Carl Jung (1875–1961) was a pivotal figure in modern Western psychology. He understood the malaise of the modern world from its loss of religion, and the resulting mental health crisis it brought in its wake. He countered the dominant scientific reductionism pervasive in his time, and pursued a more holistic form of treatment when this was not popular. He treated his patients as real people rather than merely objects of diagnostic interest, and promoted a more expansive understanding of (...) mental illness. At the same time, Jung remains a controversial figure within and beyond the discipline. His purported alliance with religions, and his efforts to introduce a spiritual dimension into modern psychology, have arguably led to deleterious consequences. By attempting to construct a psychological system that spiritualizes the human soul without any reference to the transpersonal dimension of the psyche, Jung replaced sacred tradition with a secular psychology that offered a new—yet fundamentally misguided—path of salvation for seekers in a post-Christian world. -/- . (shrink)

I argue that Carl Jung's theory of archetypes is incompatible with the darwinian theory of evolution.

One of the most prospective directions of study of C.G. Jung’s synchronicity phenomenon is reviewed considering the latest achievements of modern science. The attention is focused mainly on the quantum entanglement and related phenomena – quantum coherence and quantum superposition. It is shown that the quantum non-locality capable of solving the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox represents one of the most adequate physical mechanisms in terms of conformity with the Jung’s synchronicity hypothesis. An attempt is made on psychophysiological substantiation of synchronicity (...) within the context of molecular biology. An original concept is proposed, stating that biological molecules involved in cell division during mitosis and meiosis, particularly DNA may be considered material carriers of consciousness. This assumption may be formulated on the basis of phenomenology of Jung’s analytical psychology. (shrink)

After coining the term “philopsychy” to describe a “soul-loving” approach to philosophical practice, especially when it welcomes a creative synthesis of philosophy and psychology, this article identifies a system of geometrical figures (or “maps”) that can be used to stimulate reflection on various types of perspectival differences. The maps are part of the author’s previously established mapping methodology, known as the Geometry of Logic. As an illustration of how philosophy can influence the development of psychology, Immanuel Kant’s table of twelve (...) categories and Carl Jung’s theory of psychological types are shown to share a common logical structure. Just as Kant proposes four basic categories, each expressed in terms of three subordinate categories, Jung proposes four basic personality functions, each having three possible manifestations. The concluding section presents four scenarios illustrating how such maps can be used in philosophical counseling sessions to stimulate philopsychic insight. (shrink)

In the following paper I will argue that there are interesting connections between the founder of analytical psychology, Carl Gustav Jung, and the school of existentialism. Analytical psychology and existentialism share almost the same Zeitgeist (becoming influential between the 1930’s and 1960’s) and are both interested in the concept of individuality. I would like to follow the liaison between Jung and existentialism regarding authenticity and death. First of all, the concept of authenticity deserves extensive treatment. Heidegger’s das (...) Man and Sartre’s mauvaise foi have an interesting companion in Jung’s notion of the persona, the psychological concept of “the mask”. Second of all, existentialist authenticity can be compared to the Jungian integration of the shadow. Moreover, the concept of death (Heidegger’s Sein-zum-Tode) can be compared with Jung’s understanding of death from The Red Book. (shrink)

Susan Neiman pointed out to this reviewer the danger that Carl Jung studies pose to contemporary scholars. It is keeping in mind Neiman's cautionary advice that this review establishes Jung's contributions to Romanticism. "[Craig] Stephenson’s analysis of Aurélia has now superseded Arthur Lovejoy’s (1873–1962) and Mario Praz’s (1896–1982) contributions to the definitions of Romanticism.".

In this paper, I attempt to find a middle ground between the formalist critic, Vladimir Propp, and the psychoanalytic critic, Carl Jung. I argue that, instead of regarding Russian formalism and psychoanalysis as irreconcilable adversaries, the theories of the two figures can (and should) be unified; the result of which can be devised to establish a theory of what I call an ‘‘archetypal narrative’’. To be more explicit, Propp’s Morphology and Jung’s archetypal psychoanalysis are reconciled to bring (...) about an archetypal narrative theory, in which the underlying structure of narratives lies in the collective unconscious of humanity. (shrink)

In this article is discussed an issue, how Nicolas von Grot’s theory of psychic energy had an influence upon theoretical basis of the analytical psychology, firstly, upon the concept of ‘libido’, which denotes a universal psychic energy. Also the author analyzes C.G. Jung’s objections against some moments of Grot’s argumentation and shows, how these objections can be eliminated through the Jung’s concept of psychoid factor’ (‘psychoid’) -/- В данной статье рассматривается влияние энергетизма Н.Я. Грота на формирование теоретического базиса (...) аналитической психологии К.Г. Юнга в части разработки последним учения об универсальной психической энергии либидо. Также анализируются возражения К.Г. Юнга против некоторых мест гротовской аргументации, и демонстрируется, каким образом эти возражения могут быть сняты посредством обращения к разработанному в поздних юнговских трудах понятию «психойдный фактор» («психойдное»). (shrink)

The Archetypal World of Nikola Tesla (2010), written by Prof. Dr. Ivan Nastovic, looks at the scientist Nikola Tesla in the light of the analytical psychology of C. G. Jung. Unlike psychoanalysis, which deals with research of the individual unconscious, that is, what is solely personal, Jung's analytical psychology allows us to comprehend what is found on the other side of the personal. Nastovic discusses several archetypes that shaped Tesla's world. He first points out the importance and the (...) function of the Great Mother archetype and Tesla's white dove in order to fully understand his personality and his work. While introducing the reader to Tesla's opus, Nastovic explains the archetype of light, strongly present in Tesla's personality, the archetypal roots of Tesla's discovery of the rotating magnetic field, and the mysticism of his personality and his creativity. He also looks at Nikola Tesla in light of Hillman's acorn theory. (shrink)

Several metaphysical/philosophical concepts are developed as tools by which we may further understand the essence, structure, and events/symbols of “Complex” Synchronicity, and how these differ from “Chain of Events” Synchronicity. The first tool is the concept of Astronomical vs Cultural time. This tool is to be the basis of distinguishing Simple from Complex Synchronicity as Complex Synchronicities are chunks of time that have several coincidences in common with each other. We will also look at the nature of the perspective of (...) the time being quantized. The next tool is a particular case study of two movies, The Matrix and Black Swan, that may be viewed as an example of a Complex Synchronicity in the collective conscious of popular culture (as opposed to Simple Synchronicity or a single coincidence). And the final tool is the concept of “Chain of Events” synchronicity as a separate concept from Simple or Complex synchronicities. This 3rd tool is developed using a mathematical metaphor of foreshadowing (an element of storytelling) in the seemingly random pattern of prime numbers. The purpose of this paper is to distinguish and develop these concepts and to lay a foundation for the further study of the concept of Synchronicity first illuminated by Carl Jung as an acausal connecting principle between coincidences. (shrink)

There is a famous and important dictum reminiscent of the medieval age posited by Carl Jung in Alchemical Studies, the thirteenth volume of his collected works: in sterquiliniis invenitur—in filth it shall be found (35). Translated for modern society this might be better understood as “that which is most valuable will be found in the place you least want to look.” If there is one source in the corpus of popular culture that best typifies “the last place we (...) would want to look” for masculine values, it would be Mads Mikkelsen’s portrayal of Hannibal Lector, particularly Lector’s relationship with FBI profiler Will Graham during the first two seasons of the HBO series Hannibal. By stripping away the perverse horror of Lector’s actions toward Graham, and treating their relationship as an absolute value, I systematically explore the series’ portrayal of masculine nurturing in a way that reveals potentially praiseworthy facets relevant to modern masculinity. (shrink)

