The Buddhist Nikāya Suttas frequently mention the concept of fear (bhaya) and related synonyms. This concept does not receive much scholarly attention by subsequent Buddhist philosophers. Recent scholars identify a ‘paradox of fear’ in several traditions of classical Indian Buddhism (Brekke 1999, Finnigan 2019, Giustarini 2012). Each scholar points out, in their respective textual contexts, that fear is evaluated in two ways; one positive and the other negative. Brekke calls this the “double role” of fear (1999: 443). Each also identify (...) fear as purposely elicited to motivate acts aimed at achieving fearlessness, where freedom from fear is characteristic of nibbāna. They all find this puzzling. Finnigan asks: “Why would one purposefully incite fear if one’s goal is its elimination?” (2019: 221). Giustarini says that fear has a “contradictory nature” (2012: 513); Brekke calls it “the paradox of fear” (1999: 442). This article introduces the ‘paradox of fear’ as it appears in the Bodhicaryāvatāra of Śāntideva and the Nikāya suttas. It then critically examines Brekke and Giustarini’s proposed solutions. It argues that they get some things right in ways that are both supported by the Nikāyas and relevant to Śāntideva but that they leave some important questions unanswered. The article contends that these questions are best answered if fear is analysed as appropriate when its objects are related to karma and rebirth. (shrink)

This article derives from the Buddhist Nikāya Suttas the idea that fear has an intentional object that is best analysed in anticipatory terms. Something is feared, I argue, if construed as dangerous, where to construe something as dangerous is to anticipate it will cause certain unwanted effects. To help explain what this means, I appeal to the concept of formal objects in the philosophy of emotions and to predictive processing accounts of perception. I demonstrate how this analysis of fear can (...) do exegetical work in the context of the Nikāya Suttas, and respond to philosophical issues concerning the relation between the intentional and anticipatory dimensions of fear; the relevant anticipated effects of feared objects; and whether fearing subjects necessarily know they anticipate unwanted effects. I also draw an analogy to allostatic sensations to engage issues concering how the anticipatory dimension of fear relates to the motivational. (shrink)

This chapter provides a Buddhist response to Olla Solomyak's (forthcoming) account of the afterlife from the perspective of Hasidic Judaism.

What should the Buddhist attitude be to rebirth if it is believed to be inconsistent with current science? This chapter critically engages forms of Buddhist agnosticism that adopt a position of uncertainty about rebirth but nevertheless recommend ‘behaving as if’ it were true. What does it mean to behave as if rebirth were true, and are Buddhist agnostics justified in adopting this position? This chapter engages this question in dialogue with Mark Siderits’ reductionist analysis of the Buddhist doctrine of the (...) two truths, conventional and ultimate. Richard Hayes (1998) characterises talk of rebirth as a useful fiction. Siderits characterises talk of persons as a useful fiction and explains and justifies statements that involve it as conventionally true despite persons not featuring in our final or ultimate ontology. Does rebirth satisfy the same criteria to count as conventionally true, and does thinking of it in these terms help explain and justify what it might mean to behave as if rebirth were true? This chapter will defend a conditional yes to these questions. In the process, it will clarify what is distinctive about the traditional Buddhist approach to rebirth, provide an analysis of how the concept of rebirth might relate to practical outcomes, and address some limitations of this approach. (shrink)

The Buddha taught that there is no self. He also accepted a version of the doctrine of karmic rebirth, according to which good and bad actions accrue merit and demerit respectively and where this determines the nature of the agent’s next life and explains some of the beneficial or harmful occurrences in that life. But how is karmic rebirth possible if there are no selves? If there are no selves, it would seem there are no agents that could be held (...) morally responsible for ‘their’ actions. If actions are those happenings in the world performed by agents, it would seem there are no actions. And if there are no agents and no actions, then morality and the notion of karmic retribution would seem to lose application. Historical opponents argued that the Buddha's teaching of no self was tantamount to moral nihilism. The Buddha, and later Buddhist philosophers, firmly reject this charge. The relevant philosophical issues span a vast intellectual terrain and inspired centuries of philosophical reflection and debate. This article will contextualise and survey some of the historical and contemporary debates relevant to moral psychology and Buddhist ethics. They include whether the Buddha's teaching of no-self is consistent with the possibility of moral responsibility; the role of retributivism in Buddhist thought; the possibility of a Buddhist account of free will; the scope and viability of recent attempts to naturalise karma to character virtues and vices, and whether and how right action is to be understood within a Buddhist framework. (shrink)

The Apaṇṇaka Sutta, one of the early recorded teachings of the Buddha, contains an argument for accepting the doctrines of karma and rebirth that Buddhist scholars claim anticipates Pascal’s wager. I call this argument the Buddha’s wager. Does it anticipate Pascal’s wager and is it a good bet? Contemporary scholars identify at least four versions of Pascal’s wager in his Pensées. This article demonstrates that the Buddha’s wager anticipates two versions of Pascal’s wager, but not its canonical form. Like Pascal’s (...) wager, the Buddha’s wager presents a decision problem between two opposing theses in an epistemic context that lacks evidence of their truth or falsity. Like Pascal, the Buddha also tries to solve this problem using dominance, superdominance or ‘superduperdominance’ reasoning. The Apaṇṇaka Sutta likely provides the earliest textual example of such reasoning. While the Buddha’s wager does not exhibit the expected utility reasoning of the best-known form of Pascal’s wager, the article suggests a reformulation that parallels Alan Hájek’s (2018) vector-value reformulation. Is it a good bet? This article argues that it is not if this means we are rationally required to accept its recommendation. This is because, while it avoids two of the major objections levelled against Pascal’s wager, it succumbs to one and has at least two problems of its own. (shrink)

