One of the philosophical uses of Dedekind’s categoricity theorem for Peano Arithmetic is to provide support for semantic realism. To this end, the logical framework in which the proof of the theorem is conducted becomes highly significant. I examine different proposals regarding these logical frameworks and focus on the philosophical benefits of adopting open-ended schemas in contrast to second order logic as the logical medium of the proof. I investigate Pederson and Rossberg’s critique of the ontological advantages of open-ended arithmetic (...) when it comes to establishing the categoricity of Peano Arithmetic and show that the critique is highly problematic. I argue that Pederson and Rossberg’s ontological criterion deliver the bizarre result that certain first order subsystems of Peano Arithmetic have a second order ontology. As a consequence, the application of the ontological criterion proposed by Pederson and Rossberg assigns a certain type of ontology to a theory, and a different, richer, ontology to one of its subtheories. (shrink)

Between Mircea Eliade and Rudolf Otto many connections can be made concerning the idea of sacred. Even though, the scientist of Romanian origin perceives the sacred reality differently from the German theologian. If the latter puts an emphasis on the irrational side of the divine, the former argues that the sacred has to be perceived twofold: as irrational and rational in the same time, the concept of coincidentia oppositorum best embodying the sacred reality. The sacred’s materializations are the hierophanies, the (...) history of religion being nothing else than a sum of hierophanies. Finally, for Eliade, the ascred is connected to the life of homo religiosus. (shrink)

The recent literature on Nāgārjuna’s catuṣkoṭi centres around Jay Garfield’s (2009) and Graham Priest’s (2010) interpretation. It is an open discussion to what extent their interpretation is an adequate model of the logic for the catuskoti, and the Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā. Priest and Garfield try to make sense of the contradictions within the catuskoti by appeal to a series of lattices – orderings of truth-values, supposed to model the path to enlightenment. They use Anderson & Belnaps's (1975) framework of First Degree Entailment. (...) Cotnoir (2015) has argued that the lattices of Priest and Garfield cannot ground the logic of the catuskoti. The concern is simple: on the one hand, FDE brings with it the failure of classical principles such as modus ponens. On the other hand, we frequently encounter Nāgārjuna using classical principles in other arguments in the MMK. There is a problem of validity. If FDE is Nāgārjuna’s logic of choice, he is facing what is commonly called the classical recapture problem: how to make sense of cases where classical principles like modus pones are valid? One cannot just add principles like modus ponens as assumptions, because in the background paraconsistent logic this does not rule out their negations. In this essay, I shall explore and critically evaluate Cotnoir’s proposal. In detail, I shall reveal that his framework suffers collapse of the kotis. Furthermore, I shall argue that the Collapse Argument has been misguided from the outset. The last chapter suggests a formulation of the catuskoti in classical Boolean Algebra, extended by the notion of an external negation as an illocutionary act. I will focus on purely formal considerations, leaving doctrinal matters to the scholarly discourse – as far as this is possible. (shrink)

A book review of Elizabeth Anderson, Value in Ethics and Economics (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1993). I will pass over her compelling critiques of cost-benefit analysis, rational desire theory, and "consequentialist" moral theories, among many topics she dispatches successfully, with fierce intelligence and wit. Instead I want to focus on the central justificatory strategy that underpins her defense of her pluralist, nonconsequentialist, rational attitude theory of value. Anderson states at the outset that she is not that interested in such (...) metaethical questions as whether value judgments express beliefs or emotions or other attitudes (p. xiii). But I think her own answers to these questions might have implications for normative and pragmatic issues of concern to her. So I want to try tinkering with the metaethical arguments in ways that might streamline her treatment of the normative and pragmatic ones somewhat. (shrink)

In our dealings with young children, we often get them to do or think things by arranging their environments in certain ways; by dissembling, simplifying, or ambiguating the facts in answer to their queries; by carefully selecting the states of affairs, behavior of others, and utterances to which they shall be privy. We rightly justify these practices by pointing out a child's malleability, and the necessity of paying close attention to formative influences during its years of growth. This filtering of (...) influences is necessary, we point out, if children are ever to reach a degree of maturity and inner stability that will enable them to understand and cope adequately with the complexities, contradictions, and difficulties of the world from which we now seek to shield them. Thus a child's eventual state of competence, maturity, and autonomy adequately justifies our current practices of manipulation and selection of his environment: such practices are rightly held to be ultimately in the child's best interests as an adult. There is no future state of things with reference to which the Utilitarian night justify his policy of secrecy and manipulation, and in light of which this policy night eventually be dispensed with and commonly validated, in retrospect, as a means to the worthwhile goal of moral maturity. That is, there is no point at which the attitude of the Utilitarian to the rest of the community can develop past the analogous attitude of the parent towards the child; no point at which the Utilitarian might eventually bear to others a relationship of mutual acknowledgement and respect as mature, autonomous, moral adults. The consistent Utilitarian, then, largely regards himself as if he were the only adult in a community of children. (shrink)

