Philosophical inquiries into morality are as old as philosophy, but it may turn out that morality itself is much, much older than that. At least, that is the main thesis of prima- tologist Frans De Waal, who in this short book based on his Tanner Lectures at Princeton, elaborates on what biologists have been hinting at since Darwin’s (1871) book The Descent of Man and Hamilton’s (1963) studies on the evolution of altruism: morality is yet another allegedly human characteristic (...) that turns out to be built over evolutionary time by natural. (shrink)

This essay examines the recent Planet of the Apes films through the lens of recent research in primatology. The films lend imaginary support to primatologist Frans de Waal’s evolutionary moral sentimentalism; however, the movies also show that truly moral motions outstrip the cognitive capacities of the great apes. The abstract moral principles employed by the ape community in the movie require the ability to understand and apply a common underlying explanation to perceptually disparate situations; in contrast, recent research in (...) comparative psychology demonstrates that the great apes lack this capacity. Since the capacity for abstraction is required on even the most basic version of moral sentimentalism—Shaun Nichols’ sentimental rules account—the lack of the capacity for abstraction reveals a qualitative distinction between primate social behavior and human morality. (shrink)

El estudio y análisis de las argumentaciones cotidianas entendidas como interacciones discursivas e intencionales encaminadas a dar cuenta de algo con el fin de lograr que aquello que se sostiene sea aceptado, sería inconcebible sin la aparición de la teoría de los actos de habla de Austin (1962), la propuesta de Searle (1969), el trabajo de Grice sobre la teoría de la conversación (1975) y el importante estudio sistemático de Hamblin sobre el argumento falaz (1970). Como una reelaboración de dichas (...) obras cabe entender la teoría pragmadialéctica de la argumentación propuesta inicialmente por Frans H. van Eemeren y Rob Grootendorst (1984). Algunos autores (Blair, 2006: 11; Woods, 1992) creen ver en ella, más que una teoría, una amalgama de varias teorías y una particular versión de la teoría pragmadialéctica de la argumentación, entendiendo ésta bajo una acepción más general. Otros consideran que ni es útil ni tampoco especulativamente productivo sostener que de toda argumentación pueda buscarse un modelo según el cual ésta buscaría resolver una diferencia de opinión (Goodwin, 1999). (shrink)

La oposición a una estricta separación entre las dimensiones dialéctica y retórica de la actividad argumentativa es una de las aportaciones más destacadas y peculiares de la denominada escuela holandesa sobre argumentación. Frans H. van Eemeren y Peter Houtlosser reaccionaron contra una separación estricta entre dialéctica y retórica en varios trabajos, pero uno de los más inspiradores es sin duda su artículo “William the Silent’s argumentative discourse” (1998) presentado en la ciudad de Ámsterdam con ocasión de la cuarta conferencia (...) organizada por la International Society for the Study of Argumentation (ISSA). Sobre este tema siguieron investigando para presentar un análisis de la perspectiva dialéctica inherente al caso de Guillermo I de Orange en un congreso de la Japan Debate Association en Tokio (van Eemeren y Houtlosser, 2000). (shrink)

These notes contain an annotated edition of the only four extant letters of Burchard de Volder to Philipp van Limborch. In the first letter De Volder provides Van Limborch with some information about the subscription to the Dordrecht Confession of Faith by professors. In the second letter De Volder comments upon Van Limborch’s De veritate religionis Christianae. This letter is interesting as it provides insights into De Volder’s views on religion and theology. The third letter served as a cover letter (...) for De Volder’s sending to Van Limborch a copy of the honestum testimonium on Jacobus Arminius that was requested by Arminius’s widow in 1611. In the fourth letter Volder comments upon the visit that Pieter Burman had paid him. The visit was an episode in the quarrel between Pieter Burman, his brother Frans Burman jr., and Van Limborch, caused by Van Limborch’s remark, in his Theologia Christiana, that Frans Burman sr. had used Spinoza’s words while treating the issue of divine omnipotence in his Synopsis theologiae. (shrink)

Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur sex stycken tillfrågade lärare för grundskolans lägre årskurser F-3 upplever sin undervisning kring läroplanens område sexualitet, samtycke och relationer. Studien utgår från Sandra Hardings genusteori samt Judith Butlers begrepp kring performativitet. Studien är tänkt att synliggöra hur lärare i de lägre årskurserna undervisar kring läroplanens område sexualitet, samtycke och relationer samt att lyfta hur undervisningen balanseras mellan kön och normer. -/- Resultatet av studien visar att det upplevs finnas svårigheter kring framför allt (...) ämnet sexualitet i läroplanens område sexualitet, samtycke och relationer där det framkommer en osäkerhet kring vad undervisningen förväntas innehålla samt den egna lärarens svårighet att veta hur ämnet ska anpassas till grundskolans lägre åldrar. Inte heller sexuella övergrepp och grooming lyfts av fler än två av de sex tillfrågade lärarna, något som inte svarar mot det eventuella behovet av sådan undervisningen med tanke på att forskning visar hur vanligt det är med sexuella övergrepp hos barn. -/- Studiens resultat visar också på att lärarna har ett väletablerat normkritiskt förhållningssätt där de aktivt reflekterar över sina egna normer och språkbruk för att inte förstärka normer i sin undervisning. I och med detta aktiva normkritiska förhållningssätt påvisade studien knappa svårigheter kring balansen mellan kön och normer i undervisningen inom området sexualitet, samtycke och relationer. Normerna kring genus uppfattades av de tillfrågade lärarna skapas utanför skolverksamheten. Eleverna upplevdes av lärarna att vara medvetna om normer hörande till de olika könen, vilket styrks av tidigare forskning där kulturella definitioner av manligt och kvinnligt påverkar barn även i yngre ålder. Resultatet av studien förklaras utifrån Hardings genusteori där lärarnas individuella normer kring genus, som är en produkt av hur de strukturella och symboliska normerna i samhället ser ut, kan ha en inverkan på hur de tolkar innehållet i läroplanens område sexualitet, samtycke och relationer. Det tolkas även utifrån Butlers begrepp om performativitet, att våra handlingar och ord skapar normer, där lärarna riskerar att påverka undervisningen i och med att undervisningen eventuellt kan föra vidare beteenden och normer som är påverkade av den individuella tolkningen av området. (shrink)

