A lot of words investigated by philosophers get their inception for conventional or extra-philosophical dialect. Yet the idea of substance is basically a philosophical term of art. Its employments in normal dialect tend to derive, often in a twisted way, different from its philosophical usage. Despite this, the idea of substance differs from philosophers, reliant upon the school of thought in which it is been expressed. There is an ordinary concept in play when philosophers discuss “substance”, and this is seen (...) in the concept of object, or thing when this is contrasted with properties, attributes or events. There is also a difference in view when in the sense that while the realists would develop a materialistic theory of substance, the idealist would develop a metaphysical theory of substance. The problem surrounding substance spans through the history of philosophy. The queries have often been what is substance of? And can there be substance without its attributes? This paper tends to expose the historical problems surrounding substance. This paper criticizes the thinking which presupposes that there could be a substance without its attributes or substance existing alone. This paper adopts complimentary ontology principles which state that for anything to exist, it must serve as a missing connection to reality. This suggests that everything interconnects to each other and substance cannot exist in isolation. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Conway and Kochen’s Free Will Theorem (1,2) to the conclusion that quantum mechanics and relativity entail freedom for the particles, does not change the situation in favor of a libertarian position as they would like. In fact, the theorem more or less implicitly assumes that people are free, and thus it begs the question. Moreover, it does not prove neither that if people are free, so are particles, nor that the property people possess when (...) they are said to be free is the same as the one particles possess when they are claimed to be free. I then analyze the Free State Theorem (2), which generalizes the Free Will Theorem without the assumption that people are free, and I show that it does not prove anything about free will, since the notion of freedom for particles is either inconsistent, or it does not concern our common understanding of freedom. In both cases, the Free Will Theorem and the Free State Theorem do not provide any enlightenment on the constraints physics can pose on free will. (shrink)

Can Contemporary Science Inspire Philosophical and Theological Reflection on Causality? The cooperation between natural science, philosophy, and theology in an analysis of the causal structure and co-dependency of entities in the universe seems to be both legitimate and expected. It turns out, however, that in practice it oftentimes raises some tensions, questions and difficulties, leading to the development of alternative and in a sense competitive models of causality and of God’s action in the world. What is more, the attitude of (...) natural sciences since modernity, concentrated on gaining knowledge about natural phenomena to predict and control them, without trying to determine the nature of their ultimate causes, Humean criticism and rejection of the concept of causality as such, and concentration of analytic philosophers on the description of what accompanies phenomena classified as causal, leaving aside the question of the metaphysical status of causes and effects – they all seem to make impossible an interaction and mutual reference of contemporary science, philosophy, and theology in their reflection on the topic of causation. The main goal of this article is to defend the thesis about the possible and actual influence of scientific analysis of cause and effect relationships on the philosophical and theological reflection on causation, not only in the Middle Ages and Modernity, but also in contemporary thought. The presentation of the latest positions in the debate on divine action in the natural world will be followed by an argument in favor of the relevance of the model developed by philosophers and theologians representing the Thomistic school. (shrink)

> Context • The alleged dichotomy between mind and matter is pervasive. Therefore, the attempt to explain mat- ter in terms of mind (idealism) is often considered a mirror image of that of explaining mind in terms of mat- ter (mainstream physicalism), in the sense of being structurally equivalent despite being reversely arranged. > Problem • I argue that this is an error arising from language artifacts, for dichotomies must reside in the same level of abstraction. > Method • I (...) show that, because matter outside mind is not an empirical observation but rather an explanatory model, the epistemic symmetry between the two is broken. Consequently, matter and mind cannot reside in the same level of abstraction. > Results • It then becomes clear that attempting to explain mind in terms of matter is epistemically more costly than attempting to explain matter in terms of mind. > Implications • The qualities of experience are suggested to be not only epistemically, but also ontologically primary. > Constructivist content • I high- light the primacy of perceptual constructs over explanatory abstraction on both epistemic and ontic levels. > Key words • Idealism, physicalism, pancomputationalism, anti-realism, hard problem of consciousness, epistemic symmetry, explanatory abstraction, levels of abstraction. (shrink)