Wolfgang Pauli was influenced by Carl Jung and the Platonism of Arnold Sommerfeld, who introduced the fine-structure constant. Pauli’s vision of a World Clock is related to the symbolic form of the Emerald Tablet of Hermes and Plato’s geometric allegory otherwise known as the Cosmological Circle attributed to ancient tradition. With this vision Pauli revealed geometric clues to the mystery of the fine-structure constant that determines the strength of the electromagnetic interaction. A Platonic interpretation of the World Clock (...) and the Cosmological Circle provides an explanation that includes the geometric structure of the pineal gland described by the golden ratio. In his experience of archetypal images Pauli encounters the synchronicity of events that contribute to his quest for physical symmetry relevant to the development of quantum electrodynamics. (shrink)

Psychoanalytic self-psychology as outlined by such depth psychologists as Jung, Fordham, Winnicott and Kohut provide a framework for conceptualizing a relationship of complementarity between psychic and immune defence as well as loss of bodily and self integration in disease. Physicist Erwin Schrödinger’s thesis that the so-called “arrow of time” does not necessarily deal a mortal blow to its creator is reminiscent of the concept of timeless dimensions of the unconscious mind and the Self in Analytical Psychology, manifest for instance, (...) in dream content and archetypal symbols. These notions are not only consistent with the concepts of timelessness and meaningful coincidence (synchronicity) in psychoanalysis. They are also implicitly spiritual with intimations of a numinous dimension of the evolutionary process in which humanity participates. This includes the idea that an evolving God becomes conscious through and is completed by humankind in a process (Incarnational) theology which regards the numinous as both immanent and transcendent. And concepts of mind which transcend the individual in a transpersonal sense. The treatment of the psychophysical problem by depth psychologist Carl Jung and physicist Wolfgang Pauli with their notion of the unconscious archetypes as timeless, cosmic ordering and regulating principles creating a bridge between mind and matter in a relationship of complementarity is compatible with such a perspective on the numinous which might in turn be useful for contemporary theology and spirituality. (shrink)

Abstract: Creativity and holistic education involves dynamic interplay between generating ideas and making judgment about them. Getting the balance right is critical and as Carl Jung (2009) explains, the creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect alone but by the play instinct, the creative mind plays with the object and thoughts it loves. As mentioned earlier to be creative is a response to the inward thoughts and emotions of a human being, we encourage children in (...) the western world to make hand prints with paint, to colour in the lines and if we realise it or not we are using creativity as a holistic part of their development, by encouraging their creative intelligence; sadly, in the Middle East the idea of creativity is a poverty mindset that has been heavily removed from their culture and creative intelligence and it is this that has destroyed creativity from painting to writing. (shrink)

This volume aims to develop a philosophical diagnostic of the present, focussing on contemporary technoscience. psychoanalysis submits contemporary technoscientific discourse to a symptomatic reading, analysing it with evenly-poised attention and from an oblique perspective. Psychoanalysis is not primarily interested in protons, genes or galaxies, but rather in the ways in which they are disclosed and discussed, focussing on the symptomatic terms, the metaphors and paradoxes at work in technoscientific discourse. This monograph presents a psychoanalytical assessment of technoscience. The first four (...) chapters provide a short introduction into the psychoanalysis of technoscience, its basic concepts and methods, as developed Sigmund Freud, Carl Gustav Jung, Gaston Bachelard and Jacques Lacan. In subsequent chapters, this approach is fleshed out with the help of case histories (palaeoanthropology, classical conditioning and virology). Psychoanalysis reveals that, rather than by disinterested curiosity, technoscience is driven by desire, resistance and the will to control. Moreover, the focus is on primal scenes, such as Dubois’ quixotic quest for the missing link and Pavlov’s discovery of the conditioned reflex. In addition, psychoanalysis opts for triangulation: understanding technoscientific research by comparing it to “different scenes”: to genres of the imagination, notably novels, so that, in this volume, the discovery of a Homo erectus skull by Dubois is compared to missing link novels by Jules Verne and Jack London (dating from the same period), Pavlov’s discovery of the conditioned reflex is compared with B.F. Skinner’s novel Walden Two and virology as a research field is considered through the lens of viral fiction. (shrink)

In Embracing Paradox, Evolving Language, L.E. Maroski proposes that humanity is poised on the cusp of a transformation of consciousness that requires not only a shift in values and perspectives, but also a shift in a basic technology we take for granted—language. Because we use language to create social structures and institutions, including education, governance, and our most intimate relationships, the structure of our language contributes to the way we structure those creations. Maroski questions the cultural assumptions that are built (...) into the structure of language—primarily English—and invites the reader to imagine and ultimately to help develop novel structures of language that arise from different assumptions. To do so, she shows how we can draw inspiration from paradoxical topological forms, such as the Möbius strip and Klein bottle, as they embody both unity and duality/multiplicity. By seeing our reality not simply in terms of either/or but also in terms of both (many)/and, perhaps our feelings of fragmentation and the stultifying oppositions that have polarized society can transform into appreciation for the wholeness of all existence. (shrink)

