Constructivism is frequently met with objections, criticism and often equated with nihilism or relativism. Sometimes even blamed for what some would randomly picture as unwanted side effects of radicalism or of a progressivist era: such misconceptions are not only due to an imprecise grasp of the premises shared by the constructivist family of systems. The structure of media, political systems, and economic models, still up today impel societal understandings of knowledge on neo-positivistic grounds. The first part of this essay (...) outlines such pressures while sketching how language and worldviews play critical roles in our knowledge construction. Focusing on recent mediatic events, this work advances displaying some essential limits regarding the construction of human knowledge. Though unavoidable, some of the distinguishing aspects regarding the nature of our narratives are then critically reviewed. Later, it is shown how a special kind of self-denial that certain sub-stories implicitly hold about their own narrative nature leaves us with clashing worldviews that eventually collide onto crisis. Finally, it’ll be argued that it’s precisely in this scenario where a constructivist depiction of social discourses may move us away from any adolescent intent of elucidating absolutes within mere heuristics, to the pragmatic need of arriving on satisfactory agreements between parties (DOI: 10.4236/ojpp.2022). (shrink)

We set forth what one may call a “constitutional reading” in opposition to the traditional widespread “constructivist reading” of the object of cognition. In the light of the so-called one-object view reading of Transcendental idealism, the object of cognition is nothing but the object that exists in itself insofar as it appears to our cognitive apparatus. The object exists mind-independently, while our cognition of the same object must be mind-independent. The constructivist reading mistakes the epistemological problem of how we come (...) to cognize mind-dependently that what we represent (“the constitutional view”) are mind-independent objects with the Berkelian ontological problem of how we construct objects out of an undifferentiated, unstructured manifold (the constructivist view) My diagnosis is as follows. The first reason is the traditional “two-worlds view” reading of Kant’s idealism. If we take what exists in itself and the object of cognition as distinct things, then we must conclude that the object of cognition is a mind-dependent construction. Constructivist readers mistake the mind-dependent nature of our human cognition of objects for the putative mind-dependent nature of the known object. The second reason is overintellectualization. Constructivist readers mistake the objectifying syntheses of the imagination, below the threshold of self-consciousness, for cognitive conceptual operations by means of which we cognize (erkennen) the objects of cognition, or so I shall argue. (shrink)

In the philosophy of memory there is a tension between a preservationist and a constructivist view of memory reflected in the debate between causalism and simulationism. Causalism is not only committed to the claim that there must be an appropriate causal connection between the remembered event and the content represented at retrieval but also that such connection is possible because of a content-preserving memory trace. Simulationism, by contrast, rejects the need for an appropriate causal condition and, thereby, makes the appeal (...) to memory traces unnecessary. In this paper I argue that while the are strong conceptual arguments and empirical evidence to support a constructivist view of memory, the empirical evidence also suggest that the initial formulation of simulationism needs to be revised. In particular, I argue, first, that simulationism’s commitment to a single cognitive system for mental time travel is likely wrong, and second, that simulationism cannot get rid of memory traces altogether, as they are still explanatorily indispensable when it comes to explaining a large number of memory-related phenomena. At the end, I end up suggesting a way of thinking about memory traces that, I think, is compatible with simulationism and a constructivist view of memory. If the view I put forth is on the right track, then an updated version of simulationism can help to dispel the dichotomy between causalism and simulationism as a false one. (shrink)

Using semi-structured interviews and an analytic approach based on the grounded theory, this research took on constructing an understanding of the socio-emotional relevance, and the meaning that a group of elder participants of CIAM «Lucía Salas Romo» of Quilicura (Santiago, Chile) ascribe to social discourses regarding aging. Findings showed that, mobilizing the semantic dissonance between what society promotes and the effective opportunities it allows for the elderly, there are two crucial components of the social discourse: social injustice and fear of (...) dependency. In turn, these play a central role in elder affectivity and the reformulation of identity during this developmental stage for this group (DOI: 10.33264/rpa.202101). (shrink)

Trata-se de mostrar em que sentido a concepção normativa de pessoa em John Rawls pressupõe uma transformação semântica da concepção kantiana de subjetividade transcendental, em particular do seu ideal de personalidade. Uma reinterpretação kantiana da concepção normativa de pessoa logra explicar o dispositivo procedimental do equilíbrio reflexivopara responder a críticas comunitaristas em defesa do individualismo inerente ao liberalismo político, concebido não mais como uma doutrina abrangente da auto-identidade mas como um construtivismo, num modelo coerentista dejustificativa epistêmico-moral.The article seeks to show (...) in which sense Rawls’s normative conception of the person does presuppose a semantic transformation of the Kantian conception of transcendental subjectivity, particularly of his ideal of personhood . A Kantian reinterpretation of the normative conception of the person succeeds in accounting for the procedural device of reflective equilibrium so as to address communitarian criticisms in defense of the individualism inherent in political liberalism, conceived no longer as a comprehensive doctrine of self-identity but as a constructivism, within a coherentist model of moral epistemology. (shrink)

Critical view of images regarding how we usually see, understand, and how we experience, outlining analytical alternatives inviting to investigate philosophically around the socioeconomic ordering, speech, religion, science and democracy, among others. More than laying down each one of the difficulties inherent to every ontological sphere, the book looks at how we usually construct speech and realities to board them (ISBN: 978-1-326-51369-6).

Metaphysics relies on the presupposition of the non-being of the world: since the world has once not existed it is necessary to postulate a cause for its existence, i.e. an extrinsic principle to explain the absolute beginning of the causal series of all things that constitute the world. After the critique of theologizing metaphysics by authors like Kant, Hegel and Nietzsche, the notion of an absolute beginning still persists though in a field in which it often goes as such unnoticed, (...) while it factually enjoys wide acceptance, namely in epistemology. It sounds as a truism that knowledge begins: personal inexistence (birth-death cycle) and the phenomenon of unconsciousness (sleep-wake cycle) seem to endorse the obviousness of that statement. Now, to link the beginning of the phenomenal series of subjective acts of knowledge with the existence of an external world that causes the specific content of our temporary cognitive acts relies, however, on two presuppositions, namely on the thesis of a complete non-being or nothingness of knowledge and, intrinsically related to this first presupposition, on the thesis of an absolute beginning of cognitive activity. If knowledge begins from its own nothingness, there must be a cause that is external to the totality of acts of knowledge, a cause that it doesn´t belong to the series of cognitive acts and, therefore, that it is not caused by any of them: this uncaused cause of contentful knowledge is supposed to be the real world external to the knowing subject. In my paper I make explicit the relation between realist-empiricist approachs to epistemology and the double presupposition of the nothingness and absolute beginning of knowledge, I explain the difficulties implied by these two presuppositions and, finally, I propose as a plausible solution to those difficulties some key theoretical claims of absolute idealism. (shrink)

Constructivism is a philosophical current that manifests itself greatly within the realm of contemporary epistemology. Its bases come from the idea that knowledge is not only actively constructed by the observer but also provides a lens through which reality can be interpreted as a result of experiences. This paper traces a brief interdisciplinary curve that outlines some of the most important philosophical approaches that contributed to the consolidation of this school of thought for more than twenty-five centuries.

L’article poursuit un double objectif. D’une part, il propose une revue de l’articulation des concepts de genre et de sexe au prisme de la biologie de l’évolution dans le champ des études féministes francophones (cette délimitation tenant à la fois à des raisons de place, de pertinence scientifique et d’accessibilité au public non spécialiste). A cette fin, il propose également une définition du concept de constructivisme qui soit compatible avec le naturalisme, s’inscrivant en cela dans l’état contemporain de la philosophie (...) générale des sciences. Une fois mis en place ces éléments de cartographie du débat, le second objectif de l’article consiste à prendre au sérieux la diversité actuelle des concepts de sexe en biologie. Il insiste sur la nécessité d’une clarification conceptuelle des différents niveaux impliqués, et propose pour cela d’en finir avec la terminologie unique du sexe : celle-ci, en favorisant des confusions entre différents concepts, constitue un coût cognitif qu’il faut dépasser. Ce coût cognitif s’articule à un coût social. En effet, un tel flou conceptuel favorise en même temps dans la sphère publique une naturalisation abusive – puisque scientifiquement douteuse – de comportements sociaux inégalitaires. L’approche constructiviste ne consiste donc pas à nier la contrainte empirique de la nature. Il s’agit plutôt, à partir de la mise en évidence de la circulation des représentations entre la société en général et la science en particulier, de se doter d’outils d’analyse réflexifs et scientifiquement maîtrisés pour aborder les problématiques éthiques, politiques et épistémiques impliquées par cette circulation. (shrink)

There has been much recent debate on the question of whether Kant is to be best understood as a moral realist or a moral constructivist. In an attempt to resolve this debate I examine whether moral constructivism is a form of moral idealism, briefly contrast realism and idealism, and draw on work in social ontology to look at the different accounts of moral ontology implicit in realist and constructivist accounts. As a result of this investigation I conclude that Kant (...) is a moral constructivist. (shrink)

In defending the principle of neutrality, liberals have often appealed to a more general moral principle that forbids coercing persons in the name of reasons those persons themselves cannot reasonably be expected to share. Yet liberals have struggled to articulate a non-arbitrary, non- dogmatic distinction between the reasons that persons can reasonably be expected to share and those they cannot. The reason for this, I argue, is that what it means to “share a reason” is itself obscure. In this paper (...) I articulate two different conceptions of what it is to share a reason; I call these conceptions “foundationalist” and “constructivist.” On the foundationalist view, two people “share” a reason just in the sense that the same reason applies to each of them independently. On this view, I argue, debates about the reasons we share collapse into debates about the reasons we have, moving us no closer to an adequate defense of neutrality. On the constructivist view, by contrast, “sharing reasons” is understood as a kind of activity, and the reasons we must share are just those reasons that make this activity possible. I argue that the constructivist conception of sharing reasons yields a better defense of the principle of neutrality. (shrink)

Inauguration speech at chair number 18 of the Brasilian Academy of Philosophy.

