Alexis karpouzos is a visioner in the development of post-history sense of cosmic unity and the integral consciousness. For him, spirituality is not just about personal enlightenment but is deeply connected to moral action. He view ethical living as a natural outgrowth of spiritual awareness. In his worldview, the divine is not something distant or abstract but is present in every human being, and this awareness should lead to moral behavior that reflects love, justice, and equality. In many of (...) his writings, Alexis karpouzos calls for the realization of a moral society, one that is based on mutual respect, compassion, and the recognition of the divine essence in all people. His commitment to social reform, education, and the improvement of human welfare can be seen as an extension of his spiritual values, grounded in the belief that the divine resides within every person, regardless of their social or economic status. Alexis karpouzos believe that the process of spiritual growth was a deeply personal journey. He often spoke of the importance of inner freedom and self-realization. For him, true liberation was not something that could be granted from outside, but a state of consciousness that could only be attained through deep self-awareness and connection to the universe. This self-realization, however, did not mean renouncing the social and historical world; rather, it involved seeing the universal consciousness in all aspects of life and acting in alignment with it. (shrink)

Albert Camus’ views contributed to the rise of the philosophy known as Absurdism, he defines the Absurd “as the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life, and the human inability to find any meaning in a purposeless, meaningless, and irrational universe, with the ‘unreasonable silence’ of the universe in response.” However, this world in itself is not absurd, what is absurd is our relationship with the universe, which is irrational. Camus is considered to be (...) an existentialist, even though he firmly rejected the term throughout his lifetime. He is properly categorised as an atheist existentialist. However, he would also disagree with this label. In his notebooks, he presents the following contradictory statement: -/- “I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist.” -/- This reflects the notion of the Absurd. The search of the possibility of the existence of God is humanly impossible, but this also entails that the proof that God does not exist is impossible too. He writes in The Myth of Sisyphus: “In a universe suddenly divested of illusions and lights, man feels an alien, a stranger. His exile is without remedy since he is deprived of the memory of a lost home or the hope of a promised land. This divorce between man and his life, the actor and his setting, is properly the feeling of absurdity.” The Myth of Sisyphus is a fierce expression of the Absurd. It starts off with a powerful and thought-provoking statement: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.” . (shrink)

Difference and Repetition: Deleuze’s magnum opus, “Difference and Repetition” (1968), explores the interplay between difference and repetition. He argues that difference is fundamental to reality, and repetition is not mere duplication but a creative force. Deleuze challenges conventional notions of identity and sameness, emphasizing the productive potential of difference. Gilles Deleuze’s “Difference and Repetition” is a seminal work that challenges traditional Western metaphysics and offers a fresh perspective on concepts like identity, repetition, and creativity. Let’s explore some key ideas from (...) this remarkable book: Pure Difference: Deleuze argues that difference is fundamental to reality. Unlike classical philosophy that seeks universal truths, he emphasizes divergence and decentering. Each moment contains unique differences, and these differences shape our understanding of the world. Complex Repetition: Repetition, for Deleuze, isn’t mere duplication. Instead, it involves displacement and disguising. While repetition contributes to generality and thought, it’s the differences within each repetition that account for change and novelty. Concepts and things derive meaning from these differences. Shift Away from Hegel and Marx: “Difference and Repetition” played a crucial role in shifting French thought away from Hegel and Marx toward Nietzsche and Freud. Deleuze’s exploration of difference challenged established philosophical norms and paved the way for new perspectives. The Image of Thought: Deleuze critiques the traditional “image of thought,” which often relies on fixed identities and binary oppositions. Instead, he encourages us to embrace multiplicities, complexities, and the perpetual process of becoming. Asymmetrical Synthesis of the Sensible: Deleuze introduces the concept of asymmetrical synthesis, emphasizing the interplay between perception and affect. Reality is a dynamic, ever-changing process, not a static being. Copies are never identical; they’re something new. “Difference and Repetition” invites us to rethink how we perceive reality, emphasizing creativity, multiplicity, and the constant flux of existence. Deleuze’s work continues to inspire thinkers across disciplines, bridging philosophy with art, literature, and mysticism. (shrink)

The relationship between the One and the Multiple in mystic philosophy is a profound and central theme that explores the nature of existence, the cosmos, and the divine. This theme is present in various mystical traditions, including those of the East and West, and it addresses the paradoxical coexistence of the unity and multiplicity of all things. -/- In mystic philosophy, the **One** often represents the ultimate reality, the source from which all things emanate and to which all things return. (...) It is the absolute, the infinite, and the unchanging. The One is beyond all attributes and is often associated with the divine or the absolute truth. -/- The **Multiple**, on the other hand, represents the manifest world, the diversity of forms, and the realm of change and plurality. It is the world we experience through our senses, the domain of time and space, where differentiation and individuality are apparent. -/- The relationship between the One and the Multiple is not one of opposition but of emanation and unity. The Multiple is seen as a reflection, expression, or manifestation of the One. In this sense, the diversity of the world doesn’t contradict the unity of the One but rather demonstrates it in a myriad of forms. -/- Mystics seek to understand and experience this relationship through various practices and insights. They aim to transcend the illusion of separation and duality to experience the non-dual reality where the One and the Multiple are recognized as inseparable. -/- This concept can be illustrated by the metaphor of the ocean and its waves. The ocean represents the One—vast, deep, and all-encompassing—while the waves represent the Multiple—distinct, diverse, and ever-changing. Each wave is unique, yet it is not separate from the ocean. The wave’s existence is dependent on and made of the same substance as the ocean. In the same way, each individual entity in the Multiple is an expression of the One. -/- In summary, the relationship between the One and the Multiple in mystic philosophy is a dynamic interplay that challenges the conventional understanding of separation. It invites a deeper exploration of reality, where the apparent multiplicity of the world is a direct expression of the singular, underlying essence of all that is. -/- The relationship between the One and the Multiple in the context of mathematical philosophy is a profound topic that touches upon the very foundations of existence and knowledge. It’s a theme that has been explored by philosophers and mathematicians alike, often leading to the contemplation of unity and diversity within the structures of reality. -/- In mathematics, the concept of the One can be seen as the basis of unity from which all numbers derive. It’s the identity element in multiplication, the starting point in counting, and the foundation of dimension in geometry. The One is often associated with the concept of monism in philosophy, which posits that there is a single, underlying substance or principle that constitutes reality. -/- On the other hand, the Multiple represents the infinite variety and diversity of forms and numbers that arise from the One. It’s the embodiment of plurality and the complex interplay of different entities that mathematics seeks to understand and describe. This reflects the philosophical stance of pluralism, which acknowledges the existence of multiple realities or truths. -/- The interplay between the One and the Multiple can be seen in the mathematical concept of sets. A set can be thought of as a unity, a whole composed of distinct elements. Yet, each element within the set also retains its individuality, contributing to the diversity of the set’s composition. This duality is mirrored in the philosophical exploration of the universal and the particular, where the universal represents the One, and the particulars represent the Multiple. -/- In the realm of mathematical philosophy, this relationship often leads to questions about the nature of mathematical objects: Are they discovered as part of an objective reality (the One), or are they constructed by the human mind from a multitude of experiences (the Multiple)? This debate resonates with the philosophical inquiry into the nature of truth and reality. -/- Reflecting on the One and the Multiple can also lead to a deeper understanding of the self and the cosmos. Just as the number one is integral to the existence of all other numbers, the individual self can be seen as a unique expression of the universal whole. Similarly, the cosmos can be viewed as a grand unity composed of a multiplicity of forms and phenomena. -/- Gödel’s incompleteness theorems have a fascinating connection to the philosophical concepts of the One and the Multiple. These theorems, which are pivotal in mathematical logic and philosophy of mathematics, articulate the inherent limitations of formal axiomatic systems, particularly those sufficient to express the arithmetic of natural numbers. -/- Gödel’s incompleteness theorems have a fascinating connection to the philosophical concepts of the One and the Multiple. These theorems, which are pivotal in mathematical logic and philosophy of mathematics, articulate the inherent limitations of formal axiomatic systems, particularly those sufficient to express the arithmetic of natural numbers⁴. -/- The **first incompleteness theorem** reveals that within any such consistent system, there are propositions that are true but cannot be proven within the system itself. This reflects the idea of the Multiple in that there is an abundance of mathematical truths, a multiplicity that exceeds the unifying framework of any one system. It suggests that the realm of mathematical truth is more extensive than any single formal system can fully capture. -/- The **second incompleteness theorem** extends this by showing that a system cannot prove its own consistency. This relates to the concept of the One, as it implies that a system’s complete self-understanding, its unity and coherence, is unattainable from within. It must look beyond itself, to an external vantage point, to ascertain its consistency. -/- In the context of the One and the Multiple, Gödel’s theorems imply that the One (a consistent formal system) is inherently incomplete and cannot encompass the Multiple (the totality of mathematical truths). This resonates with philosophical discussions about the relationship between unity and plurality. Just as a single philosophical system cannot capture the entirety of truth, a single formal mathematical system cannot encapsulate all mathematical truths. -/- Moreover, Gödel’s work suggests that the pursuit of a single, unified theory of everything in mathematics—a One that encompasses all Multiples—is an inherently Sisyphean task. There will always be more truths (Multiples) than can be derived from any given set of axioms (the One). -/- In essence, Gödel’s incompleteness theorems provide a formal underpinning to the philosophical notion that the One cannot exist without the Multiple, and vice versa. They are interdependent, with the One giving rise to the Multiple, and the Multiple necessitating the One for its expression and comprehension. This interplay is a dance of limitations and possibilities, where the boundaries of logic, mathematics, and philosophy blur into one another. -/- The relationship between the One and the Multiple in the context of the mathematics of zero is a deeply philosophical inquiry that bridges the abstract world of numbers with the existential questions of being and non-being. -/- Zero, in mathematics, is a symbol of absence, a representation of nothingness, yet it holds a pivotal position as a number. It is the void from which all things emerge and to which they return. In the philosophy of mathematics, zero is the paradoxical junction where the One and the Multiple converge and diverge. -/- From the perspective of the One, zero can be seen as the origin—the singular point that precedes the existence of numbers. It is the empty set, the foundation upon which the edifice of mathematics is constructed. As the identity element in addition, zero maintains the integrity of numbers, for adding zero to any number leaves it unchanged, reflecting the immutable nature of the One. -/- Conversely, when we consider the Multiple, zero represents the infinite potentiality of creation. It is the canvas upon which the integers, both positive and negative, express their multitude. Zero is the balance point, the fulcrum around which the symphony of numbers dances. It embodies the plurality of possibilities, the beginning of the number line that stretches infinitely in both directions. -/- Philosophically, zero challenges our understanding of existence. It is both something and nothing—a number that quantifies the absence of quantity. This duality echoes the philosophical struggle to comprehend how the One gives rise to the Multiple. How does the unity of being manifest the diversity of the cosmos? Zero offers a mathematical metaphor for this mystery, as it encapsulates the transition from non-existence to existence, from the undifferentiated One to the differentiated Multiple. -/- In the realm of set theory, zero corresponds to the empty set—a set with no elements. This set is unique in that it is the only set that contains nothing, yet it is the foundation upon which all other sets are built. The empty set is the mathematical embodiment of the One, and all other sets, containing multiple elements, arise from it. -/- Reflecting on zero in the context of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, we find a resonance with the idea that the One (a consistent formal system) cannot capture the entirety of the Multiple (the totality of mathematical truths). Zero, as the foundation of numbers, similarly suggests that from the nothingness of the One, the infinite complexity of the Multiple emerges—yet it can never be fully encompassed or expressed by any single system. -/- In conclusion, the mathematics of zero offers a profound reflection on the relationship between the One and the Multiple. It serves as a bridge between the abstract and the concrete, the known and the unknowable, challenging us to ponder the origins of existence and the nature of reality itself. -/- . (shrink)

