In this paper we want to analyze some philosophical and epistemological connections between a new kind of technology recently developed within robotics, and the previous mechanical approach. A new paradigm about machine-design in robotics, currently defined as ‘Embodied Intelligence’, has recently been developed. Here we consider the debate on the relationship between the hand and the intellect, from the perspective of the history of philosophy, aiming at providing a more suitable understanding of this paradigm. The new bottom-up approach to design (...) is deeply rooted in a new kind of empiricism, which tries to overcome issues connected with the previous approach strongly committed with the Artificial Intelligence (AI) debate and its origin. Since Turing’s time, the AI debate showed a rationalistic bias which remained undisputed until now. The paradigm shift we are witnessing nowadays is a reply to that bias in order to achieve not only a better way to design robots, but also to understand some underlying epistemological remarks. (shrink)

There seem to be some misunderstandings abroad in the literature about medical epistemology and person-centered medicine concerning the nature of 'modest' or aetiological foundationalism, and some vagueness about 'emergence'. This paper urges a greater tolerance for a modest, Humean variety of foundationalism, not least because it seems to offer significant support for person-centred medicine. It also suggests a closer examination of emergence as an explanation or justification for medicine, since emergence is a complex concept that does nothing to rule out (...) foundationalism. Foundationalism has been condemned tout court without recognizing that it comes in various styles and degrees. Emergence has been used as a property of medicine to dismiss any need to seek its foundations. But emergence too comes in different forms, not all of them at odds with modest foundationalism. Modest or aetiological foundationalism is far more flexible than Cartesian foundationalism, and is compatible with modern understandings of emergence. Modest foundationalism and a particular understanding of emergence support the ontological and epistemological underpinning of person-centered medicine. (shrink)

Why should philosophy, or even thinking, get in the way of seeing? In attempting to address this question, this paper identifies post-Romanticism as a phenomenologically inflected response to the failure of both pre-Romantic Reflexionsphilosophie and Hegelian speculative overcoming, one that seeks to express our relation to the world in a way that does not rely on a reflection model of consciousness and gives no support to the notion of a cognitively inaccessible absolute. It will be suggested that the poetry of (...) Fernando Pessoa offers lessons in such a post-Romanticism, showing how a phenomenological attentiveness to the world-disclosive power of poetry and to the everyday mereness of things constitutes a more coherent way of relating to the world. With reference to Heidegger and Jean-Luc Nancy, it will be argued that Pessoa’s poetry shows us that it is by reining in the reflection model of consciousness that we achieve a greater sense of the world and our position in it. (shrink)

Utopian rationalism names the belief that science has made utopia a practical possibility. Its characteristics include determinism, collectivism, distrust of individual initiative and belief in the superiority of collective planning in securing human happiness. The first section traces the utopian and dystopian tradition into modern science fiction. The ideas collected here are systematized in the next section, which on all points dismisses the tenets and claims of utopian rationalism as false, and in a final section, which discusses utopian thinking and (...) its dangers in general. Utopian thinking is traced to three traits of human nature, namely, the quests for happiness, perfection, and submergence. (shrink)

Some philosophers (e.g. Descartes) argue that there is an evidential relationship between language and thought, such that presence of language is indicative of mind. Recent language acquisition research with apes such as chimpanzees and bonobos attempts to demonstrate the capacity of these primates to acquire at least rudimentary linguistic capacity. This paper presents a case study of the ape language research and explores the consequences of the research with respect to the argument that animals lack mind because they fail to (...) display linguistic capacity. (shrink)