This paper shows that during the first half of the 1960s The Journal of Philosophy quickly moved from publishing work in diverse philosophical traditions to, essentially, only publishing analytic philosophy. Further, the changes at the journal are shown, with the help of previous work on the journals Mind and The Philosophical Review, to be part of a pattern involving generalist philosophy journals in Britain and America during the period 1925-1969. The pattern is one in which journals controlled by analytic philosophers (...) systematically promote a form of critical philosophy and marginalise rival approaches to philosophy. This pattern, it is argued, helps to explain the growing dominance of analytic philosophy during the twentieth century and allows characterising this form of philosophy as, at least during 1925-1969, a sectarian form of critical philosophy. (shrink)

Mereotopology is an extension of mereology with some relations of topological nature like contact. An algebraic counterpart of mereotopology is the notion of contact algebra which is a Boolean algebra whose elements are considered to denote spatial regions, extended with a binary relation of contact between regions. Although the language of contact algebra is quite expressive to define many useful mereological relations and mereotopological relations, there are, however, some interesting mereotopological relations which are not definable in it. Such are, for (...) instance, the relation of n-ary contact, internal connectedness and some others. To overcome this disadvantage, we introduce a generalisation of contact algebra, replacing the contact with a binary relation between finite sets of regions and a region, satisfying some formal properties of Tarski consequence relation. The obtained system is called sequent algebra, considered as an algebraic counterpart of a new mereotopology. We develop the topological representation theory for sequent algebras showing in this way certain correspondence between point-free and point-based models of space. As a by-product, we show how one logical relation in nature notion, Tarski consequence relation, may have also certain spatial meaning. (shrink)

In this contribution, I will argue for an ontological understanding of time as temporality. This, however, implies that in a certain sense being is temporality, by which I mean that on an ontological level temporality is nothing but the process of change, i.e. the dynamic aspect of being in its becoming, changing, and perishing, and that concrete beings are not merely in time, but they are temporal. This leads to the conclusion that actual time is the process of change that (...) becoming beings are, as well as the conclusion that reality is fundamentally temporal as argued by process metaphysicians like Alfred North Whitehead, Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, and Gilles Deleuze. The investigation begins with first establishing the methodological difficulties involved in thinking temporality as an ontological feature. In a second step, dynamic ontologies are introduced as the conceptual background best suited to think ontological temporality and their difference to event-ontologies is explained. Finally, the distinction between temporality and linear time is clarified. This introduction of temporality ends with some arguments for the existence of temporality that are inspired by Aristotle’s famous investigations into the nature of time. After having thus introduced temporality as an ontological feature and argued for the existence and relevance of it, its implications for our understanding of the dimensions of time and especially for anticipation are discussed. (shrink)

This article proposes a reconceptualization of the term “actor” within motion pictures and presents the argument that “acting” is a matter of distributed agency performed by heterogeneous assemblages. What constitutes an actor is what I will label as a “cinematic actor assemblage,” a term that comprises what is commonly known as human actors as well as material entities that play an active part in motion picture images. The use of intra-diegetic cameras in contemporary found footage horror films constitutes a particular (...) case of such cinematic actor assemblages. Through a dynamic relational performance, cameras here take on roles as active agents with the potential to affect other elements within the images as well as the films’ audiences. In found footage horror the assemblage mode of operation creates suspense, since the vulnerability of the camera threatens the viewer's access to the depicted events. While human characters and individual entities making up the camera assemblage are disposable, the recording is not. Found footage horror crucially hinges upon the survival of the footage. I will further suggest that these films allow filmmakers to experiment with the acting capabilities of intra-diegetic cameras. (shrink)

The Council of Europe’s 2008 White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue: ‘living together as equals in dignity’ points to the need for shared values upon which intercultural dialogue might rest. In order, however, to overcome the monologic separateness that threatens community, we must educate ourselves to recognize the dialogism of our humanity and to engage in deep encounters with others with a mature skepticism of all dogmatisms, including our own. In order to aid us in reaching the necessary insight, the author (...) calls upon Bakhtin’s ideas of the dialogism of every utterance and of the unity and heteroglossia of language, Gadamer’s hermeneutical experience that shakes us loose from what we think we know, and Levinas’s description of that transcendent ideal of a dialogue beyond reciprocity. These perspectives break open our certainty that tribalism and individualism are fundamental, placing them instead as secondary phenomena that, though powerful, pronounce neither the initial nor the final word on our life together. (shrink)