As with so many mystics, Alexis karpouzos intuitively know the oneness of cosmic creation and historic humanity as part of all that is and all there isn't. So, the originality of Alexis Karpouzos thought is that it crosses the most diverse fields, the most opposing philosophies, to unite them into an often contradictory and broken whole. Marx and Heidegger, Nietzsche, Freud and Heraclitus, poets and political theorists all come together in the same distance and the same unusual proximity. (...) Alexis karpouzos use Pre-Socratics philosophy and generally the ancient Greek philosophy, as well as the pre-philosophical thinking of The Upanishads, the Vedas and Buddhism in India, of Lao Tzu, of Zen Buddhism and the Taoist tradition in China, of the Arab mystics and poets, with their metaphysical religiosity as the metaphysical basis for the interpretation and understanding of the world and existence. At the same time the ancient metaphysics is connect with Hegel’s dialectical ontology and with the modern thinking of Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Heidegger, and others as the interpretive context for understanding the central problems of the technical and scientific world during his time. Novalis, Hölderlin, Rimbaud, Whitman, Eliot and others show the dreamy nature of existence, the transcendence of the Cosmos, welcome the infinity. For Alexis karpouzos the combination of ancient and modern thought creates the holistic experience of universal space-time and the consciousness of the unity. The poetic thought of Alexis karpouzos is a expressions of soul's inner experiences, expression of universality. The inspiring visual images and the symbolic use of language offer a description of elevating experiences of consciousness, a glimpse of higher worlds. The philosophy of Alexis karpouzos speak to the human experience from a universal perspective, transcending all religions, cultural and national boundaries. Using vivid images and a direct language that speaks to the heart, his philosophy evokes a sense of deep communication with the collective unconscious, a sense of connection to all the creatures of the world, compassion for others, admiration for the beauty of nature, reverence for all life, and an abiding faith in the invisible touch of world. Alexis karpouzos thoughts are often terse and paradoxical, challenging us to to break out of the box of limiting beliefs and see things from a new perspective. Above all, Alexis karpouzos continually calls to us to wake up and explore the mysteries within our own selves, i.e the mysteries of universe. (shrink)

Corporations have often been taken to be the paradigm of an organization whose agency is autonomous from that of the successive waves of people who occupy the pattern of roles that define its structure, which licenses saying that the corporation has attitudes, interests, goals, and beliefs which are not those of the role occupants. In this essay, I sketch a deflationary account of agency-discourse about corporations. I identify institutional roles with a special type of status function, a status role, in (...) which the collectively accepted function is expressed in part through its occupier’s intentional expression of her agency in that role. I identify institutions as systems of status roles and show how this is compatible with seeing the agency of institutions generally, even over time periods in which there is complete change in role occupiers, as a matter of the contributions only of individual agents. I explain how the reduction of the institution to its members is compatible with its potentially having had a completely different membership. I show in the case of the corporation in particular that, once we see its origins and function, the surface features of legal discourse about corporate agency are misleading and are compatible with a deflationary account of corporate agency. I show in connection with this that the corporation is to be identified with its shareholders, and that where a corporation separates ownership and control, its managers and employees are proxy agents of the shareholders doing business under the corporate form. Finally, I canvass the legitimate ways of construing ordinary talk about corporate intention, belief, and so on, in light of this, none of which support the attribution of genuine agency or intentionality to any group per se associated with the corporation. (shrink)

Gödel's Philosophical Legacy Kurt Gödel's contributions to philosophy extend beyond his incompleteness theorems. He engaged deeply with the work of other philosophers, including Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl, and explored topics such as the nature of time, the structure of the universe, and the relationship between mathematics and reality. Gödel's philosophical writings, though less well-known than his mathematical work, offer rich insights into his views on the nature of existence, the limits of human knowledge, and the interplay between the finite (...) and the infinite. His work continues to inspire and challenge philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists, inviting them to explore the profound and often enigmatic questions at the heart of human understanding. -/- Kurt Gödel's Broader Contributions to Philosophy Kurt Gödel, while primarily known for his monumental incompleteness theorems, made significant contributions that extended beyond the realm of mathematical logic. His philosophical pursuits deeply engaged with the works of eminent philosophers like Immanuel Kant and Edmund Husserl. Gödel's explorations into the nature of time, the structure of the universe, and the relationship between mathematics and reality reveal a profound and multifaceted intellectual legacy. -/- Engagement with Immanuel Kant Gödel held a deep interest in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. He admired Kant's critical philosophy, particularly the distinction between the noumenal and phenomenal worlds. Kant posited that human experience is shaped by the mind’s inherent structures, leading to the conclusion that certain aspects of reality (the noumenal world) are fundamentally unknowable. Gödel’s incompleteness theorems echoed this Kantian theme, illustrating the limits of formal systems in capturing the totality of mathematical truth. Gödel believed that mathematical truths exis t independently of human thought, akin to Kant's noumenal realm. This philosophical alignment provided a robust foundation for Gödel's Platonism, which asserted the existence of mathematical objects as real, albeit abstract, entities. -/- Influence of Edmund Husserl Gödel was also profoundly influenced by Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. Husserl's phenomenology emphasizes the direct investigation and description of phenomena as consciously experienced, without preconceived theories about their causal explanation. Gödel saw Husserl's work as a pathway to bridge the gap between the abstract world of mathematics and concrete human experience. Husserl's ideas about the structures of consciousness and the intentionality of thought resonated with Gödel's views on mathematical intuition. Gödel believed that human minds could access mathematical truths through intuition, a concept that draws on Husserlian phenomenological methods. -/- The Nature of Time and the Universe Gödel's philosophical inquiries extended to the nature of time and the structure of the universe. His collaboration with Albert Einstein at the Institute for Advanced Study led to the development of the "Gödel metric" in 1949. This solution to Einstein's field equations of general relativity described a rotating universe where time travel to the past was theoretically possible. Gödel's model challenged conventional notions of time and causality, suggesting that the universe might have a more intricate structure than previously thought. Gödel's exploration of time was not just a mathematical curiosity but a profound philosophical statement about the nature of reality. He questioned whether time was an objective feature of the universe or a construct of human consciousness. His work hinted at a timeless realm of mathematical truths, aligning with his Platonist view. -/- Mathematics and Reality Gödel's philosophical outlook extended to the broader relationship between mathematics and reality. He believed that mathematics provided a more profound insight into the nature of reality than empirical science. For Gödel, mathematical truths were timeless and unchangeable, existing independently of human cognition. This perspective led Gödel to critique the materialist and mechanistic views that dominated 20th-century science and philosophy. He argued that a purely physicalist interpretation of the universe failed to account for the existence of abstract mathematical objects and the human capacity to understand them. Gödel's philosophy suggested a more integrated view of reality, where both physical and abstract realms coexist and inform each other. -/- Gödel's Exploration of Time Kurt Gödel, one of the most profound logicians of the 20th century, ventured beyond the confines of mathematical logic to explore the nature of time. His inquiries into the concept of time were not merely theoretical musings but were grounded in rigorous mathematical formulations. Gödel's exploration of time challenged conventional views and opened new avenues of thought in both physics and philosophy. -/- Gödel and Einstein Gödel’s interest in the nature of time was significantly influenced by his friendship with Albert Einstein. Both were faculty members at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where they engaged in deep discussions about the nature of reality, time, and space. Gödel's exploration of time culminated in his solution to Einstein's field equations of general relativity, known as the Gödel metric. -/- The Gödel Metric In 1949, Gödel presented a model of a rotating universe, which became known as the Gödel metric. This solution to the equations of general relativity depicted a universe where time travel to the past was theoretically possible. Gödel’s rotating universe contained closed timelike curves (CTCs), paths in spacetime that loop back on themselves, allowing for the possibility of traveling back in time. The Gödel metric posed a significant philosophical challenge to the conventional understanding of time. If time travel were possible, it would imply that time is not linear and absolute, as commonly perceived, but rather malleable and subject to the geometry of spacetime. This raised profound questions about causality, the nature of temporal succession, and the very structure of reality. -/- Philosophical Implications Gödel’s exploration of time extended beyond the mathematical implications to broader philosophical inquiries: Nature of Time: Gödel questioned whether time was an objective feature of the universe or a construct of human consciousness. His work suggested that our understanding of time as a linear progression from past to present to future might be an illusion, shaped by the limitations of human perception. -/- Causality and Free Will: The existence of closed timelike curves in Gödel’s model raised questions about causality and free will. If one could travel back in time, it would imply that future events could influence the past, potentially leading to paradoxes and challenging the notion of a deterministic universe. -/- Temporal Ontology: Gödel's work contributed to debates in temporal ontology, particularly the debate between presentism (the view that only the present exists) and eternalism (the view that past, present, and future all equally exist). Gödel’s rotating universe model seemed to support eternalism, suggesting a block universe where all points in time are equally real. Philosophy of Science: Gödel’s exploration of time had implications for the philosophy of science, particularly in the context of understanding the limits of scientific theories. His work underscored the importance of considering philosophical questions when developing scientific theories, as they shape our fundamental understanding of concepts like time and space. -/- Legacy Gödel’s exploration of time remains a significant and controversial contribution to both physics and philosophy. His work challenged established notions and encouraged deeper inquiries into the nature of reality. Gödel’s rotating universe model continues to be a topic of interest in theoretical physics and cosmology, inspiring new research into the nature of time and the possibility of time travel. In philosophy, Gödel’s inquiries into time have prompted ongoing debates about the nature of temporal reality, the relationship between mathematics and physical phenomena, and the limits of human understanding. His work exemplifies the intersection of mathematical rigor and philosophical inquiry, demonstrating the profound insights that can emerge from such an interdisciplinary approach. The Temporal Ontology of Kurt Gödel Kurt Gödel's profound contributions to mathematics and logic extend into the realm of temporal ontology—the philosophical study of the nature of time and its properties. Gödel's insights challenge conventional perceptions of time and suggest a more intricate, layered understanding of temporal reality. This essay explores Gödel's contributions to temporal ontology, particularly through his engagement with relativity and his philosophical reflections. -/- Gödel's Rotating Universe One of Gödel’s most notable contributions to temporal ontology comes from his work in cosmology, specifically his solution to Einstein’s field equations of general relativity, known as the Gödel metric. Introduced in 1949, the Gödel metric describes a rotating universe with closed timelike curves (CTCs). These curves imply that, in such a universe, time travel to the past is theoretically possible, presenting a significant challenge to conventional views of linear, unidirectional time. -/- Implica tions for Temporal Ontology Gödel's rotating universe model has profound implications for our understanding of time: Eternalism vs. Presentism: Gödel’s model supports the philosophical stance known as eternalism, which posits that past, present, and future events are equally real. In contrast to presentism, which holds that only the present moment exists, eternalism suggests a "block universe" where time is another dimension like space. Gödel’s rotating universe, with its CTCs, reinforces this view by demonstrating that all points in time could, in principle, be interconnected in a consistent manner. Non-linearity of Time: The possibility of closed timelike curves challenges the idea of time as a linear sequence of events. In Gödel’s universe, time is not merely a straight path from past to future but can loop back on itself, allowing for complex interactions between different temporal moments. This non-linearity has implications for our understanding of causality and the nature of temporal succession. Objective vs. Subjective Time: Gödel’s work invites reflection on the distinction between objective time (the time that exists independently of human perception) and subjective time (the time as experienced by individuals). His model suggests that our subjective experience of a linear flow of time may not correspond to the objective structure of the universe. This raises questions about the relationship between human consciousness and the underlying temporal reality. -/- Gödel and Philosophical Reflections on Time Gödel’s engagement with temporal ontology was not limited to his cosmological work. He also reflected deeply on philosophical questions about the nature of time and reality, drawing on the ideas of other philosophers and integrating them into his own thinking. Kantian Influences: Gödel was influenced by Immanuel Kant’s distinction between the noumenal world (things as they are in themselves) and the phenomenal world (things as they appear to human observers). Gödel’s views on time echoed this distinction, suggesting that our perception of time might be a phenomenon shaped by the limitations of human cognition, while the true nature of time (the noumenal aspect) might be far more complex and non-linear. Husserlian Phenomenology: Gödel’s interest in Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology also informed his views on time. Husserl’s emphasis on the structures of consciousness and the intentionality of thought resonated with Gödel’s belief in the importance of intuition in accessing mathematical truths. Gödel’s reflections on time incorporated a phenomenological perspective, considering how temporal experience is structured by human consciousness. Mathematical Platonism: Gödel’s Platonist views extended to his understanding of time. Just as he believed in the independent existence of mathematical objects, Gödel saw time as an objective entity with a structure that transcends human perception. His work on the Gödel metric can be seen as an attempt to uncover this objective structure, revealing the deeper realities that underlie our experience of time. (shrink)