This paper considers the implications for nursing practice of what the continental philosopher Emmanuel Levinas described as the ‘non‐intentional’. The place of the non‐intentional emerges from a critique of Buber’s conception of the ‘I‐Thou’ and the ‘I‐It’ relations, and is revealed to a person in the moments prior to the grasping of conscious understanding. A specific incident that took place between a nurse and a person diagnosed with dementia is described and then used to illustrate an exploration of the ‘I‐Thou’ (...) relation and then the non‐intentional. The nurse practitioner’s pre‐understandings of the term dementia are shown to have hindered the emergence of an ‘I‐Thou’ relation and the possibility of a non‐intentional glimpse of the otherness of the other. It is suggested here that the plausible associations that become synonymous with a diagnosis like dementia detract from attentiveness to another ‘person’. The more tangible an understanding of another person becomes, the less likely it is that a person can really experience the other as separate to their perception of them. The implications for practitioner education and learning in relation to the non‐intentional are considered, in particular the need to reflect on the immediacy of the feelings experienced in a relationship. The non‐intentional highlights how ‘I’, as a nurse practitioner, can exclude the other by imposing an understanding on what is seen and experienced in relation to another person. The ‘I’ prioritizes intentional understanding and so obscures the importance of the spontaneous response to the tear in the eye of the other, which is the basis for Levinas’s conception of the non‐intentional. The spontaneity of the non‐intentional is what Levinas believed confirmed the separateness and autonomy of the other and consequently should be the basis for a therapeutic nursing relationship with a patient. (shrink)

Our ethical obligations to another being depend at least in part on that being’s capacity for a mental life. Our usual approach to inferring the mental state of another is to reason by analogy: If another being behaves as I do in a circumstance that engenders a certain mental state in me, I conclude that it has engendered the same mental state in him or her. Unfortunately, as philosophers have long noted, this analogy is fallible because behavior and mental states (...) are only contingently related. If the other person is acting, for example, we could draw the wrong conclusion about his or her mental state. In this article I consider another type of analogy that can be drawn between oneself and another to infer the mental state of the other, substituting brain activity for behavior. According to most current views of the mind–body problem, mental states and brain states are non-contingently related, and hence inferences drawn with the new analogy are not susceptible to the alternative interpretations that plague the behavioral analogy. The implications of this approach are explored in two cases for which behavior is particularly unhelpful as a guide to mental status: severely brain–damaged patients who are incapable of intentional communicative behavior, and nonhuman animals whose behavioral repertoires are different from ours and who lack language. (shrink)

The Politics of Orientation provides the first substantial exploration of a surprising theoretical kinship and its rich political implications, between Gilles Deleuze's philosophy and the sociological systems theory of Niklas Luhmann. Through their shared theories of sense, Hannah Richter draws out how the works of Luhmann and Deleuze complement each other in creating worlds where chaos is the norm and order the unlikely and yet remarkably stable exception. From the encounter between Deleuze and Luhmann, Richter develops a novel take on (...) postfoundational ontology where subjects and societies unfold in self-productive relations of sense against a background of complexity. The Politics of Orientation breaks and rebuilds theoretical alliances by reading core concepts and thinkers of Continental Philosophy, from Leibniz to Whitehead and Marx, through this encounter. Most importantly, the book puts Luhmann and Deleuze to work to offer urgently needed insight into the rise of post-truth populism. In our complex democratic societies, Richter argues, orientation against complexity has become the ground of political power, privileging the simplistic narratives of the populist right. (shrink)

The physical sciences, as generally understood, are disciplines concerned with the characteristics and behavior of physical objects and states. What is evident about the current condition of consciousness is that: 1) It has no identified physical states; 2) There is no generally accepted vocabulary of its functioning, or its participant entities; and 3) No ‘normal science’ operative structure upon which a community of scientists agree. The reasons are that consciousness is a prescientific concept persisting because there is no adequate physicalist (...) theory to replace it, and because biology operates in a way ‘invisible’ to assumed mental processes and vocabulary. What is required is a plausible theory built on a biophysical base. A theory is being developed: it is termed the _theory of brain-sign_. Brain-sign replaces consciousness as an evolved neural operation in which brains communicate with each other in the collective action of organisms, so addressing the limitations of being an isolated individual. It depends upon neural signification, in this case of the organisms’ immediate _causal orientation_ towards the world. Thus, multiple organisms are linked as one biophysical operation. Signs are biologically ubiquitous and inherently physical. Organisms are not subjective agents with transcendent powers acting in a perceivable world, but evolved organic objects with the ability to cooperate as one overarching biological process. It is anticipated this theoretical operation and vocabulary will explain brain function, which mind fails to do. It accounts for science from both its neural origins and its communal nature. ER -. (shrink)

The standard approach to model how human beings understand natural languages is the symbolic, compositional approach according to which the meaning of a complex expression is a function of the meanings of its constituents. In other words, meaning plays a fundamental role in the model. In this work, because of the polysemous, flexible, dynamic, and contextual structure of natural languages, this approach is rejected. Instead, a connectionist model which eliminates the concept of meaning is proposed.

