The present article focuses on the idea that divine nature is prior to being. This idea was first articulated in John of Scythopolis’s commentary on Pseudo-Dionysius. It was adopted by Maximus Confessor and re-used in Meister Eckhart’s first Quaestio Parisiensis. The main tenet of this idea is that, if God is the origin of being, he must be more fundamental than being. Thus, being cannot be identical to divine nature. The conclusion that can be drawn from the discussion of this (...) idea is that the importance that has been traditionally attached to the "Exodusmetaphysik" must be reconsidered, and that the pro-ontological conception of divine nature constitutes an autonomous tradition in Christian thought. (shrink)

Visual imagery is a form of sensory imagination, involving subjective experiences typically described as similar to perception, but which occur in the absence of corresponding external stimuli. We used the Activation Likelihood Estimation algorithm (ALE) to identify regions consistently activated by visual imagery across 40 neuroimaging studies, the first such meta-analysis. We also employed a recently developed multi-modal parcellation of the human brain to attribute stereotactic co-ordinates to one of 180 anatomical regions, the first time this approach has been combined (...) with the ALE algorithm. We identified a total 634 foci, based on measurements from 464 participants. Our overall comparison identified activation in the superior parietal lobule, particularly in the left hemisphere, consistent with the proposed ‘top-down’ role for this brain region in imagery. Inferior premotor areas and the inferior frontal sulcus were reliably activated, a finding consistent with the prominent semantic demands made by many visual imagery tasks. We observed bilateral activation in several areas associated with the integration of eye movements and visual information, including the supplementary and cingulate eye fields (SCEFs) and the frontal eye fields (FEFs), suggesting that enactive processes are important in visual imagery. V1 was typically activated during visual imagery, even when participants have their eyes closed, consistent with influential depictive theories of visual imagery. Temporal lobe activation was restricted to area PH and regions of the fusiform gyrus, adjacent to the fusiform face complex (FFC). These results provide a secure foundation for future work to characterise in greater detail the functional contributions of specific areas to visual imagery. (shrink)

Drawing on contemporary agency theory and the phenomenological-existential tradition, this paper uses Mr. Stevens, the narrator-butler of Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, to examine the interplay and potential tensions between different aspects (and thus different standards) of human agency. Highlighting the problem of mission creep described by John Martin Fischer, in which a notion expands beyond the original purpose, I use Stevens’s thoughts on dignity to outline three different ways actions can (or can fail to) trace back to (...) agents—autonomy as self-control, authenticity as sincerity, and authenticity as ownership. I then propose that the way Stevens embraces and acts consistently within his subservient professional role (autonomy as self-control) weakens his ability to take responsibility for his life in the sense required by authenticity as ownership. Because the self-responsibility of authenticity requires normative flexibility (the ability to revise and reshape one’s commitments and values), when normatively inflexible agents act in self-controlled ways according to their roles or welfare standards, they may limit their ability to take responsibility for their lives. In addition to illuminating debates about whether robust human agency is compatible with subservience, the normative flexibility involved in authenticity has implications for human agency more broadly. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a heated debate about how to interpret findings that seem to show that humans rapidly and automatically calculate the visual perspectives of others. In the current study, we investigated the question of whether automatic interference effects found in the dot-perspective task (Samson, Apperly, Braithwaite, Andrews, & Bodley Scott, 2010) are the product of domain-specific perspective-taking processes or of domain-general “submentalizing” processes (Heyes, 2014). Previous attempts to address this question have done so by implementing inanimate (...) controls, such as arrows, as stimuli. The rationale for this is that submentalizing processes that respond to directionality should be engaged by such stimuli, whereas domain-specific perspective-taking mechanisms, if they exist, should not. These previous attempts have been limited, however, by the implied intentionality of the stimuli they have used (e.g. arrows), which may have invited participants to imbue them with perspectival agency. Drawing inspiration from “novel entity” paradigms from infant gaze-following research, we designed a version of the dot-perspective task that allowed us to precisely control whether a central stimulus was viewed as animate or inanimate. Across four experiments, we found no evidence that automatic “perspective-taking” effects in the dot-perspective task are modulated by beliefs about the animacy of the central stimulus. Our results also suggest that these effects may be due to the task-switching elements of the dot-perspective paradigm, rather than automatic directional orienting. Together, these results indicate that neither the perspective-taking nor the standard submentalizing interpretations of the dot-perspective task are fully correct. (shrink)