Multicellular organisms contain numerous symbiotic microorganisms, collectively called microbiomes. Recently, microbiomic research has shown that these microorganisms are responsible for the proper functioning of many of the systems (digestive, immune, nervous, etc.) of multicellular organisms. This has inclined some scholars to argue that it is about time to reconceptualise the organism and to develop a concept that would place the greatest emphasis on the vital role of microorganisms in the life of plants and animals. We believe that, unfortunately, there is (...) a problem with this suggestion, since there is no such thing as a universal concept of the organism which could constitute a basis for all biological sciences. Rather, the opposite is true: numerous alternative definitions exist. Therefore, comprehending how microbiomics is changing our understanding of organisms may be a very complex matter. In this paper we will demonstrate that this pluralism proves that claims about a change in our understanding of organisms can be treated as both true and untrue. Mainly, we assert that the existing concepts differ substantially, and that only some of them have to be reconsidered in order to incorporate the discoveries of microbiomics, while others are already flexible enough to do so. Taking into account the plurality of conceptualisations within different branches of modern biology, we will conduct our discussion using the developmental and the cooperation–conflict concepts of the organism. Then we will explain our results by referring to the recent philosophical debate on the nature of the concept of the organism within biology. (shrink)

This chapter offers an indirect defence of the Evansian conception of egocentric space, by showing how it resolves a puzzle concerning the unity of egocentric spatial perception. The chapter outlines several common assumptions about egocentric perspectival structure and argues that a subject’s experience, both within and across her sensory modalities, may involve multiple structures of this kind. This raises the question of how perspectival unity is achieved, such that these perspectival structures form a complex whole, rather than merely disunified set (...) of individually, distinctively structured experiences. The shortcomings of variety of accounts are considered: switch accounts ; sensory accounts; transformation accounts; and ultimate accounts. These shortcomings are addressed by a further kind of account provided by the Evansian conception – an agentive account – according to which egocentrically structured experiences present the world in relation to parts of a single thing, the body as a dynamic unity. (shrink)

Simbolismul religios a trezit mereu interesul cercetătorilor din domenii diferite de activitate, lumea întreagă reprezentând un mare simbol ce trebuie să fie descifrat. În dorința de a înțelege sensurile universului înconjurător, oamenii de știință au folosit descoperirile din domenii conexe pentru a-și formula propriile teorii. În acest sens, se pot realiza conexiuni pertinente între felurile în care istoricul religiilor Mircea Eliade și teologul ortodox Alexander Schmemann au definit simbolul și felul în care acesta este prezent în viața de zi cu (...) zi a oamenilor, redefinind astfel și strânsa legătură ce există între istoria religiilor și teologie ca discipline de studiu academic. (shrink)

In this academic article, we articulate the relation between hermeneutics as a method and History of Religion as a study filed. In introduction, the word hermeneutics is explained both from an etymological point of view and from a mythological one. Throughout history, theologians and historians used this concept in their research. In special, the author Mircea Eliade, as an historian, used in his studies about religion the method of hermeneutics. We present in a creative way the most important critics on (...) this system of analysis and complete with an open conclusion about using or not hermeneutics as a method in the study of religion history. (shrink)

Various data from communication that does not occur face-to-face are taken to be problematic for Kaplan’s account of indexical expressions, as is the case with the so-called answering machine paradox. One fix, developed by Sidelle (1991) and Briciu (2018), is the remote utterance view: recording artifacts are means by which speakers perform utterances at a distance, just as by means of other artifacts agents performs other types of actions at a distance. This view has faced an important objection, namely that (...) remote utterances lead to Moorean paradoxes. In this paper, I defend the remote utterance view against this objection and further develop the view. I argue that worries about Moorean paradoxes can easily be dispelled if we take into consideration the artifactual nature of recording devices, their materiality, and the communicative affordances they bring about. In the first section, we’ll present the answering machine paradox and give a brief overview of the remote utterance view. The second section presents the objection against the view, while the third gives a detailed rejoinder to the objection. Answering this objection is important also because it allows us to explore some underdeveloped aspects of the remote utterance view. First, I will discuss how the theorist calibrates her model with the data she seeks to explain and predict. Secondly, I will argue that speech acts performed via recording devices have different felicity conditions than their oral counterparts. I conclude with a short discussion of some semantic and pragmatic consequences of the view. (shrink)

The interreligious dialogue is not a new theme in the history of Christianity, the possibility of its realization being analyzed from the early centuries. Nowadays, the way that other religions are viewed has changed essentially, the religious, political, economic and social realities, being completely different than in the beginning. However, a correct handling of interreligious dialogue cannot disregard the past, more than that, the ideas from the works of the Holy Fathers, church writers, theologians and old thinkers remain valid and (...) are used as themes in the current discussions of the interreligious dialog. Among them, an important place takes Cantemir, the Prince of Moldavia, who lived for a long time in Constantinople. His works, which deals with the history of the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic doctrine, have their basis in the personal experience and in the depth knowledge of the main Islamic sources that helped him to give to posterity the representative works for the knowledge of the Muslim religion and relations between Christianity and Islam during the development and decay of the Ottoman Empire. The way he presents the relation between Christianity and Islam, approaches him to the other Christian writers of his time which are addressing the same topic, highlighting the sadness of an era in which the great Christian empire fell under Ottoman rule and also the hopes of the Orthodox worldwide Christians to release the Christianity, having central the idea of approaching the apocalyptic time when Christianity will triumph. (shrink)

