The representational content or subject matter of a picture is normally distinguished from various non-representational components of meaning involved in artworks, such as expressive, stylistic or intentional factors. However, I show how such non subject matter components may themselves be analyzed in content terms, if two different categories of representation are recognized--aspect indication for stylistic etc. factors, and normal representation for subject matter content. On the account given, the relevant kinds of content are hierarchically structured, with relatively unconceptualized lower (...) level aspectual contents encoding or symbolizing higher level conceptualized representational subject matter. Such an account is strongly supported by the latest findings of cognitive science regarding levels of conceptualization. The paper also demonstrates how the account given is compatible with the actual pictorial competence of normal viewers of visual artworks. (shrink)

Generally speaking, the existence of experience is accepted, but more challenging has been to say what experience is and how it occurs. Moreover, philosophers and scholars have been talking about mind and mental activity in connection with experience as opposed to physical processes. Yet, the fact is that quantum physics has replaced classical Newtonian physics in natural sciences, but the scholars in humanities and social sciences still operate under the obsolete Newtonian model. There is already a little research in which (...) mind and conscious experience are explained in terms of quantum theory. This article argues that experience is impossible to be both a physical and non-physical phenomenon. When discussing causality and identity as transcendental, quantum theory may imply the quantum physical nature of conscious experience, where a person associates causality to conscious experience, and, thus, the result is that the double-aspect theory and the mind/brain identity theory would be refuted. (shrink)

Catholic sexual ethics proposes a number of exceptionless moral norms. This distinguishes it from theories which deny the possibility of any exceptionless moral norms (e.g. the proportionalist approach proposed in the aftermath of "Humanae Vitae" and condemned in "Veritatis Splendor"). I argue that Catholic teaching on sexual ethics refers to chosen physical structures in such a way as to make ‘new natural law’ theory inherently unstable. I outline a theory of “the moral act” (Veritatis Splendor 78) which emphasises (...) the place which chosen physical features – in particular, chosen sexual structures – play in specifying human actions. I conclude that this account, involving what I term UMDAs, is needed to make sense of the Church’s teaching in these areas. (shrink)

Causal structuralism is the view that, for each natural, non-mathematical, non-Cambridge property, there is a causal profile that exhausts its individual essence. On this view, having a property’s causal profile is both necessary and sufficient for being that property. It is generally contrasted with the Humean or quidditistic view of properties, which states that having a property’s causal profile is neither necessary nor sufficient for being that property, and with the double-aspect view, which states that causal profile is (...) necessary but not sufficient. Shoemaker’s (1998) and Hawthorne’s (2001) arguments in favor of causal structuralism primarily focus on problematic consequences of the other two views. I argue, however, that causation does not provide an appropriate framework within which to characterize all physical properties for two main reasons. First, there are physical properties that do not have causal profiles and properties whose causal profiles do not exhaust their essences. Second, there is no unified notion of causation across the sciences. After distinguishing between the causal and the nomological, I suggest that what is needed is a structuralist view of properties that is not merely causal but that incorporates a physical property’s higher-order mathematical and nomological properties into its identity conditions. Such a view retains the naturalistic motivations for causal structuralism while avoiding the problems it faces. (shrink)

Simultaneous observation of the wave-like and particle-like aspects of the photon in the double-slit experiment is unallowed. The underlying reason behind this limitation is not understood. In this paper, we explain this unique behavior by considering the communicational properties of the photons. Photons have three independently adjustable properties (energy, direction, and spin) that can be used to communicate messages. The double-slit experiment setup fixes two of these properties and confines the single photon’s capacity for conveying messages to no (...) more than one message. With such a low communication capacity, information theory dictates that measurements associated only with one proposition can obtain consistent results, and a second measurement associated with an independent proposition must necessarily lead to randomness. In the double-slit example, these are the wave or particle properties of the photon. The interpretation we offer is based on the formalism of information theory and does not make use of Heisenberg’s uncertainty relation in any form. (shrink)

Corlett (2019) raises two groups of challenges against the two-factor theory of delusions: One focuses on weighing “the evidence for … the two-factor theory”; the other aims to question “the logic of the two-factor theory” (p. 166). McKay (2019) has robustly defended the two-factor theory against the first group. But the second group, which Corlett believes is in many aspects independent of the first group and Darby (2019, p. 180) takes as “[t]he most important challenge to (...) the two-factor theory raised by Dr. Corlett”, has by large remained. Here I offer my two cents in response to the second group. More specifically, I argue that Corlett’s challenges to the logic of the two-factor theory, concerning modularity, double dissociation and cognitive penetration, seem to be based on some misunderstandings of the two-factor theory. (shrink)

Presented at Philosophy Across Disciplines Conference 2021, Newcastle University. -/- As noted by philosopher Robert Pasnau, “our standard view of sound is incoherent” at best. A quick perusal of how we discuss and represent sound in our day-to-day language readily highlights a number of inconsistencies. Sound might be described roughly as emanating from the location of its material source (the ‘crack of the snare drum over there’ distal theory), as a disruption somewhere in the space in-between the sounding object (...) and the listener (the ‘longitudinal compression waves in the air’ medial theory), located with the hearer (the ‘inner sensations’ proximal theory), or perhaps as devoid of spatial characteristics at all (aspatial theory). Beyond these topographic ruminations on the location of sounds, even deeper disagreements arise around just what sorts of things sounds are. A broad array of theories treat sounds as events, as object-like particulars that travel through space, as properties of their sounding objects, etc.—with many subtle ontological variations springing up along the way. The philosophical plot further thickens as we expand from defining the ontology and spatial position of simple primary sounds through to the phenomenon of echoes, with certain theories arguably faring better than others. We’ll focus here on Casey O’Callaghan’s formulation of sounds as disturbance events which bind primary sounds and their echoes together as one. In short, the claim that echoes are identical to their associated primary sound and are not distinct sounds in their own right. Described as the ‘Primary Sound Account of Echoes’ (‘PSAE’) in Gregory Fowler’s “Against the Primary Sound Account of Echoes,” the intricacies of this particular aspect of O’Callaghan’s theory of a primary sound’s connection to its echo bears greatly upon the workability of distal theories of sound in general. What I seek to achieve in this presentation is to illustrate how O’Callaghan’s PSAE fails when subjected to increased scrutiny across a broader range of echo scenarios, which in turn presents a significant issue for proponents of distal theories of sound. (shrink)

Abstract. The neutral monism suggested by Constantin Rădulescu-Motru was a theoretical frame intended to match the general idea of Kant’s apriorism with the results reached by physics and psychology at the beginning of the 20th Key words: transcendental aesthetic; consciousness in general; empirical consciousness; psychophysical parallelism; phenomenal ontology; scientistic ontology.

This paper will analyze the evolution and the key aspects of René Girard’s critique of the Hegelian “struggle for recognition” and the master-slave dialectic. Through a discussion of Girard’s views on Identity, Difference, Violence, Desire and Negativity, the study will aim to highlight the philosophical uniqueness of the mimetic theory in respect to French Hegelianism and postHegelianism.