This article examines contemporary Buddhist defences of the idea that consciousness is reflexively aware or self-aware. Call this the Self-Awareness Thesis. A version of this thesis was historically defended by Dignāga but rejected by Prāsaṅgika Mādhyamika Buddhists. Prāsaṅgikas historically advanced four main arguments against this thesis. In this paper I consider whether some contemporary defence of the Self-Awareness Thesis can withstand these Prāsaṅgika objections. A problem is that contemporary defenders of the Self-Awareness Thesis have subtly different accounts with different assessment (...) criteria. I start by providing a fourfold taxonomy of these different views and then progressively show how each can withstand Prāsaṅgika objections. And I conclude by giving reasons to think that even some Prāsaṅgikas can accept some version of the Self-Awareness Thesis. (shrink)

This article provides a philosophical overview of some of the central Buddhist positions and argument regarding animal welfare. It introduces the Buddha's teaching of ahiṃsā or non-violence and rationally reconstructs five arguments from the context of early Indian Buddhism that aim to justify its extension to animals. These arguments appeal to the capacity and desire not to suffer, the virtue of compassion, as well as Buddhist views on the nature of self, karma, and reincarnation. This article also considers how versions (...) of these arguments have been applied to address a practical issue in Buddhist ethics; whether Buddhists should be vegetarian. (shrink)

This article surveys some of the most influential Buddhist arguments in defense of idealism. It begins by clarifying the central theses under dispute and rationally reconstructs arguments from four major Buddhist figures in defense of some or all of these theses. It engages arguments from Vasubandhu’s Viṃśikā and Triṃśikā; Dignāga’s matching-failure argument in the Ālambanaparīkṣā; the sahopalambhaniyama inference developed by Dharmakīrti; and Xuanzang’s weird but clever logical argument that intrigued philosophers in China and Japan. It aims to clarify what is (...) being argued and motivate these arguments in terms of their presuppositions. These presuppositions range from views about the nature of mind and metaphysics to epistemology and logic. By making this context explicit, this article introduces central ideas in Buddhist philosophy and suggests ways in which they were mobilized in support of an idealist conclusion. (shrink)

This article critically responds to Evan Thompson's book, Why I Am Not a Buddhist.

Owen Flanagan's The Bodhisattva's Brain aims to introduce secular-minded thinkers to Buddhist thought and motivate its acceptance by analytic philosophers. I argue that Flanagan provides a compelling caution against the hasty generalizations of recent “science of happiness” literature, which correlates happiness with Buddhism on the basis of certain neurological studies. I contend, however, that his positive account of Buddhist ethics is less persuasive. I question the level of engagement with Buddhist philosophical literature and challenge Flanagan's central claim, that a Buddhist (...) version of eudaimonia is a common core conception shared by all Buddhists. I argue that this view is not only a rational reconstruction in need of argumentation but is in tension with competing Buddhist metaphysical theories of self, including the one Flanagan himself endorses. (shrink)

There are two main loci of contemporary debate about the nature of Madhyamaka ethics. The first investigates the general issue of whether the Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness is consistent with a commitment to systematic ethical distinctions. The second queries whether the metaphysical analysis of no-self presented by Śāntideva in his Bodhicaryāvatāra entails the impartial benevolence of a bodhisattva. This article will critically examine these debates and demonstrate the ways in which they are shaped by competing understandings of Madhyamaka conventional truth (...) or reality and the forms of reasoning admissible for differentiating conventional truth from falsity and good from bad. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for the importance of pursuing Buddhist Meta-Ethics. Most contemporary studies of the nature of Buddhist Ethics proceed in isolation from the highly sophisticated epistemological theories developed within the Buddhist tradition. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that an intimate relationship holds between ethics and epistemology in Buddhism. To show this, I focus on Damien Keown's influential virtue ethical theorisation of Buddhist Ethics and demonstrate the conflicts that arise when it is brought into dialogue (...) with a contemporary exposition of two prominent Buddhist epistemological theories; namely, Dunne´s exposition of the views of Dharmakīrti and Candrakīrti. I highlight certain points of conflict between these ethical and epistemological theories and will argue that the resolution of this conflict requires revision (either in interpretation of theories or in the theories themselves) by all parties. I shall conclude by arguing for substantive revision to these theories via an engagement with this conflict and, in so doing, hope to exemplify some of the virtues of engaging with a meta-ethical methodology for the advancement of the respective domains of inquiry. (shrink)

In recent decades, several attempts have been made to characterize Buddhism as a systematically unified and consistent normative ethical theory. This has given rise to a growing interest in meta-ethical questions. Meta-ethics can be broadly or narrowly defined. Defined broadly, it is a domain of inquiry concerned with the nature and status of the fundamental or framing presuppositions of normative ethical theories, where this includes the cognitive and epistemic requirements of presupposed conceptions of ethical agency.1 Defined narrowly, it concerns the (...) justificatory status of fundamental moral claims or judgments, i.e., claims or judgments of the form ‘x is good, right, virtuous’ and ‘x is bad, wrong, vicious.’.. (shrink)