This essay is a Neo-Aristotelian critique of Frans de Waal’s evolutionary moral sentimentalism. For a sentimentalist, moral judgments are rooted in reactive attitudes such as empathy, and De Waal argues that higher primates have the capacity for empathy—they can read other agent’s minds and react appropriately. De Waal concludes that the building blocks of human morality—primarily empathy—are present in primate social behavior. I will engage de Waal from within the sentimentalist tradition itself broadly construed and the Aristotelian virtue tradition (...) more specifically. Within an Aristotelian framework, emotion regulation is necessary for moral responsibility. Aristotle understands that emotions are evaluative perceptions with cognitive content, and non-human animals do not possess the cognitive capacities for emotion regulation and are thus not morally responsible. This marks a boundary between primate behavior and human morality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Affect Attunement in the Caregiver-Infant Relationship and Across SpeciesExpanding the Ethical Scope of ErosCynthia WillettCompelling glimpses into the ethical capacities of our animal kin reveal new possibilities for ethical relationships encompassing humans with other animal species. Consider the remarkable report of a female bonobo in a British zoo who assists a bird found in her cage by retrieving the fallen bird, and spreading its wings so that this fellow (...) creature might fly away to its freedom. Or the report of a cat in a nursing home who curls up around dying elderly patients, and remains steadily by their side as they, unbeknownst to the medical personnel, pass away.1 Or of a sacred moment of silence by a stream for baboons in East Africa.2 Or of the ethics that spontaneously emerges among wolves at play.3 On the basis of extensive studies, biologist Frans de Waal argues that such anecdotes are far from rare, and that some core elements of moral understanding and compassion occur among a significant range of nonhuman as well as the human animal species. Apes, monkeys, and perhaps all nonhuman animals fail to display a distinctly human capacity for abstract moral reasoning. As de Waal (2006) remarks, it is difficult to tell (173–75). But our furry and feathery kin do without a doubt demonstrate rich elements of ethical response, and they often enough extend their moral concern to creatures beyond their own species. Of course, they will also bite each other’s heads off or eat their own young as well. But this is just to say that animals are neither natural [End Page 111] innocents nor savage brutes. Like us, they belong to what post-Nietzschean philosophers might frame, somewhat ironically, as a postlapsarian world of good and evil.What kind of philosophical approach could account for these postlapsarian genealogies of ethics? Biologists, primatologists, and anthropologists are drawing upon investigations of prosocial behavior to remap the boundaries of ethics, as for example in Isabelle Stengers’s call for cosmopolitical ecologies of relationships (2010, 33). Such a cosmopolitics aims to encompass our kin and kind from diverse species within the ethical boundaries of common worlds. Donna Haraway discovers an opening for Stengers’s ecology of relationships in the intimate encounters among co-evolving species, especially those she calls companion species (2008, 83). She argues, following Derrida, that the abstract reasoning processes of Stoic and Kantian cosmopolitan ethics remain closed to the participation of nonhuman animals as anything more than dependents, failing to observe the ways in which they act as companions, if not moral subjects. But then, what normative force might bind together an ethically attuned biosocial sphere that we as humans co-inhabit with other animal species?To explore this question, this essay takes its cues from well-established research on the responsive, preverbal connection of the human infant and adult caregiver (Bateson 1979; Trevarthen 1984; Stern 1985, 2010; Gibbs 2001, 2010; Hansen 2004; Anderson 2006; Papoulias and Callard 2010; Willett 1995, 2001). To this research we can add new animal studies (Smuts 1999, 2001; Fudge 2002; de Waal 2006, 2009; Bekoff 2007; Molnar 2008; Haraway 2008). These animal studies provide a basis for extending an “ethics of eros” with roots in Luce Irigaray, Michel Foucault, Enrique Dussel, Africana feminism, Freudo-Marxist critical theory, and Plato (for discussions of this tradition, see Bergoffen 1997; Huffer 2009; Willett 2001)—but reconfigured in terms of social bonds across multiple animal species. In this tradition of ethics, the lack of a cognitive-based moral subjectivity that can translate into human terms does not consign nonhuman species to a mute moral status. On the contrary, some more primordial basis for relationship and meaning may weave thin but substantial threads of a postmoral ethics across regions of the biosphere.Given the diverse modes of subjectivity among animal species, and even the lack of what we call a moral subject altogether in many species, neither ordinary modes of empathy nor of moral understanding go very far in forging multispecies social bonds. For this reason, we turn to research on “the attunement of affects” in the infant-caregiver relationship (Stern 1985). As we shall see, this... (shrink)

With an extensive amount of research on the social lives of primates, Frans de Waal has been a pioneering advocate for the continuity of human and non-human minds, putting forward the idea that these creatures exhibit rudimentary political and moral behaviors. One of the traits which de Waal focuses on is animal normativity, a set of behaviors functionally defined as adherence to social standards. Recently, some philosophers have endorsed this position, holding that animals show a psychological capacity called normative (...) cognition underlying those and other social behaviors. In this paper, I assess whether advocacy for animal normativity is an exercise of theory construction in comparative cognition. To that end, I present three features of this kind of theory construction. First, the explanatory goal of building functional analyses of cognitive capacities. Second, the conceptual aid of comparative thinking for theory construction. Third, the heuristic value of theory in specifying possible roads of inquiry. Taking these features into account, I assess whether the claims advocates make regarding animal normativity consider them. My answer is negative. First, since some advocates focus on behavioral traits and not on psychological capacities, they are not producing theory in comparative cognition, although, as I argue, they should. Second, there is a disregard for hypothesis testing and no evolutionary considerations to support their views. Finally, the claim that non-human animals exhibit normativity does not seem to have heuristic value. (shrink)

I min artikel ”Att förstå – betraktelser utifrån en ny teori” (FT 31:4 Nov 2010) vill jag visa att det finns anledning att förtydliga förståelsebegreppet. Avsevärd möda har, historiskt sett, lagts ned på att definiera och bringa klarhet i begreppen kunskap och förklaring men förståelse, som når längre än vanlig kunskap, har förblivit ett otydligt begrepp. Teorin jag lägger fram i artikeln har som sin kärna en definition av förståelse. Denna utkristalliseras dels naturligt från vår vardagliga användning, dels från behovet (...) av att tydligt visa på vilket sätt förståelse är den djupaste formen av kunskap, av medveten insikt. Först när förståelsebegreppet utgör ett väl format verktyg kan kunskapsteorin nå sin fulla potential. Jag är tacksam gentemot Anders Tolland för att ha kritiskt granskat artikeln och för att han ger mig möjlighet att uttrycka teorin klarare. Tollands kritik berör främst oklarheter avseende innehållet i de abstraktioner som, tillsammans med jämförelser, är centrala element i teorin. Tolland bidrar också till förtydliganden, för vilka jag är mycket tacksam. Särskilt vill jag nämna påpekandena att förståelse dels kan relatera till vad något är, dels till varför det är på det sättet och att förståelse dels är en process, dels ett uppnått tillstånd. I det följande bemöter jag Tollands kritik och anser mig verkligen kunna visa att den framlagda teorin för förståelse är sammanhållen, tydlig och alls icke ”kontra-intuitiv” samt att den utgör ett viktigt, nytt kunskapsteoretiskt verktyg. (shrink)