What does social justice require in contemporary societies? What are the requirements of social democracy? Who and where are the individuals and groups that can carry forward agendas for progressive social transformation? What are we to make of the so-called new social movements of the last thirty years? Is identity politics compatible with egalitarianism? Can cultural misrecognition and economic maldistribution be fought simultaneously? What of the heritage of Western Marxism is alive and dead? And how is current critical social theory (...) to approach these and other questions? Much of the most productive work done in recent social theory has revolved around such issues, in particular, around those concerning the relationship between the politics of recognition and the politics of distribution. After the intense theoretical focus over the last fifteen years or so on the issues of recognition politics—multiculturalism, multi-nationalism, identity politics, group-differentiated rights, the accommodation of difference, and so on—some social theorists have worried that attention has been diverted from important issues of distributive equality—systematic impoverishment, increasing material inequality, ‘structural’ unemployment, the growth of oligarchic power, global economic segmentation, and so on. While some critics seem to have adopted a blunt ‘it’s the economy, stupid’ line of criticism,1 others have attempted to develop an overarching, integrative theoretical framework adequate to the diverse issues concerning both economic and cultural justice. For example, Axel Honneth proposes that a suitably developed and normatively robust theory of intersubjective recognition can adequately integrate an analysis of apparently diverse contemporary struggles: those for a just division of labor and hence, a fair distribution of resources and opportunities, as well as those for a culture free of identity-deforming disrespect and denigration. (shrink)

In Aspiration, Agnes Callard examines the phenomenon of aspiration, the process by which one acquires values and becomes a certain kind of person. Aspiring to become a certain type of person involves more than wanting to act in certain ways. We want to come to see the world in a certain way and to develop the dispositions, attributes, and skills that allow us to seamlessly and effectively respond to situations. The skilled athlete or musician, for example, has developed the muscle (...) memory and the perceptual equivalent to naturally see what a situation requires and to respond well, whether playing a Rachmaninoff concerto or returning a tennis volley. -/- I use Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenology of Perception to flesh out the process of becoming, through which aspired-to values, skills, and characteristics become part of one’s embodied being-in-the-world. Although some rightly focus on Merleau-Ponty’s efforts to avoid over-intellectualizing skillful action, without appreciating his distinction between habitual actions and human (or personal) acts, we overlook an important aspect of robust human agency—the way “a human act becomes dormant and is continued absent-mindedly as a reflex” (90). Merleau-Ponty’s account of habit and its relation to personal acts offers a rich and phenomenologically sensitive picture of aspiration. (shrink)

Recounts the author's experiences and reasons that led him to reject the Democratic Party and become a conservative.

This paper recommends recognition theory as one useful tool in the diagnosis of the recent rise in two pathologies of democracy, specifically the surging success of populist politicians and parties across many consolidated democracies, and, increases in the social polarization of citizens along partisan lines in several of those nations. It begins by defining and discussing the resurgence of populism in two forms, before turning to a discussion of the concurrent increase in partisan polarization that is puzzlingly unconnected to policy (...) polarization. It then argues that recognition theory does a better job explaining these phenomena than alternative approaches by tying together social changes, moral psychology, and politically powerful social dynamics of identity, in a way that is sensitive to historical changes in recognition orders. It also argues that recognition theory provides an understanding of the specific political psychology supporting populism and polarization that does not treat supporters as mere passive victims of blind emotion, but rather as motivated by distinctly moral experiences of misrecognition and as making claims for recognition to the broader society. In the end, the paper suggests that a central causal role behind populism and polarization must be assigned to responses to a changing recognition order, especially where those enter into a fateful reinforcing causal dynamic with other economic and political causes, potentially turning the engaged use of democratic political freedom into its opposite. (shrink)

Hubert Dreyfus’s work in the phenomenology of agency is distinctive for the privileged and central position he gives to our ability to navigate the everyday world. Drawing on the existential-phenomenological tradition—particularly the work of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty—Dreyfus characterizes skillful embodied engagement with the world (skillful coping) as the paradigmatic instance of human intelligence and agency. He uses the notion of skillful coping to push against the emphasis on deliberation he finds in the traditional view of human agency. One of Dreyfus’s (...) central claims is that the complex understanding involved in skillful coping need not be highly reflective. -/- Dreyfus connects the ability to respond to the particular significances of a concrete situation with typically existential concerns, such as authenticity. The way Dreyfus connects skillful coping with authenticity exemplifies his syncretic approach in which he synthesizes and, arguably, extends the work of thinkers such as Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. -/- The concluding section examines one worry about Dreyfus’s characterization of expertise within the skillful coping paradigm. Specifically, does Dreyfus’s rejection of the tradition’s emphasis on deliberation lead him to excessively minimize the role of deliberation as one develops and expands expertise? My suggestion is that there is space for such deliberate learning and skill development for experts within the framework Dreyfus proposes. To flesh out the place of deliberate learning, I draw on both Dreyfus and Merleau-Ponty to suggest how intentionally (and deliberately) trying to live in a certain way is not at odds with but is ultimately crucial for the expertise of absorbed, fluid, and skillful coping in a practical world. (shrink)