Illich’s criticism of contemporary industrial societies involves, among otherthings, a new conception of technology assessment based on the philosophical notionof “conviviality”. The purpose of this paper is to reconstruct such conception, whosemost salient features are radical pluralism, technologic constructivism and humanism, that is,the idea that the best yardstick to measure actual or potential.

El trabajo consiste en una elucidación de los elementos que conforman el concepto de pena natural (poena naturalis) en el Derecho penal. Se puede caracterizar la pena natural como el daño o sufrimiento que recae sobre el autor de un delito, producto de la comisión del mismo, que debe ser descontado de la pena legal que ha de aplicársele. Si bien existe un mínimo acuerdo sobre esto, tanto en la jurisprudencia como en la doctrina penal se observan serios desacuerdos acerca (...) de los requisitos que se deben cumplir para reconocer que se está frente a una pena natural. Para elucidar los elementos, se utilizará el constructivismo conceptual de Ronald Dworkin, a fin de describir el desacuerdo y sus implicancias, reconocer los elementos principales de la pena natural y justificarlos bajo su mejor luz moral. ABSTRACT This study focuses on the clarification of the conceptual elements of poena naturalis in criminal law settings. The poena naturalis is the damage or suffering that falls on the convict for its commission. This damage must be deducted from the poena forensis to be applied. Although there is a minimum agreement about the concept of poena naturalis, in the jurisprudence and among legal scholars, there are serious disagreements about the elements of poena naturalis. To elucidate the elements, I will adopt Ronald Dworkin’s conceptual constructivism to describe the disagreement and its implications. At last, I will justify the main elements of the poena naturalis by their best moral light. (shrink)

Le rapport à l’altérité en général et à autrui en particulier condense un noyau de possibilités multiples qui, selon l’hypothèse esquissée, s’exprime et s’interprète dans le mode de penser et de vivre le Désir d’avenir. Oscillant entre hétérophagie et hétérophilie, ce type fondamental d’érotisme temporel s’incarne dans des configurations phénoménologiques dont la typologie idéale fait covarier une décision métaphysique (repérable au sein du spectre qui va de l’idéalisme constructiviste au réalisme affectif) avec une attitude éthique (située entre le scepticisme individualiste (...) et l’hétérodicée absolue). L’analyse des contrastes qui définissent les positions onto-éthiques de Sartre, Merleau-Ponty et Levinas devient une méthode heuristique pour mettre en évidence la topologie de l’incommensurable et de l’optatif. -/- The relation to alterity in general and to others in particular encapsulates a logical space of multiple possibilities which, according to the author’s hypothesis, may be expressed and interpreted in the manner of thinking and living the Desire of future. Oscillating between heterophagia and heterophilia, this fundamental type of temporal eroticism embodies various phenomenological configurations whose ideal typology reveals a deep correlation between a metaphysical decision (oriented towards either constructivist idealism or affective realism) with an ethical attitude (ranging from individualistic scepticism to absolute heterodicy). The analysis of mutual contrasts defining Sartre’s, Merleau-Ponty’s and Levinas’ onto-ethic stances is adopted as a methodological device in order to elucidate a broad topology of incommensurabilia and desiderata. (shrink)

A pesar de que Bruno Latour es considerado iniciador de un área académica denominada estudios de la ciencia, no se ha destacado lo suficiente que sus textos constituyen fundamentalmente una teoría metafísica cuya tesis central –mantenida a lo largo de la mayor parte de su obra- es que no hay una diferencia real entre “palabra y mundo”, entre un enunciado que se refiere a un hecho y ese mismo hecho, sino una serie de relaciones o “redes” (que denomina “fluido”, “la (...) masa de las transformaciones” o “referencia circulante”) donde ocurren estabilizaciones transitorias. En tanto niega que entidades y estados de cosas efectivos existan independientemente, ya no de que una conciencia piense en ellos, sino de las afirmaciones que hay en la cultura sobre su existencia, este enfoque es una variante, de carácter semántico y social, de lo que la filosofía moderna denominó idealismo metafísico. Pero tanto el problema metafísico de la existencia como el de la existencia independientemente de algo se enfrentan con la dificultad semántica de que ningún argumento descriptivo puede dejar de aludir a sus referentes, por lo que ninguno puede probar que exista algo independientemente del lenguaje, sino sólo suponerlo al adoptar una ontología. (shrink)

Knowledge is still an enigma, with its ability to inductively bring out a pattern without restricting itself to an empirical count of situations experienced. Instead of seeing the concept as a weakened object representing an external reality, it is suggested to view knowledge as the bridging of a distance with an ability for the knower to stay connected with outward reality. Attempts at defining an external and quantitative criterion of truth are questioned, as many human performances are not likely to (...) be solved or even properly grasped by the project of artificial intelligence. The positive side of the cognitive constructivist project is finally assessed and it is argued that one of its unexpected results could be to reinsert the human knowing power in the sub-human realm. (shrink)

This paper has three main objectives: (a) Discuss the formal analogy between some important symmetry-invariance arguments used in physics, probability and statistics. Specifically, we will focus on Noether’s theorem in physics, the maximum entropy principle in probability theory, and de Finetti-type theorems in Bayesian statistics; (b) Discuss the epistemological and ontological implications of these theorems, as they are interpreted in physics and statistics. Specifically, we will focus on the positivist (in physics) or subjective (in statistics) interpretations vs. objective interpretations that (...) are suggested by symmetry and invariance arguments; (c) Introduce the cognitive constructivism epistemological framework as a solution that overcomes the realism-subjectivism dilemma and its pitfalls. The work of the physicist and philosopher Max Born will be particularly important in our discussion. (shrink)

a book review for Hagen Schulze's "Gibt es überhaupt eine deutsche Geschichte?" done as a homework for university (KIT Institut für Geschichte) Modul Pol.G. I.

It has been commonplace to equate Foucault’s 1979 series of lectures at the Collège de France with the claim that for neoliberalism, unlike for classical liberalism, the market needs to be artificially constructed. The article expands this claim to its full expression, taking it beyond what otherwise would be a simple divulgation of a basic neoliberal tenet. It zeroes in on Foucault’s own insight: that neoliberal constructivism is not directed at the market as such, but, in principle, at society, (...) arguing that the value of this insight goes beyond the critique of a neoliberal present. The neoliberal rationale rather helps him to reveal a unique historical architecture, a latent approach to the social dissimilar to the one that has long predominated in the human sciences. The inversion of homo œconomicus in neoliberal theory amounted to the unearthing of a ‘social subject of interest’ within civil society. Such a subject, barely recognized by neoliberals who simply instrumentalize it for the sake of the market, demonstrates that the social is not necessarily the natural product of ethical subjects; that society may also need to be constructed. (shrink)

A ideia de que certas categorias, propriedades, eventos, ou factos, são construídos socialmente tem sido defendida nas ciências sociais e humanidades desde meados do século xx. Nas últimas décadas, vários filósofos da tradição analítica começaram a dedicar mais atenção à possibilidade de que haja tipos de coisas construídas socialmente. A ideia complementa outra ideia relativamente consensual hoje em dia: a de que existem tipos naturais, mas que nem tudo o que existe constitui um tipo natural. São particularmente interessantes os tipos (...) de coisas que parecem naturais, mas que se argumenta serem na realidade construídos socialmente. Nesta entrada, identifico o papel que as teses construtivistas têm no progresso social e político, distingo entre várias formas de construtivismo teoricamente interessantes – causal e constitutivo, e discuto três objecções à ideia do construtivismo factual. (shrink)

What exactly do we mean when we refer to disability as a social construction? How viable are the justifications for this? These questions are explored in this paper. To this end, various theories that are influential in German-language disability studies are examined and criticised. These include Oliver's social model, furthermore the "Thomas theorem", Berger and Luckmann's sociology of knowledge, Foucault's discourse theory and Waldschmidt's theory. Subsequently, social constructivist approaches of Watzlawick and Gergen and Gergen are discussed. It is shown that (...) a relativistic understanding of social construction can be used to deny facticity and thus undermines the foundations of scientific knowledge. This danger must be taken seriously when defending the scientificity of disability studies. (shrink)

Identity politics is subject to similar critiques in contemporary public debate and political theory. A central topos of this critique is that identity politics is essentializing: it fixes subjects to their social position and resorts to a politics of particularity that leads to divisions in national citizenship and democratic discourse (the communitarian and liberal position) and to divisions within social movements (the critical position). Contrary to this one-sided critique, we propose a different interpretation with the concept of “constructivist identity politics.” (...) We show that political identities are not essentialistically given, but emerge from processes of social and political construction; that they are actively produced, learned, and practiced by political (sub)cultures and movements. In these processes of construction, political articulation and agency are produced, enabling subjects to critique relations of domination and discrimination. Following radical democratic theory, we argue that the particular political perspectives of identity politics thus enabled do not endanger democracy or solidarity in social movements, but contribute to their further democratization by actualizing the universal principles of democracy in particular disputes. While the construction processes of identity politics tend to essentialize and produce exclusions, critical reflection on such tendencies is also inherent to identity politics. This understanding also enables a critique of such identity politics that is not oriented towards the democratic values of equality and freedom and blocks critical self-reflection. After an overview of contemporary identity politics critique, we elaborate this constructivist understanding following debates in feminist and postcolonial theory since the 1980s. Building on this, we systematically develop the notion of constructivist identity politics by differentiating three aspects of it: subjectification, articulation, and representation. We refer to approaches by Foucault, Rancière, Laclau/Mouffe, and Hall and illustrate the respective aspects through examples of migrant self-organizations as well as gay culture and queer critique. (shrink)