A standard thesis of contemporary Aristotelian virtue ethics and some recent Heideggerian scholarship is that virtuous behavior can be performed immediately and spontaneously without engaging conscious processes of deliberative thought. It is also claimed that phronēsis either enables or is consistent with this possibility. In the Nicomachean Ethics, however, Aristotle identifies phronesis as the excellence of the calculative part of the intellect, claims that calculation and deliberation are the same and that it is the mark of the phronimos to be (...) able to deliberate well. He also insists that for an action to count as virtuous it must issue from rational choice, which he characterizes as determined by deliberation. It thus seems that any exegetically respectable attempt to explain virtuous action within an Aristotelian framework would need to integrate with some account of deliberative choice. This creates a tension in Aristotelian scholarship. In this paper, I shall formalize this tension in terms of an apparently inconsistent triad of claims and shall examine the merits of at least one prominent interpretation of phronesis with respect to its reconciliation. (shrink)

Buddhists consider fear to be a root of suffering. In Chapters 2 and 7 of the Bodhicaryāvatāra, Śāntideva provides a series of provocative verses aimed at inciting fear to motivate taking refuge in the Bodhisattvas and thereby achieve fearlessness. This article aims to analyze the moral psychology involved in this transition. It will structurally analyze fear in terms that are grounded in, and expand upon, an Abhidharma Buddhist analysis of mind. It will then contend that fear, taking refuge, and fearlessness (...) are complex intentional attitudes and will argue that the transition between them turns on relevant changes in their intentional objects. This will involve analyzing the object of fear into four aspects and 'taking refuge' as a mode of trust that ameliorates these four aspects. This analysis will also distinguish two modes of taking refuge and show the progressive role each might play in the transition from fear to fearlessness. (shrink)

This brief article presents a Buddhist answer to the question of whether self-transformation possible and, if so, how it can be achieved.

Is there a ‘common element’ in Buddhist ethical thought from which one might rationally reconstruct a Buddhist normative ethical theory? While many agree that there is such an element, there is disagreement about whether it is best reconstructed in terms that approximate consequentialism or virtue ethics. This paper will argue that two distinct evaluative relations underlie these distinct positions; an instrumental and constitutive analysis. It will raise some difficulties for linking these distinct analyses to particular normative ethical theories but will (...) give reasons to think that both analyses may be justified. It will close with some reflections on the complexity involved in trying to establish a single and homogeneous position on the nature of Buddhist ethics. (shrink)

Kenzo saw a slight movement of his opponent. “Now is the time to strike!” he thought. He started moving. But before he had time to raise his shinai (sword) he was struck on the men (head) by his opponent. “Ippon!” the judge called.

This book chapter provides a Buddhist response to Ankur Barua's (forthcoming) account of how Śaṃkara’s Advaita Vedanta is consistent with morality.

Jason Springs’s Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society is a masterful attempt to practice productive conflict and democratic dialogue in the face of static antagonisms and deep‐seated divisions. In my response, I underscore Springs’s insistence on mediating between the moral imagination of Richard Rorty and the prophetic critique of Cornel West. For the author of Healthy Conflict, any hope in the survival of democracy relies on balancing critique of domination with constructive proposals for a more just and equitable world. On (...) the one hand, Springs rejects any strong distinction between moral imagination and socio‐political critique; in fact, he argues for their intertwinement, especially in the work of West. At the same time, there are moments when he suggests an opposition between expanding the moral imagination and engaging in the critical enterprise, especially as he identifies the limits in Foucault regarding normativity and democratic struggle. I respond to this slippage by arguing that Foucault, and critical theory more broadly, open up possibilities for rethinking ethics, politics, and our relationship to the violence that sustains the order of things. (shrink)

The application of artificial intelligence (AI) to judicial decision-making has already begun in many jurisdictions around the world. While AI seems to promise greater fairness, access to justice, and legal certainty, issues of discrimination and transparency have emerged and put liberal democratic principles under pressure, most notably in the context of bail decisions. Despite this, there has been no systematic analysis of the risks to liberal democratic values from implementing AI into judicial decision-making. This article sets out to fill this (...) void by identifying and engaging with challenges arising from artificial judicial decision-making, focusing on three pillars of liberal democracy, namely equal treatment of citizens, transparency, and judicial independence. Methodologically, the work takes a comparative perspective between human and artificial decision-making, using the former as a normative benchmark to evaluate the latter. -/- The chapter first argues that AI that would improve on equal treatment of citizens has already been developed, but not yet adopted. Second, while the lack of transparency in AI decision-making poses severe risks which ought to be addressed, AI can also increase the transparency of options and trade-offs that policy makers face when considering the consequences of artificial judicial decision-making. Such transparency of options offers tremendous benefits from a democratic perspective. Third, the overall shift of power from human intuition to advanced AI may threaten judicial independence, and with it the separation of powers. While improvements regarding discrimination and transparency are available or on the horizon, it remains unclear how judicial independence can be protected, especially with the potential development of advanced artificial judicial intelligence (AAJI). Working out the political and legal infrastructure to reap the fruits of artificial judicial intelligence in a safe and stable manner should become a priority of future research in this area. (shrink)

In her latest book, The End of Progress, Amy Allen embarks on an ambitious and much-needed project: to decolonize contemporary Frankfurt School Critical Theory. As with all of her books, this is an exceptionally well-written and well-argued book. Allen strives to avoid making assertions without backing them up via close and careful textual reading of the thinkers she engages in her book. In this article, I will state why this book makes a central contribution to contemporary critical theory (in the (...) broader sense), after which I pose a few questions. These questions are not meant to prove that there are any serious problems with her argumentation. Instead, they are meant in the spirit of dialogue and allow her to elaborate her work for her audience. (shrink)