I sitt berömda bevis för tidens overklighet påstod McTaggart att det sätt händelser tycks skifta position i tiden från framtid till nutid och till förfluten tid, innebär en motsägelse. Vad McTaggart egentligen menade har varit föremål för en livlig debatt ända sedan beviset först publicerades 1908. Beviset består av två delar. I den första argumenterar McTaggart för att ingenting kan förändras förutom genom att övergå från framtid till förfluten tid. I den andra argumenterar han för att en sådan övergång innebär (...) en motsägelse och att det därför inte kan finnas någon förändring överhuvudtaget, vilket i sin tur innebär att det heller inte finns någon tid. De flesta filosofer är i dag eniga om att McTaggart har fel, men oeniga om på vilket sätt han har fel. Olika filosofer förkastar olika delar av beviset, beroende på om de har vad som kallas en A- eller B-uppfattning av tiden. De som har en A-uppfattning förnekar att tid förstådd som övergång från framtid till förfluten tid är motsägelsefull. De som har en B-uppfattning förnekar att en övergång från framtid till förfluten tid är nödvändig för förändring, men håller med om att sådan övergång är motsägelsefull. Det är min uppfattning att denna oenighet beror på att McTaggarts argument från första början blivit missuppfattat, av både A- och B-teoretiker. Av någon anledning har det alltid betraktats som ett självständigt argument, ett som är oberoende av det ontologiska system McTaggart förespråkade. Jag föreslår ett nytt sätt att förstå hur han menade att tiden är motsägelsefull. Ett sätt som tar hans ontologiska system som utgångspunkt. (shrink)

Sokrates var inte bara en filosofisk nydanare. Genom sitt sätt att involvera sina samtalspartners i den filosofiska processen var han också i hög utsträckning en pedagogisk nydanare. Hans pedagogiska grundidé var den så kallade majeutiska metoden – det vill säga ”barnmorskemetoden”. Med det menade han att han inte överförde sina egna färdiga tankar till den han talade med utan han hjälpte sin samtalspartner att föda sina egna tankar. Inom pedagogiken är det vanligt att använda den så kallade ”Sokratiska metoden” vilket (...) i sin enklaste form bara innebär att man ställer frågor till studenterna. Den här artikeln kommer emellertid att handla om en mer sofistikerad metod som används för begreppsanalys/begreppsdefinition i grupp. Metoden är inspirerad av Sokrates men skiljer sig också en del från hur Sokrates själv grep sig an sina dialoger – åtminstone så som de beskrivs av Platon. Artikeln innehåller en kort historisk och pedagogisk bakgrund men syftar framför allt till att utgöra en praktisk vägledning för genomförande av sokratiska dialoger i filosofiundervisningen. Artikeln bygger framför allt på mina egna erfarenheter av att använda Sokratisk Dialog i undervisningen vid Filosofiska institutionen vid Lunds universitet, Lunds Tekniska Högskola, Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet och i det privata näringslivet. Artikeln vänder sig till alla som undervisar i filosofi på universitetet eller gymnasiet eller i filosofiska metoder för studenter vid andra utbildningar, t.ex. värdeteori, vetenskapsteori eller tillämpad etik för ingenjörer eller medicinare – eller i vilket annat ämne som helst där det förekommer begrepp som saknar en enkel och knivskarp definition men som är viktiga för ämnet. (shrink)

The Louvre Museum is the largest of the world's art museums by its exhibition surface. These represent the Western art of the Middle Ages in 1848, those of the ancient civilizations that preceded and influenced it (Oriental, Egyptian, Greek, Etruscan and Roman), and the arts of early Christians and Islam. At the origin of the Louvre existed a castle, built by King Philip Augustus in 1190, and occupying the southwest quarter of the current Cour Carrée. In 1594, Henri IV decided (...) to unite the palace of the Louvre with the palace of the Tuileries built by Catherine de Medicis. The Cour Carrée was built by the architects Lemercier and then Le Vau, under the reign of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. The Department of Paintings currently has about 7,500 paintings (of which 3,400 are exposed), covering a period that goes from the Middle Ages to 1848 (date of the beginning of the Second Republic). By including the deposits, the collection is, with 12,660 works, the largest collection of ancient paintings in the world. With rare exceptions, the works after 1848 were transferred to the Musée d'Orsay when it was created in 1986. CONTENTS: Louvre Museum - Variety of exhibited works - The Royal Palace - The collections - - Eastern antiquities - - Arts of Islam - - Egyptian Antiquities - - Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities - - Paintings - - - French school - - - Northern Schools (Flanders, Netherlands, Germany) - - - Italian School - - - Other schools Painting - Definitions - Painting genres - - The landscape - - Still life Paintings - FRANCOIS BOUCHER - - Vulcan presenting arms to Venus for Aeneas - RAPHAEL - - Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione - RUBENS - - Helena Fourment with children - LOUIS DAVID - - Madame Récamier - REMBRANDT - - Portrait of Heindrickje Stoffels - VELAZQUEZ - - Portrait of the Infanta Margarita - SIMONE MEMMI - - Jesus Christ walking on Calvary - JAN STEEN - - The Bad Company - HANS HOLBEIN - - Erasmus - CORREGGIO - - Mystic Marriage of Saint Catherine - LANCRET - - Conversation - JAN VAN DER MEER (VERMEER) - - The Lacemaker - VAN DYCK - - Charles I at the Hunt - FRANÇOIS CLOUET - - Elisabeth of Austria (1554-1592), Wife of Charles IX and Queen of France (1570 - 1574) - DELACROIX - - The Barque of Dante - EL GRECO - - Saint Louis, King of France, and a page - REMBRANDT - - Pilgrims at Emmaus (The Supper at Emmaus) - GERARD DAVID - - Marriage at Cana - RAPHAEL - - Portrait of Dona Isabel de Requesens, Vice-Queen of Naples - RUBENS - - La Kermesse (The Village Fête, or Noce de village) - FRANS HALS - - The Gypsy Girl - DECAMPS - - The Sonneurs - HOLBEIN THE YOUNGER - - Anne of Cleves - P. PRUD’HON - - Psyche transported to Heaven - PHILIPPE DE CHAMPAIGNE - - Portrait of Richelieu - LANCRET - - The Autumn - L. DAVID - - Madame Seriziat - COROT - - Recollection of Mortefontaine - LEONARDO DA VINCI - - La belle ferronnière - CORREGGIO - - Venus and Cupid with a Satyr - WATTEAU - - Pilgrimage to Cythera (The Embarkation for Cythera) - NICOLAS POUSSIN - - The Inspiration of the Poet - PRUD’HON - - The Empress Josephine (1763-1814) - FRAGONARD - - The Bathers - H. RIGAUD - - Louis XIV (1638–1715) - TERBURG - - The Concert - LEOPOLD ROBERT - - The Pilgrimage to the Madonna of the Arch - LARGILLIERE - - Family Portrait - MANTEGNA - - Parnassus - MEMLING - - The Virgin and Child between St James and St Dominic - FRAGONARD - - The Music Lesson - JEAN VAN EYCK - - The Virgin of chancellor Rolin - PAOLO VERONESE - - Susannah and the Elders - FRANÇOIS BOUCHER - - Diana leaving her bath - GÉRICAULT - - The Raft of the Medusa - MURILLO - - Assumption of the Virgin - CLAUDE GELLEE (LORRAIN) - - Ulysses returning Chryseis to her father (Marine, setting sun) - INGRES - - Madame Riviere - E. MURILLO - - The Young Beggar - GREUZE - - The Broken Pitcher - PIETER DE HOOCH - - Card players in an opulent interior - POUSSIN - - Et in Arcadia ego - QUENTIN MATSYS - - The moneylender and his wife - ANDREA SOLARIO - - Madonna with the Green Cushion - TITIEN - - Woman with a Mirror - DAVID TENIERS (the Younger) - - The Works of Mercy - LEONARDO DA VINCI - - Mona Lisa (La Gioconda) - Armand Dayot . (shrink)