An understanding of the factors behind the evolution of multicellularity is one of today’s frontiers in evolutionary biology. This is because multicellular organisms are made of one subset of cells with the capacity to transmit genes to the next generation and another subset responsible for maintaining the functionality of the organism, but incapable of transmitting genes to the next generation. The question arises: why do somatic cells sacrifice their lives for the sake of germline cells? How is germ/soma separation maintained? (...) One conventional answer refers to inclusive fitness theory, according to which somatic cells sacrifice themselves altruistically, because in so doing they enhance the transmission of their genes by virtue of their genetic relatedness to germline cells. In the present article we will argue that this explanation ignores the key role of policing mechanisms in maintaining the germ/soma divide. Based on the pervasiveness of the latter, we argue that the role of altruistic mechanisms in the evolution of multicellularity is limited and that our understanding of this evolution must be enriched through the consideration of coercion mechanisms. (shrink)

Adrian Piper argues that the Humean conception can be made to work only if it is placed in the context of a wider and genuinely universal conception of the self, whose origins are to be found in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. This conception comprises the basic canons of classical logic, which provide both a model of motivation and a model of rationality. These supply necessary conditions both for the coherence and integrity of the self and also for unified (...) agency. The Kantian conception solves certain intractable problems in decision theory by integrating it into classical predicate logic, and provides answers to longstanding controversies in metaethics concerning moral motivation, rational final ends, and moral justification that the Humean conception engenders. In addition, it sheds light on certain kinds of moral behavior – for example, the whistleblower – that the Humean conception is at a loss to explain. (shrink)

My intellectual journey in philosophy proceeded along two mountainous paths that coincided at their base, but forked less than halfway up the incline. The first is that of my philosophical development, a steep but steady and continuous ascent. It began in my family, and accelerated in high school, art school, college, and graduate school. Those foundations propelled my philosophical research into the nature of rationality and its relation to the structure of the self, a long-term project focused on the Kantian (...) and Humean metaethical traditions in Anglo-American analytic philosophy. It would have been impossible to bring this project to completion without the anchor, compass, and conceptual mapping provided by my prior, longstanding involvement in the practice and theory of Vedic philosophy. The second path is that of my professional route through the field of academic philosophy, which branched onto a rocky detour in graduate school, followed by a short but steep ascent, followed next by a much steeper, sustained descent off that road, into the ravine, down in flames, and out of the profession. In order to reach the summit of the first path, I had to reach the nadir of the second. It was the right decision. My yoga practice cushioned my landing. (shrink)

Do salient normative claims about politics require moral premises? Political moralists think they do, political realists think they do not. We defend the viability of realism in a two-pronged way. First, we show that a number of recent attacks on realism, as well as realist responses to those attacks, unduly conflate distinctively political normativity and non-moral political normativity. Second, we argue that Alex Worsnip and Jonathan Leader-Maynard’s recent attack on realist arguments for a distinctively political normativity depends on assuming moralism (...) as the default view, which places an excessive burden on the viability of realism, and so begs the question. Our discussion, though, does not address the relative merits of realism and moralism, so its upshot is relatively ecumenical: moralism need not be the view that all apt normative political judgments are moral judgments, and realism need not be the view that no apt normative political judgments are moral judgments. (shrink)

Political realists have argued that ‘the political’ is an autonomous domain with its own distinctive concepts, distinctive methodology, and distinctive ‘source of normativity’. I here explore the metanormative commitments of realism (of the radical realist branch, in particular) and question the viability of exploring the ontology of the normative altogether. I argue that the escape into the metanormative realm was something of a wrong turn within the realism debates – an intellectual error. My central argument, building on recent metatheoretical work (...) on normativity, is meant to discredit the sheer possibility of metanormative distinctness. If realists can neither prove metanormative, nor traditional, nor methodological distinctness, there is a valid question as to its standing. I speculate, perhaps realism is little more than a new semantic label for ‘continental’ practices of social analysis as they leak into the analytic tradition. But then again it can be argued that most contemporary continental thought, and certainly much of what passes as critical theory these days, is thoroughly moralist, anti-positivist, and postmodern, and those sentiments are not shared by radical realists, who are, or so I’ll argue, far more faithful to the modernist tradition of social theory. (shrink)

The Humean conception of the self consists in the belief-desire model of motivation and the utility-maximizing model of rationality. This conception has dominated Western thought in philosophy and the social sciences ever since Hobbes’ initial formulation in Leviathan and Hume’s elaboration in the Treatise of Human Nature. Bentham, Freud, Ramsey, Skinner, Allais, von Neumann and Morgenstern and others have added further refinements that have brought it to a high degree of formal sophistication. Late twentieth century moral philosophers such as Rawls, (...) Brandt, Frankfurt, Nagel and Williams have taken it for granted, and have made use of it to supply metaethical foundations for a wide variety of normative moral theories. But the Humean conception of the self also leads to seemingly insoluble problems about moral motivation, rational final ends, and moral justification. Can it be made to work? (shrink)

We need modal imagination in order to extend our conception of reality - and, in particular, of human beings - beyond our immediate experience in the indexical present; and we need to do this in order to preserve the significance of human interaction. To make this leap of imagination successfully is to achieve not only insight but also an impartial perspective on our own and others' inner states. This perspective is a necessary condition of experiencing compassion for others. This is (...) the primary thesis I will try to defend in this discussion. (shrink)

