O presente trabalho visa apresentar a solução dada por Santo Agostinho ao problema do mal, aliado à aparente contraditoriedade entre a presciência de Deus e a liberdade humana. Para isto, será útil como bibliografia principal do filósofo sua obra De libero arbitrio, um livro em forma de diálogo onde o pensador esclarece suas posições acerca do livre-arbítrio e da presciência divina.

Este ensaio estabelece uma comparação estética e fenomenológica entre os pensamentos de Yves-Klein e Merleau-Ponty. Se o pintor materializou as suas reflexões e concepções em obra pictórica, o fenomenólogo francês dissertou na escrita filosófica o resultado da sua reflexão. Da análise conjunta entre um e outro resulta esta fenomenologia e estética comparativa que apresenta alguns conceitos fundamentais que alimentaram essas reflexões, tais como a visibilidade, o corpo, o mundo. Assim, para além dessa comparação, este ensaio viabiliza o diálogo entre ambos. (...) Palavras-chave: Corpo. Mundo. Visibilidade. Merleau-Ponty. Yves Klein -/- Abstract:This essay establishes an aesthetic and phenomenological comparison between the thoughts of Yves-Klein and Merleau-Ponty. If the painter materialized his reflections and concepts in pictorial work, the French phenomenologist disserted in the philosophical writing the result of his reflection. From the joint analysis between one and the other, this phenomenology and comparative aesthetics results, which presents some fundamental concepts that fed these reflections such as visibility, the body, the world. Thus, in addition to this comparison, this essay enables the dialogue between both. Keywords: Body. World. Visibility. Merleau-Ponty. Yves Klein. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s concepts shed light on the phenomenon of schizophrenia in at least three different ways: with a view to empathy, scientific explanation, or philosophical clarification. I consider two different “positive” wittgensteinian accounts―Campbell’s idea that delusions involve a mechanism of which different framework propositions are parts, Sass’ proposal that the schizophrenic patient can be described as a solipsist, and a Rhodes’ and Gipp’s account, where epistemic aspects of schizophrenia are explained as failures in the ordinary background of certainties. I argue that (...) none of them amounts to empathic-phenomenological understanding, but they provide examples of how philosophical concepts can contribute to scientific explanation, and to philosophical clarification respectively. (shrink)

Resumo: A crise na União Europeia e os programas de austeridade subsequentes fizeram emergir uma miríade de movimentos sociais, diversos na sua natureza e nos seus propósitos. O que se pretende aferir neste artigo é a relação e a conexão existentes entre o Estado, o poder económico, a sociedade civil e os movimentos sociais neste contexto específico de crise. Procuraremos, nesta breve abordagem, explanar alguns elementos de originalidade intrínsecos aos movimentos sociais hodiernos, patentes na sua forma de participação e organização, (...) assim como aplicar estas questões teóricas relevantes ao contexto português. A parte empírica, dada a escassez de estudos de caso existentes, será apoiada no último inquérito do European Social Survey, de 2012. Analisando um conjunto de perguntas aí explícitas, podemos compreender, de forma indirecta, algumas das dinâmicas que caracterizam estes movimentos. Abstract: The crisis in the European Union and the subsequent austerity programs have unleashed a myriad of social movements, diverse in its nature and purpose. The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship and connection between the State, economic power, civil society and social movements in this specific context of crisis. We will try, in this brief approach, to explain some elements of originality intrinsic to modern social movements, evident in their form of participation and organization, as well as to apply these theoretical questions relevant to the Portuguese context. The empirical part, given the paucity of existing case studies, will be supported in the last survey of the European Social Survey of 2012. By analyzing a set of questions explicit there, we can, indirectly, understand some of the dynamics that characterize these movements. (shrink)

Causal closure arguments against interactionist dualism are currently popular amongst physicalists. Such an argument appeals to some principles of the causal closure of the physical, together with certain other premises, to conclude that at least some mental events are identical with physical events. However, it is crucial to the success of any such argument that the physical causal closure principle to which it appeals is neither too strong nor too weak by certain standards. In this paper, it is argued that (...) various forms of naturalistic dualism, of an emergentist character, are consistent with the strongest physical causal closure principles that can plausibly be advocated. (shrink)

