfus’ influential claim that rules and representations do not govern skillful actions is the result of introspection, because it is merely founded on the absence of rules and representations in representative descriptions of skillful actions. Second, I show that Dreyfus’ work on embodied coping, the intentional arc, solicitations and the background is also based on introspection. These ontological structures are merely reifications of descriptions and are not further substantiated by analyses. (shrink)

Sber Science Award 2023 winner in the “Digital Universe” category, full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Head of the Chair of Computational Technology and Modeling of the Department of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics of Moscow State University, Director of the Marchuk Institute for Computational Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences Evgeny Evgenyevich Tyrtyshnikov dedicated his lecture entitled “Dimension: Is it a curse or a blessing?” to methods of presentation of multi-dimensional data based (...) on the idea of separation of variables and to algorithms that even now successfully help resolve problems that are beyond the capabilities of supercomputers. -/- The lecture was followed by a panel discussion attended by: Evgeny Evgenyevich Tyrtyshnikov, full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Director of the Institute for Computational Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Alexander Vladimirovich Gasnikov, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, President of Innopolis University; Gleb Gennadyevich Gusev, PhD of Physics and Mathematics, Head of Sberbank’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The discussion was moderated by Albert Ruvimovich Efimov, PhD of Philosophy, Vice President, Director of the Research and Innovation Division of Sberbank. (shrink)

Special and General theories of relativity may be considered as the most significant examples of integrative thinking. From these works we see that Albert Einstein attached great importance to how we understand geometry and dimensions. It is shown that physics powered by the new multidimensional elastic geometry is a reliable basis for science integration. Instead of searching for braneworlds (elastic membranes - EM) in higher dimensions we will start by searching them in our 3+1 dimensional world. The cornerstone of (...) the new philosophy is an idea that lower dimensional EMs are an essential component of the living matter, they are responsible for our perceptions, intellect, pattern recognition and high speed signal propagation. According to this theory each EM has both physical and perceptive (psychological) meanings: it exists as our Universe-like physical reality for its inner objects and at the same time it plays perceptive (psychological) role in the external bulk space-time. This philosophy may help us to build up a science which explains not only inanimate, unconscious phenomena, but consciousness as well. (shrink)

In these pages, we expose the main traits of St. Albert the Great’s doctrine of providence and fate, considered by Palazzo the keystone of his philosophical system. To describe it we examine his systematic works, primarily his Summa of Theology. His discussion follows clearly the guidelines of the Summa of Alexander of Hales, in order to delve into the set of problems faced over the centuries by theological tradition. Albert also restates the reflections of different authors like (...) Boethius or Saint John of Damascus but, in his Summa he incorporates to his reflections also the noteworthy book of Nemesius of Emesa, De natura hominis, which includes some pages on providence. Albert gives his personal solution to the complex questions of providence, destiny and contingency of the world. His conception of providence is developed in the frame of the creative power of the almighty God. God’s knowledge is necessary and inerrant and his providential purposes are infallible, but that does not mean that every event is necessary. He does not communicate His own proprieties to the creatures. In order to understand this problem, Albert recalls the notion of hypothetical necessity coined by Boethius in an Aristotelian framework and the difference between 'necessitas consequentis' and 'necessitas consequentiae' proposed by Alexander of Hales. He also develops his account of providence, closely linked to the topic of fate. However, it would be exaggerated to deem his position deterministic. (shrink)

Scientific inquiry takes onward course from the point where previous scientists had reached. But philosophical analysis initiates from scratch. Philosophy questions everything and chooses starting point for itself after having ruled out all the unsubstantiated and doubtful elements of the topic under study. Secondly, known realities must make sense. If a theory is officially 'counterintuitive', then either it is mere fiction or at the most; a distorted form of truth. This book's analysis is based on the philosophical principle that knowledge (...) is empirical and does not arise magically in absence of observational grounds. With philosophical approach, it was doubtful to accept that Georges Lemaître already knew Hubble's law in year 1927 that was yet to be found by Edwin Hubble in year 1929. Therefore this book started with denial of the claim that Lemaître already knew this law. But analysis of section I.III forced author to look the matter from original source and it came to surface that Lemaître knew this law in year 1927. But contrary to mainstream claim, Lemaître had not derived that law from general relativity (GR) equations rather had deduced from a method given by Hubble himself. Whereas whole case of the Big Bang Theory rests on misleading claim that Lemaître had derived this law solely from GR equations. The basis of this claim happened to be a manipulated translation (1931) of Lemaître's original 1927 article. People regard Big Bang Theory as truth because authoritative sources deceived them by presenting a manipulated translation in year 1931. This book is a philosophical analysis of original papers of Alexander Friedmann (1922), Georges Lemaître (1927), Edwin Hubble (1929) and Albert Einstein (1917) thus covers actual roots and origins of the Big Bang Model. In this book, only the core elements of the Big Bang Model i.e. 'Expansion of Universe' and 'CMBR' are covered. It has been sufficiently shown that 'expansion' is an illusion whereas CMBR is a proof that we live in a non-expanding infinite universe. If these two core elements of the standard Big Bang Model are precisely refuted then there is nothing crucial left with the standard model. For readers of this book at least, Big Bang Theory shall become a story of past mistakes. Author is not an authoritative source on science topics therefore readers must download all the above mentioned original papers and check all the points outlined in this book from relevant original papers. Unlike reading from an authoritative source that makes readers relaxed and careless but enables authorities to deceive them in worst way possible, this book requires readers to remain alert on all the points discussed in the book and verify everything from original sources whose links are given at the end of this description and also provided in footnotes section of the book. This book is not a judgment of the topic rather it is like a case presented by an advocate while readers are the judges. Readers are required to apply their own critical judgment to conclude the matter by themselves. After carefully reading this book, readers will also start taking 'authoritative sources' with due care and it will become difficult for the 'authorities' to deceive them again. (shrink)