According to Tim Crane, “the ’hard problem’ of consciousness is supposed to be the real heart of the mind-body problem in today’s philosophy”. The idea of the problem can be expressed in the following way: Why are the physical processes in our brain accompanied by the qualitative (or phenomenal) feel? The mere qualitative feel or qualia are those to be explained. The originator of the problem’s name is the Australian philosopher David Chalmers who divided the problems of consciousness into the (...) ‘easy’ problems and the ‘hard’ problem. The former are ‘easy’ because they can be functionally explained. The ‘hard’ problem, in its turn, cannot. From this, it follows that the explanation of the hard problem of consciousness must be found elsewhere. Chalmers’ nonreductive theory of consciousness (or naturalistic dualism) is a serious candidate for a such-like explanation. In general, it suggests conscious experience as one of the fundamental features of our world, together with such fundamental world features as mass, charge etc. It is a general overview of David Chalmers’ philosophy of mind that is carrying out in the proposed paper. Key words: the ‘easy’ problems and the ‘hard’ problem of consciousness, the phenomenal and psychological concepts of mind, awareness, experience, something it is like, qualia, supervenience, zombie, naturalistic dualism, the principle of structural coherence, the principle of organizational invariance, the double-aspect theory of information. (shrink)

Presents in outline form a logical argument for Panpsychism, the idea that everything has an aspect of psyche or mind to it.

About death, grief, mourning, life after death and immortality. Why should we die like humans to survive as a species. -/- "No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears (...) out the old to make way for the new." (Steve Jobs) -/- CONTENTS: -/- Death - Philosophy of death - Religions - - Animism - - Atheism - - Buddhism - - Christianity - - Hinduism - - Islam - - Jainism - - Jehovah's Witnesses - - Judaism - - Latter-day Saints - - Spiritism - Symbolism - Personification of Death - - Notable personifications - - In mythologies - - - Hindu mythology - - - In Japan - - - Slavic paganism - - - Lithuanian paganism - - In the three monotheistic religions - - - Judaism - - - Christianity - - - In Mexico - - - Islam - Axiochos - - The characters of dialogue - - Dialogue - - Prologue - - Arguments - - Citations - Paradise - - Greco-Roman mythology - - Mesopotamian mythology and influences - - According to Judaism - - According to Christianity - - - According to Catholicism - - - According to Protestantism - - - According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints - - According to Islam - - According to Hinduism - - According to modern spiritualities - - - According to the esoteric - Hell - - Mesopotamian origins - - According to Christianity - - - Names appearing in the biblical texts - - - Medieval artistic representations - - - Concepts according to Christian movements - - According to Judaism - - According to Islam - - According to Buddhism - - According to Hinduism - - According to modern esotericism - - - According to Aïvanhov - - - According to Allan Kardec - - Philosophy - - - Jewish Kabbalah - - - Sartre - - - Popular wisdom Funerals - The funeral ritual: a rite of passage - Prehistory - Ancient death customs - - The family bereavement - - Mummification - - Sarcophagi - - Funerals - - Ancient Greece - - Ancient Rome - - Celts, Germans and Scandinavians - Religious funeral rites - - Buddhism - - Judaism - Christianity - - Protestantism - - Islam - Funeral rites by continent - - In Africa - - In Europe - The contemporary era - Mourning (Grief) - - Steps - - - Death of a close - - Loss events without mourning value (white factors) - - Duration and manifestations - - Risks - - Colors - Graveyards (Cemeteries) - - First cemeteries - - Cemeteries today - Funerary art - Dolmens - - Types of dolmens - - Function - - Location - Passage graves - Cenotaphs - - Famous cenotaphs - Lanterns of the Dead Afterlife - History - Questions about death and immortality - Testimonials - - Spiritualistic experiences - - Popular literature on the afterlife - - "Memories" and reminiscences - - Early studies of the science of the 19th century and early 20th century - Types of scenarios - Some religious and philosophical concepts - - Afterlife in Buddhism - - Afterlife in Christianity - - According to Hinduism - - According to Islam - - According to Judaism - - According to Mormonism - - According to the ancient philosophies - - According to Spiritism - - According to Native American traditions - - According to Vedism - - According to Esotericism - In science - Near-death experiences - - Clinical death - - NDE frequency - - Effects of depth of NDE on survival - - Near-death experiences and shared-death experience - - - The first contemporary testimonials - - - Experience according to Moody - - - The concept of "shared death" - - - The NDE scales - - The study of Pim van Lommel - - Spiritual and patient point of view - - - Survivalists studies - - - The religious understanding of the phenomenon - - Scientific views - - - Physiological explanation - - - Psychological explanation - Reincarnation - - Religions - - - In Hinduism - - - In Jainism - - - In Buddhism - - - In Judaism - - - In Christianity - - - In Islam - - In contemporary times - - - Esotericism - - - Works of the psychiatrist Ian Stevenson - - - Radical increase in life expectancy and artificial reincarnation - - Criticism - - - Arthur Schopenhauer - - - Ramana Maharshi - - - Rene Guenon - - - Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy - Metempsychosis - - Theories - - Ideas - Maschalismos Immortality - Immortality of the soul and religious traditions - - Buddhism - - Christianity - - Islam - - Mormonism - Contemporary perception of the immortality of the body - - Observation in the animal kingdom - - Perspectives for mankind - Immortality in science - - Alexis Carrel - - Jean Rostand - - Hayflick limit - - Étienne-Émile Baulieu and DHEA - - Aubrey de Grey - - Professor Skulachev - - Regenerative medicine - - Professor Christopher Jaeger - Eternal Return - - According to the Mesopotamians - - According to Heraclitus and the Stoics - Fountain of Youth - - History of myth and relatives myths - - - In Roman mythology, Germanic, Celtic and Irish - - - In the Middle-East - - - In Spain - - - In the Bible - - The fountain in art and literature - - Painting - - - Literature and cinema - - Persistent of the myth until today - Senescence - - Why do we age? - - Gene regulation - - Cellular senescence Undead - Ghoul - Lich - Mummy - Skeleton - Vampire - Zombie - Other legendary creatures - Creatures specific to a particular universe - Spiritism - - Point out - - Origins of spiritism - - - The traditions through the ages - - - Advent of Christianity in Europe - - - The survival of necromancy - - - The precursors - - - Relations of spiritualism to science - Mediumship - - History - - Skeptical point of view - - Favorable doctor's viewpoint - Ghosts - - Appearance - - Belief in ghosts - - Origin - - - Duality and return dead - - - Ancient roots - - Typology - - - Poltergeists - - - Revenants - - - Ghosts - - - Banshees - - - Apparitions of crisis - - - Phantasms of the living - - - Vision of his own double - - - Ghost armies - - - Ghosts of animals - - - Means of transport - - Science perspective - - - Hallucinations - - - Sleep paralysis - - - Induced ghosts - - - Aches and infrasounds - - - Magnetic fields - Vampires - - Characteristics - - - Vampire transformation - - - Identification - - - Faculties - - Protection against the vampires - - - Precautions at death and burial - - - Apotropaic objects and places - - Destruction of vampires - Zombie - - The concept - - Africa and voodoo - - - West Africa - - - South Africa - - - In Haiti (and the Caribbean) - - - Scientific research - - The "revenants" in the Western imaginary Death in art - Memento mori - - History - - - Antiquity - - - Christianity - - - Mexican syncretism - - Performing arts - - - In painting - - - In literature - - - In movies - - - In video games - - - In Japanese animation - - - In music - The iconography of Weighing of souls (Particular judgment) - - Origin - - Written sources - - Weighing in Romanesque art - - Weighing in Gothic art - - Weighing in the late Middle Ages: to a new iconography - - Weighing of souls or actions? - Poems - - Charlotte Brontë, “On the Death of Anne Brontë” - - Edgar Allan Poe, “Annabel Lee” - - Edna St. Vincent Millay, “And you as well must die” - - Emily Dickinson, “Because I could not stop for Death” - - Emily Dickinson, “If I Should Die” - - Lord Byron, “Epitaph to a Dog” - - Pablo Neruda, “Only Death” - - Stephen Crane, “God Lay Dead in Heaven” - - W. B. Yeats, “He Wishes His Beloved Were Dead” - - Rainer Maria Rilke, “Death” - Paintings - - The Three Dead Kings - - The Death of Nelson - - Beata Beatrix - Sculptures - - The Kiss of Death - - Background - - Imagery - - Angel of Grief - - Fallen Astronaut - Quotes References About the author - Nicolae Sfetcu - - By the same author - - Contact Publishing House - MultiMedia Publishing -/- DOI: 10.58679/TW44411. (shrink)