Zuko’s plight illuminates the process of aspiration, including common challenges to the aspirant. As Agnes Callard understands it, aspiration typically involves a “deep change in how one sees and feels and thinks.” And this deep change is often intertwined with a change in what contemporary philosopher Christine Korsgaard calls practical identity, a “description under which you value yourself, . . . under which you find your life to be worth living and your actions to be worth undertaking.” But as Zuko (...) shows, practical identities are complex, sometimes unwieldy, and changes in explicit self-conceptions can take work, time, and perhaps some luck to bring about the deep change one aspires to. Even after he explicitly disavows his past actions, Zuko finds himself reverting to past behaviors, doing things that (on some level) he wishes he would not. These actions frustrate him— “Why am I so bad at being good?”— but they are not mere lapses in judgment. They come naturally and express an identity that Zuko had long embraced and cultivated but is now trying to leave behind. The arc of Zuko’s transformation illustrates the interplay between two dimensions of practical identity. On the one hand, as Korsgaard’s account emphasizes, our explicit self-conceptions and values matter. They guide our actions and shape how we see the world. But Zuko’s struggles suggest that such self-conceptions and aspirations are only part of the story. According to Martin Heidegger’s notion of being-in-the-world, our practical identity depends more on our existential engagement with the world than on our explicit self-conceptions. And these different dimensions of practical identity do not always align. As William Blattner writes, “Some of the most challenging conflicts in our lives arise when who we are existentially engaged in being stands in tension with who we think of ourselves as being.” Zuko is frustrated because, despite consciously trying to change, his being-in-the-world conflicts with his Korsgaardian practical identity. His world is still shaped (residually) by an identity he wants to shed. The way Zuko’s world and actions continue to be shaped by an identity he is trying to leave behind highlights a key difficulty of transformation. Zuko’s desire to prove his worth to his father and his rage have so thoroughly permeated his being-in-the-world that they are second nature. They shape his orientation toward the world and fuel his firebending. For better and worse, his spontaneous actions do not always fall in step with his conscious commitments. The same skills and dispositions Zuko previously cultivated as central to his identity now lead to unwanted actions and keep him from aspired-to actions. To become good in the way he wants, Zuko must not only cultivate the dispositions that will allow his aspired-to identity to become part and parcel of his being-in-the-world, but he must clear out or modify the residual influence of his past identity and related dispositions and values. -/- . (shrink)

I present an account of the passage of time and the present in relativistic spacetimes, and I defend these views against recent criticism by Oliver Pooley and Craig Callender.

Are we witnessing progress or regress in the recent increasing popularity and electoral success of populist politicians and parties in consolidated democratic nations? ... Is the innovative use of popular referendum in Great Britain to settle fundamental constitutional questions a progressive or regressive innovation? ... Similarly, is the increasing use of constituent assemblies to change constitutions across the world evidence of progress in democratic constitutionalism, or, a worryingly regressive change back toward unmediated popular majoritarianism? ... This paper reflects on some (...) of the perils and promise of framing such questions with the conceptual couplet of progress and regress. It considers four compelling critiques of the use of ‘progress’ and its cognates in sociopolitical theory, as well as arguing that such concepts are nevertheless ineliminable for our normative theories. The paper concludes by suggesting that we can avoid the most serious problems by employing only conceptions of political progress and regress that are piecemeal, pragmatic, and processual. (shrink)

Ziel dieses Papiers ist es die Ordnungsethik – einen bereichsethischen Ansatz, der derzeit vor allem für wirtschaftsethische Fragestellungen benutzt wird – als eine universelle Methode zur Analyse von bereichsethischen Fragestellungen vorzustellen. Um das Vorhaben handhabbar zu machen, muss es in zweierlei Hinsicht eingeschränkt werden. Zum einen kann es sich hier natürlich nicht um eine voll ausgearbeitete Methodologie für die Analyse von bereichsethischen Fragestellungen handeln, sondern nur um eine methodische Skizze. Zum anderen soll es in diesem Papier im Wesentlichen um solche (...) bereichsethischen Fragestellungen gehen, deren Lösung die Implementierung von formellen wie informellen Regeln erfordert. (shrink)