Ο Νίτσε – αλλά και πιο πριν ο Σπινόζα και ο σύγχρονός του Σοπενάουερ -ηταν αυτός που συνόψισε την κληρονομιά της κρίσιμης φιλοσοφίας του 18ου αιώνα δείχνοντας στο έργο του το μέλλον της ψυχολογίας βάθους του εικοστού αιώνα. Από τότε το ασυνείδητο μέρος της ψυχής ασκεί αποφασιστική επιρροή στην ανθρώπινη αντίληψη, αυτή η ιδέα όμως εξελίχθηκε σε μεγάλο βαθμό στη δυτική σκέψη με τον Φρόυντ που την εισήγαγε στο στερέωμα της σύγχρονης πνευματικής ανησυχίας. Ήδη, από τις εισαγωγικές του διαλέξεις ο (...) Φρόυντ, θεωρούσε ότι η ψυχανάλυση αντιπροσώπευε το τρίτο χτύπημα στην παιδική αφέλεια του ανθρώπου, το πρώτο ήταν η θεωρία του Κοπέρνικου για το ηλιοκεντρικό σύστημα και η δεύτερη ήταν η θεωρία της εξέλιξης του Δαρβίνου. Η ψυχανάλυση αποκάλυψε ότι όχι μόνο η Γη δεν είναι το κέντρο του σύμπαντος, όχι μόνο ο άνθρωπος δεν είναι το προνομιούχο επίκεντρο της κοσμικής δημιουργίας, αλλά ακόμη και ο ανθρώπινος νους και το ενσυνείδητο εγώ, η πολύτιμη αίσθηση της ύπαρξης ενός λογικού εαυτού, είναι μόνο μια πρόσφατη και επισφαλής ανάπτυξη από την αρχέγονη ταυτότητα της φύσης, και το ανθρώπινο εγώ δεν είναι καθόλου κύριος του σπιτιού του, αντίθετα είναι ενεργούμενο μη συνειδητών ενορμήσεων και παθών. -/- -/- Και πάλι, όπως ο Κοπέρνικος και όπως ο Καντ, αλλά σε ένα εντελώς νέο επίπεδο, ο Φρόυντ έφερε τη θεμελιώδη αναγνώριση ότι αυτό που αποκαλούμε ‘’πραγματικότητα’’ του ‘’αντικειμενικού κόσμου’’ διαμορφώνεται συμβολικά, εν πολλοίς από τις ασυνείδητες δυνάμεις που υποκινούν τον ψυχισμό του υποκειμένου, αυτό συνέβαλλε περαιτέρω στην αποδυνάμωση του ανθρώπινου ναρκισσισμού, αλλά και στη σχετικοποίηση της αλήθειας και στην απομυθοποίηση του γνωστικού εγχειρήματος.. Αλλά ενώ ήταν ο Φρόυντ που ανασήκωσε το πέπλο των ψευδαισθήσεων και των αυταπατών, ο Jung ήταν εκείνος που ανέλαβε να διερευνήσει πιο συστηματικά τις φιλοσοφικές συνέπειες των ανακαλύψεων της δομικής ψυχολογίας. Εν μέρει αυτό συνέβη επειδή ο Jung είχε μελετήσει την κριτική φιλοσοφία του Κάντ, την οποία θεωρούσε ότι ήταν η μητέρα της σύγχρονης ψυχολογίας, ήταν ενημερωμένος για την επιστημολογικές επισημάνσεις που είχε διατυπώσει ο Carl Popper και βέβαια λόγω της πνευματικής του ιδιοσυγκρασίας ήταν αποστασιοποιημένος από τον επιστημονισμό-θετικισμό που ελλόχευε στη σκέψη του Φρόϋντ. -/- -/- -/- ΑΡΧΕΤΥΠΑ ΚΑΙ ΕΞΕΛΙΞΗ -/- -/- Ο Φρόυντ, τόσο στο Τοτέμ και Ταμπού, όσο και στο Μωυσής και μονοθεϊσμός, επικαλείται σαφώς την έννοια μιας συλλογικής κληρονομιάς αρχέγονων αναμνήσεων. Έκανε λόγο για μεταφορά αρχετυπικών εμπειριών και τραυμάτων μέσω του ασυνειδήτου του ανθρώπινου είδους. Η ίδια ιδέα των κληρονομικών ή φυλετικών αρχέτυπων αναμνήσεων, υπονοείται στην μεταψυχολογία του Πέραν της αρχής της ηδονής, όπου μιλάει για τον Οιδίποδα, για το μύθο του φόνου στην πρωτόγονη ορδή, προβαίνει στην αναλυτική διάκριση της ψυχικής δομής σε Υπερ-Εγώ Εγώ και Αυτό, διερευνά την αντινομική φύση των θεμελιωδών ενορμήσεων του Έρωτα και του Θανάτου, με άλλα λόγια είχε δεχτεί δηλαδή τα ένστικτα ως ουσιαστικά αρχέτυπα. Αλλά οι αναγωγιστικές του υποθέσεις και ο επιστημονισμός-θετικισμός που διαπερνούσε το έργο του, περιόρισαν δραστικά την έρευνα των αρχετύπων και του συλλογικού ασυνειδήτου. Άλλωστε, όπως ο ίδιος ο Φρόυντ αναγνώριζε, επρόκειτο για μυθολογικές κατασκευές, για δραματουργικές μεταφορές και εικονιστικές αλληγορίες, εξίσου ζωτικές για την κατανόηση του ανθρώπινου δράματος όσο και η αγνωστικιστική-επιστημονική κοσμοθεωρία του. -/- Η ιδέα, λοιπόν, του συλλογικού ασυνειδήτου, όπου το ψυχικό υλικό και οι αρχέτυπες εικόνες, όπως τα όνειρα, οι αναμνήσεις, οι σπερματικές εικόνες, ενσωματώνονται και μεταφέρονται από γενιά σε γενιά διαμέσου των χιλιετιών είναι γνώρισμα που χαρακτηρίζει τόσο τη σκέψη του Φρόυντ όσο και του Jung. Η διαφορά έγκειται στο γεγονός ότι η φροϋδική ψυχανάλυση σκόπευε να απαλλάξει την ανθρώπινη ψυχή από την παιδικότητα των μεταφυσικών δοξασιών, αντίθετα η ψυχολογία του Jung αντλούσε στοιχεία από τη θρησκευτική εμπειρία για πολλές από τις βασικές της κατηγορίες και έβλεπε τη θρησκεία ως αναγκαίο εξελικτικό παράγοντα στην ιστορία και στην υγεία της ανθρώπινης ψυχής. Έτσι, η σύγκρουση Φρόυντ και Jung, πέραν από τις διαφορετικότητα των ιδιοσυγκρασιών, μπορούμε να πούμε ότι ήταν μια επιστημολογική διαμάχη ανάμεσα στον αγνωστικισμό και την υπερβατική πίστη, σ΄ένα βαθύτερο επίπεδο μια μονομαχία ανάμεσα σε μια νέα μυθολογία, υποκατάστατο πίστης και σε μυθολογικό σύστημα που ήθελε να επαναφέρει τους αρχαίους θεούς. Ο Φρόυντ επιχείρησε να ξορκίσει τους πανάρχαιους μύθους του ανορθολογισμού και της πίστης στο υπερφυσικό και ο Jung επιχείρησε να αποκαταστήσει την παλιά λατρεία και τον ιερό μύθο, την ‘’ομορφιά και τον σκοπό της αρχαίας θρησκείας’’, όπως υποστήριζε ο ίδιος. Ο Φρόυντ γνήσιο τέκνο του ουμανιστικού ανθρωπισμού πίστευε στο διαφωτισμό του Λόγου και της επιστήμης, παρά το γεγονός ότι θεωρούσε ότι και αυτή η συμβολική μορφή συνιστά εκλογίκευση και εξειδανίκευση, αλλά επέμενε ότι ήταν η μόνη συμβολική μορφή η οποία αυτοελέγχεται και αυτοδιορθώνεται, δηλαδή δεν είναι δογματικό και αυταρχικό γνωστικό σύστημα. Ο Jung, από την άλλη πλευρά, διαβλέπει το υπαρξιακό κενό που επιφέρει η απομάγευση του τεχνικο-επιστημονικού κόσμου στη σύγχρονη ψυχή και πασχίζει να διασώσει τη μαγεία, επαναφέροντας τη μεταφυσικό στοιχείο και τη θρησκευτική ιερότητα της ζωής, όπως αυτή εκφραζόταν στους αρχαίους μύθους. -/- Όλοι οι παραπάνω λόγοι, μεταφυσικοί, ψυχολογικοί, κοινωνιολογικοί και βιογραφικοί, οι οποίοι διαφοροποιούν τον Φρόυντ από τον Jung, μπορούν να συνοψιστούν στη διαφορετική αντίληψη όσον αφορά τον χρόνο. Ο Φρόυντ είχε, κυρίως, μια γραμμική θεώρηση του χρόνου, αναγνώριζε και αποδεχόταν την οριστική και αμετάκλητη θνητότητα του ανθρώπου και το πεπερασμένο των δυνατοτήτων του και πάσχιζε να τον συμφιλιώσει με την αναπόφευκτη εντροπία της δημιουργίας, η οποία θα επαναφέρει τον άνθρωπο στη φυσική κατάσταση της ανόργανης ύλης. Σ΄αυτή την κατάσταση, τη φυσική κατάσταση της ανόργανης ύλης, θα συναντήσει ξανά τη γαλήνη και την ανάπαυση, αυτό το ον, που όσο ζει, δεν εξισορροπεί τη σχέση του με το περιβάλλον, βρίσκεται σε μια κατάσταση μη-ισορροπίας, ασυμμετρίας, κατάσταση που δημιουργεί την επίγνωση του χρόνου, του εγώ-εαυτού και του επικείμενου θανάτου. Το βέλος του χρόνου καθορίζεται από την αυξανόμενη εντροπία, δηλαδή από την κατεύθυνση που αυθόρμητα ακολουθεί ένα σύστημα προσπαθώντας να ισορροπήσει. Το γεγονός ότι ο άνθρωπος νοιώθει ‘’αταίριαστος’’, σε σχέση με το περιβάλλον του, αποτελεί από τη μια το ελατήριο της εξέλιξης και της δημιουργικής αλλαγής του, αλλά από την άλλη βιώνει άφατο πόνο και διχασμούς οδυνηρούς. -/- Ο Jung, είχε, κυρίως, μια κυκλική θεώρηση του χρόνου, είχε ως όραμά του την Ονειρική εποχή των αρχαϊκών εποχών, όπου η φυσική αντιστοιχία του ανθρώπου με τους κύκλους της ζωής – ενσωματωμένη μέσα στη βαθιά ριζωμένη πίστη της μετενσάρκωσης και της ανάστασης-αναγέννησης- καθησύχαζε και κατεύναζε το φόβο του θανάτου. Ο υποσυνείδητος φόβος του θανάτου, αναιρείτο από την αναζωογονητική υπόσχεση του κυκλικού χρόνου, σ΄αυτή την προ-προσωπική κατάσταση του όντος, σύμφωνα με την αφήγηση του Jung, το πλάσμα εκείνο ταίριαζε με το περιβάλλον του και δεν είχε κανένα λόγο να αλλάξει, βρισκόταν σε μια άχρονη κατάσταση ύπαρξης. -/- Εξελικτική ιστορία ή αδιαφοροποίητη επανάληψη του Ίδιου αρχετυπικού κοσμικού προτύπου; Χρόνος ή Άχρονο, Ύλη ή Πνεύμα, Πολιτισμός ή Φύση, αυτές είναι μερικές από τις διαφοροποιήσεις ή και αντιθέσεις που αντιπαραθέτουν τη Φρουδική επιστημολογία με τη Γιουγκιανή και βέβαια ταλαιπωρούν συνολικά τη μεταφυσική, δηλαδή, τη φιλοσοφική ιστορία. Αν δεχτούμε την κυκλική περιστροφή των αρχετυπικών δομών, τότε αποδεχόμαστε τη μεταφυσική της αναγκαιότητας ενός αυτόνομου μοτίβου που επαναλαβάνεται αέναα και δεν γνωρίζει διαφοροποίηση, δηλαδή αποδεχόμαστε μια μεταφυσική της ουσίας ή αλλιώς μια πάγια και αμετάβλητη ανθρώπινη φύση. Αυτό συνδηλώνει μια οντολογία του άχρονου και αιώνιου κόσμου που επαναλαβάνεται αέναα. Από την άλλη, αν δεχτούμε τη γραμμική αντίληψη της εξελικτικής ιστορίας της φύσης, αναγνωρίζουμε συνεχείς διαφοροποιήσεις και αλλαγές που δεν έχουν σχέση με κληρονομημένες διαχρονικές μορφές και μοτίβα συμπεριφοράς της ανθρώπινης εμπειρίας, αυτό σημαίνει ότι αποδεχόμαστε το αέναο γίγνεσθαι της δημιουργίας. -/- Από τη μια η δομή που επαναλαμβάνεται και από την άλλη μια δομή, ανοιχτή και σε διαδικασία δόμησης. Θα λέγαμε ότι οι αρχετυπικές δομές των αμετάβλητων στοιχείων και η εξελικτική φυσική ιστορία των μεταβλητών, συνυπάρχουν, συν-διαμορφώνονται και συν-μεταβάλλονται. Τα αρχέτυπα ως καλούπι μορφοποιούν τις εμπειρίες που μεταβάλλονται και οι εμπειρίες μορφοποιούν το καλούπι που μεταβάλλεται –δίχως καλούπι και εμπειρίες να ταυτίζονται ή να διακρίνονται-, σαν ένα κύκλωμα ανάδρασης που μεταβολίζει τα αντίθετα, τα αναιρεί και τα εγγράφει στον σφαιρικό χωροχρόνο που μεταμορφώνεται απροσδιόριστα. Ενδεχομένως, να μπορούμε να αναγνωρίσουμε έναν συνολικό αρχέτυπο ρυθμό στην κοσμική εξέλιξη της συνείδησης, ξεκινώντας από μια αρχέγονη αδιαφοροποίητη ενότητα, μια συγχωνευτική και συμβιωτική κατάσταση, οδεύουν σε μια σταθερή μετακίνηση προς διαφοροποίηση, σταδιακή ενδυνάμωση της αυτόνομης ανθρώπινης διάνοιας, την αργή σφυρηλάτηση του υποκειμενικού εαυτού που τη συνοδεύει η απογοήτευση για την έλλειψη σύνδεσης με τον κόσμο, την απόσυρση στο ασυνείδητο, την οικουμενική αποξένωση, τη ριζική αποδόμηση και, τέλος, ίσως, την ανάδυση μιας συμμετοχικής συνείδησης ​​που επανασυνδέεται με το συμπαντικό, με την πλήρη σημασία του όρου. -/- -/- Ο ΑΟΡΑΤΟΣ ΡΥΘΜΟΣ -/- Μια ριζική προσέγγιση δεν βλέπει αυτές τις δυνάμεις –τα αρχετυπικά μοτίβα και τις εξελικτικές μεταβολές-, ούτε ως ανταγωνιστικές, ούτε ως συμπληρωματικές, ούτε και τις συνθέτει σε μια αδιαφοροποίητη ενότητα. Αυτό που παρουσιάζεται υπό την όψη της δυαδικότητας κυριαρχείται από έναν ενιαίο και πολλαπλασιαζόμενο ρυθμό: οι δύο εκδηλώσεις ούτε ταυτόσημες είναι, αλλά ούτε διαχωρισμένες, ενεργούν και ενιαία και διαφοροποιημένα. Μπορούμε να αναλάβουμε τις δυαδικές αντιθέσεις και να τις εγγράψουμε στον σφαιρικό χωροχρόνο και στις μεταμορφώσεις του που τον διαφοροποιούν απροσδιόριστα. Ο σφαιρικός χωροχρόνος, οι μεταμορφώσεις ‘’του’’, αδιαχώριστος από το μηδέν, δεν είναι, δημιουργείται και καταστρέφεται ταυτοχρόνως. Ανατρέχοντας πέραν των διακρίσεων, διασχίζοντάς τες, έχουμε να σκεφτούμε το αινιγματικό κέντρο από όπου προέρχονται οι μεταγενέστερες διαφοροποιήσεις και αντιθέσεις, οι οποίες ενέχουν αυτό το κέντρο άσχετα αν το αγνοούν. Το μετέωρο αυτό κέντρο – το διαρθωμένο και εν κινήσει σύνολο – δεν δρά σαν αιτία, πραγματική, μεταφυσική ή μεταφορική, αλλά αυτό το κέντρο, παρόν-απόν, ένα και διαφοροποιημένο μαζί, γνωρίζει πολλαπλές μεταμορφώσεις, χωρίς να μπορούμε να πούμε ποιά διάσταση προηγείται και ποιά έπεται. -/- Θα λέγαμε ότι η εξελικτική διαδικασία εμπλουτισμού της συνείδησης είναι η κατανόηση της εξελικτικής διαδικασίας μέσω της συνείδησης, για να κλείσει ο κύκλος ανάδρασης ανάμεσα στην ύλη και το νου και να διαβούμε το κατώφλι της εξόδου προς το μεγάλο Όλον. Αυτό έχει ήδη συμβεί, ο χωροχρόνος ‘’τυλίγεται γύρω από τον εαυτό του’’ για να σχηματίσει τη σφαίρα της αχρονικότητας, όχι την άχρονη ισορροπία (όπου δεν υπάρχει ούτε παρελθόν, ούτε παρόν, ούτε μέλλον, μια κατάσταση που καταλύεται η Σκέψη, ο Λόγος και η Συνείδηση και γλυστράμε στο βάραθρο του αβυσσαλέου Μηδενός) αλλά τον καθολικό χρόνο της συνείδησης (όπου παρελθόν, παρόν και μέλλον, συνυπάρχουν, ενιαία και τρισδιάστατα, δηλαδή κάθε διάσταση περιλαμβάνει και τις άλλες δύο, όπως εκδηλώνονται συγχρονικά, διαχρονικά και πανχρονικά, τόσο τοπικά, όσο πλανητικά και συμπαντικά). Ακόμα, βέβαια, το ανθρώπινο είδος βρίσκεται σε μια κοιλάδα που το τυλίγει η ομίχλη, ο δρόμος για να φτάσει ψηλά στην κορυφή και να ατενίσει καινούργιους ορίζοντες είναι μακρύς και επικίνδυνος, έχει να αναρριχηθεί γκρεμούς, όμως το μέλλον υπάρχει ήδη στο παρόν, έχει υπάρξει στο παρελθόν. Ο δρόμος για τις απάτητες και αφώτιστες κορυφές διέρχεται μέσα από τον θάνατο του εγώ-εαυτού και στοχεύει την κατεύθυνση της ενιαίας διόρασης του κόσμου. Οι άνθρωποι, που δεν είναι άνθρωποι, αλλά ερευνητές και πειραματιστές ή καλύτερα διαβάτες που οδοιπορούν, δίχως να γνωρίζουν προς ποιά ακριβώς κατεύθυνση στοχεύει η πορεία τους και γιατί, ήδη βρίσκονται σε διαδικασία ανάληψης και ξεπεράσματος, μετατοπισμένοι σ΄έναν τόπο, μη τοπολογικό και σ΄έναν χρόνο, μη χρονολογικό, στον Κόσμο, όχι τον φυσικοεπιστημονικό, τον Κόσμο, ως Εν-Παν, ως Παν-Τίποτα. (shrink)