21. yüzyılın üçüncü on yılının şafağında, insanlığın varlığı son derece tehlikeli hale geldi. Ormanlarımızı kesiyor, tatlı su akiferlerimizi tüketiyor ve hayati önem taşıyan topraklarımızı kaybediyoruz. Okyanuslarımızdaki yaşamı sıyırıp yerine yüz milyonlarca ton plastik atık koyuyoruz. Çevremizi toksik endüstriyel kimyasallarla dolduruyoruz. Kirliliğimiz, kıtalardaki yaşamın dokusunu parçalayan ısı dalgalarına, kuraklıklara ve vahşi yangınlara neden olan iklim değişikliğini tetikliyor. Ve dünyaya yeni nesiller getiriyoruz, onurlu bir varoluşun kaynaklarına erişmeye ihtiyaç duyan milyonlarca insan. Hayata yönelik tehditlerin kapsamı ve genişliği her geçen gün artmaktadır. Bu (...) sürdürülebilir bir kalkınma şekli değildir. -/- Hastalıklarımızın temel nedeni, yanlış bir düşünce tarzından kaynaklanır. Bu tam olarak ne anlama geliyor? bu, ruhsal doğamızı inkar ederken kendimizi esas olarak maddi varlıklar olarak düşündüğümüz anlamına gelir. Maddi varlıklar olarak var olduğumuzu ve başka bir şey olmadığını düşündüğümüz için öncelikle bedenlerimizi zararlardan korumaya ve maddi varlığımızı sürdürmeye önem veririz. Manevi doğamız, eğer hiç düşünülürse, fiziksel varlığımızın ikincil bir yönü olarak ele alınır - ciddiye alınmaması gereken bir şey. Bizim için önemli olan tek şey maddi dünyada ortaya çıkan fenomenlerdir - görülebilen, duyulabilen, dokunulabilen veya ölçülebilen şeyler, ancak duyularımızın bizi aldattığını biliyoruz, duyular beynin bir yapısıdır. . Gerçek bir dünya olarak kabul ettiğimiz şey bir yanılsamadır. Pozitivist ve materyalist düşüncenin tahakkümü mantıksızlığa ve yıkıma yol açar. -/- Peki bu yaklaşım bizi nereye götürdü? Bize bir mutluluk ve tatmin duygusu getirdi mi? Her günü neşeli bir işbirliği ruhu içinde, parlak umutlar ve mutlu beklentilerle dolu kalplerimizle yaşamak yerine, kendimizi diğerlerinden soyutladık ve onları rakip veya düşman olarak gördük. Düşüncelerimiz, sonsuz bir savaş, yoksulluk, açlık ve çevresel yıkım döngüsüne yol açan şüphe, korku ve açgözlülükle dolu. Yakında uyanmadıkça ve ruhsal doğamıza dikkat etmedikçe, Dünya'da insanlık için bir gelecek olmayacak. -/- Kelimeler hayattır. Kelimeler hafiftir. Kelimeler güçtür. Kelimeler enerjidir. Sözler gerçektir. Kelimeler canlandırabilir ve kelimeler de öldürebilir. Kelimeler umut verebilir veya bizi umutsuzluğa sürükleyebilir. İnsanlar barışı inşa etmek için kelimeleri, savaşmak için kelimeleri kullanırlar. Kelimeler kültürler, dinler ve milletler arasında duvarlar oluşturabilir. Ve kelimeler de köprüler kurabilir. Bir bireyin, bir ailenin, bir topluluğun, bir ülkenin ve gezegenimizin varlığı, konuştuğumuz kelimelerin gücüyle iyiye veya kötüye yönlendirilmektedir. Konuştuğumuz kelimeler bu dünyada olan her şeyden sorumludur. Bu nedenle, konuştuğumuz kelimelerden sorumlu olmalıyız. Gelecek nesiller adına, umarım her birimiz sadece parlak, ışık dolu sözler söylemek için elimizden gelen her şeyi yaparız, böylece bir gün torunlarımız ışıkla dolu bir dünyaya doğar. Kaybedecek vakit yok. Bu andan itibaren, umarım hepimiz kullandığımız kelimelere yakından bakar ve onları parlaklık ile doldurmak için sürekli çaba gösteririz. -/- Kimse bizim için hayatımızı değiştiremez. Kimse bizim için dünyayı değiştirmeyecek. Her birimizin, konuştuğumuz her kelimenin serbest bıraktığı olağanüstü, yaratıcı gücü tanımasının ve bilinçli olarak sadece şükran, teşvik ve iyi niyetle dolu kelimeleri konuşmanın zamanı geldi. Bu andan itibaren, kendimiz ve başkaları için sevgi ve bağışlama ile rezonansa giren kelimeleri seçelim. Sadece bir adım ileri gidersek bunu kesinlikle yapabiliriz. Her seferinde bir adım, her seferinde bir kelime, bilincimizdeki trajedi ve izolasyon tohumlarını söküp onları mutluluk ve uzlaşma dalgalarına dönüştürebiliriz. Kendimiz, Toprak Ana ve gelecek nesiller adına, insanlığın Dünya üzerindeki olumlu evrimine katkıda bulunan kelimeleri kullanalım. (shrink)

Wir leben in einem Universum, das aus vielen verschiedenen Perspektiven gesehen und erlebt werden kann. Deshalb müssen wir das Universum aus vielen verschiedenen Blickwinkeln betrachten. Alles und jeder ist eine Form des Universums, die sich auf eine bestimmte Weise ausdrückt. Mit anderen Worten, jeder von uns kann mit absoluter Gewissheit sagen: „Wir sind das Universum!“ Da wir das Universum sind, bietet jeder von uns eine wertvolle Perspektive, die die Beiträge aller und alles andere um uns herum ergänzt. Jeder von uns (...) ist das Universum, das sich an einem bestimmten Ort auf eine bestimmte Weise ausdrückt. Wir sind alle Teil desselben sich bewegenden und sich entwickelnden Kosmos, aber der Blick darauf ist von jedem unserer jeweiligen Standorte aus einzigartig. Dies deutet darauf hin, dass das Universum nicht nur omnizentrisch, sondern auch multiperspektivisch ist – dazu gibt es viele unterschiedliche und gleichermaßen gültige Sichtweisen. Jeder von uns ist ein kosmisches Labor, in dem wir die Geheimnisse des Universums entdecken können. Wir sprechen auf verschiedene Weise, wir sind alle das Universum, das sich seiner selbst auf seine eigene einzigartige Weise bewusst geworden ist. Die Einsicht, dass das Universum viele verschiedene Perspektiven hat und sowohl kosmisch als auch persönlich ist, hat ein großes transformatives Potenzial und ist es wert, tief darüber nachzudenken. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the most influential philosophers of the 20th century, made significant contributions to the philosophy of language. His work is often divided into two periods: early and later Wittgenstein. The concept of the logic of language is central to both, though his understanding of it evolved significantly over time. Wittgenstein's exploration of the logic of language fundamentally reshaped our understanding of how language relates to the world. His early work provided a foundation for logical positivism and analytic (...) philosophy, while his later work opened new avenues for understanding the complexities of human communication. Together, these contributions offer a rich and nuanced perspective on the nature of language, meaning, and human interaction. In his early work, the "Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus," Wittgenstein aimed to establish a clear relationship between language and reality. He believed that language mirrors the world through logical structures, which he referred to as "logical form." According to early Wittgenstein, the world consists of facts, not things, and language's primary function is to represent these facts. Wittgenstein’s "Philosophical Investigations" presents a radical shift from his earlier work and offers a deep and nuanced understanding of language and its role in human life. By focusing on the practical uses of language and the various contexts in which it operates, Wittgenstein dissolves many traditional philosophical problems and opens up new ways of thinking about meaning, communication, and the nature of reality. His work remains a cornerstone of contemporary philosophy and continues to inspire debate and exploration. (shrink)

Albert Camus, a French-Algerian writer and philosopher, is renowned for his unique contribution to the philosophical realm, particularly through his exploration of the Absurd. His philosophy is often associated with existentialism, despite his own rejection of the label. Camus’ works delve into the human condition and the search for meaning in a seemingly indifferent universe. The Absurd and the Search for Meaning At the heart of Camus’ philosophy is the concept of the Absurd, which arises from the conflict between the (...) human desire for significance, order, and clarity on one hand, and the silent, irrational, and indifferent world on the other1. This tension is a fundamental aspect of the human experience, as individuals continually seek purpose in life despite the universe’s lack of inherent meaning. Revolt as a Response to the Absurd Camus argues that the appropriate response to the Absurd is not suicide or despair, but rather revolt. This revolt is a persistent and courageous confrontation with the Absurd, and it involves a refusal to succumb to nihilism, a rejection of false hopes, and the continuous quest for meaning1. It is through this act of revolt that individuals affirm their own existence and derive a sense of personal freedom and identity. Camus’ Literary Expression of Philosophy Camus’ philosophical ideas are intricately woven into his literary works. Novels such as “The Stranger” (L’Étranger), “The Plague” (La Peste), and “The Fall” (La Chute) not only tell compelling stories but also serve as vehicles for his philosophical thought. In “The Myth of Sisyphus,” Camus uses the Greek mythological figure Sisyphus, condemned to eternally roll a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down, as a metaphor for the human condition. Sisyphus, aware of his futile task, chooses to embrace his labor, thus embodying the spirit of revolt and finding happiness in the struggle itself. -/- . (shrink)