The reemergence of the question of suicide in the medical context of physician-assisted suicide seems to me one of the most interesting and fertile facets of late modernity. Aside from the disruption which this issue may cause in the traditional juridical relationship between individuals and the state, it may also help to transform the dominant conception of subjectivity that has been erected upon modernity's medicalized order of death. To enhance this disruptive potential, I am going to examine the perspectives on (...) death offered by two contemporary writers: Zygmunt Bauman and Jean Baudrillard. Each of these writers recognizes the centrality of death to modern culture, as Heidegger did, but they also go beyond him in specifying the ways in which death maintains a presence in late modernity, despite efforts to conceal it. In particular, both of these writers recognize the important role that medicine has played in ordering the modern conception of death. After situating these two perspectives in relation to each other, and in relation to Heidegger, who will serve here as a sort of benchmark, I will return to the issue of suicide. Given the differences in their readings of the role that death and medicine play in modern culture, these post-Heideggerians take strikingly different positions on this issue. By engaging these perspectives, I intend not only to point out the tremendous potential which this issue holds for a fundamental rethinking of modern subjectivity, but also reveal some of the dangers that may beset any naive optimism about the right to die. (shrink)

I present a possible worlds semantics for a hyperintensional belief revision operator, which reduces the logical idealization of cognitive agents affecting similar operators in doxastic and epistemic logics, as well as in standard AGM belief revision theory. (Revised) belief states are not closed under classical logical consequence; revising by inconsistent information does not perforce lead to trivialization; and revision can be subject to ‘framing effects’: logically or necessarily equivalent contents can lead to different revisions. Such results are obtained without resorting (...) to non-classical logics, or to non-normal or impossible worlds semantics. The framework combines, instead, a standard semantics for propositional S5 with a simple mereology of contents. (shrink)

Theorists of public reason such as John Rawls often idealize constitutional courts as exemplars of public reason. This paper raises questions about the seduction and limits of analogies between theorists’ account of public reason and actual constitutional jurisprudence. Examining the work product of the United States Supreme Court, the paper argues that while it does engage in reason-giving to support its decisions—as the public reason strategy suggests— those reasons are (largely) legalistic and specifically juristic reasons—not the theorists’ idealized moral-political reasons (...) on matters of fundamental principle. But if constitutional courts do not engage on matters of fundamental principle, then a public reason strategy for assuaging democratic worries about judicial review would no longer be open: prominent liberal and deliberative democratic theorists could no longer point to the alleged superiority of constitutional courts to speak in the name of, and for, the people’s shared political principles. The paper extends beyond the U.S. case study by pointing to three institutional factors explaining the disanalogy between what some constitutional courts do and what public reason theories require them to do. It concludes with considerations about whether the public reason strategy might be more successfully applied to international courts. (shrink)

This article examines one of the sources of David Benatar’s anti-natalism. This is the view that ‘all procreation is [morally] wrong.’ (Benatar and Wasserman, 2015:12) One of its sources is the claim that each of our lives is objectively bad, hence bad whether we think so or not. The question I will pose is whether the constraints of metaphysical naturalism allow for an objective devaluation of human life sufficiently negative to justify anti-natalism. My thesis is that metaphysical naturalism does not (...) have the resources to support such a negative evaluation. Metaphysical naturalism is the view that causal reality is exhausted by nature, the space-time system and its contents. The gist of my argument is that the ideal standards relative to which our lives are supposed to be axiologically substandard cannot be merely subjective expressions of our desires and aversions; they must be (i) objectively binding standards that are (ii) objectively possible in the sense of concretely realizable. The realizability condition, however, cannot be satisfied on metaphysical naturalism; ergo, failure to meet these ideal standards cannot show that our lives are objectively bad. (shrink)

Lawrence Kohlberg's Approach to Moral Education presents what the late Lawrence Kohlberg regarded as the definitive statement of his educational theory. Addressing the sociology and social psychology of schooling, the authors propose that school culture become the center of moral education and research. They discuss how schools can develop as just and cohesive communities by involving students in democracy, and they focus on the moral decisions teachers and students face as they democratically resolve problems. As the authors put it: "...we (...) propose an educational renewal of our democratic society.... We have attempted to establish schools that do more than just teach about democratic citizenship, that are themselves democratic societies.". (shrink)

This review article summarizes and in part criticizes Hugh J. McCann’s detailed elaboration of the consequences of the idea that God is absolutely sovereign and thus unlimited in knowledge and power in his 2012 Creation and the Sovereignty of God. While there is much to agree with in McCann’s treatment, it is argued that divine sovereignty cannot extend as far as he would like to extend it. The absolute lord of the natural and moral orders cannot be absolutely sovereign over (...) the conceptual and modal orders. (shrink)