The article is devoted to an objective assessment of the role of Sabina Spielrein – one of the Russian pioneers of psychoanalysis – in the forming of theoretical basis of analytical psychology. A bibliographic review precedes the main part, in order to show the prevailing bias towards the consideration of personal life and the subjective features of Spielrein’s creativity, and not her ideas. In the first part the author briefly considers Spielrein’s contribution to the empirical justification and further development of (...) the complex theory and shows how her ideas are related to Jung's representations on the phylogenesis and ontogenesis of the psyche as a result of complex building-up and about the psychogenesis of schizophrenia. In particular, it is noted that Spielrein is the first one who clearly formulate a hypothesis, according to which our psyche a priori does not constitute anything integral, but is a combination of many complexes. In the second part the author focuses on the concept of speciespsyche, which anticipates the concept of collective unconscious. He draws parallels between the ideas of Spielrein and Jung on the role of collective unconscious contents of the psyche in shaping the individual's current psychic experience. In particular, the author focuses on the idea that every experience is always both conscious and unconscious, and if it does not superimpose the entire history of similar experiences inherited from the ancestors then it does not reach the needed level of intensity. In the same part the author points out three factors that do not allow us to assert with complete confidence that the concept of species-psyche is the exclusive merit of Spielrein, even though she published her ideas before Jung. The third part gives an assessment of the contribution of Spielrein to the development of Jung’s and Freud’s views on the destruction. The author points out the two main sources of Spielrein’s reflection on the destruction nature. The first is the ideas of the Russian biologist I.I. Mechnikov concerning the instinct of normal death. The second is Jung's ideas about the ambivalent nature of the libido. The author also demonstrates the close connection between the notion of species-psyche and the concept of destruction. Then a distinction is made between the simple static instinct of self-preservation and the ambivalent dynamic instinct of preservation of the species. In addition, the author compares Spielrein’s and Jung’s views on the essence of the destruction with the views of Freud. For this purpose a distinction is made between the death instinct as a positive drive for transformation through the destruction and the death instinct as the drive to completely destruction or stop of all processes. Дается оценка роли С.Н. Шпильрейн в формировании теоретического базиса аналитической психологии. Демонстрируется значимость ее научного вклада в развитие представлений К.Г. Юнга о комплексе, фило- и онтогенезе психики, психогенезе шизофрении, коллективном бессознательном и деструкции. Особый акцент делается на последние два момента. Кроме того, выявляются некоторые различия в понимании сущности феномена деструкции С.Н. Шпильрейн, К.Г. Юнгом и З. Фрейдом. (shrink)