In today’s evolving understanding of gender, questions arise about the future of the feminist movement. Using Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Hugh Ryan's “Who's Afraid of Social Contagion,” and Ben Kesslen’s “How the Idea of a 'Transgender Contagion' Went Viral—and Caused Untold Harm,” this paper explores the concept of the Other to analyze social contagion and gender-based oppression. It argues that while feminism must adapt, its future lies in embracing the experiences of all classified as the Other. Through de (...) Beauvoir's work, historical definitions of gender, and social constructivism, this paper proposes a new idea for the future of feminism. (shrink)

L’article examine les « compositions » de Tchernikhov en liant sa recherche constante de nouvelles formes à la capacité de convertir les « fantaisies » en représentations. Contrairement à Aristote, qui conçoit la mimèsis comme l’équivalent de l’entreprise artistique, Tchernikhov perçoit ses « compositions » comme des actes de dépassement de la mimèsis par la phantasia. Les illustrations visionnaires de ses Fantaisies architecturales expriment son intention de remplacer les mots par des images graphiques. Son approche est fondée sur la croyance (...) que la puissance de l’imagination permet à la langue graphique, qui est par ailleurs internationale, de fonctionner comme un précurseur du progrès. L’objectif de l’article est d’élucider comment Tchernikhov traite la tension entre imagination et réalité et d’examiner dans quelle mesure sa production graphique parvient à surmonter la mimèsis à travers la phantasia. La réponse à ces questions pourrait nous aider à expliquer pourquoi Tchernikhov a souvent été jugé comme inclassable et à évaluer à quel point sa démarche reflète les polarités entre les rationalistes et les constructivistes. L’opposition entre « composition » et « construction » permet de mieux comprendre le positionnement à la fois singulier et fondamental de Tchernikov par rapport au constructivisme. L’article met en évidence le fait que le rôle essentiel de la phantasia pour Tchernikhov découle de la valorisation de la « composition » plutôt que la « construction ». (shrink)

● Sergio Cremaschi, The non-existing Island. The chapter discusses how the cleavage between the Continental and the Anglo-American philosophies originated, the (self-)images of both philosophical worlds, the converging rediscoveries from the Seventies, and recent ecumenic or anti-ecumenic strategies. I argue that pragmatism provides an important counter-instance to the familiar self-images and the fashionable ecumenic or anti-ecumenic strategies. The conclusions are: (i) the only place where Continental philosophy exists (as Euro-Communism one decade ago) is America; (ii) less obviously, also analytic philosophy (...) does not exist, or does no more exist as a current or a paradigm; what does exist is, on the one hand, philosophy of language and, on the other, philosophy of mind, that is, two disciplines; (iii) the dissolution of analytic philosophy as a school has been highly fruitful, precisely in so far as it has left room for disciplines and research programmes; (iv) what is left, of the Anglo-American/Continental cleavage is primarily differences in styles, depending partly on intellectual traditions, partly owing to sociology, history, institutional frameworks; these differences should not be blurred by rash ecumenism; besides, theoretical differences are alive as ever, but within both camps; finally, there is indeed a lag (not a difference) in the appropriation of intellectual techniques by most schools of 'Continental' philosophy, and this should be overcome through appropriation of what the best 'analytic' philosophers have produced. ● Michael Strauss, Language and sense-perception: an aspect of analytic philosophy. To test an assertion about one fact by comparing it with perceived reality seems quite unproblematic. But the very possibility of such a procedure is incompatible with the intellectualistic basis of logical positivism and atomism (as it is for example to be found in Russell's Analysis of Mind). According to the intellectualistic approach pure sensation is meaningless. Sensation receives its meaning and order from the intellect through interpretation, which is performed with the help of linguistic tools, i.e. words and sentences. Before being interpreted, sensation is not a picture or a representation, it is neither true nor false, neither an illusion nor knowledge; it does not tell us anything; it is a lifeless and order-less matter. But how can a thought (or a proposition) be compared with such a lifeless matter? This difficulty confronts the intellectualist, if on the one hand he admits the necessity of comparing thought with sense-perception, and on the other hand presupposes that we possess only intellectual and no immediate perceptual understanding of what we see and hear. In this paper I give a critical exposition of three attempts, made by Russell, Neurath and Wittgenstein, to solve this problem. The first attempt adheres to strict conventionalism, the second tends to naturalism and the third leads to an amended, very moderate version of conventionalism. This amended conventionalism looks at sense impressions as being a peculiar language, which includes primary symbols, i.e. symbols not founded on convention and not being in need of interpretation. ● Ernst Tugendhat, Phenomenology and language analysis. The paper, first published in German in 1970, by which Tugendhat gave a start to the German rediscovery of analytic philosophy. The author stages a confrontation between phenomenology and language analysis. He argues that language analysis does not differ from phenomenology as far as the topics dealt with are concerned; instead, both currents are quite different in method. The author argues that language-analytic philosophy does not simply lay out of the mainstream of transcendental philosophy, but that instead it challenges this tradition on the very level of foundations. The author criticizes the linguistic-analytic approach centred on the subject as well as any object-centred approach, while proposing inter-subjective understanding through language as the new universal framework. This is, when construed in so general terms, the same program of hermeneutics, though in a more basic version. ● Jürgen Habermas, Language game, intention and meaning. On a few suggestions by Sellars and Wittgenstein. The paper, first published in German in 1975, in which Habermas announces his own linguistic turn through a discovery of speech acts. In this essay the author wants to work out a categorical framework for a communicative theory of society; he takes Wittgenstein's concept of language game as a Leitfade and, besides, he takes advantage also of Wilfried Sellars's quasi-transcendental account of the genesis of intentionality. His goal is to single out the problems connected with a theory of consciousness oriented in a logical-linguistic sense. ● Zvie Bar-On, Isomorphism of speech acts and intentional states. This essay presents the problem of the formal relationship between speech acts and intentional states as an essential part of the perennial philosophical question of the relation between language and thought. I attempt to show how this problem had been dealt with by two prominent philosophers of different camps in our century, Edmund Husserl and John Searle. Both of them wrote extensively about the theory of intentionality. I point out an interesting, as it were unintended, continuity of their work on that theory. Searle started where Husserl left off 80 years earlier. Their meeting point could be used as the first clue in our search. They both adopted in effect the same distinction between two basic aspects of the intentional experience: its content or matter, and its quality or mode. Husserl did not yet have the concept of a speech act as contradistinguished from an intentional state. The working hypothesis, however, which he suggested, could be used as a second clue for the further elaboration of the theory. The relationship of the two levels, the mental and the linguistic, which remained for Husserl in the background only, became the cornerstone of Searle' s inquiry. He employed the speech act as the model and analysed the intentional experience by means of the conceptual apparatus of his own theory of speech acts. This procedure enabled him to mark out a number of parallelisms and correlations between the two levels. This procedure explains the phenomenon of the partial isomorphism of speech acts and intentional states. ● Roberta de Monticelli, Ontology. A dialogue among the linguistic philosopher, the naturalist, and the phenomenological philosopher. This paper proposes a comparison between two main ways of conceiving the role and scope of that fundamental part of philosophy (or of "first" philosophy) which is traditionally called "ontology". One way, originated within the analytic tradition, consists of two main streams, namely philosophy of language and (contemporary) philosophy of mind, the former yielding "reduced ontology" and the latter "neo-Aristotelian ontology". The other way of conceiving ontology is exemplified by "phenomenological ontology" (more precisely, the Husserlian, not the Heideggerian version). Ontology as a theory of reference ("reduced" ontology, or ontology as depending on semantics) is presented and justified on the basis of some classical thesis of traditional philosophy of language (from Frege to Quine). "Reduced ontology" is shown to be identifiable with one level of a traditional, Aristotelian ontology, namely the one which corresponds to one of the four "senses of being" listed in Aristotle's Metaphysics: "being" as "being true". This identification is justified on the basis of Franz Brentano's "rules for translation" of the Aristotelian table of judgements in terms of (positive and negative) existential judgments such as are easily translatable into sentences of first order predicate logic. The second part of the paper is concerned with "neo-Aristotelian ontology", i.e. with naturalism and physicalism as the main ontological options underlying most of contemporary discussion in the philosophy of mind. The qualification of such options as "neo-Aristotelian" is justified; the relationships between "neo-Aristotelian ontology" and "reduced ontology" are discussed. In the third part the fundamental tenet of "phenomenological ontology" is identified by the thesis that a logical theory of existence and being does capture a sense of "existing" and "being" which, even though not the basic one, is grounded in the basic one. An attempt is done of further clarifying this "more basic" sense of "being". An argument making use of this supposedly "more basic" sense is advanced in favour of a "phenomenological ontology". ● Kuno Lorenz, Analytic Roots in Dialogic Constructivism. Both in the Vienna Circle ad in Russell's early philosophy the division of knowledge into two kinds (or two levels), perceptual and conceptual, plays a vital role. Constructivism in philosophy, in trying to provide a pragmatic foundation - a knowing-how - to perceptual as well as conceptual competences, discovered that this is dependent on semiotic tools. Therefore, the "principle of method" had to be amended by the "principle of dialogue". Analytic philosophy being an heir of classical empiricism, conceptually grasping the "given", and constructive philosophy being an heir of classical rationalism, perceptually providing the "constructed", merge into dialogical constructivism, a contemporary development of ideas derived especially from the works of Charles S. Peirce (his pragmatic maxim as a means of giving meaning to signs) and of Ludwig Wittgenstein (his language games as tools of comparison for understanding ways of life). 7. Albrecht Wellmer, "Autonomy of meaning" and "principle of charity" from the viewpoint of the pragmatics of language. In this essay I present an interpretation of the principle of the autonomy of meaning and of the principle of charity, the two main principles of Davidson's semantic view of truth, showing how both principles may fit in a perspective dictated by the pragmatics of language. I argue that (I) the principle of the autonomy of meaning may be thoroughly reformulated in terms of the pragmatics of language, (ii) the principle of charity needs a supplement in terms of pragmatics of language in order to become really enlightening as a principle of interpretation. Besides, I argue that: (i) on the one hand, the fundamental thesis of Habermas on the pragmatic theory of meaning ("we understand a speech act when we know what makes it admissible") is correlated with the seemingly intentionalist thesis according to which we understand a speech act when we know what a speaker means; (ii) on the other hand, to say that the meaning competence of a competent speaker is basically a competence about a potential of reasons (or also of possible justifications) which is inherently connected with the meaning of statements, or with their use in utterances. ● Rüdiger Bubner, The convergence of analytic and hermeneutic philosophy This paper argues that the analytic philosophy does not exist, at least as understood by its original programs. Differences in the analytic camp have always been bigger than they were believed to be. Now these differences are coming to the fore thanks to a process of dissolution of dogmatism. Philosophical analysis is led by its own inner logic towards questions that may be fairly qualified as hermeneutic. Recent developments in analytic philosophy, e.g. Davidson, seem to indicate a growing convergence of themes between philosophical analysis and hermeneutics; thus, the familiar opposition of Anglo-Saxon and Continental philosophy might soon belong to history. The fact of an ongoing appropriation of analytical techniques by present-day German philosophers may provide a basis for a powerful argument for the unity of philosophizing, beyond its strained images privileging one technique of thinking and rejecting the remainder. Actual philosophical practice should take the dialogue between the two camps more seriously; in fact, the processes described so far are no danger to philosophical work. They may be a danger for parochial approaches to philosophizing; indeed, contrary to what happens in the natural sciences, Thomas Kuhn's "normal science" developing within the framework of one fixed paradigm is not typical for philosophical thinking. And in philosophy innovating revolutions are symptoms more of vitality than of crisis. ● Karl-Otto Apel, The impact of analytic philosophy on my intellectual biography. In my paper I try to reconstruct the history of my Auseinandersetzung mit - as I called it - "language-analytical" philosophy (including even Peircean semiotics) since the late Fifties. The heuristics of my study was predetermined by two main motives of my beginnings: the hermeneutic turn of phenomenology and the transformation of "transcendental philosophy" in the light of the "language a priori". Thus, I took issue with the early and the later Wittgenstein, logical positivism, and post-Wittgensteinian and post-empiricist philosophy of science (i.e. G.H. von Wright and the renewal of the "explanation vs understanding controversy" as well as the debate between Th. Kuhn and Popper/Lakatos); besides, with speech act theory and the debate about "transcendental arguments" since Strawson. The "pragmatic turn", started already by C.L. Morris and the later Carnap, led me to study also the relationship between Wittgensteinian "use" theory of meaning and of truth. This resulted on my side in something like a program of "transcendental semiotics", i.e. "transcendental pragmatics" and "transcendental hermeneutics". ● Ben-Ami Scharfstein, A doubt on both their houses: the blindness to non-western philosophies. The burden of my criticism is that contemporary European philosophers of all kinds have continued to think as if there were no true philosophy but that of the West. For the most part, the existentialists have been oblivious of their Eastern congeners; the hermeneuticians have yet to stretch their horizons beyond the most familiar ones; and the analysts remain unaware of the analyses and linguistic sensitivities of the ancient non-European philosophers. Briefly, ignorance still blinds almost all contemporary Western philosophers to the rich, variegated philosophical traditions outside of their familiar orbit. Both Continental and Anglo-Americans have lost the breadth of view that once characterized such thinkers as Herder and the Humboldts. The blindness that has resulted is not simply that of individual Western philosophers but of our whole, still parochial philosophical culture. (shrink)