In these pages, we expose the main traits of the doctrine of providence of Saint Albert the Great, according to his systematic works, mainly his Summa of Theology. His discussion follows clearly the guidelines of the Summa of Alexander of Hales, in order to delve into the set of problems faced by theological tradition over the centuries. Albert also restates the reflections of different authors like Boethius or Saint John of Damascus and he gives his personal solution (...) to the complex questions of providence, destiny and contingency of the world. (shrink)

1.Summary The key terms. 1. Key term: ‘Sunyata’. Nagarjuna is known in the history of Buddhism mainly by his keyword ‘sunyata’. This word is translated into English by the word ‘emptiness’. The translation and the traditional interpretations create the impression that Nagarjuna declares the objects as empty or illusionary or not real or not existing. What is the assertion and concrete statement made by this interpretation? That nothing can be found, that there is nothing, that nothing exists? Was Nagarjuna denying (...) the external world? Did he wish to refute that which evidently is? Did he want to call into question the world in which we live? Did he wish to deny the presence of things that somehow arise? My first point is the refutation of this traditional translation and interpretation. 2. Key terms: ‘Dependence’ or ‘relational view’. My second point consists in a transcription of the keyword of ‘sunyata’ by the word ‘dependence’. This is something that Nagarjuna himself has done. Now Nagarjuna’s central view can be named ‘dependence of things’. Nagarjuna is not looking for a material or immaterial object which can be declared as a fundamental reality of this world. His fundamental reality is not an object. It is a relation between objects. This is a relational view of reality. This is the heart of Nagarjuna’s ideas. In the 19th century a more or less unknown Italian philosopher, Vincenzo Goberti, spoke about relations as the mean and as bonds between things. Later, in quantum physics and in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead we are talking about interactions and entanglements. These ideas of relatedness or connections or entanglements in Eastern and Western modes of thought are the main idea of this essay. Not all entanglements are known. Just two examples: the nature of quantum entanglements is not known. Quantum entanglements should be faster than light. That's why Albert Einstein had some doubts. A second example: the completely unknown connections between the mind and the brain. Other examples are mysterious like the connections between birds in a flock. Some are a little known like gravitational forces. 3. Key terms: ‘Arm in arm’. But Nagarjuna did not stop there. He was not content to repeat this discovery of relational reality. He went on one step further indicating that what is happening between two things. He gave indications to the space between two things. He realized that not the behaviour of bodies, but the behaviour of something between them may be essential for understanding the reality. This open space is not at all empty. It is full of energy. The open space is the middle between things. Things are going arm in arm. The middle might be considered as a force that bounds men to the world and it might be seen as well as a force of liberation. It might be seen as a bondage to the infinite space. 4. Key term: Philosophy. Nagarjuna, we are told, was a Buddhist philosopher. This statement is not wrong when we take the notion ‘philosophy’ in a deep sense as a love to wisdom, not as wisdom itself. Philosophy is a way to wisdom. Where this way has an end wisdom begins and philosophy is no more necessary. A.N. Whitehead gives philosophy the commission of descriptive generalization. We do not need necessarily a philosophical building of universal dimensions. Some steps of descriptive generalization might be enough in order to see and understand reality. There is another criterion of Nagarjuna’s philosophy. Not his keywords ‘sunyata’ and ‘pratityasamutpada’ but his 25 philosophical examples are the heart of his philosophy. His examples are images. They do not speak to rational and conceptual understanding. They speak to our eyes. Images, metaphors, allegories or symbolic examples have a freshness which rational ideas do not possess. Buddhist dharma and philosophy is a philosophy of allegories. This kind of philosophy is not completely new and unknown to European philosophy. Since Plato’s allegory of the cave it is already a little known. (Plato 424 – 348 Befor Current Era) The German philosopher Hans Blumenberg has underlined the importance of metaphors in European philosophy. 5. Key terms: Quantum Physics. Why quantum physics? European modes of thought had no idea of the space between two this. They were bound to the ideas of substance or subject, two main metaphysical traditions of European philosophical history, two main principles. These substances and these subjects are two immaterial bodies which were considered by traditional European metaphysics as lying, as a sort of core, inside the objects or underlying the empirical reality of our world. The first European scientist who saw with his inner eye the forces between two things had been Michael Faraday (1791-1867). Faraday was an English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism. Later physicists like Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg and others followed his view in modern physics. This is a fifth point of my work. I compare Nagarjuna with European scientific modes of thought for a better understanding of Asia. I do not compare Nagarjuna with European philosophers like Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein. The principles and metaphysical foundations of physical sciences are more representative for European modes of thought than the ideas of Hegel, Heidegger and Wittgenstein and they are more precise. And slowly we are beginning to understand these principles. Let me take as an example the interpretation of quantum entanglement by the British mathematician Roger Penrose. Penrose discusses in the year of 2000 the experiences of quantum entanglement where light is separated over a distance of 100 kilometers and still remains connected in an unknown way. These are well known experiments in the last 30 years. Very strange for European modes of thought. The light should be either separated or connected. That is the expectation most European modes of thought tell us. Aristotle had been the first. Aristotle (384 - 322 Before Current Era) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great. He told us the following principle as a metaphysical foundation: Either a situation exists or not. There is not a third possibility. Now listen to Roger Penrose: “Quantum entanglement is a very strange type of thing. It is somewhere between objects being separate and being in communication with each other” (Roger Penrose, The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, Cambridge University Press. 2000 page 66). This sentence of Roger Penrose is a first step of a philosophical generalization in a Whiteheadian sense. 6. Key terms: ‘The metaphysical foundations of modern science’ had been examined particularly by three European and American philosophers: E. A. Burtt, A.N. Whitehead and Hans-Georg Gadamer, by Gadamer eminently in his late writings on Heraclitus and Parmenides. I try to follow the approaches of these philosophers of relational views and of anti-substantialism. By ‘metaphysical foundations’ Edwin Arthur Burtt does not understand transcendental ideas but simply the principles that are underlying sciences. -/- 7. Key terms: ‘Complementarity’, ‘interactions’, ‘entanglements’. Since 1927 quantum physics has three key terms which give an indication to the fundamental physical reality: Complementarity, interactions and entanglement. These three notions are akin to Nagarjuna’s relational view of reality. They are akin and they are very precise, so that Buddhism might learn something from these descriptions and quantum physicists might learn from Nagarjuna’s examples and views of reality. They might learn to do a first step in a philosophical generalisation of quantum physical experiments. All of us we might learn how objects are entangled or going arm in arm. [The end of the summary.] -/- « Wenn du gerade das, wodurch auch immer du gefesselt bist, erkennst, wirst du zur Freiheit gelangen. Wenn du diesen speziellen Pfad verwirklichst, gelangst du in einem Leben zur Buddhaschaft. Deswegen verhält es sich folgendermaßen : Wenn plötzlich die Geistesregung « Begierde » enststeht, dann betrachte, ohne ihr zu folgen, direkt ihre Essenz und verweile in dieser Betrachtung, ohne Ablenkungen zuzulassen. Auf diese Weise reinigt Begierde sich selbst, ohne aufgegeben zu werden, da sie ohne Grundlage und Ursprung entsteht. Das wird « Befreiung in sich selbst », « unterscheidende ursprüngliche Weisheit » oder Buddha Amitabha » genannt ». Jigden Sumgön, Licht, das die Dunkelheit durchbricht, Otter Verlag, München 2006, Seite 47, 48 . (shrink)