The project of a naive physics has been the subject of attention in recent years above all in the artificial intelligence field, in connection with work on common-sense reasoning, perceptual representation and robotics. The idea of a theory of the common-sense world is however much older than this, having its roots not least in the work of phenomenologists and Gestalt psychologists such as Kohler, Husserl, Schapp and Gibson. This paper seeks to show how contemporary naive physicists can profit from a (...) knowledge of these historical roots of their discipline, which are shown to imply above all a critique of the set-theory-based models of reality typically presupposed by contemporary work in common-sense ontology. (shrink)

The speculative philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead offers critical social and cultural theory an unusual way of rethinking the place and value of experience in its concerns. This article explores the challenges that Whitehead's approach to experience, deliberately contrasted with the subject-object thinking of modernity, creates. The article seeks to provide an account of the importance of Whitehead's appeal to naïve experience and of how this appeal counters some of the problems of more recent and more familiar accounts of the (...) fate of experience which draw on some of the same historical points of reference — especially Romantic poetry. In particular, the article suggests that Whitehead's broadly impersonal conception of the open structure of experience as constructive process mitigates the `pathos of finitude' attendant upon critical accounts which presume the unity of experience and then ask how this unity is shattered under modernity. Whitehead's work is situated transversally to analysis and phenomenology and is argued to accord a value to and role for abstraction which calls for a more experimental approach to the topic. While `naïve experience' clearly differs from the understanding of experience evident in other accounts, the article also suggests that it is not incompatible with a more Foucauldian kind of singular history. (shrink)

The extended dual-aspect monism framework of consciousness, based on neuroscience, consists of five components: (1) dual-aspect primal entities; (2) neural-Darwinism: co-evolution and co-development of subjective experiences (SEs) and associated neural-nets from the mental aspect (that carries the SEs/proto-experiences (PEs) in superposed and unexpressed form) and the material aspect (mass, charge, spin and space-time) of fundamental entities (elementary particles), respectively and co-tuning via sensorimotor interaction; (3) matching and selection processes: interaction of two modes, namely, (a) the non-tilde mode that is the (...) material and mental aspect of cognition (memory and attention) related feedback signals in a neural-network, which is the cognitive nearest past approaching towards present; and (b) the tilde mode that is the material and mental aspect of the feed forward signals due to external environmental input and internal endogenous input, which is the nearest future approaching towards present and is a entropy-reversed representation of non-tilde mode; (4) the segregation and integration of information, and (5) the necessary ingredients of SEs (such as wakefulness, attention, re-entry, working memory, stimulus at or above threshold level, and neural-net PEs). This framework leads to structural and functional coherence between the mind and the brain, bridges the explanatory gap (the gap between SEs and their neural-correlates), and leads to our mundane subjective experiences. This extended dual-aspect monism (eDAM) framework (Vimal, 2008, 2010, 2013, 2015a, 2015b) could be the fundamental basis of various religions and philosophies. This is a Western perspective. On the other hand, Eastern perspectives emphasize the practical methods for achieving altered experience at samadhi state. An important corollary of these methods (such as yogic method) is the sublimation of negative aspects of seven groups of self-protective energy system (desire, anger, ego, greed, attachment, jealousy, and selfish-love) into their positive aspects. Their negative aspects create war and suffering, whereas their positive aspects advance science and technology, family values, peace, and happiness. Here, the Western perspective framework is extended to include the concepts of the sublimation process to encompass Eastern perspectives. The four elements (war, suffering, peace, and happiness) are ubiquitous in both space and time because they are essential contributors to the variations for natural selection in our evolutionary system. The sublimation process optimizes the system: minimizes war and suffering, maximizes peace and happiness, and enhances family values and individual progress. This is consistent with both Eastern and Western perspectives. (shrink)

The paper is a commentary on the target article by Christine A. Skarda & Walter J. Freeman, “How brains make chaos in order to make sense of the world”, in the same issue of the journal, pp.161–195. -/- I confine my comments largely to some philosophical claims that Skarda & Freeman make and to the relationship of their model to connectionism. Some of the comments hinge on what symbols are and how they might sit in neural systems.