Filosofia limbajului are legătură cu studiul modului în care limbajul nostru se implică și interacționează cu gândirea noastră. Studierea logicii și relația dintre logică și vorbirea obișnuită poate ajuta o persoană să își structureze mai bine propriile argumente și să critice argumentele celorlalți. Înțelesul este modul în care pot fi considerate în mod corespunzător cuvinte, simboluri, idei și convingeri, definiția sa depinzând de teoria abordată, precum teoria corespondenței, teoria coerenței, teoria constructivistă, teoria consensului sau teoria pragmatică. Există mai multe explicații (...) distince despre ceea ce înseamnă un „sens” lingvistic, în funcție de diverse teorii (ideologice, adevăr-condiționale, de utilizare a limbajului, constructiviste, de referință, verificaționiste, pragmatice, etc.) Investigațiile privind modul în care limbajul interacționează cu lumea sunt numite teorii de referință. Sensul unei propoziții este gândul pe care îl exprimă. Un astfel de gând este abstract, universal și obiectiv. Sensurile determină referința și sunt, de asemenea, modurile de prezentare a obiectelor la care se referă expresiile. Referințele sunt obiectele din lume despre care vorbesc cuvintele. Filosofia limbajului explorează relația dintre limbă și realitate, în special filosofia problemelor de studiu lingvistic care nu pot fi abordate de alte domenii. Logica filozofică se ocupă de descrieri formale ale limbajului obișnuit, nespecializat („natural”). -/- CUPRINS: -/- 1. Filosofia limbajului - 1.1 Istorie - - Filosofia antică - - Filosofia medievală - - Filosofia modernă - - Filosofia contemporană - 1.2 Subiecte și sub-domenii majore - - Compoziție și părți - - Natura sensului - - Referinţă - - Mintea și limba - - - Înnăscut și învățat - - - Limba și gândul - - Interacțiunea socială și limba - 1.3 Limbajul și filozofia continentală - 1.4 Probleme în filosofia limbajului - - Imprecizia - - Problema universalului și a compoziției - - Natura limbajului - - Abordări formale versus informale - - Traducere și interpretare - 1.5 Nominalism - - Istorie - - - Filozofia greacă veche - - - Filozofia medievală - - - Filosofia modernă și contemporană - - Problema universalelor - - Tipuri - - - Filosofie analitică și matematică - - Critica originilor istorice ale termenului 2. Înțeles - 2.1 Adevăr și înțeles - - Teorii majore ale înțelesului - - - Teoria corespondenței - - - Teoria coerenței - - - Teoria constructivistă - - - Teoria consensului - - - Teoria pragmatică - - Teorii și comentarii asociate - - - Logica și limbajul - - - Gottlob Frege - - - Bertrand Russell - - - Alte teorii ale adevărului - - - Saul Kripke - - - Criticile teoriilor de adevăr ale înțelesului - 2.2 Bertrand Russell, Despre denotare - - "Fraza care denotă" - - - Concepția lui Russell despre o frază care denotă - - - Referința la ceva care nu există - - - Epistemologie - - Teoria descrierilor - - - Descrierea matematică - - - Ilustrare - - - Meinong - - Rezolvarea problemei existențialelor negative - - - Declarații despre concepte în care obiectul nu există - - - Ambiguitate - - - Nume fictive - - Critici - 2.3 Sens și referință - - Precursori - - - Antistene - - - John Stuart Mill - 2.3.1 Sens - - Sens și descriere - - Traducerea Bedeutung - - Natura sensului - 2.3.2 Referinţă - 2.4 Nume proprii - - Problema - 2.4.1 Teorii - - Teoria lui Mill - - Teoria bazată pe sensul numelor - - Teoria descriptivă - - Teoria cauzală a numelor - - Teorii de referință directă - - Filosofia continentală - 2.5 Gottlob Frege, Despre sens și referință - 2.6 Teorii cauzale ale referinței - - Motivaţie - - Variații - 2.6.1 Teoria cauzală a referinței a lui Saul Kripke - 2.6.2 Teoria cauzală a referinței a lui Gareth Evans - 2.6.3 Teoria cauzală a referinței a lui Michael Devitt - 2.6.4 Blockchain și arborele cauzal al referinței - 2.6.5 Perspective - 2.7 Saul Kripke, Numire și necesitate - 2.7.1 Prelegerea I - 2.7.2 Prelegerea II - 2.7.3 Prelegerea III - 2.7.4 Concluzii - 2.8 Kit Fine, Relaționismul semantic - - A. Antinomia variabilei - - B. Abordarea tarskiană - - C. Respingerea rolului semantic - - D. Abordarea instanțială - - E. Abordarea algebrică - - F. Abordarea relațională - - G. Semantica relațională pentru logica de primul ordin 3. Logica - Concepte - - Forma logică - - Semantică - - Inferență - - Sisteme logice - - Logică și raționalitate - - Concepte rivale - Tipuri - - Logica silogistică - - Logica propozițională - - Logica predicatelor - - Logica modală - - Raționament informal și dialectică - - Logica matematică - - Logica filozofică - - Logica computațională - - Logica non-clasică - Controverse - - "Este logica empirică?" - - Implicare: Strictă sau materială - - Tolerarea imposibilului - - Respingerea adevărului logic - 3.1 Filosofia logicii - - Adevăr - - - Purtătorii de adevăr - - - Adevăruri analitice, adevăr logic, valabilitate, consecință logică și implicare - 3.2 Logica propozițională - - Explicaţie - - Istorie - - Terminologie - - Noțiuni de bază - - - Închiderea sub operații - - - Argument - 3.3 Logica predicatelor - - Introducere - - Sintaxa - - - Alfabetul - - - - Simboluri logice - - - - Simboluri non-logice - - - Regulile formării - - - - Termeni - - - - Formule - - - - Convenții notaționale - - - Variabile libere și legate - - Semantica - - - Structuri de prim ordin - - - Evaluarea valorilor de adevăr - - - Valabilitate, satisfabilitate și consecință logică - - - Algebrizare - - - Teorii, modele și clase elementare de prim ordin - - - Domenii goale - 3.4 Logica modală - - Dezvoltarea logicii modale - - Semantica - - - Teoria modelului - - - Sisteme axiomatice - - - Teoria dovezilor structurale - - - Metode de decizie - - Tipuri de logici modale - - - Logica aletică - - - Logica epistemică - - - Logica temporală - - - Logica deontică - - - Logica doxastică - - - Alte logici modale - - Ontologia posibilității - - Controverse - 3.5 Declarații - - Declarația ca o entitate abstractă - 3.6 Dileme - - Utilizarea dilemei în logică - 3.7 Argumente - - Formal și informal - - Tipuri standard - - - Argumente deductive - - - Argumente inductive - 3.8 Actualism - - Exemplu - - Puncte de vedere filosofice - - Analiza indexicală a actualității - 3.9 Lumi posibile - - Posibilitate, necesitate și contingență - - Semantica formală a logicii modale - - De la logica modală la instrumentul filosofic - - Teoria lumii posibile în studiile literare - 3.9.1 Lumi reale, ne-reale dar posibile, și imposibile - - Lumi posibile logic - - Constituienții lumilor posibile - 3.10 Saul Kripke - - Wittgenstein - - Adevăr - 3.10.1 Logica modală - - Modele canonice - - Modele Carlson - 3.10.2 Logica intuiționistă - - Logica intuiționistă de ordinul întâi - 3.10.3 Nume și Necesitate - - "Un puzzle despre credință" Referințe Despre autor - Nicolae Sfetcu - - De același autor - - Contact Editura - MultiMedia Publishing . 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TWENTIETH-CENTURY ETHICS. AFTER NIETZSCHE -/- Preface This book tells the story of twentieth-century ethics or, in more detail, it reconstructs the history of a discussion on the foundations of ethics which had a start with Nietzsche and Sidgwick, the leading proponents of late-nineteenth-century moral scepticism. During the first half of the century, the prevailing trends tended to exclude the possibility of normative ethics. On the Continent, the trend was to transform ethics into a philosophy of existence whose self-appointed task was (...) that of describing the human condition as consisting of choices, as unavoidable as arbitrary, without any attempt at providing criteria for making such choices. In the Anglo-Saxon countries, the heir of ethics was a philosophy of morality, that is, an analysis of the language of morality that intended to clarify valuations without trying to justify them. 1958 was the year of the normative turn that led to the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy, a turn followed by decades of controversies between distinct kinds of normative ethics: utilitarian, Kantian, virtue ethics. While the controversy was raging, a quiet revolution took place, that of applied ethics which surprisingly dissolved the controversy's very subject matter by providing methods for making convergence possible on intermediate principles even when no agreement was available about first principles. The normative turn and the revolution of applied ethics have led