Det är min uppfattning att tabellen över avsiktlighet (rationalitet, medvetande, sinne, tanke, språk, personlighet etc.) som har framträdande här beskriver mer eller mindre exakt, eller åtminstone fungerar som en heuristisk för, hur vi tänker och beter sig, och så det omfattar inte bara filosofi och psykologi, men allt annat (historia, litteratur, matematik, politik etc.). Observera särskilt att avsiktlighet och rationalitet som jag (tillsammans med Searle, Wittgenstein och andra) visa det, omfattar både medvetna deliberative språkliga System 2 och omedvetna automatiserade prelinguistiska (...) System 1 åtgärder eller reflexer. Jag ger en kritisk undersökning av några av de viktigaste resultaten av två av de mest framstående studenter beteende i modern tid, Ludwig Wittgenstein och John Searle, om den logiska strukturen av avsiktlighet (sinne, språk, medvetande, beteende), med som min utgångspunkt Wittgenstein grundläggande upptäckt, att alla verkligt "filosofiska" problem är desamma-förvirring om hur man använder språket i ett visst sammanhang, och så alla lösningar är desamma, titta på hur språket kan användas i det aktuella sammanhanget så att dess sanningsvillkor (Villkor för tillfredsställelse eller COS) är tydliga. Det grundläggande problemet är att man kan säga vad som helst, men man kan inte betyda (ange tydliga COS för) någon godtycklig yttrande och mening är endast möjligt i ett mycket specifikt sammanhang. Jag analyserar olika skrifter av och om dem från det moderna perspektivet av de två tankesystemen (populariserades som "tänkande snabbt, tänkande långsamt"), med en ny tabell över avsiktlighet och nya dubbla system nomenklatur. Jag visar att detta är en kraftfull heuristisk för att beskriva beteende. Således är allt beteende intimt ansluten om man tar rätt synvinkel. Den fenomenologiska Illusion (glömska till vårt automatiserade System 1) är universell och sträcker sig inte bara hela filosofin utan hela livet. Jag är säker på att Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg och påven skulle vara skeptiska om berättade att de lider av samma problem som Hegel, Husserl och Heidegger, (eller att de skiljer sig endast i grad från drog-och sexmissbrukare i att motiveras av stimulering av deras frontalkortices genom leverans av dopamin (och över 100 andra kemikalier) via ventrala tegmentum och nukleos accumbens), men det är helt klart sant. Medan fenomenologerna bara slösat bort en hel del människors tid, slösar de bort jorden och deras ättlings framtid. (shrink)

Det är min uppfattning att tabellen över avsiktlighet (rationalitet, medvetande, sinne, tanke, språk, personlighet etc.) som har framträdande här beskriver mer eller mindre exakt, eller åtminstone fungerar som en heuristisk för, hur vi tänker och beter sig, och så det omfattar inte bara filosofi och psykologi, men allt annat (historia, litteratur, matematik, politik etc.). Observera särskilt att avsiktlighet och rationalitet som jag (tillsammans med Searle, Wittgenstein och andra) visa det, omfattar både medvetna deliberative språkliga System 2 och omedvetna automatiserade prelinguistiska (...) System 1 åtgärder eller reflexer. Jag ger en kritisk undersökning av några av de viktigaste resultaten av två av de mest framstående studenter beteende i modern tid, Ludwig Wittgenstein och John Searle, om den logiska strukturen av avsiktlighet (sinne, språk, medvetande, beteende), med som min utgångspunkt Wittgenstein grundläggande upptäckt, att alla verkligt "filosofiska" problem är desamma-förvirring om hur man använder språket i ett visst sammanhang, och så alla lösningar är desamma, titta på hur språket kan användas i det aktuella sammanhanget så att dess sanningsvillkor (Villkor för tillfredsställelse eller COS) är tydliga. Det grundläggande problemet är att man kan säga vad som helst, men man kan inte betyda (ange tydliga COS för) någon godtycklig yttrande och mening är endast möjligt i ett mycket specifikt sammanhang. Jag analyserar olika skrifter av och om dem från det moderna perspektivet av de två tankesystemen (populariserades som "tänkande snabbt, tänkande långsamt"), med en ny tabell över avsiktlighet och nya dubbla system nomenklatur. Jag visar att detta är en kraftfull heuristisk för att beskriva beteende. Således är allt beteende intimt ansluten om man tar rätt synvinkel. Den fenomenologiska Illusion (glömska till vårt automatiserade System 1) är universell och sträcker sig inte bara hela filosofin utan hela livet. Jag är säker på att Chomsky, Obama, Zuckerberg och påven skulle vara skeptiska om berättade att de lider av samma problem som Hegel, Husserl och Heidegger, (eller att de skiljer sig endast i grad från drog-och sexmissbrukare i att motiveras av stimulering av deras frontalkortices genom leverans av dopamin (och över 100 andra kemikalier) via ventrala tegmentum och nukleos accumbens), men det är helt klart sant. Medan fenomenologerna bara slösat bort en hel del människors tid, slösar de bort jorden och deras ättlings framtid. (shrink)