A little essay on the notion of person in Albert the Great. He bases on Alexander of Hales and develops his notion of person from the classical definition of Boethius.

This is a review of: Николай Онуфриевич Лосский, под редакцией В. П. Филатова, Москва: Росспэн (Серия "Философия России первой половины ХХ века"), 2016. It describes and appraises the content of this collection of nineteen articles on the life and thought of the prominent twentieth century Russian philosopher Nikolai Lossky. The volume, edited by Vladimir Filatov, presents the reader with an analysis of Lossky's philosophical legacy, including such aspects of his thought as his intuitivism, his personalism, his relation to phenomenology, his (...) narrative of the history of Russian philosophy, and so on. Lossky is also compared to other Russian philosophers (Shpet, Frank) and his legacy in other countries (Poland, Slovakia) is examined. The authors are Piama Gaidenko, Frances Nethercott, Albert Novikov, Victor Molchanov, Vitaly Lechtzer, Tatiana Shchedrina, Irina Beshkareva, Anatoly Pushkarsky, Elena Serdyukova, Vasily Vanchugov, Irina Blauberg, Roman Granin, Varvara Popova, Evgeny Babosov, Teresa Obolevich, Zlatica Plašienková, Oleg Ermichin, Alexander Podoxenov, Alexander Opalev, and Vladimir Schultz. (shrink)