us, at the turn of the century, to a goal that was quite far from the starting point. Instead of scepticism and relativism that was the fashion at the beginning of the century, at the beginning of the third millennium impartial and universal moral arguments seem to hold the spot being supported, if not by a final rational foundation, at least by reasonableness, the most precious legacy of the Enlightenment. -/- ● TABLE OF CONTENTS -/- ● I Anglo-Saxon philosophy: naturalism 1. Dewey beyond evolutionism and utilitarianism 2. Dewey and anti-essentialist moral epistemology 3. Dewey and naturalist moral ontology 4. Dewey and normative ethics of conduct and function 5. Perry and semantic naturalism -/- ● II Anglo-Saxon philosophy: ideal utilitarianism and neo-intuitionism 1. Moore's critique of utilitarian empiricism 2. Moore on the naturalistic fallacy 3. Moore on the nature of intrinsic value 4. Moore on ideal utilitarianism 5. Prichard on the priority of the right over the good 6. Ross's coherentist moral epistemology 7. Ross's moral ontology: realism, pluralism, and non-naturalism 8. Ross's normative ethics of prima facie duties -/- The chapter reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore's early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. It stresses the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. It argues that PE is more a patchwork of somewhat diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. -/- ●III Anglo-Saxon philosophy: non-cognitivism 1. The Scandinavian School, the Vienna circle and proto-emotivism 2. Wittgenstein and the ineffability of ethics 3. Russell's and Ayer's radical emotivism 4. Stevenson and moderate emotivism 5. Stevenson and the pragmatics of moral language 6. Stevenson and the methods for solving ethical disagreement 7. Hare and prescriptivism The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of 'good', its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with 'emotive' meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell's ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson's theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. A section reconstructs the discussion from the Forties about Hume's law, mentioning Karl Popper's argument and Richard Hare's early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- ●IV Anglo-Saxon philosophy: critics of non-cognitivism 1. Neo-naturalism and its objections to the naturalistic fallacy argument 2. Objections to Hume's law 3. Clarence Lewis and the pragmatic contradiction 4. Toulmin and the good reasons approach 5. Baier and moral reasons 5. Baier, social moralities and the absolute morality 6. Baier and the moral point of view 7. Baier and the contents of absolute ethics -/- ● V Continental philosophy: the philosophy of values 1. Max Weber and the polytheism of values 2. Phenomenology against psychologism and rationalism 3. Reinach and the theory of social acts 4. Scheler and the material ethics of values 5. Hartmann and the ontology of values 6. Plessner, Gehlen and the Philosophische Anthropologie -/- The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl's project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the apriori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy conducted in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach's theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that sketches the ideas 'discovered' later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section discusses Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of 'values' – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler, who claimed to be Husserl's legitimate heirs. -/- ● VI Continental philosophy: the critics of the philosophy of values 1. Freud, the Superego and Civilization 2. Heidegger on original ethos against ethics 3. Sartre and de Beauvoir on authenticity and ambiguity 4. Adorno and Horkheimer on emancipation and immoralism -/- ●VII Post-liberal theologians and religious thinkers 1. Barth on the autonomy of faith from ethics 2. Developments of Reformed moral theology after Barth 3. Bonhoeffer on the concrete divine command and ethics of penultimate realities 4. Developments of Reformed and Catholic moral theology after world war II 5. Baeck and the transformation of liberal Judaism 6. Rosenzweig against liberal Judaism 7. Buber and religion as the vital lymph of morality 8. Heschel and Judaism as a science of actions -/- The chapter examines the main protagonists of Christian theology and Jewish religious thinking in the twentieth century. It stresses how the main dilemmas of contemporary philosophical ethics lie at the root of the various path of inquiry taken by these thinkers. -/- ● VIII Normative ethics: neo-Utilitarianism 1. The discussion on act and rule utilitarianism 2. Hare on two-tiered preference utilitarianism 3. Harsanyi, Gauthier and rational choice ethics 4. Parfit, utilitarianism and the idea of a person 5. Brandt and indirect conscience utilitarianism -/- The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick's and Moore's fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine refuted. Two examples give the reader a glimpse at this uproarious process. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This transformation results in preference utilitarianism combined with a 'Kantian' version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare's two-level preference utilitarianism, where act utilitarianism plays the function of the eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of an action-guiding practical device. -/- ● IX Normative ethics: neo-Aristotelianism and virtue ethics 1. Hannah Arendt, action and judgement 2. Hans-Georg Gadamer and phronesis 3. Alasdair MacIntyre on practices, virtues, and traditions 5. Stuart Hampshire on deliberation 6. Bernard Williams and moral complexity 7. Feminist ethics -/- Sect 1 reconstructs the post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named 'Rehabilitation of practical philosophy' is described. Heidegger's most brilliant disciples were the promoters of this Rehabilitation. Hans-Georg Gadamer is a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle's lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger's lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the significant role of the notion of phronesis. Sect 3 discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. It argues that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. The chapter gives a short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot's and Peter Geach's critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre's grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly inevitable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- ● X Normative ethics: Kantian and rights-based ethics 1. Dialogical constructivism 2. Apel, Habermas and discourse ethics 3. Gewirth and rights-based ethics 4. Nagel on agent-relative reasons 5. Donagan and persons as ends in themselves Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This current started with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. The chapter offers an examination of his argument in some detail, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas's elaboration on Apel's theory. -/- ● XI The applied ethics renaissance 1. Elisabeth Anscombe on the atom bomb 2. From medical ethics to bioethics 3. Rawls and public ethics 3. Nozick, Dworkin and further developments of public ethics 5. Sen and the revival of economic ethics -/- The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin's new casuistry. The chapter argues that Rawls's distinction between a "political" and a "metaphysical" approach to the theory of justice, one central part of ethical theory, is a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and the new casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter. The idea is that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls' view never will be close – on the essential criteria for judgment. -/- ● XII Fin-de-siècle metaethics 1. Deontic logics 2. Anti-realism 3. External realism 4. Internal realism 5. Kantian constructivism -/- The chapter illustrates the fresh start of meta-ethical discussion in the Eighties and Nineties and the resulting new alignments: metaphysical naturalism, internal realism, anti-realism, and constructivism. (shrink)