Shedding light on the political power and oppressive potential of language, theories of illocutionary silencing and discursive injustice show how gender, class and race can shape the pragmatics of speech, limiting in some circumstances the speaker’s ability to do things with her words. This article takes a close look at discursive injustice in trials for gender-based violence in connection with the phenomenon of misogyny. It argues that in the courtroom the testimony of the complainant is sometimes silenced by a sexist (...) ideology used in service of misogynistic ends. In particular, it argues that sexist social meanings can sometimes be enacted by the judge and accommodated by prosecutors, figuring as a component of the score in the language game of the trial and thus 1) determining what counts as sexual violence and 2) preventing complainants from making the moves they intend to make. (shrink)

De uma perspectiva comportamentalista radical, o eu é um repertório verbal complexo, que, como tal, tem uma gênese social. O reconhecimento da origem social do “eu” abre caminho para uma análise política, incluindo uma discussão do pa- pel das relações de poder na constituição do eu. Entretanto, uma concepção radicalmente social do “eu”, como a proposta pelo comportamentalismo, suscita um problema político: se o eu é integralmente produto do ambiente social, de onde viria uma eventual “vontade” de romper com esse (...) sistema? Parece que para reconhecer a possibilidade de ação política transformadora seria preciso preservar uma noção descontextualizada de “eu”. Considerando essa dificuldade, o objetivo deste artigo é propor uma interpretação política da constituição do “eu” no âmbito do comportamentalismo radical, mantendo no horizonte a possibilidade de uma ação política transformadora. Para tanto, destacamos como “eus” oprimidos são tornados submissos, mas também como de certas contingências podem emergir “eus” subversivos, que se opõem a um sistema social opressivo. Esse “eu” subversivo é caracterizado por um repertório de autoconhecimento mais amplo, que inclui a discriminação do papel das relações de poder e do controle promovido por instituições. Concluímos, com isso, que um “eu” socialmente constituído pode ser politicamente ativo. (shrink)

In discussion on consciousness and the hard problem, there is an unquestioned background assumption, namely, our experience is stored in the brain. Yet Bergson argued that this very question, “Is experience stored in the brain?” is the critical issue in the problem of consciousness. His examination of then-current memory research led him, save for motor or procedural memory, to a “no” answer. Others, for example Sheldrake, have continued this negative assessment of the research findings. So, has this assumption actually been (...) proven since Bergson? Do we know how experience is stored? Or that it is stored? Here, a recent review and model of memory is examined to see where this assumption actually stands. Again, the assessment will be that nothing has changed. The core of the problem, it will be argued, lies in two things: Firstly, the search for how/where experience is stored is motivated—rephrasing Bergson—in the classic metaphysic, a framework on space and time whose logic cannot be coherently, logically adhered to in attempting to explain how experience is stored. Secondly, the search generally assumes an inadequate theory of perception that is implicitly based in this classic metaphysic. If framed within Bergson’s model of perception and his temporal metaphysic, conjoined with J. J. Gibson’s model, the storage-search appears misguided from the start. (shrink)

Logical realism is a view about the metaphysical status of logic. Common to most if not all the views captured by the label ‘logical realism’ is that logical facts are mind- and language-independent. But that does not tell us anything about the nature of logical facts or about our epistemic access to them. The goal of this paper is to outline and systematize the different ways that logical realism could be entertained and to examine some of the challenges that these (...) views face. It will be suggested that logical realism is best understood as a metaphysical view about the logical structure of the world, but this raises an important question: does logical realism collapse into standard metaphysical realism? It will be argued that this result can be accommodated, even if it cannot be altogether avoided. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the moral dimensions of gender affirmation. I argue that the moral value of gender affirmation is rooted in what Iris Murdoch called loving attention. Loving attention is central to the moral value of gender affirmation because such affirmation is otherwise too fragile or insincere to have such value. Moral reasons to engage in acts that gender affirm derive from the commitment to give and express loving attention to trans people as a way of challenging their (...) marginalization. In the latter part of the paper, I will discuss how my arguments bear on recent arguments by Robin Dembroff and Daniel Wodak (2018) on the use of gender-neutral language. They argue that we have a duty not to use gender-specific pronouns for anyone. Their conclusion turns, in part, on a rejection of gender affirmation as a moral duty. The value of gender affirmation, rooted in our moral perception of trans people, should make us skeptical of this conclusion, in favor of a more nuanced and pluralistic approach to the ethics of gendering. (shrink)

The ability to perceive the shapes of things as enduring through changes in how they stimulate our sense organs is vital to our sense of stability in the world. But what sort of capacity is shape constancy, and how is it reflected in perceptual experience? This paper defends a pluralist account of shape constancy: There are multiple kinds of shape constancy centered on geometrical properties at various levels of abstraction, and properties at these various levels feature in the content of (...) perceptual experience, governing patterns of apparent shape similarity. I propose that the varieties of shape constancy are subserved by the syntactic complexity of perceptual shape representations. By assigning discrete constituents to various abstract shape parameters, these representations attune us to the preservation of certain abstract shape properties through changes in more determinate shape properties. Finally, I draw broader lessons concerning the nature and function of perceptual constancy. (shrink)

The role of imagination in Descartes. The critic of Sartre to the concept of image in Descartes.