An increasing number of European research projects return, or plan to return, individual genomic research results (IRR) to participants. While data access is a data subject’s right under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and many legal and ethical guidelines allow or require participants to receive personal data generated in research, the practice of returning results is not straightforward and raises several practical and ethical issues. Existing guidelines focusing on return of IRR are mostly project-specific, only discuss which results to (...) return, or were developed outside Europe. To address this gap, we analysed existing normative documents identified online using inductive content analysis. We used this analysis to develop a checklist of steps to assist European researchers considering whether to return IRR to participants. We then sought feedback on the checklist from an interdisciplinary panel of European experts (clinicians, clinical researchers, population-based researchers, biobank managers, ethicists, lawyers and policy makers) to refine the checklist. The checklist outlines seven major components researchers should consider when determining whether, and how, to return results to adult research participants: 1) Decide which results to return; 2) Develop a plan for return of results; 3) Obtain participant informed consent; 4) Collect and analyse data; 5) Confirm results; 6) Disclose research results; 7) Follow-up and monitor. Our checklist provides a clear outline of the steps European researchers can follow to develop ethical and sustainable result return pathways within their own research projects. Further legal analysis is required to ensure this checklist complies with relevant domestic laws. (shrink)

As populations grow and arable land becomes increasingly scarce, large-scale long- term land leases are signed at a growing rate. Countries and investors with large amounts of financial resources and a strong agricultural industry seek long-term land leases for agricultural exploitation or investment purposes. Leaders of financially poorer countries often advertise such deals as a fast way to attract foreign capital. Much has been said about the short-term social costs these types of leases involve, however, less has been said about (...) the normative dimension of their long-term environmental impact. We therefore will focus on the likely impact such deals have for soil conservation, by (1) briefly introducing the basics of long-term leasing arrangements by comparing land leases to the renting of buildings, (2) explaining from a soil sciences perspective the difficulties in assessing the current value of an estate and in calculating the damages of soil erosion and degradation, and (3) show how difficult it is to incentivize the conservation of soil quality when one cannot sufficiently and cost-effectively valorize existing environmental capital and eventual future damages. Attempting to oblige tenants through contracts to invest in sustainable stewardship has limited potential when liability payments do not reflect true costs and are hard to enforce. (shrink)

Recent work in democratic theory has seriously questioned the dominant pluralist model of self-government and recommended the adoption of a ‘deliberative’ conception of constitutional democracy. With this shift in basic political theory, the objection to judicial review, often voiced in jurisprudential theory, as an anti-democratic instance of paternalism merits another look. This paper argues that the significant differences between four recent theories of constitutional review—put forward by Ely, Perry, Dworkin, and Habermas—are best understood as arising from different positions taken on (...) two cross-cutting distinctions that have been inherited from Locke and Rousseau: democratic processes as aggregative versus deliberative, and democratic legitimacy as substantive versus procedural. A reconstruction and critical evaluation of the four theories of judicial review, with special emphasis on their underlying theories of constitutional democracy, yields a set of criteria for adequate accounts of democratic processes, democratic legitimacy, and their relation to judicial review. I argue that the best understanding of constitutional review is yielded by Habermas’s theory because it combines a conception of popular sovereignty in terms of the collective process of citizens’ deliberative attempt to institutionalize the general will through law, with a resolutely proceduralist conception of democratic legitimacy. However, I also argue that some of the specific proposals Habermas makes concerning the institutionalization of constitutional review in an independent, non-accountable judiciary and the scope of duties for such a body need to be modified in the light of his overriding commitments to participatory deliberative processes and procedural legitimacy. (shrink)

Throughout the biological and biomedical sciences there is a growing need for, prescriptive ‘minimum information’ (MI) checklists specifying the key information to include when reporting experimental results are beginning to find favor with experimentalists, analysts, publishers and funders alike. Such checklists aim to ensure that methods, data, analyses and results are described to a level sufficient to support the unambiguous interpretation, sophisticated search, reanalysis and experimental corroboration and reuse of data sets, facilitating the extraction of maximum value from data sets (...) them. However, such ‘minimum information’ MI checklists are usually developed independently by groups working within representatives of particular biologically- or technologically-delineated domains. Consequently, an overview of the full range of checklists can be difficult to establish without intensive searching, and even tracking thetheir individual evolution of single checklists may be a non-trivial exercise. Checklists are also inevitably partially redundant when measured one against another, and where they overlap is far from straightforward. Furthermore, conflicts in scope and arbitrary decisions on wording and sub-structuring make integration difficult. This presents inhibit their use in combination. Overall, these issues present significant difficulties for the users of checklists, especially those in areas such as systems biology, who routinely combine information from multiple biological domains and technology platforms. To address all of the above, we present MIBBI (Minimum Information for Biological and Biomedical Investigations); a web-based communal resource for such checklists, designed to act as a ‘one-stop shop’ for those exploring the range of extant checklist projects, and to foster collaborative, integrative development and ultimately promote gradual integration of checklists. (shrink)