Among the extant masterworks of Roman art, there is probably none that has generated more scholarly debate than the Portland Vase over the interpretation of its elegant frieze. No fewer than forty-four different theories attempting to interpret the scenes on the vase have appeared in the last 400 years. In the main, the theories fall into two categories, those relating the frieze to Greek myth, and those linking the figures to Roman personages. Moreover, there is no consensus whether the frieze (...) is two separate scenes or one continuous story. The obstacle to interpreting the frieze is that all but one of the figures lack identifying attributes. This paper will demonstrate (1) that in lieu of standard iconography, a synthesis of visual and literary tropes in the form of hidden letters, that is, cryptograms, tells the viewer how to read the frieze; (2) that scene A of the frieze illustrates specifically lines 26-30 of Catullus 64 by visually rendering the epithets and tropes used in those lines; (3) that visual reproductions of other tropes in Catullus 64 further substantiate the relationship between frieze and poem; (4) that scene B of the frieze is an intentional aberration from the poem; (5) that there is a complex and unfinished interaction between scenes A and B which the viewer must complete; and (6) that in the final analysis, the frieze duplicates both the theme and central structure of Catullus 64.10 . (shrink)

An AI winter may be defined as the stage when technology, business, and the media come to terms with what AI can or cannot really do as a technology without exaggeration. Through discussion of previous AI winters, this paper examines the hype cycle (which by turn characterises AI as a social panacea or a nightmare of apocalyptic proportions) and argues that AI should be treated as a normal technology, neither as a miracle nor as a plague, but rather as (...) of the many solutions that human ingenuity has managed to devise. (shrink)

Many people go outdoors in winter for skiing, snowboarding, sledding, snowmobiling and some other activities that all fall within the realm of winter tourism. Winter tourism is a source of both personal and public health, and thus a source of prosperous living. Along with that, it is a conspicuous economic phenomenon that generates millions of dollars in annual revenue for stakeholders. Hence, this type of tourism is of top importance, and thus one of the main concerns to (...) many snowy destinations with high altitudes such as those in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and Turkey. Stakeholders such as entrepreneurs, business professionals, state incumbents, and tourism, leisure, and sports scholars should benefit from both precedent and unprecedented principles and practices to cultivate the industry, and they should constantly seek to improve the winter tourism experience. Therefore, it is aimed to drive implications from the success of a cult winter tourism location MooserWirt in Sankt Anton herein by depending on a web-based examination. MooserWirt is an après-ski bar located in a world-famous village and ski resort called St Anton at the Arlberg Massif in Austria. The bar is open in winter seasons starting from early December to the end of April. It serves daily between 11 a.m. and 8 p.m. up to three thousand people. The bar team starts serving food and beverage at 11 a.m. Then at 3:30 p.m., the bar’s magnate –DJ starts his ritual music party that captivates and amuses hundreds if not thousands of ski-goers. MooserWirt is regarded as one of the best après ski lodges throughout the world. Many people would ask for the principles of such a success. By depending on a web-based examination of the case, we can respond to that kind of a call with a few generic implications. First of all, one of the main features that makes the bar special seems to be its music parties. People mostly comment that the bar has a music mogul –DJ, and enjoyable mixtures of music that charm the audience. Furthermore, the bar has heretofore hosted the prominent TV show known as Après Ski Hits featuring various famed singers and bands on outdoor stage performance many times to commence the season. Secondly, many people acknowledge that the bar has an eye-catching menu with delightful foods and beverages of local ingredients with a reasonable tariff. Third, we deduce that the bar serves with an agile and friendly team that satisfies the customers in general. Various people appreciate the performance of the staff. Last but not least, the bar has an elegant architectural design with a comfortable ambiance enclosed by a typical winter landscape. Overall, MooserWirt is a quality locale as it commonly meets the expectations of skiers of an après-ski lodge. In conclusion, MooserWirt has been seemingly building up a tradition through quality over the decades. It is distinctive through product differentiation. It serves with dedicated personnel adhering to quality service that generates customer satisfaction, and it uses a powerful marketing strategy that leads to having worldwide visibility and being a mind-anchored brand with preeminence. (shrink)

The influence of surrealism and Philippe Soupault on William Carlos Williams' poetry.

Résumé -/- Cet article vise à expliquer comment Shakespeare articule une philosophie de la nature dans Le Conte d’hiver. Nous suggérons que la spécificité dramatique de la pièce ainsi que son schéma narratif expriment cette philosophie. D’une part, l’histoire racontée par la plume de Shakespeare peut montrer d’abord un éloignement de la nature pour laisser suivre une redécouverte et une renaissance de la nature – d’abord par son acception simple, brute, puis dans la compréhension téléologique de celle-ci. D’autre part, la (...) succession de la tragédie, la comédie et la romance illustre ces trois étapes. Le triomphe de la romance indique le triomphe d’une philosophie de la nature dont les causes les plus importantes sont d’ordres téléologique. -/- Abstract -/- This article aims to explain how Shakespeare shows a philosophy of nature in The Winter’s Tale. We suggest that both the dramatic and narrative specificities of the play express this philosophy. On one hand, the story told by Shakespeare’s writing can show a remoteness from nature which is to be followed by a rediscovery and a rebirth of nature – first with its rawest meaning and finally in its teleological understanding. On the other hand, the succession of tragedy, comedy and romance illustrates those three steps. The triumph of romance indicates the triumph of a philosophy of nature in which the most important causes are the teleological ones. (shrink)