Faced with current urgent calls for more trust in experts, especially in high impact and politically sensitive domains, such as climate science and COVID-19, the complex and problematic nature of public trust in experts and the need for a more critical approach to the topic are easy to overlook. Scepticism – at least in its Humean mitigated form that encourages independent, questioning attitudes – can prove valuable to democratic governance, but stands in opposition to the cognitive dependency entailed by epistemic (...) trust. In this paper, we investigate the tension between the value of mitigated scepticism – understood as the exercise of reason-based doubt in a particular domain – and the need for trust in experts. We offer four arguments in favour of mitigated scepticism: the argument from loss of intellectual autonomy; the argument from democratic deficit; the argument from the normative failures of science; and the argument from past and current injustices. These arguments highlight the tension between the requirements for trust and justified scepticism about the role of experts. One solution, which we reject, is the idea that reliance, rather than trust, is sufficient for the purposes of accommodating experts in policy matters. The solution we endorse is to create a ‘climate of trust’, where questioning experts and expertise is welcomed, but the epistemic trust necessary for action upon information which the public cannot obtain first-hand is enabled and encouraged through structural, institutional, and justice-based measures. (shrink)

African Religion and Culture: Honoring the Past and Shaping the Future.

The article develops and justifies, on the basis of the epistemological argumentation theory, two central pieces of the theory of evaluative argumentation interpretation: 1. criteria for recognizing argument types and 2. rules for adding reasons to create ideal arguments. Ad 1: The criteria for identifying argument types are a selection of essential elements from the definitions of the respective argument types. Ad 2: After presenting the general principles for adding reasons (benevolence, authenticity, immanence, optimization), heuristics are proposed for finding missing (...) reasons, for deductive arguments, e.g., semantic tableaux are suggested. (shrink)

This paper uses an extended discussion of Nietzsche’s essay “The Greek State” to uncover the political aspects of his early thinking. The paper builds on a similar discussion of another essay from the same period, “Homer on Competition,” in arguing that Nietzsche’s thinking is based on a confrontation with the work of Plato. It is argued that the key to understanding “The Greek State” is seeing it, in its entirety, as an enigmatic interpretation and re-writing of Plato’s Republic. Nietzsche interprets (...) the Republic as Plato’s accomplishment of the task of the genuine philosopher: the legislation of values and the moulding of human character. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a novel answer to the Special Composition Question. In some respects it agrees with brutalism about composition; in others with universalism. The main novel feature of this answer is the insight I think it gives into what the debate over the Special Composition Question is about.

This discussion surrounds the dialectical methodology, underpinning the unity of knowledge, and discusses a differing perspective to knowledge and knowledge value from knowledge transfer practitioners, in a business context. It asks why, if knowledge is vital for business success and competitive advantage, the transfer of knowledge is rarely a simple unproblematic event (Argote et al. 2000). Further, that the creation of knowledge before transfer is recognised within literature as a significant factor in determining a starting point for analogous scrutiny. Under (...) a premise of doxastic attitude, this discussion looks to synthesise from current literature and research the epistemic principal of ‘knowledge’, which underpins understanding congruent knowledge transfer theories and perspectives principals. (shrink)

To allow a pragmatic approach to understanding value of knowledge as a ‘thing’ to be transferred, the axiological foundationalism significance of the human perception of knowledge continues to be a significant contributing factor. Similarly the construct of our knowledge is parallel to doxastic attitudes and perspectives. Thus, through reconciliation of foundational and doxastic positions, one can view knowledge and knowledge value as a singular construct. This can be characterised through a multitude definition but not as a singular epistemic principal. This (...) interpretation of current and historical literature offers an outline and assessment of current and historical knowledge philosophy, theory and positioning, but at the same time, tries to place it within the realms of a business context. (shrink)