In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard describes selfhood as an achievement, specifically claiming that the self’s task ‘is to become itself’ (SUD, 29/SKS 11, 143). But how can one can become who or what one already is, and what sort of achievement is it? This chapter draws on the work of Christine Korsgaard, another philosopher who sees selfhood as an achievement, using her notion of practical identity to explore Kierkegaard’s accounts of the structure of the self and of selfhood as (...) achievement. Kierkegaard’s treatment of selfhood—as aspirational and, if undertaken well, appropriately grounded in one’s facticity (i.e. the concrete facts of one’s situation)—suggests how consciously endorsed identities can guide (or fail to guide) our agency. Having a practical identity involves striving to inhabit adopted roles by aligning our actions with relevant normative demands, but also sometimes embracing and consciously adopting identities already tacitly guiding our engagement with the world. This framework also suggests several ways we can be alienated from desires, actions, or, more generally, our selves. Putting Kierkegaard in conversation with contemporary agency theory, this chapter has two guiding lines of inquiry. First, what does it mean to achieve selfhood and how can the notion of practical identity illuminate or be illuminated by this question? Second, how can this analysis clarify the experience of not being oneself, whether resulting from self-deception, self-ignorance, or the potentially frustrating gap between who one is and who one wants to be? (shrink)

Influential interpretations of Heidegger’s Origin of the Work of Art focus on the view that great art is massive and communal—typically structures like temples and cathedrals. This approach, however, faces two interpretive problems. First, what are we to do with artworks in the essay that clearly are not monumental or communal, such as van Gogh’s Shoes? Second, how should we understand our experience of works such as the Greek temple, which once were but are no longer central in this way? (...) Heidegger himself says that great art of the past becomes either a relic of the past or a mere object of aesthetic experience, but his description of his own experience with a Greek temple seems to contradict this. To understand Heidegger’s views on art—including his explicit claims about the limited vitality of great art of the past and his unintentional case for the continued power of great art of the past—it is crucial to distinguish, first, between Heidegger’s notions of world and worldhood, and, second, between two senses of what makes art great—world disclosure and world gathering. Doing so allows us to make better sense both of the essay as a whole and the potential continued vitality of great art of the past. (shrink)

En el artículo se critica la tesis de Javier Mosterín (defendida en su libro Vivan los Animales, Debate, 1998) de que los animales no humanos deben ser incluidos en la comunidad moral como resultado de un progreso moral en la sensibilidad de los humanos que llevará progresivamente a una mayor compasión por el sufrimiento ajeno. Tras señalar ciertas deficiencias metaéticas de esta propuesta y la no deseada implicación normativa de tener que incluir finalmente en la comunidad moral a cualquier ser (...) vivo, se esbozan en el artículo algunas razones para permitir una mejor consideración de los animales sin acabar por ello en ese radicalismo ecológico. (shrink)

This is a transcript of a conversation between P F Strawson and Gareth Evans in 1973, filmed for The Open University. Under the title 'Truth', Strawson and Evans discuss the question as to whether the distinction between genuinely fact-stating uses of language and other uses can be grounded on a theory of truth, especially a 'thin' notion of truth in the tradition of F P Ramsey.

Because anticipated and retrospective regret play important roles in practical deliberation and motivation, better understanding them can illuminate the contours of human agency. However, the possibility of self-ignorance and the fact that we change over time can make regret—especially anticipatory regret—not only a poor predictor of where the agent will be in the future but also an unreliable indicator of where the agent stands. Granting these, this paper examines the way in which prospective and, particularly, retrospective regret can nevertheless yield (...) important insight into the sorts of creatures we are, both generally and individually. The experience of retrospective regret can show a person she values something in a way she did not know or that she is (or was) a different person than she had thought, insights which can factor into forward-looking, or prospective, deliberation. Such instances of revelatory regret reveal something to the agent about herself as agent. I examine two cases of agential self-ignorance. In the first, the experience of regret reveals what the agent values, not only to others but even to the agent himself. In the second, the agent anticipates experiencing regret for an action but does not experience the regret, suggesting that the agent did not value the rejected alternative in the way she thought. Anticipatory regret is forward-looking and can play an important role in practical deliberation. But insofar as anticipatory regret flows from one’s imperfect judgment and prospection about oneself, retrospective regret can be an important corrective in helping the agent understand her own standpoint. (shrink)