In Winter 2017, the first author piloted a course in formal logic in which we aimed to (a) improve student engagement and mastery of the content, and (b) reduce maths anxiety and its negative effects on student outcomes, by adopting student oriented teaching including peer instruction and classroom flipping techniques. The course implemented a partially flipped approach, and incorporated group-work and peer learning elements, while retaining some of the traditional lecture format. By doing this, a wide variety of student (...) learning preferences could be provided for. (shrink)

During the Winter of 2011 I visited SADAF and gave a series of talks based on the central chapters of my manuscript on the Yablo paradox. The following year, I visited again, and was pleased and honored to find out that Eduardo Barrio and six of his students had written ‘responses’ that addressed the claims and arguments found in the manuscript, as well as explored new directions in which to take the ideas and themes found there. These comments reflect (...) my thoughts on these responses (also collected in this issue), as well as my thoughts on further issues that arose during the symposium that was based on the papers and during the many hours I spent talking and working with Eduardo and his students. Durante el invierno de 2011, visité SADAF y dí una serie de conferencias sobre los capítulos centrales de mi manuscrito sobre la paradoja de Yablo. El año siguiente, visité Buenos aires nuevamente y tuve el placer y el honor de descubrir que Eduardo Barrio y seis de sus estudiantes habían escrito respuestas que abordan las afirmaciones y argumentos de mi manuscrito, además de explorar nuevas direcciones en las cuales considerar las ideas y temas encontrados allí. El presente trabajo refleja mis pensamientos sobre estas respuestas (también incluidas en este volumen), así como mis ideas sobre otras cuestiones que surgieron durante el simposio en el que se presentaron los artículos y en las muchas horas que nosotros discutimos y trabajamos con Eduardo y sus estudiantes. (shrink)

Criticism and Creative Compensation: Andreas Schönberger, Immanuel Kant et al. In: Sabine Coelsch-Foisner (2023) Kreativität, schöpferischer Wille und (Über)Lebensstrategie. Winter, Heidelberg. -/- Creativity as a survival strategy requires the creative will to succeed in an academic environment. In addition to previous education, originality and the quality of one's own preliminary work, conviction of one's own abilities and flexibility in the choice of topics, activities and places are important prerequisites for success. The spirit of optimism in the age of the (...) Enlightenment and the stormy rise of idealism, the possi- bility of documenting academic achievements and partly self-awarded qualifica- tions in self-financed printed works, and the administrative gaps in the system were enough to annoy Immanuel Kant – at least briefly. (shrink)

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 69-100, Winter 2024.

Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 5-41, Winter 2024.

Quantification, Negation, and Focus: Challenges at the Conceptual-Intentional Semantic Interface Tista Bagchi National Institute of Science, Technology, and Development Studies (NISTADS) and the University of Delhi Since the proposal of Logical Form (LF) was put forward by Robert May in his 1977 MIT doctoral dissertation and was subsequently adopted into the overall architecture of language as conceived under Government-Binding Theory (Chomsky 1981), there has been a steady research effort to determine the nature of LF in language in light of structurally (...) diverse languages around the world, which has ultimately contributed to the reinterpretation of LF as a Conceptual-Intentional (C-I) interface level between the computational syntactic component of the faculty of language and one or more interpretive faculties of the human mind. While this has opened up further possibilities of research in phenomena such as quantifier scope and scope interactions between negation, quantification, and focus, it has also given rise to a few real challenges to linguistic theory as well. Some of these are: (i) the split between lexical meaning – a matter supposedly belonging to the phase-wise selection of lexical arrays – and issues of semantic interpretation that arise purely from binding and scope phenomena (Mukherji 2010); (ii) partially relatedly, the level at which theta role assignment can be argued to take place, an issue that is taken up by me in Bagchi (2007); and (iii) how supposedly “pure” scopal phenomena relating to quantifiers, negation, and emphasizing expressions such as only and even (comparable to, e.g., Urdu/Hindi hii and bhii, Bangla –i and –o) also have dimensions of both focus and discourse reference. While recognizing all of these challenges, this talk aims to highlight particularly challenge (iii), both in terms of scholarship in the past and for the rich prospects for research on languages of south Asia with the semantics of quantification, negation, and focus in view. The scholarship of the past that I seek to relate this issue to is where, parallel to (and largely independently of) the research on LF that had been happening, Barwise and Cooper were developing their influential view of noun phrases as generalized quantifiers, culminating in their key 1981 article “Generalized Quantifiers and Natural Language” while, independently, McCawley, in his 1981 book Everything that Linguists have Always Wanted to Know about Logic, established through argumentation that all noun phrases semantically behave like generalized quantified expressions (further elaborated by him in the second – 1994 – revised edition of his book). I seek to demonstrate, based on limited data analysis from selected languages of south Asia, that our current understanding of quantification, negation, and focus under the Minimalist view owes something significant to the two major, but now largely marginalized, works of scholarship, and that for the way forward it is essential to adopt a more formal-semantic approach as adopted by them and also by later works such as Denis Bouchard’s (1995) The Semantics of Syntax, Mats Rooth’s work on focus (e.g., Rooth 1996, “Focus” in Shalom Lappin’s Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory), Heim and Kratzer’s Semantics in Generative Grammar (1998), and Yoad Winter’s (2002) Linguistic Inquiry article on semantic number, to cite just a few instances. (shrink)