The number of independent messages a physical system can carry is limited by the number of its adjustable properties. In particular, systems that have only one adjustable property cannot carry more than a single message at a time. We demonstrate this is the case for the single photons in the double-slit experiment, and the root of the fundamental limit on measuring the complementary aspect of the photons. Next, we analyze the other ‘quantal’ behavior of the systems with a (...) single adjustable property, such as noncommutativity and no-cloning. Finally, we formulate a mathematical theory to describe the dynamics of such systems and derive the standard Hilbert-space formalism of quantum mechanics. Our derivation demonstrates the physical foundation of the quantum theory. (shrink)

It is a detailed philosophical and translational analysis of the main notions of David Chalmers’ philosophy of mind as represented in his 1995 and 1996 program works.

On January 2023, I received an email from somebody regarding Velmans’s article 2008. After I took a look at the paper, I started to read his book 2000. Therefore, in this section, I will investigate Velmans’ works from 2000 and 2008. I emphasize that the main difference between Spinoza’s (Velmans) dual aspect theory and my EDWs approach is the framework of thinking: Spinoza, Velmans and everybody until me had been working within the unicorn world (the Universe/world), while my (...) EDWs assumes the rejection of the the universe/world; I replace this eternal and wrong notion with the EDWs. (see my previous works; my first five books and a book from 2022 and many of my articles are FREE on internet at my webpage and other pages). (shrink)

This monograph is an in-depth and engaging discourse on the deeply cognitive roots of human scientific quest. The process of making scientific inferences is continuous with the day-to-day inferential activity of individuals, and is predominantly inductive in nature. Inductive inference, which is fallible, exploratory, and open-ended, is of essential relevance in our incessant efforts at making sense of a complex and uncertain world around us, and covers a vast range of cognitive activities, among which scientific exploration constitutes the pinnacle. Inductive (...) inference has a personal aspect to it, being rooted in the cognitive unconscious of individuals, which has recently been found to be of paramount importance in a wide range of complex cognitive processes. One other major aspect of the process of inference making, including the making of scientific inferences, is the role of a vast web of beliefs lodged in the human mind, as also of a huge repertoire of heuristics, that constitute an important component of ‘unconscious intelligence’. Finally, human cognitive activity is dependent in a large measure on emotions and affects, that operate mostly at an unconscious level. Of special importance in scientific inferential activity is the process of hypothesis making, which is examined in this book, along with the above aspects of inductive inference, at considerable depth. The book focuses on the inadequacy of the viewpoint of naive realism in understanding the contextual nature of scientific theories, where a cumulative progress towards an ultimate truth about Nature appears to be too simplistic a generalization. It poses a critique to the commonly perceived image of science which is seen as the last word in logic and objectivity, the latter in the double sense of being independent of individual psychological propensities and, at the same time, approaching a correct understanding of the workings of a mind-independent nature. Adopting the naturalist point of view, it examines the essential tension between the cognitive endeavours of individuals and scientific communities, immersed in belief systems and cultures, on the one hand, and the engagement with a mind-independent reality on the other. In the end, science emerges as an interpretation of nature, which is perceived by us only contextually, as successively emerging cross-sections of limited scope and extent. Successive waves of theory building in science appear as episodic and kaleidoscopic changes in perspective as certain in-built borders are crossed, rather than as a cumulative progress towards some ultimate truth. While written in an informal and conversational style, the book raises a number of deep and intriguing questions located at the interface of cognitive psychology and philosophy of science, meant for both the general lay reader and the specialist. Of particular interest is the way it explores the role of belief (aided by emotions and affects) in making the process of inductive inference possible since belief is a subtle though all-pervasive cognitive factor not adequately investigated in the current literature. (shrink)

In this article I propose an original view of the nature of shared intention. In contrast to psychological views (Bratman, Searle, Tuomela) and normative views (Gilbert), I argue that both functional roles played by attitudes of individual participants and interpersonal obligations are factors of central and independent significance for explaining what shared intention is. It is widely agreed that shared intention (I) normally motivates participants to act, and (II) normally creates obligations between them. I argue that the view I propose (...) can explain why it is not a mere accident that both (I) and (II) are true of shared intention, while psychological and normative views cannot. The basic idea is that shared intention involves a structure of attitudes of individuals –including, most importantly, attitudes of reliance – which normally plays the relevant motivating roles and creates the relevant obligations. (shrink)

When examining the human being as a conscious being, we are still to arrive at an understanding of, firstly, the conditions required whereby physical processes give rise to consciousness and secondly, how consciousness is something fundamental to life as an intrinsic part of nature. Humans are complex organisms with myriad interacting systems whereby the convergence of the activities toward the support and development of the whole organism requires a high level of organisation. Though what accounts for the dynamic unity of (...) the human being? From an empirical perspective the question remains unanswered. The aim of this paper is to conceptually establish a fundamental biophysical organising principle to account for the unity and organisation of the human being. To this end I draw from David Bohm’s interpretation of quantum theory to provide an adapted and adjunct conceptual scheme in the form of a Triple-Aspect-Theory (TAT) of Being as a grounding ontology. David Bohm presented a holistic view of two interwoven orders of existence defined as the Explicate material world and the Implicate (quantum) enfolded world from which the former materialises. Consistent with David Bohm’s idea that matter at a fundamental level consists of a kind of protointelligence, the TAT facilitates a perspective based on aspect conditions of the human organism intended to furnish an explanation of the constitutive mechanism (TAT) inherent in the evolving human being. The TAT operates as an organising principle by which evolution inherently proceeds and maintains itself in an interactive relation between the Implicate and Explicate orders. The accumulated effect of natural selection is to produce adaptations, but without an organising principle: ‘Consciousness’, ‘Body-of-Experience’ and ‘Intellect-Reflective’ (the terms for the engaged coexistent aspects of being) it is argued could not occur. (shrink)