El artículo examina un episodio curioso, ocurrido en las relaciones de Galileo Galilei y de su amigo Giovanfrancesco Sagredo -el destacado personaje del Diálogo sobre los dos máximos sistemas del mundo- con el filósofo aristotélico Cesare Cremonini. Estando todavía de profesor en Padua, Galilei entrega al colega y amigo Cremonini, en forma de préstamo, la cuantiosa suma de cuatrocientos ducados. Al trasladarse de Padua a Florencia, el científico confía a Sagredo la tarea de recuperar el dinero prestado. Las cartas numerosas (...) que Sagredo dirigiera a Galilei a tal propósito, nos informan que la cancelación total del préstamo tardó nueve años (1619), gracias a las reiteradas intromisiones del patricio veneciano. Es opinión común de los historiadores, que la tardanza fue causada simplemente por la morosidad y la mala conducta seguida por Cremonini. El autor, en cambio, sugiere una interpretación diferente de los hechos; al tomar en cuenta, de un lado, la presencia de factores financieros que hicieron subir el costo de la deuda; del otro, la forma agresiva con que Sagredo llevó adelante el cuidado de los intereses de Galilei, hasta el extremo de levantar en Cremonini la sospecha de ser objeto de maniobras usureras. (shrink)

Se examina la defensa que de la filosofía en cuanto episteme, elaboró el aristotélico renacentista Cesare Cremonini (1550-1 631), al introducir el curso de lecciones sobre la Física de Aristóteles, según la redacci6n todavía inédita del Ms.200-2 de la Biblioteca Universitaria de Padua. Mediante un topos ya clásico, y actual, los temas en discusión son además de la falta de certitudo y la inconsistencia veritativa que afectan las conclusiones de la filosofía de la naturaleza, la inutilidad e incluso la peligrosidad (...) que, desde el punto de vista ético- político, parecen descalificar la labor del filósofo ociosamente levantar sospechas y alarma. La interpretación de la réplica cremoniniana intenta establecer conexiones entre el perfil conceptual de los argumentos esgrimidos, y algunos episodios de la biografía intelectual y académica de Crernonini sin dejar de tomar en cuenca las implicaciones políticas que pueden derivarse, en perspectiva histórica, del amplio debate que caracterizó la vida académica y cultural del estudio de Padua y de la república veneciana, durante la segunda mitad del siglo XVI.The defence of philosophy as episteme is examined, as elaborated by Renaissance Aristotelian philosopher Cesare Cremonini (1550 - 1 631) in his as yet unpublished manuscript numbered 200-2 by t he University of Padua. Which purported to be an introduction for a course on Aristotle's Physics. Following a topos both classic and contemporary, the issues arc, in addition to the lack of certitudet and the inconsistency of truth concerning the philosophy of nature. The uselessness and even the ethical-political danger arising from the work of the idle philosopher devoted to the contemplation of truth, whose presence in society may stir suspicion and unrest. The analysis of Cremonini’s arguments intends to establish the connections between the philosopher's views and his own academic and intellectual circumstances. Also the political implications are taken into account that resulted from the wide-range debate typical of academic and cultural life in the Studio of Padua and the Republic of Venice during the second half of the 16th Century. (shrink)

This paper explains how to use a new software tool for argument diagramming available free on the Internet, showing especially how it can be used in the classroom to enhance critical thinking in philosophy. The user loads a text file containing an argument into a box on the computer interface, and then creates an argument diagram by dragging lines from one node to another. A key feature is the support for argumentation schemes, common patterns of defeasible reasoning historically know as (...) topics . Several examples are presented, as well as the results of an experiment in using the system with students in a university classroom. (shrink)

Things strike me in a variety ways. F and F# sound slightly different, ripe and unripe tomatoes neither look nor taste nor smell the same, and silk feels smoother than corduroy. In each case, I distinguish an experience of something on the basis of what it is like to be its subject. That is to say, in philosophical parlance, if not quite the vernacular, its “quale,” leads me to categorize it and, thus, respond appropriately to its stimulus. The function of (...) a quale being established, we must define it along with its subject and, as Sartre maintained, their relation. How should we understand the subject and predicate terms and the copula in sentences such as ‘He is listening to Chopin’ or ‘She is seeing the sights of Paris’? Elaborating upon adverbialism, I shall argue that the subject of experiencing is a hylomorphic compound that is temporarily identical to the 'accidental compound' that it forms along with a qualified passion. I begin by explicating the adverbialist’s treatment of qualitative consciousness and defending it against the charge of circularity. (shrink)

The year is 1965. A child stands at the top of a hill, looking out over a vast golden meadow. In the field below is a dirt trail. Bicycles sail by on the trail, carrying other children to their playful destinations. Beyond the far edge of the field is the sea. On the sea are boats and ships — distant descendants of the caravels and barkentines that once explored the unknown waters of Earth.