This article does three things. First, it asks a new question about transformative education, namely ‘what is the role of power and trust in the decision of whether to transform one’s meaning scheme in the face of new information or whether to simply reject the new information?’ Secondly, it develops a five-stage model which elaborates on the role of this decision in transformative learning. Finally, it uses grounded-theory and the five-stage model to argue that power and trust play an important (...) role in facilitating transformative learning. (shrink)

This paper analyses the phenomenology and epistemology of chatbots such as ChatGPT and Bard. The computational architecture underpinning these chatbots are large language models (LLMs), which are generative artificial intelligence (AI) systems trained on a massive dataset of text extracted from the Web. We conceptualise these LLMs as multifunctional computational cognitive artifacts, used for various cognitive tasks such as translating, summarizing, answering questions, information-seeking, and much more. Phenomenologically, LLMs can be experienced as a “quasi-other”; when that happens, users anthropomorphise them. (...) For most users, current LLMs are black boxes, i.e., for the most part, they lack data transparency and algorithmic transparency. They can, however, be phenomenologically and informationally transparent, in which case there is an interactional flow. Anthropomorphising and interactional flow can, in some users, create an attitude of (unwarranted) trust towards the output LLMs generate. We conclude this paper by drawing on the epistemology of trust and testimony to examine the epistemic implications of these dimensions. Whilst LLMs generally generate accurate responses, we observe two epistemic pitfalls. Ideally, users should be able to match the level of trust that they place in LLMs to the degree that LLMs are trustworthy. However, both their data and algorithmic opacity and their phenomenological and informational transparency can make it difficult for users to calibrate their trust correctly. The effects of these limitations are twofold: users may adopt unwarranted attitudes of trust towards the outputs of LLMs (which is particularly problematic when LLMs hallucinate), and the trustworthiness of LLMs may be undermined. (shrink)

PurposeIn this article, we aim to present and defend a contextual approach to mathematical explanation.MethodTo do this, we introduce an epistemic reading of mathematical explanation.ResultsThe epistemic reading not only clarifies the link between mathematical explanation and mathematical understanding, but also allows us to explicate some contextual factors governing explanation. We then show how several accounts of mathematical explanation can be read in this approach.ConclusionThe contextual approach defended here clears up the notion of explanation and pushes us towards a pluralist vision (...) on mathematical explanation. (shrink)

Awareness growth—coming to entertain propositions of which one was previously unaware—is a crucial aspect of epistemic thriving. And yet, it is widely believed that orthodox Bayesianism cannot accommodate this phenomenon, since that would require employing supposedly defective catch-all propositions. Orthodox Bayesianism, it is concluded, must be amended. In this paper, I show that this argument fails, and that, on the contrary, the orthodox version of Bayesianism is particularly well-suited to accommodate awareness growth. For it entails what I call the refinement (...) view, which allows us to capture that awareness growth consists in the increase of one’s capacity of discernment. (shrink)

Fragmentalism allows incompatible facts to constitute reality in an absolute manner, provided that they fail to obtain together. In recent years, the view has been extensively discussed, with a focus on its formalisation in model-theoretic terms. This paper focuses on three formalisations: Lipman’s approach, the subvaluationist interpretation, and a novel view that has been so far overlooked. The aim of the paper is to explore the application of these formalisations to the alethic modal case. This logical exploration will allow us (...) to study (i) cases of metaphysical incompatibility between modal facts and (ii) cases of modal dialetheias. In turn, this will enrich our understanding of the role of impossibility in the fragmentalist framework. (shrink)

Our aim in this paper is to extend the semantics for the kind of logic of ground developed in (deRosset and Fine, 2023). In that paper, we very briefly suggested a way of treating universal and existential quantification over a fixed domain of objects. Here we explore some options for extending the treatment to allow for a variable domain of objects.

In this paper, we draw on Alfred Schutz’s theoretical framework to better understand how oppression is enacted through discriminatory acts. By closely examining the role of typifications and relevances in our experience of others, and by supplementing this analysis with contemporary social scientific resources, we argue that a Schutzian perspective on oppression yields important phenomenological insights. We do this in three key steps. Firstly, we contextualise Equality and the Meaning Structure of the Social World within Schutz’s broader body of work, (...) elucidating his central conditions of discrimination. Secondly, we highlight the limitations of Schutz’s account, in how it fails to capture more peripheral, subtle, and implicit oppressive practices. Finally, we introduce two underexplored insights derived from Schutz’s framework: the role of relevances in understanding the motivational underpinnings of implicit biases, and the connection between self-typification and stereotype threat. With this multidimensional approach, we hope to enhance our understanding of oppression whilst bridging gaps in Schutz’s original conceptualization. (shrink)

Modifying the descriptive and theoretical generalizations of Relativized Minimality, we argue that a significant subset of weak island violations arise when an extracted phrase should scope over some intervener but is unable to. Harmless interveners seem harmless because they can support an alternative reading. This paper focuses on why certain wh-phrases are poor wide scope takers, and offers an algebraic perspective on scope interaction. Each scopal element SE is associated with certain operations (e.g., not with complements). When a wh-phrase scopes (...) over some SE, the operations associated with that SE are performed in its denotation domain. The requisite operations may or may not be available in a domain, however. We present an empirical analysis of a variety of wh-phrases. It is argued that the wh-phrases that escape all weak islands (i.e., can scope over any intervener) are those that range over individuals, the reason being that all Boolean operations are defined for their domain. Collectives, manners, amounts, numbers, etc. all denote in domains with fewer operations and are thus selectively sensitive to scopal interveners—a “semantic relativized minimality effect”. (shrink)

Livro-texto de introdução à lógica, com (mais do que) pitadas de filosofia da lógica, produzido como uma versão revista e ampliada do livro Forallx: Calgary. Trata-se da versão de 13 de outubro de 2022. Comentários, críticas, correções e sugestões são muito bem-vindos.

Katie Steele and H. Orri Stefánsson argue that, to reflect an agent’s limited awareness, the algebra of propositions on which that agent’s credences are defined should be relativised to their awareness state. I argue that this produces insurmountable difficulties. But the project of relativising the agent’s algebra to reflect their partial perspective need not be abandoned: the algebra can be relativised, not to the agent’s awareness state, but to what we might call their subjective modality.