When we perceive an object, we perceive the object from a perspective. As a consequence of the perspectival nature of perception, when we perceive, say, a circular coin from different angles, there is a respect in which the coin looks circular throughout, but also a respect in which the coin's appearance changes. More generally, perception of shape and size properties has both a constant aspect—an aspect that remains stable across changes in perspective—and a perspectival aspect—an aspect that changes depending on (...) one's perspective on the object. How should we account for the perspectival aspect of spatial perception? We present a framework within which to discuss the perspectival aspect of perception and put forward three desiderata that any account of the perspectival aspect of perception should satisfy. We discuss views on which the perspectival aspect of perception is analyzed in terms of constitutively mind-dependent appearance properties as well as views on which the perspectival aspect of perception is analyzed in terms of representations of mind-independent perspectival properties. (shrink)

There is a widespread belief that for their own safety and for the protection of wildlife, cats should be permanently kept indoors. Against this view, I argue that cat guardians have a duty to provide their feline companions with outdoor access. The argument is based on a sophisticated hedonistic account of animal well-being that acknowledges that the performance of species-normal ethological behavior is especially pleasurable. Territorial behavior, which requires outdoor access, is a feline-normal ethological behavior, so when a cat is (...) permanently confined to the indoors, her ability to flourish is impaired. Since cat guardians have a duty not to impair the well-being of their cats, the impairment of cat flourishing via confinement signifies a moral failing. Although some cats assume significant risks and sometimes kill wild animals when roaming outdoors, these important considerations do not imply that all cats should be deprived of the opportunity to access the outdoors. Indeed, they do not, by themselves, imply that any cat should be permanently kept indoors. (shrink)

A prominent view holds that perception and memory are distinguished at least partly by their temporal orientation: Perception functions to represent the present, while memory functions to represent the past. Call this view perceptual presentism. This chapter critically examines perceptual presentism in light of contemporary perception science. I adduce evidence for three forms of perceptual sensitivity to the past: (i) shaping perception by past stimulus exposure, (ii) recruitment of mnemonic representations in perceptual processing, and (iii) perceptual representation of present objects (...) as possessing past properties. I argue that forms (i) and (ii) are consistent with perceptual presentism, while form (iii) poses a genuine threat to the view. While the empirical case for form (iii) remains inconclusive, I suggest that the most serious challenges to perceptual presentism derive from representations that integrate mnemonic and present-tensed elements in the performance of canonical perceptual functions, such as perceiving object continuity over time. (shrink)

Recently, the concept of "gender identity" has enjoyed a great deal of attention in gender metaphysics. This seems to be motivated by the goal of creating trans-inclusive theory, by explaining trans people's genders. In this paper, we aim to unmotivate this project. Notions of "gender identity" serve important pragmatic purposes for trans people, such as satisfying the curiosity of non-trans people, and, relatedly, securing our access to important goods like legal rights and medical care. However, we argue that this does (...) not mean that "gender identity" is a metaphysically substantial thing that deserves extensive theoretical attention. There are reasons to be skeptical of such a concept. We trace the history of "gender identity," primarily to identify its roots in trans-antagonistic medical theory and its connections to the problematic "wrong-body" model--a legacy that has pathologized and flattened trans experience. Moreover, we argue that trans people primarily use "gender identity" to explain ourselves to non-trans people, rather than to discuss ourselves among ourselves. Thus, we urge theorists to resist the urge to substantiate gender identity. Instead, we encourage the development of new and better concepts, ones that attend to the lived realities of trans community and the flourishing gender terms and practices that are constructed there. If these lived realities are taken seriously, there is no need to “explain” trans people’s genders; we can simply see them as they are. (shrink)