The subject of the article is a mass psychology of B.P. Vysheslavtsev. This is a socio-philosophical conception, which created by Vysheslavtsev through the synthesizing of German classical philosophy, neo-Kantianism, Russian religious philosophy and analytical psychology. He developed the mass psychology in close collaboration with C.G. Jung by his direct order. The mass psychology, despite the heterogeneity of its foundations, became an organic continuation of analytical psychology. Moreover, there is reason to suppose that Vysheslavtsev's socio-philosophical and religious ideas influenced all (...) of Jung’s later work. The main method used was a comparative analysis of the ideas of Vysheslavtsev and Jung, as well as a critical interpretation of the original sources, including unpublished archival materials — letters and manuscripts. The novelty lies in the fact that previously the mass psychology of Vysheslavtsev eluded the attention of researchers. This is primarily due to the inaccessibility of sources on this issue, since some of them are either not published and stored in archives, including the Bakhmeteff Archive (Columbia University in the City of New York) and C.G. Jung Papers Collection (ETH Zurich University Archive), or was published in rare foreign journals and not translated into Russian. At the same time, without these sources it is difficult to understand not only the evolution of Vysheslavtsev’s views, but also the logic and reasons for the development of Jung’s ideas from the 1940s to his death. Thus, this article is intended to partially replenish these gaps in the history of Russian and European philosophy and psychology. Предметом исследования данной статьи является созданная на основе синтеза немецкой классической философии, неокантианства, русской религиозной философии и аналитической психологии социально-философская концепция Б.П. Вышеславцева, названная им "массовая психология". Данная концепция разрабатывалась в тесном взаимодействии с К.Г. Юнгом, в том числе, по его непосредственному заказу. Массовая психология Вышеславцева, несмотря на разнородность её основ, стала органичным продолжением аналитической психологии. Более того, есть основания полагать, что социально-философские и религиозные идеи Вышеславцева оказали влияние на всё позднее творчество Юнга. В качестве основного метода использовался компаративный анализ идей Вышеславцева и Юнга, а также критическая интерпретация первоисточников, включая неопубликованные архивные материалы - письма и рукописи. Новизна заключается в том, что ранее массовая психология Вышеславцева ускользала от внимания исследователей. Обусловлено это, в первую очередь, труднодоступностью источников по данной проблеме, так как часть из них либо не опубликована и хранится в архивах, в том числе в Бахметьевском архиве Колумбийского университета (Нью-Йорк) и Архиве Юнга (Цюрих), либо была опубликована в редких иностранных изданиях и не переведена на русский язык. Вместе с тем, без данных источников трудно понять не только эволюцию взглядов Вышеславцева, итогом которой стал труд "Кризис индустриальной культуры", но также логику и причины развития представлений Юнга начиная с 1940-х годов и заканчивая его смертью. Тем самым, данная статья призвана отчасти восполнить указанные лакуны в истории русской и европейской философии и психологии. (shrink)

Lars von Trier's works give us always plenty of exquisite philosophical food for thought, mostly in very dense and hermetic language. 'Melancholia' , a 2011 movie, has been seen by us as a brilliant dramatization of Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's philosophy (in an essay also available on PhilArchives). 'Antichrist', another movie of his from 2009, deploys a similar doom perspective regarding our times, now focusing the perpetual struggle between men and women as a leitmotiv. This brief review, however, does not intend (...) to go beyond an exposition of the mental structures which grounds both so different reactions: the husband's, and the wife's. (shrink)