1.Summary The key terms. 1. Key term: ‘Sunyata’. Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) is known in the history of Buddhism mainly by his keyword ‘sunyata’. This word is translated into English by the word ‘emptiness’. The translation and the traditional interpretations create the impression that Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) declares the objects as empty or illusionary or not real or not existing. What is the assertion and concrete statement made by this interpretation? That nothing can be found, that there is nothing, that nothing exists? Was (...) Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) denying the external world? Did he wish to refute that which evidently is? Did he want to call into question the world in which we live? Did he wish to deny the presence of things that somehow arise? My first point is the refutation of this traditional translation and interpretation. 2. Key terms: ‘Dependence’ or ‘relational view’. My second point consists in a transcription of the keyword of ‘sunyata’ by the word ‘dependence’. This is something that Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) himself has done. Now Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) central view can be named ‘dependence of things’. Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) is not looking for a material or immaterial object which can be declared as a fundamental reality of this world. His fundamental reality is not an object. It is a relation between objects. This is a relational view of reality. This is the heart of Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) ideas. In the 19th century a more or less unknown Italian philosopher, Vincenzo Goberti, spoke about relations as the mean and as bonds between things. Later, in quantum physics and in the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead we are talking about interactions and entanglements. These ideas of relatedness or connections or entanglements in Eastern and Western modes of thought are the main idea of this essay. Not all entanglements are known. Just two examples: the nature of quantum entanglements is not known. Quantum entanglements should be faster than light. That's why Albert Einstein had some doubts. A second example: the completely unknown connections between the mind and the brain. Other examples are mysterious like the connections between birds in a flock. Some are a little known like gravitational forces. 3. Key terms: ‘Arm in arm’. But Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) did not stop there. He was not content to repeat this discovery of relational reality. He went on one step further indicating that what is happening between two things. He gave indications to the space between two things. He realized that not the behaviour of bodies, but the behaviour of something between them may be essential for understanding the reality. This open space is not at all empty. It is full of energy. The open space is the middle between things. Things are going arm in arm. The middle might be considered as a force that bounds men to the world and it might be seen as well as a force of liberation. It might be seen as a bondage to the infinite space. 4. Key term: Philosophy. Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva), we are told, was a Buddhist philosopher. This statement is not wrong when we take the notion ‘philosophy’ in a deep sense as a love to wisdom, not as wisdom itself. Philosophy is a way to wisdom. Where this way has an end wisdom begins and philosophy is no more necessary. A.N. Whitehead gives philosophy the commission of descriptive generalization. We do not need necessarily a philosophical building of universal dimensions. Some steps of descriptive generalization might be enough in order to see and understand reality. There is another criterion of Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) philosophy. Not his keywords ‘sunyata’ and ‘pratityasamutpada’ but his 25 philosophical examples are the heart of his philosophy. His examples are images. They do not speak to rational and conceptual understanding. They speak to our eyes. Images, metaphors, allegories or symbolic examples have a freshness which rational ideas do not possess. Buddhist dharma and philosophy is a philosophy of allegories. This kind of philosophy is not completely new and unknown to European philosophy. Since Plato’s allegory of the cave it is already a little known. (Plato 424 – 348 Befor Current Era) The German philosopher Hans Blumenberg has underlined the importance of metaphors in European philosophy. 5. Key terms: Quantum Physics. Why quantum physics? European modes of thought had no idea of the space between two this. They were bound to the ideas of substance or subject, two main metaphysical traditions of European philosophical history, two main principles. These substances and these subjects are two immaterial bodies which were considered by traditional European metaphysics as lying, as a sort of core, inside the objects or underlying the empirical reality of our world. The first European scientist who saw with his inner eye the forces between two things had been Michael Faraday (1791-1867). Faraday was an English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism. Later physicists like Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, Werner Heisenberg and others followed his view in modern physics. This is a fifth point of my work. I compare Nagarjuna (Kumarajiva) with European scientific modes of thought for a better understanding of Asia. I do not compare Nagarjuna (kumarajiva) with European philosophers like Hegel, Heidegger, Wittgenstein. The principles and metaphysical foundations of physical sciences are more representative for European modes of thought than the ideas of Hegel, Heidegger and Wittgenstein and they are more precise. And slowly we are beginning to understand these principles. Let me take as an example the interpretation of quantum entanglement by the British mathematician Roger Penrose. Penrose discusses in the year of 2000 the experiences of quantum entanglement where light is separated over a distance of 100 kilometers and still remains connected in an unknown way. These are well known experiments in the last 30 years. Very strange for European modes of thought. The light should be either separated or connected. That is the expectation most European modes of thought tell us. Aristotle had been the first. Aristotle (384 - 322 Before Current Era) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and a teacher of Alexander the Great. He told us the following principle as a metaphysical foundation: Either a situation exists or not. There is not a third possibility. Now listen to Roger Penrose: “Quantum entanglement is a very strange type of thing. It is somewhere between objects being separate and being in communication with each other” (Roger Penrose, The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, Cambridge University Press. 2000 page 66). This sentence of Roger Penrose is a first step of a philosophical generalization in a Whiteheadian sense. 6. Key terms: ‘The metaphysical foundations of modern science’ had been examined particularly by three European and American philosophers: E. A. Burtt, A.N. Whitehead and Hans-Georg Gadamer, by Gadamer eminently in his late writings on Heraclitus and Parmenides. I try to follow the approaches of these philosophers of relational views and of anti-substantialism. By ‘metaphysical foundations’ Edwin Arthur Burtt does not understand transcendental ideas but simply the principles that are underlying sciences. 7. Key terms: ‘Complementarity’, ‘interactions’, ‘entanglements’. Since 1927 quantum physics has three key terms which give an indication to the fundamental physical reality: Complementarity, interactions and entanglement. These three notions are akin to Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) relational view of reality. They are akin and they are very precise, so that Buddhism might learn something from these descriptions and quantum physicists might learn from Nagarjuna’s (Kumarajiva’s) examples and views of reality. They might learn to do a first step in a philosophical generalisation of quantum physical experiments. All of us we might learn how objects are entangled or going arm in arm. [The end of the summary.]. (shrink)

As indicated in the title this article is a brief description of the body, soul and spirit of man, based on the divine revelations received by the Austrian mystic Jakob Lorber between 1840 and 1864. While it is common knowledge that man has a body and a soul, very little is known about the spirit in man which is the primary source of knowledge and power, penetrating both the soul and body.

In medical ethics, business ethics, and some branches of political philosophy (multi-culturalism, issues of just allocation, and equitable distribution) the literature increasingly combines insights from ethics and the social sciences. Some authors in medical ethics even speak of a new phase in the history of ethics, hailing "empirical ethics" as a logical next step in the development of practical ethics after the turn to "applied ethics." The name empirical ethics is ill-chosen because of its associations with "descriptive ethics." Unlike descriptive (...) ethics, however, empirical ethics aims to be both descriptive and normative. The first question on which I focus is what kind of empirical research is used by empirical ethics and for which purposes. I argue that the ultimate aim of all empirical ethics is to improve the context-sensitivity of ethics. The second question is whether empirical ethics is essentially connected with specific positions in meta-ethics. I show that in some kinds of meta-ethical theories, which I categorize as broad contextualist theories, there is an intrinsic need for connecting normative ethics with empirical social research. But context-sensitivity is a goal that can be aimed for from any meta-ethical position. (shrink)

A supplemental document for "Metalinguistic Gradability".