In the last two decades, philosophy of neuroscience has predominantly focused on explanation. Indeed, it has been argued that mechanistic models are the standards of explanatory success in neuroscience over, among other things, topological models. However, explanatory power is only one virtue of a scientific model. Another is its predictive power. Unfortunately, the notion of prediction has received comparatively little attention in the philosophy of neuroscience, in part because predictions seem disconnected from interventions. In contrast, we argue that topological predictions (...) can and do guide interventions in science, both inside and outside of neuroscience. Topological models allow researchers to predict many phenomena, including diseases, treatment outcomes, aging, and cognition, among others. Moreover, we argue that these predictions also offer strategies for useful interventions. Topology-based predictions play this role regardless of whether they do or can receive a mechanistic interpretation. We conclude by making a case for philosophers to focus on prediction in neuroscience in addition to explanation alone. (shrink)

Providing equitable food security for a growing population while minimizing environmental impacts and enhancing resilience to climate shocks is an ongoing challenge. Here, we quantify the resource intensity, environmental impacts and nutritional output of a small (0.075 ha) low-input subsistence Mediterranean agroecological farm in a developed nation that is based on intercropping and annual crop rotation. The farm provides one individual, the proprietor, with nutritional self-sufficiency (adequate intake of an array of macro- and micro-nutrients) with limited labor, no synthetic fertilizers (...) or herbicides, and zero waste, effectively closing a full farm-table-farm cycle. We find that the agroecological farm outperforms conventional farming as practiced in the same country in terms of both lower environmental burdens, across all examined environmental metrics (63% lower on average) per kg produce, and higher nutritional score (66% higher on average). Per equal farmland, the environmental lopsidedness was even higher (79% lower than conventional farming on average), with nearly the same nutritional score (3% lower on average). Moreover, when considering total land area, which includes farmland and supporting non-agricultural lands, as well as postgate impacts and food losses, the advantage of the agroecological system over conventional farming is even more pronounced. Situated within a Mediterranean region that is undergoing rapid climate change, this food system is a unique case study of nutrition- and environment-oriented food production system. While its deployment potential is limited by lack of supportive policies, it nonetheless represents one of the most starkly bold alternatives to current food systems. (shrink)

Tyler Burge is famous for defending primitivist naturalism about mental representations, according to which mental representations are primitive natural states. Primitivist naturalism contrasts with semantic reductionism, according to which mental representations are reducible to more fundamental natural states. Burge developed the most compelling and influential attack on semantic reductionism from a primitivist naturalist point of view. My goal in this paper is to defend semantic reduc- tionism from Burge’s attack. I assess and refute his objection to the motivations for semantic (...) reductionism and his objection to the semantic reductionist theory that he takes to be the most promising one, namely, teleosemantics. I argue that in spite of the ingenuity of Burge’s objections, they fail to show that there is no motivation for taking representational states as reducible to more fundamental natural states or that the core thesis of teleosemantics is flawed. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on the moral responsibility of organized groups in light of historicism. Historicism is the view that any morally responsible agent must satisfy certain historical conditions, such as not having been manipulated. We set out four examples involving morally responsible organized groups that pose problems for existing accounts of historicism. We then pose a trilemma: one can reject group responsibility, reject historicism, or revise historicism. We pursue the third option. We formulate a Manipulation Condition and a (...) Guarding Condition as addendums to historicism that are necessary to accommodate our cases of group responsibility. (shrink)

This chapter contains an introduction by the editors of the volume P.F. Strawson and his Philosophical Legacy. First, the chapter describes Strawson’s life and gives a summary of his most important works, ranging from his early ‘On Referring’ to his latest book Analysis and Metaphysics. Secondly, it gives an overview of the contributions that appear in P.F. Strawson and his Philosophical Legacy. Lastly, a bibliography of primary and secondary sources is given. The aim of the chapter is to introduce the (...) reader to Strawson’s work and to facilitate the learning process of becoming acquainted with Strawson’s philosophical project. (shrink)

In response to two trenchant objections, radical subjective Bayesianism has been widely rejected. In this paper, I seek, if not to rehabilitate subjectivism, at least to show its critic what is attractive about the position. I argue that what is at stake in the subjectivism/anti-subjectivism debate is not, as is commonly thought, which norms of rationality are true, but rather, the conception of rationality that we adopt: there is an alternative approach to the widespread telic approach to rationality, which I (...) call the poric approach, on which subjectivism is an attractive position. I then argue that the poric approach—and therefore subjectivism—cannot be easily dismissed. (shrink)

This study investigates how e-business capabilities and digital marketing strategies jointly influence business performance in the e-commerce industry, which has experienced unprecedented growth driven by technological advancements and changing consumer behavior. E-business capabilities encompass the use of technology and digital infrastructure, while digital marketing strategies are employed to attract and retain online customers. The study examines the effect of e-business capabilities through digital marketing strategies on the customer satisfaction and loyalty of UAE e-commerce industry. The research is descriptive and explanatory, (...) and uses a structured 5-scale Likert questionnaire to collect data from the HR managers of 135 e-commerce companies based in UAE. The statistical analysis is performed using structural equation modeling. The findings highlight the significant relationship of the study variables. Consequently, the results of this study provide valuable insights for e-commerce businesses, elucidating the need to invest in robust e-business capabilities to support effective digital marketing efforts. Additionally, the research underscores the significance of tailoring digital marketing strategies to align with specific business objectives and customer segments. The study also contributes to the literature on digital transformation, by demonstrating how e-business capabilities and digital marketing strategies can enable e-commerce firms to adapt and thrive in the dynamic and competitive digital environment. (shrink)

Is ruling out the possibility that one is dreaming a requirement for a knowledge claim? In “Philosophical Scepticism and Everyday Life” (1984), Barry Stroud defends that it is. In “Others Minds” (1970), John Austin says it is not. In his defense, Stroud appeals to a conception of objectivity deeply rooted in us and with which our concept of knowledge is intertwined. Austin appeals to a detailed account of our scientific and everyday practices of knowledge attribution. Stroud responds that what Austin (...) says about those practices is correct in relation to the appropriateness of making knowledge claims, but that the skeptic is interested in the truth of those claims. In this paper, we argue that Stroud’s defense of the alleged requirement smuggles in a commitment to a kind of internalism, which asserts that the perceptual justification available to us can be characterized independently of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. In our reading of Austin, especially of Sense & Sensibilia, he rejects that kind of internalism by an implicit commitment to what is called today a “disjunctive” view of perception. Austin says that objectivity is an aspect of knowledge, and his disjunctivism is part of an explanation of why the alleged requirement is not necessary for a knowledge claim. Since both Stroud and Austin are committed to the objectivity of knowledge, Stroud may ask which view of perceptual knowledge is correct, whether the internalist or the disjunctive. We argue that by paying closer attention to what Austin says about our practices of knowledge attribution, one can see more clearly that it is grounded not only on a conception of objectivity, but also on a conception of ourselves as information agents, a conception that is as deeply rooted as that of the objectivity of knowledge. This gives us moral and practical reasons to favor the disjunctive view of perception. (shrink)