Origin of a dissipative structure in a chemical dynamic system: occurs under the following constraints: 1) Affinity must be high. (The system must be far from equilibrium.); 2) There must be an auto-catalytic process; 3) A process that reduces the concentration of the auto-catalyst must operate; 4) The relevant parameters (rate constants, etc.) must lie in a range corresponding to a limit cycle trajectory. That is, there must be closure of the network of reaction such that a state sufficiently close (...) to the prior condition is achieved at the corresponding part of each oscillation. If these constraints continue to be met interactions of the system with the rest of the world are quite different in the presence of the dissipative structure than they would be in the absence of that self-organized coherence. Closure of a network of relationships which gives rise to a dissipative structure is a 'unit-determining' feature. The effects of the structure as a whole are the resultants of the effects of the components, but the concentrations of the components at any instant are effects of the closure of the limit cycle. This is an influence on components arising from what those components constitute --- downward causation. (shrink)

This paper addresses the question of what organisms are and therefore what kinds of biological entities qualify as organisms. For some time now, the concept of organismality has been eclipsed by the notion of individuality. Biological individuals are those systems that are units of selection. I develop a conception of organismality that does not rely on evolutionary considerations, but instead draws on development and ecology. On this account, organismality and individuality can come apart. Organisms, in my view, are as Godfrey-Smith (...) puts it “essentially persisters.” I argue that persistence is underpinned by differentiation, integration, development, and the constitutive embeddedness of organisms in their worlds. I examine two marginal cases, the Portuguese Man O’ War and the honey bee colony, and show that both count as organisms in light of my analysis. Next, I examine the case of holobionts, hosts plus their microsymbionts, and argue that they can be counted as organisms even though they may not be biological individuals. Finally, I consider the question of whether other, less tightly integrated biological systems might also be treated as organisms. (shrink)

Conceptualism is the view that at least some perceptual representation is conceptual. This paper considers a prominent recent argument against Conceptualism due to Ned Block. Block’s argument appeals to patterns of color representation in infants, alleging that infants exhibit categorical perception of color while failing to deploy concepts of color categories. Accordingly, the perceptual representation of color categories in infancy must be non-conceptual. This argument is distinctive insofar as it threatens not only the view that all perception is conceptual, but (...) also views that restrict the Conceptualist thesis to perceptual categorization. However, I contend that it fails at two stages. Block’s arguments for the perceptual representation of color categories in infancy, and against color concept deployment in infancy, are unpersuasive. Thus, Block has not vanquished Conceptualism. I draw out implications for debates about the perception-cognition border and for the question of whether explicit categorization occurs in perception. (shrink)

There is a long tradition in philosophy and literary theory defending the view that engagement with literature promotes readers’ empathy. Until the last century, few of the empirical claims adduced in that tradition were investigated experimentally. Recent work in psychology and neuropsychology has now shed new light on the interplay of empathy and literature. This article surveys the experimental findings, addressing three central questions: What is it to read empathically? Does reading make us more empathic? What characteristics of literature, if (...) any, affect readers’ empathy? While experimental studies have delivered no conclusive answers to these questions, it has exposed their psychological complexity and constructed a more nuanced picture of the diverse ways in which literature interacts with our empathic capacities. (shrink)

It is widely thought that there are limits to how things can perceptually appear to us. For instance, nothing can appear both square and circular, or both pure red and pure blue. Adam Pautz has dubbed such constraints “laws of appearance.” But if the laws of appearance obtain, then what explains them? Here I examine the prospects for an empirical explanation of the laws of appearance. First, I challenge extant empirical explanations that appeal purely to the format of perceptual representation. (...) I then develop a hybrid approach, on which the laws are explained not merely by format, but by two further factors: ecological constraints imposed by our environments, and computational constraints embodied by our perceptual systems. While the hybrid approach implies that the laws of appearance are contingent, I argue that this implication is empirically defensible, since even some of the most intuitively compelling laws have real-world counterexamples. (shrink)

Molyneux’s question asks whether a person born blind who has learned to identify shapes by touch could, if suddenly granted sight, immediately identify shapes visually. This question has often been used to structure discussions of whether there is a “rational connection” between sight and touch—whether it is possible to rationally doubt whether the same shape properties are both seen and felt. I distinguish two questions under this general heading. The first concerns, roughly, whether the visual and haptic perception of shape (...) is rationally connected in normally sighted perceivers. The second concerns, roughly, whether the visual and haptic perception of shape is rationally connected in all possible perceivers. I argue that real-world implementations of Molyneux’s question are irrelevant to the first question, but potentially relevant to the second. However, I also argue that the second question does not have the philosophical significance it is sometimes claimed to have. In particular, it cannot be used to adjudicate debates about whether the phenomenal character of perceptual experience is primarily determined “externally” by the worldly properties we perceive, or “internally” by physiological or functional properties of our brains. (shrink)