En los albores de la tercera del siglo XXI, la existencia de la humanidad se ha vuelto sumamente peligrosa. Estamos talando nuestros bosques, agotando nuestros acuíferos de agua dulce y perdendo nuestros suelos superiores vitais. Estamos eliminando a vida de nuestros oceanos e reemplazándola com cientos de milhões de toneladas de desechos plásticos. Estamos inundando nosso ambiente com produtos químicos industriais tóxicos. Nuestra contaminação está impulsando a mudança climática que provoca olas de calor, sequías e incêndios florestais que destrozan o (...) tejido de la vida en los continentes. Y estamos trazendo novas gerações no mundo, milhões que requerem acesso aos recursos de uma existência digna. El alcance y la amplitud de las amenazas a la vida aumentarn día tras día. Este não é um modo sustentável de desarrollo. A causa raíz de nuestros machos fornece uma forma de pensar equivocada. ¿Que significa exatamente? significa que hemos estado pensando em nosotros mismos principalmente como seres materiais, mientras negamos nuestra naturaleza espiritual. Debido a que pensamos que existimos como seres materiais e nada mais, damos prioridade a proteger nuestros cuerpos del daño y prolongar nuestra existencia material. Nuestra naturaleza espiritual, si é que se considera em absoluto, se trata como um aspecto secundário de nuestro ser físico, algo que não deve ser tomado em serio. Para nós, as únicas cosas que importam são os fenômenos que aparecem no mundo material, como se pueden ver, oír, tocar o mediterrâneo, por saber que nuestros sentidos nos engañan, los sentidos son una construção del cerebro. Lo que consideramos um mundo real é uma ilusão. A dominação do pensamento positivista e materialista conduz à irracionalidade e à destruição. Pero, ¿adónde nos ha llevado este enfoque? ¿Nos ha traído una sensación de felicidad y plenitud? No lugar de viver cada dia com um espírito de cooperação alegre, con nuestros corazones llenos de brillante esperanza y feliz antecipación, nos hemos aislado Diferenos de los demás y verlos como rivales o inemigos. Nuestros pensamientos estão inundados de sospecha, miedo y codicia, lo que lleva a un ciclo interminável de guerra, pobreza, hambruna y destruição ambiental. A menos que despertemos pronto e prestemos atenção a nossa naturaleza espiritual, não há futuro para a humanidade na Terra. Las palabras son vida. As palavras da luz. Las palabras son poder. Las palavras son energía. Las palabras son verdad. Las palabras pueden animar y las palabras también pueden matar. Las palabras pueden dar esperanza ou hundirnos en la desesperación. La gente usa palabras para construir la paz y usa palabras para hacer la guerra. Las palabras pueden crear muros entre culturas, religiões e nações. Y las palabras también pueden construir puentes. La existencia de un individuo, una familia, una comunidad, un país y nuestro planeta está conduzindo al been ou al mal a través del poder de las palabras que hablamos. Las palabras que hablamos son responsables de todo lo que sucede neste mundo. Nosotros, por lo tanto, debemos ser responsables de las palabras que hablamos. Em nome das gerações futuras, espero que cada um de nosotros haga todo o possível para hablar solo palabras brilhantes y llenas de luz, para que um dia, nuestros descendentes nazcan en un mundo lleno de luz. No hay tiempo que perder. A partir deste momento, espero que todos echemos uma vista de cerca das palavras que hemos estado usando e hagamos esfuerzos constantes para llenarlas de brillo. Nadie va a cambiar nuestra vida por nosotros. Nadie va a cambiar el mundo por nosotros. É hora de cada um de nós reconhecer o prodigioso poder criativo que se desata em cada palavra que pronuncia, e de maneira consciente pronunciemos apenas palavras de gratidão, alienação e boa intenção. A partir deste momento, elijamos palabras que resuenen con amor y perdón para nosotros mismos y para los demás. Ciertamente podemos fazer se damos um passo solo adelante. Un paso a la vez, uma palavra a la vez, podemos arrancar de raíz os gérmenes de tragédia e aislamiento de nossa consciência e conversão em ondas de felicidade e conciliação. Por nosostros mismos, por la Madre Tierra y por el bien de las generaciones futuras, usemos palavras que contribuem para a evolução positiva de la humanidad en la Tierra. (shrink)