The main theory at the core of this monograph is that the person is an entity ontologically new, since she is able to perform an act of self-transcendence, which is meant as her critical distancing from her own “self”, understood as subject of social recognition (Anerkennung), in order to open to the encounter with the world (Weltoffenheit). This allows us to consider a person in a new way, different both from confessional interpretations that see her only as a center (...) of the spirit and from reductivistic views. Schelling examines the act of self-transcendence through the concept of ecstasy, whereas Scheler associates it with the phenomenological reduction. The act of self-transcendence, that Schelling sees as originated by the “hunger of being”, is at the roots of the formation process of a person (Bildung): the person takes her shape by exiting from her own self-referential dimension and encountering otherness. If considered from this viewpoint, Plato’s “epimeleia heautou” exceeds an intimistic perspective: the “care” is no more a solipsistic self-care, but rather becomes the care through which the person transcends her own self to open to the relationships with otherness. It turns, therefore, into a care for world-openness (care for Weltoffenheit). The transformation of the individual and of society so becomes the double-faced aspect of the same process. The development of this set of problems occurs through a dialogue with Schelling’s and Scheler’s positions, but it is also supported by a historical-philosophical investigation, that for instance provides evidence of the influences of Schelling’s Berlin period on Scheler’s last theories and on the philosophical anthropology of the 20th century. Schelling was the first to conceive the concept of “eccentricity” in an anthropological sense, since until then the term had been confined to Kepler’s astronomy. Consequently, the planets’ elliptic (eccentric) movement heightens to an emblematic metaphor of human nature and freedom. The monograph also examines a possible convergence between Plato’s epimeleia heautou and Scheler’s phenomenological reduction. The book ends with a chapter on the topic of Vorbild. The exemplary testimony, that is Vorbild, becomes witnessing evidence immune from any pedagogical-moralistic intent: in fact, if it should relapse into the rhetoric of the “wish to give a good example”, it would immediately conform to the opposite logic of the model. A model is universal in so far as it makes everyone more like the others, nullifying the diversity, whereas exemplariness is universal in so far as it makes everyone more unique and motivates each one to follow her own characteristic path of existential trans-formation. Exemplarity doesn’t convey any contents, but rather encourages a kind of solidaristic involvement. Yet there are also negative exemplarities (Gegenbild) that place obstacles in the formation and block the existence of the personal center. (shrink)

This is the first book in a two-volume series. The present volume introduces the basics of the conceptual foundations of quantum physics. It appeared first as a series of video lectures on the online learning platform Udemy.]There is probably no science that is as confusing as quantum theory. There's so much misleading information on the subject that for most people it is very difficult to separate science facts from pseudoscience. The goal of this book is to make you able (...) to separate facts from fiction with a comprehensive introduction to the scientific principles of a complex topic in which meaning and interpretation never cease to puzzle and surprise. An A-Z guide which is neither too advanced nor oversimplified to the weirdness and paradoxes of quantum physics explained from the first principles to modern state-of-the-art experiments and which is complete with figures and graphs that illustrate the deeper meaning of the concepts you are unlikely to find elsewhere. A guide for the autodidact or philosopher of science who is looking for general knowledge about quantum physics at intermediate level furnishing the most rigorous account that an exposition can provide and which only occasionally, in few special chapters, resorts to a mathematical level that goes no further than that of high school. It will save you a ton of time that you would have spent searching elsewhere, trying to piece together a variety of information. The author tried to span an 'arch of knowledge' without giving in to the temptation of taking an excessively one-sided account of the subject. What is this strange thing called quantum physics? What is its impact on our understanding of the world? What is ‘reality’ according to quantum physics? This book addresses these and many other questions through a step-by-step journey. The central mystery of the double-slit experiment and the wave-particle duality, the fuzzy world of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, the weird Schrödinger's cat paradox, the 'spooky action at a distance' of quantum entanglement, the EPR paradox and much more are explained, without neglecting such main contributors as Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Feynman and others who struggled themselves to come up with the mysterious quantum realm. We also take a look at the experiments conducted in recent decades, such as the surprising "which-way" and "quantum-erasure" experiments. Some considerations on why and how quantum physics suggests a worldview based on philosophical idealism conclude this first volume. This treatise goes, at times, into technical details that demand some effort and therefore requires some basics of high school math (calculus, algebra, trigonometry, elementary statistics). However, the final payoff will be invaluable: Your knowledge of, and grasp on, the subject of the conceptual foundations of quantum physics will be deep, wide, and outstanding. Additionally, because schools, colleges, and universities teach quantum physics using a dry, mostly technical approach which furnishes only superficial insight into its foundations, this manual is recommended for all those students, physicists or philosophers of science who would like to look beyond the mere formal aspect and delve deeper into the meaning and essence of quantum mechanics. The manual is a primer that the public deserves. (shrink)

How can we understand our human world, embedded as it is within the physical universe, in such a way that justice is done to both the richness, meaning and value of human life on the one hand, and what modern science tells us about the physical universe on the other hand? I argue that, in order to solve this problem, we need to see physics as being concerned only with a highly selected aspect of reality – that aspect (...) which determines how events unfold – the causally efficacious aspect. Physics cannot describe the experiential, and if it is extended so that it does so, physical theory would cease to be explanatory. The human world can, however, be understood in terms of a different kind of explanation, which I call “personalistic”. This is not reducible to physical explanation. The world is, in short, riddled with what may be called “double comprehensibility”. (shrink)

This paper is about the question: what is it for a mental state to mean (or present) something as an intentional object? This issue is addressed from a broad perspective, against the background of Brentano’s philosophical programme in Psychology from an empirical standpoint, and the controversy between the proponents of a non-canonical interpretation of Brentano’s theory of intentionality, and the so-called orthodox interpretation advocated namely by R. Chisholm. My investigation is divided into six parts. In the first section, I (...) explain the meaning and function of the notion of phenomenon in light of Brentano’s philosophical programme, and I briefly elucidate the notion of physical phenomenon which, in Brentano’s Psychology, constitutes the primary object of consciousness. In the next two sections, I look at two aspects of Brentano’s criticism of the identity thesis that he attributes to British empiricism, namely the psychological aspect, which concerns the identification of the two classes of phenomena, and the metaphysical aspect relating to the relationship between physical phenomena and the reality of an extramental world. Once this double distinction will be established, I will turn to the relation of intentional objects to presentations and put forward the hypothesis that intentional objects are conceptually dependent upon presentations and that this dependence rests, in turn, upon the content of the mental phenomena. The next step concerns Brentano’s theory of primary and secondary objects, and one of the main non-orthodox arguments against the canonical interpretation, namely that the latter conflates primary and secondary objects. In this context, I examine a second hypothesis: that the secondary object, or intentional correlate of an act, is an intentional content, which is distinct both from the intentional object and from the reality to which it relates, and I maintain that the intentional content has the function of mediating the mental acts’ relation to their objects. Finally, I shall examine some objections against the hypothesis of intentional content in Brentano’s Psychology, and I will conclude with a brief commentary on the bearing of this investigation with regard to the interpretation of the genesis of Brentano’s theory of intentionality, before and after the reistic turn of his philosophy. (shrink)