This paper presents a novel understanding of the notion of calculability. In Gricean frameworks, calculability is defined in terms of how speakers can infer an implicature. The relevant inferences must e.g. be based on maxims of conversation or cooperation principles. Meanwhile, I suggest to define calculability in terms of when, or under which conditions, speakers can infer an implicature. An implicature is calculable if hearers can infer its existence even supposing that the implicature is not semantically encoded. This approach avoids (...) familiar challenges, including recently prominent challenges from pragmatic particularism. (shrink)

I propose an approach to liar and Curry paradoxes inspired by the work of Roger Swyneshed in his treatise on insolubles (1330-1335). The keystone of the account is the idea that liar sentences and their ilk are false (and only false) and that the so-called ''capture'' direction of the T-schema should be restricted. The proposed account retains what I take to be the attractive features of Swyneshed's approach without leading to some worrying consequences Swyneshed accepts. The approach and the resulting (...) logic (called ''Swynish Logic'') are non-classical, but are consistent and compatible with many elements of the classical picture including modus ponens, modus tollens, and double-negation elimination and introduction. It is also compatible with bivalence and contravalence. My approach to these paradoxes is also immune to an important kind of revenge challenge that plagues some of its rivals. (shrink)

Does art have ethical possibilities? Can literature disclose our responsibilityfor other people? This short text aims to unfold some nuances of responsible and irresponsible art as they appear in Emmanuel Levinas's sparse remarks on aesthetics. We examine some common ways of conceiving Levinas's thoughts in literary studies, followed by a closer discussion of his ideas on the possibilities of art in "Reality and Its Shadow" and his late interviews on Vasily Grossman and Sacha Sosno.

International regulation of autonomous weapon systems (AWS) is increasingly conceived as an exercise in risk management. This requires a shared approach for assessing the risks of AWS. This paper presents a structured approach to risk assessment and regulation for AWS, adapting a qualitative framework inspired by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). It examines the interactions among key risk factors—determinants, drivers, and types—to evaluate the risk magnitude of AWS and establish risk tolerance thresholds through a risk matrix informed by (...) background knowledge of event likelihood and severity. Further, it proposes a methodology to assess community risk appetite, emphasizing that such assessments and resulting tolerance levels should be determined through deliberation in a multistakeholder forum. The paper highlights the complexities of applying risk-based regulations to AWS internationally, particularly the challenge of defining a global community for risk assessment and regulatory legitimization. (shrink)

Multiple states are at risk of becoming uninhabitable due to climate change, forcing their populations to flee. While the 1951 Refugee Convention provides the gold standard of international protection, it is only applied to a limited subset of people fleeing their countries, those who suffer persecution, which most people fleeing climate change cannot establish. While many journalists and non-lawyers freely use the term “climate refugees,” governments, and courts, as well as UNHCR and many refugee experts, have excluded most climate refugees (...) from the Convention as a matter of legal interpretation. In our 2015 paper, “Unable to Return in the 1951 Refugee Convention: Stateless Refugees and Climate Change”, we sought to reopen the debate on “climate refugees” by arguing that some climate refugees qualify under the 1951 Convention as it is currently written (even if they are not persecuted): those who are stateless and are unable to return to their country of origin because climate change has rendered it uninhabitable. Our interpretation, however, has been rejected by Goodwin-Gill and McAdam (2021) and by Foster and Lambert (2019), which explicitly responds to our paper. Here, we address and respond to their arguments, and develop a new supplementary one, drawing on the principle of systemic integration, as enshrined in Article 31(3)(c) of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties. (shrink)

Before committing suicide, Othello says, "Speak of me as I am; . . . speak of one who loved not wisely, but too well." Thinking of his love for Desdemona, we are not likely to agree with his assessment that he loved her "too well," especially if loving well is supposed to require some kind of dependability or concern for her well-being; we would be loath even to grant that he loved her "too much." Othello's love for his wife seems, (...) rather, to have been firmly subordinated to his love for his honor. Perhaps, then, his statement could be saved by saying that it was his honor that he loved too well, and that in devoting himself so completely to it, he did not love wisely. He needed a better way of coordinating his two concerns, one that wouldn't give him cause for regret—a way of loving well that was also wise. (shrink)

The study of race and racism is an area of growth in philosophy. The quantity of research published under the banner of ‘the philosophy of race’ is increasing; research monographs and edited collections are appearing in greater numbers, and there is even a noticeable though still lamentably small increase in the number of professional posi- tions being advertised in the philosophy of race. However, one notable feature of this research is how much it focuses upon the racial context of the (...) USA. Most of its active and prominent researchers are based in the USA, nearly all new posts with designated research specialisms in race are at universities in the USA, and most of its key research questions are framed in the racial idiom and social context of the contemporary USA. In many respects, this is a good thing: if the philosophy of race cannot find fertile ground in the USA, there is little hope of it flourishing anywhere. However, this emphasis on the US context may have a negative side too. (shrink)

Grounding and explanation are said to be intimately connected. Some even maintain that grounding just is a form of explanation. But grounding and explanation also seem importantly different—on the face of it, the former is ‘worldy’ or ‘objective’ while the latter isn’t. In this paper, we develop and respond to an argument to the effect that there is no way to fruitfully address this tension that retains orthodox views about grounding and explanation but doesn’t undermine a central piece of methodology, (...) namely that explanation is a guide to ground. (shrink)