The city of Kruja dates back to its existence in the 5th and 6th centuries. In the inner city are preserved great historical, cultural, and architectural values that are inherited from generation to generation. In the city interact and coexist three different typologies of dwellings: historic buildings that belong to the XIII, XIV, XV, XIII, XIX centuries (built using the foundations of previous buildings); socialist buildings dating back to the Second World War until 1990; and modern buildings which were built (...) from 1990 onwards. According to the questionnaires, the creation of mathematical models applied to each category will result in contradictory attitudes but also fairy ones based on different percentages. There are underlined 5 quality of life indicators(questions) from a total of 30 questions of the questionnaire, which are involved in mathematical regression and are statistically significant with a significance level p<5% (with a reliability of 95%), which interact for all three categories of buildings. The quality of life indicators: dwelling area, heating mode during winter, level of dwelling improvement, time spent in the dwelling, and monthly electricity payments, are the main actors who will be compared in order to draw conclusions. According to the statistical calculations trend, it is noted that the socialist buildings category does not directly participate in the debate between historic and modern buildings by means of the quality of life indicators (questions). (shrink)

The German text of Cohen’s Spinoza on State & Religion, Judaism & Christianity (Spinoza über Staat und Religion, Judentum und Christentum) first appeared in 1915 in the Jahrbuch für jüdische Geschichte und Literatur. Two years before, in the winter of 1913, Cohen taught a class and a seminar on Spinoza’s Theological-Political Treatise at the Hochschule für die Wissenschaft des Judentums. This was Cohen’s first semester at the Hochschule, after retiring from more than thirty years of teaching at the University (...) of Marburg. Cohen’s fame at the time was at its zenith, and his move to the Hochschule was a cause for celebration and excitement. According to the testimony of some students who attended the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus seminar, Cohen left no place for any expression of dissent (regrettably, the academy frequently encourages such authoritarian behavior). The text of Spinoza on State, which was the product of this seminar, still bears the marks of this “didactic” attitude. It is bombastic and feebly argued. Thus, in one moment of emotional crescendo in the text, we can literally hear Cohen shout: When Spinoza, with merciless severity, makes his own nation the object of contempt – at the time that Rembrandt lived on the same street and immortalized the ideal type of the Jew - no voices rises in protest against this humanly incomprehensible betrayal. Such patriotic rhetoric is quite typical of Cohen’s Spinoza on State, as the work reads more like a series of rants against the devil incarnated (“the demonic spirit of Spinoza”) in the figure of the traitor from Amsterdam than like a sustained and serious philosophical polemic. From time to time, one can observe hints of critical arguments, but hardly any are fleshed out. The text is also replete with rudimentary factual and interpretative errors. Thus, when Cohen argues that Spinoza traces his pantheism to Jewish sources, Cohen erroneously cites Spinoza’s reference in E2p7s to “some of the Hebrews [quidam Hebraeorum]” who argued for the identity of Sekhel, Maskil, and Muskal (the Intellect, the Intellecting Subject, and the Intellected Object) – a Maimonidean doctrine that has nothing to do with pantheism – while the text Cohen clearly had in mind was Spinoza’s claim, in Letter 73, that the traditions (traditionibus) of the “ancient Hebrews [antiquis Hebraeis]” agree with Spinoza’s claim that “all things are in God.” Similarly, and on the very same page, Cohen ascribes to Spinoza the claim that “the God of the Old Testament is only a body,” a claim which is nowhere to be found in Spinoza’s works, and which can be inferred from Spinoza’s text only through a patent fallacy. If I may add one last example, consider the following passage from Cohen’s Spinoza on State: [For Spinoza] divine law is grounded in our mind. Yet this does not mean that our mind bears responsibility for producing and obeying the law. Instead, it means that, by definition, the human mind and God are identical, inasmuch as He exists in the human mind. Hardly any claim in this brief passage is correct. Yet, what is most striking is Cohen’s derivation of the identity of God and the human mind from the claim that God exists in the human mind. If I exist in North America, this obviously does not imply that I am identical to North America (there are, for example, a couple of North American porcupines and alligators that are distinct from me). What rule of inference Cohen sought to employ in this argument, and how this impressive inference of the identity of God and the human mind is supposed to square with Cohen’s view of Spinoza as a pantheist – i.e., as considering the physical nature to be divine – is beyond my grasp. Instead of tracking down the dozens of crude errors and fallacies in Cohen’s text, I would like to concentrate here on one crucial issue: Cohen’s critique of Spinoza’s pantheism. By doing this, I will have to pass silently over a couple of surprising agreements between the two figures, such as the (false) claim that all of the prophets of the Hebrew Bible taught the same universal and simple morality. My discussion of pantheism will be divided into two sections. In the first, I will examine Cohen’s understanding of Spinoza’s pantheism. In the second, I will briefly examine the historical validity of Cohen’s claim that pantheism is a Christian doctrine, diametrically opposed to Judaism. (shrink)

Text and notebooks by Friedrich Nietzsche. -/- Translations: -/- 15 = U II 11 Spring 1876? [1-27] pages 13-19 16 = N II 1. 1876. [1-55] pages 20-29 17 = U II 5b. Summer 1876. [1-105] pages 30-48 18 = M I 1. September 1876. [1-62] pages 49-62 19 = U II 5c. October-December 1876. [1-120] pages 63-87 20 = Mp = XIV 1a (Brenner). Winter 1876-1877. [1-21] pages 88-94 21 = N II 3 End of 1876 - Summer (...) 1877. [1-84] pages 95-106 Nietzsche’s Notebooks in English: a Translator’s Introduction and Afterward pages 107-118 Also include two early essays: About Truth and lie in the extra-moral sense. ……………pages 119-128 About the pathos of truth. Christmas 1872. From: Five prefaces to five unwritten books…….………………..pages 129-133 . (shrink)