The accent on scientific and empirical character of alchemy, especially from the field of the history of science, promotes the idea that one can understand the cryptic and metaphorical language of alchemy mainly through the laboratory chemical practice. As a result, the tendency is to interpret the spiritual and esoteric language of alchemy, as metaphors for laboratory work and the most representative research on historiography of alchemy that point the spiritual character as being contaminated by esoteric sciences and Victorian occultism. (...) This paper is paying attention to this dichotomy by attempting to understand the exclusivist position of the position that alchemy is a proto-chemistry and to see the consequences of such an interpretation. It is reviewed one of the most representative voices that interpret alchemy as spiritual by Carl. G. Jung and Mircea Eliade, and their rejection, as it is illustrated by William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, showing the boundaries of both approaches and the hazarded character of understanding alchemy merely as part of the history of chemistry. (shrink)

The task of the congress of the German Society for Semiotics in Passau / Germany in September 2017 was to explore and describe "boundaries". A total of 12 sections of the society wrote a call for paper for this purpose. With the present anthology it has to be made evident, how concretely also the boundaries of the own, the other and the foreign can be negotiated via pictures. -/- Papers: -/- - Martina Sauer: Ikonische Grenzverläufe. Szenarien des Eigenen, Anderen und (...) Fremden im Bild. Eine Einführung, 4 - Barbara Margarethe Eggert: Das andere Geschlecht im Altarraum – exklusive Textilien als inklusive Medien. Studien zum Gösser Ornat, 7 - Birke Sturm: Politik der Schönheit: Zur Konstruktion einer ›wissenschaftlichen‹ Bildästhetik schöner weiblicher Körper um 1900 am Beispiel des Gynäkologen Carl Heinrich Stratz, 22 - Melis Avkiran: Das rassifizierte Fremde im Bild. Zur Genese differenzbildender Konzepte in der Kunst des 15. Jahrhunderts am Beispiel des Malers Hans Memling, 40 - Leonie Licht: weiß zwischen schwarz zwischen weiß – Geschichten von Identität im Bild, 75 - Julia Austermann: Queere Interventionen im kommunistischen Polen – Krzysztof Jung und sein ›plastisches Theater‹, 91 - Sabine Engel: Tizians Porträt der Laura Dianti. Aneignung und Transformation zwischen Orient und Okzident, 111 - Anna Christina Schütz: Osman Hamdi Beys Türkische Straßenszene. Der Teppich als Verhandlungsort kultureller Identitäten im ausgehenden 19. Jahrhundert, 146 - Benjamin Häger, Claudia Jürgens: Ikonische Stadtstrategien. Das Fassadenplakat und die Musterfassade als Instrumente machtpolitischer Repräsentation, 175 - Irene Schütze: Fehlende Verweise, rudimentäre ›Markierungen‹: aufgeweichte Grenzverläufe zwischen Kunst und Alltag, 204 - Stefan Römer: Interesse an und in einem Bildarchiv für Migrant/innen und Flüchtlinge, 221 - Viola Nordsieck: Von der Fähigkeit, einen Stuhl zu ignorieren. A. N. Whiteheads Konzept der Wahrnehmung als symbolisierender Tätigkeit und die Art, wie wir Bilder als Bilder sehen, 239 - David Jöckel: Mythos und Bild. Roland Barthes’ Semiologie bildlicher Stereotypisierung, 255 -/- - Kurzbiographien der Autorinnen und Autoren, 274 - Impressum, 278. (shrink)

Metaphors allow us to come to terms with abstract and complex information, by comparing it to something which is structured, familiar and concrete. Although modern science is “iconoclastic”, as Gaston Bachelard phrases it, scientists are at the same time prolific producers of metaphoric images themselves. Synthetic biology is an outstanding example of a technoscientific discourse replete with metaphors, including textual metaphors such as the “Morse code” of life, the “barcode” of life and the “book” of life. This paper focuses on (...) a different type of metaphor, however, namely on the archetypal metaphor of the mandala as a symbol of restored unity and wholeness. Notably, mandala images emerge in textual materials related to one of the new “frontiers” of contemporary technoscience, namely the building of a synthetic cell: a laboratory artefact that functions like a cell and is even able to replicate itself. The mandala symbol suggests that, after living systems have been successfully reduced to the elementary building blocks and barcodes of life, the time has now come to put these fragments together again. We can only claim to understand life, synthetic cell experts argue, if we are able to technically reproduce a fully functioning cell. This holistic turn towards the cell as a meaningful whole also requires convergence at the “subject pole”: the building of a synthetic cell as a practice of the self, representing a turn towards integration, of multiple perspectives and various forms of expertise. (shrink)

An adequate understanding of the ubiquitous practice of mechanistic explanation requires an account of what Craver termed “constitutive relevance.” Entities or activities are constitutively relevant to a phenomenon when they are parts of the mechanism responsible for that phenomenon. Craver’s mutual manipulability account extended Woodward’s account of manipulationist counterfactuals to analyze how interlevel experiments establish constitutive relevance. Critics of MM argue that applying Woodward’s account to this philosophical problem conflates causation and constitution, thus rendering the account incoherent. These criticisms, we (...) argue, arise from failing to distinguish the semantic, epistemic, and metaphysical aspects of the problem of constitutive relevance. In distinguishing these aspects of the problem and responding to these critics accordingly, we amend MM into a refined epistemic criterion, the “matched interlevel experiments” account. Further, we explain how this epistemological thesis is grounded in the plausible metaphysical thesis that constitutive relevance is causal betweenness. (shrink)

Critics of luck egalitarianism have claimed that, far from providing a justification for the public insurance functions of a welfare state as its proponents claim, the view objectionably abandons those who are deemed responsible for their dire straits. This article considers seven arguments that can be made in response to this ‘abandonment objection’. Four of these arguments are found wanting, with a recurrent problem being their reliance on a dubious sufficientarian or quasi-sufficientarian commitment to provide a threshold of goods unconditionally. (...) Three arguments succeed, showing that luck egalitarians have good reasons for assisting ‘negligent victims’ on account of changes that may occur in an individual between the time of their choice and their subsequent disadvantage, bad option luck, and doubts about free will and responsibility. Luck egalitarianism is therefore shown to offer strong support for public insurance. (shrink)

Longtermists have argued that humanity should significantly increase its efforts to prevent catastrophes like nuclear wars, pandemics, and AI disasters. But one prominent longtermist argument overshoots this conclusion: the argument also implies that humanity should reduce the risk of existential catastrophe even at extreme cost to the present generation. This overshoot means that democratic governments cannot use the longtermist argument to guide their catastrophe policy. In this paper, we show that the case for preventing catastrophe does not depend on longtermism. (...) Standard cost-benefit analysis implies that governments should spend much more on reducing catastrophic risk. We argue that a government catastrophe policy guided by cost-benefit analysis should be the goal of longtermists in the political sphere. This policy would be democratically acceptable, and it would reduce existential risk by almost as much as a strong longtermist policy. (shrink)

According to all-luck egalitarianism, the differential distributive effects of both brute luck, which defines the outcome of risks which are not deliberately taken, and option luck, which defines the outcome of deliberate gambles, are unjust. Exactly how to correct the effects of option luck is, however, a complex issue. This article argues that (a) option luck should be neutralized not just by correcting luck among gamblers, but among the community as a whole, because it would be unfair for gamblers as (...) a group to be disadvantaged relative to non-gamblers by bad option luck; (b) individuals should receive the warranted expected results of their gambles, except insofar as individuals blamelessly lacked the ability to ascertain which expectations were warranted; and (c) where societal resources are insufficient to deliver expected results to gamblers, gamblers should receive a lesser distributive share which is in proportion to the expected results. Where all-luck egalitarianism is understood in this way, it allows risk-takers to impose externalities on non-risk-takers, which seems counterintuitive. This may, however, be an advantage as it provides a luck egalitarian rationale for assisting ‘negligent victims’. (shrink)