If complexity is a necessary but not sufficient premise for the existence and expression of the living, anticipation is the distinguishing characteristic of what is alive. Anticipation is at work even at levels of existence where we cannot refer to intelligence. The prospect of artificially generating aesthetic artifacts and ethical constructs of relevance to a world in which the natural and the artificial are coexistent cannot be subsumed as yet another product of scientific and technological advancement. Beyond the artificial, the (...) synthetic conjures the understanding of aesthetics and ethics no longer from the perspective of the How? type of question, but rather the Why? Given the current infatuation with synthetic biology (i.e., making life from non-life), there is a practical consequence to such considerations. Synthetic life, as any other form of life, implies the possibility of evolution. Anticipation, which is the underlying factor of evolution, is thus expected. At the level of human existence, anticipation is expressed, for instance (but not exclusively), in aesthetic forms and ethical values. This translates, in turn, into an argument for the role aesthetics and ethics play in the process. Consequently, to qualify as life, the synthesis of the physical and the living will have to efficiently handle ambiguity. Current computational facilities, regardless of their nature or performance, operate exclusively in the semiotic domain of the well defined non-ambiguous. (shrink)

I here describe meanings attributed to the term consciousness, extracted from the literature and from recent online discussions. Forty such meanings were identified and categorized according to whether they were principally about function or about experience; some overlapped but others were apparently mutually exclusive - and this list is by no means exhaustive. Most can be regarded as expressions of authors' views about the basis of con-sciousness, or opinions about the significance of aspects of its con-tents. The prospects for reaching (...) any single, agreed, theory independent definition of consciousness thus appear remote. How-ever, much confusion could be avoided if authors were always to spec-ify which aspects of consciousness they refer to when using the term. An example is outlined of how this can be done. (shrink)

Pojęcie niszy (otoczenia, kontekstu, siedliska, środowiska) nie cieszy się specjalnym zainteresowaniem ontologów, mimo że ma szerokie zastosowanie w rozmaitych dyscyplinach, od biologii ewolucyjnej po ekonomię. Niniejszy artykuł zawiera pierwszą teorię formalną tego pojęcia — teorię relacji pomiędzy przedmiotami a ich niszami. Teoria ta opiera się na istniejącym dorobku mereologii, topologii i teorii lokalizacji przestrzennej, które są narzędziami ontologii formalnej. Jest ona tutaj ilustrowana głównie za pomocą prostych przykładów z biologii, ale pojęcie niszy należy rozumieć — podobnie jak pojęcia części, granicy (...) i położenia — jako pojęcie strukturalne, znajdujące zastosowanie w obszernym zakresie różnych dziedzin. (shrink)

I present a formal ontological theory where the basic building blocks of the world can be either things or events. In any case, the result is a Parmenidean worldview where change is not a global property. What we understand by change manifests as asymmetries in the pattern of the world-lines that constitute 4-dimensional existents. I maintain that such a view is in accord with current scientific knowledge.

In the past few hundred years, science has exerted an enormous influence on the way the world appears to human observers. Despite phenomenal accomplishments of science, science nowadays faces numerous challenges that threaten its continued success. As scientific inventions become embedded within human societies, the challenges are further multiplied. In this critical review, some of the critical challenges for the field of modern chemistry are discussed, including: (a) interlinking theoretical knowledge and experimental approaches; (b) implementing the principles of sustainability at (...) the roots of the chemical design; (c) defining science from a philosophical perspective that acknowledges both pragmatic and realistic aspects thereof; (d) instigating interdisciplinary research; (e) learning to recognize and appreciate the aesthetic aspects of scientific knowledge and methodology, and promote truly inspiring education in chemistry. In the conclusion, I recapitulate that the evolution of human knowledge inherently depends upon our ability to adopt creative problem-solving attitudes, and that challenges will always be present within the scope of scientific interests. (shrink)

Mereotopology is today regarded as a major tool for ontological analysis, and for many good reasons. There are, however, a number of open questions that call for an answer. Some are philosophical, others have direct applicative import, but all are crucial for a proper assessment of the strengths and limits of mereotopology. This paper is an attempt to put sum order in this area.

The concept of niche (setting, context, habitat, environment) has been little studied by ontologists, in spite of its wide application in a variety of disciplines from evolutionary biology to economics. What follows is a first formal theory of this concept, a theory of the relations between objects and their niches. The theory builds upon existing work on mereology, topology, and the theory of spatial location as tools of formal ontology. It will be illustrated above all by means of simple biological (...) examples, but the concept of niche should be understood as being, like concepts such as part, boundary, and location, a structural concept that is applicable in principle to a wide range of different domains. (shrink)