Report submitted by Gregory B. Sadler, Pilot Project Coordinator to Sonya Brown, WAC Activity Director, Fayetteville State University, June 28 2011. -/- A Pilot program focused on improving student performance in carrying out Close Readings in humanities-based discipline courses was developed and implemented under the auspices of Writing Across the Curriculum and Title III at Fayetteville State University in Winter and Spring 2011. Five faculty were involved in the Pilot, myself as the coordinator, and four other faculty from four (...) different disciplines as participants. -/- The central idea behind the Pilot was that by focusing on the lower-order skills which are scaffolded as components into the higher-order activity of Close Reading of texts, and redesigning courses to emphasize development of these lower-order skills, student performances in Close Readings would also be improved. This did turn out to be the case. Most of the supporting data is qualitative rather than quantitative. -/- It is recommended that similar activities be continued, but that participating faculty be required to provide much more prescriptively structured and detailed assessment data and information about their course design. (shrink)

This essay responds to four critical essays by Rosemary Kellison, Ebrahim Moosa, Joseph Winters, and Martin Kavka on the author’s recent book, Healthy Conflict in Contemporary American Society: From Enemy to Adversary (Cambridge, 2018). Parts I and II work in tandem to further develop my accounts of strategic empathy and agonistic political friendship. I defend against criticisms that my argument for moral imagination obligates oppressed people to empathize with their oppressors. I argue, further, that healthy conflict can be motivated by (...) a kind of “secular” love. This enables my position to immanently criticize and mediate the claims that one must either love (agapically) one’s opponent in order to engage them in “healthy conflict,” on one hand, or that one must vanquish, exclude, or “cancel” one’s opponent, on the other. In Part III, I demonstrate how my account mediates the challenge of an alleged standing opposition between moral imagination and socio-theoretical critique. I defend a methodologically pragmatist account of immanent prophetic criticism, resistance, and conflict transformation. Finally, I respond to one critic’s vindication of a strong enemy/adversary opposition that takes up the case of white supremacist violence in the U.S. I argue that the time horizon for healthy conflict must be simultaneously immediate and also long-term, provided that such engagements remain socio-critically self-reflexive and seek to cultivate transformational responses. (shrink)

The historical roots of despotism in Russia are long, the tradition of arbitrariness seems to be unbreakable. But this status quo can't persist endless: Growing mass protests indicate that the time nears when Russia will unhorse the self-constituted disposers and will demonstrate again its re-invention potential. -/- This expected and hoped egression from despotism into a new phase of Russian history needs to be carefully elaborated and arranged. Starting with the writing and publishing of my essays following mass political protests (...) in the former Soviet Union, namely, in the Russian Federation in fall and winter of the year 2012, I work permanently on redesigning political system. One year later, i.e. 2013, I released a book dedicated those events, and in the same year I wrote the draft of a new constitution, now revised and adopted by the community Rus’ whose member I am since 12.12.2018. -/- 2017 I registered an internet domain reserved for the Foundation intended to promote the constitutional order in Russia. Since that time, I designed the site of the Foundation, fashioned the identity card, and published several documents related to promotion and establishing of the constitutional order (CO). -/- All skilled designers and creative thinkers are invited to take part in this process as co-workers and creators of a new political system. (shrink)

A collection of articles on the the principles of social justice from an Australian Catholic perspective. Contents: Forward (Archbishop Philip Wilson), Introduction (James Franklin), The right to life (James Franklin), The right to serve and worship God in public and private (John Sharpe), The right to religious formation (Richard Rymarz), The right to personal liberty under just law (Michael Casey), The right to equal protection of just law regardless of sex, nationality, colour or creed (Sam Gregg), The right to freedom (...) of expression (Damian Grace), The right to choose and freely maintain a state of life, married or single, lay or religious (Marita Winters), The right to education (Anthony Cleary), The right to petition government for the redress of grievances (Paul Russell), The right to a nationality (Andrew Hamilton), The right to have access to the means of livelihood, by migration when necessary (Brenda Hubber), The right of association and peaceful assembly (Michael Hogan), The right to work and choose one's occupation (Ian Blandthorn), The right to personal ownership, use and disposal of property subject to the right of others (Brian Coman), The right to a living wage (Garrick Small), The right to collective bargaining (Keith Harvey), The right to associate by industries and professions to obtain economic justice (Henrik Jurisevic), The right to assistance from society, if necessary from the State, in distress of persons and family (Catherine Althaus), Afterword (James Franklin). (shrink)