According to one large family of views, scientific explanations explain a phenomenon (such as an event or a regularity) by subsuming it under a general representation, model, prototype, or schema (see Bechtel, W., & Abrahamsen, A. (2005). Explanation: A mechanist alternative. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 36(2), 421–441; Churchland, P. M. (1989). A neurocomputational perspective: The nature of mind and the structure of science. Cambridge: MIT Press; Darden (2006); Hempel, C. G. (1965). Aspects of scientific (...) explanation. In C. G. Hempel (Ed.), Aspects of scientific explanation (pp. 331–496). New York: Free Press; Kitcher (1989); Machamer, P., Darden, L., & Craver, C. F. (2000). Thinking about mechanisms. Philosophy of Science, 67(1), 1–25). My concern is with the minimal suggestion that an adequate philosophical theory of scientific explanation can limit its attention to the format or structure with which theories are represented. The representational subsumption view is a plausible hypothesis about the psychology of understanding. It is also a plausible claim about how scientists present their knowledge to the world. However, one cannot address the central questions for a philosophical theory of scientific explanation without turning one’s attention from the structure of representations to the basic commitments about the worldly structures that plausibly count as explanatory. A philosophical theory of scientific explanation should achieve two goals. The first is explanatory demarcation. It should show how explanation relates with other scientific achievements, such as control, description, measurement, prediction, and taxonomy. The second is explanatory normativity. It should say when putative explanations succeed and fail. One cannot achieve these goals without undertaking commitments about the kinds of ontic structures that plausibly count as explanatory. Representations convey explanatory information about a phenomenon when and only when they describe the ontic explanations for those phenomena. (shrink)

This paper continues the defense of a version of scientific realism, Tautological Scientific Realism, that rests on the claim that, excluding some areas of fundamental physics about which doubts are entirely justified, many areas of contemporary science cannot be coherently imagined to be false other than via postulation of radically skeptical scenarios, which are not relevant to the realism debate in philosophy of science. In this paper we discuss, specifically, the threats of meaning change and reference failure associated with the (...) Kuhnian tradition, which depend on a descriptivist approach to meaning, and we argue that descriptivism is not the right account of the meaning and reference of theoretical terms. We suggest that an account along the lines of the causal-historical theory of reference provides a more faithful picture of how terms for unobservable theoretical entities and properties come to refer; we argue that this picture works particularly well for TSR. In the last section we discuss how our account raises concerns specifically for perspectival forms of scientific realism. (shrink)

The standard version of sufficientarianism maintains that providing people with enough, or as close to enough as is possible, is lexically prior to other distributive goals. This article argues that this is excessive – more than distributive justice allows – in four distinct ways. These concern the magnitude of advantage, the number of beneficiaries, responsibility and desert, and above-threshold distribution. Sufficientarians can respond by accepting that providing enough unconditionally is more than distributive justice allows, instead balancing sufficiency against other considerations.

I argue that Sellars’s naturalization of Kant should be understood in terms of how he used behavioristic psychology and cybernetics. I first explore how Sellars used Edward Tolman’s cognitive-behavioristic psychology to naturalize Kant in the early essay “Language, Rules, and Behavior”. I then turn to Norbert Wiener’s understanding of feedback loops and circular causality. On this basis I argue that Sellars’s distinction between signifying and picturing, which he introduces in “Being and Being Known,” can be understood in terms of what (...) I call cybernetic behaviorism. I interpret picturing in terms of cycles of cybernetic behavior and signifying in terms of coordination between cybernetic behavior systems, or what I call triangulated cybernetic behavior. This leads to a formal, naturalistic understanding of personhood as the capacity to engage in triangulated cybernetic behavior. I conclude by showing that Sellars’s thought has the resources, which he did not exploit, for introducing the concept of second-order cybernetics. This suggests that Sellars’s philosophy of mind could be developed in the direction of autopoiesis and enactivism. (shrink)

The method of reflective equilibrium focuses on the relationship between principles and judgments. Principles are relatively general rules for comprehending the area of enquiry. Judgments are our intuitions or commitments, ‘at all levels of generality’ (Rawls 1975: 8), regarding the subject matter. The basic idea of reflective equilibrium is to bring principles and judgments into accord. This can be achieved by revising the principles and/or the judgments. -/- I first look at normative political judgments (Section 2) before considering the role (...) of principles, arguments, devices of representation and background theory in wide reflective equilibrium (Section 3). I then consider two of the main challenges to the method (Section 4), and show how to use it to deliberate about substantive political principles (Section 5). I conclude with an extended example of the method in action (Section 6). (shrink)

In “What Makes a Scientific Explanation Distinctively Mathematical?” (2013b), Lange uses several compelling examples to argue that certain explanations for natural phenomena appeal primarily to mathematical, rather than natural, facts. In such explanations, the core explanatory facts are modally stronger than facts about causation, regularity, and other natural relations. We show that Lange's account of distinctively mathematical explanation is flawed in that it fails to account for the implicit directionality in each of his examples. This inadequacy is remediable in each (...) case by appeal to ontic facts that account for why the explanation is acceptable in one direction and unacceptable in the other direction. The mathematics involved in these examples cannot play this crucial normative role. While Lange's examples fail to demonstrate the existence of distinctively mathematical explanations, they help to emphasize that many superficially natural scientific explanations rely for their explanatory force on relations of stronger-than-natural necessity. These are not opposing kinds of scientific explanations; they are different aspects of scientific explanation. (shrink)

I argue that Sellars’s distinction between signifying and picturing should be taken seriously by philosophers of mind, language, and cognition. I begin with interpretations of key Sellarsian texts in order to show that picturing is best understood as a theory of non-linguistic cognitive representations through which animals navigate their environments. This is distinct from the kind of discursive cognition that Sellars called ‘signifying’ and which is best understood in terms of socio-linguistic inferences. I argue that picturing is required because reflection (...) on signifying cannot adequately explain our need for cognitive friction. I then show how the idea of picturing is further developed by Paul Churchland, Ruth Garrett Millikan, and Huw Price. I finally turn to predictive processing as a theory of cognitive representation, and in particular Andy Clark’s ‘radical predictive processing’, to further characterize picturing. However, doing so has the cost of pushing picturing and signifying further apart than Sellars intended. (shrink)

Luck egalitarianism is a family of egalitarian theories of distributive justice that aim to counteract the distributive effects of luck. This article explains luck egalitarianism's main ideas, and the debates that have accompanied its rise to prominence. There are two main parts to the discussion. The first part sets out three key moves in the influential early statements of Dworkin, Arneson, and Cohen: the brute luck/option luck distinction, the specification of brute luck in everyday or theoretical terms and the specification (...) of advantage as resources, welfare, or some combination of these. The second part covers three later developments: the democratic egalitarian critique of luck egalitarianism, the luck egalitarian acceptance of pluralism, and luck egalitarian doubts about the significance of the brute luck/option luck distinction. (shrink)

This chapter explores the unifying themes of “the Pittsburgh School” of Sellars, Brandom, and McDowell: a social pragmatist account of intentionality, the rejection of the Myth of the Given, and the partial rehabilitation of Hegel for analytic philosophy. In addition this chapter also discusses three points of disagreement within the Pittsburgh School: whether or not we should posit sense-impressions, whether perceptual intentionality is world-relational, and whether the natural sciences have epistemic authority over other ways of thinking about nature. The chapter (...) concludes with a metaphilosophical concern about the status of a return to Hegel within analytic philosophy. Analytic philosophy follows an anti-Hegelian neo-Kantian institution of a divide between philosophy and the social and natural sciences. Hegel would reject such a divide, since he conceives of philosophy as investigating “shapes of a world” and not just “shapes of consciousness”. In these terms the Pittsburgh School marks a return to Hegel trimmed to suit the needs of analytic philosophy rather than questioning those needs. (shrink)

The web is increasingly inhabited by the remains of its departed users, a phenomenon that has given rise to a burgeoning digital afterlife industry. This industry requires a framework for dealing with its ethical implications. We argue that the regulatory conventions guiding archaeological exhibitions could provide the basis for such a framework.