Wir wissen, dass eine Transformation von globalem Ausmaß bereits begonnen hat, und wir wissen, dass ihre Entfaltung nicht vorhersehbar ist. Wir können sicher sein, dass es eine Herausforderung sein wird: Wir werden inmitten tiefgreifender Veränderungen leben, unser Überleben wird ständig auf dem Spiel stehen. Werden wir das Verständnis, die Weisheit erreichen, um diese Herausforderung zu bestehen? Hier sind einige Gedanken und Überlegungen, die uns helfen, den Zustand zu erreichen, in dem wir eine positive Antwort geben können. -/- Zurückblicken, um nach (...) vorne zu sehen -/- Dies wird nicht das erste Mal in der Geschichte sein, dass für die Menschheit eine Periode der Transformation auf globaler Ebene angebrochen ist. Der Wissenschaftsphilosoph Holmes Rolston wies darauf hin, dass unsere „große Geschichte“ drei solcher Transformationen umfasst – wahre „Urknalle“.1 Die erste war der physische Urknall, der vermutlich vor etwa 13,8 Milliarden Jahren stattfand. Es gebar das manifeste Universum mit seinen Quantenteilchen, vielfältigen Arten von Energien und Milliarden von Galaxien. Es führte zur Bildung von Sonnensystemen mit Sonnen und Planeten und Energieflüssen, die die Entwicklung von lebenden (glücklich gelegenen) Planeten ermöglichen, die aktive Sonnen umkreisen. Eine weitere grundlegende Transformation – ein „zweiter Urknall“ – war die Entstehung lebender Organismen in den komplexen Systemen, die sich auf der Erde und vermutlich auch auf anderen Planeten entwickelt haben. Es wird angenommen, dass diese Transformation vor etwa 3,8 Milliarden Jahren stattgefunden hat. Es begann mit der Entstehung einzelliger Prokaryoten in der Ursuppe, die die Oberfläche des Planeten bedeckte. Der „dritte Urknall“ soll vor etwa 120.000 Jahren stattgefunden haben. Es hat das Bewusstsein unserer Spezies grundlegend verändert – „entwickelt“. Homo soll sapiens geworden sein. Zu den evolutionären Vorteilen des weiterentwickelten Bewusstseins gehörte eine flexiblere und schnellere Form der Kommunikation. Die Kommunikation war nicht mehr auf halbautomatische Reaktionen beschränkt, die durch wiederkehrende Bedingungen und Ereignisse ausgelöst wurden; Anstatt sich auf Zeichen zu beschränken, basierte die menschliche Kommunikation auf einvernehmlich entwickelten Symbolen. -/- Die Entwicklung der Symbolsprache war ein großer Sprung. Einerseits brachte es soziale Strukturen hervor, die auf kollektiv erworbener Bedeutung beruhten, und andererseits produzierte es verbesserte manipulative Fähigkeiten. Gesellschaften könnten sich auf der Grundlage gemeinsamer Kulturen entwickeln, die mächtige Technologien einsetzen. Homo sapiens begann andere Arten zu dominieren und wurde zu einem Schlüsselfaktor in der Evolution des Lebens in der Biosphäre. Der dritte Urknall erzeugte eine Explosion der menschlichen Bevölkerung, aber er brachte nicht die Weisheit hervor, die sicherstellen würde, dass die erweiterte Bevölkerung das Gleichgewicht aufrechterhalten könnte, das für das Gedeihen des Lebens auf diesem Planeten unerlässlich ist. Diese Gleichgewichte wurden immer mehr beeinträchtigt. Der kurzsichtige Einsatz von Technologie und die Missachtung natürlicher Kontrollmechanismen brachten die Menschheit dorthin, wo sie heute ist: an einen „Chaos-Punkt“, an dem die Wahl klar ist: zwischen Zusammenbruch und Durchbruch.2 Eine weitere globale Transformation ist unvermeidlich geworden und ist es noch tatsächlich im Gange: ein vierter Urknall. Es ist an der Zeit, die Lehren aus der Geschichte zu ziehen. Der Aufbau unserer Herrschaft auf dem Planeten hängt davon ab, ob wir die Herausforderung dieser Transformation meistern. -/- Die erste und grundlegende Lektion ist einfach und offensichtlich. Wir haben uns von der natürlichen Welt getrennt und müssen zurückkommen – nicht um Wilde und „Primitive“ zu werden, sondern Wesen, die auf die Welt um sie herum eingestimmt sind, die im Einklang mit den Rhythmen und Gleichgewichten der Natur leben und kompatibel erschaffen und nachhaltige eigene Rhythmen und Balancen. Wir sind nicht mehr auf die Rhythmen und Balancen der Natur ausgerichtet. Obwohl wir durch unsere biologische Evolution in diese Rhythmen und Balancen „eingebaut“ sind, haben wir unsere eigenen künstlichen Rhythmen und gefährlichen Balancen geschaffen, die die natürlichen Rhythmen ignorieren und oft mit ihnen in Konflikt stehen. Mit der Sonne aufzugehen und sich mit der Sonne zurückzuziehen bedeutet, sich an den zirkadianen 24-Stunden-Rhythmus anzupassen, der durch die Bewegung der Erde um die Sonne geschaffen wurde, und die sogenannten primitiven Menschen leben immer noch in Harmonie damit, und das tun die meisten auch die restlichen indigenen und traditionellen Kulturen. Aber moderne Menschen missachten die Rhythmen und Gleichgewichte der Natur und glauben, dass sie sie ersetzen können, indem sie Lichter und andere künstliche Annehmlichkeiten mit dem Umlegen eines Schalters ein- und ausschalten. Doch der menschliche Körper passt sich nicht den künstlichen Rhythmen an, und wir leiden unter den Folgen. -/- 3Die Wirksamkeit des Immunsystems ist beeinträchtigt, und trotz einer Flut von biochemischen Medikamenten breiten sich Krankheiten aus. Moderne Bevölkerungen sind Stadtbewohner und haben nur begrenzten Kontakt mit der Natur. Sie leben in einer künstlichen Welt und denken, dass es die reale Welt ist. Sie halten sich anderen Lebensformen überlegen und glauben, die Natur nach Belieben beherrschen zu können. Noch vor fünfzig Jahren musste die Tierintelligenzforscherin Jane Goodall gegen die damals noch vorherrschende Überzeugung ankämpfen, dass ChiMenschen sind biochemische Reiz-Reaktions-Mechanismen, keine lebenden und fühlenden Wesen. Heute erkennen wir, dass nicht nur höhere Säugetiere, alle lebenden Organismen und sogar Bäume und Pflanzen sensible Lebewesen sind und sich in dieser Hinsicht nicht grundlegend von uns unterscheiden. Es liegt im besten Interesse unseres körperlichen und geistigen Wohlbefindens, dass wir diese Missverständnisse und fehlerhaften Verhaltensweisen korrigieren. Wenn wir dies tun, gewinnen wir unsere natürliche Gesundheit und Vitalität zurück. Die heilende Wirkung natürlicher Substanzen und Lebensweisen war schon in der Antike Heilern und Weisen bekannt. Seit Hippokrates, der als Vater der modernen Medizin gilt, suchen Mediziner nach Substanzen und Methoden, die das Gleichgewicht und die Verbindung zwischen Mensch und Natur wiederherstellen. Heute wird dieser Anspruch überschattet von einer oft kommerziell motivierten Abhängigkeit von synthetischen Substanzen und naturverachtenden Praktiken. Die Szene ist nicht nur negativ: Wie wir sehen werden, gibt es positive Entwicklungen in allen Bereichen des menschlichen Strebens, einschließlich Heilung und Medizin. Die Verbindung mit der Natur ist ein Hauptziel der alternativen Heilmethoden, die als Informations- und Energiemedizin bekannt sind. Diese Form der Heilung erlebt in verschiedenen Teilen der Welt, vor allem im Orient, eine Renaissance. Shirin yoku, die japanische Kunst des Waldbadens, ist ein Paradebeispiel. Um es zu praktizieren, müssen wir in einen Wald gehen und uns auf seine Rhythmen und Energien eingestimmt fühlen – den Wind durch die Blätter rauschen hören, das Lichtspiel auf der Oberfläche eines Teichs spüren, mit den Wolken schweben, wenn sie sich durch den Himmel bewegen. Psychotherapeuten finden, dass sogar die Geräusche der Natur, das Zwitschern der Vögel, das Rauschen der Bäche heilend wirken. Einfach in einem Wald zu sein oder neben einem Baum zu stehen, beruhigt und heilt das Nervensystem. Eine weitere wesentliche Aufgabe ist es, positive Entwicklungen in der Gesellschaft zu erkennen und daran anzuknüpfen. -/- Es gibt positive Entwicklungen in der Gesellschaft, und es gibt gesunde, lebensspendende und erhaltende Prozesse in der Natur. Wir könnten wieder in die Natur eintauchen und an positiven Entwicklungen in der Gesellschaft teilhaben. Und doch gelingt uns das nicht. Wir beschreiten einen Weg, der eher zum Zusammenbruch als zum Durchbruch führt. Wir müssen überdenken, wie wir gehen, und vor allem, wohin wir gehen. Wir sind eine von mehr als hundert Millionen Arten in der Biosphäre, wobei jede Art Millionen und in einigen Fällen Milliarden von Individuen umfasst. Unter all diesen Arten und Individuen befinden wir uns in einer privilegierten Position: Wir haben ein hoch entwickeltes Gehirn und Bewusstsein. Dies ermöglicht uns zu fragen, wer wir sind, was die Welt ist und wie wir in der Welt leben können und sollen. Ein fortgeschrittenes Bewusstsein ist eine einzigartige Ressource, und wir machen keinen guten Gebrauch davon. Wir stellen nicht die richtigen Fragen und suchen nicht nach den richtigen Antworten, sondern gehen einfach vorwärts und vertrauen auf das Glück. Wir haben unsere Zahl erhöht, aber nicht die Vorteile, die unser Bewusstsein denen verleihen könnte, die wir in die Welt bringen. Wir haben ausgeklügelte Technologien entwickelt und angewendet, um unseren Bedürfnissen und Wünschen gerecht zu werden, haben aber die Mehrheit der fortgeschrittenen Arten beschädigt oder zum Aussterben gebracht. Fünfzig Prozent aller Wildtiere auf dem Planeten sind verschwunden, und jeden Tag verschwinden vierundvierzigtausend Populationen lebender Arten. Wir sind zu einer Gefahr für das Leben in der Biosphäre geworden. Die Geschichte lehrt uns, dass Urknalle, globale Transformationen, nicht unbedingt eine gerechte und blühende Welt hervorbringen; sie können zu einem Zusammenbruch führen. Wir haben die Schwelle eines vierten Urknalls erreicht, und wir tun nicht, was wir können, um einen Zusammenbruch abzuwenden. Der Großteil der heutigen Bevölkerung ist frustriert und depressiv und wird gewalttätig. Menschen leiden unter einer veränderten -/- über Klima, Umweltverschmutzung und unzählige Formen der Umweltzerstörung. Millionen durchstreifen den Planeten auf der Suche nach einem Ort, an dem sie nur überleben können. Die Lehren der Geschichte liegen vor uns, und wir ignorieren sie. Dennoch könnten wir die Lektionen lernen und unsere Wege korrigieren. Wir sind durchaus in der Lage, auf diesem Planeten zu leben, ohne das Gleichgewicht und die Ressourcen zu zerstören, die für ein gesundes Leben für uns und andere Arten erforderlich sind. Keine Spezies müsste dezimiert, unterworfen oder zum Aussterben getrieben werden, um uns am Leben zu erhalten. Wir könnten nachhaltig leben, mit anderen Arten koexistieren und die Grenzen des Lebens auf dem Planeten respektieren. Wir könnten die Verfügbarkeit lebenswichtiger Ressourcen für alle Menschen und Bevölkerungsgruppen sicherstellen. Dennoch treiben wir unzählige Arten zum Aussterben und schädigen die gemeinsame Umwelt. Die bloße Tatsache, dass wir es geschafft haben, als biologische Spezies fünf Millionen Jahre und als bewusste Spezies fünfzigtausend Jahre zu überleben, ist ein Beweis dafür, dass unsere grundlegende Natur nicht das Problem ist. Es ist nicht die Masse der menschlichen Bevölkerung, die dafür verantwortlich ist, zu einer Geißel des Lebens auf dem Planeten zu werden, sondern nur ein Teil. Die Frage ist, warum dieses Segment unhaltbare und jetzt kritische Bedingungen für geschaffen hat die höheren Formen des Lebens auf der Erde? Und kann es sich rechtzeitig ändern und transformieren, um eine große Katastrophe zu vermeiden? Theologische und mystische Annahmen wurden manchmal als Grund dafür angeführt, dass wir zu dem wurden, was wir sind, aber unser Verhalten göttlichen oder anderen transzendenten Ursachen zuzuschreiben, ist nicht die Antwort. Wir sind weder Engel noch Teufel. Wir wurden zur Geißel, zu der wir unbeabsichtigt geworden sind. Zu Beginn des Neolithikums begann ein Teil der Menschheit, die Ressourcen des Planeten ohne Rücksicht auf irgendetwas und irgendjemanden zu nutzen und sich nur darauf zu konzentrieren, seinen eigenen Komfort und seine eigene Macht zu verbessern. Auf einem endlichen und voneinander abhängigen Planeten führte dies zu unausgewogenen und unhaltbaren Bedingungen. Der egozentrische Umgang mit Ressourcen hat das Netz des Lebens beschädigt. Die menschliche Spezies wurde zu einer Bedrohung für alles Leben auf dem Planeten und auch für sich selbst: Die Gesundheit des Netzes des Lebens ist eine Vorbedingung für die Gesundheit der dort lebenden Spezies. Dies ist eine relativ junge Erkenntnis. Jahrtausendelang gingen die Menschen ihren Daseinsaufgaben nach, ohne sich bewusst zu sein, dass die unreflektierte Verfolgung ihrer eigenen Interessen um sie herum zum Fluch des Lebens wird. -/- Wir sind zu einem Fluch für das Leben auf diesem Planeten geworden; Wir haben die Welt zu einem Spielzeugladen gemacht, in dem wir die leistungsstarken Spielzeuge bauen, die unseren wahrgenommenen Interessen dienen. Wir spielen mit unseren Spielsachen unabhängig davon, ob sie wirklich unseren Bedürfnissen dienen, und ohne Rücksicht auf die Bedürfnisse anderer. Wir setzen die Energie des Atoms frei und nutzen sie, um Systeme anzutreiben, die unsere Bedürfnisse befriedigen. Wir leiten Elektronenströme in integrierte Schaltkreise und verwenden die Schaltkreise, um die Technologien zu beherrschen, die unseren Anforderungen an Kommunikation und Information dienen. Wir spielen im globalen Spielzeugladen ohne Rücksicht auf die Folgen für andere und für den gesamten Laden. Dies ist ein kurzsichtiges und gefährliches Verhalten. Wir greifen auf Energie auf eine Weise zu, die nicht unseren wirklichen Bedürfnissen dient, sondern nur unseren kurzfristigen, egozentrischen Bedürfnissen. Ähnlich kurzsichtig manipulieren wir Informationen. Beispiele dafür sind die Atombombe und das Atomkraftwerk auf der einen Seite und der Computer mit seinem Netzwerk aus globalem Geschwätz auf der anderen Seite. Atomkraft, selbst für friedliche Zwecke, und künstliche Intelligenz, selbst wenn sie gut gemeint ist, sind gefährliche Spielzeuge. Sie können zu technologischen Überschreitungen werden, die am Ende unser Leben und das gesamte Lebensnetz in der Biosphäre schädigen. Wir sind an sich gut, aber egozentrisch und kurzsichtig. Aber das kann nicht unwidersprochen bleiben. Die Zeit, in der wir naiv mit mächtigen Spielzeugen spielen konnten, ist vorbei. Ihre unvorhergesehenen „Nebenwirkungen“ sind zu einer Bedrohung für alles Leben auf dem Planeten geworden, einschließlich unseres eigenen. -/- Vorwärts gehen. -/- Wir sind an der Schwelle des vierten Urknalls angekommen. Was machen wir jetzt? Wenn wir gedeihen oder auch nur überleben wollen, muss sich unser Bewusstsein ändern. Gelingt dies nicht, wird der nächste Urknall unser letzter sein. Eine globale Transformation ist ein riskanter Prozess: Soll sie nicht zum Zusammenbruch, sondern zum Durchbruch führen, muss sie gesteuert werden. Wir können mit der bewussten Führung unserer Evolution beginnen, indem wir Gandhis Rat folgen: Sag anderen nicht, was sie tun sollen; Werde du selbst zu dem, was sie und die Welt werden sollen. Unsere wesentliche Aufgabe ist es, die Transformation der Welt zu werden. Wir müssen Ausdruck eines reifen und gesunden Lebens in der Biosphäre sein. Wenn diese kritische Masse erreicht wird, wird der „vierte Urknall“ nicht das Ende des Lebens auf dem Planeten markieren. Es wird eine disruptive globale Transformation sein, aber keine destruktive. Es wird eine neue Phase in der Amtszeit der Menschheit auf dem Planeten auslösen und nicht das Ende dieser Amtszeit. Es ist an der Zeit, die Lehren aus der Geschichte zu ziehen – zurückzublicken, um nach vorne zu sehen. Das Überleben einer fortgeschrittenen Spezies und die Zukunft des Lebensnetzes auf diesem Planeten liegt in unseren Händen. Noch nie waren so viele von der Weisheit so weniger abhängig. Wir müssen erwachen – um erwachsen zu werden. Die Kraft des Bewusstseins zu nutzen, die in unseren Händen liegt. Es ist nicht an der Zeit zu fragen, ob wir den vierten Urknall, die bereits begonnene globale Transformation, überstehen werden. Es ist an der Zeit, sich daran zu machen, es zu schaffen. (shrink)