A crucial question for a process view of life is how to identify a process and how to follow it through time. The genidentity view can contribute decisively to this project. It says that the identity through time of an entity X is given by a well-identified series of continuous states of affairs. Genidentity helps address the problem of diachronic identity in the living world. This chapter describes the centrality of the concept of genidentity for David Hull and proposes an (...) extension of Hull’s view to the ubiquitous phenomenon of symbiosis. Finally, using immunology as a key example, it shows that the genidentity view suggests that the main interest of a process approach is epistemological rather than ontological and that its principal claim is one of priority, namely that processes precede and define things, and not vice versa. (shrink)

In this paper we reject the nature–culture dichotomy by means of the idea of affordance or possibility for action, which has important implications for landscape theory. Our hypothesis is that, just as the idea of affordance can serve to overcome the subjective–objective dichotomy, the ideas of landscape and ecological niche, properly defined, would allow us to also transcend the nature–culture dichotomy. First, we introduce an overview of landscape theory, emphasizing processual landscape theory as the most suitable approach for satisfying both (...) cultural and naturalist approaches. After that, we introduce the idea of affordance and we analyze a tension between sociocultural and transcultural affordances (affordances that depend on cultural conventions and affordances that depend on lawful information and bodily aspects of agents). This tension has various implications for landscape theory and ecological niches. Our proposal is that sociocultural and transcultural aspects of affordances could be systematically accommodated if we apply niche construction theory (the theory that explains the process by which organisms modify their selective environments) as a methodological framework for explaining the emergence of ecological niches. This approach will lead us to an integrative account of landscapes as the products of the interaction between human and environmental elements, making it a clear example of a concept that transcends the nature–culture dichotomy. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Cumpa : 319–324, 2014) argues that a scientific turn in metaphysics requires the acceptance of a materialist criterion of fundamentality, according to which the most fundamental metaphysical category is the one that provides us with a reconciliation of the ordinary world and the physical universe. He concludes that the dominant category of substance cannot be the most fundamental category, for it does not satisfy this criterion of fundamentality. The most fundamental category is instead the category of (...) fact. Although convincing, the defense of factualism over substantialism offered by Cumpa takes into account the case of classical physics without considering the physical universe of quantum mechanics. My aim in this paper is to offer a completion to Cumpa’s factualist approach. To achieve my aim, I show that substances cannot provide a satisfactory account of the relationship between the ordinary world and the physical universe even in the case of quantum mechanics, whereas a factualist approach does. (shrink)

This essay examines and compares two paradigms of technology, nature, and social life, and their associated environmental impacts. I explore moving from technocratic paradigms to the emerging ecological paradigms of planetary person ecosophies. The dominant technocratic philosophy's guiding policy and technological power is mechanistic. It conceptualizes nature as a resource to be controlled for human ends. Its global practices are drastically altering the integrity of the planet's ecosystems. In contrast, the organic, planetary person approaches respect the intrinsic values of all (...) beings. Deep ecology movement principles give priority to community and ecosystem integrity. These deep ecology movement principles guide the design and applications of technology by principles following from ecological understanding. I describe this shift in philosophical paradigms and how it affects our perceptions, values, and actions. (shrink)

Le terme « cosmologie » a pour nous certaines résonances. Depuis la reformulation de la nomenclature des disciplines philosophiques au dix-huitième siècle par Christian Wolff on identifie assez volontiers la cosmologie à ce que les Médiévaux appelaient philosophia naturalis. Cela ne signifie pas que Wolff ait défini l'objet de la cosmologie à la fa¸on de Thomas d'Aquin comme étant l'être mobile. Pour lui, le monde comme ensemble des êtres finis en liaison réciproque, tel qu'on pourrait le déduire de l'ordre intemporel (...) des substances, est l'objet de la cosmologie. Et pour toute fin pratique ces êtres finis sont des corps. Jusqu'à nos jours les traités de philosophie scolastique ont conservé en gros la nomenclature wolffienne des disciplines tout en leur donnant un contenu plus authentiquement scolastique. Quoi qu'il en soit, je donne ici un autre sens au terme de cosmologie. Plutôt qu'à la philosophia naturalis des Médiévaux ou à la cosmologie wolffienne je songe à la cosmologie de Whitehead, dont l'ouvrage principal Process and Reality porte en sous-titre An Essay in Cosmology. (shrink)