The search for understanding is a major aim of science. Traditionally, understanding has been undervalued in the philosophy of science because of its psychological underpinnings; nowadays, however, it is widely recognized that epistemology cannot be divorced from psychology as sharp as traditional epistemology required. This eliminates the main obstacle to give scientific understanding due attention in philosophy of science. My aim in this paper is to describe an account of scientific understanding as an emergent feature of our mastering of different (...) (causal) explanatory frameworks that takes place through the mastering of scientific practices. Different practices lead to different kinds of representations. Such representations are often heterogeneous. The integration of such representations constitute understanding. (shrink)

This collection serves as an introduction to the concept of subjective fact, which plays a central role in some of the author's philosophical writings. The collection contains two book chapters and a paper. The first chapter (Chapter 2 of From Brain to Cosmos) begins with an informal characterization of the concept of subjective fact. Then it fleshes out this concept with examples, gives a more precise characterization, and addresses some potential weaknesses of the concept. This chapter shows how subjective fact (...) is related to key ideas in the philosophy of mind, such as intentionality. The second chapter (Chapter 3) is a detailed study of the concept of “instance of seeming” that was introduced in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 ends with some remarks on the modal logic of subjective facts. The paper, also by the book’s author, answers some potential questions about the ideas in the two included chapters. (shrink)

This document consists primarily of an excerpt (chapter 13) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. In that excerpt, the author presents a study of the notion of truth using the concept of subjective fact developed earlier in the book. The author argues that mind-body materialism is compatible with certain forms of metaphysical idealism. The chapter closes with some remarks on relativism with regard to truth. (This document depends heavily upon the concept of subjective fact developed in From Brain (...) to Cosmos. Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to Cosmos first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.). (shrink)

On why agricultural innovation from the Global South can and should be used to adapt food production to climate change. Discussed on hand of three cases studies.

The impact of crude oil on the permeability of the soil in a non oil producing community in Enugu State was investigated using disturbed A 6 CL soil sample collected from Ibagwa Nike area of the state. The sample was divided into five 5 portions and each of the four 4 portions was dosed with Bonny light crude oil at 2 , 4 , 6 and 8 by weight of the samples. The physical properties of the uncontaminated soil were tested (...) and analyses and used as control. The aim of the laboratory investigation was to determine the effects of crude oil on the permeability of the soil. The permeability of the uncontaminated soil was found to be 1.2609x10 7. Permeability tests were also conducted on the contaminated soil samples at the various percentage contaminations. The results showed that at 2 crude oil contamination the permeability was 9.6403x10 9, a drastic reduction. The other results were 6.9600x10 6, 2.2621x10 8 and 9.1286x10 8 at 4 , 6 , and 8 contamination levels, respectively. The ranking after contamination is seen to drop within the range of 10 8 and 10 9 showing a change in the permeability due to oil content. This observed reduction in permeability alters the natural groundwater recharge which can be remedied by enhanced bioremediation through aeration of the soil. Iloeje A. F. | Aniago V. "Effect of Crude Oil on Permeability Properties of the Soil" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-1 | Issue-1 , December 2016 . (shrink)

Effective altruism is a movement which aims to maximise good. Effective altruists are concerned with extreme poverty and many of them think that individuals have an obligation to donate to effective charities to alleviate extreme poverty. Their reasoning, which I will scrutinise, is as follows: -/- Premise 1. Extreme poverty is very bad. -/- Premise 2. If it is in our power to prevent something very bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything else morally significant, we ought, morally, to do (...) it. -/- Premise 3. Individuals ought to choose the effective option in preventing very bad things. -/- Premise 4. Donating to effective charities is one of the best ways to alleviate extreme poverty. -/- Conclusion. Individuals ought to donate to effective charities working towards extreme poverty alleviation where doing so does not require them to give up anything of moral significance. -/- I will scrutinise each of these premises in turn. -/- For Premise 1, I focus on hedonistic utilitarianism and criticise its outlook on extreme poverty. I claim that hedonistic utilitarianism might be problematic for effective altruism. -/- Premise 2 is Peter Singer's Weaker Principle of Sacrifice. I introduce several possible interpretations of it, and press several objections to it by stressing overpermissiveness, luck, and rights. I defend strengthening the Weaker Principle of Sacrifice without making it overdemanding. -/- I claim that Premise 3 can be attractive to both consequentialists and non-consequentialists. Nevertheless, by showing that effectiveness sometimes violates fairness, I propose a method which avoids always helping the greater number and always giving everyone equal chances of being helped, which is compatible with effective altruism. -/- Against Premise 4, I assess the systemic change objection, which states that effective altruism unjustifiably distracts individuals from systemic change. By considering risk and the moral standing of the future extremely poor, I claim that the systemic change objection is partially successful, but cannot undermine effective altruism. -/- After analysing all of these, I argue that individuals have an obligation to donate to effective charities to alleviate extreme poverty where doing so does not require them to give up anything of moral significance. (shrink)