FROM THE HISTORY OF PHYSICS TO THE DISCOVERY OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF PHYSICS By Antonino Drago, formerly at Naples University “Federico II”, Italy – drago@unina,.it (Size : 391.800 bytes 75,400 words) The book summarizes a half a century author’s work on the foundations of physics. For the forst time is established a level of discourse on theoretical physics which at the same time is philosophical in nature (kinds of infinity, kinds of organization) and formal (kinds of mathematics, kinds of logic). (...) This double side of the two dichotomies assures a deep comprehension of theoretical physics by avoiding both a purely philosophical analysis and a purely formal analysis, each manifestly insufficient for representing all the aspects of theoretical physics. Among the many formulations of a physical theory, e.g. Mechanics, also Mach(1) recognized technical differences only, Instead my suggestion is to consider their differences as revealing the characteristic features of their foundations. No more radical differences may exist than those concerning both their kinds of Mathematics and their kinds of Logic. As a fact, after the 20th Century within each of these sciences there exist two antagonist foundations, within Mathematics either the classical one or the constructive one(2); within Mathematical Logic either the classical logic or the intuitionist one(3). Let us take Mechanics as an instance. Being the choices of the Newton’s formulation respectively the actual infinity of the differential equations relying on the infinitesimals and the classical logic, a formulation based on the alternative choices is Lazare Carnot’s,(4) whose mathematics is no more than algebraic-trigonometric and the logic is the intuitionist one, because this formulation makes use of doubly negated propositions, whose corresponding affirmative propositions are idealistic or false; i.e. in these cases the law of double negation fails, as in intuitionist logic occurs. By considering these two dichotomies as the foundations of the physical theories, each couple of choices upon them fashions one out four models of scientific theory, which are baptized through the authors of their most representative theories: Newtonian, Carnotian, Lagrangian, Descartesian. In correspondence four versions of the principle of inertia are recognized, as suggested by respectively: Descartes. Lazare Carnot, Enriques and Cavalieri.(5) All that suggests that the four models of scientific theory may be graphically represented as a compass orientating our minds amid the so numerous physical theories. By taking these dichotomies as interpretative categories, a new interpretative history of Physics including both classical and modern physics results according to a quadrilinear development. The birth of modern physics is characterized by the two theories - Einstein’s paper on special relativity and Einstein’s first paper on quanta - whose choices are the alternative ones to those of the previously dominant physical theory, Newtonian mechanics: in the latter paper Einstein i) declares the dichotomy on the kinds of mathematics (“Introduction”) and then he chooses the discrete mathematics; ii) by using doubly negated propositions he organizes his theory in an alternative way to the deductive-axiomatic one.(6) Moreover, a new history of Philosophy of knowledge results. Kant’s first two a priori transcendental categories represent the physical interpretation of the two choices out of the four pairs of choices on the two dichotomies, i.e. the choices of the dominant theory of mechanics, Newton’s. Hegel’s dialectic was a misleading attempt of anticipating the subsequent intuitionist logic. The book starts by a comparison of different formulations of thermodynamics in order to recognize the first dichotomy on the kind of organization. In chapter 2 the dichotomy on the kind of infinity is recognized through a comparison of Newrton’s mechanics and Lazare Carnot’s. A quickly history of the other classical physical theories is illustrated in chapter 3; it results a foundational conflict between the last two theories, and hence a conflict between their opposite couples of choices. The two main theories of modern physics, special realtivity and quantum mechanics confirm the foundational role played by the two dichotomies which gives reason for the radical change in the history of theoretical physics. Indeed, the opposition of the two main pairs of choices gives reason of the crisis in theoretical physics in the early 1900s. As a global result, the book represents the first interpretation of the entire history of Physics, both classical and modern; This fact proves that the four models of scientific theories can works as a compass (that of the front cover) suggesting a direction among the many physical theories. This new history of physics leads to re-visit both Koyré’s and Kuhn’s historiographies. Their interpretative categories are interpreted and explained through the two dichotomies so that it is possible to suggest à la Koyré categories based on the alternative choices theories to Newton’s as the suitable categories for interpreting the alternative theories to Newton’s mechanics. All that suggests a new interpretation of the crucial step in the history of Western philosophy of knowledge, i.e. the passage from Leibniz to Kant: Leibniz’s suggestion of the two labyrinths of human minds may be seen as a close anticipation of the two above dichotomies. Kant applied them in order to construct the well-known four cosmological proofs, which however he misinterpreted as leading to contradictions, instead to tow different methods of investigation corresponding to the two different kinds of logic.(7) Bibliography 1. Mach E. (1883), Die Mechanik, Leipzig: Brockhaus, Chap. IV, Sect. III. 2. Bishop E. (1967), Constructive Analysis, New York: Mc Graw-Hill. 3. Heyting A. (1962), Intuitionism. An Introduction, Amsterdam: North-Holland. 4. L. Carnot (1783), Essai on the Machines en général, Defay, Dijion (Enlish translation: Springer, Berlin, 2020). Drago A. (2004), “A new appraisal of old formulations of mechanics”, Am. J. Phys., 72(3), pp. 407-9. 5. Vella M.R. (2007), “Le quattro versioni del principio di inerzia”, in M. Leone et al. (eds.), L’eredità di Fermi, Majorana e altri Temi. Napoli: ESI, pp. 147-151. 6. Drago A. (2014), “The emergence of two options from Einstein°s first paper on Quanta”, in Pisano R., Capecchi D., Lukesova A. (eds.), Physics, Astronomy and Engineering. Critical Problems in the History of Science and Society, Scientia Socialis P., Siauliai, 2013, pp. 227-234. 7. This and all in the above points are illustrated by the book Drago A. (2017), Dalla Storia della Fisica ai Fondamenti della Scienza, Roma: Aracne. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article deals with the communicational aspects of Aristotle’s theory of signification as laid out in the initial chapters of the De Interpretatione (Int.).1 We begin by outlining the reception and main interpretations of the chapters under discussion, rather siding with the linguistic strand. We then argue that the first four chapters present an account of verbal communication, in which words signify things via thoughts. We show how Aristotle determines voice as a conventional and hence accidental medium of (...) signification: words as ‘spoken sounds’ are tokens of thoughts, which in turn are signs or natural likenesses of things. We argue that, in this way, linguistic expressions may both signify thoughts and refer to things. This double account of signification also explains the variety of ontological, logical and psychological interpretations of the initial chapters of Int. (shrink)

I argue that perceptual content involves representations both of aspects of objects, and of objects themselves, whether at the level of conscious perception, or of low-level perceptual processing - a double content structure. I present an 'orientational' theory of the relations of the two kinds of perceptual content, which can accommodate both the general semantic possibility of perceptual misrepresentation, and also species of it involving characteristic perceptual confusions of aspectual and intrinsic content. The resulting theoretical structure is argued (...) to be a broadly methodological or logical one, rather than a substantive theory that is open to empirical refutation. (shrink)

This replies to Block 2019 (B19), which responds to Lester 2014 (L14). The main issues in the, varyingly sized, sections are as follows. 1 Further explanations of critical rationalism, the theory of liberty, and problems with the non-aggression principle. 2.1 The relationships among law, morality, and libertarianism. 2.2 The objective invasiveness of low-level radiation and that it is therefore an initiated imposition (albeit trivial) if someone inflicts it on non-consenting people. 2.3 The objective and subjective aspects of initiated impositions; (...) and how clashes can be resolved. 2.4 How liberty relates to risk and self-ownership. 2.5 Libertarian initial acquisition versus absolute property rights by labour-mixing. 2.6 Organisational note. 2.7 Libertarianism and mens rea. 2.8 Libertarian rectification versus lex-talionis doubling. 2.9 Indirectly clashing rights, self-preservation, trespasser-hiker, flagpole-grasper, and landmine-layer. 2.10 A logical point is not a moral point. 2.11 Pacifism and libertarianism. 3.1 A weak criticism of utilitarianism. 3.2 Hedonometers; approximate interpersonal comparisons of utility imply libertarianism; what a libertarian is; libertarian rankings. 4. Libertarian philosophy versus propertarian dogma. Coda: the need to take seriously the philosophical problems with propertarian-justificationist libertarianism. (shrink)