The article is a response to the calls for a comprehensive understanding of the nature of monstrosity, that is, those phenomena that are not amenable to empirical observation but are increasingly attracting scholarly interest. It is shown how the monster can be conceptualized as an object of culture of human imagination, i.e., in the form of works created by a culture in order to constitute its own identity, as well as in terms of behavior and practical actions through which they (...) appear and can be discussed from a moral point of view. Admitting the importance of understanding of monstrosity within the humanities and social sciences, it is necessary to note a connection of this phenomenon with philosophy as something constantly emerging and associated with liminal zones. The author considers designations that are often used as synonyms for monstrosity and determines its specific nature. The article postulates that philosophy tries to conceptualize how a person is attracted by the world with its monstrosity, which is not just a component of being but its inherent nature. Moreover, as it deals with monstrosity, philosophy itself acquires a monstrous nature; in this sense, it cannot not be a creative activity of a universal character. In conclusion, it is stated that the philosophical understanding of monstrosity is critically important, since philosophy postulates foundations that are always monstrous in one way or another. It is also noted that the natural-scientific origins of the study of monstrosity have a philosophical orientation, since they address the fundamental question - “What is life?” Thus, monstrosity requires constant philosophical reflection on the human nature and life in general, whose boundaries are unstable and elusive. (shrink)

This paper considers a problem for dynamic presentism that has received little attention: its apparent inability to accommodate the duration of events (such as conscious experiences). After outlining the problem, I defend presentism from it. This defence proceeds in two stages. First, I argue the objection rests on a faulty assumption: that duration is temporal extension. The paper challenges that assumption on several different ways of conceiving of temporal extension. This is the negative case and forms the bulk of the (...) paper. Second, after diagnosing the error leading to the identification of duration with temporal extension, I outline a new presentist-friendly account of duration that avoids the problem. In particular, a non-reductive account of duration is offered that treats it as a primitive quality which bestows its possessor with a certain modal quality: that the possessor potentially does not change whilst there are changes in its environs. This is the positive case. Together the positive and negative cases provide presentism with an interesting and novel way of overcoming the problem of duration. (shrink)

Reductionism relies on expectations that it is possible to make sense of the whole by studying its parts, whereas emergentism considers that program to be unattainable, partly due to the existence of emergent properties. The emergentist holistic stance is particularly relevant in biology and cognitive neuroscience, where interactions amongst system components and environment are key. Here we consider Alfred North Whitehead's philosophy as providing important insights to metaphysics of science in general, and to the reductionism vs. emergentism debate in particular. (...) An appraisal of Whitehead's perspective reveals a difficulty shared by both approaches, referred to him as “simple location”: the commitment to the idea that the nature of things is exhausted by their intrinsic or internal properties, and does not take into account relations or dynamic interactions denoting “togetherness.” In a word, that things are simply where they are. Whitehead criticizes this externalist ontological perspective in which each interacting element exists, and can be thought, without essential reference to other elements. The aim of this work is to uncover such a stance, particularly in the context of dynamical systems, and to show its shortcomings. We propose an alternative relational approach based on Whitehead's notion of “internal relations,” which we explicate and illustrate with several examples. Our work aims to criticize the notion of simple location, even in the framework of emergentist accounts, so as to contribute to a “relational turn” that will conceive “inter-identities” as “intra-identities” in which interactants are not enduring substances, but internally related processes. In sum, we argue that the notion of internal relations has a strong theoretical power to overcome some fundamental difficulties in the study of life and mind. (shrink)

With the naturalist worldview having become widely accepted, the trend of naturalistic Buddhism has likewise become popular in both academic and religious circles. In this article, I preliminarily reflect on this naturalized approach to Buddhism in two main sections. In section 1, I point out that the Buddha rejects theistic beliefs that claim absolute power over our destiny, opting instead to encourage us to inquire intellectually and behave morally. The distinguishing characteristics of naturalism such as a humanistic approach, rational enquiry, (...) empirical observation, as well as a pragmatic and realistic outlook can all be seen in the Buddha’s teachings. In section 2, however, I advance arguments to show that while the Buddha is opposed to theistic doctrines, his views are not entirely in accordance with the presuppositions of naturalism. Firstly, the Buddha’s foremost concern is not purely intellectual in nature—the purpose of his teachings is to realize a soteriological goal through spiritual practice. Secondly, naturalism tends to subscribe to ‘self-being,’ while the Buddha holds all things to exist conditionally and impermanently. Because of the dependent nature of all things, it is not possible to discover their essence through reduction. Thirdly, naturalized philosophy would be a kind of belief-habit that follows from certain preconditioned assumptions. But the Buddha encourages us to re-examine our conceptual proliferation leading to biased views, as that ultimately leads to suffering. I conclude by proposing a broader naturalist outlook that would allow for a more inclusive conception of the natural world that would take the axiological dimension of human transcendence into account and increase an overall understanding of human potentiality. (shrink)