This article aims to describe the last 10 years of the collaborative scientific endeavors on polarization in particular and collective problem-solving in general by our multidisciplinary research team. We describe the team’s disciplinary composition—social psychology, political science, social philosophy/epistemology, and complex systems science— highlighting the shared and unique skill sets of our group members and how each discipline contributes to studying polarization and collective problem-solving. With an eye to the literature on team dynamics, we describe team logistics and processes that (...) we believe make our multidisciplinary team persistent and productive. We emphasize challenges and difficulties caused by disciplinary differences in terms of terminology, units/levels of analysis, methodology, and theoretical assumptions. We then explain how work disambiguating the concepts of polarization and developing an integrative theoretical and methodological framework with complex systems perspectives has helped us overcome these challenges. We summarize the major findings that our research has produced over the past decade, and describe our current research and future directions. Last, we discuss lessons we have learned, including difficulties in a “three models” project and how we addressed them, with suggestions for effective multidisciplinary team research. (shrink)

This volume presents research that integrates decision making and creativity within the social contexts in which these processes occur. The volume is an essential addition to and expansion of recent approaches to decision making. Such approaches attempt to incorporate more of the psychological and socio-cultural context in which human decision making takes place. The authors come from different disciplines and also belong to a broad spectrum of research traditions. They present innovative chapters dealing with both theoretical and empirical aspects of (...) decision making in different personal and organizational contexts. All chapters are written from the perspective that human decision making is inherently social and more or less creative. The volume addresses fundamental questions about the nature of human decision making as it occurs in different social contexts. Thereby, it becomes essential reading for researchers in decision making and for advanced students in psychology, management science, informatics, and related disciplines. (shrink)

The rise of mechanistic science in the seventeenth century helped give rise to a heated debate about whether teleology—the appearance of purposive activity in life and in mind—could be naturalized. At issue here were both what is meant by “teleology” as well as what is meant “nature”. I shall examine a specific episode in the history of this debate in the twentieth century with the rise of cybernetics: the science of seemingly “self-controlled” systems. Against cybernetics, Hans Jonas argued that cybernetics (...) failed as a naturalistic theory of teleology and that the reality of teleology is grounded in phenomenology, not in scientific explanations. I shall argue that Jonas was correct to criticize cybernetics but that contemporary work in biological organization succeeds where cybernetics failed. I will then turn to contemporary uses of Jonas’s phenomenology in enactivism and argue that Jonas’s phenomenology should be avoided by enactivism as a scientific research program, but that it remains open whether enactivism as a philosophy of nature should also avoid Jonas. (shrink)

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the recent debate about responsibility and distributive justice. It traces the recent philosophical focus on distributive justice to John Rawls and examines two arguments in his work which might be taken to contain the seeds of the focus on responsibility in later theories of distributive justice. It examines Ronald Dworkin's ‘equality of resources’, the ‘luck egalitarianism’ of Richard Arneson and G. A. Cohen, as well as the criticisms of their work put forward by (...) Elizabeth Anderson, Marc Fleurbaey, Susan Hurley, and Jonathan Wolff. Key concepts such as responsibility (individual and collective), luck (thin and thick; brute and option), control, desert, and equality of opportunity are delineated, and the implementation of responsibility-sensitive accounts of justice is considered. The chapters of this book are positioned in relation to the wider literature on responsibility and distributive justice, and a brief outline of the chapters is provided. (shrink)

This review article of Shlomi Segall's Health, Luck, and Justice (Princeton University Press, 2010) addresses three issues: first, Segall’s claim that luck egalitarianism, properly construed, does not object to brute luck equality; second, Segall’s claim that brute luck is properly construed as the outcome of actions that it would have been unreasonable to expect the agent to avoid; and third, Segall’s account of healthcare and criticism of rival views. On the first two issues, a more conventional form of luck egalitarianism (...) – that is, one which objects to brute luck even if it creates equality, and which construes brute luck as the inverse of agent responsibility – is defended. On the third issue, strengths and weaknesses in Segall’s criticism of Rawlsian, democratic egalitarian, and all-luck egalitarian approaches to healthcare, and in his own luck egalitarian approach, are identified. (shrink)

Some philosophers writing on the possibility of faultless disagreement have argued that the only way to account for the intuition that there could be disagreements which are faultless in every sense is to accept a relativistic semantics. In this article we demonstrate that this view is mistaken by constructing an absolutist semantics for a particular domain – aesthetic discourse – which allows for the possibility of genuinely faultless disagreements. We argue that this position is an improvement over previous absolutist responses (...) to the relativist's challenge and that it presents an independently plausible account of the semantics of aesthetic discourse. (shrink)

Online technologies enable vast amounts of data to outlive their producers online, thereby giving rise to a new, digital form of afterlife presence. Although researchers have begun investigating the nature of such presence, academic literature has until now failed to acknowledge the role of commercial interests in shaping it. The goal of this paper is to analyse what those interests are and what ethical consequences they may have. This goal is pursued in three steps. First, we introduce the concept of (...) the Digital Afterlife Industry, and define it as an object of study. Second, we identify the politico-economic interests of the DAI. For this purpose, we develop an analytical approach based on an informational interpretation of Marxian economics. Third, we explain the practical manifestations of the interests using four real life cases. The findings expose the incentives of the DAI to alter what is referred to as the “informational bodies” of the dead, which in turn is to be seen as a violation of the principle of human dignity. To prevent such consequences, we argue that the ethical conventions that guide trade with remains of organic bodies may serve as a good model for future regulation of DAI. (shrink)

Discrimination, understood as differential treatment of individuals on the basis of their respective group memberships, is widely considered to be morally wrong. This moral judgment is backed in many jurisdictions with the passage of equality of opportunity legislation, which aims to ensure that racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, sexual-orientation, disability and other groups are not subjected to discrimination. This chapter explores the conceptual underpinnings of discrimination and equality of opportunity using the tools of analytical moral and political philosophy.

Many political philosophers maintain that beneficiaries of injustice are under special obligations to assist victims of injustice. However, the examples favoured by those who endorse this view equally support an alternative luck egalitarian view, which holds that special obligations should be assigned to those with good brute luck. From this perspective the distinguishing features of the benefiting view are (1) its silence on the question of whether to allocate special obligations to assist the brute luck worse off to those who (...) are well off as a matter of brute luck but not as a result of injustice, and (2) its silence on the question of whether to allocate assistance to those who are badly off as a matter of brute luck but not as a result of injustice. In this new light, the benefiting view is harder to justify. (shrink)

For the greater part of the last 50 years, it has been common for philosophers of mind and cognitive scientists to invoke the notion of realization in discussing the relationship between the mind and the brain. In traditional philosophy of mind, mental states are said to be realized, instantiated, or implemented in brain states. Artificial intelligence is sometimes described as the attempt either to model or to actually construct systems that realize some of the same psychological abilities that we and (...) other living creatures possess. The claim that specific psychological. (shrink)