Abstract: Alienation and slavery from Precious or what we don't want to see. It is our purpose to establish, in a parallel reading, these two films (highly rewarded), namely The Fence and Precious, that apparently being so different, are an illustration of the reality of life and the modern democratic world: the social uprooting and slavery. If in the movie of Phillip Noyce and Christone Olsen The Fence, is told a story of three young Aboriginal girls who are forcibly taken (...) to be transformed into domestic slaves, in the movie of Lee Daniels Precious, the young woman is already a servant in her own home and seeks the transformation of her life. Uniting these two stories, we find fundamental elements: illiteracy, ill-treatment, the idea of a migration (real or metaphysical), among others, but whose fundamental notion is the journey. If the film The Fence, the fence itself is used to conduct the three young Aboriginal to a real reunion with the family, in Precious, the metaphorical ‘fence’ is the limit of her world. From this interpretation, we will undertake our reflection about what we consider to be the alienation of the modern world and the silence we produce about them. (shrink)

This article develops a view of shape representation both in visual experience and in subpersonal visual processing. The view is that, in both cases, shape is represented in a ‘layered’ manner: an object is represented as having multiple shape properties, and these properties have varying degrees of abstraction. I argue that this view is supported both by the facts about visual phenomenology and by a large collection of evidence in perceptual psychology. Such evidence is provided by studies of shape discriminability, (...) apparent motion, multiple-object tracking, and structure-from-motion. Recent neuroscientific work has also corroborated this psychophysical evidence. Finally, I draw out implications of the layered view for processes of concept acquisition. 1 Introduction2 Metric Properties andShape Properties3 Metric Views4 Against Metric Views of Visual Shape Experience5 The Visual System Uses Abstract Shape Properties6 Against Metric Views of Visual Shape Representation7 Neural Underpinnings of Abstract Shape Perception8 Implications. (shrink)

Marr’s seminal distinction between computational, algorithmic, and implementational levels of analysis has inspired research in cognitive science for more than 30 years. According to a widely-used paradigm, the modelling of cognitive processes should mainly operate on the computational level and be targeted at the idealised competence, rather than the actual performance of cognisers in a specific domain. In this paper, we explore how this paradigm can be adopted and revised to understand mathematical problem solving. The computational-level approach applies methods from (...) computational complexity theory and focuses on optimal strategies for completing cognitive tasks. However, human cognitive capacities in mathematical problem solving are essentially characterised by processes that are computationally sub-optimal, because they initially add to the computational complexity of the solutions. Yet, these solutions can be optimal for human cognisers given the acquisition and enactment of mathematical practices. Here we present diagrams and the spatial manipulation of symbols as two examples of problem solving strategies that can be computationally sub-optimal but humanly optimal. These aspects need to be taken into account when analysing competence in mathematical problem solving. Empirically informed considerations on enculturation can help identify, explore, and model the cognitive processes involved in problem solving tasks. The enculturation account of mathematical problem solving strongly suggests that computational-level analyses need to be complemented by considerations on the algorithmic and implementational levels. The emerging research strategy can help develop algorithms that model what we call enculturated cognitive optimality in an empirically plausible and ecologically valid way. (shrink)

We argue that the trend toward providing users with feasible and actionable explanations of AI decisions—known as recourse explanations—comes with ethical downsides. Specifically, we argue that recourse explanations face several conceptual pitfalls and can lead to problematic explanation hacking, which undermines their ethical status. As an alternative, we advocate that explanations of AI decisions should aim at understanding.

This paper investigates “A Feminist Interpretation and Reconstruction of John 7:53-8:11 in the light violence Against Women and its Implications Today.” This comes on the heels of the fact that violence against women is not only a fact of the contemporary times but was there in the days of Jesus Christ. The paper using two major theories of Feminist hermeneutics, especially the Hermeneutics of Recounting Tales of Terror in Memoriam and the Hermeneutic of Documenting Cases Against Women in the Bible (...) and social feminism theories of Radical Feminism and Liberal Feminism. This work brought to the fore that in most interpretation of John 7:53-8:11, the emphasis has been on forgiveness of sin and the issue of ὁ ἀναμάρτητος (that is one without sin) without any note about the andriarchal system of which the „adulterous‟ woman was a victim of. This paper which used the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) as its preferred translation because of its gender sensitivity arrived at the conclusion that, the whole episode was male orchestrated; the Scribes and Pharisees bringing the woman to be judged by Jesus without the man in the alleged “adultery” case tantamount to judging the female fold different from the male fold; and that, there was no actual committing of adultery by the woman who was brought to Jesus, but she was brought to Jesus because of the inferiority, weak and vulnerable place of women in Jesus‟ andriarchal community. Hence, Jesus setting the woman free typified the role of religion as the vanguard in ending violence against women. (shrink)