I consider if and how far it is possible to live an educational philosophical life, in the fast-changing, globalised world of Higher Education. I begin with Socrates’ account of a philosophical life in the Apology. I examine some tensions within different conceptions of what it is to do philosophy. I then go on to focus more closely on what it might be to live a philosophical, educational life in which educational processes and outcomes are influenced by philosophy, using examples taken (...) from published sources and from conversational interviews with philosophers carried out by myself with Kenneth Wain, Bas Levering and Richard Pring. I then outline the directions of current European policy for Higher Education. Finally I discuss how far current policies and trends leave room for doing philosophy of education, concluding that it is possible, but only for individuals who are very much in sympathy with current policy trends or who are creative in constructing smoke screens. (shrink)

This paper questions and criticizes the employment of critical realism in the field of ‘science and religion’. Referring to the texts of four main actors in this field, I demonstrate how the choice of critical realism is justified by a (disguised) apologetic interest in defending the epistemic privilege of the theological enterprise against that of the natural sciences. I argue that this is possible thanks to the reactivation of ‘theological potential’ latent in some under-examined assumptions and conceptual structures still at (...) work within philosophy of science and scientific epistemology. (shrink)

In this article I concentrate on three issues. First, Graham Oppy’s treatment of the relationship between the concept of infinity and Zeno’s paradoxes lay bare several porblems that must be dealt with if the concept of infinity is to do any intellectual work in philosophy of religion. Here I will expand on some insightful remarks by Oppy in an effort ot adequately respond to these problems. Second, I will do the same regarding Oppy’s treatment of Kant’s first antinomy in the (...) first critique, which deals in part with the question of whether the world had a beginning in time or if time extends infinitely into the past. And third, my examination of these two issues will inform what I have to say regarding a key topic in philosophy of religion: the question regarding the proper relationship between the infinite and the finite in the concept of God. (shrink)

: This essay addresses the difficulties that sociology as a discipline continues to experience in grasping the relations between technology, science and the social. I argue that these difficulties stem from a resolute centering of sociology on the social, which follows a generically Durkheimian blueprint. I elaborate a response to these difficulties which derives from recent lines of work in science and technology studies, and which entails a decentering of the social relative to the material and the conceptual, in terms (...) of both objects of analysis and explanatory formats. In order to display the direct sociological relevance of this approach, I move to the macro level, developing the conceptual apparatus of a decentered social theory via the discussion of a historical example of major sociological significance—the systematic gearing together of scientific research, technological innovation and industrial production that originated in the synthetic dye industry in the second half of the nineteenth century. Besides the interest of the topic itself, the aim is thus to exemplify in some detail what a decentered sociology might look like, both empirically and conceptually. (shrink)

In this article, I focus on two moments of Nathaniel Kleitman's career, specifically that of his Mammoth Cave experiment in the 1930s and his consultation with the United States military in the 1940s–1950s. My interests in bringing these two moments of Kleitman's career together are to examine the role of nature and the social in his understanding of human sleep and the legacies these have engendered for sleep science and medicine in the present; more specifically, I am interested in Kleitman's (...) disallowance of napping in his scientific protocols, which may seem incidental until one apprehends the lack of napping as therapeutic treatment in modern sleep medicine. By forwarding a conception of historiography building on Raymond Williams’ “structures of feeling” and Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari's philosophy of immanence, I show how the work of William Dement in the 1970s to found a medicine of sleep and the eclipse of biphasic sleeping patterns as a biological and social possibility is indebted to Kleitman's scientific work. The modification of sleep is also the modification of society itself; and, as Kleitman argued, the harnessing of nature can lead to the finer entrenchments of human nature and society. (shrink)

This paper examines Fechner’s introduction to experimental psychophysics from a phenomenological perspective. Horst’s analysis is used to demonstrate the phenomenology that is inherent to classical perceptual psychophysics. Horst argues that the psychophysical event of perception can only be understood as an intentional intertwining of subject and object. From this we move to physiological component of psychophysics—that is, the processes that mediate perceptual awareness. Drawing primarily on the work of Rosen, it is argued the phenomenology provides the most appropriate approach for (...) what could be understood as a contemporary psychophysics—one that borrows from recent trends in physics, neuro-physiology, and perception as classical psychophysics had done. This results in a psychiatric neurophenomenology. Examples of the placebo effect and treatment of traumatic brain injury are used to demonstrate the usefulness of a phenomenological psychophysics, one that ultimately meets the demands of Fechner’s original proposal. (shrink)