In this paper, I propose a new nonconceptual reading of the B-Deduction. As Hanna correctly remarks (Int J Philos Stud 19(3):399–415, 2011: 405), the word “cognition” (Erkenntnis/cognition) has, in both editions of the first Critique, a wide sense, meaning nonconceptual cognition, and a narrow meaning, in Kant’s own words “an objective perception” (A320/B377). To be sure, Kant assumes the first meaning to account for why the Deduction is unavoidable. If we take this meaning as a premise of the B-Deduction, then (...) there is a gap in the argument since the categories are certainly not conditions for non-conceptual cognition (Kantian nonconceptualism). Still, I believe it is not this wide meaning but rather the narrow one that figures in any premise of the B-Deduction. Thus, in the reading that I am proposing, categories are not conditions for representing something (I call this the intentionality thesis), or even conditions for representing something objectively (I call this the objectivity thesis). Instead, they are conditions for the recognition that what we represent through the senses exists mind-independently. In the first step of the B-Deduction, this cognition in the narrow sense takes the form of propositional thinking (transcendental apperception) that the nonconceptually represented object of the sensible intuition exists objectively. In contrast, in the second step of the B-Deduction, this cognition in the narrow sense takes the form of the apprehension (figurative synthesis) of what our human senses represent nonconceptually as existing objectively. (shrink)

This paper discusses the possibility of an absolute vacuum - a space without any substance. The motivation of this study is the contrast between most philosophers, up to Descartes, who stated that a vacuum was impossible, and the 17th century change of outlook, when the possibility and effective existence of the vacuum was accepted after the experiments of Torricelli and Pascal. This article attempts to show that, contrary to the received opinion, the acceptance of an ether is preferable to the (...) acceptance of a vacuum for several reasons. First: it is impossible to provide an empirical proof of the non-existence of the ether; second, an absolute vacuum is unthinkable; third, the ether concept is useful for the understanding of physical phaenomena; and fourth, the hypothesis of an ether in apparently void spaces is useful for the future development of science. The paper also endeavours to show that no recent advance of science changed those conclusions and that no future development can change them. (shrink)

Kant was never satisfied with the version of his “Refu- tation” published in 1787 (KrV, B 275-279). His dissatisfaction is already evident in the footnote added to the preface of the second edition of the Critique in 1787. As a matter of fact, Kant continued to rework his argument for at least six years after 1787. The main exegetical problem is to figure out who is the target of the “Refutation”: a non-skeptic idealist, a global skeptic of Cartesian provenance or (...) both. In this last case, the related problem is to know whether either of them is the Cartesian skeptic of the first Meditation, the idealist skeptic of the second Meditation and first part of the third Meditation, or some other non-skeptic idealist. I present and defend a new reconstruction of Kant’s “Refu- tation” as a successful argument against Mendelssohnian idealism of Cartesian provenance. This defense is based on a simple logical sketch of the proof provided by Dicker but essentially modified in light of Dyck’s insight about Kant’s opponent. How shall I support my reading? First, by appealing to overwhelming textual evidence according to which the proof is of the existence of mind-independent things, showing that Kant’s main opponent is Mendelssohn’s idealism of Cartesian provenance. Finally, I support my reading by showing that Kant’s “Refutation” is doomed to fail against all forms of global skepticism but is quite successful against Mendelssohn’s idealism. (shrink)

How does one know the phenomenal character of one’s own experience? I aim to present and defend a new view of the epistemology of qualia that addresses this issue. My view results from a reworking of Dretske’s displaced perception model. The guiding line is the key Wittgensteinian insight of his Private Language Argument, namely the claim that no inner perception of qualia can justify our corresponding qualia beliefs. My reworking of the original model starts with the rejection of Dretske’s representationalism, (...) as well as any other metaphysical views about the ultimate nature of qualia. The reworking of the displaced perception model I am proposing is supposed to be compatible with any available metaphysical view on qualia. The second step consists of rejecting the epistemological misgivings of the original model, namely the view that knowing qualia requires “connecting beliefs” along with “meta-representations.” Yet, Dretske’s crucial mistake has been to force knowledge of qualia into the “belief-box.” As a matter of fact, there is only one belief involved in introspecting qualia, namely the qualia-belief itself. The third final step is this. Assuming the key Wittgensteinian insight, I argue that introspection of qualia is a process that is both epis- temically reliable and automatic. It is reliable because it dispenses with justification of any beliefs whatsoever. Moreover, it is automatic because it also dispenses with reflexive connecting beliefs. For example, it takes nonconceptual awareness of the color blue as an input and automatically yields the belief that phenomenal blue is the conscious character of my experience of the sky as an output just by employing the concept BLUE. (shrink)

In this research, an agent-based model was developed to study the propagation of physical climate shocks through supply chain networks. By combining supply chain and financial models, the study examines the effects of climate shocks on firms’ production capacities and their subsequent impacts on firm default risk. A comprehensive mathematical framework is presented for the simulation of physical risks, their subsequent up- and downstream impacts along the supply chain, and the translation of physical impacts into an increased level of default (...) risk. The results highlight the importance of supply chains as a transmission channel for physical climate risks and emphasize the effectiveness of implementing adaptation measures. Practical examples demonstrate the model’s behavior under different hypothetical climate scenarios and identify the sectors most vulnerable to increases in the frequency and intensity of climate events. Overall, this study provides insights into the transmission dynamics of climate shocks and emphasizes the need for resilience against climate events in supply chain networks. (shrink)

This brief paper is devoted to criticizing the widespread reading of Kant’s first Critique, according to which reference to subject-independent objects is “constituted” by higher-order cognitive abilities (concepts). Let us call this the “constitutional view.” In this paper, I argue that the constitutional reading confuses the un-Kantian problem of how we come to represent objects (which I call the intentionality thesis), with the quite different problem of how we cognize (erkennen) (which I call the “cognition thesis”) that we do represent (...) objects, that is, things that exist independently of the subject. (shrink)

This paper presents a new cognitivist account for the old puzzle of self-consciousness or knowing self-reference. Knowing self-reference does not rely on reflection on some putative pre-existent pre-reflexive self-consciousness, nor is it the result of a process of identification of oneself as the employer of the relevant token of “I” according to the token-reflexive rule of the first-person pronoun. Rather, it relies on the architecture of the cognitive system. By exploiting the acquaintance relation that every brain has to one’s own (...) body, a “mental file” is opened in a subliminal way to house information about oneself gained through the appropriate proprioceptors. Knowing self-reference based on self-files dispenses with self-identification because the opening of the file in the same brain/body is not a deed of the cognitive system but rather something that takes place sub-personally. (shrink)