The causal theory of action has been the standard view in the philosophy of action and mind. In this chapter, I will present responses to two challenges to the theory. The first says, basically, that there is no positive argument in favour of the causal theory, as the only reason that supports it consists in the apparent lack of tenable alternatives. The second challenge says that the theory fails to capture the phenomenon of agency, as it reduces activity to mere (...) happenings (events and event-causal processes). This is often referred to as the problem of "disappearing agency". My main aim is to show that there is no problem of disappearing agency, and we will see that my response to the first challenge will be conducive to this end. I will present a positive argument for the causal theory on the basis of considerations concerning the metaphysics of agency, and I will suggest that we "own" the agency that springs from our mental states and events "by default". (shrink)

Abstract. Following the tracks of Ryle and based upon the theory of complex systems, we shall develop a characterization of action-based consciousness as an embodied, embedded, selforganized process in which action and dispositions occupy a special place. From this perspective, consciousness is not a unique prerogative of humans, but it is spread all around, throughout the evolution of life. We argue that artificial systems such as robots currently lack the genuine embodied embeddedness that allows the type of self-organization that is (...) relevant to consciousness. -/- Sommario. Seguendo la linea tracciata da Ryle e basata sulla teorie dei sistemi complessi, svilupperemo una caratterizzazione della coscienza basata sull’azione come un processo incarnato, situato e auto organizzante nel quale le azioni e le disposizioni occupano un ruolo decisivo. Da questo punto di vista, la coscienza non è una prerogativa esclusiva degli esseri umani, ma è diffusa nel mondo naturale grazie ai processi evolutivi. Noi sosteniamo che i sistemi artificiali come i robot attualmente sono carenti del tipo di relazione con la corporeità e con l’ambiente che consente quel tipo di auto-organizzazione indispensabile per l’emergenza della coscienza. (shrink)

Se responde, desde la dogmática de la Corte Constitucional colombiana, aduciendo los “criterios de identificación” normativa de los derechos fundamentales centrados en i) su relación de funcionalidad con el logro del contenido normativo de la dignidad humana, ii) su traducción como derechos subjetivos, iii) los “consensos dogmáticos, jurisprudenciales o de derecho internacional, legal y reglamentario sobre su fundamentalidad” y, iv) su exigibilidad -más que su propia justiciabilidad-, como presupuestos jurídicos, reconocimiento y aplicación pragmática constitucional en la esfera de vida de (...) la persona humana y la comunidad política, basados, también, en los pilares conceptuales del llamado Constitucionalismo Humanista. (shrink)

Richard Rorty’s conception of literature has been criticised more than acclaimed. While Rorty certainly has impacted literary studies, a comprehensive account of his understanding of literature is still lacking. Moreover, while literature is seen as significant to his later work, the philosophical role this plays in Rortyan thought is underexamined and underappreciated. This paper aims to provide an account of the role of literature and the “literary” in Rorty’s philosophy and the functions he assigns to literature and poetry – in (...) a broad and narrow sense – in democratic cultures. Beginning with an account of Rorty’s conceptions of metaphor and “unfamiliar” language, it draws on this to explain Rorty’s parallel view of literature in the “narrower sense” as playing the same role in culture as metaphors do in language. “Stimulating” literature unsettles settled selves and beliefs and expands human imagination. Using Rorty’s readings of Lolita and 1984 as examples, it shows that to him, literature not only plays a part in increasing empathy and solidarity but has a distinct therapeutic epistemological task: it helps individuals and societies adopt a more pluralist, ironist, post-metaphysical outlook. Both are important democratic functions. For these reasons, Rorty recommends that we work to realise a “literary” culture that rejects any ontologically inflected distinctions between kinds of texts, where philosophy becomes comparative “literary” criticism, and we see literature in the “narrower sense” as equally necessary material for making selves, communities and just institutions as any philosophical or political treatise. (shrink)