In this essay, our goal is to discover science in Martin Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics, lecture notes for his 1935 summer semester course, because, after all, his subject is metaphysica generalis, or ontology, and this could be construed as a theory of the human brain. Here, by means of verbatim quotes from his text, we attempt to show that indeed these lectures can be viewed as suggestion for an objective scientific theory of human perception, the human capacity for deciphering phenomena, (...) ie. hermeneutics in its broadest sense. His added notes from the 1953 edition, all of which are comments, not corrections, imply that he never abandoned these thoughts on metaphysics, despite all of his utterances about a need to overcome it, and their popular interpretations to that effect. In his presentation, he further develops the colorful and intuitive style, an hermeneutic language, that he had created in his earlier work Being and Time. Of human existence he speaks in such expressions as being-there -- ``Dasein" -- and being-in-the-world, the latter term no longer explicit in the 1935 lectures. The lectures can be read as a pre-scientific analysis of how man, being-there, perceives his environment, artfully managing to deal with the manifold challenges posed by the phenomenal structures of the universe. Man attentively recognizes and deciphers their pre-linguistic contents and, while trying to make sense of it all, puts into words his awareness. There are numerous passages in Heidegger's work where he in fairly concrete terms provides us with hints for a perceptive science that, as it turns out and is demonstrated below in this essay, can be explained in terms of recent advances in neuroscience. It would be implausible, even unthinkable, unimaginable, for there not to be found essential agreement between on one hand his philosophical insights gained by hermeneutics of Dasein, into how our brain functions to let us know what's happening & on the other hand, scientific discoveries obtained through anatomy, EEG, fMRI, TMS, electrode implants, etc, of brain structures & functions employed in perception of the momentary scene. A nexus between science and philosophy is provided in Heidegger's definitive treatment of the Logos, here interpreted as a structural version of Platonic forms (Burchard, 2014). This allows for neurolinguistic brain functions to serve as meta-context for Heidegger's being-in-the-world. The logical functions of Dasein's anatomical brain are performed by the logos machine, formerly the human soul, using top-down processing based on a global context, the noumenal cosmos which humans maintain internally. Heidegger's 1942/43 winter semester lectures Parmenides extend in unbroken fashion his 1935 work, proving that he never abandoned, as is widely claimed, his metaphysical avenue of thought. (shrink)

El libro “La Iglesia doliente. Un largo invierno en Cracovia”, escrito por la Dra. Miriam Dolly Arancibia, narra el martirio de la filósofa y religiosa Edith Stein y del sacerdote Jerzy Popiełuszko. Ambos fueron víctimas de la persecución a la Iglesia Católica en Polonia, ella lo fue del nazismo, él lo fue del comunismo estalinista. Ambos sufrieron la intolerancia religiosa y racial llevada a su máxima expresión. La ciudad de Cracovia, donde el Beato Juan Pablo II residió durante cuarenta años, (...) es el escenario desde el cual fluye el relato de los acontecimientos. La misma ciudad que será sede de la Jornada Mundial de la Juventud en el año 2016 -/- The book "The suffered Church. A long winter in Krakow", written by Dr. Miriam Dolly Arancibia, recounts the martyrdom of Edith Stein and Jerzy Popiełuszko. Both were victims of persecution by the Catholic Church in Poland, she was under Nazism and he was under Stalinist communism. Both suffered religious and racial intolerance led to its maximum expression. The city of Krakow, where Blessed John Paul II lived for forty years, is the stage from which flows the account of the events and the same city that will host the world youth day in 2016. (shrink)

A. Klimczuk, Author’s Comments: Economic Foundations for Creative Ageing Policy, Volume II, “Newsletter of the Research Network Ageing in Europe”, Winter 2019, Issue 24, pp. 3-4.

This article is a reflection on the NSU Winter Symposium of March 2020, entitled ‘Feminism and Hospitality: Religious and Critical Perspectives in dialogue with a Secular Age’. It contends with moral judgments which regard charity as an act of alienation from the other and as a reiteration of hierarchies of power. Instead of this conceptualisation, I propose an ethics of charity in terms of an ethics of the reflective agency of otherness. This ethics of charity entails acts of aid (...) for an other which stem from the recognition of the agency pertaining to both parties. It will be shown how this recognition of agency, and the reciprocity it entails, is critical for the success of the charitable endeavour in two ways: first, for the manifestation of the act itself of aiding and providing for another; second, for the assertion of the other’s own agency through the reciprocal act of charity. (shrink)

Consider the most recent Yale-Harvard football game, an event which occurred on 11/20/21 in New Haven, lasting about three hours. This event, like many college football games before, was composed of four quarters, each of which was composed of possessions, each of which was composed of downs, each of which was composed of particular movements, tackles and decisions of the individual players. Each of these parts of the game was itself an event, occurring in a smaller region of space and (...) time than the game itself. Each of these events involved material objects like players, helmets, jerseys, etc. Each had causes and effects, and each instantiated qualitative properties, such as being a kickoff or being a tackle. These are paradigmatic examples of events. Events are many and varied; some other examples include the melting of an ice cube, the birth of a horse, the supernova of a star, the presidential election campaign and a winter snowstorm. Each of these took place in a certain region of spacetime, had other events as parts, involved certain objects, had causes and effects, and instantiated properties. Objects and their properties are not the only furniture in the world. Events are a crucial part of our manifest and scientific pictures of the world. We go to football games, think about and participate in elections, eagerly anticipate the birth of a child, and quantify over and explain such things in our scientific theories. Yet, events have received insufficient attention from metaphysicians. Some philosophers have been skeptical of events, holding that talk of events can be paraphrased away, or that events can be reduced to objects and properties.1 When philosophers have accepted events, their motivations have usually been extrinsic—events are introduced in order to play a role in a larger philosophical system. This tendency has led philosophers to miss a number of interesting features of events. In this paper, I wish to reverse that trend by developing an ontology of events which is not an afterthought with respect to another philosophical project. In so doing, I will provide answers to substantive metaphysical questions about the relations in which events stand and their identity conditions. In the next section, I identify four basic relations in which events stand: parthood, involvement, causation and instantiation, focusing in particular on involvement. Then, I argue that events are individuated by their involvements, and criticize the identity conditions which have been offered by other philosophers, notably Quine, Davidson and Kim. I then conclude. (shrink)