Can there be grounding without necessitation? Can a fact obtain wholly in virtue of metaphysically more fundamental facts, even though there are possible worlds at which the latter facts obtain but not the former? It is an orthodoxy in recent literature about the nature of grounding, and in first-order philosophical disputes about what grounds what, that the answer is no. I will argue that the correct answer is yes. I present two novel arguments against grounding necessitarianism, and show that grounding (...) contingentism is fully compatible with the various explanatory roles that grounding is widely thought to play. (shrink)

Background: Many people with aphasia and people without brain injury talk to themselves in their heads, i.e., have “inner speech.” Inner speech may be more preserved compared with spoken speech for some people with aphasia and may serve a variety of functions (e.g., emotion regulation), which motivates us to provide a high-fidelity characterization of it. Researchers have used multiple methods to measure this internal phenomenon in the past, which we combine here for the first time in a single study. -/- (...) Aims: We compare performance between individuals with and without aphasia on inner speech tasks that assess inner speech “inthe- moment” to general subjective impressions of inner speech to tease apart the relationship of aphasia severity to inner speech. Methods and Procedures: Twenty people with mild-moderate aphasia and twenty neurotypical controls completed several inner speech tasks, including objective silent rhyme judgements (picture, written, and auditory), subjective reports of inner speech during naming, and subjective rating scales about inner speech experience more generally. -/- Outcomes and Results: In-the-moment inner speech during silent rhyming tasks was associated with aphasia severity only for picture and written rhyming but not auditory rhyming. In-the-moment inner speech reports during silent naming were not associated with aphasia severity, nor were the subjective ratings about general inner speech experience. Individuals with and without aphasia demonstrated a variety of subjective general inner speech experiences, demonstrating heterogeneity of this phenomenon more broadly. -/- Conclusions: Methods of measuring inner speech complement each other and speak to different facets of the inner speech phenomenon, and clinicians and researchers must carefully choose the method(s) that will provide the information about inner speech that they desire. (shrink)

In Necessary Beings, Bob Hale addresses two questions: What is the source of necessity? What is the source of our knowledge of it? He offers novel responses to them in terms of the metaphysical notion of nature or, more familiarly, essence. In this paper, I address Hale’s response to the first question. My assessment is negative. I argue that his essentialist explanation of the source of necessity suffers from three significant shortcomings. First, Hale’s leading example of an essentialist explanation merely (...) asserts that the nature of an entity explains some necessity, but leaves unexplained how it does so. Second, his essentialist explanation of particular necessities introduces new necessities that remain unexplained. Third, Hale’s version of essentialism presupposes a controversial metaphysical theory of properties, for which he offers no defense. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider two different attempts to make an end run around the experimentalist challenge to the armchair use of intuitions: one due to Max Deutsch and Herman Cappelen, contending that philosophers do not appeal to intuitions, but rather to arguments, in canonical philosophical texts; the other due to Joshua Knobe, arguing that intuitions are so stable that there is in fact no empirical basis for the experimentalist challenge in the first place. We show that a closer attention (...) to philosophical practices reveal, in turn, that we cannot make sense of these philosophical texts as arguments all the way down; and that our methods are so sensitive to error that even a modest amount of instability is enough to raise deep methodological concerns. (shrink)

Gerade weil das Bestehen auf Rangordnungen in der heutigen Gesellschaft anstößig und fremd wirkt, ist es lohnenswert, sich ihnen mit Nietzsche neu zu stellen, der sie als sein Problem bezeichnete. Er richtet sie gezielt gegen die Gleichheit, von der er befürchtet, ihr Anspruch auf Universalität verunmögliche Individualität, Anders-Sein und damit auch alle Größe. Den moralischen Wert der Gleichheit kritisieren heißt nicht, sich von demokratischen Grundprinzipien oder Errungenschaften zu verabschieden. Geklärte Rangverhältnisse reduzieren Komplexität, vereinfachen die Kommunikation, machen Verhalten erwartbar und vereinfachen (...) so die Orientierung. So könnte gerade in den modernen Ausprägungen der Demokratie ein offenerer Umgang mit Rangordnungen zu ihrer Stärkung beitragen. Die Nietzsche-Forschung hat eine Beschäftigung mit dem Begriff bisher weitgehend vermieden. Alberts schließt diese Forschungslücke. Er geht persönlichen, philologischen und philosophischen Anhaltspunkten für Nietzsches Denken nach und untersucht die Perspektiven, die dabei auf verschiedenste Lebensbereiche wie Natur, Religion, Moral, Wissenschaft und Interindividualität eröffnet werden. (shrink)

This research explored the utilization of video-based instructional material in enhancing learning competency among a group of sixty (60) students enrolled in grade 8 at Satriwithaya School in Bangkok, Thailand. The study was carried out. out during the 2nd semester of S.Y. 2023–2024. The respondents were chosen using the approach of purposive sampling. The research study employed an experimental approach and utilized quantitative research. Through the use of of a one-group pre- and post-test, the researcher was able to gather the (...) necessary data. The study included statistical measures such as percentages, means, and standard deviations, as well as dependent and independent t-tests, to assess and compare the proficiency and efficacy of utilizing video-based educational materials among students at Satriwithaya School in Bangkok, Thailand. Study findings also revealed that there is a significant difference in pre- and post-test assessment scores before and after using the video-based instructional materials. The research outcomes indicated that the application of video-based teaching resources as an instructional strategy in the field of biology resulted in an increased degree of effectiveness in the students' learning process. The findings of the study suggest that the utilization of video-based instructional materials has favorable outcomes in terms of enhancing pedagogical and educational achievements in the field of biology. This methodology has been demonstrated to provide learners with with the chance to enhance their comprehension through active participation, cultivate their imagination and cleverness, consequently facilitating enhanced educational achievements. Furthermore, the establishment of a conducive learning atmosphere that is both engaging and pleasurable for students can enhance their overall learning experience. Moreover, this approach enhances the teacher's capacity to convey their intended educational objectives to their students proficiently. -/- . (shrink)