Prioritarianism is a variant of utilitarianism. It differs from utilitarianism in that benefiting individuals matters more the worse off these individuals are. On this view, there are two standard ways of handling risky prospects: Ex-Post Prioritarianism adjusts for prioritizing the worse off in final outcomes and then values prospects by the expectation of the sum total of those adjusted values, whereas Ex-Ante Prioritarianism adjusts for prioritizing the worse off on each individual's expectation and then values prospects by the sum total (...) of those adjusted expectations. A standard objection to Ex-Post Prioritarianism is that it violates Ex-Ante Pareto, that is, it prescribes choices that worsen the expectations for everyone. In this article, I argue that Ex-Ante Prioritarianism suffers from much the same problem: it violates a sequential version of Ex-Ante Pareto, that is, it prescribes sequences of choices that worsen the expectations for everyone. (shrink)

Four studies explore the role of perceptual fluency in attenuating bullshit receptivity, or the tendency for individuals to rate otherwise meaningless statements as “profound”. Across four studies, we presented participants with a sample of pseudoprofound bullshit statements in either a fluent or disfluent font and found that overall, disfluency attenuated bullshit receptivity while also finding little evidence that this effect was moderated by cognitive thinking style. In all studies, we measured participants’ cognitive reflection, need for cognition, faith in intuition, and (...) superstitious beliefs. Superstition strongly predicted bullshit receptivity regardless of fluency. Inconclusive results were found for the remaining scales. Potential links for the role of perceptual disfluency in promoting analytic thinking are discussed. (shrink)

This paper is inspired by and develops on E. J. Lowe’s work, who writes in his book The Possibility of Metaphysics that ‘metaphysical possibility is an inescapable determinant of actuality’ (1998: 9). Metaphysics deals with possibilities – metaphysical possibilities – but is not able to determine what is actual without the help of empirical research. Accordingly, a delimitation of the space of possibilities is required. The resulting – controversial – picture is that we generally need to know whether something is (...) possible before we can know whether it is actual. In order to appreciate this picture, we need to understand Lowe’s slogan: ‘essence precedes existence’ (Lowe 2008: 40). This slogan has both an ontological and an epistemic reading. The ontological reading is related to the now familiar idea that essence grounds modality, as popularised by Kit Fine. The epistemic reading suggests that we can know the essence of some entity before we know whether or not that entity exists. However, this idea is often met with puzzlement and Lowe himself sadly passed away before he had a chance to clarify this framework. I will present the framework as I understand it, develop it on my own terms, and put forward a qualified defence of it. I will also illustrate how the framework can be put to use with a case study concerning the discovery of transuranic elements. (shrink)

R&D collaborations between industry, government, civil society, and research ) have recently gained attention from R&D theorists and practitioners. In aiming to come to grips with their complexity, past models have generally taken a stakeholder-analytical approach based on stakeholder types. Yet stakeholder types are difficult to operationalise. We therefore argue that a processual model is more suited for studying the interaction in QHCs because it eschews matters of titles and identities. We develop such a model in which the QHC is (...) represented as a process of generating four types of value: research value, market value, political value, and societal value. We then apply this processual model in analysing real-life cases of friction in QHCs. Friction is seen, not as an interpersonal clash, but as a discrepancy between two or more value-creation processes that compete for limited resources. (shrink)

Ask most philosophers for an example of a moral rationalist, and they will probably answer “Kant.” And no wonder. Kant’s first great work of moral philosophy, Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, opens with a clarion call for rationalism, proclaiming the need to work out for once a pure moral philosophy, a metaphysics of morals. That this metaphysics includes the first principle of ethics, the moral law, is obvious. But what about the second principles, particular moral laws, such as duties (...) of truthfulness, beneficence, etc.? Are these principles metaphysical too? Many have thought not, since they make essential use of empirical and anthropological considerations. I argue otherwise; the second principles are metaphysical and this matters. I do this by taking seriously the metaphysics of the metaphysics of morals—more specifically, by understanding the metaphysics of morals alongside the metaphysics of nature. For, qua metaphysics, both employ a common two-stage methodology, the first stage of which is wholly a priori but the second stage of which is partly empirical. As I explain, appreciating this common methodology sheds new light on how the second principles are to be established, as well as on the reach of Kant’s rationalism. (shrink)