In this chapter I offer an interpretation of Judith Butler’s metaphysics of sex and gender and situate it in the ontological landscape alongside what has long been the received view of sex and gender in the English speaking world, which owes its inspiration to the works of Simone de Beauvoir. I then offer a critique of Butler’s view, as interpreted, and subsequently an original account of sex and gender, according to which both are constructed—or conferred, as I would put it— (...) albeit in different ways and subject to different constraints. (shrink)

Teil I »Psychologische Ästhetik für transdisziplinäres Design« -/- Kapitel I »Empirische Ästhetik – Der Konflikt zwischen leichter Verarbeitbarkeit, sparsamer Codierung und neuronaler Aktivierung im Beobachtersystem. Eine Untersuchung über das Wesen der ästhetischen Erfahrung. -/- Jede Designpraxis verlangt täglich eine Vielzahl von Entscheidungen, welche die Wahl von „Etwas vor dem Hintergrund anderer Möglichkeiten“ darstellen. Diese lassen sich als Probleme einer Präferenz-Ästhetik interpretieren, wobei innerhalb eines Repertoires von Alternativen die attraktivste gewählt wird. Eine empirische Ästhetik ist somit ein notwendiger Bestandteil von Designtheorie. (...) Die Überlegung, wer in welcher Situation warum was bevorzugt, führt zur Forschungsfrage: »Was ist der elementare Mechanismus für eine ästhetische Erfahrung?« In der Literatur zur empirischen Ästhetik finden sich vier wesentliche Theorie-Gruppen: (1.) Es wird eine Präferenz für einfach zu verarbeitende Stimuli behauptet und z.B. mit der Processing Fluency begründet. (2.) Andere Ansätze erklären eine maximale Stimulation des Beobachters durch komplexe Objekte zum Ideal, was auch die ästhetische Erfahrung maximieren soll. (3.) Eine dritte Gruppe vermeidet die Probleme der ersten beiden, indem eine mittlere Komplexität als Präferenz behauptet wird. (4.) Und schließlich gibt es Ansätze, die auf eine integrierende Theorie letztlich verzichten und einzelne Phänomene bzw. Effekte katalogisieren. Eine Liste ungelöster Probleme formuliert die Minimal-Anforderungen an eine integrierende Theorie. Hiermit wird geprüft, ob bzw. inwieweit die Integrative Ästhetik von Schwarzfischer (2008 und 2014) jene Probleme lösen kann. Dieser Ansatz schlägt spezifische Re-Codierungs-Prozesse als basalen Mechanismus jeder ästhetischen Erfahrung vor. Hierzu wird ein Prozess-Modell entwickelt, welches die Integrative Ästhetik überprüfbar macht. Bei der Modellbildung werden manche Konzepte der Integrativen Ästhetik erweitert und andere präzisiert. Auch die Anwendungsmöglichkeiten werden durch das Modell vielfältiger, da es nicht nur als Erklärungsmodell, sondern zudem als Gestaltungsmodell einsetzbar ist. Insgesamt zeigt die Überprüfung der Integrativen Ästhetik und des Modells, dass die Gütekriterien in einem vielversprechenden Maß erfüllt werden. Die grundsätzliche Quantifizierbarkeit wird aufgezeigt sowie die Relevanz und die Anwendbarkeit für das Design nachgewiesen. Die Forschungsfrage kann somit als hinreichend beantwortet gelten: »Der elementare Mechanismus für eine ästhetische Erfahrung scheint ein Re-Codierungs-Prozess zu sein (der auf der Nutzung von In­varianzen basiert), welcher extensionale Daten zu intensionalen Gestalten transformiert, wobei eine Ressourcen-Entlastung stattfindet und der Gültigkeitsbereich der Codierung erweitert wird (was nach Jean Piaget als Dezentrierung bezeichnet wird) – was jeweils durch eine ‚Beobachtung zweiter Ordnung‘ festgestellt wird.« -/- Teil II »Transdisziplinäre Ästhetik im Dialog« -/- Kapitel II.A »Profane und heroische Beobachtungs-Experimente: Kunst-Ästhetik als methodisches Artefakt.« -/- Es reicht nicht, eine Liste mit vorgeblich ‚schönen Dingen‘ zu erstellen, um ‚das Schöne‘ zu verstehen. Piaget & Garcia (1989) unterscheiden drei Stufen in jedem Erkenntnis-Prozess: 1. isolierte Fakten, die unabhängig von einander analysiert werden; 2. konkrete Transformationen, durch welche diese Fakten mit einander verbunden sind; 3. eine Struktur, die alle denkbaren Fälle konstruierbar macht. Sie nannten diese drei Stufen ‚intra‘, ‚inter‘ und ‚trans‘. Dies kann auf das ‚höhere Erkenntnisvermögen‘ angewandt werden wie auf das ‚niedere‘. Wissenschaftlichkeit setzt nach Popper die Falsifizierbarkeit einer Theorie voraus – und damit Prognosefähigkeit. Prognosen müssen über den Bereich der bereits bekannten Fälle hinausgehen, und finden sich folglich primär in der Piaget-Phase ‚trans‘. Diese ist davon gekennzeichnet, dass es über die Gegenstände hinausgeht (‚trans-objekt‘). Zu häufig werden Artefakte nur beschrieben (‚intra-objekt‘) oder einzelne, zufällig bekannte Transformationen von Material in Artefakte bzw. von Artefakt in Verständnis aufgezählt (‚inter-objekt‘). Erst eine ‚Integrative Ästhetik‘ jenseits von zufälligen Semantiken, jenseits von sozialen Exklusions-Rhetoriken der Künstler und der ‚Leisure-Class-Eliten‘ (nach Veblen) und jenseits der Hierarchisierung von Wahrnehmungs-Modi kann den Anspruch einlösen (‚trans-objekt‘). Daraus folgen u.a. separierbare Semantiken spezifischem Maßstabs, die sich überhaupt erst dann z.B. als ‚konventionelle Kunst-Auffassung‘ beobachten lassen. Zentrierungen auf solche Semantiken können demnach „als Kunst missverstanden werden“ – obwohl sie keineswegs das allgemeine Prinzip repräsentieren, sondern stets nur Spezial­fall bleiben. -/- Kapitel II.B »Das Gehirn als Hypothesenmaschine – Ästhetische Prozesse als Selbst-Test im Beobachter-System.« -/- Die historische Trennung zwischen Techne, Poiesis und Aisthesis scheint nach der „konstruktivistischen Wende“ obsolet geworden zu sein. Jede Beobachtung kann als Handlung betrachtet werden und setzt adaptive Aspekte schon voraus. Jedoch fehlte bislang eine tragfähige konstruktivistische Ästhetik, deren Gültigkeitsbereich hinreichend groß ist: So ist die Beschränkung auf Kunst ebenso unnötig wie jene auf Kommunikation in sozialen Systemen (also auf „Kunst-Diskurse“) oder auf eine Produktions-, Werk- bzw. Rezeptions-Ästhetik. Die definitorische Auflösung des Kunst-Begriffes (z.B. bei Gernot Böhme) löst diese Schwierigkeiten nicht. Im Wesentlichen bleibt die resultierende phänomenologische Ästhetik eine Rezeptions-Ästhetik. Ähnlich begrenzt bleibt der Anwendungsbereich der Informations-Ästhetik mit kybernetischen Wurzeln. Auch die Einbettung in eine evolutionäre Ästhetik oder Neuroästhetik scheint problematisch. Daher muss eine „Integrative Ästhetik“ sehr unterschiedliche Sichtweisen in sich vereinigen. Inzwischen klassisch zu nennende kybernetische, systemtheoretische oder informations-ästhetische Ansätze verwenden meist die Logik einer Bottom-Up-Verarbeitung (Input-Processing-Output), wie sie auch die kognitive Psychologie der zweiten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts dominierte. Dass laut Schlicht et al. (2013: S.475) selbst im visuellen Kortex nur ca. 5% der neuronalen Verknüpfungen bottom-up verschaltet sind (und der „Rest” von 95% top-down oder lateral arbeitet), stellt auch die empirische Ästhetik vor Probleme. Dieser Beitrag stellt jene Integrative Ästhetik vor, welche diese Antworten auf diese Fragen zu geben vermag – und den genannten Beschränkungen nicht unterliegt. Der elementare Prozess einer ästhetischen Erfahrung besteht hier in einer Re-Codierung von extensionalen Daten zu intensionalen Codierungen. Durch die sparsamere Codierung stellt dies eine erhebliche neuronale Entlastung dar und erhöht zudem beträchtlich den Gültigkeitsbereich des Codierten. Vom Beobachter-System wird dies subjektiv als Dezentrierung (nach Piaget) positiv erlebt. Zentral ist, dass es nun mit einem einheitlichen methodischen Rahmen möglich ist, entweder bottom-up die Wahrnehmung zu analysieren oder top-down die subjektive Motivation (z.B. die erlebte Autonomie oder die erlebte Entlastung) des Akteurs zu thematisieren. Die Richtung der Prozesse wird umkehrbar. Zudem wird die konstruktivistische Wahrnehmungs-Handlung zu einer Art von Selbst-Test des Wahrnehmungs-Systems: „Funktioniere ich sensorisch und kognitiv überhaupt? Funktioniere ich korrekt, also konsistent? Und, funktioniere ich effizient?“ -/- Kapitel II.C »Beobachtende Systeme – Dezentrierende Gestalt-Integration als Basis einer Ästhetik des Alltags.« -/- An der ästhetischen Erfahrung irritiert traditionell, dass der Effekt bekannt ist, nicht aber die Ursachen und der funktionale Mechanismus. Dies leistete Mystifikationen Vorschub, was zu diversen metaphysischen Kunst-Ästhetiken führte: Der Künstler als Schamane oder Magier. Dieser Beitrag möchte dagegen einen systemsemiotischen Ansatz für eine empirische Ästhetik vorstellen. Die aktive Rolle des Beobachters im Wirkungszusammenhang soll den Blinden Fleck erhellen, aufgrund dessen sich das Phantom eines passiven Rezipienten und „quasi-aktiver“ ästhetischer Objekte so hartnäckig halten konnte. Ausgehend von gestalttheoretischen Überlegungen wird Gestalt als implizite, algorithmische Codierung begriffen. Neuere empirische Ergebnisse der „Neuro-Ökonomie“ postulieren einen Effekt der „kortikalen Entlastung“ (bei der Forschung nach der Wirkung von Marken). Der hier vertretene Ansatz verknüpft nun beide Aspekte und glaubt, daraus eine konsistente Theorie für die empirische Ästhetik des Alltags entwickeln zu können. Es muss jedoch ein weiterer Aspekt hinzu genommen werden, den Piaget „Dezentrierung“ nennt. Ästhetische Erfahrung wird dann definierbar als das Erlebnis eines Umcodierungs-Prozesses – oder genauer: als das Erlebnis einer dezentrierenden Gestalt-Integration durch das beobachtende System. Sowohl beobachtende Systeme als auch Gestalt-Integrationen sind in unserem Ansatz als multiple zu denken. Eine semiotische Differenzierung ist nun entscheidend: Die herkömmliche Informations-Ästhetik thematisierte nur die syntaktischen Aspekte des Stimulus, ohne den Beobachter in seiner aktiven Rolle zu begreifen. Gestalt-Integrationen samt deren dezentrierender Wirkung sind jedoch auch in semantischer und pragmatischer Hinsicht zu finden. Diese werden im Beitrag dargelegt. Denn erst so kann die Vielschichtigkeit ästhetischer Erfahrungen erklärt werden, wo z.B. syntaktische und pragmatische Aspekte konkurrieren können. Auch vordergründig destruktive Akte und Artefakte sind dann als Gestalt-Integrationen anderer Dimensionen oder differierender Bezugssysteme begreifbar. (Dies streift etwa auch Fragen der Ressourcen-Allokation.) Zudem muss die Kontingenz von Beobachtungs-Maßstäben, Wahrnehmungs-Modi, Struktur-Determinanten (des beobachtenden Systems) und kultur-semiotischen Prägungen mit in Betracht gezogen werden. Erst hierdurch wird der Möglichkeitsraum potenzieller Gestalt-Integrationen (der eigentlich aus einem präsentationalen und einem repräsentationalen Raum besteht) prinzipiell beschreibbar. Wenn auch die Probleme bzw. Grenzen der praktischen Durchführbarkeit entsprechender Analysen nicht unterschlagen werden sollen: Die Möglichkeiten entsprechen gut den Erfordernissen zur ästhetischen Analyse des menschlichen Alltages – schließen die Lebenswelten von nicht-anthropozentrischen Seinsformen aber wohl methodisch aus. Dieser Beitrag möchte ich primär eine empirische Ästhetik zur Diskussion stellen, die mir als Rahmen für die weitere Forschung sehr leistungsfähig erscheint. Und doch ist nichts weniger als ein theoriebildender Ansatz das Vorhaben. Eine der Konsequenzen aus diesem Ansatz ist die These, dass es sich bei Kants Diktum vom „interesselosen Wohlgefallen“ zwar für das Individuum um ein Apriori handelt, bei der Gattung Mensch jedoch evolutionär um ein Aposteriori. (shrink)