In this discussion, we consider the unity of knowledge, and deliberate a contrary perspective from current knowledge transfer practitioners, in a business context. We consider why, if knowledge is key for business success and competitive advantage, the transfer of knowledge remains for the most part a problematic event. Further, ifthe creation of knowledge before transfer is recognised within literature as a significant factor in determining a starting point for analogous scrutiny, then why is this focal point difficult to establish and (...) measure. (shrink)

This essay seeks to expose readers from the social sciences to current debates in their fields, beyond the discussions of induction and deduction one learns about in a typical research methods course. It provides glimpses of social science from its dawn in 17th century empiricism, through the rise of postpositivism and antipositivism, to the infamous “science wars” in the 1990s, and expresses a hope for a broader and more inclusive future. Specifically, the paper compares the traditional positivist method of scientific (...) inquiry to a phenomenological approach, and attempts to demonstrate the relevance of philosophical investigation in social science research. (shrink)

In this article I try to show that the most deep level ontology can have rich meaning for our understanding of such practical and everyday phenomena as education and interaction. With this deep level ontology I mean the problem of universals. Starting from famous traditional stances of realism and nominalism, which both are for the modern theories of growth and Bildung, I continue to the third and more recently developed ontological theory, trope theory according to which the properties (qualities, relations (...) etc.) are real (unlike in nominalism) but not universal (like in realisms). Then I will take a closer look at the trope theory of CB Martin. According to it every causal event is an interaction event between simple or complex beings in which their existing dispositions may produce manifesting properties. This point of view is radically anti dualistic because that basic level causal interaction has in the simplified forms all the elements of semiotic, meaningful of mental activity of such complex beings likes humans and animals. Ome of the main general conclusions of the article is that all causal affections contain a kind of “interpretation” from the side of affected object. (shrink)

The consumerist lifestyle of modernity has had a detrimental impact on the environment. In part, this is supposed by the traditional philosophical conceptualisation of subjectivity, which privileges human subjects from surrounding objects. Concern over our attitude to the environment has been present from the beginning of civilisation and particularly since the emergence of the industrial revolution. This thesis traces a genealogy of these concerns, from the Romantics, to 20th century philosophers such as Heidegger, through the political movements of the 1960-1980s (...) and the recognition of pollution, resource depletion and climate change by pan global organisation from the 1980s to the present day. The changes in epistemology in the wide context of society have influenced the way environmental education has emerged. Philosophy informs the way we understand subjectivity, language, pedagogy, curriculum, and our understanding of the environment. Education also operates in a political context, and the concepts that inform policies permeate educational institutions. Heidegger’s philosophy engages with the scope of the environmental problem, offers a critique of modernity, develops a new conceptualisation of subjectivity and the relationship between humanity and Being, and an analysis of the impact modern technology has mediating that relationship. Heidegger began to develop his ideas on technology during the period between World Wars, in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. His philosophy was influenced by the Romantic Volk movement, and the ideas of Nietzsche, Spengler and Jünger. The tense political surroundings have influenced his thinking, in both constructive and detrimental ways. Heidegger remains one of the most influential philosophers to engage with the framework of technological modernity and its constraints on human subjectivity, and our way of relating to the earth. He challenges traditional ontology and epistemology. He raises the status of poetry from mere lyrical wordplay to means of developing a more authentic relationship between beings and Beings. I make a critical analysis of his philosophy, to distinguish the elements that remain inherently conservative and nationalistic from those that are immanently helpful in throwing light on the dilemma of modern life, and the escalating problem of environmental devastation. (shrink)

A dialogical essay prioritizing understanding to knowledge, and justification to truth.