In an earlier discussion, I argued that Kant's moral theory satisfies some of the basic criteria for being a genuine theory: it includes testable hypotheses, nomological higher-and lower-level laws, theoretical constructs, internal principles, and bridge principles. I tried to show that Kant's moral theory is an ideal, descriptive deductive-nomological theory that explains the behavior of a fully rational being and generates testable hypotheses about the moral behavior of actual agents whom we initially assume to conform to its theoretical constructs. I (...) argued that the moral "ought" is best understood as the "ought" of tentative prediction expressed in the range of uses of the German sollen; and that the degree to which such a theory is well-confirmed is a function of the degree to which we actually judge individual human agents, on a case-by-case basis, to be motivated by rationality, stupidity, or moral corruption in their actions. I assume that a similar case could be made for other major contenders, such as Utilitarianism or Aristotelianism. But there still remains unanswered the question of which of these theories is the best among the available alternatives. To answer this question, further criteria of selection must be invoked. Among these are structural elegance and explanatory simplicity, but even these do not exhaust the desiderata for an adequate moral theory. More pressing in the case of moral theory is the requirement that the theory enable us to understand all the available data of moral experience; that the theory be sufficiently inclusive that in the formulation of its descriptive laws and practical principles, it be capable of identifying as morally significant all the behavior to which moral praise, condemnation, or acquittal is a relevant and appropriate response. (shrink)

It has become almost a cliché to say that we live in a post-truth world; that people of all trades speak with an indifference to truth. Speaking with an indifference to how things really are is famously regarded by Harry Frankfurt as the essence of bullshit. This paper aims to contribute to the philosophical and theoretical pragmatics discussion of bullshit. The aim of the paper is to offer a new theoretical analysis of what bullshit is, one that is more encompassing (...) than Frankfurt’s original characterization. I part ways with Frankfurt in two points. Firstly, I propose that we should not analyze bullshit in intentional terms (i.e. as indifference). Secondly, I propose that we should not analyze it in relation to truth. Roughly put, I propose that bullshit is best characterized as speaking with carelessness toward the evidence for one’s conversational contribution. I bring forward, in the third section, a battery of examples that motivate this characterization. Furthermore, I argue that we can analyze speaking with carelessness toward the evidence in Gricean terms as a violation of the second Quality maxim. I argue that the Quality supermaxim, together with its subordinate maxims, demand that the speaker is truthful (contributes only what she believes to be true) and reliable (has adequate evidence for her contribution). The bullshitter’s main fault lies in being an unreliable interlocutor. I further argue that we should interpret what counts as adequate evidence, as stipulated by the second Quality Maxim, in contextualist terms: the subject matter and implicit epistemic standards determine how much evidence one needs in order to have adequate evidence. I contrast this proposed reading with a subjectivist interpretation of what counts as having adequate evidence and show that they give different predictions. Finally, working with a classic distinction, I argue that we should not understand bullshit as a form of deception but rather as a form of misleading speech. (shrink)

The interreligious dialogue has a very important place in all the meeting agendas from all over the world, regardless the topic addressed. Having a concrete dynamic, this kind of theological problematic follows the general spiritual movement of communities and their unresolved necessities. Although the interreligious dialogue has an old history, it developed today on the basis of actual issues of violence and disagreements between peoples. Therefore, because religion has an essential place in the life of human communities from all over (...) the world, the dialogue with people of other faiths and ideologies must be necessarily promoted. In this context, the Orthodox Church representatives participated at many meetings in the purpose to promote and sustain the interreligious dialogue, bringing in actuality their bi-millenaries theological experience, based on the Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition. From the orthodox point of view, the liberty is the greatest gift which God has given to man and also a free world cannot exist without love between people. This love has its fundament and purpose in the Holy Trinity. (shrink)

I want to examine the implications of a metaphysical thesis which is presupposed in various objections to Rawls' theory of justice.Although their criticisms differ in many respects, they concur in employing what I shall refer to as the continuity thesis. This consists of the following claims conjointly: (1) The parties in the original position (henceforth the OP) are, and know themselves to be, fully mature persons who will be among the members of the well-ordered society (henceforth the WOS) which is (...) generated by their choice of principles of justice. (2) The OP is a conscious event among others, integrated (compatibly with the constraints on knowledge and motivation imposed on the parties) into the regular continuity of experience that comprises each of their ongoing constitutes lives. (3) The parties in the OP thus are, and regard themselves as, psychologically continuing persons, partially determined in personality and interests by prior experiences, capable of recollection and regret concerning the past, anticipation and apprehensiveness regarding the future, and so on. Although the continuity thesis as stated above is not at odds with any of the conditions that define the OP, its exegetical validity is a matter for discussion. I shall be concerned to argue that if it is indeed contained in or a consequence of Rawls' theory, then it casts into doubt the capacity of the OP to generate or justify any principles of justice at all. On the other hand, if the continuity thesis is viewed as dispensable and unnecessary to the Rawlsian enterprise, then Rawls is correct in maintaining the irrelevance of the question of personal identity to the construction of his moral theory. In this case, the contract-theoretic, instrumentalist justification for the two principles of justice (henceforth the 2PJ) needs to be supplanted by a modified conception of wide reflective equilibrium. The considerations that form the bulk of this discussion then may be understood as providing a rationale for Rawls' recent revisions in the model of justification on which his theory of justice rests, and for his increasing emphasis on us as moral mediators between the OP and the WOS. Now I want to consider the question of whether or not, given the textual evidence, anything like the continuity thesis is stated or implied by Rawls, and what problems for his theory, if any, turn on a positive or negative answer to this question. -/- . (shrink)