This paper comments on Gallagher’s recently published direct perception proposal about social cognition [Gallagher, S.. Direct perception in the intersubjective context. Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 535–543]. I show that direct perception is in danger of being appropriated by the very cognitivist accounts criticised by Gallagher. Then I argue that the experiential directness of perception in social situations can be understood only in the context of the role of the interaction process in social cognition. I elaborate on the role of social (...) interaction with a discussion of participatory sense-making to show that direct perception, rather than being a perception enriched by mainly individual capacities, can be best understood as an interactional phenomenon. (shrink)

In search of our highest capacities, cognitive scientists aim to explain things like mathematics, language, and planning. But are these really our most sophisticated forms of knowing? In this paper, I point to a different pinnacle of cognition. Our most sophisticated human knowing, I think, lies in how we engage with each other, in our relating. Cognitive science and philosophy of mind have largely ignored the ways of knowing at play here. At the same time, the emphasis on discrete, rational (...) knowing to the detriment of engaged, human knowing pervades societal practices and institutions, often with harmful effects on people and their relations. There are many reasons why we need a new, engaged—or even engaging—epistemology of human knowing. The enactive theory of participatory sense-making takes steps towards this, but it needs deepening. Kym Maclaren’s idea of letting be invites such a deepening. Characterizing knowing as a relationship of letting be provides a nuanced way to deal with the tensions between the knower’s being and the being of the known, as they meet in the process of knowing-and-being-known. This meeting of knower and known is not easy to understand. However, there is a mode of relating in which we know it well, and that is: in loving relationships. I propose to look at human knowing through the lens of loving. We then see that both knowing and loving are existential, dialectic ways in which concrete and particular beings engage with each other. (shrink)

This paper examines the role of prestige bias in shaping academic philosophy, with a focus on its demographics. I argue that prestige bias exacerbates the structural underrepresentation of minorities in philosophy. It works as a filter against (among others) philosophers of color, women philosophers, and philosophers of low socio-economic status. As a consequence of prestige bias our judgments of philosophical quality become distorted. I outline ways in which prestige bias in philosophy can be mitigated.

According to the received view, genuine mathematical justification derives from proofs. In this article, I challenge this view. First, I sketch a notion of proof that cannot be reduced to deduction from the axioms but rather is tailored to human agents. Secondly, I identify a tension between the received view and mathematical practice. In some cases, cognitively diligent, well-functioning mathematicians go wrong. In these cases, it is plausible to think that proof sets the bar for justification too high. I then (...) propose a fallibilist account of mathematical justification. I show that the main function of mathematical justification is to guarantee that the mathematical community can correct the errors that inevitably arise from our fallible practices. (shrink)

There is a large gap between the specialized knowledge of scientists and laypeople’s understanding of the sciences. The novice-expert problem arises when non-experts are confronted with (real or apparent) scientific disagreement, and when they don’t know whom to trust. Because they are not able to gauge the content of expert testimony, they rely on imperfect heuristics to evaluate the trustworthiness of scientists. This paper investigates why some bodies of scientific knowledge become polarized along political fault lines. Laypeople navigate conflicting epistemic (...) and social demands in their acceptance of scientific testimony; this might explain their deference to scientific fringe theories, which often goes together with denying established scientific theories. I evaluate three approaches to mitigate denialism: improving the message, improving the messenger, and improving the environment in which the message is conveyed. (shrink)

People sometimes explain behavior by appealing to an essentialist concept of the self, often referred to as the true self. Existing studies suggest that people tend to believe that the true self is morally virtuous; that is deep inside, every person is motivated to behave in morally good ways. Is this belief particular to individuals with optimistic beliefs or people from Western cultures, or does it reflect a widely held cognitive bias in how people understand the self? To address this (...) question, we tested the good true self theory against two potential boundary conditions that are known to elicit different beliefs about the self as a whole. Study 1 tested whether individual differences in misanthropy—the tendency to view humans negatively—predict beliefs about the good true self in an American sample. The results indicate a consistent belief in a good true self, even among individuals who have an explicitly pessimistic view of others. Study 2 compared true self-attributions across cultural groups, by comparing samples from an independent country and a diverse set of interdependent countries. Results indicated that the direction and magnitude of the effect are comparable across all groups we tested. The belief in a good true self appears robust across groups varying in cultural orientation or misanthropy, suggesting a consistent psychological tendency to view the true self as morally good. (shrink)

People suffering from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD) do things they do not want to do, and/or they think things they do not want to think. In about 10 percent of OCD patients, none of the available treatment options is effective. A small group of these patients is currently being treated with deep brain stimulation (DBS). Deep brain stimulation involves the implantation of electrodes in the brain. These electrodes give a continuous electrical pulse to the brain area in which they are implanted. (...) It turns out that patients may experience profound changes as a result of DBS treatment. It is not just the symptoms that change; patients rather seem to experience a different way of being in the world. These global effects are insufficiently captured by traditional psychiatric scales, which mainly consist of behavioural measures of the severity of the symptoms. In this article we aim to capture the changes in the patients’ phenomenology and make sense of the broad range of changes they report. For that we introduce an enactive, affordance-based model that fleshes out the dynamic interactions between person and world in four aspects. The first aspect is the patients’ experience of the world. We propose to specify the patients’ world in terms of a field of affordances, with the three dimensions of broadness of scope (‘width’ of the field), temporal horizon (‘depth’), and relevance of the perceived affordances (‘height’). The second aspect is the person-side of the interaction, that is, the patients’ self-experience, notably their moods and feelings. Thirdly, we point to the different characteristics of the way in which patients relate to the world. And lastly, the existential stance refers to the stance that patients take towards the changes they experience: the second-order evaluative relation to their interactions and themselves. With our model we intend to specify the notion of being in the world in order to do justice to the phenomenological effects of DBS treatment. (shrink)