In this article the Derrida/Foucault debate is scrutinised with two closely related aims in mind: reconsidering the way in which Foucault’s texts, and especially the more recently published lectures, should be read; and establishing the relation between law and madness. The article firstly calls for a reading of Foucault which exceeds metaphysics with the security it offers, by taking account of Derrida’s reading of Foucault as well as of the heterogeneity of Foucault’s texts. The article reflects in detail on a (...) text of Derrida on Foucault as well as a text of Foucault on Blanchot. The latter text shows that Foucault was at times acutely aware of the difficulty involved in exceeding metaphysics and that he realised the importance in this regard of a reflection on literature. These reflections tie in closely with Foucault’s History of Madness as well as with Derrida’s reflections on literature and on madness. Both Derrida and Foucault contend that law has much to learn from literature in understanding the relation between itself and madness. Literature more specifically points to law’s ‘origin’ in madness. The article contends that a failure to take seriously this origin, also in the reading of Foucault’s lectures, would amount to a denial by law of itself. (shrink)

Eetu Pikkarainen describes the educational thinking of Johann AmosComenius (1592-1670) from a perspective of Bildung -theoretical problems. Comenius has had a remarkable influence on modern education, particularly through his language-learning and general didactical methods and principles. However, Comenius’ broader pansophic views have had somewhat more benign later effects. Comenius developed a reformation programme concerning the ‘main areas’ of reality, from theology and education to philosophy and language to social questions and world peace. This program has important connections to the modern (...) theories of Bildung. Comenius connects individual human growth with global issues such as the growth of scientific knowledge, the justice of political systems, and world peace. In his philosophy, Comenius strongly criticises the problems of the rising modern thinking such as trapping to dualisms. From that angle, Comenius appears an almost postmodern thinker with surprising similarity to the thoughts of C S Peirce. (shrink)

This thesis aims to explore Nietzsche's concept of individuality. Nietzsche, a radical and innovative thinker who attacks Christian morality and proclaims the death of God, provides us with a self-interpreting way to understand humanity and affirm life through self-overcoming and self-experimentation. Nietzsche's concept of individuality is his main philosophical concern. I first compare his perspective on human nature in Human, All Too Human, Daybreak and Beyond Good and Evil with Charles Darwin's, Sigmund Freud's and St Augustine's in order to examine (...) how his thinking differs from theirs with regard to the concept of human nature. Second, I turn to his On the Genealogy of Morals, in comparison with the thought of John Stuart Mill, analysing their criticism of Christian morality and discussing their different conceptions of individuality and the development of the self. The last chapter compares Nietzsche's The Anti-Christ, Twilight of the Idols and Ecce Homo with Ralph Waldo Emerson's philosophy of self-development, using this comparison to highlight the way in which Nietzsche expounds his concept of individuality and sets himself as a living example of an individual with autonomy and responsibility. Nietzsche attacks Christianity and argues that humanity can potentially be developed not through Christian morality but reflective self-interpretation. We shall not forget that being a self-developing individual is Nietzsche's chief aim although his arguments are too circuitous and controversial to be easily comprehended. His aim is not to offer some final, authoritative solution to these issues of the self and morality. In contrast, he offers us a new, uneven and perhaps dangerous way to understand humanity and modern culture. In order to achieve this, we need to interpret what he says from our own standpoints and also to interpret ourselves through self-reflection. Nietzsche's radical but insightful perspective is a means for guiding us to open our minds and affirm our lives through interpretation and experimentation. Then we might potentially overcome nihilism and become what we are: self-reflective individuals with free spirits. (shrink)

Abstract‘Economies of Sacrifice’ compares Girard's (1987) Hegelian inter‐dividualism to the Cartesian notion of the cogito and the Freudian theory of the unconscious in order to show how the monadic identity position violates the communicative balance of the self‐other bind. By looking at how both these thinkers constitute an identity category through the concept of sacrifice, the paper refers to the Girardian (1986) and Bataillean (1990) theories of violence and recognition in search of an alternative stance that may provide a more (...) balanced view of human sociability. With regard to Bataille's theory of radical difference we can see how the idea which seeks to attack monadic individualism by destroying all identity advocates a principle of amoralism which views equality as ‘the generalisation of expendability’. As such, through reference to the work of Goux (1998) and O'Neill (2000) the article shows how the Bataillean thesis may pre‐empt the emergence of the post‐modern political economy. In light of this realisation the paper looks beyond both the Bataillean attempt to collapse identity, by exposing humanity to the total violence of the state of nature/post‐modern economic system, and the solipsistic theories of Descartes and Freud, which emphasis the centrality of the self at the cost of an acceptance of otherness, and towards Girard's theory of social justice as a communicative attempt to re‐state the importance of Hegelian recognition and human sociability. (shrink)

This research investigated therapist's experiences of how working outdoors in nature impacts on the therapeutic relationship. Although outdoor therapy has emerged as a significant practice (McLeod, 2013; Mind, 2013), very little research had been done on what impact it might have on the therapeutic relationship. Given the importance of the therapeutic relationship (Norcross, 2011), this was identified as an area worth investigating.