Does natural science give us reason to believe that mathematical statements are true? And does natural science give us reason to believe in some particular metaphysics of mathematics? These two questions should be firmly distinguished. My argument in this chapter is that a negative answer to the second question is compatible with an affirmative answer to the first. Loosely put, even if science settles the truth of mathematics, it does not settle its metaphysics.

Discussion of the relevance of grounding to substantiveness, theory-choice, and “location problems” in metaphysics.

The recent literature abounds with accounts of the semantics and pragmatics of so-called predicates of personal taste, i.e. predicates whose application is, in some sense or other, a subjective matter. Relativism and contextualism are the major types of theories. One crucial difference between these theories concerns how we should assess previous taste claims. Relativism predicts that we should assess them in the light of the taste standard governing the context of assessment. Contextualism predicts that we should assess them in the (...) light of the taste standard governing the context of use. We show in a range of experiments that neither prediction is correct. People have no clear preferences either way and which taste standard they choose in evaluating a previous taste claim crucially depends on whether they start out with a favorable attitude towards the object in question and then come to have an unfavorable attitude or vice versa. We suggest an account of the data in terms of what we call hybrid relativism. (shrink)

In this paper I examine parallels between C.S. Peirce's most mature account of signs and contemporary philosophy of language. I do this by first introducing a summary of Peirce's final account of Signs. I then use that account of signs to reconstruct Peircian answers to two puzzles of reference: The Problem of Cognitive Significance, or Frege's Puzzle; and The Same-Saying Phenomenon for Indexicals. Finally, a comparison of these Peircian answers with both Fregean and Direct Referentialist approaches to the puzzles highlights (...) interesting parallels and important differences between Peirce's final account of signs, and the concepts used in analytic philosophy of language. (shrink)

This article examines two questions about scientists’ search for knowledge. First, which search strategies generate discoveries effectively? Second, is it advantageous to diversify search strategies? We argue pace Weisberg and Muldoon, “Epistemic Landscapes and the Division of Cognitive Labor”, that, on the first question, a search strategy that deliberately seeks novel research approaches need not be optimal. On the second question, we argue they have not shown epistemic reasons exist for the division of cognitive labor, identifying the errors that led (...) to their conclusions. Furthermore, we generalize the epistemic landscape model, showing that one should be skeptical about the benefits of social learning in epistemically complex environments. (shrink)

Christopher Hill contends that the metaphysical modalities can be reductively explained in terms of the subjunctive conditional and that this reductive explanation yields two tests for determining the metaphysical modality of a proposition. He goes on to argue that his reductive account of the metaphysical modalities in conjunction with his account of modal knowledge underwrites the further conclusion that conceivability does not provide a reliable test for metaphysical possibility. I argue (1) that Hill’s reductive explanation of the metaphysical modalities in (...) terms of the subjunctive conditional does not yield a reductive explanation of knowledge of metaphysical modality in terms of knowledge of subjunctive conditionals, and (2) that his account of modal knowledge is at odds with his contention that conceivability does not provide epistemic access to metaphysical possibility. (shrink)

The late tenth century siddha and scholar Ratnākaraśānti, also known as the Mahāsiddha Śāntipa, was renowned as the author of both philosophical śāstras and commentaries on tantra. Typically, these are considered separate spheres of activity. However, Ratnākaraśānti’s approach, building on the tradition of scholarship associated with the Mahāvairocanābhisaṃbodhitantra and the Guhyasamājatantra, as well as on Yogācāra analysis and Buddhist pramāṇa theory, is highly syncretic. This paper is a study of Ratnākaraśānti’s commentaries that highlights his synthesis of the exoteric and esoteric (...) streams of Buddhist discourse, with particular emphasis on the nondual nature of reflexive awareness (svasaṃvitti, rang rig), or 'luminosity' (prakāśa, gsal ba), which serves as the conceptual bridge between sūtra and tantra. (shrink)

Elselijn Kingma argues that, in cases of mammalian placental pregnancy, the foster (roughly, the post-implantation embryo/foetus) is part of the gravida (the pregnant organism). But she does not consider the possibility of proper overlap. I show that this generates a number of serious problems for her argument and trace the oversight to a quite general issue within the literature on biological individuality. Doing so provides an opportunity to pull apart and clarify the relations between some importantly distinct questions concerning organismality (...) and organismic parthood, and to identify the implications that this has for those who want to draw on this literature when making metaphysical or mereological arguments. (shrink)

Jennifer Nagel (2010) has recently proposed a fascinating account of the decreased tendency to attribute knowledge in conversational contexts in which unrealized possibilities of error have been mentioned. Her account appeals to epistemic egocentrism, or what is sometimes called the curse of knowledge, an egocentric bias to attribute our own mental states to other people (and sometimes our own future and past selves). Our aim in this paper is to investigate the empirical merits of Nagel’s hypothesis about the psychology involved (...) in knowledge attribution. (shrink)