This chapter introduces and defends a pragmatist model of aesthetic disagreement that avoids many of the philosophical puzzles generated by the traditional, semantic, approach. Mainstream philosophical inquiry into aesthetic disagreement begins with a rather innocuous assumption: to understand what’s going on we must first explain what disputants are saying, which involves identifying the meaning of the relevant expressions or determining how aesthetic claims could be true. However, this task brings with it a new host of semantic and epistemic puzzles and (...) fails to vindicate the central role aesthetic disagreements occupy in our aesthetic lives more generally. Further, it isn’t clear how settling the meaning of aesthetic expressions bears on everyday aesthetic disagreements. Paying attention to what we do in an aesthetic disagreement will give us a better chance at identifying what matters for determining what we say. (shrink)

There are two aims of this paper: (1) to explore the affective dimensions of moral shock and how it relates to normative marginalization of those furthest from dominant society, but also, more specifically; (2) to articulate the trans experience of constantly being under moral attack because the dominant “world” normatively defines you out of existence. Toward these ends, I build on Katie Stockdale’s recent work on moral shock, arguing that moral shock needs to be contextualized to “worlds” of sense to (...) understand how marginalized people affectively experience shocking events. My focus is the trans experience of moral shock due to the way trans people are positioned outside of dominant society, creating the conditions to experience cyclical, chronic shock. These affective conditions point to a collective responsibility to ease the affective stress that the most marginalized experience. (shrink)

One’s constitution—whether one is generous or miserly, temperate or intemperate, kind or mean, etc.—is beyond one’s control in significant respects. Yet one’s constitution affects how one acts. And how one acts affects one’s moral standing. The counterintuitive inference—the so-called problem of constitutive moral luck—is that one’s moral standing is, to some significant extent, beyond one’s control. This article grants the premises but resists the inference. It argues that one’s constitution should have no net impact on one’s moral standing. While a (...) bad constitution lowers the chance that one will act morally, it offers significant gains to moral standing should that chance materialize. A good constitution increases one’s chance of performing good acts but for correspondingly more modest gains. This effect should smooth out, and possibly eliminate, the expected impact of constitution on moral standing. (shrink)

Christopher Hill's Perceptual experience is a must‐read for philosophers of mind and cognitive science. Here I consider Hill's representationalist account of spatial perception. I distinguish two theses defended in the book. The first is that perceptual experience does not represent the enduring, intrinsic properties of objects, such as intrinsic shape or size. The second is that perceptual experience does represent certain viewpoint‐dependent properties of objects—namely, Thouless properties. I argue that Hill's arguments do not establish the first thesis, and then I (...) raise questions about the Thouless‐property view and its role in Hill's defense of representationalism. (shrink)

Because corporate social responsibility can be beneficial to both companies and its stakeholders, interest in factors that support CSR performance has grown in recent years. A thorough integration of CSR in core business processes is particularly important for achieving effective long-term CSR practices. Here, we explored the individual CSR-related competencies that support CSR implementation in a corporate context. First, a systematic literature review was performed in which relevant scientific articles were identified and analyzed. Next, 28 CSR directors and managers were (...) interviewed. The literature review complemented with interview data resulted in the following eight distinct CSR-related competencies: Anticipating CSR challenges; Understanding CSR-relevant systems and subsystems; Understanding CSR-relevant standards; CSR management competencies, including Leading CSR programs, Managing CSR programs, and Identifying and realizing CSR-related business opportunities; Realizing CSR-supportive interpersonal processes; Employing CSR-supportive personal characteristics and attitudes; Personal value-driven competencies, including Ethical normative competencies, Balancing personal ethical values and business objectives, and Realizing self-regulated CSR-related behaviors and active involvement; and Reflecting on personal CSR views and experiences. Based on these results, implications for further research on this topic, as well as implications for practitioners, are discussed. (shrink)

I offer a qualified defence of Kant’s natural teleological argument, that is, his inference from the (un)naturalness of an act to its (im)morality. Though I reject many of Kant’s conclusions, I think the form of argument he uses to support these conclusions is not as wrong-headed as it might at first appear. I consider and answer two objections: first, that the argument is inconsistent with Kant’s moral rationalism; and second, that the argument is inconsistent with post-Kantian developments in science. I (...) argue that both objections rest on a common mistake, namely, the assumption that the account of (human) nature on which Kant’s argument relies is theoretical. On the contrary, the relevant account is practical: informed by science, but not determined by it. Once we appreciate the practical character of Kant’s naturalism, we can see not only that Kant can be a naturalist and a rationalist, but contemporary Kantians can be as well. (shrink)