I demonstrate here how Aristotle's teleological conception of nature has been largely misunderstood in the scientific age and I consider what his view might offer us with regard to the environmental challenges we face in the 21st century. I suggest that in terms of coming to an ethical understanding of the creatures and things that constitute the ecosystem, Aristotle offers a welcome alternative to the rather instrumental conception of the natural world and low estimation of subjective experience our contemporary techno-scientific (...) culture espouses. Among other things, I consider how his conception of orexis and eudaimonia might be extended to include the eco-system itself, thus allowing us to better understand the moral meaning of nature. I conclude with a look at the way in which modern phenomenology re-addresses the fundamental Greek concern with ontology, meaning and human authenticity. I consider the ways in which phenomenology reasserts the value of direct human experience that was so important to Aristotle; and I consider how this view, and that of Deep ecology, may help us to experience nature - and all of Being for that matter - in a more authentic, meaningful and altogether ethical light. (shrink)

We like Euclidean geometry because we are men [sic], and have eyes and hands, and need to operate a concept of space that will be independent of orientation, distance and size. Lucas, A Treatise on Time and Space.

Recent years have seen educationalists turning to Emmanuel Levinas when considering the relationship between ethics and education. While it is true that Levinas never speaks of ethics in relation to the practice of classroom education, nonetheless, for Levinas, ethics is a teaching, and learning can only take place in the presence of the Other. This book considers how, within the constraints of the Irish primary school education system, teachers can develop a Levinasian approach to teaching, that affords both them and (...) the children they teach multiple opportunities throughout the school day to take up their ethical responsibility for each other as Other. Beginning from a Levinasian understanding of learning and teaching as constituting primordially relational and ethical events, and weaving the philosophies of Levinas, and the educationalists he inspires, into the approaches of philosophy with children, restorative practice, and PAX, this book suggests a unique approach to ethics in Irish primary school classrooms. The focus of this thesis, then, is on both the philosophical underpinnings that anchor teaching as a Levinasian, and a consideration of what practical approaches could be employed by the Levinasian teacher. (shrink)

This thesis aims at working out a politics out of the thought of Deleuze and Guattari. The angle taken on this question is ontological. Politics is inseparable from ontology. Every ontology is political and every politics is itself an ontology. The reciprocal relation between ontology and politics has been here identified as the question of their ‘parallelism’. This parallelism of the ontological and the political is first to be found in Spinoza’s thought. Spinoza can only write an ethics and a (...) politics on the basis of his analysis of substance. In this analysis the thesis of ‘parallelism’ occupies a central position. Spinoza’s theory of the univocity of being rests on this principle. This project is rehabilitated by Deleuze and Guattari in their own philosophy as a form of radical materialism. This form of philosophy guided by the principle of ‘parallelism’ has here been called: ontological materialism. Thus, not only is it impossible to understand their politics without grasping their ontology, but the complexities of it will only be understood after a study of Spinoza’s ontology itself. For these purposes the thesis has been divided into two parts. The first part concerns Spinoza’s thought. The second, concentrates on Deleuze and Guattari’s Capitalisme et schizophrénie The analysis will concentrate on the passage from the first to the second volume as a translation of the continuities at the ontological level but also on the shifts that from this level necessarily occasion a movement in their conception of politics. This research along the Spinozist lines of the ontology of Deleuze and Guattari allows for their politics to be read as an ethics. In the final outcome the activity of philosophy itself is an ethics. (shrink)