[A. W. Moore] Criteria of ineffability are presented which, it is claimed, preclude the possibility of truths that are ineffable, but not the possibility of other things that are ineffable—not even the possibility of other things that are non-trivially ineffable. Specifically, they do not preclude the possibility of states of understanding that are ineffable. This, it is argued, allows for a reappraisal of the dispute between those who adopt a traditional reading of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and those who adopt the new (...) reading recently championed by Cora Diamond, James Conant, and others. By maintaining that what the nonsense in the Tractatus is supposed to convey is ineffable understanding, rather than ineffable truth, we can do considerable justice to each of these readings. We can also do considerable justice to the Tractatus. /// [Peter Sullivan] Moore proposes to cut between 'traditional' and 'new' approaches to the Tractatus, suggesting that Wittgenstein's intention is to convey, through the knowing use of nonsense, ineffable understanding. I argue, first, that there is indeed room for a proposal of Moore's general kind. Secondly, though, I question whether Moore's actual proposal is not more in tune with Wittgenstein's later thought than with the attitude of the Tractatus. (shrink)

Most moral theories share certain features in common with other theories. They consist of a set of propositions that are universal, general, and hence impartial. The propositions that constitute a typical moral theory are (1) universal, in that they apply to all subjects designated as within their scope. They are (2) general, in that they include no proper names or definite descriptions. They are therefore (3) impartial, in that they accord no special privilege to any particular agent's situation which cannot (...) be justified under (2) and (3). These three features do not distinguish moral theories from other theories, nor indeed from most general categorical propositions we assert. Yet, in recent years, these features of moral theories have been the target of a certain concerted and sustained criticism, namely, that to be committed to such a moral theory, or to aspire to act in accordance with its requirements, results in what has come to be known as moral alienation. Moral alienation, according to this criticism, consists in (i) viewing one's ground projects from an impersonal, "moral point of view" engendered by one's acceptance of the theory; (ii) being prepared to sacrifice these projects to the requirements of moral principle; and (iii) making such a sacrifice specifically and self-consciously in order to conform to these requirements. Moral alienation is said to manifest itself in one (or both) of two ways, depending on the nature of the project thus susceptible to sacrifice. One may be alienated from oneself, if the project consists of tastes, convictions, or aspirations that are centrally definitive of one's self. In this case one's commitment to the project can be at best conditional on its congruence with one's moral theory. It is claimed that this must make for a rather tepid and unenthusiastic commitment indeed. Alternatively, one may be alienated from others, if the project is an interpersonal relationship such as a friendship, marriage, or collegial relationship. In this case one's responses to the other are motivated by one's awareness of what one's moral theory requires. It is claimed that this obstructs a genuine and unmediated emotional response to the other as such. My aim here will be to argue that this very compelling criticism - call it the moral-alienation criticism - is nevertheless misdirected. The real culprit is not any particular moral theory, but rather a certain familiar personality type that may or may not adopt it. (shrink)

In this article, I explore the ethical dimensions of same-sex reproduction achieved through epigenome editing—an innovative and transformative technique. For the first time, I analyse the potential normativity of this disruptive approach for reproductive purposes, focusing on its implications for lesbian couples seeking genetically related offspring. Epigenome editing offers a compelling solution to the complex ethical challenges posed by traditional gene editing, as it sidesteps genome modifications and potential long-term genetic consequences. The focus of this article is to systematically analyse (...) the bioethical issues related to the use of epigenome editing for same-sex reproduction. I critically assess the ethical acceptability of epigenome editing with reproductive purposes from multiple angles, considering harm perspectives, the comparison of ethical issues related to gene and epigenome editing, and feminist theories. This analysis reveals that epigenome editing emerges as an ethically acceptable means for lesbian couples to have genetically related children. Moreover, the experiments of a reproductive use of epigenome editing discussed in this article transcend bioethics, shedding light on the broader societal implications of same-sex reproduction. It challenges established notions of biological reproduction and prompts a reevaluation of how we define the human embryo, while poses some issues in the context of gender self-identification and family structures. In a world that increasingly values inclusivity and diversity, this article aims to reveal a progressive pathway for reproductive medicine and bioethics, as well as underscores the need for further philosophical research in this emerging and fertile domain. (shrink)

This essay attempts to render intelligible (you will pardon the pun) Kant's peculiar claims about the intelligible at A 539/B 567 – A 541/B 569 in the first Critique, in which he asserts that (1) ... [t]his acting subject would now, in conformity with his intelligible character, stand under no temporal conditions, because time is only a condition of appearances, but not of things in themselves. In him no action would begin or cease. Consequently it would not be subjected to (...) the law of all determination of everything alterable in time: everything which happens finds its causes in the appearances (of the previous state). In a word, his causality, in so far as it is intellectual, would not stand in the series of empirical conditions which the event in the world of sense makes necessary. (A 539/B 567 - A 540/B 568) ... in so far as it is noumenon, nothing happens in him, no alteration which requires dynamical determination in time .... One would quite rightly say of him, that it of itself begins his effects in the world of sense, without the action's beginning in him himself ... (A 541/B 569)2 What does Kant mean by claiming that intellectual causality is such that in one's intelligible character as noumenal agent, actions neither begin nor end, nor does anything happen in one? Do these claims have meaning merely by contrast to the familiar experience of empirical causality, in which actions have discrete durations and events occur? Is he merely inferring from this familiar sensible experience an ontologically and metaphysically independent, epistemically inaccessible "world," which can be conceptualized only through the negation of those terms and propositions that characterize this one? Or is he offering a.. (shrink)

My aim in this discussion is to argue, not only that government should provide funding for the arts, but a fortiori that it should provide funding for unconventional, disruptive works of art.