This article offers comprehensive criticism of the Turing test and develops quality criteria for new artificial general intelligence (AGI) assessment tests. It is shown that the prerequisites A. Turing drew upon when reducing personality and human consciousness to “suitable branches of thought” re-flected the engineering level of his time. In fact, the Turing “imitation game” employed only symbolic communication and ignored the physical world. This paper suggests that by restricting thinking ability to symbolic systems alone Turing unknowingly constructed “the wall” (...) that excludes any possi-bility of transition from a complex observable phenomenon to an abstract image or concept. It is, therefore, sensible to factor in new requirements for AI (artificial intelligence) maturity assessment when approaching the Tu-ring test. Such AI must support all forms of communication with a human being, and it should be able to comprehend abstract images and specify con-cepts as well as participate in social practices. (shrink)

Pattern-based reasons are reasons for action deriving not from the features of our own actions, but from the features of the larger patterns of action in which we might be participating. These reasons might relate to the patterns of action that will actually be carried out, or they might relate to merely hypothetical patterns. In past work, I have argued that accepting merely hypothetical pattern-based reasons, together with a plausible account of how to weigh these reasons, can lead to disastrous (...) consequences. However, in this article, I argue that this problem is not limited to hypothetical pattern-based reasons: it turns out that there are analogous issues for reasons deriving from actual patterns. I then suggest that we can avoid this problem by adopting a different account of the weight of pattern-based reasons. (shrink)

An accurate classification of bacteria is essential for the proper identification of patient infections and subsequent treatment decisions. Multi-Locus Sequence Typing (MLST) is a genetic technique for bacterial classification. MLST classifications are used to cluster bacteria into clonal complexes. Importantly, clonal complexes can serve as a biological species concept for bacteria, facilitating an otherwise difficult taxonomic classification. In this paper, we argue for the inclusion of terms relating to clonal complexes in biomedical ontologies.

The prescriptive force of methodological rules rests, I argue, on the acceptance of scientific theories; that of the most general methodological rules rests on theories in the philosophy of science, which differ from theories in the several sciences only in generality and abstraction. I illustrate these claims by reference to methodological disputes in social science and among philosophers of science. My conclusions substantiate those of Laudan except that I argue for the existence of transtheoretical goals common to all scientists and (...) concrete enough actually to have bearing on methodology. And I argue that Laudan is committed to such goals himself, willy nilly. (shrink)

Counterfactual scepticism holds that most ordinary counterfactuals are false. The main argument for this view appeals to a ‘chance undermines would’ principle: if ψ would have some chance of not obtaining had ϕ obtained, then ϕ □→ ψ is false. This principle seems to follow from two fairly weak principles, namely, that ‘chance ensures could’ and that ϕ □→ ψ and ϕ ⋄→ ¬ ψ clash. Despite their initial plausibility, I show that these principles are independently problematic: given some modest (...) closure principles, they entail absurdities. Moreover, on the most promising strategy for saving these principles, they do not, in the relevant sense, entail the chance-undermines-would principle. Instead, they entail a principle that only supports counterfactual indeterminism, the view that most ordinary counterfactuals are chancy, that is, not settled true. I demonstrate this by developing an indeterminist semantics that vindicates the clash and chance-ensures-could principles but not the chance-undermines-would principle. This view, I argue, offers a better account of our credal and linguistic judgements than counterfactual scepticism. (shrink)

In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant states that ideas give us the rule for organizing experience and ideals serve as archetypes or standards against which one can measure copies. Further, he states that ideas and ideals can be practical. Understanding how precisely these concepts should function presents a challenging and understudied philosophical puzzle. I offer a reconstruction of how ideas and ideals might be practical in order to uphold, to my mind, a conceptually worthy distinction. A practical idea, I (...) argue, is best understood as a reference to the categorical imperative (and its various formulations), which guides conduct directly as a rule. A practical ideal, by contrast, I think is a substrate that serves two functions: one that (a) helps us gauge moral deficiencies and another that (b) reveals the potential for moral improvement. In response to well-grounded sceptical concerns, I argue that ideals are indirectly practical in that they ground the possibility to recognise moral states of affairs and be moral in the first place. (shrink)

Near the end of 'Naming the Colours', Lewis (1997) makes an interesting claim about the relationship between linguistic and mental content; we are typically unable to read the content of a belief off the content of a sentence used to express that belief or vice versa. I call this view autonomism. I motivate and defend autonomism and discuss its importance in the philosophy of mind and language. In a nutshell, I argue that the different theoretical roles that mental and linguistic (...) content play suggest these kinds of content should be understood as sensitive to different things. (shrink)

This paper addresses a family of issues surrounding the biological phenomenon of resistance and its representation in realist ontologies. The treatments of resistance terms in various existing ontologies are examined and found to be either overly narrow, internally inconsistent, or otherwise problematic. We propose a more coherent characterization of resistance in terms of what we shall call blocking dispositions, which are collections of mutually coordinated dispositions which are of such a sort that they cannot undergo simultaneous realization within a single (...) bearer. A definition of ‘protective resistance’ is proposed for use in the Infectious Disease Ontology (IDO) and we show how this definition can be used to characterize the antibiotic resistance in Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). The ontological relations between entities in our MRSA case study are used alongside a series of logical inference rules to illustrate logical reasoning about resistance. A description logic representation of blocking dispositions is also provided. We demonstrate that our characterization of resistance is sufficiently general to cover two other cases of resistance in the infectious disease domain involving HIV and malaria. (shrink)