En los albores de la tercera década del siglo XXI, la existencia de la humanidad se ha vuelto sumamente peligrosa. Estamos talando nuestros bosques, agotando nuestros acuíferos de agua dulce y perdiendo nuestros suelos superiores vitales. Estamos eliminando la vida de nuestros océanos y reemplazándola con cientos de millones de toneladas de desechos plásticos. Estamos inundando nuestro medio ambiente con productos químicos industriales tóxicos. Nuestra contaminación está impulsando el cambio climático que provoca olas de calor, sequías e incendios forestales que (...) destrozan el tejido de la vida en los continentes. Y estamos trayendo nuevas generaciones al mundo, millones que requieren acceso a los recursos de una existencia digna. El alcance y la amplitud de las amenazas a la vida aumentan día tras día. Este no es un modo sostenible de desarrollo. La causa raíz de nuestros males proviene de una forma de pensar equivocada. ¿Qué significa esto exactamente? significa que hemos estado pensando en nosotros mismos principalmente como seres materiales, mientras negamos nuestra naturaleza espiritual. Debido a que pensamos que existimos como seres materiales y nada más, damos prioridad a proteger nuestros cuerpos del daño y prolongar nuestra existencia material. Nuestra naturaleza espiritual, si es que se la considera en absoluto, se trata como un aspecto secundario de nuestro ser físico, algo que no debe tomarse en serio. Para nosotros, las únicas cosas que importan son los fenómenos que aparecen en el mundo material, cosas que se pueden ver, oír, tocar o medir, pero sabemos que nuestros sentidos nos engañan, los sentidos son una construcción del cerebro. Lo que consideramos un mundo real es una ilusión. La dominación del pensamiento positivista y materialista conduce a la irracionalidad y la destrucción. Pero, ¿adónde nos ha llevado este enfoque? ¿Nos ha traído una sensación de felicidad y plenitud? En lugar de vivir cada día con un espíritu de alegre cooperación, con nuestros corazones llenos de brillante esperanza y feliz anticipación, nos hemos aislado Preimpresión de Academia Letters.©2021 por el autor – Acceso abierto – Distribuido bajo CC BY 4.0 1 diferenciarnos de los demás y verlos como rivales o enemigos. Nuestros pensamientos están inundados de sospecha, miedo y codicia, lo que lleva a un ciclo interminable de guerra, pobreza, hambruna y destrucción ambiental. A menos que despertemos pronto y prestemos atención a nuestra naturaleza espiritual, no habrá futuro para la humanidad en la Tierra. Las palabras son vida. Las palabras son luz. Las palabras son poder. Las palabras son energía. Las palabras son verdad. Las palabras pueden animar y las palabras también pueden matar. Las palabras pueden dar esperanza o hundirnos en la desesperación. La gente usa palabras para construir la paz y usa palabras para hacer la guerra. Las palabras pueden crear muros entre culturas, religiones y naciones. Y las palabras también pueden construir puentes. La existencia de un individuo, una familia, una comunidad, un país y nuestro planeta está siendo conducida al bien o al mal a través del poder de las palabras que hablamos. Las palabras que hablamos son responsables de todo lo que sucede en este mundo. Nosotros, por lo tanto, debemos ser responsables de las palabras que hablamos. En nombre de las generaciones futuras, espero que cada uno de nosotros haga todo lo posible para hablar solo palabras brillantes y llenas de luz, para que un día, nuestros descendientes nazcan en un mundo lleno de luz. No hay tiempo que perder. A partir de este mismo momento, espero que todos echemos un vistazo de cerca a las palabras que hemos estado usando y hagamos esfuerzos constantes para llenarlas de brillo. Nadie va a cambiar nuestra vida por nosotros. Nadie va a cambiar el mundo por nosotros. Es hora de que cada uno de nosotros reconozca el prodigioso poder creativo que se desata en cada palabra que pronunciamos, y de manera consciente pronunciemos sólo palabras llenas de gratitud, aliento y buena intención. A partir de este momento, elijamos palabras que resuenen con amor y perdón para nosotros mismos y para los demás. Ciertamente podemos hacerlo si damos un solo paso adelante. Un paso a la vez, una palabra a la vez, podemos arrancar de raíz los gérmenes de tragedia y aislamiento de nuestra conciencia y convertirlos en ondas de felicidad y conciliación. Por nosotros mismos, por la Madre Tierra y por el bien de de las generaciones futuras, usemos palabras que contribuyan a la evolución positiva de la humanidad en la Tierra . (shrink)

À l'aube de la troisième décennie du XXIe siècle, l'existence de l'humanité est devenue hautement périlleuse. Nous abattons nos forêts, épuisons nos aquifères d'eau douce et perdons nos sols vitaux. Nous enlevons la vie de nos océans et la remplaçons par des centaines de millions de tonnes de déchets plastiques. Nous inondons notre environnement de produits chimiques industriels toxiques. Notre pollution est à l'origine du changement climatique qui provoque des vagues de chaleur, des sécheresses et des incendies de forêt qui (...) déchirent le tissu de la vie sur les continents. Et nous mettons au monde de nouvelles générations, des millions qui ont besoin d'accéder aux ressources d'une existence digne. La portée et l'ampleur des menaces à la vie augmentent jour après jour. Ce n'est pas un mode de développement durable. La cause profonde de nos maux provient d'une façon de penser erronée. Qu'est-ce que cela signifie exactement? cela signifie que nous nous considérons principalement comme des êtres matériels, tout en niant notre nature spirituelle. Parce quenous pensons que nous existons en tant qu'êtres matériels et rien de plus, nous accordons la importance à la protection de notre corps contre les dommages et à la prolongation de notre existence matérielle. Notre nature spirituelle, si elle est considérée du tout, est traitée comme un aspect secondaire de notre être physique, quelque chose à ne pas prendre au sérieux. Pour nous, les seules choses qui comptent sont les phénomènes qui apparaissent dans le monde matériel - des choses qui peuvent être vues, ou entendues, ou touchées, ou mesurées, mais nous savons que nos sens nous trompent, les sens sont une construction du cerveau . Ce que nous considérons comme un monde réel est une illusion. La domination de la pensée positiviste et matérialiste conduit à l'irrationalité et à la destruction. Mais où cette approche nous a-t-elle menés ? Cela nous a-t-il apporté un sentiment de bonheur et d'épanouissement ? Plutôt que de vivre chaque jour dans un esprit de coopération joyeuse, avec nos cœurs remplis d'espoir brillant et d'anticipation heureuse, nous avons isolé la -/- TRADUCTION 1 prépublication des Lettres académiques. nous démarquer des autres et les considérait comme des rivaux ou des ennemis. Nos pensées sont inondées de suspicion, de peur et de cupidité, conduisant à un cycle sans fin de guerre, de pauvreté, de famine et de destruction de l'environnement. À moins que nous ne nous réveillions bientôt et que nous ne prêtions attention à notre nature spirituelle, il n'y aura pas d'avenir pour l'humanité sur Terre. Les mots sont la vie. Les mots sont légers. Les mots sont le pouvoir. Les mots sont énergie. Les mots sont la vérité. Les mots peuvent animer et les mots peuvent aussi tuer. Les mots peuvent donner de l'espoir ou nous plonger dans le désespoir. Les gens utilisent des mots pour construire la paix et utilisent des mots pour faire la guerre. Les mots peuvent créer des murs entre les cultures, les religions et les nations. Et les mots peuvent aussi construire des ponts. L'existence d'un individu, d'une famille, d'une communauté, d'un pays et de notre planète est conduite au bien ou au mal par le pouvoir des mots que nous prononçons. Les mots que nous prononçons sont responsables de tout ce qui se passe dans ce monde. Nous devons donc être responsables des paroles que nous prononçons. Au nom des générations futures, j'espère que chacun de nous fera tout ce qui est en son pouvoir pour ne dire que des mots clairs et lumineux, afin qu'un jour, nos descendants naissent dans un monde rempli de lumière. Il n'y a pas de temps à perdre. À partir de ce moment précis, j'espère que nous examinerons tous de près les mots que nous avons utilisés et que nous ferons des efforts constants pour les remplir de luminosité. Personne ne changera nos vies à notre place. Personne ne changera le monde à notre place. Il est temps pour chacun de nous de reconnaître le pouvoir créatif prodigieux qui se dégage de chaque mot que nous prononçons et de ne prononcer consciemment que des mots remplis de gratitude, d'encouragement et de bonnes intentions. À partir de ce moment, choisissons des mots qui résonnent d'amour et de pardon pour nous-mêmes et pour les autres. Nous pouvons certainement le faire si nous ne faisons qu'un pas en avant. Un pas à la fois, un mot à la fois, nous pouvons déraciner les germes de la tragédie et de l'isolement dans notre conscience et les convertir en vagues de bonheur et de réconciliation. Pour nousmêmes, pour la Terre Mère et pour les générations futures, utilisons des mots qui contribuent à l'évolution positive de l'humanité sur Terre. (shrink)

The term 'covert mixed quotation' describes cases in which linguistic material is interpreted in the manner of mixed quotation — that is, used in addition to being mentioned — despite the superficial absence of any commonly recognized conventional devices indicating quotation. After developing a novel theory of mixed quotation, I show that positing covert mixed quotation allows us to give simple and unified treatments of a number of puzzling semantic phenomena, including the projective behavior of conventional implicature items embedded in (...) indirect speech reports and propositional attitude ascriptions, so-called 'c-monsters,' metalinguistic negation, metalinguistic negotiation, and 'in a sense' constructions. (shrink)

Recent third person approaches to thought experiments and conceptual analysis through the method of surveys are motivated by and motivate skepticism about the traditional first person method. I argue that such surveys give no good ground for skepticism, that they have some utility, but that they do not represent a fundamentally new way of doing philosophy, that they are liable to considerable methodological difficulties, and that they cannot be substituted for the first person method, since the a priori knowledge which (...) is our object in conceptual analysis can be acquired only from the first person standpoint. (shrink)

Quotation marks in natural language that do not function straightforwardly as devices for securing reference to linguistic objects have generally been categorized as instances of either mixed quotation or scare quotation. I argue that certain uses of quotation marks in natural language resist assimilation to either of these two theoretical categories, as well as to the more familiar categories of pure and direct quotation. It follows that we must recognize a novel type of quotation in natural language, which I call (...) dummy quotation because it involves the contribution of semantically minimal `dummy meanings' to composition. I develop a semantic theory of dummy quotation and show that it is better able than rival proposals to account for the troublesome examples in question. (shrink)

This chapter introduces psychologism as the thesis that social facts can explained in terms of more basic facts about individuals, their psychological states, their actions, their relations, and their environments. It argues psychologism should be our default stance toward social reality. It reviews psychologistic approaches to shared intention and how shared intentions can help explain conventions, status functions, and organizations. It provides a deflationary account of corporate attitudes. It argues that neither physical nor social externalism about thought content are incompatible (...) with psychologism. It argues that social construction views of the self that conflict with psychologism are implausible. Finally, it points out that it is no objection to psychologism that social facts can change without changes in psychological facts because this is compatible with psychologism as explained here. (shrink)

This paper gives an account of proxy agency in the context of collective action. It takes the case of a group announcing something by way of a spokesperson as an illustration. In proxy agency, it seems that one person or subgroup's doing something counts as or constitutes or is recognized as (tantamount to) another person or group's doing something. Proxy agency is pervasive in institutional action. It has been taken to be a straightforward counterexample to an appealing deflationary view of (...) collective action as a matter of all members of a group making a contribution to bringing about some event. I show that this is a mistake. I give a deflationary account of constitutive rules in terms of essentially collective action types. I then give an account of one form of constitutive agency in terms of constitutive rules. I next give an account of status functions—of which being a spokesperson is one—that also draws on the concept of a constitutive rule. I then show how these materials help us to see how proxy agency is an expression of the agency of all members of the group credited with doing something when the proxy acts. (shrink)

This chapter looks for “continuity and convergence” between Davidson’s and Wittgenstein’s work, identifies common themes and family resemblances, as well as disagreements, especially in the theory of meaning. I take up in turn: -/- (1) their shared rejection of the utility of an ontology of meanings; (2) a convergence on the idea that we must show rather than say what an expression means; (3) the similarities and differences between them on meaning as use and the sense in which rule following (...) is essential for meaning; (4) the publicity of language, first in connection with radical interpretation; and (5) then with Davidson’s later work on triangulation in securing objective thought. (shrink)