This paper is a new defense of type-B materialism against Jackson’s knowledge argument (1982) inspired by the Kantian main opposition between concepts and sensible intuitions. Like all materialists of type B, I argue that on her release from her black-and-white room, Mary makes cognitive progress. However, contrary to the so-called phenomenal concept strategy (henceforth PCS), I do not think that such progress can be accounted for in terms of the acquisition of new concepts. I also reject Tye’s recent account of (...) Mary’s cognitive progress as the acquisition of a “thing-knowledge.” What is crucial is not the Russellian opposition between knowing things and knowing truths but rather the Kantian opposition between conceptual and nonconceptual representations of the same thing (property). Mary’s phenomenal knowledge is here accounted for as the result of the cooperation of her newly acquired nonconceptual representation of the same phenomenal redness (the same thing) she had a conceptual representation before. As that new nonconceptual representation carries information about the same physical property she already represented but is now coded in analog rather than in digital form (Dretske, 1981), that nonconceptual representation can be accounted for in physical terms as Chalmers’s Master argument requires. Nevertheless, that representation can account for Mary’s cognitive progress since it carries information coded in analog form, something that the imprisoned she could never possess. (shrink)

The aim of this paper has been to present a new reconstruction of Kant’s Refutation of Idealism. I have considered several different targets of the Refutation, five of them mentioned by Kant himself. I believe that I have shown that the Refutation of Idealism is best considered only as a sound argument against Mendelssohnian subjectivist idealism, against Mendelssohnian immaterialism, and against Mendelssohnian realist idealism. First, Kant’s Refutation is a sound argument in favor of the claim that the outer things represented (...) in our minds are real rather than ideal; that is, they exist mind-independently as noumena. And second, Kant’s refutation is a sound argument for a fundamental ontology of noumena: the ultimate nature of reality and of our minds is neither material nor mental but made up of things in themselves. (shrink)

Kant’s Refutation targets what he calls the problematic idealist. This is understood by the mainstream of Kantian scholarship as the global skeptic that Descartes briefly adumbrated in his first Meditation. The widespread view in the literature is that the fate of the Refutation is tied to its success as an argument against this Cartesian global skepticism. This consensus is what I want to question in this paper. I argue that Kant’s opponent – the problematic idealist – is not the Cartesian (...) global skeptic but rather what I prefer to call here the Cartesian problematic external-world idealist. According to Cartesian global skepticism, we cannot know whether our commonsensical beliefs are true until we rule out that the skeptical hypotheses are false. In contrast, the Cartesian external-world idealist sees as problematic the assumption that the underlying nature of outer things of which we have ideas is mind-independent rather than caused by our own thinking. My aim here is to disentangle Cartesian global skepticism from Cartesian problematic external-word idealism and show that, if measured against global skepticism, Kant’s Refutation is doomed to fail, while against problematic idealism, it is at least a promising argument. (shrink)

My account of the causal role of consciousness in a physical world is modeled on Dretske’s celebrated explanation of the causal role of beliefs (something that Dretske himself never offered). First, behavior must be understood as a (broadly individuated) process that begins with some external stimulus causing some neurological event C, and ends with causing a bodily movement M (e.g., the Kennedy assassination is a process that begins with Oswald pulling the trigger at 12:30pm CST on November 23 in 1963 (...) in Dallas, Texas, but only ends half an hour later when Kennedy is pronounced dead at 1 pm CST). The internal neurological event C causes bodily movement M, but only by virtue of being recruited by natural selection to represent the instantiation of some external property F when properly stimulated under normal circumstances. But the reason why C causes M lies in the fact that C represents the instantiation of the external property F. I withdraw my hand from a hot surface because the activation of nociceptive specific neurons in my parietal lobe (together with the activation of neuronal patterns in my motor cortices) was recruited by natural selection to represent the tissue damage in my hand. The activation of nociceptive specific neurons causes my hand to withdraw but for the reason that it represents tissue data at the time that I felt pain in my hand. (shrink)

This paper has two aims. First, it aims to provide an adverbial account of the idea of intransitive self-consciousness and second, it aims to argue in favor of this account. These aims both require a new framework that emerges from a critical review of Perry’s famous notion of the “unarticulated constituents” of propositional content (1986). First, I aim to show that the idea of intransitive self-consciousness can be phenomenologically described in an analogy with the adverbial theory of perception. In an (...) adverbial theory of perception, we do not see a blue sense-data, but we see something blue-ly, whereas in intransitive self-consciousness, we are not conscious of ourselves when we undergo a conscious experience—instead, we experience something self-consciously. But what does this mean precisely? First, I take intransitive self-consciousness to be the first-person operator that prefixes the content of any experience that the subject undergoes, regardless of whether or not the subject is self-referred. Further, I argue that this first-person adverbial way of entertaining the content of any experience in Perry’s revised framework fixes the subject as part of the circumstance of the evaluation of the content of her own experience. We can only evaluate whether the content is veridical or falsidical relative to the subject undergoing the experience. This is referred to here as “self-concernment without self-reference.” When I am absorbed in reading a book, I do not self-represent my own experience of reading a book, let alone see myself as a constituent of the content of this experience. Even so, I experience that reading self-consciously in the precise sense that I do belong to the circumstance of the evaluation of the selfless content of my experience of reading the book. The content of the experience of reading a book is simply a propositional function, true or false of myself. (shrink)

This paper aims to present a novel reading of Kantian idealism. In want of a better name, I call my interpretation “one-object-plus-epistemic phenomenalism.” I partially endorse Allison’s celebrated position, namely his rejection of metaphysical world-dualism. Yet, I reject Allison’s deflationary two-aspect view. I argue that Kantian idealism is also metaphysically committed to an ontological noumenalism (one-object), namely the claim that the ultimate nature of reality is made up of unknown things in themselves (substantia noumena). Natural sciences can only reveal the (...) relational/structural properties of things as they appear rather than the intrinsic properties of substantia noumena in the negative sense. My anti-deflationary reading is similar to Allais’s, and my agnostic monism to Hanna’s. However, against both, I hold that appearances are not the accusative objects of our sensible representations but rather, as Kant repeatedly states: “mere representations.” The accusative objects of our senses are substantia noumena in the negative sense. Moreover, my view is also similar to Langton’s. Again, against Langton, I hold that appearances are not merely relational properties of substantia noumena but the way that such substantia noumena exist inside our mind as “mere representations.” In this regard, I also partially endorse Guyer’s and Van Cleve’s phenomenalist reading because these substantia noumena in the negative sense can only be cognized mind-dependently, namely as appearances. However, against Guyer and Van Cleve, I hold that the phenomenalist side of Kantian idealism is purely epistemological rather than ontological: what Kant calls the necessary unity of representations according to categories is not a logical construction of objects out of representations, that is, an ontological reduction of noumena to appearances, but rather the way we sense-independently cognize mind-independent noumena. (shrink)

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