The main sources of the style of contemporary philosophy, sources which run counter to the style of classical philosophy, come together in the intellectual development and works of Jean-Paul Sartre. In him can be seen the styles of Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and perhaps even of Wittgenstein. Sartre's L'être et le néant was one focal point of these influences. A re-evaluation of Marx is characteristic of his later works. Marx's philosophical theory is more than just a theory:… it was (...) not the idea which unsettled us; nor was it the condition of the worker, which we knew abstractly but which we had not experienced. No, it was the two joined together. It was—as we would have said then in our idealist jargon even as we were breaking with idealism—the Proletariat as the incarnation and vehicle of an idea. (shrink)

In the paper at hand I introduce Goethe’s ontology and methodology for the study of life as an alternative to current theories. ‘Life,’ in its individual, social and/or pan-natural form, has been a recurring topic in the social sciences for the last two centuries and may currently experience a renaissance, if we are to believe Scott Lash. Goethe’s approach is of particular interest because he formulated it as one of the first critical responses to the nascent discipline of biology. It (...) can be characterised broadly as phenomenology with a strong dose of life philosophy. For this reason, and to draw its contours more clearly, I compare his approach to the respective thoughts in Husserl’s and Simmel’s work. The comparison focuses on the two central concepts phenomenon and life but also discusses broader epistemological and methodological issues, such as the relationship between observer and observed, the relationship between culture and nature, the nature of causality as well as preferred methods of study. (shrink)

Husserl sostiene que la metafísica es una ciencia de hechos y vincula el problema de Dios con el análisis de la racionalidad teleológica inherente a la facticidad. El artículo analiza cuatro interpretaciones que ponen énfasis en la relación entre contingencia y la necesidad en el proceso de constitución (J. G. Hart), la significación de la hylética (A. Ales Bello), la cuestión de la fenomenalidad de Dios y su relación con el acrecentamiento axiológico (E. Housset) y los problemas relativos a la (...) idea de Dios como garantía para el logro de una armonía en la comunidad de mónadas (K. Held). El propósito es subrayar la complementariedad entre un camino filosófico-argumentativo y un camino religioso-experiencial en el acceso a Dios, y hacer frente a la objeción de que la teoría de Husserl implica una idealización que encubriría el mundo de la vida. (shrink)

Purpose – This paper aims to explore whether philosophical insights from Plato's dialogue “Parmenides” on the complex and often paradoxical nature of change can illuminate the nature of information retrieval (IR). IR is modelled as a dialectic process involving mutually dependent yet conflicting forces between the subjective and the objective. These forces operate to produce change in the subjective experience of users (becoming informed) through facilitating a relationship with objective documents. Accurately modelling, predicting and enabling this process remains a persistent (...) problem for IR and this paper seeks to examine the extent to which this is because of the nature of change. Design/methodology/approach – The paper is a conceptual analysis and literature review. Findings – The problem of change (what it is, how it happens and how we can know it has happened) is essential to our understanding of information as information normally implies some kind of change in knowledge state. Any process of change, however, on examination of its qualities, appears to necessitate the combination of irreconcilable and conflicting forces. The apparent contradictions within the existence of change as discussed in “Parmenides” also exist in IR on both a theoretical and a technical level. Research limitations/implications – Change is a central concept for information in general and IR in particular. A deeper understanding of the paradoxical nature of change can provide new insights into IR theory and practice. Originality/value – The paper presents a new historical philosophical perspective on the nature of change and applies it to current IR problems. (shrink)

William of Ockham wrote, ‘It is futile to do with more things that which can be done with fewer .’ But what if each option uses less than its predecessor but no option uses the least? A scale perfectly balanced between a pair of kilogram weights can be tipped by adding half a kilogram to one side, or a quarter of a kilogram, or an eighth of a kilogram, or … For any choice, there is an option that gets the (...) job done with less. Relative futility does not entail absolute futility. The job can get done – but only if we use superfluous means. Is this a refutation of Ockham’s Razor or just a close shave? (shrink)