Let the label binary category terms refer to natural language expressions like ‘woman’, ‘man’, ‘female’, and ‘male’. Focusing on ‘woman’ and ‘female’, I develop a novel, empirically supported theory of the meanings of English binary category terms. Given plausible assumptions about the metaphysics of sex and gender, this gender-first theory predicts that the sentence ‘Trans women are women’ expresses a truth in all contexts and the sentence ‘Women are adult human females’ expresses a truth in most ordinary contexts — thus (...) that these two sentences can and usually do express logically consistent contents. The key feature of the proposed theory is that it treats both ‘woman’ and ‘female’ as sensitive to an individual’s gender when that individual belongs to a gendered category and to an individual’s sex otherwise. The existence and plausibility of a gender-first theory of this kind opens up conceptual room for trans-inclusive positions in the philosophy of sex and gender which endorse the claim that women are adult human females, thereby both accounting for trans women’s experiences of their bodies as female and helping to disarm the sentence ‘Women are adult human females’ as a trans-exclusionary slogan. (shrink)

Speakers assert in order to communicate information. It is natural, therefore, to hold that the content of an assertion is whatever information it communicates to its audience. In cases involving uncertainty about the semantic values of context-sensitive lexical items, moreover, it is natural to hold that the information an assertion communicates to its audience is whatever information audience members are in a position to recover from it by assuming that the proposition it semantically determines is true. This sort of picture (...) corresponds to an influential and widely endorsed theory of assertoric content: diagonalism. I begin by arguing that, despite its intuitive appeal, diagonalism should be rejected because it conflicts with our intuitive judgments about the circumstances in which the contents of speakers’ assertions would be true or false. I then show that the failure of diagonalism requires us to either abandon a familiar way of thinking about information and rational assertion or hold that the content of an assertion is not always the information it communicates. I suggest that we choose the latter horn of this dilemma — assertoric content is better characterized in terms of the commitments speakers undertake than in terms of the information they communicate. (shrink)

I defend social media’s potential to support Aristotelian virtue friendship against a variety of objections. I begin with Aristotle’s claim that the foundation of the best friendships is a shared life. Friends share the distinctively human and valuable components of their lives, especially reasoning together by sharing conversation and thoughts, and communal engagement in valued activities. Although some have charged that shared living is not possible between friends who interact through digital social media, I argue that social media preserves the (...) relevantly human and valuable portions of life, especially reasoning, play, and exchange of ideas. I then consider several criticisms of social media’s potential to host friendships, and refute or weaken the force of these objections, using this conception of a distinctively human shared life. I conclude that we should use the shared life to evaluate features of specific social media and norms for users’ conduct. (shrink)

Όλα τα έργα του Hesse θεμελιώνονται σε μια μεταφυσική αρχή, την αρχή της ενότητας ολόκληρου του σύμπαντος που διατρέχει όλα τα έργα του, τα οποία είναι αφιερωμένα στην αναζήτηση του ιερού «εγώ» που βρίσκεται σε κάθε άτομο από τη γέννηση, με άλλα λόγια διερευνά την ανθρώπινη συμμετοχή στην Υπερβατικότητα του Θείου. Τα μονοπάτια των ηρώων του οδηγούν στον Θεό, που για αυτόν είναι υπερβατική και Αόρατη Αρχή και οποίος ζει σε όλα, το Θείο συστατικό είναι τα πάντα και το τίποτα. (...) Ο καθένας στον κόσμο μας αποκαλύπτει τη Θεία ενότητα μέσω της ποικιλομορφίας της ζωής Ο Θεός, σύμφωνα με τον Hesse, είναι η Θεία ουσία μέσα μας, που σήμαινε για τον Hesse το μέτρο της ανάμειξης ενός ατόμου στο ιερό «εγώ», που είναι κρυμμένο στην ψυχή του καθενός. Αυτό είναι το υψηλότερο, υπερ-προσωπικό «εγώ», στραμμένο προς τον Θεό, την Ενότητα του Παντός, γιατί η σωτηρία του «εγώ» του ατόμου βρίσκεται στη μεταφυσική επανένωση, την ενοποίηση με τον Θεό, που είναι η ουσία όλων των μυστικιστικών θρησκειών, τόσο της Ανατολής όσο και της Δύσης. (shrink)

This chapter investigates the Institutional Distribution Question for backwards-looking collective moral responsibility for institutional action, namely, the question how blame is to be distributed over members of an institution in virtue of its being collectively to blame for some harm. The distribution of blame over members of an institution for harms that the institution brings about must take into account the different institutional roles of its members. This is the primary difference between the question of distribution of responsibilities in unorganized (...) groups and in institutional groups. A central goal of this chapter is to say how and why this makes a difference. The two central organizing ideas will be that of a role that is a responsibility magnet, that is, one which attracts individual responsibility for blameworthy institutional action and that of a role which is, at least in certain respects, a responsibility shelter. In a responsibility shelter, the occupier of the role is at least provisionally innocent of blame for institutional action that is itself blameworthy, even when the agent in the role makes a contribution to it. What roles are magnets or shelters can be sensitive to the context and type of action the institution undertakes. The central theoretical tool in determining what roles are magnets and what roles are shelters is how collectively accepted proxy agent roles structure trust and responsibility burdens in an institution. (shrink)

Inchul Yum (2024) argues that the widespread adoption of language agent architectures would likely increase the risk posed by AI by simplifying the process of aligning artificial systems with human values and thereby making it easier for malicious actors to use them to cause a variety of harms. Yum takes this to be an example of a broader phenomenon: progress on the alignment problem is likely to be net safety-negative because it makes artificial systems easier for malicious actors to control. (...) I offer some reasons for skepticism about this surprising and pessimistic conclusion. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of the logical form of plural action sentences that shows that collective actions so ascribed are a matter of all members of a group contributing to bringing some event about. It then uses this as the basis for a reductive account of the content of we-intentions according to which what distinguishes we-intentions from I-intentions is that we-intentions are directed about bringing it about that members of a group act in accordance with a shared plan.

I address a criticism of the use of thought experiments in conceptual analysis advanced on the basis of the survey method of so-called experimental philosophy. The criticism holds that surveys show that intuitions are relative to cultures in a way that undermines the claim that intuition-based investigation yields any objective answer to philosophical questions. The crucial question is what intuitions are as philosophers have been interested in them. To answer this question we look at the role of intuitions in philosophical (...) inquiry. When we have done this, we can see that it is impossible for intuitions properly understood to be relative in the way that has been suggested as they are conceived of as expressions of competence in the concepts deployed in their contents. The remaining methodological issues, though not to be dismissed, present no in principle objection to the method of thought experiments. (shrink)

This chapter argues that Davidson's truth-theoretic semantics was not intended to replace the traditional pursuit of providing a compositional meaning theory but rather to achieve the same aim indirectly by placing conditions on a truth theory that would enable someone who understood it to understand its object language. The chapter argues that by placing constraints on the axioms of a Tarski-style truth theory, namely, that they interpret the terms for which they give satisfaction conditions, and specifying a suitable canonical proof (...) procedure that issues in T-sentence that remove all the metalanguage semantic terms from the right hand side and draw intuitively only on the content of the axioms, we can use the theory to interpret object language sentences. It further argues that if we ask what body of knowledge one must be in possession of to interpret the language, it turns out to be a set of propositions about the truth theory but not the axioms of the truth theory itself. This shows how to avoid the problem of the semantic paradoxes and the problem of vagueness. (shrink)

(1) Content properties are nonrelational, that is, having a content property does not entail the existence of any contingent object not identical with the thinker or a part of the thinker.2 (2) We have noninferential knowledge of our conscious thoughts, that is, for any of our..

Digital records, from chat transcripts to social media posts, are being used to create chatbots that recreate the conversational style of deceased individuals. Some maintain that this is merely a new form of digital memorial, while others argue that they pose a variety of moral hazards. To resolve this, I turn to classical Chinese philosophy to make use of a debate over the ethics of funerals and mourning. This ancient argument includes much of interest for the contemporary issue at hand, (...) including the use of impersonators of the dead to help the bereaved to deal well with their grief. I connect this historical discussion with a modern trend in clinical psychology that reframes therapeutic interventions with bereaved individuals. The trend directs practitioners away from facilitating detachment and toward affirming continuing bonds. I conclude that these chatbots can offer an important source of support to mourners, but also discuss parameters and features of social context that will be important to avoid the moral hazards identified by sceptics. (shrink)

Assertoric sentences are sentences which admit of truth or falsity. Non-assertoric sentences, imperatives and interrogatives, have long been a source of difficulty for the view that a theory of truth for a natural language can serve as the core of a theory of meaning. The trouble for truth-theoretic semantics posed by non-assertoric sentences is that, prima facie, it does not make sense to say that imperatives, such as 'Cut your hair', or interrogatives such as 'What time is it?', are truth (...) or false. Thus, the vehicle for giving the meaning of a sentence by using an interpretive truth theory, the T-sentence, is apparently unavailable for non-assertoric sentences. This paper shows how to incorporate non-assertoric sentences into a theory of meaning that gives central place to an interpretive truth theory for the language, without, however, reducing the non-assertorics to assertorics, or treating their utterances as semantically equivalent to one or more utterances of assertoric sentences. Four proposals for how to incorporate non-assertoric sentences into a broadly truth-theoretic semantics are reviewed. The proposals fall into two classes, those that attempt to explain the meaning of non-assertoric sentences solely by appeal to truth conditions, and those that attempt to explain the meaning of non-assertroic sentences by appeal to compliance conditions, which can be treated as one variety of fulfillment conditions for sentences of which truth conditions are another variety. The paper argues that none of the extant approaches is successful, but develops a version of the generalized fulfillment approach which avoids the difficulties of previous approaches and still exhibits a truth theory as the central component of a compositional meaning theory for all sentences of natural language. (shrink)

This paper clarifies Searle's account of we-intentions and then argues that it is subject to counterexamples, some of which are derived from examples Searle uses against other accounts. It then offers an alternative reductive account that is not subject to the counterexamples.