Concern for what we do to plants is pivotal for the field of environmental ethics but has scarcely been voiced. This paper examines how plant ethics first emerged from the development of plant science and yet also hit theoretical barriers in that domain. It elaborates on a case study prompted by a legal article on “the dignity of creatures” in the Swiss Constitution. Interestingly, the issue of plant dignity was interpreted as a personification or rather an “animalization of plants.” This (...) sense of irony makes sense when one realizes that on scientific grounds the plant is a “second animal,” i.e., it differs from the animal in degree of life or some ethically-relevant criterion but not in nature. From the point of view of ethics however, plants should be defended for what they are by nature and not by comparison to external references: the ethical standing of plants cannot be indexed to animals. It is thus reckoned that to circumvent this odd fetishism, the plant ethics can only be adequately addressed by changing the theory of plant science. Common sense tells us this: plants and animals belong to radically different fields of perception and experience, a difference that is commonly captured by the notion of kingdom. In this paper we remind the ethical conversation that plants are actually incommensurable with animals because they are unsplit beings (having neither inside nor outside), i.e., they live as “non-topos” in an undivided, unlimited, non-centered state of being. It is concluded that the unique ontology of plants can only be addressed through a major change from object-thinking to process-thinking and a move from ego-centric to “peri-ego” ethics. (shrink)

This article has already been published in, and is available in open access from Time and Society, 0, 2017, pp. 1-29. We thank Stanley Blue for his permission to republish it here.: The practice turn in social theory has renewed interest in conceptualising the temporal organisation of social life as a way of explaining contemporary patterns of living and consuming. As a result, the interest to develop analyses of time in both practice theories and practice theory-based - Sur le concept (...) de rythme. (shrink)

Recent work has demonstrated that academic research faces serious challenges. Incentives to defend publishable ideas often lead researchers astray. Despite their tendency to produce error, efforts to publish erroneous results typically help a researcher's career. In addition, errors often arise from seemingly innocent methodological assumptions that allow researchers to believe their research is sound. This article discusses this research, as well as research into difficulties facing epistemic rationality caused by nonepistemic incentives. It then applies the lessons of this research to (...) philosophical practice. It explains why philosophy likely suffers from these problems. It then provides an example of a widely shared methodological assumption that allows such research to be pursued and regularly published. It claims that the significance philosophers place on arguments is inappropriate, and that typical evaluations of philosophical arguments involve an instance of the base-rate fallacy. It concludes by discussing whether or not this article is self-defeating. (shrink)

Socratic method and intuition are two ways of knowing commonly thought as opposed. The author shows how both ways of knowing can be linked in an education that has philosophy as its armature.

Michael Polanyi’s conceptions of tacit knowing and emergent being are used to correct a reductionism that developed from, or reacted against, the excesses of several Cartesian assumptions: (a) the method of universal doubt; (b) the emphasis on reductive analysis to unshakeable foundations, via connections between clear and distinct ideas; (c) the notion that what is real are the basic atomic substances out of which all else is composed; (d) a sharp body-mind substance dualism; and (e) the notion that the seat (...) of consciousness can be traced to a point in the human body. The reductivist project in biology began with the emphasis Descartes put on the body as a machine. Polanyi reappropriates the machine metaphor to demonstrate how mechanistic explanations are not fully reductive. He shows how an eliminative materialism that would reduce mind to brain is unwarranted if either an interlevel mechanistic reduction or an intralevel successional reduction is posited. (shrink)

Interactive computer systems can support their users in problem solving, both in Performing their work tasks and in using the systems themselves. Not only is direct support for heuristics beneficial, but to do so modifies the form of computer support provided. This Paper defines and explores the use of problem solving heuristics in user interface design.