A growing body of empirical evidence suggests that folk knowledge attribution practices regarding some epistemological thought experiments differ significantly from the consensus found in the philosophical literature. More specifically, laypersons are likely to ascribe knowledge in the so-called Authentic Evidence Gettier-style cases, while most philosophers deny knowledge in these cases. The intuitions shared by philosophers are often used as evidence in favor (or against) certain philosophical analyses of the notion of knowledge. However, the fact that these intuitions are not universal, (...) as non-philosophers do not sympathize with verdicts made by philosophers, is problematic and requires some explanation. Recently, a promising theoretical approach emerged that could be used to explain away unexpected folk knowledge attributions. According to the protagonist projection hypothesis, when subjects answer questions about some hypothetical scenario, their judgments might result from adopting the cognitive perspective of the protagonist in the given scenario. Previous experimental findings suggest protagonist projection might be responsible for problematic knowledge attributions in Gettier-style cases. This paper reports data collected in an experiment which focused on five different Authentic Evidence Gettier-style scenarios and investigated the impact of protagonist projection on folk knowledge ascriptions in such cases. The results bring some support to the protagonist projection hypothesis, but do not allow to explain away a substantial number of problematic folk knowledge attributions. (shrink)

The purpose of this discussion is twofold. First, I want to shed some light on Kant's concept of personhood as rational agency, by situating it in the context of the first Critique's conception of the self as defined by its rational dispositions. I hope to suggest that this concept of personhood cannot be simply grafted onto an essentially Humean conception of the self that is inherently inimical to it, as I believe Rawls, Gewirth, and others have tried to do. Instead (...) I will try to show how deeply embedded this concept of personhood is in Kant's conception of the self as rationally unified consciousness. Second, I want to deploy this embedded concept of personhood as the basis for an analysis of the phenomenon of xenophobia. (shrink)

The history of economic thought witnessed several prominent economists who took seriously models and concepts in physics for the elucidation and prediction of economic phenomena. Econophysics is an emerging discipline at the intersection of heterodox economics and the physics of complex systems, with practitioners typically engaged in two overlapping but distinct methodological programs. The first is to export mathematical methods used in physics for the purposes of studying economic phenomena. The second is to export mechanisms in physics into economics. A (...) conclusion is drawn that physics transfer is often justified at the level of mathematical transfer but unjustified at the level of mechanistic transfer. (shrink)

According to the No-Luck-Thesis knowledge possession is incompatible with luck – one cannot know that p if the truth of one’s belief that p is a matter of luck. Recently, this widespread opinion was challenged by Peter Baumann, who argues that in certain situations agents do possess knowledge even though their beliefs are true by luck. This paper aims at providing empirical data for evaluating Baumann’s hypothesis. The experiment was designed to compare non-philosophers’ judgments concerning knowledge and luck in one (...) case that Baumann takes to be in favor of his claim and other cases where, according to him, absence of knowledge coincides with luck. The results show that the cases do not differ in a significant way between each other with respect to verdicts regarding knowledge and luck. In all cases subjects were more reluctant to judge that the ‘Gettierized’ belief is knowledge and more likely to judge that it is true by luck in comparison to a belief that is an uncontroversial instance of knowledge. However, the negative relationship between knowledge and luck ascriptions predicted by the No-Luck-Thesis was almost absent. The data raise some doubts about the No-Luck-Thesis, but the reasons for doubt are different than what Baumann expected. (shrink)

In a recent reply to our article, “What is Interpretability?,” Prasetya argues against our position that artificial neural networks are explainable. It is claimed that our indefeasibility thesis—that adding complexity to an explanation of a phenomenon does not make the phenomenon any less explainable—is false. More precisely, Prasetya argues that unificationist explanations are defeasible to increasing complexity, and thus, we may not be able to provide such explanations of highly complex AI models. The reply highlights an important lacuna in our (...) original paper, the omission of the unificationist account of explanation, and affords us the opportunity to respond. Here, we argue that artificial neural networks are explainable in a way that should satisfy unificationists and that interpretability methods present ways in which ML theories can achieve unification. (shrink)

Francis Ysidro Edgeworth’s unduly neglected monograph New and Old Methods of Ethics (1877) advances a highly sophisticated and mathematized account of social well-being in the utilitarian tradition of his 19th-century contemporaries. This article illustrates how his usage of the ‘calculus of variations’ was combined with findings from empirical psychology and economic theory to construct a consequentialist axiological framework. A conclusion is drawn that Edgeworth is a methodological predecessor to several important methods, ideas, and issues that continue to be discussed in (...) contemporary social well-being studies. (shrink)