This paper is about the question: what is it for a mental state to mean (or present) something as an intentional object? This issue is addressed from a broad perspective, against the background of Brentano’s philosophical programme in Psychology from an empirical standpoint, and the controversy between the proponents of a non-canonical interpretation of Brentano’s theory of intentionality, and the so-called orthodox interpretation advocated namely by R. Chisholm. My investigation is divided into six parts. In the first section, I (...) explain the meaning and function of the notion of phenomenon in light of Brentano’s philosophical programme, and I briefly elucidate the notion of physical phenomenon which, in Brentano’s Psychology, constitutes the primary object of consciousness. In the next two sections, I look at two aspects of Brentano’s criticism of the identity thesis that he attributes to British empiricism, namely the psychological aspect, which concerns the identification of the two classes of phenomena, and the metaphysical aspect relating to the relationship between physical phenomena and the reality of an extramental world. Once this double distinction will be established, I will turn to the relation of intentional objects to presentations and put forward the hypothesis that intentional objects are conceptually dependent upon presentations and that this dependence rests, in turn, upon the content of the mental phenomena. The next step concerns Brentano’s theory of primary and secondary objects, and one of the main non-orthodox arguments against the canonical interpretation, namely that the latter conflates primary and secondary objects. In this context, I examine a second hypothesis: that the secondary object, or intentional correlate of an act, is an intentional content, which is distinct both from the intentional object and from the reality to which it relates, and I maintain that the intentional content has the function of mediating the mental acts’ relation to their objects. Finally, I shall examine some objections against the hypothesis of intentional content in Brentano’s Psychology, and I will conclude with a brief commentary on the bearing of this investigation with regard to the interpretation of the genesis of Brentano’s theory of intentionality, before and after the reistic turn of his philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 207-215 [Access article in PDF] Notes and Fragments Poetics of Sentimentality Rick Anthony Furtak IN HIS MAJOR WORK, The Passions, Robert Solomon argues that emotions are judgments. 1 Through a series of persuasive examples, he shows that emotions are best understood as mental states which involve certain beliefs about the world. This means that every emotion has an object: if I am angry at (...) John for stealing my car, the object of my anger is the fact (or what I take to be a fact) that my car has been stolen by John. If I find out that this is not the case, that my car has not even left the garage, then my anger should vanish along with its justification. 2 The key point here is that anger, like any other emotion, may be reasonable or inappropriate depending on the situation. If there is nothing to be angry about, then it would be irrational for me to cultivate anger simply because I enjoy having this particular emotion. In general, emotional responses are cognitively flawed whenever they are at odds with the properties of their objects. If we want our judgments to be realistic and not delusional, then we must avoid this kind of error.It is curious, then, that Solomon has written an essay in which he categorically declares that "there is nothing wrong with sentimentality." 3 For it would appear that his theory of emotion provides precisely the terms needed in order to specify what is wrong with it. If emotions are judgments, then "sentimentality" ought to be an important critical term to designate the habit of having emotions that involve either impaired or mistaken judgment. Nevertheless, Solomon is willing to defend any and every episode of tender emotion, of the kind associated with the [End Page 207] death of Little Nell in The Old Curiosity Shop (S, p. 240). He suggests that the more we can muster up this sort of response to literature or life, the better. What he seeks to encourage, in other words, is what Hume would call "delicacy" of (aesthetic) taste and of (ethical) passion. 4 But while Hume acknowledges that sensitivity to beauty and to ugliness are two sides of the same coin, such that anyone who is susceptible to lively enjoyments is also liable to undergo pungent sorrows, Solomon wants to promote only the tender aspect of emotion.On the principle of passionate maximization, it is good if I can be tenderly affected by a poem—any poem! The problem with such crass emotion-stoking is that it precludes the possibility of distinguishing between, for instance, the two stanzas below. Both are by Wilfred Owen: the first was written in 1914 and the second in 1918. 5 I O meet it is and passing sweet To live in peace with others, But sweeter still and far more meet To die in war for brothers. II Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. Only if emotions did not involve rational judgment could a person's passionate response to these two stanzas be a matter of indifference. But it seems that, on the contrary, an essential component of understanding them is recognizing that they express irreconcilable cognitive attitudes. The tone of the 1918 stanza is strikingly different from that of the earlier one, even though they share roughly the same topic. The latter stanza is stark and ominous, and filled with vivid detail; the one from 1914 is sweet and vague. Clearly, we might describe the earlier of the two as "sentimental"—the question is, what kind of judgment does [End Page 208] it involve? I suggest that its insipid jingles endorse the view that war is a delightful opportunity to nurture brotherhood and gain... (shrink)

The aims of this paper are to: (1) identify the best framework for comprehending multidimensional impact of deep brain stimulation on the self; (2) identify weaknesses of this framework; (3) propose refinements to it; (4) in pursuing (3), show why and how this framework should be extended with additional moral aspects and demonstrate their interrelations; (5) define how moral aspects relate to the framework; (6) show the potential consequences of including moral aspects on evaluating DBS’s impact on patients’ selves. Regarding (...) (1), I argue that the pattern theory of self can be regarded as such a framework. In realizing (2) and (3), I indicate that most relevant issues concerning PTS that require resolutions are ontological issues, including the persistence question, the “specificity problem”, and finding lacking relevant aspects of the self. In realizing (4), I identify aspects of the self not included in PTS which are desperately needed to investigate the full range of potentially relevant DBS-induced changes—authenticity, autonomy, and responsibility, and conclude that how we define authenticity will have implications for our concept of autonomy, which in turn will determine how we think about responsibility. Concerning (5), I discuss a complex relation between moral aspects and PTS—on one hand, they serve as the lens through which a particular self-pattern can be evaluated; on the other, they are, themselves, products of dynamical interactions of various self-aspects. Finally, I discuss (6), demonstrating novel way of understanding the effects of DBS on patients’ selves. (shrink)

The main subject of Cusanus’ investigations was the name of God. He claimed to have achieved the best possible one, Not-Other. Since Cusanus stressed that these two words do not mean the corresponding affirmative word, i.e. the same, they represent the failure of the double negation law and there￾fore belong to non-classical, and above all, intuitionist logic. Some of his books implicitly applied intuitionist reasoning and the corresponding organization of a theory which is governed by intuitionist logic. A (...) comparison of two of Cusanus’ short writings shows that throughout his life he substantially improved his use of this kind of logic and ultimately was able to reason consistently within such a logic and recognize some of its basic laws. One important idea developed by him was that of a proposition composed of a triple repetition of “not-other” expressing “the Tri-unity of concordance” i.e. the “best name for the Trinity”. I complete his application of intuitionist logic to theological subjects by charac￾terizing the inner relationships within the Trinity in such a way that there are no longer contradictions in the notion. Generally speaking, the notion of the Trin￾ity implies a translation from intuitionist to classical logic, to which Cusanus closely approximated. Moreover, I show that the main aspects of Christian rev￾elation, including Christ’s teachings, are represented both by this translation and by some doubly negated propositions of intuitionist logic. Hence, intuition￾ist logic was introduced into the history of Western theological thinking with Christian revelation, as only Cusanus partly recognized. Appendix 1 summa￾rizes a detailed analysis of Cusanus’ second short writing. Appendix 2 shows that the Athanasian creed regarding the Christian Trinity is a consistent se￾quence of intuitionist propositions provided that some verbal emendations are added, showing that ancient trinitarian thinking was also close to intuitionist reasoning. (shrink)