Although traditionally neglected, mathematical diagrams have recently begun to attract attention from philosophers of mathematics. By now, the literature includes several case studies investigating the role of diagrams both in discovery and justification. Certain preliminary questions have, however, been mostly bypassed. What are diagrams exactly? Are there different types of diagrams? In the scholarly literature, the term “mathematical diagram” is used in diverse ways. I propose a working definition that carves out the phenomena that are of most importance for a (...) taxonomy of diagrams in the context of a practice-based philosophy of mathematics, privileging examples from contemporary mathematics. In doing so, I move away from vague, ordinary notions. I define mathematical diagrams as forming notational systems and as being geometric/topological representations or two-dimensional representations. I also examine the relationship between mathematical diagrams and spatiotemporal intuition. By proposing an explication of diagrams, I explain certain controversies in the existing literature. Moreover, I shed light on why mathematical diagrams are so effective in certain instances, and, at other times, dangerously misleading. (shrink)

This paper has a twofold aim. On the one hand, we will discuss the much debated question of the source of normativity (which traditionally has nature and practical reason as the two main contenders to this role) and propose a new answer to it. Second, in answering this question, we will present a new account of practical wisdom, which conceives of the ethical virtues as ultimately unified in the chief virtue of phronesis, understood as ethical expertise. To do so, we (...) will first criticize the main current view of phronesis and its bearer (the phronimos), then offer another view of the nature of phronesis and of its relation to the other ethical virtues. Our proposal should not be intended as an interpretation of Aristotle’s own view; rather, it should be seen as a broadly Aristotelian theoretical proposal, which we believe can satisfyingly address most of the problems that afflict the more traditional accounts of practical wisdom. In section 2 of this paper, after criticizing first-nature naturalistic views of moral virtue, we take practical reason to be the cornerstone of second-nature naturalistic views; in section 3, we will outline criticisms to which, in our view, the traditional views of phronesis are ill-suited to respond, and, in section 4, we will outline our view of phronesis as ethical expertise – a view which in our view is immune to the above-mentioned criticisms – by spelling out the three main tenets of phronesis as ethical expertise: a conceptual thesis, an epistemic thesis, and the educational implications of the two. Finally, we will support our proposal with some empirical evidence taken from cognitive science. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to investigate the roles of commutative diagrams (CDs) in a specific mathematical domain, and to unveil the reasons underlying their effectiveness as a mathematical notation; this will be done through a case study. It will be shown that CDs do not depict spatial relations, but represent mathematical structures. CDs will be interpreted as a hybrid notation that goes beyond the traditional bipartition of mathematical representations into diagrammatic and linguistic. It will be argued that one (...) of the reasons why CDs form a good notation is that they are highly mathematically tractable: experts can obtain valid results by ‘calculating’ with CDs. These calculations, take the form of ‘diagram chases’. In order to draw inferences, experts move algebraic elements around the diagrams. It will be argued that these diagrams are dynamic. It is thanks to their dynamicity that CDs can externalize the relevant reasoning and allow experts to draw conclusions directly by manipulating them. Lastly, it will be shown that CDs play essential roles in the context of proof as well as in other phases of the mathematical enterprise, such as discovery and conjecture formation. (shrink)

Criteria of acceptability for mathematical proofs are field-dependent. In topology, though not in most other domains, it is sometimes acceptable to appeal to visual intuition to support inferential steps. In previous work :829–842, 2014; Lolli, Panza, Venturi From logic to practice, Springer, Berlin, 2015; Larvor Mathematical cultures, Springer, Berlin, 2016) my co-author and I aimed at spelling out how topological proofs work on their own terms, without appealing to formal proofs which might be associated with them. In this article, I (...) address two criticisms that have been raised in Tatton-Brown against our approach: that it leads to a form of relativism according to which validity is equated with social agreement and that it implies an antiformalizability thesis according to which it is not the case that all rigorous mathematical proofs can be formalized. I reject both criticisms and suggest that our previous case studies provide insight into the plausibility of two related but quite different theses. (shrink)

A growing body of research has examined how people judge the persistence of identity over time—that is, how they decide that a particular individual is the same entity from one time to the next. While a great deal of progress has been made in understanding the types of features that people typically consider when making such judgments, to date, existing work has not explored how these judgments may be shaped by normative considerations. The present studies demonstrate that normative beliefs do (...) appear to play an important role in people's beliefs about persistence. Specifically, people are more likely to judge that the identity of a given entity remains the same when its features improve than when its features deteriorate. Study 1 provides a basic demonstration of this effect. Study 2 shows that this effect is moderated by individual differences in normative beliefs. Study 3 examines the underlying mechanism, which is the belief that, in general, various entities are essentially good. Study 4 directly manipulates beliefs about essence to show that the positivity bias regarding essences is causally responsible for the effect. (shrink)

During the first half of the twentieth century, many philosophers of memory opposed the postulation of memory traces based on the claim that a satisfactory account of remembering need not include references to causal processes involved in recollection. However, in 1966, an influential paper by Martin and Deutscher showed that causal claims are indeed necessary for a proper account of remembering. This, however, did not settle the issue, as in 1977 Malcolm argued that even if one were to buy Martin (...) and Deutscher’s argument for causal claims, we still don’t need to postulate the existence of memory traces. This paper reconstructs the dialectic between realists and anti-realists about memory traces, suggesting that ultimately realists’ arguments amount to inferences to the best explanation. I then argue that Malcolm’s anti-realist strategy consists in the suggestion that causal explanations that do not invoke memory traces are at least as good as those that do. But then, Malcolm, I argue that there are a large number of memory phenomena for which explanations that do not postulate the existence of memory traces are definitively worse than explanations that do postulate them. Next, I offer a causal model based on an interventionist framework to illustrate when memory traces can help to explain memory phenomena and proceed to substantiate the model with details coming from extant findings in the neuroscience of memory. (shrink)

ABSTRACTA longstanding tradition in philosophy distinguishes between knowthatand know-how. This traditional “anti-intellectualist” view is soentrenched in folk psychology that it is often invoked in supportof an allegedly equivalent distinction between explicit and implicitmemory, derived from the so-called “standard model of memory.”In the last two decades, the received philosophical view has beenchallenged by an “intellectualist” view of know-how. Surprisingly, defenders of the anti-intellectualist view have turned to the cognitivescience of memory, and to the standard model in particular, todefend their view. Here, (...) I argue that this strategy is a mistake. As it turns out, upon closer scrutiny, the evidence from cognitivepsychology and neuroscience of memory does not support theanti-intellectualist approach, mainly because the standard modelof memory is likely wrong. However, this need not be interpretedas good news for the intellectualist, for it is not clear that theempirical evidence necessarily supp... (shrink)

The present article is a primary introduction to the semi-structured interviewing method SMILE_PH, an acronym for Sense-Making Interviews Looking at Elements of Philosophical Health. Beyond grounding this new methodology theoretically (a work that is started here but will in the future necessitate several developments), the main motivation here is pragmatic: to provide the recent philosophical health movement with a testable method and show that philosophically-oriented interviews are possible in a manner that can be reproduced, compared, tested and used systematically with (...) a population that has received no training in philosophy. The SMILE_PH approach was conceived by the author during an ethically approved pilot study focused on the philosophy of life of persons living with spinal cord injury (SCI), with the intention of rectifying the epistemic obstacles generated by rationalist, Socratic or unstructured ways of in-depth interviewing. The six-step structure of the method is also inspired by hundreds of individual dialogue sessions with philosophical counselees, led by the author between 2018 and 2022: the SMILE_PH method progressively gathers phenomenological data about 1 – our bodily sense, 2 – our sense of self, 3 – our sense of belonging, 4 – our sense of the possible, 5 – our sense of purpose and 6 – our philosophical sense. (shrink)

One thing about technical artefacts that needs to be explained is how their physical make-up, or structure, enables them to fulfil the behaviour associated with their function, or, more colloquially, how they work. In this paper I develop an account of such explanations based on the familiar notion of mechanistic explanation. To accomplish this, I outline two explanatory strategies that provide two different types of insight into an artefact’s functioning, and show how human action inevitably plays a role in artefact (...) explanation. I then use my own account to criticize other recent work on mechanistic explanation and conclude with some general implications for the philosophy of explanation.Keywords: Artefact; Technical function; Explanation; Levels of explanation; Mechanisms. (shrink)

Philosophers of science, particularly those working on science and values, often talk about the need for science to be socially responsible. However, what this means is not clear. In this paper, we review the contributions of philosophers of science to the debate over socially responsible science and explore the dimensions that a fruitful account of socially responsible science should address. Our review shows that offering a comprehensive account is difficult. We contend that broad calls for socially responsible science that fail (...) to attend to relevant dimensions are not the solution, as they preclude meaningful changes to research institutions and practices. We conclude that narrower, more explicit accounts are more likely to lead to substantive transformation. (shrink)

Friendship with the ancients is a set of imaginative exercises and engagements with the work of deceased authors that allows us to imagine them as friends. Authors from diverse cultures and times such as Mengzi, Niccolò Machiavelli, W.E.B Du Bois, and Clare Carlisle have engaged in it. The aim of this paper is to defend this practice, showing that friendship with the ancients is a species of philosophical friendship, which confers the unique benefits such friendships offer. It is conducive to (...) epistemic virtue, notably the related virtues of epistemic humility and of relational understanding. When we cultivate friendship with the ancients, we are not learning facts about them, but aim at understanding their views in their full scope in a way that a relationship between friends allows. (shrink)

The use of genome embryo editing tools in reproduction is often touted as a way to ensure the birth of healthy and genetically related children. Many would agree that this is a worthy goal. The purpose of this paper is to argue that, if we are concerned with justice, accepting such goal as morally appropriate commits one to rejecting the development of embryo editing for reproductive purposes. This is so because safer and more effective means exist that can allow many (...) more prospective parents to achieve the same valued goal and that offer additional benefits. (shrink)