What is the ontology of collective action? I have in mind three connected questions. 1. Do the truth conditions of action sentences about groups require there to be group agents over and above individual agents? 2. Is there a difference, in this connection, between action sentences about informal groups that use plural noun phrases, such as ‘We pushed the car’ and ‘The women left the party early’, and action sentences about formal or institutional groups that use singular noun phrases, such (...) as ‘The United States declared war on Japan on December 8th, 1941’ and ‘The Supreme Court ruled that segregation is unconstitutional in 1954 in Brown vs. Board of Education’? 3. Under what conditions does it make sense to speak of a group doing something together, and what, if anything, is a collective action? In this paper, I argue that a) understanding action sentences about groups does not commit us to the existence of group agents per se, but only to the existence of individual agents; b) there is no difference in this regard between sentences which attribute actions to informal groups on the one hand and institutional groups on the other; c) collective action can be both intentional and unintentional; d) any random group of agents each of whom does something is also a group which does something together; e) while there is a sense in which groups per se perform no primitive collective actions, and therefore no actions at all, f) there is a sensible extension of talk of actions to groups, though it should be treated strictly speaking, like talk of group agents, as a façon de parler, for g) the only agents per se are individuals and the only actions are theirs. -/-. (shrink)

This article begins by distinguishing force and mood. Then it lays out desiderata on a successful account. It sketches as background the program of truth-theoretic semantics. Next, it surveys assimilation approaches and argues that they are inadequate. Then it shows how the fulfillment-conditional approach can be applied to imperatives, interrogatives, molecular sentences containing them, and quantification into mood markers. Next, it considers briefly the recent set of propositions approach to the semantics of interrogatives and exclamatives. Finally, it shows how to (...) integrate exclamatives and optatives into a framework similar to the fulfillment approach. (shrink)

The status and functioning of shame is contested in moral psychology. In much of anglophone philosophy and psychology, it is presumed to be largely destructive, while in Confucian philosophy and many East Asian communities, it is positively associated with moral development. Recent work in human-robot interaction offers a unique opportunity to investigate how shame functions while controlling for confounding variables of interpersonal interaction. One research program suggests a Confucian strategy for using robots to rebuke participants, but results from experiments with (...) educational technologies imply a different and potentially opposing account of shame’s role in personal development. By digging deeper into the details of Confucian theorizing about shame, I identify a unifying explanation for these apparently conflicting results. I conclude by offering suggestions for future empirical research in human-robot interactions to further investigate shame’s role in moral development. (shrink)

Must the best friends necessarily be good people? On the one hand, as Aristotle puts it, ‘people think that the same people are good and also friends’. But on the other hand, friendship sometimes seems to require that one behave badly. For example, a normally honest person might lie to corroborate a friend's story. What I will call closeness, which I take to include sensitivity to friends' subjective values and concerns as well as an inclination to take their subjective interests (...) as reasons for action, is characteristic of friendship. But this seems to require that good friends should be morally flexible, more so than is compatible with a virtuous character. This would imply tension between ideals of friendship and ideals of character. But there is an important connection between virtue and friendship which arises precisely from friends' closeness, when concern for wellbeing, another important feature of friendship, is also taken into account. This helps mitigate the tension and shows how friendship and virtue are interconnected. The connection in turn provides friendship-based reason to think the best friends must be good people, even though concerns of friendship may occasionally clash with other moral concerns. (shrink)

In this paper, we outline an approach to giving extensional truth-theoretic semantics for what have traditionally been seen as opaque sentential contexts. We outline an approach to providing a compositional truth-theoretic semantics for opaque contexts which does not require quantifying over intensional entities of any kind, and meets standard objections to such accounts. The account we present aims to meet the following desiderata on a semantic theory T for opaque contexts: (D1) T can be formulated in a first-order extensional language; (...) (D2) T does not require quantification over intensional entities­i.e., meanings, propositions, properties, relations, or the like­in its treatment of opaque contexts; (D3) T captures the entailment relations that hold in virtue of form between sentences in the language for which it is a theory; (D4) T has a finite number of axioms. If the approach outlined here is correct, it resolves a longstanding complex of problems in metaphysics, the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language. (shrink)

Under what conditions would an artificially intelligent system have wellbeing? Despite its clear bearing on the ethics of human interactions with artificial systems, this question has received little direct attention. Because all major theories of wellbeing hold that an individual’s welfare level is partially determined by their mental life, we begin by considering whether artificial systems have mental states. We show that a wide range of theories of mental states, when combined with leading theories of wellbeing, predict that certain existing (...) artificial systems have wellbeing. Along the way, we argue that there are good reasons to believe that artificial systems can have wellbeing even if they are not phenomenally conscious. While we do not claim to demonstrate conclusively that AI systems have wellbeing, we argue that there is a significant probability that some AI systems have or will soon have wellbeing, and that this should lead us to reassess our relationship with the intelligent systems we create. (shrink)

How are we able to perceive the world veridically? If we ask this question as a part of the scientific investigation of perception, then we are not asking for a transcendental guarantee that our perceptions are by and large veridical; we presuppose that they are. Unless we assumed that we perceived the world for the most part veridically, we would not be in a position to investigate our perceptual abilities empirically. We are interested, then, not in how it is possible (...) in general for us to perceive the world veridically, but instead in what the relation is between our environment and its properties, of which we have knowledge, on the one hand, and our perceptual mechanisms, on the other, that results in very many, even most of our perceptions being veridical in everyday life. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that existing artificial systems are not phenomenally conscious, and that the construction of phenomenally conscious artificial systems would require significant technological progress if it is possible at all. We challenge this assumption by arguing that if Global Workspace Theory (GWT) — a leading scientific theory of phenomenal consciousness — is correct, then instances of one widely implemented AI architecture, the artificial language agent, might easily be made phenomenally conscious if they are not already. Along the way, (...) we articulate an explicit methodology for thinking about how to apply scientific theories of consciousness to artificial systems and employ this methodology to arrive at a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for phenomenal consciousness according to GWT. (shrink)

Feminized AIs designed for in-home verbal assistance are often subjected to gendered verbal abuse by their users. I survey a variety of features contributing to this phenomenon—from financial incentives for businesses to build products likely to provoke gendered abuse, to the impact of such behavior on household members—and identify a potential worry for attempts to criticize the phenomenon; while critics may be tempted to argue that engaging in gendered abuse of AI increases the chances that one will direct this abuse (...) toward human beings, the recent history of attempts to connect video game violence to real-world aggression suggests that things may not be so simple. I turn to Confucian discussions of the role of ritualized social interactions both to better understand the roots of the problem and to investigate potential strategies for improvement, given a complex interplay between designers and device users. I argue that designers must grapple with the entrenched sexism in our society, at the expense of “smooth” and “seamless” user interfaces, in order to intentionally disrupt entrenched but harmful patterns of interaction, but that doing so is both consistent with and recommended by Confucian accounts of social rituals. (shrink)

The Abrahamic faiths of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are typically recognized as the world’s major monotheistic religions. However, African Traditional Religion is, despite often including lesser spirits and gods, a monotheistic religion with numerous adherents in sub-Saharan Africa; it includes the idea of a single most powerful God responsible for the creation and sustenance of everything else. This Element focuses on drawing attention to this major world religion that has been much neglected by scholars around the globe, particularly those working (...) in the West or Northern Hemisphere. It accomplishes this primarily by bringing it into conversation with topics in the Anglo-American philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The main thesis of this paper is that, whereas an intention simpliciter is a commitment to a plan of action, a conditional intention is a commitment to a contingency plan, a commitment about what to do upon (learning of) a certain contingency relevant to one’s interests obtaining. In unconditional intending, our commitment to acting is not contingent on finding out that some condition obtains. In conditional intending, we intend to undertake an action on some condition, impinging on our interests, which (...) is as yet unsettled for us, but about which we can find out without undue cost. (shrink)

Donald Davidson has argued that attention to the necessarily public character of language shows that we cannot be massively mistaken about the world around us, and that consequently skeptical doubts about empirical knowledge are misplaced. The arguments Davidson advances rely on taking as the fundamental methodological standpoint for investigating meaning and related concepts the standpoint of the interpreter of another speaker, on the grounds that it is from the interpreter’s standpoint that we discover what constraints are placed on meaning by (...) the public character of language. In this paper, I argue that although Davidson’s arguments reveal important conceptual connections between meaning and belief on the one hand, and truth and interpretation on the other, they do not show that it is impossible that we are massively mistaken about the external world. (shrink)

A sorites argument is a symptom of the vagueness of the predicate with which it is constructed. A vague predicate admits of at least one dimension of variation (and typically more than one) in its intended range along which we are at a loss when to say the predicate ceases to apply, though we start out confident that it does. It is this feature of them that the sorites arguments exploit. Exactly how is part of the subject of this paper. (...) The majority of philosophers writing on vagueness take it to be a kind of semantic phenomenon. If we are right, they are correct in this assumption, which is surely the default position, but they have not so far provided a satisfactory account of the implications of this or a satisfactory diagnosis of the sorites arguments. Other philosophers have urged more exotic responses, which range from the view that the fault lies not in our language, but in the world, which they propose to be populated with vague objects which our semantics precisely reflects, to the view that the world and language are both perfectly in order, but that the fault lies with our knowledge of the properties of the words we use (epistemicism). In contrast to the exotica to which some philosophers have found themselves driven in an attempt to respond to the sorites puzzles, we undertake a defense of the commonsense view that vague terms are semantically vague. Our strategy is to take fresh look at the phenomenon of vagueness. Rather than attempting to adjudicate between different extant theories, we begin with certain pre-theoretic intuitions about vague terms, and a default position on classical logic. The aim is to see whether (i) a natural story can be told which will explain the vagueness phenomenon and the puzzling nature of soritical arguments, and, in the course of this, to see whether (ii) there arises any compelling pressure to give up the natural stance. We conclude that there is a simple and natural story to be told, and we tell it, and that there is no good reason to abandon our intuitively compelling starting point. The importance of the strategy lies in its dialectical structure. Not all positions on vagueness are on a par. Some are so incredible that even their defenders think of them as positions of last resort, positions to which we must be driven by the power of philosophical argument. We aim to show that there is no pressure to adopt these incredible positions, obviating the need to respond to them directly. If we are right, semantic vagueness is neither surprising, nor threatening. It provides no reason to suppose that the logic of natural languages is not classical or to give up any independently plausible principle of bivalence. Properly understood, it provides us with a satisfying diagnosis of the sorites argumentation. It would be rash to claim to have any completely novel view about a topic so well worked as vagueness. But we believe that the subject, though ancient, still retains its power to inform and challenge us. In particular, we will argue that taking seriously the central phenomenon of predicate vagueness—the “boundarylessness” of vague predicates—on the commonsense assumption that vagueness is semantic, leads ineluctably to the view that no sentences containing vague expressions (henceforth ‘vague sentences’) are truth-evaluable. This runs counter to much of the literature on vagueness, which commonly assumes that, though some applications of vague predicates to objects fail to be truth-evaluable, in clear positive and negative cases vague sentences are unproblematically true or false. It is clarity on this, and related points, that removes the puzzles associated with vagueness, and helps us to a satisfying diagnosis of why the sorites arguments both seem compelling and yet so obviously a bit of trickery. We give a proof that semantically vague predicates neither apply nor fail-to-apply to anything, and that consequently it is a mistake to diagnose sorites arguments, as is commonly done, by attempting to locate in them a false premise. Sorites arguments are not sound, but not unsound either. We offer an explanation of their appeal, and defend our position against a variety of worries that might arise about it. The plan of the paper is as follows. We first introduce an important distinction in terms of which we characterize what has gone wrong with vague predicates. We characterize what we believe to be our natural starting point in thinking about the phenomenon of vagueness, from which only a powerful argument should move us, and then trace out the consequences of accepting this starting point. We consider the charge that among the consequences of semantic vagueness are that we must give up classical logic and the principle of bivalence, which has figured prominently in arguments for epistemicism. We argue there are no such consequences of our view: neither the view that the logic of natural languages is classical, nor any plausible principle of bivalence, need be given up. Next, we offer a diagnosis of what has gone wrong in sorites arguments on the basis of our account. We then present an argument to show that our account must be accepted on pain of embracing (in one way or another) the epistemic view of “vagueness”, i.e., of denying that there are any semantically vague terms at all. Next, we discuss some worries that may arise about the intelligibility of our linguistic practices if our account is correct. We argue none of these worries should force us from our intuitive starting point. Finally, we cast a quick glance at other forms of semantic incompleteness. (shrink)

This article discusses the logical form of action sentences with particular attention to the role of adverbial modification, reviewing and extending the event analysis of action sentences.