1: Placebo effect sometimes plausibly has powerful effects. 2: Buddhism philosophy holds that every living animal is sentient, and has a consciousness and killing them is bad for the killer and freeing them is good somehow. Consciousness may involve some aspects of quantum mechanism as Roger Penrose’s Orch OR' theory of consciousness pointed out. -/- 3: Although previous studies show that there is no “demonstrable effects of distant intercessory prayer. Anecdotal cases of a special kind of Buddhist activity of (...) freeing captive animals in huge amount seem to have powerful therapeutic effects on severe and terminal patients. We want test it experimentally. 4: The cunning point that exceeds previous stuies is, it’s reasonable to consider there may be collective and superpositional effects of this activity due to the likely quantum mechanism of consciousness, and it may play as a sort of magnifying glass that shows a discernible placebo effect. -/- 5:We recruit a considerable number of patients that are terminally ill and the doctors said they can not help them anymore and have double-blind experiments of the above idea.The statistics may show some anomalous distribution. Ethical concerns shall take into consideration. (shrink)

This article argues that common intuitions regarding (a) the specialness of ‘use-novel’ data for confirmation and (b) that this specialness implies the ‘no-double-counting rule’, which says that data used in ‘constructing’ (calibrating) a model cannot also play a role in confirming the model’s predictions, are too crude. The intuitions in question are pertinent in all the sciences, but we appeal to a climate science case study to illustrate what is at stake. Our strategy is to analyse the intuitive claims (...) in light of prominent accounts of confirmation of model predictions. We show that on the Bayesian account of confirmation, and also on the standard classical hypothesis-testing account, claims (a) and (b) are not generally true; but for some select cases, it is possible to distinguish data used for calibration from use-novel data, where only the latter confirm. The more specialized classical model-selection methods, on the other hand, uphold a nuanced version of claim (a), but this comes apart from (b), which must be rejected in favour of a more refined account of the relationship between calibration and confirmation. Thus, depending on the framework of confirmation, either the scope or the simplicity of the intuitive position must be revised. (shrink)

The aim here is to investigate assertion and inference as notions of logic. Assertion will be explained in terms of its purpose, which is to give interlocutors the right to request the assertor to do a certain task. The assertion is correct if, and only if, the assertor knows how to do this task. Inference will be explained as an assertion equipped with what I shall call a justification profile, a strategy for making good on the assertion. The inference is (...) valid if, and only if, correctness is preserved from the premiss assertions to the conclusion assertion. Most of this is a spelling out of views on assertion and inference presented by Per Martin-Löf in lectures since 2015. (shrink)

The dead donor rule (DDR) prohibits retrieval protocols that would be lethal to the donor. Some argue that compliance with it can be maintained by satisfying the requirements of double‐effect reasoning (DER). If successful, one could support organ donation without reference to the definition of death while being faithful to an ethic that prohibits intentionally killing innocent human life. On the contrary, I argue that DER cannot make lethal organ donation compatible with the DDR, because there are plausible ways (...) it fails DER's requirements. A key takeaway is that the theories of intention and proportionality assumed in DER matter for its plausibility as a constraint on practical reasoning. (shrink)

DNA possesses a double nature: it is both an analog chemical compound and a digital carrier of information. By distinguishing these two aspects, this paper aims to reevaluate the legally and politically influential idea that the human genome forms part of the common heritage of mankind, an idea which is thought to conflict with the practice of patenting DNA. The paper explores the lines of reasoning that lead to the common heritage idea, articulates and motivates what emerges as the (...) most viable version of it, and assesses the extent to which this version conflicts with gene-patenting practices as exemplified by the U.S. regime. It concludes that the genome is best thought of as a repository of information to which humanity has a fiduciary relationship, and that on this view, the perceived conflict with gene-patenting largely dissolves. (shrink)

The Doctrine of Double Effect [DDE] states roughly that it is harder to justify causing or allowing harm as a means to an end than it is to justify conduct that results in harm as a side effect. This chapter argues that a theory of deontological constraints on harming needs something like the DDE in order to avoid the charge that it reflects a narcissistic obsession with the cleanliness of our own hands. Unfortunately, the DDE is often interpreted (...) as maintaining that we must avoid acting with certain intentions, which, this chapter contends, embodies an equally narcissistic obsession with the purity of our own hearts. The chapter argues that the DDE is better interpreted as a denial of the Machiavellian idea that beneficial ends justify harmful means. On this view, the objective fact that our conduct will secure benefits for some individuals at the expense of other individuals weakens the extent to which those benefits count as reasons to engage in that conduct. The chapter argues that this version of the DDE provides a plausible, non-narcissistic foundation for deontological constraints. (shrink)

The Double Content view is the first comprehensive theory of art that is able to satisfactorily explain the nature of all kinds of artworks in a unified way — whether paintings, novels, or musical and theatrical performances. The basic thesis is that all such representational artworks involve two levels or kinds of representation: a first stage in which a concrete artifact represents an artwork, and a second stage in which that artwork in turn represents its subject matter. "Dilworth (...) applies his theory across the arts and to a variety of issues, demonstrating that it has far-reaching implications for our philosophical understanding of the nature of art.” - Stephen Davies, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Auckland.. (shrink)

Does A cause B simply if A prevents what would have prevented B? Such a case is known as double prevention: where we have the prevention of a prevention. One theory of causation is that A causes B when B counterfactually depends on A and, as there is such a dependence, proponents of the view must rule that double prevention is causation.<br><br>However, if double prevention is causation, it means that causation can be an extrinsic matter, that (...) the cause and effect need not be connected by a continuous chain of events, that there can be causation by absence, and that there can be causation at a distance. All of these implications jar with strong intuitions we have about the nature of causation. There is, on the other hand, a theory of causation based on an ontology of real dispositions, where causation involves the passing around of powers. This theory in contrast entails that double prevention is not causation and, on this issue, it can claim a victory over the counterfactual dependence account. (shrink)

This study aims to investigate some aspects that contribute to the growing popularity of conspiracy theories in the 21st century. They have gained so much popularity among the public in recent years that an age of conspiracies. Conspiracy theories are increasingly responding to several socially significant events occurring around us, coming up with an alternative explanation, especially for those political, social, tragic, or other events that concern a more significant number of people. Thanks to the rapid expansion of access to (...) the Internet and rapid development in information and communication technologies, systems, and means, conspiracy theories are significantly penetrating the mass media and especially the sphere of new media. Currently, social networks are the medium with the most incredible spread of various conspiracy theories. It is one of the primary reasons why conspiracy theories have become the subject of our scientific interest. Using relevant methods of qualitative theoretical scientific research, in this work, we present our research findings and a view on some selected aspects contributing to the growing popularity of conspiracy theories to readers from the professional and lay public. (shrink)

Many philosophers display relaxed scepticism about the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing and the Doctrine of Double Effect, suspecting, without great alarm, that one or both of these Doctrines is indefensible. This relaxed scepticism is misplaced. Anyone who aims to endorse a theory of right action with Nonconsequentialist implications should accept both the DDA and the DDE. First, even to state a Nonconsequentialist theory requires drawing a distinction between respecting and promoting values. This cannot be done without (...) accepting some deontological distinction. Second, if someone is going to accept any deontological distinction she should accept either the DDE or the DDA or some replacement. Finally, anyone who accepts either the DDE or the DDA should accept both doctrines or a replacement of each. Unless both Doctrines can be defended or given a defensible replacement, any Nonconsequentialist is in trouble. (shrink)