This article offers a reading of the effect of exchange on subjectivity. Two modes of exchange are discussed: commodity-exchange and gift-exchange. Following Marx, Simmel, Lukács, and Bewes, commodity exchange is argued to be detrimental to subjectivity insofar as it leads to abstract, mediated social relationships, and reifies the subject. Debates around the notion and application of reification are investigated. The anthropological insight of Mauss on gift-exchange is introduced and used to challenge elements of the thesis of reification and process of (...) on-going commodification. Gift-exchange is argued to perpetuate concrete, immediate social relations. Critical attention is drawn to the gift as critique of the commodity. My interrogation suggests that there is a problem because the gift is often over-idealized in much gift discourse and figures as a binary opposite to the commodity. This is especially the case with one of the leading contemporary theorists on the gift, Jacques Godbout. Themes that support the notion of the gift, such as family and community bonds, reciprocity, and ‘face to face’ relations, are often taken for granted as being fully enabling. On the other hand commodity exchange is perceived as being exclusively disabling. The article begins to challenge this thinking. (shrink)

My concern in this thesis is with the transcendental question concerning the condition of possibility for social science. I argue that for social scientific knowledge to obtain one must: have a conception of knowledge formation as theoretically mediated and fallible; and, social scientific knowledge claims must be about an object of study which conceptualises social structure as an enablement as well as an external constraint upon agency. This means: arguing for an anti-foundational epistemology, which avoids becoming truth-relativism, by being complemented (...) with a metaphysical realist ontology ; and, using a social realist meta-theory of emergent properties to explain how methodology has a conceptually mediated and fallible access to social reality. Developing a critical examination of the presuppositions of social scientific knowledge also means, afortiori, using realism as an underlabourer. The negative underlabouring role is to proscribe theories based on some form of epistemic immediacy, or being-knowing identity. It therefore means rejecting positivist, empiricist and essentialist versions of social science. The form of essentialism dealt with is called the sociological logic of immediacy, and this pertains to definitive ontologies of social structures or human being. Whereas the use of positivist and empiricist epistemology as a positive underlabourer produces a methodology that conflates the real into the 'actual', the use of an essentialist ontology makes methodology either redundant, or an exercise in arbitrary verificationism. Against this, realist anti-foundationalism can act as apositive underlabourer for the social sciences if it is complemented by a social realist ontology of emergent properties, to act as a metatheory which guides methodology. In developing this argument my chief concern is to show that realism is a more adequate position than post-Wittgensteinian positions which focus on 'practices' and how people 'go on' in 'forms of life'. 'Adequacy' in this sense pertains to epistemological discussions about the status of knowledge, together with ramifications of post-Wittgensteinianism for knowledge of the socio-political realm. This means providing a critique of Rorty and Giddens, after dealing with the issue of empiricism. Although Rorty's critique of 'postmodernism' as essentialist is accepted. Whereas realism can explain how we have a conceptually mediated and fallible knowledge of reality, including social reality, post-Wittgensteinian positions fall into truth-relativism and essentialist conceptions of human being and social structures. (shrink)

This paper is a discussion of the concept ‘student active forms of learning’. It aims not at conclusions, but at a perspicuous representation—a map for future navigation and understanding of the concept. From the perspective of philosophy of education, I characterize and discuss issues relating to student active learning in the paper. The context for my discussion is higher education. Further, I contrast student active learning to a form of learning that is allegedly passive, the lecture, which traditionally is the (...) main form of learning in higher education. I proceed by assessing arguments in favor of the two forms by way of a philosophical analysis, a main component of which is transparent exposition. Positive conclusions are not the main concern, but rather to demonstrate possibilities. Still, two results of the discussions in the paper are noteworthy: ‘student active learning’ is a weak construct, it being too general or even contradictory; the lecture is not passive, and a student-centered education, consequently, should not be construed as a dismissal of lecturing. (shrink)

In trying to enhance, improve or perfect ourselves through technological intervention, we can risk the very idea of a practical identity and self-possession. In thinking of the enhancement, improvement or perfection of the body through technological interventions, we ought to acknowledge limits in our outlook at least as seriously as we enjoy the considerable advances offered by technology in general. In postulating the chance of enhancement, improvement and perfection it is important to think about the distinction between what we can (...) and what we ought to do. In terms of scientific advance, this is not necessarily reflected clearly – it is often the case that scientific advance per se is taken to be ‘‘progress.’’ Progress in scientific research isn’t an easy notion in itself. Human progress, in being highly open to nuance and value, draws upon evaluation across a range of validity spheres. In tying a too-uncomplicated notion of scientific progress to the issue of human progress, there is a risk that we evaluate too narrowly our chances and our options. (shrink)