‘Performative’ transcendental arguments exploit the status of a subcategory of self-falsifying propositions in showing that some form of skepticism is unsustainable. The aim of this paper is to examine the relationship between performatively inconsistent propositions and transcendental arguments, and then to compare performative transcendental arguments to modest transcendental arguments that seek only to establish the indispensability of some belief or conceptual framework. Reconceptualizing transcendental arguments as performative helps focus the intended dilemma for the skeptic: performative transcendental arguments directly confront the (...) skeptic with the choice of abandoning either skepticism or some other deep theoretical commitment. Many philosophers, from Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas to Jaakko Hintikka, C.I. Lewis, and Bernard Lonergan, have claimed that some skeptical propositions regarding knowledge, reason, and/or morality can be shown to be self-defeating; that is to say, they have claimed that the very upholding of some skeptical position is in some way incompatible with the position being upheld, or with the implied, broader dialectical position of the skeptic in question. Statements or propositions alleged to have this characteristic also sometimes are called ‘self-falsifying,’ ‘self-refuting,’ ‘self-stultifying,’ ‘self-destructive,’ or ‘pointless.’ However, proponents of the strategy of showing skepticism to be self-defeating have not in general adequately distinguished between two types of self-defeating proposition: self-falsifying and self-stultifying. In the first part of this paper I distinguish between self-falsifying and self-stultifying propositions, and introduce the notion of performative self-falsification. In the second part I discuss classical transcendental arguments, ‘modest’ transcendental arguments, and objections to each. In the third part I introduce two types of transcendental argument—each labeled “performative”—corresponding to two types of performatively self-falsifying proposition, and I compare them to modest transcendental arguments. (shrink)

Besides dialogue with the Jews, Christians were most involved in the dialogue with Muslims. This dialogue was accentuated and became visible especially in modern and contemporary times, with the increase in violence, which had often religious justifications on the part of those involved. The dialogue between Christians and Muslims took a new direction after the attacks of September 11, 2001, in New York and after those that followed in Europe and all over the world. It was discussed in those days (...) and immediately after about the validation of the well know theory of clashes of civilizations, formulated by Samuel Huntington, in his book written in 1996. Starting from these events, within the dialogue between representatives of Christianity and of Islam, there were many other intensive moments that had to be resolved through a profound theological analysis and with understanding and respect from the followers of the two monotheistic religions. (shrink)

The monumental Encyclopedia of Religion (16 volumes), whose editor-in-chief was Mircea Eliade and which appeared in 1987, did not enjoy a welcome as expected, criticisms soon coming from researchers in several scientific fields. These criticisms related to the method used and the deep imprint that Eliade had on the work. The opinions echoed earlier criticisms of Eliade and his research method with reference to the field of History of Religions. If in the middle of the last century Eliade was considered (...) one of the greatest historians of religions, with the passage of time his authority in the field decreased. The same can be seen in the influence that the Eliadian work had, including the Encyclopedia of Religion. (shrink)

Presented at the European Conference for Cognitive Science in Bochum, Sept. 2019. I synthesize some ideas I take to be promising with regard to a criterion for mental representations in animals. I sketch constitutive conditions for having a depicting perspective on the environment instead of merely reacting successfully to it. Perception, so my argument, is the key to understand the essence of mind in its basic form and beyond.(© Adrian Wieczorek).

Current methods of operationalizing concepts of misinformation in machine learning are often problematic given idiosyncrasies in their success conditions compared to other models employed in the natural and social sciences. The intrinsic value-ladenness of misinformation and the dynamic relationship between citizens' and social scientists' concepts of misinformation jointly suggest that both the construct legitimacy and the construct validity of these models needs to be assessed via more democratic criteria than has previously been recognized.

According to contextualism, vast majority of natural-language expressions are context-sensitive. When testing whether this claim is reflected in Folk intuitions, some interesting methodological questions were raised such as: which experimental design is more appropriate for testing contextualism – the within- or the between-subject design? The main thesis of this paper is that the between-subject design should be preferred. The first experiment aims at assessing the difference between the results obtained for within-subjects measurements (where all participants assess all contexts) and between-subject (...) measurements (where respondents evaluating different contexts are distinct groups). It is shown that the within-subject design provides data that seems to support contextualism. However, I present an alternative, invariantist interpretation of these results, therefore showing that the within-subject design does not allow to empirically distinguish between contextualism and invariantism. The second experiment further elaborates the issue of how perceiving the contrast between contexts can affect subjects’ judgments – I show that certain kinds of contexts may elicit opposite intuitions when contrasted with different contexts. (shrink)

One of the insights of dynamic semantics in its various guises (Kamp 1981, Heim 1982, Groenendijk & Stokhof 1991, Kamp & Reyle 1993 among many others) is that interpretation is sensitive to left-to-right order. Is order sensitivity, particularly the default left-to-right order of evaluation, a property of particular meanings of certain lexical items (e.g., dynamically interpreted conjunction) or is it a more general feature of meaning composition? If it is a more general feature of meaning composition, is it a processing (...) ‘preference’ or should it be captured as a ‘harder’ constraint on the type of meanings and operations over meanings involved in natural language interpretation? This squib draws attention to the symmetrical A-too B-too construction (found in a variety of languages, e.g., Hungarian, Japanese, Romanian, Russian) in this context. It argues that any semantic analysis of its main ‘symmetrical-meaning’ characteristic should also allow for subtler interactions between this construction and items that are clearly sensitive to evaluation-order effects, e.g., anaphoric adjectives like next and other. We suggest that the notion of postsupposition embedded in a broader dynamic framework is better able to account for both the symmetric nature of this construction, its non-symmetric variant A-too, and its interaction with items that are evaluation-order sensitive. We briefly compare this proposal with a couple of possible alternative accounts. (shrink)