The paper provides an analysis of Martin Buber’s intellectual conversion and shows how it facilitates a deeper understanding of the phenomenon of nationalism. Buber, who is today known mainly as a key representative of dialogical philosophy, was in the 1910s part of the double wave of German and Jewish nationalism which strongly affected the German-speaking Jewish public. Buber provided intellectual support for this wave of nationalism and interpreted World War I as a unique chance for the spiritual unification of (...) European Jewry. Consequent to his conflict with Gustav Landauer Buber underwent a complex intellectual and existential transformation. He abandoned key concepts of his pre-dialogical thought and laid the foundations of his dialogical thought. He rejected his endorsement of Geman nationalism and substantially reevaluated his political positions. The analysis of Buber’s intellectual development sheds light on some important aspects of the dynamics of nationalism. (shrink)

Karl Polanyi's double movement is a dialectical process characterized by a continuous tension between a movement towards social marketization and a movement towards social protectionism. Notably, Polanyi condemns the former movement while defending the latter. Without using the term " double movement " , F.A Hayek's theory of social evolution acknowledges the same phenomenon but reaches different normative conclusions. While for Polanyi the marketization of society is a utopia with dystopian consequences, Hayek's evolutionary explanation of this dialectical (...) process asserts that there is no alternative to a market oriented society. Both authors defend that their favoured movement is the one that truly supports the continuity of life. This article compares the authors' normative readings of the double movement and concludes that, from an evolutionary perspective, Polanyi's conclusion possesses a robustness that Hayek's postulate lacks. (shrink)

Seminal work intended to found a new field of integrative Noetic Science is summarized. Until now the philosophy of Biological Mechanism has ruled medicine and psychology. Penrose claims, AA scientific world-view which does not profoundly come to terms with the problem of conscious mind can have no serious pretensions of completeness@. A noetic action principle synonymous with the historic concept of élan vital is introduced as the basis of a Continuous State Conscious Universe (CSCU). The least unit of CSCU superspace (...) defines Awareness as a fundamental physical quantity like charge in electrodynamics. This cosmological context reveals the origin of complexity in self-organized living-systems wherein the physical basis of qualia is formalized. The dynamics of this teleological action principle, mediated by a unitary noetic field pervading all biochemical species, optimizes the state of well-being through homeostasis and provides the fundamental basis for developing a Moral Psychology. (shrink)

Clearly we can perceive both objects, and various aspects or appearances of those objects. But how should that complexity of perceptual content be explained or analyzed? I argue that perceptual representations normally have a double or two level nested structure of content, so as to adequately incorporate information both about contextual aspects Y(X) of an object X, and about the object X itself. On this double content (DC) view, perceptual processing starts with aspectual data Y?(X?) as a higher (...) level of content, which data does not itself provide lower level X-related content, but only an aspectually encoded form of such data. Hence the relevant perceptual data Y?(X?) must be. (shrink)

This chapter connects the phenomenon of double bookkeeping to two critical debates in the philosophy of delusion: one from the analytic tradition and one from the phenomenological tradition. First, I will show how the failure of action guidance on the part of some delusions suggests an argument to the standard view that delusions are beliefs (doxasticism about delusion) and how its proponents have countered it by ascribing behavioral inertia to avolition, emotional disturbances, or a failure of the surrounding environment (...) in supporting the agent’s motivation to act. Second, I will show how the mismatch between the experience of double bookkeeping and that of having the usual propositional attitudes of folk psychology suggests another, more recalcitrant argument not only against doxasticism but against the very attempt to fit delusion into folk psychology. Third, I will show how phenomenologically inspired theories of delusion, such as the multiple realities hypothesis, bypass the debates above and focus on describing and understanding the disturbances in the structure of experience undergone by patients. I conclude that the philosophical discussions ensuing from an appreciation of double bookkeeping show some of the limitations of the analytic philosophical approach to delusion. (shrink)

Dans la double conception du sujet que précise Tokieda Motoki dans sa théorie du processus langagier : sujet subordonné au prédicat et sujet d’action langagière volontaire, conception fondée sur une théorie linguistique inspirée principalement d’études grammaticales de la langue japonaise et qui s’est donc totalement émancipée du paradigme de la grammaire des langues européennes, on peut retrouver, de manière tout à fait paradoxale et frappante, le sens originaire du sujet, à savoir celui de son origine latine « subjectum » (...) qui est d’ailleurs la traduction du mot grec « ὑποκείμενον », à double titre : celui qui est assujetti ou soumis à une instance supérieure ou plus fondamentale et celui qui est susceptible de donner lieu ou occasion aux accidents, aux faits contingents. (shrink)

Abstract: This essay consists of some clarifying remarks on the doctrine of double effect (DDE). After providing a contemporary formulation of the doctrine we put special emphasis on the distinction between those aspects of an action plan that are intended and those that are merely foreseen (the I/F distinction). Making use of this distinction is often made difficult in practice because salient aspects of the action plan exhibit a felt “closeness” to one another that is difficult if not impossible (...) to articulate with the precision we might like. The essay goes on to examine an especially adroit criticism of DDE best articulated by J.J. Thomson. We conclude with a brand new double effect case (new to the philosophical literature anyway) taken from medicine and Roman Catholic pastoral ministry. (shrink)

A picture provides both configurational content concerning its design features, and recognitional content about its external subject. But how is this possible, since all that a viewer can actually see is the picture's own design? I argue that the most plausible explanation is that a picture's design has a dual function. It both encodes artistically relevant design content, and in turn that design content encodes the subject content of the picture--producing overall a double content structure. Also, it is highly (...) desirable that a resulting double content theory for pictures should be closely integrated with a related double content account of perceptual content generally, so as to avoid suspicions of ad hoc theorizing that would apply only to pictorial content. The resulting theory should also be able to explain the inevitable ambiguities involved in abstracting two levels of visual content from a single visible surface, as well as explaining the systematic relations between the two kinds of content. I provide an orientational theory--based on a recently developed spatial logic of orientational concepts--for this purpose, and show how depictive and perceptual content in general can be usefully explained in these orientational terms. This account of picturing also integrates well with a previously developed, more generic double content theory of art, and it is also plausible in cognitive science terms. (shrink)

Van Fraassen infers the truth of the contextual theory from his observation that it has passed a crucial test. Mizrahi infers the comparative truth of our best theories from his observation that they are more successful than their competitors. Their inferences require, according to the argument from double spaces, the prior belief that it is more likely that their target theories were pulled out from the T-space than from the O-space. The T-space is the logical space of unconceived (...) theories whose appearances agree with their realities; the O-space is the logical space of unconceived theories whose appearances may agree or disagree with their realities. (shrink)

Expressions typically thought to be rigid designators can refer to distinct individuals in the consequents of counterfactuals. This occurs in counteridenticals, such as “If I were you, I would arrest me”, as well as more ordinary counterfactuals with clearly possible antecedents, like “If I were a police officer, I would arrest me”. I argue that in response we should drop rigidity and deal with de re modal predication using something more flexible, such as counterpart theory.