Much recent cognitive neuroscientific work on body knowledge is representationalist: “body schema” and “body images”, for example, are cerebral representations of the body (de Vignemont 2009). A framework assumption is that representation of the body plays an important role in cognition. The question is whether this representationalist assumption is compatible with the variety of broadly situated or embodied approaches recently popular in the cognitive neurosciences: approaches in which cognition is taken to have a ‘direct’ relation to the body and to (...) the environment. A “direct” relation is one where the boundaries between the body and the head, or between the environment and the animal are not theoretically important in the understanding of cognition. These boundaries do not play a theoretically privileged role in cognitive explanations of behavior. But representationalism appears to put a representational veil between the locus of cognition and that which is represented, making cognitive relations to the body and to the environment be indirect, with a high associated computational load. For this reason, direct approaches have tried to minimize the use of internal representations (Suchman 1987; Barwise 1987; Agre and Chapman 1987; Brooks 1992; Thelen and Smith 1994; van Gelder 1995; Port and van Gelder 1995; Clark 1997, 1999; Rupert 2009, p. 180). Does a cognitive neuroscience committed to direct relations rule out a representationalist approach to body knowledge? Or is direct representationalism possible? (shrink)

The Syncretism, specific of old and new religious currents, is a phenomenon closely linked to millenarian movements and the emergence of so-called prophets that say that transmit divine messages being dependent at the same time, important social changes, economic political and, not least, religious. In the history of religions, syncretism is determined by several factors, among which are the changes in social, political, economic, and new philosophical and religious synthesis, the term acquiring a cosmopolitan sense. Syncretism occurs when two or (...) more social groups with different religions, contact, assimilating their members and various other religious characteristics specific groups and, for the most part, are foreign to their own beliefs. Religious syncretism has grown particularly intense during the first four centuries of the Christian era, but its traces can envision more or less pronounced in all religious history of humanity, with respect to the merger of two or more deities or acceptance of new forms and often contradictory in different parts of religious worship of pagan deities specifically different. (shrink)

Theology from Mircea Eliade to Fr. Dumitru Stăniloae When someone tries to present the spiritual characteristics of a people, his findings will be both appreciated and criticized. It is very difficult to talk about the people among whom you were born and have lived without falling into overrating or underestimation errors of the role and the place it had and it played in human history, in general, and that of each individual, in particular. From these positions, two of the brand (...) personalities of our people: Mircea Eliade (world famous scientist, one of the greatest historians of religions from all times) and Fr Dumitru Stăniloae (the greatest modern Romanian Orthodox theologian whose work is globally recognized by representatives of all Christian denominations) wrote about Romanian culture and spirituality and the role they occupy in the history of Europe. Beyond the differences in thinking between the two, remains the common place where the theologian and the historian of religion complement each other: the culture and spirituality of the Romanian people. (shrink)

The theorist who denies the objective reality of non-relational temporal properties, or ‘A-series’ determinations, must explain our experience of the passage of time. D.H. Mellor, a prominent denier of the objective reality of temporal passage, draws, in part, on Kant in offering a theory according to which the experience of temporal passage is the result of the projection of change in belief. But Mellor has missed some important points Kant has to make about time-awareness. It turns out that Kant's theory (...) of time-awareness also involves projection – but for him, the projection of temporal passage is necessary to any coherent experience at all, and for this reason events in the world cannot be represented except as exhibiting real tensed change. Consequently we cannot intelligibly suppose the world we know to be without the passage of time. This fact would permit a modest transcendental argument the conclusion of which is that we are entitled to describe the world in terms of temporal passage. (shrink)

Romanian pedagogical theory rests on the assumption that any educational content can be taught and learned faster and better by recourse to a battery of teaching methods. In the present study we question that assumption and show that the methods generally recommended have no didactic merits when it comes to teaching philosophy and the human sciences. In order to prove that we commence by rendering manifest the origins, the specificity and the presuppositions of the teaching methods described in the literature. (...) Afterwards we determine the specificity of the objects of study of philosophy and the human sciences in general. On these bases we develop a series of three arguments that show why, given the particularity of both, the recourse to methods for teaching philosophy and the human sciences is inadequate. (shrink)

Many pages have been written about the relationship between Mircea Eliade and I.P. Culianu, but the subject is still open for the future. The master-disciple relationship they established during the time was often scattered with moments of tension. Anyway, every time we remember the name Culianu, it will stand beside his master’s name from Chicago, whose place he took after the latter’s disappearance. The way in which Christianity is analyzed in their work occupies a certain place. And thus, because along (...) with a few other situations, their visions regarding this theme seem contradictory. These pages want to be a preamble of work about the Christian values in Mircea Eliade’s thinking, which we have in progress. (shrink)